Not all change is good change...

From the Stoa this night I wish to muse aloud about all the change that has been going on lately.

The mis-named "Arab Spring" continues to grind along. Egypt's President is in prison. Tunisia'a President is cast out. Libya's strongman is dead at the hands of the rebels. Assad is clinging to power in Damascus. Saudi Arabia is angry at Iran. Iran wants to nuke everyone, despite being downwind from everyone.

Putin is the virtual Czar of Russia today, for good or ill. China flexes is muscle even as it falls apart from within. Vietnam seeks closer military ties to us to warn off the resurgent China. Change abounds.

Obama has the worst Presidential ratings since they were recorded at the 11th quarter of service point. This despite the fact that he has the MSM covering for him. Think about that. George W. Bush had a rating more than 10 points higher than Obama at the same point despite having 99% of the media feed on his every cough.

Change for change sake is not good. This is unplanned change at best, intentionally destructive or self-serving change at worst. You would hope that someone with the power of the Presidency would use this as a change agent for good. Instead we have a President who viscerally hates this country and everything it has ever done. Funny that, for if we had not "grown" as a nation, a half-white, half-Kenyan would NEVER have become mayor, let alone President. Funny if you really think about it.

His change is purposeful and personal. Regardless of our historical track record of success (our acts speak for themselves) he wishes to remake us into nothing more than another moribund Europe or a hapless third world nation. His "change" was never our "change". It really was his.

Is it a good change to see Ghadafi dead? Well, yes, he was a very bad man. However, the absolutes of philosophy fail us when discussing the real world. Ghadafi was indeed a very bad man. He ordered the deaths of thousands outside of Libya, and thousands more within. He sponsored terror and developed chemical weapons. He was also tamed over time. After Reagan bombed him the 80's, wounding him and killing one of his children he realized that he was in a game that was over his head. All the defenses he purchased from the Soviet Union were dissolved as if they were wet tissue. He was on the path towards normalization and acceptance into the society of nations. He even renounced his nuclear weapon project after seeing how quickly we disposed of Iraq and Afghanistan. American strength was once again to be feared.

Now, as part of the "Arab Spring" the time is ripe for a radical islamic to take power, as will happen in Egypt shortly. Just as Jimmy Carter created the weeping sore that is Iran, Obama will out-do him and turn the entire Middle East into one.

This "Occupy Wall Street" is neither new nor youth driven. It is just another Communist rally, no different than one you might have seen in St. Petersburg in 1918, Berlin in 1922 and 1933. You are seeing it in Greece today. They are the disaffected, the incompetent, and the lazy. Some are in it for the easy women and cheap drugs, but most are simply unwilling to risk personal failure in an attempt to be successful in life. They call themselves the 99%'ers, but they are unwitting pawns in a game that Lenin and Goebbels would have found comfortably familiar. No joke. These will be the mis-guided muscle that will focus the attention away from the real group of people attempting to seize power. The rabble can be dispensed with once they have the power, since they don't care about restraint in the way that most governments care.

Change needs to thought out. You must have a goal fixed in mind and direct the change to minimize the "un-intended consequences" of that change. Unfortunately, the folks sponsoring the OWS movement know exactly where they want this change to end up and they have plenty of unthinking, lazy, fools to help them get there.

It is time to retire for this day. There will always be a tomorrow, even if I am not around to enjoy it.

Live well,

--Zavost


Sent from my iPad

Clueless

Upon the Stoa this day, I marvel at the ongoing idiocy on display in the MSM concerning these interlopers urinating on the sidewalks of Wall Street. So many misdirected, misinformed, lazy, clueless, unwashed...I could keep going...losers in our society; unable to form a critical thought in their heads if they had to.

What is the goal of these modern day sit-in hippies? Redistribute the wealth? Are you kidding? There has been more of that since Obama slid into office than at any other time in the planet's history. Still not enough for ya?

Who is to blame for the high unemployment? Perhaps the unions for making the business climate in the country too expensive. Perhaps the Federal and State governments with Regulations and Taxation policies. Perhaps?

What causes unemployment? For starters, a company does not exist to employ YOU. No, it does not. Not even YOU hiding in the bushes over there doing only God knows what. It exists to supply a good or service to another individual or company. Period. It does not exist to provide pensions, bonuses or healthcare; though those are good incentives to hire top notch employees.

