Is there a Remedial Math Class for Presidents ?

So if you are like me, you are steaming mad about Obama's "New Nationalism" speech. There's a lot to get pissed off about. The following excerpt I find particularly interesting...

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

I did the math taking US government provided data on Per Capita Personal Income over the years in question, and adjusting for inflation using CPI (which I understand is probably the most conservative inflation adjustment). Here is what I found out about how the average per capita income went up during those time periods. I added in the 1980's, because I noticed Obama left that one out, probably intentionally, I mean since we are rewriting history we may has well take Reagan out, he's always been such a nuisance.

Per Capita Average Income Increases in the United States.

1920-1930 35%
1950-1960 20.37%
1960-1970 33.84%
1980-1990 24%

Do those number look bad to you? If we get another four years of Obama are you expecting to have 20-30% more buying power at the end of it?

Remember that looking at these things per capitia and not by category is crucially important. In addition you can't look at household income, which is how almost all the government data is calculated. If you need to understand why, see my Income Distribution post on the subject.

More fuzzy math

According to Obama in his 60 minutes interview, the stimulus bill created 3 million jobs. Regardless of whether you believe that or not, that means each job cost tax payers $278,000. Does that really sounds like a good deal? I mean we could have just cut a check for $100,000 to each person and saved $427 million, as pointed out in this article.

People are stupid

One of tenants of left is that "people are stupid". Which of course is why you pay the plumber, or electrician, or gardener, or mechanic, or carpenter, or whoever you think is stupid, money. Because those idiots don't know anything. In reality those people actually know more about something than you do, in a certain realm of knowledge. That is why you pay them. They offer a service that for the dollar amount you pay them is worth more to you than the time to learn such knowledge and the labor to carry it out.

We've created this whole hierarchy of knowledge. You learned it in school. Social science is above blue collar work, biology above that, chemistry above biology, physics above chemistry math above all. And then once we got to the top, or whatever part of that food chain we reached, we proclaimed we are smarter and more knowledgeable then anything below us. Until we needed our toilet fixed...

The fact is people with different knowledge, however mundane you might think that knowledge is, actually know something you don't, and that creates value for their knowledge/labor which you are willing to pay for.

The reality isn't that people are stupid, but more the sum total of their upbringing, education opportunities, family, personal experiences has led them to a certain place. Who are you to be the judge of what their actual IQ is? In many cases I bet its much higher than yours. IQ is not actually what matters in this world. Sure IQ brings value, but in the end knowledge and experience is what brings the real buckos.

People aren't really stupid, they just know different things. They know lots of things you don't know, and think you are stupid about those things. That is what makes the economy work. It's that everyone, has something to give. Yeah, its not fair, but there is a value, in dollars, placed on everything. This value factors in the time spent to gain such knowledge, how many people have such knowledge, how readily available this knowledge is, and the skill factor involved to apply such knowledge to real work.

You may think no one should earn over a X dollar/year, and its the right of the gov't to take from that person to give to the less fortunate. But by doing so you are devaluing the ability, upbringing, labor, risk, knowledge, and experience that brought that person into the value they are worth in the first place. In end you are giving the power to someone else (the gov't) to make decisions on what something is worth. If you are pissed about how someone values your knowledge, skill, ability, experience in this world, do you really want some omnipresent power, who is guaranteed to mess it up, making that decision. Sure screw that rich, able, privileged guy, but how much are you really screwing yourself?

The free market is an attempt to rate value through the summation of individual decisions (via personal economic transactions). Because the aggregation of those transactions, with all the personal knowledge of those that engage in those transactions, creates more knowledge, and a better assessment of true value, then any top down approach, which would be based on the limited knowledge of those who make those decisions.

The conservative viewpoint is this. The world is unfair, and always will be. We by our nature our always on the path toward barbarianism. In other words, the bigger stronger dude will always take the rabbit I just killed for myself. That is injustice, and barbarianism. The best we can do is create a society that protects ourselves from that, but there are always trade offs. Nothing the gov't does is a win/win. Someone loses, someone wins. Its a delicate balance of what do you get for those you decide to screw. But in the end if I killed the rabbit, I should get to reap the rewards.

Voting against your own self-interest

This whole argument from the left about how the tea partiers, or working class Republicans, are "Voting against your own self-interest" is starting to piss me off.

It goes something like this. Are you rich?

Then why do you care if rich people get taxed more, when that money will go to help you.

