Policy Archives - Page 1736 of 1768

Florida’s Dirty Dozen: Twelve Repealers That Can Boost Business, Create Jobs,and Change Florida’s Economic Policy for the Better

March 6, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy/by James Madison Institute

The Institute for Justice just released their latest study, “Florida’s Dirty Dozen: Twelve Repealers That Can Boost Business, Create Jobs,and Change Florida’s Economic Policy for the Better” with foreword from Dr. Bob McClure, president and CEO of The James Madison Institute. Read the full study here.

Foreword from Dr. McClure:

Governments too often go well beyond what’s required to protect the public’s health and safety. Nowhere is this more evident than in business regulations that stifle industries. Frequently, public officials use “safeguarding the public health” or “protecting consumers” merely as a pretext for allowing entrenched special interests to create obstacles for potential competitors, thereby gaining an unfair advantage in what ought to be a free marketplace. This study identifies 12 instances in which the Legislature has relied on these empty justifications—often provided by industry insiders—and suggests that repeal of these laws would make Florida a more welcoming place for consumers and small businesses.

Consider, for instance, a would-be entrepreneur whose goal in life leans less toward college and more toward pursuing a craft that she has learned to love: doing hairstyling and makeup. She is a recent high-school graduate. She is ambitious, as well; her goals include eventually opening a salon of her own.

But she is also realistic. Even though she has practiced her craft, cutting hair and giving makeup tips to friends and family, she understands that she’ll need some additional training. Imagine her surprise, however, when she discovers that she will be required to undergo 1,200 hours of instruction at a “beauty school” where the cost for tuition, fees, book, and supplies—at one of Florida’s least expensive providers—currently tops $16,425. So to enter her chosen field will mean going into debt with student loans to pay for “training” far in excess of what reasonably should be required. And all this not because of any legitimate concern for public health and safety, but merely because industry insiders have gone to the government as a means of protecting themselves from competition or protecting their profits, neither of which is a proper use of government power.

Unfortunately, in Florida these kinds of government-imposed barriers to entering a career are not unique to cosmetology. In fact, they extend across a wide array of occupations. This study highlights a “dirty dozen” of these kinds of obstacles that the Institute for Justice (IJ) regards as among the worst.

The James Madison Institute (JMI), which for many years has battled against the kinds of regulatory overkill marring Florida’s otherwise excellent business climate and quality of life, agrees that the issue deserves immediate attention from the Legislature.

Of course it should come as no surprise that JMI and IJ have a mutual interest in this issue. Indeed, these groups have a great history of cooperation in the fight for liberty. Both organizations share a devotion to the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.

Florida’s current system of occupational licensing and regulation should be reassessed because it is clear that the current outcome— often over-reaching regulations—is a problem that stifles our economy, raises the cost of living, and makes it much more difficult for ambitious young people, such as our hypothetical entrepreneur, from achieving their goals.

IJ deserves tremendous credit for conducting the in-depth research required to bring these situations to the attention of Floridians and their elected officials. The next move will be up to those officials.

Calling the Global Warming Charlatans “Nazis”

March 5, 2014/in Commentary, Environment, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by Alan Caruba

On February 20th, the noted meteorologist, Dr. Roy W. Spencer, fed up with being called a “denier” of global warming, posted a commentary on his blog titled “Time to push back against the global warming Nazis.”

“When politicians and scientists started calling people like me ‘deniers’, they crossed the line. They are still doing it,” said Dr. Spencer. “They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all man made nor a serious problem with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.” The Holocaust happened, but global warming’s latest natural cycle ended about 17 years ago and, as a lot of people have noticed, it has been getting cold since then.

“Like the Nazis,” said Dr. Spencer, “they advocate the supreme authority of the state (fascism), which in turn supports their scientific research to support their cause…” In the case of global warming, this huge hoax was put forth by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The UN would like to be the world’s global government, but that’s not going to happen. In the meantime, the IPCC provided scientists that cooperated with lots of money for their alleged research, all of which “proved” that carbon dioxide was dramatically heating the Earth. Others like Al Gore made millions selling “carbon credits”. Along the way, both Gore and the IPCC received a Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Spencer received a Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. He was a Senior Scientists for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he and a colleague, Dr. John Christie, received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. He became a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001 and continues to advise NASA as a U.S. Science Team Leader. As he points out on his blog, his research has been supported by U.S. government agencies, so the usual claim by Greens that he is a paid stooge of Big Oil just doesn’t work in his case.

