"Torture" edited for bias style

Here are the headlines...

Washington Post: Interrogation Details Emerge
CNN: Bush-era interrogation memo: No torture without 'severe pain' intent
New York Times: Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A.
LA Times: Memos reveal CIA interrogation methods
Wall Street Journal: CIA Memos Released; Immunity for Harsh Tactics
[note headline on home page differs No Prosecution for Waterboarding ]
Fox News: Administration: No Charges Against Waterboarders

Scoring on the bias scale; I would commend the Washington Post and LA Times headliners. New York Times [shock] is the most liberally biased headline. CNN is not bad but adds a bit of detail to the headline. WSJ is interesting... the front page is taking a completely different angle then the headline of the article itself... [different folks with different philosophies?]. Fox loses on the the conservative end of the scale for missing the whole release of the documents and jumping to the end story.

Tea Party Atlanta Biggest and Best

I was there, I was proud and I was surprised. I had hoped for 5,000 people and a ratio 9 to 1 (90% normal people and 10% nut jobs). I was surprised on both counts.

The counts coming in are north of 10,000 and may be as high as 20,000 people. I could not tell because I was up close and surrounded on all sides by 1000s. The fact is that it was filling the street sidewalk to sidewalk for at least four city blocks. How many people is that? Do we allow 4 sq feet per person? Personal space be damned... Putting this to the reasonably test [2 lane road (20ft wide), side walk and curb (5 ft: assuming only one side), four city blocks (.4 miles or 2112 ft) = 52800 sq.ft. / 4sq.ft. per person == 13200 people]. Sounds reasonable on the low side. Add in the grass area, wider streets or longer blocks or less personal space and north of 15,000 is likely. In any case, a mass of humanity that far exceeded our expectations.

As far as the ratio goes, might be about right on the high side, from my point of view. This counts FairTax folks, smaller government, Bush bashers in the normal Obama bashers in the extremist. I counted 12 signs (and people) that I felt were over the top and 100s that I would like to drink a beer with and talk again. To give you a flavor of the crowd there was a group (of two) people behind us that tried to start an "Impeach Obama" chant (maybe 7-10 times). Each time is was them and them alone. The fist couple were immediately drowned out by "USA USA" or "FAIR TAX NOW". After that they were met with shaking heads and laughter. One guy (in the AJC video [:35]...in front of me... oh yes EFB got air time...and on FOX [2:00]) had his sign taken away. This caused a few around me to get a bit upset about free speech and a few chants of "Give it back." But the dominant conversation around me was about not letting that ruin the night or become the news item. In the end, cooler heads prevailed [on both sides] and they did give him his sign back; with an apology from the local police. They told him they were only doing as they were told before and they were now told to give it back. Much friendly conversations after that. All in all a decent time and Ms. Napolitano now knows where I am.

I will say that the AJC article was pretty well done and the photos there are a better representation then the video.

Most of the people I talked to were participating in their first political rally (as was I). I would like to thank Sean Hannity for organizing this event... oh wait that was Neal Boortz for.. Dick Army... no .. Newt Gingrich. Well, whoever it was on the vast right-wing for flying around the country and training all these organizers in local towns these past 6 weeks. I think they all earned their union wages this week. [tongue firmly implanted in cheek] I know the local folks here personally and I know that they like many of us that attended are doing this for the first time. The volume of people and the expansion of events pooping up these past few weeks has been nothing but astounding.

There are a few signs I felt were worth mentioning:
What's in your wallet? HEY that's MY wallet!

To my God and my guns I cling, I will never bow to a Saudi King.

Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.
Big [GOP logo] BIGGER [DNC logo] BIGGEST [Obama]
Oh and one more... That would be mine signed by John Rich.

Appetite for our debt is waning.

The small stock market rally was stopped cold today due to a upward movement in the sale of five year notes. For those that have been warning us about these days, this article is the beginning of the proof points on deficit spending. The market saw this news and dropped almost 250 points from 1:00pm until 3:00pm.

