Federal & State Spending, Debt, And Taxes

For anyone who's been paying attention for even the past 6 months, it's obvious that our country has a major problem: debt.

While this is not a new problem, it is the magnitude of our national debt that has become quite worrisome. On top of that we have a Congress (or at least one chamber of Congress) that seems incapable of dealing with this problem. Rather than dealing with it, they seem fine with staying the course they set over four years ago. It doesn't help that the President seems hellbent on allowing them to continue their profligate ways, all while trying to stymie the Republican opposition trying to deal with it buy doing what needs to be done.

While the Democrats are convinced this country has a major revenue problem, just about everyone else knows what we have is a spending problem, and that we've managed to dig what John Stossel is calling The Money Hole.

While part of Congress and the President seem unwilling to do something to fix the problem, there are a number of other chief executives at the state level who have similar problems and met them head on. One in particular stands above all the others.

Some governors have shown the way. You know about Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, John Kasich, etc. But you probably don't know about Luis Fortuno.

Fortuno is governor of Puerto Rico. Two years ago, he fired 17,000 government workers. No state governor did anything like that. He cut spending much more than Walker did in Wisconsin. In return, thousands of union members demonstrated against Fortuno for days. They clashed with police. They called him a fascist. (Gee, that seems to be the accusuation du jour, as a union leader called Chris Christie a Nazi, too. -ed.)

Fortuno said he had to make the cuts because Puerto Rico's economy was a mess.

"Not just a mess. We didn't have enough money to meet our first payroll."

Fortuno's predecessors had grown Puerto Rico's government to the point that the state employed one out of every three workers. By the time he was elected, Puerto Rico was broke. So the new conservative majority, the first in Puerto Rico in 40 years, shrank the government.

What did Fortuno cut? Believe it or not, everything, including his own salary. Nothing was immune from his budget ax. As he said, raising taxes wasn't going to happen because they were already too high. And he didn't waste time doing it, either.

Fortuno's advice for leaders who want to shrink the state: "Do what you need to do quickly, swiftly, like when you take off a Band-Aid. Just do it. And move on to better things."

The longer the delay, the less likely it will get done to the level needed in order to turn things around.

Many of our states are in a similar bind.

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has been fighting this battle from the day he took office. And while he hasn't been gentle in dealing with the Garden State's abysmal financial conditions, he has been straightforward dealing with them. He hasn't pulled punches. He hasn't apologized. And he hasn't taken crap from state employees or teachers who feel they are entitled to plunder New Jersey taxpayer's wallets. He's told it like it is and the taxpayers of New Jersey appear to like what he's been saying.

My home state of New Hampshire, while not in the dire financial straits seen in New Jersey, California, Michigan, and a whole host of other states, has still had to deal with the aftereffects of a four year spending spree by legislative Democrats that started in 2007.

Normally a frugal state, New Hampshire legislative Democrats and the governor opened up the floodgates for state spending, increasing the state budget by over 30% in four years. The only problem was that they used overly optimistic revenue projections to justify it. Their projections were wrong and they left the state with an $800 million+ deficit, something illegal under the state constitution. They attempted to plug the deficit by boosting business taxes during a deep recession and seizing surplus funds from a state-chartered (but not state-funded) medical malpractice insurance agency, just to name two instances where they tried to use un-New Hampshire-like tactics to refill state coffers. Both failed, the first when voters revolted and threw the Democrats out, and the second when malpractice policyholders sued the state in court and won a decision that banned it from 'appropriating' private funds to which the it had no claim.

This year the Republican-dominated legislature cut the budget by 10%, though the Democrat governor may veto it as it stands. (The GOP has a supermajority, meaning they can override the veto should the governor do so.)

It's not just the states that have had to bite the bullet to fix government overspending.

Our neighbor to the north found itself in a similar position to where we are today, but they didn't hesitate when it came time to put their financial house in order.

When I think Canada, I think big government. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know that in the mid-'90s, Canada shrank its government. It had to. Its debt level was as bad as ours is today, almost 70 percent of the economy. Canada's finance minister said: "We are in debt up to our eyeballs. That can't be sustained."

--snip--

The problem, he added, was that Canada had a government safety net that was more like a hammock.

So in 1995 Canadian leaders cut unemployment benefits and other programs. It happened quietly because it was a liberal government, and liberals didn't want to criticize their own. The result was that Canada's debt stopped increasing. As the government ran budget surpluses, the debt went down.

--snip--

Canada fired government workers, but unemployment didn't increase. In fact, it fell from 12 percent to 6 percent. Canadian unemployment is still well below ours. And the Canadian dollar rose from just 72 American cents to $1.02 today.

That means that laid off government workers got new jobs elsewhere and became productive citizens rather than a drain on the taxpayer's wallets and the Canadian economy. Isn't it likely the same thing will happen here as well? Or are our gummint employees only competent enough to work for the government? (Unfortunately that might indeed be the case, as sad as that sounds.)

So the question is whether or not Congress will tackle the fiscal mess they helped create? Or will they continue along the path of least resistance (and the least amount of work) and not address the problem until they have no other choice, like when we're coming after them with pitchforks, torches, and a lot of rope?

Taxation - A Thought Experiment

As a comment made to a link within my previous post, this little “thought experiment” in regards to taxation puts the effects of taxes on businesses and individuals into easily understandable terms.

A thought experiment suggested by Mr. Rich Karlgaard writing for Forbes.

Imagine your tax rates for a week’s work:

0% on Monday
25% on Tuesday
50% on Wednesday
75% on Thursday
100% on Friday

Would you work on Friday? Not many would.

Reading the comments following this one the consensus was that no one would work on Friday and quite a few would also forgo working on Thursday as well. One wouldn't even work past Tuesday because as he wrote “...I've received 70% of my potential net income for the week. I think I call it quits at that point and go fishing for the next five days.”

As another commenter opined “No industry will even bother to open from Wed[nesday] to Friday.”

This thought experiment is a perfect illustration how what seems to be a reasonable policy to those making it would have a devastating effect on the economy, with businesses closed for 4 or 5 days out of seven because they can't get anyone to work past the first two or three days. There's no incentive to do so. In fact, there's plenty of incentive not to. The theoretical policy makers overlooked one very important factor that would greatly change the outcome: human nature.

The tax policy in the experiment assumed everyone would work all 5 days of the week because it would be for the good of all. But it wouldn't happen because, quite frankly, we humans aren't all that altruistic. Once the disincentive to work outweighs the difficult-to-find altruism, people will stop working.

And so it is with the proposed changes in the tax code. All they will be is a big disincentive for a lot of people who would otherwise work hard and make more money. If the only thing they're going to get out of that hard work is even higher taxes and less take home pay, they won't bother putting in the effort. Why should they? After all they aren't really being compensated for all that extra effort and are, in fact, being punished for it. That's one hell of an incentive to keep their income to a level where they can pay their bills with a little bit left over, and screw the rest. In turn, the government won't raise the revenue they think they will and the economy will continue it's slide to the bottom.

One other thing the proposed high taxes will allow? It will grant those in Congress the power to grant favors by creating all kinds of loopholes and tax shelters for those who will support them in their bids for re-election.

But wait, isn't this where we came in, when tax rates in the past were very high but the effective tax rate was low for the top earners because of the thousands of favors and exemptions granted by Congress? It looks like it to me.

Yet Another Democrat Attempt To Kill The US Economy

If we need any more proof of the axiom “Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results this time”, then here it is:

Democrats want to go back to the bad old days of dozens of income tax rates, with the highest being 49% (though some are suggesting 70%), figuring they'll collect billions more in tax revenues. However, history shows the won't collect all that much more and in fact will collect even less than they do now.

The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, proposing on his blog "a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the rich." After all, he noted, "between the late 1940s and 1980 America's highest marginal rate averaged above 70 percent. Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Not until the 1980s did Ronald Reagan slash it to 28 percent."

--snip--

All this nostalgia about the good old days of 70% tax rates makes it sound as though only the highest incomes would face higher tax rates. In reality, there were a dozen tax rates between 48% and 70% during the 1970s. Moreover—and this is what Mr. Reich and his friends always fail to mention—the individual income tax actually brought in less revenue when the highest tax rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest tax rate was 28%.

