Losing the old fashioned way, giving it away.

My team was down by 3 touchdowns early on in the game. It seemed like the game had just started and we were getting waxed. We were losing the battle on the field and were losing the support of the fans. We were hearing boos from the home team crowd we thought would support us. Instead of cheers for any play we made that was remotely positive we heard jeers. However, in the locker room at half time we gathered ourselves. We altered our game plan, made some position changes, and rededicated ourselves to getting back into this game and turning an embarrassing loss into a win. We were playing harder than we had ever played. This was the game of our lives. We started to win back the support of our fans. We cut into the lead. We made plays, forced turnovers, gained ground, and put the ball in the end zone. We tied the game in the 4th quarter with a big touchdown run. Our defense turned forced a turn over and we were driving for the winning score. We were in the red zone in a tied game and were looking like were were going in for the winning score. Then the call came from the sideline. "Punt the ball away" What? Punt the ball away? We are in the red zone. We are getting ready to score, if we are going to kick the ball, let's kick a field goal and win the game. "Nope, the next play will be a punt".
We punted, and we ended up losing the game, snatching defeat when victory was in our hands.

Does this sound like the dumbest thing you have ever read? Listen to Hilliary and Obama's plans for the war in Iraq and explain the difference to me, because their plan for Iraq is the dumbest thing I have ever heard...and their tax and trade policies set a pretty high bar for the dumbest things I have ever heard, but this one takes the cake.

Let's Get Real...for once

NAFTA has been an engine for American prosperity and economic growth through trade. Anyone who states otherwise is too stupid to recognize the truth or too disingenuous to state the facts. Neither one is a good characteristic for a presidential candidate...Hilliary...Obama.

Let's face it, low skill manufacturing jobs have been leaving our shores for decades. These jobs belong elsewhere. Blaming NAFTA for this job migration is either obtuse or dishonest...Hilliary...Obama...which is it?

The law of large numbers makes it easy to find many people who....have lost manufacturing jobs, do not presently have health insurance, or believe that aliens have tried to kidnap them at some point in their lives. We have over 300m citizens in the United States. If less than half of one percent of people have lost their jobs due to jobs migrating offshore, then there are over a million and a half people who are in this condition. That is a big number, when examined in a vacuum. However when considered in the context of a population of over 300m, the number is not statistically significant. So should we trash NAFTA and the other trade agreements that have fueled the greatest economic expansion in the past 50 years? Hilliary...Obama....why would you shoot the golden goose?

Hilliary and Obama are smart people. They know the truth about NAFTA. They understand the numbers on the uninsured. They just believe that their election prospects trump the truth, trump economic reality, and trump the best interests of everyone besides themselves....which makes them like every other common politician.

BTW, is whining about being picked first to answer questions in a debate a good precursor for how one will respond in the White House when real issues arise?

Don't take my word for it:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/the_democratic_trade_myths.html

Healthcare by the Numbers

Has anyone noticed that the number of uninsured in America has risen steadily as the democratic presidential campaign have rounded the final turn and headed for the home stretch? When the campaigns started six months ago the number of uninsured Americans stood at about 30m - at least according to the stump speeches. The past six months must have been really bad ones for Americans and healthcare because the number of uninsured Americans apparently has swelled to 47m, or as the crack journalists at Rueters reproted today, about one sixth of Americans.



I think we can agree on one thing, the number of structurally uninsured Americans is well under 47m. I have seen analysis by objective groups who estimate that the real number of uninsured Americans is less than half of the "campaign" figure of 47m. For argument sake, let's agree to a very high end number, that real Americans who are living and working normal lives, but without any health insurance is 25m. That represents, in Rueters terms, just over 8 % of the population of the United States. Even at inflated 47m number, which we all know is wrong, the percentage of uninsured Americans would stand at just over 15%.



So what problem are we really trying to solve? Depending on the numbers you chose to believe, between 85% and 92% of Americans have health insurance. The number is more likely closer to 94% of all Americans.



