First you kill the fathers, then you kill their sons. There aren't usually enough men left for a third iteration

How The World Has Worked Since the Dawn of Time

AF2011-A1 Double Barrel .45 Auto
Peace Through Superior Firepower

"We are a bit confused about Syria," I began. "Its leader, Bashar al-Assad, is slaughtering his own people to suppress an uprising. And he is allied to Iran, which wants to acquire nuclear weapons and dominate the region. If we overthrow Assad, Sunni radicals will replace him, and take revenge on the Syrian minorities. And a radical Sunni government in Syria would ally itself with the Sunni minority next door in Iraq and make civil war more likely."

"I don't understand the question," Richelieu replied.

"Everyone is killing each other in Syria and some other places in the region, and the conflict might spread. What should we do about it?"

"How much does this cost you?"

"Nothing at all," I answered.

"Then let them kill each other as long as possible, which is to say for 30 years or so. Do you know," the ghastly Cardinal continued, "why really interesting wars last for 30 years? That has been true from the Peloponnesian War to my own century. First you kill the fathers, then you kill their sons. There aren't usually enough men left for a third iteration."

"We can't go around saying that," I remonstrated.

"I didn't say it, either," Richelieu replied. "But I managed to reduce the population of the German Empire by half in the space of a generation and make France the dominant land power in Europe for two centuries.

"Isn't there some way to stabilize these countries?" I asked.

Richelieu looked at me with what might have been contempt. _Spengler_via_AmericanDigest

Global politics as played by powerful states has always been callous, cruel, and without mercy. The modern approach of the USA, with the attempt to distinguish combatant from civilian, and a focus on protecting troublesome people from themselves and each other -- this is neither historic nor sustainable.

The US should either stay out of petty internecine squabbles, or it should adopt the realistic approach taken by empires throughout history -- allow potential enemies to eliminate each other, with a bit of assistance if needed. The anti-war approach is often the crueler and more final solution.

Never accept a pacifist at face value. Something much darker often lurks beneath. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Life has never been easy, or fair, for the most part. There has never been such a thing as lasting peace nor justice, and there will never be as long as humans exist. There is only a constant striving and an attempt at first overcoming, then balance. Throughout the eons, kindness and restraint were apt to get you killed.

Videa h/t Mish

Ron Paul is threatening the status quo by being competitive in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. It is understandable why the Republican Party establishment is blasting away at Paul with both barrels. But even Democratic Party press outlets such as the Washington Post and the Huffington Post have been running hit pieces on Ron Paul.

It seems that Ron Paul threatens everyone who feeds at the public trough.

The Left is the New Inquisition: Escape is the Only Option

A person's politics and his religion are two aspects of his philosophy, which reflect his personality in many ways. If a person's philosophy borrows too heavily from the herd, or the "zeitgeist," it is likely the person is not worth knowing, since there is little original about him. The inquisition is the enforcement mechanism for a society's dominant memes -- the means for maintaining control. It is only the escapees from the inquisition who are worth knowing.

Concerning a recent escapee from the leftist asylum, playwrite David Mamet:

...[Mamet] agreed to write an essay on the play’s politics for the Village Voice. In the essay Mamet confessed that many of his previous political beliefs now struck him as reflexive and unthinking: The country that existed in his once-fevered liberal imagination—a dystopia crippled by crises that required the immediate deployment of the federal government—bore little resemblance to the country in which he actually lived, where people interacted smoothly in the marketplace to their mutual benefit. He had come to realize that corporations were good for providing the necessities of life. The “Big Bad Military” of his youthful fancy was, he discovered, an organization built on courage and honor.

For the moment, he told Voice readers, he was searching for “a human understanding of the political process .  .  . in which I believe I may be succeeding.”

Voice editors hyped Mamet’s piece with an attention getting headline, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.’ ” The essay was much milder than its title. It was the work of a man in mid-conversion. _TWS

Mamet is different from his former leftist asylum inmates only in his honesty and willingness to see the world from different points of view -- as if testing them for how well the POVs fit the outside world. Most dogmatists and true believers are unable to step outside their own deepest beliefs in this way, and so they are doomed to remain mired within their own dysfunctional cage of beliefs.

One of Mamet’s favorite books has been Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, published during the First World War by the British social psychologist Wilfred Trotter, inventor of the term “herd instinct.”

“Trotter says the herd instinct in an animal is stronger even than the preservation of life,” Mamet said. “So I was watching the [2008] debates. My liberal friends would spit at the mention of Sarah Palin’s name. Or they would literally mime the act of vomiting. We’re watching the debates and one of my friends pretends to vomit and says, ‘I have to leave the room.’ I thought, oh my god, this is Trotter! This is the reaction of the herd instinct. When a sheep discovers a wolf in the fold, it vomits to ward off the attacker. It’s a sign that their position in the herd is threatened.”

Mamet runs into the herd instinct every day.

“I’ve given galleys of The Secret Knowledge to some friends. They say, ‘I’m scared to read it.’ I say, ‘Why should you be afraid to read something?’

“What are they afraid of? They’re afraid of losing their ability to stay in the herd. That’s what I found in myself. It can be wrenching when you start to think away from the herd.”

Mamet’s disdain for consensus, for received wisdom of any kind, has been evident in nearly every aspect of his career. _TWS

Clearly Mamet knows what he is talking about. The transition out of the herd is truly wrenching. And if one is compelled by one's profession to mix with the herd on a daily basis, the emotional threat one represents to the herd is often written on the faces of herd members.

Mamet's new book is called The Secret Knowledge.

