living in the eye of the storm
An old elementary school joke familiar to all is distressingly relevant to the tragic events unfolding in New Orleans. This schoolyard classic involves a vocabulary quiz, a revolving door and what was called a “fat woman” in a less politically correct time. The punch line was something to the affect that the door nearly dis-assed-her.
Sadly, that is probably the most thought most Americans have ever given to disaster planning.
Some of us are thinking about it. Big Business has been very active in what is known as business continuation planning for several decades. As a result of legislation imposing personal liability on Directors and Executives for failure to plan adequately and insurance premium rate pressure from property insurance underwriters, business has had little choice but to get serious about the future even in spite of the quarterly earnings focus. The 9/11 attack should have woke the rest of us up to the perils of catastrophic disasters and invoked a vigorous preparedness response.
What we got instead was a new ineffective bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security.
The failure of this Presidential administration to achieve any kind of readiness over the past four years could not be plainer than it is in the wake of Katrina. There has, of course, been copious coverage on the slow and poor emergency response from FEMA and other organizations charged to answer national distress calls. This is certainly an important topic and deserves substantial attention. There is a lot of information to digest there and I’m sure plenty of relevant stories yet to be told both of heroism in the face of inadequate resources and the incompetence which helped produce the situation. Steadfastly focused by the media on these juicy stories, the American people will as usual miss the greater significance of what is playing out before their eyes.
Missed entirely will be the big picture: the breakdown in social order that occurred when civilization ceased to exist. While the lurid facts of rape, robbery and irrational violence have made headlines, the broader implications deserve serious consideration.
Consider if you will the misfeasance of the government in allowing four years to pass without any serious effort to educate American citizens on how to react in disaster situations. Four years of rhetorical frothing without any apparent attempt to actually plan for the aftermath of an event of this scale.
I suppose that if this administration could not foresee the social breakdown caused by its military invasion of Iraq, it should not surprise us that they could not foresee that natural disasters could have the same effect here at home.
Immediately after 9/11, I remember discussions with a lot of people concerning what would happen if we have another 9/11 scale event. The number one concern in the minds of everybody I talked to was the prospect of civil unrest. The possibility of the total collapse of society around us is very real and this above all else should be what terrifies us about Katrina. Though the problem is both obvious and real, this administration has produced much noise and little else.
I for one am not so naïve as to attribute this mess to unforseeability. While the specific scenario that has permanently changed the face of the Crescent City was perhaps hard to detail, the risk of living below sea level on the Gulf of Mexico was well understood. When The Big One finally hits California we will probably call it unforeseeable no matter what the facts might say to the contrary.
I suppose that if you are one who can not foresee the inevitable large scale disasters of varying scope and nature, then perhaps you are also inclined to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on this one. I view recent history and history generally as teaching that mankind will continue to endure a succession of large scale disasters.
In my short span on this globe, we have had the New York City blackout, the Arab Oil Embargo, Hurricane Andrew, Mississippi River flooding, the San Francisco earth quake and 9/11. What these disasters are cumulatively showing us is that our social cohesion is at an all time low. And even were it not, anyone who has seen Deliverance can tell you that bad things can happen even in America when one is sufficiently removed from civilization. Or in the case of Katrina, when civilization ceases to exist.
Armed with ordinary schoolhouse knowledge, there is simply no excuse for not being better prepared. We live in an era that is truly on the edge in a more real way than at any time since the Great Depression. Thinking about a nuclear device detonated in Houston Harbor should give you serious pause as to the viability of America in the aftermath. Just follow the pipelines and see how quickly our world of material excess could go dark.
And this is just one scary scenario out of a multitude.
Viewed soberly it is clear that there is no substantive difference between what has happened in New Orleans as a result of Katrina and what would might have happened there in the event of a dirty bomb attack. Katrina has exposed how vulnerable America remains.
Unfortunately, this is no schoolyard and the joke is on you and me.
122 Comments:
C.G.: “I say protect the women, children and pets first.”
Amen!
Prof. Ricardo
The descent into savagery was well caught. Of course, we are all gentlemen, and thus will not comment on the, ahem, demographics of the affected area. Copenhagen underwater might see a different response from its population.
But Texas Conservative, Oprah said: 'This should not have happened'
We all know, if Oprah ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. :-)
Very good points sir.
Prof. Ricardo
TexaCon,
Welcome back. We have missed your highly alliterative yet misguided epistles. :-D
I think you may have overlooked that the gravamen of my post was that we are clearly still as unprepared for a terrorist act as we were four years ago. Are you suggesting that the high profile reorganization of various government bodies into the Department of Homeland security should not be reasonably expected to have a positive result?
You rehashed the forseeability argument when you said, ” How often are cities like New Orleans evacuated and subsequently scoured for people on rooftops or clinging to limbs?” My answer is how often are planes wielded as missiles and rammed into buildings? How often do cities need to clean up from radioactive fallout from a dirty bomb? How often we have to clean up from a bomb at the Super Bowl, aerosol anthrax at a shopping mall or suicide boats ramming oil tankers in major harbors?
The point is that a specific disaster may be entirely unforeseeable, but the fact that things will occur is entirely foreseeable. The key criticism is this: people have not been psychologically prepared for disasters. This lack of preparedness will lead to future rounds of social breakdown of the nature of what we have seen in New Orleans.
To some extent these issues are just human nature and the product of the welfare state mentality. But it is also clear that better emergency planning would have had well equipped police on the scene much more quickly. I can see you have no problem with the lack of planning just as you had no problem with the lack of planning for civil unrest in Iraq. At least you are consistent.
I suppose I’m just a silly old fool for thinking we can do a little better. Sillier still for wanting a plan in place to give some hope of the survival of civilization when the next big terrorist attack occurs.
But then, perhaps there is a deeper consistency still running here. Maybe you and Prof welcome the possibility of unbridled capitalism that would occur when the lights go dark and ammo comes out. Perhaps your family is far better armed than mine. As for me, that survival of the fittest thing doesn’t seem to be as attractive as it is cracked up to be.
Common,
Welfare state - a description of government (the state) where, by the force of law, wealth is redistributed from one define-able group to another define-able group regardless of what objectives are trying to be met. These payments may be labeled transfer payments, aid (either foreign or domestic), subsidies, loan guarantees, etc. Any systematic reallocation of wealth to fit the models of fairness that the legislators desire. An expenditure for a specific good, even though some may benefit over others, is different from a reallocation of wealth.
We often erroneously label it “income redistribution.” The income is not redistributed. The income is earned by a person and becomes his wealth. He then reports to the government his “income” and, based upon a complex formula of applied to his income, his wealth is transferred under penalty of law to be reallocated to, usually, a larger voting block than the one who just gave up his wealth.
Welfare recipients are not dumb. They know from where their bread is buttered, and they vote accordingly. Knowing this, and the monstrous growth of government, particularly in the social services area under Bush, is understandable. That’s where the votes are. Which makes your pitiful cry of small/minimal government preaching about the conspiracy of Bush and his administration laughable. Quote me the last time his administration cut a budget item? I’m genuinely curious. I bet I can find 20 increases for every cut.
Finally, a necessary component in the “welfare state” is the destruction of individual rights and the rise of group rights. Women, minorities, poor, farmers, students, and elderly become groups to be segregated from the individual rights, and defined as a group with rights, so enabling the “group” to receive, ahem, a “group” discount in the tax lottery (to use a term dear to you).
C.G.: “TC did not have one single good point. Name one... I dare you. :)”
“Couldn’t possibly be that the STATE of Louisiana wasn’t prepared could it? Is it possible? Is it possible that the city didn’t do more in the moments/days before the hurricane hit to evacuate more people? To shore up the levies? To educate residents? That’s what Florida does. I’ve never heard anyone applaud the administration for their response to the floridacanes? So did they get those right? No, I suppose that was different. How often are cities like New Orleans evacuated and subsequently scoured for people on rooftops or clinging to limbs?”
Sounds better every time I read it. Want me to post it again? :-D
Prof. Ricardo
Common,
“I just want to go on the record...I think they hate poor people.”
In this “welfare state” we pay people to be poor. We subsidize it. We subsidize a lot of things.
Being intimately acquainted with the tax law, I see exactly what they subsidize. We deduct this, get a credit for that, phase out this, tax something else differently. In addition to the graduated tax system of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 35% rates, there is a phase out of credits, deductions, and exemptions, thus dramatically increasing the marginal tax rate of every increasing dollar earned. It is possible to be in the 15% tax bracket, but pay a 43% marginal rate, that is, every next $100 you earn, you pay $43 to the government. We tend to do those things we get paid to do and not do those things that get penalized. If we ask an elderly person on social security to work at Wal-Mart and they, with all forms of income like interest, dividends, and pension, have the blistering sum of $32,000 income a year, the next $100 they earn will deduct FICA of $7.65 and federal taxes of $43.15, for a total of $50.80. Given that they will probably not bring the Wal-Mart store to them, they will have to add in commuting expense, higher meal expense away from home, etc. Most, if they know where they are in the marginal tax bracket, would probably not wish to work for only 49.2% of their stated wage. The disincentive is great.
Conversely, those clients of mine who are receiving child credits, education credits, and particularly the Earned Income Credit (EIC) know that they can’t “earn too much” or they will lose their “free money.” So people being paid by the government follow the money. If the IRS says, and it does, that you can’t have investment income of greater than $2,650 (2004) or you loose your EIC credit, maximum of $4,400 in the sweat spot, then there is a point where $1 more income costs you $4,400. Ouch. I had that happen with a client two years ago. They had a little rental property in addition to their very small income. They had a disincentive to earn any more investment income. So people knowing the tax law, or more probably, knowing the welfare and unemployment compensation laws, know how much money they can make and stop their productivity (or reporting of it, ie cash under the table, wink, wink) at that point.
Those persons seeing that often we, the government, are paying people to be purposefully under-productive probably wish to not make that mistake. Unless you want people to live in horrendous poverty, you can not pay them into prosperity, they must earn themselves into prosperity. The best way to do that is to not pay them to be unproductive. I hope that is what Bush wants. But you maybe right Common Good. If President Bush wishes to continue the welfare state status quo of paying people to remain attached to the addictive teat of Aunt Sam (formerly Uncle, but was castrated by FDR like programs), then I too will conclude that he “hates the poor.”
Prof. Ricardo
“Bottom line, we will always have a percentage that will not work.”
Yes, but that percentage is minuscule. They are truly mentally ill. IF you are going to delve into welfare, it should be for those who can not work, not those who will not work. Let’s say out of a 1000 people, 80 are on welfare. I’d say 10% are unemployable to any degree (severely handicapped, mentally/social not compatible, etc.) 89% of the 80 are employable, the 1% is so severely maladjusted he/she will live under a bridge, and is probably there already because even with support, they probably can’t keep an apartment or gubment project. I have great faith that these 89% can be useful, productive, and improve their lives dramatically.
“...Once many die off, or others get the message, maybe this number goes way down...
New Orleans is a city of poverty. When you saw the evacuation, what did you see? Mostly blacks, mostly (God forgive me...) able bodied black men and fat women. Now all of us visit the fridge a few times too many, but goodness... A lot of these folks were from the projects. They love to eat and they wouldn’t die off. Hunger is an awesome motivator. They actually want to work. But if they can work their buns off for $1000/month, less taxes, commuting, nice clothes, or make $800/month watching TV, well, that extra $50-150/month is not worth 215 hours of work.
“We will never have 100% employment,...”
And we shouldn’t strive for it. Unemployment in a stable environment should be 3.0-4.0%. The market system needs this pool of people to supply changing economic demands, people moving, etc. However, unemployment above this level is almost always caused by government inflating the money supply to pay for things it feels it can’t tax. The over stimulus of inflated money sends bad economic information to businesses. They hire based upon this “new demand,” and when the government gets caught with it printing press drawers down, it shuts down the press. Businesses wonder where all the demand went, loose money, then reluctantly let employees go. This recession is then cut short by Super Gov. re-stimulating the economy by, TaDa!, printing more money. This government induced screwed up economy is the source of excess unemployment. The business cycle of growth and recession is government induced. Go back to a gold standard, meaning no more inflation. Prices become stable. In this country the relative wage of the worker went up every year until 1973 when we went off the gold standard. Nixon was free to inflate. Since then with a few minor exceptions (inflation adjusted) real wages have gone down. It now takes two incomes to buy a nice house.
“Give me a policy to manage those starving off once the policy is invoked.”
They won’t starve off. They are no different than you or I. Dictator Professor thus proclaimeth the answer:
1) Guarantee current welfare recipients will keep their checks coming for one year. Then WHAM, no more...ever.
2) Remove the restriction of making money while on welfare. They make $100,000, they keep getting payments. No negative incentive to earn.
3) Refuse any new welfare recipients period.
4) Repeal the minimum wage.
5) Offer tax credits to companies that hire welfare recipients. 25% of wages (Max $2500 credit per employee) the first year, 20% the second, 10% the third and final year.
6) Repeal EIC and implement a negative income tax. (I haven’t worked out the numbers here.)
7) Repeal farm subsidies. Sink or swim. No one paid NOT to raise pigs.
8) Implement a stable monetary policy that does not screw with businesses.
9) Exempt under age 21 earned income from FICA and income taxes. If you make $50, you keep $50. No reporting, no lying or hiding income. No need to.
10) Of course a more shallow progression of tax rates would help businesses hire new folks.
11) On a state level, removing impediments to starting businesses, like high license fees.
12) Open up public schools to anybody, any age, for any class. Yep, adults in first grade reading. Kick out anyone that acts up. Including children. When you elevate the standards, the environment and content get better exponentially. The biggest impediment today to public schooling is discipline issues. The biggest impediments to discipline issues is money and mandatory attendance laws. You can’t kick him out of school just cause he beat up a teacher. Bull corn. Launch his hiney skidding across the play ground. Make it an environment of learning, for all ages, including the welfare recipient that may have been shortchanged earlier in their life.
That’s a start. Make it easy to make money. And get out of the way. You’ll be surprised what ingenuity and hard work will provide.
Prof. Ricardo
On a side note. The evacuees should be hired by government clean-up crews for $5/hour + room & board for the families in extremely modest living quarters.
A timely and relevant article from Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,68789,00.html
Common Good, Re: Welfare.
Consider in the exercise:
1) Do we discern between working capable poor, and those who can't.
If you ARE going to have welfare, yes.
2) If so, how do we make that call... and who makes it?
A bureaucracy cannot do it well, because they have no incentive to do it well. They are spending someone else’s money on someone else. That is why effective “welfare” must be done by private organizations. Truly needed will be helped. Truly lazy will feel the hunger of idleness. Private orgs need not necessarily be religious. There are currently great organizations that meet for all kinds of business and community needs: Jaycees, Kiwanis, Moose Lodge, Junior League, Toastmasters, and Rotary Club. Do we think for a moment that no organizations what-so-ever would not fill the needy need that the religious organizations might fail to address? Inconceivable.
3) How do we treat these two groups? Equally?
See #1 and #2 and draw conclusions.
4) If we are going to make a category of those who aren't capable of working... what's our policy to manage them.
In this country we have rejected what used to be considered common sense. It’s so uncommon now, few people still refer to it. For instance, It used to be that criminals paid restitution to their victims of crime. Now we say they owe a debt to society, so the victim is, lets face it, essentially taxed his restitution away by the state. The victim is no better off, the state gets cheap license plates, and the criminal gets a college degree. Something stinks here.
From the Bible, there is a priority list of who gets relief and by whom.
Romans: 12:20 says “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink”
It also says: If a demanding Roman soldier ask you to carry his cloak a mile, you carry it two. Share the burden, share the yolk, meet the needs, feed the hungry, visit those in prison, take care of orphans and widows. As Christians we are commanded to do this. Common Good intuitively knows that these in need should get help.
The Bible is not for simpletons though. It recognizes that there are fools, con men, and sluggards. Life has always been hard. People have always had to work harder for food than we do today. The tendency and desire is to not work as hard as we might need to. The Bible warns against becoming slack in our work. Recognizing that fact and making sure we do not ENABLE people to remain slackers and tend toward laziness is not wrong. Welfare by its design ENABLES people to tend toward laziness.
With discernment and limited funds, private organizations can discern the real needy, and help them, not just with money now, but with jobs and clothing and food and utility payments until they get back on their feet. The goal is always to get over this temporary impediment. If the condition is permanent, there are foundations and organization that do amazing things. My son is a patient with The Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas. His multitude of operations over his life have been FREE. I could have never afforded them myself. Through private organizations much great work has been, and can be, done.
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.: You proposed we would discern between the work capable and those that are not. So maybe we could focus on the following:
1) How do we discern between the work capable and the truly needy?
This is not something you can discern from a welfare application. People will complain about aches and pains till the cows come home. You need to stand right beside them, visit them, know them, watch them. So they can’t swing a sledge hammer, how about operate a cash register? A telephone? A sewing machine? Stuff envelopes, open utility bills and data entry? You’ve got to be fairly incapacitated not to be able to do some of this stuff. If you can run past a TV camera man in New Orleans with a 27" TV, you can work.
2) Who discerns?
Someone willing to spend the time with the persons seeking aid AND has incentive to economize.
3) A clear management policy regarding those we cut off from Welfare. A need something more tangible than hunger will solve our problems here.
True. Hunger makes a person seek to be fed, not necessarily to work. So free money is a way to be fed. But if the “free money” isn’t free, then they will start weighing their options. The moment working for money becomes the easier task, that’s when the move will be made.
