PIIGS ‘r’ US

July 27, 2011

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I intended to join the PIIGS fan club and actively participate (Join The PIIGS Fan Club Now!).  Since that time there have been a few important developments, both in Europe and here in the U.S.

The Greek Parliament narrowly passed another timid reduction of its government overspending, allowing another phase payment of the European Union bail-out to be made.  Leading up to this latest vote was the usual union-led workers’ riot; but this time there were no known deaths and fewer injuries to unionists and riot police.  However, it all appears to be somewhat anticlimactic—economists say the “austerity measures” to date are still insufficient to ward off economic collapse in Greece.  The other PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain) remain economically precarious, only very slightly better off than Greece.

In the U.S. there have been a number of legislative efforts to reduce government overspending, but every single one has angered the President.  Frustration has increased to the point that even a television network commentator, John Stossel, felt compelled to produce a serious, highly-detailed plan for getting the United States back onto a sound economic footing.

But the Obama Administration and its supporters continue in lockstep sympathy with the Greek profligate government and its union allies.  It appears that, on both sides of the Atlantic, continuation of extravagant liberal social policies provides sufficient political reward to avoid risking the financial reform necessary to prevent economic collapse.  One more time, Margaret Thatcher’s words are haunting us:  “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money”.

I’m sure the PIIGS fan club members are distressed; cheering on those errant unionists and their political enablers has had no effect on our U.S. ruling political class.  It is highly unlikely that there is any country, or group of countries, that has the economic means or the desire, and will, to bail out the U.S. (like the EU has been propping up the PIIGS).  To whom could the United States turn for help, to enable our spendthrift government to continue spending more than it takes in?  Apparently our president, like Scarlett O’Hara, “will think about that tomorrow”.

Stay tuned for the next episode of this governmental soap opera, and do consider joining the PIIGS Fan Club.

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Posted by thedrake01

All In All, I Preferred Khruschev

July 24, 2011

My wife and I have had AOL accounts for quite a number of years, and we still use them from time to time.  One thing I’ve watched with a little curiosity is the changes that AOL has endured over these years and the resultant effects that subscribers notice.  I have the impression that the Time-Warner / AOL marriage was not a happy experience, and the subsequent divorce came as no surprise.  But the latest alliance, likely a marriage of convenience for AOL, appears to have less chance of success than the Time-Warner affair.

The latest bedfellow of AOL is Arianna Huffington, purveyor of the “Huffington Post”.  She has acquired an equity, apparently profitably, in the enterprise, and she is now responsible for “news” content.  Perhaps her vision is that AOL will become the conduit for Huffington-Post-style “leftist literature”.

Ms. Huffington comes across as an old-school Greek Communist True Believer, but of a depth greater than her chronological years.  Although she had conservative dalliances early in her stay in the U.S. (possibly a Trojan Horse entrance strategy), she has been firmly planted in the extreme-left political domain ever since and has evidently made that association, mysteriously, quite profitable.

Undoubtedly she is well educated in Joseph Goebbles, Saul Alinsky, etc.  So the interest will be in seeing what tack she takes in her campaign to establish a workers’ paradise in the United States.  Her options are bounded by the Nikita Khruschev approach, “We will bury you!”, and by Star Trek‘s Borg technique, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated”.  Ms. Huffington has a lot of latitude between the two.

Mention Khruschev in any conversation among a gathering of some who are not so youth-challenged, and at least one of the group will provide a word picture of Comrade Khruschev pounding his desk with his shoe during a United Nations General Assembly meeting and even encouraging his foreign minister to join in.  Whatever our opinions were of Communism and Socialism, most of us agreed that Nikita Khruschev had courage and a certain style to his demagoguery.

There has not been a politician in the U. S. in recent history who could compare with Comrade Nikita; Americans in general are too reserved and too polite.  In recent years the closest we have had, in a minor way, was Representative Alan Grayson (D,FL), but he was turned out in the 2010 Congressional election.  We have a small semblance currently in the person of [Comrade] Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D,FL), but she is just a tiny specter of Comrade Nikita. Beyond Wasserman-Schultz there is only a distant dark horse candidate for Official Nikita Khruschev Imitator, Representative Barney Frank (D,MA) whose Bolshevik routines have enhanced his notoriety.

When we look at the power positions today, there’s no latent Khruschev who stands out.  President Obama obviously prefers a stealth approach, never revealing what’s on his mind or what he specifically wants to happen.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D,NV) is a consummate demagogue but his quiet, mumbling delivery lacks zest.  Vice President Biden does, indeed, show style and a flair for attracting attention; but he is, after all, still just a vice president.

This vacuum in the leftist leadership positions could be the motivation for Arianna Huffington’s AOL venture.  She might be able to parlay it into a high-level appointment in the Obama Administration.  She has proved that her Huffington Post can deliver a wide range of propaganda, including doses of preposterous bluster reminiscent of Pravda, the KGB and Khruschev.  We may get more clues as Comrade Huffington guides AOL the small remaining distance to an ultimate leftist position.

If AOL’s fortunes sink even faster, as do all left-leaning “news” media, Comrade Huffington’s ride may be relatively short.  But perhaps there will be a little time to enjoy watching the lefty lady try her best to emulate Comrade Nikita in style and content.  However, all in all, I still preferred Khruschev.

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Posted by thedrake01

Politically Correct Peanut Butter

June 12, 2011

In our world of emphasis on the politically correct, a few of us are concerned about “peanut butter”.  The product we see in almost all stores which offer basic foodstuffs is, for most of the brands we see, radically changed from the product Dr. George Washington Carver (or more recently, our parents) would have recognized.  This presents a dilemma for that thirty to forty percent of us who are concerned with being politically correct.

Not since we were urged to avoid buying stock in companies headquartered in South Africa (and not to do business with them), have we been faced with an ethical dilemma as thorny as that of the product called “peanut butter”.  All of us have been exposed to the torrent of news about the obesity epidemic in our country.  We have also been inundated with facts, myths, and lore related to health care.  To a much lesser degree there has also been information about health (as opposed to health care) interspersed with the medical information and propaganda.  Trying to authenticate reliable sources is difficult enough; but we frequently encounter “experts” who are in opposition with almost any health-related subject.

The best way to communicate our frustration about the political correctness of “peanut butter” is to start with the salient facts.  The number of ingredients in today’s version is, still, relatively short; a typical ingredient list might be:  Dextrose, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Salt, and Peanuts.  Let’s treat each separately.

Dextrose  is, of course one of the forms of sugar heavily used in the processed food industry.  We only have to check a few brands’ ingredient lists to also see “sucrose” and (surprisingly) “sugar”.   If we were to check a larger sample of the brands we might also see fructose, as in the familiar “high-fructose corn syrup”, as well as “molasses” and other primitive forms of sugar.  There’s no mystery here, with the possible curiosity as to what criteria food processors use in selecting a particular form of sugar.  The political correctness consternation comes about because there is sugar of any form in “peanut butter”.

We have an abundance of information about sugar, most of it from the last fifty or sixty years.  One of the more interesting contexts for sugar information is that of “The Great Cola War”.  Coca Cola had been the dominant soft drink cola for years when its rival Pepsi Cola began adding more sugar to its product.  The effect was an increase in cola market share for Pepsi, at the expense of Coca Cola.  As Pepsi continued to increment the sugar in its drink it continued to gain market share; Coke then made the difficult decision to replace its original formula with a “New Coke” syrupy sweet version.  It is believed that Coke gained more than enough new beverage drinkers to replace those lost when the “real thing” went away.  But what food processors took away from the story was the formula, More Sugar = More Customers; and the formula seems to still be in widespread use today.