All this will do is narrow the tax base even farther than it already has been, placing an even greater burden on upper income Americans. The so-called Fairness in Taxation Act will be anything but. The Democrats seem to worry the rich aren't paying their “fair” share. Never mind that they already pay a very large majority of income taxes. Never mind that just under half of American wage earners already pay no income tax at all. How is that not fair? Oh, yeah, I forgot. To tax-and-spend Democrats, a fair share is always defined as “more than they pay now.”

They've chosen to ignore the effects such tax rates will have on the economy, that being that it will kill off any recovery there may have been as investment capital flees the country, meaning businesses won't be able to expand and jobs these businesses might have been able to provide won't be created. All they have to do to see what the effects of a return to those draconian tax rates is look at what the US economy was like back in the 1970's.

For those of you who have forgotten (or weren't born yet), the economy sucked. Unemployment skyrocketed. Inflation reached staggering rates, as did interest rates. Now these know-nothings want to take our already shaky economy and create an even bigger recession when they kill off any incentive to invest, to expand, to do better. Haven't they learned that if you punish people for succeeding all they will get is failure and a shrinking economy, along with plummeting tax revenues? Obviously not.

Need another example? How about the UK during the same time? They greatly increased income taxes across the board, with the top tax rate reaching 98%. As soon as the government imposed those taxes, the British economy collapsed as wealth and investment capital fled for more friendly environments. It wasn't until the 80's when Maggie Thatcher became Prime Minister and drove Parliament to end such insanity that the British economy recovered.

Yet here we have another bunch of economic morons within Congress who want to do the same thing, figuring it will have little if any effect on the economy. They have chosen to ignore history, and are thereby doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately it will be We The People who will pay the price for such stupidity and arrogance.

Concealed Carry Permit

Received via e-mail:

An Arizona Department of Safety officer pulled over the driver of a pick-up truck for a faulty taillight. When the officer approached the driver, the man behind the wheel handed the officer his driver's license, insurance card, truck registration, and a concealed weapon carry permit.

The officer took all the documents, looked them over and said to the driver, “Mr. Smith, I see you have a CCP. Do you have any weapons with you?”

The driver replied, " Yes sir, I have a .357 handgun in a hip holster, a .45 in the glove box and a .22 derringer in my boot."

The officer looked at the driver and asked, "Anything else?"

"Yes sir, I have a Mossberg 500 12 gauge and an AR-15 behind the seat."

The officer asked if the man was driving to or from a shooting range and the man said he wasn't, so the officer bent over and looked into the driver's face and said "Mr. Smith, you're carrying quite a few guns. May I ask what you are afraid of?”

Mr. Smith locked eyes with the officer and calmly answered, “Not a damn thing!”

Indeed.

The Bruins Win!

The Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks to take the Stanley Cup! Woo-hoo!!

Solar Scientists Predicting Lower Solar Activity

After reading this, I think we should pray there is some anthropogenic global warming coming our way, otherwise it might get a bit chilly here on Earth...and the other planets as well.

If the solar scientists are right, we might be seeing decades of much lower solar activity after the peak of this rather anemic sunspot cycle.

Scientists have studied sunspots and the sun's 11-year activity cycle for 400 years, and they're getting increasingly savvy about spotting the harbingers of "space weather" years in advance, just as meteorologists can figure out what's coming after the next storm.

Storms from the sun are expected to build to a peak in 2013 or so, but after that, the long-range indicators are pointing to an extended period of low activity — or even hibernation.

The previous two periods of low solar activity, the Maunder and Dalton Minimums, led us the what is called the Little Ice Age. It wasn't until the early 1800's that solar activity picked up again and ended the Little Ice Age. These types of solar minimums have created havoc worldwide and one such minimum that ended the Medieval Warm Period may have helped usher in the Black Plague in Europe which wiped out from one-third to one-half of the population. Agriculture suffered and previously habitable lands became too cold to grow crops or raise livestock, like Greenland or Newfoundland. (Yes, Greenland was once green. The Vikings had settled, farmed, and thrived there for over 400 years before the Little Ice Age made it impossible for them to survive there.)

Somehow the AGW folks have convinced themselves we'd be better off with a colder world despite having not one shred of evidence to support their beliefs and plenty of evidence to the contrary. They can choose to ignore the possibility that a warmer world would be better, with the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods giving us a good indication of that.

The peak of present sunspot cycle - Cycle 24 - is expected in 2013, and it's expected to be a particularly weak one. But wait, there's more!

All these signs suggest that the current solar cycle, Cycle 24, "may be the last one for quite some time," Hill said. The next upswing in solar storms, Cycle 25, may be "very much delayed ... very weak, or may not happen at all."

The solar activity upswing at the start of Cycle 24 was almost 2 years late, and what activity we have seen is far below that seen in Cycles 23, 22, and 21, with Cycle 23 having been one of the most energetic in centuries. Is it a coincidence that Earth's climate warmed during that period? Is it a coincidence that the climate on Mars, and Jupiter's and Saturn's moons also warmed during that same period?

Not likely.

The Housing Market Hasn't Bottomed Out Yet

Is it any surprise that economist Robert Shiller believes housing prices will continue to decline over the next 5 years? Not to me.

With the still large shadow inventory of foreclosed homes waiting to go on the market, prices can't help but fall. Shiller predicts prices will fall an additional 10 to 25 percent before they stabilize. That's on top of the price decline we've already seen.

U.S. home prices plunged 33 percent in 20 cities through March from their 2006 peak, reaching their lowest level since 2003, according to a Case-Shiller report on May 31. The decline signaled a “double dip” as the index fell below its previous post-housing-bubble low set in April 2009. Prices more than doubled from 2000 to July 2006.

It took six years for prices to double and will take eleven years for prices to fall back to their 2000 level, assuming the economy continues on it's bumpy path along the bottom. And should the housing market recover we can only hope we won't fall into the trap created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with 'easy money' for mortgages on homes the borrowers cannot possibly afford to pay for.

We've seen the value of our home skyrocket by 25% in a year and then roll back until it is worth 16% less than we paid for it. That's a 41% swing in value over a period of 6 years. Others have seen a worse reversal, buying at the peak of the market in 2006 and now seeing their homes being under water, worth considerably less than the mortgage on it.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather hasn't been conducive to getting any of the outside work done around The Manse. BeezleBub worked at the farm in the rain for most of the day, something that is rarely enjoyable. Deb was on a girl's weekend getaway to the Maine Coast with one of her friends, but the wet weather changed some of their plans (no hanging out on the beach in chaise lounges).

All in all, the weekend has been a washout, weatherwise.

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Bike Week has returned to New Hampshire. Motorcycle enthusiasts started arriving here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire this past Friday, though most won't start getting here in large numbers until this coming Thursday. By then the weather will have cleared (it's expected to be cool and wet through Tuesday).

Bike Week is usually a decent indicator of how our summer tourist season will go. Low turnouts tend to point to a disappointing summer season while high turnouts tend to carry through all the way to the end of August.

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Could this be why MSM and the Left are scared to death of Sarah Palin?

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While this doesn't surprise me I will say I'm disappointed some of my home state's ratings weren't better: New Hampshire rated No. 1 in the Mercatus Center's list of Freedom in the 50 States.

New Hampshire is, by our count, the freest state in the country. Depending on weights, however, it really shares the slot with South Dakota. New Hampshire does much better on economic than personal freedom and on fiscal than regulatory policy.

I wish our personal freedom and fiscal ratings were higher, but then I'm not sure the rating system used by Mercatus is the same I would use. While they stated our government debt went down slightly, I'd say it hasn't, though the New Hampshire House and Senate are working hard to bring the Democrat-created deficit under control.

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Getting back to Sarah Palin for a moment, Jeff reveals the “9 Most Shocking Revelations From The Palin E-mails!”

