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Rajjpuut's Folly: Gallup Majority Now AGAINST Obama Re-election, Rasmussen Numbers Worsen

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 19, 2010 at 5:45pm



After a week in which the White House achieved a $20 Billion Gulf reparations fund and in which Obama blamed Republicans for the joblessness in America, the pollsters at Gallup show a firm majority of Americans right now oppose the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama. 51% of Americans think Mr. Obama should NOT be re-elected while only 46% say he should. Among Democrats 77% want to re-elect while 87% of Republicans oppose. Independents show 53% in opposition to re-election and 43% in favor. Today’s Rasmussen polls showed that among “probable voters” 45% strongly DISapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance while only 25% strongly approve giving the president a -20 overall Presidential Index rating (Mr. Obama began with a +30 Presidential Index rating in January, 2009).

Overall in the Rasmussen poll, 42% of likely voters at least somewhat approve of Mr. Obama’s efforts and 57% at least somewhat DISapprove. The recent oval office speech by Obama about the Gulf oil debacle helped him slightly with Democrats. President Obama’s numbers have typically bounced following a national television event usually “up a little” (on only one occasion before they dropped slightly). 48% of Democrats now Strongly Approve. That’s up two points since the speech. 77% of Republicans Strongly DISapprove, also up two points since the speech. Among those NOT affiliated with either major party, 49% now Strongly DISapprove. That’s up five points since Tuesday’s speech. Here are some of the issues preying upon voters’ minds:
Most are pleased that $20 Billion has been set aside for Gulf damage claims but a slim majority are worried about a federal government takeover of the claims process; and to a lesser extent of the oil industry. The six-month moratorium on all offshore drilling is heavily criticized. So much involvement in the past nineteen months by the federal government taking over the car industry, banks and insurance companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the health care industry, the student loan industry, etc. has three-fifths of the nation up in arms. Given the administration’s open revelation that the cap and trade legislation would “bankrupt the coal industry” and “necessarily skyrocket the price of electricity;” and the realization that major tax increases are coming on January 1, 2011 when the Bush era tax breaks are rescinded; and the huge tax increases tied to Obamacare which 62% of voters want repealed . . . voters are outraged by taxes and spending and debt and apparent big government incompetence (MMS was about to give BP a safety award when the explosion occurred and signing off on several safety$$ issues; and the lack of competent response to cleaning up the mess).
Raising taxes, dramatically raising spending and deficits and national debt, and endless government takeovers of the private sector are very unpopular. Virtually no voters believe that the almost $1 TRillion stimulus money spent has created or saved any jobs; most disagree that the White House was “engaged from Day One” of the Gulf disaster.
Recent revelations that federal government employees receive on average DOUBLE what their private sector counterparts earn ($120,000 when both wages and benefits are considered vs. $62,000) has also angered some. The only sector of the economy that’s grown under Barack Obama has been government jobs.
In Rajjpuut’s none-too humble opinion. There are only two hopes for Mr. Obama and his out-of-touch progressives: A) somehow achieving citizenship for 20 million illegal aliens and getting 80% of their votes, which is becoming more unlikely by the day, or . . . B) dictatorial takeover, so guess which one Mr. Obama will attempt to pull off in order to "fundamentally transform America?"
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,**
Rajjpuut
$$ The 1990 and 1994 safety requirements were both ignored. In particular ten (10) firebooms were required at the site and NONE were there.

** in answer to questions recently raised about Rajjpuut’s “sign-off” . . . saying that “long” life was totally understandable; “strong” life was a bit unique; but “ornery” was downright weird . . . . Look at it this way: it’s a hope for a re-balancing and a return to American virtues. Rajjpuut honestly believes that the big shift to the ultra-left by the media which has refused to cover stories contrary to that viewpoint for almost forty years now was begun first by the “hippie” movement and the environmental movement being commandeered by people who thought that living in communes (root word of “communism”) was a good thing. Rajjpuut earnestly hopes that his readers will indeed live long; and stay strong in body, mind and spirit and vote along those lines as well; and show an ornery, feisty streak to help win the country back for the traditional constitutional, fiscal and libertarian^^ values including respectful discourse in the public arena.
^^ Libertarian values are constitutionalism; strong national defense including of our borders; fiscal-conservatism; and a largely live-and-let-live social outlook (for example, protect gays and all Americans from violence and injustice; let the gays have their unions legitimized with all the rights accorded married couples EXCEPT adoption and palimony). Most important to Libertarians is the 10th Amendment which allows Americans to “vote with their feet” and move from states with onerous tax burdens and ridiculous spending legislatures to states more in line with the original U.S. Constitution such as Texas (which still has a part-time legislature) rather than having all states become homogenized “departments” of a runaway federal government.
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Research Conclusive, Incumbent Politician's KILL jobs

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 12, 2010 at 10:00pm


Harvard Study Reveals: Incumbents KILL jobs

FACTS are Facts, Incumbent Spending KILLS jobs***

OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! Rajjpuut, who distrusts big government mightily, has seldom enjoyed writing anything as much as this blog . . . . it began with a recent Rasmussen poll that said that only 18% of likely voters believed that additional government spending would help the economy. Were they right, those 18%? Certainly our president acts like he believes they’re right. Where to find the truth, where to turn?

