Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The Sensible Role of "Gun Control"
The current hysteria surrounding "gun control" is ridiculous on both sides. President Obama really missed a huge opportunity with his current plan, which is neither well thought out or even well meaning. He should focus on a "No one is taking your guns" approach that emphasizes responsibility and punishes the lack of it. Meanwhile, the hysterical antics of the NRA in the wake not just of Sandy Hook but at least a half-dozen other high profile shooting sprees since, only serves to make them look churlish at best and insane at worst.
"Gun control" isn't about taking anyone's guns. No one should be thinking about taking guns. Neither should it be about "bad looking" guns or magazine capacity. Limiting capacity or restricting guns because of how they look is stupid. What difference does it make if a school yard of kids is slaughtered by a maniac with a cute "Hello Kitty" rifle with a dozen 10 round mags or an "assault gun" with a couple of 30s? Guns are made to kill people. Guns are made to swap out mags fast. Hell, my Sig even blows the mag out of the gun when I push the release so I don't even have to touch the empty one, just jam in the new one.
What needs to be done is this:
1) Control licensing. Because of the 2nd Amendment, if a person wants a gun and is qualified, he should be able to get a license, period. However, that licensing, like that of a car, needs to be predicated on certain requirements such as passing a background check, having passed a comprehensive written test and qualifying on a gun range with a pistol, rifle and shotgun. Those who can't pass the qualifier might be eligible for a "collector only" license that does not allow them to purchase ammunition. But if they pass those checks, then they SHOULD be given that license -- current laws give too much discretion to police chiefs.
By the way -- the current 209A restraining order laws need to be amended because they allow police to take your guns without due process. In the heat of the moment that should be ok...but it should expire, and you get your guns back, within (say) 30 days unless you fail a safety hearing. (That has to be managed too but I can't think of how -- since divorce courts are biased towards woman, why wouldn't the safety hearing also?)
2) Control liability -- require gun owners, on getting their license, to purchase a liability policy. This would be a high payout policy used to payoff various people in case the gun is used badly, is stolen or if the shooter, while shooting at a bad guy, kills or injures a good guy or damages property.
3) Storage -- require that gun owners purchase a gun safe, one that must be anchored securely to a premise and cannot be easily carried away. Make gun owners liable financially and criminally if their guns are stolen from a home or business and it can be shown that they were not stored properly. Require all gun dealers to sell guns with gun locks such as through-the-barrel wires. Trigger locks are just stupid and easily defeated. I think it would be a good idea to require a Gun Safe Certificate at the time of a gun purchase, but that might be seen as interfering with the 2nd Amendment.
4) Control transfer -- require that all gun transfers require that the transfer go through an FFL, that includes gifts to family and inheritance guns. Make the penalties for giving or selling the gun to another person a federal offense with high fine and/or prison sentence. The fine or prison sentence is required because you KNOW the first person to be caught doing something illegal in this regard is a kindly grand dad who is not going to be sent to jail. Nevertheless, he should then be forced to pay the fine.
5) Put a high tax on ammunition, even higher on certain kinds of ammunition. If you are going to be storing up 10,000 rounds of SS109 armor piercing rifle ammunition then the question becomes -- WHY? If you are storing up 12 gauge mortar rounds or flame thrower rounds, the questions becomes -- WHY? Nevertheless, if you want to do it -- ok. But is SHOULD cost you more to discourage sales even a little. High taxation would do that quite well.
These rules don't take guns of any kind, or even restrict their sales. But it does make the buyers and owners more responsible for the results of those purchases.
Monday, September 24, 2012
The Year 2035
I have been doing a great deal of reading and as a result I have discovered that the year 2035 looms large. It's only 20 years away and yet it is around this time that so much in the world will have changed from now that we would be greatly surprised is we woke up and it was that year. Here are some of the things I have learned are expected to occur around then:
- the last US WW2 veteran will have died
- the last newspaper, probably the Wall Street Journal, will be published
- there will be no more paper and stamp greeting cards
- the US Postal Service will be gone or vastly changed
- cars will drive themselves, at least most of the time
- elephants, rhinos and hippos will be extinct except possibly for a few specimens in zoos
- we will have gone to Mars, or be about to (that is, the Chinese will be going there)
- New Orleans will be largely abandoned because it will be largely underwater
- Provincetown, Massachusetts, will be an island no longer attached to the Mass.
- there will be no more paper books published, at least none in large quantities
- TV/Computers will be paper-thin and wall sized, with screens in every room
- John Roberts will be the last of the Supreme Court justices we know today still on the court
- phones will be adhesive strips attached to the skin, with special glasses or even contact lenses providing heads up display...where people look weird talking to themselves on Bluetooth today, they will look even stranger talking AND stabbing at invisible keyboards while they walk around
These are not really predictions. Predictions are guesses that are made from trends mostly based on imagination. The above things that actually will happen. It would be as if you lived in 1912 and said the following:
- horses will dwindle in number and be rarely seen
- people will travel around the world in huge aircraft, possibly zeppelins and maybe small private aircraft for the well off
- horsewhips will disappear
And so on. In those days, I think most people would not have been able to conceive of a world where horses were not everywhere. In fact, it had been theorized at the time that New York City would become bankrupt just dealing with the amount of horse manure generated in the city on a daily basis. The auto actually saved NYC from disaster. In those days, it was necessary for the city to set aside large tracts for stables and livery, for the transport of enormous quantities of hay and feed, there was a huge leather industry supporting saddles and harnesses, there were cranes to lift and remove dead horses from the street, and sweepers to pick up manure. There was a massive fleet of open air wagons just to move the manure away and the flies and stench, especially on hot days, was said to be horrific. On rainy days it was possible to become covered with filth just from splashing wagons as they went by. And when zoodemics struck, the need for vet services far exceeded supply. The city came to a standstill. Even into the 1930s my father was driving a milk truck pulled by horses through the city of Boston to make deliveries at 4AM and the city kept horse drawn fire engines in reserve until 1938.
The changes that technology made to NYC and Boston made it more livable, cleaner, less smelly and more healthy. Will the upcoming changes do the same thing?
One thing is certain -- there will be alot more people in 2035. The UN's best estimate is 8.5 billion versus 7 now. Perhaps electronics will make that more people more tolerable. Many people spend their time today in cubicles, not moving far. Perhaps that trend will continue, with people locked to their TV/Computers so they would need less room.
So with these changes, the good and the bad, what else can we expect as a result?
- less pressure on the forests as the demand for paper pulp declines
- extinction of the library as a repository of information
- increasing pressure and hostility of the elements and minerals needed for our electronics
- large increases in the price of gasoline as the population grows and supplies shrink
Even by 2035 the very vast majority of vehicles will be gasoline powered. But on the other hand, it may also be that the price of fuel drives mass transit, bicycle use and smaller vehicles
Also expected are much, much hotter summers down south. Willis Carrier made the south possible with his invention of air conditioning but perhaps it will become just too much and there will be a migration back north where it is cooler. Perhaps Canada will become a more desirable place to live as it will still maintain the temperatures most Americans remember, making life more pleasant and more comfortable for more of the year.
It's likely that if it gets too much hotter, perhaps even Las Vegas will change. If there is no water -- then there is no Las Vegas. Look at Lake Meade...already down many, many feet, it may reach the stage where it can no longer produce electricity. People WILL migrate to where there is water.
As for fish -- well, I don't think the fish are going to last too much longer. All over the world countries are fishing the oceans to extinction as fast as they can, it's a race to the bottom to see who gets there first.
