Rebane's Ruminations

'Economic Freedom in America’ - KVMR commentary

George Rebane

[This was recorded as my regular commentary on KVMR FM 85.9 for broadcast on 30 April 2010.]

How economically free is America?  Not as free as it used to be, and that fact ties in to almost everything else that has been happening in our land as our government continues to grow, consume wealth, and inhibit wealth creation.  The Heritage Foundation publishes the noted Economic Freedom Index compiled for all the countries in the world.  I just got my copy of the 2010 edition the other day, and was surprised by some of the new information it contained.

From the Economic Freedom Index we learn “Economic freedom refers to the ability of individuals to control their own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state.”

Hi, I’m George Rebane, looking a little askance at the numbers.  The Economic Freedom Index or EFI is compiled for 179 countries.  The index itself is made up of ten components covering such factors as Business Freedom, Government Spending, Investment Freedom, Property Rights, and Labor Freedom.  The EFI ranges from 100 down to zero.  The top spot still belongs to Hong Kong with an EFI of 89.7 which is solidly in the ‘Free’ group of countries with scores 80 and above.

For the first time, the United States, with an EFI of 78, has dropped from ‘Free’ into the ‘Mostly Free’ grouping.  And given what’s ahead for us from Washington, our road is headed ever downward.  However, we do have company in this decline as stated in the book’s foreword –

The year 2009 will go down as the worst for global economic freedom since the inflation and wage and price controls of the 1970s, and maybe since the industrial policy and monetary chaos of the 1930s.  Many governments and their political agents have used the financial panic and recession as an opportunity to reassert control across the private economy.  … The most striking fact of this year is how many governments are repeating policy mistakes from previous eras.

The expansion of governments across the world correlates negatively with GDP growth, the more governments have spent to intervene, the greater has been the negative impact on the countries’ economies.  This has been primarily due to increased political allocation of capital and labor, meaning that the politicians instead of the markets decide where money should flow and how people should work.

America has fallen from 6th to 8th place, but only because other countries have also seen their EFI scores go down.  We are currently being propped up by “the residual strength of US law and institutions” and wonder how much added strain these can stand as they are being weakened by more and more government meddling.  The broad conclusion from the report is that “government intervention hurts”.

Because politicians have always needed money to get re-elected, they have favored special interest groups and legislated so as to tilt the playing field accordingly.  This centralizes more power in an institution that has no clue about the workings of markets and the economy – both very complex systems.  Nature maintains thriving complex systems through distributed knowledge and distributed control – exactly the opposite of trying to call all the shots from a central point.  Long ago Ludwig von Mises, considered the founder of the Austrian school of economics, advised governments of stressed economies to “Do nothing. Sooner.”   We should consider that advice before we launch the next economic-freedom-killing stimulus program from Washington.

I am George Rebane, and I expand these and other themes in my Union column, and on georgerebane.com.  The opinions here are mine and not necessarily shared by KVMR.

Rome in two sturdy shoes (and days)

George Rebane

Our friends Tony and Paula arrived from Hong Kong in the middle of the night and were all set to go on the following morning.  We requested the hotel to set up a registered guide for us, and after a delightful and exhausting day, we all agreed that this is the way to do Rome.  Signora Francesca Tolomei ([email protected]) arrived at 10am to pick us up.  She is the short lady in the middle in front of the Colosseum.  Francesca is an art history graduate who guides private tours professionally.  She speaks excellent English and has a depth of knowledge about the city and the history of the Roman Empire that astounds.  Sparkling personality, sense of humor, good looks, and the endurance of the Energizer Bunny.   We lucked out.

 

Wednesday? – it must be Rome

George Rebane

Arrived this morning in Rome two hours late because of the Icelandic ash cloud.  Europe’s skies are finally open, and all the airplanes are now repositioning so that airports are chaotic.  We’ve slept about four hours in the last thirty-six, and this powerful body is not as powerful as it used to be.  Jo Ann had a full schedule planned for the afternoon which I attempted to shorten.  No joy.  The Borghese Galleria and Museum with its fine marbles and paintings got our full attention after an Italian taxi ride got our juices flowing again.

After that we made it back to our hotel which is located in the center of one of the world’s most wallet sucking prone neighborhoods in the world.  A lawyer with the EU, whom we met at Dulles in WashDC, warned me about that.  Jo Ann just sat there and smiled.  She’s been planning this little assault for the last four months at least.  I looked at the hotel through Google Earth, and I couldn’t see anything threatening,  but the ground level scenery said it all – Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo, Bulgari, … - this is their home turf.

