Rebane's Ruminations

A look at 2012

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary that was broadcast on 30 December 2011.  The KVMR website has podcasts of this and previous editions of these commentaries.]

As we prepare to ring in 2012, I am reminded that governments at all levels have been busy taking away more of my freedoms and restricting what I can buy or build - all for my own protection, of course.  And as a Californian, I am doubly blessed because my state is the country’s leader in protecting its citizens from every form of harm imaginable, including overworking.  That benefit it provides by driving out companies, inhibiting new start-up businesses, and generally making the hiring of full-time employees as difficult as possible – in short, the business of Sacramento is eliminating business in California.

Starting this Sunday morning a whole slew of new laws and regulations will hit us.  With regard to hiring, except in a few special cases, it will be illegal for an employer to check on the credit rating of an applicant.  Checking credit ratings of new hires for positions of responsibility has always been important as a measure of the employee’s ability to manage personal affairs, and his propensity to focus on the new job instead of worrying about how to pay or avoid outstanding bills.  The state has decided that this is no longer necessary nor permitted, employers can go suck an egg.

Ruminations - 28dec2011

You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out.

George Rebane

Hope that all RR readers did as well as I did in the book department for Christmas gifts.  I got a passel of real good ones that covered topics ranging from global energy strategy, through ‘how our brains make … feel so good’, celebration of Germanic ethnicity, to great works on debate and history.  All of them were in pulp format, and I can state with little fear of contradiction that those trees did not die in vain.

Santa brought Jo Ann a Kindle Fire, and we saw new tablets galore when in soCal with our kids and friends over Christmas.  I’m in the market for a new laptop, and was impressed by the latest Mac offering in this department that lets me swing with both Windows and Mac OS.  Also, the latest iPad seems like something worth having around the house.  With all these ‘I wannas’ dancing around in our heads, where can the economy go but up in 2012?

Well, it looks like Newt’s about to be neutered in the Iowa caucuses and beyond.  I’m drawn to his smarts, but my fellow voters are very finicky when it comes to the man’s background in affairs of the heart and reconsideration of public policy positions.  We want our leaders to be forever loyal to one mate (at a time?), and on public policy to be unchanging once having made up their mind years ago, no matter what new data or experiences occur in the interval.  Newt fails on both counts, and must now forfeit his few weeks on top of the Republican heap.

Asian-American students are facing discrimination in being admitted to colleges.  Apparently something in their double-helix, or culture, or the water they drink makes them smarter than the round-eyes.  The response by the progressive college administrations is to quota them down so that the racial make-up of entering classes are more ‘balanced’.  The response from the high achievers is to check any box other than Asian-American on their applications if they have any smidgeon of non-Asian ancestry in their background.  Social engineers who know better eschew meritocracy.

Those pesky ‘birthers’ just keep bringing up all kinds of revelations that require new layers of judicial denial and protection of information about the President’s background.  Among the latest is that his SSN is slightly used and of the wrong pedigree.  It appears that it was originally issued to a Connecticut resident now long dead.  There’s more here, and then there’s the little item of his Selective Service registration.  And, of course, the doctored long-form ‘Birth Certificate from Hell’  just keeps waving in the wind.  Is it not strange that the whole issue cannot be resolved in the President’s favor, and must forever remain an historical black hole?

Both the Right and Left are becoming more than uneasy about the way the Patriot Act’s provisions have been expanded in the latest National Defense Authorization Act for 2012.  Everyone, from Rep Ron Paul, through ex-gov Jessie Ventura, to national Leftwing trumpet Amy Goodman, is letting their constituencies know that the federal government seems to be up to no good.  Apparently there is more to the Civilian National Security Force, “fusion centers”, barbed-wired “residential camps”, and police arming themselves with military gear than just idle rumors here and there.

Christmas 2011

George Rebane

[This message was first posted on Christmas Eve 2009.]

The two main events in the Christian calendar are celebrations of the Promise and the Fulfillment.  Christmas calls on us to reflect on the Promise delivered - the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us, that made real what had long been promised.  By His appearance among us, the Promise of the good news and a new covenant of salvation between Man and God became an historical event.  He had come.

As Christians, we take great joy in the remembrance of that little noticed event two thousand years ago, an event that would alter the course of Man and his empires.  Today, in our own country and around the world, Christians again stand battered and confused by forces and events we scarcely understand.  But Christmas reminds us once more of the real hope for a better world in which we, in His image, will all have the freedom to grow and give according to the talents and opportunities afforded us.

Jo Ann and I wish all of you a joyous Christmas, and a new year where ‘Better!’ will properly respond to every ‘How are you?’ coming your way.

The Civilian National Security Force is a’comin’ (updated 28dec2011)

George Rebane

Candidate Obama promised us a new Civilian National Security Force (CNSF) that is “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the military.” (here)  It sounded Hitleresque then, and was promptly pooh-poohed by progressives and quietly forgotten.  Now it looks like we could be one executive order away from having the CNSF become an overnight reality.