On the other hand, here's the 'spin' I expected from the MSM, with the LA Times trying to portray Sarah as divisive rather than someone keeping her campaign promises, keeping an eye on the day-to-day state operations and cleaning house in the State of Alaska.

That didn't take long.

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As more than one blogger has noted over the past year or so, it seems the new buzz word when it comes to financial or employment news released by the government is “unexpectedly”. Why is it it is only the government that did not expect poor economic performance while the rest of us pretty much knew first hand that things were not getting better, but worse? Where does the Obama Administration come up with their projections? They sure as heck aren't asking the proverbial man-on-the-street, who seems to be far more knowledgeable about the state of the economy and the jobs situation than the folks in Washington DC.

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I have to agree with David Starr on this one: If Congressional Republicans are going to increase the national debt ceiling, they should get something in return for doing so. David has a number of suggestions of what they should ask for.

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Scary Yankee Chick has photos of one of the feline members of her household wearing a Kitty Holster, a product I mentioned last week.

I know of at least one of our seven indoor cats that would not like it at all as it would not allow anyone to see just how fluffy she is. (We have one outdoor cat – Bagheera – the 'old man' of our menagerie.)

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It appears that not even the Leftist British MSM can get it right in regards to Sarah Palin or former Prime Minster Lady Margaret Thatcher.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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New York State is hard up for revenues. They are so short on cash that they have no problems taxing non-residents as if they lived in New York even though they don't work there. All you need to do is have a minimally occupied vacation home and you are considered a year-round resident and therefore subject to New York income tax.

Telecommuters get no break either because the state of New York doesn't care of you didn't work in New York on your telecommute days. If you work for a New York employer you pay New York income taxes.

I figure it's just a matter of time before they start taxing your income even if your just passing through on your way to some place else.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weekend weather wasn't all that great, the rumble of motorcycles will be heard for the next week, and where I still don't have my boat in the water.

Palin E-mails Released - Media Insanity Follows

Now that the media has entered into a feeding frenzy over yesterday's release of 25,000 pages of Sarah Palin's e-mails sent and received during her time in the Governor's office, I expect them to be reading all kinds of nuances and dark motives into trivial and meaningless bits and pieces that would otherwise be ignored, and ignoring things that paint her in a positive light.

I have to hand it to the state government folks in Alaska. While they made most of Palin's e-mails available (some weren't covered under the Freedom of Information Act because they were exempt under attorney-client privilege or revealed non-public deliberations not normally covered under FOIA), they didn't make it easy. All 25,000 pages were in hardcopy (no electronic versions were released) and those wanting them had to come pick them up in person (they wouldn't ship them).

Being in hardcopy meant there would be no easy way to search the documents. All 25,000 pages would need to be read by human beings in order find anything. (I'm sure somebody somewhere will scan them using OCR software and make them searchable, but even that will take a lot of time.) Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have asked readers for help delving through the thousands of pages of e-mails in search of dirt.

So far, the MSM has come up with...nothing. Or at least nothing they could use to discredit her in the eyes of the public.

Is this episode of media infected with PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) going to prove their undoing while boosting Palin's reputation and bona fides? So far it's looking that way.

A number of issues the MSM used to hammer Palin both during and after the 2008 elections have turned out to be much ado about nothing, with those already revealed showing Palin had been truthful about them all along. Among them Troopergate, predator reduction (the so-called 'hunting from helicopters' non-scandal), the media harassment of her family during the Presidential campaign (an unwritten rule that a candidate's family is off-limits the MSM chose to ignore this time around), ethics investigations, the oil and gas industry, and a whole host of other issues the media tried to turn into a scandal. But it turns out there was no “there” there.

Already some backpedaling has occurred with HuffPo opining "Like many other organizations that cover politics, we at The Huffington Post have made our arrangements to obtain the emails, have handed out assignments to reporters and are hopeful that a crowdsource army will help to pick up the slack. What are we expecting to find? Who knows? Maybe a lot of Comic Sans. Maybe some penetrating new story about Palin's Alaska reign. Maybe it will be a hot pile of nothing! Yeah, that's right: One possible outcome of this exercise is that it will be a complete bust." As their headline put it, “Sarah Palin Shall Have Her Revenge On The Mainstream Media.” Indeed.

But even with all of these e-mails now made public and the truth being revealed, the Left will still do everything in its power to destroy this woman of whom they are so terrified.

Let the games begin!

She Really Likes Cats

This is supposedly an eHarmony bio video. Watch it and you decide: Real, or fake?



I have to admit that I kind of feel the same way she does about kitties (though may not quite so intensely). After all, we have eight cats here!

"Loser Pays" To Become Law In Texas?

Once again it seems Texas is leading the way.

The Texas legislature passed a “loser pays” bill that, if signed by Governor Rick Perry, will change the nature of lawsuits within the Lone Star State. (Yes, I know I'm a few days behind the news on this one, but I've been busy, OK?)

Essentially, if you bring a lawsuit in Texas and the jury finds against you, you pay the other side’s costs (and attorney’s fees I assume). If you bring a law suit and win, the defense pays your costs. The goal is to end frivolous lawsuits, and encourage more people to settle short of trial. Both are excellent goals IMO.

Many may argue that this kind of tort reform will do nothing but hurt the little guy. But far too often the little guy gets screwed even if he wins because it is his lawyer who will reap a large payoff. (Many tort lawyers take on clients on a contingency basis, meaning they get a percentage of any money the court awards the complainant, usually a large percentage.)

While “Loser Pays” will likely reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, it will also see the “shotgun” approach to lawsuits disappear as well. A shotgun suit lists everyone even remotely connected to the case as a respondent based on the idea that some will settle out of court rather spend the money to defend themselves even though they have no real liability. An example: A consumer is injured by a defective product made by the ABC Company. The injured party sues ABC Company and anyone even remotely having anything to do with ABC Company, including XYZ Freight Trucking Inc. All XYZ did was haul ABC Company's product from a warehouse to a number of retail establishments. XYZ didn't design the product. XYZ didn't make the product. XYZ neither sold or marketed the product. All they did was what they were contracted to do – pick up boxes of the product at a warehouse and deliver it to stores someplace else. Yet somehow the complainant's lawyer figures they have as much culpability as ABC Company, so names them as a co-respondent in the injury suit.

As ludicrous as that scenario sounds, it has actually happened and a trucking company was found to be liable for some of the damages even though all they were hired to do was deliver the goods. They had no way of knowing those goods would hurt anyone, nor should they have had to know. But with Loser Pays, such shotgun approaches will be too risky because even if the complainant wins against one respondent, they could lose against the others and have to pay their legal fees, possibly wiping out any awards made by the court.

That works for me.

Job Training Not The Answer To Our Economic Malaise

I find it interesting that President Obama spent time touting the need for a better trained workforce in order to compete for manufacturing jobs in the future.

That sounds just great. Great. Yeah. The future. Uh-huh.

But what about the present?

What good will all that training do if there are no jobs to be had? It seems he's putting the cart before the horse, expecting more job training to be the answer to our economic woes.

The problem with our economy is not the major lack of workers needed to fill vacant jobs. It's that there are no jobs to be had in the first place. To put it in simpler terms, it's not a supply problem, but a demand problem. There is an ample supply of workers to fill jobs. There's just no demand for them by business.

To what can we attribute this lack of demand? President Obama.

His economic policies have been a disaster. They appear to be based upon wishful thinking rather than sound economic principles. For one thing one does not shepherd an economic economy by sucking so much capital out of the economy that there's less of it for investing to create new jobs. One does not foster economic recovery by laying more intrusive and draconian regulations on the engine of economic recovery, namely businesses large and small. One does not 'fix' the economy by making investment risky by constantly changing the rules, making it impossible for anyone to figure out whether investing is worth the risk or not (with the answer increasingly becoming “no”).

All job training will do at this point is make sure we have an increasingly well-trained workforce still looking for work where none exists.

Saving Detroit By Destroying It

Can Mayor Dave Bing turn Detroit around? (This isn't the first time I've asked this question.)

Maybe. He has a long way to go before anyone can say Detroit has been saved.

