It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

In case you're living in an information void (doubtful, if you're reading blogs), or missed the news, or can't apply basic logic to current events, the Democrats succeeded in the major hurdle to socializing health care in the US today. All it took was a few hundred million in corrupt payoffs in taxpayer dollars (who am I kidding, newly-printed money) to various fence-sitters and other scum; I guess the value of thirty pieces of silver has increased a bit with inflation. It's pretty much a done-deal now; just a few rubber-stamp procedures and a great big holiday present for a Socialist rulers. Instead of focusing on the negative, though, I thought I'd focus on the positive aspects of this unmitigated disaster... but I couldn't find any. So instead, I'm going to extol, once again, what I think is possibly the most valuable thing we the voters could try to accomplish to prevent atrocities like this from being perpetrated by our government in the future. It see...

I know this will seem strange coming from me, but at times, I find myself conflicted in my opinion on nationalizing the health care system in the US (as Congress is currently debating). I'm strongly of the opinion that it will be bad for our economy, reduce the qualify of care, drive skilled and intelligent people out of the field, raise costs, be horrible for the long-term financial solvency of the country, and contrary to much of what America stands for. On the other hand, though, if ever a business and group of people is so despicable, so intentionally ineffectual, and so malignant as to richly deserve comprehensive summary execution in the business sense, the private medical insurance industry is such a beast, and the not-insignificant silver-lining of a government takeover would be to see all those people cast out like the garbage they collectively are. Let's look at some anecdotal examples from my life, which has been (thankfully) largely medical-issue free: - I have alwa...

So let me begin with a rhetorical question: doesn't Congress have anything important to do? I realize that may sound silly given the thousands of Billions of dollars they are creating semi-annually these days, but as the health care takeover "debate" begins, I'm reminded of just how ludicrously time-wasteful our Congressional process is. For anyone with a hazy crystal ball, let me give you a preview of how the next couple of months are going to go: - Both parties will make speeches, primarily in the media, about how the nationalization of our health care system is great/horrible for the country (and the Democrats will pay lip-service to the idea that their takeover is not nationalization, and everyone who's not a blind follower will continue to laugh at that aspect of their contentions) - Various amendments will be offered; some trivial Democrat-sponsored ones will pass, major Democrat-backed ones will fail (both left-wing and conservative), and all Republican-bac...

First, it was the jobless recovery, where the economy was magically getting better due to the artificial increases in spending fueled by deficit currency devaluation and favoritist handout programs. Then it became the "job loss" recovery , when it became more obvious that the various handout programs and Kabuki Theater money printing and shuffling wasn't actually creating or even preserving any actual jobs. At some point, maybe, in the distant future, some astute historian can berate the current administrations and its other various socialist-leaning philosophical supporters with something akin to "it's all about the jobs, right, and those blithering morons just couldn't get the trivially simple concept into their empty fascist skulls". The American economy is not going to get "better" without jobs. On the upside, a healthy business and job environment does wonders to cure many economic ills; on the downside, every Democrat policy, thought, and...

I'm sure some people noticed; I've been on vacation for the last couple weeks, with spotty internet access. That, and the resurgence of playing a certain MMO has left me with less free time to allocate to blogging about the idiocies of the world. I have not, however, experienced a significant decline in opinions; and you can expect to see a few more posts shortly with possibly some travel observations and likely some political current events opinions. Just to be clear for my readers, though (since I'm getting enough followers to care about keeping people somewhat informed), this blog won't be a daily thing; if you want daily news recaps and commentary, there are several other excellent sources, some of which I myself follow ( LCR for political current events, CR for econ news, etc.). I'll keep posting sporadically, maybe a few times a week, on topics which interest me and/or philosophizing on how things should work in my idealized world. Hopefully that'll work...

