Brother Bobs Blog

Economics for Politicians Chapter Eight - Do You Know What an Unfunded Liability Is? It's Why You Belong in Jail!

2012-02-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

Welcome back, class! As I warned you last time this subject would be painful for you, so strap yourselves in. As you've probably noticed with all of the charts and graphs we use that economists love to use pictures to make their points. In this case instead of a picture I'm going to use a hypothetical story to get things started...

Let's say that at some point during your childhood your mother promises you that if you get straight A's in school and do all of your chores upon graduation from high school your father will buy you a Ferrari. Needless to say, you are very well motivated to be a good kid. You spend the next few years busting your butt, getting all of your chores done and making whatever sacrifices to your social life that are necessary to get straight A's. Graduation day comes and you walk up to your father and tell him about the promise your mom made and ask when you're going to get your new car. Your father looks back at you and asks how you thought the family could ever afford a gift like that. Even with both of your parents working full time your family can only afford to live a pretty modest lifestyle. If you had just looked around you would have understood that there is no way the family could have fulfilled such an outrageous promise.

Having your dream crushed would not go over well, and you are justifiably unhappy for having been duped. Now, where is your frustration directed - at your mom or dad? Even though the fault lies with the person who made the ridiculous promise, chances are that most of your anger is at the person who had to point out the reality of the matter and say "no" to you.

To most of us who live outside of the beltway or state capitols the concept of making outrageous financial promises that can never be kept sounds absolutely insane, and sadly for you this is just basic strategy to win an election.

Before we go any further let's ensure that everybody understands exactly what an unfunded liability is. Break down the two words:

Unfunded - A desired purchase that one does not have the means to buy based on current finances

Liability - Financial commitment to be paid at a later date

What this means is that every time you decree that something will be paid for with funds that have not been budgeted you are creating what is called an unfunded liability (UL). Be careful - don't confuse unfunded liabilities with capital expenditures. Capital expenditures (CE) can be defined as purchases that are paid over several years and will appear in outyear budgets. Where CE's are planned and already factored into future budgets, UL's are not.

To illustrate this think of a household budget. Sister Babe and I have all of our regular expenses that we pay as we consume them - groceries, utilities, gasoline, clothing, etc. We also have items that we had to finance because we are unable to buy them with cash, such as our car or our home. The car and home are not ULs because we have budgeted for their expenses in future years based on our current income level. We know that based on our salaries we can afford the car and our home, so these are not unfunded liabilities. Now, let's assume that one of us decides to do something stupid like make a large, unplanned purchase that goes enough beyond our budget that has to be financed with the money from elsewhere. In terms of scope, a cup of Starbucks during the day or going to grab a beer with a coworker after work are not expenses we budget, but are small enough that we don't have to plan for them. If one of us decides to surprise the other with the gift of a Lexus as a Christmas gift, that would have a significant impact on our household finances (If you want to see a great parody of those obnoxious ads click here. Warning - the language is NSFW). We would have to either cut back on other expenses, find a way to make significantly more money, or borrow against our future and make plans to pay for this for years to come, preventing us from using our money for other financial goals.

From your perspective, our consumption would be the equivalent of the day to day services that your level of government provides, such as police and fire services or payments to retirees. Our car or home would be your long term projects, such as building bridges or highways. As for the Lexus, that is everything that you have planned that you don't have in the budget. Examples of these would be wars, natural disasters, or Obamacare. Sure, if you spend too much you can just raise taxes and rely on unrealistic revenue forecasts from a tax base that your laws incentivise to shrink. Or, if you spend spend recklessly you can just tell people not to worry and that we can just pay for it down the road or punish the wealthy.

Here is the problem with unfunded liabilities - they ultimately have to be paid back, and those payments mean that in the future you will have less to consume or invest. If Sister Babe and I now have a $700 monthly Lexus payment that's money that we don't have for vacations, for funding our retirement, paying off the car we already have, or, heaven forbid, forcing Brother Bob to cut his beer consumption.

The same goes for you. The beauty from where you're sitting is that the pain is spread over many people and your constituents are so used to paying you taxes without question it goes largely unnoticed. But ultimately the debts have to be paid back. I believe it was the writers at Cafe Hayek who defined an unfunded liability as a tax on future generations that will have to be repaid either by raising taxes or inflating the currency. A few years ago I got to hear Ben Stein Speak when he got in front of the crowd and said, "Bueller... Bueller...". No, he actually didn't say that but what he did offer was a great definition for our soaring deficits - "Financial grandchild abuse."

A few years ago Chris Christie was elected governor of New Jersey, surprising many that a conservative Republican could win in such a blue state. The people of New Jersey got fed up with the leadership of one of the best financial minds that Democrats could produce in John Corzine. The state had (and still does) face some serious budget issues, but Christie was the one who was given the task of dealing with the problem. The Democrats in the state legislature naturally proposed taxes on the wealthy to pay for these, which Christie rightly vetoed as soon as the bill reached his desk. New Jersey already suffers from one of the highest tax burdens among the states, and only neighboring New York's even more oppressive taxes keep more people from North Jersey from fleeing the state. Christie had to make cuts to the budget, and one of the larger outlays that New Jersey has is to its bloated public sector workers. Specifically he targeted the teachers' union, making the unreasonable demands that they fund part of their pensions and health care - you know, like everyone else has to do. This and other spending cuts made Christie quite unpopular in New Jersey, but at the end of the day who's fault is the state's terrible financial condition? Was it the man who caused the problem or the man who enacted the painful solution?

Sadly, in your world these promises get you re-elected until the bill finally comes due. Or when you finally get thrown out of office you can fail upward into some think-tank or high paying lobbying job. And of course, we get stuck with the bill. Going back to Cafe Hayek's definition, any deficit spending that you commit is nothing more than a tax increase that you haven't bothered to pass yet. If you want a great example, look at what happened just recently when all of the president's sycophants in the media were baying over Mitt Romney's tax returns. The debt ceiling was quietly raised by $1.2 trillion dollars. Using a rough total US population of 308 million people, that averages out to a tax increase of $3,896 for every man, woman and child in America.

And if you think we can get around that tax increase that the president just passed by simply demanding that the wealthy pay their "fair share", think again. Declaration Entertainment's Bill Whittle does a great video walking through Iowahawk's analysis of how much of an impact on the debt we would have by confiscating private wealth. If you have five minutes it's well worth watching.

To shoot down another argument supporting deficit spending we can look at every lefty's favorite economist, Paul Krugman. By calculating that most of our federal debt is held by American entities, whether it be private citizens, banks, etc. the debt is meaningless because we "owe it to ourselves". This is a perfect illustration of why it is dangerous to listen to people with grand ideas and minimal experience in the real world. An old coworker of mine gave me a phrase I love to use, Krugman is "buzzword compliant but experience deficient." When you're looking at the world from eight miles high it's easy to make assumptions about a big picture without realizing that the big picture is made up of an incredible number of small moving parts. Every bit of that debt that "we owe to ourselves" is exactly that - it is owed to some person who is working under the assumption that at some point they will be paid back for the loan they made. Yes, the borrowee can take a loan from someone else to pay it but at some point there is an end where the debt has to be paid.

To show this point of owing to ourselves with a real life example we can look at an example from my past of betting on football with friends. When we were in 6th grade my buddy Richard (not his real name) sat behind me in Sunday CCD class. I would always tear out of the newspaper the latest betting lines and we would pass the paper back and forth negotiating which games we would bet on and at the end of class we would come to an agreement as to which games each would have. We were twelve years old, so our big stakes betting was a quarter or fifty cents per game. Every Tuesday morning when the gaming week ended after the Monday night contest we would settle our debt on the playground with the loser paying what he owed. If I remember correctly I trounced him pretty well that season, having an advantage for the year of being up around $6 after the Super Bowl. Being a good sporting friend I offered double or nothing on the following week's Pro Bowl all-star game, which Richard won - easy come, easy go.

In contrast, I started a new job just over a year after graduating college. A coworker who I'll call Charles suggested we bet each other on some of the weekend pro football games. This was probably the first time I was betting on football since my days with Richard, so I gladly accepted. This time was different though - I got out to an early lead in the season, but instead of paying each week Richard suggested we apply whatever he owed toward next week's games. This kept up until I was going out of town one weekend and asked Richard to pay up. At this point he got indignant and said that he bets for friendship and that he was annoyed that I suggested that he pay. Being that he was a coworker bodily harm would have been inappropriate, so I took that opportunity to realize that I was better off without this goon in my life. So for the $10 or $20 that this cost me I gained the ability to immediately send this fool scurrying away whenever he tried to start a non job related conversation.

The point of these stories is that "we owe it to ourselves" only holds up if it is never expected that the original money be paid back. And that money doesn't get to to, or from, this amorphous being known as "ourselves". It's made up of individuals, and at some point no matter how much our government bullies the banks and other institutions to buy its debt this shell game won't go ob forever because it can't. Anyone remember the bank runs of the 1930's from your history books or the last time you saw "It's a Wonderful Life"? This is what happens when a few clever individuals realize they better move quickly if they want to get the debt that's owed to them back. Then more and more people figure it out, and the result is not going to be pretty.

There is actually one other way to pay down our deficits other than ruinous tax increases or hyper-inflation , and that's by spurring the private sector to grow faster than the government that feeds off of it. No parasites can indefinitely grow faster than its host without killing both, yet leftists seem to be in love with gorging government growth for some improved economy that becomes their bizarro version of "Waiting for Godot." Dubya partially got this, which was how, despite his "irresponsible tax cuts" government tax receipts hit all time highs. Of course, that doesn't excuse his decision to start spending like a liberal.

We need to start taking a hard look at how you've plundered our economy, and we need to start having those painful conversations right now about how much we're going to need to sacrifice thanks to your selfishness. Bernie Madoff's name has become almost synonymous for large scale financial rip-offs, yet the $65 Billion that he cost the people who believed in him is is only how much more you take from us in one month - and that's only at the federal level. And frighteningly enough, while you no doubt agree with us that Madoff belongs behind bars, you probably have the nerve and gall to think that we should be thanking you.

So spare us the talking points that Obama has "given" us these massive tax cuts. Since coming into office the President and his fellow Democrats have increased our federal debt by $3.5 Trillion to $14.2 Trillion in just three years - that's a tax increase of $11,363 per citizen.

Naturally, I'm picking on Barry O. since he is the one at the helm right now. Don't think that I'm letting our last president off the hook today. During his eight years in office Bush presided over deficits that increased to $5 Trillion dollars - using my formula above that's a tax increase of $16,233 for each of us. So you're on the right track when you tell us that Bush's reckless policies hurt our country, but it's not his tax cuts, it's his tax increases that hurt us. We all agree that Bernie Madoff's $65 Billion rip-off was criminal. What is it that makes his actions criminal and yours noble? You'd better be ready to answer that, and soon.

OK, that's enough for today. I know that I was a lot rougher on you than in previous lessons, but sometimes tough love is necessary. But in the words of the great Michael Muir, "And if I offended you, oh I'm sorry but maybe you needed to be offended..." Mr. Muir had a bit more to say on the subject, but in the name of the new civility those words won't be reprinted in this post. If you are interested you can hear the rest of his musings click here .

"You wouldn't know fiscal responsibility if Milton Friedman was eating Fruit Loops on your front porch!"

The next lesson is only going to be somewhat better for you, as we explain why the unintended consequences of your actions often cause more harm than good. This next chapter will be a bonus section for journalists - never again will you have to type the word "unexpectedly" when explaining why jobless claims increase under President Obama! Next up:

Chapter 9: Unintended Consequences - Bonus Section for Journalists!

Previous Lessons:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

Lesson Four: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

Lesson Four A: By Definition the Government Can Not Create Wealth

Lesson Five: Businesses are Greedy - That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

Lesson Six: You are Greedy - That is a Bad Thing!

Lesson Seven: You Don't Invest; You Spend

If Tim Tebow Did Not Exist, the Left Would Have to Create Him

2012-01-10T19:21:00.001-08:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

A few months prior to the 2008 election my friend The Destroyer of Colons asked me, "When Bush is gone, who are liberals going to hate?" He was only half joking. "Not to worry," I assured him with a smile, "liberals can always find someone to designate as an object of their hatred."

When I was in high school the priest who was teaching our Senior year psychology class had us write an essay based on the quote, "If God did not exist man would have to create him." This was many years ago, but I recall my conclusion being something to the effect of saying that given mankind's emotional and psychological needs if God did not exist we would have to create some divine being to believe in to give our lives greater meaning.

This was actually a blog post I was kicking around last year, looking back on 2008 when the focus of the left's anger was directed toward Sarah Palin. It was almost surreal watching the hateful delight they took in watching our press journalistically rape her family while these same "professionals" ignored trivial matters like the horrifically flawed economic policies or lack of experience and questionable past of one party's actual presidential candidate. Personally I'm not a big Palin fan - I see her as someone with very real flaws to go with some very real accomplishments, but the way she enunciates just grates on me (sorry, that's just me). Then again, at least I generally agree with the substance of what she's saying and if her speaking manner is fingernails on a blackboard to me hearing her talk is probably a Tabasco sauce enema to leftists. For that matter, the fact that the very mention of her name can send most leftists into a seething, purple-faced rage will always earn her a place in my heart. Not to mention this past summer's bus tour when the same press who had so much fun dumpster diving through her and her family's lives were now crying that she was treating them like paparazzi - that was a thing of beauty.

Getting back on topic, it seems that no matter what the time is, the left has to have someone as their focus as their anger. Even in those early days of the Obama presidency when all was right in the world their focus went toward Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck - reliable standbys. And then came the Tea Party. If you missed it the first time, check out my two part posting illustrating the left's anger toward the Tea Party as told through the five stages of death and dying.

The left threw out every bit of hateful invective that they had in their arsenal. The Tea Party was labeled astroturfers, racists, seditionists, idiots, rubes, and terrorists. Their crowning slur came when none of these charges stuck and the left threw to the most disrespectful, malevolent smear they could find toward the Tea Party - they compared the Tea Party to leftists.

Another interesting case study in leftist anger is the comic strip Doonesbury. While I once enjoyed it as an actual comic, over the last decade it's morphed into a sounding board for the angry and bitter leftist, Garry Trudeau. From 2000 - 2008 his range of topics could be summed up as:

Hatred for George Bush

Hatred for Fox News

Hatred for George Bush

Hatred for Schwarzenegger

Hatred for George Bush

And of course, during the 2008 presidential campaign Sarah Palin joined this crowd. Mix in some patronizing, if not outright disdain for the military, and that pretty much sums up every comic not involving the personal lives of the characters, although these themes are generally woven in as well. One would expect that with a president as spectacularly inept as President Obama, Trudeau would have a field day. So naturally his strips have become focused on hated for Palin, Donald Trump, the Tea Party, and of course sympathy for the OWSers and their distaste for... prosperity?

After following the progression of Bush-Chaney-Palin-Limbaugh- Beck-Tea Partiers-The Un-Romney of the Month, we find ourselves at Tim Tebow. For those of you unfamiliar Tim Tebow is a pro football player, and is currently the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He has gained fame for his erratic style of play, leading his team to several improbable come-from behind wins. That made him famous in the sports world, but what took him beyond was his religion. To build on Dr. John's analysis, Tebow became famous for combining his unusual talents with his spiritual beliefs. Tim Tebow is a devout Christian, and is quite public about it. "Tebowing", the act of kneeling and bowing one's head in prayer with fingertips on your forehead has become a national sensation in itself. He gained some notoriety for painting scripture verses in his eye black while playing college ball at the University of Florida. Tebow also caused a minor uproar during last year's Super Bowl when he starred in an ad for a Pro-Life group, telling about how his mother had an at risk pregnancy where abortion was recommended, and how happy Tim Tebow and his mother were that she chose to have him. This created a bit of controversy, but no more than if a tasteful Pro-Choice ad had aired during the Super Bowl starring a famous female athlete. An example off of the top of my head would be if a top track star mentioned how getting pregnant in high school would have cost her a college scholarship and ensured a life in the impoverished place where she grew up. An ad like that would have gotten some criticism on the right, and would probably have blown over as quickly as Tebow's ad did.

But then Tebow did the unforgivable - he became a famous Christian who is open about his faith. With the Denver Broncos' poor play early on in the 2011 season Tim Tebow, who opened the season at #3 on the Broncos' depth chart at Quarterback, was now the starter. And he started winning. And winning. And winning ugly. The team adjusted its offense to make the best use of Tebow's athleticism and, let's face it, terrible passing accuracy. Tebow had this strange habit of playing badly for three quarters and then pulling out an almost miraculous victory. I saw one person nickname Tebow "Uncle Miltie", based on an NSFW-ish story about the late comedian Milton Berle that ends with the punchline, "just enough to win."

The end of regular season's performance (losses) by Tebow and the Broncos have bought Tebowmania back to Earth, but during his ascent and decline and once again ascent in his playoff win over the Steelers we've seen no shortage of venom from the left directed at this young man. David Schuster, the always reliably unhinged Bill Maher, even one of the more rational leftists in Bill Press all took their turns attacking Tebow. Heck, even The Nation, not exactly known as a sports publication, had to write several articles on the quarterback that the left loves to hate.

Why all of this hatred for someone who has done nothing wrong, or broken any laws? For that matter, while some may find his openness about his faith obnoxious, Tebow isn't out trying to beat everyone he meets over the head with a Bible and preaching conversion. You know what else he isn't doing? He's not doing drugs. He's not driving drunk. He's not participating in dogfighting rings. He's not bringing guns into nightclubs. He's not fathering children out of wedlock to several different mothers. And he's not murdering anyone. Granted, the athletes in each of the scenarios I just mentioned have gotten varying degrees of scorn for their actions, but none that were so ideologically centered. So why do leftists give the athletes in the categories I just mentioned a pass while directing so much venom at one man who most people would actually be happy to see their sister or daughter dating? It's the same reason the left has so much hatred for the likes of Sarah Palin or the Tea Party.

They have to. Leftist policy just doesn't work in the real world - look at Communism in Soviet Russia, Europe's socialistic gradual death spiral (and that's despite the US subsidizing their national defense) or or that matter, look no further than the White House. When Oregon was considering an Obamacare/Romneycare-esque health care mandate The Destroyer of Colons mused, "I hope that this bill passes, just so we can show leftists once and for all that government run health care doesn't work." I just shook my head and responded, "That won't happen. Leftist policies never fail because they are bad ideas, only because greedy individuals refuse to throw enough money at their bad ideas."

This is what leads to the Left's permanent state of anger. When your bad ideas don't work you can either reflect on them and learn from it, or you can cling to your bad ideas and be angry because nobody gets your genius. Without introspection as an option, a target must be found - hence the left's continuous rotating figurehead as the object of their anger.

Even worse is how badly it is often misdirected. Look at the OWS'ers and their anger at... something. Granted, most of the movement is made up of Unionistas, career grievance mongers (Code Pink, ACORN, etc), students who have no idea what the real world is like, and criminals. These are all traditional Democrat-leaning groups, but at some point one would think that the Obama-rose-colored glasses have to come off and the realization has to set in that the president and Congress are the reason our economy is flagging. Maybe people who demonize profitability and threaten to punish the prosperity that leads to job creation are why companies are afraid to hire. On a personal level, maybe their facial piercings, lack of personal hygiene, and sense of entitlement are why nobody wants to hire them for any of the ever-scarcer job openings. Sorry, but the 12-16 years spent getting gold stars and being told you're special for just showing up are over.

Again, rather than look at the causes of their unhappiness it is easier for the left to lash out in unthinking rage. The worst example that would actually be comical if it weren't so disgusting was the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. So blinded by their hatred for Sarah Palin were the leftists that they had to manufacture an excuse to pretend that she was somehow responsible for the shooting. To make matters worse, when she called them on their idiocy, they double downed on stupid and got even angrier at her simply for pointing out the error of their ways. And the sad part is the lefties started shrieking about how classless and stupid Palin was for doing so, when the place they should have been looking was the mirror.

This is not to say that all leftists are constantly out looking for someone to hate to fill the void in their lives. I understand that the tone of this post is a lot more accusatory than what I usually write but, as I dispel my own straw man a better question does come from it. Why does there always seem to be someone in the news who is the object of leftist anger, and why is it so vicious?

So where will Tebow go? Maybe he fizzles out by losing to the New England Patriots this weekend as badly as he did a few weeks ago, or maybe he goes on to win the Super Bowl.

"Only Tim Tebow can save us now!"

My favorite take on Tebow came in ESPN columnist DJ Gallo's weekly satire of Peter King's "Monday Morning Quarterback." In this week's "The Hangover" Gallo speculates as to where Tebow may be in twelve years:

"Will a wholesome, handsome ex-football star who can draw the religious vote and appeal to the tens of millions of Oprah-loving pop psychologists win 51 percent of the vote in the 2024 presidential election? No, he will win 91 percent of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. The 9 percent who don't vote for him will just be hard-core Raiders, Chargers, Chiefs, Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Ron Paul fans."

Tebow for President in 2024!

I'm kidding, of course. The only person to get Brother Bob's coveted endorsement for president is none other than the great Stannis Baratheon.

But until then we have Tim Tebow.

Economics for Politicians Chapter Seven: You Don't Invest; You Spend

2012-01-09T17:48:00.000-08:00

*** UPDATE - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***
Welcome back, class! I know that it's been a while since our last lesson but things have been pretty busy here in Bobville. When we last left off we had to take a step back to explain wealth creation for some of you who still were having trouble understanding why you do not create jobs. Now we can start moving forward again, and this chapter will be the calm before the storm. Today's lesson will actually be the lightest in terms of content, but you're going to need it. The next two lessons on unfunded liabilities and unintended consequences are going to be the most difficult ones for you to grasp, much less accept.

Wikipedia defines investment as "investment is the amount purchased per unit time of goods which are not consumed but are to be used for future production." In other words, investment is something willingly purchased at the present time in hopes of gaining a return on that investment. Over time, whether or not is is a good or bad investment will be based on growth or failure to grow. This is why government spending can not be called investment in the strictest sense of the word. Society can benefit by items purchased by the government, such as:

Education (improving the quality of our workforce, while how those dollars are allocated will be an endless debate)

Waging a war on foreign soil (sending trained professionals to kill those who would harm American citizens)

Foreign aid (bribing foreign governments to improve opportunities for Americans abroad)

Highways (creating a commerce and transportation infrastructure).

The important distinction is that while the items just listed produce benefits to society, but by their nature they do not allow for the same measurement as conventional investments.

Also under the government spending umbrella are items that are simply produced while yielding no value but simply waste money. The president's czars and regulation designed to increase mercury levels in landfills fall in this category.

The easy pinatas in the room are government ventures that have lost money for the taxpayers hand over fist. Amtrak, Solyndra, the GM bailout and Fannie and Freddie Mac fall into this category. There's no need to beat you up with the details of these, but if you're going to call your spending investment please give the American people a clear picture of how these investments have performed, and in turn how you as an investment manager have performed over the years.

If you've understood the previous lessons on job creation and wealth creation this concept should be pretty easy for you. Since there is nothing more to teach here I thought I'd add a fun exercise to wrap this up. Presidents like to brag about how much they've "invested" in our country, so what is each President's return on investment? We use this measurement for all real, tangible investments, so why not here? Here are the exercise's assumptions:

Return on investment is simply a measure defined as (Total Receipts -Total Spent) / Total Receipts. This is not a real measure given that we just covered how government spending is not true investment, but is more of a measure of how wisely our leaders are spending our money relative to what they collect.

Raw data is from the White House's web site, and the original spreadsheet can be found here.

Early presidents are lumped in together - we don't start to get good individual presidential data until the start of the last century.

Each president's measured years lags one year behind his entrance into office, since each new president operates under the budget of his predecessor.

Total dollars gained or lost are not our primary driver for success or failure - percentages are used instead. The most popular measurement for return on investment performance is by percentage, so that is what is being used here. Here is how the presidents fared in chronological order. Click here for a larger version:

What does all of this tell us? Not too much, to be perfectly honest. By the measure used a president who decides to have the government confiscate every last piece of private wealth while less rapidly increasing government spending would look like Peter Lynch. At least they would look good for a year until reality sets in, of course.

It was interesting that the only president in modern history to show a net "gain" during his tenure was Clinton. He finished fifth best with a 0.5% net gain. Yes, I know that Congress actually passes the budgets and that the gridlock that Gingrich created helped to control spending, but let's give some credit where it's due. The president is the highest ranking official in his party and has some sway over how his party's members in Congress behave.

The bottom surprised me more. I wasn't all that surprised that Reagan and Bush 41 finished at 5th and 6th worst. Yes, I'm aware of the Democrat-controlled congresses as well, but let's give some blame where it's due as well.

And even bigger surprise was Dubya - 7th worst, while I was expecting a worse rating. Although he and Tom Delay decided to go on a spending binge, the fact that skyrocketing receipts collected during his presidency prevented him from finishing lower on this list. Maybe there is something to be said for not continuously demonizing and threatening the very businesses that generate your tax revenue after all.

One that will surprise many but was no shock to me - Hoover. Many Americans still subscribe to the notion that Hoover took no action against an economic downturn and only when FDR came into office did his New Deal programs save us. Yes, Hoover saw tax revenue drop as a result of the recession, but like his successor he chose to spike government spending, and with similar results.

The fact that our worst investment manager was FDR shouldn't surprise anyone, especially his supporters. Having paid attention to your previous lessons, I know it didn't surprise you.

And of course, the only way to conclude this is by looking at President Obama. For this exercise we're only looking at his 2010 actuals and 2011 projections. It will be interesting to see how he ranks after his four years, but as it stands right now the president is selling himself short. While he thinks he is only our 4th greatest presiden t, in terms of bankrupting our nation he stands solidly at #3!

Up next is Lesson 8 - "Do you know what an unfunded liability is? It's why you belong in jail!"

Previous Lessons:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

Lesson Four: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

Lesson Four A: By Definition the Government Can Not Create Wealth

Lesson Five: Businesses are Greedy - That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

Lesson Six: You are Greedy - That is a Bad Thing!

It turns out that the OWS Protesters Are Just Like the Tea Partiers After All!

2011-11-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

The Occupy Wall Street Movement has been mother's milk for bloggers and political writers from all ends of the spectrum. Whether seeing them as kindred spirits of the Arab Spring or childish spirits in dire need of Irish Spring, almost everyone who writes about politics has weighed in.

Aside from one brief post I've steered clear of this subject since it meets my two criteria for topic avoidance 1) Too many others have written about it and/or 2) Someone smarter than me has written about it. All of my regular readers (thank you, both of you!) have probably noticed this trait in my blog, but I haven't seen any posts that actually connect the dots and draw up the one glaring similarity that both protests share.

Vice President Biden recently remarked that the OWS protesters and the Tea Party have a lot in common. OK, the vice president actually only said that the the two movements share common origins (protesting bank bailouts), but I thought I'd take this point a bit farther and compare and contrast them. Yes, I understand that the blogosphere has already got its share of postings comparing both, but I haven't seen anyone tie all of the pieces together for the larger message that ties these two groups together.

