Liberty's Champion

Money talks and bullshit walks...

2011-04-09T20:30:00.005-04:00

There has been a lot chatter across the Internet and Facebook about the latest budget woes. The conservative right was able to make a lot of noise about troops not being paid on time and the left raised hell about not approving a budget that cut out funding for planned parenthood. I saw ripping post waves from both sides about "Provide funding for our troops" and "We must protect a woman's right to choose" all across Facebook. "Repost this if you agree" on social networking sites and forming little groups on-line is fine. It makes us all feel like we're doing something to address the problem. But do we really have an understanding of what the problem is? I don't think it's party hot-issues being threatened or worries about government workers being paid on time.

The problem is that nobody can ever be wrong. Starting from the idea that "Everyone should be allowed to express their opinions freely" we've somehow let it expand into "Every Opinion is equal" and that's just flat out stupid. Opinions are not equal, we look at many ideas so that we can find the best way out of all of them but that second part is what makes it work... finding a best way. Without a "best way" that exchange of ideas is reduced down into a way for people just to feel better about having gotten to have their say. Now that would be alright still if we put our thoughts into an open forum, but we don't. Culturally we've become hardwired to seek approval for our ideas by finding outlets that cater to them. Your Limbaugh, Maddow, Frankin, Beck... your MSNBC, Fox News, and your talk radio, they all speak strictly to their target audiences. We move past the exchange of ideas completely into a system where we hear ideas that fit "What we like" and we hear about how against "What we like" the other people must be. All sides claim to speak for the American people. And relative to the specific audience they do, in a way, speak for the country. But is that what we want?

Do we want political discourse dictated by what we want to believe? A lot of what I've written about in previous posts has to do with the dangers of letting what we wish were true define what we accept as true. And the pundits are a huge part of that. John Stewart is funny but is raw sarcasm the way to go? Beck holds up his version of "The Founders" but we can't build a country that was designed to operate in a world that passed by 225 years ago. At the same time we can't anticipate abandoning all moral principle because we're afraid of what will happen. O'riely and Hannity are just as bad as Maher and Huffington in that they all sit there night after night and re-polarize their audience.

Yellow Journalism isn't anything new, and you'd think by now that we'd be better equipped to deal with it. Instead we've made it part of our personal identity.

So what comes next? Problems like what we saw this week in Washington are what you get when we elect congressmen who are so terrified of losing their extreme party base and alienating their own side's talking heads and pundits that they do nothing. They can't compromise and the "other side" is in the same situation so they can't make moves either.

I'm disappointed that hot button issues like abortion and the threat of soldiers (and government workers) not getting paid are distressing but the situation that got us here is a broken government and people so stuck on their own "opinions" that they won't allow or elect congress-people capable of fixing it.
Bunker in. The problems are just starting.

Return from Hiatus

2011-03-15T09:44:00.002-04:00

The blog is active again. There's a lot of fresh material coming down the pike and I'm going to try to keep on a three updates a week program.

If you like what you read recommend it to your friends.
If you'd like me to look at a specific issue send me an email and I'll put in the rotation.

The Job Market is a Stuborn Thing.

2010-07-04T12:08:00.000-04:00

The Unemployment numbers came out for the last month, and we had a reduction in overall unemployment from 9.7% to 9.5%. That seems exciting, until we break down those numbers a little further. That's a "Real Change" of 0.002. As of the end of June we still have 14.6 Million people unemployed. A net change of 652,000+ (jobs acquired over jobs lost) occurred. So when we divide it out, 4% of unemployed people found jobs in June. "The biggest cause for concern had been the weakness of the private sector, which created a modest 83,000 jobs in June, well up from May's revised total of 33,000." (Source Yahoo! News, )

What's making jobs so hard to find? Certainly there's a lot of economic pressure. But I think there may be another undercurrent here. Over education.

Starting from the assumption that, like my own, your high school guidance councilor (much like every teacher before him from Kindergarten up to his arrival on your academic scene... and possibly even your own parents) assured you that you could "Be anything you set your mind to if you just worked hard enough." The rational among us instantly (or very nearly so) rejected this as insane, but many people (some of them very bright) bought into this wholesale; not realizing their errors until the real world hit them in the mouth with a bag of bricks.
Exhibit A: My friend Greg who worked hard through high school and college... the man studied like a fiend and worked nights and weekends and ungodly hours at various local grocery stores to make ends meet... and now, finally having attained his degree in "German"... he still works at a local grocery store. (Now with major loans to pay off.)
Exhibit B: My sister spent 4 years and a good chunk of money pursuing an Art degree at Maryland Institute College of Art. She's a brilliant artist, who does amazing work. She's not one lick better at art then she was when she went into the money machine, and works part time at a Bakery... taking yet MORE college classes.
I'm sure many of you know people who fall into categories like this. Rest assured, we will be getting into the WHY of what happened in small detail today, and in GREAT detail in my next post "The Important Role of the Economic Loser."

