By William L. Garvin
As our Peace Prize President opens his “kinetic military action” on yet a third front, many confusing issues rise to the surface. Apparently helping Libyian rebels kill other Libyians serves a strategic United States interest and will save our country from imminent danger. One might pause to consider why Al Queda is also supporting these same rebels. Politics makes strange bedfellows but why we would want to get in bed with terrorists boggles the mind!
So far, we have remained offshore and in the skies but the killing will continue until there are boots on the ground. The President strove to allay the fears by passing the command and control to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Of course, the United States is the Big Dog in NATO, controls the joint forces, and supplies 22% of the NATO funding. This is merely passing the baton from the right hand to the left hand but making it go through an international committee along the way. Good luck with that sort of command and control model!
Then there is the African Union and the Arab League, many of which are oil rich, cash rich, and militarily strong in comparison to Libya. Since they cried out for United States intervention, why aren’t they ponying up the men, money, and materials for this military intervention? They are the ones with the real strategic interest in policing their membership. And yes, Libya is a member of the Arab League. Many of these Middle East and African nations take our foreign aid up front, vote against us at the United Nations, and support terrorism behind our back.
Since several other Arab and African governments are currently killing their citizens, some cynics suggest that this entire Libyan muddle is a “wag the dog” scenario to draw attention away from economic issues. For instance, there’s the one-year anniversary of Obamacare. Sorry, Nancy. We passed the bill, we found out what’s in it, and we don’t like it. Foremost and in particular, we don’t like the numbers. Over 1,040 waivers have been granted to many unions such as the UAW as well as the entire state of Maine. Nevada, Kentucky, and New Hampshire are now standing in line. Second, there are the 16 million people on Medicaid roles who were passed on to the cash strapped states. The Congressional Budget Office says this will cost the states nearly twice its original estimate of sixty billion dollars.
Another CBO number of note is the cost of the Stimulus Bill is now up to $821 billion. For this we got the newly invented “jobs created or saved” category that ranges from 1.4 million to 3.6 million. With that disparate a range, you can be sure that no one really knows or can have an accurate figure. In any event, at its most optimistic number, each job cost $228,055. At the most pessimistic number, each job cost $586,428! In February, 2009, when the bill was passed, unemployment stood at 8.2%. Two years and nearly a trillion dollars later, it’s at 8.9%. Keep in mind that the administration doesn’t count long term unemployed. If we can get everyone to give up looking for a job, then unemployment will be at zero! This is similar to saying there’s no inflation because the Consumer Price Index isn’t going up. Of course, they don’t bother to mention that food and energy aren’t considered in computing the Bernanke Inflation Myth. Virtually all the commodities have skyrocketed over the last year so you can expect food, clothing, and energy to be increasingly expensive.
Some final numbers of note: the New York Times reported that General Electric had worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010 and $5.1 billion of the total came from its United States operations. It paid ZERO in American taxes. In fact, GE claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. The fact that Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s CEO, is a supporter, advisor, presidential traveling companion, and stands to make huge profits from government subsidized green energy initiatives is purely coincidental. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along and check out the latest kinetic military action. Move along. Move along.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Show Me the Money!
By William L. Garvin
“For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil….” 1 Timothy 6:10
When people loudly proclaim that it’s not about the money, you can usually bet that it’s all about the money! Lately we’ve heard many lofty proclamations as to reason and intent, but it’s still all about the money.
For example, there’s the current dispute between the National Football League’s players union and the NFL owners. The height of hyperbole came from Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Viking running back, who lamented “It’s modern day slavery, you know?” Yo, Adrian, no we don’t know. While it’s hard to pick a favorite when you have multi-million dollar per year athletes pitted against multi-multi-million dollar owners, the reference to slavery is both ridiculous and nonsensical. Mr. Peterson should have spent more time in the classroom while he was in college.
A much more serious example is the flap over collective bargaining for state employees in Wisconsin. Make no mistake about it, the reason unions are spending so much time, effort, energy, and money is because they expect a significant return on their investment. It’s all about power and power stems from money.
Unions are able to finance their operations by union members paying dues. In an agency shop, all represented employees must join the union and pay dues or not join the union and pay a representational fee. In union shops, all employees must join the union and pay union dues. A second matter of extreme economic importance is “dues check off.” In this arrangement, the employer deducts the union dues from the employee’s paycheck and then gives one check to the union, thereby relieving the union of administrative costs and effort. Both practices are at issue in Wisconsin.