   

Our friends arriving from Hong Kong are delayed because of the ash, but the ladies have some serious retail therapy planned for Friday.  The picture was taken about two blocks from the hotel on a typical central Rome street.  I’m about three (maybe four) sheets the wind after we finished probably the best lasagna we have ever eaten. Tired and hungry and a glass or two of great Italian wine will do it to me every time.  Memo to file - we should kidnap one of their cooks and set them up on Broad Street.

aka the 'Terror Cruise'

George Rebane

Ash cloud permitting, we are on our way to Italy and the eastern Med while things are only at a low boil in places like Athens and Cairo.  I have no idea how much connectivity will be available on the ship.  To our surprise, we found out that they built the damn thing less than ten years ago, and decided not to run anything to the passenger quarters that is capable of carrying broadband.  The 3.000 passenger vessel is advertised to have six hotspot areas to which we are invited to trundle with our laptops and do what must be done.  I'm still trying to find the deck where we go to get our Kevlar vests.

Along the way I will tattempt to upload a picture or two, and post some related scribbles.  It worked well in Estonia, but those guys are internet fanatics.  Royal Caribbean is definitely taking a more measured wait-and-see attitude about the World Wide Web.  They will not make a commitment until things firm up a bit, and everyone is sure that this is not a passing fad.  I understand that they furled their last sail and switched to coal when Lindy landed in Paris.  They would have done it sooner, but the Titanic thing made them rethink for a bit.  Oil came in along with JFK, and word is that as soon as Mars has an URL, they’re going to wire the cabins.

So as not to stand out in Athens, I’m working on a whistled version of the theme from Zorba, and figuring out how to spell ‘Germany, you owe us!’ in Greek for my hand-lettered T-shirt.  In the mean time, I hope that none of the neighbors in Nevada County will succumb to bipartisanship before giving it some deep thought.  How long could we put up with Broad Street looking like the village scene out of ‘Hans Christian Anderson’?

Trust in Government at Record Lows

George Rebane

 

NPR and the Associated Press report this morning (here) the latest poll (here) by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press that shows 4 out of 5 Americans don’t trust their government.  Trust in government has now plunged to historic lows.  This comes as a great surprise to the die-hard progressives who have attempted to convince the country that only the most rightwing fringe elements would harbor such feelings about all the wonderful things that are going on in and coming out of Washington.  (One need only read the RR comment threads to confirm this.)

Things have changed indeed, and a lot more change is on the way.  Somehow, I think it may not be the change that the socialists hoped for in 2008, and in that there is hope for the rest of us.

‘Altered States’ – the Great Divide dialogue continues

George Rebane

 

In today’s (17apr10) WSJ there is a major article (‘Altered States’) by author/historian Michael Trinklein that reviews previous attempts in the Union by people to carve out territories for themselves that are more homogeneous along their citizens’ interests.  Contrary to opinions most popular with today’s left, the Union has had such percolations going on since its inception.

Trinklein tells us that “(a)cross the country, there have been a persistent and surprising number of attempts to redraw borders and create new states.”  On RR I have promoted these discussions under the rubric of the Great Divide (most recently here).  The Great Divide is the notion of non-violently dividing the Union into two regions that can be homes to more homogeneous socio-political populations of current Americans.  The idea being that, for a number of reasons, we have become so polarized that going forward as a single socio-economic order is no longer productive and may lead to more dire ends.  The commentaries and comment threads on this and other blogs, in nationally syndicated columns, and on other media outlets have seen a marked increase of interest in exploring such a solution.

As indicated in ‘Altered States’, the post-GD United States need not be divided into two contiguous regions.  Nevertheless, any GD solution would require the constitutional re-establishment of stronger states rights, especially as they define economic freedoms.  As Trinklein reminds us, these thoughts in contemporary America are not as new as they might appear –

Modern quests for statehood may seem like nothing more than odd footnotes, because Americans have largely forgotten that adding and dividing states is one of the primary mechanisms used throughout U.S. history to solve problems and redress grievances.

The current dissension revolves around income inequality (Download TN0903-1 Gini Index) and wealth redistribution.  But the main idea behind all this discussion comes down to personal liberty, and the wildly different ideas that various political factions have about the exercise of such liberty.

Bring on the taxes instead

George Rebane

If Congress does nothing more, we have a long list of added taxes, fees, etc drizzling down on us over the next few years.  Congressman John Flemming MD, (R, LA) has summarized them nicely on his website.  In case the Congressman's home page changes, I have made a one page pdf of the data Download MoreTaxesEtc.  H/T to a regular a RR reader for digging this out for us.

