Obama’s Vote Buying Plan

August 12, 2008 – 9:06 am

Barack Hussein Obama is not polling well with the over-65 demographic, so he has come up with a plan to try to buy their support. He promises to relieve all seniors earning less than $50,000 from paying income taxes on those earnings. Message to Obama: That promise won’t win my vote.

Notice the qualifying phrase “on those earnings” above. That was necessary because Obama plans to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains which could affect seniors more than any other form of federal tax. He also wants to increase inheritance taxes.

No Barack, we’re old but we’re not stupid. The fact that we’re not stupid is the reason you’re having so much trouble getting our support in the first place. Let’s suppose that you actually do plan to decrease our net taxes. Do you think that would win our votes when we know that you will increase our children’s taxes to compensate for our tax break? No, we’re not selfish either.

Here’s a clue for Obama: The things most seniors find wrong with this country are the things you want more of.

By Carson | Posted in Race for President | Comments (3) |

Subsidize Cooking Oil?

July 18, 2008 – 5:03 pm

My wife just returned from the supermarket “shocked” at having to pay $15 for a gallon of Mazola corn oil. This is a direct result of Congress’ decision to subsidize the diversion of corn to the production of ethanol for fuel. Thanks to those geniuses we now have high-priced fuel and cooking oil.

It’s kind of ironic that all those people I’ve heard about who have converted their cars to run on cooking oil may now have to convert them back because gasoline is now probably less expensive than used cooking oil.

This is one more piece of evidence that the government can’t run the economy. Every time it tries to fix one thing it breaks something else. Congress is now trying to throttle back the oil speculators. Who knows what kind of chaos that will cause? Gasoline prices may swing up and down by a dollar or more over the course of a few weeks, causing every vehicle operator to become a speculator. Do I fill up all my cans this week or wait one more? Do I start using my reserves now or fill up again from the pump?

If you don’t appreciate the complexity of our economy you should read this essay: I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read. After you’ve read it consider the likely outcome of 535 politicians trying to improve the process of manufacturing pencils.

By Carson | Posted in Congress, Economics | Comments (0) |

Divisiveness is Not Always Bad

July 17, 2008 – 11:59 am

People today seem to think divisiveness is always bad. Some oppose making English the official language of the United States of America because they feel it would be divisive. Did these same people oppose the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s because they feared it would be divisive? Have they not heard of the “divide and conquer” strategy?

The civil rights movement was extremely divisive initially but eventually resulted in more unity than existed before the movement. I believe that encouraging immigrants to learn English would result in less divisiveness in the long term, and improve the ability of the immigrants to thrive in this country.

Our system of government pretty much guarantees that any action taken by Congress is going to be divisive, at least in the short term. Some will like it and some won’t. It will help some and hurt others. The government itself is divided by design. You won’t total unity? Move to Zimbabwe.

That some action will be divisive is not a valid argument for or against the action. It’s certainly not a sufficient argument against it. A proposed action should be judged on its expected final results more than its potential inconveniences during implementation.

By Carson | Posted in English Language, Opinion | Comments (2) |

Obama’s Money Laundry?

July 10, 2008 – 8:40 am

Hillary Clinton has a problem. Barack Obama needs something from Hillary. Together they have come up with a plan to circumvent the law and get what they both want.

Hillary’s campaign for president is millions of dollars in the hole and her big-money supporters have already given to her all the law allows ($2300 from each donor). Barack wants Hillary’s help in convincing her supporters to switch over and support him now that Hillary has ended her quest. Federal election law allows individuals to contribute the maximum to more than one candidate, so the plan is for Hillary to ask her big-money people to ante up to Barack and for Barack to use that money to pay off Hillary’s debts. In exchange then Hillary will throw her support to Barack and ask her followers to do the same.

This smells like money laundering to me. Under this plan some of Hillary’s backers will effectively be contributing twice the legal amount to her campaign.

By Carson | Posted in Elections, Race for President | Comments (2) |

Bill Nelson Economics

July 6, 2008 – 10:16 am

In an article on drilling activity off Florida’s Northwestern shore the AP quotes our bonehead senator:

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who has led opposition to offshore drilling among the state’s Congressional delegation, criticized the governor for reversing his position, accusing Crist and McCain of putting oil company profits before protecting the state’s $65 billion annual tourism industry.

“Oil companies and their allies are using the shockingly high price of oil and gasoline, which largely is the result not of a supply problem but speculative fever, to scare the public into thinking coastal drilling offers a real solution to our dependency on oil,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

Where do I start?

