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Monday, August 22, 2011

Van Jones – Transforming the American Dream into the American Nightmare (Pt 4 of 5)

Do you want liberty in order to own your own life, or do you want liberty so as to enable you to loot the lives of others? Do you suppose that there is a difference in the meaning of liberty being used there? Ya think? It isn't enough to simply nod your head whenever you see and hear a word like 'liberty' sprinkled about; it is important to look at how it is being used, in order to understand what it is that those using it, really mean by it.

And make no mistake, your liberty depends upon it.

The essence of the American Dream is to have the liberty to live your own life, but the aim of Van Jones’ ‘Contract for the American Dream’ is quite different; his dream is to realize the collective American Nightmare of using the power of the state to take over the lives of others, to loot what one people spend their lives in producing, in order to ease the lives of another more numerous group... 'spreading their wealth around' because they have the power to do it.

This is the very stuff that nightmares are made of.

Thieves to the left of us...

Over the last few posts we've worked our way through the first three paragraphs of the preamble to Jones' contract, and in the fourth paragraph, we find the exact viewpoint of thieves, being voiced as serious policy. Look at his words, think what they must mean in practice, and face up to what that meaning says about those who actually meant it.

We believe:

AMERICA IS NOT BROKE

America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes – and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.”

Every thief knows in his gut, that he lives as a parasite on those who produce what they steal. Two things allow them to live this way, the first is that they don't care; they want to get away with it, and since their primary philosophical assumption (dim as it may be, they do have them) is that what they want to be, must be and should be, they figure they ought to be able to get away with it. The second, following logically from the first, is that they assume that those they are stealing from, will always have something left for them to steal, and that there will always be someone left standing to steal it from.

The proregressive left lives in denial of Margaret Thatcher's observation,

"They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

, they simply will not entertain the idea that the parasite can ever harm the host, let alone kill it - and they cannot - if they ever acknowledged the possibility of that, they would quickly find themselves having to disavow everything they ever wanted to believe - and that ain't gonna happen.

Take a careful look at this paragraph, particularly this line:

"We believe: AMERICA IS NOT BROKE America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever"

, it isn't simply a statement about the financial health of America, it is a claim that there is more money still to be found, it is a claim that it isn't all gone yet. It is difficult to translate that statement in any other way than as an exchange between Mugger #1 and Mugger #2:

"I'll bet they didn't put all their cash in their wallet, quick! check their socks! Let's turn them over and shake them down!"

Beyond the crude criminality of that mindset, the confession of economic ignorance is stunning; if they weren't so despicable, I'd feel embarrassed for them. And then there is the next line

"But too many at the top are grabbing the gains."

Really? 'grabbing the gains'? This is pure undistilled Marxism, pure and simple, the belief that brute physical labor is the source of all wealth, and that those who have more money than you, or those in management, or finance, are parasites upon the physical efforts of the 'working man'.

It's a shame that they ignore Thatcher's dictum, because the rest of it would be a useful lesson to them as well, and an excellent caution for us too,

"They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people."

They do not have a clue where wealth comes from, and so the attempts they make to produce some to spread around, destroys it instead.

Eating the Golden Goose
If you want to see where wealth actually comes from, try looking at a nation that has little more technology than brute physical labor, look at Haiti, Somalia, or most of Africa, THAT is all the wealth which can be generated in a society that can produce nothing more than what can be produced through brute physical labor. If you want iPods, SUV's and Plasma TV's, you're going to need something more than muscle, and a whole lot more of those who understand how to employ your muscles in order to generate the real wealth which mere muscle can never achieve, and prior to the rise of the free market and individual rights protected by the rule of law, wealth as we know it today, never was achieved, and never could be.

Real wealth, the wealth we know of today where even the poor have roofs over their heads and cellphones in their pockets, such wealth is generated through the mind only. And the minds capable of generating such wealth can and will only do so in a society where they can be secure in what they create.

But even then, if you look at the BETA MAX, or the rise and fall of G.M., or of Detroit itself for that matter, you'll see that simple smarts isn't enough; you also need an understanding of the market, understanding of the best, most economically efficient methods of production, and the character and prudence to understand that quality must be held higher than simple efficiency - Detroit of the 1970's is an example of what happens when efficiency is allowed to reign over quality.

You won't find iPods, SUV's or Plasma TV's being either produced, or as common products in Haiti, Somalia, or most of Africa, etc, because you won't find that knowledge and understanding in brute physical force alone, and those societies allow for nothing else than brute physical power. And even more important than know-how and good sense, in order to produce any and all of the products and benefits of modern society, more important that intelligence, planning and free market economics, you need a people who can be trusted to respect the property of their fellows, and to respect the rule of law.

Without that... look to Haiti, Somalia, Africa, or tragically, mother England herself these days.

Unless a nation be one with a deep respect for each person's right to their own property, none of modernity is possible. Unless a nation has a deep respect for each persons right to their own property, no person can feel secure in either their property, or their life, or their liberty or in any chance at pursuing happiness at all. If you cannot have the confidence that what you earn, what you create, what you plan and strive for over the course of years, decades, even an entire life, if you can't be secure in the knowledge that all you struggled to acquire will remain yours and that what is yours will be defended as yours by your fellows - then there is no point in striving for it at all.

Look at Haiti, Somalia, Africa... Detroit, East L.A., the rioter in England... it isn't a lack of wealth that is their problem, it is a lack of trust that wealth can be safe and secure in those areas, and without that, it will not accumulate and prosper.

There is no point in utilizing your intelligence, your self restraint, your planning and effort, if at any moment thieves or rioters, or even worse, some demagogue might be able to stir up the mob of your fellow men and say

"... too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back."

Those of you foolish enough to think that this demagogue Van Jones, is offering to bring generosity to your neighborhoods, offering to spread the wealth around, the fact is, what he is offering is a return to not only the limitations of what can be produced by brute physical labor, worse than that, he is bringing back the necessity to employing brute physical force to keep ahold of any and everything you have - or lose it all.
And all of you should know better.

Robbing Peter to Con Paul
For those of you staring at our multiple trillion $ deficits and thinking that that there even could be enough wealth in this nation, held in the clutches of the evil rich no doubt, just waiting to be taxed away to pay for your way, for those of you sullenly soothing your greedy desires with thoughts of,

"We believe: AMERICA IS NOT BROKE America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever"

I've got bad news for you. If somehow you had managed to seize it all, all of the wealth of all the rich, of all the corporations, of all the industries, sports, entertainment, etc, even if you shut down our three wars, and even foreign aid to boot... if you managed to seize all of that, it would only spread enough wealth around - to our creditors, not you - to last us for right about a year. Problem then, of course, like the greedy farmer who cut open the goose to get at the golden eggs - you'll have killed what it is that produces all the wealth you dream of seizing.

Then what are you going to do? What do you expect to do then? What would you expect your smartie pants leaders to tell you then? As Mr. Goldfinger replied when 007 James Bond asked him 'Do you expect me to talk?'

"No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"

And that is exactly what will happen if these assaults upon the roots of liberty are allowed to be carried out. You, and those of us forced along for the ride with you, those of us who have come to depend upon our iPods, SUV's and Plasma TV's, those of us who have no understanding of how to get the food we need to eat beyond that of driving around the corner to the all night super market, we'd have little option left, but to die.

