Wow, looks like it's time to accept gold and silver currency as "legal tender" again.
I don't see why this should be listed under "Politics" though. Isn't this economics?
Friday, April 15, 2011
What better time for an Ayn Rand movie?
TRANSLATION SERVICE OF THE DAY: Who is John Galt? = Whatever
Atlas Shrugged hits the screens! Please, please, make sure you've read it FIRST, though.
Atlas Shrugged is all about how productive people are enslaved by the unproductive and political classes, and how government redistributes to create power, and how government is used to punish innovation and ability. How "need" is used to allocate, with disastrous results?
This book also tells how the legend of Robin Hood corrupted all of Western Civilization. No kidding. Or how the idea of Santa Claus corrupts our children at an early age (OK, I made that one up.)
Pure fantasy, right? It's just a book about railroads.
Atlas Shrugged has been on my recommended reading list for many years. It's a tough read, but the lessons there are as relevant as they were in 1957, maybe more so. It's still a big seller.
Even if you think Ayn Rand was a kook, this book should hit home for you.
Atlas Shrugged hits the screens! Please, please, make sure you've read it FIRST, though.
Atlas Shrugged is all about how productive people are enslaved by the unproductive and political classes, and how government redistributes to create power, and how government is used to punish innovation and ability. How "need" is used to allocate, with disastrous results?
This book also tells how the legend of Robin Hood corrupted all of Western Civilization. No kidding. Or how the idea of Santa Claus corrupts our children at an early age (OK, I made that one up.)
Pure fantasy, right? It's just a book about railroads.
Atlas Shrugged has been on my recommended reading list for many years. It's a tough read, but the lessons there are as relevant as they were in 1957, maybe more so. It's still a big seller.
Even if you think Ayn Rand was a kook, this book should hit home for you.
UPDATE: A reader writes that they thought "The Fountainhead" was a better book, but one of the most horrible movies of all time. I'm not sure HOW you make either book into a movie, and I'll agree that "Fountainhead" was a great book.
It just didn't have fun train stuff in it. It was all about (blah) architecture. And self-determination, and the nanny state. Sounds like a theme, huh?
Operation Fast & Furious
More about the botched Justice Dept. plan to let guns cross the border into Mexico in an effort to bring down a cartel (like we need gun busts to do that).
Again, where is the major US media on this? Crickets. Here's the BBC, though, with some numbers.
For those of us who live and work in border states, or who have relatives across the border, this is a pretty big deal. The idea that DC can just do something like this is insane, but the idea that they THEN would try to blame gun owners for selling guns to Mexican drug gangs is even worse.
Again, where is the major US media on this? Crickets. Here's the BBC, though, with some numbers.
For those of us who live and work in border states, or who have relatives across the border, this is a pretty big deal. The idea that DC can just do something like this is insane, but the idea that they THEN would try to blame gun owners for selling guns to Mexican drug gangs is even worse.
Space 4.0
Another great opinion piece from Creators Syndicate. This one discusses the future of space exploration, or Space 4.0 as he calls it.
Here in NASA-Land, Space 4.0 will be something for us to embrace. More entrepreneurship, more innovation, more unique solutions to insoluble problems.
Let's hope that goes smoothly. Without question, there is so much talent here in Clear Lake that we should be the "next big thing" in space development. But perhaps people are tired of that and ready to move on.
The problem with the space program, as I've written here before, is that every generation or so it flushes out all of the talent, and we have to start over again from (nearly) scratch. Will that happen this time, or will folks from ex-NASA programs take that knowledge and move it to the private sector, as Lockheed-Martin and others have already tried to do? Does it take big businesses, with access to money capital, or small businesses with access to specialized brainpower?
I'd like to look at all of that as it unfolds over the next few years. UH-Clear Lake might be able to have a unique role in helping entrepreneurs get through this.
Here in NASA-Land, Space 4.0 will be something for us to embrace. More entrepreneurship, more innovation, more unique solutions to insoluble problems.
Let's hope that goes smoothly. Without question, there is so much talent here in Clear Lake that we should be the "next big thing" in space development. But perhaps people are tired of that and ready to move on.
The problem with the space program, as I've written here before, is that every generation or so it flushes out all of the talent, and we have to start over again from (nearly) scratch. Will that happen this time, or will folks from ex-NASA programs take that knowledge and move it to the private sector, as Lockheed-Martin and others have already tried to do? Does it take big businesses, with access to money capital, or small businesses with access to specialized brainpower?
I'd like to look at all of that as it unfolds over the next few years. UH-Clear Lake might be able to have a unique role in helping entrepreneurs get through this.
Lists of gun owners? This gets in the way of economics
Here's another Stossel piece I found from last week. Seems that there's an effort underway in several places to have states or cities (such as NYC) disclose their registry of gun owners.
First, this is a big "told you so," because as long as I can remember, that was a fear. Lists were used to round up guns in occupied Europe, Nazi Germany, Britain and Australia (most recently) and Soviet Russia. Why would it be different here - the state will use those lists as it sees fit, and citizens can have no expectation of privacy.
So now crooks can know who HAS guns (to make it easier to steal guns) and who DOESN'T have guns (to make it less risky to break into THOSE houses). Nice, huh?
Stalkers can find out if their prey has a CCL and be "prepared."
This circumvents basic economics because we know that crooks put guns in their decision process. If they don't know who has a gun, they are less likely to break into houses, mug people, carjack, etc. Don't believe me? Look at the rate of those things in Texas versus other states. Sure, other states use guns too, but here we make it a spectator sport.
So, if people KNEW that their personal info would be released when they got their carry license, many of them wouldn't have gotten the license to start with.