It should also be noted that there are twenty-two “right to work” states in which employees cannot be forced to join a union or pay dues. They tend to have slightly lower unemployment and slightly higher growth rates in their private sectors. Somehow they have all managed to hire teachers, police, fire fighters, garbage collectors, maintenance workers, etc. Government workers in these states are still mostly protected by civil service commission and merit system rules and procedures. They have due process and just cause protections and cannot be summarily dismissed as can occur in the non-union private sector.
These states believe they are protecting the individual worker’s freedom of association by not forcing them to support organizations whose policies and politics they oppose. They also believe they are protecting the worker’s right to not have a portion of their wages confiscated by unions. Proponents of right to work states refer to their unionized counterparts as “forced dues” states. In those states, approximately 93% of the union political contributions go to Democrat candidates. Not surprisingly, Brad Sherman, a Democrat congressman from California, has introduced legislation to outlaw “right to work” states. The Democrats also are pushing the very poorly named Employee Freedom of Choice Act that would eliminate the secret ballot and possibly even eliminate elections by workers as to whether or not they want a union. In an even more bizarre turn of events, the United Nations is actively investigating employment practices in North Carolina, a right to work state!
In Wisconsin, workers will have to vote every year on whether or not they want to keep their union. This is a threat to unions and Democrats, because they might just say no. In Wisconsin, unions will have to collect their own dues from their members. This is a threat to unions and Democrats, because they might just say no. In Wisconsin, it will be much more difficult for unions to buy Democrats who buy votes by granting union demands.
Today, unions are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party. If conservative government workers no longer have to subsidize liberal union leaders and liberal politicians, the latter will lose power. Any time unions are threatened, so is the Democrat party. It takes money to stay in power and unions love to give money to Democrats so they can stay in power. It’s a symbiotic relationship except for the taxpayer, where it can be parasitic.
“For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil….” 1 Timothy 6:10
When people loudly proclaim that it’s not about the money, you can usually bet that it’s all about the money! Lately we’ve heard many lofty proclamations as to reason and intent, but it’s still all about the money.
For example, there’s the current dispute between the National Football League’s players union and the NFL owners. The height of hyperbole came from Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Viking running back, who lamented “It’s modern day slavery, you know?” Yo, Adrian, no we don’t know. While it’s hard to pick a favorite when you have multi-million dollar per year athletes pitted against multi-multi-million dollar owners, the reference to slavery is both ridiculous and nonsensical. Mr. Peterson should have spent more time in the classroom while he was in college.
A much more serious example is the flap over collective bargaining for state employees in Wisconsin. Make no mistake about it, the reason unions are spending so much time, effort, energy, and money is because they expect a significant return on their investment. It’s all about power and power stems from money.
Unions are able to finance their operations by union members paying dues. In an agency shop, all represented employees must join the union and pay dues or not join the union and pay a representational fee. In union shops, all employees must join the union and pay union dues. A second matter of extreme economic importance is “dues check off.” In this arrangement, the employer deducts the union dues from the employee’s paycheck and then gives one check to the union, thereby relieving the union of administrative costs and effort. Both practices are at issue in Wisconsin.
It should also be noted that there are twenty-two “right to work” states in which employees cannot be forced to join a union or pay dues. They tend to have slightly lower unemployment and slightly higher growth rates in their private sectors. Somehow they have all managed to hire teachers, police, fire fighters, garbage collectors, maintenance workers, etc. Government workers in these states are still mostly protected by civil service commission and merit system rules and procedures. They have due process and just cause protections and cannot be summarily dismissed as can occur in the non-union private sector.
These states believe they are protecting the individual worker’s freedom of association by not forcing them to support organizations whose policies and politics they oppose. They also believe they are protecting the worker’s right to not have a portion of their wages confiscated by unions. Proponents of right to work states refer to their unionized counterparts as “forced dues” states. In those states, approximately 93% of the union political contributions go to Democrat candidates. Not surprisingly, Brad Sherman, a Democrat congressman from California, has introduced legislation to outlaw “right to work” states. The Democrats also are pushing the very poorly named Employee Freedom of Choice Act that would eliminate the secret ballot and possibly even eliminate elections by workers as to whether or not they want a union. In an even more bizarre turn of events, the United Nations is actively investigating employment practices in North Carolina, a right to work state!
In Wisconsin, workers will have to vote every year on whether or not they want to keep their union. This is a threat to unions and Democrats, because they might just say no. In Wisconsin, unions will have to collect their own dues from their members. This is a threat to unions and Democrats, because they might just say no. In Wisconsin, it will be much more difficult for unions to buy Democrats who buy votes by granting union demands.