Unemployment comes about when the cost to provide that good or service exceeds the revenue generated by that good or service. Quality can be cut, but at the risk of driving away the customer. Other expenses can be reduced, but the biggest bang for their buck comes from reducing the staff; and when I say staff, I mean YOU. You and your costly benefits structure.

The government distorts the market by placing layer upon layer of regulation upon whatever industry in lays it rheumy eyes upon. When the private sector has to spend $1.6 TRILLION to comply with regulations, then that is money they ARE NOT using to expand. And when I say expand, I mean employing YOU, and your costly benefit baggage. Think on that. Think really hard.

Regulations are meant to protect a wide variety of things. People, the environment, both. However, in a free market economy, companies that build products that are shoddy or do not do what they promise they will do, will go out of business as the consumer takes their dollar elsewhere. Poof, problem solved.

These unwashed masses sitting in at banks, Federal Reserves and such only want money. Turns out most of all the money that Obama vaporized over the last three years went overseas or directly into the coffers of Federal and State unions, Federal and/or State budgets. Very little of it came our way. The only thing in front of us is a growing bill that will have to be paid.

"Create Jobs" they write on their signs (at least they can spell). A company will only create a job if there is a reason for that job. How silly are you? Jobs just are not willed into existence. They are borne from need. Think on that one again. If the free market needs more widgets, and the company can not make those widgets fast enough, they will hire more people to make those widgets. There is no "Social Contract" between business and labor. The relationship is based on mutual needs. If you are working at McDonalds, you are not bound to McDonalds. If Pig in a Polk is offering more money and better hours, you are free to leave McDonalds without so much as a goodbye. On the other hand, if vegetarianism has wiped out the profit margin for McDonalds and they need to cut staff to keep their heads above water, they are free to do so...once they have navigated an ocean of regulatory paperwork.

No Social Contract exists between labor and capital. Period. If you mess around with that concept, you get the mess the whole world is in right now.

I'm off now, to make my little part of the free markets system more free.

Live well.

--Zavost

Known by the friends we keep

This bright morning from the Stoa I wish to attempt to untangle the threads that bind politics, economics, and good old common sense together.

Let's start with the situation in Syria. Power-hungry elite that controls the economy, the media, the military, the judiciary, and the legislation has been cracking down on the citizens who are demanding more freedom (or in this case, the desire to sink deeper into radical Islam). The United States, itself partially controlled by the above factors, FINALLY decides to sponsor and refer Syria to the Security Council in the UN for censorship. This does not help the poor schmucks getting creamed on the ground, but it makes everyone feel better who does not live in Syria.

Syria is economically poor. It does not have much in the way of resources and gets much of its funding from Iran, Russia, and China. Boy, that list just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It never was a real powerhouse of trade and has always relied somewhat on immediate border trade and weapon's deals to bring capital into the nation.

Common decency, let alone common sense, dictates that Syria not be permitted to butcher the innocent in the streets like this.

Unfortunately, the Arab/Islamic cultural values ARE different from ours. It does not make their acts any less heinous, but we must view the situation with clear lenses. Power is what makes their world revolve. Concessions are just an admission that you do not have to power to rule them. Think on that very, very carefully before you rebut.

I believe very strongly that all humans wish to live in freedom. We all wish similar things for our children and for ourselves. Culture gets in the way, though. Their religion is the antithesis of freedom. Their history is one of repression, forced conversion, and genocide. Since the fall of the Romans, life has been decidedly short and violent.

Russia and China both are ruled by power restrictive Oligarchies that have no interest at all with sharing power with the masses. They too are willing to go to great lengths to maintain that power. They have no desire to harm a trading partner or a loyal ally. They also see no reason to knock off an ally and replace him with an unstable Theocracy. They are not stupid. A bit on the evil side, but not stupid.

The United States is what it is. We do not deal with nor trade significantly with "evil" nations. Nixon opened the door on China and they have grown very, very rich on wealth transfers from the United States. What did we get? Affordable rubber dog poo, apparently. Did we see a lesson there? In an attempt to split the alliance of China and the USSR, we compromised our ideals. We split the alliance, which was very shaky to begin with, and set the stage for a world-menacing China. Way to go Nixon.

We have woven our beds close to Russia and China and we can not simply pull everything, however, we must remember who we are what we stand for. No compromise.

If China sponsors terror, either directly or indirectly, then we need to pull our economic assets out of China. Ditto for Russia. Unrestricted Capitalism is just as bad as restricted Capitalism. We do not allow the sale of items that can be used to develop weapons, but we sell the technology to launch missiles more accurately. Error.