Dr. Spencer’s decision to call a Nazi a Nazi ignited a lot of discussion among the global warming hustlers and those whom they have been calling “deniers” for many years. I always found it particularly offensive, but I suspect those I called charlatans and hustlers felt the same way. The difference, however, is the connotation applied to the term, “denier.” Even today anti-Semites of various descriptions deny that six million Jews died in the death camps of Nazi Germany during World War Two along with millions Christians and Eastern Slavic Europeans

What makes this particularly offensive and horrid is the fact that those in the Nazi leadership under Adolf Hitler were all environmentalists, deeply committed to conservation and similar expressions that put the Earth above the value of human life.

This is all revealed in a book by R. Mark Musser, “Nazi Oaks”, now in its third printing. Musser was introduced to environmentalism at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, from which he graduated in 1989. In 1994 he received Master of Divinity and spent seven years as a missionary to Belarus and in the Ukraine.

Musser’s book is absolutely astonishing as he documents how “Green” the Nazis were from their earliest years until their defeat. It was Heinrich Himmler, the Reich Leader from 1929 to 1945, who was responsible for the “Final Solution”, the mass killing of Europe’s Jews. He led the Nazi party’s SS.

As Musser notes, “The Nazis were trying to eliminate both global capitalism and international communism in order to recover a reverence for nature lost in the modern cosmopolitan world.” The Nazis also held Judeo-Christian values in contempt.

“That this evolutionary Nazi nature religion was clothed in secular biology and colored by environmental policies and practices, is a historical truth that has been ignored and underreported for too long a time in all the discussions about the Holocaust,” writes Musser.

I am inclined to believe that it is no accident that the global warming charlatans began to use the term “deniers” to describe skeptics.

By 2011, a Gallup poll that surveyed people in 111 countries revealed that most of the human race did not see global warming as a serious threat. Still, worldwide 42% told Gallup that they thought global warming was either ‘somewhat serious’ or ‘very serious.’ That was down from 63% in polls taken in 2007 and 2008 in the U.S.

More than just a spat between scientists, in April 2012, the Congressional Research Service estimated that, since 2008, the federal government had spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities.’ That kind of money could build or repair a lot of bridges and roads. It could fund elements of our military. It could be spent on something other than a climate over which neither the government nor anyone in the world has any influence.

Bursting onto the national stage, Dr. Spencer’s decision to call the global warming scientists Nazis for their efforts to intimidate or smear the reputations of those whose research disputes their claims, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. a Wall Street Journal columnist, wrote on March 1 that “Surely some kind of ending is upon us. Last week climate protesters demanded the silencing of Charles Krauthammer for a Washington Post column that notices uncertainties in the global warming hypothesis.”

“In coming weeks,” wrote Jenkins, “a libel trial gets under way brought by Penn State’s Michael Mann, author of the famed “hockey stick” graph (Editor’s note: an IPCC graph Mann created that asserted a sudden, major increase in heat has been widely debunked) against the National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writer Rand Simberg and roving commentator Mark Steyn for making wisecracks about his climate work.”

Revelations of several thousand emails between IPCC scientists, one of whom was Mann, were christened “climategate” and demonstrated the efforts in which they engaged to suppress the publication of any papers that questioned global warming in scientific journals. As the climate turned cooler, they became increasingly alarmed.

What we are likely witnessing are the long death throes of the global warming hoax. Calling those scientists and others like myself “deniers” and other names simply reveals the desperation of those who are seeing a great source of money slip away under the spotlight of scientific truth, nor will they be able to impose their lies on the rest of us.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P049456 / CC-BY-SA

Is today a good time to buy?

March 5, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy/by Edward Pinto

Conventional wisdom states the three most important things in real estate are: location, location, location. This wisdom is especially true today since market fundamentals and local conditions vary greatly across the US. Thus, not surprisingly, the answer depends on location.