Let me get this straight, we are going to raise the crap out of our taxes, create a government program whose size would warm the heart of the even the most ardent supporter of the collapsed Soviet Union, and potentially tank the US economy so that we can cover the uninsured 4-8% of the American population. Has anyone in Washington ever heard of diminishing marginal returns?



I really think that this is the democrats game plan...if everyone is not prosperous, then no one will be prosperous. Let's tank the entire American health system and the US economy along with it so we can offer healthcare to the small minority of Americans who do not have it. (Legitimate estimates of the uninsured run as low as 8m or 3% of the US population) Is this really what we want? Trashing the health care system that is the envy of the world so we can all get saddled with a government run or mandated system? You have to be kidding me, unfortunately, neither Hilliary or Obama are kidding. They want us all to live in shared mediocrity...while they live high on the hog.

Arrogance

Does anything represent the height of arrogance more than gerrymandering? Nothing says "I don't get it" more than ensuring safe seats for re-election. I guess politicians really don't get it. Their predictable and contemptible gerrymandering ensures that people and parties get to keep their power in "safe" districts. Both democrats and republicans are equally guilty in this nefarious practice. Political party before country...that is the message they send to us. Other than taking my money and wasting it, nothing chaps my butt more than this practice of picking voters to ensure political party representation.

Speaking of arrogance in government, do the boys and girls in congress feel that they have everything under control? All of the big problems solved so they can worry about whether or not Rodger Clemens used HGH? I am so glad that the war on terror is won, government waste is under control, and the policies are in place for a vibrant economy over the long term. HGH in major league baseball has been keeping us all awake at night, so thankfully the brainless meddler-in-chief Henry Waxman can now devote his full attention to this national crisis. Do these guys ever wonder why Americans think that Congress is such a joke? It is really not hard to figure out.

Why is athletic performance treated differently than mental performance? No one balks about star athletes earning millions and millions of dollars each year. However, smart people who work hard are regularly tossed under the bus as greedy and not deserving their annual earnings? Why is this the case? Why do the democrats in Washington want to punish those who achieve in the business world? If I am smarter and work harder than the average Joe and earn more than the average Joe, why does average Joe deserve my income in the form of government handouts?

So I listened to Obama's Speech Last Night...

What a good speaker. I have listened to him before, but I really wanted to hear what he had to say as he prepares to close the door on Hilliary Clinton, who has run the only political campaign worse than Senator George Allen in the modern political era. Since Barack is the likely democratic nominee, I wanted to hear directly from him what he is all about rather than listening to what others say he is all about.

First and foremost, Senator Obama is about presence. He has it and he uses his presence well. It comes naturally and is as genuine as homemade apple pie. He does not hide who is nor does he obfuscate issues to stake out multiple positions to please the audience at hand, while leaving enough wiggle room to stake out an alternate position for another time (like Hillairy does) No, I think Obama is who he says he is. Not Unlike George Bush, I believe that Obama believes in himself and his convictions enough that he will not stray from them to score political points.(Unlike either of the Clintons) Also, like George W. Bush, I think that Senator Obama is comfortable in his skin, he is satisfied with himself. I think he wants to be president very badly, just like President Bush did eight years ago. However I think that like president Bush, Obama does not have to be president of the United States to feel that he has led a successful life, it will not be the center of his being, but rather Barack's center will be reflected in his presidency should he win this November, or a November hence. Like president Bush and unlike the Clintons, I think Barack Obama wants to be president because he honestly feels that he can do some good for the country with his leadership and his ideas. I agree with him on his ability to help the country with his leadership skills, it is his ideas on what he wants to do that scare the crap out of me.

