Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Two Reasons to Replace the President


My main complaint about President Obama is his complete failure of leadership.  We have big problems and he hasn’t a clue about how to lead us out. 

Obama also makes me angry, just as much as W did but for different reasons.  Bush was always smirking.  The current guy admits he hasn’t led but wants me to accept that it’s not his fault.

Frankly, I see failure on the President’s part in both foreign and domestic affairs and I’m losing count of the examples but here are two, either one of which I think warrant the President’s pink slip.

Try these thoughts from the liberal Economist Magazine.

The Union’s State Is Dire
Jan 28th 2012, Economist print edition

This article is full of reasons to change Presidents but it also highlights one of my biggest problems with President Obama.  Please don’t confuse me with my Congressman Joe You-lie Wilson.  And I can assure you that I am aware that all politicians are happily fact free but this President is in my mind a singularly egregious liar.  A favorite example of mine was stated this way by the Economist:  “The president implied falsely once again that squeezing the rich was the key to taming the deficit, instead of admitting that returning the public finances to a sustainable path will require higher taxes all round and painful reforms of health and pension entitlements.”

My second highlight is this excellent column by Robert Samuelson which lists the good news about America’s energy situation and lays out the truth regarding both energy independence and the wildly unattainable objectives of the climate morons.

A Brighter Energy Future?
By Robert J. Samuelson - Washington Post
Monday, Jan. 30, 2012

I find the President’s personal refusal to begin work on the Keystone pipeline reason enough alone to send him packing.  The pipeline would create 10,000 jobs plus thousands more in support and maintenance, make us more energy independent, move import expenditures to friends and away from enemies, grow the economy, help grow a major American industry [refining] and help to increase American exports.  All of these are objectives claimed by the President and yet for carelessly calculated political reasons, he has arrogantly and personally mandated against the project.   And make no mistake, this decision will in no way change America’s current or future emissions even by one atom – he counts on the climate crazies to be too dumb to know that.

A PostScript:

For those who read the Economist article, you may have been as confused as N and I were by the obscure reference in this sentence:  [President Obama’s] “talk about reversing the flow of manufacturing jobs abroad brought to mind the words “King” and “Canute”.”  This had to be looked up.

“Canute the Holy” was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086.  He was an ambitious king who sought to strengthen the Danish monarchy, devotedly supported the Roman Catholic Church, and had designs on the English throne.  Slain by rebels in 1086, he was the first Dane to be canonized.  His subjects were unaccustomed to a king who claimed such overreaching powers and who interfered so much in their daily lives.

I doubt even Danes, let alone Brits and Americans are going to get something this esoteric.

Asset Allocation


Here’s data for one family that lives on its savings.  On the left is how we do things normally and on the right, the way we’re doing things at the moment.


Given the times, our advisors think equities are a bargain and therefore have moved cash and fixed income in that direction.  Inflation is a risk/opportunity so they have also moved some fixed income assets to commodities.

We do not make investment decisions, we pay the advisors to do that and we do what they tell us to do.  I consider this allocation to be sensible or “moderate”.  Morgan Stanley Smith Barney considers us to have a “high risk tolerance” – freaking lawyers operating in a world of victims and unrestricted ambulance chasers.

I offer these details and others like them from time to time because when I was contemplating retirement without a pension – other than Social Security – I didn’t have any personal experience to compare to the vast variety of “expert” advice.  When I was working, I made my own investment decisions and lost my share of money to both get rich, doomed ideas and leaving far too much money lying around in banks.

I eventually got a little smarter and moved all our assets to funds focused on growth.  This is a good scheme for 40 year olds but as we approach retirement, a less greedy asset allocation becomes key to surviving normal recessions like 2001 and critical to surviving disasters like 2008.

For what it’s worth …

What Our Grandchildren Can Remember Us By


These are projections from the CBO.  Note that the government expects continued government irresponsibility.

Deficits to Decrease - But Not For Long
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney, January 31, 2012

With this kind of fiscal irresponsibility, we can expect to pay much higher interest rates on national debt which would push the deficit and debt far higher than tese projections.  Even if the economy were growing for most of the projected period, we’d still have a national debt of 125% of GDP by 2022.  Without GDP growth, our debt would reach 155% of GDP.  In either case, interest costs would certainly grow – that’s the stuff of Greece. 