He is doing one thing long overdue for his blighted and ever shrinking city: tearing down abandoned homes that have become nothing more than shelter for the homeless or hideouts for drug dealers, rapists, and other criminals preying upon the rest of Detroit's citizens. Some of those dilapidated homes are too dangerous to be occupied even by the criminals or the homeless.

I think I can safely say many of us have seen video or photos of what's left of Detroit's once vibrant neighborhoods, with many of them looking like something out of a zombie-apocalypse movie thriller. Most of the homes and buildings in those areas aren't worth rehabilitating or renovating, leaving block after block after block of decaying homes and businesses empty and soulless.

One of the more interesting parts in the article linked above are the thoughts of those actually performing the demolitions. You wouldn't think that tearing down abandoned homes would be an emotional trial for the wreckers, but for many of them it is.

Wreckers hide it, but when you spend weeks with them, riding in their trucks, sitting in their machines, trailing them all over their job sites right out to the dump where they'll deposit the remains of a house, it becomes clear that they're a reflective and empathetic group. They're raconteurs and historians. They want you to know what they've seen in this city. They want to take you there. They believe it'll help.

Mark Sherman insists on driving me down a street called Robinwood, a few blocks from Adamo's home base. "This one," he says, "breaks me up every time I'm on it." The stretch is so blighted it seems haunted. Somehow it's totally devoid of color. All the Craftsman-style homes, with their tapered support columns and stonework porches, are empty. "You can see," says Mark, tugging on the brim of his black John Deere cap, "these were really beautiful. Unique." And he's right. They're exactly the kinds of homes young families in Portland and Los Angeles line up to live in. "This is the perfect example," he continues, "of what can happen in two years. Two years ago, this street was mostly full. This is what happens when nobody cares."

They try not to think of the people who used to live in those homes. Those who worked hard, raised families, took pride in their homes, now long gone, leaving echoes of what used to be behind them.

I'm not sure I could do their job and not feel what they do. But they know it's a necessary job, so-called creative destruction, where the only way to rebuild Detroit is to remove those homes and other buildings that are now a blight infesting their city.

Will it work?

Only time will tell.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Another weekend almost gone and still we don't have our boat in the water. I have to admit to frustration borne of the inability to find some of the simplest information I need in order to put things to rights. The most vexing? The initial setting for the idle mixture screw. It needs to be adjusted because The Boat's idle is rough, telling me the mixture is most likely too rich.

Sounds simple, right? No way. I can find the information for every carburetor/engine combination both prior to and after that of my 1993 powertrain. But not for 1993!!

Now I'm working my way through the boating forums, hoping to find someone who can tell me what the initial setting is for the mixture screw.

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I saw this over at Scary Yankee Chick.

I'm sure all eight feline members of our family here at The Manse will love the Kitty Holster.

I have to admit that before I headed over to the Kitty Holster website I had visions of something that would allow our cats to carry their own firearms, though probably nothing bigger than a .22 or .25, and even then something semi-automatic because a revolver would be too lumpy.

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If you need more evidence that Obama's economic 'recovery' plans are having just the opposite effect, all one need do is look for the reasons why companies here in the US aren't hiring, relocating manufacturing to other states, or worse, to other countries.

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It looks like Texas is leading the way again, making sure that home bakers and small farm operations (i.e. family farms) are allowed to make and sell their own baked goods without the need to make them in a certified commercial kitchen.

As Kathleen comments, “The [Texas Cottage Food] bill passed both houses in a bi-partisan way, because Texas Democrats understand the ever growing menace of government.” (emphasis added)

That certainly makes them far less statist than Democrats in other states.

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Bogie has become a victim (again) of a thief. As she relates it, things have gone missing with no rhyme or reason over the past few years, from a pair of emerald earrings to one of her bathmats.

Either it's a kleptomaniac ghost or a human thief with really bad decision making skills. After all, who steals a bathmat?

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BeezleBub was off to the WP In-Laws to pick up a boat.

His grandfather has a small aluminum fishing boat (about 12 feet long) that he hasn't used in years and BeezleBub inquired about it the other day. (It might have had something to do with his getting his New Hampshire Boating Certificate this past Thursday.)

He took one of his girl friends from school along with him for the ride. (Let's call her BK, short for Beautiful Klutz, for she is both. Oh, and if you're wondering about Twirl Girl, she and BeezleBub have gone their separate ways as she's off to college in August.)

With he being off with BK for most of the day, that left all of the yard work to yours truly. At least I managed to mow the lawn (what we have of one) and weed around the front of The Manse.

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Talk about chipping away at personal freedoms and subverting the Fair Use provisions of copyright laws!

If Senate Bill 978 becomes law, anyone embedding a copyrighted YouTube video on their website will be charged with a felony.

The reach of this law is so broad that even if you embed a video with the creator's permission, you could still be charged with a felony. And as this is just the first step, I have no doubt that even linking to the video or other copyrighted material will become a crime.

If enacted, this law will go one step further and turn people who embed a copyrighted video into criminals. It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media.

--snip--

So-called “secondary copyright liability” will be used to criminalize what is now routine behavior on the internet. It will also be used by the political establishment to eliminate the internet activity – primarily in the form of alternative media – of those who oppose what is shaping up to be a totalitarian state.

You know the old media must be getting desperate if they need to rent-seek to protect what they see as their sole domain. Of course it also gives the government extraordinary control over the Internet, something every totalitarian government seeks to do. We already know from both his words and actions that Obama is trying his hardest to control every aspect of our lives. If that doesn't describe a nascent totalitarian, I don't know what does.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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I've written before about how Gurkha's are probably the toughest soldiers on the face of the planet. If we need any more proof of that, then here's the story of another Gurkha who singlehandedly fought off a Taliban attack and killed 30 of them. The only reason he didn't kill more? He was out of ammo and didn't have his kukri knife with him.

In total he fired off 250 general purpose machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, six phosphorus grenades, six normal grenades, five underslung grenade launcher rounds and one claymore mine.

All of that, 30 enemy killed, and he had not a scratch on him.

Gurkha's rule!

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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At first I had a hard time believing it, but it turns out it's true.

After Bank of America tried to foreclose on a home for which the owners owed no money (they had paid cash), the homeowners took them to court and won. The judge awarded the homeowners $2534 in legal fees. Bank of America didn't pay up, so the homeowners had their attorney foreclose on the Bank of America. The Sheriff served the bank with foreclosure papers and all the bank branch's assets were seized, including the cash in the tellers' drawers, furniture, computers, and filing cabinets.

You've gotta love it when the little guy sticks it to the incompetent (or criminally negligent) big guy.

This sounds like yet another episode of robo-signing gone wrong.

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You know the job recovery in this recession is in trouble when almost half of the jobs created last month came from one company: McDonald's.

I'm not sure, but is this the “Hope” or the “Change” Obama promised?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the lake has been quiet, the summerfolk have not, and where I hope we can finally get our boat into the water.

Some Schools Rolling Back On Zero Tolerance Polices

My opinion of zero-tolerance policies has always been low, seeing them as the last refuge of the incompetent, lazy, or lawsuit-shy school administrators.

Now it appears that after over 10 years of increasingly draconian zero tolerance polices, the trend is reversing itself, with schools loosening their policies or abandoning them all together. Some of the reasons for this are easy to figure out, with the main one being the policies have hurt far more students than they have ever helped. It could also be the lawsuits, investigations, and ridicule being heaped upon those who created and enforced those policies over the years. But it can all be boiled down this: They. Don't. Work.

The American Psychological Association reported in a 2008 journal article that research has found no evidence that zero-tolerance policies have a deterrent effect or keep schools safer.

Over the years, “zero-tolerance” has described discipline policies that impose automatic consequences for offenses, regardless of context. The term also has come to refer to severe punishments for relatively minor infractions. Some schools boast of using zero-tolerance; others insist that they do nothing of the sort.

It would be great if all school systems were dialing back the use of zero tolerance policies, but that isn't the case. Instead, some are becoming even harsher, creating even more backlash and more discipline problems. It sounds almost like the old saw, “Beatings will continue until morale improves!”