Here are the basics as I understand them. The increase in the interest rate on the 5-year notes sold by the US means that we had to raise the rate of return to attract buyers to our debt. Nested in this article is the fact that the UK has had issues that did not even sell out. So we raised the rate and sold the notes, why did the market react to this? Having to increase the rates means that there are less buyers for our debt. The rates can continue to climb to attract buyers but that interest expands the cost of all of the deficit spending programs. Should we hit the point as the UK has that sometimes there just are not enough buyers, what then?

Then we have three options.

Don't spend (ha ha ha ha ... sorry that was President Obama butting in) as much money. Which would limit the government's ability to fulfill all of the promises to the banks and in the stimulus package. Many will say this is good, but for those dependant on every word and action from Washington this is not good news.

So another option is to tax and tax heavily to get the money from the US economy instead of elsewhere. This is not good and will likely lengthen and deepen the recession. This would counter all of the good news this week that the economy may be stabilizing.

Or we can simply print money that does not exist and pretend. But that devalues all of the outstanding notes and is likely to make the current problem worse, causing us to raise the rates anyway to attract buyers.

So this action in the 5-years notes is bad news... very bad news. The end of our deficit spending may be at hand or at least far more limited. And we have not even approached the 2009 budget and the 10Trillion in debt it demands.

Death on the slopes! But something is missed.

I have heard all the tragic stories surrounding Natasha Richardson's death but one thing is missing from every story I found.

As would be expected, the left is all about taking away freedom, demanding helmet laws and ignoring personal responsibility and risk. They will compare this freak accident to other head traumas and add it to the statistics of 50,000 deaths. But most of those are car accidents or blunt trauma to the head. If you look at skiing accidents and death, you drop to 50 or 60 a year (out of 8million+ skiers). Of those most are risk takers on black diamond runs or collisions [and they will equate this to those]. Most [I dare say no others] are a simple fall on a beginner slope. It is like comparing jumping off a swingset to jumping out of an airplane. Where are the calls for helmets and parachutes on playgrounds? Helmets and five point harnesses for all passengers in cars? There are degrees of risk and adults accept those risks when the undertake actions. It is called personal responsibility [dare I use the word Freedom or Liberty] and this country was founded on it. I hope the her family can come to grips with this freak accident and find peace in their lives without joining the media in trying to take freedom from others.

But what part of the story is missing? Let's take a look at the timeline. Richardson had a skiing accident at a resort 80 miles outside of Montreal, Canada. Thinking nothing was wrong she was accompanied to her hotel by the instructor and a member of the ski patrol. An hour later she said she didn't feel well. She had a headache, so we sent her to the hospital. An ambulance was called and Richardson eventually was transferred to Sacre-Coeur hospital in Montreal. Richardson was then flown to New York.

This is what I noticed. She was in Canada where heath care is the envy of the American left and she flew to New York. She did not stay in Montreal where her husband was filming. She did not fly to England, the country of her birth. She flew to New York. The capitalist home of expensive health care [Not to mention the best heath care with the best facilities and most researched doctors in the world].

This accident is truly a time to reflect and learn. Not about helmet laws but about the quality of health care in the world and the choices people make in a time of need.

What could you do with $9,000 dollars a year for three years?

+$1.15T being injected into the Financial market. Washington has now put in $9T to "fix" the economy. This is 89,000+ per household in the US. I am trying to find the statistics but I would think we could have just paid up the mortgages on everyone at risk for far less. But like many of these plans that too would have been rewarding failure by taking from the shrinking majority that pay taxes. So what to do.

I would expect that most people do not have a mortgage over $1500 a month. I looked it up. Based on all homes the number is $927. Yeah... always forget when you live in a big city or suburb. This number is also lowered by folks that have $0 cost for housing (paid off home mortgage). There is a number for homes less than four years old ($1,371). If you remove the 112,000 of these folks that have no mortgage the average rises to $1,392. These numbers are from 2007. So a gut check of $1500 a month works.