First off, let's look at the two minor traits that both groups have in common. Both have their share of critics who claim that these movements are nothing more than astroturfed mastermindings of George Soros / The Koch Brothers that have manipulated all of these hopeless rubes into dancing to their tune. There actually is a small degree of truth to the backing, as both protest movements have support that has received funding from their respective would-be overlords. That said, there are too many people who have come out on either side to simply dismiss either one as simple puppeteering. I've spent enough time at protests for both sides to state that the people at these protests are there because they truly believe in their causes. And yes, I know that left leaning groups play a larger role in OWS than group organizers did with the Tea party, and I'll come back to that shortly.

Both the Tea Party and OWS are both opposed to the government bailouts, although OWS seems to be a day late and a dollar short in their complaint. Where were all of you two years ago, OWS? Still, better late than never.

And that's about it in terms of the minor similarities. I'm sure that by now you've all read something listing differences between the two, but it's a lot tougher to make my concluding point without briefly summarizing a few key points. So without further adieu, here key differences:

While the Tea Party has been portrayed as angry mobs on the verge of violence by the mainstream press, in reality you'll never find so many law abiding, peaceful people in one setting. Compare that to how somehow the MSM narrative has managed to overlook this string of crimes and other inconvenient truths about the OWSers.

For that matter, the left had such a difficult time finding evidence supporting their claims about the Tea Party that they had to start planting people with fake signs. This had the dual effect of bolstering the Tea Party's credentials while indicting the MSM, confident that any reporter would be so happy to find a sign that fit their narrative that they wouldn't be bothered with such pesky steps like verifying that their source was an actual Tea Partier.

One of the reasons there is so little unrest at Tea Party events is that these are law abiding citizens who are unhappy with what the current political process has given them and work within the law to improve the situation. We saw this in what happened in the 2010 midterm elections and the efforts to fend off the leftist counterattacks against public union reform in Wisconsin. One of the reasons there is so much unrest at the OWS events is that the OWS group, under its sense of entitlement, feels that their objectives are too important to be worried about respecting the property rights of others, or their fellow protesters for that matter.

The Tea Party had simple, clear messages. Don't destroy our health care system. Stop bailing out every company that spent more time donating money to your campaigns than running their business. Stop spending more money than you're bringing in. The OWS is still trying to come up with a coherent message, or some demands that are actually feasible in the real world. Aside from the occasional "Repeal Glass-Steagal!' (which quite a few Tea Partiers would support, actually), coherence and any connection to reality have been sorely lacking in their demands.

The Tea Partiers were accused of racism for opposing a president who has shown us higher unemployment, greater debt, and more regulatory invasion into our lives than George W. Bush could have ever dreamed of - all substantial reasons. Ironically, the same people on the left who criticized Bush for these very reasons now can't be bothered with criticizing the current president. Apparently the press has not figured out that, unlike holding people to equal standards regardless of skin color, holding someone to a lower standard because of their skin color is actual racism.

The Tea Partiers get labeled selfish for having these radical Ayn Randian notions of wanting freedom from the government in their lives (and that the rest of the 99% also be allowed to share this same freedom). The OWS crowd has a list of demands to give them guaranteed high wages, free college education, unconditional employment, etc. To someone without a degree in journalism that might sound a bit...selfish?

Despite accusations of astroturf, Tea Partiers came to their events, protested, and left. They can't occupy anything since they are part of the productive class and have to go back to their responsibilities, such as their jobs and families. Tea Partiers don't have the time or money to simply take an indefinite camping trip in a city park. Contrast this with who makes up most of the OWS - people who live off of the labor of others. Most of these protesters are students, union employees (not workers who happen to be union members, but the people on the union payroll itself. Of course, this does include union members in a number of the protests), and other groups of professional agitators (ACORN, Code Pink, etc.) who could not exist without the productive class. Somehow the press seems to be uninterested in how the funding for these occupations and the donated food, etc. is coming in - certainly not astroturf.

Taking the last point a bit farther, the Tea Partiers can't have prolonged protests because they contribute to society in different ways. They set about uninteresting tasks such as managing the Wal-Mart that sells power bars and bottled water, or driving the truck that ships iPads for Amazon.com, or running the servers that keep AT&T and Verizon's broadband service running, working at the bank that finds ways to finance student loans for degrees in Transgender Studies, maintaining the local town or city's water works that ensure that toilets will flush and that water will come out of a spigot when a knob is turned, or stocking the shelves at the local Target with items like blankets and tents. For their efforts doing these mundane activities the Tea Partiers are given incentive to come back and do it again each day by being rewarded with something far greater than that inner glow that can only be gained by spending days on end in public places and chanting and banging on drums while eschewing personal hygiene and living off the generosity of others - the Tea Partiers get paychecks.

The OWS crowd enjoys donated items such as water bottles, power bars, blankets and tents. They feel that the local shops should allow them in to charge their iPads so they can upload their blog posts and pictures of the evil policemen up to their web sites hosted by Verizon or AT&T, and those same shops should allow them to use their restrooms to bathe in their sinks. And the evil banks should forgive their student loans since they can't seem to find a job that pays well enough to repay the loan needed to get a degree in a marketable skill such as Transgender Studies.

In an amazing twist of irony it doesn't seem to register that none of the goods needed to sustain these protests would be possible without the very system they seek to overthrow. To steal a comparison made by Mark Steyn, like the Eloi from Jules Verne's The Time Machine the OWS just expect food to appear each morning and never give a thought as to what effort was needed to bring it there. It is lost on them that the very system they seek to overthrow might actually be the very one that gives them access to all of these products that they enjoy. Note to any aspiring Morlocks: do not try to eat any protesters. They probably taste even worse than they smell.

"And I thought they smelled bad...on the outside!"

I also have one curious observation about how the left and right views the two movements. For all of the angry, ignorant and hateful attacks that the left has launched at the Tea Party they are only too eager to put them on par with the OWS to give their own movement credibility. On the other side nobody even remotely tied to the Tea Party wants to be associated with the OWS in any way, shape or form for obvious reasons.

After looking at all of these factors how can one possibly conclude that these groups are alike and that the OWS is what lefties are desperately trying to label "The Tea party of the Left"? When one steps back and looks at all of the factors there is one unifying theme that both movements share. The OWS movement is just as perfect a representation of the liberal ideology as the Tea Party is of Conservatism.

If one positive development is coming from this, every dollar used to fund these professional agitators' camp outs is one less dollar going into the Obama reelection fund.

Economics for Politicians Chapter 4A: By Definition the Government Can Not Create Wealth

2011-10-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Class, I have a bit of somewhat bad news for you. Our next lesson on why you, as politicians, spend rather than invest has been pushed back. After Lesson 4 on why you don't create jobs and need to get over FDR I see that there still is a lot of confusion as to how jobs, and more specifically, wealth, is created. Between the comments posted on that particular lesson and some offline back and forth with some of your kindred souls on Facebook I realize that there is still a knowledge gap as to how actual wealth is created. This series of lessons is cumulative in nature, so if you miss a topic you're going to have a hard time understanding follow up chapters. Any good teacher recognizes when his class needs to reinforce the basics before progressing with more advanced lessons. Unfortunately for you I'm not one of those good teachers but we're going to step back a little bit anyway.

Before we continue, please take a few minutes to review this video by Declaration Entertainment's Bill Whittle that explains how wealth is created. It complements nicely the example that I am about to give. Now let's look at how government itself is defined:

Here is how government is defined by Wikipedia: "Government refers to the legislators , administrators , and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized. Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state." Basically, government is an institution that is created by a collective of people to run things, whether it be a military, a fire department, building roads, maintaining sewer lines, etc.

Did you notice what was not in there? Wealth creation - by its very definition government is an entity designed to determine and enforce state policy. To give you an abstract picture think of society as a business. The private sector is the equivalent of a sales force and the production staff (whether building cars or billing hours for services rendered) - the people who bring in the business that is needed to keep it alive. Other departments also make up the company, such as advertising, recruiting, payroll, training, accounting, legal counsel, etc. Because they do not bring in direct revenue they are referred to as "overhead expenses".

Here is the first disconnect that seems to come from the left. Even though the overhead expenses do not directly contribute to the organization's health, it does not make them any less important. If every employee in a corporation were responsible for recruiting cohorts, defending against lawsuits and calculating how much of each product sold needs to go into their paycheck each week they would be extremely inefficient and produce far less. Likewise, if every person had to maintain their own highway, personally deliver each letter and carry weaponry to fend off potential attacks we would all be far less productive and enjoy far lower standards of living.

This is where the left's first big disconnect comes into play. A favorite straw man of the left is to claim that Tea Partiers want to abolish taxes and/or government. This could not be farther from the truth. What is being questioned is how wisely our money is being managed by our elected officials. This is where the question over the wisdom of trillion dollar deficits comes into play. To paraphrase one of your most admired orators, "It's not racism; it's math."

Going back to our business example, it is critical to understand that however important all of the overhead functions are to a business, they can not by themselves bring a slumping business back to life. A company can try to uptrain its staff, install solar panels to lower its energy costs, or go out and hire workers to help implement new HR policy, but at the end of the day these people do not bring revenue into the organization. Spending more money in these areas puts more money from the business' coffers into people's hands, but this does not mean that they will use it to go out and buy the company's product. Transferring wealth from one group to another is nothing more than that - a transfer of wealth and not its creation. The only way to revive a failing business is not to issue debt to pay for more overhead, but to to find ways for sales and production are able to drum up more business. This is referred to in your circles as "economic growth", and "broadening the tax base".

Another element that blocks leftists from understanding wealth creation is seeing various accomplishments by the government - the Marshal Plan, DARPA's communication project that would evolve into the Internet, the US highway system, etc. The biggest part of this favorite straw man of the left is the assumption that conservatives say that the government does not produce anything of value. Aside from the most hard core libertarians, this is also untrue. What is being argued is not that the government does not produce anything of value, but that what the government produces can only be created thanks to the wealth that is generated by its working class.

To try another example let's look at a primitive hunter-gatherer society (and please don't get caught up on my historical inaccuracy). This society starts out with Chaka, a lone caveman. He has responsibility for many things in his life - being able to find the roots and berries he needs for part of his diet and the ability to kill certain animals for the rest of his meals. He also has to be able to work the pelts of animals he kills in a manner that he can wear them to keep him warm. Chaka needs to be handy with his club to fight off larger animals or the ever present threat of other cavemen who want to hurt him and take his belongings.

Chaka eventually meets other cavemen, they form a tribe, and as they continue in their daily lives they begin to notice that some of them are better at certain tasks than others. Chaka comes to realize that he is better at hunting animals than the rest of his fellow cavemen. Others have skills they do better than Chaka, such as preparing animal skins for clothing, cooking the gathered food, tending to sick or wounded cavemen, or building huts. Each of them finds a role where they can produce something of value for themselves, and by trading with other cavemen each member of this tribe creates some degree of wealth.

The tribe also realizes that there are things that they need collectively but are impractical to trade for individually, so they form a government. They all give a portion of what they produce to a chieftain to organize and administer some programs that benefit the entire village. From the tribe's donations one caveman is given a massive machete to hack a path from the forest to outlaying villages and build the Intervillage Pathway System. A few others are given the largest clubs to form the "Tyrannosaurus Team Six" and patrol outside the village to protect the village from external threats. And of course, these pathway builders and protectors need food and shelter, so for their service for the common good they are given food and have shelters built for them by the other villagers who benefit from their work.

Do the villagers all benefit from these tribal programs? Absolutely. But note how these programs are funded. They are only able to exist because the rest of the members of the tribe are able to generate enough of their own wealth that they are able to use a portion of it to buy these pathway systems or common defense. Note that the tribal chieftain can't just "give" any of the villagers a job without the wealth of others. Yes, the chieftain could borrow against future wealth to stimulate an out of work cavemen with a make work project building solar powered camp fires funded by IOU's against the next harvest, but make work stimulus of no real value paid for against future standards of living just does not work.

These are our two examples to illustrate how the government, by its very definition, can never create wealth. To recap the straw man arguments of the left:

Nobody on the right is suggesting that we abolish the government or taxes.

Nobody on the right is suggesting that government does not produce anything of value.

What is being said is that the government can not create wealth. For this same reason the government does not create jobs without destroying others. Now you are ready to go back and re-read Chapter Four.

To paraphrase an ad campaign that should have gone away a long time ago, "it's so simple even a caveman can get it."

Previous Lessons:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

Lesson Four: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

Lesson Five: Businesses are Greedy - That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

Lesson Six: You are Greedy - That is a Bad Thing!

The Wall Street Protests are the Left's Hail Mary Pass

2011-10-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***
Yep, the lefties are at it again. Seething with impotent rage over their inability to capture the spirit of the Tea Party they are making yet another attempt at imitation. I've documented previously how Leftists' responses to the Tea Party have resembled the Five Stages of Death and Dying. The coffee party fizzled, the "No Labels" movement was anything but, and jumping up and down and screaming "Racist terrorist tea bagging downgrade!" until they were red in the face hasn't changed the dynamic. Now almost three years into their savior's presidency they have taken to the streets protesting not the man whose policies have left them more likely to be unemployed and with more debt to pay, not the man who lied about his promises for an immediate and unconditional surrender in Iraq, to close Guantanamo, transparency, and end to lobbyists running Washington. Instead they are out protesting.... businesses. Yes, their anger is focused at the entities that provided their clothing, transportation to Wall Street, the iPhones needed to tweet heir self-righteous indignation, the pizzas that do-gooders are sending over, not to mention actual jobs that some of them are willing to work. The whole affair looks like The Left in America is so desperate that they are throwing up the proverbial "Hail Mary" pass.

For those of you who are non-football fans the Hail Mary is primarily a last ditch effort play used by a football team that is losing at the end of a game. If a team is losing by one score or less and is too far away from the opposing team's end zone to run a carefully planned and executed play it will make a desperation pass. So from halfway down the field the team will send several players into one section of the end zone and throw a ball in their general direction in hopes of it being caught for the winning score. Naturally, the defenders are aware of this and will send several of their players as well to stop this pass from being caught. Given the predictability of the play and the fact that there will be more defenders than offensive players this play rarely works. In fact, its low probability of success has gotten it unofficially nicknamed after the prayer since the quarterback is throwing the ball up for grabs and needs a prayer if he is to have any hope of the play succeeding.

That's what the Wall Street protests seem to resemble. The left worked so hard to get into power and now faces the harsh reality that their policies don't work in the real world. The biggest liberal they could hope to elect has not delivered on all of the unrealistic dreams that were promised to be fulfilled. Right now would be a good time for the left to take some time for introspection. Among a number of places where their introspection could be directed:

Why simply apologizing to the rest of the world for The United States' existence has not transformed the world into a happy place

Green jobs are a myth

On that note, reasons why more people are turning their backs on the cult of Climate Change might be because those pesky things like scientific methodology and math don't support it

Passing laws designed to restrict health care insurance choices and drive up premiums might actually result in fewer choices and higher premiums

The reason that Keynesian economics didn't work for FDR, didn't work for Japan in the 90's and aren't working today might be that.... they don't work

And to follow up on the last point, maybe ever increasing regulation, bureaucracy and threat of higher taxes actually hurt economic growth

Take a serious look at the demands being drawn up and look at why none of them would work if attempted out in the real world

And maybe, just maybe, placing all of your hopes and dreams into a leftist with neither any meaningful leadership experience nor any aptitude for leading and putting him into the most important leadership role in the world might not be a good idea.

But that would mean taking time for hard introspection and self-reflection, a skill set that leftists sorely lack. Since none of their ideas or philosophies can be at fault for their failure, they are forced to create these bogeymen known as the "wealthy" or businesses". And just like all of the other efforts to ignore, ridicule, rationalize, disrespect, curse, and imitate the Tea Party, the whole thing just comes off as pathetic. Instead of reflecting on the error of their ways, the left has to instead launch an angry tantrum in hopes of waking up its base of predominantly white hangers on. They are genuinely scared that the party for them may be coming to an end with the 2012 elections so they are taking their ball and throwing it up for grabs. And since it would be unconstitutional for them to pray on the public bridges that they occupy it looks like they haven't, if you'll pardon the pun, got a prayer.

While proofreading this post, I see that I got one point dead wrong. I stated that leftists are incapable of self-reflection, which clearly does not apply to all liberals. Some of them are capable of self-examination and thinking through the realities of their beliefs. And there is a technical term for them - Former Liberals, or more commonly, Conservatives.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bank of America

2011-10-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

With the uproar over Bank of America introducing $5 monthly fees for the privilege of using their debit cards, there is an angle to this that everyone is missing - the law of unintended consequences. Wizbang's Jay Tea blogged about this very point over the weekend, and I want to take his point a bit further. The law of unintended consequences is going to be one of the chapters in my ongoing (which will end up being nine or ten parts) Economics for Politicians series, but this particular incident warranted its own post.First let's step back a minute to the 1990's when ATM use took off (causing mass unemployment) and they started popping up everywhere. No longer restricted to getting money from your bank, you could get them from any bank's ATM. In fact, cash machines started popping up in places we would never expect - in bank's branches at supermarkets, in shopping malls, and convenience stores. But like everything in life, there was a cost. If you used an ATM not belonging to your bank you got charged a fee not only by the bank owning the machine, but by your bank as well. People grumbled about them and still do, but we pay those fees for the convenience. I always thought the fees were ridiculous and thought that something should be done about them by lawmakers.

In the late 1990's Investor's Business Daily was required reading a class I was taking, and I came across an article addressing this gripe regarding ATM's. The article made an excellent point that one of the reasons that ATM's popped up everywhere was because banks could charge these fees. Banks are in business to make money, and allowing them to profit from these machines is what led these machines to pop up like daisies in so many then uncommon locations. The article also made an excellent point regarding anyone who still felt cheated by these fees - you could still use your bank's ATM at no charge 24/7. Or for that matter, look at what options were available before the rise of the ATM. I came of age where my working career began just as ATM's were emerging. I still remember the lines at the bank on Thursdays and Fridays to deposit paychecks and to withdraw money before the bank closed for the weekend. Or if your bank had weekend hours, it was a short window on Saturday mornings that meant more long lines. The ATM changed all of that. Now you had 24/7 access to your money, and the clincher for me was the fact that nothing that was available to you before was taken away. You still could see your neighborhood teller during business hours (with much shorter lines), and now you also had access to a 24/7 machine at no charge to you and access to vastly more if you were willing to pay a fee. Ban the ATM fees? Guess what will start disappearing in no time flat.

So now the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank bill now has banks making consumers pay to use their debit card networks because they are no longer allowed to cover the cost with merchant fees? Guess who you should be blaming. Are you wondering why banks are hesitant to loan money when Congress has seen fit to add so much regulation to "protect" consumers and make it easier for them to walk away from repaying their loans? You could blame Bank of America of course. But if you're blaming them you're probably already showing your outrage up on Wall Street. And as usual, your rage is misplaced - if you're unhappy with B of A's actions you should drive a few hours down I-95 and start walking on Capitol Hill.

You Flick my Ear, I Punch You in the...

2011-09-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

*** Update - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***
The recent release of the two hikers who have been held by Iran brought the two of them briefly back into the news cycle. Sadly other larger events such as the economy have kept them out of the forefront, but there is one piece of this that has gone almost unnoticed. There are two other events that ran somewhat hand in hand with this incident:

Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were arrested in July of 2009 while hiking along the Iraqi/Iranian border. Last year both were sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage in a closed hearing. Upon release they stand by their assertion that they never were spies and were imprisoned simply because they are Americans. Both were freed just ahead of Ahmadinejad speaking before the United Nations.

In March of 2009 two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling were arrested in North Korea for illegal entry and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. Only a visit by former President Clinton and some apologies on his part were able to gain a pardon and release for the two.

In December 2009 USAID worker Alan Gross was jailed for setting up Internet and satellite connections for Cuban citizens. In March 2011 Gross was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson attempted to visit gross, and was treated none too kindly by his Cuban hosts.

These incidents remind me of a story about two old college buddies, Maury and Richard (not their real names). These two are part of a circle of friends that enjoy that time honored tradition of male bonding via good natured ribbing each other, their families, members of their ancestry, significant others - you get the idea. Maury and Richard were sharing an apartment with two other friends and engaged in this practice regularly. One day Richard hurled a snide comment targeting Maury's religion. Never one to take such slights laying down, Maury responded with an obnoxious and inappropriate (albeit completely true) remark concerning the mating habits of Richard's sister. Richard flew into a rage and wound up not talking to Maury for a week.

Maury concluded this story with a grin on his face and summing up with, "You flick my ear; I smash you in the nuts."

Look at the time frame for the three of these events. The Iranian and North Korean kidnappings all occurred shortly after President Obama took office, and the Cuban one came shortly after it was clear that there would be no consequences to imprisoning American citizens. Of course, that was exactly the point of these three actions.

Each one of these was done to test our president - not quite the "Gird your loins" moment that Vice President Biden promised us on the campaign trail, but more like a probe. These countries wanted to measure how much mischief each could perform, and these were starting points.

Iran wanted to be sure that they could continue with their "peaceful" nuclear program in um... peace. They knew that there would be no consequence to the regime's rigging their national elections. When the people of Iran were dying in the streets the best that the White House could muster was passionate indifference. Nuclear weapons program can continue as scheduled.

Over in Korea, the Korean War never actually ended - the 38th parallel was only the site of the cease-fire, not an actual peace treaty. North Korea continues its weapons exporting mischief and every so often commits another open act of war against South Korea. North Korea only released their hostages after sufficiently humiliating the US with former President Clinton's grovelling apology.

And Cuba has been content with just being Cuba - they seem to be hoping to align themselves with Venezuela as the dominant powers in the hemisphere in the post-American world. Bill Richardson's appearance was not considered a deep enough bow to give them the humiliation of America that felt would make freeing Gross worth their while.

How should the president have handled these incidents? I don't have the answers. As I like to tell the charges on my tour groups, if I did have the answers I'd probably have a high paying job in the White House myself. But just like not disciplining a child for minor offenses leading to worse behavior, the same happens among nations. All out war would not be the best solution to any of these, but a little bit of creativity could be used. A nation has to protect it's citizens. At the risk of going into into a Hobbes/Lockian tangent, how much obligation should any person feel toward a nation when its leaders are unwilling to protect them? For that matter, what is it like to be a citizen of Arizona when the government not only refuses to protect you, but sues your state when it tries to enforce the laws that your federal government won't?

I actually do have one idea for getting the president's attention. Does anyone know of a way that we can convince Obama that North Korea, Cuba, and Iran are supporting the Tea Party?

Economics for Politicians Chapter Six: - You are Greedy - This is a Bad Thing

2011-09-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

*** Update - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***
In Chapter Five we discussed how, because of its direct and indirect benefits to society corporate greed is not necessarily a bad thing. Now we're going to look at a form of greed that is always bad, namely yours.

This lesson will actually be the lightest in terms of economic theory, but will probably be the most difficult for you to accept. Unfortunately for you, this lesson will show that many of your actions end up doing more harm than good.

It was either after the 2006 or 2008 elections (I can't recall which) that House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed her incoming Freshman class and advised them something to the effect of, "You're number one priority is to get re-elected." Her reason for this makes sense from a beltway perspective - in order to push grand changes your party needs to gain and hold power. Obamacare and how it was passed is a perfect example of this. Government takeover of the health care industry has been a holy grail for leftists for some time (Apparently the rest of us are too unenlightened to want to emulate systems that will bring 18 month standard waiting periods for surgery or turning family doctors into an endangered species ), and the majorities that the 2008 election provided were the perfect opportunity. After it was over leftists were angry (when are they not angry, anyway?) that it did not include the single payer option that they so dearly coveted. The Democratic leadership realized that they would face a slaughter in the midterm 2010 elections (for this among many other reasons), but recognized that if they pushed too hard too quickly there was a possibility of a veto-proof Republican majority being elected that would overturn the bill. So instead of including single payer immediately the bill was instead crafted to eventually strangle any private insurers under insane amounts of regulation to drive them out of business, leaving one insurer standing. That would be the government, and the house always wins.

That may have seemed like a lengthy tangent to an Economics lesson, but the entire picture was necessary to illustrate fundamental differences between business and government. Look at the timeline for where businesses have to think. Some take a short run view of cash flow an ensuring enough profitability to survive the next shareholder meeting, but any business leader who wants to keep his job or gain a promotion needs to be thinking farther down the road - years and possibly decades if the company is to grow and gain market share.

Your motivation is unfortunately far shorter term. While I understand Nancy Pelosi's statement on priorities from a political perspective, as a taxpayer I find her remarks to be one of the most disgusting things to hear coming from the mouth of someone who works on a job that calls itself "public service". This is why you put the good of your party over the good of your country and over the best interests of the local constituents that you represent.

Sadly, this is a social contract that we as voters have come to expect. So how does this affect us economically? Look at the impact of your greed versus that of a business. A business' greed leads it to produce more of a product that is so vastly superior to all of the other choices on the market that people willingly choose to give up some of their hard earned income to buy it. You can read about the rest of the positive impacts of a business' greed in Lesson Five.

Contrast this with the products of your greed. Donations from powerful teachers' unions force you to trap inner-city minority children in failing schools. Money from defense contractors compels you to fund projects for military equipment that our forces may not want or need only because the contractor has operations in your district. I'm using two quick examples from both sides of the aisle to highlight the fundamental differences between you and business. The business' money gets invested where it will be rewarded by producing the most of a good or service that society wants. You choose to allocate money based not on its economic benefit or societal good but rather on how effectively it can be used to get you re-elected.

I know that you're going thinking that you do not think strictly short term. Development of military vehicles, building bridges, or destroying a health care system all take time to plan and execute. But ultimately the decisions for all of these go back to what will serve best to get you re-elected. This is also why you are so ready to not speak honestly to voters about issues and prefer to give them the pandering that will excite them into voting for you. If you are truly motivated by long term then why haven't you done the following:

Show real numbers about what happens when a government is planned to grow faster than the sector of the economy that funds it?

Talk honestly to inner city families about how part of the reason their schools are failing is because of the students and the family structure (or lack thereof) that is too common in inner cities?

Give the American people an honest assessment of what it is costing the United States to be the global police officer? *

Instead of "Push Granny off of the Cliff" demagoguery why aren't you showing real numbers as to how we are going to sustain our entitlement programs?

For that matter, if your thinking were truly long term, how did those permanent majorities that the Republicans achieved in 2004 and the Democrats' in 2008 work out? This can not be an easy lesson for you to hear, so we'll stop here as you (hopefully) follow the sage like advice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and go home and rethink your life. The next chapter will only be slightly less painful as I elaborate on how...