IF you are going to have a welfare system, then incentive is the key to getting them off welfare. As an incentive, associate work, effort, shame, or great effort of some sort with the check. How about 30 hours a month community service? Roadway trash pick up, wash city vehicles, answer city/county information phone lines, school crosswalk guards, or a security guard at schools or public parks. Think of the support crews necessary for disaster relief. The jobs are endless, the sense of self-worth is priceless when you are a contributor and not a drain. The work ethic is instilled and the jump to private employment, or advancement in public service jobs, is a small step away.
I am realistic enough to know we aren’t going to ditch welfare, but if we can make it smarter, that’s what we should do. But there are those who would oppose all of the above. Those are not just people, they are voters. And if they are taking a cut without attachments, they will vote accordingly. Our founders discussed this two hundred years ago. Buying votes is not a new phenomena.
To me, a real love of these people on welfare demands what we do is right, not just write a check. The love of our own children makes us sacrifice so much for them, but there is a time for discipline, and it hurts the parent as much as the child to demand obedience and better character. If we love these in poverty, lets not secure their position to be multi-generation welfare recipients, but make sure that it is a short stepping stone to the dreams this country inspires.
Prof. Ricardo
After 50 posts to the blog, in order of verboseness:
Common Good: 5,649 words
Prof. Ricardo: 2,886 words
Yoshitownsend: 1,361 words
Tony Plank: 1,281 words (incl.orig.post)
Texas Conservative: 669 words
Randy P.: 500 words
StillDreamn: 63 words
Doug: 36 words
Being as how some people are among the privileged in the gift of words. We are going to institute a progressive word taxation whereby words will be reallocated to the word impoverished community. Given the inherent unfairness of our current free market word distribution system, It is up to us to correct natural injustices that happen in the course of society.
We hereby confiscate for reallocation 50% of Common Good’s Words, 35% of the Professors, and 15% of Yoshitownsend’s words. However, trying to be true to government form, only 22 words out of a hundred confiscated will actually make it to the more word impoverished. Tony, the overseer, blog Czar, needs to confiscate 78% of the collected words for distribution purposes, and of course seed-words for the next blog subject.
Dangit! This was another 178 words.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof,
Now THAT was funny. But rest assured that this is no laissez-faire free market. This is no socialist utopia. This is a strict monarchy and if any seizing is to be done around here, I’ll seize it ALL. :-D
But to enter the fray, let me make a few observations.
I am a die-hard capitalist. I totally believe in the market as the best tool for maximizing the economic prosperity of a society. In my view, that is an axiom proven by time and reinforced by common sense. Adam Smith was not so much a philosopher as a prophet.
But our history demonstrates that unbridled laissez-faire capitalism stinks. Just like unbridled government, capital and power tend to accumulate in the hands of a few. We have to have some breaks on power in order for the benefits of capitalism to be fully realized at every level of the social strata.
Any limit on market freedom has a net negative effect on total economic activity. Moderate Liberals like to ignore or deny this axiom because they erroneously believe that it undermines their agenda. Instead, they should embrace the truth and demonstrate why their policies produce a better overall society. Make a clear stand for the notion that while there may be a relationship, the best society is not automatically the one with the greatest GDP.
Of course Liberals will never do this for a couple of reasons. First, the American People are too stupid to follow the discussions. In order to sell a political agenda they must cater to the mass stupids. And that leads to the second point which is that honesty is not on the agenda of the Democratic Party either. They will do what ever they think is best to regain power with no regard to truth of the best interests of the American people.
But I digress. My view on what redistribution I would advocate is that I would only support redistribution in areas where either there has been a market failure to deliver basic human needs to a significant portion of society (e.g. police protection, health care) or the benefit to society is so overriding that reason compels us to do so (e.g. education, national defense).
As much as we would like this analysis to be scientific, it is not. It is more akin to engineering. We know some of the underlying rules, but the system is complex and we do not have the understanding to fully model all the forces. So, we must at times over-engineer and proceed with caution. That means in general avoiding sweeping large government programs and implementing policy in a conservative fashion. Allowing markets to adjust to the regulatory burden in the easiest way possible. Continual review of the costs, benefits and efficiency of the processes.
Sadly, we do none of this.
In truth, there is plenty that Liberals could learn from Conservatives and Conservatives could learn from Liberals if only they could put down their partisan swords and actually work on policy. Instead we fight these endless political battles that take us no where.
I would also add that I am no moderate in the sense that the term is commonly used. I’m quite radical on many subjects. I only sound moderate because of the artificial two-party political axis on which most of us live. I just naïvely believe that if we can just sit down collectively and have a substantive discussion, there is a lot of common ground in American. Unfortunately we would rather fight for exclusive rights to the high ground.
CG,
You wouldn’t be the first person to challenge that assertion. But I do agree that the distinction you are making is largely semantics. You introduce the term “robust” to make your point. I would suggest that is just a different way of saying the benefits are experienced more broadly.
History is an interesting thing to recap. What did a zero regulation environment give us? The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire. Company Stores. Chinese Coolies. Jim Crow (and don’t kid yourself, a lot of that was about economics). Oh, and lets not forget the Great Depression.
Yeah, zero regulation works really, really well.
CG,
I understand your inquiry, but in my experience lurkers can not be budged. One beer chat site I spent a LOT of time on prior to this blog had tons of lurkers. The administrator did everything he could to coax those people out to no avail. And the people who lurk aren’t not posting because of the views of anyone here. They prefer to just read and that is cool. I would like to know more about who they are, but that isn’t the way this works or even should work.
In terms of numbers, it is hard to quantify the lurkers. There are about six regular lurkers that I am aware of. There are some recurring domains in the stats that indicate a number of occasional lurkers. In terms of hits, I’d say the visible posters here are responsible for around one third of the hits on the blogsite. This ratio changes as my posts get old…the lurkers tend to read less and less until I post again. Right now, I’d say about 50% of the hits are you, Prof and Randy. I have no way of counting the RSS/Atom subscribers.
And of course, we do have a few groundhogs. They pop up out the ground every so often, throw a few nuts at all of us, then go back in there holes for a couple of months.
Since you are curious, I’ll give a list of the countries that surfers have hit my website from. Almost all of these have several hits. And the Czech Republic was on the list prior to Yoshi’s trip to Europe. Actually, quite a number of hits from there. Far and away the most foreign hits come from the UK and Canada. I’m also sure I have not caught all of these because my stat service doesn’t track this and I have to keep it up manually:
Argentina, Austrailia, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Egypt, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saint Lucia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweeden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uraguay, Virgin Islands, Wales, Yemen.
I get some great international email. I think most folks outside the US are surprised when they run on to an American that is aware the rest of the World exists and wants to have a meaningful interaction with it.
CG,
Anyone who thinks this debate is new should read Lochner v. New York. It is a classic case...really, everyone should be familiar with it.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/case37.htm
I didn't think so...but it rejected my HTML. I guess I have special rules.
Lochner v. New York.
Is that better?
Being the argumentative type. :-D
“Market failures” are rare, and the existence of someone who does not have “basic needs” is not evidence of it.
At this point I think I need to be brutally honest. There is a place for diplomacy and this is not it. We are playing economic scientist. Let the party begin.
The Market system exists everywhere in monetary and non-monetary areas of life. Its efficiency is determined by 1) information and 2) correctly interpreting that info, and 3) implementing a proper response.
If someone receives bad information (artificially held low fuel prices from price controls), interprets that information (fuel must be plentiful), and implements their response (drive like there is plenty to go around), the consequence might be unexpected (gas lines, shortages). The market system communicates price, financial incentive and rewards, and other information. It is possible if a person makes a mistake in items #1-3 that they will not receive correct information and they will receive a unfortunate response, or reward (income) at the end. Wise decisions in the market must always be accompanied with a commensurate reward. Were this not the case, there would not be incentive to seek out good information and make good decisions.
I just got an email from a client that left me last year (at his father’s request) for another CPA. He said he got bad advice from him, has filed bankruptcy, and is coming back to me for his ‘05 tax work. Bankruptcy is unpleasant. However, poor results for poor decisions must exist. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I wish no one ill. I wish no one would be poor, or bankrupt, or hungry. If a sufficient safety net exists that inhibits bad consequences to “bad market” conditions and bad decisions, incentive to make good decisions vanishes and we can all start buying swamp land and selling Herb-a-whatever Vitamins without discernment because we all cross the finish line at the same time no matter what.
Let’s visit “basic needs.” I set the bar quite low. Food, shelter, companionship, and a good dog. (Sorry, I’ve been listening to Country&Western music lately). On the other end of the spectrum as I see it are those who think basic needs are having wealthy people not out pace you by more than an arms length. Silly, yes, unmeasurable to be sure, but extant none-the-less. This undefinable “basic needs” as a goal for the “failure” of the “market” is a nice excuse for jacking with the system through the implementation of governmental controls and intervention.
Government’s track record on correcting “market failures” is atrocious at best. It hyperinflates money to destroy the foundations of our currency, which is our medium for exchange. It’s changing of tax policy has created near catastrophic consequences in real estate, oil & gas, partnerships, rental properties, etc. We used to plan 20 years out. With changing tax and non-tax laws, you’re unrealistic to plan more than 5 years into the future. The playing field changes, the information is distorted, and the government and media give bad analysis to current conditions. Remember the Carter $50 tax rebate around th spring of 1978? Fortunately Congress couldn’t agree on what to do and piddled long enough to see that we weren’t in a recession any longer and didn’t need the rebate. They were trying to stimulate the economy while it was taking off like a rocket. Why was it taking off? The printing press was running wide open. The government was making stupid “market decisions” based upon perceived market failures. Most of the failures in the “Market” were governmental intervention distorting the market. That was the case in the 1920's.
Unlike Common Good’s model of how the world works, where each person is an island - a social island, an economic island, and a geographic island - when a person (not the market) fails to meet his own basic needs, people from everywhere step in to help. That is less noticeable today because of what? Because of recent governmental intervention in taking care of us. We now see government as the one who should wake us up and tuck us in and everything in between. C.G. often says “what about the person who does not have a church, etc.” Well, they have a social community too. And if not, if they are an isolationist, or a child molester that everyone hates, well how about that? There are consequences for those actions too.
I do not wish anyone to be poor. But I certainly do not wish for a world where I can gamble away all my money, my house, my pickup, and yes, my dog, and in the end government rights it all, enabling me to continue my destructive behavior.
Prof. Ricardo
Nobody is saying it yet, but in a lot of cases no one is going to build back in New Orleans. Insurers were already jittery about hurricanes. This will even will not only make building in New Orleans difficult, it will have ramifications for the entire Gulf Coast. Now the stuff that survived with minimal damage, that will be restored to operation because the capital investments are already made. The mortgages have already left the building. But new capital outside of government money-forget about it. The exception will be things like tourist operations and gambling operations. The return on those is so high that actuarially speaking they will find the risk reasonable. Anything that doesn’t pay out in a few years isn’t happening.
Prof,
While I agree that government intervention often does unreasonably distort the market, that does not mean that absent government intervention, the market would work wonderfully. See the examples I gave. Do you think the conditions the pre-teens worked under at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory were a good thing? Of course you don’t…I know you are a decent guy. The point is the zero regulation thing never worked even back during America’s most regulation free era.
I have been and will continue to be an animated critic of government regulation and the creeping fascism which is our government and big business are drifting further into every day. That doesn’t mean I want the opposite extreme either.
I’ve been pouring over the electronic sales circulars trying to figure out what to buy with my FEMA debit card. Any ideas? Have y’all got yours yet?
Prof. Ricardo
PS Yoshi, I’ve got lots of work today. I’m glad your thinking. You’re on the Professor’s Honor Roll for this one. I’ll give you a response later on the real wages hurt by inflation scenario later when I get home.
I've been "reading" and "lurking (what ever that means) since last spring. Much of the time the commentary has been interesting, enlightening and only occasionally over my head. A few postings sounded like Junior High boys locker room talk. But I suppose you're entitled.
Thinking about the disaster in the gulf, I have been worrying more and more about what is going to happen over time to the displaced folks and the communities that have taken them in. I wish it weren't so but my gut and life experiences tell me things are not going to go well. Eileen McNamara's column in todays Boston Globe is right on point.
G-Ma
G-Ma,
Welcome. I’m glad you posted. Sorry about the locker room talk. Sometimes you have to be patient with us boys…I am told that we will grow up eventually.
I think the story of the displaced folks is going to unfold fairly quickly. A good friend of mine whom I got to talk with for a few minutes on Saturday is down in Houston doing volunteer work. The stories are absolutely horrible, but he feels progress is rapidly being made. They have already closed one of the facilities in Houston as they find better housing for them. A large number of them are looking to settle in Texas as they have no home or job to go back to.
I find it a bit sad when I hear some people talking about going back and rebuilding. While I’m sure that is appropriate in most cases, clearly there is a lot that will not be rebuilt. I have never been a Saints fan, but I was happy with their win yesterday. Pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes just a little shred of hope is a good thing.
TC,
Well you know, I was making a much broader criticism of the administration than simply the Katrina criticism. I still feel completely comfortable pointing out what an abysmal failure this administration is that after four years of supposedly preparing us for terrorist activity that we are undeniably as ill prepared today as we were on September 10, 2001.
And note that I have been extremely critical of this administration on the point of inadequate preparation for inevitable terrorist activity since the day Shrub hired that idiot Ridge for the job and telegraphed his intention to do nothing but create a political masquerade. But hey, Ready.gov sure looks pretty.
I am equally amused at the Democratic outrage. Like they ever did a thing to help in preparedness. Makes me want to puke. I could care less about who gets credit or blame. What I care about is actual preparedness for the inevitable disasters of our future. We clearly aren’t ready and I just can’t take the end of civilization so lightly. I mean, that could mean the cancellation of the entire football season.
Texas Conservative,
Once again, you are on top of it. Bravo.
Major objective in Homeland Security that MUST be accomplished to achieve preparedness: Eliminate mass stupidity. How do we do that? Eradicate political correctness. And how do we do that? Regain control of our children’s minds. Gov.skool is teaching our kids crap intense, values neutral, substandard, geared-to-the-test, simulated information, not to be confused with knowledge, understanding, or wisdom. This extends into college where the most vile, despicable, and loathsome creature to walk the planet (a professor) indoctrinates every last iota of common sense and virtue from your child and replaces it with “political correctness.”
The not-so-funny thing about it is, the parents willingly sacrifice their children on the alter of the traditions of man: delegating to someone else their primary responsibility.
Prof. Ricardo
TexaCon,
Well, I think there are a few obvious things you do for preparedness. I have posted here on many of those and discussed them with a bunch of people including a few who post here.
But first, let me just say that I find those people who for political purposes attack the President and the administration as the sole culprits as disgusting as the next guy. We have too much politics in this country and I hope if I have set forth anything effectively, it would be that point.
Nothing can illustrate better than events like 9-11 and Katrina why the need for a Federally directed first response. Look back at the major disasters that I enumerated: each one completely overwhelmed the local responders ability to deal with the situation.
And know this: would be terrorists were watching and learning.
The funny thing about it is that it has generally been the Shrub apologist chiding those of us opposed to his anti-American agenda for not “getting that this is a war”. Or often accusing us of worse. But now a real disaster occurs of the magnitude of 9-11 and the GOP sheep rush to defend our lack of preparedness.
You know, I do realize how much effort has gone into local disaster planning. I’m sure the planning quality varies, but I do think we are much better prepared for events that are contained to a somewhat local scale. My friend who is working as a police Chaplain with the Katrina survivors is very impressed with the Houston PDs response. And he has been around some of these disasters.
But again I refer you back to the national nature of the terrorism threat. There is nothing substantively different about what happened in New Orleans had the event been a dirty bomb instead of a Hurricane. Except of course every person in every corner of America would be in a near state of panic fearing additional attacks. And it is that inevitable panic that is poised to end our society forever.
Contrast our current situation with where we would be with an effective emergency response. If the Department of Homeland Security did their job. What should have happened was an effective communication response should have begun immediately. Federal officials should have been detailing the response plan to keep people calm. And the response plan should’ve included some form of Federal presence on the ground within hours. How much more convincing would our national preparedness seem if they had been fully communicating in the early hours of the unfolding disaster with information about the local response failures and the measures being taken to plug the gap.
You see, I’m not criticizing the lack of water drops per se. In a disaster, there will be twist and turns that are unforeseeable. I get that. What I am criticizing is the lack of any planning whatsoever to deal with that which is unforeseeable only in that its details are presently unknown.
Count me with those Americans who are praying fervently that nothing happens which would need an organized Federal response to prevent social chaos. It is abundantly clear that nothing of significance has been accomplished to address large scale attacks. A little hazmat training and taking your shoes off in the airport may make you feel better but not me.
Yoshi,
I suspect one’s opinion on professorial political viewpoints depends on your school. I can tell you that in my experience most of my professors were extremely liberal to radical left. A number of Marxists and those I suspected where Marxists. A few hippies as well.
Of course I’m a bit older than you and that was more fashionable in the early 80s.
But you haven’t lived if you haven’t been taught economics by a Marxist.
....help.....crushed under... ...loads... ....paper.... ....errrrgh.
yoshi...ur experienc...not typical...see lnk, pg.6.
< /a harumph >=a.....forget it....
http://www.cmpa.com/documents/05.03.29.Forum.Survey.pdf
p.r.
C.G.,
So our best defense against terrorism is a better educated public. Interesting.
I said: “Eliminate mass stupidity.”
A path to that is to short circuit known indoctrinations of stupidity.