Village Voice: Why I Am No Longer a Brain Dead Liberal by David Mamet

It is unfortunate that Andrew Ferguson entitled his piece on Mamet, Converting Mamet, and refers in the piece to "the conversion" of Mamet. Conversion is too often no better than escaping from one prison into another. Rather the story should be about "the escape of Mamet." Freedom is quite different from true believerhood. No two free men think exactly alike, whereas the inquisition -- or Political Correctness, if you will -- is installed to guarantee that on important issues (the ever changing talking points), correct-thinking persons will think the same thoughts.

Unions, Failing Cities and States, Organised Extortion . . .

Unions have always been difficult to distinguish from organised crime. Violent extortion is violent extortion, no matter how you paint it. But over recent decades unions have found more subtle ways to choke the life out of taxpayers. It has taken a prolonged economic recession under a president who owes his political life to unions/organised malefactors/machine politicians for the tangled web to become more clear.

There are many reasons why so many of America's cities are dying, and why so many states are desperately seeking paths to bailout and bankruptcy protections. Thanks to public sector unions, the credit ratings of many US cities and states are approaching junk bond status, and soon they will reach the limits to borrowing unless the sugar daddy of American unions can wrangle a massive and unaffordable bailout for the states and cities from an increasingly hostile US Congress.

Here is a short list of just a few cities that are in trouble:

• Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Flint, Michigan
• South Bend, Indiana
• Detroit, Michigan
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Rochester, New York
• Hialeah, Florida
• Vallejo, California
• New Orleans, Louisiana

_Newsweek

Their populations are fleeing, their tax base is shrinking, businesses are bailing out, and unions are doubling down on demands from their hand-picked political poodles.

Something has to give.

Thomas Sowell on His New Book "Dismantling America"

Sowell is one of the most incisive observers of the decay and decline of the American experiment. It is crucial for ordinary Americans to understand the dynamic process of intentional dismantling and decay of 230 year old constitutional protections.

The ideas behind the constitution were ingenious compromises between libertarianism and authoritarianism, but for those ideas to survive they require a substrate of knowledgeable and wise humans of basic competency. Unfortunately, that substrate has declined. It is declined to the point that a government of the size of the modern day US cannot be maintained, and will necessarily self-destruct.

Liberals vs Conservatives: Psychology's Modern Morality

video via Who is John Galt
This TED talk is from Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor and morality researcher at the University of Virginia. It is useful as a type of "out of the mind" view of human morality, and how human minds may be innately attracted to one pole or another, and how a mind might be primed toward one strange attractor or another.

Your blog host has traveled a path that has wound its way through conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, eastern philosophy of detachment, pacifist anarchist, and several other moral and quasi-moral perspectives on reality.

Freedom of beliefs and religion is paramount, as long as the religion focuses on the spiritual and does not delve into political or economic control too much.

A religion that attempts to enforce morality, politics, economics, and the rest of existence for everyone in the world, is not truly a religion, but is a totalitarian philosophy -- a system of enslavement of body and mind.

But a system of morality that is incapable of providing individuals and societies with the will to defend themselves against an onslaught of hostile outsiders, is useless or worse.

As to the middle ground, that is often determined by the stage of history that a society is passing through at the moment. Get back to me on that.

Obama Pelosi Train Wreck On Schedule to Demolish Grand Central Station Along With the Rest of the Economic System

The following article was published by US Congressman Paul Ryan in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It discusses some topics which put the finger of blame for the ongoing economic disaster within the US and the western world where it belongs -- on the statists in control.

Despite watching European welfare states collapse under the weight of their own debt, those running Washington are leading us down precisely the same path. With the debt surpassing $13 trillion, we can no longer avoid having a serious discussion about how to address the unsustainable growth of government.

Unfortunately, rather than make meaningful contributions to this conversation and bring solutions to the table, Democrats have attempted to win this debate by default. Relying on demagoguery and distortion, the left would prefer that entitlements - often labeled the "third rail" of American politics - remain untouchable, and the column by Paul Krugman of The New York Times is indicative of the partisan attacks leveled against the plan I've offered, a "Roadmap for America's Future."

When I introduced the "Roadmap," my hope was that it would spur an open and honest discussion about how our nation can address its fiscal challenges. If we are truly committed to developing real solutions, this discussion must be free of the inflammatory rhetoric that has derailed past reform efforts. In keeping with this spirit, it is necessary to clarify some of the inaccurate claims and distortions made recently regarding the "Roadmap."

The assertion by Krugman and others that the revenue assumptions in the "Roadmap" are overly optimistic and that my staff directed the Congressional Budget Office not to analyze the tax elements of the "Roadmap" is a deliberate attempt to misinform and mislead.

I asked the CBO to analyze the long-term revenue impact of the "Roadmap," but officials declined to do so because revenue estimates are the jurisdiction of the Joint Tax Committee. The Joint Tax Committee does not produce revenue estimates beyond the 10-year window, and so I worked with Treasury Department tax officials in setting the tax reform rates to keep revenues consistent with their historical average.

What critics such as Krugman fail to understand is that our looming debt crisis is driven by the explosive growth of government spending - not from a lack of tax revenue.

Krugman also recycles the disingenuous claim that the "Roadmap" - the only proposal certified to make our entitlement programs solvent - would "end Medicare as we know it."

Ironically, doing nothing, as Democrats would prefer, is certain to end entitlement programs as we know them, and in the process, beneficiaries would face painful cuts to these programs. Conversely, the "Roadmap" would pre-empt these cuts in a way that prevents unnecessary disruptions for current beneficiaries.

It reforms Medicare and Social Security so those in and near retirement (55 and older) will see no change in their benefits while preserving these programs for future generations of Americans. We do not have a choice on whether Medicare and Social Security will change from their current structure - the true debate is if and how these programs will be made solvent.