How does Nelson know that Crist and McCain are putting oil company profits before protecting the state’s tourism industry? I would guess that they might be thinking of taking some action to mitigate this energy crunch somewhere down the road, instead of bowing to the environment prophets several times a day.

I suppose it hasn’t occurred to Nelson that tourists need lots of fuel to get to Florida’s attractions. Higher and higher priced fuel will kill the tourism industry a lot quicker than a few oil spills. Anyway, when did the government become responsible for protecting the tourism industry?

So, Senator Bill thinks there is no oil supply problem and that the “shockingly” high prices are due to speculation. It would be great if he’s right. That would mean that the market will collapse soon and prices will fall dramatically. How does he think speculators can sustain control of a gargantuan market in which supply exceeds demand? They might be able to do it for a short time but the wealthiest people on this planet would eventually have an overwhelming cash flow problem, including the oil producing monarchies and dictatorships. After hearing talk in the US about opening up oil exploration the Saudis reversed themselves and agreed to increase production; the slightest hint of less demand for their oil spurred them into action.

The power and influence of speculators is way oversold. Look at what just happened in the housing industry. Yes, they helped drive up the price of homes, but they couldn’t sustain it. Eventually the market collapsed and they lost their shirts. Look at what happened in the high-technology industry in the late 90s. Speculators went crazy investing in start-up companies but the market couldn’t accommodate their fervor, so many of them went bankrupt. Listening to the leftist media you would think that all speculators are guaranteed wealth. Not so. Even the successful ones lose money almost as often as they make money.

Coastal drilling may not offer “a real solution to our dependency on oil” and it may not offer a complete solution, but I think it would really help a lot while we look for that real solution. What doesn’t help is for one of our supposed leaders to keep spewing politically convenient crap when others are trying to seriously debate the viability of proposed solutions.

By Carson | Posted in Economics, Energy, Oil and Gas Exploration | Comments (0) |

Environmentalists Are Slow Learners

July 5, 2008 – 8:42 am

The Washington Post complains that the bad ol’ Bush administration is making it easier for some big landowner to develop some of his property. What’s most interesting to me is this reaction:

Environmentalists, to their surprise, found that timber and mining were easier on the countryside.

“Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we’re kind of missing the loggers,” said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit that studies land management in the West. “A clear-cut will grow back, but a subdivision of trophy homes, that’s going to be that way forever.

“It’s kind of the ugly face of the new economy.”

Almost two years ago I wrote about a paper production company that was converting its tree-growing land into residential and commercial development. Development became more profitable for them than growing trees for paper. Perhaps that was partly due to environmentalist campaigns to reduce paper consumption.

My point was that quite often these feel-good activities end up producing the opposite of the desired results. Looks like they’re discovering this to be true in Montana.

By Carson | Posted in Environment | Comments (2) |

Susan Estrich Wants to Take Your Guns

July 1, 2008 – 8:19 am

I think. I couldn’t make much sense of her latest column.

Let’s see now. If those gun-control nuts out there manage to overcome their latest setback and get guns outlawed in the USA, how would they enforce it? Well, they could take their lead from the anti-drug crowd and launch a Gun War. But they probably won’t call it that because it sounds too much like what they want to prevent (and some blogger might compare it to the Drug War).

No matter what it’s called though the government will be faced with the same kind of problems it faces in the Drug War, the principal one being that they can’t win. People like Estrich can debate gun-control all they want but there is one fact they can’t argue away: This country will never be free of guns, like it is not free of drugs despite the decades-long war on drugs. Guns, like drugs, are too easy to make or acquire. Estrich probably doesn’t realize that anyone with a few tools and an instruction manual can make a gun and its ammunition. It’s not that difficult. Outlaw guns and these little shops will pop up all over the country — just like methamphetamine labs.

Think about all the controls that will have to be implemented to prevent illegal gun making. All this added to all the controls implemented to combat illegal drug making. More and more government intrusion into our lives.

You want to talk about gun accidents today, Susan? Okay, but let’s also talk about the potential accidents from the use of guns and ammunition built by amateurs. Life is risky. If we use safety as a principal criterion almost everything we have or do will need to be outlawed.

You want a war on guns? You’ll get a war with guns. Criminal elements, domestic and foreign, will run rampant in a national gun-free zone. You think the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois massacres were bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet!