In 2035 some people will live in a world of high technology and wonder. But many, many others will be living in a world of want, immobility and darkness.
- the last US WW2 veteran will have died
- the last newspaper, probably the Wall Street Journal, will be published
- there will be no more paper and stamp greeting cards
- the US Postal Service will be gone or vastly changed
- cars will drive themselves, at least most of the time
- elephants, rhinos and hippos will be extinct except possibly for a few specimens in zoos
- we will have gone to Mars, or be about to (that is, the Chinese will be going there)
- New Orleans will be largely abandoned because it will be largely underwater
- Provincetown, Massachusetts, will be an island no longer attached to the Mass.
- there will be no more paper books published, at least none in large quantities
- TV/Computers will be paper-thin and wall sized, with screens in every room
- John Roberts will be the last of the Supreme Court justices we know today still on the court
- phones will be adhesive strips attached to the skin, with special glasses or even contact lenses providing heads up display...where people look weird talking to themselves on Bluetooth today, they will look even stranger talking AND stabbing at invisible keyboards while they walk around
These are not really predictions. Predictions are guesses that are made from trends mostly based on imagination. The above things that actually will happen. It would be as if you lived in 1912 and said the following:
- horses will dwindle in number and be rarely seen
- people will travel around the world in huge aircraft, possibly zeppelins and maybe small private aircraft for the well off
- horsewhips will disappear
And so on. In those days, I think most people would not have been able to conceive of a world where horses were not everywhere. In fact, it had been theorized at the time that New York City would become bankrupt just dealing with the amount of horse manure generated in the city on a daily basis. The auto actually saved NYC from disaster. In those days, it was necessary for the city to set aside large tracts for stables and livery, for the transport of enormous quantities of hay and feed, there was a huge leather industry supporting saddles and harnesses, there were cranes to lift and remove dead horses from the street, and sweepers to pick up manure. There was a massive fleet of open air wagons just to move the manure away and the flies and stench, especially on hot days, was said to be horrific. On rainy days it was possible to become covered with filth just from splashing wagons as they went by. And when zoodemics struck, the need for vet services far exceeded supply. The city came to a standstill. Even into the 1930s my father was driving a milk truck pulled by horses through the city of Boston to make deliveries at 4AM and the city kept horse drawn fire engines in reserve until 1938.
The changes that technology made to NYC and Boston made it more livable, cleaner, less smelly and more healthy. Will the upcoming changes do the same thing?
One thing is certain -- there will be alot more people in 2035. The UN's best estimate is 8.5 billion versus 7 now. Perhaps electronics will make that more people more tolerable. Many people spend their time today in cubicles, not moving far. Perhaps that trend will continue, with people locked to their TV/Computers so they would need less room.
So with these changes, the good and the bad, what else can we expect as a result?
- less pressure on the forests as the demand for paper pulp declines
- extinction of the library as a repository of information
- increasing pressure and hostility of the elements and minerals needed for our electronics
- large increases in the price of gasoline as the population grows and supplies shrink
Even by 2035 the very vast majority of vehicles will be gasoline powered. But on the other hand, it may also be that the price of fuel drives mass transit, bicycle use and smaller vehicles
Also expected are much, much hotter summers down south. Willis Carrier made the south possible with his invention of air conditioning but perhaps it will become just too much and there will be a migration back north where it is cooler. Perhaps Canada will become a more desirable place to live as it will still maintain the temperatures most Americans remember, making life more pleasant and more comfortable for more of the year.
It's likely that if it gets too much hotter, perhaps even Las Vegas will change. If there is no water -- then there is no Las Vegas. Look at Lake Meade...already down many, many feet, it may reach the stage where it can no longer produce electricity. People WILL migrate to where there is water.
As for fish -- well, I don't think the fish are going to last too much longer. All over the world countries are fishing the oceans to extinction as fast as they can, it's a race to the bottom to see who gets there first.
In 2035 some people will live in a world of high technology and wonder. But many, many others will be living in a world of want, immobility and darkness.
Friday, August 24, 2012
A Tale of Two Presidencies
There is a headline story of a Texas county judge who declared that if Obama wins the election we should prepare for civil war. I was waiting for someone else to say it. The funny thing is -- idiots like that judge believe somehow that if Romney wins, no one from a "Blue" state should prepare for civil war. It also doesn't matter that if Obama wins it means he at least won the majority of electoral votes, if not the popular vote.
But what does happen if either side wins?
Can we say, "well if Obama wins, we've already seen what will happen over the past 4 years. We know what to expect.". Possibly. Obama is a feckless and inept leader. He is not inspirational. He has not changed much of anything. Granted, the Republican held congress has made certain that he can't accomplish much but Obama has not made use of the bully pulpit and has not used his ability to speak out at all. One might say he has been trying to mend fences, or that he didn't want to increase the division but he surely must have realized long ago that he lost that battle. He could have and should have been angrily denouncing the Republicans when they failed to pass policy. He did not. He is just not a leader.
So what would 4 more years bring? We have to assume that the Republicans are going to take the Senate. That is a big problem for Obama. He can no longer rely on Harry Reid to fend off every stupid Republican position. The Congress and the Senate in the Republican hands make for a powerful weapon to club Obama with. He will be able to rule by edict as long as he wants, but those rules last only until the next president comes in. What would he do, domestically and internationally? I believe that a man with nothing to lose can do almost anything. He could, for example, eliminate many of the pro-gun policies of the past Republican administrations and allow all kinds of recording and statistical analysis that now prevents serious gun rules from having teeth. He could, by edict, enforce stricter pollution controls. He could, for awhile, fight small wars.
Eventually the congress will try to impeach him. They will not have the power to complete the task however but they will strive to hurt him as much as possible. There will be gridlock and there will be lots of budget issues. The Democrats will only be able to use the filibuster in the Senate to slow down the Republicans. Eventually, the Republicans will vote the filibuster away. Nevertheless, Obama still has the power of the veto, and the Republicans do not have the power to over-ride it. The result will be gridlock.
As for the economy, we are going into recession, possibly depression. It's going to be bad and this is what the Republicans want anyway, especially during a Democratic administration. Obama will not have the power to spend, and the Fed can only create so much money. And with a Republican congress, the Fed better be scared. So we will see 4 years of limping and economic pain, until 2014 when things revamp for the elections. The Republicans will be fighting to get over-ride power or the power to impeach. Obama will be struggling for the ability to maintain sanity on science, civil rights, women's rights, and the environment. It will be a hard four years until the next cycle. The most important thing will be Obama's chance to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. She's going to die of cancer soon. In any event, it will be hard for Obama to complete four years if the Republicans win more seats in Congress and can actually impeach.
As for foreign policy, it's likely someone will go to war with Iran, be it Israel or the US. I doubt it would be the US under Obama, but in the next 5 years, Iran is going to demonstrate it's nuclear weapon. That will be a disaster for Obama or any president. What do you do then? Nuke Iran? I doubt the US will do anything once Iran announces the bomb. How can you?
