tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85243942024-03-07T17:40:54.560-06:00Screaming at the WindDoes it matter? No. I know that. It doesn't bother me, much. But I suppose it has to be done. Something has to be said... even if it is just screaming at the wind.El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.comBlogger845125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-11454053891101308352012-06-19T09:57:00.001-05:002012-06-19T09:57:36.492-05:00What role, fathers?<font size=3 face="sans-serif">Our society has come to accept a dichotomous argument with regards to the rights of potential parents. Either it is the woman's unilateral and inalienable right to choose to become a parent, or that woman has absolutely no right to choose to become a parent.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The father has no role in that choice after the point of conception. He is a mere bystander.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Let's just say, for argument's sake, that a couple of kids have some of the sex and the girl gets pregnant (as girls tend to do much more frequently than boys).</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Under the current cultural understanding, the girl can decide, unilaterally, to have the child and then compel the boy to support that child for the next 18 years.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">So, let's flip the argument. Let's say, just for argument's sake, that the boy wanted to have the child and be a father, even a single father, but the girl did not. Does this boy have a unilateral right to compel the girl to bear the child and pay support for the next 18 years? Why, then is it OK for the girl to do the same to the boy?</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Or, to look at the alternative scenario, what if the boy doesn't want to be a father and decides, unilaterally, that this pregnancy will be aborted without the input or consent from the mother? Under the current cultural (and legal) understanding, this boy can be brought up on charges of murder in many states.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">How is this equal protection under the laws?</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">The answer, of course, is that it isn't equal protection. It's a clear double standard and a cultural blind spot. And I suggest that the current dichotomous argument, and generally accepted norm that it is the woman's unilateral right to choose, is morally and logically incorrect.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">Of COURSE the father should have input. That's his child. It is as much his flesh as it is hers, and assuming the child was conceived in a legal manner (not rape, of course) and not anonymously (as with in vitro), then that father has as much right to the child as the mother. But if you take away the input, the responsibility for the decision, the right to be a party to the delivery and the birth, then you also take away the responsibility and expectation of fatherhood. If he is to be relegated to bystander status in the decision to bring the child into the world, then there is no reason to expect him to be anything more than a bystander thereafter.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 face="sans-serif">And that's bad for society.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-80337065801421615892012-06-08T12:14:00.001-05:002012-06-08T12:14:55.270-05:00Nobody cares what you did last night<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Much of what you have been taught and told is true, no doubt. Some of it has been distorted by the lens of history and the particular agenda of the medium delivering the information. But some of it is outright lies.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And the most often and universally told lie is this: you’re someone special.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The truth is, and I know this is going to hurt, that you’re not special. There’s nothing about you, inherently, that makes you someone worth listening to, following, seeing, knowing, or generally interacting with on a regular basis.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because you’re not special.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And that may be the first time you’ve heard that in your entire life, because people have lied to you since you were a wee lad or lass.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Generally speaking, that’s no big deal. You feel good about yourself and you go on living. No harm no foul.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But the problem is that you idiots have taken this lie to heart and gone off and gotten tools to live stupid, shallow, meaningless lives that are all about primping, preening, and ACTING like you’re someone special. YOU’RE NOT ANYONE SPECIAL. Especially when you’re living a stupid, shallow, meaningless life that’s all about primping, preening, and acting like someone special.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Sure, there are people who have special talents that make them, in the context of that talent, special. Like the dancer, or artist, or code guru who can give inanimate objects the ability to seem alive, or the designer who can take a block of plastic and make it into a thing that people will literally line up overnight to pay too much for. Those people are special. In those contexts. And in every context you’ll find someone who is “special”. But that doesn’t make them a special person. Let’s face it, it takes a special person in the political context to be President. But you don’t necessarily want the President to be your babysitter while you go out for a movie and a bite. He’s not necessarily special like that.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The even greater truth is that you’re unique—not special. Like a snowflake that, presumably, has no exact copy, you’re unique. But also like a single snowflake, by yourself you melt and are too pointless to even be considered statistically. By itself a snowflake is so not special that it might as well not even exist. However, with several other snowflakes it can collapse the roof of a football stadium.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And look here, douchebag with the stupid had and idiotic facial hair. By yourself you’re so pointless as to not even be considered. Sure, you’re stupid douchebaggery is a badge of uniqueness—just like all the other stupid douchebags around you—but your uniqueness isn’t special. And nobody cares.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And you, the stupid twat that thinks the world owes her a living and thinks she can “demand respect” from people. You’re wrong. You’re a stupid, vapid, shallow, pointless waste of atoms and you’re not special. Nobody cares.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So quit acting special and go live a life of meaning.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-84392090511222401482011-04-05T09:16:00.001-05:002011-04-05T09:16:20.643-05:00And the beat goes on<font size=2 face="sans-serif">President Barack Obama has retreated on yet another high minded ideal that was rooted in neither fact or reality. The "hope and change" mantra that was sold to the deluded masses continues to unravel. The temptation is there to say "I told you so"...</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Hope and Change!!</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Hope for what, exactly? Change to what, exactly? </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Right, a secure future, wrong trajectory, that whole war on terrorism stuff.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Except, we're not the cause of terrorism any more than a rape victim is the cause of rape. We're the target of terrorism, no doubt in part because of our policies, intervention, and visibility in the world. But the CAUSE of terrorism is the bankruptcy of morals within the terrorists. Murderers are murderers because they're pieces of shit, not because the murder victim "provoked" the murderer. So, it turns out that the detention camp at Guantanamo (it's not, and never has been, a prison), military tribunals, indefinite detention of enemy combatants, the aerial drone attacks, the Patriot Act, and all the other stuff that President G.W. Bush engaged in to FIGHT terrorism was, in the end, the right decision. Which is why they were continued by President Barack Obama.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the security of knowing that your health care was going to be paid for and you wouldn't have to go bankrupt just because you broke your leg, or got sick. But he punted on that signature initiative and tossed the keys to congress. Surely it wasn't because he's never written a bill in his life? Surely it's not because he has no legislative track record? Surely it's not because, as the junior Senator from Illinois, he has no congressional leverage? Surely it's because he's naive, untested, unproven, and unable to really accomplish anything except running for higher office? Surely not. Even though what track record we do have for him shows that the only thing he ever has accomplished is running for higher office. The good news? There is a health care insurance reform bill that has been passed into law. The bad news? It was so badly mishandled that he won't be able to run on THAT accomplishment during his re-election campaign and it'll probably be tossed as unconstitutional without additional, major modifications which may include a public option. Good job Barry. Good job.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the whole crap about making the tax code "fairer", which was punted.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the out of control spending that he's done nothing to control.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the complete lack of transparency.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the carbon control legislation.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And then there's the... Oh, but do I really need to list the whole litany of woes?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The fact is that the pie eyed leftists were sold a bill of goods, and they were duped. After drinking their own Kool-aid, the same leftists put Nancy and Harry in charge while the kid in the White House sat in the back and followed their orders. Those fools mismanaged and mishandled basic governance WITH A 2/3 MAJORITY IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS so badly that practically nothing of value was accomplished, and what was accomplished that had any kind of value was botched and is possibly unconstitutional. Oh, and to top it all off, their complete and total disregard for representative governance brought rise to the Tea Parties. Thanks a whole fucking lot.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, there you have it, suckers. Good job. You deserve what you get, and you deserve to have taken from you what you're going to have taken. Hopefully the REST of us will manage to right the ship in the coming years and moderate both congress and the White House, or at the very least have opposing radicals in the halls of power, rather than like minded radicals screwing things up for the rest of us.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-40406662167366044982011-03-30T16:56:00.001-05:002011-03-30T16:56:28.218-05:00GOD I WANT A HAMBURGER!!<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ok, we're well into the Lenten fast, the traditional 40 day "fast" Christians participate in prior to Easter.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">A few little facts: it's 6 weeks, plus 4 days, starting on Ash Wednesday. That's more than 40 days, you say? Why, you're exactly correct, my mathematically endowed fellow! 6 * 7 is 42, plus 4 days is 46. But Sundays are days of grace, so knock 6 days back off that tally and you have 40.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, what's this fasting business all about?