Ever wonder why we frisk old white women in wheel chairs, confiscate fingernail clippers and children’s safety scissors for homeland security? Other than the superficial thrill we give our undocumented security guards, I believe it is a consequence of political correctness, which is the step child of liberalism. Liberalism oversteps the correct doctrine of equality of human value to produce equality of outcome. Political correctness takes this to its logical conclusion of treating different levels of threatening people and treats them alike (ie. No profiling, middle eastern men with suicide garments and C4 treated like invalids and school children). The ridiculousness and bankruptcy of this philosophy escapes no one. However, few can connect the dots to find out the root cause of this ridiculous behavior. Our school children have become “team players” rather than independent thinkers, and thus mass government educated/thinking lobotomized individuals roam the country accounting for, what was Tony’s description? Oh yes, Mass Stupids. Ctrl + Alt + Del -> gov.skool & liberal college ed = mass thinkers = sensible environment to discuss and implement reasonable terrorism measures.
Prof. Ricardo
CG said, ”The majority has been wrong so often, it's obvious they can not be trusted.”
Better be careful making sense like that. You can run afoul of lots of other beliefs you espouse.
One of my consistent themes has been that majority rule sucks when you are dealing with fundamental rights. The problem is that people of every political stripe swerve off into the majoritarianism at times. You for one are quite comfortable with the majority imposing its will on the minority in the area of education to name one example. TexaCon has weighed in enthusiastically for majority rule back during the old gay marriage battles. Note that there was a time when a majority of Americans wished to add Ronald Reagan’s physiognomy to Mouth Rushmore.
So which is it? Should the majority rule or not?
I’d restate my own position again, but I have done so frequently and will try to avoid boring you all even further. The bottom line is that majority rule sounds great as long as you are in the majority.
CG,
What an amazingly weak response. I am very disappointed.
We have gone around and around on this. I’m tempted to just blow it off. But in the interests of the broader discussion, I’ll indulge a bit more.
It is impossible to make the case that taking tax dollars is not the majority imposing its will. Your argument is that this is a good thing. So the question is how does that affect my fundamental rights. In this case, the right to educate my child in the way that is best for him.
As you know, this has gone from being abstract for me to quite real in the last few months. My position has not changed in the last quarter century, but now I find myself exactly where so many others have been before. If I had the eight thousand dollars of taxes that the state has taken from me to educate my kid, I would be able to send him to the school that would work for him. And in our case, there is exactly the right school and I can not afford it.
But that was focusing in on one issue. I believe that you are on record for supporting majority rule on other issues as well. Such as abortion where you point out that most people do not think it is murder.
Regardless of the detailed issues, my question was on majority rule.
Common Good: Prof... I'm for profiling and universal healthcare.
Notice to family and friends: If in 2005, you are still fighting against universal healthcare, you ARE IMMORAL.
Interesting. So, does this mean you are for legislating morality? You religious fanatic, you. :-)
So who’s morality should we legislate? Yours (dictatorship)? The majorities (Democracy, lynch rule)? Or individual freedom to do what you will as long as it does not intrude on others?
In your world of “universal healthcare,” would doctors and individuals be punished, even with prison sentences for getting any medical healthcare outside of the system (like Hillarycare)? You know how stupid governmental rule making can be. Are you content with a world where people will die because the healthcare they could get to would be “outside the system”, therefore they didn’t go, therefore they died? Remember three planes flew to their graves with compliant passengers on 9/11, only the final one did the passengers act on their own did they have a reasonable chance to avert disaster. If universal healthcare is like ANY other governmental program and shows great inefficiency, waste, and lack of responsiveness, and if it is like ANY other socialist nation’s healthcare in long waits, sometimes months for emergency appendectomies and such, I suspect we can imagine there are those who might not want to wait in lines like you see at community hospitals currently dispensing “free” healthcare. The net effect will be a decrease in the net health of our nation. This decrease in net healthcare will be met with intense need to do something. That something will involve more money, more control and intrusion, and more failure. But hey, it’s the thought that counts.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
I was making a general observation that majority rule stinks. Then I gave a specific example where you think majority rule is just fine immediately after you had posted that the majority is not to be trusted. I should have picked a different example so I could keep you on topic. :-D
The $8,000 figure is what they spend per kid in Texas. Granted, I did not pay my $8,000 this year, but like you I paid a lot of years I did not have a kid in school. If I had all the tax money back…which by the way is not what I’m asking for…I could send my kid anywhere I wanted.
The argument that the tax consequences violate my fundamental rights is irrefutable. The counter argument that you always use is that I can take my kid elsewhere and that I’m being taxed for education is entirely relevant.
In terms of the constitution, it is express in the law and implied by natural rights theory that any power not expressly granted to the government is reserved to the states and the people. You are right, the Constitution does not address it, so it is still mine. The special case is those powers we have given the government to infringe on our human rights.
Actually, when I made the argument about determining your child’s education being a fundamental right it was rooted in the nature of parenthood. The right to become a parent and to raise you kid as you see fit has always been one of the most protected of our liberties. That right has been seized from me without my consent.
C.G.: Let's see.... multi-millonaire avoid estate tax OR all kids have heathcare? Tough choice.... NOT.
I didn’t say avoid tax. That’s all lumped together anyway. I said seek the actual HEALTHCARE, that item you want to be so universal - Can I have an out of the system doctor put a band-aid on my finger?
No more dodge ball. Answer the question.
Prof. Ricardo
“All kids?” Really. I’m tearing up already, sniff, sniff.
Tony: The right to become a parent and to raise you kid as you see fit has always been one of the most protected of our liberties. That right has been seized from me without my consent.
Amen. Hallelujah. Pass the plate.
Prof. Ricardo
CG,
Move a few pawns and you think you have me checkmated? I’ll bet you have world peace totally mastered too.
Matters of national defense are totally different. You have consented to that…check your Constitution. Obviously I have wasted a lot of packets explaining how our legal system works. Not that it bothers me that much to know that I am talking to myself. It was never an impediment to me before.
How do you figure renters don’t pay property tax? Where do you think your landlord gets the money to pay property taxes? I’ve met your landlord and while he is certainly a good guy, I don’t think he is just eating that expense.
Now as tempting as it is to conclude this post with extreme ridicule and bombastic condescension, instead let me rescue you from your own confusion and make your case for you. Don’t expect this treatment all of the time: I’m just in a particularly generous mood today.
I do think we deserve our money back on Iraq. The Government does not have the power to wage war absent a declaration of war. The War Powers act is itself unconstitutional. The various authorizations that have occurred down through the years since the enactment of that piece of excrement known as the WPA are themselves a dereliction of office and violation of the individual oaths of office by congressmen sufficient to warrant removal from office. (Notice I did not say impeachment because that is a Congressional act.)
And by the way, I will say “you are welcome” in advance. Anytime you need me to think for you, do not hesitate to ask. A mind is, after all, a terrible thing to waste.
This should cause some excitement.
Remedial math:
When I did own a home (a long time ago in a cheap neighborhood), my property taxes were approximately $1,500 per year. I’ll use that extremely conservative number-its probably closer to $4,000 a year now.
Now take age 25 to 65 as my actuarial expectation of paying those taxes…that is 40 years. That translates into $60,000. Divide that by the twelve years of education of my kid, and it comes up $5,000 per year. I’m close using the most conservative numbers I could muster. Factor in inflation, the time value of money, and the fact that I’ll probably pay the taxes for more than 40 years and it is extremely lopsided. Which is what I would expect since I am subsidizing lower wage earners.
TexaCon,
You asked, ” How would we ever elect a president then? There have to be institutions that lend themselves to a system of having the public speak for what should be.”
Well, you are taking me a bit out of context as I was speaking about fundamental rights. To say it plainly, I think that majority rule has no place whatsoever in determining what one’s human rights protections should be. This is the real genius of our system of laws.
It doesn’t matter that the majority wishes to impose its religious views on Christians though its legal mandate of a secular education. It doesn’t matter that the majority wishes to prevent homosexuals from getting married in their own church. It doesn’t matter that the Southern Baptists wish to deprive me of my pint of stout.
But even in the context of legislation within the governments enumerated powers, there are many mechanisms that attempt to dilute the rush of the majority. The founders were worried about mob rule probably as much as any other single factor.
The quintessential liberal President George Bush who never met a government program he wanted to veto and never met a need he didn’t want to spend your money on to fix, once again bought more votes (Hey, I thought this was his last term?) by promising the world to N.O. this week, thus providing EVEN MORE EVIDENCE that our good friend Common Good talks a good talk about George and his rich buddies and their all out war on the poor, without any real evidence to support it (Remember C.G., politicians lie, politicians lie, politicians lie, they talk conservative, they spend like liberals, politicians lie).
So far FEMA money has been spent for $700 purses in Atlanta and at Strip Clubs in Houston. How such a Diva of the Welfare world can be such a hated member of the left is beyond me. Oh, now I remember. He doesn’t favor filling dumpsters with dead baby parts. How silly of me. To be a real Democrat, A real woman has got to have some real rights. And if you ain’t got the right to killin’ chillen - You just ain’t got rights.
Prof. Ricardo
M-Th.=60hrs
C.G.: “what's the 60 hrs?”
Work. I left work at 10:15 M, Th, and after midnight T, Wed. I was as worthless today as a Democrat at an economic summit.
Yoshi,
I was thinking of the value of formal university education. For example, your obsession with the Gold Standard and "real wages" is way off course.
Its not an obsession. You can barely see the Krugurands from any room in the house? :-D But seriously, what is money? It is a medium of exchange that has value and has widespread acceptability and/or use. We (US) went from gold & silver coins to gold & silver certificates to “federal notes,” which have no inherent value, other than they are currently acceptable by other people. Governments have been inflating monies for dozens of centuries. The ridges on your “silver” coins is to prevent “clipping,” a process where by people shaved the edges off coins, devaluing the coin. Precious metals have value anywhere. It has a certain weight, a certain purity or proof. When governments and societies move to paper money, the money is so easily devalued by the printing press. This creates a shaky financial foundation for businesses to thrive on.
We don’t necessarily have to return to exchanging gold coins. But tying the currency to gold, it restricts government from devaluing the currency. Consider it a “security net” if you will. We can get deeper into this if you wish, but my interest lies at a level of demanding accountability from my government rather than sitting on top of a pile of Krugerands with an M16 and a box of Krispy Kremes defending the homeland from black helicopters.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
I tend to agree that universal healthcare is problematic. That said, I don’t think the direction we are headed is wholesome either. Too many hard working people can no longer afford health care. The statistics tell us that it is continuing to get worse all the time. So do you have any ideas on how to fix it? I have a few but am not totally thrilled with my thinking on this.
Yoshi,: “My aunt recently had to have reconstructive surgery on her face. The doctor cut her a significant price break because her insurance from work wouldn't cover it all.”
Imagine that. Within the free enterprise system, price varied with ability to pay. Why do you suppose? Do you think the doctor didn’t want to loose a sale and made money anyway? I think so. Doctors can charge large sums because people don’t generally pay for medical costs. Insurance companies and governments generally do. Remove both, like in your aunt’s case, and wala! Lower medical costs. “Affordable health care.” Mandating a deep pocket (Gov. or Ins. or a concoction of both) covering every medical expense will guarantee skyrocketing medical costs and a bankrupt system. But hey, what does logic, tried and true economic laws, and your family’s personal experience got to do with anything.
Prof. Ricardo
Common: “Newsflash #1: Any society that excludes it's poor from healthcare will have an efficient system.”
Exclude - v.t., 1. To thrust out, 2. To hinder from entering or admission; to shut out, 3. To debar; to hinder from participation.
Our society does not “exclude” poor from receiving healthcare. Apparently, access or “exclusivity” in your opinion is determined by the presence of medical insurance - one of the things that I attribute the “problem” of the high cost and “exclusivity” of premium healthcare.
Healthcare, I would assume, is the care received for one’s health. Applying a Band-Aid is healthcare. So are heart transplants and everything in between. Are you saying that 40,000,000 people do not have access to band-aids? Or incrementally the next level? Or the next?
I bet I have less “healthcare” than you do based upon your definition. But I have sufficient healthcare based upon needs. We will never have the same healthcare because we will never have exactly the same needs. But you weren’t talking about healthcare. You were talking about health insurance. The liberal nomenclature to evoke an emotional response demands that the word “healthcare” be used in your arguments, even though it is inaccurate in describing what you are trying to describe - the ability to pay for healthcare.
If ability to pay is determined based upon the presence of third party deep pockets such as government and insurance, then, although misleading, your 40,000,000 w/o healthcare is “correct.” As I have argued with you in the past, and linked to a site showing that the 40 million figure is persons over a year that have been without, usually because of moving from one job to another, the actualy continuously UNINSURED populace is somewhere around 25 million, OR less than 10% of our population. However, if we define those who seek essential medical care and do not receive it, that is a much, much smaller figure. EVEN illegal aliens that are uninsured, swarm here by the millions and are treated, taught, employed, and benefitted by our “efficient system.” IF NOT, why then do these rational people leave the socialist utopian paradise of Mexico for the free enterprise Hell hole of America at their own peril? Absolutely ludicrous. But thanks for playing. Next?
Newflash #2: A moral society measures it's healthcare system by the number it excludes, rather than best profit margin.
Says who? You? Bwwaaaaahaahaa! You have yet to corral a rational thought on the topic (nothing personal :). A moral society is one that does not condone immoral acts. Last I read, you are for sodomy, abortion, and punitive/confiscatory level taxation to teach those bad wealthy people to not be so greedy in accumulating wealth, but should be frivolous and live for the moment. You are for society to be governed by the majority exclusive of any religious value judgments (your broadly defined theocracy-phobia) and mostly contrary to known widely accepted value judgements. BTW, it is profit margin that secures healthcare. Johnson & Johnson wants you to use their products. Sure they wish you good health, but it is their profit margin that drives them day after day to provide you the goods. It is your Mercedes-Benz driving doctor that has the profit margin to render healthcare - He has the incentive. Your non-commissioned based bureaucrats world wide have destroyed healthcare worldwide in the name of bringing it to the poor. Regardless of the collective goals, they individually have no incentive to provide "healthcare".
Newsflash #3: We spend $ 400 billion a year on the military. Do you really want to make the case bringing in the uninsured will bankrupt us?
Neither would giving me $10 billion just for grins. However, is that good stewardship over the funds and is it permitted in the governing instrument of the government? And what does spending, or overspending, in one area of the budget have to do with the correctness in spending in the other areas. Well Mommy, Timmy did it too! Good grief Charlie Brown.
Prof. Ricardo
C.G.,
“Obi-wan of excluding the poor from healtcare... please explain to me how the moral equation changes whether the excluded number is 40 million, 25 million, 10% or 1 poor sucker excluded. I can't wait to hear how you arrive at a acceptable moral percentage cutoff. This should be good.”
It’s frustrating. Not only are we not on the same field, you’re playing golf and I’m fishing. So when I mention “hook,” you think you know what I said. That’s the reason I have asked you I don’t know how many times to define poor, to define your terms.
When I talk about economic laws, I am not talking about those economic conditions that I necessarily wish to exist, but those that do exist and that help to explain what has happened and predict what will happen. Case in point:
Given the current topic, let us take a doctor and a Lexus up in a plane. About 13,000 feet will do. Both are useful and at any particular time we might desire one over the other. Now let’s thrust both of them out the back of the plane. What happens? Given the LAW of gravity both will begin to fall. Do we want them to fall? Regardless of what we want, both the vehicle and the person will both react to the LAW of gravity. We can not say: “We’ll let (capitalist) gravity affect the car, but the healthcare provider is needed for the common good so we don’t want the LAW of gravity to act upon it.”
Economic laws can not be broken. In my business I bill according to what I think people (the market) will bear given the service provided. I do not take this lightly. I often adjust my fee (down) based upon what I assume the client can afford. If you were to walk in my office and say, “I have the full backing of the US government to cover any charges I run up,” how much adjusting down would I do? How about adjusting upwards? If what I am doing is soooo valuable that the government has taken upon itself to subsidize it, I could easily rationalize myself as being worth 2-10 times my current value. That will be the destruction of healthcare. The government’s answer to that is to control costs and make it mandatory. That has happened in other countries. That is the reason there are so many Canadian doctors in Florida in the winter. They earn what they are allowed to by government law, then they go to their winter home abandoning their medical practice because further work does not increase their wages (those greedy devils). Who do you think supplies medical care while the doctors are on vacation?
“Newsflash #4: When one views the conservative views of our nation as a Hell hole... and perpetuator (sp??) of bigger holes... one is not defining America as a Hell hole.”
There we go again. Not even on the same topic. I was relating, not conservative America, but America as it exists WHATEVER IT IS as apparently more desirable for people to flock to, ie illegal and legal aliens, over their more socialist (ie., we take care of the poor...) homelands.
“Conservative is not equal with America...”
If we go back to the point that I was making, are you saying the immigrants came here for our conservativism? :-)
I said: “A moral society is one that does not condone immoral acts.”
C.G.: “Not really...”
I must admit, to my own embarrassment I burst out laughing. I almost had to clean my office chair. Almost.
“a moral society is one that takes care of it's poor and most needy.”
...by killing wealthy white men and selling their meat to soap factories. But wait! That sounds absurd. I guess it DOES matter how one goes about this doesn’t it? Should we commit immoral acts to attain moral objectives? Should we introduce a method of guaranteeing “healthcare” (excuse me, the ability for the daddy and mommy to pay for Johnny's trip to the doctor) that requires us to abandon known economic laws to achieve success?
I’ll address other issues momentarily.
Prof. Ricardo
Common Good,
“I didn't understand your frivolous and live for the moment.”
