The recent terrorist (yes, I said terrorist...I'm looking at you Mr. President) attempt in Detroit and the governments' response to it just have me shaking my head in a rather morbid way.
Those in the government seem to think that if they are polite to the terrorists, smile at them, treat them with kid's gloves, turn a blind eye to their activities and generally leave them alone that somehow they will leave us alone. That is juvinile thinking at best and loony tunes at its worst.
They don't care if we allow Israel to be destroyed, they will try it anyhow. They don't care if we allow tens of millions of Muslims into this country, they will still hate us. Islam simply can not exist with any, and let me be clear with this...ANY other religion. I'll even go so far as to say that it can not coexist with any other philosophy or government model. Islam is all of that rolled into one belief system.
Am I clear on that? You are either one of them (take your pick of flavor) or you are an infidel. An infidel must submit (the very definition of the word Islam, I want to add) to one of two fates. 1) Convert, 2) accept second class status and pay taxes to the State. There is no 3rd choice with them (unless you choose death, then I guess you do have three choices). Got it, yet?
BHO decides to close Gitmo, why? Gives us a bad image and just creates more terrorists. What came first, Gitmo or 9/11 (don't get cute, I know we've had Gitmo since 1898)? How about the Munich Olympics, or that plane in Uganda? How about Jerusalem in 1944 (no, wait, those were Jews bombing Brits, never mind).
Anyhow, what I'm getting at here is that reality is reality, no matter what words you assign to them. Did the "War on Terror" end when Obama ordered that it be renamed, "Overseas Contingency Force"? This Christmas would tell us, NO. Unless you live at the Quantum level (physics geeks will get it) reality is what it is. Wishing it were different does not make it so. Islam hates us with every particle of its existence. It will not rest until the entire world is under its control. There can be no other reality.
No, I don't believe in a "moderate" Muslim. If you know where to look on the Internet, you can find hundreds of websites, sites located physically in the United States, where these terrorist actions are celebrated and applauded. On my own soil I have, "moderate" Muslims rooting for the other team. If you feel that way about America, GET OUT! If you don't like it here, leave. Make room for someone else who actually loves this country.
Sure, you have the right to free speech, but in a time of war, if your speech is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, they you have just bought yourself a one-way ticket back to your dusty, impoverished homeland. You won't go to prison, but you can't stay here.
I have said since at least the early 1980's that tension between Islam and the rest of the world will only be solved by a civilization busting war. A war that will be bloody beyond all previous measure as the enemy has been steadily building up its numbers in all of our cities for at least the last 100 years. Up until President Bush launched the War on Terror, their plans had been to quietly populate our cities (most successful in Europe after WWII), move into the machine of government and then dismantle the infidel civilization from within. Remember, there are no "moderate" Muslims. Push comes to shove and Muslims will fall in line with the radical elements of their belief system. This has proven very successful in France, Sweden and Norway (and Germany). The gloves are off and if the West can wake up from its Multi-cultural nightmare and deal with the enemy that is not just in the gates but among the defenders then we can still save ourselves.
Am I a racist? You decide. I really don't care what you call me. Think about this and let me know if I may be missing something here.
--Zavost
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Relentless Health Care Reform
Health care reform grinds forward with the remorseless march of a glacier. For months the media reported on its steady advance with one form of this or another: "proposal passes House sub-committee but faces certain failure in the larger committee"; "proposed bill passes committee but faces insurmountable hurdles in the larger House"; "5 version of the Senate bill exist and merging them will be impossible"; "bill passes in the House, Senate bill not a viable option"; and on and on and on.
Each time the bill is certain to fail, each time pressure is applied and Federal monies (my, money) are heaped on hold outs to literally and unashamedly buy their votes. I simply will not believe the media on anything any longer. My elected representatives are ignoring the will of those they represent and not in any little way, either.
The latest tragedy is watching the Senator from Nebraska rail and rant about the abortion provisions in the Senate bill. For days snippets of this guy was all over the networks; some supporting his stance, some threatening his stance. Even the great Obama was reported to say to this Senator, "Don't think we are not keeping score, brother."
Just as the pessimist, or realist in this case, in me knew would happen, the Senate version of the bill passed last night while I slept. I woke several times at night and I didn't know why, but it seems like it was the sound of the nails being driven into America's coffin.
My country is dying and it is difficult to find too many people who even seem aware of it. Our Constitution has survived since 1789. It has been repeatedly assaulted since the time of Theodore Roosevelt and now it looks like it will flat line under Obama.
Who knows why the Nebraska Senator changed his mind and voted for it. The abortion provisions remain untouched, despite what I heard on the news. It is all still in there. However, Nebraska got a sweet Medicare deal where his state will get funding well beyond what the other states are getting. His vote didn't even cost as much as the Louisiana Senator cost. She cost $300 million. Must be a prostitution world record, somewhere.
I stand on the frontier, trying to reach out to people and tell them that things are grim. Most don't want to believe. Those that do are frustrated and meek, not knowing what to do. Others see the system as being too big to move, that their voices are inconsequential. The Tea Party folks and the 9/12 folks are simply being ignored. Time magazine did not even recognize that they even existed this year. I came across something on the net last year and I'll place it in this blog below. I don't know where it comes from but it describes how I feel right now:
"The enemy is just beyond the perimeter and darkness is all around us."
--"Loose Horse" Steve, Semper Fidelis
--Zavost
Each time the bill is certain to fail, each time pressure is applied and Federal monies (my, money) are heaped on hold outs to literally and unashamedly buy their votes. I simply will not believe the media on anything any longer. My elected representatives are ignoring the will of those they represent and not in any little way, either.
The latest tragedy is watching the Senator from Nebraska rail and rant about the abortion provisions in the Senate bill. For days snippets of this guy was all over the networks; some supporting his stance, some threatening his stance. Even the great Obama was reported to say to this Senator, "Don't think we are not keeping score, brother."
Just as the pessimist, or realist in this case, in me knew would happen, the Senate version of the bill passed last night while I slept. I woke several times at night and I didn't know why, but it seems like it was the sound of the nails being driven into America's coffin.
My country is dying and it is difficult to find too many people who even seem aware of it. Our Constitution has survived since 1789. It has been repeatedly assaulted since the time of Theodore Roosevelt and now it looks like it will flat line under Obama.
Who knows why the Nebraska Senator changed his mind and voted for it. The abortion provisions remain untouched, despite what I heard on the news. It is all still in there. However, Nebraska got a sweet Medicare deal where his state will get funding well beyond what the other states are getting. His vote didn't even cost as much as the Louisiana Senator cost. She cost $300 million. Must be a prostitution world record, somewhere.
I stand on the frontier, trying to reach out to people and tell them that things are grim. Most don't want to believe. Those that do are frustrated and meek, not knowing what to do. Others see the system as being too big to move, that their voices are inconsequential. The Tea Party folks and the 9/12 folks are simply being ignored. Time magazine did not even recognize that they even existed this year. I came across something on the net last year and I'll place it in this blog below. I don't know where it comes from but it describes how I feel right now:
"The enemy is just beyond the perimeter and darkness is all around us."
--"Loose Horse" Steve, Semper Fidelis
--Zavost
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Failure can be a good thing.
I was watching a program the other night where an argument was made that more protection means more safety, essentially. Then a point was made about the NFL having the best helmets in sports around the world, yet hardly a week goes by where a player in the league is not hauled off the field with a head injury. It was noted that in the Australian Rugby league, they have far fewer head injuries depite not wearing any helmets at all.
I would like to think that the above scenario reflects the human tendency to be less cautious when they feel that there will be no consequences to their actions. The rugby player knows that they had better not lead with their head or else their hats and glasses may no longer sit straight on their faces. The NFL player thinks nothing of plowing head first into a 400 lb man at 8 miles per hour. The laws of physics and momentum are real.
Looking at the economic fiasco we are in today I keep telling myself the same thing I told myself back in August 2008. Let it burn. All those companies that over-extended credit (ACORN or no ACORN) deserve what they get. Innocent companies that bent to the will of the Fed via Freddie and Fannie should go under. The 7-10 million people that would lose their jobs will have my sympathies that they worked for companies that made poor decisions, but they should lose those jobs.
Heartless, mmmmm?
Not really, no. Remember, Conservatism can be counter-intuitive. In this scenario, all those business failures would have required extensive economic autopsies. The causes of their failures would have lead right back to Federal tampering like a blood trail in the woods. Those members of Congress responsible for being irresponsible would have been labeled as the politicking demagogues that they are. Companies that got into bed with the government to curry favors would have been exposed. Rules that had created the various bubbles that have popped would have been fingered and eliminated.
On the people side, the government may have learned what too much intervention and rules-tampering leads to. Those companies that got "Too Big to Fail" would have broken up into smaller companies or simply gone extinct. A dozen other mid-sized companies or several larger ones that played to the FUNDAMENTALS of business would have scooped up the work left rent open by the elimination of the bigger companies. Those that had been cut during the recession would have found new jobs with the smarter, more savvy companies and be back to work by now. The landmarks would be different, the names would be different but the world of business and finance would have continued. Lending would be back on track...responsibly. Those newer companies would need fresh capital to grow.
Let me be frank. The recession would have been worse than it was and more people would have been out of work. But I'd bet my job on it that is would have been shorter and rebounded rapidly. The new playing field would lead to more successful businesses and a more stable economic climb.
Instead the misery continues, the failed companies continue to limp on retaining talent that could be better employed in a recovery and not fetching BHO' Czars their morning coffee.
More to come...
--Zavost
I would like to think that the above scenario reflects the human tendency to be less cautious when they feel that there will be no consequences to their actions. The rugby player knows that they had better not lead with their head or else their hats and glasses may no longer sit straight on their faces. The NFL player thinks nothing of plowing head first into a 400 lb man at 8 miles per hour. The laws of physics and momentum are real.
Looking at the economic fiasco we are in today I keep telling myself the same thing I told myself back in August 2008. Let it burn. All those companies that over-extended credit (ACORN or no ACORN) deserve what they get. Innocent companies that bent to the will of the Fed via Freddie and Fannie should go under. The 7-10 million people that would lose their jobs will have my sympathies that they worked for companies that made poor decisions, but they should lose those jobs.
Heartless, mmmmm?
Not really, no. Remember, Conservatism can be counter-intuitive. In this scenario, all those business failures would have required extensive economic autopsies. The causes of their failures would have lead right back to Federal tampering like a blood trail in the woods. Those members of Congress responsible for being irresponsible would have been labeled as the politicking demagogues that they are. Companies that got into bed with the government to curry favors would have been exposed. Rules that had created the various bubbles that have popped would have been fingered and eliminated.