Why do we work at the jobs we do? What determines which jobs we're going to work at, and which careers we land in overall? It's not lack of effort, at least not always. It's not lack of desire certainly, it's not even always lack of ability. I think that we can't look at what WE are lacking for the answer. If we must refer to it in terms of "Lacking" I'd say the Job Market is lacking what WE want. Worded another way, the Job Market has certain needs and certain overflows. If what we want falls into a need category then we are one of the lucky few. That said, most people will not fall into this category. If your life's dream was to be a basket weaver and you've managed to fall into one of the few basket weaving slots that society has out there then stop reading. For the rest of us, the problem bears a bit of closer inspection.

The Economics of the Job Market boil down to "How badly do we need this done?", "How Many people can do it?", and "How much does the average person want for doing it."
There are, in certain cases, other small factors that impact job creation... but not many. It's hard to find a job that nobody wants done, that anyone could do, and most people will do for free that pays well.

For example, lets look at the "Worlds Oldest Profession".
Has it ever occured to anyone to wonder why there are more female prostitutes then there are male prostitutes? It's hard to compete in a job market where there droves of people waiting to do your job for free. This isn't to say you CAN'T find those jobs, just that you really shouldn't bank on doing it to make a living.

This is starting to run a little long, and we're getting into subjects I want to cover tomorrow... so for now we'll call it a day.

2010-03-20T11:47:00.000-04:00

"Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough." - Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, roughly 950 AD.

Recently I observed an argument in which neither side was willing to back off their insistence that the other party was wrong. The question was factual, and in an attempt to be helpful I offered to use my laptop to seek an answer to the question online. Much to my surprise both parties balked. My initial response was to apologize for the intrusion, assuming that I was an unwelcome third party to their discussion. Further confusing me, the two of them insisted that they weren't offended; it simply "Was not worth the time to look it up, they would rather just drop it."

While I finished my lunch I puzzled over this. My laptop was out, I was on free WI-FI and the time it took to seek the answer to the question was minuscule. So why avoid the answer? Wouldn't a resolution to the argument by reference to the facts be a desirable outcome?

For the rest of the day I reflected on this. It began to burn me up little by little. Why would we reject a shot at truth and correcting our own misconceptions? Can we as nation really be this addicted to the "We are the right, they are the wrong!" mindset? I suppose it shouldn't surprise me really.

At all levels we seek answers that have mass apeal far more often then we seek truth. There are people who make their living on data manipulation for both sides, enabling news organizations and pundits to twist the facts in such a way as to make them more appealing to their core markets. What's the end result of this? We only seek the people who tell us what we want to hear. Any voice from the "other side" is rejected outright, and often villified.

"It is proper for you, Kalamas [the people of the village of Kesaputta], to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them. "...Do not accept anything by mere tradition... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly." - Kalama Sutta

The Blog is Active Again.

2010-01-16T23:46:00.000-05:00

I'm back, I'm writing, and I'm mad.

More to follow, tomorrow I'm hitting this Haiti thing. Soon after that I'm addressing the issue of the police. That might be a 5 part article. I've got a lot to say about that one.

Nuclear Options

2009-08-26T04:07:00.000-04:00

Tonight things went a little crazy with my circle of friends and I sort of engaged the nuclear option. In my ongoing study into the mechanisms that we all use to interact and make our society work I think it's strange that my personal life should so perfectly dovetail with what I've been reading. It's tempting to try and over dramatize the breakdown in interpersonal relationships but ultimately it all comes back down to a very simple perspective problem. Friendships are essentially a micro-crowd. The forces that effect a crowd, to expand it and make it crumble, all have their parallels in the Friendship Circles.
All things have a natural lifespan. Biological break down puts a definite limit factor on all living things. Companies rise and fall in accordance with need and market force. Crowds spring up and die as issues appear and resolve themselves. Friendships are a tempting target for the label of permanence but that's a very naive way to look at the whole exchange. In reality friendships continue until one party has too much to gain by removing the "Friend" who has become a roadblock. Sentimental loyalty combined with a dash of nostalgia and a healthy awareness of the uses of a particular friend may dictate sacrificing a little more in the name of "keeping my friends" but I'm a firm believer in the old adage that "Everyone has a price".
It follows from that, "Everyone has a value"
I found out my value tonight...
How much do you think you're worth?