‘Nuclear zero’ - KVMR commentary

George Rebane

[This was recorded as my regular commentary on KVMR FM 85.9 for broadcast on 16 April 2010.]

Nuclear zero has a nice ring to it.  That great philosopher Rodney King poignantly asked, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’  With this aim, many of the world’s leaders met last week in Washington to see if doing away with all nuclear weapons in the world would be a good goal that we should now try to achieve.  That this goal is beyond silly, and has a snowball’s chance in hell of being achieved, will occupy us for the next couple of minutes.

This is George Rebane, here to convince you that the atom bomb has been one of the greatest protectors of human life since the invention of the club, and I’ll throw in penicillin just to sweeten the argument.  Most of us are immediately hypnotized by the mushroom shaped cloud and Hiroshima’s devastation when we think of nuclear weapons.  But let’s take a step or two back from any hip level hysteria here.

Public schools don’t teach kids that throughout history governments have been the greatest killers of their own people.  And we’re not talking about the millions killed when countries get into wars with each other.  Consider that during the 20th century WW1 caused about 16 million deaths, and WW2 ended at least 50 million lives.  But these deaths are dwarfed by how many people were intentionally killed by their governments in non-war related holocausts.

Through various pogroms, forced relocations, death camps, etc, that 20th century governments sponsored, these killed over 170 million people more than the war-related figures.  These mass murders have a name – they are called democides.  The 170 million figure does not include China’s mass deaths brought about by Mao’s ten-year Cultural Revolution.  The extent of this democide alone is now quietly estimated at an additional 120 million deaths.

Who did all the killings?  Primarily autocratic and totalitarian regimes with weak economies.  A study by Dr Gerald Scully of the University of Texas directly correlated a country’s economic strength to its propensity to kill its own citizens.  Government leaders have always set up institutional programs to kill their own in bad economic times.  You can get into the gory details by googling ‘death by government’, which is also the name of a scholarly book on the subject by R.J. Rummel.

So let’s get back to nuclear zero.  Great wars between nations ended in 1945 with the atomic bomb.  America and the communist super-powers devised mutual assured destruction or MAD to keep everyone’s missiles in their silos during the Cold War.  After the USSR collapsed, America’s nuclear umbrella and the promise to use it against aggressive rogue states, has kept the peace.

But now, while continuing to cut back on our remaining warheads, Obama has started to disarm the US with a non-reprisal policy against non-nuclear powers.  Russia is a willing partner in this as it cannot afford to maintain its strategic missiles.  Instead Russia continues to increase its vast stockpile of tactical nukes to support its policy of dominating the so-called ‘near-abroad’ countries.  Russia’s tactical nukes are not negotiable, and China is not even a part of the ‘let’s all just get along’ charade.

Which brings us to last week’s loss of the Polish leaders as they flew to observe the first official commemoration of Stalin’s 1940 Katyn Forest massacre of 22,000 Poles comprising most of Poland’s intelligentsia and all of its officer corps.  But nowhere in the reports on this crash is the real message of ‘death by government’ being brought to the world’s attention.  As Stalin said, ‘A few deaths are a notable tragedy, a million deaths is merely a statistic.’

I sincerely hope that you will look into this history on your own to see if somewhere in there is a message for us.

I am George Rebane, and I expand these and other themes in my Union column, and on georgerebane.com.  The opinions here are mine and not necessarily shared by KVMR.

Unions torpedo the Union

George Rebane

Starting with the federal government, public service unions have contributed to fiscal calamities in every jurisdiction across the land where they have been able to get a foothold.  That is not to say that the leftwing chorus has stopped singing its hosannas to clandestine and corrupt collective bargaining.  Democrat controlled city councils and mayors, led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, are admitting that they have let the unions bring them to the brink of fiscal disaster.  Rating agencies are downgrading government debts at all levels.  Vallejo was the first dead canary, now the mine is filled with methane.  (New metaphor for the nimble reader, back to torpedoes later ;-)

Meanwhile the Obama administration is continuing to back SEIU and other unions which outright bought the presidency in 2008 with over $85 million cold cash, the largest single special interest tranche of election spending in history.  One of the union payoffs is the imposition by presidential decree of “project labor agreements” for federal construction.

The PLA union-growing gambit increases total costs of projects by anywhere from 10 to 15%, and tilts the playing field away from the 85% of construction workers who are non-union.  Every government project infected by PLAs has suffered gross cost overruns.  Notable examples are Boston’s Big Dig, Seattle’s Safeco field, LA’s Eastside Reservoir, San Francisco airport, … .