On the people side, the government may have learned what too much intervention and rules-tampering leads to. Those companies that got "Too Big to Fail" would have broken up into smaller companies or simply gone extinct. A dozen other mid-sized companies or several larger ones that played to the FUNDAMENTALS of business would have scooped up the work left rent open by the elimination of the bigger companies. Those that had been cut during the recession would have found new jobs with the smarter, more savvy companies and be back to work by now. The landmarks would be different, the names would be different but the world of business and finance would have continued. Lending would be back on track...responsibly. Those newer companies would need fresh capital to grow.
Let me be frank. The recession would have been worse than it was and more people would have been out of work. But I'd bet my job on it that is would have been shorter and rebounded rapidly. The new playing field would lead to more successful businesses and a more stable economic climb.
Instead the misery continues, the failed companies continue to limp on retaining talent that could be better employed in a recovery and not fetching BHO' Czars their morning coffee.
More to come...
--Zavost
Friday, December 11, 2009
And the Republican Party stands for...?
Ever since BHO's poll numbers began their slide the Left has wrung its hands, worried that the Republicans may come back to power while the Republicans salivate for a return to power.
Am I to understand that the Republicans should come back to power simply because the DNC has done its best to blow a huge hole through the heart of America and our culture?
Ever since my wife began to vote, I told her to vote for someone, not against someone. This is sometimes hard to do, especially with the last choice of characters. I can say that I voted for Palin and McCain just happened to also be on the ticket. Otherwise I really would have been holding my nose while I voted.
In my opinion, the RNC has not been the RNC of Reagan ever since Ron left office. The DNC may be killing off America with the speed and efficiency of a shotgun blast to the heart, but the RNC has been slowly poisoning its heart and soul.
I was in Slovakia in the fall of 1994 when the RNC swept to power in the wake of Clinton's disastrous assaults on our country. Newt came to the American people and drew up a contract that every Conservative could get behind. Democrats unhappy with what Clinton was doing crossed over and voted for the people they thought would get the job done right.
They drew up legislation that the President signed. They may have twisted his arm on more than one occasion, but things got done, the budget was actually balanced for the first time in decades, and the Republicans looked like the responsible people we like to have in office.
However, Washington D.C. seems to do terrible things to people. There seems to be a relationship between the amount of time you stay in Washington and their character being warped by Liberalism. Elected officials that spend more than one or two terms there grow to enjoy the trappings of power, the whispers of flattery, and the ego boosting of being in possession of so much money and influence. They grow to like it very much and then the desire to stay there overcomes their desire to serve those that elected them. Like the ring of power in the Lord of the Rings, the power corrupts your soul.
Being a conservative is hard. It is intellectual. Anything that makes you think feels a lot like work. Just try to pull out one of your old textbooks and try reading it for "fun". There is a reason why romance books have been pushing my Sci Fi books down the shelf at my local book store.
For a Conservative, what is right and wrong can sometimes feel counter intuitive. I'll use an example from the 1990's. One of the things Congress did was to force Clinton to begin moving people off of the welfare rolls. Not working has a way of destroying an otherwise promising intellect. It rots your soul. To borrow from Rush, a democrat thinks that compassion is measured by the number of people on welfare. A republican measures compassion by the number of people who don't need welfare. An important difference, there. As Benjamin Franklin once said, we should not make poverty too comfortable. Likewise, when the US government sends all this food aid and monetary aid to 3rd world countries that are dominated by dictators and thugs. All we are doing is enabling those in power to pocket and skim the cash and goods and tighten their grip on their people. Those people need to be hungry and ticked off at their condition in life. That is the only way meaningful change can be enacted. Does that mean that I don't care about the children starving in the streets of Haiti or Lebanon? Of course not. It just means that we must do everything in our power, as a nation, to see to it that those people free themselves from their condition as rapidly as possible. Anything else is cruel.
The RNC in the late 90's drifted away from their base. The more established republicans learned how to wield power and not just play defence (like they had for decades). The new members of congress learned what it was like to be powerful, and they liked it.
George Bush may be a good and honorable man, but he lost touch with is Conservative roots. His foreign policy was good, but his domestic policies were down right "progressive". He mirrored the slide of the party as a whole (he was the leader of the party after all). The whole concept of "Compassionate Conservatism" cedes ground to the Liberals. If Bush's "new" angle is "Compassionate Conservatism", then the old angle was cruel and heartless. I beg to disagree strongly.
Under his presidency, even as the Left called him Hitler and assaulted him day and night and on and on, he moved the country to the left in a steady and even march. He cut taxes, but raised spending. I'm not sure if there were many spending bills that he didn't sign off on. Medicare D, Stimulus 1, and on and on. He grew the size of government and increased spending (and the debt load of our children). He passed tax cuts, but could not make them permanent. He did not clean house when he took office and paid for it over and over again as he was sabotaged from within for 8 years.
So should anyone vote for the Republicans simply because they are not Democrats? Hell no. Should they vote for the Republicans because they stand for lower taxes and limited government? If I see that party again, I'll vote for it. Will I vote 3rd party? No, that will just split the ticket and rocket us towards Marxism (unless BHO gets us there before the next "election").
The Republicans of today are Democrat-lite. If you want a Coke, drink a Coke. Diet Coke stinks.
I'll speak more on this in the days to come. Maybe the RNC is getting a clue. Unfortunately, they can not block anything in Washington, despite what is in the news every day. The DNC can not agree within its own ranks, so rather than drag each other through the mud, they go and kick the sleeping Republican dog. The one that has been castrated and had its teeth filed down.
--Zavost
Am I to understand that the Republicans should come back to power simply because the DNC has done its best to blow a huge hole through the heart of America and our culture?
Ever since my wife began to vote, I told her to vote for someone, not against someone. This is sometimes hard to do, especially with the last choice of characters. I can say that I voted for Palin and McCain just happened to also be on the ticket. Otherwise I really would have been holding my nose while I voted.
In my opinion, the RNC has not been the RNC of Reagan ever since Ron left office. The DNC may be killing off America with the speed and efficiency of a shotgun blast to the heart, but the RNC has been slowly poisoning its heart and soul.
I was in Slovakia in the fall of 1994 when the RNC swept to power in the wake of Clinton's disastrous assaults on our country. Newt came to the American people and drew up a contract that every Conservative could get behind. Democrats unhappy with what Clinton was doing crossed over and voted for the people they thought would get the job done right.
They drew up legislation that the President signed. They may have twisted his arm on more than one occasion, but things got done, the budget was actually balanced for the first time in decades, and the Republicans looked like the responsible people we like to have in office.
However, Washington D.C. seems to do terrible things to people. There seems to be a relationship between the amount of time you stay in Washington and their character being warped by Liberalism. Elected officials that spend more than one or two terms there grow to enjoy the trappings of power, the whispers of flattery, and the ego boosting of being in possession of so much money and influence. They grow to like it very much and then the desire to stay there overcomes their desire to serve those that elected them. Like the ring of power in the Lord of the Rings, the power corrupts your soul.
Being a conservative is hard. It is intellectual. Anything that makes you think feels a lot like work. Just try to pull out one of your old textbooks and try reading it for "fun". There is a reason why romance books have been pushing my Sci Fi books down the shelf at my local book store.
For a Conservative, what is right and wrong can sometimes feel counter intuitive. I'll use an example from the 1990's. One of the things Congress did was to force Clinton to begin moving people off of the welfare rolls. Not working has a way of destroying an otherwise promising intellect. It rots your soul. To borrow from Rush, a democrat thinks that compassion is measured by the number of people on welfare. A republican measures compassion by the number of people who don't need welfare. An important difference, there. As Benjamin Franklin once said, we should not make poverty too comfortable. Likewise, when the US government sends all this food aid and monetary aid to 3rd world countries that are dominated by dictators and thugs. All we are doing is enabling those in power to pocket and skim the cash and goods and tighten their grip on their people. Those people need to be hungry and ticked off at their condition in life. That is the only way meaningful change can be enacted. Does that mean that I don't care about the children starving in the streets of Haiti or Lebanon? Of course not. It just means that we must do everything in our power, as a nation, to see to it that those people free themselves from their condition as rapidly as possible. Anything else is cruel.
The RNC in the late 90's drifted away from their base. The more established republicans learned how to wield power and not just play defence (like they had for decades). The new members of congress learned what it was like to be powerful, and they liked it.
George Bush may be a good and honorable man, but he lost touch with is Conservative roots. His foreign policy was good, but his domestic policies were down right "progressive". He mirrored the slide of the party as a whole (he was the leader of the party after all). The whole concept of "Compassionate Conservatism" cedes ground to the Liberals. If Bush's "new" angle is "Compassionate Conservatism", then the old angle was cruel and heartless. I beg to disagree strongly.
Under his presidency, even as the Left called him Hitler and assaulted him day and night and on and on, he moved the country to the left in a steady and even march. He cut taxes, but raised spending. I'm not sure if there were many spending bills that he didn't sign off on. Medicare D, Stimulus 1, and on and on. He grew the size of government and increased spending (and the debt load of our children). He passed tax cuts, but could not make them permanent. He did not clean house when he took office and paid for it over and over again as he was sabotaged from within for 8 years.
So should anyone vote for the Republicans simply because they are not Democrats? Hell no. Should they vote for the Republicans because they stand for lower taxes and limited government? If I see that party again, I'll vote for it. Will I vote 3rd party? No, that will just split the ticket and rocket us towards Marxism (unless BHO gets us there before the next "election").
The Republicans of today are Democrat-lite. If you want a Coke, drink a Coke. Diet Coke stinks.
I'll speak more on this in the days to come. Maybe the RNC is getting a clue. Unfortunately, they can not block anything in Washington, despite what is in the news every day. The DNC can not agree within its own ranks, so rather than drag each other through the mud, they go and kick the sleeping Republican dog. The one that has been castrated and had its teeth filed down.
--Zavost
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Affirmative Healthcare?
The other day my wife brought up a good point. If the government is going to control our health care, and government will be controlling the delivery of health care, is it not reasonable to assume that they will control (as they already control to some extent) the research and development of new equipment and medicines? I thought that was reasonable.
Death Panels? Though there will not likely be a sign on a hallway wall directing you to the "Death Panel Conference Room", there are provisions aplenty that create them in everything but name only. So given all that, what is to keep the government from pushing its obvious "Social Justice" program (or should I say pogrom) on the American people? What is to keep them from deciding who gets medical care, any medical care, if you are of the 'wrong' party affiliation?