Lesson Seven: You Don't "Invest", You Spend

Previous Lessons:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

Lesson Four: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

Lesson Five: Businesses are Greedy - That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

* The role of the US in global security is probably the the most complicated out of these topics. I wrote about it a little bit here, and this subject will warrant its own post outside of this series

Actually, Your Opinion on Gays in the Military Probably Doesn't Matter

2011-09-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

*** Update - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***
With "Don't Ask Don't Tell" ending, the subject of gays serving in the military is making the discussion rounds again, and I thought this would be a good a time as any to chime in. Without going too deep into the issue the biggest arguments for and against break down into two main schools of thought. Those in favor of allowing gays to openly serve argue that we're keeping qualified personnel from serving during a time of need and this is discrimination akin to racial integration in the military. Those against argue that the sexual element interferes with unit cohesion and creates an unnecessary distraction. Or to rpeat a phrase that Rush Limbaugh likes to use, "the purpose of the military is to hurt peaople and to break things. It is not the place for a social experiment."

I say that the left's racial analogy is bunk, as race and sex are about as different as night and day. To use a rough example, I could easily share a foxhole with the likes of Brad Pitt, Derek Jeter and George Clooney and not feel distracted in any way by their presence. By contrast, sharing the same close confines with Marisa Miller, Gisele Bundschen and Leila Lopes can almost guarantee that any red blooded male would find himself distracted. And any guy who says he wouldn't is lying, unless of course he'd prefer to be in a foxhole with Pitt, Jeter & Clooney. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Personally, I have no problem with gays openly serving and being allowed to be openly gay. Other nations' militaries have done it without massive disruption, and if anyone wants to put his or her life on the line to protect my freedom I'll be the last one to stand in their way.

All of that said, I have to admit that none of my opinions on this subject matter. Why? Because I've never served in the military. There are some things in this world that can not even begin to be understood unless one has experienced them. Think about it - how often do married people ask for marriage advice from single friends? How often do you hear of the story of parents whose children are acting up getting helpful advice from someone who has never had kids of their own? Those stories usually conclude some time later with the originally childless person later having kids and suddenly having very different view regarding childrearing.

The military is no different. Having recently gotten married to Sister Babe and having a few nieces have given me some insight into marriage and parenthood, but I'm not at a point where I should be throwing out advice on either. I've never even come close to serving in the military and wouldn't know the first thing of what it's like to go through basic or everyday military life. And whatever opinions I may have on each of these subjects I don't throw out advice on marriage or raising children, and I certainly do not pretend to know how the armed forces should be run. This is a matter that should be decided by the military and them alone.

What are your thoughts? I'd be most curious to hear from current or retired military on this one.

Economics for Politicians Part 5 - Businesses are Greedy - That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

2011-09-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

*** Update - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Today we'll be covering one of the favorite memes among the left, the notion that business are evil, greedy entities that must be reigned in and controlled by benevolent, uncorruptable government bureaucracy. Links to our previous lessons are at the bottom of the page, with the link to our last lesson on why you don't create jobs being the most relevant. Today we're here not to dispel that businesses are greedy but that in the words of the immortal Gordon Gecko, "Blue Horseshoe loves Teldar Paper." No wait, that's not the quote that I wanted. The phrase I'm looking for is the from a speech best summed up with three simple words - "Greed is Good".

First off, today's lesson is not to excuse irresponsible or immoral corporate behavior. I'm not here to make excuses for companies that create unsafe products, send their workers into unreasonably unsafe conditions (an example of reasonably unsafe is that fire fighters are aware of the conditions they'll need to work in when they sign up for the job and every possible safety precaution is made to protect them) or ones who treat their employees unfairly, whether by discriminating in their hiring practices or underpaying their employees. Very few people will advocate any of these practices, and luckily we have a social and legal framework that deals with each of these issues. But we're not here today to talk about the evils of corporate greed - we're here to talk about the good of corporate greed!

I see the puzzled looks on your faces. Aren't businesses just organizations that are supposed to make contributions to your campaigns so that you can reward them with legislation to hurt their potential competition? For you yes, but for the rest of us they provide us with jobs, and we freely trade with them to obtain the goods and services that we want. Fred Thompson said it so well at the 2008 GOP convention when he addressed the prospect of raising taxes on businesses, "Unless you buy something from a business, like groceries, clothes or gasoline, or unless you get a paycheck from a business.. Don't Worry! It's not going to affect you!" Ah, but why are they sitting on massive amounts of capital and not investing in new equipment and research and development? Why, after the president proved that this administration is business friendly because he said so are businesses reluctant to hire and why does unemployment remain "unexpectedly" high?

To understand why businesses hire employees you need to first start by taking a few steps backward. A better question is "Why do businesses hire any employees?" The answer is simple. When any business is successful, it's bound to expand. As it gains more business, whether selling more cars or pizzas or getting more people to sign up for their advisory services it can only ask its employees to do so much extra work to support the new business before the workers burn out and quit. Therefore as any business grows it hires more people to handle all of its extra business. Pretty simple so far, right?

Now things get trickier. Why do businesses expand and grow in the first place? To take on more market share? To do more business? Yes but... what is the incentive for any business to grow? Why take the risk of producing more products that may not get sold, hiring more people to offer services that customers may want or not want, or branching out into new markets where the customer base may not be interested in your product? For that matter why are businesses in business in the first place? Are they around to serve as health care providers? To act as a societal means to promote diversity initiatives? To find ways to give back to its community? Or maybe serve as some entity that can be relied on to cough up some campaign cash for you every few years or so? Wrong on all counts. The answer is as simple as it is misunderstood. You guessed it - greed!

A business is in business to make money. Anyone who has ever run a business knows this. Over the years I've run a few small business ventures and have known what it's like to be an entrepreneur. While I haven't done anything on a large scale, I have known the fear that goes into sinking a chunk of one's hard earned money into some merchandise, knowing that all of the hard work that went into earning that money could be gone in an instant if the goods don't sell. Then there's that feeling of relief once enough goods are sold to hit the break even point and knowing that at the very worst the only loss that will be incurred is your time, and then that feeling of satisfaction as all of the risk and hard work pays off as the inventory moves and a profit is made. But I've never taken the plunge and put everything on the line, left my career, risked my savings and possibly more and gone into a business for myself with the intention of that business becoming my livelihood. I've never gone through the trials and tribulations that go with starting a serious business in terms of getting all of the proper licensing, basically mortgaging my future, fighting to gain market share, putting in the long hours needed to make it successful, and going through all of the headaches that go into hiring and managing a staff to handle the operations. And at the end of this, the owner can take satisfaction in being able to provide for himself and his family, building a future for them, not to mention rewarding all of those who also toiled to make the business successful. Yes, there are a number of business owners that make good money for their effort, but they take a significant risk and sacrifice a great deal to become successful.

"Ah yes", you are no doubt thinking. "Just like running a campaign!" Sort of, but not exactly. Yes, you both sacrifice long, hard hours and fight adversity for an outcome that is far from assured. But the differences are as glaring as night and day. Business owners are rewarded for contributing to society, in that they provide a product or service that is so vastly superior to every other possible choice that people can make to spend their hard earned money that they willingly part with it to buy that product. Your accomplishment is doing a better job of telling people what they want to hear than your opponents. You might think that running a successful campaign is the equates leadership, but who would be crazy enough to believe that?

Going back to the point of greed being good, the business owner is not the only one who benefits from a successful enterprise. Let's revisit my previous points about the good of a successful business in the other direction. A business that makes its owner(s) happy will be profitable. When it becomes more profitable, it wants to do more business to obtain greater profits. When it does more business additional labor hours are required to perform the work necessary to generate this business. Greater labor hours can only be squeezed out of existing employees to a certain extent, and at some point additional ones need to be hired. Hey! Look at what these horrible, evil, greedy corporations just did - what we who are out in the real world call "job creation!" And look at what else all of this additional business has created - more goods sold and profits that you can tax, taxes on payroll, not to mention more people with jobs means fewer people in need of transfer payments from the government! That's right, greedy businesses not only give you more money to invest in all of the projects that you need to reward the people who elected you, but having fewer people in need of your various forms of welfare leaves even more money for you to dispense favor to the people who you want to vote for you in the next election - everybody wins!

You probably just got so excited over all of the tax dollars flowing your way that you probably overlooked one glaring mistake that was intentionally placed in that last paragraph. The business folk probably spat their coffee and started grinding their teeth s they read it, but you probably skimmed right over it. I even left the word in bold for you to ponder over as we close out for today and you can think about an upcoming lesson in investment. But first our next lesson will be

Lesson Six: - You are Greedy - This is a Bad Thing

Previous Lessons:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

Lesson Four: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

Eagles Preseason Preview and Predictions

2011-09-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's not easy to write about what may have been the most explosive and interesting offseason for a single team in NFL history. But with all that has been said it's time to look into the tea leaves and try to figure out how the boys in green will fare when the season actually starts. First off to quickly recap:

The Upside

The Eagles just had an offseason that every NFL GM wishes he could pull off. Howie Roseman proved to be a worthy successor to Tom Heckert in spades. This offseason was the first of its kind in NFL history, featuring an incredibly short offseason combined with the relatively recent phenomena of unrestricted free agency and a salary cap. Continuing the practice of careful and disciplined cap management left the Eagles in the perfect position to exploit this opportunity. And exploit it they did, bolstering several positions, most notably the secondary and D-line. The rich got richer, taking an already strong team led by one of the league's top play making quarterbacks and transforming it from an upper tier team in its conference to a Super Bowl contender.

The Downside

The linebacking corps has question marks - young and possibly too undersized. Hopefully the additions on the D-line will make the linebackers better, as will a secondary that is the class of the league. Of greater concern is the offensive line. Lots of moves have been made, and it is happening in the one unit on the team where cohesion and unity are critical for success. The shortened training camp did not help any, and it showed up in the preseason game against Cleveland. If this unit does not come together everything comes apart. Not to mention that if this line fails to protect Vick properly, he'll be off and running and leaving every fan afraid that he will continue to end his runs down the field with a Super Dave Osbourne ending.

The Big Question

Playmakers win games, but depth wins championships. Look no farther than the 2007 Giants or how last year's Packers overcame all of their injuries to go on to win the Super Bowl. I've always argued that the biggest problem with Daniel Snyder's model of overpaying for the biggest name free agents is that in the salary cap era it never left him with enough money to pay the midlevel players that give the depth to support those superstars. Granted, Snyder and Vinny Cerrato were incompetent at evaluating personnel and overpaid for overrated players but they never paid attention to the rest of the team. Yes, the Eagles aren't the Redskins, but did the Eagles throw too much money at building the perfect luxury penthouse while neglecting the foundation of the building needed to support it? We'll know the answer over the next sixteen weeks.

Predictions

Last year was tough to predict, with far more questions than this season. I ever so boldly proclaimed that I wouldn't be shocked if the 2010 Eagles went 8-8, nor would I have been shocked had they gone 13-3. This year after looking at the team and the opponents on the schedule I think I can take a pretty good guess at how the regular season will play out. Let's break it down piece by piece by taking a stab at how the birds will do against each of the segments that the league schedule threw at them.

The Good (1-1)

As division winners the Eagles get to play the winners of the NFC North and South this season. This is immediate good news as it puts the wild card team of Green Bay off of the regular season schedule, and has the Eagles facing the Bears and the Falcons. I say that the Eagles split these two games. I think that on a long enough time line Andy Reid will remember how to beat the Bears. Unfortunately, on a long enough time line the ATL will remember how to beat the Eagles. This year is as good as any for both of these to finally happen.

The Bad (4-0)

Last year I complained that the schedule didn't do the Eagles any favors in throwing the NFC North and AFC South at them. This year the schedule was kind enough to grant the Eagles four games against the ~~Western Athletic Conference~~ NFC West. The Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, and Rams are all still projects. I can see the Rams and the Cards putting up good fights, but even they are still outclassed against Philly.

The Ugly (3-1)

The schedule also gave the unbalanced AFC East to the Eagles. Miami and Buffalo are teams that the Eagles sometimes fall asleep on and get taken by surprise, but I don't see that happening this year. I see the Eagles winning one of the two games between the Jets & Patriots in a close slugfest, and the other ending with the Eagles getting decisively beaten, as in something like a 37-21 beating. I don't know which one will be which, and hopefully it will serve as a wakeup call game rather than one exposing whatever flaws may creep into the game plan this season.

The Division (4-2)

Looking at the rest of the division Eagles fans may see this as too conservative, but here is why I don't think so:

Cowboys (1-1) Dallas is a better team with Romo back and no Eagles fan needs to be told the value of having someone with the last name of "Ryan" running your defense.

Giants (2-0) Some injuries are tough to overcome, and essentially losing your starting secondary for the season will be too much for the G-Men

Redskins (1-1) Um, isn't Washington projected to be one of the worst teams in football, much less its own division? Yes it is, but look at the schedule. If the 'Skins manage to catch the Eagles napping in week 5, chances are that their week 17 rematch will be a critical game for the Eagles' playoff position. Hungry birds against a typically demoralized, dispirited end of seasons Redskins team will be easy prey for the Eagles. On the other hand, if the Eagles win the first game, there is a good chance that the Eagles' playoff slot will be locked up and the week 17 rematch in Philly will see all of the reserves playing the entire game. If nothing else, hopefully this will also keep away those a**hole Redskin fans who show up at the Rhino Bar for the Eagles/Skins game trying to start fights.

So there you have it. Before free agency started I was projecting 10-6, but after the moves I see a solid 12-4 team. And all I know is that I can't wait for this season to start. What do you think?

One other programming note - I won't be writing regularly on the Eagles on this site going forward, as I'm trying to focus it more toward politics and economics. Eagles commentary will be carried by Brother Bob's partner site, The Blog of My Master.

Economics for Politicians Chapter 4: You Don't Create Jobs - It's Time to Get Over FDR!

2011-08-30T20:40:00.001-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Welcome back, class! I took some time away for some brief diversions regarding leftist intolerance, and with last week's natural disaster I probably didn't have your attention anyway. So now we're back, and congratulations on staying awake through my two lectures on economic theory, but it's going to pay off! Now we start to look at how the theory I've taught relates to the real world, and your learning has progressed to the point where we can explain to you why you don't create jobs! If you need a refresher, links to the first three lessons are at the bottom of this post. Now, onto the next chapter of your enlightenment!

On weekends I lead tour groups here in the nation's capitol, and when I take my charges to the second room of the FDR Memorial I dispel the mythology that the New Deal created jobs. Here is the example I use for my group to better illustrate:

I suggest a scenario where my tour group and I decide to run off to a remote island and form our own country, Bobylvania. We all have our own jobs that contribute to the country, but one day I lose my job. The good citizens decide that they want Bobylvania to be a leader in green energy, so they give me a government job creating windmills and solar panels to provide our energy, and they pay me a decent wage of $50,000 (or about $24 / hour) per year. This is great for me, but that money has to come from somewhere. If there are ten people in my tour group the easiest way to gather our revenue enhancements (or as we non-politicians call them, "taxes") is for each of them to pay $5,000 per year to fund my job. For simplicity we'll leave out my generous health benefits to which I don't contribute or the unfunded liability known as my pension that the children and grandchildren of Bobylvania will have to pay (The Association of Federated Bobs local 101 chapter are good negotiators).

Going back to the Great Depression as well as our current economic woes we need a brief aside on a school of thought that has paralyzed the left from taking constructive action known as Keynsianism. What the Keynsians (thinking modeled after the British economist John Maynard Keynes) believe is that an economy needs to be stimulated from time to time if there is not great enough aggregate demand (generally speaking - not enough money) for the economy's goods to be brought. Without the private sector to do this the task then falls onto the government to spend, or "stimulate" the economy. The government spends this money, puts it in people's hands, and they then spend it elsewhere, and that third party spends it elsewhere, creating what is called a "multiplier" effect. It is this exact thinking that enables Nancy Pelosi to make statements like food stamps being a stimulus. The government has pushed money into people's hands and the economy gets moving again. So why haven't the various stimulus programs worked? If the New Deal was such a triumph in creating jobs why, save for two brief periods, did unemployment never drop below 15% before the start of World War II? How come Japan hasn't fully recovered from it's "Lost Decade" of the 1990's? An why does unemployment continue to remain "unexpectedly" high?

Here is where we introduce you to another piece of economic theory known as the"Broken Window Theory", which originated with the French Economist Frederic Bastiat. Wealth can not be created from nothing, nor can it be created via destruction. If you have a few minutes Declaration Entertainment's Bill Whittle does a great job of explaining how wealth is only created by producing something of value. The example that Bastiat uses to illustrate his theory is of a boy walking down the street who throws a brick through the local baker shop's window. When the baker comes out to express his unhappiness with what the boy has done the boy responds that he had helped the town. By breaking the window the boy has created a stimulus for the economy. The new window that the shop keeper buys will put money in the hands of the glazier, who might then use it to buy a new pair of shoes. The extra money in the cobbler's hands may help him to buy a new wagon, giving more money to the wagon maker to spend, and you get the idea. Lost in all of this is the baker. What Keynsians miss is all of the unseen activity that does not take place as a reult of the wealth that they displace. The money that the baker is forced to spend on a new window might have been used in all of the places that the boy mentioned, or maybe the baker chooses to buy a better oven to produce more bread, which will force the baker to hire more employees to sell all of the extra bread that he sells (or as this private investment is called outside of DC, "Job creation"). Maybe the baker's store becomes successful enough that he believes he can earn more profits by taking the risk of opening more stores. In turn, he puts to work the people who build his shops or renovates an otherwise vacant space, and hires more employees, and maybe becomes successful enough to go public, and his bakery becomes one of the stocks that fuels the mutual funds that help to fund various pension plans and he makes enough money to build a bigger home, reinvest in other ventures, and put more people to work in our economy.

Or he can use that money to pay for a broken window instead, and - HEY! I see some of your eyes are glazing over thinking about how the baker is accumulating wealth that he doesn't need and how his taxes should be raised to pay for programs that the groups who funded your election campaign are calling for. Go back and re-read chapter 1, and you are not allowed to read any further until you understand it. Go ahead and bookmark this page - I'll be here when you get back.

For the rest of the class, this was the same effect with FDR's New Deal policy and with Obama's today. FDR kept passing ever more regulations that left businesses reluctant to expand because they were afraid of what he would do next. And many of FDR's programs caused more harm than good. His price supports for farmers guaranteed them minimum prices for their crops, while increasing the price of food. Since poor people pay a greater percentage of their incomes to buy food they were disproportionately punished by the president. FDR was big on having business collude to stay in business, but less competition leads to higher prices and fewer goods sold. Creating minimum wages, the 40 hour work week, and helping employees gain the right to unionize are not necessarily bad things on their own, but each of these makes hiring more expensive, which naturally leads to higher unemployment.

Lefties love to argue that in 1937 when unemployment surged to 25% that it was because FDR tried to reign in spending. In 1936 the exact words of his Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau were, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” Sound familiar? FDR viewed his re-election in 1936 as a mandate to become more aggressive in his New Deal policies. We saw increased taxes on the wealthy as well as the Wagner Act which gave greater power to organized labor. The spending "cuts" weren't enough to cause the surge in unemployment on their own, and even if the cuts themselves could have caused the increase in unemployment, the timelines are wrong.

One of the few things that economists of all stripes agree on is that unemployment is a lagging indicator, meaning that unemployment actually reflects how the economy was doing, and not necessarily where it is now. Think about the general timeline using generic examples. Say in a period of time we see sweeping legislation that will "improve" our economy. We see laws passed designed to nationalize health insurance, allow the NLRB to force companies to shut down new factories, prevent any offshore drilling in the US, bankrupt coal companies, and even put an end to that ever present and corrupt example of big business at its worst, lemonade stands. As these industries fnd themselves becoming less profitable, they end up doing less business. As they do less business they find that they need fewer employees. As the companies realize they need fewer employees layoffs start to happen, assuming that the company doesn't simply decide to close its doors and as its remaing contracts expire everyone loses their jobs. These steps don't happen overnight, and only after these occur do the unemployment claims start to be filed and counted in the statistics. The point is that it takes time for the true impacts of any policy to reflect in the unemployment numbers - just right for the Second New Deal of 1936, but far too short for the "austerity" of 1937.

Some economists argue that what finally took us out of the Great Depression was the onset of World War II and how it ramped up our industry and agriculture, leaving the US as the only major industrialized country at the end of that was mostly untouched by the fighting. But if Keysnian theory held true, why didn't this surge of returning GI's leaving their jobs in the military (government) suddenly cause a surge in unemployment? How did government spending dropping as a percentage of GDP at the end of the war not take money out of people's hands and cause an economic downturn? How did America get mobilized and employed and lead to unprecedented growth and prosperity? This is not a kind thing to say (and I stop just short of this on my tours unless someone asks me to elaborate), but the biggest factor in finally getting us out of the depression was the death of FDR. Without this powerfully charismatic figure to champion his various innovation-strangling policies, the Republicans who had taken control of Congress in the 1946 election were able to push back on President Truman and get America back to work. Needless to say, these views are none too popular here in DC. In fact, on two occasions I've had elderly ladies who were passing by stop to yell at me for speaking unkindly about this president for whom they had such fond memories of and all of the jobs they saw him "create" firsthand. I've tried to explain The Broken Window Theory to them, but to no avail. To quote FDR's successor Harry S. Truman, "I never gave them Hell. I told them the truth and they took it as Hell."

So how does all of this tie together to suggest that only the private sector can create jobs and spur an economy? There is more to tell here but this lesson has already gone on longer than I had intended.

A logical next lesson would be to go into the chapter on unintended consequences, but I don't think you're quite ready for that yet. So we'll take a side trip for our next lesson and kick off next time with:

Chapter 5: Businesses are Greedy - This is not Necessarily a Bad Thing!

Previous Chapters:

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Lesson Two: Intro to Microeconomics, or Why Prices Matter

Lesson Three: Intro to Macroeconomics. or So that's Where Government Fits In!

II The Left Still Doesn't Get the Tea Party, As Told Through the Stages of Death and Dying Part 2 of 2

2011-08-14T17:55:00.001-07:00

*** Update - cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Picking up where we left off with how the Left doesn't get the Tea Party, Part I is here

Stage 6 - Anger

Even the Republican establishment has shown its distaste for the Tea Party, as seen in Barbara Bush's jab at Sarah Palin and Karl Rove's post-primary meltdown on Fox News after Christine O'Donnell defeated Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican primary. I do have to give some credit to the former first lady - it is rare to hear the political class showing such honesty of opinion when discussing a member of their own party. But she was looking in the wrong direction, more on that in a moment. As to Rove, I understand that it must have been frustrating to invest so much time and effort into a candidate only to lose to someone who has a lesser chance of winning that your champion. Victory was still no guarantee - keep in mind that the people of Delaware chose to inflict Joe Biden on us for several decades before he was called on to be vice president. But that is no excuse for Rove going on television and launching into a tirade that could have been directly lifted into a campaign ad for the Democrats. Even in her losing effort, O'Donnell did serve a useful purpose. The mainstream press were fascinated with O'Donnell and adopted her as their surrogate Palin and allowed their cries of "She's an idiot!" to dominate their national coverage of the midterm elections. So how did this help? There is only so much bandwidth out there in the news cycle. All of the time they spent attacking O'Donnell was print space and air time that was not getting used to attack other Republican candidates in closer elections. Do you think that the DNC liked having to use its resources to defend suddenly vulnerable candidates like Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Barney Frank when they should have been able trust their allies in the press to do this work for them?
Back to Bush and Rove, their words showed the same lack of understanding as to why the Tea Party and people like Sarah Palin are around. Like the angry leftists, they should have been looking in the mirror. It was Dubya's years of irresponsible spending that set our course on this road into high gear. It was the GOP forgetting the lessons of what the party claimed to stand for while spending taxpayer money in an irresponsible manner that would make any leftist proud. Or as the Vodka Pundit summed it up, "Rove thought that he could use the government's check book to buy a permanent majority." Running on a platform of pointing out that the Democrats are running our country off of a cliff at 100 MPH doesn't hold much water when your own party is running us off of that same cliff at 55 MPH.

Stage 7 - Anger

Remember those long forgotten days of yesteryear, as in the years of 2000-2008? Nobody on the left seems to. Remember sayings like "Jeffersonian", "Purple State" (along with this Newsweek cover after the 2004 elections), and phrases like “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”? For that matter, remember all of the silly rationalizations that the left had to come up with to reconcile with the fact that they openly wanted our troops to lose a war only because of their personal hatred for the president? We heard that "Being a vegetarian is patriotic", "Riding your bicycle to work is patriotic", even lines dumb enough to suggest that obeying a law whose noncompliance will land you in prison was patriotic. You might, but nobody on the left does. When a leftist calls for civility, what they're saying is, "don't behave like we do." When a leftist calls for dialogue, it actually means, "We're not getting what we wanted, so you need to sit down, shut up and listen to us until we do get what we want." The same people who put "Question Authority!" bumper stickers on their cars are furious that now that they've become The Authority that's exactly what is happening. Somewhere around January 19th, 2009 slogans of respect for opposing views and patriotism in dissent were replaced with basically, "Sit down, and STFU".

Stage 8 - Anger

We've seen every label in the book thrown at the Tea Party. To once again cite the guys at Trifecta, "The Tea Party has been called astroturf, racists, idiots, gone and buried and now terrorists. When this label doesn't stick either what label does the left have to try next, child molesters?" The latest efforts by the administration to create the label of "Tea Party Downgrade" in hopes that it will stick just reeks of sheer desperation that comes from impotent rage against an opponent that they can't figure out how to fight. I think that a lot of this comes from disappointment in the unrealized dreams of what they were sold on with Obama. For that matter, when can you remember the left being happy? With the exception of that short window between when Obama was elected in November 2010 and the end of his first month in office I can't remember the last time the left seemed happy, and in the last two years they've seemed angrier than ever. Even with the presidency and both houses of Congress working diligently through job killing regulations, out of control pork spending and ever present threats of higher taxes to continue this gradual strangulation of our private sector they had to push for the Holy Grail of Obamacare in early 2010. Just like in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" with a starship at his disposal and Project Genesis under his control Kahn still would not heed the warnings of his helmsman who urged Kahn not to chase the Enterprise into the Nebula that would render their sensors and shields useless...

"No sir, you have Genesis! You have whatever yo-"

"FULL POWER! Damn you!"

If we're able to get Obamacare repealed before it's able to fully metastasize in our health care system that law may turn out to be Obama's Mutara Nebula. And as we've come to learn about our president, "He's intelligent but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking."

"Obama... I'm *laughing* at the superior leftist intellect! "

Stage 9 - Bargaining

At first the left resorted to their favorite weapon - go back to Alinsky playbook and find someone to personalize and demonize rather than conduct their least favorite part of the process, debating the issues on their merits and actual (not desired) impacts alone. The left tried to brand the Tea Party as being led by Beck, by Palin, by Fox News, by the Koch Brothers, by Grover Nordquist, desperate for someone to whom they could use to make the Tea Party personal rather than about issues. Frustrated at their futile attempts to find someone that leftists could attack, the NAACP took the lead and publicly demanded that the Tea Party denounce its nonexistent racist elements. Once again, not having any specific charges or incidents to cite has never been known to stop the left from throwing out charges of racism.

