Stimulus Package Hoax
January 28th, 2009 | Author: JL

If you believe that the government can jump-start the economy with a stimulus bill, to be frank, you’ve been had. Government is not a productive entity. It does not create anything, nor does it generate revenue. It obtains funding by confiscation from the private sector. These funds are then directed into less productive ventures through misguided legislation. There can be no net benefit from a stimulus package; only a net loss of productivity.

A website named “Read the Stimulus” has been created to provide access to the proposed $850 billion stimulus bill, and attempt to break down and discuss the appropriations. This spreadsheet has a breakdown of all the garbage that lawmakers have added to the bill.

Some notable expenditures:
$650,000,000 for a Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program
$50,000,000 for Grants to provide jobs for the National Foundation of the Arts
$2,825,000,000 for Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grant Programs
$200,000,000 for National Mall Revitalization

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Latest Victims of Minimum Wage Laws
January 27th, 2009 | Author: JL

As the economy attempts to go through a correction period, despite the destructive efforts of the federal government, the window of victims affected by minimum wage laws has grown larger. The most recent example comes from restaurants where it has become disadvantageous to hire bussers at the required minimum wage rate to clear tables, when they can have servers perform bussing tasks. I’m sure most of those who have lost their jobs would have preferred a lower wage to unemployment. Unfortunately the government does not allow them that option.

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Killing and Agitation Continue Under Obama
January 24th, 2009 | Author: JL

Waging war on a tactic (terrorism) is STILL a bootless errand, even with a well spoken president. And taking the lives of innocent children in the process is still not justified.

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven “foreigners” – a term that usually means al-Qaeda – but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

Yet there is silence from democrats now.

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Monkey see, monkey do
January 23rd, 2009 | Author: Victor Lucas

Karen De Coster on Life as a Trained Monkey:

There are plenty of (supposedly) “smart” people who can be trained, like a monkey, to cram for an exam (or exams); get a college degree; remember procedures related to an occupation; take steps to complete a task, etc., etc. It is the use of critical thinking that demonstrates the difference between being smart and possessing intelligence (intellectual ability).

As a Certified Public Accountant working for many years in public and corporate accounting, with lots of colleagues who are endowed with CPAs, MBAs, etc., I am not hesitant to say that there are many very well-trained monkeys in the workplace, but very few critical thinkers

My assessment is drawn from my many years in corporate America, dealing with extraordinarily bright people, competent people, and mostly, those people whom I refer to as the “daily transactional types”—the ones who need to be trained what tasks to do on what days, and they will do it, but don’t dare ask them to think, and don’t expect them to assess or analyze anything that falls outside of their neatly-designed, one-dimensional box.

For many people, their job is their life because it is something they are “trained” to do. It’s all they have outside of kids, a lawn to cut, and golf on Sundays.  For me, my formal education garnered me an established career—a satisfactory and oftentimes challenging occupation that both feeds and funds my passions. If I knew little about the world outside of my job, the one-dimensional life would crush me with boredom and leave me with the life of a trained monkey.

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TJ on the Importance of a Free Press
January 23rd, 2009 | Author: JL

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
-Thomas Jefferson

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Granholm Creates Over 200 Jobs in Michgan!
January 22nd, 2009 | Author: JL

Over 200 employees will be hired to supplement the state’s overburdened Unemployment Insurance Agency. Unemployment has hit 10.6% in Michigan, despite a dwindling workforce as people flee the state; and the agency is unable to handle the volume of calls it has been receiving.

I would not be the least bit surprised to hear some bureaucrat boasting of the jobs created by the government. Of course, the notion of any politician creating meaningful jobs that benefit the economy is pure fallacy. Government is only capable of misdirecting employment — whether directly, through government contracts or indirectly, through monetary policy as we’ve seen with the Fed induced housing bubble — into less efficient sectors of the economy; eventually leading to increased unemployment, hampering if not reversing growth, and consequently diminishing overall quality of life.

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Lincoln’s Bible
January 21st, 2009 | Author: JL

Walter Williams, in his latest column, President Obama’s Inauguration, attempts to dispel one of the most prevalent myths about Abraham Lincoln: That he was a fervent abolitionist who crafted the Emancipation Proclamation with the sole intent of eradicating slavery.

