View 692 Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Kick off the slippers and get to work! President Obama apparently liked the image of kicking off the slippers and putting on work shoes so much that he used it again in a speech this morning. Of course he does not mean to imply “All you people out there sitting around in your pajamas and slippers should get the lazy off and get to work!” He was speaking in support of his Jobs Act, which seems no different from measures that Congress refused to pass even in the full flush of enthusiasm following the Inauguration in 2009. It is full of permanent tax increases tempered with temporary tax relief – moratoria, actually – and the usual support for Green Jobs. I haven’t been through it all, but so far I have found nothing new, and I doubt that this will even pass the Senate. The White House strategy appears to be to propose that which can’t be enacted, then blame the Republicans for the Obama Depression. That may beat National Malaise as a reelection strategy, but the results of yesterdays by-elections do not bode well for the President.

Charged with making political speeches in the guise of appeals to national unity, the President rather petulantly said “This isn’t about me! This is about jobs.” Apparently he has discovered that there are not enough jobs in America, and it’s all the Republicans’ fault. Stay tuned,

Meanwhile New York lost a seat that hasn’t gone Republican in a hundred years, and the winner explicitly made it a referendum on Obama. The spin is that it was all local, but the fact remains that a pro-life Roman Catholic has won the seat formerly held by the liberal Jewish Weiner. The winner explicitly said the only real issue was satisfaction with Obama. The Democrats marshaled the big guns including President Clinton in a frantic effort to hold the seat.

Even CNN notes that this was a referendum on the President.

In California President Obama’s approval rating is 46%, below 50% for the first time in several years.

It has long been a political truism that no one with an approval rating below 43% ever wins reelection – at least it was when I was active in political management. It’s an empirical observation, not any kind of law, of course; but it’s suggestive. Obama cannot count on Brooklyn and Queens, even when the Democrats bring in the big guns like President Clinton. Now he has to worry a bit about California.

I told you that despair is a sin.

A barbarian is beating a woman. A citizen intervenes so that the woman gets away. Everyone goes home. Sometime later the barbarian returns and slaughters two of the citizen’s toddler age children, wounds his pregnant wife, and generally takes satisfaction for being disrespected, before going back into his enclave.

Had this happened at the edges of the Roman Empire, the local Auxiliary garrison would have understood the situation and evaluated what must be done to preserve civilization at the fringes of the Empire. Perhaps nothing: the garrison was not strong enough, and there were no Legions available. The local Auxiliary commander would have had to explain to the citizen that the Empire just didn’t have the resources. Civilization is crumbling, and we are doing our best with what we have. The old Centurion would have hung his head in shame.

Of course it did not happen at the Roman limes in the Third Century. It happened yesterday in San Bernardino, California. A local radio commentator is saying that it makes you think about what risks you can take in today’s world. “I have a wife and family, and I’m responsible to them.” He is, after all, a responsible citizen; he is also a husband, a father—and a realist.

Welcome to the New America.

I think I am no longer a Firefox enthusiast. For reasons I don’t quite understand, Firefox is taking forever to load my site, and doing it in an awful way. Explorer has no such problem.  I have just restarted Firefox and that seems to have mitigated the problem, but somehow whenever they improve Firefox it gets crankier. This sort of thing has happened before. Someone new jumps in to take on Microsoft, comes out with an improvement, gets a number of people to defect from Microsoft. Microsoft continues to plod along, embrace and extend, plod along, and somewhere along the line the new guy discovers that resistance is futile. His improvements become less reliable. There are various thrashings. Meanwhile Microsoft continues to plod along…

I got accustomed to Firefox and I probably abuse it by keeping too many tabs open. I haven’t given up on it yet, but I keep hearing the call of the Borg Queen…

The barbarians are both inside and outside the gates.

Bodies hanging from bridge in Mexico are warning to social media users.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/09/14/mexico.violence/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn 

If you are up to a picture, there is one here: http://www.johnandkenshow.com/ 

The report is that “Two posters left near the bodies declared that the pair — a young man and woman — were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities on a social network…”

There is no indication of the nationality of the victims, and so far no one has claimed them. Some border incidents have involved known American citizens, but there have been no consequences. We no longer teach American Exceptionalism in the public schools. We do not want a single culture with the old Judao-Christian values. We prefer diversity. I don’t know what Mexicans prefer. We know what they have.

Wednesday September 14, 2011

The Democrats lost New York Congressional District 9 by a lot. Turner ran against Obama, and it was not a local issue. He wanted this to be a referendum on Obama. He won. Big. In a district that has not gone Republican for a hundred years. Turner is Catholic and pro-life and made no concessions on the subject.

Take heart. If NY 9 can go anti-Obama, so can the nation.

I have a dental appointment. Back this afternoon. I’ll have a new View rather than add to this one.

View 692 Tuesday, September 13, 2011

· The Debates

· The Vaccination Issue

· Ponzi scheme

Blitzer 2, Bachman 0

We need to examine the whole question of compulsory vaccination, but it’s not really an issue in a Presidential election.