For reference, this article paints a pretty clear picture about why I'll likely be leaving the [previously] Golden State in the next couple of years. I'm not sure what happens when a state fails, when the poverty-stricken, largely-illegal non-tax-paying masses overwhelm the legitimate legal residents, when the education system finally collapses under the weight of its own malaise and corruption, when the state finances finally collapse under the weight of decades of financial idiocy and irresponsibility, when the government cannot function any more... but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be living here when it happens. I think the best California can hope for at this point is a clean start, a purging of the entire broken horribly-failed experiment, a re-write of the state Constitution to include many more protections from the current state, actual enforcement of immigration laws, and a new competent government with minimal social unrest. On its current trajectory, thoug...

I've been giving this more thought recently, since pretty much nothing has been done to try to prevent future housing bubbles (indeed, the current administration/Congress has only done things to make the post-bubble recession worse). I've had thoughts on this previously, but these are my new, more fully-formed ideas, the up-to-date thoughts from my brain on this issue (until they get revised again). First, let's establish some guidelines. An affordable loan is one which is approximately no more than 4x your annual income, based on general loan guidelines. Second, we'll call a loan made to someone which brings their total outstanding loan balance for all existing loans at the time of the loan under 4x annual income a "qualified" loan. Third, for annual income, we're talking average of last 2 years reported gross income for tax purposes. Ok, so here's the thoughts: - No loan which is not "qualified" can be subsidized by the government, at all, ...

Today, the WSJ noted that in the aftermath of the Cash for Clunkers debacle, the auto industry is in turmoil, with sales declining precipitously after the artificially-created demand dried up, as would be expected from something which merely distorted the demand curve, rather than actually stimulating demand (like, for example, creating more jobs would). This is causing dealerships to struggle, distortions and inefficiencies rippling through the supply chains, and further economic damage. So to summarize, these are the entirely predictable results of this latest brain-dead handout scheme: - Waste billions in taxpayer dollars for no economic benefit - Create distortions in the auto manufacturing and supply by only giving handouts for buying certain types of cars, rewarding the manufacturers of those models disproportionally (with taxpayer dollars) - Compressing the demand curve, creating distortions in the industry which will lead to closed dealerships and suppliers, costing more jobs ...

Bill Maher had a marginally amusing, if not highly partisan and inaccurate, rant about the people marching on Washington to protest the liberal destruction of the US ideal. Putting aside his swipes and vitriol, he does raise an interesting point: we should find some way to tie the costs of not taking care of one's own health to the cost of getting health care. After all, subsidizing health care doesn't help overall if everyone gets less healthy along the way. Now, like many liberals, Maher's knee-jerk idiotic reaction is to echo the calls for taxing foods which are bad for people. Sure this might help the immediate problem, but at the unnecessary cost of big government, big regulation, stifling of freedoms, and precedent for more wrong-headed approaches. I would suggest that there's a much better way to tie the amount paid for health care to the magnitude of the care required, based on how you maintain your own health, without all those nasty side-effects. I propose t...

I was struck with an interesting thought on the way home yesterday, while listening to a radio ad "brought to me" by the California Teacher's Association. Every advertisement, promotion, lobby effort, sponsored message, etc. which is paid for, even in part, by the CTA is being bought directly or indirectly with my taxpayer dollars. Moreover, that's money ostensibly allocated to educating our children, which is being diverted away from our children and to lobbying efforts to enrich the union and its members. That's worth keeping in mind, I think, the next time you hear about over-crowded class sizes, underpaid teachers, miserable education rankings, or other updates on the state of public education in California. Think of it this way: every CTA-sponsored ad/message you hear is directly taking some tax money away from educating our children, and directly and intentionally contributing to the miserable broken failure that is the California public education system. Th...

Something I have observed among the people I know: intelligent people like to be well-informed. This principle seems to extend beyond philosophical and political differences, and across various spectrums of communication. It's what leads people to explore new avenues of communication, seek out dissenting opinions, and generally favor unbiased information presentation. Indeed, it's probably largely the reason people read blogs like this one. It's rare that an opportunity would arise to clearly and unambiguously judge whether a news organization or source is presenting all the important information in a clear and unbiased way; many people argue about this very topic in relation to various news sources, with no clear criteria. It's fortuitous, then, when events come along which offer a clear differentiation, a litmus test of veracity and integrity for news sources. Fortunately for us, 9/12/09 offered just such a test. As you, a blog reader, are probably already aware, ther...