In Czechoslovakia, the party bosses got the best health care the country could offer (poor by our standards, but outstanding compared to what the other people got). If they needed to go to Berlin or Moscow for care, then they were sent for that care. Some even went to the West for their care.
The President has already stated that they will not be hiring anyone else in the government machinery that are affiliated with the Republican Party. He has already demonstrated, through his distribution of TARP funds and other Federal monies, that Democrat controlled States, and Democrat controlled Counties will get the lion share of money (85-15%). It is not a long logical leap to having them withhold health care dollars from RNC States and Counties. Not a stretch at all for him to dole out the largess to his supporters (followers?).
I want to be wrong, but he is already doing much of this stuff. The other part of what my wife brought up, really her main theme, was that the government would have to please all of its minority constituents at the cost of the majority. To bring in votes from the Hispanic (he already gets 97% of the Black vote) he will fund programs designed to help just them (business groups and coalitions included). Funds that need to go for one type of research, based on the benefit to the largest number of people, like Cancer, will go towards AIDS research or Hispanic outreach programs.
To think that health care will be doled out based only on your ability to vote Democrat and/or be a useful tool or idiot for their policies is absolutely abhorrent to me.
A point I made to my daughter the other week helps to explain my point (so put down the "he is a racist" sign) was about how much money is enough? People feel that if you throw piles of money at problems then you can make them go away. This just is not so. You can not simply decide to find a cure for Cancer by a specific date. Throwing money at the problem only helps to a point. There needs to be enough scientists to do the research, hospitals to do the clinical trials, and time to discover and develop the medicines and techniques to treat the disease. A saturation point will be reached where the amount of money no longer helps move the process along.
My wife feels that the money will find a home in the pockets of everyone along the way. Sort of like pouring the money down a funnel that has thousands of people pulling from the funnel regardless of how much enters it. At the bottom, not so much as a single penny will fall out as long as the government is dumping unaccounted dollars down it.
Affirmative healthcare? Yep, I can believe that.
Death Panels? Though there will not likely be a sign on a hallway wall directing you to the "Death Panel Conference Room", there are provisions aplenty that create them in everything but name only. So given all that, what is to keep the government from pushing its obvious "Social Justice" program (or should I say pogrom) on the American people? What is to keep them from deciding who gets medical care, any medical care, if you are of the 'wrong' party affiliation?
In Czechoslovakia, the party bosses got the best health care the country could offer (poor by our standards, but outstanding compared to what the other people got). If they needed to go to Berlin or Moscow for care, then they were sent for that care. Some even went to the West for their care.
The President has already stated that they will not be hiring anyone else in the government machinery that are affiliated with the Republican Party. He has already demonstrated, through his distribution of TARP funds and other Federal monies, that Democrat controlled States, and Democrat controlled Counties will get the lion share of money (85-15%). It is not a long logical leap to having them withhold health care dollars from RNC States and Counties. Not a stretch at all for him to dole out the largess to his supporters (followers?).
I want to be wrong, but he is already doing much of this stuff. The other part of what my wife brought up, really her main theme, was that the government would have to please all of its minority constituents at the cost of the majority. To bring in votes from the Hispanic (he already gets 97% of the Black vote) he will fund programs designed to help just them (business groups and coalitions included). Funds that need to go for one type of research, based on the benefit to the largest number of people, like Cancer, will go towards AIDS research or Hispanic outreach programs.
To think that health care will be doled out based only on your ability to vote Democrat and/or be a useful tool or idiot for their policies is absolutely abhorrent to me.
A point I made to my daughter the other week helps to explain my point (so put down the "he is a racist" sign) was about how much money is enough? People feel that if you throw piles of money at problems then you can make them go away. This just is not so. You can not simply decide to find a cure for Cancer by a specific date. Throwing money at the problem only helps to a point. There needs to be enough scientists to do the research, hospitals to do the clinical trials, and time to discover and develop the medicines and techniques to treat the disease. A saturation point will be reached where the amount of money no longer helps move the process along.
My wife feels that the money will find a home in the pockets of everyone along the way. Sort of like pouring the money down a funnel that has thousands of people pulling from the funnel regardless of how much enters it. At the bottom, not so much as a single penny will fall out as long as the government is dumping unaccounted dollars down it.
Affirmative healthcare? Yep, I can believe that.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
3 Choices in Afghanistan
There is a time and a place for politics. There is also a time and a place for leadership. Unfortunately, President B.H. Obama is locked in eternal campaign mode. He has only one pair of glasses and those glasses see absolutely everything in terms politics. Whether it is choosing what type of beer to drink with a Harvard professor and a policeman, to his economic policies, clear through to his macro-strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan, his glasses are political and his mind-set is that of a third world Marxist.
In 2007, he actually began running for President in February of 2006, outlined his plans for the war in Afghanistan. He would put however many boots on the ground to win it, up to and including the overthrow of the Pakistani government. Now, that is dedication to the cause...tearing down our allies in a blind effort to grapple with an implacable enemy.
In February 2009, BHO appoints General McChrystal to head up the operations in the Afghan theater of operation. One must understand that the top layer of our military is very much 'in-tune' with the politics of the civilian administration. They know that getting a star, or the next star on their shoulders comes from a recommendation of the President and approval of the Congress, so military appointments by a sitting president tend to reflect the politics of the current administration. So, that being said, General McChrystal is Obama's man. He is sent over to the Theater of Operations and told to evaluate current operations and to formulate a military solution that will allow the US to declare victory and come home. From February to August, General McChrystal met with his field commanders, the political and military powers in the theater and determined that in order to stabilize the nation, train the local police and military members to fight the war themselves. He then put a very comprehensive report together and told the president that to carry out his orders, orders given to him by the President himself, he would ideally need 80,000 additional soldiers deployed in a 'surge' strategy reminiscent of the Iraqi operations. At a minimum, he would need between 50,000 and 60,000 troops, though the operation would have a narrower margin for success.
So then, while the report sat on the president's desk, he was out playing golf, meeting with SEIU, meeting with hundreds of community organizers, playing basketball, going out on dates with his wife, taking a vacation every other week, and shaking his pom poms at Congress cheering for Cap and Tax, Nationalized Health Care, Net Equality, and a host of other Marxist legislation.
Weeks and months pass and finally, BHO meets with the General on the runway in Denmark (he found the time to run an errand for the Mayor of Chicago) for 20 minutes and then sends him off without making a decision. Weeks and months go by until finally BHO says that the General's strategy is, essentially, incorrect and that he has worked on a better plan.
During this time, American soldiers have been fighting and dying with no clear goal in sight. Does the president's new plan include a plan for victory or is he just trying to triangulate on this like Clinton triangulated on everything? Is he trying to keep his far left base happy while minimizing the outrage of the right? Who knows, but for right now it looks like his plan is not making anyone happy on either side. The only people who are happy right now are the insurgents in Afghanistan. If for no other reason other than he has given a time table for our withdrawal.
The insurgents can just melt into the background for the next 18 months, give the illusion of peace and stability, all the while infiltrating the civil and military infrastructure of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Things look fine and dandy, BHO declares victory and pulls out. Then the two countries melt down in the next year and all the blood we have spilled has been for nothing.
BHO seems to think that he can do anything. If I had his press coverage, and actually listened to it, I'd think I could fly to the moon under my own power simply by declaring that I will. He has decided that he can run the banking system, the financial sector, Wall Street, the automotive sector, and control the very weather itself (not to mention the ocean levels).
President Obama has essentially said that General McChrystal is wrong in his assessment of the situation on the ground (from his office in Washington). The President has determined that 80,000 is unnecessary and that 30,000 (dribbled in piecemeal) is more in line with his personal assessment.
The arrogance. Whatever General McChrystal's politics, he is practitioner of the Art of War first and foremost. He has dedicated his entire life to practice of waging war. He comes from a military family, his father was a general, his siblings wore the uniform as well. He graduated from West Point in 1976. It is safe to say that he has been learning the art of war since at least 1972. I think he knows what he is saying when he feels that he needs 80,000 men, surged, not dribbled, into the theater of operations.
In his time, I'm sure he saw what the Vietnam War did the officer corp and the elisted ranks. He lived through the mental and material rebuilding of our military in the 1980's. He was among the deployed officer core in 1991 when the soldiers of my generation tore through the 5th largest army in the world in under 100 hours of ground combat. President George HW Bush let his generals carry out their orders without interference from Washington. Well, up until he put the leash and muzzle back on our men short of total victory, but that is another blog. He served all through the 1990's and was deployed to Iraq again where he is credited with killing one of the worst dirtbags in that country. Now he finds himself in charge of the entire theater with instructions to write a report for his new civilian Commander-in-Chief.
I have to wonder what General McChrystal was thinking or feeling when he found his report going largly unread by his Congressional overseers? I wonder what he was thinking when he realized that the orders he was given in February needed to be rewritten? I wonder what he thought, months and months later, when President Obama notified him (largely through the media) the number of troops he felt were needed to secure victory.
While General McChrystal was honing his skills in the Art of War, young Barry Obama was getting high on dope and drunk in college dorms. He actively sought out known Marxist professors so he could take their classes. While Obama tried to look like he knew what he was doing as the Editor for the Harvard Law Review (though there are no documents with his name on it...so I don't know what he actually "Edited"), General McChrystal was living and breathing the Art of War. While Obama was teaching ACORN activists to circumvent the law and taught the organizing techniques of Saul Alinsky, General McChrystal was learning the Art of War.
President Obama is not fit to shine the shoes of General McChrystal let alone come to the decision that his assessment of material needs on the ground is incorrect.
I have to remind myself that, essentially, President Obama is not really disagreeing with General McChrystal's assessment. It all politics. Its always about the politics. Obama voted against every bill funding or expanding the war when he was in the House and then Candidate Obama ripped President Bush repeatedly for not being agressive enough in Afghanistan (focusing mainly on Iraq at the time), he finds that he must support the effort in Afghanistan. His Marxist base is howling in his ear that we need to leave now, while the right is telling him to win or get out. So he did what a politician always does. He has tried to make everyone happy while really making no one happy. He split the difference and told the Left that he didn't give the warmonger what he wanted while telling the Right that sending troops is proof that he wants to win the war. Plus, he even gave a date for withdrawl. Meanwhile, the general that had asked for a tool box full of tools gets a tool belt with a hammer and a screwdriver. Insufficient to do anything other than bleed out our troops and keep the war going forever. This must have General McChrystal having visions of Vietnam push forward in his brain. God help him and the men under his command.
In the end, there really are three choices. Only one of which is correct, I feel.
