I have a voice - and this is where my voice takes flight.

January 12, 2012

On personal economics

by Nori — Categories: Economics, Feeding the Soul, Wising up — Leave a comment

In my RSS feed this morning was an article by A. Lawrence Chickering about annual get-togethers he had with William F. Buckley Jr. and Milton Friedman on the second weekend in January. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for their conversations. I have no doubt they would have been educational and thought provoking.

One particular piece struck my “OH!” nerve.

Milton never stopped teaching. One morning we went to the Alta Lodge ski shop to buy various trifles. I finished my shopping and impatiently waited for him at the door of the shop. “Got everything you need?” I asked. “Nope,” he responded. “But I’ve got everything I’m willing to pay for.”

In everything I’ve watched and read about Milton Friedman, that is quintessentially Milton. He was an enormous advocate of the free market system and free will, and that singular comment resounded strongly within me.

There are things I really want, thing I could make an argument for needing, but they aren’t things I’m willing to pay for. Maybe I should say, they are things I’m not willing to pay that much for.

I saw a new tablet by Lenovo that’s due out in 2013. It’s something I am sure to covet for a long time to come, but it’s not something I’ll be willing to pay full retail for. I may get the second edition of the tablet (Windows 8) after the tablet’s been in production for a while and the price has dropped or I can find it at an affordable (to me) price when it shows up on Amazon used. Maybe.

I like the freedom to spend my money as I choose and how I choose. I like buying things discounted and second hand. I don’t have a burning desire to buy things brand new as soon as they hit the market. If it’s something I need/want, I can wait.

December 31, 2011

On personal integrity

by Nori — Categories: Feeding the Soul, Social networking, Wising up — Leave a comment

My brother, who’s an extremely bright fellow, is also a sailor. He and his wife live on a small sailboat while he works nights and she works days. They’re preparing for the day they can sail off to warmer climes. I tell you this because it leads into this next bit.

I sent Dan a video link to a video about a young lady who lives aboard a sailboat. She’s self-sufficient with a solar panel et al and strikes me as a lovely and responsible person who works to pay for what she has and does.

Dan responded with this link about 4 young people who spent two winters sailing the Bahamas. After watching the video, I sent Dan this response.

I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about the four young people who sailed the Bahamas for two winters. While I thought their adventures were interesting I also found their actions in getting to the point where they could indulge themselves disturbing. That they would steal to further their goals was unappetizing. That they would use and damage other people’s property for their own ends with no apparent guilty conscience or desire to provide restitution was disturbing. It spoke to a lack of responsibility, personal integrity and moral fiber I found wholly unappealing. I also think if it were you or I, we could have gotten the mast stepped without resorting to misusing or abusing someone else’s property, so I guess the video speaks to a lack of ingenuity as well.

The sailing stuff was good. I wouldn’t want to do it but I’m sure the participants learned a lot about themselves even if the entire adventure appears to have done little to build character. Their actions epitomized the occupy movement, the “so what if you’ve worked hard, sacrificed and been smart, you’ve got more than I do and I want my share of it.” mentality. Sad.

It isn’t hard to determine which of the two I admire. What about you?

December 3, 2011

Just when you thought the TSA couldn’t possibly get any stupider . . .

by Nori — Categories: Government, Politics, Wising up — 4 Comments

. . . they do.

Teen's purse prohibited on plane because it's a "replica" of a gun.

The whole story is here => http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/02/the-fashion-police-aka-tsa

For those of you needing a definition of “replica” . . .

replica
n : copy that is not the original; something that has been replicated [syn: reproduction]

Now compare that to bas-relief.

bas-relief \Bas`-re*lief”\, n. [F. bas-relief; bas law + relief raised work, relever to raise: cf. It. bassorilievo.]
Low relief; sculpture, the figures of which project less than half of their true proportions; — called also bassrelief and basso-rilievo. See Alto-rilievo.

Now which do you think is the correct term for the gun on her purse? Yeah, I’m still rolling my eyes at the idiocy of the TSA. They evidently have no idea how to use a dictionary in addition to being very poorly trained. That’s our government at work folks, “protecting” us by being stupid.