Message in a bottle...
Do you, those of you who figure themselves, like my relatives, to be the smart set, do you really think... (sigh)... what is the message you think is transmitted throughout society and the markets by statements such as this,

"The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes ...”"

What message is received by equating 'tax breaks' and 'bailouts'? Tying together the bureaucratic 'favor' of letting people keep somewhat more of their money, with the proregressive prescription of looting the public coffers to bail out their favored institutions while blaming it on others... placing the blame on those they are robbing... what is the message you think is being sent there? Would that encourage you to invest more wealth where it can more easily have govt hands hands put upon it? Really?

And perhaps the award for the most brass of all should go to this one,

"...– and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America."

To help create jobs here, by telling those who have money, that by investing it they invite the attentions of those who would loot it from them? That is going to help create jobs instead of sending them overseas?

But of course the real message they're trying to send here, is that it is greed that is sending jobs overseas. Rubbish. Do you have any idea what expenses are involved, what logistical nightmares, what graft is often required, when shipping a factory overseas to those areas which are in dire enough straits as to make it financially attractive to do so? Have you ever stopped to think what would make that a profitable decision? Do you really think that even the difference between union wages and third world wages, are enough to make that worthwhile?

Take a closer look instead at the literally thousands of regulations which are avoided by going overseas; look at the codes of regulations that must be followed (as best as possible) from the EEOC, FTC, OSHA, FDA, SEC, EPA, IRS... Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes–Oxley... and those aren't a tenth of them all, and there are also the reams and reams more of local, county and state regulations, often duplicating or at odds with the federal regulations. These are measures which require thousands and thousands of hours from people who are in many cases making more, even far more, than minimum wage or union wage workers.

And on top of that they are not only financial hardships, they often restrict or prevent businessmen from taking those actions which they believe would be the best for their business to take, but are unable to, because of one regulation or another - they have lost their liberty to make their own choices - they have lost the American Dream to the American Govt... why stay, for the bureaucrats?!. Add to all of that, the unions which most states force them to engage with and abide by... and you dare to blame businessmen's greed for sending jobs overseas?

You greedy hypocrites, look in the mirror - you are the ones displaying the most base form of greed, not to acquire wealth, but to see that others lose theirs, not a greed for knowledge and position, but the far worse avarice of moral preening purchased at the profligate expense of intellectual wealth - that which is lost with the refusal to acknowledge history, facts and truth, erroding the roots of our society which can only exist through the rule of law and property rights.

Do you really think that such a squandering of true wealth can go on and on without end?

What are you smoking? Besides our future, that is.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Van Jones – Transforming the American Dream into the American Nightmare (Pt 3 of 5)

Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... or ease, comfort and the consumption of entitlements fed to you by a 'kind' master. What I've been trying to show you over the last couple posts, is that that is the simple choice which is being offered to us today; those are the options which are clearly being pawned off in Van Jones 'Contract for the American Dream' - if you look beyond what it says to what it means - and it is for us to choose between them; it is for us to choose which one we truly want for ourselves and for our children.

To own your own life, or to live a life approved for you by various experts in govt and quasi-govt organizations, such as Jones' group. That is the nature of the contract he is 'offering' up for all of us to sign, and once signed onto... can you imagine trying to cancel it? Look at the difficulties we're experiencing from Medicare and Social Security alone. Don't delude yourself, this is a permanent agreement.

Look at all of the foundations and organizations who've attached their bright and shiny logos as seals of approval at the bottom of the contract. Don't they seem to be proudly endorsing this? Why then is it that the actual message they are peddling, is so carefully left unsaid? Why doesn't the contract simply come out and say,

"We, the undersigned, do not feel that people such as yourselves can be trusted with making the everyday decisions that have to be made in daily life. We, the undersigned, believe that experts from all walks of lie, should be put in ultimate control of all walks of your lives. We, the undersigned, hereby agree that experts should be trusted to select the experts who will make these decisions for you, and of course they must have unfettered access to any wealth which you might create - which after all can only be made as a result of their decisions - from here on out."

But they don't say that, do they? What Van Jones, George Soros, the Tides Foundation and all the others obviously do not want, is for anyone to actually give consideration to their proposals and understand just what it is they are agitating for. They never come out into the open and state that they are for the government taking control of our lives, for government taking control over what we have left to 'choose' from, to read, to listen to, to watch, to receive medical attention for, to learn, to eat, to drink, to amuse ourselves with, and on and on and on.

They will not come out and say what they mean.

Rather than doing so, they prefer to slick their positions by We The People in seemingly liberty loving phrases arranged about the surface of their message, while leaving that darker and central requirement for taking and maintaining control over us, unsaid in the implications of a few select words, wrapped snugly in the emotional appeals of each paragraph. It is done clumsily enough, but it is what they have done.

What becomes quickly apparent in reading this contract, is that that main tactic, that of wrapping their actual message deep within a roll of a more appetizing and identifiably American one, like a bitter pill wrapped in bacon for a dog to swallow, is as close as they will willingly risk saying what they actually mean.

In this next paragraph, I think we're on the third one now, we find the same 'rhetorical bacon around the poison pill' plan, of saying what any sensible person would find themselves nodding along with, while wrapping it around an implication that is nearly hidden from sight. The sizzling portion of the bacon wrapping, is what this paragraph begins with, a statement which I can wholeheartedly agree with,

"Today, the American Dream is under threat."

But what that American dream in fact is, is of critical importance to understanding what is threatening it and where the threat is coming from.

“Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops, and teachers – America’s everyday heroes – are being thrown out onto the street. "

If the 'American dream' is put forward as being 'getting a decent job', that presumes facing a different set of threats than what might be faced if the 'American Dream' is recognized as being 'To live your own life.' If getting a decent job for those who play by the rules, is the dream you are promised, then it's a simple thing to do to say that everyone who plays by 'the rules' should be given a 'decent job' - what those rules are and what the job would be, and more importantly who will give it to you, are open issues - which they'll be happy to provide answers for, later, once there is no other option left.

On the other hand, if the 'American Dream' is thought to be 'To live your own life, then having someone appointed with the power to determine what 'the rules' will be, what a 'decent job' is, and whether or not your own dream is to get one - or not - will itself be seen as a threat to you and to all of your dreams. The dream to 'To live your own life' is in mortal peril from the dream of experts and do-gooders with the power of the government and the force of law behind them, will leave you no option but of ''being told by the state how to live your own life. These are not reconcilable differences.

Even setting aside differences over simple policy approaches, such as the, role and blame, of the federal government in the issues surrounding education and the debt, the fact is that it has been the driving goal of the left to expand the size and scope of government - defining how much you can earn, what you should be allowed to keep as your own, where you can live, what you must be taught in school - which can't help but impose their ideal of govt upon each persons desire to live their own life.

By the very nature of the left, they are advancing a cause which the original American dream explicitly sought to escape… this raises some questions, doesn't it? If you do recognize that contradictions indicate, at the very least, that there is a problem in this thinking (and what is it that passes for thinking which doesn't recognize that? Hmmm?), how can you possibly reconcile the idea of Liberty, with the leftist propensity for telling people what, when and how to act and live their own lives?!

And then we get to this, the poison hidden within the pill,

“The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break."