Choice number 1: pull out. No matter the amount of money spent and blood spilled, just pull out. The Left wants this because they feel we should not have been there in the first place. The Right sees this as a way of protecting the lives of our soldiers who are fighting and dying without victory as their stated goal. The dead will be mourned and the waste of there future potential to society will long be remembered.
Choice number 2: compromise. Send just enough men to chop the visible weeds down (which of course just grow right back unless you kill the roots), prune the influence of the insurgents back into the caves and back alleys of the big cities. Stand around for a few months while enemy activity is visibly absent, call it a win and come home. Then watch the place burn and crumble with more loss of life then what happened in Vietnam and Cambodia when we pulled out of there.
Choice number 3: win. Go in there with everything we can spare. Raise the internal temperature of every hiding spot for the insurgents to an average of 2,000 degrees (F or C does not really matter here). If they go to ground, give them no ground to go to. When they are in the open, destroy them. If they hide in villages, cordon it off and sort out the population...ditto for the cities (do you remember Faluja). Those that don't belong become POWs (not criminals, stupid). If they are in a mosque, give a single warning and then destroy it. Contrary to popular belief, the local population does not want the Taliban or Al-Qaeda there and will quietly turn them in if given the chance. It will be over in less than a year. Get the job done and get our boys and girls HOME.
We don't conquer, we liberate. We don't occupy, we turn over. Our people have families and lives to come home to. We have no interest in staying there forever. It's just not what we do.
Our military has only two jobs: kill people and break things. They don't deliver food and they don't know how to build a nation. It is not what they are trained to do. That is the job of civilian population.
In reality there are really only two choices. Most things in life seem to boil down to two choices. Win or don't win. As with all choices there are consequences. The US winning in Afghanistan and by extension Pakistan has more positive consequennces than pulling out. Not winning in Afghanistan will prolong the agony and allow radical Islam to spread like a malignant cancer. It will continue in its stated purpose. Convert the world by the sword. They will not stop and you can not reason with them. They must be destroyed root and branch.
--Zavost
In 2007, he actually began running for President in February of 2006, outlined his plans for the war in Afghanistan. He would put however many boots on the ground to win it, up to and including the overthrow of the Pakistani government. Now, that is dedication to the cause...tearing down our allies in a blind effort to grapple with an implacable enemy.
In February 2009, BHO appoints General McChrystal to head up the operations in the Afghan theater of operation. One must understand that the top layer of our military is very much 'in-tune' with the politics of the civilian administration. They know that getting a star, or the next star on their shoulders comes from a recommendation of the President and approval of the Congress, so military appointments by a sitting president tend to reflect the politics of the current administration. So, that being said, General McChrystal is Obama's man. He is sent over to the Theater of Operations and told to evaluate current operations and to formulate a military solution that will allow the US to declare victory and come home. From February to August, General McChrystal met with his field commanders, the political and military powers in the theater and determined that in order to stabilize the nation, train the local police and military members to fight the war themselves. He then put a very comprehensive report together and told the president that to carry out his orders, orders given to him by the President himself, he would ideally need 80,000 additional soldiers deployed in a 'surge' strategy reminiscent of the Iraqi operations. At a minimum, he would need between 50,000 and 60,000 troops, though the operation would have a narrower margin for success.
So then, while the report sat on the president's desk, he was out playing golf, meeting with SEIU, meeting with hundreds of community organizers, playing basketball, going out on dates with his wife, taking a vacation every other week, and shaking his pom poms at Congress cheering for Cap and Tax, Nationalized Health Care, Net Equality, and a host of other Marxist legislation.
Weeks and months pass and finally, BHO meets with the General on the runway in Denmark (he found the time to run an errand for the Mayor of Chicago) for 20 minutes and then sends him off without making a decision. Weeks and months go by until finally BHO says that the General's strategy is, essentially, incorrect and that he has worked on a better plan.
During this time, American soldiers have been fighting and dying with no clear goal in sight. Does the president's new plan include a plan for victory or is he just trying to triangulate on this like Clinton triangulated on everything? Is he trying to keep his far left base happy while minimizing the outrage of the right? Who knows, but for right now it looks like his plan is not making anyone happy on either side. The only people who are happy right now are the insurgents in Afghanistan. If for no other reason other than he has given a time table for our withdrawal.
The insurgents can just melt into the background for the next 18 months, give the illusion of peace and stability, all the while infiltrating the civil and military infrastructure of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Things look fine and dandy, BHO declares victory and pulls out. Then the two countries melt down in the next year and all the blood we have spilled has been for nothing.
BHO seems to think that he can do anything. If I had his press coverage, and actually listened to it, I'd think I could fly to the moon under my own power simply by declaring that I will. He has decided that he can run the banking system, the financial sector, Wall Street, the automotive sector, and control the very weather itself (not to mention the ocean levels).
President Obama has essentially said that General McChrystal is wrong in his assessment of the situation on the ground (from his office in Washington). The President has determined that 80,000 is unnecessary and that 30,000 (dribbled in piecemeal) is more in line with his personal assessment.
The arrogance. Whatever General McChrystal's politics, he is practitioner of the Art of War first and foremost. He has dedicated his entire life to practice of waging war. He comes from a military family, his father was a general, his siblings wore the uniform as well. He graduated from West Point in 1976. It is safe to say that he has been learning the art of war since at least 1972. I think he knows what he is saying when he feels that he needs 80,000 men, surged, not dribbled, into the theater of operations.
In his time, I'm sure he saw what the Vietnam War did the officer corp and the elisted ranks. He lived through the mental and material rebuilding of our military in the 1980's. He was among the deployed officer core in 1991 when the soldiers of my generation tore through the 5th largest army in the world in under 100 hours of ground combat. President George HW Bush let his generals carry out their orders without interference from Washington. Well, up until he put the leash and muzzle back on our men short of total victory, but that is another blog. He served all through the 1990's and was deployed to Iraq again where he is credited with killing one of the worst dirtbags in that country. Now he finds himself in charge of the entire theater with instructions to write a report for his new civilian Commander-in-Chief.
I have to wonder what General McChrystal was thinking or feeling when he found his report going largly unread by his Congressional overseers? I wonder what he was thinking when he realized that the orders he was given in February needed to be rewritten? I wonder what he thought, months and months later, when President Obama notified him (largely through the media) the number of troops he felt were needed to secure victory.
While General McChrystal was honing his skills in the Art of War, young Barry Obama was getting high on dope and drunk in college dorms. He actively sought out known Marxist professors so he could take their classes. While Obama tried to look like he knew what he was doing as the Editor for the Harvard Law Review (though there are no documents with his name on it...so I don't know what he actually "Edited"), General McChrystal was living and breathing the Art of War. While Obama was teaching ACORN activists to circumvent the law and taught the organizing techniques of Saul Alinsky, General McChrystal was learning the Art of War.
President Obama is not fit to shine the shoes of General McChrystal let alone come to the decision that his assessment of material needs on the ground is incorrect.
I have to remind myself that, essentially, President Obama is not really disagreeing with General McChrystal's assessment. It all politics. Its always about the politics. Obama voted against every bill funding or expanding the war when he was in the House and then Candidate Obama ripped President Bush repeatedly for not being agressive enough in Afghanistan (focusing mainly on Iraq at the time), he finds that he must support the effort in Afghanistan. His Marxist base is howling in his ear that we need to leave now, while the right is telling him to win or get out. So he did what a politician always does. He has tried to make everyone happy while really making no one happy. He split the difference and told the Left that he didn't give the warmonger what he wanted while telling the Right that sending troops is proof that he wants to win the war. Plus, he even gave a date for withdrawl. Meanwhile, the general that had asked for a tool box full of tools gets a tool belt with a hammer and a screwdriver. Insufficient to do anything other than bleed out our troops and keep the war going forever. This must have General McChrystal having visions of Vietnam push forward in his brain. God help him and the men under his command.
In the end, there really are three choices. Only one of which is correct, I feel.
Choice number 1: pull out. No matter the amount of money spent and blood spilled, just pull out. The Left wants this because they feel we should not have been there in the first place. The Right sees this as a way of protecting the lives of our soldiers who are fighting and dying without victory as their stated goal. The dead will be mourned and the waste of there future potential to society will long be remembered.
Choice number 2: compromise. Send just enough men to chop the visible weeds down (which of course just grow right back unless you kill the roots), prune the influence of the insurgents back into the caves and back alleys of the big cities. Stand around for a few months while enemy activity is visibly absent, call it a win and come home. Then watch the place burn and crumble with more loss of life then what happened in Vietnam and Cambodia when we pulled out of there.
Choice number 3: win. Go in there with everything we can spare. Raise the internal temperature of every hiding spot for the insurgents to an average of 2,000 degrees (F or C does not really matter here). If they go to ground, give them no ground to go to. When they are in the open, destroy them. If they hide in villages, cordon it off and sort out the population...ditto for the cities (do you remember Faluja). Those that don't belong become POWs (not criminals, stupid). If they are in a mosque, give a single warning and then destroy it. Contrary to popular belief, the local population does not want the Taliban or Al-Qaeda there and will quietly turn them in if given the chance. It will be over in less than a year. Get the job done and get our boys and girls HOME.
We don't conquer, we liberate. We don't occupy, we turn over. Our people have families and lives to come home to. We have no interest in staying there forever. It's just not what we do.
Our military has only two jobs: kill people and break things. They don't deliver food and they don't know how to build a nation. It is not what they are trained to do. That is the job of civilian population.
In reality there are really only two choices. Most things in life seem to boil down to two choices. Win or don't win. As with all choices there are consequences. The US winning in Afghanistan and by extension Pakistan has more positive consequennces than pulling out. Not winning in Afghanistan will prolong the agony and allow radical Islam to spread like a malignant cancer. It will continue in its stated purpose. Convert the world by the sword. They will not stop and you can not reason with them. They must be destroyed root and branch.
--Zavost
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Global Warming and Stuff
As I all sit here, recovering from the Thanksgiving Day hangover, and the insanity of Black Friday, I can't help but think about the newsworthy items of the last few days. In no particular order:
- Main Stream Media (MSM), with the exception of Fox are generally ignoring the most important Global Warming story in DECADES. The hoax that has caused hundreds of billions of dollars and caused the deaths of untold millions...
- The Palestinians are STILL not happy (yeah, like that is actually news)
- AG Holder feels that it is perfectly fine for the taxpayer to support ACORN (riiiight, explain how my dollars have to fund that bunch of criminals)
- 3 of our Navy SEALS are being Court Marshaled giving the terrorist who hung 4 Americans from a bridge, killed thousands in the coming battle for the city of Fallujah, a fat lip while capturing him alive. Should have put a bullet in him and raised a class of beer in celebration.