So for a cost of 9,000 a household the US government could have covered 6 months of payments on the average house for every person in the country. For nearly 44% of homeowners this would cover 100% of their housing costs. [Because of this cost discrepancy this would actually cost less than the price tag]. Allow this exemption for 5 years at a total of 45,000 per family. That would be about $4.5T.

Wouldn't this have stopped the rash of foreclosures? That would have stabilized the securities market at created a floor on the price of securities. This would have, in turn, stabilized the banks. It would have also [not sure I like this] allowed people to buy houses off of the open market knowing that the first 5 years of mortgage was covered. This would have stabalized housing prices. With a bit of diligence to manage the out years, this could be constrained so that it does not simply defer the problems. For those without a "mortgage crisis" [93% of all homeowners] this would have created spendable income that would likely be used to pay off debt and/or buy things [stimulus].

In summary, for half of the current cost this could have been solved. I would have been content with 3 years (or 1/3 the cost). If some are worried about non-homeowners being left out, don't fret. I set you up. These numbers include housing costs by households, which includes renters. I checked and there are actually less households (105mill) then homeowners (123mill - owners of multiple homes). Since we don't want to reward on both homes, we can assume it will cost even less. So for three years every household would get $9,000.... Question..wouldn't this in effect be an "across-the-board tax cut" [ewwww... I know those are evil]. And this one would be far bigger then the Bush tax cuts. It is important to note that some suggested this (and for only 2009) and were lambasted for not having a Government-centric solution.
..and so we spend.

The economy continues to worsen and the costs to taxpayers keeps rising. Once again proof that "government experts" spend more time reading books and talking to each other about how much smarter they are then the rest of us; no time living life like the rest of us. They look at macro-economic issues and forget that those numbers are driven by the hard work of every American, every day. They all need a new line of work. One that actually produces something for the country. I believe that will help the economy. We have a chance in 2010 to help that along.

"Barack Obama is the smartest President"?

Have you heard it before? We have all heard how "dumb" George Bush is/was. I think it is about time to reveal that there is a big difference between book-smart and street-smart; Obama being the former and in no way the latter. The media being much of the former as well, has little to no respect for the latter. I guess, for the sake of honesty, I would be the reverse. I respect more what people have done and how the interact with people then I do what their grades were and where they went to school.

Obama can't find the door.
1. Might have seen this one. Yes that is a window. Dear Sir, Please note that there are no hinges or a handle. I am sure you have seen this one (again and again). But note it has handles and hinges and is simply locked. Even when it is covered, Bush must be mentioned and bashed. Mr. Obama simply "hasn't gotten acquainted" with his surroundings. That was not an excuse for Mr. Bush who was in CHINA. The Bush gaff was often labelled "Bush has no Exit Strategy"; including by the network news (see below). Is also became a top ten list on Letterman.

In the opening tease at 7:00am, co-host Charlie Gibson announced over video of Bush trying to open the locked doors: "No way out. President Bush tries the wrong door on his trip to Asia and has fun for the cameras. But the big question now: Does he have an exit strategy for Iraq?"

Not the same "oops, ha ha" coverage Obama got is it?

Gifts for our UK "friends".
2. Anyone can make a silly honest mistake...but it take a special person to insult a respected ally. Have you heard about the gift exchange between President Obama and Gordon Brown (UK Prime Minister)? Probably not. This article covered it but missed one of the gifts given to our President; The framed commission from the ship that was used to make his desk. How thoughtful and personal. And from the US 25 pack of DVDs. I hope they were not Region 1 (US) encoded. I am sure their were personalized by making sure they were Region 2. Like school on the weekend... no class.