A bit more sinister food industry story involves sugar and another “peanut butter” ingredient, salt. There was quite a flurry when the seasoning / flavoring policy of Gerber’s Baby Food was  discovered by the media of that time:  baby food was loaded with salt and sugar in order to appeal to the taste of mothers.  The public caught on to this one quicker than usual:   babies rarely go to the store and select their own brands and varieties; to this day the sensitivity of babies’ taste buds continues to be a discussion topic.

All of us know, or could know if we were interested, that the empty calories of sugar have been implicated as a major factor in our obesity epidemic.  A few less of us think about the effect of sodium overload from excess salt on hypertension, or high blood pressure, another one of our growing health problems.  So it appears that unnecessary sugar and salt in processed foods might not be politically correct.

Another of the “peanut butter” ingredients is hydrogenated vegetable oil.  Note that this substance is not the dreaded partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil which provides us with the unnecessary and avoidable trans fats.  However, next to sugar, excess fat (especially saturated fat) is another one of those guilty foods in the obesity movement underway.  We know that the sugar is added in order to acquire more of those sugar-addicted customers;  salt must serve salt addicts.  But why hydrogenated vegetable oil?  Its purpose is to attract more of the lazy and impatient crowd into the “peanut butter” customer pool.  Hydrogenated vegetable oil serves only to prevent or slow down separation of the peanut oil from the ground peanut solids; a quick stir of the knife or spatula to remix before spreading must be exhausting to the lazy.

The last of the three or four ingredients is ground shelled peanuts that turn into the thick brown slightly oily product which can unarguably be labeled Peanut Butter.  For example, to name a specific brand, Arrowhead Mills Peanut Butter ingredient list reads:  “Sun-dried Valencia Peanuts”.  Period.  Many generations of American children and adults ate peanut butter which  contained that single ingredient, peanuts; unfortunately, a large fraction of the last couple of generations have never had that experience.

I believe that when peanut butter has been adulterated with sugar, salt and hydrogenated vegetable oil to create a specious product, “peanut butter”, in order to enable sugar addicts, salt addicts and lazy impatient people, the result is not politically correct and the product should not be labeled peanut butter.  Perhaps the scrupulously politically correct crowd could convince the Food and Drug Administration to require a label of “Peanut-Colored Spread”, to differentiate it from real peanut butter.

Exposing that politically incorrect product and getting it relabeled would allow Dr. Carver, my grandparents and my parents to rest comfortably.  It would also likely provide more opportunity for the millions who have never tasted the real thing to enjoy real peanut butter for the first time.

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Posted by thedrake01

Unsinkable Medicare, Diminished Capacity Epidemic

June 1, 2011

At the time the Titanic was launched, many people—inside the steamship lines and outside—truly believed the marvelous new liner was unsinkable.  However, in hindsight, it turned out that a number of decisions were very questionable:  insufficient lifeboat capacity for the Titanic’s passengers and crew, insufficient testing of a new lifeboat davit design, insufficient emergency drills for the crew, inadequate lookouts posted for the conditions, etc.  With an “unsinkable” mentality it is possible to see how such decisions might have come about.

Ironically, there was also a serious flaw in the Titanic’s design, one that significantly contributed to the rapidity with which the ship sank after the collision with an iceberg.  It is has been speculated that the “unsinkable” mindset was one of the reasons the design flaw was not identified before the accident.  But we must remember that the technology of the Titanic was “modern” in comparison to what came before.  Just like today, many people had arrived at that state of mind:  “The latest and greatest must be better than anything that came before”.  Complacency derives from overconfidence.

One hundred years later, we are becoming aware of another “unsinkable” mentality, one that will result in hundreds of times more victims than the Titanic catastrophe unless serious design flaws are recognized and unless corrective actions are taken in time.  In 1965 many people either believed that anything which a modern government dreamed up could be trusted to have been thoroughly and completely evaluated and tested, or else they were convinced (like me) that “it doesn’t apply to me so I don’t have to worry whether it’s competent or crazy”.  Thus a piece of legislation that should have been laughed out of committee into the rubbish can became the law of our land.

This legislation, which looked, sounded, and felt like it was designed by a committee of lunatics, suffered all of the possible ills that a committee is capable of creating.  It started with a failure to perform a basic analysis of the problem it was supposed to solve.  Therefore it fit perfectly into the category of gratuitous solution to an undefined problem, and things got worse from that point.  Since the hard part (the problem definition) had been skipped, that left each individual on the committee free to indulge in all kinds of legislative fantasies.  But, as in the Titanic catastrophe, there was a serious design flaw, a terminal flaw.

This design flaw came about, according to some number of observers, because of the demands of a powerful, world-class-egotistical politician.  This might be true, but in most cases blaming any serious problem on a single personality is usually too simplistic.  But, because I am one of the many who did not perform my duty as a citizen to at least peruse the law, I certainly can’t comment on incompetent politicians.  It does not make me feel a bit better to know that the number of us who failed to catch such an obvious design flaw must be in the millions.  Most of us, I suspect, were guilty of overconfidence—trusting that “someone” was looking out for us.

So Medicare has been sailing along, essentially blind, for more than 45 years; it is a miracle that it didn’t hit an iceberg long ago.  Given our good fortune to date, we might be tempted to add lots more lifeboats, redesign the davits, schedule more emergency drills for the crew, etc.  However, all those initiatives cannot make up for the fatal design flaw.  Medicare was built upon the premise of absolute government monopoly in health care of citizens above a certain age; and the law made sure that no enterprising senior citizen could find a way to acquire private health insurance in order to get around the law.  One small irony is that the only thing that has allowed Medicare to stay afloat this long is the legislative “adjustment” which added optional private Medicare-Complement health insurance.  As we all should have learned by now, government does nothing well, is remarkably inefficient, and too often is completely ineffective.

So what keeps us from applying the lessons of history and designing an effective health care strategy for senior citizens?  It appears that a serious epidemic of diminished mental capacity raging through the ranks of us who are no longer youth-challenged is one significant barrier.  The word “apparent” must be used because there is yet to appear any reliable reporting of this medical phenomenon.  All we have are anecdotes, like town hall meetings where senior citizens present exhibit dementia symptoms such as lambasting honest efforts by their political representatives to forestall the coming financial collapse of Medicare as reported by the Medicare Trustees in their latest report.  The seniors seem to be saying, “I don’t care if Medicare ceases to be—changes frighten me!”  Politicians across the entire political spectrum must be perplexed.

A concomitant barrier to fixing Medicare is the political value of frightened or diminished-capacity elder citizens.  Evidently the Democratic National Committee still sees value in one of their favorite political stratagems;  the Committee is advising Democrats to continue accusing Republicans of planning to precipitously terminate Medicare and kill Grandma.  A number of Republicans seem to have been shocked to see how well this orthodox Democratic demagoguery works during our apparent diminished capacity epidemic.

With Democrats’ perceived political success of painting themselves into a Medicare-status-quo corner, and Republicans having second thoughts about trying to develop a workable and affordable health care strategy for older Americans, the President, Senate and House might just opt for dropping this hot potato and letting Medicare go spectacularly bankrupt.  We have watched the federal government for years pass laws and implement programs without worrying about  how to financially sustain them in the future.  Perhaps it now appears to progressive politicians that they can let Medicare fail abruptly and then successfully blame the catastrophe on their opponents.

Obamacare suffers from the same design problems as Medicare—no rigorous effort to define the problem, only the shallowest lip service regarding how to pay for it, and the entire house of cards dependent on the biggest federal bureaucracy ever imagined.  To add insult to the injury, Obamacare also strips the financially-failing Medicare of $500 billion of its funding.  Is it possible that the progressive politicians are maneuvering toward the mother of all bankruptcies—that of the United States—to blame upon their opponents?

