Shame on You George Bush

I forgave you when you passed No Child Left Behind. Did you not know that it would do nothing to help educate children, but entrench the bureaucracy that has sentenced them to the economic and social prison that a lack of education insures? I forgave you when you signed McCain-Feingold after correctly saying it was unconstitutional, and you would never sign it. Did your father’s “Read my lips, no new taxes” broken pledge to the American people make you think it was OK? I forgave you when you signed the North Korean deal that any observer should have known would only serve to give the rogue nation more funding.

But I can never forgive you for your recent comments about Donald Trump. You were silent while Obama all but nationalized the banks with Dodd Frank, and you were silent when he did the same with Obamacare. You were silent when he signed the Iran deal which effectively promoted terrorism throughout the world, and worse, brought us closer to a nuclear disaster. You were silent when Obama’s Israel policy had the effect of giving obscene justification for Palestinian terrorism. In fact you were silent throughout the most destructive series of foreign and domestic policy decisions in modern presidential history.

Yet, after all this silence, you decide to bring out your megaphone because of Donald Trump‘s unorthodox/crude manner. How dare you? Trump has made more progress with North Korea in nine months than Bill Clinton, you and Obama made in 24 years. He has reversed as many of the evils of the Obama’s wrong headed thinking as is possible, and is committed to reversing as many more as possible. His cabinet appointments are not simply good, but superlative, each committed to a pro growth freedom agenda. That hardly sounds like the end of the Republican Party. It is colossal gall that you would suggest such a thing, given the vast losses the party incurred as you left office, all of which have been reversed with Trump's election.

Mr Bush, “It is better to be silent and thought the fool, than to open your mouth and leave no room for doubt.”

BDS: A Tutorial

The BDS movement (Boycott Divestiture Sanctions) against Israel is growing on college campuses and other leftist strongholds. I assert this this is just anti-semitism (reminiscent of the Nazis) disguised with 21st century robes.

No informed man or woman could possibly believe there is any moral equivalency between the Palestinians, whose only purpose is to drive the Jews into the sea (aka exterminate them), and the Israelis who want one thing, to live in peace. But BDS goes further than just moral equivalency. They claim the Jews are the aggressor, as if reaching out to stop an attackers knife headed for your throat is a form of aggression.

This anti-semitism by the Left is old hat, although they have re-written history putting the sins of the Left on the shoulders of the Right. The Nazis were a left wing party. Stalin was an ally, at least until Hitler thought he could successfully carry the battle to his eastern front. The Nazis name, The National Socialist Party should be enough to prove it. Mussolini and the Fascists were Hitlers staunch allies, and pure socialists. The history of Jew hatred is not the exclusive domain of the left, but they have dominated it for years.

Why, one might ask, are so many Jews supporters of the Left. Most conservative and reform Jews are atheists. Many don't know it themselves, but if you ask what happens when one's heart stops beating, most will tell you that no part of that person transcends time, that there is no immortal soul. They worship progressivism, not God. Try this. Tell a progressive Jew that God is dead and he will likely give an inert response, but suggest that any progressive idea is failed and destructive and you will get an animated passionate argument.

We should now and forever more identify the BDS movements for what it is, an anti-semitic group of haters spewing vile lies and slanders.

Why Vote for Trump? Extreme Realpolitik

The Republican establishment should wake up. Over the last few weeks I am heard many renowned and accomplished conservatives say that they will not vote for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a buffoon. He is a crude, a bully and a clown with migrating ideas and values, to the extent that he has any thoughts at all. But life does not present us with perfect or sometimes even good choices. Was Bob Dole even a good choice? John McCain is far more liberal than conservative, and worse yet he has repeatedly furthered liberal propaganda by allowing himself to be the poster boy for bipartisanship (defined as a singular John McCain joining the Democrats.) In fact we have had exactly 2 presidents in the 20th and 21st century that qualify as "good choices," Calvin Coolidge and of course Ronald Reagan. I promise you most of the “I won't vote for Trump” crowd who are old enough, voted for Richard Nixon. He was a liberals dream. He created the EPA, passed cost of living increases, imposed wage and price controls, and his dream of universal healthcare came close to reality.. George H. W. Bush found it more expeditious to violate his oath on taxes than to withstand the heat from the entrenched political class. George W Bush signed campaign finance reform after telling the world that it was patently unconstitutional, signed No Child Left Behind with the support of Teddy Kennedy (frightening), a law that any observer of public policy knew would only pour more money into the bottomless pit called education reform, and then he tried to give us Harriet Miers, who likely would have been as much a disaster on the Supreme Court as his father's appointee David Souter.