I have tried to get you to define “poor” or what a “fair” rate of taxation for a certain level of income/wealth are. The more precise the definition, the greater I can slaughter your arguments, er, I mean understand your point of view. :-)
A common characteristic of wealthy people is that they save money by spending LESS than they make. A common characteristic of poor people is that they spend more money than they make. There are actually high income individuals who have little to show for all the money they have made. They have been “frivolous and live for the moment.” I have been unable to wrestle from you whether the evil rich man consists purely of high income, purely of accumulated wealth, or some combination of both. In previous blog topics you lamented the existence of vacation homes, and other extravagances. This makes me think that wealth accumulation, ie spending less than one makes, is “bad” to you, and must be taxed. Thus, a burdensome, yet enlightening, explanation of why I used the phrase “frivolous and live for the moment.”
“The wealthy aren't the only one's in the country who need to back off the current accepted norms of our sense of entitlement.”
Outrageous! Do you think you and your wife are entitled to your own paychecks? That paycheck is the other half of a contract. You worked. They paid. Get it? Wealthy people might work harder, but their reward is generally for innovation, knowledge, and the risk to bring their product or service to the people. Their sense of entitlement is one in which a person has fulfilled his portion of a contract and is ENTITLED to having the other person fulfill their end by paying.
The “entitlement mentality” whereby merely by being a certain race, gender, or economic status, other people owe you is the entitlement mentality everybody believes is so repugnant and harmful.
“We have an economic Katrina providing mind blowing TRICKLE UP to the bank accounts of the top 2%. Good luck making the argument that that is as it should me... a moral result of a moral economic system.”
How did that money go up stream? People just mailed ‘em checks? Did the government mandate it? Or did each person, maybe multiple times a day, trade his currency, his labor, for some good or service. And if you thought you were better off without the good or service, why did you trade? If you are better off with the trade, why the jealousy? Does it make you feel better knowing the gas station that just sold you $2.75/gal. fuel paid $2.81/gallon (his cost) and is having a loss, rather than $2.59/gal. ? What does it matter to you if he made a profit or a loss? What does it matter to you if he saved his profits (wealth accumulation) or wasted it gambling? Is “trickle up” the theory that if people purchase your goods, you actually get paid for them (unlike N.O.) Or is it where you did get paid, but rather than being “frivolous and live for the moment,” you invested your money wisely for the future and became the 2%? Is this a punishable offense?
Prof. Ricardo
Tony is always conspicuously absent when C.G. and I go at it. I feel not unlike a contestant in a Roman coliseum. Where did that lion come from? Nice kitty, ni...aaaaaghghh......
Prof. Ricardo
Prof,
Did not mean to be absent. I do like to just sit back and read at times. I think the two of you have fleshed it out well.
But I view the both of you as extreme endpoints. Rest here in what TexaCon calls the creamy center. Universal Healthcare in the sense of just automagically you have unlimited access will never work. This is illustrated by the problems we have to day with the wide spread availability of first dollar coverage. OK…first dollar isn’t so common, but the deductibles and co-pays are really low for to many people.
This does not however mean that I do not want to cover people for their needs. And I side with CG on the notion that relying on private generosity is inefficient. I tend more toward programs where the government pays a premium to a private insurer. I realize that makes neither extreme happy, but I don’t believe in abandoning the market any more than I believe in just letting run impeded in every respect.
There...I threw the Lion a little raw meat.
C.G. “The question is... as I have asked before: what is the optimum government revenue tax rate G-Spot?”
Good question. Let me cloud the issue for you. :-)
First, you didn’t ask what it does to business. Obviously, there is a reduction in what business/people get to keep when the first dollar of tax is taken. So overall there is an inverse relationship. If you make $100 and the government takes “X”, then by definition you are left with $100 - X. I felt in this case the obvious needed to be stated.
Second, and you may not have thought of this, taxation may be either monetary or non monetary. Red tape, government reports, regulations, standards, licensing, etc. all costs business time and money. My job exists mostly because of government regulation and the burden it places on business - and I only handle a very small part of their government burden. We will revisit this point shortly.
Third, there are too many factors/variables to develop a mathematical model to use, but I’ll make one up for you anyway (this is fun).
(Income earned x (1-disincentive rate)) - (Income earned x tax rate) = after tax personal income.
Income earned - after tax personal income - Income not earned from loss of incentive = tax revenue generated.
Remember the case I gave you where the semi-retired Wal-Mart worker was taxed over 50%. That marginal tax rate might keep that person from actually working any more. Similarly, extra burdens on business for human resources, unemployment taxes, workmans comp ins., human resource issues, health insurance and benefits costs, etc, might prohibit a business from hiring another person and deriving income from that new employees work.
It seems to me that it is the overall burden of external requirements from either the Federal, state, and local governments, whether tax or regulatory, that determine the level of disincentive. Therefore, it is possible that in a low or non-regulatory economy you could have a high overall rate of taxation, say 40% and receive peak revenue. But as states seek more, and regulatory burdens increase, that portion that the federal government takes must go down to keep the disincentive low and the revenues in the sweet spot. Given the high level of regulatory burden, and states and local governments struggling to tax the snot out over every breathing creature to pay for schools, county and city services, local social welfare expenditures, this leaves less room for the federal government to tax before the disincentive exists.
As a person or business, you may say I’ll work an extra hour or sell an extra widget if I get to keep 50% of my efforts. But if regulation takes 10% of your efforts, and local and state governments take 8 % of your efforts, that only leaves 32% taxation or your efforts before you throw up your hands and walk away. From that 32% you subtract 15.3% for social security and medicare, and BAM, you are left with 16.7% tax rate. The individual does not care to whom the burden must be paid for disincentive. He only knows that at a certain level he will not participate any further. And for each person that point is different. And at each income level that same person may have a different idea. If I had the chance to earn a ten million dollars with a 90% tax rate, I would do it since it is so far above what I could do elsewhere. Whereas, if I were a highly paid actor/sports star, that extra million might not be worth the extra ten million dollars worth of effort.
I hope this helps. Your argument might be less with the conservatives than it should be with higher taxing local and state governments and the encroaching regulations. They are the ones cutting into your sweet spot of Federal revenue. I think Forbes has it: a $25,000/$50,000 exemption for singles/married’s and a 17% flat tax rate thereafter. Add in the FICA 15.3%. I don’t know what Forbes has to say about this, but if we implement his setup, till we privatize a portion of Social Security to save the program, tax wages to $200K-$500K for SS. The overall tax rate would be 32.3% for the federal part of their burden.
Prof. Ricardo
O’Really is a moron. You would think people would be starting to get a clue that supply has more to do with the price than any other factor. I’m not saying that there isn’t some gouging going on but there is a lot more to it than simple greed.
For instance, the governments continual unwillingness to plan for the inevitable supply problems. We have been so massively misguided by our leadership for decades that it is criminal.
Common,
Thanks for the compliments. You said: “I believe the disincentive concern is way over-hyped.”
I would agree for the employee portion of society. If your wages will have the taxes deducted out and all you ever see is the net check, you’ll probably take whatever you can get and walk away happy. Given you are only going to work so many hours a week anyway, it’s probably a non issue.
However, the plot thickens when, as a self-employed person, more work may be you working harder, or investing in larger equipment, or hiring more employees. And I would say that tax rate is probably not as much of an issue as regulations. A business with many employees is probably making enough to afford an extra employee to handle human resource issues, OSHA and EPA and Labor Department requirements. But take Joe Carpenter sole proprietor with no employees. To add his first employee will require paying me (or spending the time to learn and do it himself) for 4 Form 941 quarterly reports, 4 Texas Workforce Commission quarterly reports, 1 annual Form 940 FUTA return, W2/W3 statements, probably some 1099 statements at the end of the year. He might have to have Workmans Comp Ins. Audit and calculate wages on a non-calendar year basis. He’ll have to post minimum wage law, anti discrimination, and sexual harassment posters somewhere. And he has to stay on top of all the changes from year to year.
Year end tax planning I often get the question “do I need to buy something (vehicles are popular) to get write-offs this year?” “Lease vs purchase?” “How much of this new equipment can I expense?” So, in a lot of cases you are right in that they go ahead and “make” the extra dough, but if it’s substantially above what they are used to making, they often spend the extra on an asset so as not to “give it to the IRS.” I would say there have been quite a few expenditures made solely as a statement to the IRS, and often contrary to prudence and good business sense.
Another sad consequence is the black market, the cash & barter market. My mother used to play cards with a couple, Democrats all the way to their spinal column, loved that big government. She was a hair dresser, got tips, but didn’t report any of it on her tax return. In her words: “But that’s my money.”
We all have what we feel are injustices in the world. God bless you for looking out for the less fortunate. A lot of small business folk see injustices of government intrusion and taxation. If you live a $40,000 a year life style, you make after expenses $47,000, but the government wants you to cough up $10,000 in taxes, your now $3,000 short. You think to yourself: “But I made $47,000! I should be able to make it.” So you resent government. I’ve seen it a number of times.
I don’t know if you have ever been self-employed, but you may want to give it a go. Consider it an education. Sell crap on ebay, install fencing around neighborhoods, you can make decent money laying tile, sell web pages, repair computers, lay networks, whatever. Don’t do multilevel trash where you hand out tapes to you family and pets and write-off latte’s while losing your spouse’s money. I’ve seen enough of that. Make this the University of Prof. School of small business. Go through the steps of having to find out what local government’s require of you (meet code), whether you need to collect sales tax and how often to report it, keep records, pay expenses, and then try not to spend what you just made ‘cause it ain’t yours. Most of it is, the rest is Aunt Sams to spend on Bush’s war, Katrina & Rita FEMA debit card parties, and so forth.
It will be most illuminating. People should diversify their income and talents anyway.
Ta ta,
Prof. Ricardo
Common Good, a comment. You just made, and have made in the past, a comment about the “fixed pie” that we can split up. It is no small concept to muster. To the untrained eye ;-) it would seem that if there were a fixed sum of money and a fixed number of people, that if someone got wealthier it would be at someone else’s expense. I would like to attempt at dispelling that myth.
This get’s back to the old Adam Smith deal about voluntary change. He didn’t invent it. He just recognized it and explained it.
If an exchange is voluntary it will take place only if both parties to the exchange believe they will benefit. Read that again because it is profound.
That statement alone destroys the notion of a “fixed pie.” In a voluntary exchange, if you did not think you would be better off, you would not exchange your money, or labor, or widgets for whatever the other person is offering. A rational person seeks to better himself, seeks survival, seeks satisfaction and comfort. So a rational person will trade money for sustenance and other items that are deemed desirable or beneficial. A voluntary exchange is not necessarily monetary and may not be considered beneficial in hindsight. A non-monetary exchange might be your time exchanged for TV watching, going to church, volunteering at the shelter, or doing Crack. In hindsight you may have wished you hadn’t wasted your time watching TV when yard work needed to be done or thrusting yourself further into your Crack addiction, but at the moment you initiated your exchange you believed you would benefit.
When you pull up to the pump and fuel is $3, $4, or $5 per gallon, you have to make a choice. Is my money worth more to me than this fuel, or rather what this fuel can do for me? You may not think fuel is “worth it” but showing up for work is, so you open your wallet. The cost of not doing so is higher than doing so. You make a voluntary effort to part with your money because you believe you will benefit.
Now that we have beat that dog into submission... The theory that there is a fixed pie sees one party to the exchange benefitting at the other’s expense. But since neither party to an exchange will participate if they think they will be worse off, then that case simply does not exist. Think of a transaction that exists where one party took advantage of another. I’m not talking fraud where the little old couple gives up $4,000 to have their house re-whatevered and the person does not deliver. That’s a criminal act or civil wrong that when righted or delivered, would bring about the initial satisfaction sought in the exchange.
Think of the price of something you want that’s too high, say Windows XP Professional full version at $299.00. If you do not believe you will benefit, don’t buy it. If you “have to have it” then buy it, but that’s its cost. Would you pay $100,000 for it? Of course not, that’s absurd. So in a world of “I have to have it” there is a price at which it is not “worth it,” It just falls somewhere between $299 and $100K. Same thing with cars, groceries, fuel, housing, Ipods, you name it.
I have absolutely no problems with fuel retailers charging whatever the market will bear. Whenever there is a bad crop of tomatoes and the price skyrockets 4 fold, I don’t hear people call it “gouging.” They know the supply and demand relationship and because tomatoes are optional and they can purchase and eat something else, it’s no big deal. That same economic law applied to fuel, because we have all become reliant on a steady stream of low cost transportation, we are much more offended when the same economic laws apply and our financially fragile lifestyle is upset. (I do not mean to imply that by understanding this that I wish to have a higher fuel bill and am unaffected by these higher prices.) But whatever the price, the retailer will exchange only if he sees a benefit and whatever the price, if you decide to exchange, it will only be because you see a benefit. You both are better off after the transaction. The pie is larger by that one transaction. Two people each had something. By trading those somethings they both are now better off. The pie is bigger by every voluntary transaction. Anytime you can take your given wealth at that instant, make an exchange where you benefit, are you not wealthier by your supposed benefit that you hoped for immediately after the exchange? Both parties wealth increased with the exchange. The pie is bigger by every voluntary transaction.
Conversely, If an exchange is not voluntary, you may not be better off. Government mandated taxation, mandated expenditures for A.D.A., etc. do not expand the pie. Money is transferred from one person to another where one party does not benefit or think they benefit.
It all makes sense to me, but I don’t know if I have explained or confused the subject. Anyway, when Bill Gates and Exxon/Mobil get wealthy, it is because millions of people felt they benefitted from the exchange of a small portion of their labor or wealth for a small portion of what that business has to offer. We should be thankful that these businesses have worked out all the logistics and details of bringing something we obviously desire to the market place so easy for us to take advantage of. And it is only from the desire to benefit of the suppliers, manufacturers, shippers, and retailers themselves that these items are brought to us so that we can decide if we can benefit from them by a voluntary exchange.
Rich folks do not steal a portion of the pie. Their wealth is a result of making others, maybe many others, benefit from exchanging a small portion of their wealth for what the rich folks were selling. The wealthy successfully brought us what we wanted, when we wanted it, where we wanted it, and at a price we wanted it. We voted with our dollars.
Ta TA!
Prof. Ricardo
Which of my comments implied fixed pie?
living in the eye of the storm
“I think an economy can only support so much pie growing... and the distribution of pie size happens within that limit.”
surgical strike: roe v. wade overturns self
“Prof... the system is rigged and our economic winners have an unjustified sense of entitlement.”
“We the people get to decide just... not an economic system filled with examples of undeserved reward.”
“If we the people turn the definition of just over to our ecnomic system, then the economic winners have a perpetual leg up.”
jacksonian democracy
“Of course, our society should be condemned for that also by looking the other way and "getting ours", ...”
“How do good people (and this guy is a good guy) get to the point where the blinders are on so tight that they can't accept they have "enough" and it's time to address scary wealth gap trends in this society.”
“I can't think of anything sadder in a wealthy nation than those that "have" justifying why the "have nots" should be excluded just to keep "standards up".”
chimerical reactions
“I have really come to the conclusion that life on this planet is dictated by the economic winners. What we have been and what we will become is the result of decisions by the economic winners... it has always been in their hands.”
---
I don't view the market as one pie, but rather zillions ...of pies.
The analogy of a fixed pie is one and its macro. If you are relating a world of “Haves” and “Have nots,” then that is within the society as a whole. Where one haves and one haves not. That is society.
“...I don't believe that at any given time, there is unlimited new pie potential.”
The options are not fixed and unlimited, but fixed and not fixed. Not fixed means that poor do not necessarily get poorer as rich get richer.
I SAID: "I have absolutely no problems with fuel retailers charging whatever the market will bear. Whenever there is a bad crop of tomatoes and the price skyrockets 4 fold, I don’t hear people call it “gouging.”"
“We can voluntarily give up tomatoes... it's a widget I can live without. We can't all individually give up buying gas at the pump... most of our livlihoods are dependent on it. Please tell me you see the difference. We both agree our best economic friend is free market forces, and ready capital to business startups that fuel our economy and creative destruction.”
I obviously see the difference between items that are necessary and those that are not. However...
“Only an insane society would turn over society required widgets 100% to the market and market price distributions. Let's just consider gas prices. Let's imagine the upcoming profit sweet spot... for gas companies results from $10 per gallon price.”
In this example you completely ignore competition. Competition within the petroleum industry and competition outside of the petroleum industry. Within the industry these greedy profit oriented companies would love to steal business from one another. Additionally, we’re talking about big bucks here. If all the hundreds of billions are going to the officers and directors, the shareholders will revolt and elect new directors and officers. If the profits are going to the shareholders and not necessarily the officers, why haven’t you bought stock in the companies you dufus? Your sitting on a potential gold mine.
However, Ted Kennedy wants to tax gasoline still, and Yoshi, Al Gore, and the Green Party want fuel prices to soar to speed the move to alternative fuels. Alcohol is a viable fuel, but not below petrol being $6 a gallon. I just heard this week that in the US that in Utah, Wyoming, and Alaska (and off its coast) we have more known oil reserves than the middle east. However, environmentalist concerns have crippled our production right here at home. Because of the $10/gal. fuel automobile manufacturers would react swiftly to the overwhelming demand for electric, hydrogen, alcohol, and political bs burning vehicles. Home brew, DIY electric and hybrid kits would emerge. Home brew alcohol would become common place and - all together class - taxed and regulated as people sought to create their own fuel. Given the immediate or near immediate drop in demand for oil, what do you suppose the oil companies will do? Do you think they don’t already know that now? Your analogy-what-if scenario ignores entire chapters of known economic reality.