This is about the global warming scandal. The other items will bubble out of me, I'm sure, as the bile rises.
Never, ever, have I thought that humans have been causing global warming. The Earth has been far, far warmer in its past, long before we ever came along. Dinosaurs and Sabertooths roamed the countryside in SUV's? The world has, likewise, been far, far colder than it is today. Heck, mankind only rose to a technological society after the last ice age finally broke...hey, perhaps Mr. Gore needs to think on that. The last ice age broke as humanity rose into a sophisticated, technological state, which only really became technological in the last 200 years...perhaps the warming trend (there is hardly a real warming trend either) is still on an upswing, perhaps the process that started the retreat of the last ice age (and our rise) is still going on? Humans live on such short geological scales. We simply do not perceive the macro changes that occur to our planet. The temperature will rise and fall with our without our "help".
As a child I used to see documentaries about volcanoes and all the junk that got blasted high in the atmosphere. I saw pictures taken from orbit that showed those explosions. Almost always it talked about how the Earth was going to cool down because of all the dust and chemicals discharged. When Mt. St. Helen's blew in 1980, the news people talked about a world wide drop in temperatures of over 1 degree! It passed of course.
When I was growing up in the 70's and 80's, the big thing was Global Cooling. Where did that ever go? I know that some of the geniuses that brought us that have been working on the Global Warming scam as well.
I also remember watching a documentary about gold mines in South Africa. About how they are the deepest mines in the world and among the deepest places that man has dug. After working to impress the viewer with that accomplishment, a graphic began to pull back to place that achievement into perspective. The image pulled back to include just the crust of the Earth that was solid. You could no longer see the shaft that was mining the gold. It pulled back further to show the mantel and the core. The crust looked no thicker than a line of pencil lead on a piece of paper. Our big achievement was reduced to less than nothing. Looking at the Earth from orbit, one can see just how pretty it is, despite the rampaging Sapients gnawing at it ceaselessly. Yet it endures. Hurricanes and tsunamis continue to sweep us aside as if we are ants. We can not control the weather or the orbit of our world. Nor can be control the temperature of the seas or the sunspots on the Sun. We have less control over our destiny than the bug that pondered your windshield for the microsecond it took for it to splatter directly in your line of site.
The arrogance of some to think that we can either create or destroy the planet is staggering. Hubris. The Earth was here for 4.5 billion years before us and will be here for over 4 billion years after us. Unless we move off world and colonize the rest of the solar system, and other systems, the universe will neither note our existence nor care that we were ever here.
Al Gore, Ed, and all you other nuts, please put down the hemp and the protest signs and please get a real job. A productive job.
--Zavost
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Education Costs vs. Health Care Costs
For years and years all we have ever heard about is the "out of control increase in Health Care premiums", "Health Care premium costs at twice the rate of inflation!". Over and over and over again. The drum beat pounded in 1993 when HillaryCare underwent a pre-term abortion by the American people (I'm normally against 99% of abortions, but I'm going to run with this allegory at least one more time in this posting). The drums became deafening again when the House and Senate voted to move the bill to reconcilliation (god help us all, even the ignorant). The Reid/Pelosi bill will need a Partial Birth Abortion now, since the bill is damn near born; and no, I'm not listening to journalists who, at ever step of the process said that it could not possibly go to the next step because of x,y,z reasons. Add enough non-healthcare spending (that's Pork and Bribes to those with common sense) and it seems that, today, you can pass anything. President Obama gets no credit for this other than he will be the doctor delivering the demon into our world. BHO simply decreed that it was to be done and has only cheered on the sidelines with his pom poms. Actually, the bill has been written by dozens of special interest groups like SEIU, AARP, and others who stand to either offload significant promisary debt, I'm looking at you SEIU; or sell expensive gap insurance; and now I'm looking at you AARP. Those two groups are merely representative, in my opionion. The drum beat is so loud now I can barely think clearly any longer.
Now I'm going to wander over to the the Education discussion. I've been putting myself through college and university since the 1990's. I worked full time while working towards my degrees and run up mountains of personal debt to get those degrees. I'll be paying on those for years. For the last several years my wife has been doing her best to do the same. A simple class in terminology was over $700! Textbook companies put out a new text edition almost ever year and those books sometimes run several hundred dollars each! I know this. I have the recepts. Just paid a bill the other day for books. One semester's worth of books is almost $1,000. A single year of training for my wife, training that does not lead to a degree is going to cost over $10,000. That is just the last year. She has taken more than two years of "pre-requisites". You know, the Yoga class that you have to have before you can learn how weld a fender. You know, the cooking class you have to take before you can get your business degree.
What a scam.
The post-high school system in this country has been a scam for decades. While the Left has stood there, pointing a finger at the cost of health care, mouth wide and soundless, face frozen in outrage, the cost of post secondary school education has become nearly unattainable any longer. This is a big topic and I'll do my best to muddle through this.
Progressives and Socialists have infiltrated and corrupted the system for decades (perhaps as far back as President Wilson). The G.I. Generation saw college as the ultimate leg up. It was a place you went to get the education and skills you needed to make a qualitative difference in your life, a better life for your family, and for the betterment of your community. The G.I. Generation built the Interstate Highway system, built the infrastructure for the rise of the American Superpower. It was that generation that sent men to the moon. They thought BIG and did the BIG things. They grew up in the Great Depression and then went on to fight a war that spanned the planet. Sure they had their odder element. I believe they were called Beatniks. The proto-hippie, if you will. They were largely ignored by their peers since they were usually too doped up to make much sense in music, art, or literature. Not very many ever took them seriously, other than other Beatniks (and the Art world). College was a place of learning, NOT social experimentation. Their children, the Boomers, did their best to tear down all the great structures that the GIs built. The grading system was oppresive, they said. The concept of working hard for your grades really rubbed them wrong. They were constricted and injection molded into their parent's world. They rebelled in a huge way and gave rise to the hippy.
The most destructive generation since the 1850's was loose upon the modern world. They fought back against what they felt was a spiritually dead society. A society that looked outward to conqure the moon and the very stars themselves, while the Boomer saw only the poor and sick among us. They looked inward and longed to pull the world together in one grand group hug. America was unfair, a place of unbridled greed, corruption and oppression. THEY would make a better world when it was their turn to run things. So now they've been running things. Since the first Boomer to take the White House, President Clinton, the Boomers have been running the entire show. I don't like that show.
Anyhow, to pull this back to Education costs, I first wanted to paint a bit of the Boomer background.
I feel that Boomers have been the most secular (actually, secularism is their kind of religion) and inward looking group of people for a very long time. When they had to play by the rules, they rebelled. Now that they get to write the rules, they write them for themselves without a care to the young or old among us.
I read an article that stated that there were more advanced degrees, Masters and above, granted in the 1960's and 1970's to individuals who then NEVER worked in the private sector then ever before or since. Those people began to climb the internal structure of our country. They became the teachers, and the junior politicians. They began to work at NGOs (non-government organizations and community organizations) in unprecidented numbers. Those people began to infect the secondary school systems in the 1970's. I know that because I was one of those who got to grow up without learning Phonics. Learning how to express myself in english was a nightmare for years. The entire time my parents were wondering why I was not learning my phonics. I also had 'New Math' inflicted on me. To this day, for anything more advanced than simple Algebra I have to go to my wife for help (the communists seemed to have had a better secondary school system than us). Those Boomers began to actually run and not agitate the system any longer. They did away with the rules that they didn't like. Beatnik GIs (like Jimmy Carter), sypathetic souls of theirs that still ran things in the 1970's and 80's aided their programs. The Community Reinvestment Act by Jimmy Carter leads straight to the mess we are in today. But I digress a little.
In the 1980's, these Boomers began to get into positions of senior leadership in the University systems. They bemoaned the low wages and all those pesky rules about publishing papers in their specialties. It is right around the time I graduated from High School, 1987, that the education system began to get more and more expensive. Right around the time they decided that they were not being paid enough for what they did (or were doing to us).
Here is a chart with my thou
ghts below it. Note: Click on the chart to see it better.
I don't know how good this chart is going to look once it is posted, but here is my explaination. For the record, this chart comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the Government itself, folks.
In 1987, the rate of cost inflation in House, Medical Care, and College Tuition were roughly the same, about the rate of over all inflation, give or take. Rates crept up under Bush 41 and then really began to diverge under President Clinton, the first Boomer President. Over the time period, 1987 to 2008, the cost of health care premiums increased 5% on average year over year while housing increased 5.1%. Over that same time, College Tuition and Fees increased an average of 7%. It also shows the dramatic collapse of the housing market (another blog).
So why in the world is everyone getting so worked up over healthcare when the cost for education is that much higher? Don't even get me started on the cost of education prior to college.
Here are my thoughts:
The government has always been one to encourage the use of student loans, government backed (i.e. taxpayer), low interest loans and such to help the average Joe (or Jane) to go to college. Much like government interference in the cost of Health Care made it more expensive (that is another blog), so too did government interference cause education to get rediculous. It became normal for people to simply finance their entire education debt. Gone were the days when people could, literally, work their way through school, financing it themselves while they went (read Sarah Palin's book and you'll see she funded her education that way, and she is not much older than me). Heck, an MBA at Notre Dame cost over $88,000 per YEAR back in 2004. I shudder to think what it is today in 2009.
Why does the cost go up so much every year? We pay for our own books. We drive to the class room. Last I looked, all we needed was a teacher, a blackboard, and a method to quiz and question. The Greeks taught at the base of their Stoa. Many of our Founders studied the classics on a dirt floor in a log hut. Those were some very smart and educated people. They built this country. What do we get for our advanced degrees these days (those that did not get them from a degree mill)? Where is all that money going? Is it a coincidence that the median pay for today's university president is now over a million dollars? How many students need to attend that school year to cover the cost of the pay of that president (not to mention their healthcare benefits and retirement package). The median annual salary for a school teacher (High School) in my district is between 60-88k per year, plus benefits and retirement (for 9 months of work). The median salary for college teachers is over 100k. You really need to crank the students through the mill to meet the annual payroll for these places.
Is the quality of post secondary education better today then it was in the 1950's? Hell no. Not even close. I read a government report from 1997 that said, even then, that the average high school diploma granted a better education in 1947 then a BA degree in 1997. I'm certain that this is more true here in the waning days of 2009.
Is your healthcare better today than in 1947? 1997? Hell yes. Not even close (thats another blog).