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, fasting is an interesting little creature. It can be a lot of different thing to a lot of different people, including, but not limited to, not eating or drinking anything. We humans tend to die when we don't eat or drink stuff. That's kind of how it goes. So a 40 day Lenten fast without eating or drinking anything will, short of a miracle, kill you. </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Probably even if you do take those days of grace and stuff yourself stupid.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But that's not to say that a fast cannot be a period of self denial, introspection, and reliance on God rather than some crass material thing such as food and water.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or an ATM card.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or a car.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or a pair of shoes.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or the act of verbal communication.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Now, of course, the simple ACT of sacrifice isn't really the point. Anybody can not do something for a period of time and not think much of it (unless, obviously, there's a medical or psychological condition involved). Simply stashing a credit card or ATM card in the back of the freezer isn't necessarily a "fast", in the most appropriate sense of the word. And every single one of us has had to "hold it" for just another few minutes while we found an exit with an acceptably clean bathroom. That's not a "fast", either.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The key to the thing isn't sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. Or for the sake of losing weight. Or for the sake of saving money. Or for the sake of admiration from your peers.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The key to the thing is the spiritual posture that it invites.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">A fast isn't just not doing something for a period to prove that you have the internal strength to deny yourself. Anybody can do that. It's about replacing the craving for the crass and present and replacing it with a craving for the perfect and eternal. "God, I want a hamburger" is not merely an exclamation of desire for a yummy, juicy, delicious patty of properly cooked ground beef on a wonderfully deliciously toasted bun, topped with a couple of slices of bacon and cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, and barbeque sauce. It's a humble prayer telling God, point blank, that I WANT A HAMBURGER!! And then, sitting quietly and actually taking the time to listen to what He has to say about that, and giving Him the opportunity to fill that want. To truly live "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want", even for just a brief expanse of time.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because it's not just denial just for the sake of denial. God isn't about "don't". God is about a better option. God is about turning away from the bad, or unrewarding, or unfulfilling and replacing it with something good, rewarding, and ultimately, truly, foundationally, and profoundly fulfilling.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-12074740198963420402011-02-01T16:54:00.001-06:002011-02-01T16:54:17.237-06:00You can't make me<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Whether or not the individual mandate in President Obama's health care bill will be deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court is yet to be seen. To be completely honest, I have no idea if it's constitutional or not. It would seem that compelling someone to purchase, on the open market, a privately offered product is something entirely different from something that is provided openly by the federal government and available for all to use, the cost for which is paid for out of general--or specifically earmarked--funds.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Take driving for example.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The feds can't require people to drive on roads. However, they can levy a general tax on gasoline that provides funding for highways thus lowering the cost to travel between cities on roads. Consequently, people transition from traveling long distances by rail to travelling long distances by roads. You can choose to drive on (presumably quicker) toll roads, or take alternative transportation such as trains or planes or nothing at all, but you wouldn't have to.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">If the feds used the same model for health care, there would be a general tax levied for health care, then a program to provide insurance back to the populace. If you chose to buy (presumably better) insurance on the private market, you could do that. If you chose not to purchase private insurance, then the government program would be the default.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That program would likely work. They kind of already do that with medicare.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-30519828800225045472010-12-28T16:58:00.000-06:002010-12-28T16:59:32.246-06:00Why does the deficit even matter?<font size=2 face="sans-serif">What if you could take, say, $15,000 and go back in time about 25 years. Or, better still, go back in time about 50 years. 50 years ago $15,000 bought a hell of a lot. In Syracuse, NY you could buy a split level 3 bedroom home for just over $15k.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The same type of home today is just over $100,000. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or maybe going back even further to 150 years ago when the federal government was giving away homesteads of 120 acres or more for 5 years work and $200. To back when a good week's work paid $7 and you'd be lucky to clear $350 in a year.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because back then $15,000 was some serious money. That was the type of money that would make place someone in the "super rich" category. Today it's really not that much. The average household brings in that much in just under a half year's work. But back then a person could work his whole life and never see that much money in some parts of the country.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So what?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, the "so what" has to do with the notion of inflation. You can't go back in time with today's money. The technology doesn't exist, for one thing. For another, you'd have to be very careful about which dollars you bring back. You wouldn't want to go trying to spend bills printed in 2005 in 1850. They'd look funny and have a counterfeit date on them. Plus your debit card wouldn't work.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But you CAN buy things with today's money and pay for them in the FUTURE, which is sort of like going back in time with tomorrow's money to pay for things today. So the principle is kind of the same. We do this with debt. We take out a loan--like on our house or credit card--on the assumption that we'll have more money in the future to pay off the balance. In the case of the house, we assume the value of the house will increase and in the case of the credit card we just assume we'll have some extra cash laying around to pay off the balance--somehow.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">These assumptions are based on 2 things. One is that we'll be making more money due to greater productivity. The other is that we'll be making more money due to general inflation. We may not think of the other much at all because inflation is a sneaky little bug that most of us don't even notice in the short run, but we all notice over the long run. How many times have we heard our parents (or grand parents) tell us about going to a movie, getting a tank of gas, and grabbing a burger for under $5? Yea, that doesn't happen any more.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The thing about inflation, though, is that it's been largely kept in check over the last 10 or 20 years. Why? A large part of that has to do with a very, very activist Fed working diligently to manage interest rates and keep inflation under control Another very large part of that has to do with imports from China.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">What?!?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Yup, imports from China. A lot of the stuff we buy--most of the stuff we buy--comes from China where it's cheaper to produce things. That's one way to keep costs, and prices, down. And one way to control inflation is to keep prices down. So, as we make more money due to greater productivity inflation usually eats away at those greater earnings. But over the last 10 or 20 years, inflation has been remarkably low. Of course, earnings gains for much of the population have also been remarkably anemic over that same time frame, but we haven't noticed because prices for everything seemed to be flat or only slightly increasing.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That is, until right around 2003.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That's about the time we saw gas prices spike up, food prices spike up, commodity prices on all sorts of inputs spike up and general panic and chaos ensued.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">THIS is why the deficit matters.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">One of the reasons we keep getting cheap stuff from China is because their currency is pegged to ours. That causes much anger and consternation in the US Government, but that's not real anger, just political posturing. You see, they'd like it if China allowed their currency to float because that would allow the dollar to become devalued against the yuan--which means inflation--and it would make it easier for the US to pay back a lot of the debt with tomorrow's much, much more abundant money. However, that would also trigger run away inflation here in the states because all that stuff from China that is so damn cheap, that has been keeping our inflation in check, and keeping our flat wages tolerable, because we don't notice that our wages have been flat because prices have also been pretty flat, will suddenly be no longer cheap.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">American businesses will redeploy capital into other nations that can manufacture stuff cheaply. China's economy will be in tatters. The US economy will be completely freaking out. Everything will be upside down and backwards.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And as long as we're running trillion dollar deficits, China can't allow their currency to float against the dollar, because their cheap currency--fixed in price against our currency--maintains a very, very positive trade balance in China's favor, which sends dollars their way. All those surplus dollars have to go somewhere, and luckily for them there's a government that spends dollars like they're going out of style. The US sells debt, and those dollars that China is stacking up from trade go right back to the US in exchange for the debt. And all that debt creates interest payments, that go right back to China. China uses those interest payments to purchase commodities and fuel their own industrial expansion. That industrial expansion puts a strain on the environment, sure, but also puts a strain on those commodity prices like corn, milk, beef, and, yes, oil. When the price of oil goes up, the price of everything goes up. And when the price of everything goes up, we get inflation. Usually inflation would make it easier to pay off our debts. However, in this case it doesn't work because when our currency gets devalued--that is, experiences inflation--China's currency gets devalued because they're pegged to currency.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And they can't unpeg their currency until we fix our deficit problem.