Add inflation to that;  have you noticed that the prices of everything but houses are going up?  Food, entertainment and basic services are up substantially during this recession, at a pace that far exceeds the growth in personal income.  These things together mean maximum deflation of the size of the middle class.  Our grandkids will be delivering pizza for a living.   

We’ll have to keep replacing politicians until we find some that will tell us the simple truth.  Government cannot continue to promise benefits that our grandchildren cannot deliver.  Like any family, government must balance its expenditures to its income.  And there is no free lunch – we must pay for the services we demand from government.  Time to wake up folks.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Americans Now Owe More on Student Loans than On Credit Cards

The total outstanding debt for student loans now exceeds $1 Trillion.

Have you looked at the cost for higher education lately?

University of South Carolina
Annual College Costs (Fall 2011)
In-state, living on-campus
Tuition and fees
$10,168
Room and board
$8,026
Books and supplies
$936
Personal expenses
$2,420
Transportation expense
$1,500
Total Annual Cost
$23,050
4 yr Cost
$92,200
5 yr Cost
$115,250
Out of state?  Add $16,000 per year for tuition.

This should help explain why folks are borrowing so much money.  There are these additional factors:

·         High school grads are increasingly unprepared for employment with many barely literate and many more simply not yet sufficiently mature to be on their own.  The choices are college, the military or the streets.

·         Entry level service jobs are just as unappealing to today’s young as were the grunt labor jobs of the past to previous generations.

·         Government lending has expanded steadily and loans are made to students rather than parents.

o   Of students who received bachelor's degrees from Minnesota colleges in 2010, 71 percent had student loans, and the average amount they borrowed was $29,100.

o   Full-time undergraduate students borrowed an average $4,963 in 2010, up 63% from a decade earlier

·         For-profit schools market aggressively to the military and to lower-income students. 

o   They charge more, have the highest default rates, offer less accreditation, have lower entry standards and offer extensive courses online.  The nation's largest for profit school – The University of Phoenix – got 88% of its revenue from federal programs last year, most of it from student loans.  This industry is one of the fastest growing in the nation.

·         With Congress now fully in control of loans made directly from government to students, it is far easier for students to default and for Congress to cap and forgive the debts.  This is low risk borrowing.

o   Defaults rose from 6.7% to 8.8% in just two years and are now 10% and growing.

o   The Obama Administration’s “Pay as You Can” plan caps loan payments at 10% of income, lowers the interest rate by half a percent and allows the debt to be forgiven after 20 years rather than the current 25 years.

o   These things do not apply to loans taken by families.  Federal loans are capped and many families borrow additional funds in traditional fashion to cover the rest of school costs.

·         Our “land grant” colleges have long since squandered their money and states have been funding them for generations. 

o   In the down turn, state funding has decreased.  Colleges have used this as an excuse to hike tuitions at a rate greater than spiraling healthcare costs but there is no evidence that they are cutting any overhead.

o   The President announced in the State of the Union that government will force schools to lower tuitions.  How’s that for big government central planning?

Once again, we have a federal government program that is founded on the very best of intentions.  But as with all government programs, this one is going to become a massive giveaway until it becomes an unfunded entitlement.  There will be incredible waste and fraud and worse, more general public expectation and ever less need for personal responsibility.

When we started granting and loaning money to students for higher education, it was to soldiers after WW2.  We should seriously consider compulsory national service.  There could be a variety of programs to ensure basic literacy, offer some useful on the job training, give kids an adventure and time to grow up and give everyone a chance to earn additional education.


College Board - What It Costs to Go to College


News Articles

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Click on ths Link - From Paul

Click here and then click on the picture.

      http://garyc.me/fun/bring.swf

Don’t Beat Up Unions, Work for Liberty

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said today, “Unions are not needed, wanted or welcome in South Carolina”. 

Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012
Haley, Republicans Target Unions
By GINA SMITH, The State

I wrote this as a response to a post on the paper’s web site: 

I'm from a blue collar family too.  We were from Chicago so everyone was unionized - except for blacks and female office workers of course.  The system worked fine for all those who were satisfied with that anti-merit system but workers within that system could never rise above it;  union big shots did, they lived just like the corporate guys. 

My own working life involved many union jobs - I hated them all.  My wife of 50 years has never "worked" but with her support, we eventually rose above blue collar jobs and wages. 

I think Governor Haley is dead wrong to say that there is no place for unions here.  I think she and Wisconsin's Governor Walker are engaging in unnecessary and divisive class warrior language, just as the President sometimes does, for the basest of political pandering. 

