So everyone thinks Obama has already blown his re-election. Republicans have been stacking up wins so far, and it’s expected for them to have a great year this year. What is the main issue voters are worried about? I think it’s safe to say the deficit and the economy, so although neither party cares or will do anything about either, who actually says something about it?

President Barack Obama praised lawmakers for restoring a measure that aims to bring federal spending under control in his weekly radio address Saturday, but expressed concern that politics may still get in the way of reducing the massive deficit.

Mr. Obama also vowed in his weekly speech to press ahead with an executive order to create a new bipartisan fiscal commission charged with recommending ways to reduce the deficit–a measure that has faced opposition from some Republicans.

“After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” Mr. Obama said.

“It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that’s what we must do.”

via Obama Touts Return of ‘Paygo’ – WSJ.com.

Lol, I know. Obama seriously must be the most arrogant human alive. To believe  you can spend deficits, which I think would have been unimaginable just two years ago,  and then expect people to believe you actually care or will do something about deficits, has to be the height of arrogance.

Well, at least we can count on the Republicans right? They’ll really go after the deficits.

Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) in the GOP’s weekly address on criticized the Obama administration’s push to prosecute the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other co-defendants in a Manhattan civilian court.

Eh boy. Really guys? Everyone is worried about the economy and either the job they have or don’t have, and you are trying to ride this pony to victory again? Sorry, it is not going to work. This boogieman isn’t as scary as it once was, and it will not get you back into power. What do you think scares Americans more? The fact that our entire country is going to collapse under debt, or that the next underpants bomber might sneak through the strip show at the airport?

I don’t think I’ve shaken my head as much reading an article as I have reading this Wall Street Journal article. I literally almost had to stop reading, thinking of all the busybodies who think their big ideas should be imposed through “incentives” and ultimately at gun point.

This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.

City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

Lol, “City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny….”. Isn’t setting out to be a role model being a nanny in the first place? You are trying to force all your citizens to abide by some vision that they would not have otherwise chosen for themselves.

Also, I’d love to know what the carbon footprint of all these city contractors fanning out to unscrew light bulbs is compared to the light bulbs they are unscrewing. If it’s like any other liberal idea, it’s probably worse.

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ….

But Boulder has found that financial incentives and an intense publicity campaign aren’t enough to spur most homeowners to action, even in a city so environmentally conscious that the college football stadium won’t sell potato chips because the packaging isn’t recyclable.

Can someone tell Mr. Doran that free people will do what is in their best interest based on what they believe is in their best interest. The government doesn’t need to “get them to do” anything.

You have to love the logic here. I can just see the bureaucrats now, “How can we not get our vision implemented? I mean I told the vendors we can’t sell potato chips because of the packaging. You would think with people accepting that, they would open their wallets and doors up to contractors so we can be a role model. Now how are we going to get ourselves on the news and get Obama to talk about us?”

Since 2006, Boulder has subsidized about 750 home energy audits. Even after the subsidy, the audits cost each homeowner up to $200, so only the most committed signed up. Still, follow-up surveys found half didn’t implement even the simplest recommendations, despite incentives such as discounts on energy-efficient bulbs and rebates for attic insulation.

About 75 businesses got free audits; they made so few changes that they collectively saved just one-fifth of the energy auditors estimated they were wasting.

Hey, you didn’t waste enough money yet. Let’s waste some more. How about we give free light bulbs and labor to change them at tax payer expense. Then when we followup and we find that people bought cheaper, less efficient bulbs to replace our free bulbs, we’ll sit around and postulate how we can force them to buy only our green bulbs. Maybe you can have a green inspector stop buy once a month to check!

“We still have a long way to go,” says Paul Sheldon, a consultant who advises the city on conservation. Residents “should be driving high-efficiency vehicles, and they’re not. They should be carpooling, and they’re not.” And yes, he adds, they should be changing their own light bulbs—and they’re not.

Eh boy. Paul Sheldon must have been endowed by our creator to decide what we all should be doing. Darn idiots in Boulder should listen to Paul Sheldon. I’m sure he has a degree in government planning or at least saw “An Inconvenient Truth”.

In 2006, Boulder voters approved the nation’s first “carbon tax,” now $21 a year per household, to fund energy-conservation programs. The city took out print ads, bought radio time, sent email alerts and promoted the campaign in city newsletters.