Far from the "radical" label that critics have tried to pin on it, the Medicare reforms in the "Roadmap" are based on suggestions made by the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, chaired by Sen. John Breaux (D-La.). That commission recommended in 1999 "modeling a system on the one members of Congress use to obtain health care coverage for themselves and their families." With respect to Medicare and Social Security, the "Roadmap" puts in place systems similar to those members of Congress have. There has been support across the political spectrum for these types of reforms.

By dismissing credible proposals as "flimflam," critics such as Krugman contribute nothing to the debate. Standing on the sidelines shouting "boo" amounts to condemning our people to a future of managed decline. Absent serious reform, spending on entitlement programs and interest on government debt will consume more and more of the federal budget, resulting in falling standards of living and higher taxes as we try to sustain an ever larger social welfare state.

The American people deserve a serious and civil discussion about how to reduce our exploding debt and deficit. By relying on ad-hominem attacks and discredited claims, Krugman and others are missing an opportunity to contribute to this discussion and are only polarizing and paralyzing attempts to solve our nation's fiscal problems.

I reject the notion that these problems are too big or too difficult to tackle or that it is acceptable to leave future generations of Americans an inferior standard of living than we enjoy. The "Roadmap" shows that a European-style social welfare state is not inevitable, that it is not too late for our nation to choose a different path and that we can do so in a way that preserves our freedoms and traditions.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) represents the 1st Congressional District. _MJS

Black Tea Party Members Attacked by Hostile Media

The media in America is biased against anything that is not of a radical leftist, redistributionist, hyper-statist nature.

For that reason, American media must be diced, sliced, sifted, stirred, sauteed, baked, boiled, broiled, pounded, flamed, and deep-fried until the foul stench and taste of statist slaveholder-elitism is eradicated. We have a long, long way to go.

Can California Handle the Truth? Mickey Kaus Will Find Out

Kaus reveals a lot of California truth in a very short campaign ad. Can the people of California handle it, or will they all faint dead away?

The problem of public sector unions destroying the budgets of county, city, and state governments is not unique to California. But because of California's problem with illegal immigration, the problem is likely to come to a head there first.

Leftist politicians in bed with public sector unions is a destructive combination that will prove deadly to a large portions of Democratic Party dominated US. New Jersey was desperate enough to elect a tough-talking Republican to the governorship in what was clearly a no-win, last gasp survival reflex. New Jersey may actually luck out, if their governor can survive all the thuggish union (and union proxy) attacks against him.

The other states, counties and cities in the same situation, who lack the survival instincts of New Jersey, may not make it.

America Cannot Afford Stupidity of Obama Pelosi

Too broke to be this stupid? Mark Steyn makes a convincing case that America can no longer afford the stupid policies of an ever expanding welfare state fascism.

If your children are normal and healthy, they will outgrow the socialism they have been taught in government schools and universities. But if you have neglected any aspect of their upbringing, they may be stuck in a leftist zomboid stupour for the rest of their lives.

Children in an affluent culture are apt to grow up lazy and dull-witted. Sometimes wise parents will intervene to help their children learn work values. Most parents are not wise.

And so society is stuck with a glut of mal-educated nincompoops, who have no idea why employers are not lining up to hire them. At this rate, the incompetency to competency ratio is going through the roof!

From the South, illegal aliens are pouring into the country, disrupting the census, and making a lot of taxpaying rule followers very unhappy. Unhappy enough to secede? Eventually.

More people are turning to the Tea Party movement. Enough to disrupt the mainstream parties? Could be.

The Tea Party is close to mainstream, common-sense values that a majority of Americans have always adhered to. But although the mainstream media hates this fact, the excesses of Obama - Pelosi are clearly creating openings for libertarians here and there.

Kentucky Opthalmologist Rand Paul Invites Obama to Campaign

Rand Paul invited President Obama to campaign in Kentucky -- for his opponent!!!
The CNN video above presents a sharp contrast between the hysterical polemics of the current Obama Pelosi regime's Democratic Party, and a thoughtful citizen-politician from the land of Daniel Boone.

H/T News Alert

New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie: One of a Kind?

Excerpted from Mish's Global Economic Analysis:

Unfortunately I cannot find a transcript, nor is there a YouTube video but you can Watch Chrstie's Speech To League of Municipalities on public television. It starts out with an ad you have to listen to, but it quickly picks up once Christie starts speaking. He starts off in fine fashion calling the legislature's budget "Alice In Wonderland Budgeting"

Partial Transcript

In the time we got here, of the approximately $29 billion budget there was only $14 billion left. Of the $14 billion, $8 billion could not be touched because of contracts with public worker unions, because of bond covenants, because of commitments we made accepting stimulus money. So we had to find a way to save $2.3 billion in a $6 billion pool of money.

When I went into the treasurer's off in the first two weeks of my term, there was no happy meetings. They presented me with 378 possible freezes and lapses to be able to balance the budget. I accepted 375 of them.

There is a great deal of discussion about me doing that by executive action. Every day that went by was a day where money was going out the door such that the $6 billion pool was getting less and less. So something needed to be done.

People did not send me here to talk, the people sent me here to do. So we took the executive action we did to stop the bleeding.

As we move forward, and we evaluate what we need to do three weeks from now in our fiscal year 2011 budget address, you all need to understand the context from which we operate.

Our citizens are already the most overtaxed in America. US mayors hear it all the time. You know that the public appetite for ever increasing taxes has reached an end.

So when we freeze $475 million in school aid, I am hearing the reverberations from school boards saying now you are just going to force us to raise taxes.