China getting ready to cash out?

2009-07-29T03:19:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg news reported yesterday that our man in the treasury Tim Geithner was begging China not to liquidate a large portion of the $801.5 Billion dollars they own in U.S. Treasury bonds. ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aaVGe5smuZAU ) The U.S. Budget in it's entirety is roughly 3 Trillion dollars a year. So calling in that debt would pretty much chop a nice 1/3 out of that... I can see why Timmy is so set on keeping Chinese dollars in the United States. The problem is that China is moving in pro-business directions across it's economy. The average Chinese business seems to have much less red tape to cut through then comparable US companies.
Treasury Bond ownership is traditionally proportional to the amount of private sector money invested in an economy. Given, China can sometimes blur the line between Govt and Private funds (an entry for another date) but the way to keep Chinese money here is to boost our domestic companies. Treasury Bonds are investments in the governments ability to make money, but more then then that they ease the tax burden on all of us.
Obama is following in Bush's footsteps with all this "stimulus money". The Chinese are worried about the security of their 801 billion dollar investment.
Our current outstanding public debt in the United States is accelerating in growth, it recently topped 11.6 Trillion.
So the natural question is where is the stimulus money coming from? While many of my "dish out the government cash" friends have trite little social-obligation answers, (little to no economic answers to that particular cash flow problem), it's becoming obvious that our foreign investors are asking the same damn questions.

I'm not alone out here!

2009-07-24T18:52:00.001-04:00

So it turns out that my good friend Martell Harris started an online radio show, which can be found at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Martell-Harris
Everyone should give him at least a running listen because he knows what's going on. A little crazier then I am but in this day in age I'm coming to view that as the only appropriate response to what's going on.

You're going to see a lot more posts, and I'll be appearing on his show as often as he'll have me. It's just good to know that I'm not the only one of my friends out here trying to get things out.

New posts starting tomorrow! (But check back tonight in case I'm feeling extra motivated)

Well I heard there was a secret chord...

2009-06-28T21:37:00.000-04:00

This one is a little bit more personal then most of my posts. I'll try to keep it from getting over gushy, and I'll keep it tied into the general and try to stay away from specific pining.

I've been reading a lot about crowds, crowd instinct, and control of crowds lately. Elias Canetti wrote "Crowds and Power" which is a great read to be sure. Everyone should take at least a passing look at the opening chapters to get a very different look at the formation of crowds, how the behave, and (the part that is pertinent to this post) the very important function that they serve in the human experience.
I've had this urge for the past couple weeks to just scream at the sky over some personal losses I've had. And my goal here is to kill two birds (and sort of elevate my own need to spill all of this nonsense out) by coupling my outpouring with a consideration on the need to do so.

Canetti holds as a central idea that humans validate their experiences and emotions in the sharing thereof. This makes a lot of sense, observation adds a special validation to the human experience. I think in a way we just feel better with the knowledge that others are aware of our sufferings and internal pain, and of our joys and personal triumphs. It's key not to become bogged down by them, that sort of thing leads to a melancholic self obsession that holds you back and breaks you down.

The sharing of experience is something uniquely human, (one of many things in such a category) and while I'd hesitate to name anything as the "linchpin of society" it's definitely a top running candidate. The need to share experience and the euphoria that results from it can be attested to by anyone who has seen a riot or mob. The amazing thing is that the energy and power of these emotions manifests itself in very real very physical results. In riots both positive (a sports championship win) and negative (bread riots) the shared joy/misery of the crowd creates a pent up force that must be applied and directed in some vector. The body reacts to the crowd, the will of the crowd in that sense swallows up the individual in a complete and total way.
Perhaps that is the root of our need to cry out that we are in pain. Because when others respond to that cry it is a step closer to losing yourself and your identity, however briefly, to the crowd. And in that loss you distance yourself from the need to miss people, the need to be loved, the need to struggle on with dealing with your problems... however temporary that relief may be.