Truth is crucially important to the well-being of a democratic-republic. Unfortunately, the newspaper of today is quickly becoming a dinosaur. Meanwhile, only one among the large broadcast TV news organizations is actually trusted more than doubted (FOX News) according to media polls from the last few years. Six important things that clearly can be and must be said about mainstream “lamestream media” today (whether broadcast or print media) are:

1. They love talking to politicians and celebrities in other fields like sports and entertainment.

2. They seem to believe it’s impossible to learn much about government from everyday citizens.

3. They actually believe that a politician and what he/she has to say is “important news” to the detriment of actually chasing down real news about the pain politicians bring into our daily lives and reading and studing proposed laws.

4. They have virtually no curiosity and believe almost anything a liberal or progressive politician tells them and doubt virtually everything a conservative politician utters. And, thus lacking that all-essential curiosity . . . .

5. Add little of value to the American scene. The so-called “Fourth Estate” has degenerated into public relations helpers for the political class (politicians and those whose jobs or livelihood are enhanced by politicians).

6. They have long ago forgotten what real journalism is about.

Rajjpuut intends to remind them what journalism is all about. Let’s take a look at their “a-curiosity” or “in-curiosity” a bit closer . . . at their tendency to believe what politicians they favor tell them and what Americans themselves believe about incumbents. One of the biggest reasons that term limits for congressmen has been an unpopular item is the perpetual editorial you’ll see about the need to maintain the status quo and support a district’s rep or state’s senator because that incumbent is seen as valuable. The idea that virtually all idiot mainstream media hold dear is that incumbency translates into tangible benefits that can be measured economically and in prestige. A one-word definition of that economic and prestige benefit? PORK!

Of course that old wives’ tale is based upon the most common economic myth of all, that private sector jobs can be efficiently and profitably be created by actions that politicians make. Bah humbug! This myth is the bedrock foundation of that idiotic notion known as “Keynesian Economics.” Keynesians consistently claim to have refuted the commonsense proposition that if 75% of all tax dollars were returned to the taxpayers and politicians had to live within a sound budget on the other 25%, this country would see a resurgence of unbelievable proportions . . . an economic miracle that would within half a decade eliminate our national debt and within four decades wipe out all the non-funded obligations. More on proving that later . . . but lets talk about PORK . . . .

While it might be true that PORK helps some, let’s say 3-4% of the populace, it’s undeniable that PORK and other unwise government spending boondoggles and government interference boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs) depreciates the lives of 96% of all American businesses and individuals. However, that last sentence is totally at odds with the myth we’ve been talking about. This myth about the value to a district of an incumbent representative and therefore the need to continually re-elect him is the single greatest driving force behind the swallowing-whole of the private sector by the government . . . . which occurred slowly since 1933, but which has accelerated under progressive politicians from LBJ to the present . . . to be concise every president except Ronald Reagan.

You remember Ronald Reagan, the fellow in office when the Berlin Wall came down and 21 million new jobs were created? And remember this, Reagan was obstructed by Democratic majorities in the house of representatives (the Contract with America in 1994, was the first time that Republicans held a majority there since 1954) for all eight years. He was forced to compromise with the Democrats and let through a huge shipload (whatever) of unwise spending bills to get his tax cuts approved. And Reagan wasn’t proud of the deficits and debt created on his watch . . . but what else could he do? The decade of the 90’s became the second most productive in history given the impetus of Reagan’s years (the most productive was the Roaring 20’s – more on that in a moment).

Four months ago, three Harvard professors at that university’s School of Business (Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher Malloy) were researching the “Benefits of PORK myth.” By the way, ‘tis a well known fact that in large part, our universities are dominated by left-wing professors and even our business schools presumably are mostly believers in the Keynesian myths that the Nobel Prize people find so enthralling . . . so it’s utterly REFRESHING to find real curiosity among professors about government activities. Anyway, back to the chase: the threesome named above were examing correlations between “politically-connected firms and powerful legislative chairmen” when the rock they tripped over turned out to be the ultimate gold nugget of truth. In a phrase their serendipity kicked up the troublesome fact that GOVERNMENT SPENDING KILLS JOBS or as Mark Hemingway at Beltway Confidential put it . . . WHEN GOVERNMENT SPENDING GROWS, THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHRINKS. And as they got deeper into it, they concluded that SPENDING by INCUMBENT POLITICIANS KILLS JOBS. You can look over their research (finished three months back) here:

http://www.utahwfc.org/2010_papers/power.pdf

Or here:

http://www.people.hbs.edu/cmalloy/pdffiles/envaloy.pdf

Their study examining government earmark and budget data from the past four decades – found this trend to be consistent across all variables. Specifically, it affected both large and small firms in large and small states, and it followed the ascension of committee chairmen in both the House and Senate. The study found also that damage to the private sector was “partially reversed” when the committee chairmen either lost their seats or retired.