Well there is a 4% cap in place as you all know, yet school boards continue to give out raises which exceed that cap, just on salary. Not to mention the fact that most of them get no contribution towards the spiraling increase in health care benefits.

Now, we are going to reduce spending at the state level. And we are going to continue to reduce it because we have no choice but to do so. Our obligation to you is twofold. One, is to let you know that. So I'm' letting you know that.

Second to work with the legislature to give you the tools helping you to reduce spending at the municipal level. Now the pension and benefit reform package that was passed unanimously in the senate this week begins to give you some of those tools.

But it is only a beginning.

Do we need to change some of the rules of arbitration to level the playing field to allow municipalities and school boards to have a more level sense of collective bargaining?

I think the evidence of ever increasing raises being given to public sector workers as a result of the arbitration system tells us that we do. [Applause From Mayors]

But you have to stand up and give the support to the legislators in this building to get them to do that. I can guarantee you this, that more pension and benefit reforms which I will consider arbitration reform to be one of them, are things that when they come to my desk, they will be signed. [Applause From Mayors]

Because we can no longer continue on a path where we say we are going to reduce spending at the state level but we are not going to give you any tools to do that at the municipal level and the school board level.

By the same token I am tired of hearing school superintendents and school board members complain that there are no other options than raising property taxes. There are other options.

You know, Marlboro, after a two year negotiation, they give a five year contract giving 4.5% annual salary increases to the teachers, with no contribution, zero contribution to health care benefits.

But I am sure there are people in Marlboro who have lost their jobs, who have had their homes foreclosed on, and who cannot keep a roof over their family's head there is something wrong.

You know, at some point there has to be parity. There has to be parity between what is happening in the real world, and what is happening in the public sector world. The money does not grow on trees outside this building or outside your municipal building. It comes from the hard working people of our communities who are suffering and are hurting right now.

I heard someone in the legislature say two days ago that they wanted no fare hike in New Jersey Transit, no cuts in service, and no cuts in subsidy. And I was thinking to myself, man I should have made this guy treasurer. [Laughter] Because if you can pull that one off, you're obviously magic.

This is the type of awful political rhetoric that people sent me to this city to stop.

I would love to be able to do that, but I can't. I would love to tell you that municipal aid will stay level, but it's not. And it's not because we don't have the money. So you need to prepare. You need to prepare for what's coming down the line because we have no choice but to do these things.

And so we need to get honest with each other. In this instance, the political class,for which unfortunately all of us are a member of, the political class is lagging behind the public on this. The public is ready to hear that tough choices have to be made. They're not going to like it. Don't confuse the two. But they are ready to hear the truth.

In fact, they find it refreshing to hear the truth.

They are tired of hearing, don't worry I can spare you from the pain, because they have been hearing that for a decade, as we have borrowed and spent and taxed our way into oblivion.

We have done every quick fix in the book that you can do. And now we are left, literally holding the bag.

Leadership should be about making tough decisions. I'm not hear to tell you that anything you are going to have to do as mayors, council people will be easy. But I firmly believe after spending the last year traveling around the state of New Jersey, talking to regular citizens, that this is what they are expecting us to do.

They are also expecting us to ferret out waste and abuse. But they also know that old song that waste and abuse is going to balance the budget is an old and tired one, and it's not going to.

Now we are going to have a fight about COAH. And I have engaged in that fight and I have engaged in it directly. Not only will I be fighting COAH, I will be fighting the courts too. [Applause From Mayors]

That's OK.

We need to understand we are all in this together. And you know, all of you know in your heart, what I am saying is true. You all know that these raises that are being given to public employees of all stripes, we cannot afford. You all know the state cannot continue to spend money it does not have. And you all know that the appetite for tax increases among our constituents has come to an end.

And so the path to reform and success is clear. We know what it is. We just have to have the courage to go there. What we are doing is showing people that government can work again for them, not for us. Government has worked for the political class for much too long.

There's no time left. We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax. So we merely have room left now, to do this. We are all reaching the edge of a cliff. And it reminds me a bit of that part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the had a seminal decision to make. So what did they do? They held hands and they jumped off the cliff.

We have to hold hands at every level of government, state county, municipal, school board. We have to hold hands and jump off the cliff.

I firmly believe we will land and we will be fine. It does not mean it will not be a scary ride on the way down. And it does not mean there won't be moments of fear and moments of apprehension.

But for certain, the troops of the decades of overspending and overborrowing and overtaxing have gained on us. So the ruination of New Jersey's economy, and of the quality of life we want all our citizens to have, is certain if we do not take this course.

It's time for us to hold hands and jump off the cliff. It's time for us to do the difficult things that need to be done and to stop playing the petty politics of yesterday, of lying to the people telling them they do not have to pay for it because someone else will.

We are going to make the leap because that's what people elected me to do. We are going to make the leap because it is the responsible thing to do. We are going to make the leap and we are going to do it together because that is what leadership demands for us. That is what the responsibility of the offices we hold requires of us.

Forget about the next election. Forget about the next editorial in the newspaper, and forget about the next angry letter or phone call you are going to get from someone who wants something for nothing.

One thing is certain. The alternative will lead to certain defeat. And so it is time for us to show courage, and resolve. And we can do it because we are from New Jersey. And I have never, in all my travels around the country, met a group of tougher people than we all have the opportunity to lead.

[That was the best speech on spending by any government official I have ever heard. (Mish)] _Mish

Christie is attempting to do what has to be done to save New Jersey. The governor's of Michigan, Illinois, California, New York, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada would do the same -- if they had the intestinal fortitude that Christie apparently has.

