Arguing against Obama - when Ad Hominem is justified. Part 1 of 2

In this age of political correctness, it has been made diffucult (and purposefully so!) to organize a cogent discussion around the merits of political candidates given that on their face, you are attacking the person, their experience, their ideas and often their very legitimacy as a candidate or speaker.

Since the 1950's institutes of higher learning have advocated that we place ourselves into camps that identify with their makeup more than with their own moral judgements. For example people say they are Latino, or African American, or female, or gay or disabled or any other number of identifiers before they identify themselves as a unique, thoughtful, moral, enterprising human being - and you have to ask yourself why. In a perverse way - Martin Luther King would be shocked that in this day and age we still, and forcefully so, still - judge people by the "color of their skin" rather than the content of their character.

How does it work? Easy. By banding into identifiable groups, any attack on the REASONING of the individual is turned into an attack on the group, and that attack is condemned as whatever "ist" you want it to be.

I think Barack Obama's policies are ineffiective, ill-conceinved and poorly implemented.
Response - "you are a racist".

I think that marriage should be between a man and a woman because I believe that children brought up in a male/female environment do better in the real world.
Response - "you are a homophobe"

I think the rule of law should be enforced, and that people breaking laws should be sanctioned for their actions.
Response - "you are an anti-Latino racist".

These arguments of logic at their core are deemed to be "ad hominem" attacks against an individual, but incorrectly so. Doug Watson is his 2008 book  Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach. Cambridge University Press discussed at length that if the premise of the argument IS based on their personal makeup, beliefs experiences, characteristics etc. - then an "ad hominem" attack is justified.

And what of it my friends? Aha - within the next article lies the keys to defeating one Barack Hussein Barry Sotaero Obama in 2012. Stay tuned.

Free Trade Makes the USA (and everyone else!) Richer!

As a friend of mine is apt to quote from South Park "They took our Jerrrbbbbbs!!" My missive below is a cautionary note to those of us (like me) that are patriotic to a fault. The anti-free trade movement is the one shit-pile where the "Occupy Whatever" movement and the Tea Party seem to exist happily together. And that should alarm and frighten you. Whatever the Occupy Whatever movement is in favor of is bad for poor people, bad for business, bad for consumers, and bad for the USA. Hell, it's bad for everybody.

A degree in economics is like a ticket to the show. I can't act, but I can attend the premiere. Here goes:

The pricing mechanism is an important part of trade. It provides a signal to producers about what to produce. In the pursuit of profits, it provides an incentive to enter markets where they can make the most, and in order to maximize those profits, strive for efficiency and innovation. The Anti-Free Trade Movement does not seem to care much for efficiency. They think efficiency causes poverty. This is unfortunate, and dead wrong.

The constant desire by producers – in a free trade environment – to win customers, encourages them to invest in new machinery and increase productivity. By increasing productivity and efficiency, prices are cut. As a result, consumers – including those in the poorest countries – are made better off. Moreover, increased efficiency enables wages to rise.

The result is that during the 1990s, 81% of American companies’ foreign investment went to Western Europe, Japan and Canada. These countries have high wages, but because their workforces are highly productive, they win hands down over workers from sub-Saharan Africa. This contradicts all the claims being made by anti-capitalist campaigners about how Western firms only want to invest where they can pay ‘sweatshop’ wages. 

Africa’s share of world trade halved between 1980 and 2000. Despite having 10% of the world’s population, it now only accounts for 1% of world trade. This shows that trade is not a race to where wages and conditions are lowest.

Anti-free traders rarely celebrate on the winners. We hear a great deal about how certain coffee farmers are unable to compete, but we are never told to celebrate the success stories in Brazil (where farmers have mechanized) or in Vietnam where producers are very efficient. Both countries are catching up with the West. Nor do we hear much celebration of countries like Hong Kong or South Korea or the other Asian Tiger economies.