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">THAT'S why the deficit matters.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I know. It's a complicated mess. But in the middle of the complicated mess is a thing that we can control, and that's the out of control spending. Get that under control and a lot of the complication goes away.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-50563322669505747482010-12-08T10:45:00.000-06:002010-12-08T10:58:21.748-06:00The compromise where everyone loses<font size=2 face="sans-serif">First off, there are plenty of things I LIKE about the compromise that President Obama hammered out with congressional leaders over the tax rates.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I like that he actually talked with republicans for the first time, rather than at them.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I like that he listened to the opposition for the first time, rather than simply dismissing them and dictating terms.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I like that a broad deal got done, rather than a narrow, marginal deal that appeased 5 wayward senators.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">There's a lot that I don't like, though.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I don't like that the tax rates were, once again, temporary. Either do it, or don't. Quit dithering and kicking the can down the street.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I don't like the extension of unemployment benefits for yet another 13 months. At some point these people need to be given incentives to get off their asses and find some work, even if it's a slightly lower paying job than the last one they had. Waa waa waa, can't find jobs... bullshit. Get to work.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I don't like that expenses were still not reduced out of the budget. Lack of revenue is not the problem, out of control spending is the problem. If in 2 years they don't get spending under control, they're going to be forced to raise taxes, and not just on the wealthy, but on everybody. And not just to 1996 levels, but higher. And there's going to be considerable inflation coming with it, so not only is a greater portion of our money going to get pissed away to the feds, but what's left won't buy as much, either.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">There's plenty to like. The compromise did, after all, patch up a problem that was looming.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The problem isn't solved, though. It's just been kicked down the road to the next election cycle. Maybe Obama is planning on getting back his 60% majorities. Maybe the Rs are thinking they'll take over both houses and the executive branch with 60% majorities. I'm willing to bet money that neither scenario is going to happen. At some point they're going to have to address the spending problem because China isn't going to unhitch their currency and let us inflate away our debt--and besides, we don't want all of our goods from China to suddenly start getting more expensive. Super cheap consumer goods is one way it appears we're actually wealthy because our dollars stretch further to buy more crap. When the crap gets expensive, then we don't feel quite so wealthy any more.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-49284415201393119732010-11-30T09:26:00.001-06:002010-11-30T09:26:38.974-06:00God willing, it'll never happen<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Everyone knows Sarah Palin wants to be President. It's no secret, even though she thinks she's being coy about it. The fact is, she's not clever enough to fool us, even though she thinks she is.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And here's a link to a Huffington Post story that talks about a lot of the things that bug me about her, brought to light by her slip of the tongue on that bastard Glen Beck's show: </font><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/why-sarah-palins-north-ko_b_788647.html"><font size=2 face="sans-serif">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/why-sarah-palins-north-ko_b_788647.html</font></a> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The way I see it, if a candidate is no expert on every issue there isn't really a problem. The President has teams of people on problems who give him briefings and if a decision is made he either confirms it or tells them to think about it more before confirming it. And, of course, there are broad policy decisions that the President will steer. But I am under no illusions that when a missile has detached from its anchors, it's the President who gave the authorization release that munition--unless it's nuclear tipped.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, I'm not really that concerned that Sarah Palin has no clue about the very, very sensitive issues surrounding the Koreas. In fact, I'm willing to bet that most people--including the President--don't have a very specific knowledge of the historical background beyond there was a war, the North is communist (and crazy as bat shit), and there have been dustups over the last several years because the North is crazy as bat shit. The President, however, does have a team of policy experts who ARE well versed in that information.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And, to be perfectly clear, I like the idea that anybody--and I mean ANYBODY--can be President of the United States of America. From the lowliest nobody in Nowheresville to the bluest of blue blooded elite, a President can rise to lead this nation. That doesn't mean, however, than anybody SHOULD be President. A job of that magnitude requires nuanced skills of patience and perseverance and even introspection and reflection because the decisions made in that sort of job cannot easily be unmade. And the biggest decisions of them all can cost lives--tens of thousands of lives.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And that's what bugs me about Ms. Palin, more than anything else.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">You can be ignorant, inexperienced, and thoroughly untested to be President. Hell, the current President managed to get the job while having those qualities. But what you can't be is unpolished, impatient, and mentally shallow (I don't want to say "stupid" here, because I don't really think that applies in this situation). The current President shows himself to be exceptionally polished and patient, and when it comes to serious issues he seems to consider most, if not all, of the facets from several different angles. Ms. Palin, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have that capacity. She's got her talking points, she's got her single, partisan (or self serving) angle, and she's got a megaphone. And there's not a light on behind those eyes.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And that's what bugs me about Sarah Palin.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-56141302755791605582010-11-22T12:06:00.001-06:002010-11-22T12:06:44.422-06:00The fallacy of modern self sufficiency<font size=2 face="sans-serif">The notion of self sufficiency is a fairly charming one. Unfortunately, it seems to be a little unrealistic amid the systems that we've created to live within today.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Sure, we can produce our own electricity and then call ourselves "off the grid". </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But what about plumbing? And sewerage? And cable TV? And the phone? And the road you drive on to get the food that you shove into your eat hole?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Yea, modern self-sufficiency is a tough nut to crack. Eventually you're going to have to wander out of your compound and collect something--unless your compound is sufficiently large enough to house you and your resources. The problem is that a compound that is that large tends to be remarkably inefficient for a single family to live within.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, to increase efficiency, we reduce self sufficiency and increase collectivism.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The trick is finding that balance between self sufficiency and collectivism, while ensuring that those allowed into the collective act in a responsible manner to the collective.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The ironic thing today is that people who crow about self sufficiency really live within a rather large collective. They fully rely on Krogers, or HEB, or some other faceless partner to feed them their entire diet of food. They fully rely on the local utility to provide power. They fully rely on the local cable company (or some modern version) to provide entertainment. They fully rely on the local telecommunications company to provide communication with the outside world. They fully rely on the government to ensure the quality (and existence) of their drinking water. And each one of these partners in the collective are not even PEOPLE. Some of the pieces of this puzzle may be provided at home, by people. But, for the most part, a 3 or 4 person family cannot, and does not, provide for themselves. They go to work--for someone else--and make money that they use to pay someone else to provide basic services. </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That's not a model of self sufficiency.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-55541509997031074792010-11-05T16:40:00.001-05:002010-11-05T16:40:21.819-05:00wow.<font size=2 face="sans-serif">I'm really tempted to say "I told you so" once again, because 2 years ago I did. But I won't. Even though I could.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Man, was that a big swing, though! And at all levels of government, from the feds down to the local dog catcher. 680 seats in all, nation wide, at all levels, were won by Rs over Ds. That's a lot. It's unprecedented, even.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That's what happens when people who were sold "hope and change" realize that it was all just smoke and mirrors. Yup, that guy with all the high rhetoric was inexperienced, unproven, untested, and, even worse, unable. It didn't take him long to go from "we" meaning everyone, a vast and broad coalition that included the vast middle ground of the electorate to "we", meaning just the left and especially the very left of the left.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But the good news is that all is not lost. The President still has a chance to reclaim the visionary mantle he used to pull the wool over everyone's eyes 7 years ago at the DNC and 3 years ago during the presidential campaign. There's still a chance, and if he can reclaim that mantle he'll win a second term with a resounding landslide victory over whatever sacrificial goat is tossed up to lose to him.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But for the first time in 2 years I'm skeptical of whether or not he CAN pull off the victory in 2012 in the same way he did it in 2008. And I say that only because for the last 2 years he's been governing as a bitterly partisan polarizing leftist. He's replaced the "there is no blue state America and red state America, but only America" with "us versus them" rhetoric. Sure, there were hints of it before, but it could be dismissed as just random misspeaking and not indicative of his true ideology. But now? I'm not so sure the "they cling to their guns and bibles" blast can be dismissed so easily, now that we see how he's actually prone to govern.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It'll be interesting to see how the next campaign goes. It'll be interesting to see if he can regain the visionary spark that convinced a vast swath of the electorate that "We are the ones we've been waiting for!" It would be nice if he could. It would be nice if, for the next 2 years at least, he actually governed like he campaigned. It would be nice... but I'm skeptical. But, then again, I've been skeptical since the beginning.