President Obama has demonstrated, as much as he would like to deny it, a strong anti-business sentiment.  He has acted in ways that remind one of a Castro or Chavez in that he is doing it in the name of the people against the greedy profiteers.

General Motors and Chrysler were bled dry by union contracts.  Management is culpable for agreeing to those contracts so they don’t get a pass in my view.  But government also piled on with CAFÉ mileage requirements that forced the auto companies to build cars at a loss (because of the union contracts) to meet this standard.  In the midst of the financial crisis the auto companies were running out of cash.  The Obama administration, rather than let them go into bankruptcy, muscles in and turns over major ownership stakes in GM and Chrysler to the unions who are loyal supporters of the Democrat Party, rather than pay bondholders who were entitled to be paid first.

The housing bubble was driven by government policies going back years.  The stated goals of the Clinton administration was to increase home ownership to as many people as possible.  When the bubble burst, the Obama administration forced TARP money on healthy banks who neither needed it nor wanted it.  The reason was to avoid showing who the real basket case banks were.  But these banks were forced by their government to take the money and then the Obama administration created a pay czar to make sure any company that took TARP money, voluntarily or not, could not pay their executives more than Team Obama said they could.

Lax regulation on the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico permitted BP to take short cuts that led to disaster.  President Obama is put in an embarrassing position, so he cranks up the Public Relations machine to throw maximum ire upon BP.  He then tries to be a hero by shaking down BP for $20 billion.  BP has never said they would not pay.  BP waived the limit on damages that was set by, you guessed it, the government and has steadfastly said they would make things right.  But President Obama wanted to look like he was actually doing something and by taking $20 billion and putting it under his control it might look like he was.  I agree with many that President Obama did not cause the leak in the Gulf any more than Bush created Hurricane Katrina, but if, as Obama likes to say, the buck stops here, then he is responsible for the lax enforcement by his administration that could have prevented it.

To create jobs this administration created a $787 billion bailout package that did next to nothing to create real jobs.  It was pork to be paid to union members such as teachers, contractors, and not to grow the economy and create sustainable jobs.

If a business that is solidly behind the Obama agenda, like General Electric who owns the NBC and MSNBC cheerleaders, and wants to be a key player in the cap and trade exchanges, this President will treat them kindly.  But if you are an independent business trying to grow, you will be taxed to your eye sockets.

We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws not a nation of men, but since this President has taken office he has a view that he is above the law and can do whatever he feels he needs to do.  It was somewhat surreal to have Congressman Joe Barton, apologize to BP for the shakedown.  No one owes BP an apology but I understand Congressman Barton’s distaste for the administrations boorish behavior.  No one has the right to demand another’s property without due process of law, and that’s what happened.  Perhaps Tony Heywood should be fired for going along with it.

Let’s keep this in mind.  We need BP to continue to be a viable profitable company, so that every last claim can be paid.  If this administration succeeds in driving BP into the ground, guess who will be next in line to pick up the tab?  That’s right, gentle readers, you and me;  the American taxpayers.

After receiving one too many e-mails, post cards and other marketing pitches to extoll the virtues of ObamaCare, I felt compelled to send the following letter to Congressman Tim Bishop.

Dear Congressman Bishop,

 Judging by the e-mails and mail pieces the marketing program now begins.  To tell the 50%-60% of Americans who adamantly opposed ObamaCare, now that it has been signed into law, what good medicine it really is.  Before I point out the areas on which we disagree, I would first like to call for a sense of honesty in the debate on healthcare.  I applaud you for such honesty where you say on your glossy postcard that it was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense. I challenge you, however, on your opening sentence.

You begin your piece by stating, “On March 21^st, we stood up to big insurance companies and passed health care reform.”  Really?  How is using the full coercive power of the federal government to unconstitutionally force millions of Americans to buy the products of these big insurance companies, whether they want to or not, standing up to them?  I’ll bet Wal-Mart wishes you would get tough with them and require all Americans to shop there on Thursdays.  Are you next going to get tough with GM and Chrysler by passing legislation forcing us to buy a Malibu or a Ram pickup truck?  Of course you will probably smack them around and make them comply with tougher CAFE standards, but hey, that’s what big government is for, no?

I am still waiting to find out how spending $1-$2 trillion dollars results in reducing the deficit by $143 billion in the first decade.  This may be presumptuous but I have a suggestion on how to lower the deficit by $1-$2 trillion.  Repeal ObamaCare and start over.