December 1, 2011

Quinntessentially mutable

by Nori — Categories: Politics — Leave a comment

mutable
adj : capable of or tending to change in form or quality or nature; “a mutable substance”; “the mutable ways of fortune”; “mutable weather patterns”; “a mutable foreign policy”

I watched the Ron Paul ad highlighting Gingrich’s flip-flops this morning and thought . . . Gingrich is the mutable candidate, possibly even more so than Romney.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a lot to admire in Newt Gingrich. His marital morals and ego notwithstanding, Newt’s not a bad guy. He’s smart, well informed and he did a tremendous job as Speaker for which he got little wide-spread credit. He did, in essence, a presidential job as Speaker by limiting spending and working toward a balanced budget. But anyone spending any time working in politics or for political entities cannot possibly come away unsmudged and the Ron Paul ad certainly highlights the most glaring of the smudges. Reason Magazine takes a whack at a bunch more advocating infringement of civil liberties. <wince>

December 1, 2011

November 20, 2011

How the free market regulates behavior

by Nori — Categories: Wising up — Leave a comment

In the list of today’s TownHall news bulletins is this jewel about Target and McDonald’s pulling their business from an egg supplier after videos of inappropriate care, housing and handling of birds became public.

After reading the article you may say “we should enact legislation” but if that’s your first response, you’re missing the point. The free market has already handled this problem. Between Target and McDonald’s, and the other companies who will follow their example and transfer their egg purchasing power to other businesses, the egg producer is being legislated against by the free market. The egg producer has lost business, a LOT of business and will continue to lose more as word spreads. It didn’t cost you or I a dime and it happened at the speed of business, not government.

Look at what this presents to other egg producers. They have received a salutory lesson on best business practices and public image along with a chance to dramatically increase their business by stepping in as egg supplier to Target and McDonald’s. Isn’t the free market a sweet plan?!

The poorly behaving egg producer is in for a heck of a struggle to clean up their act and rebuild their reputation to the point they can recover their lost business, if that’s even possible. In one fell swoop they’ve lost millions of dollars in future business and are faced with an overproduction problem. They’ve got to do something with the millions of eggs Target and McDonald’s are no longer purchasing.

Now here’s the next key bit. The business managers made poor decisions which have negatively impacted their business. The decisions may have been fiscally sound but they failed on the social responsibility front. In watching the bottom line, it isn’t only about money.

If we were to bail that business out, what would they have learned? Nothing. Take this as a lesson that bailouts, no matter where they occur, are bad and circumvent the beauty and elegance of free market influence.

And here’s one final bit to ponder. If Target and McDonald’s hadn’t acted instantly to pull their business, they would have been held up for censure in the court of public opinion. This is a case where, even if the videos exaggerate the problem, T&D are better off to leap instantly instead of wait for the fallout. Consumers would be legislating with their business and both Target and McDonald’s would have lost sales as a result.

I’ve seldom seen a tidier example of the benefits of the free market system. We don’t need legislation to fix problems like this, we need to present the case to the public and let the dollars fall where they may.

Now here’s the flip side. We have birds. Ours are free range but there are some facts about chickens that you should know before you pillory the errant egg producer.

Handling birds by swinging them around by their legs is the ONLY effective way to handle them if you have ANYTHING to do with chickens (buying, selling, harvesting, handling, treating, moving). This may appear to offend their dignity but it is the only painless way to handle them.
Beak clipping is standard practice for high density population growth of birds. It doesn’t prevent them from drinking or eating and it reduces the damage birds can do to each other. If you’ve ever been pecked, you know exactly what I mean. Chickens can and do peck each other to death. Clipping the beak prevents this. This is NOT cruelty, it’s gun control for chickens.
Putting male chicks in big plastic bags at the sorting station and letting them suffocate is not inhumane. The birds go to sleep and don’t wake up and they do it where it’s warm, snuggled up to other little birds just like they would be if they were sitting under their mothers. This has been standard practice for decades and it is an industry norm, not cruel or unusual treatment.

I’m not saying this business shouldn’t reduce their crowding, increase the hen space in their egg-laying operation and improve their public image, but the probably sensationalized video is most likely a smear job by somebody with an axe to grind.

