Brutally Honest

"This fight for America’s soul must occur now" (UPDATED)

By Tom Flake

If we are going to do anything about the crushing debt we are leaving our children and grandchildren, why are we accepting Boehner's boner?  The $38 Billion cut is about two days spending.  Ryan’s proposal would cut $5 Trillion over ten years. (an average of $50 $500 Billion per year)  The President’s speech scheduled for tonight, has been reported to contain $4 Trillion in cuts over ten years. (an average of $40 $400 Billion per year) All of these efforts fall short and are paltry in comparison to what we as a country need to do before we become Greece or Ireland.  We need to get to a balanced budget, this means cutting 40% of the Federal Budget.  The $38 Billion came almost exclusively from "discretionary" spending in the recent congressional deal.  We need to cut $400 Billion this year, and $400 Billion next year and $400 Billion the year after and so on for five years. Because the cut in the first year repeats year after year and is added to by the cut in the second year, and so on, this represents a cut of $22 Trillion over ten years.  This really puts in perspective how insignificant and inadequate the cuts put forward by both the Republican’s and the Democrat’s really are. But this is what is really required to get to a balanced budget and begins to allow for us to pay down our debt.  To be sure some of those cuts need to come from discretionary spending, but they primarily need to come from Medicare, Medicaid and Department of Defense spending.  Nobody's plan (that I’ve heard proposed) comes close to this, but this is what is required.

Why is this feasible?  The private sector economy is creating about 200,000 jobs per month right now.  The cuts to the Federal budget that I would propose will necessitate laying some civil servants and some contract employees off.  If the number of employees required to be laid off reached 1MM, the private sector economy would absorb those people in about 5 months time.  From a smaller government is better government perspective, it would be a net gain to the economy from a tax base perspective.  The Federal government would stop competing with private industry for the $22 Trillion which would flow into private sector investments over the ten years.  That money would naturally flow to small business loans, home loans etc.  It would make everything in the private sector much easier, which in turn would create more jobs, which would grow the tax base, which might allow more government spending in the future.

Why now?   The political will is there now.  If the Republican's fail to seize it now, not only will we be another $1.7 Trillion in debt, the political tide that swept the Tea Party Republican's to power will ebb.   The incumbent Republicans and Democrats vowed to co-opt the Tea Party Republicans we sent to Washington in November.  Remember that?  I believe they will be able to after some period of time.  So this fight for America’s soul must occur now, while the idealist in among the Tea Party swing a big bat and before they are co-opted.

Currently our government is insane.  We borrow money from China to give arms and armament to Israel so that they can attack/defend against Lebanon/Hezbollah.  Once the attack is over we offer assistance to Lebanon/Hezbollah. Also with money borrowed from China.  Why don’t we simply, NOT give money to Israel and NOT give money to Lebanon?

The insanity doesn’t end there.  We recently pledged $2 Billion in assistance to Petrobras, the largest oil company in Brazil, to develop oil wells in the gulf of Mexico.  Keep in mind, we don’t have $2 BB, what that means is that we borrowed $2 Billion from the Chinese to give to Petrobras. (Welfare for American oil companies out, welfare for foreign oil companies developing wells in our territorial waters, in) But it gets better.  Petrobras has a contract with China to sell it ALL of the oil it produces! Let me translate in case you missed that.  America borrowed money from China to give to Petrobras to develop oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico to so that the oil can be sold to China!

The insanity reaches down into the typical and mundane.  Currently civil servants pay taxes from their pay which came from the government, back to the government, so that other civil servants can count and audit the amounts paid.  Seems like there must be some overhead in there somewhere.  Why not reduce Civil Servant pay by 20% and them exempt them from Federal income tax.  Reduce the IRS workforce by the percentage that civil servant represent in the economy and save money coming and going?