, and it's a danger to overlook this as simply a pandering play for populist angst… the real issue here is what is packaged together, and what is ignored, within that. The simple packaging is that the big banks were bailed out by the taxpayers. For some of the big banks, that is indeed true, but one thing left unsaid here, is that that was the very prescription of the Keynesian system of economics - bailing out banks, large corporations, and other large institutions, while 'injecting' (ever more worthless) cash into the 'system' - which the left (and not a few of the rino right) have been trying to replace conservative free market economics with, for a century now. This is explicitly the economic policy of the left, but they are here trying to sweep that under the rug, while brazenly trying to empathize with and glom onto the very anger of the American taxpayers, which was largely brought about by the very policies they so strenuously agitated for!
But wait! There's more! This portion of that sentence,

"...won’t cut homeowners a break."

, really takes the cake. What it hopes to divert the attention of the American Taxpayer away from, not just themselves (and they, We The People, do bear a sizable portion of guilt), but the fact, the blatant fact, that politicians in general, and leftists in particular, from Barney Frank to Bill Clinton (and a young community organizer named Barack Obama), did not just encourage, but MANDATED that those banks make those home risky loans which they knew darn well, weren’t good loans to make. as the New York Times, circa 1999 stated,

"Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's."

What do you suppose it is that they must have thought ‘bad loan’ meant to bankers?

Probably what thought they gave to it was shuffled aside with a sneer of ‘not enough profit’, but what that may be somewhat true, is merely an effect; the cause is that making loans which don’t show reliable financial traits, enough income to debt ratio, etc, are ‘bad loans’, credit risks, because making too many of those loans not only hurts the market, but it can put you out of business.

It also shows an absolute willful ignorance to consider what an Economy actually is! An Economy is not just a collection of financial statistics, it is the result of information, the reasoned actions taken by tens, hundreds, thousands and millions of people based upon that information, and how that information is transmitted to others, in order to make financial and productive judgments.

When you introduce poor, bad, corrupt, data into an Economy, in the costume of Good information, that information is acted upon… endless numbers of decisions are made based upon the assumed merit of that data. Any data that turns out not to have been true, has introduced unknowingly poor information into the system - there is always a certain amount of error in a market, and the better informed the people of that market are, the more smoothly the market operates; the less or more poorly informed the people are, the less efficient and prosperous the market is. That is why information, and the ability for each person closest to the matter, be able to consider and make the best decision they possibly can.

But when false, misleading and corrupted information is introduced to an economy, and not just on the scale of a local mob hood, but across an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people, and all the millions and billions of decisions that are made based upon the assumption that that information is true, are rendered, as our economy found out with the junk mortgages – a substanceless house of cards. The first breeze which comes along to expose the falsehoods at the center of so many innumerable assumptions, it will, and must, expose that skeletal fragility, and the entire structure comes crashing down around your ears.

Welcome to our economy.

To say that bankers “Won’t cut homeowners a break” is not only crude political pandering, it is a strident confession of not only utter ignorance of economics (meaning of course, valid, cause and effect based economics, which excludes Marxist of Keynesian economics), but a truly idiotic inability and probably a deliberate refusal to learn from their mistakes – and more likely than not, a refusal to admit to having made any mistakes at all. Hence their placing the blame upon the evil bankers.

Just take a moment and imagine the most obvious of implications brought about by a 10%, 15%, 18% increase in families being sold homes they were unlikely to be able to afford over the long run. Simply purchasing a single home can kick an incalculable number of other decisions into action, often by people so far removed that the connection is never, and can never, be made, but when you talking about in increase in the percentages of all homes sold, here are just a few of the local decisions that will be made based upon them:

local landscaper might hire on another hand and purchase another mower,

schools will need to up their materials and staff for teaching their children,

similar considerations have their affects on local grocery stores,

eateries,

hardware & video stores, and so on.

These decisions are made on the basis of the assumption that hiring on these people and placing increased orders for goods, expanding their businesses, are in fact wise decisions to make because of the anticipated needs and demands of new residents, and not a few of these decisions will themselves require taking on new loans, which will be made based upon the assumption that the first bank which made its loan to the new homeowner, was a loan that was a good one to make, and that the person getting the loan, will be bringing income into the area - the local economy - to make their decisions profitable ones.

When information turns out to be faulty - or flat out dishonest and far short of reality, all of those people; gardeners, carpenters homeowners who took what they thought to be reasonable risks, discover from out of the blue that the expected new income into their neighborhoods, will not come, will not happen. Think of all the hardship which even one deliberately ignorant home loans initiates... then multiply that by millions.

Because when these myriad decisions are made by you and me because of what we think our income prospects are, when all of our decisions - yours and mine - turn out to be made based upon other loans which most people thought were good loans to make, but in fact were foolish loans doomed to default, and all our decisions and those of the community at large which were affected by them, affected by their bad information, and so with all of those purchases initiated by that first fraudulent decision, are themselves transformed into becoming faulty loans, returns, cancellations, etc. From those few homes purchased in individual neighborhoods... imagine the results of that happening to millions of homes... or better yet, turn on the evening news.

A free market not only thrives upon, but requires, truthful information and sound judgment. Deliberately polluting that market of information, is poisoning the entire society which depends upon it. Gov. Rick Perry recently called the Fed's actions potentially treasonous? Yeah. Ya think?

The 'thinking' behind Van Jones, and Fanni Mae, and Barney Frank and Hank Paulson and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and all the rest is beyond irresponsible, it is pure immature childishness – it is the magical thinking that effects can actually precede their causes, and that otherwise grown adults are not only paying attention to it, but supporting and promoting it, are actually given MBA's or are elected to public office for believing it enough... it moves beyond faerie tales and into the realm of horror stories really damn fast.

And then you come to this bit trying to pull the heartstrings of one and all:

"Our firefighters, nurses, cops, and teachers – America’s everyday heroes – are being thrown out onto the street. "

To use our firefighters, nurses, cops and teachers as a rhetorical ploy for increasing the size and scope of government even further, in order to sprinkle still more of this leftist faerie dust upon our economy, which is itself chiefly responsible for the economic situation these everyday heroes are presently suffering from... using these everyday heroes for purposes of everyday hucksterism... is despicable.

But it is nothing compared to brazen buffoonery on display in the next paragraph, which we'll venture into tomorrow.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Van Jones – Transforming the American Dream into the American Nightmare (Pt 2 of 5)

Yesterday I started walking through Van Jones’ ‘Contract for the American Dream’, and pointed out that, IMHO, if having the liberty to live your own life is the essence of the American Dream, then being told by the state how to live your own life is the collective American Nightmare, and this 'contract' is the very stuff that those nightmares are made of.

And as with nightmares, this document is deeply unreasonable, full of contradictions, and ominously seeks to sway people down the path of good intentions towards a certain hell on earth. The most disturbing thing about this is that it isn't accomplished through skillful reasoning and subtle rhetoric, but via a clumsy set of claims and appeals which amount to sheer idiocy. Stay with me on this, the stuff gets deeper and deeper with each paragraph you step into it.

Idiocracy

Idiot: an utterly foolish or senseless person.

idiotic:senselessly foolish or stupid: an idiotic remark.