So far the the only big loser in the Medicare / Medicaid / Obamacare morass is common sense.  The same six or eight relatively simple steps to make health care more affordable, accessible and effective will work for all of us.  We have all had the opportunity to learn this short and simple list of effective health care improvements (although, like my Medicare inconsideration in 1965, many of us haven’t taken the time to do so):  Health insurance available across state lines, irrespective of company or customer location; at least as much transparency in health care as there is in the retail auto business; ongoing health maintenance and disease prevention information and training available for people of all ages, etc.  Simple; problem solved.

Now all we have to do is figure out a way to provide progressive politicians with the perception that  constituents with good health could have political value.

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Posted by thedrake01

Join the PIIGS Fan Club Now!

May 19, 2011

I am going to join the PIIGS fan club, and I encourage all of you to join with me!  I plan to purchase PIIGS bumper stickers, PIIGS banners, PIIGS lapel pins and all of the other icons of membership.  The reason I have not joined already is that I want to be fully prepared  to explain to my friends, acquaintances and relatives all of the the benefits of belonging to this fan club.  At this moment I can provide only the basic information.

PIIGS, for those who have better things to do than watch economics and business programs on TV, are those European countries who have pushed the progressive ideas of government to the outer limits of the fiscal envelope and beyond:  Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.  Other European countries have also been experimenting with the ragged edge of progressive government finance; but they have not yet progressed so far as the PIIGS.

Most of us have caught glimpses in the news of the riots that have occurred recently, and continue periodically in the PIIGS countries.  Whether these begin as legitimate public demonstrations and then deteriorate into riots is not known.  However, it is well known that the labor leaders who sponsor and enable the “demonstrations” are not in the least averse to “cracking a few heads and breaking a few windows”.

Aside from labor unions’ incitement, the citizens work themselves up into riot-rage out of greed and fear:  looming government bankruptcies threaten fractional cuts to PIIGS workers’ extraordinarily generous benefits (wage rates, paid holidays, retirement income, work rules, etc.).  It appears that the collusion between PIIGS politicians and PIIGS labor leaders only works when wages and benefits are rising; any reductions during tough economic times are considered foul play.

Members of labor unions and some members of parliament believe their affluent lifestyle can be preserved by “taxing the rich more and more”.  In this context, “the rich” translates to other European countries (plus the International Monetary Fund and its U.S. financial contributions) whose financial straits are not yet quite so desperate as those of the PIIGS.  While the European Union and the IMF have managed to stave off a couple of bankruptcies (Greece and Ireland) for the present, the outlook for PIIGS is still dim.  Germany, France and Great Britain are leaders in an emerging hard-line opposition to bailing out those profligate progressive states.  Frequently we hear Margaret Thatcher’s famous dictum, “The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money”.

In the U.S. we are seeing the beginnings of union-led worker demonstrations in a few of those states where politicians are attempting to solve financial-excess problems that have left them almost as precarious as the PIIGS.  We saw teachers (and a few of their students) storming the state capitol in Wisconsin, blocking access to government representatives and state workers.  Usually accompanied by union leaders with bull horns, the teachers displayed professionally-prepared signs and banners, chanted negative slogans on cue from (union?) cheerleaders and, it appeared, made special efforts to discard as much trash inside the capitol as possible.  Of course, their “demonstrations” included the requisite number of broken windows, graffiti, and other minor but expensive acts of vandalism.

Similar union-led demonstrations have taken place in other states.  So far, however, we have not seen PIIGS-like full scale riots.  But we have seen progressive politicians from at least two states fleeing their state capitols to take refuge in neighboring states.  It is clear that these politicians are unable to defend the excessive wages and benefits for government workers, which they supported and/or tolerated, that are a major factor in their states’ financial troubles.  Many of us wonder if these politicians secretly encourage the workers’ near-riot actions and resulting damage.

The PIIGS fan club, like actors’ and musicians’ fan clubs, exists to encourage the principals and to cheer them on to more and better performances in the future.  The principals appreciated by PIIGS fan club members include the workers, their union leaders, and the complicit politicians who wholeheartedly support the status quo.  How can we (future) PIIGS fan club members not support PIIGS workers’ basic rights to four or more weeks’ paid vacation per year; free retirement programs that allow retirement as early as age 50; free health insurance and generous paid sick-days allowances; free or subsidized housing; and all those other God-given workers Rights that we don’t have?

As PIIGS fan club members we can encourage the timid and the corrupt politicians to drag their feet on proposed financial reforms and continue calling for more taxes on “the rich”.  We can look aside when labor leaders plan and stage more and bigger worker riots.  We can publicly support more financial aid for the PIIGS from the European Union (but not the IMF and its U.S.-contributed funds).  In general, we can support an acceleration of the PIIGS’ progress toward their logical final state:  financial collapse; anarchy; and dictatorial despotism.

PIIGS fan club members simply want to help the PIIGS achieve their politician-created and voter-acquiesced  goals.

Now, what are those benefits of PIIGS fan club membership?  The self-interest benefit to U.S. members of the PIIGS fan club is the hope that government workers (at federal, state and local levels) could receive and understand the lesson that the PIIGS are providing:  The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money.

I’m looking forward to PIIGS Fan Club membership and meetings, and I look forward to meeting you at the social hour there.

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Posted by thedrake01

The Upside-Down U. S. Budget

May 17, 2011

Most of us have had the experience of learning that something in our daily lives that we took for granted was actually upside-down from what its creator had intended—a painting (especially), a sculpture, or even a tool.  Once we learned of this misorientation we had accepted for so long, we came to realize that we probably had never seen one of these objects in its correct position.  So we forgave ourselves for our common little faux pas, and we went on to appreciate the new and proper orientation.

Quite some number of us may experience deja vu if the increasing efforts in the House of Representatives (and to a lesser extent in the Senate) to figure out how to get the United States government budget back upright becomes common knowledge.  Most of us have grown up with these current federal budget priorities and we naturally have come to accept them (or continue to ignore them).  But if Franklin D. Roosevelt had ever seen such a prioritization of a proposed budget during his tenure, he would certainly have let Congress know, let the citizens know, and filled his veto pen with fresh ink.  Truman and Eisenhower would likely have reacted in the same manner.  But that was then and now is now.

The Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution together summarize our beliefs about the responsibilities of government, what safeguards against government we citizens require, and what our collective aspirations and goals are.  In short, the list of principles laid out forms the basis from which the government’s annual budget inclusions and priorities may be derived.  Unfortunately, our elected representatives in Washington began straying from those boundaries specified in the Declaration and the Constitution about a hundred years ago.  In retrospect, it appears that they thought that tax revenue amounts were infinite and that they would remain so forever.  So they began spending taxpayers’ money on anything that they judged to be “good”, but not necessarily essential or even constitutional.  To paraphrase a notorious former federal political operative, “There have been just too many crises that the (progressive) politicians couldn’t afford to waste”.

As a result we have been spending more and more billions and trillions of dollars on “good” programs for the “benefit of the people” and we now have a fourteen trillion dollar ($14,000,000,000,000) deficit! Because the government now borrows about 42 cents of every dollar it spends, that deficit continues to grow daily.  We citizens have allowed our budget to gradually turn upside-down from the actual constitutional priorities, resulting in many of our politicians in Washington now being unable or unwilling to try to get it right-side-up in order to properly address expenditures within the country’s true priorities.  A good many of us cannot understand why an obvious common-sense solution—spend less than our current government income instead of spending more than our government income—seems beyond the capacity of many of our elected officials to grasp.