What is critical, both here and nationally, is to ensure right to work laws and to be certain there are no loop holes.  There cannot be anything more unAmerican or unConstitutional than making unions and union dues a condition of employment for anyone.   

I hope someday somebody will challenge the Constitutionality of these aspects of FDR's 1935 National Labor Relations Act.   In the mean time, we should do everything we can to support individual liberty in our own state.  Follow Indiana’s lead.

Don’t Miss Governor Daniels’ Response to the State of the Union

Did you watch the President’s address?  I hope everyone saw Governor Daniels’ response.

Mitch Daniels Deliver the GOP Response to the State of the Union
Uploaded by PBSNewsHour on Jan 24, 2012

Most opposition Party responses to State of the Union addresses are dreadful.  The ideas are dull and partisan, the language stiff the performance embarrassing – Nancy Pelosi and Bobby Jindal stand out in this regard.  Daniels is the exception and well worth the 11 minutes to watch if you missed it.

These two men, Obama and Daniels, with their remarks, made clear the stark contrast between the objectives of main stream Republicans and the Administration – I believe that Daniels and not the President represents the objectives of the nation’s independent center.  I think this is what we want Mitt Romney to say as he battles the President and I think we have now heard what the President will be saying.

The President is a skilled and practiced orator, especially in comparison to the practiced but not so skilled Romney or the unpracticed Daniels but facts and substance are compelling too.  This will be a fight for the center and candidate Obama’s oratory gave him victory over both the far better candidate in the Democratic Primary and aging professional in the 2008 election race.  He did it again last night.  Gone was the vitriol and most of the class war.  What he said and proposed sounded perfectly reasonable.

We have to hope that the center of the nation is listening.  The President’s opponent must be as clear in the contrast of policies as Governor Daniels.

·         The President talked about jobs and spending government money to create jobs.  The issue is economic growth which is how jobs will be created. 

·         The President suggested many reasonable small-beer ideas that all involved spending more money.  He never mentioned the continuing massive deficits except to say that there had been a reduction of $1.5 trillion – nothing about the ongoing $1.3 trillion or the record $15.3 trillion national debt which is now 101% of GDP. 

·         Most of us are disgusted by the Bush wars paid for entirely with borrowed money.  Senator Obama was certainly a major critic of this practice.  But now that we are removing all troops from Iraq – there was no mention of the abject failure of the Administration to negotiate an extension of our Status of Forces Agreement there –  the President calls the reduced Iraq expenditure of borrowed money “savings”.  He wants to spend half that “savings” on construction projects – but absolutely not on the pipe line which is the most shovel ready project in the nation.  With a federal budget deficit of $1.3 trillion at the moment, President Obama proposes to somehow use the other half of our Iraq “savings” to pay down our debt.  This is the kind of accounting Bernie Madoff used. 

·         As has been the practice of this Administration, the President again implied that whatever our fiscal problems, we simply need to tax the rich.  He says he is not practicing class warfare;  that this is simply about “fairness”.  The point is to get people arguing about whether or not it’s class warfare in order to keep people from talking about the nation running deficit which no amount of taxation on the rich will resolve. 

·         The single greatest contribution to the deficit is entitlements.  The single biggest contributor to the unaffordable national safety net is the rising cost of medical care.  The President mentioned neither.  No one should be elected President unless that candidate is honest about these two things. 

President Obama has to be replaced because he has failed to lead us out of our most important national problems.  He has refused to tell us the simple truth and, in fact, has misled the public about the true national priorities and the economic facts they represent.  Despite his campaign promises, he has divided us and tried to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.  And finally, the President blatantly tries to blame his results for his failure.  It’s the President’s job to lead Congress, via the bully pulpit, to do the right thing.  He has failed and says it’s Congress’ fault – they won’t let him lead.  By blaming Congress, he clearly admits his failure.

We cannot know whether any replacement of the President will be any better.  But if we hope to ever again have an effective government, we’ll have to begin by demanding simple accountability.  President Obama failed, therefore he must go, along with as many incumbents as we deem also culpable. 

Full Text: Obama State of the Union Address
ABCNews, Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Full text:  Mitch Daniels' GOP Response to the State of the Union Address
USA Today, Wednesday, January 25, 2012

US Debt Clock

Monday, January 23, 2012

ACA and the Constitution


For those interested in Constitutional law.