When I say this document is idiotic, I use that word advisably, I don’t mean the idiocy of the mentally deficient – we should be so lucky – but the far more dangerous output of the intelligently idiotic, those who are thoroughly foolish or senseless to the meaning and implications of what they do, and this sort of behavior is on display in the blatant contradictions in terms which this document peddles as proposals. Aristotle identified and sparked the intellectual heart of western civilization, when he identified the fundamental law of logic, as,

“that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect”

, and when you state contradictory beliefs, you quite literally say nothing at all, or even worse, less than nothing (accomplished by dis-integrating existing knowledge), and to behave as if nothing is something, is indeed, idiotic - 'senselessly foolish or stupid'.

Let’s see what I mean here, you can follow along with the Preamble in the insets to the right.

There's a lot of traditional American ideals in that preamble, good stuff, true, but did you notice what it was all wrapped around? All that Americana is wrapped around this line, like bacon around a poison pill, "should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life" , and it is loaded with trouble, in at least two forms. First, how do you suppose they mean that 'should', do you think they mean that in a speculative way? A "Well, if you do all the right things, the odds are that it'll work out for you."?	“We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice. . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill – but only by working together.”
Or do you think they mean it in more of an expectant fashion, something more like, 'if you pay for a product, you should receive it', or as those with the force of law behind them might put it, 'if you break the law, you should be put in jail'? If you are uninformed enough about how the left likes to implement its policies to imagine that they meant that in the speculative form rather than the forceful sort... hold that thought, we'll come back to it. The second part of the problem, is what it tries to present as the 'American Dream', which they presume here to be that Americans should aspire ‘to find a decent job’, which singled out as it is, assumes (hopes or expects) that they have no other aspiration but to ‘get a decent job’ working for someone else. There is nothing wrong with doing that of course, except that it implicitly excludes from its narrow dream of America, those who might want something else, such as those who want to start their own business. That is not a small thing or a small exclusion, it is a central possibility to what the American Dream originally was – seeking the liberty to live your own life. When the American dream was first being dreamed up, some came here seeking a plot of land they could call their own, some a farm, some to create a business, some to get a decent job so as to be able to live the life they wanted – and no one should rate any one of those dreams as being better or higher than the others – they are all possibilities inherent in what is the real American Dream – to live your own life. But seriously, think about this, as someone asked the other day, when did 'getting a decent job' become the American Dream?! If that is The American Dream... just imagine what no longer is. What this preamble sets up as a hint of what’s to come, if people like Jones get their way, and if people who should know better, let them, is not the broad American Dream of liberty and justice for all, but a narrowing of that dream to one predefined slice of it, cut out by those who feel themselves expert enough to 'know what's best for them' and served up for all Americans to have to swallow - along, no doubt, with their peas. The last sentence, “That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill – but only by working together.” , is true enough, but only, only, if the words it refers to, 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' and 'liberty and justice. . . for all' are words which mean something… and when you read those soaring words along with this document, you quickly find that within the context of this 'contract', they cannot possibly continue to mean what they have always meant to Americans and to the American dream. The American Dream of living your own life, would be thoroughly replaced and bound down, if this ever came to fruition, by governmental experts telling you how to live your life - and like it. And to eat your peas. No joke. Another thrilling paragraph or two to come tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Van Jones – Transforming the American Dream into the American Nightmare (Pt 1 of 5)

If having the liberty to live your own life is the essence of the American Dream, then being told by the state how to live your own life is the collective American Nightmare, and Van Jones’ ‘Contract for the American Dream’ is the very stuff that those nightmares are made of.

I’d heard about this thing, saw the disturbing videos of young children offering 'tips' on political philosophy, but I hadn’t bothered to look at the 'contract' myself, I mean, really, what with Jones being a 'former' communist, a current radical progressive leftist and a major greeniac - I had a fair guess as to what it would entail. But when a relative posted a favorable share link to the “Contract for the American Dream” recently, I had to have a look, My first reaction was to ask them 'Have you actually read this?', but I've yet to receive a reply on that.

In the meantime, I've read and re-read this thing, and it is appalling in its shallow, crude, even childish aspirations… do you remember when we once had beauty queens mouthing things like “I hope to use my title to help bring about world peace”? This contract makes that sound like a political science term paper.

It is idiotic. But it's the evil that lurks behind the triteness that concerns me most.

My relatives are not incurious people, they are highly educated, professional people, left leaning (nearly toppling perhaps), to be sure, but not... surely there are limits. Aren't there? In reading this... 'contract'... the question that swamps your mind is when did it become possible for otherwise mature men and women, to think through this sort of drivel, and not feel ashamed about being associated with it? The answer, of course, is that thoughtful consideration has not been given to this document, what happens instead, is that when politically correct sentiments which are deemed socially ‘acceptable, are presented, they are toasted and promoted without its supporters feeling the need for giving them any sort of thoughtful consideration.

Which is considered to be 'only reasonable' - and gainsaying them is declared to be unreasonable. Crazy even.

This is possible because, as the New York Times admiringly said, reason is not seen as a tool for truth by the majority of those with a post modern college education, but as a tool, a 'weapon' was the term the Times used in its article "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth", for winning arguments and in this sense fallacies are not taken as being a sign of faulty reasoning and errors, but as effective tools and tactics,

"According to this view, bias, lack of logic and other supposed flaws that pollute the stream of reason are instead social adaptations that enable one group to persuade (and defeat) another. "

With that being the case, they take and declare their positions, and even defend them, not because they are sensible and reasonable, but because they are easily laudable and help to achieve their socially acceptable and agreed upon objectives.

I'd much rather not think this of so many of my fellow human beings... but the options and possibilities for thinking it otherwise, are nearly nil.

What this practice is leading us towards, is... well, dangerous doesn’t even begin to describe the situation we are barreling towards. We are coming to a point where two fundamentally opposed, contradictory worldviews and their principles (or what passes for them) will have no more opportunity to sidestep each other, and if and when that point is reached, there will be no alternative available but for them to have to collide.

This is simply Philosophical Physics (aka: History).

And when that point comes, the collision will be unable to be handled reasonably, because Reason, as a tool for discovering what is true and best, will have been excluded from the contest – and that will leave no other option open but that of force, for resolving the conflict.

Please consult history for examples of how well that has worked out in the past. Please. I ask, only because, well... you know what those who don't learn from the past are condemned to do (and which the rest of us are stuck tagging along for). Pretty please?

I'll give you a couple more chances over the next few days to reconsider, as we go paragraph by paragraph through the 'contract'... I hope you're decide to look into, and speak out about this idiocy. I really do.

Presidente Hugo Chavez calls Fed Chair Ben Bernanke a Dumb Ass. How will Gov. Perry keep up?

The other day Texas Gov. Rick Perry offered a couple choice words regarding the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve (read the proregressives comments, a true delight),

"Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.” Treason is a capital offense."

Well, if you think that's bad, how do you rate the comments of a Governor of a State, in comparison to those of a head of state calling the unfortunate Chairmen, in so many 'words', a dumb ass?

Seriously.

Keeping in mind the truism that actions speak louder than words, consider the words of our esteemed Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, who offered these words of wisdom upon the nature and status of Gold, when speaking before a House Committee chaired by Congressmen Ron Paul,

"Paul: "Why do central banks hold it?"
Bernanke: "Well, it's a form of reserve."
Paul: "Why don't they hold diamonds?"
ernanke: "Well, it's tradition, long-term tradition."

sperated with the kookie Chairmen, Paul pressed him,

“Is gold money?” he asked.
Clearly bothered, Bernanke told the representative, “No. It’s a precious metal.”