This is a lot more esoteric then most of my posts, and I recognize that I'm in a way sort of corrupting the idea I'd had for this blog by mixing in the personal.

Orwell Said This Would Happen

2009-06-20T20:16:00.000-04:00

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. "

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

George Orwell.

So it turns out that the closest city to me, Lancaster PA, is now one of the most camera infested cities in America. I can't help but noticed that Mayor Grey, one of the leftest leaning mayors I can remember, was in office when this change came about. I'm very nervous about the level of acceptance with a literal Big Brother incursion. I think that the world of Orwell's 1984 must have come about just as gradually. I wonder about the sacrifice here, and if it really equates itself to greater security. This is not a new argument, and I'll allow the reader to consider the debate on it's own merits as laid out by those far better equipped then myself.

The biggest shock to me is how quietly it was able to be achieved. I'm sure I must have heard about the plan in some context, but I don't recall anything this encompassing or this intrusive being described.

The goals of a leftist government are summed up in control of the activities of the every day population. Information is and observation are the key tools. Something done is secret has a power all it's own because the powers that be cannot observe it. I think that a certain level of crime is an unfortunate byproduct of individuality. The best way to eliminate crime is to destroy all individuality.
Nobody ever got mugged in an ant farm

The importance of disent

2009-06-18T18:10:00.000-04:00

I'm reading a compilation called "The Anti-Federalist", compiled by Herbert J. Storing.
Hopefully my readers are familiar with the collection called "The Federalist Papers". It's easy to imagine the framers of the Constitution working in a vacuum, but it's really not the case. The reason we have the bill of rights is because the dissenters made their points clearly and aggressively.
Dissent can be patriotic, absolute compliance results in unchecked government.
I aim to have more up on this later, after I take care of a few things.

Getting this thing going again

2009-05-13T07:32:00.001-04:00

It's been a while, but I'm back in the groove now and there's plenty of good stuff bubbling to get posted.
My first new post after work will be up at around 8pm Eastern

"You can't unpull a trigger"

2009-03-15T12:15:00.001-04:00

You can never really undo an action. You can try to make amends. You can try to counteract. You can attempt to neutralize. You might even go so far as to make things better then they were before your initial misdeed. But at the end of the day, you still haven't undone your original misdeed.
We have a love affair in this country with "people turning things around."
Tookey Williams writes a few kids books and suddenly it's a tragedy that he's on death row.
We have a love affair in this country with "hidden intellect and personal tragedy."
Anna Nicole Smith dies after a life of prostituting herself, gross excess, and cheap horrid thrills.
It's nothing new, we treated Marylin Monroe the same way.
We have a sick love in this country with the twisted and the cruel.
Look at all the books about serial killers, murderers, rapists, and criminal minds. We treat these people like they are "fascinating".
We make movies and write articles about them, they are our entertainment.

Here's the thing about lives of excess... people have the right to live them. I'm not arguing with that. If you're not infringing on the rights of others... do as you will. I'm a huge fan of Hunter Thompson, because he lived his life of extremes and excesses but never hid the truth that, at it's core, it was what he picked for himself and he never expected anything more then to be left alone to do it.
That is not what destroys a nations moral compass.

In the graphic novel "V for Vendetta" the Terrorist V points out that the crime increase across the state that erupts in the short term as a result of his actions is not the goal in and of itself. The excess and vice are not good things. They never can be. "This is not the land of do-as-you-please... it is the land of take-what-you-want".

I'm pointing at the apparent lack of a moral compass anymore. And it's not the sort of thing that can be legislated, at least not entirely.
Work ethic... national pride... these things can save us.
We don't need to outlaw excess and personal freedom. We need to embrace it. Let all people face the consequences of their choices. Providing a path to excess that has no personal downside creates an unsustainable situation.

Globalism and You... what you can do to make sure we all fail together

2009-03-13T22:49:00.000-04:00

The trend to globalism has been slowing down under the weight of a global economic crisis. It makes sense, you can't really argue for increasing jobs in your home country when you're buying everything import from Asian manufacturing. Money spent in foreign countries really is risky, because it has a much lower recirculation value here at home.

The Economist (Feb 7th 2009) Ran an article about the rise of Nationalization and "Why Barack Obama needs to take the lead to bury it again."
The swing against globalism is hardly anything new or surprising. In fact if you look through the Nov/Dec 2008 Foreign Affairs journal there is a brilliant article written by Marc Levinson, ( http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64614/marc-levinson/freight-pain ) that points to a number of factors (not the least of which is the implications of "going green") that are causing the formerly artificially low price of shipping to rise to a more realistic cost.