Some school systems zero tolerance policies have devastating effects on students caught up in them, damaging or destroying otherwise good kids in the name of discipline. In some cases, those closed-minded policies have killed, with students taking their own lives after being run through the ringer for what would otherwise be a minor infraction.

Fairfax [Virginia] parents tell stories of going into the process without an attorney and finding their children under fire at adversarial hearings. These families contend there is no impartial judge but instead a presumption of guilt. They say there is little discussion of a student's well-being, psychological state or the cause of the misconduct.

"The parents feel very often that they are in the middle of criminal prosecution - that there is no balance or context and the facts are skewed to the negative," said Bill Reichhardt, a Fairfax lawyer whose firm has handled more than 100 school discipline hearings in Virginia.

It sounds more a like kangaroo court, where even if you should happen to be innocent, you are still guilty. Can there be any question whether these policies do far more harm that good? Who are these policies supposed to be helping – the administrators? Or the students? It certainly appears from here the answer is the former, with the latter relegated to scholastic (and social) purgatory.

Is it any wonder more parents might want to send their kids to private schools or home school them so they won't have to subject them to such a nightmarish code of discipline? (I guess I must also conclude they'll also do so to ensure their kids also get a decent education, something these zero tolerance policies do not guarantee, but you get my point...I hope.)

It's time to end the reign of zero tolerance policies for they serve no one well, claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Palin Is Giving The "Lamestream Media" Ulcers

Whether or not Sarah Palin decides to run for president the one thing I have to say she's got going for her is her disdain for the traditional courtship of the media. Even the liberal LA Times recognizes the fact and points out that it may actually work for her.

There is nothing the U.S. media wants more than something it thinks it can't have. Hence the power of news leaks that manipulate the thrust of their initial presentation. Hard-to-get is a rigid rule of human behavior. Ask any teenage boy or girl.

And there are few things more sweet to Palin and her fervent supporters cheering their TV sets this week than the image of a hungry know-it-all "lamestream media" caravan of 15 or more vehicles traipsing along behind her red-white-and-blue bus enroute to they-know-not-where to do they-know-not-what.

If nothing else this “I don't care what you want” attitude of Palin's towards the media is driving them to distraction and frustrating them to no end. Her refusal to play by their rules has them unable to function in their usual manner and they're confused (and perhaps not a little frightened) by the prospect that she will be but the first to find that she really doesn't need them to get her message out. She can bypass their “helpful” filtering and make appeals directly to the public without the media interpreting her utterances into something that in no way resembles what it she actually said (as compared to what they want her to have said). They will be relegated to actually reporting the news rather than creating it or disguising their not unbiased opinions as 'news'.

To read some of those commenting on the Times piece, Palin should be held responsible for the extra work the media will have to do and the higher risk they'll be taking to keep up with her. That's right, the higher risk.

She's an irresponsible, egotistical woman who gives no thought as to how she could be endangering others through her actions. The article mentions the media caravan, but doesn't talk about the chaos created, as in Philadelphia, when the reporters don't know where she's going to show up and run madly about trying to find her. If someone gets hurt, guess who's going to deny she's responsible for any of it and cast aspersions on anyone who tries to say she is--just as she did when Kathy Gifford was shot. Such behavior would not be entirely surprising from an immature, aspiring Hollywood star; it is disturbing from someone who makes any pretense of aspiring to a responsible position.

This California asshat has it exactly backwards. How is it she can in any way be held responsible for the actions of what are, to all intents and purposes, paparazzi? If she chooses not to clue them in as to her plans, it's her right to do so. The poor endangered media types don't have to follow her around, do they?

Too many of the other asshats who commented wondered why the media bothers giving Palin any coverage, and then they complain when the media has a more difficult time covering Palin. So I have to ask this question: Which one is it you really want – media coverage to report her every gaffe, real or perceived, or for the media to ignore her entirely? It has to be one or the other. You can't have both.

Of course we really know the answer to that question, don't we? Without Palin, the Left would have no one to complain about or to excoriate. I guess it must make them feel better to denigrate someone who refuses to fill the role they have decided she must play. Too bad for them.

And what would happen if she decides to run in 2012 and again chooses her own way of doing things without bothering to ask the media for their input, such as it is? I expect heads would explode in newsrooms around the country and the all-so-learned talking heads would be struck dumb by her unwillingness to consult with them.

One can only hope.

You'll Get No Argument From Me...

Nothing more need be said about this one.

More Star Trek Technology Becoming Reality

As if we need even more proof that the technology we first saw in the original Star Trek series is now becoming reality, there this: a hand-held medical scanner.

Can anyone say “medical tricorder”? Sure you can.

It looks like a cross between a flip-top phone and the medical scanner used by Dr McCoy in the TV series Star Trek.

The Vscan is not science fiction but a hand-held ultrasound machine with a scanning wand attached, which has been approved for use in Europe and North America.

It's getting closer all the time.

Memorial Day

For all those who have served and given the ultimate sacrifice, we salute you.

Hypocrisy In The Granite State

This is all too true.

“If [D]emocrats are bitching about it, it is because they are already guilty of it.”

The context is important. In this case it deals with a New Hampshire Progressive who accepted out of state campaign donations to support a Democrat running in a special election for the state legislature. She then condemns the state Republicans for doing exactly the same thing.

Talk about hypocrisy!

Unfortunately this kind of hypocrisy seems to be endemic amongst the Progressive branch of the Democrat Party nation wide.

Thoughts On A Sunday

I managed to turn a three-day holiday weekend into a four-day holiday weekend by taking Friday off. This let me get a lot of work done in The Manse, on The Boat, and on BeezleBub's Jeep.

BeezleBub put in two days at the farm this weekend, leaving Monday as his off day. Deb had Saturday and Sunday off, helping me put the interior of The Manse to rights (lots of late-Spring cleaning), but has to work on the holiday Monday.

All in all it was a pretty normal weekend for us.

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One side effect of the miserable housing market I hadn't thought about until recently: jobs.

I'm not talking about jobs within the housing market, but outside, in this case affecting the ability of a homeowner to take a new job someplace else.

One of the problems my employer has come across in hiring engineers to expand our R&D efforts has not been the lack of applicants. We had all kinds of applicants, many well qualified. But almost all of them turned down a job offer because they couldn't afford to relocate. They had no expectation of being able to sell their homes any time soon. Paying for two homes while trying to sell one of them wasn't going to happen (most banks would be reluctant to give them a mortgage or a bridge loan to cover them until they sell their old home), meaning they are pretty much stuck where they are until the housing market recovers. At least those renting a place to live aren't limited by that problem, but it seems that most of the applicants we interviewed owned a home.

How much of the problem with lackluster job growth is related directly to the inability to sell a home in order to relocate?

What did my employer do to alleviate the problem?

They opened a new R&D center in the People's Republic of Massachusetts to get closer to those looking for jobs.

What does that mean for me and my fellow engineers in our New Hampshire operation? Simply this: We'll lose our jobs because we can't afford to relocate either and the commute is too damn far. It won't happen today, or tomorrow, or the day after that, but it will happen, assurances to the contrary not withstanding. (It doesn't help matters that we couldn't afford to buy anything in Massachusetts in any case because the cost disparity in housing costs, even with the price collapse of the housing market figured in.)

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It's time to do a couple of updates to the blogroll, so here goes:

Cubachi and Kathleen McKinley move to Regular Reads.

I also have two New Finds, Scary Yankee Chick (courtesy of Bogie) and Atomic Nerds.

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One of Deb's friends is making a trip up the eastern seaboard on a 70' Hatteras yacht. The friend's brother purchased it down in Aventura, Florida and they're helping him bring it back to the seacoast of New Hampshire. One of the crew is blogging regularly and includes photos, links to real-time position tracking, and a host of other interesting stuff.

One of the scariest posts dealt with the yacht's electrical system, which the previous owner had patched together with speaker wire and outlet strips, probably with a drink in one hand!

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This might explain one of the mysteries of life that has plagued the male of the human species for untold generations:

Women find happy guys significantly less sexually attractive than swaggering or brooding men, according to a new University of British Columbia study that helps to explain the enduring allure of “bad boys” and other iconic gender types.