By Carson | Posted in Gun Control | Comments (0) |

Obama Economics

June 26, 2008 – 9:11 am

Barack Hussein Obama’s solution to the high fuel cost problem is to raise the cost of fuel. He wants to impose a “windfall profits tax” on the oil companies, which will of course be passed on to fuel users. After noticing that the oil companies are still making a nice profit, Barack will probably push to raise his windfall profits tax and so on. Apparently the man hates profits. Never mind that his largest constituent base’s retirement funds depend heavily on corporate profits.

And there’s this other little fact that Barack ignores. The government profits a lot more than the oil companies from each gallon of fuel sold. Some estimates show the government profiting three times as much. Do you think Barack will levy a windfall profits tax on the government?

Since I was a teenager the percent increase in the cost of a Coca-Cola is as much or more than a gallon of fuel. And it has been reported that Coca-Cola’s profit rate last year was greater than the oil companies’ profit rates (where profit rate is roughly defined as the amount of profit divided by the amount of money invested in making that profit.) But we don’t hear any calls from Barack for a windfall profits tax on Coca-Cola.

Some people point out that the concern is about the “obscene” amount of the oil company profits, not the profit rate. Well, that’s like complaining to a bank that your neighbor is making more off his savings than you although both of you are getting the same interest rate, while ignoring the fact that your neighbor has ten times as much money in his account as you have in yours.

It is also argued that the focus is on the oil companies because their products are essential to our everyday lives and products like Coca-Cola are not. Well genius, that is why the oil companies’ gross revenues and profits are huge compared to companies like Coca-Cola. In times of shortages it is easier to do without Coke than fuel.

It is also worth noting that liberal Democrats will argue at the same time that oil is essential to our everyday lives and that we should implement extreme measures to limit its supply.

By Carson | Posted in Economics, Energy, Race for President | Comments (1) |

Congress Wants to Help You Buy a $730,000 Home

June 25, 2008 – 7:21 am

It costs a lot to get reelected to Congress. So the incumbents are willing to take your money and my money to help ease their pain. Not directly, mind you. Devious politicians never do anything directly. After all, it wouldn’t be devious if it was direct. The AP reports:

A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

So all those people who have already demonstrated that they are poor risks for loans are going to get another loan backed by you and me. The Senate wants the loans to go as high as $625,000 and the House wants to up that to $730,000. Think about that. If someone with a bad credit rating wants to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to buy a house, you and I are going to be forced to guarantee them a loan — if the House has its way. President Bush has said that he will veto the bill if it is passed, but that is because he doesn’t like some of its provisions.

Some of the lawmakers are pushing to make the bill revenue neutral. But who believes that will happen? If a lot of the “400,000 distressed borrowers” weren’t expected to default on their loans they wouldn’t need to have the tax-payers backing them.

What this bill is really about is a way for a bunch of well-connected builders to get rid of their over-built inventory of over-priced houses. What a stroke of political genius! Use tax-payer money to reward big reelection campaign donors and buy the votes of over-indulgent borrowers at the same time. I’m still looking for the day when such strategies backfire, but I’m afraid I’m looking in vain.

By Carson | Posted in Congress, Nanny State, Politics | Comments (0) |

John McCain Has Called My Hand

June 20, 2008 – 5:36 pm

About a month ago I e-mailed this message to info@gop.com:

I received an e-mail from you asking me to donate to John McCain’s campaign. My position is very simple. Get McCain to change his mind and commit to extracting oil from ANWR and the lower Gulf of Mexico and I will make a very generous donation to his campaign.

This week he stated that he favors letting the states decide if they want to allow oil exploration and extraction off their shores and that he would reconsider his opposition to drilling in ANWR. That’s not quite what I asked for but it’s close enough. I’m not under any pretense that my message alone caused McCain to change his mind but I feel that I should hold up my end of the bargain.

Here’s my next challenge for McCain. Make this announcement in a major speech and I will make a second contribution of double the amount of the first one: 

As President you will oppose the revival of the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill and that you will veto it if it is passed by Congress. You have reconsidered the pros and cons of the bill and you now feel that the cons outweigh the pros. Chief among the cons is the devastating economic effect on the poor working class.

I have e-mailed the text of this post to the GOP.

On a related note, I heard Barack Obama criticizing McCain’s revised stance on oil drilling. He said that drilling offshore and in ANWR won’t lower fuel prices today, tomorrow, next week, next year or even in five years. Well Barack, what about in six years or ten years? Even at my age I think I might need some fuel ten years from now and would like to think I’ll be able to afford it on my fixed retirement income. I thought leadership was about where we’re going, not where we are.

By Carson | Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Race for President | Comments (6) |