So why are we trying to nationalize healthcare when our university system is far more expensive? Oh yeah, the university system has the government subsidzing the debt of the students. Traditional loans are no longer possible. The Department of Education has been taking over all the student loans over this last year. Two of my six have been taken over by the DOE. Even this system of funding is collapsing and I don't see it being replaced with anything other than total nationalization. The Boomer professors and university administrators will continue to pay themselves hansomly for turning out an inferior product. They don't carry malpractice insurance, do they?
This blog is already way, way too long. Perhaps I'll break this up and discuss pieces of it at a later time.
-Zavost.
Chart Source: http://www.creditunions.com/
Now I'm going to wander over to the the Education discussion. I've been putting myself through college and university since the 1990's. I worked full time while working towards my degrees and run up mountains of personal debt to get those degrees. I'll be paying on those for years. For the last several years my wife has been doing her best to do the same. A simple class in terminology was over $700! Textbook companies put out a new text edition almost ever year and those books sometimes run several hundred dollars each! I know this. I have the recepts. Just paid a bill the other day for books. One semester's worth of books is almost $1,000. A single year of training for my wife, training that does not lead to a degree is going to cost over $10,000. That is just the last year. She has taken more than two years of "pre-requisites". You know, the Yoga class that you have to have before you can learn how weld a fender. You know, the cooking class you have to take before you can get your business degree.
What a scam.
The post-high school system in this country has been a scam for decades. While the Left has stood there, pointing a finger at the cost of health care, mouth wide and soundless, face frozen in outrage, the cost of post secondary school education has become nearly unattainable any longer. This is a big topic and I'll do my best to muddle through this.
Progressives and Socialists have infiltrated and corrupted the system for decades (perhaps as far back as President Wilson). The G.I. Generation saw college as the ultimate leg up. It was a place you went to get the education and skills you needed to make a qualitative difference in your life, a better life for your family, and for the betterment of your community. The G.I. Generation built the Interstate Highway system, built the infrastructure for the rise of the American Superpower. It was that generation that sent men to the moon. They thought BIG and did the BIG things. They grew up in the Great Depression and then went on to fight a war that spanned the planet. Sure they had their odder element. I believe they were called Beatniks. The proto-hippie, if you will. They were largely ignored by their peers since they were usually too doped up to make much sense in music, art, or literature. Not very many ever took them seriously, other than other Beatniks (and the Art world). College was a place of learning, NOT social experimentation. Their children, the Boomers, did their best to tear down all the great structures that the GIs built. The grading system was oppresive, they said. The concept of working hard for your grades really rubbed them wrong. They were constricted and injection molded into their parent's world. They rebelled in a huge way and gave rise to the hippy.
The most destructive generation since the 1850's was loose upon the modern world. They fought back against what they felt was a spiritually dead society. A society that looked outward to conqure the moon and the very stars themselves, while the Boomer saw only the poor and sick among us. They looked inward and longed to pull the world together in one grand group hug. America was unfair, a place of unbridled greed, corruption and oppression. THEY would make a better world when it was their turn to run things. So now they've been running things. Since the first Boomer to take the White House, President Clinton, the Boomers have been running the entire show. I don't like that show.
Anyhow, to pull this back to Education costs, I first wanted to paint a bit of the Boomer background.
I feel that Boomers have been the most secular (actually, secularism is their kind of religion) and inward looking group of people for a very long time. When they had to play by the rules, they rebelled. Now that they get to write the rules, they write them for themselves without a care to the young or old among us.
I read an article that stated that there were more advanced degrees, Masters and above, granted in the 1960's and 1970's to individuals who then NEVER worked in the private sector then ever before or since. Those people began to climb the internal structure of our country. They became the teachers, and the junior politicians. They began to work at NGOs (non-government organizations and community organizations) in unprecidented numbers. Those people began to infect the secondary school systems in the 1970's. I know that because I was one of those who got to grow up without learning Phonics. Learning how to express myself in english was a nightmare for years. The entire time my parents were wondering why I was not learning my phonics. I also had 'New Math' inflicted on me. To this day, for anything more advanced than simple Algebra I have to go to my wife for help (the communists seemed to have had a better secondary school system than us). Those Boomers began to actually run and not agitate the system any longer. They did away with the rules that they didn't like. Beatnik GIs (like Jimmy Carter), sypathetic souls of theirs that still ran things in the 1970's and 80's aided their programs. The Community Reinvestment Act by Jimmy Carter leads straight to the mess we are in today. But I digress a little.
In the 1980's, these Boomers began to get into positions of senior leadership in the University systems. They bemoaned the low wages and all those pesky rules about publishing papers in their specialties. It is right around the time I graduated from High School, 1987, that the education system began to get more and more expensive. Right around the time they decided that they were not being paid enough for what they did (or were doing to us).
Here is a chart with my thou
ghts below it. Note: Click on the chart to see it better.I don't know how good this chart is going to look once it is posted, but here is my explaination. For the record, this chart comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the Government itself, folks.
In 1987, the rate of cost inflation in House, Medical Care, and College Tuition were roughly the same, about the rate of over all inflation, give or take. Rates crept up under Bush 41 and then really began to diverge under President Clinton, the first Boomer President. Over the time period, 1987 to 2008, the cost of health care premiums increased 5% on average year over year while housing increased 5.1%. Over that same time, College Tuition and Fees increased an average of 7%. It also shows the dramatic collapse of the housing market (another blog).
So why in the world is everyone getting so worked up over healthcare when the cost for education is that much higher? Don't even get me started on the cost of education prior to college.
Here are my thoughts:
The government has always been one to encourage the use of student loans, government backed (i.e. taxpayer), low interest loans and such to help the average Joe (or Jane) to go to college. Much like government interference in the cost of Health Care made it more expensive (that is another blog), so too did government interference cause education to get rediculous. It became normal for people to simply finance their entire education debt. Gone were the days when people could, literally, work their way through school, financing it themselves while they went (read Sarah Palin's book and you'll see she funded her education that way, and she is not much older than me). Heck, an MBA at Notre Dame cost over $88,000 per YEAR back in 2004. I shudder to think what it is today in 2009.
Why does the cost go up so much every year? We pay for our own books. We drive to the class room. Last I looked, all we needed was a teacher, a blackboard, and a method to quiz and question. The Greeks taught at the base of their Stoa. Many of our Founders studied the classics on a dirt floor in a log hut. Those were some very smart and educated people. They built this country. What do we get for our advanced degrees these days (those that did not get them from a degree mill)? Where is all that money going? Is it a coincidence that the median pay for today's university president is now over a million dollars? How many students need to attend that school year to cover the cost of the pay of that president (not to mention their healthcare benefits and retirement package). The median annual salary for a school teacher (High School) in my district is between 60-88k per year, plus benefits and retirement (for 9 months of work). The median salary for college teachers is over 100k. You really need to crank the students through the mill to meet the annual payroll for these places.
Is the quality of post secondary education better today then it was in the 1950's? Hell no. Not even close. I read a government report from 1997 that said, even then, that the average high school diploma granted a better education in 1947 then a BA degree in 1997. I'm certain that this is more true here in the waning days of 2009.
Is your healthcare better today than in 1947? 1997? Hell yes. Not even close (thats another blog).
So why are we trying to nationalize healthcare when our university system is far more expensive? Oh yeah, the university system has the government subsidzing the debt of the students. Traditional loans are no longer possible. The Department of Education has been taking over all the student loans over this last year. Two of my six have been taken over by the DOE. Even this system of funding is collapsing and I don't see it being replaced with anything other than total nationalization. The Boomer professors and university administrators will continue to pay themselves hansomly for turning out an inferior product. They don't carry malpractice insurance, do they?
This blog is already way, way too long. Perhaps I'll break this up and discuss pieces of it at a later time.
-Zavost.
Chart Source: http://www.creditunions.com/
Friday, November 20, 2009
The New Founders
My wife has a rule about talking politics. Well, several rules, and those change and are enforced at her whim...and I'm good with that. Anyhow, one rule is that I don't talk politics with her unless she starts the conversation, and the conversation ends when she wants it to end. Again, I'm good with that. The other week she was questioning me about what exactly a Republic was. I'm sure she already knew, despite growing up in a Communist nation, but probably had a point to make, so I began the description to her with our two kids listening on.
One thing to keep in mind about her is that she will do her best to find the downside in everything, whether it be politics or inheriting a billion dollars. Viewing the conversation through that prism, she very astutely pointed out to me that the legislation coming out of Washington this year was being crammed down our throats against the will of many in the electorate. How, then, could these people possibly think they are going to get re-elected? I'll leave out the discussions about incumbency, the short attention span of voters, 9/12 Project, Tea Parties (all that is another blog) etc. and keep this simple.
She had me really stumped there for a while. The primary instinct of a politician is to remain in office. The acquisition of power is simply a tool to remain in office. First and foremost, they want to be elected, unless they can do away with those pesky and unnecessary elections. My wife made a valid point and it took the hind portion of my brain a few hours to chew on that. I could not escape the fact that these politicians were going to do this; will of the people be damned. Will of their own constituency be damned as well. I shrugged my shoulders and agreed with her assessment that the politicians in America have become the new ruling social class and unless we began learning to bribe, suck up, or otherwise embed ourselves in the coming fabric of power, then we were all screwed.
Only later that day did things seem to spring into focus for me. I'm a big believer in the theory of Occam's Razor. The simplest or most apparent solution is generally the best or actual solution. Of course I'm not some ninny that can be tricked by the obvious. Things must add up after all, logically. So I began walking myself through this.
It is obvious that there are a lot of Democrats in jeopardy of losing their next elections. The people are not going to forget this past year in the next year. Not this time. The Dems know that...yet they persist. Senator Reid is in serious trouble in Nevada. Why would he continue down this suicidal path to professional extinction? It violates the very first rule of power, which is STAY in power. I'm very certain that he is not altruistic enough to sacrifice his personal career for the greater good of the people of this nation. Nope, not that naive. The NY-23 race was a Sentinel Event in the eyes of political handlers and strategists across the country. The 3rd party guy just about won (and may actually have at the time of this writing, we'll just have to see how that turns out). He almost won on strong conservative principals. The RINO actually threw her support behind the DEM (figures). The RNC still does not seem to actually stand for anything. This will hurt them badly in the next election. The thinkers among us see the emptiness in today's RNC.