Nationally, homes look overpriced, but there can be great variations on a regional or even neighborhood level. To gauge the sustainability of home prices within a metropolitan area generally, I suggest looking at measurements of market fundamentals such as unemployment, job growth, income, rental values, population levels, and mortgage rates. For example, Fitch Ratings measures how well a given metropolitan area’s home prices are doing relative to fundamentals such as these. Its ratings range from undervalued (examples: Atlanta, Chicago, and Cincinnati), to sustainable (examples: Boston, Cleveland, and Dallas), to unsustainable (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC). For more information on Fitch Ratings metro area ratings click here.

To gauge the sustainability of home prices at a neighborhood level, compare the home’s sale price to what it would cost to rent. In the past, rental estimates for individual single-family homes were hard to find. Today, a prospective buyer may go to Zillow.com and look up a Rent Zestimate for tens of millions of individual properties. By dividing the annual rent estimate by the home price you are able to calculate a home’s gross yield. For example, a $250,000 home with a rent estimate of $1,500 a month, would have a yield of about 7.2%, before home ownership costs. As a rule of thumb, a yield of 8% or more means the home is a relative bargain, below 5% and the home is overpriced, and for between 5% and 8% a buyer should plan to stay in the home for at least five or six years and either put a little more down or pay the loan down faster.

For a more in depth look, you might do an analysis that considers the costs of buying versus renting over time. For example, The New York Times has an on-line Interactive buy-rent calculator. It allows you to input a number of cost and benefit variables for buying and renting and calculates whether you will be up or down after six years. Of course, this is a projection and is heavily dependent on your assumed annual home price appreciation rate. Also keep in mind that combined transactions costs involved in buying and selling a home will likely total 10 percent of the purchase price. While the NYT calculator considers these costs, it is assumed you will own the home for at least 6 years. A shorter ownership period will negatively impact the benefits of owning.

Finally, I would be careful not to buy more house than you can comfortably afford. The vast majority of home buyers take out a loan to pay for much of the purchase price. Most real estate professionals get paid a percentage of the sales price, so it is in their interest to put you into the most expensive house for which you qualify. Martin Luther King recognized the problem of living beyond one’s means in his 1968 “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon. This is still good advice today. A simple way to gauge the riskiness of a 30 year fixed rate loan you may be contemplating is to go the HousingRisk.org using this link: Table of Risk. All you need is your loan-to-value (home value minus downpayment), FICO credit score, and total debt-to-income ratio. For example, a 90 percent loan-to-value loan with a 720 FICO score (this is the median score for all individuals in the US), and a total debt ratio of 30% would have about a 5 percent chance of default under a serious real estate correction. On the other hand, a 95 percent loan-to-value loan with a 660 FICO score, and a total debt ratio of 42 percent would have about a 22 percent chance of default under a serious real estate correction.

In general, I would expect home prices to be more volatile going forward than during the period 1950-1995. Today’s buyer can’t expect to buy now and get an equity windfall in only a few years. Prospective buyers looking to purchase a property, which will serve as a home for years to come, should do their homework on the true value of the home and the home price volatility in the region before making what is likely to be one of the major financial decisions of their lifetime.

Obama’s Faceoffs with Putin and Netanyahu

March 5, 2014/in National Security, News, Policy/by Jerry Gordon

Washington was the center of contretemps over Putin’s seizure of Crimea and widening public differences with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

We recently interviewed Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and reviewed of his new book Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes. (See The Peril of Engaging Rogue States: An Interview with Dr. Michael Rubin and Engagement is Folly}.