Well, if you're tempted to give up some sympathy for the banker who doesn't understand the value and purpose of gold, save it up for what the Presidente of Venezuela had to say... and not with anything as cheap and worthless as a politicians or bureaucrats words, but in the actions of a head of state. Presidente Hugo Chavez, disregarding the wisdom of the scholar of the Great Depression, Mr. Ben Bernanke, is letting his actions speak far louder than everyone else's words,

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his government to repatriate $11 billion in gold held in banks abroad to safeguard the country from the economic crisis and said he’ll nationalize the local gold industry.

Venezuela has about 211 tons of its 365 tons of gold reserves held abroad at institutions including the Bank of England, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Barclays Plc (BARC), Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) and the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), according to a government document.

“We’ve held 99 tons of gold at the Bank of England since 1980. I agree with bringing that home,” Chavez said today on state television. “It’s a healthy decision.”

, and in the process Mr. Pineapple head (or was that Noriega?) goes Gov. Rick Perry one better, using his actions to speak far louder than everyone else's words, and loudly calling out Fed Chairmen Bernanke: a flat out dumb ass.

And here I thought 'ugo Chavez was too dumb for words.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Too Big To Fail. Uh-huh.

My only surprise, is why this news is news:

"Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's downgrades mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, farm lenders and 32 banks and credit unions following downgrade of U.S. debt."

Am I too big to tell you I told you so?

What are you, a friggin' idiot? Of course not - I told you so, and worse, if you bothered thinking and connecting the dots, I told you so over, and over, and over,
... and over,
      and over ,
      and over,
           and , over,
            and over ,
              and , over,
                and , over,
                   and over .....

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

The Politics of Seeming

To my 'Practical' friends - you failed. Now can we move on to something that works? We've tried playing to public opinion, striking appealing bargains, etc. The 'Debt Deal' is what that strategy has produced. It doesn't work. Know why? The people who'd be worth winning over, don't believe it. And the ones who are focused on the politics of seeming, can't look away from the dazzling bright lights long enough to tell whether or not those lights are illuminating anything worth seeing.

Your idea of being 'practical' has amounted to saying that

'the typical American is too stupid to understand ideas of liberty and the constitution.'

I'm tired of hearing it. You failed. You failed, because the notion (a favorite comment of people like Bill Maher, btw) is itself a deeply stupid thing to say. While it may be true that the majority of the American people do not understand the meaning of Liberty and the Constitution, it isn't because they cannot understand them, but because elitist pieces of poop (valid editorial statement) such as yourselves, who supposedly do understand them, haven't been doing what it is your responsibility to be doing, which is to help to spread, communicate and teach their meaning!

You say people just don't understand John Locke anymore, people just don't understand how the government is eating away their liberties, they're just too comfortable. You know what? They didn't understand them either when Sam Adams first began alerting and informing people about them back in the early 1760's. You know what? Because he, and others started informing their fellows, We The People came to understand the nature of the problem they faced, and understood the importance of the concepts involved. You know why? Because they were, and are, intelligent people who had been under and misinformed.

That is all.

Speaking of Witch
Laura Ingraham recently said about the latest debt deal:

"Some conservatives may not be satisfied, but then again, no one is. This is simply a step in the right direction."

Dear Laura: Just as I reject the notion that 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend', I also reject the notion that 'The Bill which the Left says is bad, is one I should consider to be Good'. You know why? Because it's a Stupid proposition!

I suggest that Laura, O'Reilly and others like them, are so focused on moving from left to right, that they've forgotten about taking into account the whether or not they are moving forwards or backwards at the same time. Taking a step towards the right, while moving backwards, is not progress. Sorry, it's just not.

Ingraham might have been at least partially correct if this political agreement reflected a political solution for the real situation. It doesn't. At best the political agreement has roots which go no deeper than the politics of popular opinion. The real problem is that this politics of public opinion goes no deeper into the reality of the situation than the uninformed opinion of the person on the street who gets a laugh line on Leno for identifying Washington D.C. as a type of electric current.

The govt has defined functions (see Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 through Clause 18) which make up a small portion of our monthly budget, and many, many programs which are not covered by that. We have put ourselves on the hook for 50 or so billion dollars a month which the Left AND the Right have managed to convince themselves it is ok to borrow against in order to pay. On top of that, if for some reason, fiscal responsibility or some other such madness, we choose not to borrow more for what we cannot afford, that same public opinion insists that we cut not the extraneous programs, but those that are vital to the functions of government.
And pardon me if I seem extremist, but in a time of war - Three Wars! - even considering cutting defense by half a trillion dollars, is INSANE! Agreeing to the possibility of that, in order to seem reasonable, is unreasonable insanity!

The Politics of Seeming
Might this have been the best that could be hoped for? No, I don't think so. But let's say it was, the Republicans, if they had to go along with something similar, should have done so in such a way as to clearly define the issues involved, should have clearly pointed out that this practice of spending more than we have is, as Vladimir Putin said, parasitism. They could have, and should have, identified and won the moral argument, even as they lost the political one.

That is what people such as myself expected of those we sent to Washington D.C. in the last election. That is not what we got. Instead we got politicians who went along with the charade of this budget having 'Cut' trillions of dollars, which is simply obfuscation and lies. Reducing the excessive amount you propose to spend over your income, to a slightly less excessive amount over your income, and which results in spending more than you did the previous year, is not a cut. Only spending less than you are spending now, is a cut! But by going along with the democrat's political narrative, the republicans legitimized that view where spending more is made to seem to be spending less, which enables those who are recklessly spending money they don't have to seem responsible, and makes those making an effort, however lame, to block such 'cuts' to seem to be extremists, or as Joe Biden and his fellow dim dem's put it, like 'terrorists'.

That is the politics of seeming, and it is madness. How dare you 'practical' people contribute to convincing the public that this is a legitimate proposal. Shame on you.

Bill Hennessy summed up the crux of the problem the other day,

"Our present crisis is the result of:

*Too much borrowing
*Too much spending
*Too much government control
*Too much taxing

Those who argue that America needs to borrow, spend, regulate, and tax more are simply wrong, wrong, wrong. Their argument is absurd on its face..."

Any supposed solution which does not address any of those issues, is not a practical prescription for anything other than self administered poison. Do we really have to say this again? Read the bill! It doesn't address any of these issues - it engages in phony-baloney semantics, gimmicks and potentially disastrous contingencies, all of which amounts to planning to add additional trillions of dollars of expenses over its term, and through more word games and lies of omission, adds even more taxes and opens the door to more regulations to boot.

Peter Schiff notes,

"The Congressional Budget Office currently projects that $9.5 trillion in new debt will have to be issued over the next 10 years. Even if all of the reductions proposed in the deal were to come to pass, which is highly unlikely, that would still leave $7.1 trillion in new debt accumulation by 2021. Our problems have not been solved by a long shot.

Moodys', S&P, and all the rest, are not going to be able to find any way of avoiding downgrading our credit rating any longer - it is coming. As is the Piper.

And he is going to be paid.