Obama the stock advisor.
3. The confidence his policies give the stock market has been pretty obvious. Maybe one of those books he reads should have include the definition of P/E Ratio (Price to Earnings). Of course, his definition may explain a lot of his policies. I am so glad we have someone so smart now running our economy. No sense in leaving it in the hands of those Bankers and Finance folks. By the way Price to Earnings only matters when there are Earnings! Otherwise, it is called speculation .. a practice that helped us all so much in the Internet boom.

More brilliance to come, I am sure.

Bad Bank.. What happened to it?

I continue to be amazed that the "Bad Bank" concept that was the impetus for the 700billion dollar bailout has yet to be used. I looked for Pros and Cons of this concept. The dominant con seems to be paying too much for the assets or "nationalization". But what I found even less was a decent explanation as to the impact of getting these off the market. The conversation linked above is stunningly devoid of detail and value.

Let me explain it as I understand it (this comes from a conversation with a high level banker). This may help you translate the talking heads. The impact on the economy is elevated in the negative and the positive because of a combination of existing laws.

The first is the debt to asset ratio of a "bank". I have heard that this ratio is 10:1. In other words, if a bank holds 10billion in assets they can lend as much as 100billion. The problem came into play that these Mortgaged Backed Securities were considered assets (which seems odd since they are a rollup of lending so I must be missing some element). So when these assets began to default, their overall value was reduced. Based on the "Mark to Market" laws passed with Sarbanes-Oxley this loss of value must be accounted for on a companies balance sheet. I do not know that this is a bad idea, as some state. In the example I was given, a bank value lost because of these assets was 26billion dollars. This would mean that the bank had to reduce it outstanding debt by 260billion dollars. This number was more than there entire market capitalization. Therefore, they are bankrupt. But are they? Hence the argument against Mark to Market. The loans outside of these assets still have value and still may be repaid.

So there is argument against the practice but it exists. So the Bad Bank concept tries to reverse the problem. If the bad assets can be bought form the banks; even at a cheap price; the spiral starts to reverse. The assets that are purchased are removed from the bank's books. The impact of removing that bad asset allows for a ten-fold multiplier in lending. But the impact spreads rapidly. With a new price set on the assets banks can rebalance their books. Some may now be able to hold the assets. With the death spiral stopped the assets may being to trade. If not the government can against but some assets off the market. Again setting a new price. Once these assets being to sell again on the market the government could sell the assets into a rising market at higher prices to offset the other bailout funding.

Well that's what I think I know. And it made sense. So maybe that is why the government never did it. Instead they forced money onto the banks in exchanged for preferred stock. This devalued the shareholders and left the assets on the books. What I found interesting in the video above was the reasoning for the change in policy... World opinion. Europe was injecting money into banks for equity. It was decided that all of the major countries should follow a similar policy. Two problems. It sounds like an all eggs one basket solution. Additionally, we are listening to European Socialists on how to solve a banking issue caused by accounting practices in the U.S.

I am still hoping that government can follow a basic premise and buy low and sell high.

A clear difference in philosophy

I heard an explanation of the differences between Conservatives and Liberals that I thought was interesting. The comparison was something along the lines of ... Two Americans both have big dreams. The conservative wants to wrok for himself, create a company, provide for his family, grow the business and retire comfortably. The Liberal wants to make sure that others are provided for, that health care is afforable and poverty is reduced. What is so different is not these dreams but the way in which they are acheived. Unfortunately, the second man's dreams are accomplished by taking money from and destorying the dreams of the first.


I found this interesting at first and the more I thought about the better it fit. Looking at it from the other man's point of view. The dreams of the first man have no impact on those of the second. In fact his ability to grow the business does support providing others with employment, possible philtopic donations and the ability for employees to succeed and pursue their own dreams. Why can't the second man create a company, pursue business partners and provide for others on his own accord? Why is it necessary to require extraction of income from others? I find it very likely that there is a buiness opportunity in helping others. In fact if local companies were taxed less and incented in their philithropic efforts this business venture would be even more likely.

How to lie with statistics (politics II)

I have mentioned a few in a previous post and I now have a few more that are bugging me.