The fact is that free trade – through an invisible hand – encourages production towards the countries that are best at producing. I am not aware of any mobile phones being manufactured in the USA, because other countries are better at that. On the other hand, the intellectual design of the microprocessor in three-quarters of the world’s mobile phones comes from a company based in Cambridge, England. 

Traditional electronics manufacturers in the USA have been decimated – and yet, we are a richer country that at any point in our past, and there are more jobs in the USA than ever before. 

It is a mistake for governments to assume that trying to keep everyone in traditional jobs is good for a country. While the Anti-Free Trade Movement likes the idea of a static world where everyone stays producing the same things, those countries that do well are those that are continually changing and adapting to market signals. This is what increasingly China is doing and that is why it is growing.

So there you have it. Again, stark in its reality, and cold in its application (Professor Archer taught me that line in Econ 334 20 year ago and I still use it today!)

Free trade makes America stronger and builds for better jobs and more of them. Free trade keeps quality up and prices low for consumers and their families. Free trade creates wealth in smaller countries and creates for a more efficient use of our resources. (there – I threw a bone at the greenies!)

It should be “They saved our Jerbbbbbs!” 

Buy American is a dumb idea.

Why? Because that idea costs jobs, reduces our standard of living and makes us all poorer.

Almost all economists say it's nonsense, and the reason is simple and fundamental in a capitalist society. We should buy things where they're cheapest because that frees up more of our resources to buy other things, and other Americans get jobs producing those things.

The equation is especially beneficial to America if you purchase cheap, low-value added goods from overseas and use the surplus to invest in high value added goods like professional services, hi-tech manufacturing and advanced technology. We win. USA! USA!

This simple economic fact is what people always forget. Anytime we can use fewer resources and less labor to produce one thing, it leaves more resources for other things we couldn’t usually afford. If we save money buying abroad, we can make and buy other products.

The nonsense of "Buy American" can be seen if you use the following logic.

If it's good to Buy American, then why isn't it better to “Buy Arizonan?”

And if it's good to have to “Buy Arizonan”, why isn't it even better to “Buy Phoenix?” And if it's good to “Buy Phoenix” why isn’t it even better to “Buy Guadalupe?”

You get the idea. You wouldn't get very good stuff if everything you bought came from Phoenix Arizona exclusively. And you would pay more for it. Any jobs created in Arizona in ski-boot manufacturing industry would be pretty short lived. Even the tards in the government fall for this an invest in the local ski-boot shop. (A rant for another day)

A huge part of the history of mankind is an increase in the “division of labor”. Division of labor is the specialization of cooperative labor in specific, circumscribed tasks and like roles. Historically an increasingly complex division of labor is closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of  capitalism, and of the complexity of  industrialization processes.

And that division of labor goes across national boundaries, as it did when there WERE NO FORMAL NATIONAL BOUNDARIES. This division of labor, and the expansion of the access to labor globally, creates wealth -- and jobs. Always has, always will.

In a similar vein, consider "fair trade" coffee. It costs much more money than regular (unfair trade?) coffee, but we're told that if we buy it, we should have a warm feeling inside because somebody in a poor country will supposedly get paid more.

There are two problems with this program, beyond the base economic ignorance on which it is built on. If the coffee costs more – we will buy LESS of it, not more of it, thereby hurting the very farmers we purport to want to help, and secondly, most of the premium in the price goes to the bureaucracy that organized it. They tree-huggers keep the money, the farmers sell less coffee, and in the end they lose both money and jobs.

Thanks Starbucks. Really. Thanks a lot.

If you want to help farmers, buy cheaper coffee and send them part of the difference in cash. Everybody wins.

The same applies to so-called “sweatshop-free” products. I'm for free trade, but trade means you get the lowest price, and that might mean you buy something from what some people call a "sweatshop".

The name itself conveys abuse. However, as most things that “do-gooders” get involved with – they are wrong. The workers aren't abused.

