The Favor Factory

Whether you are for them or against them, you ought to know who is sponsoring the Earmarks, and what they are for.

Personally I think there has to be a better way to pay for special pet projects than to slip a few million into any random bill.

Anyways, here is a link (at the Seattle Times) to search out all the earmarks and their "daddies"

Orin and Bob seems to be on the same page for who they support and who supports them!

How Bad Is It For The Poor?

An interesting report on the poor in America by Carpe Diem shows that the poor really are too bad off. Sure they don't have what they want, and have to work for the necessities more than the luxuries, but it is all relative. Those with more than you are richer, those with less are poorer.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air
conditioning, a refrig­erator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a
microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR
or DVD player, and a stereo

In the comment section a reader (poor boomer) bashes the report:

consumer goods such as color televisions (okay, just TRY to buy a
black-and-white TV these days!) and VCR.DVD players are dirt cheap, especially
used ones. I have bought good working color TVs and VCRs for less than $25 and
today these used items are even cheaper.

And there you go, actual example of "Trickle down" economics at work. One man's used DVD player is another man's treasure for only $25.

Maybe It's A Cronyist Republic??

There is so much talk out there about the "Big 3" bailout. I know the stated purpose is to advert disaster with over a million or so jobs lost. I don't understand how bankruptcy automatically means all is lost. Does anybody think that all the holdings of these companies is really just going to disappear, and that American cars will be no more? Wouldn't the "Moderately Sized 6-8" be better than the "Big 3"?
Look at the airline industry. Southwest is doing great, while United, Delta, Northwest all struggle. There is something to be said about a company that is "too big to fail".

Of course it doesn't matter what is the best course, or what "the people" want. According to George F. Will,

"...the socialism we do have is the surreptitious socialism of the strong, e.g.,
sugar producers represented by their Washington hirelings.”

ie the stronger the company the more political weight it has, and the more political weight it has the more money and favoritism it receives. Here is an example from Canada (Darin Morely via Coyote)

One of the great things about the web, obviously, is that it allows for much
more efficient communication that opens up new and useful offerings. For
example: the web offers the ability to find other people traveling to the same
general place you're heading and to set up a convenient carpool. It's good for
the environment. It's good for traffic. It just makes a lot of sense. Unless, of
course, you're a bus company and you're so afraid that people will use such a
system rather than paying to take the bus. That's what happened up in Ontario,
as earlier this year we wrote about a bus company that was trying to shut down
PickupPal, an online carpooling service, for being an unregulated
transportation company. TechCrunch points us to the news that the Ontario transportation
board has sided with the bus company and fined PickupPal. It's also
established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if
it uses the service -- including no crossing of municipal boundaries -- meaning
the service is only good within any particular city's limits.

The point of this is to show that this "share the wealth" idea sounds good for those without, but really who is getting the money? David Boaz at Cato:

it’s impossible to have nonpolitical allocation of trillions of dollars of
taxpayers’ money handed out by government. If you don’t want the powerful to
lobby and manipulate in order to get their share of the money, then leave it in
the marketplace. If you put it in the hands of politicians, expect political
allocation.

That is why government hate free market, and why socialism/rent-seeking policies and bureaucrats succeed, If you give money to big groups that in turn support you you win, if you support free enterprise and competition there is no big group to support you. And what is more important to a politician that re-election? (insert silence interrupted by the faint noise of cricket chirps)

Proper Function Of The Markets??

Initially it was the title of the article that caught my eye, but upon reading it at Reason
Online by Matt Welch titled Back to the Barricades it states pretty accurately my thoughts on our economy.

If you want to know when this country's political class, even those hailing
from the allegedly pro-market Republican Party, lost faith in the single
greatest economic organizing principle ever devised by mankind, look no further
than the following six terse sentences from Bush's decidedly unpresidential
speech: "I'm a strong believer in free enterprise. So my natural instinct is to
oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions
should be allowed to go out of business. Under normal circumstances, I would
have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is
not functioning properly." Italics mine, to highlight the favored lament of
reluctant central planners everywhere.

After the collapse of communism and the attendant discrediting of Marxian
economic models, the industrialized world more or less settled on democratic
capitalism as the best available option for countries to grow and prosper (see
"The Libertarian Moment," page 62). Old Europe slashed government involvement in
industry, New Europe rode mass privatization to massive growth, East Asian
countries went from emergingmarket "tigers" to full-fledged market economies,
and China used markets to yank hundreds of millions up from poverty. One could
perhaps be forgiven for thinking the 20th century's great economic argument had
been settled.

when a Republican presidential nominee unleashes retrograde attacks against
the "casino culture" of Wall Street "greed," and when a Democratic Congress
holds nearly daily hearings suggesting any number of "windfall profits" taxes
and forced reductions in private-sector CEO pay, that sound you hear is
a fragile consensus shattering and a warning bell clanging in the
night.

It amazes me that a free society with historically strong economic growth not only allows less freedom and has contempt for financial success, but strongly supports policies that try to impose limits on both.

The departure from the founding tenets of our country is eerily similar to examples throughout history, and especially the story of samuel:

In 1 Samuel 8
The people talking to Samuel:
5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

In other words: the constitution is old and out dated, we need to follow the example of Europe and the rest of the world.

