All Hail The Generational War!

We've been treated to class war as the impetus for social change since Herr Marx dispatched his philosophy of the masses from his London townhome, and while it had a brief run on the scene, its place on the dustbin of history is fairly secure--Nancy Pelosi's attempts to resurrect it as a governing philosophy aside.

But inter-generational war--there's a topic we can get behind.  Guess what all you young hipster Obama voters, you know, the Hope and Change crowd?  Retiring Baby Boomers have voted themselves and other entitlement addicts a steady drip of---not their own money--but YOUR money.  That's right--the young people entering the economy and starting their working life will face higher taxes and fewer choices because of the selfish and endless requirements Boomers voted themselves.  There's this fiction out there that we self-finance medicare and social security, and that "I paid in, so I get deserve benefits!"  Problem is, people are retiring earlier and living longer, thereby sucking up benefits for many, many more years than the system(s) were ever planned for.  Who makes up the difference?  Productive members of the workforce!  That's right--younger people are having their earnings confiscated in order that the most pampered generation in history can enjoy retirement with nearly free healthcare and prescription drugs and an economic status that can only be described as "comfy" compared to older generations of the past --and more importantly--than present generations of younger middle class workers.

Hat tip to Instapundit for this video--which besides having a really catchy riff--pretty nicely sums the method in which the younger generation is getting screwed.

Let's All Pull Together and Save Ourselves From the Tea Party...or Not.

I know a lot of conservatives, or at least people who consider themselves conservative, are getting a little wobbly about now. The left is in full slander mode. They are doing their best to make the Tea Party radioactive as they've done with so many conservative politicians (anybody's name come to mind?). They have focus grouped terms like hostage, dictatorship, extremists and they've been using them, repeatedly. And just as soon as some small bit of progress is made in the House, Harry Reid deems it "unacceptable" or "dead on arrival".

Buck up, this is all political posturing. Tell grandma the checks will still go out, the debt will be serviced and the troops will eat (along with the foodstamp bums). The fact is the left cannot fathom the idea they might actually lose. My thinking is this, the more they scream, the more vitriolic they become, the more afraid they are. This is an opportunity to do some real damage to the far left and their media lackeys. A defeat of this magnitude now will kill their agenda through Obama's term in office, at least. A conservative compromise, or more accurately appeasement, will guarantee Obama's reelection and an America that more resembles Great Britain in the seventies than Reagan's Shining City on a Hill.

The left created this crisis, let's not let it go to waste.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/07/26/the_truth_about_the_debt-ceiling_fight_99147.html

A Review of the Various Debt Deals

One of these does not look like the others.

Email to My Congressman

I sent this email to Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD1) this morning:

"Message Subject: Debt Ceiling--Get onboard with Boehner
Message Text:
Mr. Harris--you continue to operate under the mistaken assumption that you were elected by the 1st District to be a mouthpiece for the Tea Party. You were not. Frank Kratovil was defeated in a sea-change election and got caught up in the tide. I am a lifelong Republican and a conservative---and I assure you, if you continue to pursue your inability to reach a compromise position, you will be defeated in 2012. The question right now isn't if, it is by whom. Kratovil in the general or ME in the primary. Bryan McGrath Easton, MD

Big Fat Friday Free For All

Well folks, here we are--on the doorstep of yet another financial melt-down.  Buy your tickets to the "Second Rate Power Express", and ALL ABOARD!

What's on your minds today?  Got anything to get off your chest?

On the Arrogance of the Tea Party

As Americans watch our ridiculous political process play out to what can only be viewed as yet another sign of the decline of our civilization, the world looks in and wonders when the United States reached the point of ungovernability.  When did the "Shining City on the Hill" become a large, multi-ethnic, Western Hemispheric Greece?  No one event signaled this turning point.  It was rather, like the day a man in his forties looks at the scale and realizes he's gained 25 lbs since leaving college---which some would say happened 15 extra calories a day, every day during that period.  We've reached this point slowly, over time, a Chinese water-torture of dysfunction.

I write today to identify and to call out the Tea Party for its role in this decline.  The Tea Party--as a political phenomenon--is long past the point of being praised for its renewed focus on spending and fiscal discipline, its adherence to core constitutional principles, and its advocacy for limited government.  All of these impulses necessarily and effectively impacted the political debate in demonstrably positive ways.  Just look at where we are--2.5 years after the start of the most liberal Presidency ever--both parties are (at some level of abstraction) resigned to cut spending along significant lines.  Yes, one party would also raise taxes, but that it is also advocating deep cuts also, simply cannot be ignored.  This never would have happened without the rise of an effective force insisting on fiscal discipline.  It never would have happened without the Tea Party.