More reports (here, here, and here) are coming in about local police and sheriff’s departments arming themselves to the teeth with military weaponry to counter an enemy that no one can quite define for us.  Today we can’t highlight the obvious war between civilizations that is going on between Islam and the West.  We can’t point to the increasing crime wave perpetrated by mostly illegal aliens who are impacted by Depression2 but don’t want to go home (Russ Steele on NC2012 highlighted Victor Davis Hanson’s recent piece describing what’s going on in California’s central valley.)  Maybe we’re really preparing to repel the drug cartels from Mexico.  It just isn’t clear what enemy within our borders the nation’s constabulary is girding its loins against.

Homeland Security has identified only one internal enemy about which they are worried, and about whom they have informed all America’s police forces.  And that is the danger from “rightwing terrorists”.  The existential record of what alien and American Muslims have perpetrated within our borders must remain un-recounted, or at least respun as some aberrant series of otherwise vanilla crime incidents.

The only plausible ‘enemy’ which the state then fears in America are its people.  In spite of the enormous, ongoing, and often insidious state-sponsored efforts to disarm us, we are still a well armed nation that is ready to repel tyranny, from whatever quarter, if ever it presents its unambiguous face.  But I don’t recall any of history’s successful tyrants coming on the scene wearing a big sign that says, ‘Good morning, I will be your new tyrant in this land, stand by to be enslaved.’  In the past such tragedies befell nations in more subtle ways that required the bit by piece relinquishing of one’s liberties, property, and personal security.  Has anybody experienced that going on around here recently?

So now we have police forces transforming themselves across the land into militarized versions that will soon be coming to a neighborhood near you.  These newly re-armed units today join the myriads of mostly unknown armed assault teams that other government agencies have already quietly put in place (here).  What adds to the mystery of these armed elites is that they want to keep their weaponry into retirement (here) - why?.  And it is these hundreds of formerly independent agencies that can be integrated overnight into the CNSF that we all managed to forget.  Make no mistake about it, to the new CNSF we will all become highly suspect, potential enemies of the state.

[28dec2011 update]  A reader notes that the TSA has already expanded its non-transportation armed response activities.  Over 9,500 "checkpoints" were set up and operated by TSA's VIPR teams this year, and the agency is planning on a "massive expansion" of this capability for 2012 wherein it sets up unannounced checkpoints manned by machinegun toting personnel wearing special TSA uniforms.  More here.

Both payroll tax bills stink

George Rebane

On the surface it just looks like more congressional bickering.  But the two current versions of the payroll tax bills have written in things which go beyond the 'kick the can' capers that the Dems are promoting and the Repubs are fighting.  Our congressman Tom McClintock peeled back a bit of the sleaze to quietly re-fund Fannie and Freddie through these pieces of legislative legerdemain.  (Some useful idiots still argue that Fannie and Freddie are not government departments.)  He made the following speech on the House floor today.

The Problem with Both Payroll Bills
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
December 20, 2011

Mr. Speaker:

In all this debate, I fear both parties have missed a critical point.  

Both versions of this bill impose a permanent new tax on every mortgage backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

To pay for an additional two months of tax relief under the Senate version or 12 months under the House version, more than $3,000 of new taxes will be imposed on every $150,000 mortgage backed by Fannie or Freddie.

A family taking out a $250,000 mortgage will pay $5,000 more in taxes – directly and solely because of this bill – hidden in their future mortgage payments.

This is atrocious public policy.  It shifts the burden for this bill to future homebuyers, kicks the housing market when it’s already down, makes it that much more expensive for home buyers to re-enter that market, and adds to the pressures that have chronically depressed everyone’s home values.

That’s the reason that both the Senate and the House versions need to go back for major revision.

A New Capitalism with Blood and Gore

George Rebane

Al Gore and David Blood have written ‘A Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism’ in the 14dec11 WSJ.  This is a remarkable tour de farce that demonstrates conclusively the gross ignorance that both authors have of human nature and capitalism.  We recall that both are also with Generation Investment Management, a private lobbying and investment firm that uses something it calls “sustainability research” to identify enterprises in which to invest.  In their own words –

Generation has built a global research platform to integrate sustainability research into fundamental equity analysis. … We focus on key drivers of global change, including climate change and environmental degradation; poverty and development; water and natural resource scarcity; pandemics and healthcare; and demographics, migration and urbanization.

From their website one quickly concludes that Blood and Gore (an appropriately named pair) are in the business of profiting from almost every dimension of human misery available – manmade and natural.  (You remember Big Al, the guy who couldn’t convince anyone that he invented the internet?  But he did invent Anthropogenic Global Warming, and for that they gave him a Nobel prize.)  Now all these two need is to have some witless government guarantee markets for and then subsidize certain private enterprises which can then capitalize on a supposedly sustainable approach to alleviating the problem.  And their considered bet is that witless governments abound – who can forget Solyndra et al?

In their ‘manifesto’ these two socio-political mavens propose to revamp capitalism into an economic system that addresses “real needs while integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics throughout the decision making process.”   These TBD metrics are supposed to incorporate the “true value” of a business activity, and meld ESG with the traditional profit motive.  However, all of this will take place in future managed markets (with “established fair prices”)  in which the new sustainable capitalism is to deliver its returns in the “encouraged longer term” through “incentivized” investing with “loyalty-driven securities”.