Those of you who are congratulating yourselves on either putting another one over on the American people, or who have convinced themselves that the politics of seeming is actually something of substance, are in for a very rude awakening.

The UK Daily Mail maybe puts it best:

"Debt surges to reach 100% of GDP as U.S. stock market barely avoids worst losing run since Jimmy Carter was president"

Yes, I know you want to get 'the right people' elected, well, I've got news for you, 'the right people' just went along with a bill that plays to public opinion, but accomplishes nothing worthwhile and a great deal that is positively harmful. No, the current bill did not accomplish anything worthwhile, changing our plans to leap from the 10th floor of a building, for plans to leap from the 6th floor of a building is not an accomplishment, and any viewpoint which suggests it is, I suggest to you is not a view that's worth pointing at.

Changing our plans to no longer considering leaping from the building, now that would be an accomplishment.

Something else. Winning over people on our side alone, is a losing strategy, attempting only to win others over to our side, is a losing strategy, or at best it's one that leads to real conflict - which is a losing strategy. There will always be two or more points of view on what is proper govt policy; John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison - they had four very different (yes, four) points of view, but they were united in their principles.

Forget about winning people over to 'our side', try winning them over to understanding what is actually at stake, try winning them over to seeing things as they actually are, rather than how others would like them to seem to be. That is what we need. We will always disagree over how to handle a situation, but as long as we are arguing over the actual situation, rather than someones opinion of how it seems to be, then we can make progress. Then, no matter which 'side' wins, we will be progressing, rather than regressing.

We must focus on getting both sides to understand the actual principles involved and what is actually at stake. Nothing less will allow us to succeed. Nothing less will enable a 'win' to also be successful.

The only, practical, winning strategy, is to make the principles of freedom known and understood once again. Left and Right, must see that their well intentioned notions are counterproductive, at best.

Both the left and the right say, and probably believe, that they are for freedom and liberty. It is not effective to tell them that they are wrong, and it doesn't improve your effectiveness any at all to say it while smiling with a Green Energy product in your hand, we've got to get We The People to look at the concepts for themselves so that they can understand and convince themselves and see what is right and what is not.

Anything less, is ridiculously impractical. Do you really think liberty and freedom can be achieved without understanding them? If you do, then you don't understand them!

I gave a start in a recent post "Liberty - It all hangs together, or we all hang separately", and I'll continue adding to that, instead of less practical matters such as appealing to a 'broader audience', because if we don't manage to relearn and care about the fundamentals, nothing else can possibly work.

If you're not practical enough to realize that... you're even dumber than you seem to be.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Is it the Taxes? I wish.

Is it the Taxes? No it's not the taxes, it's not even the budget, it's the philosophy stupid!

While I'm viscerally opposed to unwarranted tax hikes, here's an image that comes to mind when I hear people screaming primarily about raising taxes.

Picture a person who has been beaten, eyes closed, lips pressed tightly and silently together as he is being tied to a stake with thick red duct tape, tinder is gathered at his feet and the edges of it have been lit. Next the attacker reaches into the victims pocket for his wallet and begins pulling dollar bills out. The victim now opens his eyes and screams "No! Don't take my money!".

It's a matter of perspective, don't you see? Is it bad that the attacker is stealing his money? Of course it is, but there are a few other issues that should be foremost in the victims mind - screaming for help might be a good start. Kicking away the tinder wouldn't be bad either, but mostly breaking free of the red tape ought to be numero uno on his list of things to do.

The attacker of course, is the statist (Left and Right), and the submissive and misordered victim is the American people, particularly the businessmen, and the red tape... is red tape (sometimes a cigar is just a cigar).

Government red tape, regulations, rules, requirements, are the real physical threat, the thing that is holding us back from escaping this disaster that is heating up all around us - regulatory law IS the disaster! Raising taxes is bad, it would be even more disastrous for our economy if it happens, but not raising taxes will do nothing to fix the economy, not raising taxes will do nothing to get America back to creating jobs and producing wealth.

Reducing taxes would be helpful, but they wouldn't fix the problem.

The taxes are bad and they are everywhere, they are involved in everything we do and buy. But even more pervasive and destructive, are the regulations which saturate and burden our lives more deeply than mere taxation could ever manage - taxes are applied to what you do, Regulations prevent you from doing it as you judge best, or even at all. I'd wager that there is nothing in your life that is free from the direct burden of regulations; regulations have hurt us beyond measure, and we are blind to them, deaf to them, and mute about them, even as we complain about the very real disasters which they have wrought upon us.

Why are businesses fleeing the country? Taxation is certainly a part of the equation, but far more integral to the matter are the tyrannical regulations which make every effort to make it impossible to operate a profitable business, make it impossible to make the decisions that need to be made as they need to be made on a daily basis, especially regarding manufacturing, in the United States of America.

Listen closely to this man who is trying to create a productive business, a coal mine, which could employ hundreds in his town, as he has listened for hours about how he would be hurting the town rather than helping it:

“Nearly every day without fail…men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just…you know…what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I see these guys—I see them with tears in their eyes—looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So…basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you.”

It wasn't taxation that drove this man to Shrug away his plan to create a new and productive business. It wasn't taxation that drove Boeing to abandon Seattle to invest millions of dollars in a new plant across the country in South Carolina, and it isn't taxation that is now threatening to hang them with their best efforts to open their new operations. It isn't taxation that is threatening to destroy the thousands of new jobs which Boeing was creating in that state.

It is the Regulations that are tying us up and setting our nation aflame.

There is no more difference between the NLRB, EPA, FDA, FTC, EEOC, SEC, WTF, ETC, than between the positions of defensive linemen preparing to execute a blitz - they are all on the same opposing team and the name of the game is to plow through our line (businesses), sack our Quarterback (the Constitution, if you hadn't guessed), take them out of the game and defeat us.

If that's not clear to you by now... I can't help you out.

John Mauldin is a popular financial commentator, someone who is thoughtful, informative and whose conclusions I usually disagree with, at least in part, but he made several excellent points in one of his recent letters. He discusses the economic crisis centering around Greece, our own economic situation and how they show more than a few similarities to the tightly shut eyes & mouth of our own red taped victim, down to his misplaced alarm over the lesser threats to his life.

Here he's relating a very depressing examination by a well connected friend of his who was trying to explain to him about the employment numbers, and the amount of jobs needed to begin returning us to the 6% rate which is thought 'ideal', and the futility of focusing on the wrong issue. I won't bother with the stats, but his ending summary is quite good:

"The times Barry talks about, of large job creation, were during periods of either high innovation or significant home and infrastructure building and increasing leverage. That is just not in the cards now. It requires an economy rocking and rolling north of 4% GDP growth. We are barely at 2%. In May, total state payrolls (the data came out today) were down 64,000; in June they were up 65,200, averaging out to +1,200 for the two months combined.

We keep hearing about what the government should do to create jobs. And the reality is that it can do precious little. Private businesses create jobs, and nearly all net new jobs for the last two decades have come from start-up businesses. What government can do is create an environment that encourages new businesses, get rid of red tape (especially in biotech, where the FDA is mired in the 1980s!), stop creating even more rules that make it costly for new businesses to hire, and so on. I could go on, but the fact is, we are in for a rather long period of higher-than-comfortable unemployment. And that means lower tax revenues and a more difficult economy."