And here it is we've been doing it wrong all these thousands of years!

One of the things I've had trouble explaining to BeezleBub as he's navigated the minefield of relationships with the opposite sex is why girls/women always seem to gravitate towards bad boys, even if those bad boys treat them like crap. I've always thought it might be some subconscious female urge to “reform” the bad boy, even though the track record of success for such efforts is abysmal at best.

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Gee, I didn't know you could use food stamps to buy lobster! If I'd known that we would have applied for them long ago.

Hmm, I wonder if they can be used to buy some nice Grillmaster steak tips at our local butcher shop? They're cheaper than lobster!

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Will Sarah Palin run for the 2012 nomination? Jay Tea talks about the potential and how it's making Democrats' and RINOs' heads explode.

As one commenter wrote, Dennis Miller likes her because all the right people hate her.

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Could it be that crime rates over the years have been declining due to lead levels in our blood dropping 80% compared to 40 years ago rather than socioeconomic conditions?

It sounds plausible to me, considering that our socioeconomic conditions really suck right now but we haven't seen the 'expected' rise in crime rates that usually go along with tough economic times. This might require further study.

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Why doesn't this surprise me?

Every rape committed in Oslo, Norway over the past 5 years have been committed by Third World Muslims.

This is the kind of evil crap we can expect from these bastards when the multi-culti feelgood liberals have their way.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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It's about time someone told the ACLU to “shove it” in regards to their overweening concern about the separation of church and state.

These asshats take themselves far too seriously and should be spending more of their time dealing with actual constitutional dilemmas rather than a less-than-honest complaint about where a particular high school graduation takes place.

Let's face it, ACLU, there are far more pressing problems for you to deal with than this silly crap.

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We missed our deadline for getting the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, into the water this year. Eleven days of rain and cold weather delayed a lot of the work we otherwise would have accomplished. Hopefully we'll get caught up on quite a bit of it tomorrow and will have it ready to launch by next weekend.

While Deb is bothered by our putting The Boat into the water this year, mainly due to fuel costs (gas is expected to be around $5 per gallon on the lake), neither BeezleBub or I are concerned. Our time out on the lake is one of the few enjoyments we have left, considering the state of the economy. All of us have cut back on most of our activities, leaving our time boating on the lake as the last one. Deb's suggestion to not bother with the boat this year stirred up a mutiny, with BeezleBub voicing the loudest objection.

While we may not go out to some of the farther reaches of the lake this year, we still plan a number of go-slow trips to some of our favorite nearby places to anchor, swim, eat, and just hang out. While the amount of time we spend out there will be close to what we've spent in past summers, we'll be going slower and using a lot less fuel in the process. I believe we can keep the costs under control as long as we don't overdo it in regards to where we go.

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And that the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summer weather has finally arrived, the summerfolk are here in full force, and where we still have another day to celebrate and remember the sacrifices made by our Armed Forces to keep us safe and free.

Uncertainty Preventing Hiring

As I read this Professor Stephen L. Carter piece about the uncertainties of government regulation and its effects on businesses and hiring, the more I nodded my head in agreement. Everything I read reflects what I've heard from a number of business owners here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire: Without knowing exactly what government is going to throw at us in the way of ever more overreaching (and expensive) regulations, there's no way we're going to hire anyone new. Period.

A lot of middling and small businesses have seen their margins shrink, leaving them very little in the way of wiggle room when new government regulations and requirements hit them. How is any business going to plan for the future when government “regulation” is now such a big unknown? With most of the new regulations having absolutely nothing to do with safety, environmental issues, or pay, but more often financial matters, all they do is add unneeded costs to businesses. Sometimes those new rules and regulations turn an otherwise profitable business into an unprofitable one, and when that happens far too many of them close.

All of these regulations do nothing but provide more employment for government workers, not workers actually producing goods and services our economy depends upon. How is this supposed to help our economic recovery?

(H/T Instapundit)

Awww.....

This is just too cute to ignore.

A cat cuddles a kitten having a bad dream.


EMBED-Cat Hugs Baby Kitten Having Nightmare - Watch more free videos

A Raging Liberal Defends Fox News

Usually you'll hear the Left disparage Fox News, calling it nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Right. Some leftist organizations have actually called for its destruction, and one, Media Matters For America (MMFA), is actively working to silence it.

But from the Left comes a voice defending Fox News and condemning MMFA for its unconstitutional and un-American actions.

Norman Horowitz writes:

Many take the position that if you do not approve of what someone’s press is publishing that it is acceptable to somehow destroy the offending press.

In the “pretend spirit” of free speech Media Matters for America (MMFA) wants to stifle the free press rights of Fox News. MMFA is not at all pleased with Fox News and has chosen to find a way to stop Fox News from publishing.

It is both sad and objectionable that MMFA objects to press freedom.

Horowitz includes the letter from MMFA CEO Matt Butler, outlining MMFA's plans to silence Fox News by going after the advertisers supporting it. It almost sounds like mob tactics from past, inducing businesses to stop doing business with someone who has fallen out of favor with the mob bosses.

Why is the Left always falls back on tactics that are right out of the Mobster's Handbook if they feel they can't win support of the public based upon the merits of their arguments? Could it be because they realize they are losing public support for their morally and financially bankrupt political ideology and feel they must “Do Something!!” in order to prove their way is the right way, even though it isn't? It certainly seems that way to me.

Horowitz continues:

Media Matters of course can take issue with what Fox News promulgates and can publish opposing opinions of its own.

If you don’t approve of it don’t watch it, read it, or listen to it. Suggest that your friends and family might choose to do the same and that is fine.

But MMFA has crossed a line by trying to stifle a voice of which they don’t approve. They suggest, in a manner of speaking, that the public destroy the Fox presses by removing the financial support of Fox News that comes from Madison Avenue.

What a horrid position it is for MMFA to take.

We all need to support the right to publish commentators such as Glenn Beck and many others at Fox News. I personally find what they are spewing noxious. But that’s the point. As distasteful as it might be, we all need to defend speech we don’t agree with as long as it's not inciting people to riot and things of that nature.

If MMFA doesn’t like much of what is said on Fox News, they can say so, and they can say it quite LOUDLY.

But their shouting emits a foul odor when they are advocating the suppression of views expressed on Fox News along with the suppression of Fox News itself.

And wouldn't they scream loudly if someone were to try the same tactics against MMFA? Of course they would. But somehow only the anointed are allowed to advocate silencing dissent. And some of them would recommend using any means necessary to do so, just as has been done so many times over the past 100 years or so in places like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and a host of other nations around the world.

It seems they would like to add the United States to that list. But then far too many statists like the extreme Left in this country would see that as a Progressive paradise.

At least one “raging liberal” sees the danger in that.

Kudos to Norman Horowitz.

New Engine Technology Closer To Reality?

I know I've written about these before, but the post was lost when my original blog site disappeared.

What am I talking about? Laser spark plugs.



Quite of bit of progress has been made since I last covered it about 4 years ago or so, with the size of the laser units now being slightly larger than traditional spark plugs. One of the advantages of laser plugs versus traditional spark plugs? More efficient combustion.

Engines make NOx as a byproduct of combustion. If engines ran leaner – burnt more air and less fuel – they would produce significantly smaller NOx emissions.

Spark plugs can ignite leaner fuel mixtures, but only by increasing spark energy. Unfortunately, these high voltages erode spark-plug electrodes so fast, the solution is not economical. By contrast, lasers, which ignite the air-fuel mixture with concentrated optical energy, have no electrodes and are not affected.

These lasers also improve efficiency, according to their creators. Conventional spark plugs sit on top of the cylinder and only ignite the air-fuel mixture close to them. The relatively cold metal of nearby electrodes and cylinder walls absorbs heat from the explosion, quenching the flame front just as it starts to expand.

Lasers, Taira explains, can focus their beams directly into the center of the mixture. Without quenching, the flame front expands more symmetrically and up to three times faster than those produced by spark plugs.