So what does this mean for the average consumer, aside from the fact that raw wealth cost (a number different from dollar price to be sure) of good has to go up? It means that unless you are ready to gear up and produce those goods in your home country you will end up having to pay the shipping cost increase. Now, since the shipping cost acts to raise the retail price directly, you will also end up paying an increase in sales tax on the item. Increased cost without increasing the actual wealth (NOT dollar amount) of the average citizen will lead to economic slowdown.
So the markets slow down 7%... so what? 7% sales reduction isn't that bad...
Yes, yes it is.
Business exists on very narrow margins. Any disruption to profit flow means that those enterprises will feel a big pinch... a pinch to the employer means a pinch to the employee.

Now with increased cost of shipping there should be a natural rise in local industry. Globalization only makes sense if you're part of the "one world organism" school of thought.
International trade is fine and good, but it's place should always be below the level of local and national trade markets. If you CAN produce it in America, it behooves our government to allow us to foster those industries here. Industries mean jobs, and jobs mean actual wealth growth.

Nationalistic Growth... it's hardly evil.

"Strange times call for Strange Ideas"

2009-03-13T16:28:00.000-04:00

I think that truths of language are a big problem that we're going to have to learn to deal with if we want things to start getting better. Just because something sounds nice we are willing to follow it regardless of holes in logic or lack of research. No wonder the lawyers are kings of our culture, the only purpose they serve is twisting words to fit untruth.

So what does all of this have to do with the DOW?

Well, lets take a closer look at the attitudes we've been taught to accept as par for the course in our society. We are taught that the rich are evil, that success should be punished as pride and greed, that we shouldn't model ourselves after the wealthy. My roommate actually believes that anyone who possesses over 100 million dollars worth of wealth should have their "excessive assets seized".

I'm not some screaming Reganite. But there is a lot to be said for Trickle Down theory. The truth is that the wealthy have disposable income. That income is spent and recirculated back into the economy. People make money, and the more they make the more they spend. But it's not a 1 for 1 ratio. A person worth twice as much recirculates more then twice the amount of money.

The thing is, we're starting to take equality and remake it into a locked and forced stint on growth. Equal rights, equal freedoms, yes all good things.
But if I work harder, have better ideas, and more drive then the guy next to me... should there really be a limit on how successful I'm allowed to be?

Thought for the day... How much of what we don't agree with is based on not liking the implications?

A little Teaser about tonights post

2009-03-13T10:55:00.000-04:00

So a few thoughts on the stock market.
All wealth starts as "bubbles". We have to work hard to build solidity under the bubbles that stand a chance and to not get caught up in the bubbles that aren't viable.
That's how wealth is grown.
I'm going to compile the numbers and do the legwork for you today, and hopefully I'll have something more concrete to post later this afternoon.

Good lord it's been too long since I wrote here

2009-03-12T02:12:00.000-04:00

It's been sometime since I wrote anything here, much has changed.
Lets' get rolling with this. I know the press has beaten to death all the current Limbaugh nonsense, the talking heads on both sides of the news are already chirping away... and even into the windout... I think this thing is safely behind us.

The DJI jumped about 300 pts yesterday and that makes me really nervous. I always get nervous when stocks jump for no reason. Of course most companies are trading UNDER liquidity value so it shouldn't really be that surprising that they come up a little closer to it. I just get a little antsy because nothing has really changed as far the original problems are concerned.

God Damn you Timmy... you're messing up everything. Another TARP can't be the answer.

Mark to Market... what can I say but overhaul it? I don't think you can eliminate it, but it needs to be more accurately reflective.
I can't believe people are really blaming this stuff on the Short Stockers. Shorting stock only WORKS in a downspiral. I don't like shorting because it's risky and scary and you're BETTING on failure... with money you really don't have yet.

Fractual reserve banking practices are finally being drug into the light of day.
Lets see what we can find there.

Socialists... are... EVERYWHERE! Beware of these freakjobs.

Ok that's all for today, I promise more in depth looks at some of this stuff tomorrow.

"The truth? You can't handle the Truth"

2008-12-12T12:24:00.000-05:00

We can't.

Maybe it's that simple... we just can't handle truth anymore. We've gotten so soft and scared that we will refuse to recognize the truth until it slaps us hard in the face.