Nothing in this legislation actually goes to the root cause of reducing the cost of delivering health care.  It’s all giant shell game about hiding whose pocket the money is coming from to really pay for the same old broken system.  Here are some of the “benefits” you point out in your mail piece:

•  Free Preventive Care Under Medicare – this eliminates co-pays and deductibles under Medicare. This doesn’t reduce what it costs medical professionals to deliver preventive medicine, it just lowers the price to consumers.  Economics 101 says when you decreases the price the demand goes up.  By eliminating co-pays and deductibles, someone has to make up this modest difference.  It is either the medical professional who has to eat the cost, driving up rather than reducing the cost of preventive care, or it will be subsidized by the rest of us through taxes.  You are betting that if every senior gets preventive care, more expensive treatments will be avoided later.  The real question is: how many seniors are not getting preventive care because they don’t have a $20 co-pay and of that group, how many turn out to have a serious disease that could have been prevented?  This is a much smaller group than all seniors.  You cannot make seniors go to the doctor for preventive care if they don’t want to, whether it is free or not. 
• Free Preventive Care Under New Private Plans– When I had my own small business, I provided our employees with healthcare.  I chose a plan that provided free preventive health care.  When I left that business and went out on my own, I tried to buy the same plan privately.  It had a high deductible, HSA account, and free preventive care.  Such plans are available, but not in New York unless you have poverty level income.  The marketplace has these plans available.  Government regulations prevent me from buying them.  Why do we need to spend $1-$2 trillion to give me a plan that the marketplace already provides if government will just get out of the way?
• Ensuring Value for Premium Payments – This is where you require plans to spend a certain percentage of premium dollars on medical services.  How does this control costs?  If the underlying costs increase 100%, does it make us feel warm inside that the 100% increase in premiums that will follow will go 80% toward medical expenses?  It’s still an increase in premiums of 100%.

 Let me stop analyzing your mail piece here.  Doctors are threatening to leave the medical practice because of this legislation which will lead to rationing. This plan does not address the underlying problem.

There is a simple way to reform health care by controlling the underlying cost of delivering medical care, rather than mandating more and more coverage and expense paid for by someone else.  We all pay in the end.  Here is a simpler way that does not cost $1-$2 trillion dollars but may take some of that courage you boasted about in your opening sentence. 

1. Eliminate 3^rdparty payer.  If you invite me to dinner and you tell me that you’re picking up the tab and I am handed a menu with no prices on it, look out!  It’s gonna hurt.  Americans are smart consumers.  They will spend hours researching a car or flat screen TV before buying, because it’s coming directly out of their pocket.  They play a role in how much they pay.  That’s how markets work.  We do not have a free market in health care.  The way to do this is with high deductable insurance plans and Health Savings Accounts (HSA).  If you take the lower cost of the premium for the insurance piece and add the amount to fund the HSA, the costs are about the same as the premium alone on a traditional plan.  I went from a $10,000 annual premium for a traditional plan to a $5,000 premium cost for a high deductible with a $5,000 contribution to the HSA account.  If you want to help people with deal with the high deductable, help them fund the HSA accounts, but keep the buying decision in their hands.  Trust me, they will ask questions, they will shop around, because it’s their money and the less they spend, the more they keep.  Many HSA accounts have a provision to roll money over into an IRA if the account grows large.  This will take guts to implement because the public will have to be educated that they will come out ahead when they have the liberty to make their own choices.  You seem tough enough to ignore the will of the people to implement what you feel is good for them, why not implement something that will actually work?
2. Implement tort reform.  Not an experiment here or there.  If you want to show how tough you really are, stand up to the trial lawyers who fill Democratic coffers.  Implement the system they have in Britain.  No contingency fees and loser pays.  Maybe I’ll stop seeing commercials on my TV that promote a new drug, followed by a come on from a law firm to call them if you actually took the drug because, “you may be entitled to compensation.”  I have no problem with a person getting compensated when they have been harmed through the fault or negligence of a company.  Human life is not perfection.  We are all different.  Some of us can eat three eggs a day and never have a heart problem, others may look at a pat of butter and feel pains in their chest.  Lawyers shouldn’t get rich because humans are not perfect and companies can be bluffed into paying these extortionists rather than defending the case on the merits.  Lawyers  should get paid for the time they put into a case.  OB/GYN doctors are leaving the practice in droves because they cannot afford the malpractice insurance premiums.  Doctors are practicing defensive medicine ordering every possible test for fear they will be asked later, if a patient gets worse, why they didn’t order that other test.  When you add the cost of malpractice insurance on top of the cost of additional tests and procedures, it doesn’t get cheaper to deliver health care and you are not necessarily delivering better health care.  Let the doctors practice medicine, tell the lawyers to stop running a lottery.
3. Buy insurance across state lines.  As indicated previously, the plan I want to buy is available, but not in New York.  The market sees a need for such a product, I want to buy such a product, the government says no.  You want me to believe that now if we spend $1-$2 trillion the government will solve my problems.  Get the government out of my way, thank you very much.
4. Have more tailored insurance policies.  Why, as I approach the golden years, do I have to buy a health insurance policy that covers pre-natal care? In vitro fertilization? Sex change operations?  When I buy automobile insurance, I have about a dozen choices in every category about the kind of coverage I want.  How much deductible?  Do I want rental car reimbursement?  Roadside assistance?  Yet when choosing a health care policy, if I have a choice at all, it is a total package, take it or leave it.  Who decides what has to be included?  Is it me or the government regulators?  If I want to have free preventive care, fine let me choose that and adjust the premium accordingly.  If I want to pay the co-pay for free preventive care, give me that choice.  If we had more choices, as in a free market, costs will go down.  If the government says, everyone must take this, there is no competition and costs climb.
5. Control illegal immigration – If emergency room costs are driving up health care costs for all, and illegal immigrants use the emergency room as their primary care provider then it would follow if you controlled illegal immigration you would drive down health care costs.  Milton Friedman, the great economist, believed in open borders.  However, he also said you can’t have open borders and a welfare state.  It doesn’t work.
6. We need to have Medicare reform.  When Medicare passed the government projected that hospital coverage would grow to $9 billion by the early 1990s.  It actually grew to $66 billion a 700% error in their projection.  We hear again that we are going to crack down on Medicare and Medicaid fraud and this time we really, really mean it.  Estimated at nearly $100 billion per year in waste and fraud, why can’t this be done without spending $1-$2 trillion?