What about a Romney presidency? If Romney wins, it will be like 2000 again -- the Republicans will control the house, the senate, the supreme court and the Presidency. One of the first things that will happen will be that the senate will vote away the filibuster. There will be no check against the Republicans. We will see the end of the EPA as a cabinet, it will become toothless. It will be a good time for coal and oil stocks. We will see a scale down of any green technology. We will see a hard attack on civil rights, affirmative action, abortion. There will be nothing to slow down the Republican agenda. The big issues will be foreign policy and the economy. Romney has promised to be more belligerent versus Russia and could foment a war with Iran. If there is a confrontation with Iran, it will have to be early in the administration. Any kind of shooting war will cost at least 150 billion dollars -- and that's for six weeks of fighting. If that happens, the Russians and Chinese will not be sitting idle -- the Chinese get alot of oil from Iran. I also expect further antagonism towards the UN from a Romney administration. As for the economy, the Republicans will no longer put up even a token fight against raising the debt limit, and will suddenly embrace Keynesian spending. If they don't or Romney does cut the budget 500 billion dollars as he suggests he will, then we will be in an extremely deep depression in no time. Cutting 500 billion dollars would mean the end of the Education Dept, the EPA, the Dept of Energy, and consolidation of the Dept of Agriculture and Interior. Meanwhile, Romney plans to increase Defense spending. The only way he can accomplish these goals is to eliminate Medicare or Social Security or both, transforming them as he has said he would. The impact will be devastating. Meanwhile, it would mean the end of Section 8, SSI, Foodstamps, Welfare, WIC and so on. Not on paper -- they would still exist on paper, but at the end of 4 years, we would have plenty of starving children living on the street.
Neither presidency is going to be fun. With one we get gridlock, a depression and possible civil war. With another we get war, starvation and depression. It's a poor choice.
But what does happen if either side wins?
Can we say, "well if Obama wins, we've already seen what will happen over the past 4 years. We know what to expect.". Possibly. Obama is a feckless and inept leader. He is not inspirational. He has not changed much of anything. Granted, the Republican held congress has made certain that he can't accomplish much but Obama has not made use of the bully pulpit and has not used his ability to speak out at all. One might say he has been trying to mend fences, or that he didn't want to increase the division but he surely must have realized long ago that he lost that battle. He could have and should have been angrily denouncing the Republicans when they failed to pass policy. He did not. He is just not a leader.
So what would 4 more years bring? We have to assume that the Republicans are going to take the Senate. That is a big problem for Obama. He can no longer rely on Harry Reid to fend off every stupid Republican position. The Congress and the Senate in the Republican hands make for a powerful weapon to club Obama with. He will be able to rule by edict as long as he wants, but those rules last only until the next president comes in. What would he do, domestically and internationally? I believe that a man with nothing to lose can do almost anything. He could, for example, eliminate many of the pro-gun policies of the past Republican administrations and allow all kinds of recording and statistical analysis that now prevents serious gun rules from having teeth. He could, by edict, enforce stricter pollution controls. He could, for awhile, fight small wars.
Eventually the congress will try to impeach him. They will not have the power to complete the task however but they will strive to hurt him as much as possible. There will be gridlock and there will be lots of budget issues. The Democrats will only be able to use the filibuster in the Senate to slow down the Republicans. Eventually, the Republicans will vote the filibuster away. Nevertheless, Obama still has the power of the veto, and the Republicans do not have the power to over-ride it. The result will be gridlock.
As for the economy, we are going into recession, possibly depression. It's going to be bad and this is what the Republicans want anyway, especially during a Democratic administration. Obama will not have the power to spend, and the Fed can only create so much money. And with a Republican congress, the Fed better be scared. So we will see 4 years of limping and economic pain, until 2014 when things revamp for the elections. The Republicans will be fighting to get over-ride power or the power to impeach. Obama will be struggling for the ability to maintain sanity on science, civil rights, women's rights, and the environment. It will be a hard four years until the next cycle. The most important thing will be Obama's chance to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. She's going to die of cancer soon. In any event, it will be hard for Obama to complete four years if the Republicans win more seats in Congress and can actually impeach.
As for foreign policy, it's likely someone will go to war with Iran, be it Israel or the US. I doubt it would be the US under Obama, but in the next 5 years, Iran is going to demonstrate it's nuclear weapon. That will be a disaster for Obama or any president. What do you do then? Nuke Iran? I doubt the US will do anything once Iran announces the bomb. How can you?
What about a Romney presidency? If Romney wins, it will be like 2000 again -- the Republicans will control the house, the senate, the supreme court and the Presidency. One of the first things that will happen will be that the senate will vote away the filibuster. There will be no check against the Republicans. We will see the end of the EPA as a cabinet, it will become toothless. It will be a good time for coal and oil stocks. We will see a scale down of any green technology. We will see a hard attack on civil rights, affirmative action, abortion. There will be nothing to slow down the Republican agenda. The big issues will be foreign policy and the economy. Romney has promised to be more belligerent versus Russia and could foment a war with Iran. If there is a confrontation with Iran, it will have to be early in the administration. Any kind of shooting war will cost at least 150 billion dollars -- and that's for six weeks of fighting. If that happens, the Russians and Chinese will not be sitting idle -- the Chinese get alot of oil from Iran. I also expect further antagonism towards the UN from a Romney administration. As for the economy, the Republicans will no longer put up even a token fight against raising the debt limit, and will suddenly embrace Keynesian spending. If they don't or Romney does cut the budget 500 billion dollars as he suggests he will, then we will be in an extremely deep depression in no time. Cutting 500 billion dollars would mean the end of the Education Dept, the EPA, the Dept of Energy, and consolidation of the Dept of Agriculture and Interior. Meanwhile, Romney plans to increase Defense spending. The only way he can accomplish these goals is to eliminate Medicare or Social Security or both, transforming them as he has said he would. The impact will be devastating. Meanwhile, it would mean the end of Section 8, SSI, Foodstamps, Welfare, WIC and so on. Not on paper -- they would still exist on paper, but at the end of 4 years, we would have plenty of starving children living on the street.
Neither presidency is going to be fun. With one we get gridlock, a depression and possible civil war. With another we get war, starvation and depression. It's a poor choice.
Monday, August 13, 2012
On Economic Policy and Myths: Romney vs Obama
People keep talking about debt and jobs and economy as if they have some idea of what they are talking about. They don't. They get talking points with no background from Newsmax and Fox "News" and MSNBC and Paul Krugman. These sites and people provide no context. How many times have you heard someone compare the US to Greece? Get real. Greece could fit in America's back pocket with room to spare. Their situation does not approximate ours in any way. If you want to compare yourself to a country you have to compare yourself with England, the last great superpower. They ran huge deficits for 600 years and still ruled the world until they lost their international hegemonic possessions. The US is far more like England than Greece.
How many times have you heard "we can't keep borrowing forever."? Well, guess what? We can continue to borrow for quite some time to come. You see interest rates keep falling. That's because everyone in the world is buying US bonds -- even at the lowest rates in history. As long as they do, we can borrow as much as we like. Is it smart? No. It's stupid. We need to fix our problems. But we aren't in crisis mode and things were MUCH worse debt-wise after World War 2 than they are now.
There are only a limited number of actions the US can take at the moment:
1) Cut spending
2) Raise taxes
3) Create inflation
4) Create growth
5) Default and Balance
That's it folks. And guess what? None of them is viable in the short run. We could NEVER cut spending enough to balance the budge, not realistically. We could NEVER raise taxes enough and so on.
There's an iron rule of economics that never fails -- cut spending or raise taxes and you slow the economy. Slow the economy enough and you get recession, or worse, depression.
What Romney doesn't tell you is that even if he cuts all the spending he wants, he will suffer 4 - 5 years of massive recession, perhaps depression. There is no other option under his plan. Even if his plan works in the long run, and there is no way to prove it will, we suffer HUGE misery. If you want to compare yourself to Greece, the current situation there is the right comparison under the Romney plan. They've cut spending like crazy, still haven't balanced the budget AND they are in recession. That is what Romney's plan does to us. When the US bailed out the auto industry it cost about $100 Billion and save a million jobs directly and 5 million indirectly. What do you think would happen if the US cut spending, say, $500 Billion next year? 10 million jobs lost? And then what?