If you’ve never lived on a farm or butchered chickens or turkeys for your own consumption, the linked article is going to set off your PETA genes. If that’s the case, you have two choices. Get yourself educated on what it takes to raise chickens and eggs or stop buying and consuming eggs and chickens. Raising birds and eggs for public consumption is not an activity for the faint of heart. It’s even worse when you have to raise your own and do your own butchering. Trust me, been there and to me, it’s just not worth it. I’m buying my 100% natural chicken already cut up from the supermarket.

November 18, 2011

Hearings on tax reform

by Nori — Categories: Economics, Government, Politics, Taxing the American Public, Wising up — Leave a comment

I watched the Senate’s hearing on “Could Tax Reform Boost Business Investment and Job Creation?“. It’s fascinating. I’ve noted the important parts below. Listen to any bits that interest you.

There are four tax reform presenters (Entin, Stone, Mastromarco and Hanlon) and about a dozen lawmakers listening and answering questions. Each presenter has five minutes for opening remarks and each lawmaker has five minutes to comment and question.

Brady introduces the presenters with their education, significant job history and positions.

Entin talks about how taxation effects the economy negatively. He’s anti-Keynes and for tax reform and says taxes negatively impacts capital investment and ultimately hurts the workers. He’s for diddling with the current tax code which implies leaving the ability to engage in favoritism in place is a good thing. He’s well educated and smart but still sees the government as the “smart” manager of taxation and spending. Of the “retain the current tax code” crowd, he’s the most educated and aware of how theory and the real world don’t match. He sees and understands the inequities in the current tax code.

Stone plays the part of the village idiot, unable to connect theory to history/proven fact. He’s straight Keynesian, advocating for increased taxes and thinks government taxation and government spending is the only answer to every question. He is unable to see or admit what he’s advocating has never worked and he does a lot of fumbling to try and avoid admitting or facing it. When the Senators start commenting and questioning him, one of them (Mulvaney @ 65:08) excoriates him for advocating policies that have been proven not to work. While Entin may see the tax code as fixable, which is bad, this guy is much much worst. He is advocating bigger government with the government distributing the taxes to influence/control (“fix”) the economy. This guy is bad news. It’s a good thing he’s not very articulate. Only people who already believe his warped logic are going to listen to him.

Mastromarco advocates for the Fair Tax. His intro speech starts at 42:24. While it’s well worth listening to he wastes a lot of time in the beginning blasting other plans instead of highlighting the excellence of the Fair Tax plan. That bit made me wince. Brady questions him at 54:25. One of the senators asks him about the likelyhood of tax avoidance (Campbell @ 86:21). Stone comments on the Fair Tax at 59:18. I don’t think Stone realizes how strongly he’s advocating for the benefits of the Fair Tax. He talks about how it would encourage hard work and investment like that is a bad thing, calling those activities a “natural disaster.” I did say he was the village idiot, didn’t I? The guy is as dumb as a rock. Mastromarco rebuts Stone’s Fair Tax comments at 63:39.

Hanlon advocates reform of the current tax system. He’s for greater infrastructure spending, increased taxation, taxing the rich and raising corporate tax rates. Hanlon’s the village idiot’s slightly more articulate understudy. He may have been included to give Stone’s position support. I don’t see that as one of the outcomes of the hearing. I think he just widened the target area for some of the lawmakers’ shots.

61:18 – Casey talks about the inequity between types of companies in the current tax code to which Hanlon responds. More past, present and future ineffective tax code tweaking mentioned here.

65:08 – Mulvaney has some excellent comments about the current tax code and the comparison of real world versus theory. His section is a must watch. Stone props up his position as the village idiot in non-answering Mulvaney’s questions. “I think, I think, I think, I think . . . ” Who decided this was the guy to support the Keynesian model? Personally, I think they erred in their choice of an advocate.

After a bit of self-back-patting blah-blah-blah, Coats talks about good stuff starting at about 17:18. Start listening closely when he talks about consensus and the corporate tax rate/code and how uneven/unfair/unequal it is. That bit’s really good and Entin’s response to him is excellent and highlights how confusing and unequal the current tax code is.