Let us be clear here, these three professors did what journalists should have long ago done, they went to study the assumption (in logic known as the “premise”) that as a state’s congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way . . . but they discovered that the opposite was true. Indeed, companies experienced lower sales and downsized, cutback, retooled and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D budgets, and virtually all other expenses. Their study showed that as incumbency acculated following a congressman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship of important committees, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.

Now Rajjpuut can hear the scared liberals and progressives in particular screaming, “But, but, that’s . . . just one study.” That’s true. One study that cries out for term limits for politicians and limited government and utter fiscal responsibility.

Here’s a slightly related study:

http://www.icis.com/blogs/green-chemicals/2009/04/the-price-of-green-jobs-learn.html

This link is about a study in which a government spending boondggle took Spain from a booming economy with 3% unemployment 13-14 years ago, to being only behind Greece among struggling European countries and to 17.8% unemployment last year and almost 21% this year. How? By forcing their country into a green jobs commitment similar to what President Obama is now proposing. Obviously, the Spanish citizens are NOT better off because of government spending and government interference. Notice those words in italics “by forcing.” No matter what country you live in, politicians tend to accumulate power and status as they accumulate “tenure.” As power nears abolute power, corruptness such as the PORK in the Harvard study and the “forcible rape” of Spain grow more and more probable. Power can corrupt. Absolute power virtually always does corrupt . . . .

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

*** three brief essays to convince anyone who “buys into” common sense are:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

the most famous essay in economics but one the Keynesians pretend doesn’t exist

http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html

is “The Broken Window” parable

http://jim.com/econ/chap01p3.html

is the “one lesson”

http://jim.com/econ/

is the entire book “Economics in one Lesson” from which the broken window and one lesson come

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Rajjpuut's Folly: What exactly is a job? A government job? A REAL job?

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 10, 2010 at 9:00pm


Recently President Obama waxed positively orgasmic over the “creation” of 443,000 “new jobs” in the economy. De-emphasized in his glowing report was the fact that 411,000 of these “new” jobs were temporary census positions and not real jobs at all. By the way the Census department has 560,000 odd employees and roughly a full 150,000 of them are permanent employees. Since the cost of running the census this year was $14+ Billion or roughly $10 Billion more than it cost to count everybody in 2000; and since those permanent employees must logically speaking not have much to do for 9.5 years of every ten within the census cycle . . . a whole lot of waste seems to be wrapped up in this particular government department, no?

Waste in government is pervasive and all of it kills jobs. In a similar way, common sense would rule against 90+% of all government spending programs and 88% of all new laws. Without term limits for congress, the evil done by career politicians and particularly progressive Republican and Democratic career politicos feeding at the public trough has become almost fatal to the country as a whole. Perhaps they should wait two days for every ten pages of a proposed new law and cuss and discuss it thoroughly . . . . so the 3,000 page Obamacare bill finally passed would require a minimum of, say, 21 months to get the bill right . . . or better yet, pass a realistic and helpful 150 page law over a period of one month. In any case, government spending annihilates jobs and destroys the private sector. Back to the Census . . . .

In fairness, this is nothing new, President Clinton made a huge deal about a bunch of very similar “new” jobs in 2000 precisely ten years earlier and presumably President George H. W. Bush did so also in 1990 and President Jimmy Carter likewise in 1980, etc., etc. This is, of course, a big lie and the jobs in question are, of course, false entities by any reasonable understanding . . . virtually as soon as they’re “created” they disappear from the economy. Let’s delve more deeply into this matter . . . .

Because of population growth, the American economy right now requires averaging 250,000 “new” jobs to be created every single month just so our official UNemployment rate can stay the same (coming out of college or high school every June etc. we add three million new job-seekers every year . . . as we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to matter to the politicians whether or not the jobs in question can reasonably be considered REAL jobs or not. To the more reasonable among us, a.k.a. “taxpayers,” however, it makes a huge difference. REAL jobs are permanent and they help slightly offset all the government tax-spending jobs out there which are now being created hand over fist. For now, let that definition of a “REAL job” suffice. Let’s look at government jobs and their characteristics, what are the differences between government jobs and real jobs?

Government jobs tend to be . . .

1. Artificial concepts not precisely “necessary” in the big picture. Are, for example, government census workers and government people examining bee population shifts, and government people researching “human dating behavior” strictly needed? What great loss to society would occur if they didn’t exist? How much taxpayer money would be saved if these jobs were eliminated (or if census workers asked one-third the questions)?

2. Government jobs are UNproductive. No goods or services are added to the country as a result of their existence.

3. Government jobs tend to pay more, thus putting the potentially best and most productive people into Unproductive positions.