This led to an amusing comedy of errors as Andrew Breitbart fired back, by releasing a damning video of the USDA's Shirley Sherrod making racist comments at a conference. But then it came out that the original video that had been provided to Breitbart had edited-out key pieces that showed that her remarks were taken out of context, and now it was Breitbart on the retreat. The administration's overreaction of firing her after seeing the original video forced them to backtrack, and she was set to appear on a number of Sunday talk shows. Sherrod was about to be anointed by the MSM as the next Rosa Parks and a face that the left could anoint as the opposition to the Tea Party, until Sherrod made it clear that she wasn't such a saint after all. As quickly as she appeared, Sherrod just as quickly and far more quietly disappeared from the media's focus. With both sides having egg on their face from the incident, neither pursued it any further. But at least Breitbart learned his lesson, and applied it to the successful exposure (pardon the pun) and takedown of former Congressman Anthony Weiner. And if you think Weiner's resignation was an illegitimate over blowing of a media manufactured issue, think again.

Stage 10 - Depression

Now after around two and a half years the left is facing the graphic truth that electing someone to such an important office with no qualifications or accomplishments might not be such a hopey changey great idea after all. The combined economic data - downgrades, unemployment, the stock market, not to mention how our president's bow, scrape and apologize foreign policy has failed to turn the world into a harmonious playground, not to mention the fact that all of his promises regarding the War on Terror were nothing but hot air (I have my own theories on this, but that's a separate post) has left liberals rightfully unhappy. So now, despite the fairly recent Bin Laden bounce in the polls, more and more people are understanding that the economy won't be improving under this administration's anti-business policies and more and more people are finally questioning our president's ability to lead. It can't be easy being a lib these days. But just like it's easy to be a petulant teenager with grand ideas of how the world should be run, when you get out in the world you learn that being an adult isn't as easy as it looked. We've started handing control back to the adults in the 2010 midterms, and hopefully this relatively new wave of leaders will learn to make adult decisions.

Stage 11 - Acceptance

Acceptance is the toughest stage to define for this article, as the left is incredibly intolerant of opinions that differ from their own. The left has not accepted the Tea Party, the merits of dissenting opinions, nor that opposing views should be shown respect. So the left has accepted it in their own special way. First they tried imitation via the Coffee Party movement, pretending that it was to be a civil forum for ideas and working together. Granted, it was run by a former Obama staffer, and it wasn't like Obama supporters didn't already have outlets, such as Big Media if not just working for the administration outright. Another attempt was the "no labels" movement, trying to suggest that labels were so dismissive, and we should gather and sing kumbaya, etc. No dice again, and George Will did a great job of summing up why liberals reject being labeled because of course, it describes what they actually are. And of course, after Glenn Beck had the audacity to hold a rally by the Lincoln Memorial, the non-partisan, non-activist Jon Stewart had to rally his minions of mainly white viewers (sorry, couldn't resist) to come out and announce something, whatever that message may have been, certainly nothing racist.

So my question to the left is, are you serious about restoring sanity? Do you truly want respectful dialogue? Do you want a more civil tone? If you're serious, stop talking the talk - start walking the walk.

Stop using shootings by lone crazies as an excuse to throw out libelous accusations against someone simply because you need to cling to your raw hatred of her. Stop saying that anyone who disagrees with you is by definition an extremist. Or as the Vodkapundit put it, "Remember when spending less than you took in wasn't considered extremist? Yea, me neither." Stop using the lazy straw man arguments that this administration has come to depend on - no, we don't want to kill off the elderly. Those of us who are not already elderly ourselves either have friends or relatives who are up in the years and/or we're planning to grow old as well some day. Tea Partiers don't hate teachers, firemen, and police officers. We just don't feel that it's right to hand them generous benefits and unfunded taxpayer-fed pensions while signing their checks with the names of future generations. Is asking the public service unions to make similar contributions to their benefits that the rest of us do really so extreme? Aside from a handful of hard core libertarians, the Tea Party is not advocating eliminating all government. We just want intelligent government - you know, reviewing budgets (or in our president's case, first submitting one), transparency, and responsibly managing our money. The Tea Party is not suggesting killing poor people, either - we just have what is becoming a sadly outdated notion that people are better off with jobs than food stamps. So when Howard Dean tells the Netroots Convention that "The values of the Tea Party sure aren't the values of America today ", he sadly epitomizes what is wrong with the left today. Instead of shoving your finger in our chests and angrily screaming in our faces for us to engage in civil dialogue, maybe you should try engaging in civil dialogue. Stop trying to scream over reporters who you don't like, stop issuing threats to shut down speaking appearances by those with views different from your own, stop with the drive-by attacks, show some respect for the public property that you share with everyone else, and maybe even lay off of the angry, uncivilized rhetoric. You claim to want civil dialogue, but if you can't stop screaming that we're racists, idiots, violent, extremists, hostage takers and terrorists how serious do you think you sound?

The irony of all of the anger from the left is that they will be the first to decry killing terrorists as only creating more terrorists. But when it comes to the Tea Party the more they throw out their vitriol the more that they steel the resolve of the Tea Party and create more Tea Partiers.

Of all of the analysis of the Tea Party I've heard from the left, the one that came the closest to reality came from Harry Reid, of all people. He appeared on one of the talk shows declaring that "The Tea Party was born because of the economy. The economy is probably the worst it's ever been except for maybe the Great Depression. The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better. And the economy's getting better all the time." Right church wrong pew, but it's a start. Yes Harry, it is about the economy, but it's not just about current conditions, rather it is about the conditions and the mentality that got us to this point. This administration promised transparent and responsible government - we're still waiting, and this is why we're still here. Unlike the ~~anti-war~~ anti-Bush protests, we're not going to fade away just because the candidate with one party's designation gets elected. Until you understand and publicly acknowledge the conditions that got us to this point, the economy won't start getting better all the time for a long time.

Here is the part that the left truly does not understand, and probably never will. The Tea Party would be more than happy to go away. Most of us are not career politicians or bureaucrats, and would be thrilled to just go about our lives. We really would prefer to not come out to rallies and have to call our elected officials to ask them to do their jobs. Myself, I'd be satisfied if my blog just contained musings on heavy metal concert reviews, the top 100 reasons why the Philadelphia Eagles are the coolest team in pro football (I know what you're thinking - only 100? I had to draw the line somewhere), or random rants such as an unbeatable insult that any female can use on a guy or the importance of tipping generously. I'd still probably write about some political pieces, but I'd much rather see the biggest political issues that this self professed libertarian with conservative tendencies would have to write about would be to make fun of the left complaining that we are not doing enough to follow various socialist mandates coming out of the United Nations along the lines of "Maintaining Full Employment in the Nonprofit and NGO Sector though Achievement of Sustainable Poverty in the Third World". My advice to Harry Reid and everyone else who truly wants to see the Tea Party disappear - it's actually pretty simple. Do your damned jobs. Start spending within your means, read the bills you're voting on, stop imposing yourselves onto us just for the sake of paying back your campaign donors and start remembering the job that you were hired to do. When that day comes we'll be more than happy to disappear. And unfortunately we both know that day will never come. To paraphrase Mel Brooks in The History of the World Part I:

"We know you're wishing that we'd go awaayyyyy, but the Tea Party is here and it's here to stay!"

** Answer to earlier question regarding wine pairings with Ethiopian food: It was a trick question. The correct response was to keep walking until you find someplace else to eat because Ethiopian food sucks. The only people in the US who pretend to enjoy Ethiopian food are liberals who think that it makes them look more worldly. The rest of us outgrew pureed meat around the time our first teeth started coming in.

The Left Still Doesn't Get the Tea Party, As Told Through the Stages of Death and Dying Part 1 of 2

2011-08-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Author's note: I had originally started writing this piece back in November of 2010, but life events put my blogging on hold for a bit. I was just getting to the point where I thought that the left's hatred for the Tea Party was finally starting to die down since the movement's evolution started taking it away from the highly visible protest rallies and with it, out of the cameras and out of liberals' psyches. Then came all of the recent hysterics by the left as the recent debt ceiling issue brought all of the pent-up hatred they have for the Tea Party coming up to boil in an embarrassing explosion of rhetoric fueled by unthinking rage that made me decide that it was time to finish this piece once and for all.

With all of the events that have taken place this wound up being a lot longer than expected and needed to be broken into two parts.

To start where I left off a few months ago...

On the morning of Saturday, October 30, 2010 I boarded the Washington, DC Metro to see hordes of predominantly white leftists descending onto The National Mall for Jon Stewart's (non-partisan, non-ideology driven if you listen to Stewart) Rally to Restore Sanity. While the obvious purpose was to mock the Tea Party movement, the event came off as partially one last fling while they still held power (before the inevitable thrashing that the mid-term election just a few days later would hold) and partially as a massive group therapy session. To be honest , the entire things came off as... there's no nice way to say this - kind of pathetic. Basically, this group of predominantly white leftists came out to say, "We're going to make fun of people who have the audacity to be unhappy with a president and Congress whose actions are destroying our economy." You'll have to forgive the rest of us who didn't come out to join this predominantly white leftist rally. It made me realize that over two years after its emergence the left still does not even remotely understand the Tea Party movement. Looking back on how the left has reacted to this movement reminded me of The Five Stages of Death and Dying. This post charts how the left has gone through each stage. The timeline is far from perfect, but the actions and reactions all fall within each of the stages. And yes, I'm going to lay off of the "predominately white" remarks - I just wanted to mimic how the press has been covering the Tea Party movement. Although if you look at the crowds the phrase was just as applicable to this rally (if not more so) as it was to any Tea Party rally.

Stage 1 - Shock and Denial

Anyone reading this probably remembers the origins. Back in the days when the rosy blush was still on our new president, Obama displayed his economic acumen by continuing one of the worst policies of his predecessor - more bailouts and even greater deficit spending to throw money out as political favors to well-connected special interests. This led to CNBC's Rick Santelli launching into the rant heard 'round the world when he suggested that this country needed another Tea Party. So on February 28th the first of these started happening around the country. At the time I was working for a consulting company in downtown DC and that day happened to be the final day on the contract that I was supporting. Being not too far from Lafayette Park where the DC protests were planned and having completed all of our project closeout activities, my Site Lead was OK with me taking a long lunch and going to check out the event. There were a fair number of protesters, many carrying signs, and a few reporters milling about.

How it was covered by the press was interesting. While Fox News naturally covered it extensively, most of the liberal mainstream (yes, that term is redundant) outlets chose to ignore the events, hoping they would just go away. The New York Times buried the story deep in its pages, while one Boston newspaper (the Herald, I believe) chose to not even report on the story. That night I tuned in to my favorite channel to watch when bad news strikes the left, MSNBC. I remember Rachel Maddow interviewing her field correspondent afterward, and the segment opened with her reporter condescendingly sipping a cup of tea and then mentioning how poorly run and amateurish the protest was. One example was how there were plans to dump a truckload of tea bags in front of the White House, but proper permits had not been obtained, eliciting a a good chuckle from Maddow. Well no kidding - unlike most leftist protests the Tea Party is not made up of people who spend their careers in the cottage industry of professional grievance/victimhood. We don't have the same experience in trashing and vandalizing to make our points as the left has developed over the years. And of course, while I must have missed the one sign that the correspondent mentioned out of the many - She stated that this particular sign's message was of the trump card that every lazy, intellectually dishonest liberal likes to fall back on - racism. She had no evidence to support this claim of course, but not having any evidence has never been known to stop a member of the left from throwing out charges of racism.

And our president himself, in his delightfully out of touch with reality manner, simply stated that he did not even know that there was a protest taking place right outside of his own home. Even his biggest supporters never accused our president of being overly observant.

Or look at how the mainstream media still treats the Tea Party. How many times do you still see it referred to with the ever present air quotes of "Tea Party"? If that sounds like nit-picking how many times during the George W. Bush presidency did you see the same treatment of the "Anti-War" movement? Where did the anti-war movement disappear to after Obama came into office anyway? Maybe the few that are still around are expressing their love for peace and pursuit of social justice by advocating infanticide? Nah, that's just crazy talk.

Back on topic, in the liberal mind, this was supposed to be the start of the greatest era in the history of humanity - how could anyone possibly oppose Obama's mandate? The entire country was united as one in its delight over our new president! Unless you count the 54 million people who voted for the McCain/Palin ticket, but who cared about their opinion anyway? Unable to comprehend any logical reasoning behind the Tea Party's thought process, most of the left dismissed the movement out of hand. And while they probably wished they had started fighting in earnest sooner, given the nature of the movement and its resistance to the left's usual tactics it probably would not have mattered when nor how hard they chose to attack the Tea Party.

Stage 2 - Anger

Oh my, was there ever anger. Of course, saying "was" suggests that the anger has gone away. First liberals simply sniffed and dismissed the Tea Party movement as "astroturf", declaring that these protests were a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox News. These of course are the same liberals who never thought to question the backers of their ~~anti-war~~ anti-Bush protests, the profiteers behind the Green propaganda they unquestioningly accept as fact, and for that matter, the left never saw anything wrong with busloads of ACORN protestors showing up with matching, professionally designed shirts and signs to harass private citizens in their homes in the name of deflecting attention from the damage our president and congress were inflicting on our economy at that time. Wizbang's Jay Tea just wrote a pretty good analysis of how the Tea Party differs from real astroturf.

Stage 3 - Anger

Another issue that the Left has had with the Tea Party movement has been that it has been stealing their thunder. While there have been occasional rallies by the right, since the 1960's leftists have pretty much held a monopoly on the mass demonstrations and taking to the streets. At long last we had finally achieved Utopia - Democratic control of both houses, a leftist as president, how could things not be better? Why would anyone possibly protest this? One of the reasons liberals have had to fall back on the tired arguments of racism, astroturf, regular folks being duped by the powerful, etc., is that they simply can not conceive that any rational person would oppose their policies and can't argue on the basis of facts that they themselves are unable to understand. Yes, you'll get leftists who will pretend to listen by saying something to the effect of, "You just keep using that same tired rhetoric of tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing government!" without actually listening to any of the detail behind the arguments, while they continue to rehash their own failed policy of tax and spend and spend and tax, then tax and spend and tax some more.

Liberals are also unhappy about the role reversal they have seen with this administration. Taking to the streets to "Fight the Power" was what the cool people always did. Now that the leftists had come into power they are facing the graphic truth that it is a lot more difficult to offer practical solutions than it is to carry a protest sign in the streets. To some degree this fate awaits the Tea Party, but the letdown won't be as bad as the one that the left experienced. Most of the left's beliefs are founded on the historically failing philosophies of socialism and pacifism and that a passive, weakened United States is good for the world, while the Tea Party's basic principles of fiscal responsibility and personal accountability have a proven track record of success.

One of the best examples of the role reversal comes from a comparison that I am ripping off and building onto, a fantastic point of geekdom raised by Bill Whittle. The way the left has shifted is summed up in the greatness of the original Star Wars movies versus the terrible prequels. Once upon a time the left was the cool rebellion, fighting against what they believed was an oppressive empire. Back then the right was cast as the unhip establishment with their Imperial Star Destroyers and Death Stars, but it was now the conservatives who were racing to make the Kessel Run in under four parsecs (without paying any carbon offsets!) to tell their elected leaders to vote against Obamacare, while our president and all of his supporters became Viceroy Gunray as they hissed that "this healllth care mandate is perrrfectly leeeegal. Now siiiiign this bill into law and ennnnd this pointless debate innn the Sennnate"

"Have you ever faced a Tea Partier before? "
"Why, no... " "Our leftist agenda will not survive this."

Stage 4 - Anger But despite its lack of consistent corporate funding (I'm still waiting for my checks to show up), the movement did not fizzle out after the initial protests in February of 2010. In fact, they grew in numbers and spread across the country. So the leftists came out to meet the tea partiers and confront them directly. At the April 15th rally in 2009 Sue Roesgen got in the face of one Tea Partier to defend the president she had worked so hard to help elect. Even for a liberal organization like CNN this was too much, and her contract was not renewed. We also got to see an allegedly mainstream voice like Anderson Cooper's unable to resist using the "Tea bagger" slur that leftists like to use. There are two good ways to throw this back at a lefty using that phrase. The first is to point out that using an adolescent slur is a perfect embodiment of the left's arguments. Or one could ask your favorite leftie if he considers himself the opposite of a Teabagger. If the answer is yes, you can respond, "So I guess that would make you a c*cks***er?"

Later on in the summer of 2009 at a Tea Party rally in St. Louis several white Tea Partiers beat a black man who had come out to counter protest, shouting racial slurs, and the entire incident was caught on Youtube. Why haven't you heard about this you ask? Because I just lied about the details of the beatdown. If what I said were true, the press would have been all over this incident to help support their narrative of racism behind the Tea Party. The victim in question, Kenneth Gladney, is someone you have probably never heard of because of the facts behind the story. Kenneth Gladney was selling Gadsen flags at a Tea Party rally when several white members of the SEIU assaulted him while shouting racial slurs. The entire incident was captured on video, but the liberal bigots in the press choose to ignore stories like these that do not support their agenda.

Stage 5 - Anger

With Bush and Cheney leaving office in 2008 the left would need to fill the void of having a central figure to hate and find someone to serve as an outlet for their anger. Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin served the purpose to some degree, but there was never a pure focal point to truly funnel leftist rage. Despite its lack of clear leadership, the Tea Party movement became their new target. Sadly for the left, rather than take a critical look at why their policies on foreign policy and economics are failing, it was easier to label a bogeyman and lash out. Chris Matthews broadcast an ominous tale of the "Rise of the New Right" (I'm choosing to not give a hyperlink reference here - suffice to say that I watched it so that you don't have to) that tried to loosely tie the Tea Party to various current militia groups and white supremacist groups from America's past. These are the same leftists who worked so hard to ignore our own president's ties to his own radical past during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Another great example of this willing blindness and seeing what they wanted to see was the failed Times Square Bomber. When the story broke, Mayor Bloomberg suggested that the bomber might be somebody opposed to our president's health care plan (Translate: Tea Partier). Until of course, the truth came out as to the perp's ideology - the one of which liberals dare not speak. Mark Steyn had an interesting observation back in 2008 after the leftists in the press launched their all out assault on Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin and her family - for all that liberals claim to care about average Americans, they become incredibly angry and condescending when confronted with one of them. Steyn made a great point, but missed taking it to its disturbing conclusion. Liberals care about average Americans, but in the same way that many people care about their pets or children. Liberals want what they think is best for us and that we are incapable of living our lives without their helpful meddling, but when we speak out we're seen by them as a child throwing a tantrum or the dog pooping on the carpet for attention. These Tea Partiers are the kind of people who watch Fox News, can't name a single show on NPR, think that drinking cheap beer and watching NASCAR is fun and wouldn't know the first thing about which wine goes with the meal at a good Ethiopian restaurant! (** Answer to the wine question at the end of Part II's post) To reject the impositions of an overeducated bureaucrat with a Master's degree in Public Policy who has never had a real job or lived in the real world is borderline sedition to the left.

But we're not your children, and we're not your pets. Unlike this growing leftist ideal of permanent childhood and dependency, many of us choose to live as responsible adults, and we like to make the choices in our own lives. P.J. O'Rourke once gave a great retort to then First Lady Clinton's children's book with the phrase, "The village is Washington. The child is you."

Continued in part II...

Economics for Politicians Chapter 3: Introduction to Macroeconomics - So that's how government spending fits in!

2011-08-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, humble politician! Now that you understand the basics of how economics work on an individual (microeconomic) level, in this lesson you will learn how all of these choices roll up on a national level, or Macroeconomics. In the second economics class that you probably slept through during your pre-law school days the concept of GDP, or Gross Domestic Product was introduced. Put simply, GDP is the sum of all economic activity. You've no doubt seen a chart showing GDP growth before that looks something like this:

So what do all of these joined points represent? They are an aggregate (sum) of all of our measurable economic activity, made up of a few broad components that give you a formula that looks something like this:

Y = C + I + G + (X-M)

Y = GDP

C = Consumption. As the name implies, this is made up of anything that we consume, whether it is for food, clothing, entertainment, housing, etc.

I = Investment. Put simply, this is our collective savings. We invest (or as some of you like to refer to investment by private citizens, "speculate") our money based on our goals for safety or higher returns. People who prefer safety will invest in stable, low return investments, such as Certificates of Deposit (CD's). People who want a higher return will invest in riskier vehicles that expect higher returns, such as small cap stocks, starting their own business, or investment grade junk, such as bonds issued by the state of California.

G = Government Spending. This is of course your favorite piece of the economy! This represents everything that the government spends, whether it is on entitlements, military, infrastructure, (government) employee salaries and benefits, or payback for whatever interest groups helped to elect you.

X-M = eXports - Imports. Most macroeconomic models lump these two together, as they show how you add to the GDP all that we export for sale, and reduce it by how much we import from foreign countries. For our purposes I am going to use the algebraic methodology to back this out by subtracting them from both sides of the equation. This is too complex to go into great detail, but even though our import dollars go overseas, that item imported goes toward our own consumption. And likewise any item that we sell overseas that invests in America is actually consumed by someone outside of our GDP. There is a lot more to this, but Production Possibilities Curves and Comparative Advantage are concepts that are too advanced for you at this stage. But stick around - hopefully by the end of these lessons you will be ready to learn them too!

Back to our equation, if we back out the offsetting effects of imports and exports we get a simpler formula:

Y = C + I + G

To describe our overall economy in layman's terms, think of your own household's economy and look at your own paycheck. Before your direct deposit hits you see various federal, state, social security taxes, etc. taken out. Then of course you have to pay your property taxes, registration fees for your car, taxes on your investments, plus all of the other not quite as visible taxes, such as sales taxes and the higher prices you and your bretheren force everyone to pay as a result of regulations and trade barriers. This is the equivalent of the "G" portion of GDP.

Now that we're past the portion of your income that you have to spend or face jail time, the next part is your household consumption. As I mentioned earlier this includes anything you're spending to, well, consume right now. This is your food, clothing, whiskey, your car, your housing (although if you have a mortgage this could be more appropriately under investment or split between the two categories), going to the movies, books, vacations, etc.

What you have left is what you save or, invest. I've already listed some possible savings vehicles earlier and won't recap them, but it is critical that you understand the distinction between government spending and investment. Contrary to what politicians holding the purse strings like to say, government spending is not a form of investment. An investment involves a choice being willingly made by an individual or organization looking to gain a return on the money that they are risking. Forcing tax payers to sink money into high speed rail lines that will go unused or wind mills that will produce expensive, inefficient energy are not examples of investment. There's a reason that Joe Biden doesn't invest his own money into rail lines. There's a reason Al Gore doesn't just invest his own money in green energy rather than bray for subsidies and regulatory mandates. It's the same reason you don't, and the same reason the rest of us don't. These items have a proven track record of being bad investments, so please don't tell us what a wonderful job you're doing of managing our money when all that you're really doing is doling out favors to the unions, green groups and various other members of the powerful anti-prosperity lobby that helped to get you elected.

Now that you see how government spending fits in and you remember where your money comes from, you can start to see the big picture. Any time we increase the G part of the equation, less is left for C and I. Even if you don't take it away from us today, the American people are not as stupid as you think we are. We know that the money you borrow will eventually have to be paid back in future tax increases (or "revenue enhancements" as you like to call them) or through inflation, which will hurt the return on our investments and savings. Now you can start to see why the various government "stimulus" programs wound up having little effect and if anything, slowed our economy. Actually, this is a good point to break for today so we can resume with...

Chapter 4: You don't create jobs - It's time to get over FDR!

Economics for Politicians Lesson 2: Introduction to Microeconomics - Why Prices Matter

2011-08-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Welcome to lesson II of "Economics for Politicians"! In the first lesson we explained who the government's money belongs to (the people), and now we move on to Lesson 2 - a basic introduction to Microeconomic Theory. Hey! Stop - don't get up and leave! Contrary to what you may have heard economics in not necessarily boring, and this lesson will be a huge help in your crafting policy that will get you re-elected!

Ah, I knew that magic word would get your attention. As I was about to say, the most fundamental building block of understanding economics is the classic supply and demand curve. You probably remember seeing something like this in one of the classes you slept through early on in your undergraduate days:

OK, we've put a bunch of points on a graph and plotted them out. So what does all of this mean? Like any problem it's easier to understand if you break it down piece by piece. Let's make the discussion more interesting by talking about a good or product that you will find interesting - bottles of whiskey. Back in the early days of your career before you had lobbyists to provide you with bottles of your favorite blend, you had to actually pay for them with your own money. What drove your decision as to what to buy? Probably lots of factors, such as the quality of the brand, how far you may have had to travel to get it, and of course, cost. To simplify this lesson we'll use a term that factors out externalities, or what economists call caterus parebus, "All other things being equal" to only focus on price. Assuming that every store carries your favorite whiskey where you buy and how much will only depend on price for now.

Let's assume that the local shop has ten bottles of whiskey on the shelf, and they are giving them away for free! If it's your favorite brand, it's a no brainer - you take all ten. Now let's say the price goes up to $10 per bottle - still a very good deal, and these could make great stocking stuffers for your cohorts. But you don't want to or can not buy all ten bottles, so you buy only nine. When the price increases to $20 you buy only eight, and so on until the price reaches $100 where you decide that whiskey is too expensive for your tastes right now and you decide to buy some vintagely challenged wine instead. Plot all of the points, and you get a demand curve that looks something like this:

Keep in mind that these curves will not perfectly predict your buying behavior, but this is a short lesson so we have to speak on a general level. On a large enough scale and when you compile enough actual data from real world examples, these graphs hold pretty true to actual behavior.

Now let's look at the other side of the aisle, the supply curve. Where as we just looked at whiskey from the buyer's perspective, the supply side looks from the seller's perspective. If you are selling your whiskey you are willing to supply more if you will get paid more for it. If you have your ten bottles of whiskey to sell at $100 per bottle you will gladly sell all ten! Now as we drop the price you are not willing to sell as many since you can not make as much profit on each bottle. Your willingness to sell them drops until we get to giving them away for free, and you are unwilling to offer any on your store's shelves. Plot the points and you get something like this:

An obvious question is that if you're only able to charge $40 per bottle why you would order ten in the first place when you are only willing to sell four of them? The answer is that your awareness of this lower market price leads you to only order four bottles since more are not worth your trouble. Consider this your introduction to why price controls are an excellent way to cause shortages and rationing.

Plot both lines together and we see a magical point where both lines meet - buyers and seller have found the point where we have maximized how many will sell with how many will buy, also known as equilibrium - voila!

Going back to a strictly buyer's perspective, when the price of a good increases less of it gets consumed, while as the price drops more of it gets consumed. To some degree you already understand this - think of when you pass "sin taxes" to encourage people to consume less of goods that they want but that ~~groups who fork over truckloads of cash into your reelection campaign~~ you deem a bad choice, such as cigarettes or oil. On the flip side, when you want people to consume more of a good that they would not willingly choose at the market price you introduce subsidies to bring costs down and increase demand, such as with electric cars or "green" energy.