If we continue to work closely with China and Russia on "common" goals then we are no different then they.

Think on that. Listen to your Great-Grandmother. We ARE known by the friends we keep.

Live well.

--Zavost

Odds and Ends

Atop the Stoa today, I simply wish to unload a few items that are slowly swirling around the Arena of Ideas.

In no particular order:

What is going on in the metals market? I'm seeing massive trade inputs in the middle of our night. Not only that, but other major exchanges are closed at that time as well. The effect is huge drops in value just prior to COMEX options. What is up with that? Who benefits from that move? The FED? Investors? Something smells there.

I like Col. Cain for President. The man has my vote pretty well locked up. Gingrich? No. Too limp. Romney? RomneyCare...Hello? Perry? No way. Don't like him, can't trust him. Paul? Too Libertarian. Any man who is willing to throw away his military career by putting a gun to the forehead of a captured terrorist to get information out of him that will save even one of his men from harm proves to me that he has the integrity to make the hard decisions. He will make them with in a moral and professional manner. The moral way may not be the best way to handle something, just ask the KGB, but I believe that in the long run, our integrity is more important than wrapping up an issue conveniently. Cain for President!

Video games today. So many games are being written based on historical premises. In one way it is really a good thing because the pre-teens and teens may be motivated to actually look up the real history to see how the game compares. Kind of a sneaky, stealth way of getting them to learn. I'll take it. OR, it could be that the game designers don't have any original ideas of their own and find that lifting from history is a convenient way to come up with a cool game idea. I can see their brainstorming sessions including Patton with laser eyes or Lincoln with an Iron Boot. Again, whatever it takes to spark the interest in our children to learn and to extend themselves.

Where does Obama get off lecturing Europe on its debt crisis? How disconnected from reality is this man?

TV programming really sucks. Distorted stereotypes and inappropriate behavior. Sometimes its funny but usually it just has me shaking my head. I'll stick to my documentaries, Sci Fi, and history shows.

There is a great place around here that sells bait, tackle, and guns. All under one roof. Got to go in there and check it out. Thank you 2nd Amendment.

Sleep? Over-rated. Food? Must eat less. Cars? Like guns, need one for every occasion. If you are female, just substitute shoes.

Duty calls, all. Study up on your current events. Tests will be coming soon and you'll need to recognize them.

Live well.

--Zavost

In Time...

Atop the Stoa this day, I would like to think about endurance and permanency. There is an old saying that goes something like this, "All things must pass in time."

Those who lived in the Northern French regions of the Roman Empire during the last generation of peace had little reason to think that their grandchildren would grow up in a world where the Roman Empire was but a hollow construct. New leaders, claiming the legitimate mantle of Roman legitimacy ruled their lands in reality and did as they pleased. The Empire, for them, was dead, even if it still endured in the core areas of the old Republic. Eventually, even that was gone and the Empire faded into legend. Those of that last Imperial generation enjoyed the wealth and technology of an Empire that had endured for nearly a thousand years. Those in the east, two thousand. Mind-boggling stretches of time.

In time, all things must pass. While watching an interesting documentary on Sun Tzu, I was struck by the number of times he was called the greatest, or best, or genius, and all that. Often times, on other shows, writers go out of their way to get the point across that this person was somehow the best, or that country was somehow the best at something. Sun Tzu was ultimately more important to the modern world than he ever was in China.

The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land-empire in the world. Largest, yes. Cohesive, no. It could no more be administered from the home lands then by any other region in their Empire. Also, culture worked against an enduring edifice that could live long past a single ruler, thus the various Khanates that sprang up in short order. They were also destroyed as the smaller units that they were, over time.

Many countries have had the title of "best" over time. The Egyptians lived a high quality life for THOUSANDS of years before Alexander the Great ended it in 335 b.c. The Greeks themselves conquered an empire that stretched all the way to India. They fragmented and assimilated over time.

Sun Tzu went a long way towards the unification of China, though this was elusive even into the modern era with the gross violation of territory by the West.

China has been around nearly as long as the Egyptians, though until the last few decades, no one saw China as the best of anything short of reproduction.

The Western powers each had their day in turn as well. Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, each had world-spanning colonial possessions. Germany rose in time as well, but being land-locked, it quarreled with the neighbors often. Russia, emerging from the Mongol yoke, spread out as well. Though big, they were backwards and never really attained the stature of a great Western power, even today as the Russian Federation.