On the other hand, the current Administration's plan is neither fish nor fowl -- it does not lessen the severity of the recession AND it creates more debt. It does not accomplish its goals and it makes things worse. Nevertheless, you NEVER heard ANYONE complain about passing debt to their grandchildren when WW2 debt was worse, and we paid that off in 1980. It is not a disaster. Yet.
The biggest problem isn't even government debt. It's private debt. Lazy Americans owe $900 Billion on credit cards; $1.2 Trillion on school loans, $500 Billion on autos and more than $2 trillion on mortgages. I think 1/3 of our GNP is built on credit. The government accounting office believes a quarter to a third of all income is used just to maintenance private debt. We pumped up the economy using credit cards, now when we have to pay it back, we can't unless we stop buying shit. Of COURSE the economy is going to slow down. Of COURSE jobs are going to suffer. In real terms, China passes America in REAL GNP, probably in 2008.
And the bullshit about the debt ceiling -- does anyone even know what this is? It was made during WW1 to HELP the government raise money. NOTHING anyone, Republicans OR Democrats EVER do is going to lower the debt ceiling. EVER. Even if we stopped spending completely as a government -- no army, no highways, no government employees, etc -- the debt would go up. The debt limit is a political chimera that has no applicability to real life. It is just used as a political hammer to hurt the Administration. If Romney wins the election, you will never again hear of any negative discussion about the debt ceiling and the votes will happen quick and painless as they always have.
The only way out of our current condition is strict reform and discipline. Neither of these will happen. No one is seriously going to cut Social Security -- old people vote. No Americans are seriously going to cut back on boats and second cars and Ipads. As long as they have credit cards, they will live on debt.
Eventually, we will have high interest, mega inflation, collapse of commercial loan market -- no one is going to buy a car or house at 10 percent interest. The US as a reserve currency is finished, perhaps in the next 10 years. The US as a superpower is finished.
If you want to contrast the economic policy if Obama wins vs Romney, assuming they actually implement their plans, then Obama gives us 4 more years of what we already know -- slow or no growth, debt build-up, discontent. Romney gives us Greece -- misery, unemployment and depression, at least for the first 4 years. It might fix the economy 20 years down the road. It HAS to work that way. You can't legislate away the rain, and you can't pretend the iron laws of economics don't work.The thing is Romney is never going to tell you that his plan puts 15 million people out of work and Obama is never going to tell you that things just don't get any better.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Macro View...and what happens
Will Obama raise taxes on the rich?
Would Romney cut spending and balance the budget?
What about the current deficit cliff-hanger that goes into place at the end of the year cutting defense spending?
There wont be tax increases. There won't be any spending cuts. There won't be any implementation of the ridiculous penalty bill now slated to explode at the end of the year. Anything that destroys money will push the economy off a cliff.
Here is the mechanism:
1) Spending is cut (or taxes raised)
2) Therefore, less money is in the economy
3) Immediate effect: state, federal, local employees are cut
4) Fewer government goods and services are bought
5) Suppliers of goods and services cut back, go broke, lay-off their employees
6) Businesses those employees supported cut back - fewer trips to restaurant, dry cleaner, Home Depot, fewer new cars bought
7) Economy slows, sliding faster
8) Businesses make "insurance cutbacks", cutting way deeper than needed
9) Economy slides into recession/depression
10) Government receipts decline as tax receipts decline, unemployment, welfare, foodstamps increase
11) Deficits stay the same or get bigger
This cycle will continue until spending increases. Spending will increase if 1) the US spends money or or 2) the US goes to war (ie, the US spends money) or 3) magically private spending increases, ie by increasing personal debt...people HAVE to eat, for example...they will spend for that. And there are LOTS of steps after step 11....the rest of the world follows the US down the shitter since we STILL drive the world economy. For fun I will roll it out a little further...
12) US consumption decline causes collapse in oil prices
13) trade gap diminishes as US exports less
14) Exporters to the US such as China and Germany experience slowdown in economic activity
15) Europe further fucked economically by decline in tourism
16) Auto industry on verge of bankruptcy again as car sales plummet
17) Airlines on verge bankruptcy as travel declines
18) Housing industry collapses because no one is buying or building houses
19) Crime increases out of desperation
20) Railroads idle as they were in 2008 with 1000s of freight cars abandoned
21) Ports and freight yards filled with abandoned tankers, ships and freighters as they were in 2008
22) Personal bankruptcies exploding; Chapter 7 bankruptcies explode (only way to get rid of credit card and student loan debt)
23) More malls become ghost towns
24) Commercial loan failures skyrocket. High rise office towers abandoned
25) Foreign purchase of hard US assets skyrockets: China buy GM or IBM or Microsoft
26) Interest rates pushed to zero across the board in desperate attempt to spur loans and spending
27) Laws passed to force banks to lend and then forgive bad loans
28) Homelessness skyrockets, people living in tents all over America
29) Abandoned vehicles litter roadways as no one can afford insurance, excise, registration or gas, even though gas is about 2 dollars a gallon - or less
30) Environmental regulations increasingly relaxed in attempt to spur manufacturing
31) China goes into recession; Germany in recession; Spain defaults; Italy defaults, Europe in turmoil
32) Russia invades or co-erces many former satellites to rejoin resurgent Russian empire.
Is this extreme? Sure it is. This assumes there is no floor to slowed economic activity when government reduces spending. And herein lies the fear -- ask any Republican how the US got out of the Great Depression and he will say, "World War 2 pulled us out of the Depression". Republicans are CONVINCED that the war saved us. How? By "private industry" suddenly creating millions of new jobs to build tanks, planes and guns. That's the fear. If Romney wins the election and the economy goes into a tailspin, the Republicans till be sorely tempted to go to war with Iran -- because to a Republican, War Means Prosperity. On Nov 2, 2008, VP Candidate Sarah Palin said, "We're in a war with Iran, make no mistake, and when we win, we will kick that war up to full speed and end Iran in 100 days."
But Republicans forget the crucial step of war and "private industry" creating millions of jobs -- the Government is the customer and is buying all that stuff. Spending is spending whether its for bombs or for bridges. The difference is, if you spend to build a bridge, you get a bridge. If you spend to build a bomb you get a useless bomb that sits in a warehouse and has to be guarded. Republicans never seem to grasp this concept.
Make no mistake -- spending ISN'T going down. Taxes ARE NOT going up.
And look -- last week tbill yields hit record lows....everyone is throwing money at us. there is no need to cut spending dramatically. or raise taxes right now. Republicans claim that cutting spending will free up money for industrial investment, a sound economic principle. But even if that worked -- it would take a minimum of a year to START to show impact. And if Romney also follows through with cutting foodstamps, healthcare, social security, welfare and Section 8, it could be years before any positive impact is seen - years of starving children, homeless elderly and so on. And with foreigners throwing money at us, we don't need to do it right now.
I predicted the fed would implement QE3 in June, and they were oh so close but didnt. Bernanke didnt even mention it in July....I doubt he will talk about it in August unless June economic stats are bad. the govt is uneven...housing prices are the highest they have been since 2008. But earnings are slipping. Interest rates are at record lows. but no one is borrowing. and so on. If unemployment starts to go up even a little, then you will see QE3. They will throw money at the consumer. However you can't do that AND keep interest rates low forever. We are going to see big inflation from food prices this fall/winter anyway due to the drought in the midwest (non-existent global warning anyone?) and I expect a warmer than normal winter. The entire Greenland ice cover melted in 4 days last month, though to be fair this appears to be a cyclic event.