And so along comes Donald Trump. I will not defend him. He is indefensible. His language, his thought process, his knowledge base and his chameleon nature, are repugnant. Who knows what he will do as president? Not me. But there is one thing of which I have no doubt. He will be infinitely better than the Hillary Clinton. Charles Koch said that Obama is driving us towards a cliff at 100 miles per hour. He also said that George Bush was pushing us there at 50 miles per hour. Sadly, those are our only choices. Should conservatives run towards the cliff at 100 miles an hour by not voting, or at 50, holding our noses while we vote for Trump and pray that a savior is on the way? Donald Rumsfeld wisely said you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.  

The Left Kills

It happens over and over again, but never ceases to amaze me. GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are genetically altered seeds that make farming safer and more economic. One seed might require less water than the original, another might be pest resistant, require fewer pesticides and herbicides, and another able to withstand severe weather. In years to come they will produce more and more nutritious fruits and vegetables and other yet unimagined features. Chipotle restaurants announced last week that they would no longer use GMOs  in any of their foods.

The world rejoiced when the first seeds were successfully developed. They were expected to help feed the hungry, to give enhanced nutrition to children and adults alike, and allow farmers to grow more with less work, fewer crop losses, while increasing arable land and yields. It has done exactly that. Better and better seeds are being developed every day, improving lives around the world. Who could object? True to form the Left has, with Chipotle being a loyal follower. Why, and what is the effect of this inexplicable decision?

GMO naysayers claim all manner of illnesses have plagued the world since their development. They talk about the possibility of catastrophic events (all imagined without any evidence) from GMOs gone wild. Of course this is the same as most of what the Left says, slanderous lies. There is not one case of illness attributable to GMOs, but there are millions of people who didn’t starve because of them. The Left creates authoritative looking documents by authors with impressive sounding credentials (credentials awards and degrees awarded by other Leftists) who are willing to speculate, exaggerate and outright lie. It is impossible to prove what will happen in the future, but these wonderful discoveries have led to better healthier lives for literally hundreds of millions people.

When Chipotle bans GMOs from their menu, they give credibility to baseless assertions, scaring people away from nutritious life saving foods. Chipotle’s action is a metaphor for the Leftist policies. All motives and policies are promoted as being for the good of mankind, claim to be based on science, yet most have devastating consequences worsening the condition they set out to correct.

Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor of NY in 1993, a time when crime was so rampant the city was regarded by many as ungovernable. With his police commissioner Bill Braton they implemented the “broken windows” theory of crime prevention, where the police were instructed to go after minor crimes with the expectation major crimes would be reduced. The idea worked. I won’t explain why, but it worked unbelievably well. New York city went from one of the highest crime rates in the US to the lowest. The real estate market has boomed ever since because people from around the world want to go there. The cultural centers are healthier as is every business. Even with tax reductions tax revenues have skyrocketed. Prosperity is everywhere. So what is the radically left Mayor de Blasio proposing; to abandon broken windows and go back to the failed theories used in the bad old days. Just as quickly as the murder rate came down under Mayor Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg, it will go up under de Blasio. The Left kills.

Have you heard that measles have made a comeback after decades of near extinction? Why? Because in the face of repeated studies by prestigious institutions consistently concluding the opposite, the Left claims that vaccines are bad for children. Parents who believe this have stopped vaccinating their children, and we have these unprecedented outbreaks as a result. Vaccines can have adverse effects, but they are well worth the risk when measured against mumps measles and polio. For whatever reason, Left could care less.

