The thing about a FREE market is – it’s irrational. Free markets are very poor at preparing for changes. But interestingly, are good at adjusting to change, after a good hard long deadly panic of course. This is why the best economies are wisely regulated free markets.

There are two big problems with using oil as a critical energy source. First, it’s getting more ‘expensive.’ 100 years ago you could recover oil with an A-frame, a pick-axe, shovel, and a few buckets. Later we implemented mechanical systems to help. We spent a small amount of energy for each barrel of oil recovered. Currently, especially in off-shore locations and in Alaska, or when we ship it half way around the globe or from places we have to defend with aircraft carriers, we spend a large % of that barrel of oil just recovering it. We’re on the path to spending 1 barrel of oil’s worth of energy to recover 1 barrel. It won’t be long before we’re paying for 2 or 3 units of energy for every unit of gas we pump. Second, it’s unstable. Oil requires a LONG messy network to reach the gas station.

Also, there are better uses for oil and natural gas than burning it. Burning it is stupid. We make plastic out of natural gas, yet we burn it inefficiently to heat our homes. Coal is one of our nation’s greatest assets. But like the Liberals say, it is damaging to recover and poisons our environment.

Forcing energy prices up will cause serious damage to the economy. Destroy it – probably not. What we need to cause is energy costs to come down. For this to happen we need alternatives to expensive oil, gas, and coal. For this we need innovation. And for innovation we need investment – which requires a strong economy. People don’t risk money in bad economies with high energy costs, not until they absolutely must. It’s that FREE market irrationality. What we’ve learned from Europe’s ill-fated green energy revolution is to invest in green innovation – and not to pour tax dollars into expensive Chinese-made solar panels and wind turbines.

Increasing costs are inevitable. Taping Alaska isn’t going to do jack-diddly to bring down energy costs. Some have suggested building toll booths and tracking devices on vehicles to charge drivers based on their use of roads.  This is an intriguing idea – but I also find the idea off-putting of building more bureaucracy and unnecessary infrastructure that can track people. It’s far-sighted in that – one day – we won’t be pumping gas but we’ll still need to pay for road maintenance. We’ll be charging up some super fuel cell and driving on it for the whole week. But why make it so complicated? Just tax the damn energy directly. That’s what annoys me about income tax, cap n trade, and all the other business… Just tax it directly. Let us see it on the receipt – ffs. We currently have a cents per gallon tax on gas to pay for roads. Why not just make it a % per dollar? Or tax the miles directly. Or tax the electricity directly.

The market, on its own, will make the transition to green and renewable energies in its own timing and in a way that will not tear the country and world to shreds in the process. The problem is, although we might not be left in shreds, such a free-market transition will probably kill us all or have us riding horses around. The free market will use the cheapest source until a crisis arises, then panic, then crash.

We need more than market forces to get us away from these fuels. I’d rather have all this coal in the ground 100 years from now anyway. What if there’s a world-wide disaster 50 years from now? One so big it knocks us back into the iron age, like a solar flare that fries all our electronics – transformers, cars, and computers. We’ll need that coal to get going again. If we use the energy plan proposed by many of using current fuels until the market naturally transitions to green energires, ALL the energy accessibly without space-age technology will be gone from the earth in our lifetime.

So what’s the solution? Glad you asked. I’ve been pondering this for a while.

First step: Increase efficiency.
We currently use energy in a truly reckless way.
1. Engineer traffic! Replace stop-lights with roundabouts, or at least time the lights in some rational way where roundabouts aren’t suitable.

2. Do you ever wonder why, when you’re sitting there, nudging along in a traffic backup, why the fuck half the miserable freeway is cut off by orange barrels – without anyone doing any ******** work? It’s simple. If you’ve ever chatted with anyone from a civil engineering firm, they’ll explain that basically, they set out the barrels a few days early in an effort to ‘train’ the traffic. They don’t move the fucking barrels before they leave for the same reason. Well – that’s just stupid. Someone be creative for Pete’s sake. Traffic backups guzzle fuel.