 What you and this Congress passed is a disaster.  If the projections on this monstrosity “miss” by 700% like they did on Medicare, where do we go for a bail out?  Who is going to bankroll that one?  Your children?  Your grandchildren?  The six items I laid out cost next to nothing, why not try them first?  You can always go back later and say we need to do more.  But with ObamaCare, it could be a runaway train that no one can stop.  It is a giant shell game.  It doesn’t address the underlying cost of providing medical care, it only hides whose pocket is getting picked to pay the bill.

Sincerely yours,

The marketing juggernaut is just getting warmed up, but instead of standing fascinated while your Congressman plays 3-card Monty, ask him or her the tough questions.  Ask them calmly, respectfully, and don’t let them dance.  If they dodge your question, ask it again.  If they don’t… fire them in November.

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” – Nancy Pelosi 

The White House claimed, incredibly, that most Americans support ObamaCare.

“If you take the last 12 independent polls, and you throw out four by Rasmussen, whose results the White House doesn’t like, and you throw out six others that show a wide margin of opposition, then you have two polls with results consistent with the Washington Post poll showing a fairly small margin of opposition to the Democrats’ national health care plan. And that is Benenson’s case. By the way, the headline of his article? “Most Americans want health care reform.”  – Byron York, National Examiner

Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, gushed on Fox News last night, about how ObamaCare was good for Pennsylvania.  Why?  Well, he said, today Pennsylvania is only reimbursed 50% for Medicare while under ObamaCare Pennsylvania will be reimbursed 90%.  Very cool.  Er, who’s picking up the tab for that extra 40%?  That question goes to the heart of the Liberal/Progressive movement which is basically you are too damn stupid to recognize a shell game when you see one.

Unless the plan is to have ObamaCare paid for with the profits from GM and Chrysler, the only thing the government does for a profit, it is all a giant shell game.  The giddy governor of Pennsylvania knows that this is a shell game and that extra 40% will either come out of Pennsylvanians federal tax pocket instead of their state tax pocket or it will be subsidized by citizens in other states through their taxes.  Oh wait, no, there is always those evil drug and medical device companies to tax.  But where do they get their money?  That’s right taxes are built into the price of their products, so expect drugs and medical devices to cost more.

The Evil Health Insurance Company Myth

Obama & Co. jumped all over a 39% premium increase by Anthem Blue Cross in California as Exhibit A justifying their takeover of the health care industry.  This is not going to be fixed with ObamaCare but only made worse.  An example is given by a doctor who says for the last seven years he has been reimbursed $50 for an office visit under Medicare.  In that time his expenses have risen 30%. (Quick check — if the good doctor gives his staff a 4% raise each year for 7 years that comes out, compounded, to about 30%).  Under ObamaCare they are proposing a 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement, so the doctor will now get a $40 reimbursement for an office visit.  The doctor can do one of two things.  He can stop seeing Medicare patients, or he can charge his other patients more to make up the difference.  If he chooses the latter course of action, then private insurance companies, like Anthem, will have to pay for the increase.  How do they recover their costs?  That’s right by increasing premiums.

Just like you never hear statists blaming government polices of HUD, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac for the housing bubble that triggered the financial crisis and recession (it was all those greedy, evil bankers), you won’t hear them mention their policies regarding Medicare as triggering the premium increases.  It was all about greed.  So government will need to step in and make sure those greedy insurance companies cannot increase prices like they have.  So expenses rise, premiums are capped, insurance companies fold, and voila you have a public option, which becomes the only option.  Next to keep expenses from rising, health care will have to be rationed because there are no market mechanisms in ObamaCare to actually reduce costs.  No tort reform.  No elimination of 3rd party payers.  No true insurance that protects against catastrophic costs while you pay for the routine, like all other insurance.  Just government fiat.  Obama can no more order health care costs to decline than he can turn off gravity. 

News flash to people around the world living under socialized medicine who travel to the United States for critical care when they need it, that door will soon be closed.

Who Is Really Stupid?

Statists believe the average American is too stupid to make decisions, or should I say the right decisions, about their lives, health, safety, etc.  We need the really, really smart people in government to tell us what is good for us and follow their instructions.  Or…in November we can send them the message that they were really, really stupid to ignore what the American people were screaming at them, STOP!!!! If Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, et al, thought Americans were smart enough to look out for their own best interests, who are Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Boxer, Rangel, Schumer, Dodd, et al, to say otherwise?