4. Government jobs tend to have the greatest benefits adding to the overall cost and since their retirement benefits are among the greatest, that payment goes on sucking away at the country’s lifeblood long after these workers retire.

5. Government jobs tend to have the most substantial perquisites (perks). It isn’t just the President whose actual job cost cannot be calculated, but virtually all the upper echelon government employees whose perks bleed the rest of us dry.

6. Government jobs are destroyers of REAL jobs in the REAL economy. Spain was the poster-child for the European Union about a decade back with a booming economy and only 3% unemployment. Then they adopted a “green-jobs” policy. Today Spain’s unemployment is just over 20%. President Obama threatened us with the creation of five million green jobs. Since the $675,000 subsidization cost of each Spanish green job cost 2.2 jobs in the real Spanish economy, we could expect losing eleven million real jobs?

7. Jobs that create a whole artificial group (the “political class”) within our society which seeks to perpetuate itself and enlarge itself and its budgets at all costs. The “imperatives” of this new “special interest group” seem to be contrary to the interests and needs of mainstream Americans.

8. Jobs whose creation is aligned with bigger, more onerous government, more red tape and more likelihood of finding a “boot on our neck.”

9. Jobs which tend to be temporary such as the census workers’ situation. In the recent Spanish studies of their economic collapse. It was revealed that only one in ten of the green jobs they created actually lasted much beyond the original funding period. In terms of Mr. Obama’s proposal to create five million new green-tech jobs, that means that he’d only be creating 500,000 permanent jobs (at a cost of eleven million real permanent jobs, remember).

10. Jobs for which the real cost is never shown, or even ever known. How much does it cost to have a President of the United States? Obvious things like salary, upkeep of the White House and paying for the White House staff, security, Air Force One, Camp David, travel and entertaining foreign dignitaries and an extensive communications grid in place pale before the perks of the office. Look at the inaugurations, the presidential balls, bringing in of entertainers like Paul McCartney, etc, how much does it cost to have a president of the United States. Rajjpuut estimates this one employee costs us DIRECTLY at least $1 Billion. The indirect cost of Mr. Obama, personally is, of course, potentially in the hundreds of TRillions of dollars and that’s just the money cost . . . . How much does it cost to have an Environmental Protection Agency that puts 40% of some central California workers out of a job by insisting that a two-inch fish was endangered by irrigation pumps to water the vegetable basket of the nation?

11. Sometimes a job whose existence is onerous and an abomination to much of the rest of the country: IRS agents come to mind.

12. Political, often, by their very nature rather than neutral. Jobs aligned with OSHA and the EPA, for example tend to be created by liberals. Defense contracts tend to be created by actions from conservatives.

13. A situation where not only Unproductive but often actually slipshod work is done. Look at our present Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Laws were put in place in 1990 and 1994 to protect our safety. The Bush and Obama administration “signed off” on many of these safety requirements for British Petroleum (such as the need for ten fire booms on site – there were ZERO fire booms present when the explosion occurred). Indeed, the governmental regulation agency MMS was prepared to give BP its highest safety award five or six days after the explosion occurred – that notion is now on hold, and no award has been granted. One of the biggest series of pathetic and scary jokes is the notion of “Close enough for government work.”

14. Often a job where ethical considerations are routinely NOT even considered. During the Bush administration, a governmental oversight group found out that oil companies were routinely wining, dining, having sex with, and providing drugs for the governmental employees charged with oversight for the oil industry. NICE.

15. Despite the “merit system,” of exams, etc. created for civil servants a job given to political friends more often than not. Of all the stimulus funds thus far over 68% has been spent in areas that voted disproportionately for Obama over Mc Cain in 2008. Even though many more actual counties either voted for Mc Cain or slightly-favored Obama , only 31% of the total stimulus funds went there.

16. Despite the so-called merit system, a job given to certain preferred portions of society over the rest of society. Affirmative action in government hiring has been an abysmal failure. The Sotomayor fire-fighter case highlighted some of the obvious discrepancies.

17. Often a job that works at cross-purposes to the rest of society. Rajjpuut recently found himself with a suspended driver’s license courtesy of a ridiculous clerical error when a paid speeding ticket dropped through the cracks in the system. When asked how to get the matter straightened out . . . ‘you’ll have to wait 30 days that’s the requirement, can’t get around it,” no way to correct their mistake . . . . So many of burdensome errors and deliberate red tape and obstruction and waste of time in society is attributable to government officiousness. OSHA and the IRS and EPA cost of tens of billions of dollars every year. Teachers across the nation (hired by the school districts but loyal only to their union) are now teaching that the Founding Fathers were tyrants and racists and otherwise no goodniks while praising labor unions and socialism in their classes. In Los Angeles the lie that the two Arizona immigration laws are racist has been ordered taught in civics classes. One L.A. history making a "field trip" to Arizona to protest the Arizona immigration law before travelling posed before a mural in their school with Castro, Che Guevarra, Uncle Ho and Lenin. Three other L.A. social studies teachers are overtly and directly emphasizing to Hispanic students (at least 40% of them illegals) the need for a Revolution within the United States to give back lands lost by Mexico in 1946's Mexican-American War . . . . which government are these govt. employees working for?