77:20 – Duffy talks about the global marketplace and how our current tax code impacts our global competitiveness. He nails Stone and Hanlon by questioning them about taxes in other countries. Stone again reprises his village idiot role. The guy just doesn’t learn. In his responses, Hanlon again holds up his village idiot’s understudy role. Duffy’s articulate and informed and Stone and Hanlon look even worse in comparison.

90:00 – Duffy asks Hanlon about a carbon tax, global warming and taxation. Well worth watching Duffy’s five minutes just for Hanlon’s squirming to avoid answering Duffy’s questions. Stone’s fumblings are equally amusing. Duffy’s responses to Stone are spot on. Entin’s comments are very interesting as are his revelations about burden tables. This last bit is in response to Stone’s comments about the “right size” of government and are some of the most enlightening of the hearing. Entin’s comments at the end support the Fair Tax plan without naming names.

95:43 – Brady’s closing remarks are good. I got the impression most of the lawmakers are truly fed up with the current tax system, lobbyists and corruption. If they can hold that light up and stay strong, we may actually make progress from their efforts.

Watch or don’t watch. I thought it was good. If we’re informed we can fight for smaller government and a more effective and prosperity generating tax code. I know enough to tell my legislators which way I expect them to jump.

Conversely, if we aren’t informed, we are going to believe legislators and lobbyists without it tipping our bullshit meter.

November 10, 2011

The Affordable Housing scam

by Nori — Categories: Economics, Government, Politics, Wising up — Leave a comment

For a long time I’ve been a fairly silent advocate of “real life” classes for high school and college students. With our current ability to write gaming programs we could develop a Real Life game to be played by every high school and college student to teach them about finance, politics and personal responsibility.

While this is actually the job of parents, mine didn’t do it and I know few of the teaming masses whose parents actually did instill fiscal and personal responsibility in their get. Instead of learning how to manage a budget (and WHY you should HAVE a budget), how to save for a rainy day and retirement, how to stay out of trouble personally and legally, many of us had to learn at least a portion of that in the school of hard knocks. If you haven’t attended that school, let me tell you, maturity and true adulthood comes only after this knowledge is fully assimilated.

There is currently a game called the “Game of Real Life” but it’s based on rolling dice, not on a “choose from this list of actions” personal decision making ideology. I envision a computer based game that would let you make choices and your outcome (let’s assume the game lasts the length of a typical educational semester) at the end is based solely on the choices you made. There needs to be an element of chaos in the algorithm because shit happens. That thing did fall out of the sky, you did get rear ended and the windstorm did blow that tree into your house. The game would encompass all the students in all the real life classes running for that semester so your “real life” activity would influence and be influenced by all the other students.

At the end you’d get a pass/fail based on attendance and participation. The goal is to teach fiscal and personal responsibility, not score students based on how many karma points they acquired through the semester

I got off on a bit of a tangent.

Wadly and I are three years and two months away from having no mortgage. When we bought this place we put a big chunk down and we’ve paid ahead every month we could. The decision to do those two relatively responsible things has saved our butts twice. If we can keep this up for the remaining three years and two months we will be rid of our last consumer credit bill.

The reason I tell you this is because of the problems in the housing market brought on by the machinations of James A. Johnson, CEO of Fannie Mae. The housing market train wreck is explained in the new book Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.

This rather rambling heads up is in part due to the governments’ creation of another panel to craft legislation to “fix” the housing market. Haven’t they done enough already?

November 10, 2011

The Occupy crowd, climate change and Greek socialism

by Nori — Categories: Feeding the Soul, Government, Politics, Social networking, Wising up — Leave a comment

There are a lot of concepts, concerns and ideas whirling around in my brain. I’ve heard or read bits of stuff that have struck a chord but most of these bits are so brief they don’t warrant a post of their own.

This week I heard someone say the occupy crowd were children in adult bodies. That is SO true for a number of reasons.