If we have privacy requirements for everything else (HIV status, for instance, and welfare recipients, medical information) why don't these get enforced for gun owners? Sounds like a political agenda to me. Unfortunate.
Stossel, as usual, has it right on the money here. I'll add one thing: as long as government has a list of who has what, there will be the risk of political manipulation like this.
On another note, Chuck Norris has an editorial discussing the admin's game with "Mexican" guns. You know, the one where ATF sent guns across the border so they could talk about how many guns were going across the border. When it was revealed that the government was playing a game with this, did we see it in the media? Houston Chronicle? Nope. He also talks some about the assault on gun rights and the 2012 election. Do.not.mess.with.Chuck.Norris.
First, this is a big "told you so," because as long as I can remember, that was a fear. Lists were used to round up guns in occupied Europe, Nazi Germany, Britain and Australia (most recently) and Soviet Russia. Why would it be different here - the state will use those lists as it sees fit, and citizens can have no expectation of privacy.
So now crooks can know who HAS guns (to make it easier to steal guns) and who DOESN'T have guns (to make it less risky to break into THOSE houses). Nice, huh?
Stalkers can find out if their prey has a CCL and be "prepared."
This circumvents basic economics because we know that crooks put guns in their decision process. If they don't know who has a gun, they are less likely to break into houses, mug people, carjack, etc. Don't believe me? Look at the rate of those things in Texas versus other states. Sure, other states use guns too, but here we make it a spectator sport.
So, if people KNEW that their personal info would be released when they got their carry license, many of them wouldn't have gotten the license to start with.
If we have privacy requirements for everything else (HIV status, for instance, and welfare recipients, medical information) why don't these get enforced for gun owners? Sounds like a political agenda to me. Unfortunate.
Stossel, as usual, has it right on the money here. I'll add one thing: as long as government has a list of who has what, there will be the risk of political manipulation like this.
On another note, Chuck Norris has an editorial discussing the admin's game with "Mexican" guns. You know, the one where ATF sent guns across the border so they could talk about how many guns were going across the border. When it was revealed that the government was playing a game with this, did we see it in the media? Houston Chronicle? Nope. He also talks some about the assault on gun rights and the 2012 election. Do.not.mess.with.Chuck.Norris.
Weatherizing? Another stunning waste of taxpayer dollars.
As school districts around us erupt in discord, I saw this today on Fox News (so it just might be true).
Seems that the Energy Dept. program that got $5 BILLION dollars to help po' folks weatherize their homes has been plagued by contractor fraud and abuse.
I bet nobody saw THAT coming.
Next, I wonder if these weatherizing jobs were for union members (just another angle to it). In Northern states, I'd bet that's a certainty.
We have to be ever vigilant against lies and corruption in government, no matter which party is in power. This is just the latest example.
Seems that the Energy Dept. program that got $5 BILLION dollars to help po' folks weatherize their homes has been plagued by contractor fraud and abuse.
I bet nobody saw THAT coming.
Next, I wonder if these weatherizing jobs were for union members (just another angle to it). In Northern states, I'd bet that's a certainty.
We have to be ever vigilant against lies and corruption in government, no matter which party is in power. This is just the latest example.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
"spending reductions in the tax code" = LeftSpeak for "tax increases"
Huxley and Orwell would be proud. Sorry folks, but yesterday's speech by our president is rife with doublespeak, if not outright dishonesty. In an attempt to frame the argument, our president's speechwriters have removed "tax increases" from the vocabulary and substituted "spending reductions in the tax code."
Pucker up, buttercup.
The president's presumption, obviously, is that all of your money belongs to the government first, and that when you get a deduction for medical expenses or mortgage interest, it's really because the government "spent" that money on those deductions.
Unfortunately, that's not how things work. My money is still, at the end of the day, my money.
He gave examples such as the mortgage deduction and other "itemized" deductions that most "middle-class" Americans don't participate in.
On a related note, we get nowhere with class warfare. I know the president is speaking to a constituency when he talks about "the wealthiest Americans," but the fact is that the top 1% of wage earners pay something like 40 percent of all tax revenues. Oddly, those same folks still get 1 vote each. The president's assertion that the poorest in America have no voice in Washington is ludicrous - of course they do, but their voices in Washington are the lobbyists from non-profit groups like United Way and others.
Update: Turns out that most of the people in each income group turn over frequently - the top income folks weren't necessarily there when things were measured 10 years ago. Check out this blog.
We've got to reign in spending, that's the only way to fix things. And not by pushing it all down to the states, either (Medicaid). If we don't reduce the size of state, local and federal governments, we stand to end up like Greece, Portugal or, gasp, even maybe Wisconsin.
The president's presumption, obviously, is that all of your money belongs to the government first, and that when you get a deduction for medical expenses or mortgage interest, it's really because the government "spent" that money on those deductions.
Unfortunately, that's not how things work. My money is still, at the end of the day, my money.
He gave examples such as the mortgage deduction and other "itemized" deductions that most "middle-class" Americans don't participate in.
On a related note, we get nowhere with class warfare. I know the president is speaking to a constituency when he talks about "the wealthiest Americans," but the fact is that the top 1% of wage earners pay something like 40 percent of all tax revenues. Oddly, those same folks still get 1 vote each. The president's assertion that the poorest in America have no voice in Washington is ludicrous - of course they do, but their voices in Washington are the lobbyists from non-profit groups like United Way and others.
Update: Turns out that most of the people in each income group turn over frequently - the top income folks weren't necessarily there when things were measured 10 years ago. Check out this blog.
We've got to reign in spending, that's the only way to fix things. And not by pushing it all down to the states, either (Medicaid). If we don't reduce the size of state, local and federal governments, we stand to end up like Greece, Portugal or, gasp, even maybe Wisconsin.
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