They advocate public policies which even a cursory examination would make clear are harmful to everyone. The Left has supported the Teachers Union and opposed charter schools and vouchers for decades, making all manner of fictional claims about how such policies (vouches and charter schools) would undermine a good education. Meanwhile they have increased school budgets every year for 40 years. During this time teachers salaries have gone up dramatically, work rule protections have gone up, and class room size has gone down. Yet education has steadily declined. More and more children fall farther and farther back in reading, mathematics, and life itself. The Left also destroys hope.

In 1965 Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. He began to subsidize everything from rent to food to medical care. Here we are 50 years later and poverty is alive and well, arguably more prevalent than it was then. Meantime all manner of social pathologies have developed, from drugs to out of wedlock births, to a murder rate never before experienced. One must understand that under the Left’s system, if someone collects welfare he cannot work or he will lose the benefit, and if he is on Medicaid he cannot save any money, or he will lose the small health protection it provides. These perverted incentives mean once someone is in the system it is almost impossible to get out.

The Left constantly advocates increasing the minimum wage, suggesting the only effect would be the employers would earn a little less. Of course the truth is far different. Minimum wage laws should be renamed “Unskilled and Youth Job Training Destruction Program,” because that is exactly what they do. These laws destroy jobs for those just entering the work force, denying the most needy, the most in need of job training, the opportunity to enter the middle class and lead productive, dignified lives. The worst part is that being frozen out of the work force leads to any number of social pathologies. “Idle hands are the devils workshop." Is it any wonder the growth in pathologies track very close to the growth in government subsidies and minimum wage? If I were a fourth generation welfare recipient, my career goal would likely be getting as much from government programs as possible. I would know nothing about the more fruitful career path of working productively. The War on Poverty has become a Poverty Prison.

Obama care is the law of the land. Forget the Presidential lies and bribes that birthed it, the Left claims there are 14 million fewer uninsured. They predicted that emergency room use would decline as these formerly uninsured using them would be able to go to Medicaid doctors. Emergency rooms are busier today than ever. There are weeks and months of waiting to see a Medicaid doctor because so few doctors will participate, so the formerly uninsured patient still goes to the same emergency room. Anyone who thinks the government can set up a health program (or any program) that works need look no farther than the Veteran’s Administration. Even after fraudulently compiling the figures making things appear less ugly than they are, the waiting times, maltreatment and deaths at the VA are still off the charts. The fact is one can look at any government program, and the execution is pathetic when compared to any comparable private sector effort.

But the Left plays their games on a far larger and a far more deadly scale. Communism was “based on science” according to the early advocates. They preached that nirvana was at hand if only people ceded their individual rights to the state, their property to the state (guns first and foremost), and renounced their faith in favor of the state. Stalin proceeded to kill 80 million people, Mao killed 60 million, Pol Pot 3 million,  and an endless list of other tyrants selling the same garbage killed and imprisoned unfathomable numbers. The lucky ones were condemned to a life of poverty while the free world prospered.

Castro has kept his people in an island prison for 60 years, yet the Left toasts him as a hero. Che Guevara, his executioner, is for some unknown reason revered among progressives. When Chavez took over Venezuela he made the same promises every communist tyrant does. It was easily predictable that the economy would collapse, and of course it has. The point is that after this horrendous record, under  banners ranging from communist and progressive to socialist and liberal, the Left has gained power while systematically destroying whatever it touched.

The only “communist" success was actually a capitalistic movement in China. After the death and devastation of Mao’s “great leap forward,” his name for the promise of communism, the country turned to capitalism. It has improved every aspect of the lives of a billion people, growing the economy from minuscule to the second largest in the world. For some reason China still maintains the communist label, but they anything but communists. 50 years ago Pinochet moved Chile from the devastation of Allende’s totalitarian communist rule (and poverty) to a free market system. Chile became the economic miracle of South America. In 1945 Argentina had a living standard equal to pre war France. The communist governments since have left them far behind their former economic equal. Look around the world. Look at history. Every time a country moves towards free markets, freedom soars as does the living standard, lifespans, and everything else a society strives for. Look at those countries who have moved away from free markets. Repression and economic failure has always been the best result, with death resulting for the more unfortunate.