People look at the United States as the greatest power to ever exist on Earth, and they would be right. If you look at things that make a nation or people great you see economics, military power, law, culture, etc. There is a matrix of traits that makes a country "great". The more of these categories you excel in, the greater your stature. Many countries are great at some things, though backwards and twisted on others, which bring them down as a whole.

The Aztecs had calendars nearly as accurate as our modern system, but they had a thing about cutting out your heart and pitching it down a ziggurat to please blood-swilling gods. Sort of pulls them down on whole.

The Chinese have excelled at many things over the millennia. Evolution and information dissemination were not among those. Gunpowder had been around for a while, but never really used in a significant way for warfare until a European got a look at the stuff and thought about all the walls a home he'd like to knock down. Writing, paper, navigation, astronomy; highly developed, though it took longer between discoveries than it did in the West. Their culture was highly compartmentalized and ideas were blocked by status, birth, and station. No cross-pollination of concepts or ideas among other geniuses. No wonder they were a rich nation that could not protect itself from the rising West.

As an American I would like to think that my nation has been chosen by God for a special purpose. I believe that everything has a purpose, for good or ill, and it is not within my cognitive realm to understand which is which. Our peace and plenty has been a boon for us, though it has made us soft. The seeds of our destruction are sewn in the genesis of our success. Our endurance as a nation and people are dependent upon the choices we make, short and long term, those around us, and historical or environmental forces largely out of our control.

There is virtually no genetic difference between the various "ethnic" groups of humanity. The political units we build are built by groups of people who differ only in their outlook on a variety of philosophical issues. Nothing more, nothing less. Adaptive cultures will endure, inflexible cultures will endure only as long as historical or environmental factors permit.

I pray that the United States can endure. Our experiment is only under 250 years old, born of concepts a thousand years earlier. Can we last as long as Rome or will we last as long as a Supernova. Brighter than all the stars in the entire galaxy, though winking out after but a short while.

Let us see together.

Live well.

--Zavost

Blah, blah, blah

From atop the Stoa this afternoon, I wish to play some catch up. Even Stoics need to earn enough money to live...so I've been busy of late.

The "jobs" speech that Mr. Obama gave the other day was anything but a jobs speech. It had all the elements of a campaign speech and a stimulus speech. It had the ingredients of class envy, class warfare, lies about who is rich (a single person earning $200,000 is now considered a millionaire). It had hand outs to Blue States and to jobs that exist primarily to fund the DNC with campaign money.

It would take only a moment of thought, an ounce of reason, and a smudge of common sense to see that. The media does not notice of course. Obama shouts that Congress must PASS HIS BILL! The media goes to a Republican leader and says, "are you going to pass this jobs bill?" The Republican shrugs and says, "We don't have a bill to pass or decline." Talk, words, vapor. Lacking in all substance.

The jobs bill is intended to fund infrastructure, schools, teachers, police, firemen, etc. All the things that the $850 Billion dollar Stimulus bill was supposed to fund. The Porkulus was passed for the same reasons. Why do we need "Son of Porkulus"? How much money do you have to burn through before you realize that something is not working?

Then again, we have to remember that to Obama, all money is government money. All jobs are government jobs. All people are government people. There is this 'odd' classification of business and individuals called the "private sector" that has Obama baffled. To him, funding the Public Sector of the economy should be all he needs to do. He can't figure out why the Public sector continues to fail and the private sector continues to die (not that this bothers him).

I'd bet that if we took his speeches from 2009 onward about job creation, balancing the budget and limited taxation...ran them all together on hundreds of monitors (since he has had hundreds of speeches), they would all be saying the exact same thing over and over.

Make the rich pay their fair share. Put people to work. Reducing the deficit. Things have turned around. Raise more taxes. Employ the union. Blah, blah, blah.

Thats all I hear now. I can't stand the sight of him and his words make my ears bleed. He make sounds through the blow-hole in his face but they don't mean anything. They could be dolphin sounds for all I know. His actions are the same, over and over. Tax, spend. Blame and retrench. Pay off his buddies in the unions and punish the people who generate wealth. Over and over.

Just stop talking Obama, we are way, way tired of it.

Live well,

--Zavost

The Sleeper must Awaken

It is another day upon the Stoa. The day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The world of today is a very different world than the world of 9/10/2001. My children can not know what it was like to wave goodbye to a friend or family member from the boarding ramp at the airport. They never knew of a time where you did not have to take your shoes off or stand in an x-ray unit before you could even get close to the gate.