Or, why would you vote for someone that isn't going to do anything to help you? Don't you want free health care, or lower cost health care? Don't you want housing assistance? Don't you want to help cure poverty? Don't you want to a better country to live in? That other side isn't going to help you at all. We will help you, and you are voting against your own self-interest.

Of course, the whole basis of this argument is that more government, more "rights", more taxes, more nanny programs, are actually going to help the situation. There is this belief on the left that these problems can actually be solved by government. From the economy to poverty, the Left thinks every single ailment of society is a problem to be solved, and that more government is the answer. But have any of these government "solutions" actually worked. Where is the proof that the War on Poverty actually did anything? Last I checked the poverty rate seems to be in a holding pattern between 11 and 15% since the Great Society program started. What about the war on drugs? That's been going really well. No, I don't want free health care, cause everything has a cost, and I don't believe a government take over will actually lower costs. When has that ever happened? The government can actually do something more efficiently than the free market, really? Please give me an example of that. Or what about "No child left behind", the list goes on and on.

If you really want to challenge yourself on some of the ideas that are just accepted as fact these days, pick up a copy of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. Ideas like, everything from a high minimum wage helps the poor, so does rent control, strict controls by government are needed to protect people from capitalist predators, black slavery in the US is the worst the world has ever known. You may be surprised to find that often these ideas not only don't help, they actually have the exact opposite effect on the groups of people they are aiming to help.

If thinking that using my money to solve my problems by using my value system is "voting against my own self-interest" than maybe you are right. But first, I would say how do you know what my self-interest is? That's very presumptuous for you to assume that you know what is good for me. Apparently, the left has reached some level of "omniscience" to have that sort of knowledge. Or maybe they just think all those really smart people in government have the all knowing ability to make that determination for everyone. I'd say take a look around you, look at what works in the world really well, and what doesn't. How many of those things working really well are the products of government? I'm going to wager not many. So what possibly leads you to believe more government is the solution to any problem. On the basis that has worked so well in the past? I mean really. This lie that the Left has drilled into us is starting to crumble. It just doesn't make sense anymore.

My self interest is in making sure there in opportunity for my children in the future. I do not see how a over reaching, over spending government that is squandering my money on useless and unsuccessful programs racking up an unsustainable amount of debt and continues to believe that additional government intervention in the economy is going to lead to growth supports my self interest. I don't believe this lie anymore. Its not a bill of goods I'm willing to accept.

So stop telling me or anymore else what their self-interests are you elitist, presumptuous meddling twerps. Why don't you let people figure out what their own self interests are with their votes and how they spend their dollars. Keep your Utopian ideas and failed social experiments to yourself, and let the rest of us carve out our own paths. We really don't need your type of "help", which is just a ploy to gain more power and control over others.

"Trickle Down" Economics ?

The use of the term "trickle down" is another example of the left using their verbal virtuosity to completely misrepresent supply side economics. The money doesn't trickle to the workers, in fact it flows rather quickly. Because business has to pay people first, profits are not realized until later if at all. As usual sowell explains it so well.

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/1115-the-trickle-down-economics-straw-man.html

Income Distribution

Having just completed Thomas Sowell's "Intellectuals and Economics" I want to summarize some of the key empirical evidence he cites in Chapter 3. This is because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to convince most to read the book, but it will at least give me a quick reference into the future. Because now having read his book, I'm clearly seeing how income statistics are used in very misleading ways. This leads one to believe that the "gap between the rich and poor in widening" or "the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer."

His basic point is that income misunderstandings are caused by the "widespread practice of confusing statistical categories with flesh-and-blood human beings". So lets summarize how this is done, by looking at some statistics from the category standpoint, and then switch to a per person outlook.

Example #1 - The gap is widening...

Category Viewpoint

The amount of income and proportion of all income in the top 20 percent bracket has risen over the years, widening the gap between the top and the bottom.

Per capita viewpoint

By US Treasury Department data, following individuals over time by looking at tax returns, the incomes of individuals who were in the bottom 20% in income in 1996 rose 91% by 2005, while the incomes of individuals who were in the top 20% in 1996 rose by only 10% by 2005. Those in the top 5% and top one percent actually declined.

So how can these both be true. Because people move between categories over time. The categorical viewpoint simply ignores this fact, and leaves you with a very different conclusion.

Example #2 - Rich are getting richer.

Category viewpoint

"Richest are leaving even the rich behind". This belief is based on the fact that income averages in the top 0.1 percent of income earners are rising.