When we read the Declaration of Independence again (especially if has been a while since we read it), most of us are surprised again to see how brief our most important national document is and how directly it gets to the point.  Thomas Jefferson et al spoke plainly and forthrightly to the British Crown.  There were no opinion polls in those days to guide a hired speechwriter (had there been one so eloquent as Jefferson); the simple facts and plain truth were more in fashion at that time—even in diplomatic language.  In addition, that assembled group of men who produced the document were not endeavoring to tear down a government, but were pursuing a just and equitable government.

The Constitution, written a few years later (largely by the same principals who produced the Declaration) came about with their perspective of the Revolutionary War and their experience with the feeble and ineffective Articles of Confederation.  Some historians contend that the assembled intelligence, knowledge and wisdom present in that Constitutional Convention was likely a unique event in all the history of the world.  The government resulting from those two documents served us well for more than 150 years; it still serves us well in spite of the extent to which we have strayed from its fundamental tenets.

Any person who is familiar with the Declaration and the Constitution knows that our only rights, recognized by our government, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  In other words, our government promises us fundamental protections—not the elimination of all risk, the fulfillment of all desires, and a guaranteed level of comfort.  Therefore even a casual reading of the Constitution leaves us with the clear impression that military protection must be the highest priority of the federal government and thus should be the first item in the government’s budget.

It has become politically correct, although politically ignorant, in recent years for political demagogues to assail the high costs of defense, maintaining the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and their active Reserve forces.  It is true that military forces are never efficient and therefore costs are higher than we would like to see.  But consider that if we discharged every officer and enlisted person, laid off all Department of Defense civilian employees, cancelled all contracts with military suppliers, and closed all bases worldwide—the resulting financial windfall would be a small fraction of the the three budget items ahead of DoD:  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and interest on the national debt.  Pay no attention to the demagogues who would have you believe that national defense consumes the majority of the budget.

So what is the second most important government function?  The third?  The fourth…?  Again, the Constitution (with the Declaration) provides the information necessary to determine budget priorities for those essential functions specified in the document.  When those responsible for preparing the budget get to that point in the list of expenditures where it departs from strictly constitutionally-defined federal functions, they should stop; add up the new budget; and let us all know what’s included and what’s excluded (from our previous laundry list of of politically “good” items).  Only at that point can we begin the national debate on what functions are essential and appropriate for our federal government.

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Posted by thedrake01

The Great Public Sector Unions Debate

March 7, 2011

People in the news business have probably been happy with the extended life of the public employees / labor unions controversy.  This story has been near the top of most newscasts for a lot longer than we are used to.  With all those reporters, commentators and propagandists jabbering away each 24 hours, I am struck with what is not being said.  Several points remain scarce in most of the news presentations that I have seen on broadcast channels, cable channels, internet oceans or (ever-rarer) daily newspapers.

To be sure, everything imaginable about government employees and their labor unions, at federal, state and local levels, has been touched on by someone somewhere at sometime.  But the “talking points” lightly brush or completely ignore several key points.

•  CONFLICT  OF  INTEREST

Franklin D. Roosevelt has been credited with or blamed for our country’s leap into and acceleration toward a liberal / left government focused on social programs spending, like many of our European allies.  FDR was a very strong union supporter and enabler; but he was not blind to conflicts of interest involving government.  Roosevelt stood firm against collective bargaining for government employees, and to this day federal government employees do not have the right to union collective bargaining.

The conflict is simple and obvious:  on one side of the bargaining table is the labor union representative and on the other is an elected politician. In general, labor unions spend about 80% of members’ dues on political contributions in order to get sympathetic politicians elected and reelected.  Of course, a politician who “negotiates” a sweet deal with the union is likely to receive significant political contributions when reelection time rolls around!

Missing from the table in this process is the taxpayer who supplies the money that will pay the salaries and benefits resulting from the bargaining.  Because additional taxes are required to cover increases in government personnel costs, union / politician agreements effectively become a variety of taxation without representation.

Some in the media do mention that labor unions spend almost all of their funds to elect Democratic politicians; the relationship is so close  and long-standing that many consider the Democratic Party to be a subsidiary of the labor unions.  But while this tradition may make Republicans jealous, the problem wouldn’t change if the unions contributed the money instead to elect Republicans.  Collective bargaining where taxpayer money, public employees and politicians are involved is a flagrant conflict of interest.

•  ACCOUNTABILITY  GAP

Yes, there is a tiny amount of accountability for politicians who agree to salary and benefits increases that are beyond rational defense.  But the problem we voter-taxpayers face is in determining which politician(s) is (are) guilty.  There may or may not be much publicity surrounding the latest negotiation of a wages and benefits contract.  One thing, though, that most of us have seen, and have possibly not recognized, is a circular-logic bit of justification used by union officials and politicians alike.  A comparison with the same or similar category of public employees (e.g., clerical workers) of comparable political subdivisions in surrounding states is frequently the primary justification for the new compensation package.  We are normally not told much (if anything) about any cost-of-living differences between those locations compared.  But we have learned over the years that “their” politicians and unions will use “our” new, higher compensation level to help “them” justify “their” increases in the next contract; this circle tends to be perpetual, and “our” politicians’ turn will come back around in time.

However, some amount of time must pass before it becomes general knowledge that those public employees have somehow arrived at a total compensation level, including health and retirement benefits, that is significantly higher than comparable positions in private industry.  At that point we voters will usually hear from the responsible politician(s), “My predecessor did it and then left us with this mess”!  All too often we voters really don’t know, and we end up giving the incumbent the benefit of our doubt.

•  GENERATION  LAG

Wages represents the one compensation item that naturally gets the most attention; wages means cash now!  The increments for health care and for retirement pensions are small in comparison, and their financial impact is usually not noticed for a generation or more.  One day we voter-taxpayers wake up to the news that our public employees’ pension fund is seriously under capitalized and that it is urgent we that we accept a large tax increase to forestall the catastrophe.  That day is today for more than half of the U.S. states.

•  OBSCURE  DETAILS

The public, and much of the media, rarely notice “minor details” of a proposed labor contract update.  One critically important detail is the category, “Work Rules”.  A better name for this section of a labor contract would be “The Devil in the Details”.  Work rules cover hiring, firing, job assignments, and other personnel actions.

A few seemingly innocent words in a labor contract can lead to situations where it is almost impossible to fire a public employee—under any circumstances, for any reason.  One of the most outrageous examples is those New York City teachers who have, for various reasons, earned the distrust of the school administration and are not allowed to be in a classroom with students.  Because it is almost impossible to fire these incompetent individuals they remain on the payroll year after year, spending each workday in non-student locations, so-called “rubber rooms”.

•  CONTEXT

For all of the uproar about the current legislative attempts in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana to help get control of the costs of government via reform of the collective bargaining laws for public employees, one would think that these states are working on some new, risky experiment.  But the truth is that almost half of the states now prohibit collective bargaining for public employees, just like the federal government.  Slightly fewer states have right-to-work laws in place  which protect employees from unwanted forced union membership.

Even in “Peoples Republic” states, like New York and California, there is evidence that voter-taxpayers are finally coming to realize that they have been ill-served by their elected officials, the public sector unions and the liberal media for years and years.  Quite a few of us must be telling our state Senators and Representatives that they have been much more than fair to our government workers, and now it is time to to be fair to us taxpayers.

•  FAIRNESS

Fairness, like Right and Wrong, is difficult to measure and one person’s fairness may be seen as unfair to another person.  For example, right-to-work laws are believed by the majority of the people in at least 22 states to be fair to workers, allowing individuals to decide whether to join a union or remain unaffiliated; but those laws are seen as abhorrent to union officials, many or most Democratic politicians, and other true-believers.

Another fairness factor is almost never mentioned in the public unions debate:  the federal and states Civil Service Commissions.  Perhaps public sector unions proponents may prefer the political spoils system that flourished before civil service commissions were implemented, another example of fairness being in the eyes of the beholder?