In fact, they're better off taking those jobs. The mistake Americans make is they think WE would never work in a sweatshop and therefore they say these people shouldn't either. Well, no one's offering those people green cards, and those people are stuck in those countries. They're choosing their best of a bunch of bad options. And when you take away someone's best bad option, they're worse off.

That happened after Sen. Tom Harkin (Dumocrat) of Iowa complained about sweatshops in Bangladesh. Some shops closed. Then Oxfam discovered that kids who were laid off often turned to prostitution to support themselves.

Thanks Tom. Really. Thanks very much.

An old adage says that "the person who tries to get you fired is not your friend.” The conglomerates that hire people in poor countries usually pay more than local employers do. In Honduras, many “sweatshops” pay $3.10 per hour. That's low to us, but most Hondurans earn less than two dollars an hour. Many more earn nothing at all.

Since Third World countries do not pursue free-market policies, worker opportunities are usually controlled by self-serving local politicians and district landlords. So multinational “sweatshops” are usually people's best alternative. Do-Gooders and Humanitarians should target the politicians, not the factories that provide some hope.

Interfering with peaceful exchange is never a good idea. The great 19th-century liberal Richard Cobden was right when he praised free trade for "drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace."

There you have it. Stark in it’s reality, and cold in it’s application.

Left alone, the free market flourishes and the water rises and takes everyone’s boat with it – even the poor. Meddled with by those that seek to line their own pockets or make themselves “feel better”, it will come back to bite you.

Just ask the 13 year old prostitute in Bangladesh how he feels about YOUR feeling better about the origin of your running shoes.


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Poof - how to create wealth without taking it from others

For those of you tempted to even listen to these occupy fools, the union thugs and anarchists that back them, and the cadre of celebrity idiot endorsers let me give you some pointers. You know in your heart that wealth is not "re-distributable". It isn't easy to carve up and share - mostly because someone already owns it.

Like the Monty Python sketch when the two organ collectors show up at a prospective donor's door. "We're here for your liver!" The respondent looks at them and says quizzically, "but I'm still using it?"

So if their movement is based on the flawed premise that it is possible to re-distribute wealth, then they are dead in the water. These flat earthers, who shirk both responsibility and the work ethic, will fade away when the going gets tough. It is in their nature, and is genetic. They are unemployed, because they are unemployable, and it looks like the free ride on the backs of those who do work, and do create wealth is about over. But remember - once you stop feeding a wild animal it's food - YOU become the food.

Sorry about that hippy.

Here is the real truth - wealth is create-able. It can be built out of nothing. The best way to get wealth and the best way to "re-distribute" the wealth is to - MAKE MORE WEALTH. The ability is inside of you and anyone can do it. The following steps are something I put on my computer desktop, and they have served me well:

• Increase your appetite and aptitude for learning. When you increase your knowledge, you will eventually increase your wealth since you need knowledge to capitalize on opportunities. Sorry, Xbox won't make you smarter. Read a book.

• Take full responsibility for your present financial circumstances. This allows you to shift your consciousness from being a powerless victim to a powerful person, who is in control of his or her destiny. It will shift your consciousness from a reactive to a proactive one. It isn't the government's fault you are poor - it is YOUR fault, so fix it. 

• Have total belief in yourself despite the doubts and disbelief of others. Belief and confidence in yourself is very important as the lack of belief and confidence in yourself can lead to self sabotage and the thwarting of your financial success. The rest of the crabs in the barrel will always try to pull you back in. Resist.

• Having a commitment to succeed and a determination never to go back to a life of financial hardship. The pain of financial hardship can be used as a source of motivation and cause you to be determined and committed in creating and managing wealth. You can and will succeed. You have no other choice, your family is counting on you. Don't fail them.