On 9/11/2001, the United States was punched in the nose by a punk who worked through others and hid in other people's countries. The Clinton administration had treated previous attacks like criminal actions and not the acts of war that they really were. OBL was not a vandal, he was not just wrecking things for the joy of it. He bombed the WTC in 1993 to kill Americans. Sounds simple. He tried again in 2001 and succeeded in bringing down the towers, hitting the Pentagon, and failed in his attempt to hit either the White House or the Capitol.

Problem was, he did it during a Republican Administration. OBL was quite surprised when Afghanistan as a Taliban nation was swiftly destroyed, barely escaping from Tora Bora as we closed in. Iraq was next and hundreds of covert missions of which we will likely never hear about were carried out as well.

The Sleepers were Awoken on 9/11/2001. Party affiliation was set aside, for a time, in mutual anger and sadness over the tragedy. Blood, food, clothing, you name it; all were donated to help out. Thousands joined the military in the hopes of being sent overseas for some payback when war was declared.

The wars have gone on longer than anticipated because of politics and "nation building", but that is another blog entry.

It was not long before the nuts came out and claimed 9/11 was an inside job, despite the evidence. A man so dumb that he could not turn a door knob planned 9/11. Cheney, a man so evil that he could not go hunting without shooting a friend for the fun of it, supervised the planting of explosives in the WTC and the Pentagon, disguised cruise missiles to look like airplanes, and then sprinkled the rest on the levees in New Orleans while he waited for their Hurricane creation/guidance machine to be perfected.

As the years went by, those on the left tired of playing nice and went back to being kooks. Under Bush, to voice your opposition was considered the highest form of patriotism. Under Obama it is treason. Eric Holder prosecutes the very agents who have prevented more than 25 additional 9/11's. Really, Holder? Really, Obama?

Some may consider those actions to be more than a little treasonous on the face of it, Mr. Obama.

One of my students asked me yesterday, "why were we attacked?" This could have been answered any number of ways rather directly, but in this case the direct answer was not the best one. This one had to be answered more philosophically. The answer was as easy as the question: we were perceived to be weak.

History is crammed full of wars that started because one side thought that they could roll over their opponent in a matter of weeks and claim whatever prize motivated their need for war. Just pick your war.

In WWI, Austria-Hungary failed to realize that Serbian treaties of mutual defense would be honored. Plus, Serbia put up one hell of a fight against the Austrians.

Hitler slammed into the Soviet Union in 1941 without even bothering to issue cold weather gear because he was so certain of a quick victory.

The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor in the hopes that we would not have the resolve to fight an extended war, especially since Germany would be pulled into a wider conflict.

North Korea invaded South Korea because of a belief that our drawn-down post WWII military would not prove to be a hinderance.

The United States went into Vietnam thinking that the North Vietnamese were simple guerrillas and could be swiftly defeated with American military might.

The Ayatollah attacked our embassy because he knew that Jimmy Carter would not do anything substantive.

Saddam invaded Kuwait because he felt that the rest of the world would simply accept a done deed.

No one willingly places their hand in a meat grinder. The radical Islamists poked and harassed as long as they knew they could get away with it. The Iranians let the hostages go as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected President. They knew that he would not tolerate the situation, and they were right.

The Jihadists bombed embassies and vacation sites around the world knowing that there would be no concerted effort to stop them as a movement. When Reagan pulled out of Lebanon in 1983, a young OBL realized that there was a limit to how much America would tolerate in the way of casualties. He went to war against the Soviet Union and learned the art of war in Afghanistan. He knew that he could operate openly against President Clinton and even tried to bring down the towers in 1993.

His mistake was hitting the towers again a year too late. A Republican was in office now and this act of provocation could not be allowed to stand. The Sleepers had Awoken and we had become the Wrathful Giant of Japanese fame. There was going to be payback and it was not long in coming.

That fire has dwindled, flared back only briefly when OBL was killed. The cries of distaste were sickening when the left derided patriots for showing joy at the death of OBL. The Tea Party had already been labeled a Terrorist organization by the left, despite the obvious breakdown in reality with that statement.

We must Awaken once more. We must shake off the stupor that the left has once again wove about us. I hate to think that it will take another 9/11 for this to happen. Obama, Holder, Pelosi, Reid; they are the true enemies of the State. When returning soldiers and veterans are considered prime fodder for home grown terror and the border with Mexico remains open then my statements stand. Try to call those extreme and you will simply prove your position.

Live well and remember what happened and why on 9/11. Live well for their memories.

--Zavost