Apparently through the more than nudged “embrace (of) environmental, social, and governance metrics”, things will be worked out so that governments can easily identify and justify commensurate public policies which assure that the metrically correct corporations will succeed.  As anyone familiar with utility theory knows, such metrics or utilities can be fashioned and cobbled together to justify damn near any preferential policy desired.  The main thing is to control the manufacture of the metric, and that presumably is where Generation Investment Management’s boys and girls and their “sustainability research” will come in to lend a hand.

Now I don’t know why Big Al and his sidekick wanted to have their manifesto published in the op-ed section of the WSJ, arguably the most read newspaper pages in the world.  You may respond, well there you have it, they wanted the most eyeballs exposed to their newest road to a socialist command economy.  But here’s the rub, WSJ readers know all about Big Al, the manic mental midget.   To them the manifesto is an entertaining (read laughable) form of ‘forewarned is forearmed’.

Administrivia - TypePad is sick

George Rebane

Dear Readers - TypePad, the server of RR, is beset with many problems as it has now made some of them known to its subscribers.  They promise that they are diligently working to bring things back to normal.  We shall see.

In the interval, some readers notice that there is no comment box displayed below my post or the last comment.  That fault is corrected when you sign in with Google or one of the other alternatives presented.

Again I apologize for not taking the earlier advice of friends and colleagues to migrate RR to a more reliable platform.  Rest assured that with the passage of the holidays, Plan B will be implemented.  Meanwhile, your continuing efforts to post comments are greatly appreciated.

The quiet growth of government guns – par force revisited

George Rebane

One of the supposed attributes of a ‘right wing fascist’ is to celebrate and act as the perennial apologist for government police powers.  It turns out that government agencies, bureaus, administrations, … have been steadily passing more and more criminalizing regulations, and setting up new armed assault teams to do their own enforcements.  Today it is primarily the Left that celebrates the growth of unbridled government power against its own citizens.

Maybe there is a sense that we’re getting close to an over-regulated breaking point, and it’s best if the state were ready in the event of torches and pitchforks appearing in the town squares.  On its front page the 17dec11 WSJ published a longer documentation of what’s been going on – ‘Federal Police Ranks Swell to Enforce a Widening Array of Criminal Laws’.

Since we are past the tipping point of an economic soft landing, there is every reason to believe that the state is bolstering its means and methods to corral us into manageable enclaves that can be tightly monitored.  As documented, bureaucrats at every level know that they have to nip any hint of taxpayer revolt in the bud.  In the least, their very livelihoods depend on it.  Don’t be surprised if the counties’ building inspectors across the land will soon start packing heat, and have their own standby assault teams to enforce building codes.

That now sounds laughable, but we forget that what is happening today sounded more than laughable yesterday.  No one would have predicted how the number of federal criminal investigations by ‘non-traditional’ civilian agencies would grow (see nearby WSJ graphic), along with the commensurate number of prosecutions.  For the progressive elite this makes all the sense in the world – it controls an ideologically unreliable population while employing more and more of the grateful skilless.

Christmas in 1949

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary which was broadcast on 16 December 2011.]

‘Tis the season for Christmas stories, so I’m going to tell you about my first Christmas in America.  The year was 1949.  Dad, mom, and I had arrived here in May on a troopship packed with east European refugees.  All of us had gone through WW2 on the wrong side, and then spent the last four years in refugee camps in Germany.  We arrived here with three suitcases and the clothes on our backs – no language, penniless, and literally no idea what was going to happen next when we got off the boat.

By December mom, dad, and I had gone through a hectic summer on a Connecticut chicken farm and were now living in a rented room with a shared bathroom.  It was located across the street from a noisy bar in downtown Willimantic, a poor New England ‘threadmill town’ that in 1949 already looked long of tooth.  Dad and mom had found work in the big threadmill as thread machine loaders – mom started working the day shift and dad was on the night shift.

Actually, mom had spent the summer in Essex as a dishwasher in a café, while dad and I worked on the chicken farm near Danielson.  Without going into the gory details, mom had a heart problem, and the extra heavy work in the threadmill did her in.  She spent most of the fall of 1949 in the hospital.

Early after starting fourth grade that fall, I wandered into the Willimantic fire department, drawn by the bright red fire trucks on display every afternoon.  My less than perfect English gave me away, and after the firemen quizzed me, they ‘adopted’ me.  Since my father was asleep during the day, there was little for me to do in our room except wake him up, therefore I was told to report to the firehouse every day after school for a hot meal, do a few light chores around the big fire engines, and play with the duty Dalmatian that was a resident of almost every fire house in those days.  My father approved the arrangement, and the firemen became my extended family to make up for the one I seldom saw during those months.  In spite of everything, that fall was exciting for a nine-year-old, I even got to ride on the fire truck responding to a couple of small fires.

As the weather got colder and the New England snows came, I looked forward to Christmas because, well, I had always looked forward to Christmas.  Even in the refugee camp it had been a festive time of music, hand-made decorations, Christmas tree, special church services, hope for a renewed life, and, of course, the anticipation of my present.  But this Christmas was going to be different because my mom would not be home until after the holidays, and dad would only get off on Christmas Day.  I knew that at dad’s $40 per week, presents were out.  Refugee kids become money savvy at an early age.