Another plus of laser ignition is that there can be more than a single ignition point within the cylinder, which in turn gives better control over combustion.

While I don't expect to see sets of these new laser plugs in the local auto parts store any time soon, it does show us research and development of systems that will increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines continues.

An Important Vote Imminent In New Hampshire

On Wednesday an important vote takes place in the New Hampshire House, one that may well change the course the Granite State been following the previous 4 years.

Some time tomorrow the House is supposed to vote on overriding Governor John Lynch's veto of House Bill 474, the Right To Work bill. The bill originally passed in both the House and the Senate with overwhelming majorities, though the original House vote was just 14 votes shy of a veto-proof majority.

However, House Majority leader William O'Brien may delay Wednesday's vote long enough to lock in the last votes he'll need to override the veto.

HB 474 supporters say the state will see a burst of job growth if the bill becomes law, and point to other right-to-work states as proof. Critics say right-to-work brings lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits, and that it sticks the nose of government into contract talks between labor and management.

If HB 474 becomes law, New Hampshire would be the 23rd state, and the first in the Northeast, to adopt the principle.

A lot of pro-union folks point to the “lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits” canard as if that explains everything and no further discussion is required. However, most of the 22 Right To Work states have a lower cost of living, so unless that factor is taken into account, which union supporters choose to ignore, the comparison is meaningless. As I've mentioned before, a perfect example of this factor can be seen in the battle between the NLRB and the state of South Carolina and Boeing.

The unions in Washington State claim Boeing's new plant is denying the working men and women a living wage. While the pay for those employees in South Carolina is less than the pay of the union workers in Washington, the cost of living in South Carolina is also lower (as is the cost of doing business), which implies that taken as a whole, the workers in South Carolina are receiving comparable pay to those in Washington State.

And so it might be here in New Hampshire as well. If it helps lower the cost of doing business, then Right To Work will help lure more businesses from high cost states like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, just to name a few. (It doesn't hurt that New Hampshire also has no sales or income tax.)

The days of forced financial support of unions by those not wishing to do so must come to an end. As the reasons for the existence of unions no longer exist, maybe it's time for them to fade away into history.

Yet Another Round Of Computer Extortion

Last month I mentioned doing battle with a pernicious bit of computer malware that wanted money in order to make it go away, conning the unwary computer owner by offering to clean the list of viruses its 'free' scan showed were infecting the computer. I called it an extortion virus because its creators wanted money in order to make it go away.

Now I hear about yet another extortion virus out there doing something very similar, but this time the malware mimics a progressive hard drive failure and offers to 'fix' it...for a fee.

Gee, isn't owning a computer fun?

Thoughts On A Sunday

I guess the world didn't end yesterday at 6PM EDT as one preacher predicted.

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Even though the weather has gotten a bit better, it's still been far too wet, with rain every day. At least we aren't being inundated like the folks down south, but still it's been darned inconvenient. The lawn here at The Manse badly needs mowing, weeding is long overdue, and the local farmers are now behind on their planting because their fields are too muddy and their tractors get stuck.

Here's to hoping things will indeed dry out as the Weather Guys™ keep promising.

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Does the New Hampshire House have the votes needed to override Governor John Lynch's veto of the Right-To-Work bill?

I'd have to say the odds are “even and pick 'em”. Considering 40 GOP members of the New Hampshire House voted against the bill originally and another 36 didn't even bother to vote, it's going to be a close thing.

Speaking as a former union member, I'm hoping Speaker of the New Hampshire House Bill O'Brien can garner the votes needed to make New Hampshire the 23^rd Right-To-Work state. I'm betting if it comes to pass we'll see the Granite State lead the Northeast states in regards to recovering from the Great Recession.

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Now that Obama has worked yet another miracle with his “Smart Diplomacy”, throwing Israel under the bus, I'm wondering how long it will be before he throws his support behind those wishing to destroy Israel, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and their sponsors.

Considering he's managed to piss off our allies and been cozying up to our enemies, I figure it won't be long. I also have to wonder how long it will take before American Jews who supported him in 2008 will realize he's not their friend either.

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Herman Cain has made it official: He's running for president in 2012.

Frankly, I like him better than just about any of the other GOP hopefuls, with one exception. And should Palin throw her hat into the ring I'm going to have a tough time deciding between them. On the other hand, a Cain/Palin or Palin/Cain ticket might be a tough one for The One to beat.

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Something I just realized after rereading what I just wrote above: Maybe the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008 was the wrong combination. Maybe a Cain/Palin ticket will get the job done.

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Jay Tea adds his 2¢ worth in regards to GOP presidential hopefuls and passes on some wisdom from Fletcher Knebel's Dark Horse well worth remembering for this upcoming presidential campaign season.

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DJ Drummond has some thoughts about corporate America, how it is demonized by those wishing to loot it for their own gain, and how when global effective tax rates on corporations (meaning what corporations actually pay in taxes) are compared, US corporations pay about eight percentage points more taxes than corporations based outside the US.

As DJ reminds us:

...corporations don't vote but people do, so a lot of politicians, pretty much everywhere, try to promise low taxes to people but increase taxes on corporations, especially if those businesses can be smeared as economic villains. In reality, however, corporations represent jobs, economic growth and stability, and when government goes after corporations, then government is attacking jobs and GDP.

Indeed.

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How assimilation works and how multiculturalism has wrecked California.

California has become Balkanized, with cultural enclaves that can in no way be considered American and are more like foreign countries, bring along with them the very problems they sought to escape by coming here.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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I wonder if donors to Dartmouth College found out that almost a fifth of the funds they've provided in the way of endowments were skimmed off the top by the Dartmouth administration whether they would be so inclined to give anything at all?

Up until about a decade ago, every penny of the amount drawn off went to the purposes intended by the donor: salaries, internships, research grants, department special expenses, travel programs, etc. — in short, real educational efforts to the direct benefit of students and faculty members. However, the Wright administration could not keep its hands off that income stream, and about a decade ago it instituted “the levy.” From that time onward a percentage that gradually rose to 14% of the money paid out of restricted endowments was skimmed off to pay for various College operating expenses having no relation whatsoever to the educational endeavor for which the original gift was intended (in our example, that would be 14% of the 5.5% payout).

At some point in the last few months, unbeknownst to the faculty or its senior committees, this percentage was raised to 19%.

--snip--

Faculty only learned about the change recently, when they were apprised by the administration of the exact amount of money available to departments and programs in the coming fiscal year from their various endowments. While the stock market had risen, payouts had inexplicably dropped — and when department and program heads expressed incomprehension at their unexpectedly low budgets, they were finally told of the change. Needless to say, the conversation at this week’s meeting of the Committee of Chairs was, shall we say, animated.

Nineteen percent seems to be a hefty levy on money donated to the college for the purpose of promoting the education of our children. How is it the administration thought they could get away with skimming that much money off of the endowment payouts without anyone noticing? I don't know about you, but if I was one of the donors I would not be pleased by any means.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the sunny weather hasn't quite reached us yet, the weeds need pulling, and Memorial Day Weekend is fast approaching.

Are Lost Jobs Really Gone For Good?

In a post by Matt Patterson, he tries to make the case for jobs that have been lost during this deep recession never returning. While it may be true that some types jobs may be gone forever, it is not inevitable that the total number of jobs will decline from here on out. Through the process of “creative destruction”, one kind of job was replaced by a different one. But as Patterson writes, at least one economist thinks this pattern will no longer be true.

In his penetrating new book The Great Stagnation, economist Tyler Cowen warns that this may have been a temporary and anomalous phenomenon. Cowen calls the period from roughly the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries the era of “low hanging fruit.” According to Cowen, technological advances in this period were relatively easy to produce and exploit, resulting in a staggering explosion of living standards.

But by around 1970, most of this low hanging fruit had been plucked and growth rates began to slow. Indeed, growth rates are “lower today than before 1973, no matter what exact numbers you settle on for the absolute living standard.” Cowen sees this fact directly tied to the innovation plateau that was reached around the same time: “The United States produced more patents in 1966 (54,600) than in 1993 (53,200),” he notes. “Meaningful innovation has become harder, and so we must spend more money to accomplish real innovations, which means a lower and declining rate of return on technology.”