Do you think our government has any right to know how gas prices are set?
I’ll tell them right now. The Market. See, that was easy. At each level, the owner of the well, the company extracting the oil and selling it, the tanker transporter, the refiner, the distributor, and the retailer ALL want to extract every last cent they can. AT EVERY LEVEL they are in competition with every one else. AT EVERY LEVEL there is a buyer and a seller wanting to buy the cheapest and sell at the greatest level possible. AT EVERY LEVEL. YOU Common Good can jump in and clean up in the market system whenever you see obscene profits. To not do so is ludicrous on your part. Uh, why haven’t you? I don’t have 100 million either, but if you see the profit and can persuade investors, your cut off the top can make you a 1%er. Think of all the people you could help then. Well??????
I said: The pie is bigger by every voluntary transaction.
C.G.: Yeah, sure. Let's consider 10 families in rural small town USA that earned a decent living from their retail store. Wal-Mart moves in....
And think of all the buggy whip manufactures and water hand pump distributors and....
and the 10 stores can't compete and go under.
Apparently the public voted with their dollars. You know, in an election, sometimes people loose.
A couple of questions for you. 1) how much of all of these occurences/transactions were voluntary. 2) How do you know any pies were grown, vs just taking much rural small store owner pie and wealth transferring it to Mr. Scott?
1) - All that were not mandated by some external threat or force. What they call in the legal community “under duress.”
2) - The people who chose to spend their money at Wal-Mart obviously thought the benefit for their dollar was greater at Wal-Mart. A rational person would not take their dollars to a place they knew they would get a lesser return on their voluntary exchange.
Apparently this is hard for you. I’ll try to simplify further, but that will be difficult. Good luck.
Prof. Ricardo
It would seem that Scooter would be an unfortunate name in prison.
CG
Yeah, a ton-o-spam. I'm in the process of deleting this junk off of various threads.
Hey What’s-Your-Doodle! Great blog. When you get a moment come see my Belly-Button-Lint removal site. check it out if you get time :-)
Prof-
That was funny.
I'm getting tired of deleting this stuff. What a drag.
Slavery is the obligation to labor for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant. Most of what we have were gained by out labor. Debt is the creation of a new master for the satisfaction of our got-to-have-it-now greed. Theft deprives us of the fruit of our labor. Having to delete blog SPAM, email SPAM, spyware, and viruses are not just frustrating, they are theft of your time, a sort of slavery. You could, and would, have used your time differently, but they stole your time.
I think we need to rethink our response to criminal law in this country, at least our response to it.
We have started to criminalize stupid acts and foolish decisions that do not have criminal intent. We have also, IMHO, wasted great opportunities to rehabilitate criminals and help the victimized.
When a criminal steals something, the Bible says that the criminal should make restitution to the harmed party. Currently criminals pay their debt to “society”, the state, and the victims are left hanging. The criminals don’t have the benefit of having righted their wrong through restitution, but instead feel badly because they “just got caught.” I say, work their little hinies at slave wages until their debt to the injured party is paid. No need to set up nonprofit victim help groups and such. But the state squanders everything and the labors of the criminals are spent stamping license plates and filing frivolous law suits.
When the criminal stole your stuff, destroyed your stuff, hurt you or harmed your ability to pursue happiness, they enslaved you. They stole your past or future efforts. Restitution makes them pay for their gain and your loss. Restitution uses the slavery of debt, the debt they owe to the injured party, to restore what is right and fair.
I’d like to catch some of these spammers and exact a little fairness and restitution myself. Let me see. Deleting refinance, Viagra, “correct your account info”, and Rolex spam 4 minutes/day. Running two spyware programs once per week, 30 minutes. That’s a little over 50 hours a year. Anti virus & internet security software $65. I don’t know about you guys, but I could put the geek/creep (probably from a Calif. firm) to work in my yard, washing my car, & shoveling chicken hooha. I think leg shackles would add the correct ambience to the scene and to complete the ensemble. When I’m done, who wants him?
Prof. Ricardo
HAHAHA!
Yes...spammer restitution! I'm in!
“Can we include telemarketers in this?”
I suppose technically unwanted guests and callers rob our time, however, depending on the timing, I consider telemarketers entertainment value. They have a script. It is my mission to interrupt their script and find out as much personal information that I can of the person talking. Like where they are calling from, how old they are, (depending on age) where their parents/spouse are and what they do, how long they have been doing this, etc. Obviously it has to be a slow time of no pressing matters for you to relish the moment, and it might take a few tries to hone your technique, but it could provide a new attitude to hearing the phone ring.
My niece was a telemarketer and she said it was their job to sell the product and overcome the negative responses. She said if you wanted to do the best thing for both you and the telemarketer, just hang up on them. That way they can go on to the next prospect and you’re out of the picture fast. Don’t worry about being rude, just hang up.
Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
Good post. You are saying very much the same kind of thing I have been saying for a while. Christianity is no more disproved by evidence of evoluition than is atheism proved. I've written about this many times so I won't repeat myself right now. Interesting that we seem to essentially agree on this though.
Common Good,
I don’t know if your programing capabilities are in this area, but can you build a program that puts up a blog firewall or a tracer to identify the host computer and turn it owner into cottage cheese?
Prof. Ricardo
No kidding. I'm getting tired of deleting all this junk. I may have to make this a members only comment facility. I really don't want to do that because I like the occassional post I get from someone unexpected. I'd hate to lose that. But I'm spending more time than I want deleting all this junk.
I just removed about 40 of these spam things. You all don't see the bulk of them because they end up on older threads. I hope blogger provides some help on this!
Yea. And maybe a membership fee, say $59.95/year to supplement the ol 401K? And of course you’ll need a qualified accountant to oversee the whole operation.
Reporting for duty, Sir.
Prof. Ricardo
PS You’re a shyst.....I mean attorney, couldn’t you follow these links out to a responsible party, come up with some mumbo-jumbo lawyerese that sounds threatening, but deep within only contains a request for their grandmother’s homemade biscuit recipe, and request that they cease & disease, or whatever, and then they will stop and send you big bucks not to sue? Contact ACLU for a how-to instructions on the technique. If they actually pay up you can throw a blog BBQ!
PPS Word verification. Too Cool!
Yes...it is very cool. Seems to have already shut down the issue!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Common G man,
“Shrub... government hater/shrinker”
Let me see. The definition in your book of a “government hater/shrinker” is someone who partners with Ted Kennedy for the largest increase in Federal Education spending, added drug coverage for Medicare (a new entitlement), spent like a drunken sailor in military, highway, AIDS to Africa and anyone else with a hand held out. He met Katrina head-on with the Federal checkbook. He never met a spending bill he wanted to veto.
I know why I should dislike him, but he sounds like the picture perfect candidate for the next Democratic Primary to become President.
My question is: How do you reconcile the reality of this spend-aholic President George Bush to your reference to him as the “government hater/shrinker”? Show me this Fiscal conservative I should be rejoicing over, this beacon of small goverment, those dwindling budget numbers, the unemployed masses of ex-gubment workers huddled under bridges. Ah...reality. The ultimate obstacle to incorrect models.
Prof. Ricardo
Question: If you correctly predicted that limited refining capabilities, war in the middle east, and hurricanes don’t mix, You transfer your 401k assets into specific energy stocks or mutual funds, and they have record profits, should the federal government get the windfall profit or the stockholders of the energy corporations?
“Some of the talking heads are starting to raise the Recession word over the price of oil.”
The Fed is hiking interest rates and has a planned schedule to keep doing so. Does the Fed raise rates to stifle recession or inflation?
Just saw the Chevron next to my office drop unleaded to $2.49/gal. About the time we come together and destroy another industry because they made a profit, we’ll find that the time of their windfall profits was short lived, a cost/benefit of the market adjusting to conditions, and we will be punishing corporations for doing what they are supposed to be doing - providing a product or service someone is willing to purchase in exchange for profit for the owners. How sick can those money-thirsty maggots be? Why can’t they be like us employees and give away their services for free? I mean, well, you know...
Prof. Ricardo
In economics we have a concept called elasticity. Oil is a very inelastic demand item. Because of this oil prices can go pretty high with relatively little change in consumption, but there is change. I don’t know about you but I haven’t taken any joy rides through the country side recently.
The oil industry from well to pump knows this inelastic nature. So why hasn’t the gasoline been $3/gallon for years? And, if we are now used to $3/gal., why is it now going down? Its inelastic, we’re going to buy it anyway. Pure supply and demand.
Dell & Bill Gates entered the computer industry at the right time AND they performed well. Each supplied us with something we just had to have. Somebody else could have done it as well I suppose. But they didn’t. We’ve seen the stock market price charts for each of these companies and lament not jumping on board from their IPO + 10 years.
Did they not earn their money? Was it a “windfall” that should be taxed out of the stockholders hands? Wasn’t the decade plus expansion and record profits they made obscene? Aren’t poor people having to choose between surfing the net and heating their prescriptions? If you ask a lot of folks, their computer is much more important than oil. They’d just as soon tele-commute or ride a bike to work and keep their ‘puter than send bucks down the fuel tank.....AND the “rape” of the American populace by the computer industry/dot coms has lasted far longer than the short jump in oil prices here recently. Comparing prices of oil today with a couple of decades or so ago, one “expert” on WBAP about 4 months ago said, given inflation, gasoline should be about $2.12/gallon for unleaded. We’re headed that way now.
Chill about the non-widget populace, OR get uptight and invest in it. You and I aren’t going to change it so you, conscience willing, could profit from it. I forgot the name of the Tx candidate for governor about 20 years ago (Williams, I think) lost the race or backed out because of his insensitive joke he told that end something like: If you going to get raped, just sit back and enjoy. As inapplicable as that is in its real setting, economically, if you can buy the stock, there might be some merit to it.
Prof. Ricardo
I read the article. Most of it. After the first dozen paragraphs the author had enough wrong I dare not waste my time on correcting his whole account. Soaking acorns. Yup. I bet at Y2K he was sitting in his closet in the dark on top of 250#’s of rice with a slingshot made of lamb’s pelvic bone. Yup.
Re: Running out of oil
See: DOE.gov
In 2003, proved oil reserves on a global basis are continuing to increases, and there were no comparable dramatic revisions in any country’s oil reserve estimates. Global proved reserves increased by 4 percent, or by 53 billion barrels, from the 1,213 billion barrels estimated in 2002, reflecting new discoveries in locations such as Africa. This upward revision dwarfs the comparatively small downward revisions made by Shell and El Paso.
While these company revisions may represent a substantial portion of the companies’ booked reserves, they account for only a small fraction of the world’s proven oil reserve base of well over 1 trillion barrels. As a result, the reserve recalculations have not made much of an impact on world oil prices. Other factors, such as OPEC actions and tight world oil inventory levels, have been much more influential in influencing world oil price levels.
The downward revisions in oil reserves by some companies never questioned the amount of the petroleum present but merely reflected the timing of its development. Several billion barrels of oil equivalent were moved from the proved category to the probable category. Proved reserves refer to discovered oil or gas whose amount is known and is considered recoverable in both the technical and economic sense. Probable reserves are those which are believed to exist but are not developed for production or shown to exist through drilling. Although these revisions sent a shock to these companies’ stocks and to a lesser extent selected other energy companies’ stocks, it was only an exercise in adhering to the correct reporting conventions and not a harbinger of the world running out of oil.
http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?PUBLIC_ID=15200&BT_CODE=PR_CONGRESSTEST&TT_CODE=PRESSRELEASE
Prof. Ricardo
My two cents on oil markets and wind-falls.
At one time, I knew a fair amount about petrochemicals markets having provided IT support for a major brand supply and logistics department. I don’t pretend to understand the details of the current supply situation.
But as much as it may shock some people, most domestic oil companies do not automatically make more money when the price of oil goes up. Producers and Royalty Owners benefit, but refiners, transporters and marketers do not necessarily do so. In fact, rising prices can cause a lot of trouble for refiners because it is so competitive. Margins on refining are notoriously tight
Now many big brands are “integrated” and own a lot of production, so this does help them. But it is important not to lose sight that over half of the crude oil comes from outside the US. So the windfall is mostly for foreign governments and Sheiks.
Now if you cap prices in a scarce supply situation – which is where we may be headed in the near term – then guess where the oil is going to go? Places willing to pay the market price. As Yoshi pointed out, it would have no affect other than creating a supply problem in the United States.
So this is the United States’ dirty secret. This is why we support despots whose populations seek our demise. We have no real short term alternative. And this is why the lack of an energy policy is so pathetically irresponsible. As I wrote in the 'n' word, we needed action thirty years ago. Failure to do something now goes way beyond incompetence and greed and into the realm of criminal malfeasance by our leadership.
Well CG, I guess you didn’t read the paragraph I wrote about integrated companies, hmm? And I was talking about capping prices. Nothing good can come from capping prices. If you want to argue that the profits are obscene and should be taxed, I’m listening. But that will only get a listen from me in the context of a larger energy program that is calculated to actually address our long term energy infrastructure problems.
Yoshi
“And the other news is....the oil is going to run out. That...is not even really up for discussion anymore.”
Based solely upon the theory that Dino from the Flintstones and his plant life brethren crawled several miles under the crust and became trillions of barrels of oil. What if that whole theory is wrong? Very few scientist today have watched a dinosaur die through catastrophic circumstances so enormous that normal body decomposition is absent and transformation to oil takes place. The scientist are able to replicate in the laboratory a crude (pun intended) duplication of what they think happened from decaying Dino’s, but they have also recreated abiotic creations of oil as well.
Problems the pro biological theory have to over come is:
1 - Oil being discovered at 30,000 feet, far below the 18,000 feet where organic matter is no longer found.
2 - Wells pumped dry later replenished.
3 - Volume of oil pumped thus far not accountable from organic material alone according to present models.
4 - In Situ production of methane under the conditions that exist in the Earth's upper mantle.
A lot of times we get on a band wagon that seems positive, towards the common good, and we champion it for all its worth. Save the snail darter, stop pollution, save the whale, save the tree, save the oil, save the planet, etc. We trust in layers of premises that our emotion has woven into a fact foundation, when in fact, they are theories or not facts. I championed a "be prepared for Y2K" based upon well respected men in the computer programing community like Edward Yourdon. Fortunately, I was skeptical enough to prevent me from making a spectacle of myself.
Many well meaning people have condemned technology, combustion engines, SUV’s, fossil fuels, refrigerants, or anything the west produces based upon their good intentions preyed upon by many groups champion causes regardless of objective reality. There IS room for discussion of impending oil shortages based upon greater annual demand met by greater known reserves each year. An open mind is not acquiescence to the opposing view, but wise observation and study of all points of view.
Prof. Ricardo
http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html
http://www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/
I have over time reluctantly concluded that oil and gas can not be treated like any other widget. In fact, the notion that we have done so historically is factually erroneous.
Oil and Gas present the classic tragedy of the common conundrum. Left purely to free markets, the fields will be inefficiently produced and a resource that is vital to every American would be squandered. On the other hand, it is important to keep market incentives in place in order to get full production as well. The technological developments and improvements in production techniques that have occurred over the last twenty years have been essential to maintaining American economic prosperity.
I believe we need to reassess our national priorities and create a sense of national urgency on resolving the energy crunch. It is pretty clear to me that by mastering the move to alternative fuels we can become more competitive globally and unleash prospects of peace and prosperity world wide through the creation of a new energy infrastructure. Such a monumental transition will not happen quickly or cheaply so we need to start now. The good news is that the coming supply problems are in fact overstated by the alarmists and there still is time. Decisive action would allow us to convert impending disaster into strategic advantage if only the idiots in charge have the courage to act.
Sadly, I think there are personal vested interests by the rich and powerful that prevent decisive action. Sadder still is the truth that the oil and gas industry would in no way be harmed by such measures. In my view, alternative fuels are essential to the long term survival of the industry. There are so many processes that require petrochemical inputs that the industry is not going away any time soon. It is a simple matter of national security, and ultimately, global security.
Just because running out is years away doesn’t mean that the supply situation will be as free as it has been in the past. There could very well be supply disruption and economic disruption due to high prices getting there.
Hey, I believe in free markets more than most. But to me the gravity of this situation gets to the point of being a national defense matter. We spend billions on nukes of questionable utility but what do we do for defending ourselves from this far more serious strategic threat?
Tony,
Oil and Gas present the classic tragedy of the common conundrum. Left purely to free markets, the fields will be inefficiently produced and a resource that is vital to every American would be squandered. On the other hand, it is important to keep market incentives in place in order to get full production as well.
To use a Common Good-ism, I think you went over my pay scale with that logic.
Left purely to free markets, the fields will be inefficiently produced...
Left purely to free markets is the only way to insure efficiency. Government with all its grandiose goals has no incentive to make any of them come to pass nor arrive at them efficiently. Since the dreaded evil margin of C.G.’s nightmares is the “g-spot” of businesses, It is businesses (ie, the market) that have incentive to gather raw materials at their lowest cost (efficiency), produced with the least cost (efficiency), and marketed with the least cost (efficiency), so that spread between cost and retail price (margin) is greatest. It is precisely because oil is a resource that is vital to every American that smart companies have figured out that it is a product, not of trend and fashion (risky), but one of inelastic demand guaranteeing many happy returns by customers. It is not the market that squanders opportunity and potential profit, because wealth resides on exploiting it. Government may direct private industry the way those in power wish it to be, but efficiency is achieved by attention to detail only those who benefit would be willing to do.
