Reblogged from Bell Book Candle.

Here it is the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend when gas prices usually rise for the summer driving season, and gas prices are actually falling. I think that is an ominous sign for the continued health of the economy. Additionally, it was only a short time ago that the GOP was blaming President Obama for the spike in gas prices. Now they are totally silent about the fall in prices. If he is responsible in one direction, he is responsible in the other. (continued here)

Do I agree with ? No. So I left a few comments here and here.

After reading last reply (here), it occurred to me that most of us are inveterate conspiracy theorists. We all believe in them; we just deride the other guy’s conspiracy theories.

Why do we produce conspiracy theories? Why is  so determined to villainize the GOP and the oil companies? That’s hard to say, but logic does not support it. GOP politicians just do what they need to do get elected. What the oil companies do is provide a product all of us buy, but there is a rub. Whatever we do comes with tradeoffs.

Consider something basic. Because we must eat, we fight over the best land, and we defecate. One reason we war with each other is to gain control of the best farmland. Another reason we fight is to enslave others to grow our crops. In addition, because even the act of eating produces waste, we must find some way to clean up our dung, and that is not easy. It took centuries for our ancestors to develop the techniques we use for gathering and treating sewage, and much of the world still does not have adequate sewage treatment systems. Therefore, we still see outbreaks of disease carried through the spread our own dung (i.e., fecal pollution).

Similarly, the production and usage of petroleum products produces strife and pollution. Because our economies require petroleum products, as nations we fight to control oil fields. Because even unrefined oil is toxic to us and refineries stink, we find the compromises required to use that icky stuff difficult. Therefore, we struggle heroically to put new oil refineries in somebody else’s back yard.

Human nature is what it is. We are not innately good; we have to beg God to help us to be good. Otherwise, to get what we want, we will even lie to ourselves.

Anyway, I thank  for the correction. It is true that rein and reign have differing meanings, and I used the wrong word.

Frankly, I wonder about Dick Morris. That man helped elect Bill Clinton. Has he reformed? I don’t know, but the analysis he provides in the video above strikes me as clear, concise, correct, and compelling. In particular, the analogy he uses, bloodletting, is too good to pass up.

Nonetheless, Morris’ video does deserve one point of criticism. When witch doctors treated their patients by bleeding them, they did not know any better. In fact, they actually thought they were accomplishing something useful.

The story of bloodletting is intertwined in the mysterious fabric of medical lore; it originated from magic and religious ceremonies. The physician and priest were one and the same since disease was thought to be caused by supernatural causes. Witch doctors and sorcerers were called on to drive out the evil spirits and demons. Bloodletting was a method for cleansing the body of ill-defined impurities and excess fluid. The early instruments included thorns, pointed sticks and bones, sharp pieces of flint or shell, and even sharply pointed shark’s teeth. Miniature bow and arrow devices for bloodletting have been found in South America and New Guinea. A small bloodletting instrument resembling a crossbow was once used in Greece and Malta. Wall paintings dating from 1400 B.C. depict the use of leeches for drawing blood from human beings. (from here)

Morris should have excused the ignorance of the witch doctors. Obama and the leaders at the G8 summit, however, have no such excuse. What they are doing is preying upon our ignorance.

Exhaustive Unemployment

I find myself isolating between amazement and disgust when I hear President Obama take credit for improving unemployment numbers. We are now told by the Obama sycophants in the media that we should be elated that unemployment has dropped from 8.2% to 8.1% in the past month. “Alleluia, we’ve now recovered, pass the tin cup!” so chants the MSNBCs of the world, but nothing could be further from the truth.

When you look at the number of people who have just given up looking for work, you will see that they are NOT included in the numbers that are used to calculate the so-called improvement in the unemployment rate. In fact, if they were included THIS month, unemployment wouldn’t have dropped a tenth of a percent, it would have actually risen to 8.5%.

In reality, REAL unemployment is 14% when you include the folks who have thrown up their hands and quit looking for a job in the Obama economy. These folks are the face of what I would term “exhaustive unemployment”. And this my friends is the legacy of the Obama Administration: retard the growth of the American economy through mindless polices laced with socialists nonsense, drive people to exhaustion looking for jobs, cull them out of the groups actively looking for work when they give up, and then take credit for a lackluster performance. How’s that for “hope and change”?