In his most recent speech to Congress pushing his vision of socialized medical care for the United States, President Obama said the time for debate is over, and the time for action is now. Now, it seems to be there's still quite a bit of difference of opinion over what health care "reform" should constitute, and I would personally contend that rash action without consensus is probably worse than no action at all, but on one point at least I can agree with a socialist leader: there's not much left to debate health care reform. Let's look at the largely undisputed facts. Health care in the US is expensive, painful, and getting worse. Lack of consumer protections in the insurance industry have allowed the process to become painful even for people "fully" covered. Tying insurance tax incentives and group plans to employment has made it difficult and painful to have private insurance, and stifled competition. Medical liability laws have made health care very ...

So it seems like every time I read anything about the government these days, it's one abject failure after another. Whether it's bailouts, handouts, encroaching socialism, corruption revelations, or other malignancy, each day brings new reasons to feel disgusted with your "representatives" in the Obamanation. However, every once in a while they plumb a new low, and indoctrinating school children could just be the new bar-setter for utterly despicable actions which bring my hatred for Obama and the misguided people who elected him (and/or the few remaining zealots who still support him) to entirely new levels. Maybe I'm over-reacting. I mean, surely the Obamanation is doing more destructive things to the United States in general than force-feeding liberal propaganda to impressionable school children. Destruction of the national currency has got to be worth more overall "evil points" than brainwashing poor Richard and Jane. Achieving the end-goal of full ...

I had a somewhat amusing conversation yesterday, talking about government oversight on a defense project a while ago, and it was mentioned that because the government was spending $40 Billion on a project, they demanded some oversight (which naturally led to complications and waste, but that's beside the point). I was struck with a kinda sentimental nostalgia for the times when $40 Billion was considered a significant amount of money, something which required some oversight and planning before spending, and an amount which would appall people if the government squandered or flushed. It wasn't too long ago when that amount was considered a lot of money for the government to spend; yet now, it seems almost insignificant. Consider recent government wastes: - $180 Billion to bail out AIG, so they could pay off gambling debts of other banks - $700 Billion for TARP, so the taxpayers could absorb the losses from the banking industry as repayment for causing the economic meltdown - ~$6...

There's been a lot of talk recently about big changes in the US. We are running the largest deficit in history, increasing at a record rate which is around 4x higher than the previous administration (which was ridiculed for their enormous deficit spending by the people in the current administration). Our economy is in tatters, still losing jobs as debt-fueled personal consumption is not recovering, no new bubble is appearing, and our production base has been all but destroyed. Our public education system is horribly inefficient and ineffectual, our more liberal states are struggling to correct years of over-spending, and our de-facto global economic leadership is being questioned. In response to this, our government under President Obama has taken bold measures. We have increased deficit spending, giving out Trillions of dollars to the banks which helped caused the reckless gambling economic meltdown. We have virtually nationalized our automobile industry, helping to ensure they wi...

If you're reading blogs, I'm sure you've seen it; if not, here's a good reference article. Couple of quick thoughts: - All the outraged liberals should be ridiculed for being hypocritical scum; there was a nearly identical image of Bush published in a magazine during his tenure, and Bush/Cheney have been called much worse explicitly. - To say that the "socialist" label is hurtful and dangerous is like saying an expose of illegal activities is hurtful and dangerous to the perpetrators; it may be so, but it's accurate, and free speech is a right we still (mostly) enjoy in the US, at least for now. Whether or not socialism is good for America is debatable, but anyone who doesn't at least acknowledge that Obama's policies are socialist is too stupid to vote, in my opinion. - There are many potentially applicable quotes from the movie which could be applied to Obama, but I particularly like this one: "And in their desperation they turned to a man...