7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

Religion should have no part in this country, because it only breeds hate and discrimination, government is the only institution that can or should help the poor.

20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.

We don't want any responsibilities, we don't want to have to worry about trivial things like health care, retirement savings, national security. Lets just give it all to the government and they can balance the check book and give us an allowance, after all they know what's best.

More about European style of government here and here.

If It's So Simple We Does Nobody Get It???

I got this video from dr5.org (life, liberty, and property). It's Jim Moran of Virginia.



What does our country stand for?? Equality or freedom?? It would seem that if you make some money you should be able to keep it, that would be freedom, not equality. Equality would be you make some money and be forced to share it out to those with out. I choose freedom.

What happens when corporations get beat up by the government for being "too greedy"? they impose regulation, tax increases and form unions. If you would like to see how well that works look at the auto industry. Of course at this point they have allowed so many concessions to unions and the government that they are reliant on the government for a bailout. I think the failure of the auto industry is mostly to blame on government. Sure they put out crap cars that made Toyota, Honda happy, but what do you expect when the government beats you down and punishes you for any success.
Look at the oil companies, they become successful and the government can't stand it. They can't wait to beat them down. After all a successful company will hire more people than an unsuccessful company.

2nd Amend-Obama

Yes it is a slow day at work. So for some entertainment, play this little quiz to see how you and future Mr. Obama will get along.



In the Salt lake Tribune, there is an article about how guns are flying off the shelves because of the election results. Here is one of the comments that follow:

CHARLES HARDY SAID, "Now that we will have someone who is openly hostile to the right to keep and bear arms in the White House, gun owners and those who hope to one day own guns have woken up and they are nervous,"
NO ONE IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHO IS "OPENLY HOSTILE TO THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS" OBAMA HAS STATED THAT ".....he is a supporter of Second Amendment rights, "while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them," WHY SHOULD ANY RUN OF THE MILL PERSON NEED TO OWN AN ASSAULT WEAPON W/ CLIPS HOLDING MORE THAN 10 ROUNDS? THE 1994 BAN MANDATED THAT SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSULT WEAPONS BE USED ONLY FOR MILITARY OR POLICE, THAT IS IT. NO BAN ON RIFLES, NO BAN ON PISTOLS, NO BAN ON SHOTGUNS...

It is this ignorance about guns that created the Clinton ban in the first place. It is really just a simple ploy to gradually get rid of guns altogether. Without guns our government has no counter balance to become a totalitarian state.

Yes, I Did Vote

My thoughts on the election.

My biggest fear is that an Obama presidency couple with a democrat congress, is that taxes will increase (payroll, and corporate) for me and my small business.

I have decided that personal freedom is the most important issue!!!! All other issues fall into the more or less freedom columns.

Many Libertarian blogs I read state their disapproval of California's Prop 8 passage. I couldn't disagree more on the matter of state supported gay marriage could have very dire effects on my religion and its stance promoting man/woman marriage. The next step for our gay/lesbian friends would be to sue religious institutions to allow these marriages to be done in their sacred places. And besides, the only difference in my mind between a civil union and a marriage is the religious aspect.

I am willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Only as long as he doesn't take away any of my freedoms. I really HOPE that he is as smart as everybody thinks he is.

I think that the Republicans deserve/needed this loss. GWB out spent, grew government, impinged on personal freedom more than any previous democrat. As a result I hope that they will rethink what they stand for and actully work towards smaller government and fiscal responsibility.

I supported the Iraq war and still do although I have suffered war weariness, mostly due to the finical hardship it has given us.

no matter who is president or in congress, we (USA) are going to need to spend lots of money in the military to support the Iraq, and Afghanistan wars.

I'm trying to be optimistic, but I generally distrust government (federal) and don't think they will make any decisions that will increase my personal freedom or wealth.

Silver Lining??

I was wondering the other day what is best for government as far as who is in control.
Republican president, and republican congress??
Democrat president, and democrat congress??
Or mixed and matched??

Well it just so happens that Reason Magazine did some research on this very topic.

In 2004, looking at real annual government spending per capita since 1947,
Liberty's R.W. Bradford concluded that while spending grows faster if
Republicans control the White House, it also grows faster if Democrats control
Congress. Furthermore, some empirical studies, such as David R. Mayhew's 2005
book Divided We Govern, suggest that when one party controls the White House and
the other controls at least one house of Congress, the result is slightly slower
spending growth, increased oversight, and longer-lasting reforms.Based on these
findings, we can rate the different Congress/White House combinations from
mediocre to worst: 1) Democratic White House and Republican Congress, 2)
Republican White House and Democratic Congress, and 3) unified Republican or
Democratic rule.Only bad combinations are available in November, as Congress
will almost certainly remain in the hands of the Democrats. If McCain wins the
race, we won't be getting our best option—and in two years we could get a
unified Republican government, which would be awful. The least bad option, as
far as spending is concerned, is for Obama to win. While unified government is
terrible, and I suspect Obama will be atrocious, Democratic control of the
legislative and executive branches increases the chance that Republicans take
over Congress in two years. Then we can all live happily in a mediocre world.

Why Isn't This Guy On The Ticket???

This is probably the best stump speech for republicans I've seen all campaign. I would assume that if this video was played over and over in places like Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, the repubs could actually win those states.