If you do an internet search on “occupy violence vagrancy” you’ll get over 35,000 hits. <wince> To give you a flavor of why this is significant, the majority of major news outlets support the occupy movement so the reports of incidents of violence include assault, rape, theft and property damage are not carried by the big liberal media. The reported poor behavior, separate from the flawed ideology being spouted, is an indicator of the lack of sophistication/education/maturity of the movement and its supporters. This behavior is the complete opposite of the Tea Party rallys. No violence, no property damage, no crimes against persons. The “tea baggers” showed respect each other, the constitution and the rule of law. I don’t think that’s something you can say about the occupy movement.
CATO’s daily podcast for today is Donald J. Boudreau talking about the 1% and income mobility. The podcast is well worth listening to. I think I listened to it four or five times to really let it soak in. According to Boudreau, the rich don’t stay rich. The percentage of income increase actually falls as the levels of income and upward mobility for the other classes rise. It took me a while to understand that, which is why I listened to the podcast so many times. I’m a visually learner, not an auditory one. Boudreau also ties income mobility to our free market system. To translate what I learned from Boudreau into “me” speech, the Occupy movement is uneducated, clueless or deceptive. At this point I’m going to say, take your pick. Listen to the podcast and see if you don’t agree.

A lot of the floaty bits are climate related.

With the launch by Japan of the new CO₂ measuring satellite the carbon tax scheme is crashing like a poorly constructed house of cards. The satellite proves countries who supposedly produced all the CO₂ actually don’t. I can hear the anthropogenic warming crowd scrambling to do damage control as we speak. I’m watching to see how they explain the elevated CO₂ levels over uninhabited and heavily forested bits of the globe as well as the significantly reduced CO2 levels of the industrialized nations. It should be pretty entertaining to watch the spin.
The BEST data is another scheme by which climate alarmists are trying to manipulate public opinion. Of course they won’t release their data until AFTER the IPCC meets. That prevents the more responsible scientists from dissecting the data. I’ll bet you lunch at Plaza Jaliscos or the beer of your choice it will come out that the data was manipulated to show it supports man-caused global warming. Anyone want to take that bet?
The anthropogenic climate change debates in Australia and England are very hot right now. It’s like watching kabuki theater. Politicians seeking to gain power are screaming that Australia will be a dust bowl and it’s all due to man’s evil actions. Of course this stentorian rhetoric was given just as a tremendous thunder storm rolled in and thoroughly soaks the “dust bowl” area. Oops. As they say, timing is everything.
England’s facing rising energy prices and 1 in 4 families are facing choices in whether they stay warm, drive to work or eat. This is beyond stupid when England has just discovered a huge reserve of natural gas that could heat their citizenry’s home at a fraction of the current rate. Instead of leaping on this new find they’re still putting up inefficient and ruinously expensive windmills. Due to a really poor showing by their government run meteorology office, they’re requested the funds for better computers. I wonder how much this latest scramble has to do with their abysmal performance when compared to the absolutely brilliant forecasts by Piers Corbyn.
Changes in CO₂ are proving to not be tied to global temperature, proving the lack of validity of the greenhouse gas effect. The levels of CO₂ are rising while global temps are dropping. Can you say “junk science”?
And one more goody on this front. I watched somebody explain how the use of windmills actually causes more pollution because the wind is a variable commodity and the power plants have to ramp up and back down constantly to cover the ever changing power deficit. A defined amount of power must be produced consistently and windmills can’t do that without power plant backup. If you understand fuel economy you know the harder you step on the gas the more fuel you use to produce the same end result. If you’re constantly on and off the accelerator you will have really poor gas mileage. Power plants are no different. Smooth and even saves fuel and the up and down of wind power actually wastes fuel and causes greater pollution. I think this is one of those “unintended consequences” we keep hearing about.

And a tiny bit about Greece. The president of that fine nation (note sarcasm) is a socialist. That government, has been following socialist tenets and is now facing an identical ending to that of every country governed using that ideology, a heart breaking financial, emotional and political mess. This is another case of those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. The question in the case of the leadership of Greece is, was it stupidity or arrogance. Was the president so arrogant that he felt would work under his leadership despite having never worked before? Or was he so stupid he couldn’t look at history and understand what happened to other failed socialist nations? If you are an Occupy sympathizer, you might want to take note. Aside from being contrary to our Constitution and Bill of Rights, income redistribution and the idea that a job is a right are both socialist tenets. Socialism has never worked in the past which gives an excellent indicator of how well they would work in the future.

I’m sure there are other bits floating behind my eyeballs but they haven’t fermented long enough.

November 8, 2011

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