Today, unions are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party. If conservative government workers no longer have to subsidize liberal union leaders and liberal politicians, the latter will lose power. Any time unions are threatened, so is the Democrat party. It takes money to stay in power and unions love to give money to Democrats so they can stay in power. It’s a symbiotic relationship except for the taxpayer, where it can be parasitic.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Short Circuiting the Power
By William L. Garvin
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared.” Thomas Jefferson
If he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would be frightened to death. Our national debt is over fourteen trillion dollars and rising; this year alone, our states will have a cumulative shortfall of $175 billion; state and local governments have another $3.5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. The Obama administration even managed to run up a $223 billion deficit in February of this year which was more than what the Bush administration ran up for all twelve months of 2007. You may remember the Democrats demagoging this issue throughout 2008 and President Obama calling it a “failure of leadership” to raise the debt ceiling. My how times have changed!
When Republicans proposed a $61 billion cut in a $3.47 trillion budget, the Democrats began shrieking like hysterical banshees full of “tiger blood.” According to Senator Harry Reid, if the Cowboy Poetry Festival was not fully funded “tens of thousands” of people would cease to exist. Come on, Harry, please engage brain before putting mouth in gear. As for cutting the funding to NPR and PBS, wasn’t that also recommended by the President’s own bipartisan debt commission? And by the way, how about using that $105 billion dollars you so cleverly hid in the Health Care Reform bill to reduce the deficit? I’m sure it was just an inadvertent oversight on your part to fail to tell members of the House or Senate about those encumbrances.
Harry’s histrionics were nothing compared to the concerted union and Democrat campaign of incendiary and manufactured outrage in Wisconsin. Jesse Jackson showed up and demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the issues (and his usual flair for hyperbole) by equating the restrictions on the scope of bargaining to a civil rights issue. It was somewhat surprising that he didn’t also claim it was the Eleventh Commandment on the stone tablets! Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) declared that neither the United States nor Wisconsin was broke. Moore pointed out that the rich people had plenty of money. “That’s not theirs, that’s a national resource, that’s ours!” spouted the liberal opponent of private property. Of course he has yet to renounce his personal fortune. He also failed to explain why he used non-union workers in making his last film when union crews were available. He also failed to provide his non-union workers with health insurance according to ABC News.
By any standard, this was hardly organized labor’s finest moment. First, fourteen Wisconsin Democrat Senators ran to Illinois rather than argue the merits of their positions. Wags quickly coined the term “fleebaggers” for these miscreants. Their three weeks AWOL allowed their union bosses enough time to organize the usual “uncivil disobedience.” Marchers carried signs saying “Death to Tyrants” and “Hitler + Mubarak = Walker” as well as similar new math equating Mussolini to Governor Walker. One particular frightening sign carried the Liberal castigated slogan “Don’t retreat, reload” but accompanied it with a picture of the Governor with crosshairs superimposed over his face. Where were the condemnations from the left wing champions of civility? Once again, they are blind to their own breaches of decorum. Things became even more sinister when the Governor and Republican members of the legislature began receiving multiple death threats against themselves and their families. Then the local police found about forty rounds of .22 caliber long rifle hollow point bullets by one of the capitol entrances.
If this blatant attempt at intimidation wasn’t enough, the union protestors then occupied the state capitol building by overrunning police lines and transformed the people’s house into a hybrid union hall, smelly gymnasium, and fraternity house of the animal variety. Do you expect the union will pony up the $347,500 it will cost to repair the damages? Not likely.
For these unions, it’s all about the money. In the words of Bob Chanin, a past National Education Association general counsel: “It is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merits of our positions. It is not because we care about children and have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power, and we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year.” Wisconsin just short circuited their power surge and government unions just lost a major battle .
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared.” Thomas Jefferson
If he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would be frightened to death. Our national debt is over fourteen trillion dollars and rising; this year alone, our states will have a cumulative shortfall of $175 billion; state and local governments have another $3.5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. The Obama administration even managed to run up a $223 billion deficit in February of this year which was more than what the Bush administration ran up for all twelve months of 2007. You may remember the Democrats demagoging this issue throughout 2008 and President Obama calling it a “failure of leadership” to raise the debt ceiling. My how times have changed!