Politicians would position solving these problems as hard.  It isn’t hard, spending this much money took George Bush and Barak Obama three years.  It shouldn’t take much more than three years to get us to balance.  Along the way we will have to have meaningful discussions about the rightful role of government.  We will have to laud entrepreneurs and private enterprise.  We will have (some extent) shame civil servants.  We should never again have a President say that our best and brightest should go into public service.  I want our best and brightest to go into private industry.  I want them to make a boatload of money and I want them to create thousands of jobs.  In order to realize this vision, we have to change the debate.  Cuts must be ramped up several times, some taxes may need to be increased and the private sector should be espoused not the public sector.

UPDATE (By Rick): Mr. Flake's math was corrected above... Mr. Flake continues his arguments in the comments below.

"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"

By Tom Flake

Here we are two years into President Barak Obama's administration and I have to admit as I searched for an analogy, or metaphor to compare/contrast his administration, I was reminded of nothing so much as a Shakespearian play.   Those on the right might say, "That's too high praise".  But bear with me.  The Shakespearian play to which I refer is MacBeth and in particular the line... "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  Let me illustrate.

On 12.3.2009 Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that "revving up the economy and get companies to start creating jobs again was Job No.1"  The article can be found here.  During the ensuing 2 years the federal government was the primary creator of jobs and those jobs, due to the project centric nature of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act were transitory in nature.  In other words the job only existed during the duration of the project.  Now that most of those projects are winding down, it should be expected that those jobs will be eliminated.  Once that occurs, unemployment will revert to an essentially unchanged level at the mid 9% range or higher.

On 3.10.11 Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that President Obama's administration was "focused like a laser beam" on gas prices.  The article can be found here.  The article goes on to say that in Thursday of that week gas was at $3.59.  In February it had been $3.17 and in March of 2010 the price had been $2.76.  As I write this 4/12 the price is $4.00.  Three months before the last election, then Senator Obama called for release of fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which had recently reached $4.11.  The source can be found here.   So I don't get it, if he is focused like a laser beam, he makes several speeches over a two week period that have no effect, he doesn't take the action that he advocated a previous President take and then he moves on with no effect to show for the effort.

To some extent President Obama is our creation.  We as a people, and here I am stereotyping, have attention spans comparable to gerbils.  Our ADD President was hired by us primarily because of his ability to entertain us not because of his track record of doing anything.  Did we really expect that a Senator whose major accomplishment during his tenure in Illinois was to vote "present" was going to suddenly learn to roll up his sleeves and stick with problems until they are resolved? 

If past behavior is indicative of future behavior, what behavior and results should we expect from this President?  I think today's announcement by Michelle Obama is a good case in point.  The template seems to be that a close advisor (Treasury Secretary, Transportation Secretary, First Lady) makes an announcement that some issue pressing to the populace has risen to the President's attention (Unemployment, Oil Prices, The state of military families).  The President then makes a speech or speeches indicating that 1) He feels our pain 2) He will make it a high priority (Job No.1, Focus like a laser etc.).  The "focus" and by this I mean speeches, last for about two weeks and then he moves on to NOT solve another problem.

 I've given you examples from the past, I gave you an example from the present, now let me predict the future.  In the next few days some close advisor to the President will announce that it has come to the attention of the President  that the Federal Debt, associated interest payments and tax burden are strapping middle-class and poor people.  That the President will focus like a laser on this problem.  For two weeks (until the Federal Debt Ceiling is raising by another Trillion dollars) we will hear speeches indicating his knowledge and caring on the problem, how he is "rolling up his sleeves" and "locking arms with Republicans" and other such crap and then our attention will wane and he will move on.  Our children will be another Trillion in debt and we should blame nobody but ourselves, because it is a "Tale told to idiots full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

"Enough oil to COMPLETELY REPLACE all imports"

By Tom Flake

My mother recently forwarded me one of those emails that make the rounds either offering some amazing discovery or incredible wealth creation by working with someone in Nigeria.  In this case it was an email that had apparently been around for quite some time, claiming that the United States had vast quantities of oil, more than the entire Middle East and more than enough to wean us off of Middle East oil and its attendant problems.

It didn't pass the smell test, so I went to Snopes.com the urban myth debunkers and did some research.  This presented a problem.  While Snopes took the position that the email was bunk, their article seemed to confirm some of what was in the email.  So I did additional research and found some amazing facts. 