Now you see how your decisions and the laws you impose on us help to modify people's behavior and distort marketplaces where prices are the measurement of what people will freely choose to buy or not buy. Think of the sum of all of the legislation that you pass designed to affect markets as the biggest anti-choice initiative ever created. Prices do matter!

Now that we've seen how to understand the economics of individual decisions, next up will be an introduction to Macroeconomics, or how how we measure the sum of all of this economic activity!

A Call for Higher Taxes Part III - Time to do your Patriotic Duty, America!

2011-07-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces ***

Ok, I've tried. I really have. I've thrown out ideas for tax increases that will help, rather than harm our economy. I've proposed tax increases that will actually help grow the economy while providing revenue and I've also suggested a new tax to allow 6.5 billion entitlement free riders to pay their fair share. Nobody in Washington is listening or seems to be taking our growing budget deficit seriously, so it's time for an extreme measure - we pay for the deficit. Now.

Even though our federal debt continues to grow in both dollars as well as percentage of our GDP, the mere suggestion that we should not spend more than our grandchildren will ever be able to repay is branded as heartless extremism. Since we can't prevent the government from spending ever more of out money, it's time to buck up and accept that, to paraphrase Chris Berman, we can't stop our elected leaders; we can only hope to contain them.

How much is the federal debt right now? Current numbers have us just under $14.350 trillion dollars, and the adult population of the United States around 232,458,000. Just over 47% pay no federal income tax and the rest of us fall into various tax brackets based on level of income. Here is my proposal - every American pitches in and helps to pay for the debt - no exemptions, no loopholes and no exceptions. Everyone will feel some pain as the entire nation joins in this shared sacrifice.

In the table below I created a draft proposal for how much each American should be charged. Here are my assumptions:

It starts with some basic reference info that I took from various government sites - total debt, population, tax brackets and how many people are in each

Everyone's share is based on the lowest dollar amount on their income tax bracket - no point in punishing the people at the bottom of each to subsidize those at the top

No children - my numbers are based on what the U.S. Census counts as an adult

For the people who pay no taxes I gave them a base rate of $20,000/year for several reasons. First, since multiplying any number by zero gets you zero we had to start somewhere, and their vast numbers will skew any efforts to spread the pain among all Americans. Naturally, they will want to share in the sacrifice so I picked an arbitrary number that will help them feel the pain without causing too much pain.

I further penalized the top tax bracket by assuming an income of $10 million per year. This takes some of the burden off of the middle and lower classes and it's money that they don't need anyway. This would need to be further bracketed so as not to cripple people who are just reaching the $1M mark, but this is a starting point.

The columns to the right explain all of my calculations so that you can see exactly what your fair share is.

Now take a look at what you or your family needs to pay - painful, eh? A quick look at the bill that Sister Babe and I would be on the hook for is enough to make me squirm, but hey it's time to join our fellow Americans and do our patriotic duty! In terms of implementing this, I have a few ideas:

No, nobody will be expected to pay all at once. Any individual can set up a payment plan with the treasury

Every person's payment status will be shown publicly on the web in a national switchboard - no income or bracket info, but just the name and status - Paid in Full, On a Payment Plan (interest free, it is our money after all), Refused to Pay (which will lead to incarceration), Unable to Locate, or Exempt. This will be great for keeping people honest, as the blogosphere will have a field day monitoring the likes of politicians, bank executives, union leaders, oil company leadership, etc.

Yes, I did just say exempt for that last category. Although there should be no exceptions, it is understood that some people will be unable to pay - the incarcerated, institutionalized, hospitalized, etc. Each exception will have to be reviewed on a case by case basis. No group waivers like Obamacare - this time privilege does not get you special treatment.

How do we fund these waivers? Easy. The funds are deducted directly from the campaign funds of the individual's Senator or Representative who approves the waiver. Any shortfalls will be taken from the national party's campaign coffers. Yes, this punishes politicians disproportionately but they carry a disproportionate share of blame for the debt.

This is the last of my tax proposals that have no chance of seeing the light of day. If Sister Babe and I were to get handed a bill for our share, it would kill any discretionary spending by us. Vacations, dining out, going to the movies, even our most basic expenses will need to get scrutinized. And this will have the macro effect across the country crippling the industries that I just mentioned. And of course, as we further punish business owners beyond what this administration is already doing, we'll see even less hiring as every dollar of disposable income gets assimilated by the Treasury. The effects on our economy would be absolutely ruinous. Basically it's like the tax cuts that Dubya enacted in 2000 to get us past the internet bubble recession, only in reverse. Think of this as the ant-stimulus. But at least we'll be doing our patriotic duty!

And this proposal is not a substitute for your already existing tax bills - we're doing this exercise because this debt represents how much we've outspent what we're already giving our government. This also won't be the last time we see such bills. Any time the federal government runs a deficit the people will be hit with additional one time surcharges based on the schedule I've listed above. We would feel a lot of pain, but it would wake everybody up, and I'll bet that once those bills come people will start paying attention to how their money is being spent. And at long last most of America will finally understand that calling for some sanity to government spending is not an extremist position.

Economics for Politicians 101 Lesson 1 - It's Not Your Money

2011-07-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

Foreword

*** Update - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Over the last few years I've noticed our leaders in Washington and the state capitols enacting ever more policy that is ultimately harmful to our economy. Whether wasteful programs, unsustainable deficits, or business-strangling regulation, we see law after law get passed as people who consider themselves the most brilliant minds in the country seem genuinely surprised that we see rising deficits and inflation, high unemployment, and a housing market that can't seem to recover.

Then I realized something as I interacted with many of the people who live in this town, whether as politicians, staffers, members of the Non-Profit/Non-Governmental Organization Industrial Complex (H/T to the Destroyer of Colons for that term), career bureaucrats or think tankers - they shared a fairly common thread. Very few of these people have lived outside of this town or state houses or worked in jobs where employment depended on producing a good or service that customers would willingly buy rather than on ensuring that whichever member of congress funds your program is happy. They throw around platitudes like "living wages" or "social justice" without considering the implications of what their policies actually do. They are more interested in what they want their policies to accomplish rather than what their policies actually accomplish. The problem is that having never lived out in the real world they have no frame of reference as to what it's actually like out there and how real people actually respond to their mandates.

That's the purpose of these posts - to educate or sheltered ruling class. What follows below is the first of a nine part series called "Economics for Politicians". It is targeted toward our elected leaders to help them understand why economies behave as they do, laid out in nine basic lessons put in layman's terms. I'll be releasing a new one roughly once every week or two, so without further ado...

Lesson One: It's Not Your Money

Have you spent your entire career in the DC Beltway, in a State House, or in a news room or college campus? Do you walk around saying that deficits don't matter or that you should spend more money to keep from going bankrupt? Do you pass laws designed to punish job creation and investment and then wonder why jobless rates "unexpectedly" rise? Then this series is for you! In the nine part series we will discuss the basics of Micro and Macroeconomic theory, show examples of unintended consequences, and even provide advice that will help you improve the economies of your town/county/nation that will achieve your number one objective in office - reelection! Before we can start you need to understand one basic principle:

It's not your money. If that previous sentence sounded like a foreign language or the rantings of some angry Tea Bagger, then read it again. And re-read it. And keep re-reading it until it sinks home. Until you understand this, there is no point in reading any further.

Under a libertarian definition, government is an entity designed to provide for whatever the private sector is unwilling or unable to do - highways, fire departments, and the military are often cited examples. Over time, this has expanded far beyond that scope, but ultimately, we as a society come to an agreement to allow our government to do everything that it does. There are things that some of us want and things that some of us don't want, whether it be for highways, a powerful military, generous pensions for public employees, regulatory agencies, offices to provide foreign nations the means to interact with our government, or insurance for our unemployed. In that last sentence I listed things that almost everyone reading this will like and dislike to varying degrees, but regardless of it we pay our taxes to fund the package as a whole.

Now read that last sentence again. It is the people who pay these taxes, whether directly or indirectly. Every penny that goes into your budget comes from us, whether direct taxes - income, property, sales, or indirect taxes- taxes on the business that we interact with who then have to pass those costs along to us as part of their cost of doing business. Taxes on the wealthy? Yes, even regular citizens feel the impact of that favorite remnant of Marxism to which the left desperately clings. We have a progressive tax system where the wealthy and businesses pay most of the share, but ultimately every dollar that you collect comes from a person whom you were elected to serve. That's it - that money is there to serve your constituents and nobody else.

To give a simple example I used to manage a rec league co-ed flag football team. The league charged a flat fee for teams, so to figure out everyone's dues I took the total team fee, divided by number of people who we had recruited, and rounded up by a few dollars to cover the eventual few people who never show or disappear without paying, and have a few dollars left over. I kept tight records and used all of the extra money on the team, buying things like Gatorade and water to bring to our games. Whatever was left over at the end of the season was used toward the tab at our last happy hour. In my last season my initial calculation used a number that was a few dollars off of the league's individual person fees, and the fact that I had recruited a small army would have had the total dues collected at a relatively high individual fee, but still cheaper than if anyone had joined individually. Then I did my calculations and realized I would have collected a $400 surplus. I considered ways to spend the money - bringing food to the games, buying the team a good night out at the end... and then a radical idea hit me.

I could give it back to them and let them choose how to best spend their money. If the team wanted more happy hours or better food and drink a the games they could choose how to do so. So after calculating what each person's share would be and building in a small buffer the dues came down to far lower than my initial SWAG (Start With A Guess), with the few dollars left over being used to buy water and Gatorade and ice for the cooler. For all of the time and effort I put into organizing the team nobody would have begrudged me if I kept a few dollars at the end, but that's not a good path to start down. I could easily see myself thinking that I would be deserving of some compensation (recruiting and managing a team is a bit time consuming) and then next season maybe I might feel I deserved a bit more, and more and more after that... I'm only human and just as susceptible to greed as anyone else. Obviously I don't have much of a future in politics..

This is not to pretend that running a nation's government is as simple as running a flag football team. But the basic principle still stands - the money needed to run any organization belongs to the people who fund it, not the leaders who impose the taxes and not the bureaucrats who administer these budgets. We understand that to some degree we're going to see public funds used for political payback - it's a reality of a system that we've come to expect when our candidates win and tolerate when our candidates lose. There are limits, though. If one of your biggest campaign contributors is part of a massive company and is a major reason for why it's unprofitable, handling that contributor control of the company, installing some crony of yours with no background in the industry to run it and rewriting bankruptcy law on the fly to further reward your contributor would be an example of going too far.

When the day comes that you start seeing tax revenue as your personal re-election fund, it's time to retire to private life. And if the day comes that you see tax revenue as your reward for your service, then chances are you're probably involved in some activities that warrant jail time. If your constituents are luckily, you'll actually end up there. Or maybe you're well connected enough to get away with it. But always remember, it is not your money.

On deck: Lesson 2, Introduction to Microeconomics, or Prices do matter!

Stannis Baratheon for President!

2011-07-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

*** Game of Thrones Spoiler Alert ***

***Update - Cross posted at Flopping Aces ***

If you are among the many who recently finished watching the HBO series based on George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" but have not read the following four books (Book #5 has just been released) in the series, stop reading now. This post contains spoilers from one of the subsequent books, so if you're interested in this post, bookmark this page, go read the books, and come back when you're done. I'll wait here.

For everyone else who has either read the books or does not care about the books I'll briefly recap the relevant pieces of the storyline that get to my point. The part that I am referencing takes place at the end of the third book, "A Storm of Swords". Following the death of King Robert Baratheon, Westeros is in chaos. From across the sea Daenerys, daughter of the murdered king Aerys Targareon (Robert's predecessor) is rumored to be raising an army and is planning to invade to retake her throne. To the north the men of the Night's Watch are sending pleas for weapons and men. Their brotherhood that mans the northern Wall built to defend the kingdom from the savages and creatures of the northern wilderness have been warning of growing threats from beyond the wall and are lacking the manpower to defend the realm against them. Westeros itself is being racked by a bloody civil war. Stannis Baratheon, the older brother of the departed king, has just been defeated in his efforts to assault Kings Landing and to seize the throne which he claimed was rightly his by the rules of succession. At this point, despite the aid of some powerful magic at his side Stannis' claim to the throne no longer has any chance.

Going back to the north, one of the developing storylines is the very real threat of invasion from the beyond the wall. The barbarian hordes have begun an assault on The Wall, and despite several attacks being repelled by the Night's Watch, the numbers are too great and defeat is inevitable. After a few attacks, the leader of the north men, Mance Rayder, calls on Jon Snow, one of the leaders of the Night's Watch, to meet him for parley. During the discussion Mance reveals that in addition to his forces he also now possesses a horn that is powerful enough to blow down the Wall itself. Having softened his opponent to the point where he is ready to listen to negotiations, Mance suggests terms of surrender rather than have any more people killed or the wall itself destroyed. If this were a professional wrestling match Jon Snow would be the hapless babyface tied up in the ring ropes after several heels had ganged up on him and are now beating him senseless over the protests of the eagle-eyed referee and the booing of the crowd.

At this point one of Rayder's men returns to inform him that a large attack force is moving toward them. At first Mance suspects treachery during the parley, but quickly realizes that the force is too large to be the men of the Night's Watch. The sound of approaching trumpets warn that this force could not be additional northerners, and the attackers emerge to reveal a force of several battle lines of mounted cavalry. These well disciplined, well equipped, battle hardened knights easily dispatch the ragtag group of wildlings. Despite a huge numerical advantage, their lack of equipment and training sends the barbarians scrambling as they are routed while the cavalry are waving banners bearing the prancing black stag of House Baratheon and raising shouts of "Stannis!". You could almost hear pro wrestling announcer Jim Ross screaming "Good God! Tha- that's Stannis Baratheon's music! THAT'S STANNIS BARATHEON'S MUSIC! WHAT ON EARTH IS HE DOING HERE?!?"

Once the battle settles down and back in the confines of the Wall, self-proclaimed King Stannis summons Jon Snow to discuss what will happen next. When telling why, after ignoring his pleas for so long Stannis finally came to the aid of the Night's Watch, Stannis' explanation was something that has always stuck with me ever since I first read it:

"Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, (he) said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne."

That phrase rings true when we see what is happening today in the negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats over raising the debt ceiling. As the Vice President Biden led talks started breaking down a few days ago Speaker John Boener issued an interesting challenge - he called on President Obama to take command and be the one to show leadership in resolving this impasse. At first I was wondering why Boener would have done this, given the president's obvious distaste for actually being a leader. The results were predictable - rather than lead Obama went straight to the demagoguery playbook, throwing a tantrum that involved calling anyone who disagreed with him extremists, and calling for tax increases that will have no meaningful impact other than to score points with his political base. Of course, he offers no numbers to support his tax increases (exactly how many months of borrowing will they cover?) given that it would expose how meaningless they would be in the overall picture other than increasing unemployment by further punishing the people who actually create jobs. Then Obama goes on to condescendingly insult his opponents by suggesting that his daughters get their homework done on time and that Republicans should as well. Ironically, the president himself hasn't even bothered to do his own schoolwork in that he submitted two "budgets" this year, the first being unanimously voted down by the Democrat controlled Senate, and the second not even being scored by the CBO for its lack of substance.

It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to predict the president's behavior, so why did Boener raise the stakes? I have my own theories, and if the president had Admiral Akbar at his side he would have seen it. Boener knew that this battle would be long and nasty and understood that no matter what happened the press would paint him and the GOP as the unreasonable villains while giving the Dems the standard sympathetic treatment as the defenders of ~~unsustainable debt~~ the American people. What Boener did was goad Obama into very publicly showing the ugly side of his temperament and lack of competence, and the president bit hook, line, and sinker. Nothing will change how the press treats the GOP, but Boener got Obama to show his true self very publicly in a manner that will serve his opponent in 2012 well. In the end a deal will get made - some noses may get bloodied and some broken bones may need to mend, but whatever happens when this resolves would happen with or without the president's help. With the Chinese and some of the larger bond traders growing leery of our looming debt, something has to change, and sooner will be better than later.

So what should the Democrats have done? Personally, I say to give the Republicans enough rope to potentially hang themselves with. Let them work to reform our entitlement programs and send the message to business that our government is not looking to punish them any further. Since the several rounds of stimulus, deficits, additional regulations and threats of higher taxes to pay our ever expanding deficits haven't worked, maybe we should try something different? For the Democrats it should be a potential win-win scenario. If the Republican plan fails, then there is still plenty of time to use this issue to argue for why they should stay in power in 2012 and the need for more stimulus, regulations and higher deficits.

But if the Republican plan works, then we can start on the path toward actually emerging from the Great Recession. We can finally begin to make serious reforms to unsustainable entitlement programs, start showing that government can manage taxpayer money responsibly when it must, and maybe we might even get a budget out of this!

Sadly, for our president that scenario is entirely unacceptable, because the only credit that he could take would be for getting out of the way. And more importantly, this would hurt his chances at reelection. Obama has seen his ascension to the presidency as his divine right, and to quote an old political science professor of mine who was describing LBJ, "He loved being president, but he hated the presidency." Unlike Stannis, Obama does not even seem interested in the kingdom, but rather only is interested in the throne itself.

Granted, the main reason Stannis did the right thing was because he was out of options, but at least he finally did. At the end of the day (or at least book three) he put the kingdom ahead of the throne.

Stannis in 2012!

The Left Still Doesn't Get the Tea Party, As Told Trhough the Stages of Death and Dying Part 1 of 2

2011-07-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Author's note: I had originally started writing this piece back in November of 2010, but life events put my blogging on hold for a bit. I was just getting to the point where I thought that the left's hatred for the Tea Party was finally starting to die down since the movement's evolution started taking it away from the highly visible protest rallies and with it, out of the cameras and out of liberals' psyches. Then came all of the recent hysterics by the left as the recent debt ceiling issue brought all of the pent-up hatred they have for the Tea Party coming up to boil in an embarrassing explosion of rhetoric fueled by unthinking rage that made me decide that it was time to finish this piece once and for all.

With all of the events that have taken place this wound up being a lot longer than expected and needed to be broken into two parts.

To start where I left off a few months ago...

Stage 1 - Shock and Denial

Stage 2 - Anger

Stage 3 - Anger

"Have you ever faced a Tea Partier before? "
"Why, no... " "Our leftist agenda will not survive this."

Stage 5 - Anger

Continued in part II...

A Call for Higher Taxes, Part II

2011-07-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

With the looming budget showdown the President and Democrats are standing steadfast in their assertion that we can not make any budget "cuts" without what they call "increases in revenue", or in layman's terms, "higher taxes on the people who actually create real jobs". I had written previously about my own tax increase proposal, but where it differs from Democrats' suggestions is that rather than punish activity that creates jobs, mine would punish activity that destroys jobs, and in turn lead to hiring and greater economic growth. Since we know that my proposal has no chance of seeing the light of day I started thinking along the lines of the current debate - entitlement reform, increased revenues - and then it hit me.We have a serious entitlement problem. What would you say if I told you that we have an entitlement program that is being enjoyed by over 6.5 billion people who contribute nothing in tax dollars to fund it? That's right, I am talking about the US military budget. Despite the fact that according to the U.S. Census Bureau only 4.5% of the world's population lives in the United States, Uncle Sam is responsible for 43 % of the world's military spending. You read correctly; nearly half of all expenditures to keep the world safe are being funded by fewer than one out of every 20 global citizens. Whether it's taking down terrorist regimes, rebuilding countries ravaged by war, keeping shipping lanes safe, it's American treasure and lives that shoulders most of the burden. So to borrow the vernacular that the left likes to use in referring to America, "Isn't it time that the world paid its fair share?"

The best part is that there is something for everyone to love:

Other countries wouldn't even have to pay directly - it can be paid to the US by increasing their dues to the United Nations, which can then be disbursed to the U.S.

U.N. bureaucrats will jump at the chance to launch any program that allows them to become middlemen with plenty of graft opportunity

Tax levels can be worked out by per capita GDP, and include extra penalties for countries that contribute to the need for global military (read: Iran, North Korea)

The US government has found more revenue!

The biggest beneficiaries, such as Europe, Canada and South Korea will be thrilled to pay this tax - really! If you listen to the likes of Tom Friedman or Joe Biden, paying taxes is one's patriotic duty and increases ones appreciation for for being an American, or in this case, Global citizen. This will naturally give the rest of the world a greater appreciation for the United States!

Any countries that don't like the idea of this tax can receive tax credits by increasing their own military spending. Discounts would be determined by a DC bureaucracy that would weigh how much the spending increases would improve global security (eg: the United Kingdom) or detract from it (Somalia, ~~Lebanon~~ Hezbolah) to determine the amount of the tax credit, or in the cases of the latter, tax penalty.

Further tax credits can be granted to nations that actually put their own soldiers in the line of fire in places like Afghanistan, which will further complicate the tax code to the delight of our bureaucracy, not to mention giving more muscle to our diplomats who deal firsthand with these countries.

The US military might not like this since the scope of its mission will decrease as nations decide to start fighting for themselves, but these changes would not happen overnight. It will be easier to retire obsolete weaponry and as the need for soldiers decreases we can allow them to retire to private life or use them to oversee the massive bureaucracy that will be needed to administer this new tax code. Or more spending can go toward high tech weapons that will allow the US to maintain its superiority thanks to the combination of increased revenues along with the need for fewer bases and soldiers. Of course, their mission won't go away completely since...

More countries around the world undergoing military buildups will inevitably lead to more wars, for which the US will be needed to eventually intervene. To many leftists a few countries being destroyed and their civilian populations slaughtered would be a small price to pay for not having the US military standing over the world's shoulder.

Defense contractors may be unhappy at first as they lose lucrative contracts that they had spent cultivating with our military, but with more countries competing for power we can expect greater demand for weaponry to prepare their now necessary armies!

The libertarion wing of American politics will love pulling back US intervention, and we can finally get an honest look at how well foreign countries' generous entitlement programs really work when paying for their own defense gets factored into their budgets.

I know what you're thinking - "This will never happen in a million years!" You are right, and I know that some of these assumptions are over the top. No, I don't think that a global military buildup or more wars will be good for anyone. But the world has taken the American security blanket for granted for too long, and given our steady economic decline toward a Greek-style culture of dependency, to use a favorite term of the left, it is not sustainable.

I have no delusions that my proposal would ever see the light of day, but it would be a good starting point for a conversation that is just as inevitable as it is overdue.

Actually, Politicians Cheating on their Wives Does Matter

2011-06-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

The recent Anthony Weiner scandals brought back that old specter of whether or not politicians cheating on their wives should matter. We got to have rehashed the tales of Clinton, Gingrich, Edwards, Ted Kennedy, and now of course, Weiner. There are however, two angles that overall seem to have fallen under everyone's radar.

When I first moved to DC back in 1999 my friends and I would often meet up for happy hours and shoot the breeze about any and everything which of course, included politics. As my friends here are mostly career bureacrats of various degree they naturally lean to the left. When the subject of Clinton's sex scandals came up they took the liberal stance of brushing it aside saying that it really didn't matter and that other countries were amazed that Americans would care about such things. I had a much different perspective than that of my friends. Prior to moving to DC I had only briefly lived in the capitol, and had spent my entire career working in the private sector, excluding a summer job when I was in school working for a Department of Public Works. The Lewinsky scandal amazed me because of how different things are outside of the world of politics. Wherever I worked, if you fooled around with another employee on company property, you were fired. Period. You didn't get to lie on national TV in your defense or have your wife stand up publicly and fabricate a conspiricay against you. Likewise, sexual harassment resulted in if not termination, serious disciplinary action, not public character assassination against the victim.

Going on my 12th year in this city has left me a lot less surprised by the antics of our elected leaders, but there was still one element of the Weiner saga that was digging at me that really came home with how the lefties in the press tried to cover for one of their own. It was the whole, "With all of the important work he's doing why should his personal relationships matter?" argument thrown out by a few Democrats that the press diligently parroted. I'm not going to focus on how Weiner lied about a potential security breach in suggesting that his account was hacked nor how the story of his publicly acknowledging the scandal allowed the press to conveniently ignore the next piece of the story that broke about how he was stalking one of his twitter friends.

My problem is with the "what does it matter?" claim. I say that it does matter. For anyone who is reading this who is married look back on your own life. With the arguable exceptions of military service or religious vows, there is no greater vow or promise that one person can make other than the vows of marriage. You are promising yourself to one individual man or woman for the rest of your life. This means loving, caring for, and above all, trusting your spouse. One of the most thought provoking statements I heard on fidelity came, ironically enough, from a random guest on the Howard Stern radio show some years ago. The guest said something to the effect of, "Infidelity is not so much the physical act as it is the betrayal of trust." Personally, I don't have an issue with a married couple that likes to swing provided that both partners approve and are willing to conduct their relationship like that. An argument can be made as to how true their marriage is if they choose to be with others, but at a basic level this is a private matter between two consenting adults. (Author's note to Sister Babe if she's reading this: No Sweetie, I am in no way suggesting swinging for either one of us. Love you, Babe!) And if one partner feels the need to be with others and the spouse disapproves, there are divorce laws to remedy that situation. Or if one feels the need to sleep around, there is an even simpler solution: don't get married in the first place.

Going back to the betrayal of trust angle, upon taking office, politicians are sworn in to uphold the law and serve the people who elected them as representatives. If you have no trouble betraying a vow to the closest person in your life, why should anyone in the public expect a leader to not hesitate to betray us? No I can't pretend that my just under three months of marriage makes me an expert on the subject, but even if I were to one day get elected to higher office I would still hold my vow to Sister Babe more important than any I would take to office. Contrary to what the New York Times might say, staying faithful to your spouse and valuing that action in others does not equate being a Puritan. Nor does the sole act of staying faithful make you a saint by itself, but it does at least make some statement about your integrity, and how willing others should be able to trust you.

Over the weekend as I was making final edits I found the perfect quote to tie up this story. Over at PJTV Steven Kruiser posted a comment from one of his viewers who goes by the handle of darth1christo:

The same people who went to extraordinary lengths to enact legislation that restricted inappropriate behavior in the workplace are the first to dismiss these behaviors as inconsequential when one of their own sainted boneheads does something that would get them canned in the real world.

Amen, Darth Christo.

Here's to the Losers

2011-06-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

*** Update Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***

I recently attended a lunch lecture called "Leadership Lessons Learned at West Point." The retired officer who spoke gave a good speech, if not the most original. He even admitted at he very start there there would probably not be any new material that everyone in the room hadn't heard before. But he had some good anecdotes and lessons, and one point that stuck with me. He talked a bit about losing, and the importance of it. He asked the group what the most important lesson of losing was and the answer was something to the effect of "acknowledging that you lost." The important part was realizing that you had not achieved what you had wanted and that you learned from it. That line got me thinking about our current presidential candidates and how it applies to some of the top names that we're hearing about right now in the 2012 - Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and of course, Barack Obama.
First I want to go back on the 2000 Presidential election, and take a quick look at George W. Bush and Al Gore. At the age of 30 George Bush was arrested for drunk driving, and he later founded and led his oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc, to the verge of collapse before being bought out. Bush would go on to become the president of the United States, and facing early challenges of the dot.com recession and 9/11, went on to lead the country to years of economic growth, low unemployment and kept the country safe from further attacks. Al Gore, a divinity school dropout and law school dropout, narrowly lost a fiercely contested 2000 election, and .today is making a fortune in the green energy industry.