Per capita viewpoint

Between 1996 and 2005 individuals in the "super-rich" category actually had their incomes fall 50%, dropping them out of the super rich. Among the top 1/100 of 1% of very highest income earners in 1996 - only 25% remained in this group in 2005.

Again, the movement of people between categories is completely ignored. In the case of the super-rich, they actually fall back into rich. Most people start at the bottom and work up. In fact, 3/4 of working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20% in 1975 were also in the top 40% of income earners by 1991. Only 5% of people in the bottom 20% where still there in 1991, while 29% of those had risen to the top 20%.

Another good fact, is that almost half of the Americans at or near minimum wage are 16 to 24 years of age. Certainly, they don't remain there. But in a country that is growing its population, its stands to reason this age group will continue to grow, giving the category viewpoint fuel for its fire. Just another way we are misled by stats that take the "category" approach.

Example #3 - Incomes have stagnated or grown only very slowly

Category Viewpoint

From 1967 to 2006, median real household income rose by 31%, adjusted for inflation. And in selected time periods the incomes rose less. This has led to the claim that incomes have "stagnated".

Per capita viewpoint

Per individual, income rose by 122% from 1967 to 2005. So more than a doubling is called "stagnation"?

Again, this is by looking at averages in groups or categories, rather than looking at the individual.

Another point Sowell makes is that the number of persons per household has been declining. But stats continue to look at "household" income rather than individual income. This is very convenient because it helps overstate their case. That are 39 million people in households whose incomes are in the bottom 20%, and 64 million people in households who incomes are in the top 20%. So even if everyone in the country had the same income, there would be a huge "disparity" between average households incomes.

One last misleading trend in income stats, is that they leave out income received in kind - such as foods stamps, and subsidized housing, which can also exceed the value of the cash income received in those in the lower brackets. In 2001, this amounted to 3/4 of the total resources at the disposal of people in the bottom.

Stuff my dad tought me

Respect is earned

The problem with the debate is washington that liberals don't get, is respect is earned. So regardless if you think rich people ought to pay more more or not, what I'm thinking is I've given you a bunch of money and you've over extended yourself and spent it unwisely. That's not really a situation where people want to give you more money, cause frankly they don't trust you.

When my grandmother died, she left me some money, not a lot but some. I was a totally irresponsible person at the time. So my parents gave me some, but kept the rest. When I found that out later I was pissed, but you know in hind sight I'd do the same thing. You can't keep giving your children, or the gov't money, and enabling them to make bad decisions sometimes the only way to learn is to show you are accountable, that is how your earn respect.

When you do something stupid, you have to earn back the respect. You have to show you are worthy. The gov't has yet to do that. So from my perspective the republican stance that is getting a lot of bad press is the right one. An austerity ultimatum, is a way the public says, look you over spending irresponsible bastards, we aren't taking it anymore. You created this mess, not us. We trusted you with our money and look what you did. Sorry that means pissing off poor people, or old people, or corporations, or banks, or the defense industry. But those little whining bastards are going to have to grow up and deal with it. Maybe once the gov't can show it can be responsible this won't be so painful but right now, after a long history of being irresponsible its time for some tough love.

Be responsible for your actions

Look, blaming this situation the rich, or past administrations is getting old. This is America. Our wealth is ours first. Its about private property, that is what this country was founded on. We all recognize the need for a social net or to cure social inequalities, but the fact we are spending .40 cents of every dollar on a debt is not sustainable. This is largely the fault of politicians pandering to more power, and a public not willing to stop them. The time has come to recognize that they need to fix this, and that is ultimately going to mean making some decisions that people won't be happy with. But you put yourself in that situation. And I'm pretty sure the 2010 election proved that we are sick of it. So I applaud the republicans for the hard line, because I think its necessary. You reap what you sow. I didn't ask for the wars or the social hand outs, I don't see why its my problem to fix it. You have the revenue you have, just like I do in my personal finance. I have to make some hard decisions, and so do you. If that means the some people are pissed so be it. Time to stand up and be responsible.

Frankly, Obama is trying to play just as much as a political card as the anyone else, b/c he's knows a longer term debt ceiling pushes this past his re-election. A 4 trillion reduction in 10 years is a start but not really the end game. It going to come down to major tax reform, the likes of which is only solved by a flat tax or something that is broader and fairer. So I say pass 100 billion debt ceiling with a 100 billion cut every month until there is political will for more. That will keep it going until we can have real reform, which isn't going to happen in the next 2 weeks. It's only going to really happen when some people are in office that don't care about getting re-elected, and right now its seems that Obama's worried about another term and the Republicans are worried about getting in the white house. The earliest we will even begin to deal with this is in 2013, or when the sky falls.