When Republicans proposed a $61 billion cut in a $3.47 trillion budget, the Democrats began shrieking like hysterical banshees full of “tiger blood.” According to Senator Harry Reid, if the Cowboy Poetry Festival was not fully funded “tens of thousands” of people would cease to exist. Come on, Harry, please engage brain before putting mouth in gear. As for cutting the funding to NPR and PBS, wasn’t that also recommended by the President’s own bipartisan debt commission? And by the way, how about using that $105 billion dollars you so cleverly hid in the Health Care Reform bill to reduce the deficit? I’m sure it was just an inadvertent oversight on your part to fail to tell members of the House or Senate about those encumbrances.
Harry’s histrionics were nothing compared to the concerted union and Democrat campaign of incendiary and manufactured outrage in Wisconsin. Jesse Jackson showed up and demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the issues (and his usual flair for hyperbole) by equating the restrictions on the scope of bargaining to a civil rights issue. It was somewhat surprising that he didn’t also claim it was the Eleventh Commandment on the stone tablets! Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) declared that neither the United States nor Wisconsin was broke. Moore pointed out that the rich people had plenty of money. “That’s not theirs, that’s a national resource, that’s ours!” spouted the liberal opponent of private property. Of course he has yet to renounce his personal fortune. He also failed to explain why he used non-union workers in making his last film when union crews were available. He also failed to provide his non-union workers with health insurance according to ABC News.
By any standard, this was hardly organized labor’s finest moment. First, fourteen Wisconsin Democrat Senators ran to Illinois rather than argue the merits of their positions. Wags quickly coined the term “fleebaggers” for these miscreants. Their three weeks AWOL allowed their union bosses enough time to organize the usual “uncivil disobedience.” Marchers carried signs saying “Death to Tyrants” and “Hitler + Mubarak = Walker” as well as similar new math equating Mussolini to Governor Walker. One particular frightening sign carried the Liberal castigated slogan “Don’t retreat, reload” but accompanied it with a picture of the Governor with crosshairs superimposed over his face. Where were the condemnations from the left wing champions of civility? Once again, they are blind to their own breaches of decorum. Things became even more sinister when the Governor and Republican members of the legislature began receiving multiple death threats against themselves and their families. Then the local police found about forty rounds of .22 caliber long rifle hollow point bullets by one of the capitol entrances.
If this blatant attempt at intimidation wasn’t enough, the union protestors then occupied the state capitol building by overrunning police lines and transformed the people’s house into a hybrid union hall, smelly gymnasium, and fraternity house of the animal variety. Do you expect the union will pony up the $347,500 it will cost to repair the damages? Not likely.
For these unions, it’s all about the money. In the words of Bob Chanin, a past National Education Association general counsel: “It is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merits of our positions. It is not because we care about children and have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power, and we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year.” Wisconsin just short circuited their power surge and government unions just lost a major battle .
Monday, March 7, 2011
Energy and Idiocy
By William L. Garvin
If you had a fortune in your bank account, would you go out and borrow money from a malevolent loan shark? Of course not. Such financial strategy would be idiotic but that in essence is our energy policy in the United States. Can you name another country that is so rich in natural resources yet willfully refuses to use them for their own self interest? Of course you can’t. As a result, the United States is economically and strategically vulnerable to hostile international forces and powers.
When the national average price of gasoline reached $3.36 in February of this year, it was the highest average ever for that month of year. It has gone up another $.50 in the last two weeks and is currently hovering around $4.00 per gallon. The Administration is even considering releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserves despite the fact that there is no oil supply shortage, there has yet to be a disruption in the supply line, and that is not the reason for the Reserve! Why?
United States’ energy needs have increased seventeen-fold over the last fifty years but domestic energy production has decreased by forty percent over that same period. In February, 2009, oil was $33 per barrel. (Don’t forget to blame that on George Bush!) It is now $105 per barrel. Who should we blame that on? In 2008, when oil and gasoline prices also spiked, the incessant media drumbeat was the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton connection. According to the Business and Media Institute, the president and oil were connected fifteen times as much by the media then as they are today. When will media begin to examine and question today’s insane energy policies?
While this President may think that oil is the energy of the past, solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources can only provide 7% of today’s energy needs. Alternative energy is unreliable, expensive, and can only survive with massive government subsidies. The President poured billions of dollars into Government Motors, gave them massive tax breaks and competitive advantages, provided them with billions more in virtually interest free loans, and made their creditors bow out for pennies on the dollar. Who couldn’t turn a profit with that sort of government subsidy and corporate welfare?