Christie personifies what the US Tea Party is all about. Too bad most of the politicians who try to attach themselves to that movement are not 1 / 10th the mensch that Christie apparently is.

Hello Unions? Good-Bye Prosperity!

Physical capital—some of it in the form of natural endowments such as a deep-water harbor, much of it the product of human investment in dwellings, factories, offices, and infrastructure—is, of course, a profoundly valuable partner in both our work and play. The greater the quantity and quality of such capital (all else the same), the higher will be our productivity and wages and the more stimulating, satisfying, and comfortable will be our leisure hours.

Such capital will, however, always be a tempting target for interest groups seeking to redistribute some of its returns from its owners to themselves. Since physical capital is immobile, it can be “taken hostage” by opportunistic actors and its value appropriated in ways that will soon be described. And since it is durable, the ill effects of such actions will generally be disguised for years or decades. _PDF CATO PDF

Cities represent a concentration of both populations and capital. Persons looking for opportunities flock to cities for jobs, higher education, and for political connections to various syndicates and collectives -- both licit and illicit. Labour unions are an important political collective, representing a bridge between licit and illicit political organisations.

Detroit was once a very wealthy city, bursting with opportunity. Among the many organisations and collectives that flocked to Detroit to grab a peace of the booty, were the labour unions.

...in the early decades of the 20th century unions usually represented less than a tenth of Detroit’s labor force. And, as we have seen, the city’s growth was spectacular, while its industrial base produced enormous wealth not just for entrepreneurs, managers, engineers, and traders, but for laborers as well. In 1930, there were 275 U.S. counties with at least 5,000 manufacturing workers within their borders. Those in Michigan’s Wayne County (which includes Detroit and adjacent cities such as Dearborn, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and River Rouge) earned average wages higher than those in all but three other counties—which contained Youngstown and Warren, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana (where the nation’s largest steelmakers had facilities). Manufacturing wages in Detroit exceeded the national average by fully 33 percent, and when compared to wages in smaller factory towns elsewhere the contrasts are even more dramatic: factory workers in El Paso, Texas, earned only 60 percent as much as those in Detroit, while workers in York, Pennsylvania earned 56 percent as much and those in Greenville, South Carolina, 40 percent as much. Detroit’s absolute and relative prosperity is difficult to reconcile with pro-union rhetoric during this period (and historic treatments since), which stressed the need for countervailing power for workers in the face of employers’ unfettered monopsony power. 

 ...Though firms in Detroit and other American industrial cities had kept unions more or less at bay for the first third of the 20th century, the onset of the Great Depression created an extremely favorable ideological and political environment for unionization. The erroneous but widespread belief that falling wages and prices were a cause of the Depression rather than necessary adjustments to restore growth in employment and output contributed (along with many other factors) to the passage of several pieces of federal legislation that encouraged the cartelization of labor and product markets. Of central importance was the National Labor Relations (or Wagner) Act, which eliminated many of the strategies commonly used by firms to defend the quasi-rent value of prospective or existing physical capital. For example, it took labor disputes out of the courts and vested enforcement of the Act in a politically appointed National Labor Relations Board; prohibited several “unfair labor practices” judged to be obstacles to organization; and enforced exclusive bargaining and union pay rates for all workers—whether union members or not—in Board-certified bargaining units. But, as we will see, by limiting defenses against the appropriative actions of labor cartels, such legislation would actually increase firms’ reliance on the remaining ones—especially redeployment of productive capital to less vulnerable locations and input substitution. Again, this would have dire consequences for “union towns.”

 _CATO _PDF

The results were particularly dire for Detroit as a union town. Several additional cities in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, and other states with strong union control have paid "the ultimate price" for their affiliation with unions: crime, poverty, capital flight . . .

Labour unions have largely plighted their troth to the US Democratic Party, as shown by campaign contributions of unions to the two majour parties.
Wherever the Democratic Party controls, labour unions rule -- and prosperity will fly away sooner than later. With the election of the radical-left Democratic Party congress and president, unions were gleeful in anticipation of a rising dominance by unions over commerce and industry nation-wide.

But something odd happened on the way to the celebrations. Somehow, "the people" -- the ones the unions and the DP are supposed to be looking out for -- began to catch on. The working classes began to understand that the DP and the unions did not really care about them, but instead were only looking to line their pockets. If the next elections were held today, neither Obama nor much of the DP contress would fare well.

Small, local unions can sometimes give workers an advantage when they are under dire circumstances. But the benefit is usually only temporary and limited to a small percentage of the population. As the ripples of union interventions spread throughout the economy as a whole, glaring problems begin to reveal themselves. Union pay and benefits rise out of all proportion to the productivity contributed by the workers themselves. Society's resources are mal-distributed as special interests take over the divvying up of the booty. Prosperity and opportunity fly out the window.

That is where many US cities find themselves today, and where the entire country will find itself if the Obama - Pelosi reich is allowed to carry out its radical agenda of "social justice" and "environmental justice."

Jews Hate Palin but America Needs a Change

America has suffered under recent changes that leave it with little hope. The hard working self-determination of America's founder population is rarely seen in a Washington DC that is focused upon stripping the US' private sector for the benefit of FOBs. The trend for America is decidedly downward -- unless the nation turns away from a corrupt dependency upon hyper-centralised government, and toward stronger, more independent-thinking citizens.

America's Jews represent a hard working and high achieving segment of the nation's population that ordinarily might appreciate a politician who espouses hard work and independence for citizens. But a majority of American Jews express outright animosity toward the Tea Party movement, and toward politicians who hold traditional American Founder's values. Why?