But the Tea Party--and its adherents who somehow believe that they were sent to Washington with the mandate not to think and not to compromise, but rather only to reflexively adhere to their "principles"--has committed sin of arrogance. Although my Wikipedia tells me that "pride" is the deadly sin, I suspect arrogance is close enough to pride to be included.

What do I mean by arrogance?

The (largely freshmen) members of the Republican caucus who are holding up Speaker Boehner's bill to temporarily raise the debt ceiling are doing so under the arrogant (and mistaken) assumption that THEIR principles are more legitimate and more closely held than those held by others in this political debate--and so, come what may, Tea Party principles shall not be compromised.  To some, getting a vote on a balanced budget amendment is more important than the full faith and credit of US financial obligations around the world, including to our own citizens who hold its debt and who faithfully do business with the federal government.

And while I have a great deal of admiration and a large measure of policy coherence with Tea Party principles, it must be remembered that there is a great liberal tradition in this country with DECADES of time and energy behind it who also believes in its principles.  Many in its sway believe that health care is a civil right, and that it ought to be provided by the government for all, at a common level of service.  Many liberals believe that our tax code favors the better off by subsidizing their choices in shelter, and by privileging investments over other income.  Many liberals believe that it is a sign of a civil society that it takes care of its poor and its elderly and that it places that burden on the young and the healthy. 

My point isn't that I believe any of this--it is that THEY DO.  And they believe it JUST as strongly as the Tea Party believes in its principles.  But they--liberals--realize that they work within a democratic political system, and they realize that compromise is ultimately essential to getting what they want done.  Do any of the mainly conservative readers of this blog believe that liberals "like" Obamacare?  Of course not.  They wanted single payer and they won't rest until they get it.  But they did not bring the whole works to a grinding halt in order to get it--rather, they used the power they had to get great big ship of state moving in the direction they wanted it to go, and they figured they'd come back for the rest later, when they were more powerful and when political conditions favored their approach.

I find myself in the embarrassing and unenviable position of considering the Democratic Party to be the more logical and pragmatic of the two major parties on the Hill, this after three decades of considering them to be the party of the heart (emotion) rather than the party of the head (reason). 

I still believe in the Republican Party, and I hold out hope that some kind of compromise will be reached to avert the second financial meltdown in three years.  But the longer the Tea Party stamps its feet and holds its breath, the more likely we are to face another real and deep crisis.

Grow up, Tea Party.  It's time for the adults among you to pitch in and get to work.

Nancy Pelosi is the Most Ridiculous Woman Alive

Yes, even more ridiculous than Lady Gaga.

Apparently, Former Madame Speaker's role in the debt ceiling debate is a good bit more dramatic than any of us realized. "What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today"  is what she was quoted as saying today.  Yes that's right--the Boehner plan will destroy all life on the planet.

An entire political party in Congress is led by this imbecile.

What Does Wall Street Want?

Ms. McArdle offers some insight on Wall Street's thinking about the debt ceiling

Republicans seem to be under the illusion that Wall Street are avid supply siders who want them to cut spending in order to restore our long-term growth prospects. This is also not true. Wall Street are not advanced economic theorists; they are people who want to get paid. They do not need massive supply-side growth to get paid; they just need tax revenue. They do not care how we generate the surplus to pay them: spending cuts, higher taxes, whatever. I mean, individually, some of them do care; finance guys have ideology, just like the rest of us. But professionally, this is not about ideology; it's about math. All they want to know is whether the economy can plausibly generate enough tax surplus to pay our debts. And right now, the answer is yes.

Our AAA is not at risk because our current fiscal path is unsustainable, but because ratings agencies know what many GOP freshman and party activists apparently do not: that doing the unpopular things required to get the budget in balance is going to require both parties to hold hands and jump together. Otherwise, whoever forces through their unpopular plan (huge tax increases/massive spending cuts) is going to get trounced at the next elections by an opposition party promising to undo whatever it is the party in charge has just done.

Remy's Back with Some Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling

Classic Remy.  H/T  Instapundit

What is the Problem with Christians?

"Republicans are once again arguing that American Jews will abandon the Democratic Party. But it won’t happen, because Jews recoil from the GOP’s overt Christianity, even when it comes with staunch pro-Israel views."

American Jews are arguably the most reliable and in terms of contributions the most important voting bloc in the Democratic Party. Why?

The author's thesis is that the Republican Party is home to the Christian "right". Ok fair enough. But what is it about Christians that has American Jewry so hot and bothered? Is it because of the Holocaust? The NAZI's were vehemently anti-Christian. Is it because Christian fundamentalists are anti-Semitic? Well if they are they have a funny way of showing it. They are the most ardent supporters of Israel.