What do we get in return? The Volt…a $40,000 plus ugly car that according to Consumer Reports is “not particularly efficient” and fuel economy “that is not as good as a gas vehicle.” Even the heating system fails to keep the occupants’ hands and feet warm! Maybe that’s why they sold a whopping 281 vehicles in all of February even with a $7,500 federal tax credit. The public knows a lemon when they see it. In addition, there is the problem of “recharging.” Guess who makes all the recharging stations? Why it’s General Electric…and who is the CEO of General Electric? Why it’s Jeffrey Immelt, who is also the President’s chief economic advisor. Isn’t it time to admit that the Republicans don’t have anything close to a monopoly on “corporate cronyism”?
If Libya stops producing its 1.4 billion barrels of oil per day, we could replace that by drilling in ANWR which could easily produce a million barrels each day. We could also use the trans-Alaska pipeline at full volume since it is currently operating at only one-third capacity. Or we could actually approve the permits to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve…or we could approve the pending permits for Gulf drilling and put those 8,000+ oil workers back on the job who have suffered from the illegal moratorium. China, Mexico, and Cuba are all currently drilling there and none of them show the environmental sensitivity of the United States.
We could utilize our vast reserves of shale oil, coal, uranium, and natural gas. We could build new refineries and nuclear plants. But we won’t. The current Administration has the most fanatical, pro-green dream ideology of record while at the same time showing the most anti-oil, anti-gas, anti-coal, anti-nuclear position in American history. Current energy policy force feeds the former and destroys the latter. The OPEC loan sharks are laughing all the way to their banks with our money.
If you had a fortune in your bank account, would you go out and borrow money from a malevolent loan shark? Of course not. Such financial strategy would be idiotic but that in essence is our energy policy in the United States. Can you name another country that is so rich in natural resources yet willfully refuses to use them for their own self interest? Of course you can’t. As a result, the United States is economically and strategically vulnerable to hostile international forces and powers.
When the national average price of gasoline reached $3.36 in February of this year, it was the highest average ever for that month of year. It has gone up another $.50 in the last two weeks and is currently hovering around $4.00 per gallon. The Administration is even considering releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserves despite the fact that there is no oil supply shortage, there has yet to be a disruption in the supply line, and that is not the reason for the Reserve! Why?
United States’ energy needs have increased seventeen-fold over the last fifty years but domestic energy production has decreased by forty percent over that same period. In February, 2009, oil was $33 per barrel. (Don’t forget to blame that on George Bush!) It is now $105 per barrel. Who should we blame that on? In 2008, when oil and gasoline prices also spiked, the incessant media drumbeat was the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton connection. According to the Business and Media Institute, the president and oil were connected fifteen times as much by the media then as they are today. When will media begin to examine and question today’s insane energy policies?
While this President may think that oil is the energy of the past, solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources can only provide 7% of today’s energy needs. Alternative energy is unreliable, expensive, and can only survive with massive government subsidies. The President poured billions of dollars into Government Motors, gave them massive tax breaks and competitive advantages, provided them with billions more in virtually interest free loans, and made their creditors bow out for pennies on the dollar. Who couldn’t turn a profit with that sort of government subsidy and corporate welfare?
What do we get in return? The Volt…a $40,000 plus ugly car that according to Consumer Reports is “not particularly efficient” and fuel economy “that is not as good as a gas vehicle.” Even the heating system fails to keep the occupants’ hands and feet warm! Maybe that’s why they sold a whopping 281 vehicles in all of February even with a $7,500 federal tax credit. The public knows a lemon when they see it. In addition, there is the problem of “recharging.” Guess who makes all the recharging stations? Why it’s General Electric…and who is the CEO of General Electric? Why it’s Jeffrey Immelt, who is also the President’s chief economic advisor. Isn’t it time to admit that the Republicans don’t have anything close to a monopoly on “corporate cronyism”?
If Libya stops producing its 1.4 billion barrels of oil per day, we could replace that by drilling in ANWR which could easily produce a million barrels each day. We could also use the trans-Alaska pipeline at full volume since it is currently operating at only one-third capacity. Or we could actually approve the permits to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve…or we could approve the pending permits for Gulf drilling and put those 8,000+ oil workers back on the job who have suffered from the illegal moratorium. China, Mexico, and Cuba are all currently drilling there and none of them show the environmental sensitivity of the United States.
We could utilize our vast reserves of shale oil, coal, uranium, and natural gas. We could build new refineries and nuclear plants. But we won’t. The current Administration has the most fanatical, pro-green dream ideology of record while at the same time showing the most anti-oil, anti-gas, anti-coal, anti-nuclear position in American history. Current energy policy force feeds the former and destroys the latter. The OPEC loan sharks are laughing all the way to their banks with our money.
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