On one level, part of the explanation lies in misunderstanding and media-induced panic...The press ran with the story, despite its falsity, that Palin was a Buchananite...An Obama spokesman chimed in the same day, telling a Florida paper that “Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan . . . a Nazi sympathizer.”

The notion was planted that Palin herself was, by association, anti-Israel, and Jews remained convinced of that, despite her unflinching support for the Jewish state, the presence in her gubernatorial office of an Israeli flag, and her eagerness to attend a rally protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN in the fall of 2008 (which was canceled at the behest of Obama supporters, no doubt to deprive Palin of that platform)

...In her first national interview, Charles Gibson of ABC News mangled the details of a June 2008 talk she gave at the Assembly of God church she attended in her hometown of Wasilla. “You said recently,” Gibson told her, “in your old church, [that] our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Palin had actually said something far different. She had encouraged the assembled to “pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God.”

...Popular Jewish and non-Jewish female politicians—from Senator Diane Feinstein to Madeleine Albright to Hillary Clinton—have been modest to the point of frumpiness in appearance and professional in style, and therefore perfectly acceptable to Jewish women who aspired to similar positions of responsibility. Palin was another story... _Commentary

But America is clearly in trouble, and if some American Jews choose to reject a return to the national policies which made it possible for their forbearers to thrive in the US in the first place, perhaps it will be such reactionary Jews who are left behind this time through.


What are some of the things that rational Americans wish to happen -- to restore prosperity and a future to the floundering ship of state and the country at large? Interestingly, it is not just the libertarians and the Tea Party movement that see how badly the US government has bumbled its way into the abyss of suicidally corrupt incompetence.

An economy built upon constant and relatively free innovation is inherently difficult to sustain in a democracy. This is not so much a matter of anti-market ideology as of the painful realities of economic change. Innovation forces change, and the pain involved tends to be felt immediately while the benefits are usually diffuse and harder to perceive in the short term.

It is therefore natural for people to organize to prevent the spread of significant innovation. The original Luddites were cotton weavers who, in the throes of Britain's Industrial Revolution, responded to their displacement by automated weaving technology directly: They smashed looms. In America, people in similar situations rarely assault property en masse, but they do form political coalitions to pass laws that restrict innovation. It is understandable that the enormous waves of innovation always sweeping over a dynamic free-market economy will arouse great unease and opposition. But for that economy to prosper, the unease and opposition must be overcome. _National Affairs

Jim Manzi's piece in National Affairs is worth reading in its entirety. Manzi attempts to prescribe a solution to the Obama - Pelosi quagmire without actually stepping on too many toes, or offending the sensibilities of the mainstream pseudo-intellectual "elite" too badly. An impossible task. Yet he scores some telling points.


Wealth must be created before it can be enjoyed, shared, and transferred.  The Obama - Pelosi reich has demonstrated that it has no idea how to create wealth -- it only knows how to confiscate.

The emergence of sustainable global wealth will only occur with the coming of sustainable global trade.  Under the O-P policies, the US will sink ever lower into debtorship, the US dollar will shrink to little value, and the international economy will suffer for the loss of a stable force for global trade and commerce.

The pseudo-intellectual elite running America's newsrooms, classrooms, publishing houses, entertainment studios, and huge financial trading houses, do not have the interests of ordinary Americans at heart.  These pseudo-intellectuals now have a US government that they can support, obfuscate for, lie for, and pretend to suffer for.  But more Americans who belong in the productive class are beginning to understand the ways in which they have been led unwittingly to support an established order that is willing to use and toss them away like pawns.

If one is not a FOB, then one is not held in any value by the faux elite who are temporarily in charge of most of the mechanisms of state, education, and popular culture.   That crystal clear fact is being disseminated rapidly through the new media.  The repercussions of such a growing awareness among the middle classes and productive classes are beginning to play out.

Al Fin does not see politics as the path to the next level.  But smart politics can  prevent a great deal of human misery, and create conditions that allow the next level to develop more smoothly.

Don't be stuck on stupid.

Obama's Policies Fail on the State Level -- Why Should They Succeed on the National Level?

California, New York, and New Jersey are already well along to instituting the policies that Obama wants to push onto the US taxpayer nationally. So how are they doing?

A decade ago all three states were among America's most prosperous. California was the unrivaled technology center of the globe. New York was its financial capital. New Jersey is the third wealthiest state in the nation after Connecticut and Massachusetts. All three are now suffering from devastating budget deficits as the bills for years of tax-and-spend governance come due.

These states have been models of "progressive" policies that are supposed to create wealth: high tax rates on the rich, lots of government "investments," heavy unionization and a large government role in health care.

Here's a rundown on the results:

Government spending as economic stimulus. State-local spending per capita is $12,505 in New York (second highest after Alaska), $10,136 per person in California (fourth) and $9,574 in New Jersey (seventh).

Has all this public sector "investment" translated into jobs? Not quite. California had the nation's third highest jobless rate in May (11.5%). New Jersey and New York had below average unemployment rates in May compared to the national average of 9.4%, but one reason is that so many discouraged workers have left those states. From 1998-2007, which included two booms on Wall Street, New York and New Jersey ranked 36th and 31st in job creation. From 2000 to 2007, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association calculates that nine out of 10 new Garden State jobs were in the government.

Soak the rich. Mr. Obama plans to pay for his government investments through higher tax rates on the top 1% and 2% of taxpayers. Our troika of liberal states are champions at soaking the rich. The state-local income tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, is the highest in the nation in New York, second highest in California and sixth in New Jersey. New York City boasts the highest business tax rate, 17.6%, according to a study by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Seven of the 10 highest property tax counties in America are located in New Jersey.