Williams points out the clever wording of the Proclamation that is so often overlooked: “President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which reads, ‘That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free …’ The key phrase is “in rebellion against the United States” because slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion.”

He goes on to point out that Lincoln only wanted to create the image that the war being fought over the issue of slavery so that European powers might feel less compelled to support the Confederacy. As many sources — including his own secretary of state — at the time pointed out, the Emancipation Proclamation sought to free slaves where Lincoln was unable to enforce it, and preserve slavery elsewhere.

Williams’ criticism of Lincoln is taken a bit further as he denounces the many Constitutional abuses that occurred under hie presidency; many of which still linger today. “President Obama can be forgiven for celebrating the hypocrisy of Abraham Lincoln because the victors of wars write their history and glorify the winners. The recognition that slavery is a despicable institution does not require hero worship of a president who made the largest contribution to the unraveling of our Constitution. After all when it is settled by brute force that states cannot secede, as they thought they had the right to in 1787, then the federal government can ride roughshod over states and their people’s right — in a word make meaningless the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.”

I also want to add that just prior to the start of the war, Lincoln sent a letter to the governor of every state, urging their support of an amendment that would constitutionally protect the institution of slavery in the south. Thomas DiLorenzo suggests that Lincoln not only promoted this amendment, he was the mastermind behind the creation of it, and other disgraceful legislation.

Not only did Lincoln support this slavery forever amendment, but the amendment was his idea from the very beginning. He was the secret author of it, orchestrating the politics of its passage from Springfield before he was even inaugurated. Not only that, but he also instructed his political compatriot, William Seward, to work on federal legislation that would outlaw the various personal liberty laws that existed in some of the Northern states. These laws were used to attempt to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act. As explained by Goodwin (p. 296): “He [Lincoln] instructed Seward to introduce these proposals in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield. The first resolved that ‘the Constitution should never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states.’ Another recommendation that he instructed Seward to get through Congress was that ‘all state personal liberty laws in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law be repealed.’”

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The Promise of Change
January 20th, 2009 | Author: Victor Lucas

By now it seems fairly certain that the one word associated with Barack Obama’s “historic” campaign most likely to be forever engraved upon the walls of history is “change”.  Change.  It’s the word that helped transform millions of disenchanted, politically apathetic Americans into avid, re-energized supporters (read worshipers) of a man who, in reality, is not only incapable of delivering the myriad of promised changes, but seemingly unwillingly to take the steps necessary to try.

Today the most obvious dilemma facing Americans is our ever rapidly crumbling economy.  Yet as we see by a continued display of irresponsibility in Washington, most memorably by the string of bailouts granted to over-zealous corporations throughout this last year, but more recently by the millions graciously given in support of this years over-bloated presidential inauguration and connected various celebrations, our plight doesn’t seem to be being addressed.  Economic change?  More like more of the same, if not MORE government spending than ever before.

In his piece: Inauguration Day, 2009: A Day of Mourning, Justin Raimondo, of Antiwar.com states, “Obama’s economic program can be summed up in one word: reflation. Massive government spending, preceded by an orgy of bailouts.”

Raimondo reminds us that, “Obama, after all, ran on a platform of increasing an obscenely bloated military budget – misnamed the “defense” budget, but in reality a sum devoted to interfering in the affairs of other nations and peoples on a scale unprecedented by any previous empire. A sum, mind you, more than equal to the military budgets of all other nations on earth combined.”  Not only does this help to negate any promise of economic change in our country; it also reveals the attitude of our new president toward warfare in general.  So much for the so-called “peace candidate”.

Raimondo concludes, “In the age of Obama, what the late, great libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard dubbed the welfare-warfare state will take on gargantuan proportions, just as it did under LBJ, both at home and abroad. This is bad news on every front. An inaugural celebration? Not for me, thank you. I’m going into inaugural mourning: all black to mourn the victims of Obama’s wars, and the death of our old republic.”

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Political Parties
January 19th, 2009 | Author: JL

Scott Mayerowitz writes:

“The country is in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, which isn’t stopping rich donors and the government from spending $170 million, or more, on the inauguration of Barack Obama.”