1) America uses about 20 Million barrels of oil a day which means that in a year we use about 7 Billion barrels.

2) The United States Geological Survey has said over the last decade through a series of studies that our reserves look like the summary below:

		Oil (Million of Barrels)	Natural Gas   (Trillion cubic Feet)	Liquid Natural Gas (Millions of Barrels)	Link
Green River Formation		1,500,000.0	0.0	0.0	RAND
Lower 48		11,556.4	552.9	45,690.4
Alaska		11,821.0	146.5	178.0
Total		1,523,377.4	699.4	45,868.4

A more detailed analysis with links to source documents is contained in a table at the end of this post.

 3) The united States does apparently have enough oil to COMPLETELY REPLACE all imports for the next 208 years (roughly). 

You may have heard some say that we are the Saudi Arabia of coal.  It turns out that the data shows we are also the Saudi Arabia of oil.  Note: The headings on the columns are in Millions of Barrels and Trillions of Cubic Feet.  This means that the USGS estimates that the United States has 1.5 Trillion Barrels of oil and 45 Billion Barrels of liquid natural gas resources.  For comparison, Saudi Arabia has about 260 Billion Barrels of reserves, about 1/5 the United States!  And according to Wikileaks, those may have been overstated by as much as 40%, to encourage foreign investment.  It is possible that Saudi Arabia has only 1/9 as much oil as the United States!

BTW my estimate is conservative because it doesn't include Canadian oil shale or tar sands, both of which  have quantities greater than the Canadians are ever likely to use, thus selling to us makes great sense for them and further alleviates our need for oil from outside North America.

Admittedly, the lion's share of the U.S deposits reside  in the Green River Formation located in the western region of the lower 48, in the form of oil shale, which is difficult to extract and only economical to recover above the $70 per barrel price.  Every time an oil company THINKS about developing the Green River, the world price for crude mysteriously (or not) lowers to below the economical level of development.  In the world of private enterprise, uncertainty is a killer when you are trying to raise capital to finance a project making this an area the government ought to intervene as a matter of national security.  Its location makes it more attractive on the other hand, because it is in the lower 48 making it more difficult for those who wish us ill to cut the supply lines by sinking tankers or blocking the Suez canal. 

Think about it this way.  How many jobs would be created in drilling the wells, creating the processing facilities, the refineries, the pipelines, and the ancillary industries, trucks, drill heads, piping etc.? AND at $100 per barrel we are spending $730 Billion dollars per year overseas.  If we could keep that money in the domestic economy and tax it, how much better off would the federal budget be? Finally, most of this oil sits on Federal land, if the government charged $20 per barrel in royalties to the oil companies, how much of the national debt could we pay down?  1.4 Trillion Barrels x $20 = More than enough.

There is however one fly in the ointment.  Apparently we are CURRENTLY producing a significant amount of oil from the oil sands of Canada, a different source than Green River, but not far from there, and the oil is just piling up due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure to get it to the refineries as this piece highlights.    

One last story.  I was once in China and found myself arguing with someone about the merits of Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth".  He was arguing that the planet was heating up (global warming) and that the polar ice cap had melted.  We had just flown over the North Pole to get to China, and during the trip it was daylight for most of the time and we had flown over 11-13 hours of nothing but ice.  It was at that point I asked, "Who are you going to believe, Al Gore or your lying eyes?"  I've included all of the links below from The U.S. Geologic Survey and the RAND Corporation so you don't have to believe me, you can see the numbers with your own eyes.

I didn't take the time to post this piece  to simply rile people up.  I posted it in the hope that this will go viral and you can help by doing two things.  First, I'd like you to send this story to friends. Second, I'd like you to write your Congressman (Republican or Democrat) and tell them that for National Security reasons, to create jobs and to balance the Budget, they need to make developing U.S. Domestic energy production (extraction, transportation, refining and distribution) a national priority.