I am not convinced that anyone should be president of the United States if they have never held a job for a substantial period of time in the private sector (10 years sounds about right, so they will have seen boom and bust cycles...and depending on your area of practice, being an attorney may or may not count). Obama is a prime example of why this prerequisite should be in place. It is clear from his plans that he has no clue how the American economic system works and the potentially disasterous role govenrment can play when it becomes too heavy handed. As seen by the disasterous effects of FDR's new deal which deepened and prolonged the US economic malaise, the economy does best when left to the forces of the market and free will.

If you listened to Obama carefully, it seems that every American is an out of work factory worker whose job has been exported to China. It seems that every American does not have health care, cannot read (maybe this is why they are out of work), and is about to lose their home because someone tricked them into buying a house they could not afford. I don't know anyone who fits that description, but it makes us all want to reach out and help these people...where ever they might be. Everyone according to Obama is a victim of circumstance. It never occured to a factory worker that they might need to upgrade their skills or that their union might be selling them down the river trying to get above market wages for jobs that have long since been commoditized. Apparently someone held a gun to the heads of every family involved in the "housing crisis" and made them sign mortgage agreements for half a million dollar loans with payments that started out at only $ 500 per month. It does not take an MBA to do the math that shines the light of day on that deal. Obama will fix all of these problems, with government programs from the infinite funds apparently available to the US government.

What Obama does not understand is that in order for government to have any money to spend (or give away), something productive needs to have happened first. Someone needs to have made something and sold it, or provided a service, or grew something that was sold on the open market. The US economy frankly has been too good at generating funds that end up in Washington, so good to the point that seemingly bright and reasonable people like Obama assume that there is a never ending source of funds through the tax system or through the credit markets that can provide for every government social mandate under the sun.

Obama wants universal healthcare for everyone. Great thought, how are going to pay for it? In a world of fee for service world of compeitive markets, everyone would have universal access to any healthcare they could afford, and at market prices rather than inflated managed market prices. Catastrophic coverage would be affordable and manageable for everyone. However, this is not what Senator Obama is thinking. He wants the same system that supports congress and federal workers rolled out to 300M americans. Okay, but what will my tax rate be when this program rolls out, in 4 years as he claims? If it is anything like Canada's system, get ready to figrue out how to live off of .30 of every dollar you earn. How many jobs will that kill? How many more will need to live off the government dime when meteoric rises in taxes kill our economy?

Obama says he is a free market capitalist which is true, expect for when he isn't. He wants to make sure that good jobs remain here in the United States, and that he will make sure that the incentives are there for high paying manufacturing jobs to be created on US soil. Well, that sounds great, but what is the cost? What if those jobs belong elsewhere? What if market equilibrium states that the product design, architecture, and management belong here, but the actual production is best suited for Brazil, China, or Mexico? Are consumers going to pay more for the products that are 100% US made versus a Korean alternative that is just as good, but much cheaper? Market economics of the past 30 years says "no". So how many jobs will that cost us? How many more will need government healthcare because their company went belly up trying to compete with truly global alternatives?

Obama says he wants the best education for all of the children in America (you know are are officially a politician when everything starts to boil down to "the children") Okay, that sounds great, how are you going to do that? Well, according to Obama, underperforming kids, needy kids today in the inner city, in rural america, and in ethnic neighborhoods are not "my problem" becuase they do not look like me. Well, not exactly. The kids aren't "my problem" rather they are their "parents responsibility" and parents who choose not to raise their kids in a safe and healthy environment, well those are the folks who are really "the problem" and that transcends race, religion, geography, ethnicity. So Obama wants to solve the "children problem" by rewarding teachers with pay inceases. He wants to especially reward the best teachers with big pay increases. Okay, that sounds fine. But what about the crummy teachers? How are we going to weed them out? Who is going to fire them? What about school choice? Why are kids in crappy schools doomed to stay there because teacher's unions and local school district employees want to keep their jobs and their district funding? If we really want better education for all kids (and I think we can agree that we all do) then let parents and students find the best schools (public, private, religious) and send them there. This is such an easy problem to solve, but the grip the teracher's union has on the democratic party reduce sincere smart people like Obama to spouting party-line drivel about teacher pay raises and "real accountability" (whatever that means) and throwing more money into a totally ineffective public school system without fixing the problem. Let kids go to good schools, and schools will get much better, and bad schools will go away which is the best thing that could ever happen to education in the United States.