3. Let’s figure a way to start converting regular furnaces into internal combustion engines. If you’re burning the gas, you’ll get the heat either way. Burning it through an engine will give you extra heat in the form of friction, and allow you to generate free electricity.

4. We need a smart power grid. Imagine a grid set up like servers on the internet, with internal combustion engines on every node (homes, businesses) – counting the vehicles, maybe more. If a plant goes down, a neighborhood’s power could come from its own furnaces. Regardless, a smart grid would save something greater than 15% on energy waste, I’ve heard. This would also allow individuals to sell energy back with panels and turbines.

5. Move from long-distance truck transit to rail, specifically, develop short-line rail, which is the rail infrastructure that links the trans-continental rail to factories and truck-docks. National passenger rail is as realistic of an idea as ideas relying on unicorns and their magical powers.

Second step: Increase innovation.
Innovation requires investment. And even the Liberals seem to be coming around to the idea that investment in creating new energy technology is a better way to waste other people’s money than dumping it into expensive current green energy. So should we tax people and have congress write a bill and create bureaucracies for the purposes of distributing grants to promising efforts? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! We’ve learned that lesson, haven’t we????? Congress will simply use such power to throw money into their own precious districts and reward contributions.

What about an independent non-partisan board that evaluates and grades promising submissions from green energy entrepreneurs in an effort – blah blah blah…. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously people! Who do you think you /we are?

Here it is. I’m about to tell you how to solve America’s energy problem. Are you ready? I’m not sure you are. Are you sitting down? Go ahead and take a seat. Take a deep breath. Hey, why not go grab a glass of ice-water and give it a quick sip. OK? Ready?

First, we need to define “Green Energy.” Now, this is important. This definition has to be wide enough to encompass the unimaginable ideas of the near future, fuel cells, fusion reactors, algae farms, space elevators, and at the same time not leave accounting holes (usually the result of specific exception for specific congressional votes) that allow any fool business with a sign on a storage room door reading, “Solar Panel Division” to call their body shop a green energy business. Having a pet chicken doesn’t classify you as a farmer – kind of thing…

This definition needs to be simple too. You shouldn’t have to hire an accountant and an attorney to read and follow it.

Once we have this definition, we can deal the death blow to high energy prices and pollution in one mighty scratch of the pen. All we have to do, is create one simple exception in the tax code that makes any investment in “Green Energy” to be totally and utterly free from taxes. Specifically, no capital gains tax, no corporate tax, no income tax on green energy research or production.

We might as well not make the tax code any more needlessly complex. We’d still have retail sales tax on actual green items, panels and turbines and stuff, just not on research investment and manufacturing in the US.

This would be profound. If anything, problems might include other areas being starved for investment. But the speed of green innovation would suddenly turn rapid with billions of highly targeted and well planned dollars being invested. With the new cheap energy, we could stop wasting money on expensive dirty energy and have more to pay off China and the rest.

I was watching a show called Future Weapons. There is this company called Pinnacle Armor developing body armor called Dragon Skin that is constructed like fish scales – a bunch of overlapping discs. It works because the discs are about indestructible and because they overlap and spread out the force.

This shit is mighty-serious. The guy was testing it by shooting it repeatedly with 5.56mm and 7.62mm steel-core rifle rounds. Zero penetration. So they put the test dummy on top of a grenade and blew it up. It tore up the rig and made a mess of the armor – butzero penetration. Of course, your brain would be liquid. Regardless, technology has finally given us actual personal armor again. It’s actual bullet proof.