More poop

Read this, 47 % employment rate

My take is that there are a lot of people making money that aren't paying in at all. I guess there are a lot more drug dealers, thieves, under the table workers, etc. that pay nothing to the IRS, because you can't live on nothing. Solution flat tax. The problem isn't the rich, the problem is spending. The revenue problem is that a whole bunch of people pay nothing. If you are a W2'er you are getting screwed, the middle class is where most of the money comes from, and you are the ones who will continue to pay. The only solution is broad tax reform, get rid of all the stupid tax loopholes, tax structure, and replace it with a fair flat tax. You get revenue from everyone that way, and its fair. The rich pay more, because they consume more. The poor stop paying very regressive payroll taxes, and those who don't pay anything, start paying.

Now read this: Cut corporate jet loophole, in 5,000 years you'll cover Obama's run up of one year

So again the current administration thinks you are stupid, and wants to blame rich people, when really the problem is Cronyism and that too many people don't contribute and just take. There's so many examples of continued Cronyism in the current administration I'm not even going to bore you with that. More on how laughable Obama's speach was here:

Obama’s Declaration of Dependence

He help create the damn loophole, LMAO.

Stupid or they think we are stupid ?

Hopefully I can stop laughing for long enough to actually type after reading this article

Here's the laughable part

...

Their bill, which could come to a vote by next week, proposes to save $21 billion over 10 years in tax breaks to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and Conoco Phillips.

"We're serious about reducing the deficit," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a few hours after the bill was introduced by fellow Democrats Robert Menendez, Claire McCaskill and Sherrod Brown.

"It's really a no-brainer," Reid continued. "Let's use these savings from the taxpayer giveaways to drive down the deficit, not drive up oil companies' profits."

...

So look, I'm not for oil company subsidies, but how does a $21 billion savings over 10 years show you are serious about the deficit.

My interpretation is that you don't know the difference between million, billion, and trillion and are stupid. Or you are playing political games because you think we don't know the difference, in which case you think we are stupid. I'm not even sure which way this goes.

I'm really beginning to think some of these politicians really don't understand numbers. There is over a trillion dollar budget issue this year alone. Do you even understand what a trillion is ? Let me explain it, start with one million, like this: 1,000,000. See how that has 6 zeros. Ok now, add three more zeros, like this: 1,000,000,000. Now you have a billion. Ok now, add three more zeros, like this: 1,000,000,000,000. That's a trillion.

So lets see, over 10 years you'd save 20 billion. The deficit is around 14.3 trillion:

14,300,000,000,000 - 20,000,000,000 = 14,280,000,000,000

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $4.03 billion per day since September 28, 2007. To let's see that is 20/5 = 4, that is five days of spending. Oh yeah, you are serious all right. Or what about 20/14300 * 100 = 0.13986014%. Well gee, that is serious, you are really making progress there buddy, you are going to shave off .13%. Wow, you know how to get it done.

So fine, pass this, I don't really care. But do you have to sound like such a dumb ass when you talk about it, sheesh. What a piece of crap.

Don't feel bad about being happy OBL is dead

This is a reaction to the reactions I've witnessed today on facebook and other social media outlets. You know the, the Martin Luther King quotes about fighting darkness with darkness, or why are people celebrating a murder or killing of another human etc, etc.

There's a lot of stuff that is either depressing or negative about America right now. A lot of things to be pessimistic about: we've got out of control debt, a polarized political environment fueled by extreme opinions and damn near class warfare, a few expensive and confusing wars on our hands, a recession, pending inflation, the list goes on and on. Maybe it's a little twisted, but I think its ok to feel good about the US finally getting OBL. It's something we can unite around. However, creepy and twisted you might think that is, I'm ok with it.

Symbolically, it says don't screw with us. That's how this whole mess started anyway. One of the main reason OBL was able to rally support was because of the perceived weakness of the US in Somalia. There have been failed terrorists attacks, but never justice. There hasn't been any justice regarding the banking fiasco, I'm still waiting for that. This is one thing we can all look at and say, we got it done. Maybe it took 10 years and cost a bazillion dollars, but hey... (damn it, I think you debbie downers already go to me)



Now I don't know if this will change anything, maybe it won't, but I'm not going to feel bad about it. It's a testament to the elite forces, and a new way of doing business, that doesn't involved nation building or costly invasions. It's about getting a job done, closure, and feeling united. Those are things I can get behind.