From the "my wacky ideas" file: I think there should be a couple more qualifications in civil suits rather than simply a judgment against the accused or lack thereof. Specifically, I think the court/jury should also have the right to say (in addition to the regular judgments) that the lawsuit had no merit, and that the legal representative for the plaintiff should have been aware of this before bringing the action. This, in and of itself, would not change the system at all, but that brings me to my associated idea... I think to file a civil lawsuit, against anyone, you should first be required to post a bond in the amount of reasonable court and defense counsel costs. This bond would be forfeit if you drop the action (at least in the amount of incurred court/counsel costs at that time), or if your case is dismissed for lack of merit. If you win, or the case is determined to have merit but is decided against you, you get the entire bond amount back. The actual bond itself coul...

Another contemplation of late: it's a rather unfortunate situation, in the voting population today, that there's a distinct lack of accurate long-term accountability for actions and policies, and their effects. This is certainly a phenomenon not restricted only to the political spectrum (eg: some people are baffled about how typical executive compensation packages destroy large corporations in the long-term), but it's especially noticeable and distressing in the political arena. How would Americans ever expect to be able to elect competent leaders, or judge their actions, I wonder, if they cannot even accurately correlate policies to effects? For example, consider California's budget. The state has a massive deficit, which is causing much distress, and is proving very difficult to address for the current politicians. As a resident, one might be inclined to get rid of the politicians which created this mess, but to do so, one would have to understand the underlying cause...

This is gonna by a kinda wonkish post, part of a series of topics I've been thinking about which represent somewhere between where we are now and what a more idea country would be. I don't know if this will be the last one, or even interesting to anyone, but since it's my blog, I'm going to dream on. So my ideal country is founded on the basis of a few principles, but one of the most important is that the government should work for the benefit of the people, and not the other way around (as an aside, America was also founded this principle; I know, hard to believe in today's times, but look it up). One of the best ways to make sure that principle is preserved is to keep government local; it's much more difficult to feel like your government is a faceless, clueless entity abusing you for their own gain when it is made up of people you know and interact with. To that end, my ideal country has a couple of interesting differences from the US as we know it today. Fir...

A short post, just to emphasize the obvious, not because it hasn't already been said, but because it deserves to be reiterated (and as a bonus, it serves as a "gimme" prediction for next year when the next wave hits). So California is expanding its arsenal for dealing with out-of-control spending and a dysfunctional legislature. Not content with just can kicking and accounting fraud (or, more precisely, those we're not enough this time), we recently added thievery [from local municipalities] to the list of lows we're willing to stoop to. Apparently there's not much which is ethically out-of-bounds for our legislator-scum. Not that I would expect their latest trampling of the laws and common decency to stand up in court or anything, and it's certainly going to be challenged early and vigorously. In the end the lawyers will make a lot of money and the legislature will be able to push off fixing the problem for a few more years while they pretend they can/wil...

There's something which has been bothering me about the whole way Obama is phrasing the discussion about health care nationalization ("reform"), aside from his normal rhetoric strategies which continue to aggravate me (such as saying one thing, and doing the exact opposite). Over and over, I hear from the Obamanation that the health care system "is broken", and we need to "fix" it. You know what? I agree with the first part: the health care system does appear to be broken and unsustainable, and I agree with most of the reasons why. Although I'm not sure we "need" to fix it (any more than we need to fix other unfunded entitlement programs left over from historically destructive administrations, such as Social Security), I do agree with a lot of the arguments for why we might want to. For example, escalating costs of medicare. That system is bad: its an entitlement program which underpays providers while being underfunded and very inefficie...

I figure if I want to comment on this proposed amendment , I should do it soon; it doesn't seem to have much chance of getting past a Democrat majority, and is more noteworthy for the coverage it's getting rather than the chances it would become law. Regardless of my opinions on gun control in general (which I won't state, so as not to distract from the point), I find this proposition interesting. It is interesting, in one sense, because of one of the immediate objections quoted from a police officer in one of the initial news reports: "if this passes, we wouldn't be able to tell if someone is allowed to carry a firearm." Notwithstanding the fact that the officer would presumably do the same thing he would do currently (ie: ask to see the permit and check its validity), the statement itself serves to exemplify something which many people object to: authority figures (eg: law enforcement) consider it their de-facto right to control you (the normal people), and ...