We have been bound and tied to the stake by regulations, even more so than by bad laws – NLRB, EPA, FDA, FTC, EEOC, SEC, with their progeny in 'Cap and Trade', 'Net Neutrality' and so forth and so on, these are the things that have driven manufacturing out of the country, taxation is simply the final straw... removing that last straw will do very little to bring those jobs back, and it will do little to enable small businesses to be able to do the things they would do, if regulations didn’t bar them, or intensely slow them, from doing them.

You think our tax rate is high? Try calculating the man hours, the actual expenses and the forcible prevention of productive decisions and actions, which regulations impose upon our economy.

Spending will always be an issue, we will always argue about it, and some of us will always holler that taxes - no matter the form - are too high. That is a given. It's human nature.

What is also human nature, but is not unavoidable, is the urge to control your neighbor for their own good. Primitive societies are held down to subsistence level by their refusal to let their fellow make their own decisions, their refusal to let anyone break with the tribe, and their unrestrained willingness to use physical force to keep things as they are. That is why stone age tribes remain stone age tribes, even in our day.

But what began to lift civilization out of the darkness of pre-history, was the slowly developing idea of freedom and liberty, which, ironically, given the news of the day, first began to dawn in Greece, and culminated 2,500 years later with the Constitution of the United States of America.

With the enshrinement of individual rights anchored upon an understanding of property rights, under the protection of the rule of law, for the first time in human history, preserving the ability of each citizen to engage in "... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." became the purpose of the power of government.

And before the ink was dry, of course, the old, primitive urge, to keep everyone down, to keep everyone equal, and under the delusion that such ideas would be progress, rather than regress, the proregressives have been gradually perverting our rule of law and subverting our understanding of property rights, in order to impose unjust restrictions upon us all, in the name of egalitarian "Equality of results for all" - which translates best into Justice for none.

Victor Davis Hanson's compatriot, Bruce Thornton, recently wrote a post "It's the philosophy stupid", which hits a part of this theme,

"... the real issue here isn’t economics, it’s philosophical. The essence of the progressive vision is the equality of result predicated on the assumption of radical egalitarianism, the notion that “those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects” as Aristotle put it. And since people in reality aren’t all equal and success reflects differences in ability, virtue, and hard work, the coercive power of the state must be used to achieve the aim of what Plato criticized as “dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike,” a form of injustice that ignores differences of talent, effort, and achievement.

As always, behind every policy is a good idea or a bad idea about human nature and existence. The progressive notion that the power of the state wielded by techno-elites can create a more just world is one of modernity’s worst ideas. Pace Bill Clinton, it’s not “the economy, stupid,” it’s the philosophy. That’s where the battle of 2012 must be waged."

And with that, I agree entirely.

The foolishness of thinking that these ancient and primitive tribal notions of egalitarianism can lead an advanced civilization in any direction resembling progress, is nearly incomprehensible. Mauldin captured a bit of that in this bit as well, as he tries to wrap his mind around putting failed ideas in charge of managing successful ones, summarizing the view as:

"Ok, the Greek economy is in a depression, so let’s fire up a jobs program. Run by socialists and bureaucrats. The entire Eurozone is slipping into a slow-growth recession, and these guys are just focusing on Greece.

It’s Not Just Greece - And that’s the problem with this latest patchwork fix. It assumes that Greece is the problem and if we solve Greece everything else will get solved."

Truly, there's nothing so destructive as bad ideas in the service of good intentions.

It isn't Greece, it isn't the taxes, it isn't even the budget, it's the philosophy stupid!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Debt of Honor

What is the game of debt being played on us?

What is the point? This talk of raising the debt limit or being held to the debt limit... what is the point? What do you think the discussion is supposed to accomplish?

This is being played as a dire crisis that can't be solved by anything less than indentured servitude... anything less, and financial Armageddon will come down

on us all. Really? President Obama claims he may not be able to pay the military or social security

*** WAIT - Timeout***

I thought the Social Security Trust fund was fully funded for the next several decades?!

Am I delusional? I don't think so... I clearly recall that as being what Reid, Pelossi and Obama told us, reassured us, swore to us... right?!
Google says: "That is true" - Way, wayyyy back in February of This Year, Jack Lew, President Obama’s budget director, facing a debt limit increase within a few weeks of saying this, said in USA Today,

“Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing. They are paid for with payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers throughout their careers. These taxes are placed in a trust fund dedicated to paying benefits owed to current and future beneficiaries. … Even though Social Security began collecting less in taxes than it paid in benefits in 2010, the trust fund will continue to accrue interest and grow until 2025, and will have adequate resources to pay full benefits for the next 26 years.”

Sen. Harry Reid went so far as to say

"Social Security was fully funded for the next 40 yrs! so stop picking on Social Security"

He said that Republicans who were trying to warn people that the system was in danger, were

"Using scare tactics, saying the programs in crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy, that is a myth, and it is not true"

How can they now say that it all comes to a crashing halt if the debt limit isn't raised next week?

Oh... that's right, they said it... lips were moving... then and now... got it. Moving on.

Are Social Security recipients at risk of not receiving their checks, or not? Immediately? No - unless of course President Obama wants to starve them for his own political gain, that is. Ok, I realize that might not be very reassuring... but I'll come back to that in a moment.

Maybe we should take a couple steps back. What is our debt limit? What is Debt? How should debt be dealt with? Is unmanageable debt dealt with responsibly and honorably by seeking more of it? Is it honorable to ask for more of what you cannot be sure you can repay?

What's the story?

The Story
To hear many of these politicians, economists & talking heads left & right, describe it, the debt and our ability to pay any of it, are being treated as inseparably tied to our decision not to borrow more, as if the decision to not borrow more, means that the United States Govt is suddenly and entirely flat broke, everyone still having a job will lose theirs, all of our savings will vaporize and we will be entirely unable to make any payments on our debt... does that make sense?

These talking heads are blathering on that we face catastrophic failure - that nothing would be paid.

That's a lie. Period.

Nothing about failing to raise the debt limit, or even defaulting on the debt (which is not the same thing at all), would instantly prevent our tax revenue from streaming in; the US Treasury does have an unimaginably huge debt, but it also still has a reasonably dependable flow of tax revenues coming in that cover the monthly service of that debt, as John Browne points out,

"Many of the key people responsible for America’s historic mess, including the President, Treasury Secretary Geithner, former NEC Director Summers, and Fed Chairman Bernanke, have pronounced publicly that a failure to lift the debt ceiling will cause a catastrophic Treasury debt default.

This is simply not true. The US Treasury has tax revenues that cover the service of its current (staggering) debt of some $14.3 trillion."

Look at it this way: You wake up after a long spending binge and realize you bought or agreed to buy more than you can afford, so you apply to have your credit card limit raised. You call up your friendly neighborhood (India) help line, and they say 'Sorry, no - we are not confident in your ability to handle a larger loan balance at this time.' Does that mean that you are suddenly and instantly broke and unable to pay any of your bills?

No? Neither is that the case for Uncle Sam.

