Thursday, October 29, 2015

Red States and Freedom v Blue States and Progressive Socialism

___Days after the election in November 2008 the Augusta Chronicle printed my letter in which I recommended that we (GA and SC) do the same thing that we did the last time a President was elected from Illinois. What followed in the next two years was a takeover of the healthcare industry, a takeover of the financial industry, and Keynesian/Marxist economics on steroids.

___The “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act”, PPACAA, was passed to insure everyone for medical care. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act had passed in 1986 requiring EMT facilities to treat anyone – legal or illegal. The PPACAA would hopefully limit the higher-cost EMT visits to true emregencies and reduce the closures of EMT facilities in border states. It is better known as the biggest tax in United States history as defined by the Supreme Court!

___It is true the United States was entering a dramatic recession caused by an overheated housing boom and subsequent bust. Administrations for decades had been advocating for home ownership as the “American dream,” even to the point of threatening lawsuits for racism if loans were not approved – regardless of the creditworthiness of the borrower. The Federal Reserve assisted with historically low rates for money with no end in sight. The “irrational exuberance” this caused was noted!

___Republican Senator Phil Gramm had succeeded in getting Glass-Stiegel repealed in the late 1990s. This allowed bankers to gamble with depositors' money. The bankers divested themselves of the bad loans as quickly as possible by creating witches brews called derivatives. Credit rating companies assisted by giving the derivatives high ratings. When the bad loans within these failed, the house of cards began to unravel. The Bush and Obama administrations used the Troubled Assets Relief Program to bail out the bad betters like big financials, GM, Chrysler and AIG with taxpayer money. The 10 “to-big-to-fail” banks became the 5 “to-bigger-to-fail” banks with 77% control of all U.S. banking.

___The Congress sought to contain the problem they had helped to create with Dodd-Frank (named after two in Congress who had personally benefitted by the misdeeds). Onerous new regulations applied to all banks – not just the TBTF banks. The Consumer Financial Protection Board was created to protect us from ourselves (bad people convinced us to buy $500,000 homes on minimum wage salaries).

___Most - about 90% - of student loans were absorbed by the taxpayers. The total is over $1.3Trillion owed by over 40,000,000 Americans (who happen to be at least voting age). The default rate has gone up each passing year and is currently abou 17%. The Obama administration has been aggressive in forgiving student loans. Taxpayers fund the insanity.

___The President and Secretary of Energy have been anti-nuclear. They closed the waste repository in Nevada when over $14Billion of energy customers fee payments for the facility had been spent for construction. When the number of “green jobs” was published, most were from the existing nuclear power industry. Many of the new jobs for which Obama takes credit have been in the petroleum industry that he has tried to shackle and kill. He has almost succeeded in killing the coal industry.

___The President has been an isolationist on foreign policy. Our enemies have been only too happy to fill the gap. Americans have evidently died in vain in the Middle East. Democrats who rant about American deaths in “Bush's War” have evidently forgotten the 58,000+ in “Johnson's War!”

___The President – assisted by the Supreme Court in a bizarre decision – has blessed homosexual sex in all states. States rights (10th Amendment) has been erased. Laws can also be modified at will by SCOTUS decisions.

___At every opportunity, establishment Republicans have given in to Democrat demands. Even though Speaker Boehner has resigned, he was replaced by another “moderate” (55% conservative) Republican. At least Paul Ryan thinks debt is a problem and not a solution!

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Economy Does Better With Democrats?

___Hillary offered this lie on Colbert's show - a comedy show. Obviously the liberal audience - being the stupid voters described by MIT Professor Gruber - applauded. I have posted (13 Mar 2015) the facts from a NY academic:

___The economy did best with Republican President Coolidge and a Republican-controlled House and Senate in the "roaring" 1920s. The Reagan years and decades afterward were good years, and Democrats controlled the Congress from 1955 to 1995. The United States ran a surplus with a Republican-controlled House and Senate in the latter 1990s. Clinton was quick to take credit, buy he vetoed welfare reform twice before finally signing it. That was a major reason for the surpluses. Clinton ran big deficits (by 20th century standards) before the Republicans took control of Congress. Democrats controlled the Congress from FY2007 to FY2011, so they are partly responsible for the financial crisis. Republican Senator Phil Gramm got the legislation repealed (Glass-Stiegel) which had prevented the financial misdeeds up to that point. Certainly Clinton and following administrations put intense pressure on the mortgage loan industry to make poor loan decisions - threatening racism lawsuits if the loans were denied. Large banks then grouped these loans into derivatives which the bond raters overrated. Taxpayers lost at least $1Trillion when the house of cards collapsed.