But Boulder’s carbon emissions edged down less than 1% from 2006 through 2008, the most recent data available.

By the end of 2008, emissions here were 27% higher than 1990 levels. That’s a worse showing than the U.S. as a whole, where emissions rose 15% during that period, according to the Department of Energy.

More proof of Quinn’s first law, that liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it’s stated intent. While Quinn says liberalism, I think you can pretty much apply it to all government action. After wasting all that money, they did worse than the rest of the US.

In Freakonomics, the author talks about how parents were routinely a little late picking their kids up from a day care. In order to discourage this, the day care implemented a small fine (forget the exact amount). After the fine was implemented, tardiness by parents increased substantially. The moral of the story was that parents assumed by paying the fine, they were paying for the service, so they did not see a problem with being late. This is probably the same thing in Boulder. In pursuit of being a role model and being the first to tax their citizens for living (carbon tax), their citizens probably assumed that because they were paying their tax, they were already doing their part. Why change your behavior. By the looks of it, they even increased their carbon output assuming they were offsetting it with their carbon tax.

OK, here it comes. Here comes the gun!

City officials are frustrated—and contemplating more forceful steps. (Here it is!)

The City Council will soon consider mandating (Here it is again!) energy-efficiency upgrades to many apartments and businesses. The proposals under review would be among the most aggressive in the nation, requiring up to $4,000 a rental unit in new appliances, windows and other improvements. Owners of commercial property could face far larger tabs.

The goal: to spur $650 million in private investment in efficiencies over the next three years. (Sounds so nice doesn’t it?)

“Everyone needs to do something,” says Councilman Matthew Appelbaum.

I’m not sure if I can make it through this post. Reading this article the second time is torture. Ok, I’ll keep going. So what is there solution?

In the program, dubbed “Two Techs in a Truck,” as many as 15 energy-efficiency teams will go door-to-door. They’ll ask home and business owners for permission to caulk windows, change bulbs and install low-flow showerheads and programmable thermostats—all at taxpayer expense. The techs will set up clothes racks in laundry rooms as a reminder to use the dryer less often. They’ll even pop into the garage and inflate tires to the optimum pressure for fuel efficiency.

If they spot the need for bigger projects, such as insulation or a new furnace, the techs will help homeowners make appointments and apply for rebates.

Really? They are going to have idiots going door to door intimidating people into doing what they want.  Ok, that’s enough. I can’t continue. Click over to the Wall Street Journal and read the rest if you can stomach it. There is nothing worse than a government idiot with an idea!

via Boulder Struggles With Energy Conservation – WSJ.com.

Previously I posted about government created unemployment and gave an example of how they create unemployment by impeding two free people from free exchange. Well, today the Wall Street Journal has some real world examples from people who are running businesses out of their houses….well trying to anyway. Many of these people were either laid off or had a business else where, but could not afford to keep a rented space. All of them though should be commended for taking responsibility for themselves and engaging in the free market to support themselves instead of becoming government welfare recipients. Instead they are faced with harassment by busy body government officials.

The recession is causing a growing number of people to venture into home businesses, a boost for the economy but a nuisance for neighbors.

As jobless people trade their desks for kitchen tables, or as businesses reduce costs by giving up commercial storefronts, cities and states are grappling with problems caused by a rise in home businesses such as traffic and noise.

Thanks for the Wall Street Journal framing the issue to make it seem like government is trying to prevent the complete chaos working people make at home. I work at home and know many people that do, and guess what? I don’t know anyone who creates traffic and noise. Cities and states aren’t grappling with these issues. They are grappling with not being able to milk higher taxes out of commercial properties and not being able to force people to run businesses where they want them to run businesses. It goes against their “master plan”.

Officials in Nashville, Tenn., are discussing ways to loosen restrictions governing the operation of home businesses as high unemployment prods a growing number of entrepreneurs into offering everything from hair perms to piano lessons out of their living rooms. (Oh the horror. The traffic and noise from piano lessons and hair perms must be horrendous!)

Nashville’s planning code allows home-based businesses as long as no customers come to the house—a rule that is causing problems for front-porch barbers and others. City officials are now drafting less-stringent zoning to bring before the planning commission this month.