What would you have to do? You'd have to sit down, look at your bills and assets and decide which bills to pay first, which to pay last, what you can return or sell and and also decide which drains on your cash flow are not essential and can be dispensed with... right? So would Uncle Sam,

"In this event, it is unlikely a default will occur. Historically, governments prioritize debt service above all other expenses. If the expansion of funds via debt becomes impossible, the Treasury will cease paying other expenses first, starting with "nonessential" discretionary expenditures, and then move on to mandatory expenditures and entitlements as a last resort."

If it were you, and you didn't get your debt limit raised, would you choose to continue buying happy meals, renting video games and paying your full service NetFlix account first... while pushing off your mortgage & car pmt? No...?

What does it tell you when President Obama gets in front of the cameras and says he's worried that he might decide to do just that by possibly not paying his most important bills, in favor of his least important ones?

As Chief Executive, it is true, he is the one who must decide what will be paid, what will be paid first, and how many non-essential programs will be kept, and which dropped, so that our monthly income can be directed to wisely pay our bills. And by least important or non-essential, I mean payments such as these, an example of cuts (meaning the programs are still there) being proposed in the current round:

Save America 's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.

International Fund for Ireland .$17 million annual savings.

Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings

Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.

National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings

Hope VI Program.. $250 million annual savings.

Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.

Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.

U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.

Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy.$20 million annual savings.

The fact that these programs, and many more like them, still exist, means that the liposuction has yet to be begun. If the President chooses to continue funding NPR, ACORN (or whatever name they're going by these days), making foreign aid pmts, expanding EPA regulations, caring for the snail darter saving funding, or whatever, while choosing not to pay Social Security and the Military... I suggest that a nice loud chorus of IMPEACH THE SOB!!! would be very much in order.

But I don't think (hope) even Obama would do that. But he sure is willing to try and scare people into thinking that he'll have no choice but to do just that. What does that tell you about him? Is that not political posturing at its very worse?

The Other Story
The other story being peddled is that choosing to increase our debt limit is little different from asking your Uncle Sam to come in and work an extra weekend or two to catch back up on things and then all will be fine.

Is that the case? Is raising the debt limit simply saying yes to 'rolling up our sleeves' and handling the matter?

If you got that extension on your credit card bill, and your mo. pmt. was raised... what do you suppose your friendly neighborhood customer service person would say if you called up and said,

"Ya know, thanks for raising my limit, do you want me to pay my increased bill for one or two months?"

Don't you think it might be something like,

"Sorry? No sir, that is your new payment until you pay down your debt - and that is going to take you quite a long while I'm sure".

This is not a simple matter of 'rolling up our sleeves' and 'eating our peas', and shame on President Obama for trying to con people into thinking of it as little more than that. He's not only asking for a debt limit increase, but also asking to pile on trillions of dollars of more programs & purchases! Purchases which come with long, long term obligations to repay.

This is despicable. Nothing less.

This is not a matter of 'Uncle Sam' putting in extra effort, but of Govt saying "Yes!" to taking more of what is yours, and doing so for a much longer period of time. Any increase in the debt limit means taking on more debt and more interest which adds a very, very large number of dollars to what you, your children and grandchildren will someday have to pay back. IOW this is a Tax INCREASE on a massive scale, but not only that, it is a tax increase that is far too close for comfort to being a defacto extension of indentured servitude upon the American people. If your child could be born today with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on their heads can be called many things, but Free, isn't one of them.

Not only are we being obligated to innumerable more years of Taxes, but we are also being saddled at the same time with even more, and more regulations - regulations that will restrict our power companies ability to supply power to us, regulations that will make it difficult for them to even stay in business, regulations which are preventing business from expanding, operating or being created.

Why?

A Debited Honor
Again, what does defaulting on the debt mean? It means not paying your bills. For you and me, it would be limited to saying "I'm out of cash, I can't pay my bills." and then your creditors looking over your books and deciding whether to repossess, extend further credit, or something else. But that's not the case with government, government can do what we can't - they can technically pay their bills... while at the same time, not pay those same bills.

How? they can print their own money, and they pay out x number of funny money bills, along with n number of 'actual' bills.

That is something which the Federal Govt has been doing to handle it's debt problems since around 1918 - we've been allowing that very thing to be done, and it has been doing that very same thing pretty much continuously, ever since.

As a result, your dollar today, wouldn't buy a nickel's worth of candy in 1914 - and that would have bought a lot of candy. Back then.

What do we do?

Is it wise to pretend there's no problem, declare that 'lucky day! we have an increased debt limit!' and increase the burden on all Americans ability to pay their bills even further?

The Answer?
First, recognize that the necessary and most productive thing to do to repay your obligations, is the best course of action, despite the fact that it will be difficult and will involve pain, but knowing that once confronted, the disaster you've been trying to ignore can begin to be dealt with, and your real situation can actually have real progress made towards handling it.

By hitting the debt limit on Tuesday, Aug 2nd, and NOT raising the debt limit, we would be finally confessing that the check is not in the mail - but that it will be, and here's how we are going to be paying our debts and obligations on such and such schedule from here on out. Economist Peter Schiff notes,

"While President Obama would find himself walking through a minefield of special interest groups as he chose where to cut, I expect the overall effort to be broadly popular. This is, after all, what the boisterous American Tea Party has been demanding all along. And the ultimate result would be a renewed faith in the US dollar and Treasuries."

Failing to do that, if the Republicans game the system to make token cuts, little spending decreases and raise the debt limit - as the leadership seems inclined to do - it will be disastrous. Peter Schiff continues,

"In fact, the Republicans have in their hands the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to force the Administration into good sense, while avoiding the political fallout.
Increasingly, it appears likely that the Republicans will buckle. If they do, Americans will be faced with a package that both sides will claim as a victory. The losers will be hard working, patriotic Americans and those around the world who believed the United States was good for its word."

This is not a game for politicians, don’t let them treat it like it is one. They care about power, theirs. What do you care about? This isn’t about doing what will get them re-elected, this is about doing what needs, must, be done. This is about restoring the full faith and credit of the United States of America... and that’s a tall order. And a steep climb. But standing with the deal making status quo is not an option - there is no honor in that - and that path is crumbling beneath our feet right now, and you know it is. We either begin climbing up or we continue falling down at 32 feet per second, per second.

Call your representatives and senators - tell them to do the difficult, right, honorable thing - Cut our expenses, Cut the Regulations!, Cap the taxes and Balance the budget (just not with the current Balanced Budget Amendment).

However, unlike what many of my fellows have said, I don't see sunshine and lollipops following doing what needs to be done. Refusing to raise the debt limit would cause disturbances, it will cause disruptions in markets - for a while, it will cause even greater inflation than we are experiencing now... but it would also be the start of finally beginning to fix the matter, and enabling it to be turned around. Just as by sitting down with your creditors, reviewing your finances, and temporarily swearing off frivolous spending, would cause you some significant short term difficulties, it would also enable you to begin making payments on your debt, and your creditors would finally be assured that your financial behavior would become responsible and that they could have confidence that they would be paid, without having to call vinny and the debt collectors on you.

The actual result of not raising our debt limit, of actually dealing with our debt, and of meaningfully cutting expenses, removing the regulatory burdens that are hobbling our economy and ceasing to live beyond our means, would be to restore confidence in the full faith and credit of the United States of America, in more ways than one, and then we would be on the road to recovery... only at the beginning of it, true, but on the right road nevertheless. Finally.