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-3063744471372968592010-11-01T11:22:00.001-05:002010-11-01T11:22:47.824-05:00Hooray for Sanity!<font size=3 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial">I don't generally agree with much of what Jon Stewart says. He is funny, though, and I do generally agree with his underlying principals--the false dichotomy established by the media and political classes is damaging to the overall political discourse and hampers our abilities to solve real problems at the governmental levels. I've said repeatedly--even to some of the more obvious extremists who have chosen to populate the comments section--that the answer will usually neither be found on the right or the left, but rather somewhere in the middle, and if they'd just their stupid mouths and turn on their rarely used brains to search the middle, the answer might just be found.</font> <br><font size=3 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial">Needless to say, Jon Steward is no news man. I've said, repeatedly, that Jon Stewart is to news what Ed Murrow is to comedy. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have anything important to say. In fact, BECAUSE he is no news man, the slant he puts on his commentary has a little more credibility because he's not presenting himself to be something he isn't. It's no secret that the media is far from neutral. There is clearly a bias to all media outlets--even the publicly funded NPR--and the only question is what direction and how much. It's humorous that FOX gets excoriated for being biased, but MSNBC receives the blind eye. Granted, Stewart occasionally points his lens at MSNBC, but only occasionally. FOX doesn't own the monopoly on unwatchable content. Maddow, Matthews, and Olbermann are three dudes that are redeemable only in that they are comically (and transparently) in the tank for the left and President Obama, thus their idiocy can be clearly seen in the same context as the buffoons on FOX.</font> <br><font size=3 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial">But alas, the observation shouldn't simply be that people do not watch the news in droves. The observation should be made, then the question asked: WHY are people not watching the news in droves? Is it because there is a lack of interest due to immediacy of alternative news sources? Maybe. Is it because the news has largely been replaced with commentary? Probably. Why watch the news when all you get is a poll and a panel screaming about what they think we think? Why not a poll and some actual investigation of what the poll means? Ah, right, because that would be work, and nobody pays for insight, only a panel of jackals screaming about what they think we think.</font> <br><font size=3 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial">So, we watch fake news in far greater concentrations than we watch real news. Maybe because fake news at least doesn't make the primary assumption that we're idiots. Maybe because fake news actually has interesting interviews. Maybe because fake news reveals the absurd more clearly than the toadies in the real newsrooms and doesn't take itself so seriously that it cannot ask real questions such as "why did the mortgage association default on its mortgage while telling homeowners not to do the same, then go off and lease space a few blocks away?". THAT was a story that was never reported on the real news.</font> <br> <br><font size=3 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial">So, the fake newsman actually, occasionally, has something decent to say. And because of that, I respectfully offer the text of his keynote speech from this Saturday's rally:</font> <br> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker--and perhaps eczema. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.</b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!</b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundations that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do—but they do it--impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swinging, I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by conscession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.</b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.</b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted. </b></font> <br><font size=1 color=#4f4f4f face="Arial"><b>Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.</b></font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-19568107739296790532010-10-25T15:25:00.001-05:002010-10-25T15:25:58.071-05:00What you want versus what you got<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Two years ago I voted for McCain, not so much because I expected McCain to be a good President, but because I expected him to actually accomplish a lot of nothing, as opposed to the high promises from Mr. Obama that were almost certain to fail. Sure, sure, sure... McCain talked about energy independence, nuclear power, clean fuels, smart grids, electric cars, carbon trading, and all that yummy stuff. He even talked a little bit about universal health care. Nobody REALLY expected him to pull it all off, though. We all pretty much knew he wasn't going to get much of that accomplished except maybe the carbon trading stuff. Maybe. Considering his buddy Lieberman was working on the bill before Harry Reid torpedoed the entire effort.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But nobody really expected him to pull off health care.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">At best, as President, he may have steered legislation from Congress a little ways into the main stream before vetoing it, only to have Congress overturn the veto and send up one of their own in 2012. Maybe even Barack Obama who, after all, would have had a hand in writing the legislation were he to remain in the Senate for another 4 years--legislation that would have been his first and only major piece of legislation ever, ever.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, as President McCain may have pulled off carbon caps and been completely buffaloed by Congress on the health care agenda.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That is, if a young Senator Obama learned how to write legislation.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But at least there was a tempered expectation of what would actually be accomplished.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But instead the American people fell for the whole "change you can believe in" bit. They REALLY believed that Senator Obama was really going to pull all this off. They fell for the idealism. "WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!" he told the crowd. AND THEY BELEIVED HIM!!</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The American people were expecting this young, inexperienced populist who had not served an entire term in any elected office he had ever managed to attain and had never faced a contested election and had never managed to write any legislation and had never needed to build a single coalition in any legislative body ever, ever to suddenly become a leader. They expected the new President to enter office and steer the legislative agenda. To initiate the remarkable era when we tended to the sick and began to heal the earth and roll back the rising tides of the ocean.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">To, basically, do something he had never done before. Ever, ever.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">What they got, however, was a President who took a back seat to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They got a President who, instead of leading the country and using his populist support and wave election victory and overwhelming congressional majorities, chose instead to toss the legislative keys to a VASTLY unpopular congressional leadership who, no surprise to anyone, managed to fuck the whole thing up. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Climate change? Nah, they'd work on an immigration bill instead. Immigration reform? Huh? What immigration reform? Oh, the bill they were working on instead of emissions control and climate change? Yea, that never existed, it was just a misdirection, you know, for politics' sake. Universal health care? Nah. Modified regulations on health care in a bill that's so opaque nobody has any clue what it'll actually do? Sure thing! Legal codification that will set up a structure of service that will allow anyone to buy insurance separate from anything an employer offers, thus making even the unemployed and self employed able to purchase insurance above and beyond their state sponsored critical care insurance? Nah. Not even modeled after the Freddy Mac/Fannie May mortgage support before the financial debacle? No chance. Setting up a bunch of vague structures that will eventually be designed and defined by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats? Sure! But won't that eventually morph into a very, very poorly designed and inefficient national health insurance program, anyway? Yup! Isn't that pretty stupid? SURE IS!</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">What could have been never happened. But what's worse is that those who REALLY believed, and fell for the whole style over substance approach of the campaign were let down by such a huge degree, and those of us who voted for the other guy but genuinely hoped this kid would figure out how to use that populist ground swell to really, for the first time ever, ever, get something positive accomplished that the people wanted in order to solve some real, fundamental, systemic problems facing the American Dream, were all let down.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, those first time voters who were suddenly energized by "The One" and fell for the ruse, and all of those who were skeptical but voted for him anyway, and all of us who voted for the other guy but were willing to switch over in 2012 if he lived up to even a tiny sliver of what he said he would be... all of us were disappointed. All of us were let down. All of us watched in horror as the kid tossed the keys to two of the most inept, corrupt, and ideological individuals from the "political class" took this President's idealist agenda and drove it straight off a cliff.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">There's still time to right the ship. There's still hope that the candidate will return to become the President we hoped we'd get.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-72890874884686850482010-10-01T11:49:00.001-05:002010-10-01T11:49:58.254-05:00We aren't as blue as they thought we were<font size=2 face="sans-serif">The President recently stated that it is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive to stand on the sidelines during this midterm election.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Presumably, when he states "Democrat or progressive" he means all the people who voted to put him and this congress in power. The problem, though, is that those two groups are not, necessarily, the same. And what we're finding out more and more is that those two groups--"Democrats and progressives" and "people who voted to put the President and Congress in power"--are not, at all, the same. Sure, there's some overlap. Without question. But to steal the image of a Venn diagram, picture a very large circle that comprises a little more than half the electorate and a much smaller circle within that circle that comprises "Democrat or progressive". I'm not sure how much smaller that circle is, but it's certainly smaller than the other. </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"> It would seem as if the powers that be got it in their head that those two circles are one in the same. That there was some sort of vast, sudden, cultural shift where most of the country stood up and said "you know, all that stupid shit that Nancy Pelosi and the other leftist dems have been saying all this time isn't so stupid after all." Turns out that wasn't the case at all.