Oh my world. The government is telling people who can come to their house, that you supposedly own and have property rights to. How does the government know if its a customer or a friend? I guess that just means they need more code enforcers to find out. This must be one of the ways government looks out for the little guy. Obviously, these people must be rich and greedy. Who do they think they are trying to earn money giving haircuts out of their house. Damn “Big Business”. They are evil.

Unemployment in the Greater Nashville area hit 9.4% in December, compared with 6.5% a year earlier. Mr. Bernhardt estimates there are now 14,000 business with licenses that are operating illegally because they are located in residential areas, in violation of zoning codes.

Sounds like we have at least 14,000 criminals on the loose. Better hire more cops and build more prisons. Nah, they can just fine them out of their profits. Like the mob, if they want protection, they have to pay. More proof that chances are you break some law everyday, and the only real role of government now is to make everyone law breakers. These people must be a threat to society for the crime of trying to put food on the table. The moral decay of our society is shocking. Don’t you know if there is a law, it means you are immoral if you break it?

Along with the rising number of home shops come complaints. Code-enforcement officers in Gilbert, Ariz., 20 miles outside Phoenix, received a complaint in October about a fishy smell and flies around a town garage.

The “guy had 50 40-gallon fish tanks full of live fish that he delivered to pet stores,” recalled Michael Milillo, the town’s senior planner. The resident said he previously had a warehouse for his fish, but that to reduce costs in the downturn, he moved them to his garage, according to Mr. Milillo.

While Gilbert does allow home-based businesses, code officers thought the fish entrepreneur was running a home-based warehouse, which isn’t permitted. They moved to close it, but a town zoning board narrowly agreed—over Mr. Milillo’s objections—to allow the business, partly based on the resident’s claims that the storage was a temporary solution in a rough economic climate, Mr. Milillo said.

The resident’s employer, Tropaquatics Inc., declined to make him available for an interview.

Not only are municipalities becoming sympathetic to home-business owners, but many neighbors are, too. While one neighbor spoke at the Gilbert zoning meeting against the fish operation, 10 others said it wasn’t causing any problems and should be allowed to remain given the tough times.

“Seeing everything they’ve gone through with having to move from a big warehouse because of the economy and bring their business back into their garage—that’s the only thing that’s kept them alive. If that’s what they need to do to keep the business thriving, and it’s not endangering my family or causing any unwanted stress on our house, than I am all for it,” said neighbor Matthew Tidwell, a 34-year-old corporate-relations representative.

Go figure, one busy body stirring up trouble. The surprising thing was 10 people coming to stick up for the guy. Usually only the busy body has time to go to the zoning meetings. Other people actually have work to do. I guess the busy body couldn’t just go over to the guys garage and talk to him, ask him if there is a way to minimize the smell, or how long he plans on being in the garage. Maybe he did, but considering how busy bodies operate, I doubt it. Instead he figured, he’d use the gun of government to point it as his neighbor, who is just trying to get by. Apparently, it would be better for the guy to go out of business and live off the state.

Ok, time for the most horrendous case of a home owner causing such chaos with her evil business.

In Nashville, the lightning rod was a beauty parlor. Code-enforcement officers paid a visit to Dot Moon, a 61-year-old woman who, with her daughter, runs a shop with one chair and a tanning bed out of her detached garage. A small sign with a pair of scissors and a comb and the name “Crystal’s Hair and Tans” hangs from her mailbox.

Ms. Moon said she was told a few months ago that she was in violation of city codes because customers came to the house. “We don’t understand why they are picking on us,” she said.

Mr. Bernhardt, the city planning director, said that under current city rules, “it’s impossible to have a hair salon” in a home in a residential neighborhood. He said cases such as Ms. Moon’s are being considered as city officials look at loosening the rules.

Nashville Councilman Bruce Stanley proposed a narrow expansion of the city code to allow for home beauty parlors. Nashville’s Planning Commission rejected that idea in January as being unfair to other businesses. But realizing that more and more of these living-room operations are cropping up, the City Council has since begun work on broader rules for home-based businesses in residential areas.

Oh the traffic and noise must have been overbearing. I can only imagine who much traffic and noise was generated by this gigantic 1 chair and 1 tanning bed salon. Oh and the blight of the neighborhood must have been horrible with the small sign hanging on the mailbox.