I left a lot of detail out of the last paragraph, but please don't get hung up on that. The little that I wrote could fire up lengthy arguments from the supporters and critics of each, but that's not the point. What I'm trying stress is the fact that both Bush and Gore have tasted defeat, and both went on to success. I think that however judgementally or grudgingly, almost everyone can agree on this point.

Which brings us to our current crop of candidates. First, there's Gingrich. He started off having to answer for the skeleton in his closet of the global warming ad that he filmed with Nancy Pelosi. And he did a fair job of explaining his position, but he still missed the mark. His point of making the ads was to ensure that conservative voices were at the table and being heard, a point where many would agree. His biggest sin in this was basically quoting a liberal talking point of how America needs to take action to address climate change - a better choice of words would have been to say that we need to look at all possible sources of energy or to review our energy policy. Next he went on the Sunday talk show circuit and referred to Ryan Plan as "Right Wing Social Engineering" and "Extremist". These are excellent positions to hold in seeking the nomination, but Barack Obama most likely has the Democratic nomination sealed (and I can't recall the pundit or I'd be citing that person. If you know who said this please mention it in the comments). Now Newt has tasted defeat, as the inevitable political pendulum took him and the Republicans out of power in 1998, but memories of the Gingrich revolution in 1994 and his success working the writer/news show circuit left him forgetful of the lessons learned from losing power. He's certainly been given the opportunity to learn them now.

Next is Mitt Romney. He's established himself as a leader and a man who can turn around failing ventures. He demonstrated his ability as a leader in making a fortune at the helm of Bain Capital, and more famously, turning around the Salt Lake City Olympics. He even managed to win the governorship as a Republican in the blue land of Massachusetts. He may have lost in he 2008 Republican primary, but it's hard to consider a true failure something as unusual as a presidential campaign. Of course, he has one glaring failure in Romneycare. As something that President Obama likes to point out served as a model for Obamacare, Romney introduced the individual health insurance mandate. Predictably, his mandate has become far more expensive for the state than promised, has led smaller companies to drop their health care coverage for its employees, and Romney might have been forgiven for attempting to move to a single payer system even though history has proven that it doesn't work. At this stage all that Romney has to admit is that his health care system was a bad idea. Unfortunately, Romney has never truly failed in anything, and has never had to say those words, "I was wrong." It's never too late to start, though. All that Romney needs to say is something to the effect of, "I had the guts to try something risky at a state level that we now know was a bad idea, and I admit it. Now, does the president have the courage and integrity to do the same and repeal Obamacare?" Watch that one sail out of the park, and congratulations for manning up, Mr. Frontrunner.

Of course, this brings us to President Obama. This is someone who did an outstanding job of working our system and our media to drift upwards, and excluding his current job (some times), without taking on any real responsibility and with no real accomplishments. Yes, he organized some community, although I'm still waiting for someone to explain how getting a few people registered to vote equates leadership. His other big accomplishment? He was skilled at running campaigns, but can't seem to win one honestly. Whether it's via voter disenfranchisement, having the sealed divorce records of Blair Hull or Jack Ryan released in the days leading up to an election , or willingly accepting illegal campaign money from foreign donors, our president can not seem to win a fair election. And if you think that he won the 2008 presidential election on his merits, he could not have accomplished it without being carried by the mainstream media. Whether it was overlooking his lack of leadership experience, his philosophies being molded by anti-American Marxists, lack of accomplishments, his love for voting "Present" in the US Senate to avoid having any accountability for his actions, or burying his statements about his intent to destroy our energy sector, the press did everything in its power to throw a coat of bright, fresh hope and change paint over old shed built on failed philosophies and no substance. Had our press covered Obama honestly from day one, then today we would most likely have in the White House today..... President Hilary Clinton. There's a sobering thought for a conservative that there would be anything in the world that would make Hilary as president look good by comparison.

But I digress. The point is that our president's career of drifting upward and never having tasted defeat showed up clearly when he suffered his first serious defeat - the January 2010 elections. To briefly recap, at that time rage against the Democrat party and its bizarre notions that running up ruinous debt and destroying our health care industry were a good idea, their party was facing a serious backlash. In the elections, the Democrats lost:

The governorship of Virginia, a key battleground state, and one sitting in the president's back yard from DC

The governorship of New Jersey, where having grown up I can attest that the Democrats could run Mickey Mouse for Governor and he could win as long as there was a (D) after his name. And yes, I'm quite aware of Chris Christie, but it take some spectacular misrule by the Dems to allow a Republican to win that seat.

Ted Kennedy's vacant Senate seat. Yes, the seat belonging to the man who could title John Kerry "The less liberal Senator from his state" went Republican. True, Walker is a bit of a RINO, but a Republican nonetheless.

The Democrats got their clocks cleaned, and I was curious to see how our president might react. Although his first year in office left me completely underwhelmed, it was at this point that I realized that he lacked the capacity to ever grow into a leader. How did he react? Maybe announce that he's bringing a new team of economic advisors who actually have real world experience? Maybe say he's going to read a book an management skills, on leadership, or maybe even remedial economics? Maybe take some time for serious introspection and look at everything that he's done wrong in hopes of changing into the president the we were promised he would be?

Sadly, no - the president went back to his happy place. Soon after the January defeats he appeared on one of the evening news casts (60 Minutes, I believe) and when asked about the 2010 elections he said something to the effect of the recent election being part of the wave of change that put him into office. That's right, in Obama's mind a complete rejection of his party is actually about the people's love for him. The frightening part is that I think he might have even believed it himself. Obama also, in his State of the Union Address, used a favorite tactic of his, that is to trash someone in the room who is not able to respond and attack the Supreme Court. Of course, this display only showed his pettiness and ignorance of the law, which the press dutifully reported as John Roberts showing disrespect for silently mouthing, "That's not true". The third action of the president's that I recall was shortly afterward appearing court side at a Georgetown Hoyas basketball game to do a few minutes of commentary with the announcers.Yep, the economy is reeling and the voters were showing serious doubts about Obama and his party's ability to lead, so the antidote is to go on TV and look cool palling around with the announcers over some college hoops. What do all of these have in common? He was behaving like Senator Obama, the presidential candidate, as opposed to being a president. And sadly, that is the leadership we now have. The health care debacle, overregulation, incoherent energy policy, insane levels of spending, allowing Big Labor to dictate business decisions - in our president's mind the only possible reason any of these can be failing is that we're not seeing enough of them, not because they,or he, could possibly be wrong.

This is what we get when we put someone in office who has never been tested and with no real experience behind him. Turning to a loser may not be the best idea for tactical ideas, but at least lessons can be drawn on what went wrong and what pieces went right on the path to defeat. To use an analogy, if you knew a young man who was looking for advice on how to meet, and retain a girlfriend, who would you point him to? Ideally you look for someone who has had successful relationships, but if your only two choices are a guy who continuously asks out and strikes out or one who believes he's Rico Suave because his only experience with women is via prostitutes that someone else paid for, which would you choose? I know that's a bit of a crass example but I think it conveys my point. I'm reminded of a line from one episode of the X-Men cartoons from the early 90's where Cable was lamenting seeing the true colors of some of his past associates, "I don't mind being wrong, as long as I can correct my mistakes."

Hopefully the American people will do the same in 2012 .

Thank You, Donald Trump

2011-05-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

Hola amigos. Been a while since I've blogged at ya. But between moving into a new home and my recent marriage to Sister Babe things have been kind of crazy here in Bobvillefor the last few months. As our lives are slowly returning to normal, I'm starting to make my way back into the blogosphere.

Now that The Donald has officially dropped out of the presidential race, it's time to look back on his short but memorable presence. Personally, I think a Trump presidency would not have been good for our country, but I am grateful for his candor. Yes, Trump is an a-hole, but you have to appreciate the kind of guy who has the cajones to get up in front of CPAC and happily absorb the chorus of boos as he informs the crowd that Ron Paul will never be president. And there's no need to rehash everything that he's said and done that have been covered by others, with one exception. I want to thank Donald Trump for his contribution to help bring back sanity to the presidential race.

I am of course, referring to his harassment that finally forced President Obama to produce his birth certificate. The Birthers have always been an annoyance in the same way that the 9/11 Truthers always were during the Bush presidency. And each group served its purpose to the president in office at the time. Having these fringe elements constantly on the attack actually helps the president they're trying to damage. Remember Michael Moore's hype around Fareheight 911 and how the Democrats eagerly embraced him despite the fact that fact that his mockumentary was riddled with distortions and outright lies? The saddest moment might have been at the Democrats' 2004 National Convention when Moore was granted a place of honor in the presidential booth alongside Jimmy Carter. Here you had this image where sitting on one side is an angry, bitter man who takes pleasure in voicing his disdain for the country that gave him such incredible opportunities and the other... OK, maybe not the best contrast. My point is that when a fringe voice gets loud enough it becomes easy to lump in all critics in with the fringe and in the end make it more difficult for the voices with real and legitimate criticism. I'll never be able to prove this, but I believe that after all was said and done I think that Michael Moore did more to help Bush get re-elected than he did to hurt him. Bush's team realized this and never gave much more than passing acknowledgement to Moore and let him run wild and become an unofficial mascot for the Kerry campaign. A steady diet of Michael Moore in the press over several months gave the impression that he was what the Democrat party represented, and the rest is history.

The Truthers served a similar purpose for the Obama administration. Just like all of the conspiracy theorists took bandwidth from Bush's legitamate critics, the Truthers served the same purpose for Obama. With all of the legitimate reasons to criticise this president the Truthers made it easier for the administration and its minions in the press to deflect the critics. So what went wrong?

Until the recent popularity spike that the president is enjoying thanks to the death of Bin Laden, Obama was having image problems. And Trump's loud mouth questioning the birth certificate was getting louder and louder to the point where it was really was hurting the president's credibility. Far from being an amusing diversion, Obama was forced to come clean, show the certificat once and for all, and put this silly conspiracy theory to rest. Despite Chris Matthews' giddily crowing what a great victory this was for the president by putting Trump in his place, it wasn't a victory for Obama. For that matter, it wasn't a victory for Trump either, but the most important accomplishment of Trump's attacks was to take away one of the weapons that the president and his team has in discrediting its critics. Now the focus can go back on the legitimate issues. And for this we owe Trump a debt of gratitude.

Granted, there are a few fools out there who still are not convinced - here is a pretty thorough guide to knocking down those arguments. And of course, some of the lazier and more intellectually dishonest members of the left will still throw out the birther label against people who commit the heinous crime of disagreement. The radical elements of both sides never go away.

But if you need one more argument against a birther use some jujitsu and turn the conspiracy mind against itself. Sister Babe (who is actually a big Hilary Clinton supporter ) raised this simple question:

"If there were any credible evidence that Obama was not a citizen how come nobody in the Clinton political machine exposed it during the primaries?"

Game. Set. Match.

And thank you, Donald.

Obama to America: I've got Nothing

2010-10-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Recently President Obama has been going before the cameras to make his case for why we should allow the Democratic party to retain hold of Congress in the November elections. This is not an easy case for him to make, given that reality has failed to live up to the promise that Obama the candidate showcased. Unemployment has been at over 9.5 percent for over a year, and his hallmark legislation, Obamacare, continues to become more unpopular as the American people see what the actual impact of the legislation is. Even the far left isn't too happy, as his promises of an immediate and unconditional surrender in Iraq, closing of Guantanomo, and ceasing to interrogate terrorists have all gone unfulfilled. So what is the president to do?
He started off by deciding he would start campaigning against George W. Bush. This may not have been the best move, given that Bush has not run for office since 2004. Yes, Obama was trying to campaign on "a return to the failed policies" of the Bush administration using his usual lazy strawman arguments that fail to cite specific policies that got us to this point. We hear about a generic "lack of regulation" charge that the Dodd-Frank bill will supposedly vanquish, not not much beyond that. Having failed that, Obama went on to decide he would run against Mitch McConnell's tan. Even with his loyal minions at CBS and the New York Times picking up the slack this didn't gain any traction, either.

Needing a forum to reach out our president retreated to the friendly confines of Rolling Stone, where he could return to the fellating questions that he was able to enjoy as a candidate. Even several pages of his usual empty partisan rhetoric couldn't recapture the old magic.

And going back a few weeks ago Obama held a group therapy session where even his loyal supporters were starting to question their faith. Obama used this forum to lash out at the Tea Party. He threw out the challenge to the Tea Partiers of "Well what specific programs would you cut?" That was cute, but frankly we were hoping you would be able to articulate that one, Champ. A better question would be what program is so necessary that it needs to be expanded to the point where we are facing deficits that make George W. Bush look fiscally responsible?

So I'll bite and throw out four quick suggestions:

1) Remember that promise on the campaign trail that you made to not increase taxes on anyone making less that $250,000 per year? Start keeping it. First off, repeal Obamacare. The reason it is becoming more and more unpopular is not that the people are not smart enough to understand it, it's because they ARE smart enough to understand its real impact. When the government makes something more expensive, whether by tax or regulation, it gets passed onto the customer. For once show an ounce of humility and admit that you made a mistake. When the economy is in a downturn destroying the industry that makes up roughly 1/6th of it is actually not a good idea.

2) Repeal the SCHIP expansion. Anyone remember that early victory for Obama? Basically a program designed to provide health care for at risk children was expanded to allow middle class children to be included as well. Just like Obamacare 's allowing "dependents" up to the age of 24 to continue to be covered by their parents' plans, this is simply an effort to create a mindset among young Americans that a dependency mentality is a good thing. Back to the tax increase argument, does anyone recall how this was to be funded? Through raising cigarette taxes - for anyone unfamiliar with the term that would be a regressive tax. Financially this program is a drop in the bucket, but this suggestion is more about the general principle.

3) Fire every one of your Czars, particularly your Manufacturing Czar and Green Jobs Czar. While their salaries are another drop in the bucket, showing that you understand that an economy is too complex to be centrally planned will send a message to America that maybe this administration's hostility toward business is finally on the decline.

4) Kill cap and trade permanently. Tell the business community that you're not going to punish them and the American people with the biggest regressive tax in our nation's history based a religious cult led by the rantings of a seminary school dropout.

I have a few other ideas - to put the ball back in our president's court, how about following up on that campaign pledge to "Go line by line through the budget to see what works and what doesn't"? I actually fully supported this campaign pledge and was equllly confident that it would not happen. How about putting every new law online for the public to review for five days? I know, I'm being naiive...

Finally Mr. President, read a book on Economics. And no, reading Paul Krugman doesn't count - try listening to someone who actually understands the subject. It's not as difficult a topic as many people believe, but our president clearly does not even grasp the most basic principle that raising the cost of something will decrease its consumption.

Actually, this last point may be a good source for a follow up post...

Eagles Week 4 Recap - A Different Take on Vick

2010-10-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

OK, for starters that game was nothing less than painful. Even I'm pouring the Kolb kool-aid down the drain at this point, but that's not what I'm writing about today.

A few days ago on ESPN's web site Bill Simmons wrote an excellent take on Vick, breaking down his reasons for rooting for Vick's redemption. What made this piece distinctive from most others is that his wife is among those who will always hate Vick for what he did, and those reasons also are well documented in the article. I've already written about where I stand on Vick and have nothing new to add.

One of my friends sent the article around and it got some good responses. The best of them came from my buddy Danimal. To give some background- first off, Danimal is firmly anti-Vick. He is also not a casual Eagles fan - he is lifelong Philly through and through. He is also a serious, long time Eagles fan and does not take turning his back on the team lightly. On a side note, I will always be grateful to him for bringing me to the game where the Eagles would knock off the 'Skins, taking the glow off of their 3-1 start and marking the beginning of the end for Steve Spurrier.

Danimal and I disagree on many things, usually political, and the Vick debate is no exception. That said, I thought that Danimal's take was by far the most thoughtful and well articulated opinion I've heard from the anti-Vick camp. So since yesterday's game left me with absolutely nothing interesting to offer, I wanted to serve up a view that is. Without further adieu:

I had read this article a little earlier. I'll preface this by stating my belief that Vick, as a result of his guilty plea and fully serving his prison time, does deserve the opportunity to participate in any career, including pro football, that is available to individuals with a criminal record. That, however, has nothing to do with my willingness to become a fan or to root for any team that retains his services.

Many of the "pro-Vick" arguments (yes, I know I'm simplifying with the label) are things I'd considered in an attempt to remain an Eagles fan. It's true that I like Josh Hamilton, who struggled with drug addiction and has become an impressive hitter now that he's clean. I'm fairly certain he did some unsavory things during his addictive period. Unlike the writer however, I did not root for Mike Tyson or Latrell Sprewell who had committed serious crimes against people for no reason other than they have anger management issues. The fact that Vick is seeking redemption is not reason enough for me to root for him since he is seeking redemption for sadistic crimes, committed with his own hands, and for no real reason other than entertainment. He certainly did not need whatever money (if any) he made from the dogfighting ring. I will even allow that if Vick had ONLY allowed his house to be used for dogfighting and had not participated personally in the training or elimination of the dogs, I would probably be more accepting of him as an Eagle. However, the acts which he admitted to doing personally: Drowning, electrocuting and beating the animals to death with a baseball bat for no reason other than that they were not good enough fighters, to me speaks to a fundamental defect in someone's moral compass. To use torture to end the life of an animal which has been raised by torture is just a sick act. Despite the fact that there were guns widely available, he still used the most slow and painful methods available to kill the dogs rather than even the mercy of a headshot.

It is also true that dogfighting is more common in the South, and I accept that individuals raised in areas where dogfighting is common might not understand the outrage that activity causes in more pet centered areas of the country. Once again, however, I return to the acts Vick committed with his own hands. The dogfighting I could actually forgive for the reasons the author quotes. I cannot forgive his direct application of torture to helpless animals. And for those who are not aware, most fighting dogs are bred to be non-aggressive to persons so that the training can occur and the fights ended when a winner is declared without harm to the people involved. It is rather unlikely that any of the animals posed a danger to Vick even as he was killing them. They were, in fact, helpless.

I have read several local reporters' coverage of Vick. They do portray him as genuinely contrite, and he is cooperating with the Humane Society of the United States and other animal rights organizations to raise awareness, particularly among 'at-risk' youth, that dogfighting is bad. However, in coverage of the talks Vick gives, it seems to me that he focuses more on the fact that dogfighting is illegal and a gateway to trouble than that it's actually wrong. It's very possible that he does include such a stance and that it simply hasn't appeared in the coverage I've read; but I've generally been unimpressed with the summaries of his statements and the interviews I've heard. While I believe that Vick does regret what he did because of the effect it's had on his life, I'm not convinced that he still 'gets' why it was wrong. I most certainly could be incorrect, but until I hear something from him to change my mind, that's my opinion. I also note that his public service was part of the deal he made with the Eagles when they retained him in an attempt by the organization to make their acquisition more palatable to the public. I'll be interested to see if Vicks continues his service to the cause once he's a sought after free agent at the end of the year.

I don't buy the "African Americans are afraid of dogs" argument at all. This is the only one that I will categorically call B.S. on! It is true that I've observed that some African Americans seem more wary of dogs. I suspect this is due both to their use as weapons in the war against civil rights movement and to the actions of a certain brand of people, who have been prominent in the South, to breed "white dogs", animals trained to attack black people on sight but which are otherwise normal dogs. However, I feel confident that Vick hasn't had police dogs unleashed on him in Civil Rights protests. I feel confident that Vick has never participated in such a protest and certainly not during the era that Simmons describes. I also have not read anything that would indicate that Vick had ever been attacked by a dog or had a fear of dogs. I find it unlikely that an individual with a real fear of dogs would subject themselves to being in the same area with so many dogs, particularly when the animals were being trained to fight. Moreoever, I know several individuals who have a fear of dogs, from wariness to outright phobia, who were still horrified by the things Vick did. This, more than any other argument Simmons makes, seems like obvious self-justification.

Simmons is, however, right that Vick appears to have reinvented himself as a QB without losing the exciting talent that made him so popular before his crimes were discovered. From the post-game coverage I've seen he has matured greatly as a player and quarterback and eliminated much of the professional problems (an unwillingness to practice, stubborness with coaches) that made him a scrambler rather than a QB with Atlanta. From a purely football perspective, he is probably the best choice to QB this team from all the available options, and currently is also playing much better than McNabb. However, this is not reason enough to overlook his past actions for those of us who are still bothered by them. I was able to watch the team despite his acquisition last season because he was a glorified bench player. Now that he will be starting every game and propelling himself to a ridiculous contract with someone at the end of the year, I cannot condone his presence on the team I root for. Therefore, until I have a better reason to believe that Vick is genuine in his remorse and desire to combat animal cruelty in general and dogfighting in particular, I will not be adding to the Eagles' viewership this season, or rooting for any success for the team or it's quarterback. It helps that my opinion of Reid has gone from respect to contempt over the last few seasons, but Vick is the dominant factor in my disgust for the team.

Most of the reasons Simmons gives for continuing to root for the Eagles, and Vick in particular, make sense. I ran through a similar analysis in my own head once I learned that Vick was the new starting QB. I came to a different conclusion, but I don't claim that Simmons is wrong. He just thinks differently than I do.

And thanks for allowing me to post here, BB. It's always a pleasure to associate myself with the brilliance and insight that is always on display on this site.

OK, I made that last part up - Danimal did not actually say that. =8^)

What's your take?

Eagles Recap - Week 3 vs. the Jaguars

2010-09-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

I actually missed this game and only caught highlights, as I was at the Ravens game on Sunday. I caught the highlights, but this week we'll try having a guest writer.

For your week 3 recap, I'm putting the reigns in the capable hands of the narrator from "Conan the Barbarian":

Once a scourge to the canines, the time would come where the felines would learn to fear My Master.

Many thanks, Wizard - I'll be back next week, everybody!

Concert Review: Kiss at Jiffy Lube Live

2010-09-25T04:55:00.000-07:00

Prologue - Spring, 1988

Near the end of my senior year of high school my English teacher asked us if we had any regrets from our four years. I raised my hand and said something to the effect of, "Remember that Poetry test that I failed? I passed on a ticket to go see Kiss to study for it. If I was going to blow the exam anyway I should have gone to the show." I probably said it in a bit of a smartass tone, but I wasn't kidding. She was not amused.

21 Years Later

Amazingly, with all of the metal shows I've been to over the years Kiss was never one of them. For various reasons - touring off of weak albums, no friends in the area wanting to go, etc., I always missed them. That is unless you count that halftime show they played in Miami when the Broncos and Falcons played. I managed to get to that game, but I don't count that as seeing the band live. Then a few weeks ago Sister Babe spots 1/2 price tickets on Goldstar and suggests that we go. The $21 each ticket cost with fees was probably less than I would have paid back in high school. Kiss tix for $21? Yes, please. The best part of this - Sister Babe isn't even a Kiss fan. SB is awesome.

The show was at Jiffy Lube Live, the venue formerly known as the Nissan Pavillion. This place is known for good summer shows, great sightlines, and horrific traffic. Thanks to a good suggestion by SB we joined other cars who hopped the curb and parked on the grass just outside and wound up hanging with a pretty cool family to tailgate with. Showtime came, and we rolled with our new friends & hung out with them on the lawn - it's always more fun to hang at a show with serious fans, and these folks were. Another weird sign of how badly tickets were selling was inside - there were tons of empty seats up front. They had people giving free upgrades from the lawn to the seats, but we decided it would be more fun to hang with the fans we had just met. And thanks to large HD screens we still got a good view of the action. Another interesting sight on the way to our spot on the lawn was two Marines wandering the grounds in full dress uniform. They were happily enjoying their beers while getting the occasional props from passersby. They had a handler wearing backstage passes, but I wasn't sure why they were there. We'd find out later on in the evening.

The show starts up with their traditional greeting of, "You want the best! You've got the best - the hottest band in the world, KISS!!!" As most bands do when promoting a new album, Kiss starts off with the high energy first track off of the new release, "Modern Day Delilah". And as most bands do, they follow up with a classic to fire up the crowd. In this case it's "Cold Gin", and it works. They continue with more old school tracks, "Let Me Go Rock and Roll", & "Firehouse", before hitting another new song in "Say Yeah". Back to the classics, we get "Deuce" and a surprise with "Crazy Nights". I say CN was a surprise since I don't remember anyone I knew liking that song when it came out. In fact, with their string of releases including that, "Let's Put the X in Sex", and "God Gave Rock and Roll to You", I thought that this band was done and should just pack it in. Of course being the genius I am I'd be eating those words when "Revenge" got released, but I digress.

"Calling Dr. Love" leads Sister Babe to notice that their best songs seem to be the ones where Gene is singing - good observation from someone new the party. Next up is the Freely classic "Shock Me", of course being done by current guitarist Tommy Thayer. We get our last new song of the night with "I'm an Animal", which Stanley introduces by mentioning that Sonic Boom is being distributed exclusively at Wal-Mart. This gets a few groans from the audience, but I had to laugh.What band in the history of rock has been a better marketing machine than Kiss? I just find it funny that 20 years ago they were the kind of band that would have been forced to put PMRC stickers on their albums, much less being only sold at a store as uncool as Wal-mart. After this Gene gets lifted by some wires to the rafters, where he fires up his solo and uses it to lead into "I Love it Loud". The set rounds out nicely with "Love Gun", "Black Diamond", and "Detroit Rock City". While the song selection was good, Stanley plays way too much audience banter, getting to silliness like asking the audience permission to come back next year and getting everyone to shout "Paul!" if we wanted him to come back. I know that bands need some rest during the shows, but no band I've ever seen pulled this gimmick as much as Kiss did.

They come back out for the encore, and sadly open with their femmy power ballad "Beth". Stanley goes on to tell us that they're not going to mess around going off and coming back on and will just give us the longest encore around. It made me want to ask "Why not just do more songs in the regular set and make the encore shorter?" but I'd probably just get the reponse that "This amplifier goes up to eleven". Another interesting part of the encore comes when the Marines from earlier are invited onstage. It turns out that Kiss donates proceeds from every ticket to the Wounded Warrior Project, and they present the Marines with a massive fake check and mention how much they've raised to date - pretty damned cool. Paul also does something different - he leads the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. Usually one would expect displays of patriotism like this from country concerts, but doing this as a metal show comes off as kind of weird and kind of cool at the same time. SB agrees that it works.

Another cool moment came when Stanley did part of his wayyy too much audience banter and calling the crowd to cheer because we're not showing as much energy as the crowd did a few nights ago up in Jersey. I'm guessing that at each stop he throws down this minor hate toward the previous venue, but that's OK. After getting the crowd to cheer Paul says, "I don't know, I'm still hearing more New Jersey out there", to which the entire crowd shouted "YEAH!!! Jersey REPRESENT!" And when I say "The whole crowd", I actually mean me and only me. But at least I stood tall for my home state!