Chipotle and their ilk (Starbucks, Whole Foods etc,) have a choice. They can jump on whatever bandwagon the Left is selling without regard to the consequences, or they can do some real good and stick to their business. If there is a need to enter into policy discussions, I would argue that in the long run the truth will serve them far better than leftist propaganda.      

Elizabeth Warren Is Only A Distraction For Hillary

The political pundits advising Hillary to move to the left in order to pre-empt a threat from Elizabeth Warren have it wrong. It is questionable if such a move will gain her any votes, but it is unnecessary to win the primary and will hurt her in the general election. In 2004 Howard Dean had the same crowd of radical leftist groups like moveon.org backing him. Up until the actual voting he polled great. Of course once the battle began he crashed and burned, losing to the more "centrist" candidate John Kerry.

In 2008 Obama started with the same supporters as Dean, but he won. There was one major and telling difference. Black voters represent about 25% of Democratic primary voters. and traditionally the vote is divided. Obama entered the primary and true to form it remained divided because no one thought he had a chance of winning. But once he won in Iowa, people realized he could win the nomination and the entire black community lined up behind him. Hillary would have won in a landslide absent the black vote, and would have won decisively had the black vote been divided. In 2016 the it will be divided, and Hillary will win the nomination easily. After all, wasn't Bill Clinton "the first black president"?  

Larry Summers; Wrong Again

The supposed mainstream economists have absolutely no idea about what macro economic forces causes what. There is no logic to what they say and a complete ignorance of economic history.

This morning prior to an Export Import Bank meeting, Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, President of Harvard University and lifelong darling of leftist economists, was on Bloomberg TV discussing economic policy. I can’t quote him exactly but here is the gist of what he said. Export Import Bank subsidies (some of which go to healthy large corporations like Boeing) support US exports and labor. He added that he can’t understand why some economists oppose those subsidies and at the same time support corporate tax reduction, which, he said, only add to corporate profits. This is a perfect example of the Lefts one dimensional thinking and their complete ignorance of how capitalism works.

So far as corporate profits go he is right, but only to a point. A reduction in the corporate tax rate would boost profits temporarily, but (everything being equal) competition would kick in and prices would decline below where they were before the tax cut. The former tax revenue would find it’s way into the customers pockets, not the shareholders.

In a free market system a product is priced in order to return the maximum profit to shareholders. But, that price is not freely arrived at. Competition determines what that maximum price is, and if everyone competing eliminates an expense (as in corporate taxes) at least one competitor will reduce prices proportionately, forcing everyone else to do so.

Of course a profit is necessary to survive, putting a floor on prices, but in theory that price level was determined before the tax reduction and would remain the same afterwards. Better marketing, cheaper production costs and a host of other things always cause variations in pricing and profitability, but these things are ongoing with or without tax reductions. If the coffee growers price goes down you can be sure after an adjustment period the supermarket price will go down as well. The first Ford car cost about $5,000, but after Henry Ford successfully reduced production costs with his assembly line, the price came down to $500. It is no different with taxes.

I will only briefly mention the other positive ramifications of corporate tax reduction. Cheaper prices that would result are a benefit that every consumer enjoys, not only that reviled 1%. Consumer price reductions equate to an earnings increase for everyone, although liberal economists are loath to point that out. And although this simple concept seems too abstract for geniuses such as Summers, lower taxes and thus lower prices support wealth production and economic growth.

My question is, are these ridiculous one dimensional (in a multi dimensional universe) liberal economic theories honestly (albeit foolishly) believed, or are the always decorated liberal economists really doing leftist marketing disguised as scholarship?

How Did Obama Get Elected?