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The funniest thing is that this is the same mistake the conservative groups made a few years back. They mistakenly believed that the small group of very conservative voters and the large group of centrist, moderate voters who actually voted to put them in office were one in the same. They thought that if they boiled down their conservatism to more and more conservative ideals they would get better and better at what they do. When, in fact, the opposite happened. They became SO conservative that they managed to distance themselves from the vast middle of the country that actually voted to put them in office. It took the Rs from 1994 to right about 2000 or 2002 to really, truly diverge from their right leaning moderate stances. You know, right about the time they managed to get full control of the executive and legislative branches of the government. They looked up and said, "hey, everyone must agree with us". Then the vast middle watched them edge further and further to the right until the left looked closer.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Then, in 2006, the Rs lost control of the legislature. And in 2008 the Ds, with the help of the vast middle, took over the executive. And that's when they made the mistake of assuming that everyone agreed with them.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Guess what,</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Everyone doesn't.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The vast, vast majority of those who are in the middle, who stood up and helped this President win either a primary or the general election or both, voted for a candidate who is remarkably different than the President we have today. The candidate who was voted for said things like "there are no republican ideas or democrat ideas, only good ideas and bad ideas, and those ideas come from both parties", but the President we have says things like "only the democrats are offering good ideas while the republicans just obstruct". The candidate was all about "us", the President is all about "us versus them". The candidate was his own man. This President is ruled by his party.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It's very likely that the "democrats and progressives" will not be standing on the sidelines this election term. But it's also very likely that their numbers are far smaller than what was thought and this election, like so many others, will be decided by the vast middle and not some imagined cultural shift to the fringes of either the left or the right.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-63275765657391234102010-09-27T16:44:00.001-05:002010-09-27T16:44:38.655-05:00I'm not buying it<font size=2 face="sans-serif">I will start by stating, unequivocally, that I am not a friend of income taxes. I'm not a friend of much government intervention at all, but I like income taxes the least of all.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That said, I recognize the need to fund government operations, and those funds come from taxes, tariffs, and other levies on commercial activities. Ok. Fine.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I also recognize that there are certain models that are healthier than others within the structures of the economy that help keep the ship pointed in the right direction. Certain targeted tax and fee programs can help to encourage these healthier models within the economy--such as high taxes on harmful products such as cigarettes or high fees on possession of certain discouraged objects such as battle tanks. In this way the various governments (local, state, federal) can encourage development within the economy along certain preferred policy guidelines.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because of all this, I accept income taxes. I still don't like them, but I accept them. And if they must exist, then the model we currently have where the last dollar is taxed first and the first dollar taxed last seems to be the best of all models. I say this because everyone--rich and poor alike--spend their first dollars on the same things: food, shelter, transportation, security. The last dollars through the door are spend on the luxuries of life: more food, larger shelter, fancier transportation, elaborate (perceived) security. It's far, far easier to sacrifice the last dollars and reorganize a budget to accommodate a reduction in income than it is to sacrifice the first dollars in a budget.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">At the risk of over explaining, take, for example, a household making $25,000 and a household making $250,000. The first will spend between 95% and 105% of its monthly budget mostly on bare necessities--food, shelter, transportation, and security. Any reduction in income forces that household to choose which of the bare necessities to cut back on. Not an impossible task, but a challenging task all the same. Meanwhile, there is rarely enough month left at the end of the bills to put away any sort of savings to build wealth from. The other household, meanwhile, will spend between 65% and 105% of the monthly budget, with maybe 10% to 20% going to the same bare necessities. Meanwhile, the remaining 45% to 95% goes to embellishments, luxuries, and investments to build future wealth. Consequently, if there's going to be an income tax, I have no problem whatsoever with a graduated tax that taxes the last dollars first and the first dollars last.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">With all that said as a preface, I'll now address a common lie that I hear told again and again regarding income taxes.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The lie: Raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans will harm job creation because that's taking money out of the pockets of the very people who are creating jobs for the rest of the country.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Bullocks.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The wealthiest Americans derive their personal income by diverting cash from business operations--cash that otherwise would be reinvested in the business and would generate jobs. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Using a small business owner as an example...</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">A small business owner--head of an S-corp, sole proprietorship, or LLC--earns his income from the net income of the business. If that business generates a profit (where revenue is greater than expenses), the profit is then taxed at personal income levels for the business owner. If that business owner decides to hire an additional employee and all things remain equal, then the expenses are increased and profit is decreased. The owner's personal income is decreased, but earnings from the business have been diverted to another family who is making additional income. If the business then grows after the addition of the new employee, then the owner makes back some of that diverted income and his income not only increases, but the value of the business increases allowing him to win twice, as well as the other family who has a gainfully employed wage earner. In this way, raising taxes on the highest tax brackets may actually INCREASE job production by removing the incentive for a business owner to harvest as much cash out of his business enterprise.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Using a corporate executive as an example...</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">When a corporation generates cash, it can choose to redeploy that cash in several ways. The first use of cash is to send funds back through the "value loop" where raw materials are turned into finished goods for sale. The second use of cash is for overhead, which includes salaries. The third use of cash is for reinvestment in assets to continue to grow the firm. The final use of cash is for financial purposes, which include paying interest and dividends, or buying back (or issuing) shares of stock. One part of the second use of the cash is salaries, of which executive salaries is a portion of those funds. Diverting funds from the corporation to salaries is a necessary part of operating a corporation. At no point, however, do the funds that have been diverted from the corporation to the executives actually generate jobs at the corporation. In fact, the opposite is true. The more funds that are diverted from the corporation to the employees, the less that is available to the corporation to generate jobs. Even more significantly, the more funds are distributed evenly among the workforce, the larger the size of the workforce that can be supported. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Which is to also say, the greater the concentration of pay among a few wealthy individuals who benefit from the wealth generating capability of a corporation--or any business, for that matter--the lower the impact of the wealth generating capability of a corporation on the broader stakeholders in the enterprise. </font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And I think that axiom can be applied to the economy as a whole, as well. Which is why I am not opposed to the reality that an income tax, though unpleasant, may be absolutely necessary to prevent an unhealthy concentration of access to wealth generation within the broader economy.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-91009591904536878422010-09-09T10:40:00.001-05:002010-09-09T10:40:28.809-05:00The so called mosque, revisited<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Funny how things come around again.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The imam trying to build the so called mosque on so called hallowed ground, which is actually a community center a few blocks away from the site of a terrorist attack, has said that if he knew the uproar his community center was going to cause he would have proposed it for another location.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Good for him. And I stick to my opinion that he can build the thing wherever he wants, but should still take into consideration the LOCAL attitudes toward the facility. I don't care, one way or another. I find it to be a little insensitive to some of the local attitudes, and maybe even a little bit stupid to press forward with a plan amid apparent local opposition, but I'm in no way offended. Mostly because I don't live in New York City.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And that brings us to the pastor in Florida who wants to host "International Burn a Koran Day".</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">He, too, is free to exercise his freedom of speech and expression. However, I think he should take into consideration the LOCAL attitudes toward said expression. I find it a bit sad that in this day and age, in this nation that has been blessed with so many ways to freely express itself, that someone would actually burn a book, but I still defend their right to do so in the same way I defend someone's right to burn an American flag. I find it to be thoroughly insensitive and stupid to press forward amid apparent local opposition, but I'm in no way offended. It's not like he's rounding up ALL the Korans in the US and eradicating the historicity of the text. It's not like there's anything particularly special about the paper and the covers of the books. It's not like merely destroying a handful of copies of the text will eliminate the ideas presented in that text.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But what's interesting is that our own President would state, in no uncertain terms, that anyone in America has the right to build a house of worship anywhere they want and will not comment on the wisdom of building a house of worship (even though it's not a house of worship) at THAT location, but does not HESITATE to condemn the free expression of speech by this pastor in Florida without equally defending HIS right to say or do repugnant things. In fact, there is an overwhelming uproar about this pastor saying and/or doing a repugnant thing WITHOUT any defense of his right to do or say these repugnant thing. That's sad. That's aking to piling up a bunch of copies of the constitution and putting a torch to it.