The encore goes on with "Lick it Up", "Shout it Out Loud", "I Was Made for Lovin' You", and "God Gave Rock and Roll to You", which we use as our cue to leave. I wanted to stay to the end, but given how legendary the traffic is at this venue we decide not chance sitting in traffic for three hours. As we're walking out we see a lot of people doing the same, but it turns out that our parking outside trick works, and we just hop off of the curb and are out of there like shots through a gun. It turns out we could have stayed to the end, as a few weeks later I'd stay until the end of the Rush show and had no trouble leaving, and that one was a lot more crowded. Keep this in mind when you're headed out for next summer's shows.

So what did I think of the show? Kiss was great as I had expected, even with too much of the dopey crowd banter. And there was one very cool thing I noticed that left me feeling good. That family of locals I mentioned earlier included their two high school aged daughters, both of whom knew some of the lyrics better than I did. It's good to see some parents raising their kids right - there may be hope for this next generation yet!

PS If you're wondering about the bizarre pic at the top of the page, there were three guys passed out neatly in a row next to us on the lawn in matching jeans and black t-shirts. Since it looked like some kind of drug lord execution, Sister Babe and I decided to pose for a pic with them. And if you're wondering, all three came to before the show was over. No drunkards were harmed in the writing of this review.
BB

Eagles Lions Recap, Week 2

2010-09-19T19:32:00.001-07:00

No long post this week - the Eagles showed both good & bad. The birds got knocked down 17-7, responded with four unanswered touchdowns, and then almost let the Lions come back. There was good & there was bad, but tonight I want to focus on just one element of our team - the O-line.

First off, props to the Front Five for blocking the way for McCoy's first 100 yard pro game. But y'all were inconsistent. And at times there were jailbreaks that would have gotten any other QB in the NFL decapitated. Luckily we have a QB in like Vick who can improvise, adapt & overcome, and he dodged the rush and made big plays happen.Most importantly, while he did run at times this was not the Vick of old who relied strictly on running. He also used his legs to free up receivers, not unlike another underappreciated Eagles QB.

My point is, while I still support Kolb as our QB of the future, putting him behind a shaky OL is no way to treat a new QB. A quarterback with Vick's mobility can handle it, but Kolb can not. As much as it pains me to say Andy, keep Kolb on the bench. At least until our OL settles down. I belive he is our Qb of the future - don't let him become the next David Carr.

Eagles Recap - Tuesday Night QB

2010-09-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

OK, I finally have the time to write about Sunday's game. To break it down into three simple categories:

THE GOOD

Vick. Even though he came up short, his relief performance has silenced his haters.

The Defense - They got consistent pressure on Rodgers without a lot of blitzing, and aside from that one drive in the third quarter the rush defense was a lot better than I expected against a team like Green Bay.

Kicking - Both Akers and the "Thunder From Down Under" Rocca had solid games.

Avant - Often overlooked, but this may be the season where that comes to an end.

THE BAD

Kolb. To paraphrape Lou Brown, "Well you can run like Hayes, but you throw like s***." There's no nice way to say it; Kolb looked horrible. But part of one bad game is no reason to panic.

4th and 1. It may have been technically the right call, but it isn't smart when your matchups create mismatches for the other team. Inside the Iggles does a great job of breaking down the kind of play calling that has Eagles fans ready to scream.

THE UGLY

Injuries - Too many, but losing Jackson and Weaver was huge. Let's hope Schmitt can fill some pretty big shoes at FB.

Ten penalties? Seriously? When did the Eagles decide to start emulating the Raiders?

Reid's clock management - that was nice of the refs to give us that timeout back, but if that wound up being the difference in an Eagle victory Packer Nation would have good reason to be angry.

NEXT

Last week was not the end of the world.Green Bay is a damned good team, and I was not expecting a win. To fight back and come so close hurts like Hell, though. Next up is Detroit, a team the birds can and will beat. Kolb will be back either this week or next. Show some faith fans; Andy knows how to scout QB's and would not have unloaded Donovan if Kolb wasn't ready. He may take a few lumps, but I'm not giving up on him just yet. That said, I think that every Eagles fan is glad that we have the best backup QB in the game.

Slayer and Megadeth at the Susquehana Center

2010-09-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

First off, while I love the Susquehanna Center as a venue, I have to start off with some hate for the folks running the facility. I cruised up from DC, and after a stop in Delaware timed my arrival to get there just as Testament was ending. Unfortunately, the signage on the highway up told concert goers to "USE EXIT 4 OR 5B". Deciding to avoid traffic, I opted for exit 5B, except for one problem. Once exiting there is no damned signage telling you how to get to the arena! If you've never had the pleasure of being lost in scenic downtown Camden, NJ it makes SouthEast DC look like Mayberry County. I then made the mistake of following Google Maps bad directions onto Exit 5A with similar results, and was damned close to giving up and heading home when I finally decided to try Exit 4, which finally paid off.

I didn't realize how late I was until I rolled up to hear "Tornado of Souls" coming from the venue, but thankfully I made it in in time for "Dawn Patrol" and "Rust in Peace...Polaris".At least the cash I shelled out to get up close for the General Admission pit seating wouldn't go to waste. The band took a break for a few minutes as a new set got rolled out for the rest. I usually spend the entire night in the pit whenever I see these bands (#4 for Megadeth, #9 for Slayer), but this night I wasn't feeling too hot & (mostly) stayed out. This was just as well, as I got to see some things I usually wouldn't notice at these guys' shows. My biggest knock on Megadeth in the past has been and average song selection & mix and lack of stage presence by Musatine. Maybe it was the fact that this was my first time seeing Megadeth a) this close up, b) being completely sober, and c) not fighting to keep from getting knocked off of my feet in the pit, but I've got to say Dave put on a damned good show!

The band came back out to "Trust", followed up with a new one called "Head Crusher", and then pulled out "A Tout Le Monde". This song surprised me, as I always thought that this was one of their weaker favorites. I never thought it was a bad song, and the novelty of Mustaine singing in French is cool, but I'm surprised Dave would have chosen this given all of the heavies that didn't get played tonight. Still, they played with a lot of energy, and Mustaine did something else that impressed me - He walked across the stage clapping at the crowd. At first I thought he was just trying to fire up the crowd, but it took me a minute to realize what he was doing. Dave was applauding us - it was nice to see someone as big as Mustaine show some genuine humility and appreciation for his fans. Dave also thanked the crowd and said something to the effect of, "We always love playing for the fans in Camden. You know by know that I'm not the kind of front man to say this unless you've earned it and you have." And we had no reason to doubt him. Megadeth went on to close with "Symphony of Destruction" and "Peace Sells..." and finished off with a short "Holy Wars " jam. Even though I missed half of the set this was the best performance I've seen from Megadeth. And this was only the second act...

The roadies set the stage for Slayer, and they came out by running the intro off of the new album with various Slayer imagery being projected onto a curtain crossing the stage. As "World Painted Blood" kicked in the curtain came down... mostly. It got caught at the end and the roadies had to charge out to bring it down, but it didn't slow the band down any. They were out in standard Slayer formation, Araya in front, Lombardo in back on the drums, Hanneman off to the left of the stage, and King to the right. I managed to find a spot by the stage about fifteen feet away from King. He and Araya had on some Slayer tees, while Hanneman was wearing his Raiders Tyrone Wheatley jersey. In fact, I realized when I got home that they were rocking the same gear that they were on Jimmy Fallon a few nights earlier. The only difference I noticed live was that King was wearing his trademark spiked arm band that he was missing on Fallon. And yes, the only reason I recorded the show was because these guys were on. The second song up was "Hate Worldwide", after which the band launched into the promised performance of "Seasons in the Abyss" from start to finish. Since this part of the set list is obvious I won't recap but throw out a few observations:

The road crew messed up something with Hanneman's guitar, as his solos were sounding muffled on the right side of the stage. I didn't venture over to his side because I didn't want to lose my spot.

I got to see the cool visual at the start of "South of Heaven" where they project crosses up to the top of the stage and slowly turn them upside down as the song kicks in.

Kerry King once said in an interview that he didn't know how other guitarists managed to play while looking up at the crowd because he wasn't a good enough player to do that. I've got to say that seeing him this close the man's fretwork was amazing, and that most guitarists would kill to be as "not good enough" as him.

This was also my first Slayer show where Araya didn't screw up any of the lyrics. That's not meant as a dig - I always got a kick out of how he would always blow the lyrics to some song once and only once every time I saw them.

Araya did seem to take more choruses off than I remember him doing in any previous shows. Hey, for as much energy as goes into a Slayer show I won't begrudge him a few breaks. Better this than having each band member go into a painfully boring solo so their singer can rest.

I always wondered how "Temptation" would come off live without Araya also doing his own backup vocals. It sounded kind of strange, but it worked.

After they finished the "...Seasons" set, the band took a short break and came back playing "South...", with the opening chords always drawing a huge cheer from the crowd. They used the closing fadeout to segue into "Raining Blood," with Lombardo also doing some work on the cymbals to accompany the opening drumbeats. It gave a different vibe, but it worked. Even though I wasn't feeling well, when the guitars for RB kicked in I had to jump into the pit. Feeling crappy or not, I defy anyone reading this to hear RB performed live and not feel an overwhelming urge to inflict pain onto another human being.

Another staple of every Slayer show is them dusting off some deep cut from an early album. Given tonight's show I wouldn't have cared if they had passed on this, especially after hearing "Temptation" live for the first time. But that's not how these guys roll, and one of many reasons I keep coming back to their shows - "Aggressive Perfector!" Awesome choice, and one I never thought I'd hear live. Of course, the show can end only one way, with "Angel of Death." As the song ends and the band throws pics and sticks into the crowd, I made a hasty exit to get ahead of traffic before the long ride back to DC. Throughout the night I saw a lot of cool Slayer shirts, but saw the best one of the night on my way out. One dude had a simple black shirt with just some red text. Written in the old "Seasons in the Abyss" font are two simple words: "F***ING SLAYER", just without the asterisks.

F***ing Slayer, indeed.

Eagles Preview

2010-09-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

As the 2010 football season quickly approaches the Eagles might have the best starting wide receiver duo in the league, but the team has questions at the Offensive Line positions as well as in the secondary that could hurt them this season. If that last sentence looks completely bizarre to read, it felt even stranger to write. Had you told me four years ago that I'd be writing those words I'd have advised you that if you want to keep working here to stay off the drugs.

When we last left the Eagles at the end of the 2009 season, our team was on the wrong end of back to back arse-kickings, and to make matters worse they were back to back losses to the Cowboys, the second of which would knock the birds from the playoffs!

So how could this have happened? How does an 11-4 team going into the final week of the regular season fall apart so badly? More than any season I can recall in recent years, this one was one that called for some painful introspection, and what we saw wasn't pretty.

Simply put, the Eagles were overrated. How could this have been? The secondary was getting picks, and the offense was finally putting up the points we always knew it could. Our young skill position players were developing quickly, and the Eagles were almost indisputibly the deepest at the QB position with Vick and Kolb in the wings behind Donovan. What happened? The team played five games against playoff teams (three were against Dallas) and lost all five. In fact, the only game that the Eagles won against a team with a winning record was the 9-7 ATL. Problems started before the season even started. The death of Jim Johnson, Bradley's season ending injury, and of course the release of Dawk led to a leadership gap on the defensive side of the ball. While Sean McDermott had been well groomed to eventually succeed Johnson, the defense could never completely come together. Injuries did not help matters either, particularly at secondary throughout the season. Even our best pieces of the secondary were overrated. Asante's interceptions are nice, but he continues to play like a successful graduate of the "Deion Sanders School of Tackling." And both Asante and Sheldon were prone to what Jaws broke down as "Hero Syndrome". Ever eager for the glory that comes with a pick-six, both corner backs were not difficult to goad into biting on a pump fake before getting burned by their respective assignments.

The offense wasn't consistent, either. Yes, its 429 points ranked it as the fifth best in the league, but most of those points came against the bad teams on their schedule. When the Eagles weren't scoring one of their league-high 18 touchdowns on drives of four plays or fewer, they weren't scoring consistently. This article on Philly.com also details the birds' woes, such as with McNabb's accuracy, red zone offense breakdowns and the inability to convert on third downs. Scores off of big plays come against bad teams from personnel mismatches or via breakdowns by the players, but against the better teams that does not happen. The offensive line never lived up to its rating, between Peters always being good for an untimely penalty or the disappointment that was the Andrews Sisters. Most frustrating was every time the Eagles would be in a third and short situation my buddy Z would say, "We need to get Vick in there." And every time he would say it I would grind my teeth, not because I disagreed but because I knew he was right. And any team that doesn't have enough of an O-line to pick up a short first down without needing the Wildcat or some other gimmick doesn't belong in the playoffs. And we weren't there for long. To make matters worse, after the playoff loss Keith Brooking was on a radio show crowing about how easy it was to read the Eagles' offense in our last two losses.

And this led to the usual off season bloodletting, as always featuring its share of big names, but this time they were bigger than normal. Losing players like Sheldon, Gocong, Witherspoon, and the Andrews sisters have come to be par for the course. What got everyone's attention were the fact that two names that have been the heart and soul of the offense for the last few years - McNabb and Westbrook. "Rebuilding year!" started the cries of the usual Eagles' forecasting Chickens Little. But look closer at how departed Eagles perform. Aside from Derrick Burgess' one season in Oakland, how often do you hear of a former Eagle making the Pro Bowl? In the salary cap era a team has to know when to let go of players to allow its younger talent to develop. While I do not think that Donovan needed to leave just yet (in fact, after last season I argued that it was time for Reid to go), Reid has given us reason to believe in his ability to draft and develop talent at the QB position. And all of the fretting over whether or not Kolb is ready led most of the critics missed the biggest loss since the start of the Reid era: Tom Heckert.

If you're an Eagles fan please tell me you didn't just ask "Who?" Heckert has been the team's personnel architect since 2001, and he was allowed to leave for the Cleveland Browns to make room for the promotion of Howie Roseman. While Jeffrey Lurie's Eagles have been known for developing and grooming its on field talent, the off-field succession planning has also been solid. That said, letting such a key component to what has built and maintained the team for the last few years may be looked back on years from now as when the Eagles crossed the Rubicon.

It gets worse - look at this season's schedule. First off, a brief look at how the division has improved:

Dallas - while Tony Romo and Miles Austin were the big stories of last season, their ground game was punishing. If Dez Bryant develops as hoped both the running and passing games will have gotten better.

New York - Yes, as questionable as our O-line is the Giants had to take one of our Andrews Sisters castoffs. Still, Elisha is always a solid QB, and their injured D-line has gotten healthy and stronger via the draft. They may be the weakest team in the division this season, but the Eagles shouldn't count on another sweep.

Washington - Forget all of the personnel moves - this was actually the first year since Snyder arrived that I liked the Skins off season. But the biggest move was their biggest loss - the departure of GM Vinny Cerrato. I'm not as enamored with Shanahan or Allen as much as Dan Snyder is, but they are a huge step up from last season. Football talking heads like to say that a coach like Parcells is worth two wins; well, a GM like Cerrato is worth two losses.

The rest of the schedule doesn't do the Eagles any favors. Having the NFC North and AFC South means games against the Packers, Vikings, Colts, Titans, and the always unpredictable Texans. Throw in conference games against the 49ers and the ATL, and the doomsayers' predictions of an 8-8 season don't look too far fetched.

Of course, the Eagles didn't sit still and watch the team just fall apart in the off season. For all of the talk about rebuilding people have overlooked what this team has and what it gained. In his first two starts Kolb has shown that he has the potential to be the Heir to the Empire. He inherits what are the best players at the skill positions since the lineup that Jaws had back in the day. D-Jack, Maclin, McCoy and Celek are all young and even last season started building good chemistry with Kolb. Mike Bell was also brought in from New Orleans to give more power in short yardage situations. The O-line still has questions, but the Eagles made moves that will hopefully come together and pay dividends.

One positive aspect of McNabb's departure is the impact on the offensive playbook. Brooking's gloating over how predictable the Eagles' play calling hurt, but when last season's starting QB is now playing for a division rival changes will be made. They should have come sooner, but Reid does have the capacity to change tactics. Remember that it was just a few short years ago that the biggest passes in our playbook were screens and swing passes. That was out of necessity given the receivers we had combined with Westbrook's talent, but as the receivers improved so did the down field throws. Showing better accuracy than McNabb, this season should see more yards after the catch (also mentioned in the Philly.com article I referenced) than in previous seasons. McCoy and Bell should take the helm at RB, and the Eagles still have the best backup in football in Michael Vick.

On the defensive side of the ball the birds opted to beef up the pass rush to give the secondary some help. The arrivals of Graham, Teo-Nesheim, and Tapp will put more pressure on opposing QB's. And the arrival of Dick Jauron to coach the secondary will hopefully get Asante to stop playing for the Pro Bowl and start thinking Super Bowl.

And let's not forget about Howie Roseman. He's proven himself to be a football-smart, hard working personnel man. No, he's not Tom Heckert. But while he has not yet earned our trust, he's earned the opportunity. The fact that 12 out of 13 draft picks made the team tells us that the Eagles are still following the model of long term succession planning on both sides of the ball. Jeffrie Lurie knows how to run an organization.

So where does this leave us? How do I think the Eagles will do this year? I've got nothing. The prophets of dooms' predictions of 8-8 would not shock me. Of course, these are the Eagles, so 13-3 would not surprise me, either.

All I do know is that the season can't start soon enough.

A Simple Solution to President Obama's Muslim Identity Problem

2010-09-02T17:06:00.001-07:00

Recent polls showed that around 25% of Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim. I have to admit that that statistic falls in the category of "seems impossible to believe", but then again look at how many otherwise rational, sane adults think that George W. Bush knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks. The W. argument is a pretty easy one to end. Since the person who believes that Bush knew in advance that the attacks would happen generally also believes that Bush is too stupid to tie his own shoes, one only needs to ask that how Bush managed to pull this off without one single leak getting out or one whistle blower stepping forward?

The same argument is not as simple for our current president, and he did help to bring this on himself by tossing out some blue meat to the radical left by expressing his halfhearted support for the Ground Zero Mosque. And since we all know that Obama never heard a word that Reverend Wright said while attending his services that argument won't help. But I have a solution, and it's one that President Obama can do himself that will put an end to this discussion for most people. Start going to church services. Regularly. That is all.

It wouldn't be too difficult, either. St. John's Episcopal Church is just across Lafayette Park, and the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is just a ten minute walk down New York Ave. As an added bonus, the latter is the one where President Lincoln went to worship, and we all know our president loves the comparison to himself and Lincoln. Of course, these days it may not be such a good idea, as based on accomplishments we could start referring to them as our bookend presidents (arguably the best and worst in our nation's history).

And as an added benefit, going to church may actually help our president in terms of providing spiritual guidance that his years of listening to Revered Wright could never have done. This is not an endorsement of religious services, as they are not something that in which this blogger regularly partakes. But I know of a number of people who do benefit from services, and part of me truly does envy their faith. Of course, there are not many places of worship for us Born Again Existentialists.

Some would view this as a shallow, cynical gesture by our president. But that's OK, as it will at least convince some of the fools that he is not a Muslim. And hopefully it will help provide clarity and ease the struggles in a job far more difficult than Obama realized it would be.

That's the beauty of free advice - it's worth every penny you paid for it. You're welcome, Mr. President.

A Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day II

2010-07-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

I actually like reading opposing views from the left to get their side of the issues. While there is no shortage of good liberal sites and columnists to read there is a definite shortage of quality liberal blogs. A while back I read one possible expanation for lack of good blogs from the left - the fact that there are so many outlets avaiable for liberals who want to cover current events that they don't need an unconventional medium such as the blogosphere. Yes, I have heard of Foxnews and the Washington Times, but having fewer televesion and print outlets send the conservatives to the backwater outlets such as AM radio and blogs.

I've got a few of the big liberal ones bookmarked on my Yahoo home page, such as Alternet, Huffington and Kos, but it's more for the comedic value. When I see a headline that looks like it may be worth checking out more often than not they end up being nothing more than profanity laced tirades. So I aked one of my liberal buddies if he could recommend a good blog from the left. He suggested the DLC's newsletter, and I got on their mailing list a while back. While I rarely agree with their content, I do agree with my friend's recommendation that their articles are well written and they do a far better job of making arguments than the aforementioned blogs

Several years later I'm still on their mailing list, and an interesting article droped in my Inbox regarding how Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia is handling tough financial times, and it mentioned how Philly is "saving $6 million by creating a competitive market in health insurance for city employees".

Interesting concept- reducing health care expenses by allowing a competetive market to drive down costs? Where do Democrats get these radical ideas?

Of course, what we can expect on a national level will look a lot more like this or this.

But it's good to see that a Democrat can embrace a health care idea that works.

Why Soccer Will Never Be Truly Popular in the United States

2010-07-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything non-political in a while; time for a change of pace.

Now that the World Cup is over and we can focus on important sports news such as the fact that it is only two months until Holy Sunday, let's take a moment to look back on the reason Americans don't have to pretend to be interested in soccer for another four years. We hear the stories get recycled time and time again - soccer on the rise in the US, is the game of America's future, etc. I've been hearing these stories since growing up loving the New York Cosmos, and they never seem to go away completely. Why these stories keep coming back is not of interest to me, but why they will never come true is.

Just like the pro-soccer articles resurface, so do the ones that explain why it will never catch on in the United States. Too low scoring. Too boring. Not good for TV. Our best athletes go to the other big time glamour sports - football, basketball, hockey, and even baseball. And to some degree the demographics will shift, and more and more of America's top athletes will turn to soccer. Heck, the last I'd heard the US was ranked top 20 in the world going into the World Cup. But at the end of the day, the US will never be among the elites, and will never win a World Cup. And that's a good thing.

No matter how much the Americans may master the fundamentals of the game, such as shooting, dribbling, and having a government whose foreign policy gets you favorable calls from referees who may call / ignore fouls in a way that would embarrass a Pro Wrestling referee. No, there is a critical element to the game that can never be mastered by anyone who calls himself an American. I am, of course, referring to the art of falling to the ground and shrieking in agony like a little girl in hopes of drawing a foul before getting up and running a minute later as if nothing had happened. That may fly in many cultures around the world, but not in America. Yes, we have or share of prima donnas and drama queens who will put on the playacting in hopes of getting a call, but nothing as ridiculous as we see from soccer players. Why, you ask? In America that kind of fake wussiness will get you ripped on mercilessly for being the bed wetting mamas boy that you are. Of course, there are some exceptions, like Tom Brady (Quarterback for the New England Patriots) who will throw a hissy fit at the drop of a hat in hopes of getting a call, but everybody knows that Brady is a bed wetting mamas boy.

The bottom line is that this goes back to what makes America great - our culture celebrates accomplishment, not who can play the best crybaby. The rest of the world can have its right to cry to some referee when it feels the need to pretend it has been wronged . We'll be happy to laugh at you and win the games that we truly want to.

To quote the immortal Elwood Blues, "And God bless the United States of America!"

Can General McCrystal's Firing be a Teachable Moment?

2010-07-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross Posted at Flopping Aces! ***

I know that this is somewhat old news by now. I meant to get this post up last week, but a few personal items kept me from finishing writing until now...

Like many others, I'm not too happy about how things went down with General McCrystal. While I don't like the actions of the General or the President, I can understand why both sides did what they did. This post isn't to debate what both sides did or why they did it, but to look at an important lesson that we can take from it.

After the story broke, Obama was left with almost no viable alternatives other than to fire McCrystal. Anyone who has led an organization or even a small group knows that you can not have a key team member question your leadership publicly. Your authority is questioned and ability to lead effectively is cut out unless immediate and severe action is taken on your part. That was the position Obama was placed in, but look at this from another angle. McCrystal had accountability to Obama, but to whom does Obama have accountability?

From a philosophical standpoint, just as the CEO of a company answers to all of the shareholders, to some degree the president ultimately answers to his biggest stakeholder, the United States of America. And on this note, does it not hurt the country when the president publicly criticizes the US? Although I wasn't fond of Obama's initial World Apolgy Tour and did not think it would achieve anything, I will admit that I held out a faint, if somewhat naive, hope that while it would not turn the world into a perfect place it might help improve relations with some of the less beligerent nations, and no I'm not including Iran, North Korea, etc. in this bunch. Looking back in hindsight we know now that this did not happen, but I'm actually not beating up the president too much over this one.

What I do have more issue with are times when other countries criticize the US in front of Obama and he does nothing to stick up for his country. Just sitting by as Daniel Ortega spent an hour ripping into the United States does not warrant a response of "He's entitled to his opinion". And even more disturbing was our president and members of his party standing up and applauding a foreign head of state visiting the U.S. criticizing one of our states. A proper response would have been to tell Calderon to pound sand, or even better, ask him why he is so inept at governing that the citizens of his country are trying to flee in droves and he is encouraging them.

To step back a bit to my original point on accountability, no I am not suggesting that our president should be removed from office over his remarks. But there's nothing wrong with being a proud American, especially when you happen to be its leader. You are the President and CEO of this organization, responsible for promoting it and its vision. To give an illustration, imagine two press conferences being held at Microsoft's annual meeting. There are two Bill Gates ready to speak - one is our Bill Gates, while the second is the evil Bill Gates from a parallel universe, recognizable by his goatee (Or would the one from the parallel universe be the good one like Cartman was in that episode of South Park? Sorry, I digress). The "good" Bill Gates talks about WIndows 7, about Office 2010, their new features and the plans that Microsoft has for bringing better software at lower costs that will bring greater computing power to more people than ever before. Meanwhile, "evil" Gates is apologizing for the cluster foxtrot that was Vista, for the bugs in software releases, for his arrogance in IE dominating the web browser market and destroying Netscape. When asked if he still believes that Microsoft is an exceptional company Evil Gates goes on to state that he feels that Microsoft is exceptional, just like Steve Jobs believes that Apple is exceptional... you get the idea. Which company do you want to purchase from, work for, invest in - which leader do you want to follow? The same general principal holds true for any leader, no matter how great or small. Showing as weak and humble isn't working as hoped, and the rest of the world is figuring it out (H/T Steynonline).

Like I said, this can be a teachable moment. While his past actions don't leave me optimistic, I hope that our president can learn from it.

Higher Standards in Journalism

2010-06-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

*** UPDATE *** I was provided with a link that shows Judge Feldman's investments, and he does actually have real investments in the oil companies. I still stand by my original point given the pittance of the judge's investments versus the others who I cite - H/T to Steve B. for providing the link

*** UPDATE II *** Cross Posted at Flopping Aces

On the morning of Wednesday June 23, I made a quick check of headlines on my Yahoo home page before heading to work. On Tuesday, District Judge Martin Feldman's decision to overturn the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling became the lead story on American news wires. The top headlines were interesting, to say the least.