Obama went on and on down similar paths. I truly beleive that Obama believes he is on the right path. I believe that he is a good, honorable, and decent man. I think he inspires many. I know it is anathema to the left but his belief and loyalty to his core is similar in many ways to George W Bush. I respect that in both men. However, please show me the details of how we get any of this done in the real world? How will we pay for all of the programs Obama wants to implement? How many jobs will be sucked from the private into the public sector? I wish I could talk some sense into Obama on these and other issues, but to his credit, this is who he is and what he believes. I would be disappointed if he moved off his worng headed positions.

BTW, I ddin't even meniton how off base Obama is on the war on terror and fundmentalist Islam, but these positions were so far off base, I really thought that adding this to the list would just be piling-on.

Cry Me a River

Virginia governor Tim Kaine reports that by the year 2010 Virginia may face a budget deficit to the tune of $ 1.4 billion dollars. We know two things about this predicament. First, the prediction will be wrong, and probably way wrong. These projections are always wrong and I see no reason for the budget prognosticators to get it right this time. The number could be bigger, it will likely be smaller, but it will not be $ 1.4 billion dollars. Second, the reason for this projected budget shortfall has nothing to do with the Commonwealth of Virginia not collecting enough tax revnues. Over the past decade, the Virginia tax revnue growth has outpaced inflation, out paced Virginia GDP growth, and outpaced Virginia's population growth. The only thing that the Virginia tax revenue growth has not out paced is the rate at which the General Assembly, in concert with Virginia governors, have spent tax payer dollars. Now we are facing a projected $ 1.4B budget shortfall and the state's delegates, senators, and governor might have to cut pet projects or layoff workers in the bloated state government...Cry me a river.

Is She Careless or Contemptible?

On Sunday February 10th in the Metro section of the Richmond Times Dispatch, reporter Melodie N. Martin covering a rally protesting immigration legislation before the General Assmebly writes "more than 100 people gathered in Monroe Park yesterday to protest anti-immigration legislation in the General Assmebly". I think Melodie N. Martin, staff reporter for the Times Dispatch ommitted one important word. That word is "illegal". The Virginia General Assembly is not considering anti-immigration legislation, they are considering anti-illegal-immigration legislation...as they should be.

This significant ommission by Melodie N. Martin, staff writer for the Times Dispatch can lead the reader to one of three conclusions. The first is that Melodie N. Martin, staff writer for the Times is not a very good reporter. She is at the very least careless and should have caught her error. The second conclusion a reader could draw is that Ms. Martin is not very bright, and that she does not really understand the difference between legal and illegal immigration. (actually a perceptive reader may combine both of these and conculde that Melodie N. Martin is both careless and obtuse) The third and more likely conclusion, is that Meoldie N. Martin, staff writer for the Times Dispatch let her leftwing compassion and her open boarders agenda get the best of her and she reported not the facts, but what she believes; that any legislation to restrict illegal immigration is in fact anti-immigration legislation.

Melodie N. Martin, staff writer for the Times Dispatch slapped the face of every immigrant in the United States who followed the rules, came in according to the laws of this nation, and built a better life for themselves in this fabulous captialist society. Meodie N. Martin may be able to but may choose not to see the difference between legal and illegal immigration, however, the differnce is clear to most Americans. Immigrants can come to the United States according to our laws, or they can ignore our laws and come to the United States as outlaws. Any legislation that makes it harder for outlaws to steal from citizens of the United States and those here through legal process is needed legislation. Any legislation that cracks downs on employers exploiting illegal workers is a good for both the United States and those who chose to come here illegally. Legislation that enables local law enforcement officers to identify and hold illegal aliens who have committed a crime during their time in the US will help make our cities and towns safe for its legal residents. Melodie N. Martin, staff writer for the Times Dispatch may not think this is that case, but her reporting should not make her opinion on the issue so obvious. She is a reporter, not a blogger.