The income gap

One you have likely heard and may fall into is this...The income gap between the have and have-nots is widening. I do not deny that the gap is widening in fact if it was not the economy would likely be in serious trouble. It is just a function of simple math. Let's take some simple examples. One, let's say plumber, makes $40,000 a year. The second makes a clean $1,000,000. The plumber has a great year, things go really well and he increasing his income by a whopping 50% to $60,000 the following year. Now the millions did ok, his business was not growing as fast as he would like but he did out pace inflation and increased his income by 5%. This would take him up to $1,050,000. Yep there it is, the income gap is widening. In the first year the difference in income was 960,000 (1Mil - 40k) and this year it is over 990,000 (1.05Mil-60k). Everyone is making more money and the government would get more revenue... and this is BAD.

Now let's look at more realistic numbers. If employee making 40k got a more traditional 5% increase to 42k, the millionaire would have to make less then 1/5th of 1% to keep the gap from widening. I am not sure how you can make sense of changes in this number?


So what we come to is this, the millionaires in this country would have to stop making money just to keep it fair. Suppose one of those millionaires instead was a founder of say...Google...and clears 100Million. Well then we are all toast they will outpace 100,000s of Americans combined. So to make it fair we need to take more of their money. Right? Raise their taxes to level the playing field... hold on... taxes do not change income levels. So in fact, to stop this gap from widening we have to stop them from making the money in the first place. What options do we have to stop millionaires from making more money? The most obvious one I can think of is slowing the economy and making it harder for businesses to turn a profit. I am sure their are others but this seems to be the one currently in practice.


Median incomes

Closely tied to the last is the median income argument. The next statistics you will hear about is "median income". This is the logical counter to the simple math used in the income gap analysis above. Again, I submit that mathematics and normal economics is the cause of such statistics.Remember that the median is not an average it is the middle salary of all employed Americans. It is used to approximate the expected income of a "normal" worker and from this aspect is a better indicator then the average.

In a given year, employees join and employees exit the work force. Other employees move up the brackets. In a growing economy it is likely that more people are entering the workforce as jobs open up then those that are leaving it. With the workforce always changing, all that is necessary to shift the median downward is to have more employees enter the work force under the median then above it.

Here is a simple example. We have a small company of 5 employees. They all make 50K a year. So the median is 50K. Let's say that 2 of those people are principles in the company and due to company growth they report 100k each on their taxes. The average moves up but the median (middle/third employee) is still 50K. This growth allows them to hire 3 new employees at 30K each. The average moves back down and the median is still 50K (30k,30k,30k,50k,50k,50k,100k,100k). But if they were to hire 3 more employees (at anything lower then 50K) the median would now move down. What does this statistic tell us about the health of our company? It is failing right? NOT MUCH of a useful metric on its own.

So, if the economy is growing, is it more likely to be hiring high-level employees and managers or staff level employees? Most corporations have more staff level employees then management level (at least they should). When they grow, the dominant trend would be to promote from within and hire junior staff. Since the overall number of Americans employed increases the median is likely to go down. Again, and this is somehow BAD?

So What really happened these past years?
My intent is simply to have you take the numbers going up and/or down with a grain of salt and think about them. Each statistic alone can mean many things. It is only when we combine multiple indicators that we can truly see the full picture. I attempt to combine more information from the IRS statistics to clarify the economic picture around the median income levels.

In 1999, There were 94.5 million tax returns that paid taxes. There were 30.5 million returns for Americans making under $25,000 which amounts to 32.3% of the returns from that year. The median income that year was $50,641 (2007 dollars). Just bank those numbers as comparisons.