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But even more troubling is the so called "logic" being used to talk this guy out of doing it.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"It'll be a recruiting bonanza for 'the terrorists'". You know what? They'll recruit terrorists no matter what we do. Who gives a shit. Bring the little turds out of the shadows and line them up. I don't care. I'm not going to live my life worried about a bunch of backwards, primitive, cave dwellers that only want to hate and kill.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"It'll create conditions that endanger Americans". Again, I call bullshit. Some stupid pastor doing some stupid crap in Florida isn't going to create a morally deficient person somewhere in the backwaters of the world. It might bring out that moral deficiency or spur that person to act, but eventually some kind of perceived offense will spur that person to act anyway. It doesn't matter what is done because a morally deficient piece of crap will find a reason to act like a morally deficient piece of crap.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Why isn't a more important question being asked? You know, the more important question of why a so called "peaceful religion" is so prone to violence? Why normal, rational, civil people must be so feared on account of abnormal, irrational, uncivil reactions to mere symbolic actions? You don't see protests in the streets when images of a burning flag are shown. Embassies aren't stormed and torched around the world when diplomats are killed. Mosques aren't torched when priests, nuns, and monks are murdered. People don't die when Jesus, or Isaac, or Moses, or Abraham are depicted as a cartoon. No, that stuff doesn't happen. But the world must FEAR the so called civil, peaceful people of the muslim lands for any offense, real or invented.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">We must walk on egg shells to not "create" terrorists, because, you know, terrorists exist because WE create them. Again, I call bullshit.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-17866454983669400592010-08-30T10:26:00.000-05:002010-08-30T10:27:00.866-05:00Stuff that worries me today<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Stuff worries me from time to time, and I wish those worries were unfounded. But, unfortunately, those worries turn out to be well founded, more often than not.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">For example, back when the TARP bailout was being considered I was worried not about the need for a bailout--I thought it was, indeed, necessary--but the administration of the funds and the likelihood of ever getting those funds back. Turns out the administration was flawed (but probably the least bad way of recapitalizing the banks, a problem that probably couldn't be avoided) and we're probably not ever going to get that money back.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"But all the funds are being repaid, with a tidy profit!!!"</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Yea, that's not what I was concerned about. The concern was the resetting of the budget baseline by nearly a trillion bones rather than a temporary inflation of the budget line. We drop $700 or $800 trillion into the banks, the funds go straight to the deficit, and when the money starts getting repaid the repayments get diverted to whatever stupid shit the Pelosi/Reid/Obama triumvirate decide is a good thing to waste our money on. That's not to say that a republican administration and congress wouldn't do the same, but it is to say that the hard left gang that we have running things today is the gang that set the baseline. As angry as we rightfully were at the fringe management on the right is as angry as we are at this fringe management on the left, and neither are particularly good for the country or the economy.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And if you look at the numbers, we've gone from a $3.8 trillion budget baseline to a $4.5 trillion budget baseline in just about 3 years. And nobody--and I mean NOBODY--is talking about walking that spending back below $4 trillion. Nobody. Tax cuts aren't the problem, spending is. And no amount of jacking taxes is going to get that spending under control unless actual cuts in the baseline are made. But just as the Rs tried to starve social security to force a "reform" that allowed partial privatization of social security, the Ds are trying to inflate spending to force an increase in taxes so that they can boost government influence and control to more effectively redistribute wealth. Bah to them both.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But what worries me today is the growing pool of ignorance. It seems to be a bit of a backlash against the pointy headed elitists of the political class, but it also seems to have gone much, much farther. One particular supporter of the President (and vehement opponent of his predecessor) was insisting to me that he was qualified to be President because he went to an Ivy league school, and Palin was unqualified to be Vice President because she did not.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"But... uh... well, he's never held any executive office, ever. Hell, he's never even won a contested election."</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"That doesn't matter. He's certainly capable of handling the decision making."</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"Ok, what about Bush, then? He graduated Ivy league."</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">"Well, that's different."</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ok, fine. You don't like Palin or Bush and you're a blind ideologue. But she wasn't running for President (and a thousand questions STILL surround WHY she was picked as VP).</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, fine. There's an elitist cult of personality that surrounds the left. Education has replaced qualification on their ledger books. But does that mean that the lack thereof should amount to qualification for the right? Should you pin your hopes on people that insist the opponent is unrepresentative because he READS them BOOKS and has been to one of them FURRIN' COUNTRIES with all the BROWN PEOPLE in it?!? People, puh-lease.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I'm a big fan of insisting that qualification not be replaced with credentials. But I'm no big fan of "salt of the earth" ignorance taking the place of good, old fashioned, common sense.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-25862056663616350902010-08-24T10:08:00.000-05:002010-08-24T10:09:05.586-05:00Enough is enough<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ok, I've just about had it.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The quantity of intellectual dishonesty coming from Washington (from both sides of the aisle) and their stooges in the media (on both sides of the ideological spectrum) is pretty pathetic.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Increasing taxes on the last $100 million that a person makes will not damage the economy.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Tax cuts are not expenses and do not "cost" the federal government anything.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Tax cuts did not cause the $1.5 trillion budget deficit we have now.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Modest tax increases alone will not solve the budget deficit problem we have now.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">First things first...</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">When a person gets paid, they either subconsciously or consciously go through a process of prioritizing their expenses. Food, shelter, transportation and other basics come first, then come the "luxuries". Sometimes people get their priorities screwed up and pay phone bills or more destructive bills (drugs or other addictions) before food, shelter, and transportation, and that's when problems start. But that's another discussion entirely. But for the most part, the first dollars in the door go to basics for survival, the last dollars in the door go to luxuries. The current income tax is graduated so that the first dollars in the door are taxed the least, while the last dollars in the door are taxed the most. Raising taxes on incomes above $100,000 or $250,000 will not raise taxes on the income used to buy diapers, milk, rent, rice, beans, bread, or gas. Why? Because the first $25k or so is used to buy that stuff. The income over $100k is used for the premium gas, or the fancy bread, or the dinners out, or the nanny to change the diapers. Does that mean the last dollars should be confiscated by the feds because it's only used for luxuries? No. And that's stupid. But it brings us to the second point...</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Income tax revenues are not the possession of the federal government. Income tax revenues are monies earned by the individual citizens (and corporations) that the federal government has a constitutionally protected right to make a claim on within the limits of the law. But UNTIL that law is passed and signed, the funds DO NOT belong to the federal government. Therefore, cutting taxes doesn't cost the federal government anything. The only entity that bears a cost with regards to taxes are the taxpayers. Taxes either increase THEIR cost, or reduce THEIR cost, but reducing taxes never, ever costs the federal government anything. To say as much is completely dishonest.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Now, granted, taxes affect the revenue level and funding of the federal government. And cutting taxes, or refusing to raise taxes, does either reduce (in the short term) or prevents the increasing of revenues. But that is a very, very different thing from "costing" the federal government money. The inability to collect taxes that have been rightfully levied costs the federal government money. The expense involved in collecting taxes costs the federal government money. But allowing me to keep the money I rightfully earned doesn't cost the federal government anything, unless the attitude is taken that those funds BELONG to the federal government. The fact is that the money does not belong to the feds, and therefore not increasing taxes, or cutting them entirely, does not cost the feds anything.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Much has been said about the fiscal irresponsibility of cutting taxes and how they caused the current deficit. Well, they didn't. The best estimates I've read are that the tax cuts way back when reduced revenues by about $300 billion. The current deficit is $1.5 trillion, or $1,500 billion. $300 is a long ways from $1,500. What did cause the $1.5 trillion deficit? The federal budget went from $2.0 trillion in expenditures for the budget submitted in 2001 to $3.1 trillion for the budget submitted in 2008. The budget submitted in 2009? $3.6 trillion. That's a pretty big jump in just one year, with no expected increase in revenue. Hey, come to think of it, I think I just found a way to trim a half trillion from our deficit. But that won't solve the whole problem.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">What will?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, there was the bank bailout of $700 billion on top of a deficit that was already about $400 billion (caused by unfunded wars, at least partially by refusal to cut spending in line with reduction in revenues caused by tax cuts, and mostly by a reduction in revenues from a big, honkin' recession) back in 2008 (2008-2009 fiscal year). Then in 2009-2010 there was a stimulus of $800 billion with a $600 billion "place holder" for health care reform (remember that?) that didn't buy us anything except for a larger deficit and a permanent inflation of the budget. Actually, I think I just balanced the budget without a tax increase. See, it's not that hard. But then again, I'm not a fucking moron who managed to get elected to office so that we can treat the tax payers like the idiots we apparently are for electing these fucking morons to office in the first place.