But I was also part of the fire department, and there was plenty to do to decorate and prepare the fire house for Christmas.  I was pretty much blown away by all the lights and bright shiny things and wreaths and boughs and the big Christmas tree that were part of an American Christmas.  The local Lutheran church had also taken us under their wing, and going to the Advent services was a real introduction to American Christmas music.  It was amazing how much more went on in an American church, especially during the holidays, than at the Estonian church that we had attended in the camp.

About a week before Christmas we found out that mom would be released from the hospital, and we would all be together in our first real home in America at 38 North Street, Willimantic, Connecticut, second floor.  With mom on the mend and expecting to go back to work soon after the holidays, things were again looking up.  Dad and mom were already talking of better jobs which would let us move into a real apartment with a bathroom.  We all felt that the way to an American future was beginning to take shape.

Then a week before Christmas my teacher told me that I was invited to a special Christmas party with a Santa Claus to be held at school.  I remember walking back to school through the snow in the evening.  The room was full of kids I didn’t know, there was a Santa Claus, and when it was my turn, he handed me a toy filling station with a garage and pump island on it.  It was used, but still in good working order.  I was more than a bit embarrassed by this, and walked home carrying the cumbersome filling station.

What had stunned me was that this was a Christmas party for poor kids, and I had been singled out as a poor kid.  But I knew that they had gotten something terribly wrong.  During and after the war I had seen plenty of kids and families who were really poor.  And I knew, that especially on this Christmas, I was definitely not a poor kid.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on these and other themes in my Union columns, and on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary appears.  These opinions are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Merry Christmas.

Mark Meckler’s CCW Arrest

George Rebane

By now, most people know that Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler was arrested for an alleged ‘concealed carry weapon’ violation at La Guardia airport in New York.  Mark has a CCW permit valid in 23 states.  He sent this email to his TPP colleagues and friends.

Subject: Re: How could this happen?

So...yes...I did get arrested at La Guardia today for carrying a perfectly legal, registered, unloaded handgun in temporary transit in a locked, TSA approved case.  The fun began when I declared it to the ticketing agent, and asked for the appropriate form, per procedure, from her.  I've done this all across the country, more times than I can count.

It is an outrage against liberty...and we'll be fighting it.  It's been one heck of a day, and I appreciate all the outpouring of support.  Sitting in there all day today, the idea of liberty deprived becomes much more than a theoretical one.  It ups my passion for what we do a thousand times over.  It is almost impossible to explain how it felt, on so many levels.  

Here's the official statement.  I'm afraid I can't say a lot more because it's a pending legal matter and I have to follow the lawyers instructions.  But there was no way I wasn't going to reach out to you guys personally.

"Mark Meckler, an attorney and National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, who holds a concealed-carry permit from the state of California, today was charged with a firearms violation at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. While in temporary transit through the state of New York in possession of an unloaded, lawful firearm that was locked in a TSA-approved safe, he legally declared his possession of the firearm in his checked baggage at the ticket counter as required by law and in a manner approved by TSA and the airline, yet was arrested by port authority for said possession."

Any support you can provide in response to blog items etc., is greatly appreciated.  This is a perfect example of our liberties under attack. 

Mark

Administrivia - RR hacked

George Rebane

Recently RR has been getting more and more spam comments from surreptitious merchants and other low-lifes.  I understand this often happens when a blog starts generating good numbers.  It takes some doing every morning to clean them out.  I'm not sure what to do about it but I have pulled the switch on requiring commenters to sign in.  I don't know whether that is better than my mediating the comments, I will try that next.  Please let me know ([email protected]), and thanks for your patience.

Pay Gaps and System D

George Rebane

Frankly, it’s a bit eerie how the events long predicted on RR are ticking off as recently having happened, or about to happen.  Here I want to focus on the infamous pay gap of the American worker, and an economic activity that is hard to track, but globally significant.

Income comes in two forms – wages and profits/interest.  As has long been argued here, the pre-Singularity years are illuminated by worker productivity abetted by screaming technology advances.  Using new gizmos and software, today a worker can make more and/or service more per unit time than yesterday, and even more tomorrow.  Given that the size of the markets requiring new stuff and services is not growing as fast as productivity, the result should be predictable for people who think.

Bob Crabb Nails Christmas

[This cartoon by Nevada County's irreverent interpreter of all things human and RR regular, RL 'Bob' Crabb, appears in its usual slot on the Tuesday opinion page in the 13dec11 Union (here).  I just had to filch it for readers who might otherwise have missed this precise pique through the heart of the perennial political season.  gjr]

The Systemic Train Wreck of the American Middle Class

George Rebane

“The truth is that we don’t know how to fix the US labor market – we are in uncharted territory,” says Peter Orszag, Mr Obama’s former budget director, now a vice-chairman of Citi. “It would help to spend more on retraining and on infrastructure and to have a more rational immigration system. But these wouldn’t fundamentally transform the situation for the middle class ... It is not yet clear what, if anything, could.”

This is how Edward Luce concludes ‘Can America regain most dynamic labour market mantle?’ in the 11dec11 Financial Times.  The article itself presents an excellent analysis of the systemic problems in the American workforce which have long been delineated in these pages (to a blizzard of reproach and denial from our Leftwing readers).