By 2003, [after the beginning of the recession and the attacks on 9/11/2001], we [logically] seem to have slid back a bit. There were 89 million returns that paid taxes but a full 3 million more returns were filed than in 1999 (more returns; less tax payers). Of those returns 23 million of those were from Americans making less than 25,000. There were 3 million more returns filed but 7 million less low income tax payers. Is this proof the shrinking economy was hurting those at the bottom the most? The median income that year was down to $48,835 (2007 dollars). Or is it proof that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 eliminated more lower income people from the tax roles completely while adding 3 million new wage earners?

Slide forward to 2006. There were now 10 million returns that paid taxes. Of those 28 million were filed by Americans making less than 25,000. We were now are up another 8 million tax filers including almost 5 million of those under 25,000. I believe that this is proof that the economy is growing and more wage earners are joining. If this is the case depending on the type of jobs being created, it is very possible that an influx of lower paying wage earners would bring the median income down. Would this be good or bad? If you know please let me know. Well... the median income for 2006 was $49,568 (2007 dollars). So it moved up.

I am unconvinced that median income means much at all by itself. But in this more complete context of more tax returns being filed and more wage earners it would seem to indicate a growing economy.

Final Conclusion

For further confusion the median income in 2007 was now $50,233. So what do we now have. We have increasing tax filings, increasing median incomes, increasing revenues. I would think that this is proof of the value of cutting taxes to avoid recession. I would also think that this exemplifies "a rising tide lifts all boats". Simple proof of conservative principals in action for the benefit of all.

But for my liberal friends, I have a statistic to help you out...it is listed within these numbers and you might have even heard it before..."Median incomes are down during the past eight years of the Bush presidency." Yep down from $50,641 to $50,233 over the eight year period. Of course, you have to ignore the facts of the recession of 1999-2000 and the attacks of 9/11 and the fact that the major drops all occurred before the Bush tax plan was fully in place. But hell, if you are going to use a confusing statistic in the first place, no need to burden it with the truth.

So what of McCain's idea of a "Spending Freeze"

We all hear how big the national debt is. They even have Debt Tickers that attempt to show it. The National Debt is currently at 10Trillion dollars. But what of the yearly impact on this number. From 2005-2007 the Debt rose by just under 1.1Trillion dollars. Or about 550 billion a year.

Tracking the growth of the federal budget from 2001-2007. We can see that the budgets grew from 1.9Trillion in 2001 to 2.77 Trillion in 2007. Each year it grew between 5 and 10%. During that same time Revenues were 2.1Trillion in 2001 and grew to 2.7 trillion in 2007.

Looking at the year by year numbers a single year hold in expenditures and a traditional year in GDP growth would put the budget back in balance for the short term. So in a general sense the point is valid. In fact this is exactly how we were able to turn deficits into surpluses in the Clinton years. Under the last four years of the Clinton Administration the Federal budget grew 100 billion dollars and tax receipts grew 500 billion. In some of those years the budgets did not grow at all. All it takes is someone with enough discipline to put it in place.

Since tax revenues are limited by GDP (as my previous blog explains) then the only options available are really to cut taxes, get the economy moving and limit spending. Since we are tasked with an ever increasing requirement for Entitlement Spending we will likely have to cut other items to get back in line. By "Freezing" the federal budget in total or at least in overall scope for a single year we can get ourselves back in line.

Democrats make this plan sound extreme and completely impossible. Many companies and individuals around this country have had to mange without a raise (or worse a cut in pay) at least once in their lives. Do we not think that government employees and agencies can do the same thing for a year? I think they can, in fact I think it is time we all expect from them what they have always forced upon us. I believe that until the impacts and returns of this financial crisis aer known we should hold all spending at current levels. If we could have the discipline to do this every other year and maintain a 5% growth rate we could be in a far better place in 4-8 years. But if instead we are to add another trillion in spending and raise taxes, slow the economy and lose revenues we dig even further into this hole. The impacts of that are likely to limit any possible return from the bailout and compound the problem.

The choice is so clear. If it is not made this November it will be made in the congressional elections of 2010 and again in 2012 but the climb out will take just that much longer. I would like to start now.

Kurtz has read the facts and connected some dots.