Politically, all indicators show Obama as strong favorite to win the election. The RNC and Superpac ads are overwhelming Obama something like 4 to 1 right now, and its worse in swing states. But if Romney wins -- the entire government, all 4 branches, will be in the hands of the Republicans. The US will become like Mexico. It's what they did when Bush was Pres and they will do it again --- absolute power corrupts absolutely. And Romney hasn't had an orignal thought in 20 years. He will be a puppet of the right. And the right wants war with Syria or Iran. War with Syria is a proxy war with Russia. That's one reason we aren't there now. War with Iran means the end of the US as a super-power. We will be a 3rd world nation with a huge army and nothing more, no influence, no power projection, irrelevant. If Obama wins you get two choices -- more of the last 4 years -- OR...bold initiatives that will go nowhere AND scathing rhetoric. A second term President Obama has nothing to lose. He wont have the senate or congress. But he WILL have the Executive Order that allows him to rule like a king for 4 years. At least til 2014 Congress wont have the numbers to impeach him. But he is between a rock and a hard place -- raise taxes or cut spending and send the economy into depression.
No matter what, we are going into depression or recession and we are losing power and influence. For this we can thank Bush. The war with Iraq cost us the future and propelled China to the world stage. They are the new superpower and there will be few who are going to pick the US over the Chinese. The US is nice but China is a brutal enemy with a long memory. The US forgets its friends on a regular basis. Ask Georgia after Bush swore to the living Christ he would protect them from the Russians. Yeah. Ok. It was Czechoslovakia 1968 all over again. This is a constant US pattern. And don't think I'm just condemning Bush -- Obama threw Mubarak under the bus as soon as the opportunity presented itself, despite 30 years of trust and friendship. Mubarak was a brutal despot but so what? He gave us Egypt from the Russians. We COULD have offered him refuge. But we did what Americans do -- use people and nations like our toilet paper.
Things are sliding. It's not because of our debt. On the contrary -- it's because there is not enough Keynesian activity. And as long as we carry the personal debt load we carry it will be hard, oh so hard, for us to recover. Obama knew that it would take something like the internet boom of the 90s for that to happen, and he tried to spark that by investing in Green Technology, but the Chinese undercut our prices, the Germans overrode our technology and the Republicans second guessed the strategy so that hope failed. If we DONT get something like the internet of the 90s again, then America will be a has-been nation in no time at all. Not like Greece, but more like England. Reflecting glory of the past, with flashes of power and brilliance but without the strength to impose its will unless it fires a gun.
Would Romney cut spending and balance the budget?
What about the current deficit cliff-hanger that goes into place at the end of the year cutting defense spending?
There wont be tax increases. There won't be any spending cuts. There won't be any implementation of the ridiculous penalty bill now slated to explode at the end of the year. Anything that destroys money will push the economy off a cliff.
Here is the mechanism:
1) Spending is cut (or taxes raised)
2) Therefore, less money is in the economy
3) Immediate effect: state, federal, local employees are cut
4) Fewer government goods and services are bought
5) Suppliers of goods and services cut back, go broke, lay-off their employees
6) Businesses those employees supported cut back - fewer trips to restaurant, dry cleaner, Home Depot, fewer new cars bought
7) Economy slows, sliding faster
8) Businesses make "insurance cutbacks", cutting way deeper than needed
9) Economy slides into recession/depression
10) Government receipts decline as tax receipts decline, unemployment, welfare, foodstamps increase
11) Deficits stay the same or get bigger
This cycle will continue until spending increases. Spending will increase if 1) the US spends money or or 2) the US goes to war (ie, the US spends money) or 3) magically private spending increases, ie by increasing personal debt...people HAVE to eat, for example...they will spend for that. And there are LOTS of steps after step 11....the rest of the world follows the US down the shitter since we STILL drive the world economy. For fun I will roll it out a little further...
12) US consumption decline causes collapse in oil prices
13) trade gap diminishes as US exports less
14) Exporters to the US such as China and Germany experience slowdown in economic activity
15) Europe further fucked economically by decline in tourism
16) Auto industry on verge of bankruptcy again as car sales plummet
17) Airlines on verge bankruptcy as travel declines
18) Housing industry collapses because no one is buying or building houses
19) Crime increases out of desperation
20) Railroads idle as they were in 2008 with 1000s of freight cars abandoned
21) Ports and freight yards filled with abandoned tankers, ships and freighters as they were in 2008
22) Personal bankruptcies exploding; Chapter 7 bankruptcies explode (only way to get rid of credit card and student loan debt)
23) More malls become ghost towns
24) Commercial loan failures skyrocket. High rise office towers abandoned
25) Foreign purchase of hard US assets skyrockets: China buy GM or IBM or Microsoft
26) Interest rates pushed to zero across the board in desperate attempt to spur loans and spending
27) Laws passed to force banks to lend and then forgive bad loans
28) Homelessness skyrockets, people living in tents all over America
29) Abandoned vehicles litter roadways as no one can afford insurance, excise, registration or gas, even though gas is about 2 dollars a gallon - or less
30) Environmental regulations increasingly relaxed in attempt to spur manufacturing
31) China goes into recession; Germany in recession; Spain defaults; Italy defaults, Europe in turmoil
32) Russia invades or co-erces many former satellites to rejoin resurgent Russian empire.
Is this extreme? Sure it is. This assumes there is no floor to slowed economic activity when government reduces spending. And herein lies the fear -- ask any Republican how the US got out of the Great Depression and he will say, "World War 2 pulled us out of the Depression". Republicans are CONVINCED that the war saved us. How? By "private industry" suddenly creating millions of new jobs to build tanks, planes and guns. That's the fear. If Romney wins the election and the economy goes into a tailspin, the Republicans till be sorely tempted to go to war with Iran -- because to a Republican, War Means Prosperity. On Nov 2, 2008, VP Candidate Sarah Palin said, "We're in a war with Iran, make no mistake, and when we win, we will kick that war up to full speed and end Iran in 100 days."
But Republicans forget the crucial step of war and "private industry" creating millions of jobs -- the Government is the customer and is buying all that stuff. Spending is spending whether its for bombs or for bridges. The difference is, if you spend to build a bridge, you get a bridge. If you spend to build a bomb you get a useless bomb that sits in a warehouse and has to be guarded. Republicans never seem to grasp this concept.
Make no mistake -- spending ISN'T going down. Taxes ARE NOT going up.
And look -- last week tbill yields hit record lows....everyone is throwing money at us. there is no need to cut spending dramatically. or raise taxes right now. Republicans claim that cutting spending will free up money for industrial investment, a sound economic principle. But even if that worked -- it would take a minimum of a year to START to show impact. And if Romney also follows through with cutting foodstamps, healthcare, social security, welfare and Section 8, it could be years before any positive impact is seen - years of starving children, homeless elderly and so on. And with foreigners throwing money at us, we don't need to do it right now.
I predicted the fed would implement QE3 in June, and they were oh so close but didnt. Bernanke didnt even mention it in July....I doubt he will talk about it in August unless June economic stats are bad. the govt is uneven...housing prices are the highest they have been since 2008. But earnings are slipping. Interest rates are at record lows. but no one is borrowing. and so on. If unemployment starts to go up even a little, then you will see QE3. They will throw money at the consumer. However you can't do that AND keep interest rates low forever. We are going to see big inflation from food prices this fall/winter anyway due to the drought in the midwest (non-existent global warning anyone?) and I expect a warmer than normal winter. The entire Greenland ice cover melted in 4 days last month, though to be fair this appears to be a cyclic event.