One of the country’s leading socialists, SEIU president Andy Stern, can take credit for much of the growth of public service unions and the resurgence of union influence in America.  It was Andy who delivered the big checks to Obama, and got to sleep over a lot in the White House guest room.  (Can anyone divide $85,000,000 by 31 visits?)  Now, on top of his game, Mr Stern is bailing before some of the little excesses at the SEIU come home to roost and, mayhaps, put a smudge on his polish.

Song Without Words

Big Government, Big Business

George Rebane

Big monopolies and oligopolies are no better in the private sector than they are in the public sector.  Both types of organizations suffer systemic failures in the feedback necessary to keep them on the straight and narrow as far as their customers are concerned.  Of course, big government can do more damage to its ‘customers’ because it has guys with guns and can print money without your permission.

 

But here’s an example of the kind of chicanery Verizon, the big broadband connectivity supplier, puts over on its consumers.  The following report from my friend and correspondent Dr Larry Press, IT professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills, is included with his permission.

We ordered 7 mbps service from Verizon and they turned it on, but we were only getting about 1.5 mbps -- presumably tons of retransmission errors due to an aggressive modulation scheme.  They scheduled a truck roll to fix the problem.

The minute the driver arrived, he told me that, at 9,000 feet from my central office, there was no way I was going to get 7 mbps.  He checked the line, and concluded that I could reliably run at 4.2 mbps, but, unfortunately, Verizon only offers 3 and 7, so I could only get 3.

They could have easily told me at the time of the order that 7 mbps was not available at my house.  They could have saved a truck roll.  The "technician" who scheduled the truck roll could have done the same.

The driver told me he does 5 calls per day and 3 are typically fruitless, but that it gave him job security so he was happy with the system.  What a guy.

I had to make yet another 30-minutes-on-hold call to Verizon to change my order to 3 mbps -- he could not change the order automatically.

The driver also confirmed the Internet rumors and leaked memos saying that Verizon was not installing new fiber, but focusing on increasing the take rate on what they have installed already.  So much for my getting fiber.  (I wonder how much Verizon has extracted from the California PUC in return for "promises" to roll out fiber).

Professor Press also runs a website for his students that has more info (here and here) about what’s going on in the world of broadband.

The Republican Alternative to a repealed Obamacare

George Rebane

As we know, and contrary to a constant stream of MSM reports about “the party of NO” and “they have offered no ideas of their own”, the GOP is now bringing together its alternative piece of healthcare legislation that they hope to pass if their fortunes turn this November.  The major features of the GOP approach are compared to Obamacare in this pdf.  Congressman Tom McClintock promoted and supported these alternatives during the last year, and his office forwarded this to me.  Take a read.

We Remain Unstimulated (updated)

George Rebane

The self-serving liars in Washington have attempted for the last two years to convince us that they have injected newly printed and borrowed cash into our economy in order to stimulate it out of the recession that followed the housing bubble.  This has not come to pass.  The economy has struggled to find its feet in spite of the imposed government impediments to weigh it down.

 

In this interval we have executed a Keynesian folly that still portends our economic demise.  Long time RR readers know that I am of the Austrian school persuasion bathed in the evidence of its general correctness describing and predicting the predilections of humanity’s fisc.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University offers an illumination (here) of the much propagandized stimulations from our nation’s capital, stimulations that have turned out to be a bland prophylactic to what is really needed.  Ludwig von Mises prescribed the correct emetic to purge our system of what ails us – “Do nothing, sooner!”

[update]  Maybe what we now need is more of what a Democratic Congress gave us in 1945 after the war had ended.  FDR and his New Deal had miserably extended the Great Depression through the thirties, and WW2 had been an unsustainable bump in employment that was now going to result in greater layoffs than ever before.  As reported by the Folsoms of Hillsdale College in the 12apr10 WSJ (here), Truman advised Congress to resume FDR’s alphabet soup socialism, but Congress “responded by just saying ‘no’.”  And it was a pretty comprehensive NO.

No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.

Congress cut taxes instead, and in doing so almost eliminated the short post-war recession and gave rise to what today we call supply side economics.  Apparently more than one member in that august body had become aware of F. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom which came out in 1944.  Then with lowered taxes, the economy exploded and kept expanding for the next twenty years.

By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.

Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR's New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.

The Great Depression was over, no thanks to FDR. Yet the myth of his New Deal lives on. With the current effort by President Obama to emulate some of FDR's programs to get us out of the recent deep recession, this myth should be laid to rest.

