Don't be fooled again... and again... and again

There is an article going around the interwebs that says that large numbers of military absentee ballots were delivered one day late and not counted.  The "article" goes on to state that preliminary counts of these ballots would have put Romney over the top.  One problem, it's not really an article, it's a blog post.  It is satire.  Very good satire, this guy could write for The Onion, but satire non the less.

The blog doesn't even pass the smell test.  The US Military postal system is very efficient.  In fact that efficiency played a key role in the movie "The Battle of the Bulge" when German Col. Martin Hessler explained to his superiors, while holding a cake mailed from an American mother to her service member son, that the Americans had enough fuel and the logistical support to mail cakes across the Atlantic and get them to their intended recipients while they were still fresh.  He knew the war was over for Germany then, even if his superiors didn't.

My point is, don't be fooled by things like this.  They are written to be funny but the authors LOVE IT when people take them seriously, as SNL alum Victoria Jackson did.  When you are desperate you tend to believe anything that supports your position  You ignore the "smell test" and rush right in.  Use the common sense that God gave you and if you still aren't sure about a story you saw posted on Facebook, there's your first clue, then do a quick search on Google and see what real news sources are saying.

More importantly, don't be desperate.  To paraphrase my good friend, Jonathan McGuire, 'Don't be desperate, be informed.'  When you post stories that aren't verified and spread gossip you make a fool out of yourself and your fellow travelers.  Don't make a fool out of yourself and please don't make one out of me.  I say and do enough foolish things as it is.

I "owe" my vote to no man, or party

Several of my friends who support Mitt Romney have told me that my support of Gary Johnson for President will just siphon away votes from Gov. Romney and help usher in an Obama victory.  They act as though my vote belongs to Romney already, by virtue of my natural conservatism or being a Republican, and that casting a "protest vote" for Johnson will only help Obama win reelection.  I even had a friend tell me that the Obama campaign should be running ads in support of Gary Johnson to peel off support from Romney.  Here are at least two problems with that argument:

1.) My vote doesn't "belong" to anyone other than who I think is the best candidate and will do the best job in the office they are running for. In the 2012 Presidential race that candidate is Gov. Gary Johnson.  Second place isn't even close.

2.) To my knowledge there is zero (0) empirical evidence that, on the whole, a vote for Johnson is "stealing" a vote from Romney.  If the only options this year were Obama and Romney I couldn't guarantee you that I would actually vote.  In that scenerio, if I did vote, I would probably take a page from Monty Brewster and choose "None of the Above."  That's how strongly I feel about both major party candidates this year.  They're terrible.

However, there have been several polls that show that votes for Johnson could be coming at the expense of President Obama.  Here is an article from the British paper The Guardian that shows that, at least in Colorado, libertarian support for Gary Johnson is coming at the expense of President Obama.  So Mr. President, as my friend suggested, please start running ads encouraging liberty minded individuals to vote for Gary Johnson.  Pretty please.

Hypocrisy and the United States Flag code

You've got to be kidding me. Suddenly Martin Bashir and MSNBC actually give a damn about the U. S. Flag code? Seriously?! I thought no one else in the United States cared about violations of the U. S. Flag code except me. I'm the one who calls business up when they don't have their flags at half staff for 30 DAYS after a president dies. I'm the one who gets ticked when a state governor orders the AMERICAN flag to be flown at half staff. No one else even knows about the Flag Code or seems to care when I point out violations of it. If fact, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that to actually enforce the Flag Code would be a violation of an American's First Amendment rights. Now we've got some sanctimonious Brit trying to tell Gov. Sara Palin how to properly respect the flag of her nation. Excuse me Mr. Bashir but I'm pretty sure that the United States fought two wars against the United Kingdom just so we'd have the right to say, "Mind your own damn business!" Martin Bashir and MSNBC, hypocrites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvTRvtzVpUo

It's like Seth Meyer said at the White House Correspondence Dinner, "Everyone knows how the MSNBC after party goes. Obama makes the Kool-Aid and they all drink it."