While President Obama and his liberal congressional cadres are out there demagogging the decline of the middle class as the fault of capitalism and the Republicans, the inescapable facts point to much deeper and more serious reasons why our middle class workforce is in irreversible decline.  None of it, of course, will make a dent in the herd of voters who are convinced that it is the system that is working against their right to sell for ‘fair wages’ whatever marginal or worthless skills they have left in their kit.  Such is the sum and stuff of populism.  But in a deeper sense they are right – it is ‘the system’ of 21st century Earth that is definitely against them.

And as Orzag eerily echoes the 1939 lament to Congress of FDR’s SecTreas Morgenthau (“… we simply don’t know what to do.”), no one has a plan to reverse this fundamental trend - it is not certain that such a plan even exists.  And by that I mean that neither the Republicans nor Democrats have put anything on the table, or discussed in their vaunted think-tank journals anything that softens the inevitable impact of advancing technology and a competitive global workforce on the expanded panoply of ‘rights’ on which the American worker has come to believe he has a perpetual draw.

Before the developed western countries do stabilize in some new competitive arrangement within the global economy, then to the extent that each of us got into socialized hock there will be hell to pay.  But then you already knew that, didn't you?

‘Tis the politically directed shopping season

George Rebane

A correspondent sent me the following information about which retailers support which political parties in the country.  You wouldn’t want to shop in the wrong place now would you?  Brought to you in the spirit of the season as a dispute-free and modest public service.

With the holidays upon us, we might wish to be mindful of what political party businesses donate to, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
 
Shopping?
 
Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to Democrats
Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to Democrats
Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to Democrats
Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to Democrats
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to Democrats
Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to Democrats
Guess? Inc., $145K, 98% to Democrats
Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to Democrats
Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to Democrats
Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to Democrats
Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to Democrats
 
WalMart, $467K, 97% to Republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to Republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to Republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to Republicans;

3M Co., $281K, 87% to Republicans;
 Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to Republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% Republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% Republicans;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to Republicans;
Proctor & Gamble, $243K, 79% to Republicans
  
Hungry?
 
Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% to Democrats
Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% to Democrats
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% Republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% Republican;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% Republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% Republican;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% Republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% Republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% Republican;
 
Traveling and/or dining?
 
Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to Democrats
Marriott International, $323K, 81% to Republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to Republicans.

Ruminations - 11dec2011

George Rebane

People are asking whether Obama has become irrelevant.  My answer is an emphatic NO.  As long as he is in office, President Obama will remain a loose cannon impacting the fate of our country with his jaundiced ideology of an America destined to disappear into the woodwork of a new global order.  I agree with Gene Healy (Cult of the Presidency) that Obama sees himself as a “redemptive president”.  Healy observes that “the problem with ‘redemptive presidents’ is that when they fail to deliver national redemption, they invariably demand more power for the task.… Decades of longing for a national redeemer have turned the presidency into a constitutional abomination: an office that promises everything and guarantees nothing, save public frustration and the steady growth of federal power.”

You already know that the feds want to know who has what guns.  Now infowars.com reports that the feds are starting to compile lists of who has bought and is storing food for longer term emergencies.  This is all coming out of our Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA, and revolves around the implementation of two presidential executive orders, EO10999 from the Kennedy era which was rolled into the more comprehensive EO12919 (pdf here) signed by President Clinton.  Now your IQ has to be lower than that of a 2by4 with a face painted on it if you don’t believe that the purpose of compiling these lists is for the government (or its para-military FEMA) to confiscate your guns and food and/or criminalize your possession of them at some future time of their liking.

Iran has an RQ-170 US reconnaissance drone, that it claims to have brought down.  US officials confirm their possession of the UAV, and that it contains the latest and greatest surveillance gear that we have.  The aircraft clearly made a controlled soft landing, and now the mullahs have some serious hard capital to trade with the Russians and Chinese, further weakening what have already been ineffective sanctions against the biggest sponsor of ragheads in the world.  Obama refused three different scenarios to either recover or destroy the RQ-170, stating he didn’t want to really piss off the Iranians.  But what hasn’t been discussed, and what I have brought up locally with aviation professionals, is why this extremely valuable UAV was operated in a mode that caused it to default into a controlled landing when over enemy territory.  As a military systems guy with some experience in these matters, the first thing I would prescribe as SOP in such cases is that its default response to an emergency or control compromise is nose down and maximum throttle.  Neither the media nor the Repubs have yet to pick up on these dual lapses in operational protocols and the more serious command response.

The President’s Osawatomie speech revealed his 2012 campaign strategy along with his continuing assessment that his far Left base is stupid.   Since he can't point to any successes, he will now wage class warfare at the most regressive level, starting by painting a picture of America as a static society with the rich as always rich, and the poor as always poor.  This 12th century state of medieval Europe is a common antithesis with which progressives have always painted our country.  Now Obama is re-dredging it as his flagship idea for the campaign.  And, of course, the other half of his message is that bigger government is the necessary leveler to bring about the great age of collectivist social justice.

It’s hard to see why Attorney General Holder should not be impeached and prosecuted, or simply fired for incompetence on the ‘Fast and Furious’ gun walking case.  The man claimed ignorance of that farcical operation by stating that he had not read the emails from his direct reports that informed him of the operation.  Grant him a pass on perjury, but then nail his butt for being terminally incompetent in operating an agency as complex as the DOJ.  If he can’t even set up inter-office communication protocols through which he can be reliably contacted in such important matters, then he is simply incompetent and Obama should relieve him.  Don’t hold your breath.