"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours." - HST

2008-12-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

Man it's been a crazy couple of days... I've been meaning to tear right into this thing so lets get going.

Facts are stubborn things. (Points if you can tell me who said that one!)
We can dress statements up in phrases like "I'm just saying what I think" or "We all have our own opinions"... but they don't really add any sort of value to what was said.

Lets get deeper into this thing.

I have never (or at least very very rarely) heard the two nonsense pieces mentioned above from people who actually had done the research on the subject or who knew what the hell they were talking about. We can't really believe that there's no such thing as a hard truth or real fact. If there's nothing concrete in this world then we might as well just rule by the magic 8-ball. "It's just what I think" defends a bad hair cut or a poor choice of restaurants... it's not really admissible in a debate about national policy or morality.

I think it all comes down to another crock we've all bought into... "offensive is bad"

The ideas behind not offending people have their start in the best of places. Manners and the concepts of polite conversation are ideals that I think this nation can and should try to recapture. We weren't supposed to offend people with conversation topics that come across as rude, mean, etc. And I agree with those ideas in theory at least. I think you should try not to needlessly tread on people's toes just for the fun of it. But sometimes the truth is an offensive thing. Yes I said it... truth can be offensive.

But offensive doesn't mean not true.

If I point out how fat someone has become, or mock a bald man, or ridicule the mentally challenged... have I lied? I've crossed social rules and boundaries certainly... no question there. Pointing out the obvious for the sake of mockery is needless and wrong. But look at that wording... obvious. The obvious truth of the statements is what made them offensive. I have to walk carefully here because I don't want to come across as endorsing baseness...

I don't think we got here on purpose, I think we just took things way too far. That seems to be a recurring theme in history; people never know when enough is enough. I can understand where those motivations come from... it's very easy to get carried away by a cause. The difficult thing to determine is at what point you've stopped moving towards your goal and have begun to cause your own brand of harm.

The concepts of politcal correctness stem from politeness. But we went too far and now we are boardering up on ignorance. If we really hope to find solutions for any of our problems we have to start from the facts, whatever they may be. It's possible that some people are not going to like them. But, as I qouted earlier, "Facts are stubborn things" and they do not change or become less simply for being disliked.

Oilslick

2008-12-11T19:58:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe that oil is under 50 dollars a barrel.
OPEC doesn't want us drilling in the ANWR... so they've tanked the price of oil.

Drug Dealers...

"As your attorney i advise you to rent a very fast car with no top"

2008-11-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

(This post was inspired by Virtual Exile... smart guy... read the blog)

The so called "Big 3" in the auto industry are putting out their hats hoping that some of that free govt money from the "bailout" will float their way. This is not surprising. It's also not really an honest indicator of the real problems the auto industry faces.

I could go on and on about those problems... namely a crushing labor agreement disaster and an addiction to the idea of selling luxury cars in this market...

And maybe I will... in the near future.

This is about them asking for money.

Everyone right now is crawling out of the woodwork asking for a piece of that 700 billion(ever stop to think that there are only just over 300 million people in america? and not even all of them pay taxes... but still that's $2333.33 a PERSON)and it's no suprise that the automakers want their share.
Asking for Money is not an indicator of problems that weren't already there. Are they in some trouble? Yes. Can they fix it? If they would just put in a little work.

The sales percentages are misleading. You have to look at the real numbers. But I'll get at that sooner or later.

Don't worry about the Auto industry too much is my point... they have the power to save themselves if they just swallow a few ugly pills.

City Life Blues

2008-11-16T19:22:00.000-05:00

I have a love hate relationship with city life.

"Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape? "

2008-11-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

For the longest time I've been reluctant to post in "blog" style. I have a massive love for physical written word... still I can't deny that this is a much better way to spread information quickly. A lot of my entries here are going to be excerpts from things I've put into print already in other mediums... still with how easy it is to put things down on here I can see a lot of things getting up here that you won't be able to find anything else.

Oh and if you like what you read send me an email, I'll happily send you a free copy of my latest newsletter.

this is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a former compatriot of mine. The personal side of it has been somewhat reduced but the meat and potatoes are fine for general consumption.

Enjoy!

Even if you can't consider me a friend, know that we are at the least compatriots. When all else but my principles was stripped away, I was left with a renewed focus on those ideas. And the Libertarian party still sums up all my concepts in a way more complete than anything else I've discovered. And the party is in very real trouble.