• Give yourself permission to make mistakes while taking risks. You can learn from these mistakes later on and make improvements as you learn to take risks instead of being crippled by the fear of trying something new. You will fail, but it won't kill you. Get it out of the way early and move on.
• Do something NOW. Even if you go to a thrift store and try to find an item you can sell on Ebay to make a few dollars - DO IT NOW. It isn't the outcome of "present action" that will help you succeed - it is the fact that you are moving and doing something. Action creates opportunity. Opportunity creates possibilities. Possibilities create choices. Choices coupled with knowledge creates success. Success creates wealth.

This is the difference between YOU and the folks over at Occupy Wall Street. They want something given to them by taking from others. You want to create something out of your own sweat, smarts, spirit and guts.

99%?

99% babies.






#occupyracism


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Occupy the DNC Headquarters

President Obama says the Occupy Wall Street protests show a "broad-based frustration" among Americans with the financial sector, which continues to kick against regulatory reforms three years after the financial crisis.

"You're seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place," he complained earlier this month.

But what if government encouraged, even invented, those "abusive practices" - that would make Obama and the Democrats the ultimate in hypocritical, anti-business, pandering, pathetic liars wouldn't it?

Set the Way Back coordinates to 1994. That year, the federal government declared war on an enemy — the racist lender — who officials claimed was to blame for differences in homeownership rates, and launched what would prove the costliest and stupidest social crusade in U.S. history. The full-court press was predicated by a Boston Fed study showing mortgage lenders rejecting blacks and Hispanics in greater proportion than whites. 

It took private analysts, as well as at least one FDIC economist, little time to determine the Boston Fed study was terminally flawed. In addition to finding embarrassing mistakes in the data, they concluded that more relevant measures of a borrower's credit history — such as past delinquencies and whether the borrower met lenders credit standards — explained the gap in lending between whites and blacks, who on average had poorer credit and higher defaults.

The author of the 1992 study, hired by the Clinton White House, claimed it was racial "discrimination." But it was simply good underwriting. 

When these missing data were factored in, it became clear that the rejection rates were based on legitimate business decisions, not racism.

But in deference to flawed social policies and out-right vote pandering, Clinton forged on, laying the foundation for the worst financial depression and crisis since the Great Depression.

At President Clinton's direction, no fewer than 10 federal agencies issued a chilling ultimatum to banks and mortgage lenders to ease or remove prudent credit practices for lower-income minorities or face investigations for lending "discrimination" and suffer the related adverse publicity. They were threatened with denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market and stiff fines, along with other penalties. The Justice Department sued them for lending discrimination and branded them as racists in the press.

The threat was codified in a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" and entered into the Federal Register on April 15, 1994, by the Inter-agency Task Force on Fair Lending. Clinton set up the little-known body to coordinate an unprecedented crackdown on alleged bank redlining, and set in motion the Second Great Depression.

The regulatory missive, which had the effect of law, advised lenders to bend "customary" underwriting standards for minority home buyers with poor credit. "The agencies will not tolerate lending discrimination in any form," the document warned financial institutions.

These actions, based on social policy rather than sound business practices are ate the root of the current home mortgage and financial crisis in America. 

For the first time, Washington's bank regulators put racial lending at the top of their checklist. Banks that failed to throw open their lending windows to credit-poor minorities were denied expansion plans by the Fed in an era of frenzied financial mergers and acquisitions. HUD threatened to deny them access to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which it controlled. 

"Applying different lending standards to applicants who are members of a protected class is permissible," it said. "In addition, providing different treatment to applicants to address past discrimination would be permissible.

To that end, lenders were directed to "make changes in marketing strategy or loan products to better serve minority segments of the market." They were also advised to "change commission structures" to encourage brokers and loan officers to "lend in minority and low-income neighborhoods" under the new lax requirements — a practice Countrywide Financial, the poster boy of the subprime scandal, perfected. The government now condones the practice it once encouraged as "predatory".

HUD also pushed Fannie and Freddie, which in effect set industry underwriting standards, to buy sub-prime mortgages, freeing lenders to originate even more high-risk loans.