Politically, all indicators show Obama as strong favorite to win the election. The RNC and Superpac ads are overwhelming Obama something like 4 to 1 right now, and its worse in swing states. But if Romney wins -- the entire government, all 4 branches, will be in the hands of the Republicans. The US will become like Mexico. It's what they did when Bush was Pres and they will do it again --- absolute power corrupts absolutely. And Romney hasn't had an orignal thought in 20 years. He will be a puppet of the right. And the right wants war with Syria or Iran. War with Syria is a proxy war with Russia. That's one reason we aren't there now. War with Iran means the end of the US as a super-power. We will be a 3rd world nation with a huge army and nothing more, no influence, no power projection, irrelevant. If Obama wins you get two choices -- more of the last 4 years -- OR...bold initiatives that will go nowhere AND scathing rhetoric. A second term President Obama has nothing to lose. He wont have the senate or congress. But he WILL have the Executive Order that allows him to rule like a king for 4 years. At least til 2014 Congress wont have the numbers to impeach him. But he is between a rock and a hard place -- raise taxes or cut spending and send the economy into depression.
No matter what, we are going into depression or recession and we are losing power and influence. For this we can thank Bush. The war with Iraq cost us the future and propelled China to the world stage. They are the new superpower and there will be few who are going to pick the US over the Chinese. The US is nice but China is a brutal enemy with a long memory. The US forgets its friends on a regular basis. Ask Georgia after Bush swore to the living Christ he would protect them from the Russians. Yeah. Ok. It was Czechoslovakia 1968 all over again. This is a constant US pattern. And don't think I'm just condemning Bush -- Obama threw Mubarak under the bus as soon as the opportunity presented itself, despite 30 years of trust and friendship. Mubarak was a brutal despot but so what? He gave us Egypt from the Russians. We COULD have offered him refuge. But we did what Americans do -- use people and nations like our toilet paper.
Things are sliding. It's not because of our debt. On the contrary -- it's because there is not enough Keynesian activity. And as long as we carry the personal debt load we carry it will be hard, oh so hard, for us to recover. Obama knew that it would take something like the internet boom of the 90s for that to happen, and he tried to spark that by investing in Green Technology, but the Chinese undercut our prices, the Germans overrode our technology and the Republicans second guessed the strategy so that hope failed. If we DONT get something like the internet of the 90s again, then America will be a has-been nation in no time at all. Not like Greece, but more like England. Reflecting glory of the past, with flashes of power and brilliance but without the strength to impose its will unless it fires a gun.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Aurora and Gun Control
All the people from both sides screaming "gun control" or "2nd Amendment" are wrong.
The issue is not about the government taking guns away from us. I don't think that is going to happen.
The issue is basic licensing and rudimentary reporting. Gun people are terrified of a national gun ID. They think it will be used by the government to eventually hunt them down and round up their guns. So be it. No national ID.
But there SHOULD be uniform standards for gun permitting. In Florida it is easier for a convicted felon to get a gun permit than it is for a Black man to register to vote Democrat. I am not even joking..
The different standards for gun ownership are so loose that its crazy. In Arizona all you need is a license. In Mass. you need to go through a complex formula. Gun people are afraid permitting will be so the police can arbitrarily deny the permit.
It would be better if all the states had the same mechanism, one that required fingerprints, training, background check and references. There would be no approve/deny. It would be an automatic yes. But at least there would be some kind of check. It does not have to be monitored by the Federal government, they would just make the standards and hand them to the state. And it would be automatic approval unless there was a red flag.
Statistical analysis of gun sales was made illegal by George W. Bush. For example, it was discovered that something like 70 percent of all the guns used in crimes in NYC came from a single store in Altanta, Georgia. Don't you think this warrants an investigation? The Bush Administration made collection of that data and sharing it illegal. Why? Wouldn't it be helpful to know WHO is supplying the guns? That store in Atlanta is STILL supplying the guns criminals in NYC need. Bush made it impossible to investigate them.
Guns all make a signature when they shoot. Every barrel is unique. It seems only common sense to "fingerprint" the ID of every gun when it is made. Yet that is illegal. Why? Most gun crimes could be solved in minutes if this were done.
Without getting into "Fast and Furious" debate, the issue there is that an 18 year old can make alot of money going into a gun store, buy 50 AK47s and give/sell them to a guy in the parking lot. The only thing to stop him is a check box on a blue form that makes you swear you aren't a strawman buyer. Those forms are never back-checked again and the police have no authority to go to the buyer and say, "show me those 50 guns". There is no teeth to the law. The form means nothing.
It's not the buying and selling of guns that's the issue, although it is something we should discuss -- it is now legal for Americans to own the M134 Mini Gun, that shoots 5000 rounds a minute. Imagine John Holmes showing up at the theater with that strapped to his Jeep. He could have killed everyone in the theater -- shooting through the walls -- in less than a minute. But that's another issue. The issue is how we track guns and use statistics.
Some moron said that people carrying a gun are more trained and prepared than a bad guy with a knife. That is bullshit. The very vast majority of people carrying a gun in their pants or purse have absolutely no conception what they are doing. This can EASILY be proven by comparing the number of guns purchased to the number of people registered for gun training classes. Confronted by a knife wielding criminal, one who is has experience robbing people and carrying a knife, those people will almost never get their gun into action before they've been stabbed 5 times. Unless you practice, unless you train FREQUENTLY, you can't get the gun out of your purse, pull it out from behind your jacket or get it out of your under the waist holster faster than the criminal can stab you. You are going to lose. He does this all the time. You get robbed once. He's ready. You're surprised. And then -- in the event you get your Glock out and start blazing -- what are you going to do if you miss and kill some innocent person behind him? A child? Unlike TV bullets don't evaporate when they miss their target. They go for about a mile unless they hit something. And yet there is no requirement to train to own a gun.
Gun people point to all kinds of ineptness by the police and their ability to catch criminals. Yet when it comes to gun siezure the government is somehow all knowing and all powerful and evil. And the government is inept when it comes to gun crimes -- the NRA has made sure of it by tripping up every rational and reasonable mechanism a law enforcement agency would use to track a killer.
Last year 15 Americans were killed by Arab or Muslim terrorists.
31,500 Americans were killed by guns. And yet we are unable to do anything at all to reduce that number. The NRA and the gun people won't let it happen.
The issue is not about the government taking guns away from us. I don't think that is going to happen.
The issue is basic licensing and rudimentary reporting. Gun people are terrified of a national gun ID. They think it will be used by the government to eventually hunt them down and round up their guns. So be it. No national ID.
But there SHOULD be uniform standards for gun permitting. In Florida it is easier for a convicted felon to get a gun permit than it is for a Black man to register to vote Democrat. I am not even joking..
The different standards for gun ownership are so loose that its crazy. In Arizona all you need is a license. In Mass. you need to go through a complex formula. Gun people are afraid permitting will be so the police can arbitrarily deny the permit.
It would be better if all the states had the same mechanism, one that required fingerprints, training, background check and references. There would be no approve/deny. It would be an automatic yes. But at least there would be some kind of check. It does not have to be monitored by the Federal government, they would just make the standards and hand them to the state. And it would be automatic approval unless there was a red flag.