Something to Argue About
By George F. Will - Washington Post
Monday, Jan. 23, 2012

This Court case will be interesting and far more important than most people realize.  Perfectly sensible people “hope” that the Court won’t find the insurance mandate unConstitutional but how on earth could they not?  If this is ok, they can make us eat our spinach folks – be afraid, be very afraid.  [And lefties, remember that someday it’ll be the Republican crazies instead of the Pelosi crazies – you’ll have mandatory prayer in the work place and creationism taught as science.]

This reminds me of Roe v Wade. 

·         I believe that all women should have the absolute right to decide what happens to their body and pregnancies [even though I think birth control by abortion is disgusting]. 

So in that sense, the SCOTUS made the right decision.  It would have taken generations to guarantee this right of women under ordinary law across all states – think gay marriage. 

·         But if we read the Constitution, there simply is no right to an abortion in that document.  As a matter of law, the SCOTUS was wrong. 

To suggest that a woman’s right to privacy gives her a RIGHT to an abortion suggests that parents and spouses might have other rights over one another outside the womb but behind closed doors. 

But more importantly, for the SCOTUS to decide that there should be something in the Constitution that is not there is a blatant violation of the separation of powers and can lead only to chaos. The end does not justify the means.

This issue was and should again someday be the business of lawmakers, not courts and I mean local law makers not federal ones.  

Similarly, the right thing for America is that everybody buys health insurance but it is even more essential in a nation founded on individual liberty that the Court finds this insurance mandate unConstitutional.

George Will is right about the second issue in the ACA as well.  Medicare was once optional for states but now we take the new rules under ACA or lose our existing money as well as the new money.  That has to be unConstitutional. 

I am no libertarian and I see important roles for the federal government beyond defense.  But everywhere I look, it seems to me that since WW2 both the federal government and the courts have steadily increased their role to the point where they now far exceed their authority and are seriously interfering with the nation’s growth and well being.  I feel the same about Congress’ continued abdication of its duties and responsibilities to the Executive Branch. 

Sooner or later we’ll have to deal with this.  And like it or not, the SCOTUS will be in the hot seat before November.


P.S.  If you read the Constitution, I don’t see how anyone can conclude anything other than that anyone can marry anyone.  If some people can marry then everyone can.  There is simply no way in my view that any high Court can allow this kind of discrimination.  The religious will just have to suck it up.  Gay activists should go to court;  they can’t lose.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Congratulations President Obama! South Carolinians Love You


We want more of national healthcare and more new federal agencies.  There are only 77 federal agencies helping the needy with food, income, rent, fuel oil and medical care, we need far more.  Things will get better with more regulation and perhaps cap and trade this time.  We should be less energy independent and do more lto imit American exports of everything, not just energy.  Economic growth must take a back seat to taxpayer investment in private companies.  South Carolinians despise compromise as much as you do Mr. President.  We don’t need leadership and vision, we need a man who can demonize those American citizens who refuse to see the light and accept the inevitably of the financial collapse we plan to leave for our grandchildren.

We are ready to abandon all hope and change sir and usher you back into office;  we’ll be joyously screaming, “No Surrender, No Compromise”.  To ensure your victory we are miring ourselves in petty anger, luxuriating in the press bashing offered by the single most despicable man in American politics. 

I have never been more disappointed in my fellow South Carolinians.  It’s not just that the goofy Republicans were dumber than usual;  the big disappointment was that the level headed center of our state was too apathetic to come out in the rain and do the right thing.  Even in the only three bastions of common sense – Richland, Charleston and Beaufort counties – we were barely able to give the next President of the United States a narrow win.  Every other county in our state went to Gingrich.  Disgusting and very stupid.     

It is left to the rest of the nation to save us.  Please Florida.  We can only hope it’s not too late.  Vote in your primaries folks;  the stakes are enormous.

As posted in reader discussion on The State newspaper site, January 22, 2012.

Friday, January 20, 2012

South Carolina: Please Vote Saturday

Please independents get out there on Saturday and keep the Republican crazies in their boxes.  All the rest of you, your turn is coming;  if the Republican nomination is settled here or in Florida later this month, there is still the critical need to vote in November.

We need to vastly increase the voting percentage of the American center and the politically unaligned.  The simple objective is to reduce the power of the political parties and to move them both toward the center.  It’s the only tool we have folks.