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Posted by thedrake01

U.S. Income Tax: Stealthy Swiss Cheese

January 19, 2011

The current U.S. tax code is best thought of as a huge blob of Swiss cheese, filled with thousands of little holes:  deductions, exemptions, exceptions, and all manner of sweet deals for politically favored pressure groups.

In addition, U.S. income tax is more stealthy than the newest fighter bombers, employing double taxation and invisible taxes.  One egregious example is the corporate income tax.  Ask anyone in business what items determine the price charged for their product or service; prominent in that list will be business income taxes.  We who purchase the goods and services therefore pay those corporate taxes; and adding insult to injury, we must pay those corporate taxes (already paid) again on any dividends we receive if we own any stock.

The highest and best use for the 3000-plus pages of  the tax code is undoubtedly to provide make-work employment for thousands upon thousands of IRS employees, tax attorneys, accountants, information technologists and other professional obfuscators.

Without addressing the bizarre corporate tax, it appears that there are two principal options today—one positive, one iffy—for replacing our personal federal tax codes with something that makes sense.  The first option would be to adopt an all-inclusive flat tax, one with no exemptions, no deductions, and no hidden taxes of any kind.

A second option might be to replace our income tax with a consumption tax, levied like State sales taxes (one version is labeled “The Fair Tax”).

Now, how can we decide which option to settle on?  The only thing most of us know about taxes is that for the last hundred years or so the United States has utilized class envy as the actual basis for making all tax decisions.  Our politicians have become highly skilled at convincing a great many of us that anyone who is financially more successful than we are should have to pay much, much more than we “ordinary people” do.

I went along with the soak-the-rich mantra for many years (my family were Democrats clear back to before the Civil War).  I really gave little or no thought to distinctions between tax rates and total taxes paid.  I must have been secure in my ignorance, assuming “my” politicians were taking care of “me”.  Secure, that is, until that point in my mid-thirties when, with a family of six including two children in college, and when we were struggling to make all the payments each month—I found that I had been defined to the IRS as “rich”.

At that time the tax tables were not indexed for inflation, and we had a President and Congress who utilized stealth to increase tax revenues by creating inflation in our economy.  That experience taught me that any Congress and President can rather quickly define even a nun who has taken vows of poverty as “rich”.

What about a Flat Tax? At the least, setting a tax rate would be easy—just divide the coming year’s federal budget by the anticipated gross income of  taxpayers of the United States for the coming year.  All of us would know for certain what any proposed new legislation would cost our families.

But does a flat tax in the range of 12 – 13% provide a fair shake for the “poor”, or “almost poor”?  One suggestion that has been mentioned is to exempt those with incomes below a certain level.

A flat tax, though, is not a win-win for everyone; all of those who make a living by mud-wrestling in the current tax morass would find themselves unemployed.  It would also enrage some number of politicians because of increased difficulty in buying our votes through exploitation of class envy.  We would likely also be less gullible when politicians tell us that their pet projects “would not affect our income taxes”.

What’s the attraction of a national sales tax? There are a number of public figures who advocate a tax on consumption as more fair than a tax on production (income).  Long ago I downloaded the “Fair Tax Proposal”, saving it on my computer and also printing a copy.  Since then I’ve read hundreds of comments and explanations about the “Fair Tax”, but I guess I’m too dense to ferret out any reasons why it is “more fair” than a flat income tax.

My biggest worry about a national sales tax is its susceptibility to political corruption.  The Value Added Tax (VAT) in effect in a number of European countries is everywhere levied in addition to their basic, highly-graduated income tax.  As you might imagine, some number of Washington politicians are already salivating over the possibility of adding a VAT tax to our current U.S. income tax.

How likely is any real reform to our tax codes? The odds seem to be stacked against any tax law that is simple, open, equitable and impervious to political shenanigans.  After all, U.S. politicians have a long-standing culture of sowing, fertilizing and harvesting the political bounty of victimhood.  How could these pols thrive without appealing to our basest greed and envy instincts?

Imagine the angst of left-liberal politicians if the average person in the U.S. came to understand that the rich do pay much more than the rest of us do, and have done so for many years.  At the very least, leftist Representatives and Senators would call for Congress to pass a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Care law for deeply depressed elected officials and Presidential administration appointees.  Can you imagine the degree of their trauma if we ever took the next logical step of eliminating the corporate income tax and its hidden double taxation?

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Enough of the Class Envy Rhetoric, Already!

December 7, 2010

President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

President Obama, you have had about two years in office, and it is likely that you have produced more public communications in that period than any previous President.  Many of us commend you for your efforts to inform, to explain and to influence us.

Speaker Pelosi, you have also made efforts to inform us, to explain  inexplicable congressional bills, and to chide us when you think we need it.  You, also, are commended by many of us.

Majority Leader Reid, you have not been shy in telling us what you think we need to hear.  Undoubtedly, many commend you also.

As important as all of your speeches and other public pronouncements are to your cause and to your passion, they need refreshing.  Those of us who are not quite so youth-challenged can remember phonograph records (think of an ancient form of MP3).  The sound was produced by a stylus (“needle”) running the course of a prerecorded spiral groove which had microscopic variations that corresponded to the original sound.  For such an ancient technology, the reproduced sound was quite faithful to the live performance.  Unfortunately, phonograph records developed problems with overuse, or careless handling, across time.

A damaged groove could cause the stylus to simply keep repeating a short segment incessantly.  Very few people could tolerate that endless repetition of the same words or phrase. Your class-envy baiting at every opportunity now sounds like a stuck phonograph record to our ears (see Election, Congress, 2010).  It’s not working any more.

We know that your guru-hero was a 19th century “economist” who believed that class envy was too powerful an emotion to waste; therefore he developed a scheme of “governing” that depends entirely on exploitation of that emotion.  That scheme appeared to work at first, and it is still tried in places where citizens are ignorant and uninformed (see Chavez, Hugo, Venezuela, 2010).  But most Americans think that your belief in a  class-envy government puts you in the same category as Hans Christian Andersen’s Emperor, the one with the new clothes.

We understand that highly educated people in your lofty positions can come to have low opinions of us ordinary citizens; we do make stupid and childish decisions occasionally.  But astute observers of our antics will notice that, in the long run, we vote with our wallets and with our feet.  Hit us over the head a number of times; we will then stop paying you to deliver the pain, or we will get outside of your reach—or both.  Some of us are even smart enough to learn the need to take action, from watching you punish friends and neighbors, before you get around to hitting us personally.

Not nearly so many of us take perverse pleasure in watching you punish the more successful or more affluent as you must imagine.  Nor do we fail to understand that fifty percent of us pay very little or no income taxes and that your much-despised “top two percent of income earners” pay about 65% of all income taxes.  In fact, a great many of us are coming to the realization that the only “fair” tax is is a true flat tax (see Election, Congress, 2010).

President Obama, Speaker / Minority Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, please cease and desist with the endless and monotonous class envy rhetoric.  Stop demonizing those who are financially successful.  Try using logical reasoning instead of emotional appeals at least once in a while.  To be sure, we understand that a salesman’s gotta sell; but when the old sales pitch is stale, tired and tawdry, a new approach is in order.

You might even consider a radical change, one with some hope embedded.  If worse comes to worst, consider playing it straight—just to confuse us if for no other reason.  Pretend that the roadmap laid out for us by Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, et al actually works.  Act as if the United States really is exceptional; search for scraps of  hope hidden within the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Playing it straight for a while might surprise you.