If we manage to escape the economic catastrophe that is ObamaCare, we may breathe a little easier, but watch the horizon for a storm is brewing that makes the health care monstrosity look like pin money.

Unions have long been in decline in private industry, but recently for the first time union membership in the public sector surpassed that in the private sector, and it is still growing.  We all know the stories about municipal workers working for 20 or 30 years, then retiring at 50% to 90% of their last year’s pay which is often inflated with heavy overtime, and then they go out and get another job where they work until retirement and a cushy life of a public pension, a handsome private 401k, and Social Security.

It used to be that it was a trade off that government workers (teachers, cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, clerical) got great benefits because they were paid poorly when compared to the private sector.  However that is no longer the case as reported in USA Today:

 USA Today reported that nearly one in five federal government employees now earn over $100,000. The paper also reported the average federal salary rose to $71,260, almost $31,000 more than the comparative average private-sector wage. 

If that doesn’t get the hair on the back of your neck to stand up as, after all you are who pays for these salaries and benefits, then perhaps this will from National Review’s March 8, 2010 issue:

The highest-paid municipal employee in Madison, Wis., is bus driver John E. Nelson, whose salary last year totaled more than $159,000. Half a dozen of his fellow drivers also earned in six figures. How is this possible? The Wisconsin State Journal explains:“A high base salary and other benefits for drivers were largely set in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city took over the bus company.” Combine that with generous, federally mandated leave provisions that make for lots of overtime, and it’s not unusual for a bus driver to out-earn the mayor (and with much better job security). In the 1950s, Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners was paid $62 a week by the skinflints at the Gotham Bus Company; he was constantly hatching schemes to strike it rich so he could quit. Today Kramden’s dreams of avarice would have been a lot simpler: get a government job and join a union. — The Week, “National Review,” March 8 , 2010

$159,000 for driving a bus.  Imagine.  I wonder what the private bus company was paying their drivers before the city took them over?  I am sure, like ObamaCare, the takeover was a cost savings measure.  After all, those greedy private companies are out to make a profit. 

Who was the most frequent visitor to the White House  at the time the White House released its visitor logs?  It was Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (government workers), which should tell you where this is going.  Remember, as well, that when the federal government took over GM and Chrysler they gave huge percentages of those companies to the unions.  So when it comes time to negotiate the next contracts the union will sit on both sides of the bargaining table, as management and labor.  How will that turn out?  It will be one of two ways, either the union will have an epiphany and realize that profits are important to staying employed, or the unions will pick the bones of GM and Chrysler clean, driving them out of business and leaving you and me, brother, holding the bag.

The Ticking Pension Bomb

The killer, however, is unfunded pension liabilities.  All those pensions that we will be paying for with retirees being retired for longer than they worked in many cases, will be like nothing we have imagined before from a fiscal crisis standpoint.  In private industry as businesses learned to appreciate the value of their human assets, they treated them accordingly and the unions withered.  However in the public sector we have elected officials writing laws, e.g., Davis Bacon, that heavily favor or require union labor.  Unions in turn, pour millions into making sure those same politicians get re-elected.  Who is looking out for you and me?  As the ultimate employers of government employees, how about a law that union contracts must be ratified by the public at the ballot box?  Too cumbersome?  Okay, how about a law that government employees cannot receive salaries and benefits that exceed what the average private employee (the public employees’ bosses) receives in that geographical area?

Tea Party Members, are you listening?

It is clear from the present administration that the statists believe that it is their destiny to rule, not govern, over the masses who they believe are their intellectual inferiors.  Keep piling it on, but don’t worry we can always tax the rich to pay for it.  But as you board that bus in Madison Wisconsin, ask yourself if Mr. Nelson behind the wheel, is the rich guy picking up the tab or is it you?  Watch out folks, if we don’t do something soon, the rich won’t be rich enough to pay for it even if we tax them at 100% and there is no law to stop them from taking their wealth and moving somewhere else where taxes are lower.  And at this rate there are a lot of places in the world where the taxes are lower.

In the midst of the financial meltdown the government and financial pundits argued that they had to rescue the big banks because they were too big to fail.  If we don’t save them, they could bring down the entire U.S. economy and in  turn the economy of the entire world.  Ignoring the history and responsibility for how they got there, that could be a true statement that the government had to do something to avoid a worldwide panic.

The panic averted, many banks paid the money back with interest, are in the process of paying out massive bonuses and the Obama administration is twisting itself in self-righteous knots to tax them into humility.  Good luck with that.  While they target the banks, they are hands off on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, GM and Chrysler because to tax those basket cases would just be taking money from the left taxpayer pocket and moving it to the right taxpayer pocket.  If you look to the root of the problems of the fiscal meltdown you will find the government’s hand in almost every corner, but don’t expect this administration to try to get to the bottom of it.

Back Up, Go Ahead

There was an old Abbot and Costello routine where Abbot was guiding Costello in parking a car.

Costello asked what he should do and Abbot said, “Back up.”

Costello confirmed, “Back Up?”