Sara Marie Jenkins, who is 26 and designs bridal gowns in her home studio in Nashville, says “financially it helps a lot to work at home in this economy—not having to pay rent for a space or pay a second electric bill.”

Sara… Sara….Sara, but who are you to decide what is financially in your best interest. You are just a serf, and should do what your overlords tell you to do. Your family’s well being is not of concern to their master plan for the community. If you have to live off the state, that is better than you having a business that provides for you financially and provides value through your products and services to your community. Oh Sara, so naive you are.

via States Revisit Home-Businesses Rules – WSJ.com.

Ok, I probably tried putting too much sarcasm into text, which usually doesn’t come across right when I do it. Anyway, when are people going to wake up and realize we do not need government telling us how to live every aspect of our lives. Not only does it create unemployment, but it creates a community of adversaries. Do you think communities were closer when we had less government, and they worked problems out themselves; or do you think they are closer and more involved with each other, now that the government gun is laying around for everyone to try and get a hold of to impose their wishes on their neighbors?

We also need to wake up to realize most government rules are idiotic. They should be ignored by the masses. Saying you cannot have a business in your house goes against all three components mentioned by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence,  as well as the edited out part of “right to property”.  Liberty is taken away by every government rule and action. Pursuit of happiness is taken away if you cannot pursue commerce to put food on the table, and life is hard to have a right to when you can’t provide for yourself. Oh sure, the state can take care of you, but do you then have control of you life? Do you have a right to your life or does the state?

Last is “right to property”. This has been taken long ago with local property taxes and zoning codes. Like I said, you are a renter of your land and you will agree to pay on time or pay a late fee, and you will only use “your” property based on your lease agreement, which unlike a regular leases changes at the whim of local zoning boards and the like.

Yesterday, I was very disappointed with Glenn Beck’s smear of Debra Medina, who is running for Texas Governor. Apparently, Beck would rather have Obama or any other progressive in the White House as well as the majority in congress, as long as they say all 9/11 Truthers are whack jobs and should be publicly castrated.

Today, my mood was lightened by a great post by the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. Click over to the Tenth Amendment Center for the full post. It’s definitely worth your time.

But, you know what? I’m not a detective, and I don’t have time to study the science, the clues, the mystery behind global warming or the global warming swindle as many people call it. So, if you had me on your TV show (sorry I wasn’t available when your producers asked last year, but I think my recommendation for a substitute worked out great!), and asked me:

“Michael – do you believe in this global warming scam, do you believe what the mainstream scientists are telling us about global warming – yes or no!?”

I’d have to answer this way:

“I’ve heard a lot of reports from reputable people on both sides of that issue. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that. What I do know is this, I don’t trust the government to tell me the truth.”

In response, would you then say that you’re “writing me off” and “writing the Tenth Amendment Center off” because I haven’t taken a position on this – and that a better source for state sovereignty information is now the Huffington Post?”

Well, that’s basically what you did with Debra Medina on your program this week. The one person in the Texas campaign who’s had the courage to speak out about the Constitution, about nullification and interposition, about the founders, about the principles of liberty that this country was founded upon. That one person is “written off” by you because she hasn’t “taken a position on” a conspiracy theory that may or may not be of interest to her or her campaign?

Wow. Obviously the Constitution isn’t very important to you. A person’s stance on a conspiracy theory is. Or maybe this is just your way of trying to marginalize one of the few candidates in the entire country running their whole campaign on the original view of the Constitution.

Is that it, Glenn? Because it sure seems that way.

Maybe the real conspiracy isn’t 9-11 or Global Warming or anything of the sort. Maybe it’s all about the establishment media, and people like yourself – is this your way of letting the hardcore constitutionalists out here know that you really prefer the establishment candidates?

What should be more important is a person’s stance on the Constitution. In fact, that’s ALL that voters should care about. Not their race, their background, their religious views, their positions on conspiracies or anything else. People are elected to follow the constitution – and nothing more.

What’s more important to you, Glenn – a person’s stance on the Constitution or their view of a conspiracy theory?

Don’t bother answering. You already have.

via A Question for Glenn Beck on Global Warming and Conspiracy | Tenth Amendment Center Blog.

A while back I wrote a post on a book I was reading, Patriots: A novel of survival in the coming collapse. The book was awesome. You can read my post here. Recently, the author had a post on his site about saving nickles. Here is part of the post.