Prof. Ricardo
Prof,
Well young man, let me educate you a bit on the Oil and Gas business. I looked around the net for a while and found disturbingly little that discusses the history of the industry and proration in general. It appears to be such a little known thing that even my spell checker flags the word “proration” as a misspelling.
Back in the early days of the Oil and Gas business, it was a liaise-faire man’s dream in the oil business. If you haven’t seen pictures of the derricks at Glenpool or Spindletop, then you should. It was a capitalistic free-for-all such as the world has seldom seen anytime or anywhere. A free market utopia.
While it lasted.
You see, the wells started to run dry. They knew what they were doing too. Engineers knew well that a reservoir was most efficiently produced at a slower pace and from wells sunk at a decent spacing throughout a field.
But you have to understand that an oil reservoir is like an ocean under the ground. When oil is pumped out under Prof’s land, the oil flows from his neighbor’s portion of the pond (we’ll call the neighbor CG) over to take its place. Now CG is no idiot (this is purely hypothetical you see) and immediately hires an oil man to sink a hole on his property and get to pumping. CG and Prof are sitting there pumping franticly to get as much out of the ground as they can before it runs dry. Never mind that the total production would end up being far lower if they produced more slowly and deliberately.
It looked for a while like the boom was destined to die as quickly as it began, but the governments of Oklahoma and Texas stepped in with regulatory schemes known as proration. As I said, I couldn’t find much stuff on the internet, so I’ll have to recommend Daniel Yergin’s excellent book The Prize for a bit more detail.
Bottom line is that the Oil and Gas industry owes its bottom side to the government. While it does not follow that this makes all regulation good, it is simply erroneous to assert that no regulation would be for the best.
And to bring it full circle, I think that is where we are at with the broader energy market today. Just like the engineers of the boom days, we know what is happening. We know what needs to be done. There simply exists insufficient market incentives to respond to the dire needs of the situation. Ultimately all energy business will benefit from a better ordered transition to alternative energy forms.
C.G.: Prof... why do you hate poor people?
Maybe you could clarify. Apparently your poor worldview models see me defend capitalism, the laws of economics, “big business”, private property ownership, or whatever, and extrapolate that I hate poor people. I might view the insult of you saying that the vague emotional terms you use to describe people, “poor”, “needy”, and “the have nots,” and the fact that the people are too stupid to make it on their own without their mommy government giving them something to suckle.
When I was born and I didn’t have any money, was I poor? No. I had parents who loved me, fed and housed me. When I was 14-15 and I made $15/wk when my friends were making$50-$75/wk, was I poor? No. My friends blew their money on albums, concerts, Six Flags, and whatever they wanted. I saved my money and purchased my first car with cash. When I got married and was making $5/hr living in a converted garage apartment, was I poor? No. I had a wonderful wife and was finishing up college taking as many hours as I could afford to take without debt. Now, I am no example of success and any failures I take full responsibility for, but where does government come in here? From Diapers to self employed the rules are simple: work hard and spend less than you make.
Growing up our family lived in a 1200 sq ft house. In our cars you could see the road through the floor board - we thought it was cool. I did not know that my father was not the strongest or the richest man in town. My mother grew up in Louisiana the daughter of a lumber trucker. They lived in what at that time was unfortunately called nigger shacks. By any definition that you can fathom, my mother was poor. Her father was murdered when she was 9 and her mother remarried and died giving birth when my mother was 12. She was orphaned and moved from family to family to orphanage. I ask my Dad if he was wealthy growing up. He said yes, his father had a job (think depression and 25% unemployment here). His father died when he was young, so he got a job delivering newspapers for years to help his mother make it.
I believe anyone that wants to can make ends meet can do so. The only problem is we have contrived a mandatory standard of living that drives everyone to go into outrageous debt to achieve it. Our "poor" is so wealthy when compared to other nations, we sound ridiculous. No, I don’t hate the “poor.” I think so well of them I don’t think its mandatory to condescend to patting there heads and forcing a government pacifier in their mouths and saying “there, there, we no you can’t make it without us.”
Prof. Ricardo
Can we legislate away stupidity and illogical conclusions? That guy arrested on the coast for surfing during the initial landing of the hurricane, should he be prevented from doing something stupid like that? Can we save people from themselves? How do we eliminate stupidity from the gene pool if not through the natural consequences of our actions?
Prof. Ricardo
[A new sheet of blog paper to write on at your convenience please.]
It is important to dig through the news reports that came out of New Orleans during and after Katrina to separate the facts from the hysteria. While the break down in the social order was awful, it was not as widespread as originally reported (a real disappointment in the performance of the media which should have spent more time ensuring the accuracy of the reporting and less on driving reader/viewership)and while still a sad comment, not so surprising in view of both the depth of the disaster and the inexcusable response to it by all levels of government. The lawlessness would certainly have been much attenuated had the institutions that provide the framework for civil tranquillity been in place and properly deployed immediately after the storm passed through.
Why did not government work as it should have? There are two answers to that question. First the current answer: elected leaders believed and approached both disaster planning and response as a political exercise instated of as a civil and humanitarian requirement of government. That included placing political supporters in disaster relief positions as reward for political contributions instead of staffing those positions with experienced professionals. The frantic scramble to place blame elsewhere and to an extent, the marginalization of the political disenfranchised.
The longer term issue is the fact that the American public has become so divided, almost radicalized, to the point that a consensus on important national issues has been impossible since the Second World War; which is a topic deserving of its own thread.
Thanks for your introspection and thoughts.
Common,
“shrink the government and drown it in the bathtub”
I like to keep an open mind. So I checked Census.gov. All functions of federal government, TOTAL employment went down from year 2000 to 2004, 5.71%. Wow! But wait, that reduction was in part time employees. Full time federal workers went up from 2,425,898 to 2,445,287, a gain of 0.8%. That’s weird. Full time employment was up. Oh I see its that warring mentality. National defense must have gone up. Let’s see, in 2000 it was 695,045 total national defense employment to the 2004 figure of 687,822. Wait, that’s a decrease of 1.04%. That’s no way to fight a war. But what about FULLTIME national defense? It went from 675,225 to 663,708, or a 1.71% decrease. Hmmm. Bush’s big time government reduction came from reducing part-time other and full time military. That must have saved him a boat load of funds on the budget. Total spending in 2001 fiscal year was $1.863 Trillion, and the total in 2005 was $2.479 Trillion, a 33% increase. Now there’s a man who knows how to wack away at government spending. But what screwed it up was no doubt DEFENSE spending, which indeed went up nearly 53%. With that much increase, Non-defense must have stagnated. Let’s see, $1.558 Trillion in 2001 to $2,014 Trillion in 2005, or a 29% increase. Yep, he cut it to the bone. May not be anything left of it for Hillary. She’ll have to start from scratch.
“shrink the government and drown it in the bathtub”
Does that fall under the Common Good Humor: section?
Prof. Ricardo
Flame,
Welcome to our world. I agree with the radicalization. I have touched on this topic in many different ways. I think you are correct…it is probably worth a separate discussion.
In short, I have felt for some time that the radicalization is artificial. It stems from our wholesale acceptance of the two-party “system” and we are much poorer for it. It isn’t that we are all moderates either…as many try to suggest. The truth is that on any specific issue, the answer is seldom one of the two views that the big parties latch on to for the purposes of furthering their game.
The sooner people quit wasting time telling others that it is a waste to vote for anybody but one of the big two parties and spend that energy trying to figure out which of the other parties that they can identify with substantively, the sooner we may get to some actual healing. The irony of course is that those carping the loudest about wasting votes on third parties are in fact engaging in the greatest waste of all.
Not wanting to allow a good thing to go unharvested for the king, I mean government, I mean “the people,” property owners are in an uproar that the government is taxing their “view.” It is reminiscent of the window or glass tax of 1696 by William III. Ahhh. Theft for the sake of the people. Tis smells sweet, don’t you think?
Prof. Ricardo
Let’s start the commune now. Everybody work....if you want to. Everybody lives in the same 600 sq.ft. Apartment, provided by the government. Only public transportation. Do away with marriage ‘cause we can’t agree on which organisms go with which. The government gets the rewards of our labor and we get to live in the paradise of equality. Same home, same transportation, same misery. No hope of advancement. Any appearance of wealth would be dealt with swiftly so as not to incite industrious behavior by those wanting to duplicate it, or shame by those that don’t want to.
Silly? Yes, but only in degree. The concepts are alive and well here.
Prof. Ricardo
Sorry. I’m a little guided by experience and history. With experience I have seen a number of small businesses get buried in taxes. Swamped and drowning. Are these near Bill Gates level incomes? Nope. Just commoners like us. They’re making mediocre income and one year they have a banner year, maybe up 50%. Their taxes shoot from $8,000 to $20,000, because of the progressive rate of the tax system, loss of deductions/credits and stuff. They stupidly thought if they made more money and could finally pay their bills on time that they could spend some of the excess. So they buy a little bit bigger house. THEN their income goes back down. They’re strapped for cash with their new acquisitions, they didn’t realize the exponential effect of taxes on their income, and presto, tax delinquency.
Should taxes be so large as to be a burden? To be the largest single expense item of a household? So much as to incite tax evasions, tax avoidance schemes, bad investments, hoop jumping, wasting time investigating ways to minimize taxes?
Common Good says taxes should be determined based upon needs. What if needs are greater than 100% of what is taxed? Well then, [NEEDS - survival of gold laying goose = taxes] says he. And that number is? The definition of “needs” varies greatly indeed. I “need” oxygen, water, food, and shelter. Most people have that and in greater abundance than they are thankful for. Some people think “needs” include, a Latte and a leased Mercedes. Some people think that the very new (last hundred years out of thousands) institution of voluntary shared risk (a.k.a. Insurance) is a “need.” Some people think what 20 yrs ago in the medical field was impossible, 10 years ago cutting edge, is today a right regardless of any position or desire to pay for it.
From some of my silly friends:
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.– Frederic Bastiat
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. – Winston Churchill
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.– G Gordon Liddy
The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain
The share-the-wealth movement appeals most to those with the least to share.
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.... -- James Madison
I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him.. -- T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, May 25, 1956 in U.S. News & World Report
To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it on favored individuals .... is none the less robbery because it is .... called taxation. -- US Supreme Court in Loan Association v. Topeka (1874)
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him .– Robert A. Heinlein
Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay. – Milton Friedman
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. -- John Maynard Keynes
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. – Will Rogers, (1879 - 1935), Illiterate Digest (1924), "Helping the Girls with their Income Taxes"
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. –Plato, The Republic
It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income. – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1758
You can talk about "social justice" all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected That is not social justice or any other kind of justice. – Thomas Sowell
If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you. -- William E. Simon
P.R.
Yoshi,
“The fact is, when Mark Twain was around, we didn't have terrorists flying into buildings and threatening the entire global economy. In fact, they didn't even have planes at all.”
No, but we did have the war between the states where 600,000 men gave their lives, and from a much smaller population. And a hundred years earlier they didn’t have planes, but we had British troops marching on our soil. Technology changes, the players change, but the needs are the same.
How is a tax any different than a 10% to a church? Are you against that too?
“So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Cor. 9:7. Notice that it is voluntary.
“Render to Caesar what is Caesars....and to God the things that are God’s.” Matt.22:21
That’s my job. Making sure none of the God part get’s to Caesar. Of course Jesus wasn’t putting a rubber stamp on all that government does, but rather be obedient to the civil laws so that you can be above reproach, unless the civil laws violate God’s laws.
Anyway, there are places you wouldn't have to pay taxes. You could go there and live, but you are going to hate the potholes.
The New World, America, didn’t even have roads to have potholes in, but families braved many days at sea with great inconveniences, and much expense, to land at a country, relatively free of government intervention. Relative to the rest of the world, it is still somewhat free of governmental intervention. People are still flocking here. But the gap has narrowed greatly. It is not that other countries are freer. Its that we now fix potholes in every country and regulate the potholes to death in this country. Soon, the legend of the “land of the free” will be buried in the history books.
Question: Should the taxpayers of Arlington have to buy Jerry Jones a new stadium if even ONE pothole remains in Arlington?
Prof. Ricardo
“...but in the end it sounds like you are still just saying "don't waste our money."”
Actually, I am saying it is hard to justify being for or against government doing something or not doing something unless you are coming from a position of principal.
If you are against the stadium as I am, but you are for government helping build, subsidize, tax-break, or the eminent domain acquisition of land for the Texas Motor Speedway, then you aren’t against government restricted from the entertainment business on principal, but rather it is a matter of taste. However, if you believe government has no business and/or authority to dabble in taxing poor orphaned dying widows so that beer drinking NASCAR red necks can hoot and holler for Ernhardt or any other sport, then you may be a person of principal.
When the subject of “need” and governmental benevolence is broached, the slippery slope has so many negatives, it seems to me to be a self evident truth that taking from some and giving to others is sheer lunacy. It smacks of arrogance, theft and unfairness, and a horrendously counterproductive incentive. If we accept the principal that it is moral and just to take money from some people and, not spend it on a public good, but use it to better the lives of select individuals of the government’s choosing, then in principal we have no leg to stand on in opposing “gifts” to people or corporations that we do not agree with. Don’t like Haliburton getting lucrative contracts? So. Maybe they had a need that the current administration sought to fill. Once this trash becomes permissible, it is then left up to the keepers of the public funds as to who they want to share and be benevolent with.
The Republican Party likes to give the illusion of wanting less government. However, that has not borne itself out. They only want to use the government power to achieve their ends rather than then ends the Democratic Party wishes to achieve when they are in power.
I would like someone to show me in history where governments given the authority to redistribute wealth, have limited their own power, not progressively encroached on the freedoms of the people, or bankrupted the country given enough time.
Prof. Ricardo
PS__No offense meant to hootin & hollering rednecks.
Common: “Prof...Sorry you continue to measure your liberty and your society by your tax rate...”
I realize blogging only permits a narrow view of each of us, but surely you know I have more depth than that?
“...and sorry you view government as some foreign entity rather tha "us... we the people making intelligent COLLECTIVE decisions" to evolve society past base human nature.”
This sentence speaks volumes. May I? I see the definition of “we the people” as citizens of this nation. Of course I see myself as one of them. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” THAT “We the People” established a Constitution to LIMIT government because they had EVOLVED to a point of knowing that man’s “BASE HUMAN NATURE” is depravity, a desire to be selfish. This is a very CHRISTIAN belief of sin and the nature of man. It is not that our founders or Christians WISHED that man would not improve. But rather that they RECOGNIZED man’s failing. Our founders studied many nations and much history and decided that the best way to guarantee freedom was to hobble the oppressor, ie government. They constrained it with the chains of the Constitution. They put in checks and balances on top of checks and balances. Grid lock was a designed blessing, not an accidental curse.
You cite “COLLECTIVE decisions” but you rail against majority rule [particularly from the current administration]. Are you seeking some unanimous representative body? One that does not recognize man’s propensity to shoot his neighbor for a six pack of 3-2 beer? Is this unanimity to silence dissension and stifle freedom, or is there some political model for government you are withholding from us that achieves unity, peace, charity, and equality?
“Conservatism seems to be in love with our human nature. I'm actually not a fan, and think the only real reason for a society to continue the fight is to constantly attempt to evolve past it.”
This is where that dreaded “world view” concept leaps into the conversation. Because you differ on the fundamental concepts of man from a large fraction of our nation, you seek societal answers that do not seek to prohibit the evils of a government with too much authority if your world view does not even recognize that as a threat. Why would you seek to organize society to protect against the Boogey Men you do not even recognize? However, not recognizing that men sin and men with power and authority can sin with even greater consequences, does not make those realities disappear. Additionally, cuddling up to the phantom hope that man will evolve past his base nature may give you comfort, but will never materialize no matter how vivid the dream. Were we all to traipse through daisies and sing as though we were in a musical. But the historical reality of man’s depravity since recorded history is verified nightly on any news channel.
“I'm trying to imagine Jesus condemning his followers for collectively helping the lepers.”
But you did not study the differences between what you propose and this sentence. Jesus would not condemn HIS FOLLOWERS for so doing. However, he would surely condemn them for taking money from all the local property owners for the new Leper hospital. In the story of the good Samaritan, the hated Samaritan helped the badly injured Jew WITH HIS OWN MONEY. This was the example. What you are explaining is Robin Hoodism. Steal from the rich to give to the poor, or the “needy” as defined by the Hood, or for public goals, as defined by those who aren’t contributing as much as those being taxed.
Do you think Jesus would be against "the leper tax fund"?
Yes if a tax, but not against gifts, offerings, and any other help offered.
We the Prof. Ricardo
Yoshi,
1) Do you know what kind of gun control laws exist in France?
2) Do you have any experience with alternative energy (wind, solar, etc.)?
Prof. Ricardo
In a very loose returning to the topic of the blog [readers gasp in unbelief] I include the following item I received in email today:
--------
This text is from county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm.
Amusing...
WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.
George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No news anchors moved in.
We just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps and put on an extra layer of clothes.
Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
Everybody is fine.
Apparently dependence, rather than self sufficiency, turns you on. And how did you know all 500 members of my Church of the holy BBQ only have one tooth each? And daa don’t got some book learnin’ two. Tsk, tsk. How cliche’. You forgot to mention witch trials, the Crusades, Bible thumping, religious intolerance, and...oh yea, hypocrites.
Prof. Ricardo
CG: Prof... just satire me back. :)
LASBUDDY - In a small town in Texas, locals are wondering what went wrong in Washington this past week. Prof. Ricardo said: “All I wanted was to for them (federal politicians) to recognized our needs.”