"Lenders should ensure that their loan processors and underwriters are aware of the provisions of the secondary market guidelines that provide various alternative and flexible means by which applicants may demonstrate their ability and willingness to repay their loans," the policy statement decreed. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will purchase mortgages exceeding the suggested ratios" of monthly housing expense to income (28%) and total obligations to income (36%).

It warned lenders who rejected minority applicants with high debt ratios and low credit scores to "be prepared" to prove to federal regulators and prosecutors they weren't racist. "The Department of Justice is authorized to use the full range of its enforcement authority." they admonished.

It took a little more than a decade for the negative effects of the assault on prudent lending to be felt. By 2006, the shaky subprime mortgages began to default. In 2008, the bubble exploded.

And these flawed policies are still alive today. Obama is building on the fair-lending infrastructure Clinton put in place.Attorney General Eric Holder has launched a witch hunt vs. "racist" banks. The newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (a jack-booted, anti business, vote-pandering machine) has vowed to "enhance fair-lending enforcement" under the auspices of the existing flawed legislation.

I'm not absolving bankers of acting greedily, but that fact was a symptom, rather than the cause of our current predicament. The evidence is compelling that the crisis evolved chiefly from government mandates and threats to increase lending to applicants who could not afford the loans in order to promote social policy and gain votes.

Occupy wall street? It would be better to occupy the headquarters of the DNC. At least we would be focused on the root of the problem.

Obama Administration tried to put campaign donors on board of Solyndra DAYS before collapse!

Days before a solar panel maker collapsed, the Obama administration considered a bailout that would have provided an infusion of cash and a new board of directors, including two directors appointed by the Energy Department.

Officials rejected the plan, which was recommended in August by the investment banking firm Lazard Ltd. Lazard was paid $1 million for analyzing options related to the faltering company, Solyndra Inc.

Details of the bailout plan were among nearly 1,200 pages of documents released by the government Wednesday, hours before a House subcommittee was set to vote on a plan to subpoena White House documents related to Solyndra.

The best part of this - the banking advisement firm Lazard Ltd's VIce Chairman is Ashish Bhutani. So what you say?

Ashish Bhutani is a major Democrat donor and contributor to the Obama campaign fund.

God - we should all check the bottom of our shoes. Something smells seriously rotten here.....

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Corzine Makes Bank, courtesy of the Unions and Occupy Wall Street

If Big Unions Agree With the Occupy Wall Street Dolts, Why Did They Support Jon Corzine For Governor of New Jersey?

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is out of a job now that the Wall Street firm he headed, MF Global, has gone bankrupt, but don’t worry. He’ll be just fine. Corzine has a couple of things to keep him out of the unemployment line. First, he’s a “great friend” and “ally” of President Barack Obama, as the president himself has said. And second, he’s expected to receive a $12.1 million severance package — the kind of things that critics of Wall Street excess, like Obama, and the milk duds over at Occupy Wall Street often call “golden parachutes.”

However, many big unions like the SEIU and the AFL-CIO have rushed to align themselves with the hippy contingent of Occupy Wall Street and offer their full support of the movement.

Remember - they did the same thing for Democrat and former Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine who lost the governorship of New Jersey to Republican Chris Christie who the unions immediately attacked. Is this the same Corzine who's firm offered the bizarre stipulation on their bond issue that indicated they would get pay an extra 1% if Corzine was appointed to a federal position by Obama. Wow - that's really out there "in your face" for everyone to see isn't it?

Doesn’t that conflict with the reason we’ve been given for the very existence of #Occupywallstreet?

Someone is lying. Either the #Occupywallstreet protesters or the unions which claim to support them.

Probably both.

It almost seems like you can get away with bailouts and corporate influence as long as you’re a Democrat.

Regulated to Death - Literally.