To which Abbot replied, “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Go ahead?”

“No. back up.”

“Back up?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

I don’t know if the Obama administration is Abbot or Costello, but they are telling banks, “Lend more money.”  Then they tell the banks, we are going to raise taxes and take your money away.  Then they ask the bank, “Why aren’t you lending more money?”

Programs You Can Believe In

Medicare

It is estimated that Medicare loses about $60 Billion ANNUALLY in fraud.  That’s right about $60 billion of your tax dollars are stolen every year from this program.

“If you want to find Medicare fraud, the first place you should look is South Florida, where 60 Minutes and correspondent Steve Kroft were told it has pushed aside cocaine as the major criminal enterprise.” – 60 Minutes – Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime

While the Obama Administration pushes their health care program one of the ways of funding the program is through savings in Medicare fraud.  However, no one has been able to stop it.  Not Republicans.  Not Democrats.

First Time Home Buyer Credit

This wonderful new program was designed to help first time home buyers achieve the American Dream.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t take a genius to also achieve that criminal American Dream, fleecing the government.

It’s hard not to laugh when viewing the results of the federal first-time home-buyer tax credit. The credit, worth up to $8,000 for the purchase of a home, has only been available since April of last year. Yet news of the latest taxpayer-funded mortgage scam has traveled fast. The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, recently told Congress that at least 19,000 filers hadn’t purchased a home when they claimed the credit. For another 74,000 filers, claiming a total of $500 million in credits, evidence suggests that they weren’t first-time buyers. – WSJ – First Time Fraudsters, 10/29/2009

The  IRS even had to admit that in an investigation they found 53 cases where IRS employees filed “illegal or inappropriate” claims for the credit.

Too Big To Govern

A new president is elected once every four years, but the vast government bureaucracy remains.  It is said that a president will only be able to address 3-4 top priorities in their term.  By the time they appoint executive department heads and the Senate approves them and they set about to figure out the departments they are in charge of, it is an enormous undertaking to try to make significant changes.  To try to curb fraud, to overcome the inertia of the entrenched bureaucrats who know they will outlast the appointee, and their friends in Congress who will probably be there as long, is just too tall an order to accomplish in a four year cycle.  Every time a new liberal takes over, their first order of business is to make the bureaucracy larger.  It does not work.  It will not work.

The Only Solution

The only solution is to make the federal government smaller.  It must be bold.  It must be dramatic.  Tweaking it at the margins will fail.  Entire departments must be shut down.  The Constitution should be the blueprint for this.  If the power is not explicit in the Constitution, shut it down and allow the states or local governments to take it up if they choose.  Then drastically cut taxes accordingly.  Let people keep their money and decide at the local level if they want that service or not.  Let every state try their own solution and each state can learn what works and what doesn’t from each other.  But this idea of pushing every solution up to the federal and let one size fits all be forced on everyone is, quite simply, madness.  We need less government and more liberty.

Stock Market Leads the Way

As I write this the stock market is up nearly 200 points, and it has risen in each of the last three months.  Commodity prices are rising based on encouraging manufacturing data from abroad.  Personal incomes rose 0.5% in April.  Chrysler could exit bankruptcy as soon as Monday.  Citigroup and GM are removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replaced by powerhouse Cisco and Travelers.  Ford motor’s shares rose 4.9% on news that it plans to expand production in the third quarter to try to gain market share from its rivals, and without government money.

The Stimulus Flop

Less than 10% of the $780 billion stimulus package has been spent.  President Obama told us we desperately needed or we may be mired in this recession/depression for years .  The free marketers said that this economy is strong enough to recover on its own, which the statists sneered at.  Government created this mess by their meddling in the housing market and how they mishandled interest rates and the money supply but we were told that “only government” can get us out of it.  More recently President Obama, who has been trying to spend every dime Congress will let him get his hands on has said we are out of money. Here’s a thought:  repeal the rest of the stimulus and get out of the way of the strongest economy on earth.

Things to Ponder

• Obama opposed bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler.  Free marketers said it should be allowed to happen.  That’s how the free market works.  After pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into these two, where are we?  Both are in bankruptcy.
• Bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler would be an extraordinarily long and drawn out process costing millions of jobs and killing the auto industry in the U.S.  Where are we?  Chrysler may emerge from bankruptcy as early as Monday, Ford is ramping up for the third quarter.
• Without the stimulus package, we were told the unemployment rate could hit 9% by 2Q2010, whereas with the stimulus it will peak at 8% at the 3Q2009.  Where are we?  It is now at 8.6% and we are in 2Q2009.  The stimulus passed, little has been spent and the administration has been wrong again.  The free marketers say that unemployment will likely rise quickly and if left alone, the recovery will happen more quickly.  If the government meddles and tinkers, we will likely see what happened in the 1930s where this drags on for years.
• President Obama says we’re out of money.  So stop spending.  Repeal the stimulus that is accomplishing nothing because the bulk of the spending isn’t due to happen for another year or more.
• Watching the Information Technology job boards, I see a big rise in the job postings for sales people.  When companies are confident that the economy is turning, they step on the gas for sales to beat the competition.  The operational folks will soon follow.