I’ve often mused about how fun it would be to have a time machine and travel back to the early 1960s, and go on a pre-inflation shopping spree. In that era, most used cars were less than $800, and a new-in-the box Colt .45 Automatic sold for $60. In particular, it would be great to go back and get a huge pile of rolls of then-circulating US silver dimes, quarters, and half dollars at face value. (With silver presently around $15.50 per ounce, the US 90% silver (1964 and earlier) coinage is selling wholesale at 11 times face value–that is $11,000 for a $1,000 face value bag.)

The disappearance of 90% silver coins from circulation in the US in the mid-1960s beautifully illustrated Gresham’s Law: “Bad Money Drives Out Good.” People quickly realized that the debased copper sandwich coins were bogus, so anyone with half a brain saved every pre-65 (90% silver) coin that they could find. (This resulted in a coin shortage from 1965 to 1967, while the mint frantically played catch up, producing millions of cupronickel “clad” coins. This production was so hurried that they even skipped putting mint marks on coins from 1965 to 1967.)

Alas, there are no time machines. But what if I were to tell you that there is a similar,albeit smaller-scale opportunity? Consider the lowly US five cent piece–the “nickel.”

Unlike US dimes and quarters, which stopped being made of 90% silver after 1964, the composition of a nickel has essentially been unchanged since the end of World War II. It is still a 5 gram coin that is an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel. (An aside: Some 1942 to 1945 five cent coins were made with 35% silver, because nickel was badly-needed for wartime industrial use. Those “War Nickels” have long since been culled from circulation, by collectors.)

According to www.Coinflation.com, the 1946-2008 Nickel (with a 5 cent face value) had a base metal value of $0.0677413 in 2008. That was 135.48% of its face value. (In recent months, with the recession, and a decline in industrial demand for copper, the base metal value of a nickel dropped below face value. But even at today’s commodities prices, you will start out at “break even” by amassing a stockpile of nickels.) I predict that as inflation resumes–most likely beginning in 2011–the base metal value of nickels will rise substantially.

via Survivalblog.com.

Then he posted a letter from one of his readers that had some tips on how to get your hands on a large amount of nickels.

Lessons learned

- Offer to take the nickels that they are sending back to the Fed. They save money in shipping and get paper money to put right back in circulation.

- Find a bank with a coin counter in the lobby. Those coins may be rolled up already and they will give you the nickels to save them shipping costs.

- When trying to cut a deal, be honest. When I went back to the first bank I told them why I was wanting nickels. We have been loyal customers of the bank and they have done right by us and were willing to work with me.

I found an interesting web site where you can buy $10,000 worth of nickels at face value and copper pennies at spot prices.

Thanks for all you do. Regards, – Cascinus, Jefferson City, Missouri.

via Letter Re: Stockpiling Nickels was Easier than I Had Thought – SurvivalBlog.com.

While I won’t be rushing out to buy nickels myself, it’s good info to know.  Personally, I’d be investing in some food storage and ammo first. Once you have those covered, nickles sound like a good idea.  It also doesn’t sound like a bad idea to just keep your nickels as you get them. Even better, I can probably tell my kids this, and they’ll gather all the nickles up for me. They’ll probably even con grandma and grandpap out of nickels….. Ah come on. We’ll take care of them when TEOTWAWKI hits.

I saw this pop up on Hot Air, so I had to check it out. While I don’t believe the government had a roll in 9/11, other than incompetence, does anyone see the irony in Glenn Beck acting like truthers are nut jobs? So I guess Glenn’s question your government with boldness only applies to his questions and conspiracies.

Six days ago, the big news out of Texas was that Tea Party activist and gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina came within the margin of error with Kay Bailey Hutchison, who barely clung to second place against incumbent Rick Perry. Today, Glenn Beck suffers heartbreak when Medina more or less cops to being a 9/11 Truther as well as a “constitutional conservative” candidate.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Heartache: Tea Party candidate in Texas a 9/11 truther.

Again, I don’t believe in the 9/11 Truther conspiracy, but I think it’s completely crazy that we would cast aside an awesome candidate who apparently Beck was in love with until this so-called revelation because she didn’t just say 9/11 truthers are completely nuts and I’d imprison everyone of them in Gitmo.