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Here's an idea: balance the budget by cutting spending, then reform the tax code to put more of the revenue burden on the people you REALLY represent--that is the lobbyists, corporations, and financiers of your campaign troughs--and stay the hell out of my life.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-18648302509636058842010-08-17T11:12:00.001-05:002010-08-17T11:12:20.286-05:00mockery of a sham of a travesty...<font size=3 face="Times New Roman">Amendment 1 to the Constitution of the United States of America: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, <b>or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;</b> or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress </font><a href=http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html></a><font size=3 face="Times New Roman">of grievances.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That is the high law of the land. Congress shall make no law. This has been enforced to the point where we don't have Christmas parties at the White House because to do so would suggest an endorsement of Christianity by the federal government (it doesn't, but that's another issue). We take the right to freely express our religious beliefs seriously.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, at least we say we do.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And some people will even go to court to ensure that you don't foist your Christianity on them with a dastardly, vile wish of "merry Christmas". </font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But if you want to build a mosque on so called "hallowed ground", well... </font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, yes, even that is protected by the first amendment. And rightfully so. CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW... PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF... It doesn't say "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religions we deem acceptable within a given radius of some place". That's asinine and completely ridiculous. Besides, we don't want to give the federal government that much power.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Of course, the first amendment doesn't say anything about land use ordinances, zoning rules, or any other sort of community standard. That said, establishing zoning rules that specifically excludes mosques is also pretty asinine and a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. No, to do that you'll have to exclude ALL places of worship, and some could fairly argue that would include any and all shrines or monuments at the site of the so called "hallowed ground". I'm not sure how atheistic shrines and monuments would evade that sort of ordinance, but atheists are hypocritical about their faith, anyway.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, then, what to do. There's no legal reason to prohibit a mosque anywhere in Manhattan. Hell, there's no logical reason to prohibit a mosque anywhere in Manhattan. Or anywhere else, for that matter. We have a right to build a religious facility anywhere we want because that's a freedom that we, as Americans, have prohibited our federal government from taking from us and it is one of our core beliefs as a people. CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW... PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF. Period. Besides, even if you prevented a mosque from being built at that site because of some irrational fear that a place of worship would be some sort of triumphalist monument of jihad, there's no way to prevent someone from merely walking by the site and puffing out their jihadi chest with pride. No, no, no... you can legislate actions, but not attitudes.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, I guess what it boils down to is to just get over it. There's no legal justification for stopping the building of a mosque. It's against our constitution and against our values. They CAN build wherever they want.</font> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">On the other hand, the question of SHOULD they build wherever they want is another question entirely. I CAN build a strip club at the entrance to my neighborhood because in my fair city there are no zoning laws. The question of whether or not I SHOULD build a strip club at the entrance to my neighborhood is an entirely different question. Would I make some crazy cash off it? Almost certainly. Is it an appropriate business for that area? Almost certainly not. Of course, I don't live in Manhattan. I'm not a member of that community. And I don't think people in Omaha should be weighing in on how people in Manhattan utilize their building space. How offensive is it, really, to people half a country away, and how much should that offense be weighed against the offense, or lack thereof, that Manhattanites feel? And if the community really doesn't want the mosque there, do the builders of the mosque really want to be there? Really? I don't know the answer to that question either. That's for them to decide.</font> <p> <p><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I suppose the only caveat to all this would be the assumption that there are actually no links to terror groups. Because if it were to be found that the group building the mosque actually were linked, in some way, to a terror group their assets, one would assume, would be frozen pending a full investigation. Because that WOULD be an appropriate reason to legally and properly prevent a group from building any sort of edifice anywhere in the country.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-50094149364523799632010-08-16T14:51:00.001-05:002010-08-16T14:51:43.701-05:00So...<font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, apparently Dr. Laura has pulled a Don Imus on the radio.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, if it was wrong to fire Shirley Sherod for admitting to ACTUALLY DOING a racist thing and actually causing distress to someone some time ago before taking the effort to make things right, will it also be wrong to fire "Dr." Luara for pointing out (accurately) that black (I'm guessing) comedians say "nigger" frequently?</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Granted, she has about as much tact as a cruise missile, and I can think of several reasons she should be off the air, not the least of which is that her show is little more than garbage for the brain, and I can't say that I've heard much of an uproar from our professional offended class. So, maybe it's much ado about nothing. But if she gets kicked off the air, will it have been equally wrong to can her as it was to can Shirley Sherod?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It'll be interesting to see.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, "interesting" may be the wrong word for it.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-43928010923809413452010-07-28T17:10:00.001-05:002010-07-28T17:10:37.836-05:00A pair of pennies regarding Shirley Sherrod <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">First and foremost, I don't think Shirley Sherrod is a racist. I don't know her personally, I have never worked with her, the only information I have about her is second or third hand knowledge. But even from that filtered point of view, she seems like a decent enough person and, as far as I can tell, isn't a racist in the pejorative sense of the word, which is pretty much the common way the accusation is bandied about.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">That's not to say, however, that she didn't do a racist thing. She did.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But she also corrected her action and made right by her victim. And to her victim's credit, he didn't let her get away with the racial discrimination and insisted that she help him in his situation. He helped her see a bigger world and realize that she was doing a racist thing and she seems to have corrected her actions and, probably, her attitude as well. As she said, it's not about black and white, it's about have versus have not. And while historically some with power have worked to discriminate along racial lines, it is not the case that white equals "have" and black equals "have not".</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ok, so she did a racist thing but checked her actions and redeemed herself. Does that make her a racist? No, I don't think so. But what if she had been a white man who had done the same thing? What if she was, oh, say a senator who made a stupid, off handed, and quite public remark that was of the racist variety?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ahhhh, well in that case Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and all the other race baiting idiots would have been calling for his job! PUT HIS HEAD ON A PIKE AND MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF HIM!!! And what of the nodding zombies noting their affirmation of the actions in the audience? Is anybody demanding their heads be put on a pike and their jobs be rescinded? No, of course not. They're black. They can't be racists.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Well, the truth is that even black people can be racists. Even civil rights so called "leaders" can be racist. In fact, it's extremely hard to advocate for a particular racial group and campaign for fairness in the face of historic inequality without, at the very least, sounding like a fire breathing racist or, at worst, actually becoming a fire breathing racist.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">For example...</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">How long before "black farmers lost their farms in droves because they simply could not get loans due to unfair lending practices at the time" becomes "whites refused to grant loans to black farmers". The first accurately, albeit clinically, describes the situation. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Unjust lending practices kept needed capital out of the hands of black farmers and they went bankrupt, unable to feed their families. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">No doubt those same farms were bought by white neighbors who were able to get loans from the very same banks that refused loans to the black farmers because "ain't no nigger gonna get even a dollar from this bank".</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Yup, that was the case in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and probably even into the 80s. My suspicion is that the general level of racism had cooled significantly both culturally and legally by the end of the 70s. I could be wrong, I was just a young pup back then, but the US had come a long way culturally from the 50s to the 80s. But I digress.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The second description above, however, starkly paints "whites", not merely bankers (who were almost universally white 25 years ago), with a broad brush stroke and assumes all black farmers would have gotten a loan, except for the refusal from all "whites". Statements like that are either the start of or the fruit of a racist attitude. And it's hard to guess from just a phrase, or a speech, which it is.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Which is why Shirley Sherrod shouldn't have been fired.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But only if Don Imus shouldn't have been fired, either.