Anyhow, I digress. It finally came together for me. It does not matter to them if they risk losing the election since their power currently derives from the current structure of government (certainly, by the people, for the people no longer applies). Obama has said again and again that he is going to "fundamentally transform America". Now, the word 'fundamentally' means the essence of a thing, the very composition. If you are going to transform something that is essentially, even at this late hour:
One thing to keep in mind about her is that she will do her best to find the downside in everything, whether it be politics or inheriting a billion dollars. Viewing the conversation through that prism, she very astutely pointed out to me that the legislation coming out of Washington this year was being crammed down our throats against the will of many in the electorate. How, then, could these people possibly think they are going to get re-elected? I'll leave out the discussions about incumbency, the short attention span of voters, 9/12 Project, Tea Parties (all that is another blog) etc. and keep this simple.
She had me really stumped there for a while. The primary instinct of a politician is to remain in office. The acquisition of power is simply a tool to remain in office. First and foremost, they want to be elected, unless they can do away with those pesky and unnecessary elections. My wife made a valid point and it took the hind portion of my brain a few hours to chew on that. I could not escape the fact that these politicians were going to do this; will of the people be damned. Will of their own constituency be damned as well. I shrugged my shoulders and agreed with her assessment that the politicians in America have become the new ruling social class and unless we began learning to bribe, suck up, or otherwise embed ourselves in the coming fabric of power, then we were all screwed.
Only later that day did things seem to spring into focus for me. I'm a big believer in the theory of Occam's Razor. The simplest or most apparent solution is generally the best or actual solution. Of course I'm not some ninny that can be tricked by the obvious. Things must add up after all, logically. So I began walking myself through this.
It is obvious that there are a lot of Democrats in jeopardy of losing their next elections. The people are not going to forget this past year in the next year. Not this time. The Dems know that...yet they persist. Senator Reid is in serious trouble in Nevada. Why would he continue down this suicidal path to professional extinction? It violates the very first rule of power, which is STAY in power. I'm very certain that he is not altruistic enough to sacrifice his personal career for the greater good of the people of this nation. Nope, not that naive. The NY-23 race was a Sentinel Event in the eyes of political handlers and strategists across the country. The 3rd party guy just about won (and may actually have at the time of this writing, we'll just have to see how that turns out). He almost won on strong conservative principals. The RINO actually threw her support behind the DEM (figures). The RNC still does not seem to actually stand for anything. This will hurt them badly in the next election. The thinkers among us see the emptiness in today's RNC.
Anyhow, I digress. It finally came together for me. It does not matter to them if they risk losing the election since their power currently derives from the current structure of government (certainly, by the people, for the people no longer applies). Obama has said again and again that he is going to "fundamentally transform America". Now, the word 'fundamentally' means the essence of a thing, the very composition. If you are going to transform something that is essentially, even at this late hour:
- A free market economy
- A place of equal opportunity (NOT EQUAL OUTCOMES)
- A land of laws that bind the highest and the lowest in our society
- An engine of innovation in all areas of human culture
- Capitalist
- The freedom of the individual is more important than the collective
- A place where all can worship and speak freely (unless you are a Christian, that is)
- A land where those who are corrupt will eventually be found out and driven from power
What does that 'transform' into...and WHY would I WANT it transformed???
If something is not fundamentally identified as Conservative, it will, by definition, become Liberal. I'm talking Marxism. To transform a Representative Republic you have to do away will all that. The opposite of a Republic is a Dictatorship. Authoritarian.
Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid don't really care what happens to them in this system because they are creating a NEW one. Obama, Reid, Pelosi; members of the Mainstream Media, Gore, Kerry and the whole bunch will be seen in future history books much the same way a Caesar, Sulla, and the Gracchus brothers were referenced centuries after their time.
In as little as a few years (just think of how quickly the USSR was transformed from a Super Power and into a backward Federation) this country will be twisted and changed into something completely different. We may still be called the United States, but our name will be as hollow as the German Democratic Republic (the Old DDR, or East Germany for the school kids of today). It was neither Democratic nor a Republic.
If the change happens rapidly enough, these folks will not be out of work for long. There is always the hundreds of non-profits (Podesta comes to mind), Ambassadorships, Boards of Directors, Consultancies, etc. for the likes of Reid and Pelosi. They will not be hurting for funds and they will be forever thought of as the Founders of the New Republic.
Imagine the ego boost every night when they go to bed at night. All around them, the right wing pundits yell that they will be voted out of office, those on the left froth at the mouth, yelling at them to hold the line while all the while, they know that they will be the heroes of the new country. It will be THEIR faces on the new money, their faces on the new mountain monuments. They will be the ones remembered for centuries who had brought down the unfair and unjust American Republic that had been created by those white, slave holding wig-wearing old men. So what if they are voted out of office. They will have founded something new (that is the opener for a whole new blog topic to explore).
Caesar was the one who finally broke the back of the Roman Republic. His adopted son, Octavius (Augustus), completed the transformation to an Empire that lasted another 500 years (in the West). We still remember Caesar today; he is still famous. He was the Obama of our time. The director of the NEA even says so. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi may be remembered 2,000 years from now as the pivotal figures that "fundamentally transformed" a republic that had existed for 233 years. What will the Socialist Empire that takes its place look like?
So, ultimately, my wife was, as usual, was spot on correct. The voice of the people is being ignored, and it will continue to be ignored. It may be much too late now to pull the train back from the cliff, short of another bloody civil war far worse then the one we went through earlier (1861-1865).
--Zavost
Thursday, November 19, 2009
More on Mammograms
In my last post, I didn't discuss the millions of women who get their Mammograms between the ages of 35 and 50. The governmental panel took a very cold and mathematical stance on them. They felt that the emotional trauma of having a false positive worked up was worse (and all too common) then the one woman in 1,800 that had a positive finding.
OK, I've got a few problems with that last sentence. First, it sucks if you are that one woman that had a diagnostically visible lesion that went undiscovered and untreated. I guess you are an acceptable casualty. The second assumes that only 0.05% of women (or 0.00056) in a hundred, who have a biopsy done, actually have cancer. Detection rates are tracked by imaging departments and generally are between 15-30%. That means that for every 100 women who have a biopsy performed, 15 to 30 of them come back as positive for cancer. This is used as a training tool for the radiologists to be more proficient in how they recommend for biopsy. The government's rate of 0.05% indicates to me a wildly inaccurate computer model.
Not even using the back of an envelope for scratch math, I'll run through some numbers:
OK, I've got a few problems with that last sentence. First, it sucks if you are that one woman that had a diagnostically visible lesion that went undiscovered and untreated. I guess you are an acceptable casualty. The second assumes that only 0.05% of women (or 0.00056) in a hundred, who have a biopsy done, actually have cancer. Detection rates are tracked by imaging departments and generally are between 15-30%. That means that for every 100 women who have a biopsy performed, 15 to 30 of them come back as positive for cancer. This is used as a training tool for the radiologists to be more proficient in how they recommend for biopsy. The government's rate of 0.05% indicates to me a wildly inaccurate computer model.
Not even using the back of an envelope for scratch math, I'll run through some numbers:
- Assume 20,000 Mammograms are performed at an imaging facility
- Assume 50% of those women are getting either their baseline at 35 or their recurring Mammograms between the current guidelines of age 40 and 50.
- This gives us a figure of 10,000 affected women (lets forget the financial impact on the larger health care facility and what that means to other services that lose money, but are supported by these revenues...another blog item)
- Generally, about 95% of Mammograms are normal and do not require a "Diagnostic Workup".
- That gives us 500 women every year who are referred for diagnostic follow up. This means additional films, ultrasounds, and a likely biopsy (either fine needle aspiration or core biopsy...perhaps even a surgical biopsy).
- Lets go back to the 15 to 30% detection rate. I'll go with 25% for this unscientific evaluation.
- So, out of those 500 women, 375 will be given a clean bill of health. That leaves 125 women who will get a diagnosis of cancer.
That is 125 women in a single year, in a medium sized city in Western Michigan. The 5-year mortality rate is about 15%, give or take (age, ethnicity, etc.). This means that 19 women will die of this disease.
Please keep in mind that this is under the current, EARLY DETECTION model/guidelines. Those 19 women will die even if the cancer is caught early (younger women tend to have more aggressive breast cancers).
In this new model, women between the ages of 35 and 50 will no longer have routine Mammograms. Nor will Clinical Breast Exams be covered or taught (must not overly worry yourself there, dear) since this same government panel felt that they were useless (absolutely false). Now, there are many different types of breast cancers, but some tumors will double in size every 100 days from the time the first cell goes rogue. If you are 40, and cancer just begins, it will likely get caught in your 41 year Mammogram (40 year Mammogram if your area offers digital mammography and breast MRI). In the new system, that cancer will go absolutely undetected until it becomes clinically visible. By that time, mortality in a single year (not 5 years) is around 95%.
So lets just say that every year, in my community, 125 women are diagnosed with cancer in the age group 35-50. Unless you are 49 years old when your cancer becomes diagnostically visible, you will likely die of that disease.
Under our current guidelines, approximately 19 women will die, unless more money is spent on new equipment and procedures (to catch the cancer earlier). Under the new guidelines, roughly 124 women will die every year from this disease.
Current spending from the government on women's care is about $5 Billion. Fraud and waste in current government programs tops $96 Billion. The President QUADRUPLED the nation debt in NINE months (over $1.64 Trillion!!).
The government says it is doing this to save money. Perhaps there are other places they could save that money while not sending tens of thousands of women to an early grave. How many of those women will be our wives, daughters or sisters?
--Zavost
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Ramping up the Death Panels
A government-funded panel recently reported some very, very self-serving guidelines. Among them are:
- Women should be 50 before she gets her baseline Mammogram
- Women should get a Mammogram only every 2 years after that
- Women should no longer get a Mammogram after she turns 74
- No mammograms before 50
This turns DECADES of research on its ear. In the past, it was argued if 40 was early enough. Right now, the commonly accepted practice is:
- A woman should get their baseline Mammogram at age 35
- A woman should get a Mammogram every year after age 40
What in the world are they thinking about the age 74 guideline? Does this mean that they feel that breast cancer will no longer kill you within your expected, remaining life-span? I have a grandmother who will turn 91 this June. She gets regular Mammograms and I'm damn glad for it. I had a Great Grandmother who made it to 99. She got regular check ups as well. What about the woman who develops cancer in her 75th year? Too bad, you had a good run? Is that America? Do we withhold treatment based on a person being too old?
I'll be blunt. That is barbaric. Sorry granny, you don't pay enough taxes to make your continued existence worthwhile to the collective. Goodbye.
No. This is not my America. I've taken care of patients in full-on dementia, 90 years old and with a very visible "Do Not Resuscitate" paperwork in their chart. I took an hour doing a Sinus workup because the family doctor ordered it. Was I doing the patient a favor? That another blog topic.