I guess the hypocracy shouldn’t surprise me, but unfortuately I’m a Glenn Beck fan, so it’s pretty disappointing. I guess he’d rather stick with big government conservatives and cast all his rants aside in pursuit of the 9/11 Truther witches.

Update: Medina Responds to Beck

I was asked a question on the Glenn Beck show today regarding my thoughts on the so-called 9/11 truth movement. I have never been involved with the 9-11 truth movement, and there is no doubt in my mind that Muslim terrorists flew planes into those buildings on 9/11. I have not seen any evidence nor have I ever believed that our government was involved or directed those individuals in any way. No one can deny that the events on 9-11 were a tragedy for all Americans and especially those families who lost loved ones.

The question surprised me because it's not relevant to this race or the issues facing Texans. This campaign has always been about private property rights and state sovereignty. It is focused on the issues facing Texans. It is not a vehicle for the 9-11 truth movement or any other group.

The real underlying question here, though, is whether or not people have the right to question our government. I think the fact that people are even asking questions on this level gets to the incredible distrust career politicians have fostered by so clearly taking their direction from special interests instead of the people, whether it's Rick Perry and the his HPV mandate or Kay Hutchison and voting for the bank bailout. It is absolutely the right and duty of a free people to question their government. Texas does not need another politician who tells you what you want to hear, then violates your liberties and steals your property anyway. I fully expect to be questioned and to be held accountable as Governor, and that's the underlying issue here: should people be questioning their government. And the answer is yes, they should be.

via 2010: Medina Responds to 9/11 Flap | The Texas Tribune.

Back in December I posted an article from Tony Blankley, where he talks about how Eisenhower sunk the British Empire by trashing the pound. You can view it here. In it I said Obama going to China talking tough about their government reminded me of the old Eazy-E lyric, “you come talkin that trash, we’ll pull ya card”. Well, last night, I saw this post on the EconomicPolicyJournal. Sounds like that card may get pulled.

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust People’s Liberation Army deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan, reports Reuters.

Interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine, published on Monday.

“Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease,” said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences.

“Just like two people rowing a boat, if the United States first throws the strokes into chaos, then so must we.”

Luo said Beijing could “attack by oblique means and stealthy feints” to make its point in Washington.

“For example, we could sanction them using economic means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds,” Luo said

via EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Chinese Military Waving the Dump U.S. Bonds Threat..

Then, as I was creating this post, I stumbled across this Business Insider post.

It appears that this time China’s posturing is for real.

Following up on our earlier post that Chinese military officials want to “punish” America by selling Treasuries, Asia Times Online is reporting that an explicit directive by the Chinese government has notified reserve managers to sell all risky US assets, including asset backed and corporates, and just hold on to explicitly guaranteed Treasuries and Agency debt.

via The Dumping Begins: Chinese Reserve Managers Notified That Any Non-USG Guaranteed Securities Must Be Divested.

Still counting on that Obama recovery? No matter which party you are in, you can thank your leaders for sinking this ship. If this is just posturing, it should be a blaring warning. China could sink us any time. It’s time people wake up and quit letting the two parties distract us by pointing fingers at each other.

The other day I posted a blog about the free market providing roads, police and fire services. You can read it here. While on my way to work this morning, I got to thinking about the roads again. Where I live, we just got a couple feet of snow, and we have more coming today. It has been 4 days since the snow came, but I still had a heck of a time getting to work. Half the roads are still covered, and now the snow is packed down and turning to ice. I’m not talking about side roads here. I’m talking about the main roads.

So, this got me thinking. How would this be treated differently if the roads were private? Well, as far as technology, let’s just say everything is the same, which if roads were private all these years, there would be much more advanced technology. I am assuming the same technology, but there would be different incentives. If you own a road, and you earn income from tolls or some other mechanism that is pay for use, you would make sure those roads were quickly cleared. If they weren’t, you’d lose money. How would you charge a toll if no one can drive on your road? Your entire business model depends on people driving on your road. You would have to get the roads cleared quickly, or suffer huge losses.

Government on the other hand doesn’t really have any great incentive to get the roads cleared. Yeah, they get around to it, but what’s the rush. They may have angry constituents, but by the time election day rolls around, that’s water under the bridge. They need a reason to justify their expanding budgets, so they can’t ignore the issue completely. On the other hand, if they take longer to clean the roads, they can say they needed more help. Then they have more reason for bigger budgets and more employees.