We are disorganized and fractured. We do not speak with a unified voice, and really do not reach out and show other people what we are really about. The leadership of the party at higher levels is misguided and still believes that the best our party can hope for is to be enough of a disruptive threat that the right and left will pander to us and give us the occasional throw away issue. Our biggest attraction for new members is our drug legalization stance, which is arguably our least important issue. What times like these call for is unifying leadership, and organization. The only way we can attract the sort of people we truly need to our party is to reform ourselves as something greater then a fractured association of quasi-intellectuals.

In part our intellectualism and resistance to centralization is our own undoing. Somehow in American politics the idea of "speaking to the middle" turned into "give the middle easy answers to placate them". This trend has had an increasing influence in the federal elections ever since Bush Sr. told us to "read his lips" and then proceeded to propose the largest tax hike since LBJ's "great society". In this last election the logical result of 25 years of pandering for power came storming in. Obama won the election because he was able to make his empty promises sound better then McCain's; neither candidate elected would have resulted in anything other than increased spending and tax hikes.

As libertarians our response in PA was distressing at best. There is no reason that a quarter million people should vote for a libertarian Attorney general and yet only 20,000 cast the libertarian vote for president. Voting results like that belie anything we might profess to believe. How can we present a third party as a viable option when we aren't even willing to vote for it ourselves? All media treatment of the libertarian party paints us a rag tag collection of gun nuts and drug fiends. The concepts of Libertarianism are much deeper and stronger than just those two issues. Unless we unify ourselves behind these ideals and principles the centralists and neo-socialists will run us under their treads.

And don't believe for a second that they don't want to. Freedom has always been the greatest threat to people who (well meaning or not) believe that society is not capable of self rule. Liberty has never been a mistress of cowardice. I often wonder what the founding fathers would think of what we've made of our nation. The populace has become addicted to the drug of free government money. College handouts and massive social projects are conducted at the taxpayers' expense, and the average person has no idea anymore of what a society would be like if we were all responsible for getting what we want and keeping what we have.

We are over schooled. Note that I do not say we are over educated, because I no longer believe that a degree means a person has educated himself in anyway. Our schools do not teach thought, they teach us to regurgitate and forget. Needless college is a sickness that threatens to destroy our nation. Everyone wants to be in middle management. Is it any wonder that companies move out of the US? The idea of skilled labor is dying here. We need plumbers, carpenters, masons and mechanics. We need skilled factory workers, and we need to get back to the labor based roots of our nation's past.

Ultimately most people do believe in the same thing that libertarians profess. But we are viewed as fringe political reactionaries. Unless some strong organization and coordination is brought to our party on a state and local level nothing can be accomplished. The party's senior leadership has been mesmerized with the bright bauble of federal elections. Before we can worry about the federal we must affect our efforts on the local. The municipalities of our great state are under assault from the counties. While I am relieved that the home rule charter in Lancaster failed, that it made it onto the ballot concerns me greatly. The local municipality is our best recourse for solutions to local problems, and if we allow it's absorption and negation by the county, then what follows but the blending of county into overruling state authority and ultimately state control being deferred to (no doubt appointed rather than elected) federal authority. The response of course should be to focus our attention on getting libertarians elected on the local level. Once people start seeing the effectiveness of a liberty based local government in the own back yards, the state and eventually federal elections will come naturally. But if we attempt to grasp at the oval office without building ourselves a base of proven Libertarians that have been effective in their offices we will never succeed.

We have a much harder road to walk then the neo-socialists. They are proposing things that the populous wants to believe; true or not. We are forced to preach responsibility and personal work ethic, rewards earned and failures suffered. But ultimately we are preaching freedom. And we must believe that once a person experiences freedom for themselves they will be loathe to part with it.

So it comes again to an old debate, hard truth against easy lies. Only by relying on our compatriots can we hope to stand against the tide of self-serving "altruists".

What I'm proposing is a greater communication between libertarians across the state. Currently most libertarian groups are nothing more than loose associations of friends that act with limited coordination at best. As a sickening example, the closest thing we have to a local liberty party web page in Lancaster is some pot-head's MySpace page. I'm hoping that greater organization will result in improvements in results for the growth of our party.

I hope that this letter finds all things going well for you and yours, and I wait for your response with the hope that I can still count on you as a working voice for libertarianism.

With all my respect

Jacob Daniel Young