Wholly Generic Web Log

Dedicated to the proposition that all opinions are created equally worthless.

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Only 365 AD days til Xmas! 12/26/2007 I had thought that political advertising was about as aggressive and ubiquitous as it could ever be, but then we got campaign refinancing. The age of the interest-only sub-prime high risk campaign promise has arrived. Naturally, all of the political candidates feel free to default on the shining city on the hill as soon as they get elected. We get stuck with a place we can't live and no buyers in a depressed political market. Our risk capital is gone and we can't get it back. In 2006, we heard about how we were going to lay down and let the playground bullies kick us to death instead of continuing an unjustified martial response. Instead, we got an enemic response and traitorous attempts to cut supply lines by political enemies of the head of state. Now the candy daddy dates are promising diplomacy even while the diplomats are protesting that they do not want to preach in Nineveh. It looks like the goal is just to get the big fish to swallow the bait instead. You still can't beat the classics. Lucky for our leaders that nobody reads anymore. It isn't fashionable. Fashionable? Heck, it's barely malleable. You have to move with the groove and all that, after all. We'll set the beat and you'll pull the oars. Totally en vogue! Didn't get the pun, did you? Didn't think so. All the wise and compassionate and caring constituents have been fooled again. Some day, they will inevitably realize that they are only choosing weak and arrogant elitests who can not serve and protect. Then they will project those failings on their political enemies and be absolved. Oh, wait... That's what they are doing now. We need a Chuck Norris in office and they're looking for some defeatest Byronic Idol filled with adolescent angst and melancholy, raging against grownups and the inherent injustice of having to stand up and take care of yourself. At least I get to pay for their failings. That's something anyway.

Gimme Back My Rabbit 2/26/2008 Today we stand on the threshhold of a brave new world of taxation and redistribution of wealth to bring equality to all. God help us. We are giving back taxes to people who paid no tax. One may argue that the earnings challenged do pay taxes unfairly, but nobody ever acts to abolish the unfair taxes, just to increase them. For just a moment, picture the economy as a communal fire, where everybody sits and eats their piece of meat. Commerce is the act of sharing meat out among the participants. Labor is the act of bringing the meat to the fire. Taxation is grabbing a chunk from every gobbet of meat that is roasted, passed or shared. The only source of meat is labor, yet there is tax all along the distribution and consumption process, in spite of the obvious fact that any shortfalls from increased needs due to taxation must be paid for by labor. How stupid must we be to believe that our tax burden will be lifted by forcing the guy who makes slings or bows or spears to ask for more meat to cover the need to have less for himself due to taxation? Those being taxed who are not primary contributors only take more from those contributors to pay for facillitating those primary contributions. Anybody paying their fair share has to devalue labor to do it, but labor is always able to pretend that carrying two heavy baskets is better than carrying only one, even when the burden is increased by the fact that the baskets themselves are quite heavy. As a human being, I am quite sure I will not be contradicted in saying that human beings, as far as my experience goes, are not especially perceptive or deep.

Toward Economic Justice 12/9/2008 Times are hard and you're afraid to pay the fee, so you find yourself somebody who can do the job for free. Well, according to Steely Dan anyway. Of course, back in 1972, we had the choice of Nixon and McGovern. Today, we had Obama and McCain, with the ineffectual McCain being the re-enactment of the moderately liberal McGovern, and therefore doomed to failure. Along with the rise of the .com CIC, we also have huge failures in business, in spite of strong belief that business is bad and needs to be laid low whenever possible. In keeping with that philosophy, we have members of Congress bringing forth the auto executives for judgement against possible handouts to save the union contracts. My personal observation is that when the barn is burning, throwing in a couple more bales of hay won't save the farm. This all brings up an interesting concept, however. Strong words are being spoken, pointing out that auto company executives are being paid big bucks for their failures, and should be given nothing instead, in the way of personal remuneration. I wonder if we can apply that standard to our representatives. Maybe I would believe their posturing more readily if they voted unanimously to start punching a clock and only accept pay for time spent in the office or in actual meetings or on the floor while voting and discussing. They might vote themselves the minimum wage also then, as well as being paid only for time actually spent in conducting the People's Business. Insisting that they produce results that are acceptable and progressive seems to be unfair and unrealistic, though. They never have, and there is little or no likelihood that they ever will. It is human government, after all. We aren't really good. Forgetting that is the best way to find it out all over again, though. We will receive total consciousness. So we've got that going for us.

Pass Go. Collect $200 8/17/2009 How about those collectives? Isn't it wonderful how we can save money and achieve a greater independence and spending efficiency by forming collective bodies for resource management? Look at cities, for example. People in the suburbs or in the country have to pay outrageous amounts for housing, transportation, food, medicine and other necessities of life. When you live in a city, though, everything becomes cheaper. Taxes are lower. Housing is practically free. Food is more plentiful and less expensive. Utilities costs drop almost daily. Medical care is immediate, excellent and cheap. The economies of scale provide inexpensive living for all and streets paved with gold. This is why we need stronger government with increases in the centralization of services and administration. A strong administration of public resources is the best way to achieve maximum efficiency. Left to their own, people will waste resources, throwing money away left and right with wild abandon and never a thought for tomorrow. They must be properly educated before they are able to exercise the greed, selfishness and parsimony required for survival in difficult times. Turning over their welfare to a collective can teach them these valuable lessons. This is why we need higher taxation and more government services. It is a social imperitive with the very survival of humanity at stake. Only a strong central administration of resources can direct production and consumption to produce a free and plentiful flow of goods and services. It takes more than a village. It takes an empire. Free trade and representative democratic republics are archaic concepts that don't address the needs of the collective. This is the only reason that collectives ever fail. They are driven into the ground by the greed and hostile policies of non-collectives. I heard it, so it must be true.

Angel on My Shoulder, Hoover in My Pocket 9/13/2009 As in the days of Herbert Hoover, we are once again poised to take on and defeat the waste, fraud and inefficiencies of government institutions. Our health care and transportation, just to name two contemporary villains, are draining our resources and must be reformed. My suggestion would be to get government out of them entirely. Every government institution in the history of mankind in the world has been an example of waste, fraud and inefficiency. Our secular institutions are suffering from divine intervention. Setting a governmental body loose to find an appropriate economic business model for any enterprise is a lot like setting a wildfire to protect the environment from wildfires. It works beautifully. Once all of the money and political will to waste is used up, people face depression and war, where the economic principles of thrift and productivity are enforced by necessity in the interests of survival in a world that has EXACTLY THE SAME RESOURCES IT EVER HAD. I like to shout that last bit. It does no good, but it makes me feel better.

Updated September 13th, 2009 Another day, another heavily taxed dollar... Want to add something or respond? Get your own web page nobody reads. Previously on I Didn't Catch a Word of That .