The key is you, the proof that people have an interest in this is demonstrated by the original email that my mother circulated to me.  However, it has the taint of urban legend.  You now know the facts, and what those facts mean to the future of the United States.  I urge you to do something with that knowledge.

		Oil (Millions of Barrels)	Natural Gas   (Trillions cubic Feet)	Liquid Natural Gas (Millions of Barrels)	Link
Lower 48
Western Oregon	2009	15.0	2.2	8.0	USGS
Eastern Oregon Washington	2006	0.0	2.4	9.8	USGS
Montana Thrust Belt	2002	108.8	8.6	239.8	USGS
North/Central Montana	2008	0.0	6.1	0.0	USGS
Bakken/Williston Basin	2008	3844.0	3.7	202.0	USGS
Sacramento Basin	2007	0.0	0.5	323.0	USGS
San Joaquin Basin	2003	392.0	1.8	85.7	USGS
Eastern Great Basin	2005	1598.0	1.8	85.0	USGS
Wyoming Thrust Basin	2004	38.8	0.9	57.3	USGS
Wind River Basin	2005	41.0	2.4	20540.0	USGS
Big Horn Basin	2008	316.0	1.0	13.0	USGS
Powder River Basin	2006	639.0	16.6	130.9	USGS
Hanna, Laramie, and Shirley Basin	2006	94.0	0.3	13560.0	USGS
South Western Wyoming	2002	131.4	84.6	2578.0	USGS
Denver Basin	2003	104.2	2.5	51.8	USGS
Uinta Piceance	2002	59.2	21.4	42.8	USGS
San Juan Basin	2002	19.1	50.6	148.4	USGS
Raton Basin	2005	0.0	2.4	28.1	USGS
Permian Basin	2007	1257.0	40.6	1021.0	USGS
Fort Worth Basin	2004	98.5	26.7	1074.0	USGS
Anadarko Basin	2011	495.0	27.5	410.0	USGS
Arkoma Basin	2010	0.0	38.0	159.0	USGS
Michigan Basin	2005	990.0	11.4	219.9	USGS
Illinois Basin	2007	214.0	4.7	24.0	USGS
Black Warrior Basin	2003	5.9	8.5	7.7	USGS
Gulf Coast Region	2007	690.0	113.7	3724.0	USGS
Appalachian Basin	2003	54.3	70.3	872.5	USGS
Florida Basin	2001	351.2	1.7	74.7	USGS

 

		Oil (Millions of Barrels)	Natural Gas   (Trillion cubic Feet)	Liquid Natural Gas (Millions of Barrels)	Link
Alaska
ANWR	1996	10,500.0	0.0	0.0	USGS
Northern Alaska	2008	0.0	85.4	0.0	USGS
ANPR	2010	896.0	52.8	0.0	USGS
Kemik - Thomson Play Central North Slope	2008	252.0	2.8	51.0	USGS
Central Alaska	2004	173.0	5.5	127.0	USGS

 

The looming currency war

Posted by guest blogger Tom Flake.

Today the Dow dropped 165 points.  This was 1.48% of it's value.  Did it even register on your consciousness?  Did you ask yourself why your retirement was today worth less than yesterday?  

The Dow has had an impressive record over the last nine months.  Almost impressive enough to make you forget its abysmal record over the last ten years (down slightly).  So much for buy and hold.  If you are planning to retire someday, you must find an investment that doesn't lose money over time and in order for it to be a worthwhile investment and to increase in purchasing power over time, the rate of increase must exceed the rate of inflation.

It turns out that stocks decreased today because the Chinese raised their interest rates.  That in turn lead to an increase in the value of the dollar.  See here for details. But if the dollar increased in value, you might ask, "why are my American companies worth less?"  Are you might ask, "Why does China raising their interest rates cause my portfolio of American companies (The Dow) to decrease in value?"   Or at least you should be for if you aren't, you are missing something that has been going on for at least two years (think gold at $800 per ounce) and needs your attention.

Here's the issue.  Virtually every country's government and central bank have based their expectations of growth on exports.  They reason that in the eighties and nineties; Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea amped up their economies and provided jobs for their people, all while building export based economies.  More recently China, Vietnam and other have done the same thing.  So they reason, "why not us"?