On the wrong side of the tipping point

George Rebane

[This is the submitted version of my regular Union column that appears in the 10dec11 edition of the newspaper’s print edition and here in its online edition.]

Our leadership has committed to take the country down the Hugo Chavez path.  Last week Venezuela’s portly leader shouted “Socialism, socialism, and more socialism!” as the solution to his country’s mounting economic and social problems.  While our president can’t use those exact words, he does promote the policies that will get us to the same place.

It was American socialist Upton Sinclair who in 1951 said, "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label.” – the Left has made this their watchword ever since.  Today the socialist will accuse anyone of name calling if they dare call him that in an open forum.

Europe is now roiling in the inevitable throes of socialism.  Recently its voters have sought to tilt their governments to the right, but it is too late.  The decades’ long doses of government handouts and entitlements have made European addicts by the tens of millions.  And like addicts, they fear the cure much more than delaying their next fix, no matter how that worsens the inevitable reckoning.  But the death spiral of Europe’s eurozone, and perhaps the EU itself, is not reported by the media by using the true name of the dreaded disease.

So in America, half of our politicians continue to sell dope to masses of voters that are already hooked.  And they tell those of us addicted that there is nothing to worry about the cost of all that social narcotic being pumped into our welcoming veins.  It makes us feel good right now, and it will continue to be paid for through the never ending loans from our global storefront lenders.  The best part is that we addicts will never have to pay it back.  Incredulously you ask, how does that work out?

The answer, we are told, is that we’ll get the rich to pay off the loans some day.  And when they run out of money or just run out, we’ll have (wink, wink) other means.  Well, the rich will not have enough money.  And the same lenders are already telling Europeans that they don’t want to throw good money after the bad money which countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Belgium, …, and even France will never pay back. 

All this has finally caught the attention of the drowsy analysts at Standard & Poors – remember those guys who gave corporations about to fail top AAA ratings the night before.  S&P has now put the world on notice that Europe may not be as creditworthy as its lenders, many already sporting 50% haircuts, continue to hope.  So the people who today lend 40 cents of every dollar our government generously spends, they are saying that the AA+ downgrade America now wears is beginning to worry them.

And here’s where the ‘wink, wink’ comes in.  Since there is no way that we can, or even have the will to work ourselves out of debt, we’re going to stiff our lenders.  And we’ll do it with freshly printed worthless dollars that add up exactly to the amounts owed everybody.  We are not going to default on our loans, no sirree; cause we’re Americans and we pay our bills.

Now some of you may protest and say that we’re going to do the right thing – cut spending, raise revenues through a new tax code, get our workforce re-trained, and put our shoulders to the wheel – and then hold a big national celebration when our are accounts are cleared.  Not even close.

No such plan exists on God’s green earth, and no politician would dare put one forward if it did.  But that’s not even the bad part.  The bad part is that along with the Chinese and other lenders, we will screw ourselves when we print our way out of debt.  Yes, the accounts will be cleared, but so will our pocketbooks, retirement accounts, and our wealth-generating economy to boot.  And none of us addicts have the gumption to do anything about it.  Do we?

So look around you today, this is the view from the other side of the tipping point – a firm and unshakeable belief that we’re not on the wrong side yet, and that the cavalry will come charging from over that hill yonder to save us all.  Oh yes, anyone who says differently will be tarred and feathered to nip such fear mongering and foolish reports in the bud.  That’s the spirit.

George Rebane is an entrepreneur and a retired systems scientist in Nevada County who regularly expands these and other themes on KVMR and Rebane’s Ruminations (www.georgerebane.com).

Taxing the 1%

George Rebane

We wake up every morning to National Progressive Radio.  Listening to NPR is one of the many outlets we monitor so as to avoid the echo chamber effect of having others just adding to our confirmation bias (q.v.).  In the last couple of weeks NPR seems to have turned the heat on the Republicans, being more blatantly biased than usual in how it supports the Administration and Democrats.  This morning its mission was to repeat the progressive line that increasing taxes on people who create jobs does not affect their efforts to create jobs – a line in tune with 0bama’s current campaign to maintain the payroll tax relief and ‘pay for it’ by more taxes on the 1% - a kind of consistent theme that ranges from the screams of the street idiots, across the congressional Democrats, all the way to the Oval Office.

So NPR wound up sticking its mike into the faces of three fat cat Democratic contributors who run businesses to ask them about the effect of increasing their taxes.  Each dutifully explained that their own marginal tax rates had no effect on whether they decided to hire or not.   You have to know something about businesses to have understood their answers.  You see, each of these worthies ran outfits that hired educated white collar workers to do intellectually demanding contract work for high end clients.  When they sold a contract, then they hired more people if the work load called for it.  Of course their own marginal income tax rate would not enter into the decision – the new work provided marginal revenues which paid for workers, handled the marginal overhead, and dropped more profits to the bottom line.  The risk of hiring for them was essentially zero.