I think Israel is a red herring in this argument because there are too many overtly anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli factions in the Democratic Party. It must be ideology. American Jews are so wedded to leftist politics that they are blind to their own interests. Jews have done well under American style capitalism with power far beyond their numbers, but they happily buy into the bogus "social and economic justice" fiction. If some politician says traditional Judeo/Christian values they hear death camps for minorities. And even bringing this subject up will be looked upon by some as a blatant act of anti-Semitism not to be tolerated.

If someone goes around saying everyone is my enemy, pretty soon they will be proven right. I grow weary of trying to befriend a people who hates me and my beliefs so much.

The Death of the Welfare State?

An interesting article by the always enlightening Robert Samuelson laying out the broader economic picture.

The problems we have are not failures of capitalism, they are failure of overburdened capitalism. Free market economies are invariably rational and highly productive. But if you burden the productive elements of these economies to the extent the western welfare democracies have, what do you expect to happen? The name of the game is productivity, and when the end product is siphoned off, all kinds are artificial negative incentives are introduced. As a result, markets are no longer rational and productivity suffers.

We do have a crisis, but the economic component is just a symptom. We have a political crisis in that we have leaders who either prefer another system or don't understand the system. We have an ignorance crisis in that the populace has been led to believe property rights are fungible and "human rights" include food, housing, transportation, entertainment and pocket money.

When property rights, the most basic of legitimate human rights, are not protected, we have a free for all. A Texas Cage Match where anything goes and the referee is as corrupt as everyone else. If everybody owns it, nobody owns it. This kind of system in unsustainable (thank God!).

This crisis we're in was inevitable, and necessary. If we're lucky, maybe, just maybe the American people will wake up and realize we're at a crossroads. Otherwise Obama may just get that "fundamental transformation" he wants.

China Faces The Reality of the Wired World

On Monday, two of China's vaunted "bullet trains" collided killing at least 38 people, a story which--in the world outside of China--would have been HUGE.  Inside China?  Not so much.  And it seems folks on the interwebs there aren't too happy about it--not happy about the government response, not happy about the lack of coverage in government owned media.  Just not happy.

In this one story can be found the seeds of so much about China that gives folks the heebie-jeebies.  First though, let's get one thing out of the way.  Accidents do happen, and even in open societies, bad things happen to innocent people.

But let's think about this for a moment.  Could China's meteoric infrastructure increase--in no small measure designed to keep 30 million new Chinese entering the work force each year--be underwritten by shoddy safety measures and lax oversight?  Are the people of China a contented lot, nurtured by the palliative of high growth rates AND also a simmering mass of discontented people who know that they are less free?  Will China's increasing connection with the world and its inability to control its own citizenry create governance nightmares for a political system which has at its core an ingrained sense of paranoia? 

Only time will tell.  But I find myself smiling a bit thinking about Chicom officials worrying about these things.

E.J. Dionne Blathers On

I know, I know.  I do it every time.  I see a Dionne column and I think--here comes some ridiculous drivel that ultimately make me angry, so let it pass.  Don't read it.  And then I do--and I prove myself right.

Today's column speaks of "the other deficit", which in Dionne's world--you know, the one uninformed by reason, is different that the debt/deficit talks dominating the news.  Dionne's deficit is the deficit of jobs, and the fact that Mitt Romney's on the stump talking about jobs, jobs, jobs while the President battles Congressional Republicans.

What Dionne doesn't get--nor does the President or his Party--is the extent to which the two "deficits" are simply parts of the same whole.  Our economy is mired in mediocrity not because there isn't a lot of cash out there--there is--but because investing it in THIS economy is a bad risk.  Because Washington seems unable to get it together and create a sustainable model of spending and taxing, businesses are on edge, they are not investing in growth--rather, they are waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

The unemployment rate will decline when businesses begin to believe our economy is on a sound footing, not simply a behemoth version of Greece waiting to happen. 

IKEA Feels the Union Heat

Famed Swedish furniture manufacturer IKEA finds itself embroiled in a labor dispute at its only American manufacturing plant in Danville, Va.  IKEA--famous for furniture that looks good in any recent college graduate's apartment--but which spontaneously decomposes at the five year point--brought the plant to Danville--a part of Virginia that was suffering economically in a big way, and brought several hundred jobs to a region that really needed them.

Never to let a good deed go undone, the local union heavies have organized because lo and behold, the starting hourly wage at the plant is less than the starting wage paid at plants in Sweden.  Why this is relevant--I can't say--but then again, when you're trying to form a union you say just about anything.

IKEA seems to be handling this with aplomb--but they'll learn.  And at some point, they'll pull up stakes and leave, and the people of Danville can go back to welfare poverty. 