I originally thought that the fact that they sat on a board together for a few years was a questionable relationship. One that really required us to wait on Obama and see just what kind of legislator her will be. I think that is even more evident after reading the Kurtz article today.

The now connected dealings between Obama, Ayers, Wright and anti-American, anti-capitalist ideas are downright scary. All of those relationships are protected by the shroud of racism. Since the majority of Americans and journalists did not grow up as black men, how can they judge such things? Most of them would not dare try.

These tighter connection gives even more credence to the idea that Ayers helped Obama write his first book while both serving together. I figured this was fun reading and a interesting technical conspiracy theory but the ties seem to be pretty tight.

I have a simple answer on how to answer these questions fully and completely... time. Give us all time to see if these are "political relationships"" from Chicago politics or weather these are truly the "belief system" of this man.

Obama's own campaign convicts him for Fannie Mae collapse

Wow this is this most tainted twisted story I have ever seen! The narrator should lose all credibility and his job (if he has one beyond being a shill for the campaign).

The arguments layed out here absolutely set up Senator Obama for an investigation. The campaign contributions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implicate him in a plot to stop regulation of those companies. No different then the allegations against Senator McCain at the time.

McCain was exonerated after the investigation and 3 Democrats were indited. Somehow this was missed. This investigation set John McCain on the path to clean up corruption and undue influence in Washington and his record proves it.

I say it is now time to bring Senator Obama in front of the congress and the American people to answer for his campaign donations. As this video sets forth, he woudl have demanded no less from John McCain. Let us see if he too can come out clean.

Thanks for opening the door to fair play.

Democrats not done with ruining stocks...They want your 401k

They now want access to the tax dollars sheltered by our 401k deposits. Listen to the words "We've invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity". They believe we are stealing from them. How dare we try and save for our own retirement! It is unbelievable that any money you keep is "being subsidized" by the government.

Watch out for the "fixes" being put in place. I think they guys must have the easiest jobs ever. They do what they want, create problems through mandate, then convince us we need then to step in and fix it. I fear the American people are this gullible.

Can we please learn a lession from California?

We knew this was coming. California is the most expensive state in the union. It was only a meeter of time before the other states worked out ways to entice companies away. That way is tax policy allowing companies to have tax breaks to move their businesses into states and bring the jobs, associated businesses and increase tax revenues with them.

California's response was not to lower taxes but to try and raise them in 2006 to fund state run preschool. But it was ok because it was take from the rish and give to the poor. The Robin Hood feel good policy of the uneducated. (and well educated socialists). Those policies were consider ed risky in 2006 because they may create a greater incentive to leave the state.

Well another incentive came to pass, a shrinking economy. You see Democrats never look that far ahead. They don;t look at the side effects of policies. They see growing companies and profits and see money that they should take. They do not see new employees, service industries and the additional tax revenue. So they go after the companies and the ownership class within them. They did that so well that the companies where deciding if they should leave. Then the economy slowed, budgets got tight and the decision was made. They left, taking the tax base with them and California plunged into a recession.

The good here is that some states get it and those states are benefiting from the arrival of these companies. The problem is that California's policies are likely to spread to Washington and California's problems to th rest of the country. You see other countries have figured out the same thing as these states, cut corporate tax rates, bring in businesses and the tax revenues will follow.

Someday we will learn. I fear that day is a multi-year recession in front of us. But on the other side of that "malaise" will be fiscal responsibility and growth. At least I hope so.

Who is working for us and who is lining their pockets?

Let's let the congressional record speak for itself.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190
Note the “Reform act of 2005”. Comment dated May 25, 2006.The most significant statement… If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

Someone had their finger on the pulse of this issue and was trying to address it and save the disaster we are trying to fix today. Someone was looking cause and effect, actions and impacts. Someone was completely in touch with the situation and trying to do what was right. That someone was four republicans including John McCain.