Bipartisan Milestones

George Rebane

 

Obamacare is truly a unique event in American governance.  But then, not everyone is worried.  H/T to RR reader for the graphic.

Singularity? What’s that? (w/appendix)

George Rebane

[This piece is published here in The Union today as my April column.  Coincidentally, today's (10apr10) WSJ also published an article that expands on the Singularity in its discussion of galactic civilizations.  I have appended the relevant paragraph.]

In my past columns I have hinted at the enormous impact that accelerating technology is having on education and America’s workforce.  Here I’ll try to convince you that ‘enormous impact’ is an understatement.  Let me start with the punchline and then back off.  Unless you’re planning on dying in the next ten or twenty years, it is very likely that you will live in a world with machines that are smarter than humans.  The event when machines reach par intelligence with humans is known as the technological singularity, or simply the Singularity.

 

Before you turn the page, let me alert you that the Singularity will be the most planet changing event since the asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs 40 million years ago.  And most of you will be around to witness it.  We are now living in the pre-Singularity years and already sense that something different is going on.  For example, wealth-producing productivity continues to increase while the number of workers required for such work is going down.

As a developed society we haven’t yet figured out what to do with the extra workers except maybe start all kinds of new service industries and public sector jobs to keep most everyone busy.  But machines are already pushing themselves into the service sectors.   Performance neutral workplaces in government seem to be the only places immune to encroaching technology.

Let me disabuse those who think the Singularity is some hare-brained notion held by weirdo techies.  The Singularity is a very mature idea that has been around for at least forty years.  Today major scientists in artificial intelligence, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are working on perfecting everything from the brain-computer interface to machine consciousness.

KVMR commentary - 'The blue of the grass'

[This commentary was recorded last week at KVMR FM 85.9 for its postponed airing today 9 April 2010.]

‘The blue of the grass’ is the color green in an African language.  That’s a lot of letters compared to the five letters in the word ‘green’ to get across the same message.  But it’s also getting harder to communicate in English.  In the last several decades English has lost much of its ability for clear, concise, and complete delivery.  Techies call this ‘information carrying capacity’, and the capacity of everyday English has been going down.  We are paying a price for this loss in our public dialogue.  Hi, I’m George Rebane.

Our world is getting more complex while our language is dumbing down.   Back in the old days when you heard someone called a ‘hero’, you could be sure that the person had knowingly gone above and beyond the call to risk life, limb, treasure, or honor.  Not any more.  Today a ‘hero’ is a millionaire athlete making a lot of touchdowns, or a father helping his son build a go-cart, or a GI running through a withering crossfire to bring back a wounded buddy.  If we want to discriminate between the GI and the athlete, we have to use a lot more words.  Hero doesn’t cut it any more.

Disabled or handicapped people aren’t disabled or handicapped.  They are ‘challenged’.  If a person has a problem with math, they’re math challenged.  Hell, I’ve spent my life being math challenged.  But if I said that to someone, they would never know that math has always been my strong suit, and the basis of a rewarding career.  Nevertheless, I’ve been challenged by math problems many a time.  Today ‘challenged’ has so many meanings that we have to tell a story instead of simply using the proper word.

Speaking of problems - people and organizations no longer have them.  They’ve traded them in for ‘issues’.  So if a meeting agenda has on it the discussion of certain issues, you have no idea whether it calls for a group problem solving session or simply a boring report.  Again, more explanation is necessary to avoid confusion.

The same disease has struck a passel of other words like ‘discriminate’, ‘racist’, ‘right’, ‘prejudge’, and ‘immigrant’.  The name of the disease is political correctness.  People afflicted with this malady seek to convey a flattened world that has no distinct edges or shapes that efficiently define the specifics of a landscape.  Doing that would expose them to being ‘judgemental’ – and heaven forbid, no PC person would want that tag hung around their neck.  Nice people are non-judgemental, they never decide that this is not that.  Or do they?

Today we are told that immigration reform season is here again.  But our handicapped language no longer supports a clear discussion of the illegal alien problem.  We have decisions to make about 12 million of them here in a country that has thrived from liberal immigration policies. 

For the record, immigration is a two party process.  An immigrant is a foreigner who receives permission from the welcoming country to enter, work, and make it their new home.  He becomes an illegal immigrant when he violates the conditions of his lawful immigration while remaining in-country.  Our laws say that such individuals are not in the same category as those who enter our country illegally.  But for us to talk about them requires that they have a unique label.  Historically that has been ‘illegal alien’.  Today the PC disease has banished the label and its clear meaning.