In the past a country could build an export based economy on the fact that they had cheap labor and therefore they could produce goods that were labor intensive (think cars) at a price advantage to those countries that had comparatively expensive labor.  As those countries have reached full employment and wage inflation has erased that comparative advantage, they have had to change competitive strategy to other vectors such as quality (think Toyota).  Once everyone reached comparatively full employment and everyone reached essentially perfect quality, there were fewer and fewer vectors to compete on.  (think Japan over the last fifteen years) Thus the engine that created so many jobs for so many countries has stalled.

But what does all this have to do with the Dow and the interest rate in China?  Various countries have arrived at or are arriving at the conclusion that if they cannot compete on traditional vectors, they will make their currency less valuable and thus their goods more affordable in export markets.  This is why some US economist aren't worried about $2 Trillion deficits. They know the currency will be devalued, but they believe that this in turn will create export based jobs and that the workers who are then employed will be so happy to be employed that they will ignore the fact that they are being paid in ever decreasingly valuable dollars and never mind the retirees whose nest egg haven't increased in value over the last ten years.

Here's where it becomes scary.  This becomes a race to the bottom with no bottom.  A game of chicken where everyone is playing against an opponent with nothing to lose.  It isn't coincidence that China increased interest rates only a day or two after NOT being found to be a currency manipulator by the US government.  

So let's play a thought experiment.  If you are the US and China just caused your currency to increase in value, which you believe will cost domestic jobs, what's your next move?   My thought is the US will move to depreciate it's currency even further.

So as currency and currency denominated investments become less and less valuable, what should you do to protect and grow your nest egg?  My suggestion is hard assets.  Buy gold, silver platinum, oil futures etc.  I am not the first one to suggest this.  You may wish to research here.   You will find some countervailing arguments that contend that the run in commodities has ended and that King dollar will prevail.  If these countervailing arguments are right, expect to see more job destruction as more of "our jobs" go to countries that out-compete us in the war of depreciating currency... Also, figure the odds of Obama allowing the dollar to appreciate over the next two years, leading to worse unemployment, which would in turn scuttle any remaining hope he has of winning re-election.... 

Putting the 'whacked' in Environmentalist Whacko

Tom Flake has a few questions for a select, but influential, few:

I hear people use the term save the planet.  I must confess I am confused.  Save it from what?  Save it for whom?  Save it to what end?  Is it in danger of destruction?  If so, destroyed in what manner?  Do people who use this term speak English as a first language?

People who use this term usually are trying to motivate people to take some type of action.  eg. You should recycle to save the planet.  Does that mean if I don't recycle, the planet will be hit by a meteor?  Clearly, that isn't the case.  There is no connection (that I've heard anyone make) between my recycling and the course of asteroids in their path.  The only thing I can figure is that they must not mean "saved from utter and complete destruction" as in asteroid collision, sun going nova, black hole destruction.  Even nuclear weapons would likely leave roaches and critters in the oceans.

Perhaps when people use the term they mean save the planet from being made unlivable to human beings.  Have any of these people seen pictures of slums in the worst of South America or Asia?  People can live quite successfully in the worst kind of filth.  My observation is that pollution, litter, clutter, debris, man-made detritus, while not pretty don't make an area uninhabitable.  This means that when people use the term "save the planet" they don't mean saved so that the planet will continue to support human life.  There is no evidence that my failure to recycle will leave the planet uninhabitable.

Perhaps when people use the term save the planet, they mean improved so that the carrying capacity of the planet for human habitation is increased.  That since the human population is increasing, they are concerned for future generations reaching some level of overpopulation and thus they wan't to increase the amount of arable land that is being farmed.  Their actions though, preserving forests, protesting population growth, advocating abortion, doesn't support the hypothesis that these people are into preserving and extending the species.

This can only mean that people who use the term save the planet must mean "lower the carrying capacity of the planet for human beings".  Use less to preserve a natural environment for other species use.  Because somehow when a whale kills and eats a fish, that's better than when a human kills and eats the fish.  From the fishes point of view I don't see the difference. 