___The economy does better in a free market. Centrally planned economies with overregulation do poorly at best!

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Who is Stealing Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

___I heard that oil is being sold from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to raise cash. This is criminal or at least stupid. To buy high and sell low is stupid. We also have a President and Dept of Energy who are against fossil fuels. This action will further weaken our petroleum industry by artificially lowering their profits. Since prices are low already, some companies may not survive this attack. New technology has provided for our energy needs and has lessened our critical need for oil and a SPR, but using the SPR as a tactical piggy bank is criminal!

___We know that there is nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund but IOUs. Congress has used all of the money, and now other peoples' money (Those of us who have paid FICA during our working lifetimes) is GONE!

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Ben Carson on Church and State, Gun Control, States and Welfare

___Our founding fathers understood this and wisely instituted a policy of separation of church and state, which is totally different from the concept of separation of God and state. (America The Beautiful, Tolerance and Accommodation, p192).

http://rightwingconspiracypolitics.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-separation-of-church-and-state.html

___Only law-abiding citizens are affected by legislation imposing gun control. The criminals really don't care what the law says, which is why they are criminals. Confiscating the guns of American citizens would violate the Constitution as well as rendering the citizenry vulnerable to criminals and tyrants.

___Each of our fifty states has its own unique characteristics, and people reside in a given state because they enjoy the atmosphere and the camaraderie of like-minded people. The individuality of our states is immensely valuable and provides a host of options for all of our citizens, who can freely move to any state of their choice. If the federal government becomes too dominant, it will try to create uniformity to make domination of the states much easier. This [10th] amendment prevents that kind of power grab. Source: A More Perfect Union, 2015, pp 168-9.

___A truly moral nation enacts policies that encourage personal responsibility and discourage self-destructive behavior by not subsidizing people who live irresponsibly and make poor choices. We simply cannot afford welfare programs for able-bodied people who make unwise choices and expect other people to pay for it.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Illinois Will Issue IOUs to Lottery Winners $600+

___The state of Illinois is short of funds and is technically bankrupt. Lottery winners of more than $600 will be presented with IOUs rather than cash. At least one winner will sue the state for their money.

___Many realized that gambling was an evil, and that there would be eventual consequences of lotteries. One obvious consequence has been the cost of college. Lotteries making college "free" has dramatically increased the costs of everything college-related (ECON 101: an increase in demand while supply remains static means an increase in cost).

___The state is technically bankrupt because its progressive socialist policies have dramatically increased spending, and the state is running out of other people's money.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Mike Huckabee on The Fair Tax

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2015/10/05/why-do-gop-candidates-support-irs-lets-pass-fairtax/73386892/

The Myth of Catastrophic Global Climate Change

___If the United States uses costly regulations or other means to destroy the coal power industry, then is the environment cleaner? We have one atmosphere for the planet. If the United States closes or offlines a power plant and China and India (or another) build 10 more at the same time, then is the environment cleaner? Since the Earth rotates, then the atmosphere over China and India will soon be the atmosphere over us.

___China and India have a combined population of 2,600 million while the United States has only 320 million. Are we to deny basic electricity to about 8 times as many as ourselves? The carbon emissions to do just that will dwarf any cutbacks on our part. The accords in Kyoto (2000) and Copenhagen (2010) suggested that the developed nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fund similar efforts by the developing nations. China and India are listed as developing nations, but they have GDPs of $13.4T and $5.1T and 5-year growth rates of 8.9% and 6.9% respectively. To take on such additional cleanup costs would severely disadvantage developed nations. A reparations logic is used as justification assuming any development came at the expense of a polluted environment.

___The United States is blessed with over a century's worth supply of energy producing fuel. It is irrational to refuse to develop this resource and use it responsibly and cleanly. We have 17 National Laboratories – SRNL in our backyard – we should use them wisely for the good of the people.

Friday, October 9, 2015

The Rewards of an Education - US Census 1999

Over an average adult's working life (25 to 64) one can expect:

___High school diploma: $1.2million

___College diploma: $2.1million

___Masters degree: $2.5million

___Doctoral degree: $3.4million

___Professional (MD,DMD,DVM): $4.4million