Statistical analysis of gun sales was made illegal by George W. Bush. For example, it was discovered that something like 70 percent of all the guns used in crimes in NYC came from a single store in Altanta, Georgia. Don't you think this warrants an investigation? The Bush Administration made collection of that data and sharing it illegal. Why? Wouldn't it be helpful to know WHO is supplying the guns? That store in Atlanta is STILL supplying the guns criminals in NYC need. Bush made it impossible to investigate them.
Guns all make a signature when they shoot. Every barrel is unique. It seems only common sense to "fingerprint" the ID of every gun when it is made. Yet that is illegal. Why? Most gun crimes could be solved in minutes if this were done.
Without getting into "Fast and Furious" debate, the issue there is that an 18 year old can make alot of money going into a gun store, buy 50 AK47s and give/sell them to a guy in the parking lot. The only thing to stop him is a check box on a blue form that makes you swear you aren't a strawman buyer. Those forms are never back-checked again and the police have no authority to go to the buyer and say, "show me those 50 guns". There is no teeth to the law. The form means nothing.
It's not the buying and selling of guns that's the issue, although it is something we should discuss -- it is now legal for Americans to own the M134 Mini Gun, that shoots 5000 rounds a minute. Imagine John Holmes showing up at the theater with that strapped to his Jeep. He could have killed everyone in the theater -- shooting through the walls -- in less than a minute. But that's another issue. The issue is how we track guns and use statistics.
Some moron said that people carrying a gun are more trained and prepared than a bad guy with a knife. That is bullshit. The very vast majority of people carrying a gun in their pants or purse have absolutely no conception what they are doing. This can EASILY be proven by comparing the number of guns purchased to the number of people registered for gun training classes. Confronted by a knife wielding criminal, one who is has experience robbing people and carrying a knife, those people will almost never get their gun into action before they've been stabbed 5 times. Unless you practice, unless you train FREQUENTLY, you can't get the gun out of your purse, pull it out from behind your jacket or get it out of your under the waist holster faster than the criminal can stab you. You are going to lose. He does this all the time. You get robbed once. He's ready. You're surprised. And then -- in the event you get your Glock out and start blazing -- what are you going to do if you miss and kill some innocent person behind him? A child? Unlike TV bullets don't evaporate when they miss their target. They go for about a mile unless they hit something. And yet there is no requirement to train to own a gun.
Gun people point to all kinds of ineptness by the police and their ability to catch criminals. Yet when it comes to gun siezure the government is somehow all knowing and all powerful and evil. And the government is inept when it comes to gun crimes -- the NRA has made sure of it by tripping up every rational and reasonable mechanism a law enforcement agency would use to track a killer.
Last year 15 Americans were killed by Arab or Muslim terrorists.
31,500 Americans were killed by guns. And yet we are unable to do anything at all to reduce that number. The NRA and the gun people won't let it happen.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Round Up of Recent Events and Commentary
Whew! It's been awhile since I posted. Let's catch up on things....
Greece
So Greece elected a new government and the Germans are being cajoled into relieving some of the pressure on the Greece gov't to repay debt.
Losers!
Doesn't matter who is in charge in Greece. Greece is GONE. I have said this before and I will say it again: GREECE CANNOT RECOVER. Greece refuses to reform its taxation system and refuses to work to balance its budget. These things MUST happen. Oh and by the way, Greece MUST default. There is NO OTHER OPTION. All of the bailouts and any relief they encompass only serve to delay the inevitable. Greece is going broke. All that is happening now is the EU is blindly kicking the can down the road. Greece MUST and WILL officially default. It is absolutely inevitable. The sooner they do it, the sooner they can recover. It is VERY difficult to get statistics about the Greece budget but recently they bought a new missile frigate from France. WHY? The French love it of course, but why would this money be wasted? If you HAVE to buy a warship, there are plenty of obsolete but still serviceable warships being sold by every first world navy for a fraction of the price of the new warship. But even then, this is just an example of the blindness of the Greek government. Recently, as part of the reform of Greece taxation, the EU demanded the Greeks accept German accountants and technocrats to investigate and report on reforms. The Germans could not believe the level of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and so on that they found. They recommended dozens of sensible reforms. The Greeks had them arrested for espionage. There is just too much money to be made by the leaders of Greece for them to allow the tax system to work correctly. Greece is FUCKED. They are not even trying to balance their budget. Without balancing the budget there is no hope of paying off the 150 billion dollars of debt they have accrued. And yet they still want the bailout funds and to stay in the Euro. This is the most insulting and egregious affront to the world by any government since the Russians did whatever they do every week. Insane.
Here is what needs to happen. Greece defaults and says, "sorry we won't be paying back that debt." They leave the Euro. THEN THEY BALANCE THE BUDGET. They have to -- no one will give them a nickel for awhile. The economy will collapse. Perhaps they reform the taxation system even a little. And then -- they NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE PAYMENTS! It's almost like getting free money. Instead of paying interest and principal, they have that money for servicing the country. Will there be pain?
There will be pain like you can't believe. Skyrocketing unemployment. Starving elderly. Suicides. Hopelessness. PAIN.
But it will pass. Once the shock is over, the government can re-structure within its means. They should slash defense spending such that only soldiers get paid. There would be few, if any ships in the navy that leave the pier. No tanks or maintenance. Soldiers would remain on duty because they need an army and these people would not be in the unemployment lines, but they would be relegated to walking instead of driving in trucks and so on. The air force would be slashed. And so on. There would be lots of public employees laid off. The government would have to focus on the essentials - trash collection, water works, insuring communcations and electricity, courts and jails, road repair. Nothing else matters.
But on the plus side, there would growth again. It would take five years to recover. We've seen this over and over in Latin America. Then once growth starts and they manage the budget, then they can re-apply to be in the Euro again. Perhaps they can even take on debt at reasonable levels. But without going broke there is no way they can grow.
Greece needs to go broke.
Europe
Europe is an awesome example of where the US would be if the Confederacy won the Civil War because Europe is a confederacy. In the American Confederacy, states had more power than the central government. Essentially, each state was like a country, just as Europe is. The government has little power to tax, manage the currency, manage budgets, control environmental damage and so on. Sound familiar? It's Europe. In Europe each country is refusing to give up its sovereignty. Until it does so it can never achieve the greatness of the United States. A strong Federal government is necessary to co-ordinate resources, budgets, and impose its will to impact the greater good. The EU is going to eventually collapse or suffer decades of infighting, band-aids and slow growth until they recognize this. The individual countries/states MUST NOT be allowed to run deficits at a minimum. There must be a capital (presumably its Brussels which is hilarious since Belgium is constantly on the brink of civil war) and a strong European leader. Then they can grow like crazy. Currently the main b beneficiary of a weak Europe is Russia -- and they know it. On a small scale, the current problems show the Germans were right during WW2. On a large scale, the Russians win this war again, on a much larger scale than they did in May, 1945.
Syria
HAHAHA. The Arab Spring turns out to be confusing and messy. Syria was always going to be the tough nut. The Russian proxy state and the last Russian base outside of Russia insured this would be true. The emerging Russian powerhouse is not going to let Syria slip away easily and the US cannot aid Syrian opposition openly without directly opposing Russia. Also, there is no co-ordinated opposition in Syria. Alot of the rebels are Al Qaeda and the US certainly can't help THEM. So it's a tough situation. Israel is totally alarmed because they face serious issues in Egypt for the first time since the Camp David Accords. I have thought for a long time that the answer was always Turkey. The US still has some influence in Turkey (though there is a growing resentment against the US there) and Turkey can and has confronted Syria as a result of the shooting down of a Turkish jet by the jittery Syrians. I thought for sure that this would be the entre Turkey needed to land a solid blow on Syria (on behalf of the Americans) without confronting the Russians. But that brouhaha seems to have settled down. I still have hope this will happen but who knows? Assad is finished but I predict we will see Russian combat troops in action there before this is over. And don't think for a minute that when Assad falls, the rebels will not forget the part the Russians played in this affair. When the Russians leave Syria they will be looking for another foothold in the middle east and they will be making lots of mischief there.