For you conspiracy theorists out there who think OBL was already dead, or is being kept alive, or whatever. I'm ignoring you, so you don't mess with my feel good moment. I'm pretty happy with the thought that we got him, and how we did it. Didn't ask for permission from Pakistan, didn't go through some lengthy and annoying trial, just quick and dirty. I like believing that. So I choose to believe it for now.

The rich don't have enough money to fix the deficit problem

I just did a little math to illustrate this point. If you look at the top 1% earners in the US. They make on average $1,117,000. Now the population of the US is 311,191,103. I figure maybe only half of those people work, that is probably a super aggressive assumption, in reality its probably much lower. But for the sake of this argument, lets assume (311,191,103/2) * .01 * 1,117,000. This number is $1,738,002,310,255. This is the total income per year by the top 1% earners in the US. Right now they pay a 38% tax rate. If you charged them 100% rate, (cause screw them, those greedy bastards!) the government could take in $1,738,002,310,255 which is $1,077,561,430,000 more revenue.

In 2010 the budget deficit is estimated to be 1.29 trillion. So there is still a 212 billion dollar problem here.

Not even getting into any of the moral issues about how taxing someone 100% is wrong (obviously that revenue would dry up pretty fast as people leave the country), or anything emotional about how the rich should pay more. You can see that the numbers don't add up, and what we have here is fundamentally a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

Now we can get into all sorts of debates about where we should cut spending as I'm sure we will be in the next few months. But can we all just agree that its a spending problem, the facts are pretty obvious.

Interesting read on how California got into trouble by relying on taxing the rich too much,
The Price of Taxing the Rich . In a nutshell they are not a consistent revenue stream, especially during recessions.

It's not about the money

I'm so sick of people blaming America's education performance on lack of money. That is such a bunch of crap. Sure America might not score well worldwide in all sorts of metrics. But it has nothing to do with money. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the only two countries that spend more per student that the United States are Switzerland and Austria. We spend more per student than: Norway, Denmark,France,Italy,Germany,Japan,Australia, and Sweden. Go look at the test scores in those countries, might make you think a little. Read more here: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student

Another fun exercise is looking at how much states spend per student and average SAT scores. For example, New York ranks 49th in average SAT score of 996.00 while spending $13,703.00/studnet, and New Jersey 50th (1005) while spenging $14,117.00. Utah is number one with an average score of 1114 while spending only $5,216. Check it out yourself here: http://www.datamasher.org/mash-ups/spent-student-and-sat-scores. It's almost a negative corelation.

So stop complaining about education cuts, we spend too much money on education already. Maybe some cuts will actually force people to address the real problems.

References
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051700035.html
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2010/section4/indicator38.asp
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student

Live and let live

Ok, this has come up a few times in the past week for me. You can exhibit tolerance while still professing to your own opinions. For some reason in this culture people seem to think tolerance means not speaking your own mind, but I completely disagree with that. You can be permissive and objective about another person beliefs without having to completely bite your tongue, and pretend you agree with them. Tolerance is not the same thing as being supportive or enabling. I think sometimes people get those confused.

Tolerance means I believe want I want, and I'm free to talk about it, and likewise. If you believe in bearded sandal wearing ghosts, and sometimes eat their flesh and drink their blood, hey that's your thing. But I'm not really talking about religion here. In reality, the intolerant people are the people who profess a religion of tolerance. You know who I'm talking about. Let me take you back..

In the winter of 1992, somewhere in western Massachusetts, I was attending a Phish concert. Don't laugh, Phish was cool back then. Anyway, a bunch of my friends and I decided to start something of a mosh pit in an isolated part of the audience, or maybe it was right up front, can't remember. On occasion, our isolated mosh pit had a tendency to knock into a hippie dancer, or musical audit trail junkie (those guys writing down the set list). I remember one particular fellow of the latter persuasion, who responded in a near violent and aggressive way over being slightly touched by our activities. He sorta went from passive non verbal documenting drone, into crazed Charlie Manson type hippie. It was a very profound moment for me, because I kept thinking aren't these hippie's supposed to be about tolerance. But really, it was a new set of rules. A new culture with a whole new prescription for what and wasn't appropriate. Albeit very different from the main culture, in a way, not so different.