18. Many government jobs are “make-work” creations designed to expand the empire of some muckety-muck bureaucrat. Promotions routinely come (all out of proportion to actual “production”) to those in government who command the most money . . . which usually means those who command the most subordinates. Expand the “scope” of your office (usually unnecessarily and unwisely) and get promoted to a higher position where you, of course, want to expand again. Activity is easily confused for results in government . . . .

19. Without exception, governmental regulatory jobs are absolutely dominated by the industries they supposedly oversee – remember our example of the (literally) in bed together relationship between the big oil companies and MMS. For another example, at the managerial and supervisory levels, the FDA is virtually, the best job in the world for ex-bigwig pharmaceutical workers to consider. The ethics, or lack thereof, of this incestuous relationship literally kills many Americans every year. What is the number three cause of deaths and number five cause of hospital visits in the country? Huge numbers of "iatrogenic" deaths and injuries from legally prescribed medicines result every year from FDA incompetence. The ADA and its oversight of the food industry is presumably even less compent than the FDA now, over a century since Sinclair Lewis wrote his blockbuster novel, "The Jungle" exposing corruption and uncleanliness in the American food industry.

20. Require “emergency” spending virtually every year. To “justify their budgets, government agencies routinely find themselves spending money willy-nilly so that next year’s budget can be as large or larger.

21. Is often a necessary job, which when done rightly puts the job occupant out of work. This happens when a war is won, for example. But most of the time on the rare occasion when a government job has solved the problem it was created to end, the job is somehow made a permanent drain upon society. In fact, it’s often a job whose self-perpetuation is an actual danger to the country. Most people do not know that originally, the U.S. congress met every other year for 140 days only. Texas in its wisdom has a similar part-time legislature even today. The cost to the nation of a permanent legislature is incalculable, bad laws clearly outnumber good ones by about a 12/1 ratio. Then there’s the pork and other corruptions that occur because of the need to get re-elected of the incumbent rascals that have already hurt us . . . etc., etc., ad nauseum.

22. A government job is quite often a position whose day-to-day operating standards and procedures defy all logic. Families or small businesses who operated using the same guidelines that government routinely follows would be quickly ruined. Big businesses could survive a bit longer but who can operate successfully a) without a budget such as our present Congress is now doing even though a budget is required by law b) continually spending much more than you have c) creating set-asides such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid and then never actually setting the money required by law aside so that now besides our almost $14 TRillion national debt we also have almost $110 TRillion in UNfunded obligations d) Not honoring simple common-sense, for example the new "Pay-Go" law was a good idea. It said no new spending could occur without either the generation of a new tax or the cutting in costs from elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for the proposed new project. How often has Pay-Go been followed since it was created in February? NEVER! The rascals simply call everything an "emergency" and then forget about Pay-Go.

23. When it comes to progressive job creation, there seems to an "ivory tower" approach consistently in evidence. Let's talk about the Gulf oil spill again. Rabid environmentalism stopped much of the inland drilling and pumping and all the near shore drilling and pumping. The facts are that BP screwed up monumentally; governmental regulators -- whose responsibility it was to keep BP operating safely -- screwed up monumentally; and environmentalists who pushed for exactly the deep offshore drilling we now are faced with when we didn't really have the completely safe technology to do it are also deeply at fault. Another example: in 1972, worldwide deaths from malaria amounted to fewer than 50,000. However, since the U.N. and the United States outlawed DDT, fifty million people have died around the world due to pseudo-science claims that DDT was harmful to non-insect life never proved. The president's aim to create five million green-tech@@ jobs is likewise based upon the pseudo-science of global warming^^ and is presuming that "saying it's so makes it so." If President Grant had said that we were going to create 800,000 new electric jobs in 1870 . . . his saying it's possible is NOT equivalent in reality to it being possible. 800,000 American jobs in electricity didn't come to be until about 1922 over half a century later. How many real jobs would have been lost over those fifty years if Grant and his successors had followed such an ignorant path? What would have been the economic and overall history of the country? Promising the unachievable has grown into a virtually criminal political art.

Here, in a very brief essay, is much that people need to know about how economics actually works in modern life . . . .

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Liberals and Progressives do not know nor appreciate that little essay, they believe that the creative problem-solving part of human nature is actually benefitted by big government. The sad pattern is that liberals and progressives do not have even the slightest understanding of economics and therefore proselytize a utopian picture totally out of contact with the demands and conditions of the REAL world. Survival and "thrival" in the Real world is based upon surplus goods, a.k.a. profits. Liberals and progressives have a real yen for criticizing profits and business at every turn. Not realizing that prosperity means surplus, and "obscene profits," Liberals condemn the very lifeblood of modern society. REAL jobs are created by four possible motivations:

a. survival problems

b. profit/surplus problems

c. combinations of a and b

d. innovation and entreprenuerial expression

Taking things back to "basics" two million years ago . . . virtually everything that was done by humanoids other than children's play and sex during pregnancy was a necessary "job" for the individual and group's survival. In particular, the need for nomad hunter-gatherers to find adequate shelter; protect themselves from large carnivorous animals; and most importantly to secure adequate food and water was often an hour-to-hour imperative. Their eonomic system was absolutely 100% communistic.