Home Network Update

Actually, probably not much of an update, as I haven't talked about this a whole lot.  Last winter, I laid a bunch of cat5e cable throughout the house while it was in disrepair.  This effort was to serve as the backbone of a networked house, both wireless and wired.  Initially, I was going to pay a contractor to do it; in the back of my head, I could hear my Dad reminding me that I "...don't know the business end of a screwdriver".  So I figured I'd just lay the cable, then pay someone to terminate the ends and set up the network.

The other day, the cable guys came and set up my internet.  I hooked up an Apple TimeCapsule router to the modem and we now have screaming (for us) 10 Mbps wireless in the house.  But that was just the beginning....

I watched a few videos on how to terminate cat 5e cable...and for some reason, thought I couldn't do it.  So I decided to try--and I made myself an Ethernet patch cord.  When I was finished, I plugged my computer into the TimeCapsule...voila....it worked!

Next step--put a 24 port switch in the basement....terminate the cable between it and the TimeCapsule...plug my laptop into the switch (with the patch cord I made)....and I had myself a home network.

Tomorrow will be spent terminating all the cables from all over the house at the switch--and then running two out to the ManCave--gotta bury a little conduit.

Don't know the business end of a screwdriver, my ass. 

Amy Winehouse Assumes Room Temperature

Amy Winehouse finally was found dead today.
She didn't take off in America despite making a couple of really good albums (do they still call them albums?) that sold gangbusters in Europe. I think the record companies were afraid to spend the money here because she was such a train wreck. But she possessed a voice on a par with the great soul/pop artists like Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle. Talent with good looks and a hip/cool sort of dangerous image; that combination is worth a lot of money in the music business. But it wasn't to be.

Big Fat Friday Free For All

Gonna be 102 degrees F today out here on the farm, and the fellas working on the roof (nearing five months after "completetion" date) are hating life.  I feel badly for them, no doubt about that.

What are you feeling badly about folks?  Or goodly?  What's on you mind?  It is Big Fat Friday and I'm a slim 177.8 (down 19.8 since Christmas), even after a big bowl of ice cream last night!

Obamacare Caused it All!

In case you don't know, Neil Boortz is a "take no prisoners" Libertarian talk show host in Atlanta. He's a recovering attorney and possesses one of the sharpest minds on radio. Unlike most of his peers, he absolutely loves to mix it up with leftists. One could even say he lives to whip commie ass.

Here's a nice little blurb citing a Heritage Foundation study that lays unemployment directly at the feet of Obamacare. Now I don't think Obamacare is the ONLY reason unemployment is through the roof, but it's high on the list. And if we took this one law and threw it in the dustbin of history where it belongs, our budget crisis would look a helluva lot more manageable that it does now. But the Republicans aren't even talking about it.

http://www.boortz.com/weblogs/nealz-nuze/2011/jul/21/wake-obamacare/

The Best Explanation of the Long-Term Debt Mess I've Read

Everyone reading this blog should read this post on NRO from Yuval Levin.  Not just the post, but all the links in the post.  When you've completed this task, put your pencils down and look up.

There.

You've just read the single most effective and clearly communicated summary of the hole we are currently in that I have been able to locate.  If you find a better one, let me know.  In it, he states the problem, its enormity, and the laughably small impact any of the current Debt Ceiling driven plans will have on it--from either side of the aisle.

Behold the simplicity of this paragraph, which leads one to the conclusion that now is not the time for big deals (much as I'd like it to be):  "That doesn’t mean a debt-ceiling deal has to address all this. It would be unreasonable to expect that. But it does mean that by failing to address it, such a deal would fail to really touch the debt problem. Any deal that fails to do that (even if it’s called a “grand bargain” and claims to involve trillions in cuts over ten years or is hailed as the epitome of sanity by gang members) is not a meaningful debt-reduction plan, and is not worth huge concessions from Republicans, like a multi-trillion dollar tax increase. It would be, rather, a small spending-reduction deal and would be worth small concessions from Republicans, like a less than 1-to-1 relationship between cuts and a debt-ceiling increase, or some similar compromise. The equivalent of a huge tax concession (which would shatter the Republican coalition, but which Democrats consider essential) is a huge health-care concession (which would shatter the Democratic coalition but which Republicans consider essential), but the president has insisted that those are entirely off the table. If that’s the case, then taxes should be too, and it’s time to finalize a smaller deal."

This post and George Will's column in the WaPost this morning form a tight case for going small now and going bigger when more favorable electoral conditions exist.   Trying to slay this beast with the leadership of one half of half of the political branches is a plan destined to fail. 

Must Flee TV

MSNBC is giving Rev. Al his own show.