After seeing this show I thought: Why isn’t the military using this armor? Right now we use heavy steel plates and brittle ceramic stuff. Well, of course, it’s bureaucratic political bullshit. First, Dec 20,2006, the National Institute of Justice certified the armor. Then, in August 3, 2007, for some reason, someone reviewed the tests and declared it wasn’t enough data to support Pinnacle Armor’s 6-year warranty. August 20, 2007 the US Test Laboratory tested nine six-year-old Dragon Skin vests. All the ballistics tests passed. Pinnacle resubmitted their vest for certification, but the application was rejected because the tests had not been properly documented. WTF?

I also read hear-say about problems with the armor in hot weather – the scales don’t rebound quickly enough when multiple pieces of shrapnel or bullets are hitting them. FFS though, Uncle Sam, give these assholes some money and stop jerking them around. In the next decade I want to see actual bulletproof coveralls with climate control – talk about saving money on healthcare.

The S & P recently  lowered the US credit rating outlook.  The reason for the downgrade, in a nutshell, was:

The United States has a large debt and deficit compared with other highly rated nations, and unlike with those other nations “the path to addressing [the debt and deficit] is not clear to us.”

That’s kind of a leadership – dare I say image – problem, isn’t it??? lol Glenn Beck has been warning of this for two years. lol

I think liberals and democrats have some wrong thinking on the idea of paying higher taxes. Like I said a couple posts ago, rich people will be investors, if not outright businesses. Taxing them takes carefully targeted investment out of the market, and then tries to ‘invests’ it otherwise according to bureaucracy. If the electorate think society needs something that only government should provide, why can’t regular people pay and even share for it – minus financially immovable people of course?

Also, there’s no reason we can’t get the economy back to 90s strength. It’s going to take risk and new ideas of course, and taxes just slow all that down. Once we’re back to 90s strength, then you can start raising taxes on The Rich. It’s actually a good idea then, in order to slow the economy down, to prevent all kinds of goofy crap, and build up a surplus to use in the next downturn.

That’s the idea anyway. The problem is wanker politicians who spend and pump regardless. Bill Clinton explained on an interview I heard a while ago that the reason the housing market was pumped up so huge was because it was the only thing growing our economy after the tech bubble blew. We kept low interest rates even though the housing market was hot as hell – getting people buying and selling homes, stuffing all the cash up in the air to be counted. Ooooooh, Mr. Politician, you’re making the economy so good – yeah!

Since that embarrassing story got out about sleeping air traffic controllers, the government no doubt wanted to make a fancy looking big change – not something appropriate and rational. It’s like Obama calling for a moratorium on gulf oil drilling after the Deep Water Horizon leak.

Here’s one good government decision that’s I’ve experienced. Several years ago, I was complaining about a decision my city made. The fill tax had been raised – a tax on tonnage put into land fills. Well, the city needed to find a way to come up with the extra money for this tax. You might think, since the tax was on fill, they would have done something about reducing fill, because the thing is, a lot of these hillbillies around here throw out a mountain of shit every week. But no, they looked to other ways of paying this tax…

Their decision was to cut some expenses. Smart right? But the expense they cut was recycling pickup. Genius!!!

I’m not sure if Republicans got elected in the city government during the sweep or what – but someone got some sense over there. Our refuse collection has been privatized. We each get two 80 gallon bins – one for recycling and one for trash. If you want another bin for your inordinate amounts billbilly garbage, you have to pay a monthly charge. The bins are tracked with a radio chip, and there is some kind of reward system for amounts of recycling. The bins are emptied with an automated truck. I’m excited to see the first pickup.

Those bins are so big… It would take me six months to fill them.

I found an extremely interesting report the other day: Large changes in fiscal policy: taxes versus spending. It’s about a Harvard study on large changes in fiscal policy, and how those policies – tax cuts versus spending – have grown the economy.

I’ve been arguing for some time now the merits of tax cuts, mainly that they spur economic growth and result in increased tax revenue. I’ve presented a variety of historical evidence. I’ve offered logical paths as to why. I’ve been met with unfair, illogical, emotional, and most often, ideologically motivated opposition while at the same time being accused of being ideologically motivated myself.

