July 25, 2012

PRIORITIES

"One in 10 Americans still can't find work. That's why creating jobs has to be our number one priority" - President Obama 2010



Obama's words sound reassuring, but his actions speak louder. In the last 6 months, our President has attended 106 fundraisers, gone golfing 10 times, but hasn't met with his own "Jobs Council" even once!  It's almost as if jobs are not his number one priority...
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July 22, 2012

THE ORDER OF THINGS

God created man to serve Him.  When man tries to have God serve himself, history is full of the resulting destruction.

Man created government to serve him.  When government tries to have man serve it, history is full of the resulting destruction.
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July 11, 2012

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP

Eric Holder spoke in Texas to the NAACP yesterday, July 10. Part of his speech talked about the many states that are passing voting ID laws and how his Justice Department are blocking them because of harm to minorities:
And, as many of you know, yesterday was the first day of trial in a case that the State of Texas filed against the Justice Department, under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, seeking approval of its proposed voter ID law. After close review, the Department found that this law would be harmful to minority voters – and we rejected its implementation... Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them – and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them.
Here is the invite to the speech:

So its ok to check ID's for a speech, but to elect our leaders its harmful!
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July 9, 2012

ECONOMICS 101

This seems so simple to me. These are basic laws of economics. But somehow politicians have convinced the majority of people that these laws don't exist. Just give them the power and they can make it all better.
I wish everyone would read this article... several times if needed:

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/The-Pathology-of-Privilege-Final_2.pdf

There is far too much info in this to do justice with quotes, but here are a few:

This simple idea—that voluntary exchange is mutually beneficial—is at the heart of modern economics.
...
Indeed, a national economy, with all its sophistication and complexity, is simply a very large number of mutually beneficial trades. And a recession is nothing more than a collapse in the number of such trades. Moreover, as individuals expand the number of people with whom they exchange, they are able to consume a wider diversity of products while becoming more specialized in production. Specialized production, in turn, permits greater productive efficiency and allows us to do more with less. It is no exaggeration to say that the expansion of mutually beneficial exchange accounts for the lion’s share of human progress.
...
Think of the thousands of talented lawyers, lobbyists, and strategic thinkers who occupy the expensive office buildings lining K Street in Washington, D.C. All of this talent might be employed in the discovery of new ways to bring value to consumers and to expand the gains from exchange. Instead, many of these smart and hardworking people spend their time convincing politicians to hand out privileges to their own firms or fending off attempts to hand out privileges to their competitors
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Privilege can also have a profoundly negative effect on innovation. And a lack of innovation, in turn, can disadvantage an entire society.
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In a classic, sweeping study, economist Mancur Olson went so far as to claim that special-interest privilege can account for the “rise and decline of nations.” As societies grow wealthy and stable, he argued, the seeds of their own destruction are sewn. Stable societies are fertile ground for special interests. These interest groups grow in power and influence over time, and once entrenched, rarely disappear. “On balance,” they “reduce efficiency and aggregate income in the societies in which they operate and make political life more divisive.” Eventually, “The accumulation of distributional coalitions [those that seek rents] increases the complexity of regulation, the role of government, and the complexity of understandings, and changes the direction of social evolution.
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But we need not look so far for examples. Atif Mian of the University of California at Berkeley and Amir Sufi and Francesco Trebbi of the University of Chicago recently conducted an extensive examination of the political activity of the U.S. mortgage industry and housing interests in the run-up to the subprime meltdown of 2008.101 The authors found, “Beginning in 2002, mortgage industry campaign contributions increasingly targeted U.S. representatives from districts with a large fraction of subprime borrowers.” Analyzing more than 700 votes related to housing, the authors found that these contributions became an increasingly strong predictor of congressional votes. They also found that the share of constituents with low credit scores exerted increasing influence over voting patterns. Thus, “Pressure on the U.S. government to expand subprime credit came from both mortgage lenders and subprime borrowers.”102 Indeed, a slew of policies encouraged the expansion of credit in the subprime market. These policies, of course, benefited the privileged firms as well as the privileged subprime borrowers. But they also fanned the flames of an overheating housing market. For nearly a decade, capital and labor poured into housing and related industries, and when the bubble eventually burst, it threw the United States into its worst recession in decades.
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As often happens with privilege, the “solution” to this problem involved more privilege.
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Government-granted privileges are pathological. Privileges limit the prospects for mutually beneficial exchange—the very essence of economic progress. They raise prices, lower quality, and discourage innovation. They pad the pockets of the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the poor and unknown. When governments dispense privileges, smart, hardworking, and creative people are encouraged to spend their time devising new ways to obtain favors instead of new ways to create value for customers. Privileges depress long-run economic growth and threaten short-run macroeconomic stability. They even undermine cultural mores, fostering cronyism, blurring the distinction between productive and unproductive entrepreneurship, and eroding people’s trust in both business and government.