For political purposes illegal aliens have been softened to ‘un-documented immigrants’.  Everyone knows immigration is as American as apple pie, and these so-called immigrants are merely challenged by the lack of a few pieces of paper with some words on them.  Why should we discriminate against their ability to work and receive government benefits because of this bureaucratic inconvenience?  And so we will again start talking past each other, because we have lost the correct words from a once-rich language.

I am George Rebane, and I expand these and other themes in my Union column, and on georgerebane.com.  The opinions here are mine and not necessarily shared by KVMR.

Reaping what we have sown

George Rebane

 

Mr Steven Frisch of the Sierra Business Council has an explanation for our long wait.  To last week's NC ARRA report he appended this -

I think that the reasons area clear. 1) Republicans are less likely to apply for stimulus funds 2) When they do, they are public critics and private porkers, so the motivation to reward them is not there 3) Urban areas, with greater capacity to apply, are more likely to be Democratic 4) Stimulus programs are more likely to be directly linked to transit, infrastructure and housing improvements and those are more concentrated in urban areas 5) rural areas are more likely to influenced by voices like Georges's that claim stimulus is a crock.

You reap what you sow.

Another puzzle solved.  

The Great Divide – more are thinking about it (updated)

George Rebane

I have written in these pages about the possibility of America splitting into two sovereign nation states for the last couple of years or so under the heading of The Great Divide.  These were lonely thoughts for some time.  With the election of Obama – the self-declared Great Unifier – the prospect of the country dividing, with conservatives going their way and the progressives theirs, is beginning to gain traction.

Respected columnist and economist Walter Williams wrote yesterday (7 April 2010) that this question was first posed by him already in 2000.  He now reprises it within today’s charged and polarized environment.  Williams asked "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?”

It has been clear to me for some time that not only are our values and mores on opposite sides of an ideological chasm, but so also is our ability to reason together.  To minds like mine, the logic of the Left is beyond bizarre.  One has only to read the comment streams appended to blog posts and web published articles on governance to see that we no longer have the intellectual materials to build a bridge to common understanding.  We are not working to make the country go forward in a commonly agreed productive direction.  We are just biding time attempting to be what? pseudo-civil with each other while figuring out how to torpedo the other side’s fondest dreams?

Right now we are fighting in the wheelhouse while the ship of state is heading for the rocks.  Perhaps it is time to start a national dialogue on the Great Divide.  You can read Dr Williams’ thoughts on the matter in his ‘Parting Company’.

[update]  The Great Divide discussion in the comment thread is off to a good, if not a predictable, start.  Progressives participating for the first time always come up with an analysis of how the country will be divided between the ‘backward’ red states and the ‘industrious’ blue states.  This is a simplistic yet fallacious solution to the Great Divide.  But it does again underline how the fundamental logics of the red and blues differ, which motivates the debate.

Yes, the preponderance of wealth is generated in red states due to the concentration of large urban areas there.  But the same regions also have large concentrations of the mal-educated and those receiving transfer payments.  They invariably vote for parties and policies that promise them other people’s money, and because our democracy is a one-man-one-vote system, they carry the state/region.  (see the Peter/Paul Principle)

Such divisions of territory are akin to the belief by many Mexicans and Reconquista Mexican-Americans that the placement of the chain link fence boundary is what determines the opportunities and the manner in which wealth may be generated on either side.  Moving the fence northward to subsume American factories, farms, and businesses will not make the Mexicans richer.  They will just import their dysfunctional and corrupt culture to whatever territory they control.

And so it will be with the progressives no matter what ‘fair division’ algorithm is used to implement the Great Divide.  (BTW, it’s naïve to think that such an undertaking will be limited to using existing states’ boundaries.)  The ones who know how to generate wealth will invariably transplant themselves if necessary, as will those of the collective philosophies.  Unfortunately, for the collectives, they will also draw the overwhelming proportion of the beneficiaries of current transfer payments.  That is because the new free market nation will appear to them as a bleak landscape where every outstretched hand will not automatically be filled.

However, given a mutually satisfactory implementation of the Great Divide still does not get us out of the woods, at least according to the conservative/libertarian worldview.  They will cite history that predicts near-term conflict between the collectivists and capitalists.  As both post-partum economies develop, the blue side will quickly see that they are living a lie.  The past teaches that such nation-states will not change their socio-political beliefs, but will instead find a pretext to attack their richer neighbor.