There's more and it's worthy, so go check it out. 

And speaking of more, Chuck Colson has a few related thoughts:

The last time that Britain’s population was cut in half was the 14th century. The cause was the Black Death.

Seven centuries later, a leading British environmentalist is urging a similar decrease in what Ebenezer Scrooge famously called “the surplus population.” Only this time, he’s asking for volunteers.

In February, Jonathan Porritt, the chairman of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, said that couples with more than two children were placing an “‘irresponsible’ burden of the environment.”

He accused his fellow environmentalists of “betraying the interests of [their] members” by not telling people to be responsible for “their total environmental footprint.”

Not surprisingly, Porritt’s comments didn’t sit very well with a lot of Britons. But he’s convinced, as he wrote on his website, that “logic” and “sound evidence” are on his side.

So, six weeks later, he upped the ante: he declared that the UK must cut its population from its current 61 million to 30 million “if it is to build a sustainable society.”

Porritt told attendees at the annual conference of Britain’s Optimum Population Trust—yes, that’s the organization’s name—that “population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.”

According to Porritt, “each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries.” The “impact” he’s referring to is the emission of greenhouse gases believed to cause man-made global warming.

Porritt and his supporters, like Chris Rapley, the director of Britain’s Science Museum, are fuzzy when it comes to details about how to cut the population in half, and I don’t blame them: not even China’s infamous “one-child” policy will achieve Porritt’s goal.

One industrialized country that may, however, is Russia. A combination of plummeting birth rates, substance abuse, infectious disease, poor nutrition and other factors has reduced the life expectancy of Russian males to 59 years, 10 years less than at the end of the Soviet Union. As a result, Russia’s population is projected to drop by a third by 2050 and a half by 2100. A sustainable society? I think not.

Of course, a few good wars could reduce the human population, but all that ordnance, you see, would be bad for the environment.

The common thread between Tom and Chuck's posts is clear... there's more to the environmentalist movement than meets the eye (or the ear).  There's a fascination with saving the planet that doesn't necessarily include saving the humans dwelling on that planet.

And that friends makes the movement wickedly non-philanthropic and worthy of our vehement opposition.

Is Obama a Neo-National Socialist?

Yesterday, we continued to try to figure out whether Obama is evil. 

Tonight, Tom Flake is adding to the discussion by suggesting strongly that Obama is indeed a Neo-National Socialist:

While President Obama has only been in office for about three months, he has been prominent in the public eye for about three years.  And while certain political opponents have tried to tag him with nicknames none have appeared to gain any traction. 

...

As we search for the appropriate appelation for President Obama and his adminstration, there are some rules that must be followed for it to be effective:  

1. It has to be cute and memorable 

2. It has to be short

3. There has to be a ring of truth to it

I've thought about several and rejected several, one that seemed at first blush was "The Anti-Christ".  While it has a ring of truth to it (meeting rule 3) and it is short (meeting rule 2), it is in no way cute and therefore must be rejected. 

So one I'd like to propose is "Neo-NatSoc".  This is short for New National Socialist.  This is unfortunately, true (meeting rule 3) it is short (meeting rule 2) and it is memorable as a play on neo-con.  I know that there may be some trademark problems because it is owned by the "National Socialists" and they are a prickly crowd who aren't into sharing.  I also know that it is going to be difficult to brand a non-aryan such as Barak Obama as a National Socialist, but since words mean things and he is a trying to turn the Nation of the United States into a Socialist version of utopia, it does seem accurate, no matter how distasteful.  So what do you think?  Does this work as a nickname that will stick and can be used to deride President Obama, or can you come up with something that will work better?

Since Neo-Nazi may be premature and has connotations that don't yet seem to fit, Neo-National Socialist seems more than apt, much more than fair and absolutely descriptive.

I give Tom's suggestion a big thumbs up.

You?