Want to understand how our economy is supposed to work on a simple basic level? 
Read Section I
Want to understand the various ways this can be perverted? 
Read section II
Want to understand why I'm against "over regulation"? 
Read Sec II B
Want to know why conservatives are all bent out of shape about Solyndra? 
Read Sec II D
Want to understand why we need simple, fair, flat taxes? 
Read Sec II E
Want to know why the Government is ALWAYS slower, more expensive and less innovative? 
Read Sec III B and C
Want to get "money out of politics"?  Tired of companies "buying lawmakers"? 
Read Sec III D
Want to understand why people's approval of Government is at an all time low? 
Read Sec III J&K

Outline:
I. The Gains from Exchange
II. TYPES OF PRIVILEGE
     A. Monopoly Privilege
     B. Regulatory Privilege
     C. Subsidies
     D. Loan Guarantees
     E. Tax Privileges
     F. Bailouts
     G. Expected Bailouts
     H. Tariffs and Quotas on Foreign Competition
     I. Noncompetitive Bidding
III THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COSTS OF PRIVILEGE
     A. Monopoly Costs
     B. Productive Inefficiencies
     C. Inattention to Consumer Desires
     D. Rent-Seeking
     E. Distributional Effects
     F. Unproductive Entrepreneurship
     G. Loss of Innovation and Diminished Long-Run Economic Growth
     H. Macroeconomic Instability
     I. Cronyism
     J. Diminished Legitimacy of Government and Business
     K. Lost Social Trust
IV CONCLUDING REMARKS
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THE NEW LOOKS A LOT LIKE THE OLD

The new energy boom is beginning to explode.  But it is not solar, wind or batteries.  It's oil and gas.  With the new technologies in drilling techniques and hydraulic fracturing, the once "too expensive to recover" oil is now "too valuable to ignore".  And it is very good for Americans!
America (and Canada) are sitting on the world's largest reserves in known oil tar sands, oil shale and fracture required naturals gas!

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/07/08/the-energy-revolution-part-one-the-biggest-losers/
The two biggest winners look to be Canada and the United States. Canada, with something like two trillion barrels worth of conventional oil in its tar sands, and the United States with about a trillion barrels of shale oil, are the planet’s new super giant energy powers. Throw in natural gas and coal, and the United States is better supplied with fossil fuels than any other country on earth. Canada and the United States are each richer in oil than Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia combined.
I predict within the next 20 years, we will be the Saudi Arabia and Iran of the world in terms of cheap reliable energy production.

Oh yeah, the next time you hear Obama (or environmentalists) claim we have 2% of the worlds oil reserves but use 20% of the oil.  It's what is known as a .... LIE.
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July 8, 2012

ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

My first attempt at a political cartoon.  Taken from one of my favorite books.

Yes, on the surface it's a simple dig at Big Government.  But, I like the deeper philosophical questions it raises.  What does it mean to be a parent, just lay the egg?  Is government really supporting people if it doesn’t even know who they are?  What are the proper boundaries between family and government, are they being crossed, why?  Is the baby bird’s final question fair?


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July 6, 2012

GODS HELP

Myth: "God helps those that help themselves."

Somewhere between 70-80% of Americans believe the Bible teaches this, including Christians. This phrase is found nowhere in the Bible and actually is opposite to the teaching of God's Grace (undeserved favor).

Similar themes of this phrase originated in Greece, including one of the Fables of Hercules. The English political theorist Algernon Sidne...y originated the exact version we hear today. Benjamin Franklin also used it in his almanac in 1736 and has been widely quoted. As a deist, Franklin believed in God but that God did not intervene in earth's affairs, so all responsibility was incumbent upon people.

While self initiative is a great thing, don't make yourself sound ignorant by attributing this phrase to God's Word.
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