If the Obama administration is not careful and doesn’t reverse course before he bankrupts us, we may be faced with accelerating inflation and sky high interest rates.  Shall we get nostalgic for the days of Jimmy Carter?

Movin' Out

One of the great blessings bestowed upon us by our Founding Fathers was federalism. Our federal form of government evolved from the Articles of Confederation, where states had primacy and the national government acted only with the consent of the states.  This proved to be too cumbersome.

In writing the Constitution, the Founders identified very specific roles and responsibilities for the national government and left everything else to the states or the people (see Tenth Amendment).  In doing so it gave the people the power of liberty through mobility.  If you didn’t like the way they did things in Massachusetts, you could move to Virginia.  If the people of Pennsylvania didn’t want a mass migration of people to Georgia, they needed to be careful regarding the laws that they passed so as not to alienate a large block of their constituents.

The War on Federalism

The statist, who loves government and believes government should control every aspect of our lives, hates federalism, because it weakens its control.  So they attack it through the courts.

Here is their standard battle plan.  Let’s the case of Gay Marriage.  Vermont’s legislature approves Gay Marriage.  Whether you are in favor of that or oppose that it shouldn’t affect you if you don’t live in Vermont.  If you are in favor and you live elsewhere, you can move to Vermont.  If you live there and are opposed you can either fight to overturn it in Vermont, or move elsewhere.  That’s the beauty of federalism.  If continued to its logical conclusion, some states would approve it and those in favor would migrate there, and those who are opposed would concentrate in states that would ensure that it would not be adopted in their state.  You could have a raging debate, but your liberty would be preserved through mobility.

However, the statists have a different view of things.  After the law is passed in Vermont by the legislature (as is proper), or made up out of thin air by the court in Massachusetts (judicial activism and improper), some couples who are married in these states move to another state.  By doing so, they should leave their state sanctioned rights behind.  However, what they will typically do when their Vermont sanctioned rights are not honored in, say, Tennessee they will rush to federal court and says their Constitutional rights are being violated.  A court stocked with judicial activists, will find some fig leaf of justification with words like emanations and penumbras, to make a new law of the land and with the stroke of a pen, the liberties of all Americans will be swept away based on the will of the people of Vermont.  You no longer can protect your liberty through mobility.  You cannot go anywhere to live in proximity to like minded people and live the life you believe in.  Mobility is no longer a tool to protect your liberty it is a weapon against you.  People can secure rights elsewhere and use mobility to come to your doorstep and use the courts to force their beliefs on you.

Fierce Fighting

I believe that is why the fighting over these issues become so fierce and acrimonious.  If something is allowed anywhere, it will soon be allowed everywhere, because of an activist judiciary.  Our rhetoric has become more strident, our politics is anything but bipartisan, all because everything is being elevated to the federal level.  States are becoming less and less important.  If you don’t believe it  ask people, who was responsible for the fiasco after hurricane Katrina?  If they say President Bush, ask them to name the mayor of New Orleans or the governor of Louisiana at the time. Bush and the federal government should have been the third line of defense, not the first.  The first should have been the city, then the state and then the federal government.

Back to Federalism

Show me where in the constitution it says the government should own General Motors and Chrysler.  Show me where it says that a tunnel, entirely in the city of Boston should be paid for by the taxpayers of Arizona.  Show me where in the constitution it says education is the responsibility not of local government but the federal government.  It doesn’t.  And until well roll back this juggernaut, our liberties will be crushed little by little, day by day.

This is why it is also important to guard against activist judges getting on the bench or being elevated to higher levels of the court. It is just these activist judges who are taking away your liberty to move away from those who don’t believe what you do and moving toward those you do agree with.  Take note of the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Our once proud automobile industry

The government institutes regulations such as CAFE that force the automobile companies to build many cars they can’t sell at a profit for each car they can.  The unions negotiate contracts that pay people who have been let go 90% of their salary and give retirees extremely generous packages.  The automobile companies stagger under this load to the brink of bankruptcy and what happens?  The CEO of GM gets booted out and the government and the unions end up owning the car companies.  In the case of Chrysler the UAW will end up owning 55% of the company if the government’s plan is approved.

Had the automobile companies gone into bankruptcy before the bailout, as this author advocated, the union contracts could have been voided and a new workable deal struck.  But the government said bankruptcy was bad. The government said we had to give the car companies billions of our tax dollars.  The government said, if you automobiles companies don’t accept our deal, you will be forced into bankruptcy.  Huh?

So tell us again, Mr. Obama, how this is not socialism.

Can liberty be saved?  Is there a chance that we can rescue our country from the federal juggernaut that wants to reach down into the deepest recesses of your life and take control?  They spend your money with reckless abandon and say, “What Me Worry?”  Those in power would have indulged in the trappings of office, sated on money and power, and be long gone with their spoils while the crumpled bill lies on the floor for you and your children and your children’s children to pick up and pay.