How is it possible that Barack Obama got reelected? One might explain his original ascendency, however unlikely, to his hidden nature, something the press studiously avoided talking about. But to make the same mistake again is almost unfathomable. He is a man that sat in the pews of a racist, Jew hating, America hating preacher and called him his mentor. He refers in his autobiographies (the plural is not a typo, he has two of them) to Frank, who is Frank Marshall, another mentor. Marshall was a lifelong communist, as thus an apologist for Joseph Stalin, the murderer of 80 million people. He cut his teeth in Chicago politics at the home of Bill and Bernadette Ayres, convicted domestic terrorists. He attended events for fundraisers for Hamas, terrorists in the middle east. And if anyone doubts that past is prologue, he has governed using the same destructive principles that the aforementioned rogues gallery advocate. Who would vote for such a man? How could this happen?

The founding fathers believed that a representative democracy could only flourish if the voters had a vested interest in the long term health of the country. It is often the case that the long and short term interests are opposite one another. Some men are willing to delay gratification in order to enhance long term benefits, while others seek instant gratification at the expense of long term health. Our founding fathers understood that allowing everyone to vote was a recipe for disaster. Too many voters would opt for instant gratification regardless of the longer term costs. It was almost self evident that any system embracing one man one vote was doomed to fail.

The fathers wanted to insure that only voters with a long term interest qualified to vote. Because women were considered ignorant in the ways of government and business, and a man not owning property was thought to be too young and inexperienced to cast a thoughtful ballot, or simply unqualified by virtue of his station in life, they were excluded from voting. Land was prized above most  things (this was a time when Ben Franklin said of our agrarian society, “All wealth will come from the ground.”), so that or a minimum amounts of land, savings or taxes paid were used as a criteria to qualify to vote.

Below are quotes illustrating the thinking at that time. It applies today as much as it did then. My thesis is that if only people with a vested interest in the long term survival of the US were voting, this aberration of an Obama re-election could never have happened.

'Property requirements were widespread. Some colonies required a voter to own a certain amount of land or land of a specified value. Others required personal property of a certain value, or payment of a certain amount of taxes. Examples from 1763 show the variety of these requirements. Delaware expected voters to own fifty acres of land or property worth £40. Rhode Island set the limit at land valued at £40 or worth an annual rent of £2. Connecticut required land worth an annual rent of £2 or livestock worth £40.

John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and later president, wrote in 1776 that no good could come from enfranchising more Americans:

Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.

The true reason of requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is to exclude such persons as are in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is consistent with general liberty.” 

Interesting that the quote above believes limiting who can vote would protect against wealth having an undue influence. What has happened since the one man one vote policy was adopted is not that wealthy individuals have gained undue influence, but the government itself has become the wealthy force that trades favors for votes. The never ending expansion of the social programs has provided a framework for Democrats to gain and expand power. These programs have proven to be cancers destroying the nations economic and social fabric under the false banner of compassion, but they succeed in garnering votes. 

Most Democratic voters have no idea what philosophy the party employs, they don’t know who the Vice President is, who their senator is, or anything else related to the economy, civics or the legal system. But they do know how to apply for welfare, food stamps, aid to dependent children, heating subsidies  rent subsidies and Obama phones, and they know what party to vote for to insure the money for these programs keeps flowing.    

Whether these laws limiting voting accomplished their purpose, or could have been crafted better is open to debate. Even if there was merit at the time to the prohibition on women voting, it certainly would be an absurdity today. But the idea that letting the entire public vote would destroy the democracy is as true today as it was then. In order to expand the class of uninformed voters, the Obama crowd routinely insults our intelligence with nonsensical claims such as arguing that identifying oneself at a polling place is undemocratic and an undue burden. To the contrary it is both democratic and a small step in the right direction if this nation is to survive.

Early critics of a democratic system said a democracy can only exist until the voters learn they can vote themselves the other guys money. I fear our system, one man one vote, will prove those early critics right. We are seeing it in real time with the election of the most unqualified, most dangerous, man to ever run for much less hold the office of the President. He is an ideologue with no sense of history, no experience in the real world, no understanding of capitalism or any other economic system, whose world view has been shaped by intellectually arrogant and intellectually bankrupt, unaccomplished, fringe radicals.