--snip--

This digital depressant trickles all the way down to old fashioned companies. McDonald’s recently announced it will do away with cashiers in many of its European restaurants, replacing them with touch-screen ordering systems. This innovation may (or may not) make ordering your Big Mac a faster experience, but it will definitely eliminate countless opportunities for young and low-skilled workers.

On his last point, couldn't it be the cost of labor in Europe is artificially high due to government mandates and labor laws that replacing expensive humans with less expensive technology makes economic sense? When government and labor laws make it more expensive to hire people for what would otherwise be minimum wage jobs, then how can it be a surprise to anyone that businesses like McDonald's won't hire them? (It's not all that different than what we see happening here every time the Leftists in Congress beholden to the labor unions raise the minimum wage. Each time that happens, joblessness among those seeking entry level jobs goes up because small businesses have a tougher time justifying the added expense, particularly during times of economic hardship.)

One commenter hit the nail on the head, detailing why Cowen's claim about the decline of the American economy is inevitable is absurd.

We are inventing more things, faster than ever before. The past innovations “destroyed jobs” — and made society wealthier and created new jobs, different jobs, to replace those that had gone before. This is nothing but the song of the Luddites.

HOWEVER…

For that process of creative destruction to work, it is necessary to ALLOW the new jobs and new industries to be created. And THAT, not some illusory “low hanging fruit”, is what has been changing over the last generation or two. The regulatory burden on new industries has climbed ever higher.

Right now, in laboratories around the U.S. people are working on fusion power, cheap space travel, synthetic fuel from algae, sensors for automated medical diagnosis, and so on, and on, and on.

And if we lived in a free country, sooner than you think, some of those would be part of our everyday lives. The decision to decline is a CHOICE — not a fate.

Unfortunately or fate is in the hands of people within government who really don't like America all that much and are working as hard as they can to cripple its innovative and robust economy in an effort to make it more egalitarian (at least by their definition). Unfortunately we've seen the results of such socio-economic experiments before, and they've always turned out poorly for everyone involved...except the ruling class, of course. (And even then, some have seen their fiefdoms crumble away and leave them as destitute as the rest of their fellow countrymen.)

Unless we can break the government imposed malaise on our economy, we will indeed see those jobs lost over the past few years gone for good, with no new jobs to replace them, and we will indeed decline as a nation.

Ignorance By Choice

One of the conclusions I must draw from observations made over a number of yeas is that far too many of the Left are ignorant. I'm not talking about the kind of ignorance that comes from not being exposed to ideas, facts, or events outside one's experience, but willful ignorance, ignorance by choice.

Reading the comments of pro-union readers of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley's opinion piece in the WSJ about the NLRB's suit against Boeing were telling, showing (to me) how much of their thinking was pure indoctrination, not backed by fact or evidence. Their hatred of businesses in general and Boeing in particular was out in the open. If such reactions revealed anything, it was their willful ignorance about how the economy operates, how businesses function, where money actually comes from, and how unions have changed and are not the organizations they once were.

Many of the positive views of the unions expressed by the pro-union commenters were right out of the 1930's. Far too many of them seem to think that if it weren't for the unions “protecting” the working man today we'd all be working for slave wages and child labor laws would be struck down and all our kids would be working in the textile mills again. They truly believe only a union can provide fair wages, benefits, and working conditions that otherwise would be unavailable to anyone. That may have been true back 100 years ago, but not today. With all of the labor and employment laws on the books (many brought about by the work of the unions decades ago), the need for unions for that kind of protection no longer exists. But to read what some of the pro-union have put forth, you'd think we were only a day or two away from going back to those bad old days.

And then there's this bit of willful ignorance in which far too many of them indulge: money, and where it actually comes from.

Do they truly believe the money is all just piled in bank vaults, “meant to be shared equally amongst Americans”? To listen to some of them, the answer is yes. But it overlooks one principle that so many of the rest of us recognize as being a fundamental truth: Money isn't owed to anyone, it is earned. And that money isn't just sitting in piles in bank vaults where it does no one, even the rich, any good. It has to be used, has to circulate to be of any good to anyone. Otherwise it's just piles of paper with pictures of dead presidents printed on them.

One of the other falsehoods that many of the Left believe at a gut level appears to be that wealth is a zero sum game, and that for someone to become wealthy someone else has to become poor. They either don't realize or care that the size of the proverbial “pie” they want to portion out to everyone is not static. It grows and shrinks with the economy. And of those who do understand the size of the pie changes, far too many of them believe only the wealthy benefit when the economy grows, and only the middle class and poor see their share of the pie shrink when the economy shrinks. The truth is everyone gains and everyone suffers as the pie grows and shrinks. Everyone.

But why confuse them with the facts? They aren't interested in any case.

Making The Movies Jealous

This has to be the best marriage proposal, ever. It's also one of the cleverest I've seen.

Is Newt Suffering From Foot-In-Mouth Disorder?

How fast can a presidential campaign implode? If we go by Newt Gingrich's experience, in as little as three days.

Here it is, only Wednesday, and Newt has managed to piss off both GOP and Tea Party members. That's no way to win a shot at the Oval Office. Slamming Republicans in Congress by equating the entire party as no better than the Democrats, particularly in regards to Medicare reform, is no way to gain supporters. It appears he's been out of the loop in Washington DC for too long. Better that he said nothing at all about it.

With that and some of the other faux pas he's managed couple of days, most of his time is going to be spent on damage control and not campaigning.

That's not an auspicious start to any campaign.

When IT Budgets Run Low

Received via e-mail.

What happens when the IT department runs out of money in its budget:

A Closer Look At the Boeing/NLRB Tiff

A couple of weeks ago I linked to this WSJ opinion piece about the NLRB's suit to block Boeing from opening their new 787 Dreamliner plant, written by South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. I've read all 1081 comments made by the readers of that opinion piece since I posted about Governor Haley's righteous indignation.

Some praised Governor Haley calling out President Obama for remaining silent about the actions of one of his un-confirmed recess appointees. Others blasted Governor Haley for being anti-union/anti-working man/anti-Democrat and a pro-business Republican, accusing her of collusion with big bad Boeing. Most of the latter were vehemently pro-union and couldn't even think of not toeing the union line as they've been so indoctrinated into thinking today's unions are working to “better the working man and saving the middle class” when the facts show otherwise.

In all of the 1081 comments I never saw even one mention of two of the most salient facts that should have changed at least part of the discussion.

The first: Boeing came to South Carolina over two years ago. Over two years ago. Not yesterday. Not last month. Not last year. Construction on the plant started quite some time ago and is almost complete. Both the unions and the NLRB knew that. It wasn't like it was sprung on them at the last minute.

The second: How could Governor Haley have had anything to do with the Boeing/NLRB debacle? She's only been governor since January 12th. (She did serve in the South Carolina legislature for 6 years before running for governor.) Reading many of the pro-union comments, you'd think she singlehandedly induced Boeing to stiff the unions in Washington State, burdened her fellow South Carolinians with new barely-above-minimum-wage-with-no-benefits jobs, caused Boeing to only hire 2600 new employees in their Washington Dreamliner plant, and had Boeing build their new plant during the time she's been governor.

More than one pro-union commenter tried to compare apples to oranges in regards to wages, totally ignoring the differences in the cost of living between Washington and South Carolina. Washington State ranks 35th in cost of living versus 24th for South Carolina (lower numbers are better). The rankings are based on composite 2010 data. So lower wages in a lower cost-of-living state may actually mean workers there might have more disposable income than higher wage earners in high cost-of-living states.

OK, I've gotten a little off topic, but I was trying to make a point. All the pro-union commenters kept trying to play the same old union talking points that have been played since the 1930's, and no one was buying it. More than a few of the anti-union commenters were former union members and understood the downsides of unions and union membership and how they more often than not killed jobs and the businesses providing them and wanted nothing more to do with them. As a former union member myself, I have to agree with those now anti-union brethren.