“The federal government estimates that it will spend roughly $49 million on the inaugural weekend. Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland have requested another $75 million from the federal government to help pay for their share of police, fire and medical services. And then there is the party bill. ”

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‘I have a Dream’
January 19th, 2009 | Author: JL

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UAW Benefits Local Bars
January 17th, 2009 | Author: JL

This video from channel 4 in Detroit, shows an investigation that uncovered a disturbing trend among some Ford employees. They were caught spending hours at the bar during their lunch breaks.

I realize this is not representative of the entire Ford workforce, but the point is that these types of abuses are much more likely to occur when a powerful union — the UAW in this case — is involved. This type of behavior would not fare well with a truly voluntary contract between employers and employees.

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The Bailout Game
January 16th, 2009 | Author: JL

If you have some time to kill, you might want to check out this online flash animation game inspired by the seemingly endless barrage of government bailouts.

The player travels along a Monopoly-like board in a dumptruck full of cash. You make stops at various financial institutions and decide whether or not to bail them out. You can opt to “ask a greenspan” if you aren’t sure what to do. A video or some other type of media follows the decision. It’s actually very educational.

I haven’t really spent much time playing it, but it looks like it might get a little more involved as you go along.

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Cable Monopolies
January 13th, 2009 | Author: JL

Frequent problems with Comcast, my lousy internet service provider, caused me to question the means by which Cable companies secure regional monopolies. If a competitor existed in my area, I’d switch without hesitation. But no such competition is available for me.

A quick inspection might lead one to believe that privatization and deregulation allow companies to take over a particular market and charge exorbitant rates while offering poor service. While looking a little deeper, as economics professor D.W. MacKenzie has done, it becomes evident that regulation tends to be used as a way for large corporations to prevent smaller competitors from entering their market. This is also true of other sectors of the economy.

This report admits that in the days when cable was challenging airwave broadcasters, regulators “did not hesitate to grant exclusive franchises to cable operators”4. It speaks specifically of a long history of successful regulatory lobbying by the cable industry. This report claims that lobbying of regulators resulted in a variety of tactics to deter competition (p. 35). It claims that regulators protected and favored cable incumbents for years. Licensing policies have directly or effectively barred competition in many local markets (p. 44). Such practices are no longer official, but cable companies still succeed in enlisting the help of regulators to bar direct competition (p. 44). Incumbent cable companies have also gotten regulators to use “level playing field laws” to increase the costs of entering the cable market (p. 45). Cable companies have also saddled new competitors with disproportionate shares of subsidies for public education and government programming (p. 45). The cable industry has also succeeded in getting the FCC to quash new competitors with prices for leased access no competitor “could pay and remain commercially viable” (p. 47).

Partial deregulation of the telecommunications industry, likely had no anti-monopolistic effect whatsoever:

Of course, complete privatization would not lead to ideal results, but this could well unravel most of the anticompetitive practices that exist in the cable industry. The lesson that we should draw from the results of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is that efforts to partially privatize the industry are likely to retain those elements of regulations that benefit concentrated interests in business most. This being the case, we should press deregulation further, and should also view calls for increased regulation with great suspicion.

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Steel Tariffs Hurt Consumers
January 12th, 2009 | Author: JL

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Consequences of Bailouts
December 12th, 2008 | Author: JL

Joe solerno is interviewed by Lew Rockwell about the Auto Bailout Bill — which did not pass — and the economic consequences of bailouts in general.

A few additional thoughts:

  • I thought Democrats were supposed to oppose corporate welfare. Why then do they want to take hard earned money from productive members of society and give it to behemoth corporations who are unable to produce products that people are willing to purchase at a price that results in a profit?
  • I thought Democrats did not subscribe to the “trickle down” economic theory. Why then do they insist that failing to bail out the giant auto companies will hurt blue collar workers?
  • If there exists a market for cars (i.e. people want cars) beyond what the remaining car companies can provide, the bankruptcy of and combination of Ford, Chrysler, and GM will not make their capital and jobs disappear. As with any other sector of the economy, a transfer of ownership will take place from the incompetent who cannot meet market demand (without theft), to the competent, who can. If they are allowed to fail, as they should be, there will undoubtedly be hardships during the transition, but the consequences of the alternative are much worse.
  • Criticisms of the viability of the Detroit auto companies — and the quality and efficiency of their cars — are usually met with facts about how many cars they sell. Well, I could probably run a car company and sell decent cars too, if I didn’t have to worry about making a profit, and could rely on taking (stealing) tax payer money to fund my operation.
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