What is important is that Michelle Bachman fell for Wolf Blitzer’s offer to assist her in political suicide, not only taking the bait hook, line, and sinker, but then coming back for more. Up to that point my impression of the debate was that Newt, as usual, was the most impressive on the issues but not as a candidate, while Cain and Bachman moved out of the field and up into the group of front runners. Cain stayed there. Bachman did herself considerable harm,

The harm is not her indignation about compulsory vaccination against a sexually transmitted disease. It’s her taking the bait from Blitzer, whose sole task up there was to try to get Republican candidates to slaughter each other and turn attention away from President Obama and the Democrats. If the issue is personal freedom and limited government, is there anyone left in the US who has doubts about which party is more trustworthy on the issue? The Republicans had their experiment with big government as the solution and were so thoroughly burned that they are apologetic about supporting government programs we had for generations. It won’t be Republicans who institute a national program of compulsory vaccination against cervical cancer, and it won’t be Republicans who decide that if girls must be vaccinated, then boys – who after all can get HPV – must be vaccinated as well. President Perry would be no more likely to implement a federal HPV vaccination program than President Bachman or President Cain or anyone else on that platform.

Surely Bachman knows that? But she let herself be goaded into an all-out attack on Perry without any attempt at discussion of the real issue of compulsory vaccination and state’s rights. She made it purely personal. She pounded on it again and again. And when Perry conceded the issue and in effect admitted a mistake, she wouldn’t let that go: she screamed and leaped, accusing him of trying to implement the policy because Merck gave him a $5.000 campaign contribution. Perry didn’t handle that one very well, but it’s pretty hard to think of what to say when someone accuses you of a felony. I thought he was pretty restrained.

Now why is any of this important? Neither President Bachman nor President Perry will ever face the question if elected. What this did show is the candidates’ abilities to be manipulated by a hostile press. Perry came off without great harm. I do not think Bachman did.

Primary debates ought to be about issues. There are no substantial issue differences between the Republican candidates. That leaves leadership and implementation. The purpose of the debates is to allow the candidates to show leadership. Of those on that stage, Cain and Gingrich have stood out as understanding the problems and focusing on solutions, not on belittling their supposed fellow party members. Those who value political office more than principle got us into this mess in the first place. I don’t have a great deal of confidence in candidates who do not seem to understand that.

The Vaccination Issue

Public health issues involving compulsory measures divide conservatives and libertarians. They have for a long time. Do you have the right to go out in public after you know you have TB? Does the government have the right to compel vaccination against smallpox? What about diphtheria? Do you have the right to keep a bucket of stagnant water in your back yard? What about a fruit tree that you keep “organic” and which is infested with Mediterranean fruit flies? Does the state have the right to spray your organic fruit tree?

These are not trivial questions. They aren’t going to be settled here. The Constitutional solution to this is the same as for abortion and many other such issues: leave it to the states. That’s the general answer for those who believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The vaccination issue has a long history. I do know that in Tennessee in the 1930’s every school child had to get vaccinated, boys generally on the left arm, girls often elsewhere in places we weren’t supposed to see. Whether that was a federal or a state program I don’t know. I vaguely recall there were a few kids whose parents had a religious objection to vaccination, but I didn’t know any of them and it was never thought of as a big deal. Everyone I knew had also been vaccinated for diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus, but I think that was privately done; and of course you always got a tetanus shot if you got a puncture wound. Then when we went into the Army there was a new smallpox vaccination and a whole battery of shots including a particularly painful one we called Japanese Beetle (Japanese Type B Encephalitis).

Over time things changed, and more and more vaccinations became mandatory. Just after my kids got past the age of vaccination – all done as I recall by our pediatrician who so approved of what I was writing that he was taking care of them for free – the list of mandatory vaccinations became so long that the whole process was being questioned. How many? All at once? At what age? All questions of importance.

While I was growing up there was no vaccination for polio, and every polio season was a season of mild fear. When Salk developed his vaccine I rushed to get it. One of the members of my fencing club in Seattle waited a year. The last time I saw him he was in an iron lung.

To repeat: These are not trivial questions. They aren’t going to be settled here. The Constitutional solution to this is the same as for many other such issues: leave it to the states. That’s the general answer for those who believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The argument for compulsory vaccination against polio and smallpox is one of public health. It’s less compelling regarding sexually transmitted diseases – depending of course on your beliefs regarding adolescent self control, guilt, and morality. Is it compassionate to require vaccination against HPV? Try this for a reasonable discussion: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HPV_Vaccine_Controversy.php

Now what happens if we discover a vaccination for AIDS? Should that be compulsory as a condition of attending school? For everyone?

What I tell you three times is true: these are not trivial questions, and we are not going to settle them here. Good people can differ.

From Chesley Bonestell’s Imagination?

Jerry,

It seems that the Cassini spacecraft continues to channel Chesley Bonnestell!

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Release & Picture:

A Quintet of Moons

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14573

Ponzi schemes

A while back, libertarian Peter Schiff had one of the trustees of the Social Security program on his radio show. He asked him to describe the difference between the system and a Ponzi scheme. He couldn’t do it — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMEZImvNio&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6610F55F8E810620

It’s an amusing listen.