The headlines blared about how the judge who overturned the ruling owned "holdings in at least eight petroleum companies or funds that invest in them, including Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon." Being an amateur blogger, I didn't take a screen capture, and of course different headlines were showing by the time I got home from work that evening. While I have no issue whatsoever with journalists exposing how public officials are weighing in on issues where they have a conflict of interest, the fact that the headline had to be changed and scrubbed away from search engines tells the story of how poorly the original headline was written. Reread the key phrase:

"holdings in at least eight petroleum companies or funds that invest in them"

So, the judge owned some mutual funds and failed to vet every company where they invest? I'm not going to dignify this point with any further comment.

Here is a better question - why can't the press apply such standards universally, especially when it comes to people or issues that they support? We should be seeing headlines like these:

"Divinity school dropout millionaire con artist pushes for higher taxes on the world's poorest that will enrich his investments"

or

"Organization responsible for bankrupting US automakers granted ownership by most powerful recipient of their campaign contributions"

I'm not holding my breath, but one can hope...

Even a Stopped Clock is Right Twice Per Day

2010-06-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

I stopped reading Doonesbury a few years ago. During the Bush presidency the strip became little more than the rants of an aging, bitter leftist. His strips (outside of his regular characters) could be boiled down to five themes:

Hatred for Bush
Hatred for Fox News
Hatred for Bush
Hatred for Schwarzenegger
Hatred for Bush

With the election of Obama I was curious as to how Trudeau would react when the new pres failed to live up to his starry eyed rhetoric. Not surprisingly, the strip has focused its hatred mainly toward Sarah Plain and the Tea Partiers (Banks and BP have also made the cut). It's kind of amusing to watch a lefty forced to live in denial of the incompetence of the object of his worship, but one recent strip caught my attention.
If you haven't already, re-read the second panel:
"We are a country of nuanced tribal relationships, not top down power. Building local trust is everything!"
A fascinating concept. It just might work in other places, too.
Like I said, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day.

Quick Hits on Health Care

2010-06-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

Yep, I've been slacking a bit on the blogging lately, so let's get back with a few new Obamacare hits. I'm planning to keep a running log of the various lies told regarding the bill. I've already noted how lawmakers already exempted themselves from Obamacare, despite all of the assurances that would not happen.

Next up, remember the "If you like your plan you can keep it" promise? Yes we can?

No, we can't.

Assuming that your insurance company is still around in a few years, of course.

And onward it goes.

A Quick Hit on the BP Oil Rig

2010-05-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Lost in all of the talk about who to blame, whether it be the current administration's dithering or BP's lack of preparation, a simple question is left about handling a crisis involving an oil spill...

Wouldn't it be good, if lacking someone with any experience, our president reached out to someone with leadership experience, or maybe, someone who hails from a state that has experience in dealing with oil spills?

Not to name names, nor to suggest former governors who serve as personal lightning rods for liberal hatred, but this would seem to be the smart thing to do...

Draw Mohammed Day!

2010-05-20T15:33:00.001-07:00

One blogger's humble submission:

Why America Needs Higher Taxes

2010-05-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

First off, anyone who has read my blog (thank you, both of you!) or has endured one of my DC Monuments tours knows that Economics is a love of mine. Having lived the blend of classroom education theory and seeing it in practice in the business world, I like to think that I have a perspective that defies having spent a decade living in the 60 square mile enclave bordered by reality.

Which of course, also stands to reason that I understand the insanity of the Obama administration's insistence on amplifying the irresponsible fiscal policy of his predecessor. So what would lead me to think that tax increases would be a good idea right now? Follow me for a minute...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you make things more expensive, such as conducting business, you get less of it. Following A to B means that if we make elements of conducting business, such as regulation, hidden or direct taxes, employee wages, etc. more expensive we get less business. To run a business, one needs employees, therefore more business = hiring, less business = layoffs or closing the business. My apologies if this seems somewhat elementary, as I'm trying to explain this in terms that a DC politician can understand. So what kind of tax increase could possibly benefit our country?

Liberals are fond of all taxes, but lately they have had to become more creative in selling them to the public. Tough economic times have made the public less receptive to hand over their hard earned money to pay for the latest boondoggle, or generous salaries and pensions for public servants who get to retire at the age of 55. So politicians introduce "sin taxes", made more palatable by the fact that people are being charged for things they should consume less of, such as tobacco, alcohol, soda, or energy. OK, energy isn't actually sinful, but try explaining that to a global warmmonger. The kind of tax increase that would help this country would be to place sin taxes not on items that harm individuals, but on items that harm our society as a whole. Here are my proposals for items that should be taxed more heavily:

Lobbying - One of my biggest complaints about the Bush administration was how the MBA "Let's finally run government like a business" mentality got applied to Washington, not in how the government would operate but in how those who bribe our elected officials operate. From 2000 to 2008 lobbying grew from $1.56B to $3.3B. Of course, curbing lobbyists would turn out to be one of Obama's many empty promises, and in 2009 lobbying spending increased to $3.48B. Top lobbyists get paid at least two million per year, so why not impose windfall taxes on their profits? Lobbying makes everything more expensive as an added cost of business added to everything we buy - clothing, food, steel, energy, Egg McMuffins, etc. If lobbying becomes more expensive, its activity will drop, and so will costs of doing business. In addition, extra surcharges can be imposed on former politicians and staffers. This will provide the added bonus of pushing them out into the real world and contributing to society!

Trial Lawyers - This one is pretty obvious. And it's easy to shoot down the generic liberal straw man argument of "But who will stand up for the individuals who try to take on the powerful corporations?" Settle down, nobody's suggesting abolishing this fine, respectable profession. But if we're looking for an industry that brings in huge sums of money while hurting the industries that produce jobs look no further! The beauty of putting windfall taxes on trial lawyers but not on settlements is that it would still give citizens the ability to sue and collect damages where they deserve - the taxes would only be on the trial lawyers themselves. Of course, we would need some heavy handed regulatory agencies to ensure that people trained in the law don't use loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Perhaps 10,000 new IRS agents? It would be amusing to see liberals argue against heavier regulation over any industry. One potential argument against this from the left is this will lead to far fewer trial lawyers and only the wealthy will be able to afford them, to which I have a simple solution - nationalizing the trial lawyer industry and making them all government employees. Liberals like the idea of nationalizing pieces of the private sector and putting them under government control, why not here?

Campaign Contributions and Political Ads - Bear with me on this one. I'll be the first to admit that I am a rehabilitated McCain-Feingold supporter. When I was sold on it I truly believed it would help the process while conveniently ignoring its constitutionality. Of course, it played out exactly as the critics predicted it would, and ultimately accomplished nothing. How does my proposal differ? Campaign contributions, political ads, etc. would still be completely legal, but they would have a heavily progressive tax attached to them. Taxes would be taken out on the back end, so Joe Blow who wants to send in $50 to help his favorite candidate would still have no problem doing so. The taxes would come out of the recipient, whether it be for ads, signs, or hiring SEIU employees to "monitor" tea party gatherings. Or in the case of large advocacy groups they could be double taxed through funds raised and spent - not unlike the capital gains tax. Only this time instead of punishing the productive class, the tax would penalize the parasitic class.

Bear in mind as you read this that these are just broad strokes. The devil is always in the details, and I've no doubt that anyone can find specifics of my proposals to pick apart. But this is a stating point for the conversation. And I have no delusions that any of these will have enough of an impact to make any difference regarding the federal budget defect. But if we want to starve the beast, we're not getting anywhere until we do something about the masters holding the leash and standing by with bags of treats.

Realistically, none of these ideas have any chance of seeing the light of day, as our elected officials aren't going to bite the hands that feed them. But as any Robert Jordan fan can attest, these ideas are not the beginning.

But they are a beginning.

Why the Tea Partiers Should Thank the Tea Party Crashers

2010-04-17T14:30:00.001-07:00

*** UPDATE - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! ***

This year's April 15th Tea Party protests saw an interesting twist. Groups of leftists are so impassioned by their hatred for anyone who would be opposed to their agenda that they came up with a novel way to oppose them: infiltration. They planned to crash the party, showing up with signs showing extreme racist views, misspellings, etc. Inadvertently, their idea may be the most helpful thing they could have done for the Tea Partiers as well as the most damning indictment of our mainstream media.

First off, PJTV's Bill Whittle (video requires registration but is free) raised an excellent point - are there so few radical, racist, homophobes who can't spell that the left has to infiltrate with their own? More significantly is the message they never realized that they sent. Basically, what every crasher and supporter is saying is that our mainstream press is so lazy, gullible, and easily manipulated that anything that supports their partisan views will get published, regardless of whether or not actual evidence supports it. Another inadvertent consequence is that the crashers made it far more difficult for the press to use them as typical Tea Party members, as they would have loved to do.

A great example is in this article from the AP. The headline read, "Tea party leaders anxious about extremists". Yes, you're damned right that they are, given how the press has treated the movement in the last year. From ignoring to thinly veiled contempt down to idiotic accusations, the left has done its best to show how it looks down on those unenlightened enough to appreciate the benefits of trillion dollar federal budget deficits. So yes, the Tea Partiers were ready for these crashers, knowing that no matter how insane or outrageous their signs were the press would jump at the chance to point them out as representatives of the movement. But let's go back to my point from the end of the last paragraph. This created a problem for the press. Knowing that the word on these crashers was out, they would be under much greater scrutiny for who and what they chose to portray these events. They couldn't simply grab a random loon and prop him up, as the blogosphere would be ready to investigate the background and legitimacy of these sources. Remember when journalists used to do these things?

Another interesting question is why didn't the Tea Partiers do the same to all of the leftist protests during the Bush administration? Why not plant a few people with idiotic signs that would portray them as an angry mob of crazies? It wasn't necessary. Not that our press noticed, of course. As I am fond of saying, that's the beauty of our mainstream press. When they have a story to tell, they don't let pesky details like facts or the truth get in the way of their story!

Random Musings on Obamacare

2010-03-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Now that Obamacare has been inflicted on the American people, I wanted to wait a few days for everyone to air their views and see if I couldn't find a few angles that hadn't been said yet. I did, and here are a few quick hits:

First off, the pic used with this posting appears courtesy of Logistics Monster, h/t Rick at Wizbang

Remember Democrats dispelling those Republican lies about Obamacare, such as the one that members of Congress would exempt themselves from this fantastic plan? Turns out that they still are exempt! Any other untruths you care to share with us?

A buddy of mine posted an interesting link on his Facebook page with one take on the Constitutionality of Obamacare (he, and the article support it). It argues that other mandatory government contribution programs (social security, medicare, etc.) set legal precedent for Obamacare. While I don't agree with the article (it's point could suggest that the govt. can take over any aspect of our lives), I found this to be one of the better arguments going against my own opinion.

There is one question left from the stories about the racial slurs that were said to have been thrown at the members of the Black Caucus coming out of Saturday's vote. With all of the cameras around how is it that not a single one caught this on film? I'm not saying it did not happen - to be honest, with that many impassioned people you're bound to have a few members of the lunatic fringe present. But I find it curious that this would make headlines across many news outlets without hard evidence while most Americans still have no idea who Kenneth Gladney is.

And finally, one meaningless observation from seeing how my friends on Facebook commented after the bill was passed. Almost all of the people in favor either live in DC or work for the government, and almost all of those against lived outside of the beltway and/or in the private sector. So basically, those in favor are the people who run the government, while those against are represented by its customers. This will not end well.

Can we start questioning Global Warming?

2010-02-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

*UPDATE* Cross posted at Flopping Aces!

As we go into the final days of Snowpacolypse, Snowmageddon, ar as one hockey blog writer dubbed it, "Keyser Snowze", it's time to ask some real questions from the Global Warmongers. I've seen a few reports of journalists claiming that these blizzards are further proof of Climate Change caused by Global Warming. Just to get this straight, when you break down the argument to the most granular level - "The planet is getting colder because it is getting warmer". Yes, the same people who make this argument with a straight face are the same who derided Bush as an anti-science idiot.

Just to review some of the developments we've seen in the last year:

Teams heading up to the Arctic to find evidence of GW but are deterred by the cold temperatures

The EPA admits that its findings on GW are political and not scientific

Poor methodology used in studies that end up cited as dogma

Dissenting voices by world leaders are ignored

The IPCC admits that science does not drive their data

False claims in UN reports keep appearing

India, one of the countries that the Thomas Friedman's of the world are surpassing us in science and technology, establishes its own group to monitor GW because the IPCC is so unreliable

East Anglia's falsified data, that is when it was available

This brings me to my question:

What will cause you to question your belief that GW is a man made threat to our existence unless we take radical action? I know you're not going to turn your back on GW and your belief in it, but all I am asking is where you start questioning? I know your initial reaction will be to send various articles and studies done by people who have a vested financial interest in promoting GW. Or how about "peer review"? Echo chambers.

Or simply, what will make you question your arguments and start acknowledging the other side's assertions? You may be asking when I am ready to do the same. I already have. To their credit, a few liberals have responded, but none actually answered my questions.

Are any ready to answer this one?

PS One last note - I need to right a plagiaristic wrong. When I came up with the three questions from the last link I posted I thought they were original thoughts, when I did not realize until later that my first two points were originally written by Wizbang's Jay Tea. I had repeated them so often that I forgot where they originated. It was an honest mistake and I offer my apologies to Messr. Tea. The third question is all mine, though!

Blizzard and Iwo Jima Pics II

2010-02-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

More blizzard pics around Rosslyn - one of the Netherlands Carillion, a few of Arlington Cemetery, and a bunch of the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial.

Or as one great orator might refer to it, the "Marine Corpse Memorial"

Blizzard 2010

2010-02-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

Wandering through a blizzard after an evening at Continental may not have been the smartest thing to do, but getting these pictures was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Arlington Cemetery. I could have easily hopped the three foot wall and gotten better shots, but out of respect went no closer.

A Question About Our Leaders

2010-01-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

* Update - Cross posted at Flopping Aces! *

This story came up over the summer, and only showed up as a small blip on the blogosphere radar. I never quite found the time to write about it then, but with us on the verge of having President Obama's health care system imposed on us despite massive public opposition I though this was a good time to circle back to this topic.

To recap, over the summer, Rep. Eric Massa stated that he would vote against the interests/opinions of his constituents if he thought it would be "helpful". There was a small bubble of outrage that quickly passed, as our elected officials were kind enough to give us bigger reasons for outrage. Kim Priestap at Wizbang raises a good question about Massa's motives, but a greater question was left unasked. Her main point is that Massa made a freudian slip in asserting that he would vote against his district's interests, later changing his wording to say opinions, is stating that he would support the health care bill. Priestap goes on to state that the main difference between Bush's going against public opinion versus Obama's is that Bush was doing what was in the best interest for national security while what Obama is doing is merely an attempt to grab power and put America under the dependence of the government.

Now, to take Kim's point a bit further, the heavy public opposition to both policies are for two very different reasons. Many liberals were opposed to the Iraq war simply out of hatred for George Bush. If you don't believe me look at how groups like Not In Our Name have folded up their tents, how the antiwar comic "Get Your War On" ended on January 20th 2009, or how Code Pink no longer dominates the news as opposed to back when they were exploiting Cindy Sheehan. Many additional Americans opposed the war because Bush did a poor job of making his case to the public as to why the war was necessary. Doug Feith's book "War and Decision" illustrates how this happened and how the opposition was able to frame the arguments to push public opinion against the war. By contrast, the American public is greatly opposed to the current health care bill because Democrats have done a poor job of obfuscating the disastrous effects that this bill will have on both the levels of health care we enjoy and on the American economy.

But a larger question remains unanswered. For the most part, people opposed to the war in Iraq are in favor of the health care bill and those supporting the Iraq War are against the government taking over the health care industry. Granted, there will be exceptions, but for the most part this principle holds true. Which leads me to the question - we elect our officials to act in our best interests. At what point should we entrust our elected officials to "do the right thing" even if the majority of us disagrees with their course of action? Conservatives know that Bush was right on Iraq and that Obama's health care plan will lead us to ruin. Liberals know that Bush was wrong about Iraq and that Obamacare will improve health care for all Americans. If we're applying public opinion as the litmus test, are we selling ourselves short in that a simple majority rule should decide any issue, no matter how complex? For that matter, are we all being hypocrites for praising the steadfastness of our leaders who champion issues that we support while condemning the leaders who back issues we oppose? This is one time I don't have a solid answer or a solid conclusion. Personally I find it refreshing to have a politician willing to be this honest with his constituents as Massa - I just hope he was as clear about his position during his last election campaign. I'd be really curious to hear what folks from both sides of the aisle have to say...

Eagles Postmortem

2010-01-12T18:35:00.001-08:00

OK, a few days have passed and I've cooled off enough to finally write about Saturday night's meltdown against Dallas.

Very simply, the team did not show up. One would have thought that after the previous week's blowout at the Cowboys' hands would have given the team enough insight into Dallas' offensive and defensive play calling to be ready. That did not happen, and everyone is pointing fingers at their favorite targets - McNabb not being accurate enough (not completely undeserved), Asante and Sheldon getting burned trying to jump routes (sometimes undeserved), Jason Peters being an overpaid, overrated sack of protoplasm (always deserved), having Vick as a distraction to the offense, etc. While most of the players earned their share of the blame, ultimately it goes back in one direction - the coaches.

Anyone who's read this blog knows I'm a long time Andy Reid supporter. But he had a week to study the film, learn what went wrong, make the necessary adjustments, and he did not. And the team was completely humiliated by its arch rival two weeks in a row. And this also leads to further questions on Reid - is he still the right guy to lead the Eagles?

Again, I am not, and have not been among the masses to call for a new coach after every loss. Reid and the rest of the front office have done an outstanding job of maintaining a great talent level - drafting well, developing young players, maintaining depth with mid level players, bringing in a few superstars, and knowing when it was time to say goodbye to some long time fan favorites (we still love ya Dawk, but letting you go to Denver was the right thing to do). The team finally picked up some great receivers in the last two years in D-Jack and Maclin, and this season finally got away from the predictable pass happy offense and pounded the rock even with Westbrook out injured.

That said, at some point it becomes necessary to move on, especially if a team can't take that last leap to get to the top. Dungy built a great team in Tampa, but couldn't win a championship and Chuckie got them the Lombardi trophy. And while he wasn't the man in Tampa, Dungy was able to go to Indy, take their to solid foundation to win the Colts a Super Bowl.

As much as I love Andy and the fact that we're one of the few teams in the league that considers a ten win season a disaster, I'm getting tired of always having to wait until next year. With Heckert gone to Cleveland (the first offseason loss that truly concerns me), the window stays open for only so long. The Eagles need to take advantage sooner than later, and with a core of young offensive weapons to build around the time is now. It's time for Andy to move on, and bring in Cowher, or better still, Jimmy Johnson. C'mon all of you who just spat coffee all over your computer screens - can you think of a single coach more motivated to sweep the Cowboys and put a frown on Jenny Jones' face every season?

Or, as my buddy The Destroyer of Colons II put it, "With the amount of talent that this team has had for the last decade, the fact that they don't have three Super Bowl wins, not appearances but wins, tells you that the problem lies ultimately with the coaches."

And if you're wondering what kind of "Rose colored glasses" Eagles fan would believe that the team should have won three championships in this decade, let me point out that the DOC is a lifelong Cowboys fan.

Tribute to the Jets, Giants Stadium, Reggie White, and the Coolest Incident Ever of Fan on Fan Violence

2010-01-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight's Jets-Bengals game will be the final football game played at Giants Stadium, and I wanted to honor the occasion by sharing my memories of one of the rare football games I would attend at that venue.

On December 20, 1987, Miami Bob's cousin managed to score us tickets to the Eagles-Jets game. So the three of us trekked up to Giants Stadium on a cold, miserable day (over 70,000 no-shows) to watch two average teams. Neither was headed to the playoffs, although the Eagles were just starting to ride the tide of Buddy Ryan's reign in Philly. And most importantly, Reggie White was closing in on Mark Gastineau's sack record.

The game itself was nothing spectacular - the rain kept so many people away, but we were nicely tucked away in the back of a lower tier end zone and had cover. Although the Jets led at one point, The Eagles' won 38-27, and the game wasn't even that close. At one point, Santa Claus was walking around our section, and a few Jets fans were pleading for linebackers and a tailback. Reggie White had two sacks on the day, but would ultimately end the season one sack short of the record. Gastineau's mark would hold until Brett Favre would take a dive for Micahel Strahan to give Strahan the record for sacks in a season years later. Sorry Giants fans, not to take away from what a great player Strahan was, but that record is BS, and one more reason to hate Favre. But none of what I just mentioned are what made the game truly memorable.

Even though it was a near meaningless game between two non conference rivals, I played the role of "Respectful Fan in Hostile Territory". Of course, I stood up and cheered whenever the Eagles made a big play, but I wasn't obnoxious about it and didn't rub it in any of the Jets fans' faces. Which is more than I can say for a lone Eagles fan sitting down below.

This one guy was sitting in the first row of the lower tier right behind the goal posts, and spent the whole game going nuts - cheering like a loon, pointing and taunting at the Jets fans, you get the idea. I remember watching him and thinking, "Dude, you can't do that." Sooner or later something was going to happen to this guy, and that time came in the third quarter. I noticed two massive Jets fans walking down the aisle, having a casual conversation. They walked up to Fanboy, and still having their conversation, nonchalantly picked him up and held him upside down by his ankles out over the drop. Granted, had he fallen it would only have been about a 15 foot drop, but a drop nonetheless. This didn't happen though, as the Jets fans continued to talk for about a minute before placing Fanboy back in his seat and kept on chatting while they walked away as if nothing had happened.

They only got halfway up the stairs when the Yellowjackets intercepted them and three both of them out. Five minutes later they returned and threw Fanboy out as well, probably for his own safety. Dude should have known better, and his fate was far more merciful than what an opposing fan like him would have received in The Nest of Death. Overall, I had a good time, am grateful I got to see The Minister of Defense and Lord Randal the Great play live, but I will never forget the coolest incident ever of fan on fan violence.

Two Takes on Today's Eagles Victory

2009-12-27T18:27:00.000-08:00

First off, we know the Andy Reid (and McNabb) haters won't go away until he wins a Super Bowl, but today he's earned 24 hours of silence.

At this stage in the season I'm guessing that nobody remembers the questions raised during the offseason when the Eagles let a number of key players leave for free agency. Check your Eagles history though, very few big names continue their success after departure from Philly. Derrick Burgess is one of the notable exceptions (for one season only), but aside from that, when do you hear of former Eagles havong a great season? Which brings us to today...

This afternoon was a homecoming for both Brian Dawkins and Corell Buckhalter - both mainstays who could get paychecks bigger than they were worth. Reid took flak for letting them (among others) go during the offseason, but not overpaying for them allowed the Eagles to sign their rookies and properly compensate the mid-level players that win championships. So how did they do today?

Dawk was a non-factor, getting burned or penalized. C-Buck got hurt on a kickoff - does anyone wonder if Andy didn't target these guys for a reason? So it was a hard fought win, but a win nonetheless. Congrats Andy, on winning the Vindication Bowl.

And on that note is my other angle. A win is a win, but no fan likes an ugly win. Except me.
Today's win over the Broncos was wayyyy too dramatic, but it's the kind of win that great teams make. Don't believe me? Think back...

Remember the 49ers of the 80's or the Cowboys of the 90's? You hated them. You could hang with them. But in the end they always found a way to win those close games. That's what great teams do. They may win ugly, but they still win. Right now, we can't say that of the Colts, Saints, or Vikes.

Which leaves us as the team that nobody wants to play. The biggest threat I see is when we meet the Colts in February. And no team in football is better than generating "Manning Face" than the Eagles.

Be afraid Colts; be very afraid.

A Sad Day for Eagles Fans (And Giants & Cowboys Fans Too!)

2009-12-17T19:39:00.000-08:00

"He had a lot to say. He had a lot of nothing to say. We'll miss him"
-- Maynard James Keenan

This morning I got one of my semi-regular text messages from Z, the most rabid Eagles fan in DC. When I see that I've gotten a message from him during preseason I usually cringe, as it usually means an injury. When I get a message from him during the season, I'm generally anticipating good news, usually because a key player is getting a contract extension. That would not be the case this morning. Around 9:00 I learned that Vinny Cerrato had resigned as Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

I thought it would only be fitting to open this post with a quote and the video of that great song by Tool, "Eulogy." Being an Eagles fan who once worked for Dan Snyder gives me a certain joy in watching the Redskins endure a disastrous season, like this one! Of course, as much fun as it has been to hear the Monday morning postmortems on sports talk radio following each loss, I knew that the Skins would need a few wins to make this a perfect season - the 'Skins being bad, but not quite bad enough for Snyder to remove his head from his posterior to realize he needs to fire Cerrato. Those recent wins & tight games gave me confidence that we would see Vinny again for at least one more season, and this morning it all came crashing down. So let's take a few moments to eulogize some of the highlights of Cerrato's tenure in DC:

Unloading a proven quarterback like Brad Johnson in favor of Jeff George, who Phil Sims once brilliantly summed up by saying "He has the hardware but not the software"
Jacking ticket prices & punishing a very loyal fan base with by becoming the most expensive event to attend in pro sports
"Prime timmme... Prime timmme... Primmme Timmme..."
The Old Ball Coach!
Brandon Lloyd
Not just bringing in a head case like DeAngelo Hall, but grossly overpaying for him
Jim Zorn - seriously?
Failing to secure a new QB after completely shattering any confidence that Jason Campbell may have
Not allowing fans to bring signs into Fedex Field because they were critical of the team's management
Albert Haynesworth

I could continue, but it's already 11:00 PM and I don't want to still be writing this when the sun comes up. Feel free to comment on any of your favorites that I may have missed!

And never one to disappoint, Snyder has already brought in in Cerrato's replacement, Bruce Allen. His most recent resume entry credits him with the atrophy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Super Bowl winning nucleus. I feel better already.

So rejoice Eagles, Giants and Cowboys fans! We thought that the divisional realignment from a few years ago was going to hurt us, losing those two wins per season against the Cardinals. Who would have guessed that the Redskins would become that team for us?

Maybe we should send our final farewell to Cerrato with one of the last lines from "Eulogy":

"Come down. Get off your f***ing cross. We need the f***ing space to nail the next fool martyr!"

And sorry 'Skins fans, but things aren't going to improve until you fire the one guy most responsible for keeping your team down - Daniel Snyder.

Props to Andy Reid

2009-11-29T17:50:00.000-08:00

Good win today. An ugly win is still a win. I won't go into that idiotic onside kick to open the game, as we ranted about it at the time. D-Jacl's concussion is bad news, but this was a day to look at the positive:

With D-Jack and Avant out & Celek developing a case of the drops, Maclin carried our receiving corps. With Westbrook out, the rest of the RB's, led by McCoy filled in nicely. While they are works in progress, Maclin and McCoy are rookies, everybody. They were never supposed to be so good so soon.

Reid showed some stones in his 4th down calls and his decision to go for two in the 4th quarter.

An ugly win is still a win.

We're banged up, but Turner as well as Matty Ice are hurting down in Atlanta for next week.

Bring on The ATL.