The thought occurs to me, sometimes, that I just don't understand the political process, or what people are talking about in reference to a political process. Now sometimes, that's because the process itself is incomprehensible, obtuse, meandering, idiotic, or any/all of the above. Sometimes, though, the process seems like it would be straightforward, yet it is not, and I really don't understand why. Take, for example, nationalizing health care in the US. Obama says he wants to do it, in about a month or so. The Democrats have the majority in both houses of Congress, enough members to override a filibuster, the ability and expressed willingness to use the "reconciliation" process to write whatever legislation they want with no Republican input whatsoever, and have given up on any credible notion of bipartisan anything ("Rahm it through" politics). So why is nationalizing health care seeming to be "hard"? Maybe it's the money. It's going...

It seems like every time Obama's pit bull Rahm Emanuel opens his mouth and opines about "bipartisanship", I'm reminded of a quote from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means." For example, consider this gem: “That’s a test of bipartisanship -- whether you took ideas from both parties,” Emanuel said. “At the end of the day, the test isn’t whether they voted for it,” he said, referring to Republicans. “The test is whether the final product represented some of their ideas. And I think it will.” So, basically, what he's saying is that in his interpretation of the word, it just means you incorporated some of the ideas which didn't come from your party into the bill you then rammed up everyone's ass. So, for example, if your bill only wastes a few Trillion dollars, you can claim you incorporated some Republican ideas because it doesn't waste $10 Trillion, and Republicans favor saving money. I...

So I was reading this article about the impending financial meltdown (and probably taxpayer bailout) of CIT, and reflecting on the problems inherent in the government trying to be fair, impartial, and governing in the people's interests. I don't mean to imply that I think our current government is trying to do any of those thing, as they are clearly not interested in any of them, but rather the difficulty in doing so for a government which was interested in doing so. You see, I think the founding fathers of this country were pretty smart, in a lot of fortuitous ways. For example, they forbade intermingling of government and religion; and although that has not always been followed in literal terms ("under God", Christian remnants in the government, preferred tax statuses, etc.) or in conceptual terms (pseudo-religions like Global Warming, etc.), it has generally been very good for the development of the country. One could make a strong argument that we don't have ...

I realize a public health care plan is a bad idea, but it did get me thinking: if I were making the bill, and everyone else strongly wanted a public plan, is there a form of the plan which I would be agreeable to? I thought about it, and I think a public plan would be eminently workable, provided it has some simple immutable provisions. Now, I don't think the Democrats are going to put anything like this into their disaster of a plan, much less be capable of adhering to all the requirements, but I would venture to say that if they truly wanted bipartisan support, this would be one way to get it; I strongly suspect most Republicans would back a public plan with my simple provisions. Without further ado, the provisions: - All public employees will be covered by the same public plan with the same benefits, from every level of government from janitors to the President. This will ensure that the plan is good, provides reasonable coverage, and Congress has a strong incentive to get it ri...

I was reading this article about Franken being sworn in, and how the Democrats in the Senate still wanted some Republican support for their agenda bills (despite the calls from left-wing organizations like MoveOn.org to ram through their partisan agenda items). I was struck with the somewhat humorous hypocrisy and blatant stupidity of some of statements; let's see if you agree: Senate Republicans must understand that Senator-elect Franken's election does not abdicate them from the responsibility of governing. That is why we have and will continue to offer Senate Republicans a seat at the table. It is up to them to decide whether they will sit down and work for the common good or continue to be the 'Party of No.' - Majority Leader Harry M. Reid Hm... last I checked the Republicans were more than willing to sit at any table you happened to invite them to; moreover, they have been the ones proposing alternative (and often more feasible) solutions to the nation's prob...