Shortly after the coming of CroMagnon man roughly 35,000 years ago, earlier patterns of nomadic hunting became culturally locked in and tied to technological innovations (like taming of the dog; making of spear-chuckers, bows and arrows, spears and hand tools, domestic tools, tents, clothing, sewing tools, water bladders, leather bags, and later even baskets) and for the first time ever . . . occasional surpluses were possible. The necessity of constant travel made it impossible to carry much in the way of surplus clothing, tools, weapons, etc. -- even heavy tents were a huge problem . . . but food and water surpluses were absolutely necessary for Cro-Magnon's. Virtually every culture gathered vine-dried fruits equivalent to raisins and learned to dry meat. A well-known example, during the late Cro-Magnon years, the American Indians' pemmican was one of the greatest such innovations: a fat-dense**, calorie-rich, nutritious, easily carried food surplus. Virtually every family had their own "spiced-up" pemmican recipes passed down from mother to daughter. Because each family was largely responsible for its own survival and creation of surpluses a cross between communism and light "capitalism" say 98% communistic. (We exaggerate some in calling any part of this system "capitalistic" because until the adaptation of money in many cultures roughly 7,000 years ago, very little "specialization of labor " beyond gender and age specialization which had been going on for almost two million years actually existed.) Again, we're talking 98% communistic or socialistic society.

When natural "Edens," such as in coastal situations in the Mediterranean and California and Egypt, existed greater surpluses were possible and less travelling was necessary. Soon rudimentary agriculture became possible and domestication of the horse, goat, sheep, cattle and semi-domestication of the cat (feral cats loved "amber waves of grain" and the mice, rats and other rodents that fed upon the crops) provided the possibility of "permanent villages" existing. And what exactly made this all possible? SURPLUS a.k.a. PROFIT. Specialized labor like carpentry, pottery, basket-weaving, farming, fishing, metalworking and even soldiering first appeared during this era in these Edens. No longer was it necessary for the full range of hunter-gatherer skills to be practiced by virtually every single member of the tribe. At first a strictly barter economy existed but soon money was created. After the initial idea of surplus (storing up some of the excess food against "rainy days" which operated over two million years to ensure mankind's survival and advancement) money was the greatest single innovation for mankind's survival and advancement of all. Money was, in effect, nothing less than "stored surplus work." While this might sound to most of us today like pretty much a 100% capitalistic society . . . reality was considerably different since forcible tax collection (of grain and goods and coin) by tyrannical rulers was pretty much the order of the day. Later as "nobility by direct bloodline from God" became a normal part of the ruling class's rationale for existence, various sorts of feudal-type arrangements became the norm in virtually every "civilized country" or duchy in the world with a trifling few short-lived Republics thrown in among all the ordinary despotic states and semi-benevolent monarchies.

The economic system known as capitalism was found almost purely among guild-craftsman and folks like independent black smiths and cottage industries like weaving particularly in England and until about 1750 that's the way it was. The "most capitalistic" country in the world with its merchants, craftsman, cottage industries and independent farmers was perhaps 40% capitalistic. The feudal system with all the British lords and ladies was still deeply tied into the overall economic picture. Then came James Watt and the Industrial Revolution. Although the Luddites (cottage weavers put out of work by the water and steam power looms and other textile innovations) rebelled, the benefits to all British society of cheap cloth was among the most shocking and positive things that had ever happened in all of history.

Without the expansion of nobility into the American colonies, rugged individualism prevailed and this nation quickly became the most capitalistic society the Earth has ever seen, perhaps 99.7% so in 1787. The last burst of capitalism released upon America occurred during the Reagan years 1981-1989 when 21 million jobs were created. However, because Republican Reagan was faced with Democratic control of the House and Senate and needed to compromise with Dems to pass his own pet projects . . . the National Debt skyrocketed.

The single-most Capitalistic period in American history was the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge era sandwiched between progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover. The "Unknown Depression" of 1921-22 was met steadfastly by Harding and Coolidge (after Harding's Death) by cutting taxes 50% and spending 49%. The Roaring Twenties that ensued was the single most transformational decade in history as the Unknown Depression ended in late 1922. Little known by most people is that Democratic progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran constantly and was elected for promising he would return to the Harding-Coolidge tax-reduction and spending- reduction paradigm as he succeeded progressive Republican Hoover. He obviously lied and did the opposite and America suffered under a dozen-year Great Depression extended by his socialistic efforts while the rest of the world had a fairly short "little 'd' depression." Ultimately, the facts of economic life are this: as in so many other ways, when it comes to jobs and the economy: "that government is best which governs least."