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Bernie Madoff: Social Security Savior

November 15, 2010

As everyone knows, and as everyone except very left-leaning politicians will admit, Social Security is doomed unless it undergoes significant reform.  As everyone also knows, and the majority of us will admit, a significant fraction  of all “discussions” of Social Security reform really boil down to emotional diatribes.  Devious politicians, extreme left partisans, and diminished capacity citizens own the Social Security hot button outright; they have patented, copyrighted and trademarked Social Security Reform®.  With this body of expertise, vested interest and irrational passion dedicated to prohibiting any discussion of Social Security futures, there is no human being of sufficient stature, strength and persistence to bring about the “adult conversation” so desperately needed.  Except one:  Bernard Madoff.

Bernie Madoff’s business model was identical to that of our Social Security system—in all respects save one.  Social Security is legal, only because a number of Representatives and Senators, and a President, made it legal, irrespective of ethical or right-and-wrong considerations.

Charles Ponzi, although not the originator of the business model used by Madoff, is the person who became notorious for his 1920 large-scale use of it.  Today’s slang for that business model would be  “scam” or “con”; but in Ponzi’s time the word used was “scheme”.  Ponzi’s error, we now know, was that he failed to assemble sufficient Congressional conspirators and then provide adequate incentives for the President to sign a bill into law.

The Wickipedia describes a Ponzi scheme:  “A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. … The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors”.

The Social Security Administration angrily denies that there is anything other than a superficial resemblance of Social Security to Ponzi schemes.  The difference they point out is that a Ponzi scheme operator must find a never-ending stream of new sucker-investors in order to provide sufficient funds for the periodic payments to earlier investors.  Social Security, in contrast, (they say, somewhat gleefully) has an absolutely endless supply of U. S. tax dollars;  Congress and the President will simply increase tax rates—right up to 100% and beyond—as necessary.

Bernie Madoff pushed the envelope of his Ponzi scheme farther than anyone in history.  The best guess of U. S. prosecutors is that Madoff bilked his investors out of $25 billion directly, and about $40 billion in lost potential earnings.  Like all Ponzi operators, Madoff made periodic “investment earnings” payments to his earlier account holders, using cash just received from later, newer investors.  Was any of the money from Bernie’s clients actually invested?  Not a penny.  Was any of the $25 billion recovered and returned to those who had been swindled?  Not really (although assets from Bernie’s extravagant lifestyle were seized, sold, and provided a tiny fraction of restitution).  Have investigators figured out where the money went?  If they have, that information has not been released.

I wouldn’t presume to know more than the Social Security administrators, so I’ll take their word for it that the National Ponzi Scheme is not a Ponzi scheme.  Social Security income is withheld from each worker’s paycheck; that seems OK.  In addition, an equal amount must be added by the worker’s employer; that seems odd (like not telling the employee that his witholding is actually double), but I guess that’s OK also.  Every quarter employers remit that money collected for Social Security.  For some number of years there was, as one would expect, more than enough money coming in to make payments to the early enrolled beneficiaries and have some left to be building a fund for future retirees.

Has any of the money ever been invested?  That’s an interesting question, and all answers seem to have significant political philosophy content.  However, there are no common, income-producing  investments like stocks, bonds, real estate mortgages, etc.  But with a combination of government accounting methods and a dash of political philosophy, one might stretch a little and use the word “investments” (which look to us ignoranti like the government moving money from one pocket to another and then claiming interest from the first pocket).

If there was an excess of revenues over expenditures in previous years, does anyone know where it all went?  Actually, yes.  As an accounting gimmick to obscure the government’s ever-increasing expenditures, it was “loaned” to various government agencies.  But it is to wonder where any agency could get the money to “repay” its loans back to the non-existent “Social Security Trust Fund”.  But not to worry.

Bernie Madoff to the rescue!

Bernard Madoff proved to the world that he is a genius at stealth accounting methods, clever and innovative bookkeeping, and navigating around auditing reefs and barriers.  In short, he showed us that he is more than a match for those like the gang of evil geniuses who forged the stealthy and convoluted “Health Care Reform Bill” (in 3000 or so pages).

The President should parole Mr. Madoff, on condition that he will lead a Presidential Social Security Reform Commission. The Commission’s charter will be to develop, and describe the details of, a true reform to the present Social Security system.  Orders to the Commission  must be clear and simple:

1.     The reformed system  must not resemble a Ponzi scheme whatsoever

2.    The system must use Defined-Contribution instead of Defined-Benefits

3.    Tax monies will not be used to pay any normal retirement benefits

4.     The system must be actuarially sound

5.     Implementation must be designed for minimal-to-no impact on current retirees and tolerable impact on near-term future retirees

Madoff will select one third of the Commission  members; the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House will each select one of the remaining thirds.

The President should dip into his slush funds as deep as necessary to adequately fund this Commission, enabling it to seek out highly qualified experts to participate as necessary in the effort.

When the Commission successfully completes its mission, the President can commute Bernie’s sentence.  Congress, in gratitude for the solution to the United States’ most serious existential problem, could appropriate $65 billion to make all of Madoff’s victims whole ($65 billion is pocket change compared to the multi-trillion dollar liability of the old Social Security system).

What then, for Madoff?  He may be free at that point; but Bernie must continue serving a life sentence of having to live like the rest of us non-billionaires.

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The Rehabilitation of Socialism

November 11, 2010

My parents were young adults when World War I occurred, and they lived on into the Cold War years following World War II.   My father was college age by the time the War to End All Wars broke out, and my mother was a few years younger.  They experienced the Great Depression years as a family with children, and they got to watch the U. S. inevitably slide into the second world war.  But the Iron Curtain and the Cold War spawned by the U.S.S.R. was beyond their ability to explain.

Both of my parents were a little young to have noticed Benito Mussolini’s burgeoning success with Socialism in Italy.  But the “noble experiment” in Russia following the Armistice of 1918 caught their attention, and it piqued their sense of fairness and justice for the poor and the lower classes.  From what I read, many years later, it appears that they were not totally out of step with their young adult peers.

Socialism in the 1920s and 1930s did not have the bad reputation in the U. S. that it acquired in later years.  The liberal or progressive agenda of the Roosevelt administration, in many respects copying policies of the maturing Socialist governments in Europe, was apparently well tolerated even as it elongated the Great Depression.  In my family, Socialism started becoming a little tarnished as the excesses of the German Socialist Workers Party began to leak out.  Stalin’s distancing his government from those of Germany and Italy (directing his propaganda ministry to refer to those countries only, and frequently, as “Fascist”) slowed the oxidation of “Socialism” somewhat.  After Hitler ordered his armies to invade Russia, there was never again any mention of Germany as a “Socialist” country.

Socialism regained a little of its luster during the brief period while the U.S.S.R. and the West were united in the effort to defeat the Axis powers.  Post-war, though, the Iron Curtain and an apparent “cold” war was another speed bump in the rehabilitation of Socialism.  Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigations into U. S. Government officials who were, or thought to be, Communists was the next reputation killer for Socialism.  Anti-colonial resistance movements the world over, some with rather long histories, began to come out and display the Communist banners everywhere.  My mother commented, “This isn’t what we thought of as Socialism”.

Marxism has had, and continues to have, a number of different fashions and flavors.  From the late 1800s there have been Pragmatism, Progressivism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, and multiple nuances of “Liberalism”.  But to the average person on the street, there hasn’t been fifty cents worth of difference between the varieties of Marxism.  This Chameleonism has probably been Marxism’s best self-preservation trait, and it seems to have worked well in the U.S.  The consistent attributes across all forms of Marxism, however, have been and continue today to be control and coercion—all important decisions are made by the government, with little left to the vagaries of the ballot box or the citizenry.  The U.S. mid-term elections seem to indicate that there is, at least at present, a difference of opinion on this governmental philosophy between the Obama administration and a substantial percentage of U.S. voters.