It was at that moment, I stopped judging people by their hair, or clothes, or musical tastes, or whatever. Tolerance is not about me subscribing to your thing, nor is it about you subscribing to mine. Look we are always going to bump into each other a little. When we co-exist the mosh pit might extend itself out a little too far. It happens. In one regard its a chance to go, hey the mosh pit thing looks kinda fun let me try it. Or maybe I tried it, ended up breaking my wrist last time, don't think it was so much fun. Or maybe, don't want to try it, seems too dangerous too me, but I respect the physical bonding aspect of it.

Now I never expected this poor guy that got bumped to participate in the mosh pit, or even be happy that we bumped into him. But it was pretty harmless, and we apologized right away. I was more expecting him to be like, no problem, dude, can you just do it over there a little. Or maybe if he had asked why we were doing that, I would have told him well, its a chance to grope chicks and have them squeeze your junk, and that would have completely changed his perspective on the whole thing.

For me, those little bumps are opportunity for learning.

For others, they want to bump you and expect you to just take it.

For example, sometimes people advertise their beliefs on social media and expect everyone to agree with them, and then get all salty if you don't. When I post something political on facebook, I fully expect to have to defend my point of view, but no one ever contradicts me, its not worth the trouble, they know what a hot head I am. For others who might post an occasional political diatribe, they never expect my discourse when I comment, and seem to get quite irritated and insulting about it. The real irony is when they go on about how they believe in tolerance. Because typically right away they made assumptions about my ideas, what I know, and don't know, and how I arrived at my conclusions. That doesn't sound like tolerance to me.

Rant complete nothing else to say.

Buy a bulldozer

This article by Glenn Greenwald, The Tea Party and civil liberties, got me thinking. For a long time I've been a supporter of third parties in America. From the Green party to the Libertarian party, I see a place in American politics for all of them. This article brings to light one of the fundamental benefits of having more players in the political landscape. By representing ourselves in smaller groups we are actually able to get more done. With two parties everything is black and white, on or off, 1 or zero. In the words of the so profound George W. Bush, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". It's no wonder there such a polarized political climate in this country right now. But you see when we add a third dimension things get interesting. By having more concentrations of power there is more opportunity for intersection, and ultimately majority consensus. Isn't that what democracy is about in the end?

You see I believe in a limited federal government in every way. That means taxing less, spending less, but also stay out of my house, my phone, my computer, my office, my mind, and my bedroom. In also means stay out of other countries.

So with those sorts of beliefs where do I go ? Really neither party is good at spending less, but probably one is better about taxing less. Neither party has a good track record on staying out of my personal business. They want to get involved one way or another. One party might be better at staying out of the bedroom. I'm pretty sure both of them want to get inside my head and re-program it. Neither party has any kind of track record on foreign policy. It's either help this guy or hurt that guy. See I don't want to do either. Don't want war, don't want nation building, don't want humanitarian whatever. Don't want to support democracy, don't want to destroy communism. You want to do some humanitarian stuff, go for it. Lots of private organizations are awesome at it. You want to destroy communism, write a book, start a talk radio show. Don't come to my house telling me about how I can live on a planet with my family and fairies when I die, and I won't tell you I think you are brainwashed by non-Pepsi-drinking, Pepsi-owning, pyramid scheming con artists. You want to nation build, buy a god damn bulldozer. But don't tell me what to do, and don't tax my ass to do it.

But I'm thinking with a few more parties, there might be some intersection of my crazy ideas with some crazy ideas from some other people. At the end of the day we might actually agree on a few things, and get some real stuff done. That is also why I support bills that are 10 pages or less. Because I think the less words there are, the more room for agreement. But I could be wrong about this.

Anyway, its interesting to see the Tea Party having a chance to bond with the Democrats. I think there is more opportunity for this. I think there are places I could bond with the Green party on things like limiting corporate power. Corporations are not freakin people, but somehow we've established that on our law books and that is just stupid.

You see if we try to isolate our beliefs one by one, separate them from our ideology and not worry about who we are talking to, and why they believe what they believe, we might all be able to start agreeing on things. We might get to the same place taking a different road, and that is totally ok, that is what democracy is all about. Come on people, you can do it.

Solution to Energy and Immigration Problems in US

Solution: annex Mexico. Think about it for awhile. Mexico is the number two supplier of oil to the US behind Canada. Annexing Mexico would change the trade balance in a big way, and give us some 20% of our daily oil supply.