They have invited many to the party, to eat, drink, and be merry with promises of “middle class” tax cuts that are the greatest April Fools joke of all time.  Don’t worry we’ll get the rich to pay for it all.  You know, those evil fat cats on Wall Street.  But the Republicans on Wall Street have long be replaced by Democrats.  That’s right, Gordon Gecko is a Democrat.  60% of Wall Street contributions went to Democrats vs. Republicans.  How long will the top 2% of earners keep shouldering the burden before they slow down, stop, or emigrate.  Who will pick up the pieces then?  Who will support the drunken revelers that Obama piled on the public dole?

AIG Outrage

All of the outrage by Congressional and Administration leadership over the AIG bonuses is the epitome of hubris.  AIG contributed $104,000 to each Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd, during the recent election cycle.  Do you remember the brouhaha over language in the stimulus bill that had a loophole that allowed the AIG bonuses to be paid?  Dodd said he didn’t include the loophole.  Later he said he did include it but at the insistence of the Obama administration.  Now is it just me or does anyone else see a quid pro quo here?  Then they come out red-faced professing that the bonuses are an outrage.  Senator Schumer, who is threatening to unconstitutionally tax the bonuses into oblivion, took $112,000 in contributions from AIG.

Lessons from Hugo Chavez?

More recently President Obama effectively fired the CEO of General Motors and now speaks of bankruptcy.  I, among many others, said they should have filed for bankruptcy long before taxpayers bailed them out.  So now after we have sunk taxpayer money into GM and Chrysler, Obama steps in and effectively runs the company on “our behalf” as owners of 80% of the company and now says bankruptcy is a good idea!  When will the amateur hour come to an end?  But watch carefully, because Obama will assiduously avoid offending the auto workers union, despite the fact that the union contracts put US auto makers at a $2000 per car disadvantage against the competition.  GM (Government Motors) will now be forced to make cars that satisfy Obama’s left wing supporters but that Americans don’t want to buy.  It will be interesting to see how the government forces us to buy them.

What Do the Europeans Think?

For years we have been told by the left that we must listen to what the Europeans are saying.  They say we have to consider foreign laws in weighing Supreme Court cases.  They decried Bush’s policies as alienating our European friends.  So what do the Europeans think of Obama now?

The president of the European Union on Wednesday ripped the Obama administration’s economic policies, calling its deficit spending and bank bailouts “a road to hell.” — Washington Post, March 25

A Very Dangerous Path

In March of 1933 Adolf Hitler, proclaiming a national emergency of a potential communist revolution asked the German legislature, the Reichstag, to grant him emergency powers to deal with the situation.  Such a proposal required two-thirds approval by that body.  The final vote was 441 in favor, 84 opposed.  From that point on, Hitler was dictator. 

 Rahm Emmanuel likes to say, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  President Obama is taking the current financial crisis to ram through a massive power grab.  The legislation is being rammed through with such force and urgency that no one has a chance to read it.  What ticking time bomb could be tucked in those pages that get voted on and passed without scrutiny?  Just look at the AIG fiasco for the answer.  No one seemed to know or admit it was in there.  If we allow this to continue, we may find some other provision included in the dead of night that will destroy our country forever.

Be on your guard.

I got the phone call around 7:30AM.  It was my wife and her voice was shaking, choking back tears.  She said she was in an accident and that the truck was totaled. Totaled? I thought to myself, my God, what kind of accident could have totaled a 2 ½ ton, hulking Ford Excursion SUV?  Before I could ask the next question, the one I didn’t want to ask, she said, “The girls and I are alright, just some cuts and bruises.” I was able to start breathing again.  She began to apologize for the SUV and I gently cut her off.  “I don’t care about the truck, as long as you and the girls are okay.”  The girls were my two daughters.

I got the location of the accident, briefly told the lead guy in my shop the situation, light on the details which I didn’t have anyway, and jumped in my truck to find them.  As I approached the accident scene, I saw an ambulance, with siren blaring and lights flashing, going the opposite way.  I called my wife’s cell phone and when I got her I asked, “Did you just pass me in the ambulance?”  She said, “Yes, we’re headed to the hospital to be checked out.”  So I made a U-Turn to go meet them in the emergency room.

The Accident

What had happened was that my wife was crossing an intersection when another car blew through the red light.  According to one witness it looked like he was going 60 mph, according to another it looked like he was going 100 mph.  They said the nearly 19′ long, 2 ½ ton vehicle with a massive V-10 engine that my wife was driving was lifted up in the air, turned 180 degrees and landed on its side.  My wife had to kick out the windshield to crawl out and guide our daughters out behind her to safety.  Thankfully it didn’t catch fire.

Why the other driver was driving the way he was we never found out.  He was pronounced dead at the scene. He was driving a Kia, a small Korean import, and before impact, I’m sure he was getting great gas mileage.  He went from leaving a small carbon footprint to leaving no footprints at all.

My wife was exonerated from any responsibility for the accident.  She and my daughters were completely innocent.  Had Ford been required only to build highly fuel efficient econoboxes, half my family would have been killed that morning.  In fact, the driver who was behind my wife said that if she had not been there, he was sure he would be dead, as it would have been him that was hit by the speeding car in her place.