It all started when the drought Abner hit north Texas and for three weeks no rain fell. “It was just horrible. Our grass started to fade and wither,” said Stefunny, a data inputter for the Twinkle-Telagrahm classifieds.
However, it was not just plants that were foiled by the foul weather. Drought Abner has caused foundational shifting and creaking doors.
“It’s unbelievable. Two weeks ago I could unlock my door and walk in, but now, the key is hard to turn in the lock and I have to give the door a nudge. Doesn’t anybody in this administration care?” Prof. Ricardo, a frequent blogger on the Disenfranchised Curmudgeon, is not impressed with the slow response of FEMA. “In our neighborhood there is no evidence that Washington even knows we exist.”
When ask why he didn’t water his own lawn, the Prof. Replied “I have never been one to disassociate myself from community, nor ignore the rightful responsibilities of the federal government in satisfying our shared needs. To have watered my own lawn would have been a bold in-your-face act of self-reliance. There’s no room for that kind of behavior from a true patriot like me.”
The current administration didn’t return our call of inquiry about their drought response preparedness. For more information, see www.iwannanotherprogram.gov
Common
“- your dentist
- your doctor
.........
Just looking to fine-tune the Prof defintion of dependent.”
I am dependent upon others to different degrees, and all by choice. I could be dependent on another to chauffeur me around town or I could be as independent as Tom Hanks in Castaway. One does what one has to or desires to. I just got through reading One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey. This gentleman back in the 60's decided to live alone in the wilderness for a year, just to see if he could. Built his own cabin, fireplace, furniture, harvested food. Also had some food and supplies flown in. One might consider living in a 11' x 15' house with no indoor plumbing a hardship. He left all of those currently considered essentials for a simpler life. One can get addicted (dependent) upon nearly any level of pampering. I just think demanding that pampering to be paid for by other’s is selfish and arrogant. Other’s may disagree.
Just got back from a two day tax seminar. Once I digest it I may share some new tax nuggets with y’all like the new energy credits for conservation, alternative energy, etc.
Prof. Ricardo
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--- John Kenneth Galbraith
The idea of fairness or justice is one of equality and ownership. My life is mine and therefore it is wrong of you to “take” my life without provocation. Property I have purchased is owned by me and therefore it is wrong for you to acquire my property without compensating me for it. Is it selfish to work for another and expect a paycheck? Of course not. In fact, the Democrats so understand this concept that they want to guarantee a minimum wage that compensates somebody enough for their time/labor. Our representative babe of justice, lady liberty, has a blindfold and is holding a balance. The blindfold means that favoritism should not be given to anyone, regardless of race, etc, etc, etc. The balance inherently assumes and recognizes ownership. Ownership of time, labor, rights, health, body, property, anything that CAN be owned – like the minimum wage compensation.
Your quote above appears to call that ownership that is the basis of freedom and justice, selfishness. However, if recent memory serves me, each time I have brought up personal charity and benevolence, say...Tsunami relief, this unselfish act is discounted as immaterial, rare, whatever. But the act of abhorrence and avoidance of the grossly inefficient benevolence that government has proven itself to be is considered selfishness. With personal benevolence, something this nation was known for since its inception, there is a level of accountability and efficiency that is acceptable to the donor. This is a good thing. It is good stewardship of money. I am certain that you would not approve of taking tax dollars and dumping them out of planes over poor neighborhoods because that is not good stewardship of the public’s money. But governmental benevolence is not unlike that dumping of dollars out over neighborhoods. In fact it is probably worse. The government takes 25-50% off the top, then cuts the checks to everyone that jumps through the hoops and appears to meet the qualifications, whether a discerning individual would actually consider that person as benefitting from that benevolence. Many people have donated to the Katrina victims. I haven’t heard any gripes about that benevolence. But the government has been griped at for whatever level of involvement it has had because it is ineffective, unresponsive, and often oblivious. It is the nature of the beast. No leader, no different structure or organization can correct the inherent characteristics of spending somebody else’s money on yet another individual. To abhore wasting money in this fashion is “selfishness.” Up is down, right is wrong, and good stewardship and true benevolence via personal benevolence is selfishness.
I believe Galbraith and I have a different understanding of how things operate. Yet, freedom allows each of us to wallow in the deception of our choosing and smile at the world.
Prof. Ricardo
Common Good:
I said: “...there is a level of accountability and efficiency that is acceptable to the donor.”
You said: “Accountability to the donor? Acceptable to the donor? Good grief...”
Go back and read my sentence. I did not say accountability to the donor. I said the level of accountability (of the organization we are going through) is acceptable to the donor.
I do not like the level of accountability that the United Way gives. So they don’t get any of my money. I do not like the inefficiency, but I do like the accountability of the Red Cross. I have given to them. In each case there have been real “needs” behind them. However, either inefficiency or outright fraud have swayed me to use different “vehicles” of my benevolence. My choice was not a judgment on the need, but on the delivery method. To devalue my past experience and judgement of an organizations fraud and/or misuse of funds and say that because of that I was selfish with my money and because I did not use such and such a delivery method is quite unfair. All private organizations are laid bare before the public. Their Form 990 and financials must be available for all to see. I have personally looked at Teresa Heinz family’s form 990's for their family’s foundations. You get to see the flow of money, how much the directors, officers, & employees make. Fund-raising, marketing, administration v.s. final delivery benevolence to the end needy. Their mission statement, largest contributors, practically everything is laid bare for all to see. You can choose among those achieving the goals you desire. And you don’t have to support what you don’t want to. You like snail darters? Contribute to PETA, Seirra Club, and Green Peace. You like snail darters on a cracker, then you can support those organizations that bring you what you want. You talk about those wicked 51% that rule the roost. They spend money on wars and what have you that you disagree with, but left to your own personal funding (benevolence wise) you never support what you do not desire to.
In the accounting industry we have a concept called “materiality.” If some error is immaterial, then you don’t worry about it that much. A thousand bucks may be material to my wallet/tax return, but it is not material to Ford Motor Co. He works on the federal governments books. Material in the federal government is in the billions. They can screw off more money than your widdle bitty minds can imagine and it doesn’t even register.
And how does society define need? Is the 51% considered “society?” Is the more generous benevolence necessarily the better way? And given the history of the nearly total lack of accountability of these programs to the government and its donors/taxpayers (and thus the reason for their atrocious fraud and results), are you OK with giving a 15 fold increase in money to this madhouse? And if you are, do you really expect measurable results, or are you content with warm fuzzies? What % of funds misused and/or fraudulently allocated to the politicians own pocket book/friend contractors/constituents/wrong recipients are grounds for cessation of program and criminal prosecution of the politicians who implemented it? Would you extend such leniency to the private arena?
Prof. Ricardo
Of course, I expect all of the anti-oil-company-profit complainers to peruse their mutual funds, stocks, variable life insurance, and annuities, and, like the conscientious non-hypocrites that they are, to purge those financial instruments that profit from oil company's greed and calculate how much they have profited and refuse this “theft” money. One must stand on principle here. Aaaaaannndd since there is no current clearing house to cleanse your consciences, I have set up a PayPal account to rid you of unwholesome profits. Please email me for further details.
Prof. Ricardo
October 2002: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stocks, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members."
Common, “Turns out these guys are making $20 million+ type of salaries.”
Lemme see: Top stars of Hollywood make $20 million OR MORE each year!
Top stars of sports make $20 million OR MORE each year!
Top stars of capitalism NOT ENTERTAINMENT RELATED make $20 million each year? Scoundrels!!!!!!
Prof. Ricardo
Common: “Select the non-discretionary purchase or purchases below:”
E - Your CPA. :-)
Of course A & B are optional. Gasoline can be discretionary. You have to work, but you don’t have to work so far away from the office that you need to drive a car. A car is optional. It has great benefits, but it has great costs as well. A lot of great cars on the road are financed upside-down. A lot of people choose to live beyond their means or in this neighborhood or that. If you choose to work a considerable distance from work, then you have chosen to commute in some fashion and the degree of discretionary component of the operating expense of an automobile is the choice of the user. Scratch C.
As for D, funny you should ask. Our furnace just died. It was 60 deg. in the bedroom this morning. Brrrrr. But not intolerable. If I wasn’t already redoing the firebox in the fireplace it wouldn’t be so bad. Of course I will be calling the repairman tomorrow. Heat is great. For 6000 years man didn’t have electricity to operate a furnace. He built a fire, wore a buffalo hide, and ripped meat off a femur for dinner. It’s only when he has lived in such a time as this that we can whine about our luxuries being non-discretionary. There are many lovely things that bring me great comfort that I choose not to do without. However, that does not define them as non-discretionary.
Let’s talk food and shelter.
Prof. Ricardo
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
There can’t be anything wrong in the world if the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s front page today give’s 50% of its real estate to the X-Box. At least that has to be what we suppose by that headline story. Oh what a entertainment oriented society we have. Our wealth must be vast indeed if our preoccupation need not be with the essentials.
And for that we ought to be thankful.
Prof. Ricardo
Common,
Did Dennis Prager get it right when he said “The left hates inequality, not evil”? I am sure there is some truth to it but I wanted to get it from your perspective as well.
Prof. Ricardo
So we have a June 1st deadline for school finance....or what? Have we not had deadlines in the past?
And is the problem adequate funding or the style of funding?
Re: adequate funding. Should we assume that governmental schooling is as efficient and inexpensive as it can be for the education we are getting? Could we address, not only the issue of how to tax for public education, but cost of that education? If there are 30 students, one teacher, and a dozen administrators, shouldn’t we address the issue of administrative bloat? State Representatives that I have talked to know this but the teaching lobby is stronger than you can imagine.
Re: tax style. A tax takes your wealth and transfers it to the state. Does it matter if it is taken when it is earned (income tax), while it is held (property tax), or when it is spent (sales or consumption tax)? Whatever is taxed tends to decrease, whatever is subsidized tends to increase. I think of all the things that I wish to have decrease is spending. If we implement a state sales tax of say 20%, then people will not feel the need to hide income from an income tax, or battle real estate valuations from property tax. Sales tax figures are pretty much a fixed item with not much room for argument.
However, in this consumer driven economy where we spend more than we make, auto loans are upside down, credit cards are maxed out, and more people have filed bankruptcy than you can shake a stick at, would businesses and consumers tolerate an impediment in their rush over the cliff of consumerism and consumption? Our products & tourism would not look very attractive with consumption taxes going through the roof.
And what would be exempt? Food, autos and real estate? How about education materials (a nice bone thrown to home schoolers, private schoolers, and anyone else that is talking “vouchers”)?
And if we did an income tax, would it add to current levels of other taxation, or displace some bulk of sales or property taxes? I would personally benefit from an income tax in my industry.
This should be a crowd pleaser: Tax SPAM. Every tax not paid is tax evasion. Penalties, interest, taxes, jail time....we could only dream.
Prof. Ricardo
Ann has a sweet commentary this week.
NEW IDEA FOR ABORTION PARTY: AID THE ENEMY
Yoshitownsend,
“Ann Coulter is about as real as the tooth fairy.
She doesn't mean what she says,... oppotunist, cashing in ...The opening comments are misleading.... ”
Step 1, attack the messenger.
“Secondly, the WMD's were used with logistical support from the U.S. ”
Are you talking about N. Korea? Iraq? Niger? Or Libya?
“I skimmed the rest. The part about M. Quadaffi .... is completely misleading. He never had an WMD program.......a rudimentary WMD program was set up...”
A little contradictory? He didn’t have one, but the one he had was set up to tear down. First, dictators love power and in the world of big bad USA, all petty dictators want more power. After Reagon b**** slapped Gadhafi, you don’t think he forgave and forgot do you? You think he might want more power? Once again after being slapped, do you think he would want the appearance of WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION without any substance? I know you didn’t get that foolishness out of The Economist.
“And W. Bush created the P.R. smokescreen it had to do with Quadaffi's "fear" of deposement...”
OK, Common hasn’t come clean on the issue, maybe you can be honest at this point. Is Bush brilliantly evil or a bafoone that can’t piece two words together in a coherent sentence? I have heard the Bush haters speak of his utter stupidity, yet he was able to persuade hundreds of brilliant Democrats to vote for a war they didn’t believe in. I have heard them speak of his deception and plotting and evil, but it would be to no avail if he weren’t brilliant enough to connive a plausible scheme across nations, years, and numerous people in his administration. Which is it?
So, where is your evidence? Tell me about this P.R. smokescreen. When Bush said in his 2004 state of the union address:
Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime's weapons of mass destruction programs, including a uranium enrichment project for nuclear weapons.
there appears to be multiple WMD programs, one of which is uranium enrichment. Are YOU saying that Gadhafi didn’t have a uranium enrichment program, or that it was only “a rudimentary program set up as leverage?” If the latter, Gadhafi is far more stupid than anything you can hang on Ann Coulter or George Bush.
“...which manipulates gullible folks back home...”
I have major problems with many things the President has done. But frankly, the “Bush is evil incarnate” crowd of the screaming-Gore-moveon.org mentality have constructed fantasies that stretch even the most jaded fiction readers ability to suspend disbelief. I hope you are using discernment with which crowd you want to be counted a part of.
Prof. Ricardo
P.S. _ Happy Thanksgiving!
Common,
“...but they couldn't give a shit about abortion.”
I agree. Like all good politicians he plays to the greatest known voters/base/etc., but under that facade he has disappointed the ProLife, ProFamily crowd.
“ They need corporation judges. Iritations like the EPA and asbestos lawsuits are the goal... not overturning Roe.”
Although we probably don’t share all the same conspiracy theories, I agree that Bush & Bush Sr. are either Insiders, controlled by Insiders, or sympathetic to them. They are the pure money and influence behind the scenes.
“Coulter is just making money.”
She is the cat that plays mouse with the Dems to the enjoyment of many.
“Prof, please don't tell me you buy into the "Kadafi and Lybia" got religion ...”
Oh no. But Afgahnistan and Iraq just got their family jewels crushed. "Kadafi and Lybia" noticed that. Didn’t change their bent, but changed their desire to get in a game they can’t win.
“If a country kills part of your family, you will be an enemy until you draw your last breath.”
I don’t think Bush thinks any different.
Prof. Ricardo
Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
I just cut a check to Green Mountain Energy for this months electric bill. They say, by using them, I avoided 2,748 pounds of CO2 emissions last month alone. That gave me warm fuzzies. Then I read the AP article, Blizzards Wreak Havoc Across Plains. The article says that 6 foot drifts were common and they blame 4 deaths on the weather.
I want you to know that my unwitting participation in these four deaths ripped the warm fuzzies from my grasped. Had I allowed that extra thousands of pounds of CO2 emissions over these many months I have partnered with Green Mountain Energy to blanket and protect us from these record cold snaps and blizzards, these and other lives might have been saved. My apologies to my fellow man. I had no idea of the consequences of my actions. Oh what a tangled web we weave...
Prof. Ricardo
“The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today.”
Once again the evidence of global warming is cooler temperatures. From what I understand about the phenomena, rising or static temperatures are also evidence of global warming. This slowing of ocean current mentioned above is also evidence of global warming. From what I understand about that phenomena, rising or static ocean current are also evidence of global warming.
This is a scientists dream world. All data correlates to support the theory, and by definition, no data is outside of the correlation.
What I want to know is: If we do anything in response to Global Warming, how will we know it worked since all possible data points in all ranges of every criteria always point to global warming?
“The final impact of any cooling effect will depend on whether it outweighs the global warming that, paradoxically, is driving it.”
Maybe our last Ice Age was caused by global warming. Better put longjohns on your Christmas list, global warming is coming!
Prof. Ricardo
ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1654803,00.html?gusrc=rss
So the war was about oil?
Been reading the Dems talking points again?
So, are you of the position the Dems took that Bush was attacking Iraq to get cheap oil, or the second position that Bush attacked to drive prices up for the oil companies? This was another win-win theory where if the prices went up, the Dems were right. If the prices came down, the Dems were right. The coward Repubs & Libertarians need to come up with some all-data-points-are-100%-correlation theories.
P.R.
Common Good:
“btw... have you seen the latest... Now it looks like the pentagon or someone has been paying Iraqi journalist/papers to publish American soldier written stories....
Well we sure can’t have that since the American soldiers are the enemy. No wait!!!! Scratch that. We’re supposed to be on the same side. Sort of like the British coming in and freeing us from The Clintons and us having the gall to publish the British soldier written stories. You would think stories proffered by an ally would be acceptable, but alas, if the Left doesn’t control the flow of information, the information shouldn’t flow.
“...corrupting the press isn't a good way to go about it.”
No, we have our own corrupt news organizations to handle it for them just in case the disciples of Bagdad Bob and al Jazeera need a little backup. Just in case we have forgotten a little recent media history....
Marine general slams 'Chicken Little' news
Military critique of war coverage rebukes reporters for 'errors,' security breaches
Peter Arnett: I report the truth
New Zealand-born reporter hired by anti-war tabloid after NBC firing
CNN -- the comedy news network
Is coverage of war favoring Saddam?
Study: Americans harbor disbelief about news, BBC reporter rips own network for distortions
Jordan and the real CNN story
Bunning statement on Arnett
Text of senator's speech calling for arrest of 'journalist'
The Viet Cong Admiration Society retreats
Whither CNN?
“All of this, of course, raises the question of what good is a news bureau in a totalitarian country if you can't reveal the evil that goes on inside?
“In fact, it would seem, based on Jordan's account that the CNN bureau's presence in Baghdad was actually an obstacle to reporting the news from Iraq.