This study, by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna, is not political in nature. Here is an excerpt from the report’s introduction:

The first question, namely whether tax cuts or spending increases are more expansionary is a critical one, and economists strongly disagree about the answer. It is fair to say that we know relatively little about the effect of fiscal policy on growth and in particular about the so called fiscal multipliers, namely how much one dollar of tax cuts or spending increases translates in terms of GDP. The issue is very politically charged as well, since right of center economists and policymakers believe in tax cuts and the left of center ones believe in spending increases. While the differences are often rooted in different views about the role of government and inequality, not so much about the size of fiscal multipliers, both sides also wish to “sell” their prescription as growth enhancing and more so than the other policy. Unfortunately both sides can’t be right at the same time!

It’s worth reading the entire article, very interesting and educational. It’s only 15 pages long, the other 21 pages being references, data appendix, and charts. But you can skip to page 14 and just read the conclusion – or – if you’re really lazy you can just hit the summary conclusion:

We examine the evidence on episodes of large stances in fiscal policy, both in cases of fiscal stimuli and in that of fiscal adjustments in OECD countries from 1970 to 2007. Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based upon spending increases. As for fiscal adjustments those based upon spending cuts and no tax increases are more likely to reduce deficits and debt over GDP ratios than those based upon tax increases. In addition, adjustments on the spending side rather than on the tax side are less likely to create recessions. We confirm these results with simple regression analysis.

This is yet more proof that tax cuts are more effective than spending in boosting the economy. If the language is to fancy, here’s a simplification: Tax cuts are more likely than spending to improve the economy. Spending cuts without tax increases are more likely to decrease the debt than tax increases. And reducing spending is less likely than increasing taxes to create recessions.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that fiscal policy should focus only on what will improve the economy. There are other things to consider. But during a recession, all those other things have to wait.

What does this report mean? Well – for one, it means the stimulus bill was ill conceived. And two, it means advocates for big government lose credibility when they claim government can create jobs or economic growth by spending our dollars for us. We’re better at growing the economy by spending and investing those dollars ourselves.

Read the entire article here: Large changes in fiscal policy: taxes versus spending.

The Farm Bill is an intrusive and massive stack of new legislations that will increase taxes and food prices at the stores while enriching the pockets of Monsanto and George Soros, who is the second largest holder in the company. Obviously, Monsanto Company is pushing hard for its passing. Ironic that the United States FDA Deputy Commissioner is none other than Michael Taylor, appointed by Obama himself. Taylor is a former employee of Monsanto. He served as a leading lobbyist for Monsanto Company. He previously also worked in other roles in the FDA and Federal Government.

This is so insane it makes me want to scream. This corrupt bloated government is so out of control and feels they have so little accountability to the people that they don’t even try to cover up these blatant connections and ties. Who the hell do these worthless petty criminals think we are? The government has gotten as brash as it has bloated. They just got their asses handed to them in the midterm elections, and they are still pulling this crap! Send Washington a message; Write your representatives and Senators and tell them to vote this pile of shit down!

Here’s what a Noisy Dove Contributor suggested:

Dear Senator/Representative,
Please vote down the “Farm Bill”, which will increase taxes, food prices, and intrusion into the lives of Americans. The Monsanto Company, who is strongly in favor of the bill, stands to make a fortune off this bill and all the new unnecessary and intrusive legislations in it. This is OUTRAGEOUS, seeing that the FDA deputy commissioner is Michael Taylor, a former employee of Monsanto. Taylor was a LOBBYIST for Monsanto! This is RIDICULOUS! The corruption and slimy work of the federal government is disgusting and you can help start setting it straight by voting this horrible Farm Bill down! If you intend to remain in your current position next election, vote no on the Farm Bill, or I will not support you and rally everyone I know to vote you right out of office. If you vote for this bill, you are a part of the corruption and problem in the government and do not deserve to represent anyone. If you support the Farm Bill, that will clearly indicate you approve, support, and encourage the government corruption, which is not the kind of character we the people deserve in office. Get this one right!