It’s still too early to tell if the arrogance, elitism and overreaching  of President Obama, Senator Reid, and Speaker of the House Pelosi have resulted in another decline in the reputation of Socialism.  Also it is not yet known what effect the financial calamities and resultant rioting in the Socialist countries of Europe will have on long-term opinion of Socialism as a viable form of government.

In our last conversation that included political topics, my mother said she was coming to the conclusion that Socialism ran contrary to human nature, and she wasn’t sure it could ever be made to work.  But my father never lost the faith, and he went out of this world comfortable in his belief that Unionism and Socialism would become the perfect government for the U.S. some day.

The Obama administration and its allies are now in full damage control mode, albeit with differing styles among the players.  Nancy Pelosi paraphrases Nikita Khrushchev’s dictum, “We will bury you”.  Harry Reid, however, prefers Star Trek’s Borg, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated”.  President Obama unwaveringly continues promoting class envy, reminding us that equality of opportunity may sound nice, but that any government which fails to effect and rigidly enforce universal equality of identical results is a loser government.

All of us will likely have to wait for the next national election to see how much the national opinion of  Socialism improves.  In the meantime we can continue to observe how  the reputation of Socialism fares in the European Socialist countries.

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Democrats Can Win Big in 2012!

October 19, 2010

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party found its dream candidate in 2008, and with him it pulled along less-liberal Democrats and a great number of Democrats-in-name-only.  Thus the Obama wing of the Democratic party captured the Presidency, in a contest that wasn’t even close.

But, as mid-term election early balloting begins, Democratic Party prospects look a lot different.  The economy has not yet normalized, in spite of the Franklin Roosevelt solutions that have been applied to several key sectors.  Three fourths of the voting public are worried about the effects of the Health Care Reform bill, and health insurance companies have begun raising premiums and dropping certain types of plans.  Bailed-out big banks continue distributing multimillion-dollar bonuses to their top producers, while loans are hard to get for average people.  Taxes are scheduled to increase at midnight December 31, the largest increase in U. S. history, unless the Congressional Democratic majorities and the President take action.  The  national debt has increased by three trillion dollars in the last 20 months.  All in all, there is a lot of fuel for voter angst.

If the polls have any validity, it appears that the Democratic Party may have greater than expected losses in both the House and the Senate.  A few of the Democratic election strategists have mentioned the possibility that the Democrats may lose their majority in the House.  In spite of record campaign fund-raising, and significantly out-spending the Republicans, the Democrats are not happy with their near-term prospects.

But with a few inexpensive, simple steps the Democratic Party could spring back even stronger by the 2012 elections!    The first step would be to develop a concise, plain-language version of the Democratic Party Platform to be made available to the public by all communications means in existence.  The second step would be to modify the Party’s name in order to broaden its appeal to its traditional core constituency.

First, the Party must get away from the usual slippery language used for platform statements.  The wording must be simple, direct and understandable to the youngest and oldest prospective voters.  There must be no excuses or accusations or normal campaign boasts.  The Party must tell voters exactly what it will accomplish if it has majority control of the government, in the most straightforward manner.  For example, a streamlined, plain-language  platform might look like:

DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM Summary

1.     Private ownership of land, other than that on which dwellings, factories or businesses sit, will be abolished.

2.    The graduated income tax will become more heavily progressive.

3.     All rights of inheritance will be eliminated.

4.    Property of all questionable immigrants and political rebels will be confiscated.

5.    A national bank will be established to exclusively handle all banking, credit and financial matters within the country.

6.    All forms of transportation and all forms of communication will be the responsibility of the central government.

7.     All factories and other means of production will be owned by the government; all agriculture and food production will be directed by the government.

8.     All citizens will be responsible for terms of service in industry and for terms of service in agriculture.

9.     The government will manage agriculture and industries in common; abolition of state, county and town distinctions will be accomplished gradually in order to provide a more equable distribution of population over the country.

10.   Private schools at all levels will be abolished and there will be free education for all children in public schools; all schools and industries will be jointly managed.

As I have mentioned in previous posts my parents were life-long Democrats whose families had Democratic Party affiliations going back to Civil War days.  My parents were also of the age to see and appreciate the advantages of Socialism, particularly in the noble experiment under way in Russia.  It was toward the ends of their lives when Socialism and Communism were becoming sullied by Stalin’s excesses, among others.  But I believe my parents went out of this life still believing in the future potential of Unionism and Socialism.

That brings me to the second action the Democratic Party needs to take.  The Party must bring its name up to date to reflect its main constituents, its directions and its goals:

The DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST UNION (DSU) PARTY

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Posted by thedrake01

Emperor Rahm Emanuel: Satire to the Voters

October 11, 2010

Rahm Emanuel has relinquished his White House Chief of Staff day job and moved on to participate in a regional election for a position he desires.  Rahm will be missed, and there is almost universal agreement that he was the most effective member of President Obama’s administration.  To the extent that Obama has had successes to talk about, Emanuel probably deserves the lion’s share of the credit.

The position Rahm Emanuel is competing for is that of Emperor, Chicago – Cook County Empire; and most loyal Democratic Party strategists believe that he has a good chance of winning.

The Chicago – Cook County Empire was created, inadvertently, by the 18th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  Originally, Emperors were not elected, but gained the position through individual and group efforts which weeded out lesser candidates until only one remained.  One early Emperor, Alphonse Gabriel Capone, established a model for subsequent Emperors.  His reign lasted for many years, until he was forced into mandatory retirement by an opposing group, led by an Eliot Ness, which resented Capone’s ruling style.

It was thought that the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution would correct that establishment of an inadvertent empire, but apparently no one noticed, and the Empire lives on.

Following Capone there was some amount of turnover among Emperors, including one who was assassinated while in office, but two dynasties dominated:  the Kelly Dynasty and the Daley Dynasty.  Strangely, the current Emperor from the Daley dynasty is voluntarily abdicating, which provides an opportunity for “election” of a successor.  Needless to say, this is a novel situation in the Empire; only the oldest citizens can remember any Emperor other than a Daley.

Chicago – Cook County Emperors have much more power than most people outside the region understand.  In numerous cases the Emperor has thumbed his nose at the United States and then laughed at the federal government’s impotency.  A recent example from the current Emperor’s reign is that of Meigs Field.  The Emperor stole an entire functioning airport, bought and paid for by the federal government, in order to provide the political gift of a city park to key allies.  The U. S. government whined a little and then slinked off into the shadows, tail between its legs.

However, it is likely that the Emperor’s power as political kingmaker is the aphrodisiac keeps smiles on the ruler’s face.  One such example, again from the Daley Dynasty, was the anointing and inserting into office of a President of the United States.  In that instance, the effort of the entire U. S. electorate was rendered moot.  Perhaps this is why Rahm Emanuel seeks this valuable gem.

The “election” of a Chicago – Cook County Emperor in 2011 will provide, at the least, a political sideshow for the amusement of those who will not be directly beholden to the new Emperor.  History has shown that this activity can be more dangerous than commercial fishing or coal mining, so the number of candidates who physically survive the ordeal will be in question.  Another item for the oddsmakers is the likelihood that a new Emperor will command sufficient power to select and install the next U. S. President.

Assuming that Rahm Emanuel is the ultimate survivor and is crowned  as Emperor, would he put Barack Obama back into office for a second term?  Did he really approve of the Junior Senator from Illinois and his policies, or was he just hitched up for a ride up the hill?  Could he just stand by and watch his old boss going down to a decisive defeat, without lifting his scepter a millimeter?

Or would he feel obligated to thumb his nose at the U. S. electorate and give Obama a second term,  just to show that he can?