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** should you ever find yourself in an extended survival situation, it isn't only getting enough calories and traditional nutrients that matters, you could actually get 3,500 calories a day and die malnourished if you can't supply the body's need for fat from the ultra-lean rabbits, fish and birds you're most likely to catch.

@@the Spanish green-tech economic debacle is clearly pertinent

^^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece
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National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is a Joke!

Posted by Richard Burns on April 30, 2010 at 12:48pm

DeficitAid.com posted this article, below, found on the Wall Street Journal to point out the basic problem the American people have with Congress and it's ability to cut the deficit. This article, written by Steny Hoyer House Majority Leader, points out how difficult cutting the deficit will for Congress. Mandatory increases in entitlements are the main problem because they can't be cut. Thus, the only way to reduce the deficit is to raise taxes, but raising taxes on only the Americian's making over $250,000 per year isn't going to come close to solving the spending gap. The commission is going to recommend a huge tax increase on all American's.

Given the fact that there have been some extraordinary circumstances in the past few years, most American's are ready to swallow the bitter reality of smaller take home pay. What is most alarming about Mr. Hoyer's article and basic philosophy, which typifies the attitude in Congress, is the fact that he never discusses the idea of Congress living on a set budget. Why should he think that way? Congress is allowed to print as much money as they need to make up the deficit. They don't live in the real world of having a set amount of money to spend. Thus, they aren't put into a position of having to cut spending. The print and borrow more money on demand.

For example, the new Health Care laws, Mr. Hoyer sites in article, are predicted to cut the costs of The Health Care Entitlements Program. The cost setting measures in the bill are not based on a set budget. The costs savings are based on economic conditions that must happen in the future. If these predictions are wrong, the savings will not happen. Congress will be allowed to print more money to make up for getting bad info from their crystal ball.

On the other hand, when Congress raises taxes. The money is gone. This is an immediate here and now reality. American's don't get the money back if future economic conditions change. Congress asks the tax payer to make a difficult commitment to make less money, but Congress is not setting limits on what they can spend. The tax payer commits but congress doesn't. That's unfair!

This is what worries everyone in The United States. Citizens have to give up more of their paychecks, but Congress doesn't have to live on a set budget. If the new tax dollars don't reduce the deficits, they have the right to put the country into deeper debt by borrowing and printing more money. If that happens, Congress will be forced to come back to American public to ask again for more of their pay checks to cut the deficit.

Congress should be given a set amount of money to live on. It's called a budget. Make a law to do that first. Then come to the American Tax Payer to ask for more of their paycheck. Congress should show "us" they can live on a budget, and we will then give Congress more money. That's Fair!

Here's the article..


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The Wall Street Reform Act: Is it the fox designing the hen house?

Posted by Richard Burns on April 28, 2010 at 10:17am

The big debate in Washington is how to fix Wall Street. Wall Street’s greed caused the financial collapse. Wall Street earns too much money. Wall Street is the root of the problem in “haves” and “have-nots”.

H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 is bill that the House Committee on Financial Services has written to fix the problems with Wall Street. The bill’s intention will be to avoid another financial meltdown. The Chairman of this committee is Congressman Barney Frank.

The highlights of the bill are as followed:

1) Consumer Protections: A new consumer protection agency, CFPA, to protect Americans from Wall Street. The sounds good, but the idea of Wall Street is based on speculating. No bill can protect the consumer from loosing money on a bad speculation. However, this new agency, CFPA, will create more deficit spending, increase the national debt and reduce America’s ability to compete.

Read More at deficitaid.com....
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Sensible Sally Animated Webisode Series: A forth graders POV on The National Debt

Posted by Richard Burns on April 28, 2010 at 10:16am

At deficitaid.com, I've been working for a year building content to inform, educate and entertain those interested in government spending, deficit spending and the National Debt. Our belief and approach is that this country can not change without first understanding the basic issues. Many don't know the difference between the deficit and National debt which is a real big problem. More don't even care - that's worse.

Using an animated cartoon character, Sensible Sally, with a bit of humor, iphone apps for National Debt Counter and providing a resource to find articles, videos and charts on government spending is what we are doing to try to spark an interest and debate.

Sensible Sally, the cartoon series, is currently running three episodes. My favorite is Monopoly Money. You can find it on the homepage deficitaid.com.

I'm happy to participate on this website.