Sincerely, XOXO

Hey Noisy Dove,
Quack! Just kidding. But seriously though, speaking of quacks, I’ve now head Obama referred to as a fascist, a liberal, a commie, and socialist. These aren’t synonyms, right? So which is he?

Right, they’re not synonyms. But no man is described by one word alone. We’ve had these names thrown around quite a bit lately, mostly toward Obama and his side of the isle. Some people agree on the description while others disagree – and most of this confusion is due to semantics.

Socialism
So lets start with the most frequently used and most semantically abused adjective: socialist. Socialism has earned it’s self a wide definition over the past century. Karl Marx imagined that Socialism would replace Capitalism, as Capitalism replaced Feudalism. And his idea of Socialism was a path to pure Communism – where the workers would take over the means of production and form a “workers’ democracy.”

Of course, Marx didn’t calculate properly for human motivation. He focused too much on the workers’ suffering – their toil for minimal pay under the profiting entrepreneur. He envisioned a world where all workers were guaranteed minimal bounty, and ended the entrepreneur.

As it turned out, prime examples being the USSR, Cuba, and Early Communist China, the minimal bounty, to each according to his need, from each according to his ability, results in a goalless and unfulfilling life. Killing the entrepreneur killed the creator of wealth in order to establish a system of distribution of that wealth.

Today the National Socialist Party, and numerous other organizations, advocates a similar idea, but they have the whole world in mind. They envision a single world “workers’ democracy” with no national borders. This is one end of the Socialist spectrum.

On the other end we have the political parties of certain European countries. I don’t feel honest in granting these Socialists ideological credibility. I’ve become more and more convinced their brand of socialism is little more than populous pandering run-a-muck, shameless vote-buying – elect me and you’ll get this for –free-.

These Socialist political parties advocate for workers rights, including things like vacation time and bonuses. They push for more and bigger entitlements, more government control over business, create numerous lumbering bureaucracies, and to finance these cash-hungry ideas they tax to the limit – and beyond -business and anyone willing to create all this wealth the politicians are promising everyone. They don’t out-right kill the entrepreneur – they attempt to yolk it in order to pull the rest of us. This is the type of Socialist Obama is.

Obama talks about “spreading the wealth” and how people can make too much money – these are Socialist ideas. They come from the idea that capitalism isn’t fair, and it’s government’s job to tax those creating wealth in order to give wealth to those who aren’t.

Communism
Communism is the most inflammatory of the four terms, mostly because we’ve fought a few wars against them, some cold some hot. But if you want to be a jerk, Communism can be used to describe any group working together as a single entity. So hippy-farms and monasteries would count.

Of course, Communism in political and economic terms today describes a military dictatorship, or a government originating from a military dictatorship usually resulting from a successful populous revolution. This describes Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union.

However, if we follow the original intention of Marx, and the self-proclaimed Communist states throughout the past century, Communism is a never-achieved idea. According to the Communist Manifesto, the state must first be overtaken and the people conformed – with force if necessary. (And in all cases bloody awful force was – apparently – necessary) Then, after society has conformed to the Communist ideals, the state would naturally fall away – unneeded.

In actual effect, Communist revolutions, and their necessary force, have resulted in military dictatorships, always under an iconic ruler who is paranoid and ruthless – he had to be. If anything isn’t working out, a factory, a battle – it’s due to neglect of the Communist ideals.

Obama doesn’t fit in here. But men implementing philosophies very similar to Obama’s have enabled these destructive attempts at national Communism.

Fascist
Next we have Fascist. I think this one confuses people the most – I know it does me. This might have a lot to do with the Nazi movement in 1930s-40s Germany, which was a Fascist movement.