“Worse than that, CNN's presence in Iraq provided cover for Saddam Hussein. Since CNN was not permitted to report the atrocities taking place there, the world was given the false impression that conditions in Iraq weren't really that bad. After all, how bad could Iraq be if it permitted a CNN news bureau in its capital?
“Maintaining the facade of a news bureau, when in fact that bureau was officially muzzled, was a grave journalistic disservice by CNN. If you can't report the news honestly, don't pretend you can."
The news tyrants
“CNN's reporting from Iraq was not "biased" or even incompetent – it was a lie. CNN's leadership knew their reporting was a lie. But they continued to do it: newscast after newscast, day after day, week after month after year. They knew the truth about Iraq's brutal dictator, but for their own benefit they chose to report the lie to the world, rather than to tell the truth. Can there be any more damning indictment of a news organization?"
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
“...Think of it. More than 12 years of CNN reporting, thousands of hours of "news" and all the while, the truth was being withheld. Simply ignored.
"Eason Jordan and all CNN executives are responsible for this mockery of journalistic ethics because they could have stopped it. But every single reporter, writer, editor, technician and any other employee who was in on the scam is just as guilty.
"Each was an accomplice in the cover-up. They should have quit and told the truth. It would appear truth has little value for CNN, and that's a shame.
"I know I'm not alone in feeling that I'll never again believe anything I see on CNN, no matter which pretty face presents it. Makes you wonder what they know about Cuba that they're ignoring.
"Without morals or shame, Eason Jordan wants us to feel empathy for him, having to keep "these stories bottled up inside me."
"Poor baby. What about the millions of people tortured and killed over those 12 years because he kept the truth a secret?
"'Of course, Herr Hitler. Not a word about the camps as long as we can keep our bureau open.'
"CNN betrayed the free people of the world who looked to them for the truth – for that, they earned millions and got their egos stroked.
"Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
It's the same thing.”
-----
P.R.
John Kerry Calls American Troops Terrorists
December 5, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: John Kerry beginning to undermine the war in a big effort now, in a big way. Let's go the sound bite. This is Face the Nation yesterday. Bob Schieffer says, "Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, he takes a very different view, Senator Kerry. He says basically that we should stay the course, because he says real progress is being made. He says, 'This is a war between 27 million Iraqis who want freedom and 10,000 terrorists.' He says we're in a watershed transformation. What about that?"
JOHN KERRY: I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is, you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment; you've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis, and there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the -- of -- of -- of -- historical customs, religious customs, whether you like it or not. Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all --
RUSH: (laughing) Iraqis ought to be terrorizing Iraqi women and children! He (interruption). Yes he did. Yes he did just say it. Cue it back up, Mike. Yes, he did. He said, "...and there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of customs, the historical customs, religious customs, whether you like it or not. Iraqis ought to be doing that." Here, listen to it again. If you didn't believe it the first time you heard it, listen to it again.
JOHN KERRY: I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is, you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment; you've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis, and there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, uh-uh-uh, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the -- of -- of -- of -- historical customs, religious customs, whether you like it or not. Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all of the talk of 210,000 people trained, there just is no excuse for not transferring more of that authority.
SCHEIFFER: But you're not saying --
RUSH: There's so much... I'm sorry I even have to play this buffoon for you, but he's assumed the position of official Democrat Party spokesman on this. He's putting himself out there, so we have to deal with it. There's so much wrong with this. You've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis? What's been going on the last year and a half that he hasn't noticed, number one. Number two: "After all these 2-1/2 years and all the talk of 210,000 people trained, no excuse for not transferring more of that authority"? What are we in the process of doing? All these people are trying to do is get ahead of something that is already happening so they can take credit for it. But this business that US soldiers are terrorizing Iraqi women and children, you now, if you doubted John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, if you doubted anybody, the Swift Boat Vets, if you doubted anybody about him, you shouldn't now. It is clear what he thinks of the US military. His view is common throughout the Democratic Party. The only Senate Democrat who sounds like FDR or Truman right now, is Joe Lieberman. You've got the likes of John Kerry and Dick Durbin now echoed by Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy as the voice of the modern Democratic Party, which despises the US military and feels no compunction whatsoever to characterize them as terrorists. Let's go back to April 22, 1971 -- and this is Kerry, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about his tour in Vietnam.
JOHN KERRY: They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in the fashion reminiscent of Jen-giss [sic] Khan, not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with a full awareness of officers at all leveled of command.
RUSH: So he came back and he lied about atrocities that he never saw. He accused men of committing these atrocities. He never saw them. He lumped himself in at some point with having participated in them, but he never saw these things committed. That truth has come out. He has not seen US soldiers terrorize kids and children in the dead of night in Iraq, and yet he can't help it because this is who he is -- and who he is, is a carbon copy of today's modern Democratic Party. This is how they view the American military man and woman; this is how they view their own country. We are the terrorists. We brutalize. We're the barbarians. We are cowards. We are doing things like this under cover of darkness. It is shocking to have to play this stuff for you, but I feel compelled to do it because so many people still want to have their head in the sands about all this. How much longer do we have to pretend these people are patriots?
------------
P.R.
Richard Pryor, dead at age 65.
I remember Christmas of ‘75 or ‘76 one of my gifts was a Richard Pryor LP 33.3rpm. I had seen him on the Johnny Carson show and man was he funny. So after all the gifts were open, I dashed off to my room to retrieve my record player and brought it to the living room for everyone to hear. The string of expletives I heard brought the whole household to a stop. I gathered up the record player and LP and went back to my room. I had heard street trash talk before, but never anybody that important and popular. We returned the album to the store. He was a funny man. Too bad he got caught up in drugs.
P.R.
A weather expert says December 2005 is on pace to become one of the 10 coldest in more than 100 years, despite claims at a global conference on climate change this week that the Earth is getting warmer.
Joe Bastardi, senior meteorologist with Accuweather.com, says present weather patterns across the country show below-normal temperatures in the single digits, with still colder air forecast in the coming weeks.
ref: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47887
Given that global cooling is evidence of global warming, this demands immediate action by the Federal Government. All fossil fuel vehicles must be banned. This not only reduces green house emissions, but elimninates 50K+ deaths and hundreds of thousands of automotive injuries. With some of the coldest temperatures in over 100 years, we must act swiftly to prevent global warming which paradoxically is causing severe winters. This can not be ignored any longer. If global warming were to continue at the present rate, in 200 years the world will be a single block of ice.
P.R.
11 Million Adults Illiterate, Study Shows
WASHINGTON - An estimated in one in 20 U.S. adults is not literate in English, which means 11 million people lack the skills to perform everyday tasks, a federal study shows. From 1992 to 2003, the nation's adults made no progress in their ability to read a newspaper, a book or any other prose arranged in sentences and paragraphs. They also showed no improvement in comprehending documents such as bus schedules and prescription labels....
(http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/15/D8EGQEMOE.html)
But hey, we are smart enough to beat the hell out of each other in line at WalMart to get our Xbox360.
P.R.
It was hideous. It was painful. But it was not unexpected no matter how unpleasant the sight. But with so many people on vacation, the desire to dress “comfortable” while on vacation is overwhelming. We are witnessing the slopification of America.
Appearance is just one element in the realm of manners. Manners are defined in my 1828 dictionary as “Deportment; carriage; behavior; conduct; course of life; ...Ceremonious behavior; civility; decent and respectful deportment.” Manners are how we express civility, consideration and respect for others. It is how we as society behave in order to make those around us comfortable. We eat a certain way to show our civilized nature, like not talking with food spewing out our mouths, using utensils, not belching at the table, and so forth. Obviously, for different cultures differences apply.
We seem to have gotten so rude and lacking in manners these last couple of decades. People drive rudely. People talk rudely in person and on the phone. And people dress rudely. Think about it. People buying pre-damaged jeans. Retired folks wearing sweats to public places. Obese folks wearing shorts and other cellulite exposing attire. Modesty run amok. It used to be you only need beware of plumbers showing the cracks of their butt. Now, a healthy portion of the female gender exposes their crack with the adornment of a thong and/or tattoo. And speaking of tattoos. It is amazing the number of women whose God given beauty has been marred by placing the artistry of unknown, unrecognized, untalented artists on so many glorious inches of once beautiful skin. It would be a tough sell to purchase someone’s skin as canvas for the great names in art like Picasso, Rembrandt, and Di Vinci. But instead, to pay some looser in the seedy side of town to monochrome some fleeting demonic sign permanently in display - How drunk must one get? Then there is the gangsta wear, with the crotch of their britches are between the calves of their legs, constantly occupied tugging at their britches trying to keep them from coiling around their ankles. There is also Goth and general immodesty. Hair curlers, shower caps, and house shoes...also by young men! The infractions are numerous.
Then there are the piercings. The sign of every uncivilized society is the gross overuse of piercing. Tongue piercing can cause nerve damage and rapid deterioration of teeth. Ear piercing in other than the lob area can cause nerve & cartilage damage. Cheek, nose, eyebrow, lip, and other areas left to the imagination, are just some of the areas being pierced to express ones individuality.
With such abandonment of civility, etiquette, manners, and consideration for others as we seek to gratify our own levels of comfort and individuality, I do not believe people see the relationship between this abandonment and the many ill effects in society. When you look like trash and that you do not care about your appearance, are you surprised when people treat you commensurate with your appearance? If you dress in an odd rebellious fashion, does it surprise you that others would tend to distrust you?
Unfortunately, we are unable to make value judgments on your character until after we have been in your presence, which coincidentally happens after your appearance has already spoken for you.
Without money of any real amount, most folks could rocket up the social ladder many rungs (if they were so inclined to do so) merely by dressing nicely, modestly, and respectfully. Also by their speech. Were they to expand their vocabulary, not talk in vulgar common street language, but speak of important topics to the betterment of men and society rather than base language, the ridicule of others, the objectification of women and so forth. You guys know what I am talking about. Think of My Fair Lady. It literally is true that by conducting yourself in a manner worthy of respect and honor you will be welcomed into circles of people that previously may have been considered above your station in life. Not that stuffy cocktail parties are what we should aspire to. But do you really think you have “arrived” by wearing a safety pin through your lip, with your XXXXXXXL shirt covering up the fact that your pants are around your ankles, belching beer through Cheeto stained teeth, and telling vulgar jokes? Laddies and gentlemen, we can do better.
P.R.
There are inherent risks in any position taken. An inherent risk of transferring our transportation dependency from individual fuel burning vehicles to mass transit is the current strike in NYC.
P.R.
My, my. Downside of cleaner air: more (global) warming. The libs have to choose between which pet disaster they want to empower the government.
But this just goes to prove my previous post where all evidence leads to global warming. Cleaner air means more global warming. Fire up that old Impala and yank a couple of plug wires off. We need to end global warming!
P.R.
Yoshi: “Anyway, it pains me to say that when Prof. Ricardo gives his little conspiracy theory about global warming.”
No conspiracy theory given. Just pointing out Scientific opinions that contradict each other and common sense. Funny how presenting them here brought about a response from you that I thought it was a conspiracy. Interesting indeed.
“It's COMPLETELY logical that actions cause reactions.”
No doubt. That is why it’s incumbent upon scientist who study such things to find out WHICH reactions are related to which causes.
I think you may have forgotten that scientist are people too. People with philosophies, worldviews, religions, and agendas. It is easy to read into your “scientific” work results that fit your agenda. How come “life” was easy to define before Roe vs Wade and so nebulous afterward? It’s a scientific issue clouded by political & philosophical agendas. To ignore this would lead one to embrace Global Warming in a sort of blind faith.
I would have thought you would have at least commented on the humorous contradiction of the article I just linked where a lack of “aerosol emissions” in the air might be causing global warming. Specifically the article said:
The results, published in the current edition of Nature, imply "future atmospheric warming greater than is presently predicted, as aerosol emissions continue to decline," suggests the team, led by Nicolas Bellouin at Britain's Meteorological Office in Exeter.
This is no right wing think tank. Your glossing over of Pollution = global warming vs this articles claim less pollution = global warming evidences a level of cognitive dissonance that could lead one to believe you may possess blind faith, not in a god, but in a scientific theory.
I’m sorry I pain you so. However, that pain may be more the discomfort of embracing a basket of contradictions that is becoming increasingly difficult not to laugh at, if merely out of amusement.
Happy New Year.
P.R.
Hey Common Good. Here is an commentary I bet you can find something to agree with. I agree with a lot of it too. It would be interesting to compare notes on it.
Holding Bush accountable is our duty
P.R.
Responding to Yoshitownsend.
The reason I bring the stuff up about the Global Warming, regardless of the occasional contradictory theory that pops up now and then, is because it is generally so well accepted, it seems a "conspiracy" to doubt it. It's not blind faith, it makes a lot of sense to me...
I think we can both admit that the other of us comes at this with a thinking mind. These are just little blog jabs (conspiracy, blind faith) that allow us to say “touché.”
We both arrived here in a systematic and reasonable way, by various inputs. Print, radio, & TV journalism, commentaries (which I believe journalism is anyway) books and even movies.
In the late 70's and early 80's I learned that TV news did not give you THE news. They gave you WHAT THEY THINK the news is. Its obvious that you can not include everything in your news report so you include what you think is important, obviously.
During that last umpty-nine years most media has had a liberal bent. To the liberal that is not obvious because the media are merely reporting what they think is reporting, even if it is not done in a positive manner. However, vast quantities of information have not corssed your ten o’clock news that you never got to decide on. Edited out.
An example of that is scientific contradictions to global warming. They just don’t exist. FOX News says “we report, you decide.” Well that’s what all news stations should do period. This media has decided before you ever heard it that it was bunk. As you said above, “it is generally so well accepted.”
An example is contained in the following commentary found here: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23323
Please read particularly the long quotes of Dr. Seitz and Dick Chenney. The balance of my comments are based upon you knowing what they said in this commentary article.
Yoshi, I have seen many, many articles and books that expose a point of view that is effectively banned from the media. No conspiracy, just like minded (liberal) journalist making an editorial decision before you ever get to see the information.
Think about this. Is it reasonable to assume given the widely accepted vast age of our planet that it would go through temperature cycles? The scientist I read when I was younger said we had cycles of Ice-ages every 11,000 years or so. If so, we are either just exiting an ice age or approaching one. If we are exiting an ice age, is it reasonable to assume that the earth would warm slightly?
The same individuals predicting that the earth could not support 4 billion people, would be no oil by the year 2,000, etc., etc., claimed we were on a cataclysmic destiny with another Ice Age. They claimed this in the late 60's and early 70's. In a mere ten years they shifted their gears to global warming with equal “the sky is falling” urgency and eminent doom.
The problem is we are measuring over infinitesimal small time periods and extrapolating out the destiny of humanity.
Speaking of Limbaugh, I have heard what he has said on the matter, though he is far from my foundation on the subject. He asks: “If we WANTED to raise the temperature of the earth how could we do it? We can’t stop rain, or start it. We can’t stop hurricanes, or start them. We can’t stop tornados, hurrendous blizzards, and drought, or start them. What arrogance have we humans to think that we can alter the direction this planet is headed." (Paraphased by the Prof.)
When I found out that the “hole” in the ozone wasn’t a hole at all, but an annual 15% depression near the pole. From the information I have seen, it has never been as “thin” as when it was first measured in the 1950's.
AND when you take the agenda’s of those individuals giving the warnings of over population, eminent ice age, eminent ozone depletion, eminent oil shortage, and eminent global warming, as stated in their books, which amounts to giving government more control, crippling business (particularly the western concept of free enterprise) and pealing back much technological advantage, one like myself tends to view their side with much caution and suspicion.
The pollution that the USA emits into the air is relatively clean compared to other nations. Because of our success and advancement, we own vehicles, demand products, use electricity, etc. Therefore our way of life demands a number of chemical reactions that could be considered pollution. Poor countries also pollute. Their population can’t afford either vehicles in general (Africa), or clean ones (East Germany before unification). A two stroke East German auto pollutes more than about 8 gazillion US vehicles. Interestingly enough as Cheney pointed out in the article, Kyoto does not cover the #2 emitter China, or the #5 emitter India, two relatively un-technologically advanced nations.
As a package deal, those pushing the global warming have a dubious agenda, those failing to report research contradicting “well accepted” global warming have a dubious agenda, and those crafting a response to this not really proven phenomena have exempted gross polluters, but low and behold, that evil western advanced nation that is the leader in clean factories, cars, everything, the USA, is the one most hamstrung by the deal. Maybe that smells like roses to other people, but I think it stinks and my roses could grow quite well with a sprinkling of it.
Although we both claim an open mind, once we (like the scientist) take a stand, it takes more than a reasonable amount of evidence to convince us to change. It takes a preponderance of the evidence. And particularly if sources of our information claim one way or the other we tend to follow that way as well, thus your comment about me and Limbaugh, etc.
Re: Business aversion to global warming fixes. Of course. Drastic measures for unproven phenomena that destroy productivity, profitability, and western advanced level of living is unnecessary. Could we save all US 50,000 traffic deaths by implementing a 5 MPH speed limit? Pretty much, but what would happen to productivity and freedom? Kyoto and other answers don’t address what happens to freedom, productivity, property rights, free enterprise, technology, and level of life style. There is no weighing advantages to disadvantages. WE MUST SAVE THE PLANET, DAMN THE HUMANS! Well, given our widely accepted umpty billion year old planet, could we take a few years, maybe 50 or 100 and track this thing out, verify, scientifically test it, before we devastate businesses and freedoms?
Much reading I know. But hopefully you get a sense for why I enjoy the occasional jab at Global Warming by publishing contradictions and exposing that which is withheld from majority media.
Happy New Year!
P.R.
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