But the real benefit it when it comes to Social Security. Right now, as we all know Social Security is in trouble. The fund is being drawn down and will evaporate sometime within the next 30 years, depending on who you ask and how they do the math. Social Security is a pay as you go system. Basically, the young people pay for the old people. The only way such a system can stay solvent, aside from having a large fund that is making interest, is to insure there are more people coming into the work force then going out. The growth rate in the US and the baby boomers of the past screwed this all up. The only real way to fix Social Security other than totally restructuring it or lower benefits, is to have a giant infusion of new payers. This is where Mexico comes in. Simple isn't it.

Now there are other benefits too like instead of a huge thousand mile border to worry about, we would have a really small one with Guatamala and Belize. The cost savings to border patrol and home land security would be amazing.

I don't think it would even have to be a violent sort of thing. At the rate Mexicans are pouring into this country, I think it would be as simple as just calling them up and working out a deal. That might go something like this:

"Hello Felipe? It's Barack. I was thinking things are getting pretty tough down there, life is probably getting you down, isn't it? I've got a deal for you. How about we give you a sweet position in the administration and you let us make Mexico the 51st state?"

Felipe, "Seriously, hombre? That sounds great. Can you send a few f16's in to take out the drug cartels, first, they are driving me nuts."

Obama, "no problem, consider it done."

Felip, "Lets make it happen."

Then any illegals Mexicans living in the US, simply prove they came from Mexico and they get full citizenship. We'd make that process really easy, because we want them paying income and payroll taxes as soon as possible.

It would take a giant spin campaign to not come across as US aggression, but someone like Obama could sort that out. I'm sure that wouldn't be too complicated to pull off.

Middle East Peace Plan

Air drop bacon. Bacon is that good, muslims and jews will give up their fundamentalism in no time.

Comcast / NBC merger is crap - editorial opinion included if you couldn't tell from the word crap

I'm going to go off, sorry stop reading if that bugs you.

I don't care what your political persuasions are, I think we can all agree that "too big to fail" was crap, No one likes bailing out giant corporations on the tax payer dollar, well no one but those who benefit from it. People have all sorts of ideas on how to regulate business to address the issues. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. My personal belief is that it doesn't, because the regulators can't get the regulations right, because they are two steps behind industry, things change too fast, and there are always loopholes.

What does work, is to not allow the companies too get so big in the first place. Regulation is hard, breaking companies up is hard, but not allowing them to get too big, create monopolies, screw the consumers, etc, etc, is really not that hard. All you have to do is say, "nope sorry, not going to do it". Show some god damn backbone and say no, you squirrelly, on the pay, stupid, ignorant, non-visionary, self serving bureaucrats and politicians.

The fact that only one guy seems to think this was even a bad idea completely escapes me. This goes well beyond this deal or net-neutrality, its a big problem. From the day we gave the corporation the same rights as the individual we made a colossal mistake of epic proportions, and as we allow them to get more and more power that crosses international barriers and laughs in the face of government and the consumer, we pretty much destroy our freedom. I mean freedom in terms of creating and maintaining personal wealth. Allowing monopolies, horizontally, vertically, in the 3rd dimension, is bad. Bad, bad, bad. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

This for me, it is a big strike against this administration. Its totally clear that neither the left nor right has any idea what's going on, gives two craps, or is able to do anything about it. I'm not saying they did in the past administration either, trust me, hated those bastards too, probably even more.

I'm a small government guy. I believe the government, especially federal government, has a pretty limited set of responsibilities. For me, this is one of them. They need to regulate interstate commerce, and make sure there is a level and fair playing field. Capitalism, really needs that, the people need that. Get it right, don't screw this up. Its not hard. You just don't allow them to merge, end of story. No 2000 page documents, nothing complicated, just deny it, and fight it. If you swing more to the left, I think you'd end up in a similar place as me, but maybe with a different justification. That's ok. How we get there doesn't matter, lets just agree monopolies are bad, and too big too fail is bad.

Glad to see a lot of other folks pissed off about this, check out the following thread:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/0032229/Comcast-NBC-Merger-Approved-By-FCC?from=rss

Time for a new game. Is this quote from the Koran or the Bible ?

"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. "

Koran or Bible ?

"If your own full brother, or your son ordaughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly toserve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any othernations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: donot yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare orshield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; therest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death,because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God"