US 'Budget' 2010

‘You’re doing poorly because some other people are doing well.’
Class warfare litmus message

George Rebane

The following slides were sent to me by an RR reader who is also one of my Washington correspondents.  The title's semi-quotes draw attention to the fact that during 0bama's term there has been no budget passed in the normal sense of the word.  These graphics were prepared by the office of Representative Vicki Hartzler (R-MO) from OMB/CBO data.  The amounts and relative sizes of the revenues and expenditures for FY2010 are 'close enough for government work', at least the kind that we debate on these pages.  In any event, they are a clear presentation of the data, and are worth a close look for understanding our current fiscal situation.

Kakistocracy Rising (updated 10dec2011)

“Fathom the stupidity of a Government that will require every citizen to prove they are insured……but not prove they are a citizen”

George Rebane

Today we are reminded again that there are legally sane people out there among and even ruling us who believe that doing the same stupid thing which caused their problems in the first place are worth doing over again in order to solve them.  Both New York and California are vying for the ‘Economics Idiot of the Century’ award by attempting to cure their economies and budgetary ills in one swell foop by raising taxes on their residents.  Given that both states are union ruled, any serious economic reform is out of the question.

And, of course, the advertised source of the new tax revenues is those ever evil ‘rich’ who already pay the lion’s share of the states’ taxes, and whose unreliable income streams and ready defections to more suitable tax climates have left New York and California high and dry.  California especially is hurting because our dumbed down electorate is already way beyond the Peter/Paul Principle tipping point.  And Moonbeam knows this as he prepares the state’s tax increase to be voted on by the Golden State’s gimmes.  It’s a lead pipe cinch that the initiative will pass because it will be promoted as part of the national ‘fair share’ and new progressive taxes campaign that 0bama has been preaching from the pulpit.  (More details on these dual tragedies here)

Speaking of President 0bama, the man again made it official yesterday in Kansas when he clearly touted his “progressive administration” as the saving grace of the nation.  For the last several years on this and other blogs we’ve noted that our neighbors on the Left continue to accuse those using ‘progressive’, 'liberal', and ‘socialist’ to label their political behavior as launching ad hominem attacks using dirty words.  It is hard to tell where one should restart their educational process.  No attempts on these pages have made any impact.

Kakistocracy?  That’s a delightfully useful word that means “government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.”  When it comes to pursuing ignorant and unproductive policies, it’s hard to think of a worse dynamic trio than 0bama, Cuomo, and Moonbeam leading their jurisdictions to ruin.  (BTW, 0bama is spelled with a zero isn’t it?)

[8dec2011 update]  The Jon Corzine farce is playing out on its own.  As he stands in front of Congressional committees attempting to deflect the blame for MF Global’s collapse and the mysterious disappearance of $1.2B of investors’ money, he displays himself as a man of comprehensive incompetence in both his political and professional lives.  He is detached from the goings on of operations in which he should have had both hands on the wheel.  The man made his bones by dodging and weaving and being endorsed by other significant know-nothings into positions that allowed him to assure his ascendancy by writing big checks to politicians in power.  But all that is neither here nor there.

To continue the theme of this post, we have to recall the kinds of people our experience-free President has surrounded himself with.  The point in fact is that Jon Corzine was another example of candidates for top jobs.  Corzine and Geithner were both on the SecTreas shortlist.  Given Geithner’s record, I’m not sure that Corzine would have done worse.

[10dec2011 update]  Another semanticist and RR reader included this contribution to the present theme.

Finally, a way to describe Obama and his voters.

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Say what??!! - Slick Willie Strikes Again

George Rebane

Former President Bill Clinton has it all figured out.  We’re putting all the laid off contractors back to work across the country doing “green upgrades” to every building that will stand still for it, and that will solve the jobs problem.  All it takes is a little money, and we’re gonna get it from the pension funds of unions like the AFL-CIO and AFT, and (wait for it) even CALPERS – they’ll all kick in billions.  These outfits are going into the banking business to make “Just say YES loans”.  And it’s all gonna turn out ‘cash neutral’ cause, the loan paybacks will come from all the guaranteed savings from lower cost utility bills after all that good green is stuffed into and strapped onto those houses, schools, colleges, hospitals, office buildings, factories, … .  Oh, one more thing, this will work just as well in Europe as here - God help 'em.

Now here’s how it will all come down – get out pencil and paper, and pay attention.