Ed Armstrong

I think we have established that Social Security as configured at present meets all the criteria of a Ponzi scheme. The question now is how it can be fixed. Assuming that requiring compulsory savings is a good idea – and there is a lot to be said for that – the morality of transferring money from those who work to those who don’t work needs discussion. Supporting those who paid into a fund all their lives and now expect to be paid back is easy; supporting those who have been supported on disability all their lives and now expect to be paid after they reach the age at which they would have retired had they ever worked in the first place, by taxing those just joining the work force is perhaps another matter.

If Social Security were a real investment at compound interest it might be a different discussion, but the morality of taxing those who work to support those who don’t certainly needs at least discussion.

View 692 Monday, September 12, 2011

It’s still a Ponzi Scheme, and the media are still crucifying Perry for calling it that. Doubtless all this will come up in the Republican debates this evening (1700 PDT), and I presume that Perry is prepared for it.

If the Social Security funds were actually put into a Trust Fund, it would still be a Ponzi scheme even if it only promised to give everyone who contributed their money back, because a great number of people who never paid into Social Security are entitled to benefits. Those benefits have been ever-growing from the day Social Security was founded. Assuming that is true, there are still more future obligations not only to those who paid into Social Security but to others on Disability who never paid into it at all than there is money coming into the system. Everything previously paid into the Social Security System has gone into the general fund which was spent on armies and civil servants and cannon and roads and bunny inspectors, SEALS and Department of Education SWAT teams, Air Force One and a jet fleet for Speaker Pelosi, the Capitol Police and the District of Columbia Education System, and a ton of benefits to anyone who could afford a lobbyist and the minimum pay to play fees. That money is gone, and it can only be replaced by taxes, which just at the moment don’t cover current expenses – the US is running at a deficit. It’s as if Madoff ran out of money and was borrowing heavily as he continued to persuade people to invest in his funds with promises of lavish payouts.

That’s a Ponzi scheme.

Madoff pretended that the funds he took in were invested cleverly at compound interest, and that was how he would get the money to pay out more than he took in.

Social Security doesn’t even pretend to invest the funds at compound interest. It puts the money in the general fund and replaces it with a Treasury bond. I don’t know, but I presume that the interest from the bond would go to the Fund (although I don’t think Treasury bonds actually have coupons and interest payments) but since any income to the Fund would immediately go to pay bunny inspectors and people to raid Gibson Guitar, that doesn’t solve the problem. The only ways Social Security can generate more money for the Fund would be to increase the number of people paying into it, to raise the rate at which the contributors pay, or to find ways to tax people not eligible to draw from it. One proposal is to require everyone to pay the FICA tax on every cent of wage income; another is to add interest and other non-wage income to the income eligible for Social Security tax. These are the fixes that will make Social Security less of a Ponzi scheme. Think of Madoff: suppose he could get more out of his investors, while finding ways actually to invest the money at compound interest.

We will have to “fix” Social Security by lowering benefits, changing eligibility ages, eliminating some benefits for those not taxed (possibly placing them on welfare rolls, which doesn’t lower the total spending, but at least helps “save” Social Security) and eventually finding a way actually to invest some of the income at compound interest; and eventually, perhaps, Social Security won’t be a Ponzi Scheme. But it is one now, it always has been, and this has been known from the day of its inception. To say that Perry is not competent to be President because he actually says it is a Ponzi Scheme says a very great deal about the media and the political analysts, and the whole political system, and nothing it says is good.

When you are in a hole, it may be that you can’t stop digging. You may need to turn it into a tunnel. But you darned well better recognize that you are in a hole.

Of course there is another approach:

Subj: Can government lies calm the markets?

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/mikeshedlock/2011/09/11/will_markets_buy_government_lies/print

Jerry,

About 10 years ago, I went to send a letter to all my clients and I called Social Security a ponzi shemem and the legal department at my firm would not let me send out the letter; the head of compliance agreed with me but would not let me put it in writing!

So, will the debate be televised tonight? I tried to find the last one before Obama’s big important speach and could not find it.

Oh, and have you seen any details on the important, urgent bill we need to pass for him so he can fix everything? I saw on yahoo that President Obama was brandishing his bill, but I could find no links to an actual bill.

Hope you, your family and Sable are all well.

Alan

A show with everything but Yul Brynner

Murray Head

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu164131.html>

The debate: http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/12/tune-in-first-ever-cnn-tea-party-republican-debate/

I have not seen the American Jobs Act, nor have I any reliable communication from anyone who has seen it. I think it’s coming Real Soon Now, but I can’t be sure. I find it interesting that Congress is being chided for not passing it immediately when, to the best I know, no one including President Obama has actually seen the bill. Perhaps I am mistaken.

Social Security and Ponzi Schemes

But Jerry… Social Security can’t be a Ponzi scheme… ‘Cause the Social Security Administration tells us so!

http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm

Karl

They certainly do, and conclude that Social Security is sound and permanent and wonderful. They also leave out a great deal about tax raises, benefit growth, and repeated crises as they hasten to tell you that Social Security isn’t a Ponzi Scheme because, because, well because it just isn’t…