Faux role modeling

Guest blogger and co-worker Tom Flake is talking modeling at his place and why we should all be most skeptical of experts flinging modeling data at us:

... there are some basic rules about modeling and simulation that will help you understand the point of this post:

1) Natural systems - markets, weather, etc. are far more difficult to model than synthetic systems (such as assembly lines or traffic patterns)

2) The greater the level of detail required of the model the less accurate the results are going to be.  In other words if you want to know if the economy is going to grow or shrink in 2010, that is far easier to predict than by precisely how much that in turn is far easier to predict that if a particular stock is going to go up or down and that is easier to know than how much a stock will go up or down.

3) Any model has a limited number of inputs that each drives the model in  a certain direction and among those inputs are some assumptions that the modeler makes each one of which has a different degree of impact on the results.  The amount of sensitivity can have significant impact on the model results even when the modeler makes seemingly modest adjustments to only one or two assumptions.

4) Lastly- anyone, no matter how much education or experience who tells you that they know precisely what will happen in the future, by a certain amount, because a model they built tells them so, is wrong, misapplying the tools, or lying.  If by chance they happen to be right, it is simply luck, not skill.

With that said, I want to change your focus from the budget to global warming.  If the budget guys can't predict within 20% of each other what the economy will look like in the next ten years.  And through tax policy, monetary policy, law making and regulatory policy they control many of the inputs.  Common sense should tell you the degree to which some quasi-meteorologist is going to be right.  Particularly when you consider that they are using essentially the same tools and mathematical techniques to forecast global warming over the next 50-100-200 years as are being used by the economist inthe administration.  I can tell you with 100% certainty that when someone says, “The median temperature of the earth will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2080 and that the increase will have effects A B or C" they are wrong, period.

The whole thing should be read for context.  Do so and be better for it.

Money laundering by the criminals who are stealing our children’s future

Posted here and at The Right is Wrong and The Left is Wronger by guest blogger Tom Flake.

When John Gotti laundered $10 of millions of dollars, it’s considered the crime of the century.  When Hillary Clinton does it, it’s considered just another day at the office.  I am at a loss, I don’t even know what to call it, but “we” in the form of Hillary Clinton just promised $900 Million to Hamas to rebuild their “country” after the Israeli’s destroyed it.  Wow, where to start…

First thing to think about when attempting to put this in perspective, the United States has no money. When you are running a $1.75 trillion deficit, by definition you not only have spent all of your money, you’ve spent a GREAT deal of the bank's money as well.  We are borrowing the money from China.  Therefore, but for the laundering, China is giving/borrowing $900 million to Hamas.  If they were to do this directly, we’d likely have a problem with this.  Why? The only reason I can come up with is we wouldn’t be getting to “dip our beak” in the transaction.  The problem here is that when gangsters use this term they are expecting to make a profit.  When our government takes this tact, they are talking about paying more interest.  At this point I’d like to turn the government over to the mafia, at least then we’d make a profit.

Second thing to think about, as discussed in previous posts, since this is all money spent in deficit, it is debt piled on non-voting, unborn generations.  This means that the next million babies born, in addition to the $43,333 they are already in debt the moment they are born, are an additional $900 dollars in debt.  We as their parent or guardians ought to at least be allowed to ask what they are getting for their money.  It turns out even more debt.  Not only do we never pay down the debt, interest is always piled on interest.  In addition, WE FUND BOTH SIDES, with money borrowed from the Chinese.  So we pile on debt to buy Israel arms, so that they can destroy Hamas towns, so that we can borrow more money to rebuild those towns, so that Israel can in turn destroy them with money we borrowed from the Chinese.  Is it only me, or does anyone else see that the only people who are losing in this war are the American taxpayers?

Third thing to think about, there are about 1.5 million Lebanese.  This works out to about $700 per person for every man woman and child.  Aren’t there 1.5 million Americans who could use $700, I don’t know, for a week’s unemployment, for economic stimulus, for a weekend vacation?  Seems to me my future unborn grandchild has a better claim on it than the gangsters in government and the gangsters in the Middle East.