The collectivist elites will find this as the optimum stratagem because, if successful, 1) garnering the captured wealth will delay their day of reckoning, and/or 2) it will remove the irritating exemplar that is now a de-stabilizing contrast across the border.  Simply put, it will be the reprise of the Mexican (East Germany, North Vietnam, North Korea, …) mentality.  Such states never examine why the grass is greener on the other side.

The only salutary solution for the Great Divide aftermath is the re-education of the collectivists.  The left has yet to pull it off successfully, but Red China, Russia, and even Vietnam are giving it a mighty try.  (Even though other nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, … are lurching towards the Cuban and North Korean forms of workers’ paradise.)  Keeping the peace after running out of other peoples’ money will be the real challenge.

Waiting for Gloria Zane

George Rebane

I had lunch the other day with my editor/publisher Jeff Ackerman.  We talked of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.  And then the topic of Gloria Zane came up.  It turns out that Gloria has been making the rounds of some local blogs lately and taking a very dim view of The Union and Jeff.  But there seems to be a puzzle about who Gloria really is – apparently she sometimes sounds like a man wearing a dress.

Anyway, Jeff said that he has put out an invitation to have a little coffee with Gloria, check her ID, and settle the matter once and for all.  And if the ‘her’ is a her, he’ll duly apologize for ever doubting the lady’s plumbing.  He also offers to address some of her concerns about the newspaper so that all in all it would be a worthwhile get together.

But now that some time has passed with nothing but the sound of silence, Jeff said what really puzzles him is why Gloria has not accepted this kind offer.  It’s almost as if ‘she’ doesn’t want to be outed.  Hearing all this got my curious up also.  So if it’ll help hurry up the meeting, I’ll even show up to chaperone the pair so that all is on the up and up.

MSM Viewership (updated)

George Rebane

MSM nightly news viewership is down 14% in the last year.  But the sad news is that about 20 million Americans are still being fed a steady diet of bull pucky every night.  H/T to RR reader.

 

[update]  Russ Steele thought that the following March stats really drive home the point.

For Stress-free Work Environments

H/T to RR reader.

California in extremis

George Rebane

The giant public sector workers retirement fund Calpers is underfunded by at least $500,000,000,000 – yes, that’s a half trillion dollars.  This is from a Stanford University study commissioned by our governor (reported here)  RR readers should not be surprised.  In Nevada County, SESF (sesfoundation.org) reported on the state’s and county’s unfunded liabilities problem over two years ago to great derision from our local progressives.  No matter where you live, I suspect that your neck of the woods experienced the same response.

My personal estimate is 1) that Stanford’s number is low, and because the number is now so large, 2) we’re not going to pay it.  But the road from here to that reality will cause untold damage to the state and its local jurisdictions.

With the Great Recession and this sword hanging over our heads, the Sacramento idiots, both elected and appointed, are charging full speed ahead on AB32 implementation.  AB32 is California’s homemade suicide bomb to demonstrate to the world our leadership in fighting AGW (aka man-made global warming).  The regulatory and energy cost burdens this will put on all Californians guarantees that we’re going to tell retired public workers to go suck eggs, if they can still afford them.

That AB32 is a mega job killer is now beyond doubt.  Look for the double dummies in Sacramento to pass a law prohibiting companies from declaring publicly their dire straits, similar to what Washington is attempting to do on the national scale as corporations now must give lie to the propagandized cost savings that Obamacare is supposed to deliver.  The message to American businesses is simple, ‘If you see that your reality is different from the lies we had to tell to get this passed, just shut the f__k up!’

AB32’s stench is bad enough to draw national attention (‘Another California Dream’), and some other states are beginning to pull out of their headlong dashes into locally grown versions of cap n’ tax.  Here in California, our own Assemblyman Dan Logue is leading the good fight to have AB32 implementation “postponed … until the economy rebounds.”  That’s how bad it has become, this horrendous law has such support that even Logue can see no opportunity to have it repealed.  All we can hope is an attempt to delay the dagger thrust to California’s economic heart.  Read Dan’s Union column for details.

1945 - The year Easter was cancelled

George Rebane

[This is another in a continuing series of autobiographical sketches that I have been asked to write by friends and family.  I share it with you, my readers, in the hope that these little vignettes of history and the American immigrant experience are of interest.  But most of all, I hope it may help you understand what shaped the lens through which I interpret our human story, and view the events that are the subjects of these commentaries.]

After five years of war, April of 1945 turned out to be the most harrowing of all for our little family.  We found ourselves in Augsburg, Germany, camped in an abandoned cabin or equipment shed across the road from a now defunct Luftwaffe airfield.  I have no idea how my father and mother found this shelter after getting off the ‘mystery train’ from Berlin.