Again, just some thoughts I had on my way into work. This is by no means meant to be a great argument for private roads. Most people can’t comprehend how the private sector could provide roads and then bill for them, so we just stick with the crappy government system where they use road bills to rob us blind and give handouts to their buddies and union supporters.

The media is all a buzz about the First Lady. Everything she does seems to have the glamour of a Hollywood premier. What is she up to now? Well, she’s going to tell everyone how to feed their kids.

First lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday plans to unveil a campaign to fight childhood obesity, a cause that is becoming her top policy priority.

The last thing you want to be is someone in the government’s top policy priority.

Her campaign is part of a government effort to reframe the debate about the nation’s expanding waistlines. Top health officials, including Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, say they want to shift the conversation away from achieving a particular weight or dress size and instead emphasize the benefits of good nutrition and physical activity.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad right. They just want to switch the conversation. Maybe she’ll have her own workout video. Wait, nevermind. If she does, we’d probably all be forced to buy it somehow. Any way, they just want to have a conversation. What’s so bad about that?

The U.S. obesity rate grew rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s, but figures released last month show the increase has slowed. About two-thirds of Americans are counted as either overweight or obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Hmmm, wonder why there was such a rapid increase through the 80s and 90s. Could it be this idiotic food pyramid that was crammed down out throats by who? Oh yeah, that’s right the government wanted to tell all us ignorant peasants how to eat back then, so they created first the four food groups and then the food pyramid. They also said do not eat a lot of fat. So what happened? Everyone thought the FDA had to know what it was talking about. Surely, they just wanted what was best for us. Well, it just so happens everyone got fatter after this advice. People in pursuit of being slim avoided fat, but what replaced fat? Sugar. If you look at this idiotic chart, it tells you to eat breads out the wazzoo. Could this have anything to do with our corn production? Hmm, just so happens we make so much damn corn that we now are forced to use it for fuel (despite lack of benefits), and it just so happens we are told to eat 6 to 11 servings of wheat products. Nah, not our government. They would never. It just so happens, the breads category is the one that makes you fat, but hey what do I know. Government obviously knows best. I mean, they wouldn’t want everyone’s health to get so bad that we’d all come begging for health care reform….would they?

Ms. Obama’s plan has four planks, according to people briefed on it. She wants to improve nutrition and physical education in schools; promote activity such as walking and biking in community planning; make healthy food more available, particularly in poor areas; and make nutrition information on food packages clearer.

Aahhh, there it is. I was wondering when the gun was coming out. The article calls the gun planks. Isn’t that nice?

She wants to improve nutrition and physical education in schools. Lovely. Like our kids aren’t getting a lack of education in the first place. Now we are going to increase physical education, which will help us better compete with China how? Also, does Mrs. Obama realize that government schools are always excluded from these so called food bans like transfat?  I guess the fact that kids spend most of their days at government schools has nothing to do with there health.

Ok, but what’s so bad about promoting walking and biking in community planning? Nothing if it’s just talk. I’m sure we’ll have our money stolen though to fulfill her vision. I’m sure this will be a handout to ACORN and the like to make communities more healthy and socialist.

Lastly, how is she going to make healthy food more available and nutrition information on packages clearer? The only way government knows how. She’s going to use government force.

While I’m sure she feels good about herself taking on obesity for “the children” and the media will make it sound like she’s parting the red sea, surely she should realize that government policy had a lot to do with creating the obesity epidemic. As with all societal ills, she could just repeal government policies. How about the FDA removes their food pyramid and says find your own health information on the internet. How about the FDA gets out of the food production and subsidy business. Maybe we could afford other foods than corn based wheats and high fructose corn syrup based foods. Maybe we could import cheaper vegetables from other nations. We don’t need another nanny. Some please find the first lady a different hobby. How about raising your own kids and teaching them about liberty.

via Michelle Obama Launches Plan to Fight Childhood Obesity – WSJ.com.

The Wall Street Journal has an article talking about how Ben Bernanke is going to layout his master plan on how to prevent inflation after printing trillions of dollars while at the same time not collapsing the economy. Sounds like a tight rope walk on an icy rope to me.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will begin this week to lay out a blueprint for a credit tightening, to be followed once the Fed decides the economy has recovered sufficiently.