Contrast that with this.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html
Note the dates 1989-2008. Obama was elected in 2004 and has reached number 2. I guess he is an “up and comer” [in lining his own pockets]. Note that McCain is not in the top 25. Wonder why?

So the simple question is, "Who is working ofr us and who is working for themselves?" It would seem to be so obvious at this point that to change Washington we need someone that is willing to for us.

Electricity comes from...thin air...and oil!

It would seem that the Democrats believe that electricity comes from thin air. They continue to pick winners and losers in this energy crisis. They have obviously decided that oil and natural gas, stagnant in the ground, is the loser and electricity and food for energy is the winner.
I simply do not understand it. Oil sits in the ground. Trillions of barrels of it already discovered and recoverable, but we do not want to get at it. I understand we do not want to use it all but even the amounts we have already found will last us 50+ years.

So instead we are to change over to electric cars. Electricity generated predominantly by lovely, clean burning COAL. Can't generate it via nuclear, too dangerous; Solar, too inefficient; Hyrdo, too destructive to those fish. Well if those are out of reasch we can always generate electricity by burning heating oil.

But we can also go after that other green technology, FOOD. So we do not burn oil buried in the ground, used for nothing else, but we burn food. We take fertile soil, clean water, farm equipment [what does that run on?], trucks, trains and processing plants to turn food into a liquid that we can burn. Yeah that makes sense.

Then we wonder why the price of food goes up and why the poorest of the poor go hungry. The term "you reep what you sew" has never been more literal [or did I mean to say liberal].

60% dependant on foreign oil is not acceptable.

We do not need to "lessen our dependence on foreign oil" we need to "eliminate" our dependence on foreign oil. These dribs and drabs of 5% here and 3% there are useless and only serve to distract from the problem. Politicians want you to believe that they are doing something. Moving from 70% dependent to 60% dependent is progress but of little long term value.

I have learned enough from politicians and business to know that when setting goals you should always aim high. You may not succeed but you are guaranteed to do better than if you set lower goals. I expect that the 10% goal of our current politicians will end up being 5% and deemed a huge success. I say aim higher. Aim for 100% US production. Yeah we may not get there but we will get far closer then hoping for a few percentage points here and there.

Drill off Florida, Texas and California. Drill in that postage stamp inside ANWAR and get moving on that shale from the Rocky Mountains. Increase Nuclear, Wind and Hydro power. Pursue new technologies. None of these alone will make up the 70% short-fall. T. Boone Picken's plan aims for 20% wind power. OK, that helps and we still have 50% to go. If we all inflate our tires as Obama would suggest that can get us 3-5% more. Still leaving 45% that has to come from somewhere.

When you set the proper goal it is easier to see that none of these are the right answer, all of them are. Let's get moving.

Background

I am a political junky and Reagan conservative [at least I think so].

I grew up during Carter and shaped much of my beliefs in the years that followed. I lived through the airraid drills in the schools, the Iranian hostage crisis, and double digit unemployment (my father was included). I have heard about the 24% interest rates but at the time had no clue of that impact. I did enjoy the 6% saving account interest, but did not understand the negative impact that double digit inflation was having on my meager funds.

I survived as did this country and watched Reagan and Bush compete in 1979. If I remember properly my dad liked Bush better then. I then watched as a strong man with strong opinions captured the country by storm. I listened as he talked about how great we were and that this crisis was about to end. And end it he did. Dropping tax rates, growing business and cheering us the whole way. Driving revenues upward and bringing the American economy and people with it.

I went on to College in 1985 in a whole new world from the one I grew up in. I graduated in four years (or there abouts) in Engineering. I have spent the last 20+ years working with computers, applications, databases, business intelligence, well... numbers.

I have always had strong opinions based on my upbringing and education. Hypocrites and the continual abuse of statistics have been my biggest pet peeves. I decided that talking with family, friends and yelling a the television was not cathartic enough. I decided to start writing them down and to see what others thought. Well let's see....