Instead of balanced budgets, these high taxes have produced record red ink. California's deficit for 2010 is projected at $33.9 billion, New Jersey's $7 billion and New York's $17.9 billion, despite multiple tax increases this decade. The Manhattan Institute finds that three-quarters of the loss in revenues this year in Albany is a result of reduced income tax payments by rich people even though the state keeps raising taxes on high earners.

California's debt burden has multiplied so fast that it now has the worst bond rating of any state, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators are pleading with Washington to command the other 49 states to pay off its IOUs. The interest rates on Golden State bonds have nearly tripled in the last two years.

Powerful unions. Mr. Obama believes union power is a ticket to the middle class. The middle class is getting creamed in all three of these "progressive" states, where organized labor is king. The unionized share of the workforce is 20% in California, 19% in New Jersey and 27% in New York compared to 13% across the country. All three are non-right-to-work states, have super-minimum wage requirements and provide among the nation's most generous public-employee pensions.

Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting -- by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state. A study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that over the past decade these and other high-union states (mostly in the Northeast) had one-third the job growth of states with low union penetration.

Government health care. New York, New Jersey and California are among the leading states in government spending on and intervention into the medical market. A 2008 study by the Pacific Research Institute ranked the states on the basis of government regulation of health care and found that New York is most regulated, while New Jersey ranks sixth and California seventh. "New York," the report declares, "suffers from government health programs that are out of control, a grossly overregulated private insurance market and almost completely uncompetitive provider markets."

Have government controls and Medicaid expansions ("the public option") lowered costs? Here is what the American Health Insurance Plans found. For family coverage annual premiums in 2006-07, the national median cost was roughly $5,300; in California it was $5,884, in New Jersey $10,398, and in New York $12,254. New York's coverage mandates cause families to pay more than twice what they do in other states for insurance.

As a result, California and New York have more than one-third of their residents uninsured or in Medicaid -- much higher than the national average of 25%. More government involvement in health care in California, New Jersey and New York has raised costs and often reduced private coverage. That's hardly a model for the nation. _WSJ

Hardly a model for a rational nation, but perhaps precisely the model that Obamanation is looking for. Remember, a nation that is hurting is a nation growing more dependent on its government. It is hard for powerful rivals to grow out of the private sector, when the private sector is dead or dying, and the government is all that is left.

The only way these Obama-esque states stay alive is via political corruption, or federal bailout. Artificial insemination of vitality by sucking other regions dry through oppressive redistributive taxation and regulation.

On their own, California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, etc. would collapse under their own corruption and criminality in government. But Obama wants to bring that style of criminality to the highest levels of the federal government. And it is unlikely that he will let his biggest fans bite the dust.

In the long run, totalitarian economies do poorly compared to more open market economies. But in the short run, corrupt government officials can strip a private sector to the bone, and re-distribute the wealth to powerful political backers.

Unions, trial lawyers, eco-lobbyists, powerful progressive lobbying groups such as ACORN and PP etc. In a corrupt government, wealth flows out of the productive sector into the well-connected crony sector. This is what we are seeing under Obama / Pelosi.

Socialists Win Big in Sweden, Denmark, Greece

In the recent European elections, socialists (in red above) were winners in Sweden, Denmark, and Greece. In much of the rest of Europe, a different story unfolded.

* The anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders came in second in the Netherlands with 17% in the Netherlands on Thursday.
* The Hungarian anti-Gypsy extremist party Jobbik took three of the country’s 22 seats.
* In Austria two far-right parties mustered 18%.
* Extreme Slovak nationalists gained their first seat in the European parliament.
* “Eurosceptic” parties won more seats in Denmark, Finland, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

....* The leaders in France and Italy benefited from tough anti-immigration and law-and-order stances, despite the tabloid scandals of the private lives of both. _cominganarchy

As the Obama depression spreads to smother the economies of most of the developed world, the political fallout will be interesting to watch. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

California Dying In The West

California has chosen a path of decline. From its leading role in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, to its suicidal environmental, energy, and business regulations, California has chosen to go the way of populist suicide.

As California goes, says an old cliché, so goes the nation. Oh my.

These days, the Golden State leads the nation on economic and fiscal dysfunction, from the empty homes spread across the Central Valley to the highest state budget shortfall in the nation's history. Meanwhile, its political class pioneers denial in the face of catastrophe. _WSJ

California's have begun melting all the gold and silver in the family jewelry in an attempt to make up budget deficits. That $40 Billion deficit is not going away, despite a few cosmetic spending cuts and tax increases. California's government has chosen to kill the state via irresponsible budgeting and regulation, and only an angry and disciplined citizenry can turn the tables on the death-dealing state government.

The politicians aren’t entirely to blame, although at every sign of the unsustainability of the state’s fiscal practices their reaction has been to resort to more gimmicks and borrowing. California’s voters have recourse to an initiative process they have used to make responsible budgeting as hard as possible. They passed a proposition in the late 1980s that basically locked up half of state spending for the schools, no matter what. Even in November, with fiscal disaster looming, they passed another $10 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, apparently on the theory that a state can never have enough debt.

...Schwarzenegger now governs the Michigan of the West. California has the fourth-highest state unemployment rate in the nation and is routinely ranked among the worst states in its business environment. Almost 1.5 million more nonimmigrants have left the state than moved to it during the past ten years. _Lowry

Schwarzenegger and the freespending Democratic legislature and comptroller are all hoping that the Democratic Party controlled US Federal government will come through and bail the state out. They are hoping for a return to "business as usual", fleecing the taxpayers to pay the salaries and pensions of top-heavy state and local government workers.