We take care of our sick, our injured, and our crippled. We are the most generous and caring people this world has ever seen. I don't want to go the way of Western Europe, where family get to come in and see their sick, injured, terminal, loved ones sedated in a hospital bed being denied food and fluids. That is a Deathwatch, pure and simple.
Not in my America.
My wife, and I will speak of her often, was born and raised in Communist Czechoslovakia. She saw her grandmother tied down, naked on a steel bed while the "doctors" waited for hypothermia and pneumonia to carry her off. This is something she will never forget. She tells me again and again that there is no where else in the world to run to. This is it. The conservative way of life lives or dies with the generations alive today. Do we slide into the degeneration of Western Europe or do we shake off Cercie's potion and remember who we are.
My America:
- set mankind on the moon, in the name of all mankind and not just America
- sent robotic probes to roam Mars, the outer planets, and are now travelling free between the stars
- created 80%+ medical innovations in the last century
- liberated Europe not once, but twice--and took a boot to the butt and spit in the face as thanks for it each time
- liberated millions dominated by Islam in a single year
- feed, dress, and house millions of refugees we will never meet all over the world, every year
That is just a very small list. I could go on and on. Are we perfect? No one is perfect. Even Jesus doubted his destiny, so I guess even He was not completely perfect. We are, however, better than any other nation that exists today or has ever existed in the past (yes, I'm aware of the Native Americans and how they were treated).
There, I feel a little better now. I may write more on this later.
Zavost
Monday, November 9, 2009
Taxes, Taxes, and yet more Taxes
The Pelosi Health Care Bill creates over a hundred new organs of government and will cost over $2.5 Trillion. All that has to come from three places. Taxes (the Dems know all about those), borrowing, and printing. All of those methods are fraught with problems. Some short term and others devastatingly long-term.
I recently saw an article that showed something like 30 or 40% of the House of Representatives were millionaires. I suspect a much higher portion of the Senate to be millionairs. I've also read that their health care costs are $506 per year for unlimited service at the Capitol Clinic. Sweet gig.
I'm not envious of wealthy people. I suspect that they have problems of their own. Money brings complications all its own to those who have it. No, what I'm thinking about right now is all about taxes. There are so many types of taxes out there. Capital gains, income, deffered, VAT...the ever popular "Windfall" tax, the AIG tax, AMT, Progressive, Regressive, Stealth, incremental, inflationary...you get the idea. There is one type of tax that the collective Congress seems to not want to talk about, or if they do talk about it, they don't like to. That is the "Wealth Tax".
I've wondered why the people in Congress, who make less than the President, don't seem to care about all the "Income Taxes" that they have to pay out. Their "Income" is not relative to their "Wealth" is why. Many, like Pelosi (wine, tuna, and restaurants) and Reid (real estate deals...that's another blog) are worth many millions of dollars. What do they care if they have to give back 50% of their paycheck every month? Some are married into money (like Ms. Pelosi), others 'obtained' it (like Mr. Reid). The invested portions continue to generate revenue and are subject to the capital gains tax. However, if they invested wisely, the principal remains and grows. Their wealth has increased, regardless of the amount of income taxation.
If Congress is serious about "paying" for all this nanny-state garbage then lets start tapping into the real wealth of its citizens. Lets go after the Tom Cruises and the Tom Hanks. They have millions upon millions of dollars to give (is it loaning, investing, or giving--how about extorting?) to the State. How about Speilburg and Lucas? I know they have Billions. That will cover a clinic or two in downtown Bronx, won't it? Hey, how about Bill Gates, he's loaded!
Just because they 'earned' the money does not necessarily mean that they deserve it. Does Michael Moore deserve the money from his (and I say this loosely) documentaries? Capitalism = Evil, therefore, the money he earned needs to either be rejected or sent to Cuba to continue funding their spectacular advances in medicine.
So why don't we tax wealth in this country? How much does one need to live on in a year, or even subsist on in a year? I'm sure some Czar will be along to tell me any day now, though I doubt Reid or Pelosi will be in any great hurry to participate since they can not even participate in their own health care billls.
There, I feel better already.
--Zavost
I recently saw an article that showed something like 30 or 40% of the House of Representatives were millionaires. I suspect a much higher portion of the Senate to be millionairs. I've also read that their health care costs are $506 per year for unlimited service at the Capitol Clinic. Sweet gig.
I'm not envious of wealthy people. I suspect that they have problems of their own. Money brings complications all its own to those who have it. No, what I'm thinking about right now is all about taxes. There are so many types of taxes out there. Capital gains, income, deffered, VAT...the ever popular "Windfall" tax, the AIG tax, AMT, Progressive, Regressive, Stealth, incremental, inflationary...you get the idea. There is one type of tax that the collective Congress seems to not want to talk about, or if they do talk about it, they don't like to. That is the "Wealth Tax".
I've wondered why the people in Congress, who make less than the President, don't seem to care about all the "Income Taxes" that they have to pay out. Their "Income" is not relative to their "Wealth" is why. Many, like Pelosi (wine, tuna, and restaurants) and Reid (real estate deals...that's another blog) are worth many millions of dollars. What do they care if they have to give back 50% of their paycheck every month? Some are married into money (like Ms. Pelosi), others
If Congress is serious about "paying" for all this nanny-state garbage then lets start tapping into the real wealth of its citizens. Lets go after the Tom Cruises and the Tom Hanks. They have millions upon millions of dollars to give (is it loaning, investing, or giving--how about extorting?) to the State. How about Speilburg and Lucas? I know they have Billions. That will cover a clinic or two in downtown Bronx, won't it? Hey, how about Bill Gates, he's loaded!
Just because they 'earned' the money does not necessarily mean that they deserve it. Does Michael Moore deserve the money from his (and I say this loosely) documentaries? Capitalism = Evil, therefore, the money he earned needs to either be rejected or sent to Cuba to continue funding their spectacular advances in medicine.
So why don't we tax wealth in this country? How much does one need to live on in a year, or even subsist on in a year? I'm sure some Czar will be along to tell me any day now, though I doubt Reid or Pelosi will be in any great hurry to participate since they can not even participate in their own health care billls.
There, I feel better already.
--Zavost
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Health Care
It's a shame that my first post has to be about the ongoing health care debate. I'm not so much going to discuss the pros and cons of nationalized health care (for the love of god, leave my health care alone) as it is the laws that are being written about it.
It makes me want to get out the duct tape and wrap my head when I see Pelosi hoisting a crane in and dropping down her 2,000+ page monster of a bill on the table. 2,000 pages? Really? The Republican version is, give or take 280 pages. Mostly, their bill is one where it is getting the government less involved with the process. Anything that gets the government out of my way is a good thing.
We have to keep in mind that laws are just framework, guidelines for the bureaucracy to carry out the law. This means that there is a massive inflation of machinery and people to ensure that the law is being carried out. I've heard various numbers about how many new bureaucracies will be created in the Pelosi bill, but I figure if I have to quibble between 108 and 111, then my point has already been made. What a monster.
To keep this in perspective, the U.S. Government was created by the Constitution. That document has only 6 pages to it. The first four describe how the government is to be constituted, the fifth page is a transmittal page, and the entire sixth page is dedicated the first ten amendments. Those 6 pages created the ENTIRE modern US Government. What will Pelosi's bill give birth to?
Congress has already been giving away its powers (Czars, pay, spending, etc.) unconstitutionally. What will evolve from this Pelosi bill? Congresses come and go. Presidents come and go, but the bureaucracy always remains. When was one ever killed off?
The tea party is great, but no one in government is listening.
When will the parents come home and take the checkbook away from the Boomers who have taken over the steering wheel of my country.
Much more to come.
-Zavost
It makes me want to get out the duct tape and wrap my head when I see Pelosi hoisting a crane in and dropping down her 2,000+ page monster of a bill on the table. 2,000 pages? Really? The Republican version is, give or take 280 pages. Mostly, their bill is one where it is getting the government less involved with the process. Anything that gets the government out of my way is a good thing.
We have to keep in mind that laws are just framework, guidelines for the bureaucracy to carry out the law. This means that there is a massive inflation of machinery and people to ensure that the law is being carried out. I've heard various numbers about how many new bureaucracies will be created in the Pelosi bill, but I figure if I have to quibble between 108 and 111, then my point has already been made. What a monster.
To keep this in perspective, the U.S. Government was created by the Constitution. That document has only 6 pages to it. The first four describe how the government is to be constituted, the fifth page is a transmittal page, and the entire sixth page is dedicated the first ten amendments. Those 6 pages created the ENTIRE modern US Government. What will Pelosi's bill give birth to?
Congress has already been giving away its powers (Czars, pay, spending, etc.) unconstitutionally. What will evolve from this Pelosi bill? Congresses come and go. Presidents come and go, but the bureaucracy always remains. When was one ever killed off?
The tea party is great, but no one in government is listening.
When will the parents come home and take the checkbook away from the Boomers who have taken over the steering wheel of my country.
Much more to come.
-Zavost
Introduction
I was introduced to blogs several years ago by my mother. I had to ask her several times just what the heck a 'blog' was. Over time I have read them and used them to gain perspective that is generally lacking in the MSM. Even more, I love the extremely wide variety of opinions and viewpoints, up until the name 'Hitler' is mentioned, then I just move on.
A bit about me and why I'm even doing this. I'm calling this the Zavost Stoa after the Greek columns that Zeno the Stoic conducted his classes in ancient Athens. This blog is going to be a place where I can post my thoughts and opinions on just about anything. I live away from the family that I grew up with, and my wife and children can only take my prattling for so long before they beg me to stow it. Politics (especially that), history (of just about any type), Science Fiction (I may post a few stories or provide links to read them if anyone is ever interested). I admire the ancients in many ways, especially the Stoics. I like to think that I can recognize the truth, when I see it; common sense when I hear it, and be mature enough to accept it in my world view, even if I don't like it.
As long as people remain grown up and don't fall back on childish name calling or unnecessary bad language then I'll have a discussion with just about anyone on just about anything.
Life is about growing, learning, and teaching. Every interaction we have with another leaves a little bit of ourselves with them. Likewise, you will always go away learning something from those you encounter on the journey.
I have no idea if anyone will ever read my posts or care a whit even if they do. This is just an outlet for me to be creative.
I will do my best not to talk about my job, since I hold the kind of job that precludes me from generally making my thoughts and feelings public. So many people can't just take things for what they are. I will never be offended by anything anyone ever says to me. No one has the power to offend me unless I allow it. I wish sometimes that others shared in that belief.
Now, on to blogging.
-Zavost
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