Freedom to Choose

They are alive because I have the liberty, so far, to buy any vehicle that I choose and can afford.  The choices are many and I have made many choices through my life.  That is primarily because the government has not yet taken away that liberty and demanded what types of vehicles can be built and by whom.

My first car was a Toyota Celica, which I purchased just after graduating from college.  It was well made, well equipped, and although a little expensive at $4,700 brand new, I thought it was worth it.  That car served me well for 105,000 miles. When it was time for a replacement I bought a Plymouth Sapporo and I really liked it. Unfortunately, someone liked it as much and it was stolen when it had just 9,000 miles on it. It was a Chrysler Corporation car, but under the hood it was Japanese.  Still living in the Bronx, I decided to buy something functional but not too attractive.  I remember my friend’s rationale for buying a Subaru while living in the city.  None of the parts fit in a gypsy cab. My next vehicle was a Toyota Corolla.

Cars for a Growing Family

When my wife and I married in 1986 she brought to the marriage her Ford Mustang.  My Corolla was starting to get tired and my wife was pregnant, so it was time to get a new vehicle.  I bought a Ford Probe, with front wheel drive and turbocharged.  It was hard to decide if it was American or Japanese.  It was sold by Ford, built in the United States by Mazda which is a Japanese company, but Ford owned 25% of Mazda at the time.  It made for interesting conversation, but not worth losing any sleep over.

After our second child, the Probe and the Mustang were getting a little cramped.  So we said goodbye to the Mustang and hello to a Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon.  This was my wife’s dream car, owing somewhat to her Swedish heritage.

Things were going well for us and it was time to replace the Probe.  I leased a BMW M Roadster and had more fun behind the wheel of a car than I can remember before or since.  We both thoroughly enjoyed tooling down the road with the top down, turning heads as we went.  Life was good.

My wife and I had two more children and as they grew, the jump seat in the back of the Volvo was less than optimal.  In the winter the heat never seemed to reach back there and in the summer the kids in the back felt like a couple of tomato plants in a hothouse.  So it was time for our next vehicle, which for the first time I bought completely on the Internet.  It was a Ford Expedition.  I had seating for eight and room for some cargo as well, and heat and air conditioning all the way to the back.  The kids could each sit comfortably without bumping into each other and to reach out and smack someone next to them took some effort.  That vehicle served us well for a couple of years and then as they grew, our needs grew and when it was time for the next move, we got the Excursion, bigger, they didn’t come.

Meanwhile things became a little more challenging for us.  When the BMW’s lease was up, back it went.  I took over the Volvo for a while until I started a new construction related business and then I took over my father-in-law’s Chevy pick-up truck which he left for my son when he passed away.  After a year when the business got more established I put the Chevy aside for my son and the company bought a Ford F-350 Super Duty, dual wheel pickup truck with a diesel engine, which I still drive.

The Nest Starts to Empty

Then came the accident.  As soon as we got the insurance money for our totaled vehicle we immediately went out and bought another Excursion, with safety the foremost reason.  Ford wasn’t making them anymore so we bought a used one.  I wanted my family protected.

When my son moved out freeing up a seat on the “bus” and my wife started selling real estate and gas prices started to climb, we reevaluated the Excursion.  The Volvo was gone, and at twelve mpg and my wife driving a lot more, it didn’t make sense.  With five of us at home, at worst we could all fit into the pickup truck with its crew cab.  So she bought a Volkswagon EOS.  The savings on gas would make up for any differences in payments on it.  She now had her own convertible and was very happy.

About six months later, my older daughter got her license and wanted a car.  She didn’t have much money for purchasing it or for gas so she needed something economical.  Her choice, a Volkswagon Jetta.

Individual Liberty or Government Diktat

What’s the point of this stroll down vehicular memory lane?  To demonstrate that with liberty we have a great many choices.  We also have different needs at different times in our lives.  Through a free market I was able to select from a number of vehicles from different manufacturers, from different countries, to find what fit our needs.  Those companies decided what to build to suit the market.  The cars that I eventually chose, though not done conscientiously at the time, were from each of those manufacturer’s strengths, not their weaknesses.  I did not choose an economical car, when I needed one, from one of the Big Three.  We did however, choose some of their sporty models (Mustang, Probe) and their trucks (Excursion, Expedition, F-350, Silverado).

The market should tell them what cars to build and build at a profit.  Government should not require them to build six or eight cars that they have to sell at a loss for each vehicle they can sell at a profit, to meet some government mandate such as CAFE standards. As the market causes fuel prices to rise, the market will react with increased demand for more fuel efficient cars.  We should be able to choose when that works best for us.  If we have a distance to commute, we will more inclined to factor fuel efficiency into the equation.  However, if we want to travel in luxury two miles to our favorite restaurant, who cares if the car that gets us there only gets 8 mpg?  Many families have more than one car for that very reason.  Who is some government bureaucrat to tell us what we can choose among?

This Thanksgiving I can sit down with my family, and be thankful that I had that choice, and I can hug each one of them and pray it stays that way.