Why can't the Governator be more like Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal, you may ask? I suspect the answer to that question lies in the respective backgrounds, upbringings, and underlying characters of the respective governors. For a tough guy, Schwarzenegger allowed himself to be dragged down into the free-loading populist swamp far more easily than one might have thought.

California, Michigan, New York, Illinois .... The list of corrupt, zombie populist-led states stretches on, seemingly lengthening every two to four years. And now the entire US Federal Government is led by the toxic strain of zombie rot-brains. What does the future hold? Take a quick peak at the Overpaid Government Workers news aggregator blog. Understand that the misbegotten economic policies that have led to insolvency at the corporate and state levels are experiencing accelerating growth at the Federal level. The first shoe has barely begun to drop, much less the next, the next, and the next .....

A Preview for America? Trillionaires in Zimbabwe

Where do you find the most trillionaires of any place in the world? In Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Mugabe has been the darling of the socialist world since he took power in an election validated by Jimmy Carter. In terms of quantity of money, Mugabe has made Zimbabweans very wealthy indeed.

The country that has produced the most trillionaires in history isn’t America, but Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The Wall Street Journal describes what it is like to dine out on the town. “Buying anything is a ‘bizarre experience,’ said Lucy Chimtengwende from Bulawayo, who spent $12 U.S. on lunch recently, with the bill in local currency being an astonishing 1.1 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.” Inflation has been given a whole new meaning in Zimbabwe, whose currency has depreciated ten billionfold in twelve years, a rate that threatens to exceed the bounds of the database field sizes that the bank’s software developers thoughtlessly assumed would be enough. Consider the travails of a man who simply wanted to buy groceries. __Belmont Club

Mugabe knows how to promise the world to his supporters. And he has delivered a world to them. The third world, in its most degraded form.

Mugabe is much like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in that he knows how to appeal to the lowest instincts of the mob. That ability, and a bit of presto-changeo at the ballot box, can keep a person in power for a long time.

Tell the people what they want to hear, then when elected make them so dependent upon your government that they're afraid to speak out or propose a change.

Fairy Tale Futures and Camelots in the Air

Barak H. Obama has not served even half a US Senate term. In fact, he has been running for US President for most of the time he has been the baby Senator from Illinois, so he still has to ask directions to the Senate washroom. Remind me again: what is the basis for Obama's claim to your vote?

...since he doesn’t have much of track record, his objective signature is scant. Obama isn’t running on his record in Chicago or the Senate. He is running on the future, which incidentally hasn’t happened yet. __BelmontClub

If you can create the image of a wonderful future in the minds of voters, the reality does not actually matter. At least, not until after the election, when your supporters start to understand that they've been taken for yet another ride, by yet another political huckster. Like the thirty-something liberated woman who'd been saving herself for "the right guy," waking up time and again to empty wine bottles, a mussed bed, and foggy, hungover memories of yet more broken promises to add to her collection.

Before it is all over, Obama's positions on the issues will have been plotted over so many different coordinates that even Bill Clinton will begin to wonder how the baby Senator gets away with it. No mystery, Bill. They just have to truly want to believe in the myth. You remember the myth, don't you?

Tort Reform Rejuvenates Mississippi Industry

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour is quite happy with the results of tort reform in his state. Lawsuits are down. Business and employment are up.

"We were America's No. 1 judicial hell hole for jackpot jury verdicts," the two-term Republican governor told me. "For trial lawyers, this was the state you wanted to come to if you wanted to sue someone."

But it was not the state to come to if you wanted to start a business. Mississippi's antibusiness reputation was so awful, Mr. Barbour said, that the CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies told him specifically that they wouldn't consider locating in the state unless the tort system was fixed.

For doctors, the situation was a little different – many who were inside the state were getting out as fast as they could. With 25% annual increases in malpractice premiums, many physicians simply couldn't survive if they stayed. The outflux left some counties without a single obstetrician. In some cases, residents had to drive 100 miles to find a doctor.

Shortly after winning election in 2003 by running on a tort-reform platform, Mr. Barbour stitched together a coalition of doctors, business groups, taxpayers and even unions to roll back the trial lawyer lobby.

"It was not just a battle," recalls Charlie Ross, the Senate sponsor of the reform bill, "it was a five-year war." The law that eventually passed was every trial lawyers' worst nightmare. It capped awards for noneconomic damages, and prevented the popular practice whereby a plaintiff attorney seeking to bring a class-action shops around for a court where he'll be likely to get a favorable ruling or judgment.

Almost overnight, the flow of lawsuits began to dry up and businesses started to trickle in. Federal Express invested $1 billion in a new facility in the state. Toyota chose Mississippi over about a dozen other states for a new $1.2 billion, 2,000-worker auto plant. The auto maker has stipulated that the company would pull up stakes if the tort reforms were overturned by the legislature or activist judges.

That hasn't happened. About 60,000 new jobs have arrived in four years – not a small number in a workforce of about 1.3 million – and a sharp improvement from the 30,000 jobs lost in the four years before Mr. Barbour took office. Since the law took effect, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits has fallen by nearly 90%, which in turn has cut malpractice insurance costs by 30% to 45%, depending on the county.

Another encouraging sign: Fewer Mississippians are heading to law school and more are looking at business school as the best way to get rich. Many in the younger generation are pursuing a career path that will make them wealth creators, not wealth redistributors. ___WSJ

Trial lawyers are vultures and parasites on the life of a community and region. They are bent on re-distributing wealth, never creating it. In an opportunity society, creating wealth through commerce is a win-win proposition.

Count on the vultures to jump in whenever they are allowed to do so.