Message for Delegates to the 1^st Congressional District Convention: This reason and others are why I am running to be a Delegate to the National Republican Convention in Tampa this August. I am committed-no, determined-to see that the Obama economy pass into history along with this failed President. I hope those of you who are Delegates to the 1^st Congressional District Committee will support me as your voice in Tampa. We must win. America is depending on us. I hope you will send me there to represent you!

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Even when I think he wrong, I usually find Tony’s comments intelligent. This one? No. First of all, that chart is not from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Because the CBO serves Congress — all of its members — they at least have to appear to avoid taking sides. This chart clearly involves taking sides.

As the figure notes, it is only based upon CBO estimates; the CBO did not produce the silly thing.

Who did produce the silly thing? Ironically, that outfit calls itself the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Yet, as a Socially Liberal outfit, the CBPP opposes limited government, thereby helping to prevent Congress from setting budget priorities.

Here is the type of “praise” the CBPP posts about itself.

“Among the alphabet soup of think tanks and partisan advocacy groups covering tax and budget issues, the CBPP has carved out a niche as being socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and academically rigorous.”
- CQ Today (from here)

What is wrong with the chart? From it we are suppose to draw the conclusion that our taxes are too low. Yet that conclusion is absurdly false. Why? We have already reached the point where raising taxes does not produce more revenue.

Let’s consider an analogy. In biology we learn that there are symbionts, parasites, and carnivores.

The Symbiont

symbiont (sĭm’bē-ŏnt’, -bī-) or symbiote (sĭm’bē-ŏnt’, -bī-)
An organism in a symbiotic relationship. In cases in which a distinction is made between two interacting organisms, the symbiont is the smaller of the two and is always a beneficiary in the relationship, while the larger organism is the host and may or may not derive a benefit. See also host, parasite.

When government is limited in size and scope, it acts as a symbiont. Through taxation it feeds off the economy. In an ideal world a limited government strives only to maintain order, seeking principally to protect the rights of the people, and when government does protect the rights of the people, it does a great deal of good. In any event, when it is small, government does very little harm.

The Parasite

parasite (pār’ə-sīt’)
An organism that lives on or in a different kind of organism (the host) from which it gets some or all of its nourishment. Parasites are generally harmful to their hosts, although the damage they do ranges widely from minor inconvenience to debilitating or fatal disease.

When government grows is size and scope, it begins to function as a parasite. Because it produces nothing of economic value — except order — government can only feed on the economy; it cannot contribute to it. Thus, as government grows in size, like a parasite, it can harm the economy.

The most “cleverly designed” parasite allows its victim to survive indefinitely. In fact, because the demise of its host is detrimental to its own existence, the most cleverly designed “parasite” functions as a symbiont.

The Carnivore

carnivore (kär’nə-vôr’)
An animal that feeds chiefly on the flesh of other animals. Carnivores include predators such as lions and alligators, and scavengers such as hyenas and vultures. In a food chain, carnivores are either secondary or tertiary consumers. Compare detritivore, herbivore.

Unlike a parasite, a carnivore destroys it victim. Unlike a parasite, a carnivore can hunt down new victims. Yet here, it seems, is where the analogy fails. How can a government hunt down a new economy to prey upon? Unfortunately, the answer is age old. What do we call the hunting and feeding methodology of a carnivorous government? We call it warfare.

The worst tyrants cannot sate their appetite for power. For that reason they will mold their people into armies, and they will seek other peoples to conquer.

Conclusion

As I noted in this post, THE MYTH OF THE FISCAL CONSERVATIVE, fiscal conservatism is incompatible with Social Liberalism. What the Liberal fails to realize — what the Utopian refuses to accept — is that once we give our government the right to redistribute the wealth, instead of protecting our property rights, our leaders will take our property.

When we refuse to accept the principle that charity is an individual, personal responsibility, we risk subverting our government. When we give our government the right to redistribute the property of “others”, we make that government the worst possible threat to our own rights.

Reblogged from bluebird of bitterness:

• 

(Thanks to my blogging buddy Chrissy for this one.)

Filed under: economy

One thing to keep in mind is that Congress, not the president, controls taxes and spending. So the president is to blame only to the extent he leads his party in pursuit of big government spending programs. Given when the Democrats took over Congress, and the spending spree they went on afterwards, particularly after the Democrats took over the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, there is really little reason to doubt which political party deserves the most blame. However, we the People elected Obama and the Democrats. So ultimately, we have no one to blame except ourselves. Nobody else is wreaking this country. We are doing it. What matters is how do we fix this problem, not who is at fault. And how do we fix this problem? We stop giving away "other people's money".