The centerpiece will be a new tool Congress gave the central bank in October 2008: an interest rate the Fed pays banks on money they leave on reserve at the central bank. Known as “interest on excess reserves,” this rate is now 0.25%.

The Fed is still at least several months away from raising interest rates or beginning to drain the flood of money it poured into the financial system in 2008 and 2009. But looking ahead to when the economy is strong enough to warrant tightening credit, officials have been discussing for months which financial levers to pull, when to start and how best to communicate their intent.

When the Fed is ready to tap the brakes, it plans to raise the rate paid on excess reserves, according to Fed officials in interviews and recent speeches. The higher rate would entice banks to tie up money they otherwise might lend to customers or other banks. The Fed expects such a maneuver to pull up other key short-term rates, including the federal-funds rate at which banks lend to each other overnight—long the main tool for steering the economy.

In response to the worst financial crisis in decades, the Fed took extraordinary action to prevent an even deeper recession— pushing short-term interest rates to zero and printing trillions of dollars to lower long-term rates. Extricating itself from these actions will require both skill and luck: If the Fed moves too fast, it could provoke a new economic downturn; if it waits too long, it could unleash inflation, and if it moves clumsily it could unsettle markets in ways that disrupt the nascent economic recovery. Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues are attempting to explain—both to markets and the public—that the Fed has an exit strategy in the works in order to bolster confidence in its ability to steer the economy.

Couple questions, because I am not an economist. First, where does the money come from to pay this “interest on excess reserves”? I guess they just print it. So the answer to preventing inflation is to print money and pay banks with newly printed money to hold their reserves with the Fed. If what I understand of inflation is correct, it’s the printing of new money that is inflation, and higher prices is just a symptom of inflation. It sounds to me like all this does is create more inflation. Again, I’m not an economist, so I could be completely wrong on this. It sounds to me like someone taking ibuprofen when they have strep throat. You may have minimized the symptoms, but you still have strep throat that needs to be dealt with. (I had strep a month ago, so this was the best example I could think of.)

Second question is is it me or are the conspiracy of bankers controlling the world sounding more and more realistic. They screw up the whole country, and what is their punishment? They get bailouts dollar for dollar with no losses on their bad bets. Then they get paids to keep their share of newly printed money at the Fed. They get paid when they lend it out at 10 to 1, and if they screw up, guess who’s back to bailing them out.

Third question is more rhetorical. Based on the last paragraph, does anyone have “confidence in it’s ability to steer the economy”? This is the same Fed that steered the economy into its current crisis. They created a huge bubble because of their low interest rates, which they are now trying to cure with even lower interest rates. Now they tell us they have a master plan to get us out of printing trillions of dollars without massive inflation.

The nature of its exit from today’s unusually low interest rates will affect everything from mortgage rates and what companies pay on short-term borrowings to the rates savers earn. The timing and sequence of the steps are the subject of intense speculation in financial markets.

You have to just love the government. They blame the speculators when things aren’t going the way they claim they are supposed to go, and then they create all these areas of speculation. If the government would just let the free market work, speculators wouldn’t be sitting around trying to figure out what the government is going to do. I’m sure there are some out there who would pay good money to know before hand what they are going to do. Nah, that would never happen with our “trusted” officials.

Officials are warning investors and banks to prepare for surprises.

In January, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said: “Interest rates are difficult to forecast in the most settled or normal times, and their path is especially uncertain in the current circumstances.”

The Fed is contemplating other innovative steps to manage some of the money it has pumped in, steps that officials say could come either slightly before or alongside a boost in the rate on reserves.

One is to encourage banks to tie up money at the Fed for a set period—preventing them from lending it—in what are called “term deposits.” Another is to lock up funds, and thus constrain the supply of credit in short-term lending markets, by borrowing against the Fed’s large portfolio of securities holdings, in trades known as “reverse repos.” When the Fed borrows from the markets, it effectively takes money out of circulation and replaces it with securities from its holdings.

via Fed to Outline Future Tightening Steps – WSJ.com.

Oh boy. The Fed is coming up with new tools. What’s the old saying, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Sounds to me like they just got different hammers, and they are going to pound the same nail. The problem is we are the ones holding the nails, and I have a feeling we’re going to get our fingers smashed.