5 Points to Ponder

1. If the economy really is teetering on the brink of recession, make sure to vote for democrat candidates who will raise taxes this fall to guarantee that we will have a recession...and a longer and deeper one at that. Politicians have to understand this reality, so assuming they hold to their pledges to stick it to corprations and "the rich" (whatever that means) with tax increases, they must believe that their social redistributionist agenda is worth the price of a deep recession, because they will assuredly cause one.
2. Choking off the engine of econimic growth will do more societal damage to those in the "middle class" that democrats want so desperately to "help" by buying their votes with govenment handouts. Who will weather a democrat fueled recession better, the fat-cat with millions in the bank or the tax rebate recipient who just spent their $ 600 to pay their bills? Think about it before you vote this fall.
3. About the only thing that the government can do with 100% certainty to a thriving economy is screw it up. If left alone market forces will distribute resources and rewards to those who deliver value to the market. That is why our system works so well. When pols leave it alone everyone who chooses to participate in the economy is rewarded, when politicians try to jury-rig the system, they throw the entire system out of balance.
4. No matter how great the United States economy performs, with 300 million citizens in the US, there will always be someone down on their luck or who has washed out of the country's prosperity. The media will always find this person and present them as an example of pervasive problems that need to be fixed with government programs and regulation.
5. Virginia governor Tim Kaine seems to be a really nice guy who genuinely cares about people. However, he is the prototypical meddling politician. He firmly believes there is no problem in Virginia that cannot be solved with a government program. From second hand smoke to sub-prime lending practices to pay-day loans. Where ever a perceived problem exists, Kaine is there with a new program or regualtion...he is the consummate pointy-headed liberal who intends to protect everyone from themselves...according to his personal leftist view of what is best. Puh-lease...for being so smart, he sure acts dumb.

You Can't Cherry Pick Benefits of Global Trade

I saw a politcal commercial the other day bemoaning the loss of jobs in the United States. The message was basically that there are factory workers who have loyally worked for 30 years in a plant only to have it shut down, the work moved to China leaving the employee apparently penniless and lacking for all but but the most bare essentials of life. Not that facts are ever relevant in a political campaign, but how can we have penniless factory workers sitting around after their work was moved over seas when the United States has essentially been at full employment for the past 6 years and aliens are streaming over the boarder to do work that "Americans won't do". Well, if I were a penniless, unemployed factory worker with 30 years of experience wokring in a plant, there would be darned few jobs "I wouldn't do" in order to support myself. The net of the political message is anti-globaization and protectionism for American factory jobs.

The problem is, we can't have it both ways. We cannot cherry pick the benefits of global trade without the associated "costs". The United States has benefited greatly from global trade. Our standard of living is higher as we have far better and cheaper products that support our business and daily lives. We import goods that are far more price effective than if those goods were made in the US. We want the least expensive, highest quality products we can get as consumers. The cost of benefit is that labor needs to come from its most efficient and most cost effective source. As the market stands today, for low to moderate skill line-manufacturing, the best place to get that labor is not on American soil. That doesn't mean that there are no jobs in the US, jobs are plentiful...and benefits that go with them.

So which is it, do we want the most cost effective products and the most robust economy or do we want to keep jobs that belong over seas in the United States and pay the price at the cash register everytime we shop& Do we want to pay the price in the growth of our overall economy? We cannot have it both ways, we cannot cherry pick the benefits we want in the global economy. If you want to pay $ 2,000 for a laptop instead of $ 600, then let's keep those manufacturing jobs on US soil. Think long and hard before you answer, because the actions, those implied in the political ad, will have dramtic consequences on your life and mine. Think about it before you decide who to support this November.