This is a great passage, which is really interesting in contrast with the government's current approach to virtually the exact same problem: Hoover again rose to the occasion, trying to arrive at some solution. Lending more money would not solve the problem. The vast, intricate entanglement of the foreign debt situation was a time bomb waiting to explode at any moment. Hoover’s proposal was to call a complete "standstill" among all banks everywhere, preventing anyone from calling upon German or Central European short-term obligations. France still pressured for a $500 million loan to Germany. Hoover refused to go along with it. Mellon warned Hoover that if the U.S. did not go along with the plan the French intended to place all the blame on the United States, and he warned that he was playing into the hands of the French. Mellon strongly urged Hoover to accept the French proposal. Hoover lost his patience, as he put it, and informed Mellon that his "standstill" ...

A bit of irony, if you will, in this particular post. Recall, not too long ago, one of the primary arguments the Democrats used during the 2008 presidential campaign to rail against the policies of the Bush administration was that fear, rather than prudent considered decisions, was used to justify and push many initiatives which were harmful to the country. Ultimately unfounded fear, it was said, was what justified the invasion of Iraq, and the toppling of the brutal and oppressive regime there. Fear, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, was used to push through the "Patriot" Act, one of the worst abuses of civil rights ever propagated on the American people. Fear was the justification for illegal wiretaps, shadow courts, capturing and holding prisoners secretly and indefinitely, torture, and many other degradations of the nation and its principles, debatable and sacred alike. ... and the criticisms were justified. There were , indeed, many abuses of civil liberties under Bush, ...

Something I researched recently because it's been aggravating me... a non-political aside to my recently-typical political ranting... In the cell phone industry, you can (and will) be charged money for incoming text messages that you have no control over. This is particularly aggravating if you don't have a messaging plan, and someone is spamming you with text messages. Apparently there has been some recent movement on the part of cell phone companies to allow users to opt-out of being charged for spam text messages, but it's certainly not easy. You would think there would be some oversight group, amidst the plethora of government oversight groups, that would smack this abusive practice down like the should-be illegal underhanded scam it is, but I guess they are too busy ignoring or contributing to all the other systemic problems... but I digress... I found a forum post describing how one can modify/delete the service center number in one's cell phone to "work arou...

So today was just another day in the lovely state of California. The legislature failed to pass a balanced budget as required by the state Constitution (as expected), the state is now roughly $26,000,000,000 in debt, and apparently we're going to be issuing IOU's to contractors, vendors, a few classes of welfare recipients, and residents for tax refunds. These will pay interest, will be due October 1, and will likely be accepted by some banks and credit unions for deposit, making the impact nearly negligible for the effected recipients. In essence, we're kicking the can down the road, again. Now, I've probably written enough already about how screwed up California is, how corrupt and utterly despicable the Democrats in the legislature are, how a state with more incoming revenue than many large countries can't pull it's legislative head out of its ass long enough to just spend less than, say, $100 Billion dollars a year. I've been amused at the running contes...

Today, the US House of Representatives passed the "American Clean Energy and Security Act", by a vote of 219-212. This historic legislation not only represents a sweeping change which will mean lots of things to lots of people, and will no doubt be fiercely debated in the Senate (and where I, as someone who is rooting for America to return to prosperity in spite of the Democrats, hope it is killed), but it also is a great example of exactly how politics in this country works today, and pretty much everything which is horribly corrupt and broken with the current system and most of its participants. As such, I figured it would make a good specific case study to examine, in hopes that future governmental systems can be crafted to avoid every single thing involved in coming to this point with this bill. First, let's look at the official name: broad, sweeping, and sounds nice, like something everyone would be in favor of; after all, who doesn't like clean energy and secur...

So I thought this would be a topical post, with the $1,000,000,000 "cash for clunkers" subsidization government waste provision being added to the bill funding our troops overseas (the topic of "riders" on bills will have to wait for another day, although it's probably the single most destructive problem in our government system at the moment). Instead of just saying why this bill is dumb, though (in a departure from my usual rhetoric style), I'd like to examine the effects of government subsidization programs in general, and see if the reader can surmise what I think of this latest effort. First, let's clarify what I mean by a subsidization. In general, this is whenever the government spends money, directly or indirectly, to help offset the cost of something. Usually the government does this for policy purposes (overt or otherwise), and there are a variety of mechanisms typically used. Some examples are direct payments, tax rebates, subsidized loans, e...