Thanks.
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Congressional "Pots" Calling Goldman Sachs "Kettles" BLACKER

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on April 27, 2010 at 3:45pm

http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/2010/04/27/bend_over,_america,_here_comes_your_re-raping.thtml

Readers of Rajjpuut’s recent blog, “Bend Over, America, Here Comes Your Re-Raping,” know that Goldman Sachs is very much a villain in league with the Obama adminstration in plotting the birth of Cap and Trade legislation that will greatly profit them both but literally kill the United States. So GS, often known as “Government Sachs” is a wet buffalo chip at best . . . ‘nuff said. Nevertheless, the current senate hearings on Goldman Sachs, while potentially fruitful (they might actually find evidence that Goldman Sachs extra-actively endorsed the attractiveness of the hedge vehicles in question to the folks who lost about a billion dollars gambling upon them) but at first glance this is a case of the absolutely least principled and least fiscally-disciplined folks in the world pointing their wagging fingers at someone else by insinuating GS was one of the chief causes of the financial meltdown from October, 2007 to present. Unless a smoking gun is found, which never happens during these inane senate hearings, the very best they can say is that Goldman Sachs profited from a situation in 2007 which is not allowed today in 2010, and since the Constitution wisely prohibits ex post facto legislation . . . the livid senators can spin on that little detail till the seas dry up.

As Rajjpuut has explained repeatedly in the last year, the real responsibility for the meltdown belongs in five camps:

o Progressive legislators (80% from among the Democrats and Democrat-backing Independents, Mr. Lieberman) who passed the four vile mortgage guarantee laws beginning with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA ’77) through the Clinton ’98 mortgage-guarantee legslation that put the whole process on steroids in response to a housing crisis that never existed sinced the United States at 64% own-home ownership was by far the highest in the world . . . a government interference boondoggle of the highest order detailed briefly in the link above (the first raping of Americans in the 21st Century)

o ACORN which plotted to use these four mis-conceived and poorly written laws deliberately as a Cloward-Piven vehicle to transfer wealth and bring the country to its knees

o The lawyers like Barak Obama who were hired by ACORN to shake down the banks and other lending institutions and force them to make terribly unwise and fiscally negligent loans in accord with the horrible laws (see the details about the loans recipients at the link above) to people with no chance of ever paying off those loans and

o Greedy firms and banks who abandoned all pretense of fiscal probity in the search for the quick buck by eagerly buying bundled mortgages, make that bundled worthless mortgages.

o The FEDERAL RESERVE whose chiefs, Bernanke and especially Alan Greenspan acted like sideline cheerleader for the developing “derivatives” market. Greenspan claimed in 2002 that derivatives actually would act “to prevent ALL possibility of future market freefalls.

In this light, the hedging that GS was “guilty of” was merely sound business practice (selling both sides of an “issue” and profitting from commissions. The fact that Goldman Sach prospered (if no smoking gun is found at the Senatehearings) so much puts their fiscal responsibility in the highest light compared to say, AIG, Bear Steans, Leyman Bros., etc., etc., ad nauseum who risked their customers’ well-being with their worthless judgment.

This senate hearing is a monstrous smokescreen for two obvious reasons.

A. Today Greece went under. Her history is that they were a few years back running at a questionable 45% debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio (D/GDP) and today are slightly over 100% on that ratio and basically bankrupt with their debt paper (bonds, treasury notes) valued at pennies on the dollar. What’s not said is that we Americans were ourselves operating at a more questionable 50% D/GDP ratio in late 2008 and now under Obama are already at 75% D/GDP and well on the road to becoming the next Greece. And

B. There is only one known model for recovery applicable. To end the “Unknown Depression of 1920” sometimes called the “Invisible Depression,” Warren G. Harding and after Harding’s death Calvin Coolidge cut government spending 49% and cut taxes 40%. The group in the house and senate and the oval office today has dramatically increased spending and even more dramatically upped taxes. The result will unquestionably be a long, painful Depression of the type engineered by the Progressive Republican Harding and the Ultra-Progressive Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt which lasted the better part of thirteen years.

Until their own house is in order, politicians hold NO RIGHT to criticize anyone. As with virtually everything that’s happened since Obama’s inauguration, the whole situation smacks of a world being turned upside down the legislators are severely scolding Wall Street for the fiasco which their four ill-advised criminal laws created. Rajjpuut says “criminal” because there was surely never any thought of mortgage guarantees for the American Republic when the founding fathers created our Constitution. Obama creates a law forcing Americans to buy a commodity and his minions from the IRS can “ask for your papers” to verify that you are not acting illegally. Somehow that’s all “fine and dandy,” but policemen in Arizona can’t check IDs to make sure that everyone in their state is legally there? Until the world gets righted again, we’re going to see a lot of this crap.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

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Our VP on "The View" explaning his tax sham

Posted by BRIAN DOOLEY on April 22, 2010 at 7:23pm
Biden responded: "Well, the president and I haven't said they're'far-right lunatics.' Look, I think there's an awful lot of people outthere who are frightened and scared. There are fringes in every outfit,but the vast majority of these people, I think, are just frustrated,and what they don't get yet — and I understand it — is they're going tosee that we spent our time cutting taxes. We gave the largest tax cutin the history of America to middle-class people."

Really, Joe does not get that cutting taxes and not cutting spending is cheating America. There is only one type of a tax cut, which is a spending cut. Anything else is what the IRS calls a "tax sham"



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