1.    The unions and pension funds will advertise the ‘Just say Yes’ loans for green upgrades.
2.    Building owners will trip over themselves to sign up for all that cash.
3.    Charlie the contractor will reassemble his crew, get them trained, and hang out his shingle again.
4.    Soon enough Charlie and Susie the building owner will sign a contract, and Charlie goes to work making the building as snug as a bug in a rug.  (Charlie probably doesn’t notice some small print at the bottom of the page, but we’ll get back to that.)
5.    The work is completed, Charlie packs up his stuff and goes on to the next job, and Susie starts enjoying lower utility bills and making loan payments.
6.    The stingy bankers out there holding on to their trillions are now supposed to be green with envy watching all those ‘Just say Yes’ loans pulling in the fat loan service payments.  Some might even ask ‘A few years back we made a ton from ‘Just say Yes’ loans, so how come we’re not making those loans now?'  Some cooler heads counsel a bit more wait and see.
7.    If after a while things don’t turn out exactly as predicted, and Susie can’t make her loan payments from her utility savings – not to worry, she picks up the phone, calls Charlie, and asks him to come over while reminding him not to forget his checkbook.
8.    A puzzled Charlie arrives wondering what all this is about.  Susie shows him the small print on the contract where Charlie guarantees that he will make up the difference between the loan payments and the utility savings.  Charlie says, ‘Holy shit!’
9.    Charlie writes Susie the check, calls his lawyer, ups the price on his next installations to cover run-ins with future Susies, and pours himself a very large adult beverage while he figures out what kind of business he has now gotten himself into.
10.    Mary has Charlie do her building also.  It costs a bunch more than what Susie paid, but what the hell, her ‘Just say Yes’ loan covers it, and Charlie guarantees it to be cash neutral.  Mary knows that ‘cash neutral’ means that to her the green upgrade is free.
11.    Charlie soon gets a call from Mary and discovers that he didn’t price in enough to cover the large checks he’s now writing to his former customers.  He sees that he’s signed himself up essentially forever with every building that he has greened.  Utility bills keep going up, and on the back of an envelope one day Charlie figures that he’s SOL, so he declares bankruptcy.
12.    All the lawyers involved have been waiting for this, and are now happy dancing in the streets as the lawsuits come rolling in – building owners suing contractors, suing pension funds, suing unions, suing utilities, suing greenie stuff manufacturers.  And then everybody involved starts counter-suing each other.  Tort law dreamland, cue the violins.
13.    The bankers go check the locks on their vaults to make damn sure that none of their cash gets suckered into the next tranche of ‘Just say Yes loans’ that another one of Obama’s pals is bound to announce sooner or later.

You probably don’t believe any of this and want to hear from the ol’ Slick himself.  Well here he is at his Clinton Global Initiative no less (notice absence of telepromters), and with a couple of would-be banker sidekicks in attendance whom you’ll recognize instantly.  (H/T to  RR reader Dave King for the heads up on this, and to another RR reader for the timely image.)

The Vocational Technical High School

George Rebane

In today’s Union, James Hinman calls for a new high school in Nevada County that focuses on producing graduates who are able to go directly into the workforce and begin earning a living at a job that can develop into a career path (here)  These pages have long argued that today’s colleges focus on providing its students with expensive, gratuitous meathead degrees that prepare them for very little in real life.  Additionally, we recall that high schools used to prepare young people for the workforce in many highly technical and high paying positions.

I am the beneficiary of such a high school.  Recently I again summarized my experience here in a comment stream –

I believe that shutting down high school shop (occupational) programs was a very big mistake. Especially since they kept a lot of the politically correct crap for curriculum. I took the full course of 'shop classes' in Indiana, and was subsequently able to work summers in industry besides men who were my father's age. In California, I hired on as a draftsman (promoted to designer) on the strength of what I learned in my high school year of drafting. My wages were such that I could have quit school and made a rewarding career, and raised a family on what I learned in high school. Instead, my summer drafting job paid for a physics degree from Univ of Calif. And my story was not unique, high school prepared us for life in those days.

In the past decades high school has become a remedial institution for dysfunctional grade schools, and in the large, college has become a remedial institution for dysfunctional high schools.  The political orientation of teachers and curriculum shares most of the blame for this.  Mr Hinman suggests the formation of a new charter ‘votech’ (my term) high school.

I would like to see this approach discussed, planned, and implemented along a procedural path that sidesteps, as much as possible, the corrupted teaching establishment.  The aim here should be to develop a votech high school that can also serve as a template for other communities similarly motivated - i.e. the proverbial 'movable feast'.  Industry and commerce should be the prime partners (both in planning and funding) in this enterprise.  And no one should expect clear sailing to build such votech schools here or elsewhere.  The progressive elements in Nevada County and across the country will come out swinging against this student and jobs oriented revamp of high schools, for it will shake the very foundation of their long-established sinecures.

Socialism – The disease that dares not speak its name (Addended & updated 4dec2011)

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 2 December 2011.  Here it contains a link to augmented graphics, and is addended with relevant material that could not be included due to the limited time slot into which the commentary must be scheduled.]

The world has already changed a lot, and the biggest changes have yet to come.  Europe’s countries are facing imminent financial disaster as the bills for years of generous public entitlements and indiscriminate borrowing are coming due.  Sovereign nation-states, suffering from the disease that dare not speak its name, are rapidly running out of other people’s money.  We all know the austerity riots of bankrupt Greece, and now top dog Germany is having trouble borrowing money.  No one is immune.

In America the Occupiers have become the latest symptom of the disease, joining the already established Tea Party movement to protest the direction of governance and commerce.  However, from their statements of goals and principles to their sanitary habits, these movements have very little in common.  Unfortunately, neither has grasped the real signs of the times.

With technology accelerating into the workplace, unemployment today is at the highest level since the Great Depression, corporate profits are at an all time high in nominal dollars and as a share of the GDP, wages as a percent of the economy are at an all time low, and income and wealth inequality are near all-time highs.  (see Business Insider graphics) The simple Simon solution of the Left is for a bigger government to just take more from the producers and investors.  Sadly these solutions don’t even pencil out on the back of an envelope, but they do make all the sense in the world to the tent dwellers in front of city halls, and their quiet supporters.

Meanwhile, the middle class needs jobs which they cannot create.  Yet they are asked to punish those with the earnings and investments that have created wealth producing jobs, and are still creating them even in the face of stiff government opposition.  And then there’s a catch.