Other than the constant "bring down" about business being bad for America, supported by the Fast and the Spurious in Washington what are the costs brought about by bad legislation, bad bureaucrats with bad intentions (Solyndra) operating in bad faith in order to be bad for business? Let's look at a few:


 Fuel economy and emission standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty passenger vehicles imposed jointly by the EPA and NHTSA. Annual cost: $10.8 billion (for model years 2012 to 2016). For automakers to recover these increased outlays, NHTSA estimates the standards will lead to increases in average new vehicle prices ranging from $457 per vehicle in FY 2012 to $985 per vehicle in FY 2016.


Mandated quotas for renewable fuels. Annual cost: $7.8 billion (for 15 years). Utilizing farmland to grow corn and other crops used in renewable fuels will displace food crops, leading food costs to increase by $10 per person per year—or $40 for a family of four, according to the EPA.


Efficiency standards for residential water heaters, heating equipment, and pool heaters. Annual cost: $1.3 billion. The appliance upgrades necessary to comply with the new standards will raise the price of a typical gas storage water heater by $120.


Limits on “effluent” discharges from construction sites imposed by the EPA. Annual cost: $810.8 million. The cost of the requirements will force the closure of 147 construction firms and the loss of 7,257 jobs, according to the EPA. Home-buyers also will bear some of the costs, with an increase in mortgage costs of about $1,953.

Regulatory Reductions - Gone in 60 Seconds

Measures to reduce regulatory burdens, by contrast, were few and far between in 2010. Only five significant rulemakings adopted last year reduced burdens. Of these, cost reductions were quantified for only two, for reported savings of $1.5 billion. This leaves a net increase in the regulatory burden of $26.5 billion.

Moreover, one of the five measures—though technically deregulatory in nature—relates to an unparalleled expansion of EPA powers. Due to its determination last year that greenhouse gases are pollutants, the agency is moving to set emissions limits for such gases. To follow the standards in the Clean Air Act would corral millions of currently unregulated “facilities,” including offices and apartment buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, houses of worship, theaters, and sports arenas into the EPA regulatory regime. In hopes of quieting political outrage over so sweeping a dictate, the EPA’s “Tailoring Rule” set a minimum threshold level for regulation. Therefore, fewer facilities would be subject to permit requirements, making imposition of the emissions limits more feasible. Rather than reduce overall burdens, this action actually facilitated increased burdens.

It should also be noted that reported costs are likely minimized by allowing agencies to make the initial calculations, thereby casting their proposals in the best light. This could have a substantial impact: Overall, there is evidence that agencies systematically understate regulatory costs. In its 2005 report to Congress, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs conducted ex ante analyses of regulations to test the accuracy of cost-benefit estimates. The study determined that regulators overestimated benefits 40 percent of the time and underestimated costs 34 percent of the time.

Even a finding that costs exceed benefits does not necessarily stop a new rule from going into effect. For instance, in evaluating new regulations for train-control systems, the Department of Transportation identified costs of $477.4 million, and benefits of a mere $22 million. Nevertheless, the regulations were adopted.

The EPA is prohibited by law from considering costs in devising regulations under the Clean Air Act and other major environmental statutes. Thus, the agency recently set new, more stringent standards on emissions of nitrogen dioxide without formally considering the economic or technical feasibility of compliance. 

Many, many more regulations are in the pipeline. According to one estimate, financial regulation legislation recently adopted by Congress, known as the Dodd–Frank bill, will require 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies.So wide-ranging are regulators’ new powers, in fact, that the Department of Health and Human Services has failed to meet one-third of the deadlines mandated by the new federal health care law, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

It looks like unstopped, the Obamanites will either tax you out of business, regulate you out of business or just plain make sure you don't have the will or the resources to continue in business. Taken in context, bureaucrats have found the magic formula to ensure that people are more beholden to the gov't for their financial well-being than the fruits of their own labor and risk-taking. That makes it all un-American and just plain bad. Our prosperity will be more short-lived than a Kardashian divorce.

rick perry

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