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-7042278178316697322010-07-23T11:44:00.001-05:002010-07-23T11:44:20.299-05:00So.... <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, I was wondering the other day if zombies are merely mindless beasts, bound by merely instinct, or if they were actually capable of strategic thought.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">You know, this matters, because if they're merely bound by instinct, then defense is a simple matter of building a big enough divide between your territory and the "outside"--which could be a static defense. But if they're actually capable of strategic thought, then you need a much, much more significant and robust defense network. Think about it. You could grow your own food and raise your own meat, but if the zombies are capable of strategic thought they would eventually figure out that they don't actually have to catch YOU, they just need to tear out the crops and destroy the livestock. Then you have to go hunt, which means venturing outside of the compound, which means their dinner comes to them.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I'm kind of thinking that they're probably not so much capable of strategic thought, since they're basically rotting undead corpses that hunger for protein in order to replace the flesh that is slowly withering away from their ruined bodies.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-56247674102361840412010-07-21T12:33:00.001-05:002010-07-21T12:33:17.618-05:00All is not lost <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The Obama Presidency is failing.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">He is losing support in droves.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">More people are becoming dissatisfied with how he's managing things.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">In fact, more people are dissatisfied with his performance than are satisfied with his performance.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And this after successful reforms of health care and financial regulations. What gives?</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It's because he's a political lightweight and he's holding on for dear life while Mamma Nancy and Pappa Harry run the store. The problem is that we didn't elect those idiots to do his job, we elected him to do his job. Unfortunately, because he has no political gravitas on the Hill, Nancy and Harry don't have to listen to him. They can try and enact their own agenda--which is far different from the center left agenda he campaigned on, even though some of us warned that with Nancy and Harry at the tiller and him with no keel the agenda would lurch far too far to the left--and he can't do much to stop it, because if he stands up to THEM, he has absolutely nothing.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Or so he thinks.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Hopefully, in a little over 3 months' time the stooges in Congress will be bounced into the unemployment lines where Nancy can pick up her "stimulus" check (such an absurd comment as "unemployment money is stimulus money" is one I thought I'd never hear, but anyway). The good news is that the leftist stooges we have will be gone. The bad news is that they're still being replaced with stooges. The silver lining with the new batch of stooges will be that the legislative agenda will no longer lurch far, far to the left, but will likely be pegged somewhere between center left and center right--the sweet spot where most Americans' ideological mindsets live.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The danger in the meantime, though, is the President going out and attacking the right and center right that he's going to absolutely need for the next (probably) 6 years. If he's going to become a successful President in the mold of Bill Clinton, or even Ronald Reagan (who he spoke kindly of until his party told him not to), he's going to have to learn really, really fast to find solutions rather than pointing fingers.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-75488598146333591132010-07-16T11:38:00.001-05:002010-07-16T11:38:24.562-05:00The growing irrelevance of unions <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The Journal is reporting that in order to fully staff picket lines protesting companies that hire non-union workers an pay wages that are below those brokered by unions, unions are hiring non-union workers as mercenary protesters and paying them wages that are below those brokered by unions.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It really is great to see that more and more unions really aren't focused on improving the quality of working conditions for their members, or ensuring a fair wage is being paid for the work that is being done, or ensuring the general fairness of the working environment against cronyism or discrimination, even protecting the jobs of members through business cycles. Nope, they're about the money. Money for the workers, and money for the union.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">And that makes sense because most of the other issues are regularly addressed through reasonable regulation of the employment environment (and some through ridiculously unreasonable regulation and/or litigation). Once most of the reason for a union's existence has been addressed, the union has to begin inventing reasons to continue existing. And rather than extending their mission to workers worldwide, and thus protecting not only jobs of their members back home but also spreading that prosperity to workers around the globe, they decided to fight for every last penny that a corporation could make, and, in many cases, bankrupt those companies--GM and Chrysler being but two examples, Greece and the State of California being two more, and just about every manufacturing concern in the City of Detroit being a catalog of several more.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">So, carry on you great enterprise of the American Union! Continue to demonstrate that your primary concern is your own existence and that the welfare of your members and the companies that employ them is a distant, distant second place.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-43637455426105890832010-07-15T13:25:00.000-05:002010-07-15T13:26:03.478-05:00Dear Mr. Senator... <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants Apple to fix the hardware "problem" with the iPhone for free.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I'm sure most of the people who bought an iPhone 4 want the "problem" fixed for free, too.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The difference is that most of the people who bought an iPhone are not Senators, nor do they have the personal phone number to President Barak Obamah.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Apple is already offering a full refund for unsatisfied customers now that they've waived the restocking fee. That's sure as hell sounds like fixing the problem for free.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">If you don't like the phone, are dissatisfied with the reception, are having problems with the dropped calls, bring the phone back for a full refund. Done and done. If, on the other hand, you're not dissatisfied with the phone, keep it. And, by the way, if you want to improve reception, there's a very, very affordable accessory you can purchase (considering you can afford a $600 PHONE) that apparently solves the antenna problem.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">If you don't like the solutions presented, march with your feet and a fistful of dollars to another phone and carrier. It's not like the iPhone is the only damn product on the market.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">From a simple business standpoint it behooves Apple to make this right, to do so right away, to do so in a way that makes the bad press go away, and to be sure it goes away in such a manner as to ensure that bringing up the issue at a later date seem so... petty. That's just the sensible way to cover their own assets.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">But that entire matrix changes when a Senator sticks his nose in to the mess.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because a Senator has the power, and ability, to suggest legislative and regulatory changes. If it's a Senator in the minority, it's no big deal. But if the Senator is in the majority, and has a significant majority in both chambers, and has a President in the same party, and that party has had high ranking (even leading) members refer to profits as "immoral", then you have a real reason to take pause. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">No longer is the impetus to fix this problem merely a business problem. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Oh nonononononono... </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Now, it's a social imperative. </font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Now, it's a matter of making the poor customers whole who may have purchased their (outrageously overpriced) phones without knowing that the technology may not be absolutely perfect and operating to the standards of that paragon of operational and executional efficiency, the US Government.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Now, it's a matter of politics.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Because writing a letter urging Apple to fix a perceived problem for free is far more important to the Senator from New York than, oh, say reducing the deficit even a tiny amount.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">This is the type of crap you get from these people. If there was some kind of balance in the halls of power, then this wouldn't even be something to blink at because everyone would know that it's going nowhere. But when the levers of government are all controlled by one party, and some Senator gets his panties in a wad, then you have to tread lightly. It does no good to reply to the Senator to keep his nose out of your business, because somewhere down the road there's another lawsuit, or another investigation, or some sort of regulatory issue. The sort of issue that a phone call can either create or make go away completely... if that phone call is made by the right Senator.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I'm hoping that Apple does the right thing and gets this thing resolved. But I'd have rather them done it without the Senator sticking his big fat nose in where it doesn't belong.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524394.post-54733166788800079792010-07-13T09:57:00.001-05:002010-07-13T09:57:04.926-05:00Again, I told you so <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Barak Obama has zero political clout and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are running the country.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">It's not a Barak Obama Presidency that worries me, it's a Barak Obama Presidency WITH a democratic congress that worries me.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">2 years into a horrid, horrid Obama Presidency, the dems are going to lose their majorities in the congress and Obama will, hopefully, become a much, much better President.</font> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Obama isn't as moderate as he sounds on the campaign trail, and with the Pelosi/Reid tug to the left, he's going to lurch hard to the left and most of the country--that is, the centrists--are going to be appalled at what they're seeing come out of Washington. Yes, we want change, but one thing that is certain, thanks to term limits, is that the President come inauguration day 2008, will be different from the one we had at the time of the election.</font> <br> <br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">All these things I've said at least once in the past, and I'm still right. And the little socialist Canadian troll has been silent during this slow, sad revelation.</font>El Oso Furiosohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04432865591655784533noreply@blogger.com0