Don't forget, you can click on any image in the blog to see the picture alone - get back with the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the image.

A Small Victory for Liberty


Sometimes it seems that America has begun the irreversible spiral down the drain of European style liberalism but here’s a glorious reaffirmation of our American system and common sense.  The SCOTUS decided unanimously against a lower court that carelessly decided to make law from the bench.

Supreme Court Sides with Texas on Redistricting Plan
By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, January 20, 2012

Justices’ Texas Redistricting Ruling Likely to Help G.O.P.
By Adam Liptak, NYT, January 20, 2012

This case involves redistricting in Texas made necessary by population growth that will create four new House districts there in 2012.  The actions also involve the lingering commitment by some to the concept of affirmative action and to the creation of voting districts that guarantee the election of minority candidates.  The tool for the complainants is The Voting Rights Act of 1965 – but it gets more complicated.

The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of blacks.  As is typical of legislators, the new law basically repeated the already existing law encompassed in the 15th Amendment – no need to enforce existing law when we can create something redundant.

No state may impose any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

In the new law, Congress specifically outlawed literacy tests intended to prevent blacks from registering to vote.

The Act was signed into law by President Johnson and has been renewed and amended by Congress four times, the most recent being a 25-year extension signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006 and the extension continued to include the Act’s controversial Section 5.

The controversial Section 5 is known as the “preclearance process”.  That clause applies only to states that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964.  Those states, which include Texas, could no longer implement any change affecting voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice or a panel of federal judges in Washington.  This usurpation of states’ rights may well be unconstitutional – it has never been tested.

OK so Texas created a new districting plan and chose the Washington federal judge option to obtain preclearance.  But that panel won’t decide until next month and Texas needs a decision by February 1st in order to hold its already delayed primary on its April 3rd schedule.  That put a second court in the process in San Antonio which was trying to create an interim districting plan that would allow the primaries to proceed.

The San Antonio court ignored the legislature’s plan altogether and created an entirely new plan that appeared to deliberately create “a minority coalition district” – in other words a three judge panel’s attempt at affirmative action.  The San Antonio court ordered its plan into effect so Texas went to the SCOTUS and asked that they block the lower court which SCOTUS did with some unanimous energy.

The high court was especially critical of the San Antonio judges for drawing a congressional district that appeared to be a “minority coalition” district.  “If the district court did set out to create a minority coalition district, rather than drawing a district that simply reflected population growth, it had no basis for doing so,” the order said.  [Wow, very cool.]

The constitutionality of Section 5 was not at issue in the case, but the opinion said its “intrusion on state sovereignty” raises “serious constitutional questions,” a position already taken by the Court in a 2009 decision.

In my view, if there was ever a time for affirmative action – meaning a court making and enforcing its own laws – that time is long past.  And the implication of affirmative action that diversity is somehow more important than merit or that discrimination can be sometimes be Constitutional was always unAmerican.

Here are the states affected by the VRA.

States needing preclearance:

 Alabama
 Alaska
 Arizona
 Georgia
 Louisiana
 Mississippi
 South Carolina
 Texas
 Virginia [except for fourteen counties]

States needing preclearance only in some counties and townships:

California
Florida
Michigan
New Hampshire
New York
North Carolina
South Dakota

Oh and another thing.  Note the headline on the lefty NYT’s story written by the lefty Adam Liptak.  This decision was a victory for the rule of law not for any political party.  If it was “interpreted as a victory for Texas Republicans”, then the interpretation was made by political activists.  The SCOTUS is the last American institution to retain any public confidence and respect.  Ignore those who would politicize this too.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

General Motors Is Once Again No. 1 in Global Auto Sales

This is Interesting and encouraging;  I’ve been afraid that the Volt would completely finish destroying this company.

GM back on top in global sales race
            By Chris Isidore,  CNNMoney,  January 19, 2012

I’ve been driving Cadillacs for over a decade and other GM cars for more than a decade before that. But for two years in a row I tried to lease a new Cadillac and found no car I would buy, prohibitively high prices and a local dealer who never even called with a quote.

This is all about China.  Ford is second in the US because of trucks and our market for them;  they have half GM’s world sales [in units].  The American car market is very important but the world leaders, GM, VW and Lexus are there because of their sales in China.

I love my new Lexus and it’s hard to see going back to the GM of the moment – they need to return to sexy design and affordable luxury.  Let the power train go electric in its own time.