Many people see Fascism as the far-right of the political spectrum. This isn’t sensible though. Fascism totally rejects individualism. It’s a political and economic philosophy that can combine philosophies from either side of the political spectrum, as long as the society is organized and highly controlled as one unit – all people serving a single national identity and philosophy – no matter what that philosophy is.

In actual practice, in fact, Fascism ends up being “big government,” the thing right-wingers are always trying to hinder. And in practice, Socialism is Fascism in how it pursues Communism. The only thing really right-wing about Fascism is in how Fascists are willing and highly motivated to defend their nation.

Nazi Germany is a great example of this. People call the Nazis right-wingers, but in form and function the Nazi society ran like an efficient version of the Communist Soviets. Instead of workers revolting against factory owners, the Nazis attacked the Jews and their neighboring countries – stripping them of their wealth to fulfill their ideals.

People were calling Bush a Fascist. This was mostly due to going to war and passing legislation that encroached upon civil liberties. But if that qualified Bush as a Fascist, then Obama also is, since he’s embraced Bush’s expansion of Executive power and the idea of greater government control and national unity.

Liberal
I saved Liberal for last because it’s the easiest and least interesting term. Yes. Obama is definitely a Liberal. And I’m ignoring the numerous uses of the lower-case liberal here. I’m talking about the political term, the one interchangeable with Progressive. A general definition would be this: People should be free but government needs to own that freedom to keep it safe.

You’re free to make money, but government must own that money so they can inspect you, insure your mistakes, and distribute wealth to people who aren’t making enough money to be free according to social standards.

Hey, wouldn’t you know, I realized today I do still have a little respect for Obama still. I thought it was all gone – beaten out of me, blood and screams – but it’s not.

I heard how Gibbs answered the question about removing the tax exemption on that subsidy big companies were getting to keep retirees on their prescription drug plan – the one that saves the gov’t money. Because those companies have to count the lose this quarter, and it’s in the hundreds of millions in loses, and hundreds or thousands of lost jobs, and so on.

lol Well, Gibbs says they just closed a ‘loop-hole’. (Right, because that’s how things should be. You get taxed on your money, you buy something with what’s left. To encourage you to buy something particular, the government gives some money, and then the government taxes that money. LOL

And then Gibbs claimed that the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs are all figureblown out of proportion. How would Gibbs or the Whitehouse have any idea? No one has given them any figures yet!

So I was pulling some veggies out of the refrigerator while I was listening to this, and though to myself, “Obama’s going to can his ass, we won’t see him in a second term, Obama’s got no excess loyalty like Bush…” Then I realized such a though would require that I trust Obama’s judgment enough to assume he’d can a child like the stammering and inappropriate Captain Weird Gibbs of the Strange Brigade. lol “Yes we’ll can.”

Overall I don’t think the specific concern (“if doctors would be required to accept forced-on-us healthcare plans”) would become a huge problem. I know what this argument is getting at though. Medicare doesn’t pay doctors as much as private insurance. If their was a government option, it would pay as much as medicare. Cuts in medicare spending are a constant threat to control costs. “Cuts in medicare spending” translates exactly to paying physicians less for specific services. I’d be a lot more concerned if the government option was still part of the bill.

I’m not sure if private insurance will start paying doctors less if this bill passes. The way I understand it, private insurance companies pay more because of competition. They want patients to buy their insurance; doctors won’t accept insurance that doesn’t pay them well; they pay well so doctors will accept their insurance and patients will buy it. It gets more complicated with insurance through an employer, but that’s the basic idea. Hospitals and doctors accept medicare for a number of reasons. Money is one. A lot of the rest is pure human compassion.

As far as the federal government requiring physicians to accept a specific type of insurance… We doctors pay for our own training, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The government had better pay us back if they want to put such financial limits on how we practice. We’re not government employees. Besides, we have a monopoly on medical know-how. That’s a lot of power. They’d better not try to push us around.