Two days ago we had left behind a Berlin that was once again in flames from another massive allied bombing.  There Hitler was preparing for his Gotterdammerung somewhere near the Reichstag.  Having arrived from Stettin after sunset, our intention was to keep going southward by any available means.  With the audible drone of a thousand approaching B-17s, and air raid sirens wailing over the city, our definite intention was to make our stay in Berlin as short as possible.  Everyone in the Stettiner Bahnhof railroad station knew that the Red Army had crossed the Oder River and was now positioning itself for the last thrust that would overrun the capitol of the dying Third Reich.

The western allies were approaching the banks of the Elbe River to the west, a line which Stalin had cleverly negotiated at Yalta to be their eastern-most advance.  As a reward for all the suffering it had endured, the USSR would now be allowed to take Berlin and Hitler, and then sweep west to meet the waiting allies.  I was too small to understand any of the irony in this.  And most of the world at that time had also forgotten that in September 1939 Stalin and Hitler had been partners in starting the greatest war of all time.  But then Hitler double-crossed Uncle Joe in June 1941 when he launched Operation Barbarossa, the surprise invasion of the Soviet heartland.  Now in April 1945 it was payback time, and Stalin urged his generals to give no quarter.  The devastation in East Prussia and Poland, as witnessed by many huddled that night in the railroad station, gave proof that the Red Army knew exactly what was expected of them.

The ‘mystery train’, under steam and standing quietly, was some distance from the Stettiner Bahnhof. It was discovered by my mom (as described in The Last Train from Stettin (v2010)).  The air raid was already starting as the sky lit up with sweeping searchlight beams and the din of firing AA batteries.  The train itself, hidden in the rail yard among rows of abandoned railroad cars of all descriptions, was blacked out and illuminated only by the muzzle flashes of a nearby battery as it joined with the remaining batteries throughout the city in their futile exercise.

What drew my mother’s attention was the stream of people that appeared out of nowhere.  All were carrying suitcases as they quietly approached and climbed aboard the silent train.  These had to be very special people who knew when to be where so that they too could escape capture by the Soviets.  Staying in Berlin also meant death for our family – to the Soviets we were fugitive ‘enemies of the people’ who were already wanted escapees from Estonia, and would now be accused of aiding the hated Germans.  Mom put two and two together and knew that the train would be heading south, the exact direction that we had to go.  Staying alive meant getting to Bavaria in time to meet General Patton’s Third Army and the Americans.

'He is Risen!'

 

Happy Easter from our family to you and yours.

George and Jo Ann

$100,000 Reward - Easy Money for Progressives

George Rebane

The accusation of the staged Tea Partiers shouting ‘nigger’ at black legislators at the Capitol is coming home to roost for the scumbags who tried to set the whole thing up in Washington DC, and then again in Searchlight, Nevada.  National blogger Andrew Breitbart was falsely accused by shipped-in union thugs of the now notorious egg-throwing incident in Nevada, where they tried to disrupt the scheduled Tea Party event.  Evidence clearly showed the accusers as the guilty parties, who a la Saul Alinsky, attempted to make the victim the culprit.  Breitbart now offers $100,000 for any evidence that supports the progressives’ charges.

 

Around our little community the local progressives were quick to hyperventilate their rage against our local Tea Party (of which I am a member) as being birds of feather and capable of such dastardly acts.  (See RR comment threads)  They faithfully shilled the MSM reports which are now being hurriedly buried and re-directed into such things as ‘easter egg’ incidents.

Last Thursday night’s well-planned and attended ‘Meet the Candidate’ forum at the GV Veterans Hall was held in front of a civil, attentive, and interested audience.  It was co-sponsored by The Union, KNCO Radio, and the Nevada County Tea Party Patriots, and included a little noticed incident of misguided left-wing activism against the local veterans and, presumably, the TPP.  Apparently a cohort of like-minded people refused to donate the requested $5 to cover the event’s expenses with the remainder, as clearly stated on the program, going to named veterans groups using the hall.  These people came in, sat through the proceedings until the Clerk-Recorder candidates finished, and then got up and left in the middle of the doings.

So I invite the sanctimonious and sure-minded of the left to present their supporting evidence for their outrage, and collect an easy $100,000.

There is much more to all this as RR readers are aware.  A good summary, which cites the events and puts them into a reasonable perspective, has been posted by Andrew Breitbart here.  It is definitely worth a read, especially if your daily round includes encounters with the hyperventilators.