Last week I shared with you a bit of the hypocrisy of President Obama and the mainstream media in regards to the federal governments debt ceiling. Here's a short video about their hypocrisy vis a vis gas prices. The reality of it is that high gas prices are not the Presidents fault (well, maybe a little bit) and gas prices aren't bad. Prices can't be good or bad they just are what that are. They are a signal to consumers and producers alike to change their behaviors.

What is the Presidents fault is his hypocritical stance of blaming George W. Bush for high gas prices on the campaign trail and telling everyone that he felt their pain. Now that he's in the White House high gas prices are not to be blamed on the President and in fact they are a good thing and the American people should just get used to it.

I can handle a difference of opinion on public policy issues. What I can not stand is hypocrisy, from either side of the debate.

Clichés of socialism, no. 23

If free enterprise really works, why the Great Depression?

"This government promotion of cheap money during and after World War I led at the time to private speculation and investment of resources in unsound business ventures, just as similar policies are doing now... With government pumping forth the money, all businessmen are inclined to become borrowers, until bankers eventually find themselves overloaned on bad risks."

Sounds like it was written in the last few years doesn't it? It wasn't. Dr. Paul Poirot published this essay 40 years ago. I am constantly amazed as to what lengths people will go to in order to criticize the free market. It never fails though that behind every so called "market failure" we find just another needless (and usually unconstitutional) government policy and the law of unintended consequences.

What is even more unsettling is the lack of generational knowledge being passed down from parent to child in Western Civilization. We have, as a nation, confronted this exaggerated boom and bust cycle numerous times since the Great Depression. Each of them caused by the same sequence of events. Easy credit from the Fed, increased borrowing and unsound investments by private business and individuals, some sort of panic that causes a contraction of that credit and finally a major bust. The last boom and bust we experienced was further complicated by Congress meddling directly in the economy (not content to simply use their pawns at the Fed) by forcing banks to make home loans to individuals who were not credit worthy. Who knew that forcing banks to liberally lend money for home loans, thus increasing the demand for homes, would lead to an astronomical increase in the value of real estate? Similarly, who could have predicted that those same borrowers, once deemed to be to much of a credit risk by the banks, would default on their loans under pressure, thus bringing down the whole house of cards? These are of course rhetorical questions. The answer is anybody with half a brain could have seen these things coming.

The oldest daughter of my oldest friend was complaining on facebook the other day that she just couldn't understand her history homework and didn't see the point. Many of her friends echoed that sentiment. 'You don't need all that knowledge of history in real life,' they told her. 'It won't matter at all once you graduate.' I beg to differ and the current financial mess our nation is in is the reason why. I know to this young lady I'm just an old man, like her dad. However, I hope she comes to realize, and soon, that if her generation doesn't learn from the mistakes of the past she, and her children, will repeat the same wealth eating, family destroying, heart breaking boom and bust cycle that we are going through right now. Unfortunately, next time, I fear it will be much worse.

http://fee.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cliches23.pdf

Fiscal crisis in the several states and how to fix it.

Here is a link to an in depth analysis of the finances of the fifty states. It looks at potential short term and long term problems. The usual suspects appear on the "troubled" lists; California, New Jersey, Alaska and Kentucky while the other usual suspects appear on the "better off" lists; Tennessee, Virginia, Florida and Texas.

The report does conclude that corporate and personal income taxes are not an effective means of maintaining tax receipt levels in an economic downturn. My preferred method of taxation (consumption taxes) came out as a big winner. Long and short of it all; states need to control their spending during flush times and make early and regular contributions to rainy day funds to make up the difference during hard times. States should also contribute more to their employees pension and retiree health care plans and not count on outlandish expected rates of return (8%? Are you kidding me?) to make up the difference.

I would say that a better long term solution is to turn away from "defined benefit" pension plans for newly hired state workers and instead move them into "defined contribution" 401K style plans. Also, states pension plans should base retiree benefits not upon the last few years of income but rather on an average of career earnings. Finally, state retirees should not be able to begin receiving PENSION benefits until they reach a set retirement age instead of the current policy of receiving benefits at retirement after a certain number of years service. Newer employees who would be hired under 401K style plans could retire... well... whenever they want. It's their money.

http://www.td.com/economics/special/cs1010_fiscal_crisis.pdf