I’ve got an idea.  Stop funding Israel, stop funding any Lebanese: the government, Hamas, Hezbollah all of them.  Stop borrowing money from the Chinese in order to do it and stop the criminal insanity of screwing the American tax payer, who in this deal is getting it coming and going.

"What happened to that America Dad?"

Posted here and at The Right is Wrong and The Left is Wronger by guest blogger Tom Flake.

I am “Old School”. In a previous era I may have been considered macho. I prefer combat sports (boxing and mixed martial arts) to team sports (baseball and basketball). I prefer outdoor activities (rock climbing, whitewater rafting and camping) to video games. I prefer competition to cooperation, and may the best man win. All too often today, macho self-confidence is confused with “a*shole”, “arrogant”, or “pig-headed” particularly when it entails any interface with the gentler gender. I believe that in this era of feminized, emasculated, gender-neutral, neutered, politically-correct, “my right to not be offended, trumps your freedom of speech” era, many men who would otherwise voice their opinions have chosen instead to be quiet and pine for a better yesterday. Yet, straight shooters who opt to solve problems rather than wring their hands over them, is exactly what we need.

One method of compensation I have adopted is to collect movies of a John Wayne, Chuck Norris variety. I prefer a simple life where problems can be dealt with head on. The other night, my family was deciding on a movie to watch, and I suggested, that because my son was studying American history and WWII that we watch Patton. The monologue at the beginning is famous and parts bear repeating. “Americans traditionally love to fight…” “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser…” Within five minutes, of the beginning of the movie, my son turned to me with wonder and admiration in his voice and asked, “Dad, what happened to that America”? I suddenly got tears in my eyes, I hadn’t realized how far off the path we had gotten. My response was as accurate as it was politically incorrect, “Son, the last two generations in power have pissed away that America and I fear that if my generation doesn’t do something to reverse the slide, there won’t be anyone who remembers what was once noble and admired about cowboys and firemen and soldiers”.

It has become common in business literature and B School classes to deride the “charismatic leader”. To portray the team as paramount and the lone wolf as dangerous, this in the face of all of the facts. Some things to consider, Steve Jobs has saved Apple not once but twice. Microsoft has gone nowhere since Bill Gates backed away from his day to day responsibilities. When Dell got into trouble several years ago, the first thing they did was bring Michael Dell back. In Organizational Behavior they stress the fact that group decisions are often better than what an individual leader will come up with. This is after discussing “sub-optimization” and “group think” and failing to discuss at all, the time cost associated with group dynamics. Give me a decisive, informed, engaged, ethical visionary to a group anytime.

It is interesting to note the difference between Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address and Barak Obama’s. Both inherited an America on the ropes. In each case unemployment was high and getting higher. Arguably in Reagan’s case the scenario was worse, interest rates were MUCH higher, and inflation was higher. I don’t know for sure, but is suspect in Reagan’s first thirty days he never claimed that they were in the worst economy since the Great Depression and I suspect he never used the terms "catastrophic", "crisis" or any other similar panty-waste, hand-wringing, pussy whipped, "I feel your pain", BS for what he saw, as a job that needed doing with an outcome measured in the quality of people's lives, NOT in how many poll percentage points a certain stance was worth.

What we need in America today is more Patton’s and fewer Powell’s, more Apple‘s and fewer Lehman Brothers, more leadership and fewer focus groups.

'Sphere expands

Wanted to take a quick moment to alert regular readers that two of my guest bloggers have recently begun posting at their own respective places.

Locutisprime has had a blog at Townhall for some time and tells me that his participation at Brutally Honest has spurred him into posting more regularly there.  Hope you'll bookmark his place and pay him a visit often.  I also hope he'll soon have an RSS feed established so that I can add him to my blogroll.

And Tom Flake has established his blog home at The Right is Wrong and the Left is Wronger.  Tom goes on the blogroll under my Offspring section.  He's got a few posts up already and promises much more in the coming days.

Brutally Honest good wishes to them both along with my sincere communication that they are welcome to continue to post here as often as they'd like.  And here's hoping BH readers will pay them frequent visits as they add their voices to the litany of those available.