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United States Defense Paralysis

August 9, 2010

The Law of Unintended Consequences

William Shirer’s “The Collapse of the Third Republic” is well worth re-reading today.  The situation facing voters in the United States in the upcoming election remains eerily similar to that which French voters faced just before World War II.  Major political parties maneuvered, like boxers beginning a fight, to find openings to deliver mighty punches.  Political strategists planned the test flying of slogans and key-phrase campaign ideas (“sound bytes”) that might resonate with factions of the parties.  Secondary parties and splinter groups scurried about like hound dogs sniffing for a bone while avoiding being trod upon by major players.

In France, the parties had names like the Agrarian Party, the Communist Party, the Labor Party, the Popular French Party, the French Socialist Party, the Radical Party, the Radical-Socialist Party, the Rally of the French People, and the (plain old) Socialist Party.  Additionally there were some number of pacifists and anti-war zealots.  Today these names must have an almost comical ring to American ears, because we are familiar and comfortable with our Democrat and Republican, along with our Liberal, Conservative, Communist, Socialist, Libertarian, and other parties accredited in some states—not to mention the conservative, liberal, and socialist wings of the major parties, plus those ever-present anti-war agitators.

Then, as now, each of the factions of each of the parties worked hard to advance its single cause or address its two or three key issues.  Many of their issues seem trivial to us today.  But we must remember the world situation with Germany, Italy and Japan at the time.  It appears to us that French politicians argued for pet projects as if their implementation would make Adolph Hitler just go away and also cause Japan to decide it had plenty of rice land after all.

Political warfare between the Ins and the Outs has not changed much to this day.  Parties on the out always seek to embarrass the party in power, and entrenched “In” incumbents use the full power of the state to diminish or destroy rival parties and individuals.   Then as now, any scandal or rumor of scandal is considered a legitimate weapon.  Statistics, as always, allowed politicians to stretch; bend; fold, staple and mutilate; chew and otherwise mold truth to fit their visions.  Of course, The Fourth Estate played its game, toying with facts or evidence in order to titillate its voyeur’s palate and aid its favorites.  In short, the political game in France in the late 1930’s was played much as it is today in the United States.

But there was an ominous overtone to the rhetoric, one heard today possibly only with a seventy-year hindsight of history.   The line between legitimate scrutiny of dealing with dangerous adversaries, and the subtle sabotaging of defense measures, became blurred in the minds of some of the players.   After all, most politicians were well aware of the military facts:  France had overwhelming superiority in men, guns, tanks and front line fighters in Europe.  Therefore, measures that would embarrass the country, at a cost of some small benefit to Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin, perhaps didn’t seem particularly dangerous.  Leaking sensitive secrets also must have been viewed as just part of the game.  Besides, if the end justifies the means, anything which benefits our party must be fair.

But the French electorate’s failure to recognize the gravity of the situation and to evaluate political promises within the context of fundamental priorities cost them dearly.

Germany sent 34 divisions, two thirds of which were poorly trained, ill-equipped and minimally supported reserves, against 85 fully armed, front-line French divisions.  Examination of the German High Command documents after the war led to an understanding that Germany never thought it could seriously challenge the French army.  The invasion of France was actually a diversion, intended to minimize France’s contribution to the defense of Poland.  Germany planned to sue for peace and withdraw, once their conquest of Poland was assured.

But the inadvertently deadly results of single-issue politics and a dreamily disengaged electorate were to paralyze the French government and its world-class military.  Hitler was handed a never-expected plum in the most unlikely military defeat in the history of modern warfare.

Can American voters understand the gravity of a multi-dimensional war, declared by non-nation states, against the concept of personal and economic liberty and the concept of rule by secular law?  Will they realize that the Islamic extremists find the idea of personal freedom abhorrent?  Can they figure out before it is too late that Islamic terrorists will be satisfied with nothing less than our deaths―all of us?

Will the various single-issue groups inadvertently decide to poison the well if their issues don’t prevail?   Will the all-important pet political issues seem trivial seventy years from now?  Could our government and world-class military suffer a paralysis such that The United States could cease to exist as a country?

Yes, it would be good to read “The Collapse of the Third Republic” (and its predecessor “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”) at this time.

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Posted by thedrake01

Saving America – What Will It Take?

July 27, 2010

The Declaration of Constitutional Preservation

Pollsters continue to tell us that we Americans are not a particularly happy lot nowadays.  About the only thing we are slightly less pessimistic about is national security; but even there we are a bit tentative.  Perhaps we would feel better about our safety if the government did not demonstrate daily its inability or its unwillingness to protect our borders.

Two thirds of us are very negative about the state of our economy.  Taxpaying Americans are acutely aware that if Congress and the President allow it to happen, we will all be rewarded with an automatic,  monstrous tax increase one minute past midnight on December 31st.  In addition, every bill the President has signed into law continues to sink the country deeper and deeper into its unprecedented level of national debt.  Against a backdrop of the continuing recession, which has not yielded to any of the initiatives of Congress and the President, widespread uncertainty and apprehension prevails.

Another vexing issue is the continuing, most severe attack on the U. S. Constitution by a Congress and Presidential administration in more than 70 years.   The extremely unpopular “Health Care Reform” bill passed by House and Senate Democrats, and signed into law by the President, is presently undergoing court challenges which will end up before the Supreme Court.  Should the “Cap and Trade” carbon tax bill be forced through in a lame-duck session of Congress and be signed by Obama, it will certainly also be tested in court.  In another court case, the Obama Administration is suing the state of Arizona over its law that requires Arizona law enforcement and Arizona government officials to help enforce the federal law against illegal immigration.

Unsurprisingly, the public’s assessment of the performance of Congress has sunk to an all-time low, according to the latest polls.  President Obama’s performance assessment has likewise sunk to his personal all-time low.  Democratic officeholders across the center to center-left  spectrum are worried about the upcoming midterm elections.  Republicans and Independents who lean left of center are also concerned.

The present circumstances are stimulating public discussion of the Republican “Contract With America”  from 1994.  That particular initiative is credited by most political observers as a primary reason for the surprising victory of Republicans,  one that reversed President Clinton’s Democratic majority in both houses.  However, don’t look for a reprisal of “Contract With America”; Newt Gingrich knows that times and circumstances are different now.  But there is one idea that might get traction with a wide segment of the electorate today, an initiative that a number of Independents and conservative Democrats could also agree with.

Another public vexation provides us with a timely clue to a way forward.  The government (at all levels) has failed to strictly enforce existing laws and regulations—a subject that is now discussed widely.  At the federal level, we see borders not being protected, members of Congress walking past the fine edge of legality, regulatory agencies cherry-picking which rules to enforce, and total disregard for fiscal safeguards.  At state and local levels we see similar actions by lawmakers and bureaucrats, especially visible in the monstrous budget-busting over-spending that has lead to virtual bankruptcy in several states and a number of cities.  Politicians always promise to enforce laws and regulations, but there may be a better idea.

Constitutionally conservative lawmakers should agree in writing to treat the United States Constitution and its companion Declaration of Independence as the contract under which they will perform during their elected term of service.  That is, they will adhere to the terms of these documents as the founders envisioned—not as the progressive revisionists (primarily, Democrats) have been treating them for the last 100 years or so.

Candidates for the House and the Senate could pledge to abide by the 10th Amendment’s clear delineation of States’ rights, which we know is exactly what the founders intended.  They could also promise to initiate repeal of the 17th Amendment, to restore the original balance of federal and state powers.

These constitutional conservatives could also publicly promise to prohibit use of the Commerce Clause as a universal justification for federal trespassing over those rights constitutionally reserved to the States.

This document, which Republicans and also Democrats and Independents could endorse jointly, might be styled as the Declaration of Constitutional Preservation.

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Posted by thedrake01

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