Book Recommendations
I just read a great book called "Why Nations Fail". An extra-ordinary compilation and study of successful and failed nations throughout history it offers a new explanation for why nations rise and fall. It needs to be book ended with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which is itself a brilliant discourse on the steps all nations follow to their death. Diamond takes into account the devastating impact of religion and how it helped every major empire to fail while James Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" never mentions religion once. In effect, Robinson says that for nations to succeed there must be a strong central government that is controlled by voters; that innovation is allowed by protecting patents; that contracts and patent rights are enforced; that labor has the right to move freely to jobs and careers and that monopolies are punished. In addition there needs to be a concept that no man is above the law and laws need to be generally fair. The problem is that the elite in any society do everything they can to stay in power by weakening the power of labor, citizenry, laws and business. When this happens there is no incentive for original creation and no profit. It benefits a few at the expense of the many, and eventually there is either collapse or violence, inevitably poverty. This should be read by anyone who wants to see how rich people are undermining the US ability to succeed.
Greece
So Greece elected a new government and the Germans are being cajoled into relieving some of the pressure on the Greece gov't to repay debt.
Losers!
Doesn't matter who is in charge in Greece. Greece is GONE. I have said this before and I will say it again: GREECE CANNOT RECOVER. Greece refuses to reform its taxation system and refuses to work to balance its budget. These things MUST happen. Oh and by the way, Greece MUST default. There is NO OTHER OPTION. All of the bailouts and any relief they encompass only serve to delay the inevitable. Greece is going broke. All that is happening now is the EU is blindly kicking the can down the road. Greece MUST and WILL officially default. It is absolutely inevitable. The sooner they do it, the sooner they can recover. It is VERY difficult to get statistics about the Greece budget but recently they bought a new missile frigate from France. WHY? The French love it of course, but why would this money be wasted? If you HAVE to buy a warship, there are plenty of obsolete but still serviceable warships being sold by every first world navy for a fraction of the price of the new warship. But even then, this is just an example of the blindness of the Greek government. Recently, as part of the reform of Greece taxation, the EU demanded the Greeks accept German accountants and technocrats to investigate and report on reforms. The Germans could not believe the level of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and so on that they found. They recommended dozens of sensible reforms. The Greeks had them arrested for espionage. There is just too much money to be made by the leaders of Greece for them to allow the tax system to work correctly. Greece is FUCKED. They are not even trying to balance their budget. Without balancing the budget there is no hope of paying off the 150 billion dollars of debt they have accrued. And yet they still want the bailout funds and to stay in the Euro. This is the most insulting and egregious affront to the world by any government since the Russians did whatever they do every week. Insane.
Here is what needs to happen. Greece defaults and says, "sorry we won't be paying back that debt." They leave the Euro. THEN THEY BALANCE THE BUDGET. They have to -- no one will give them a nickel for awhile. The economy will collapse. Perhaps they reform the taxation system even a little. And then -- they NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE PAYMENTS! It's almost like getting free money. Instead of paying interest and principal, they have that money for servicing the country. Will there be pain?
There will be pain like you can't believe. Skyrocketing unemployment. Starving elderly. Suicides. Hopelessness. PAIN.
But it will pass. Once the shock is over, the government can re-structure within its means. They should slash defense spending such that only soldiers get paid. There would be few, if any ships in the navy that leave the pier. No tanks or maintenance. Soldiers would remain on duty because they need an army and these people would not be in the unemployment lines, but they would be relegated to walking instead of driving in trucks and so on. The air force would be slashed. And so on. There would be lots of public employees laid off. The government would have to focus on the essentials - trash collection, water works, insuring communcations and electricity, courts and jails, road repair. Nothing else matters.
But on the plus side, there would growth again. It would take five years to recover. We've seen this over and over in Latin America. Then once growth starts and they manage the budget, then they can re-apply to be in the Euro again. Perhaps they can even take on debt at reasonable levels. But without going broke there is no way they can grow.
Greece needs to go broke.
Europe
Europe is an awesome example of where the US would be if the Confederacy won the Civil War because Europe is a confederacy. In the American Confederacy, states had more power than the central government. Essentially, each state was like a country, just as Europe is. The government has little power to tax, manage the currency, manage budgets, control environmental damage and so on. Sound familiar? It's Europe. In Europe each country is refusing to give up its sovereignty. Until it does so it can never achieve the greatness of the United States. A strong Federal government is necessary to co-ordinate resources, budgets, and impose its will to impact the greater good. The EU is going to eventually collapse or suffer decades of infighting, band-aids and slow growth until they recognize this. The individual countries/states MUST NOT be allowed to run deficits at a minimum. There must be a capital (presumably its Brussels which is hilarious since Belgium is constantly on the brink of civil war) and a strong European leader. Then they can grow like crazy. Currently the main b beneficiary of a weak Europe is Russia -- and they know it. On a small scale, the current problems show the Germans were right during WW2. On a large scale, the Russians win this war again, on a much larger scale than they did in May, 1945.
Syria
HAHAHA. The Arab Spring turns out to be confusing and messy. Syria was always going to be the tough nut. The Russian proxy state and the last Russian base outside of Russia insured this would be true. The emerging Russian powerhouse is not going to let Syria slip away easily and the US cannot aid Syrian opposition openly without directly opposing Russia. Also, there is no co-ordinated opposition in Syria. Alot of the rebels are Al Qaeda and the US certainly can't help THEM. So it's a tough situation. Israel is totally alarmed because they face serious issues in Egypt for the first time since the Camp David Accords. I have thought for a long time that the answer was always Turkey. The US still has some influence in Turkey (though there is a growing resentment against the US there) and Turkey can and has confronted Syria as a result of the shooting down of a Turkish jet by the jittery Syrians. I thought for sure that this would be the entre Turkey needed to land a solid blow on Syria (on behalf of the Americans) without confronting the Russians. But that brouhaha seems to have settled down. I still have hope this will happen but who knows? Assad is finished but I predict we will see Russian combat troops in action there before this is over. And don't think for a minute that when Assad falls, the rebels will not forget the part the Russians played in this affair. When the Russians leave Syria they will be looking for another foothold in the middle east and they will be making lots of mischief there.
Book Recommendations
I just read a great book called "Why Nations Fail". An extra-ordinary compilation and study of successful and failed nations throughout history it offers a new explanation for why nations rise and fall. It needs to be book ended with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which is itself a brilliant discourse on the steps all nations follow to their death. Diamond takes into account the devastating impact of religion and how it helped every major empire to fail while James Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" never mentions religion once. In effect, Robinson says that for nations to succeed there must be a strong central government that is controlled by voters; that innovation is allowed by protecting patents; that contracts and patent rights are enforced; that labor has the right to move freely to jobs and careers and that monopolies are punished. In addition there needs to be a concept that no man is above the law and laws need to be generally fair. The problem is that the elite in any society do everything they can to stay in power by weakening the power of labor, citizenry, laws and business. When this happens there is no incentive for original creation and no profit. It benefits a few at the expense of the many, and eventually there is either collapse or violence, inevitably poverty. This should be read by anyone who wants to see how rich people are undermining the US ability to succeed.
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