Putin, according to Rubin is the consummate zero sum geo -politician. Diplomacy for the Kremlin thugocracy pales in comparison to unleashing military adventurism to recreate the former Soviet empire. Witness Georgia in 2008 with the severance of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and even the Kremlin support for Russian speaking breakaway state of Transnistria between the Ukraine and Moldavia. Remember Putin abhors NATO presence anywhere near the Russian sphere of influence. See the prescient title of a piece I wrote back in August 2008, Georgia: “Moscow Rules” and the West Wimps Out. We had Bush and Condoleezza Rice back then.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) witnessed the transfer of nearly 2000 nuclear missiles to Russia followed by 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances by the UK, US and Russia that guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty including the rights of Russian citizens who chose to live there. Recently Russia negotiated the extension of the lease on the Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol from 2017 to 2042. The move was heavily criticized by the opposition forces now in power in Kiev. By seizing the Crimea province from Ukraine, the Russian guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty has been breached. Russian military exercises near Finland and the Ukraine are clear demonstrations of military force to send a message to the EU and the Obama White House West Wing not to dare send NATO forces to the Polish Ukrainian border. Thus, while there will be lots of economic sanctions and isolation rattling by Washington and Brussels, it is up to the G-8 and G-20 groups to consider ejection of Moscow, which will doubtless come up short.

Sochi may lose tourist revenues from the upcoming Paralympics, followed by the loss of the G-8 Summit in June and even the inaugural Russian Formula 1 race scheduled for August 2014. Meanwhile the Moscow Stock Exchange and Ruble were punished in trading today. Whether that continues will be influenced by Putin’s contempt for the West and the threats by Obama that “there will be consequences”. So, while Obama’s Russian reset strategy like his pivot to Asia and push for a Final Status agreement between Israel and the PA have been potential failures.

Just look at the interview with Obama by Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg about the President’s entreaties to Netanyahu to “seize the moment and make peace”. This included a veiled no veto threat by the US should the PA, as suggested in the Oxford Union remarks of PA negotiator Saeb Erekat on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head program of last Friday, might opt for accession to the UN Security Council for statehood.

This would let 5 million Palestinian UNWRA refugees file for compensation against Israel. Further, the PA could file a case for crimes against humanity brought before the International Criminal Court at The Hague the day after the April 29 deadline is passed for an agreement set by Secretary of State Kerry. Even the brief comments by Obama and Netanyahu in the Oval Office about “tough choices” versus non helpful Palestinian moves sent a chilling message. (See this CBS news report, here).

Tomorrow, we shall see what happens when Netanyahu speaks to 14,000 delegates at the AIPAC Policy Conference following Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D-NJ) speech. They would urge the delegates to scamper up Capitol Hill to convince their Senators and Representatives to pass the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act, S. 1881 co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Menendez. Problem is that Iran may already have its nukes given a decade long cooperative weapons development and ICBM program with North Korea. Read my article; Has Iran Developed Nuclear Weapons in North Korea?

As to Israel’s capabilities, realize that it already has ICBMs – the nuclear equipped Jericho III. Yes, as the ancient Chinese curse goes, “may you live in interesting times”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Redefining Truth has Consequences

March 5, 2014/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy/by Raynard Jackson

In all organized sports, there are clearly defined rules that must be adhered to. In all universities, there are clearly stated guidelines for admittance. In all religions, there are shared beliefs that all members must adhere to. Without these clearly defined rules of engagement (ROEs), there can be no order within groups; and without order there is nothing left but chaos.

Groups and organizations, by definition are all predicated upon certain agreed upon principles and values. These agreed upon principles and values are the raison d’etre of these entities.

You join the Boy Scouts, for example, because you are a boy and you join the Girl Scouts because you are a girl. You are a male because you are born with a penis and you are a girl because you are born with a vagina. These things used to be unquestioned statements of fact.

Now some parents are filing lawsuits because their daughters want the legal right to join the Boy Scouts. Some males, on the other hand, want the right to join a sorority while some females want the right to join a fraternity. To call this a ball of confusion is an understatement.

Sadly, sexuality is no longer determined at birth and is no longer absolute. You now can legally (in California) “self-identify” your sex. You can be born a male and simply wake up and say you “self-identify” as a girl and legally you can play on your high school’s girls softball team; you must be allowed to use the girls bathroom; and you must be allowed to wear a dress to class.

Now, right is wrong; up is down, black is white; and there are no rules.

Rules are created in order to maintain order and control. No matter where you go throughout the world, the rules for basketball, American football, and baseball are the same.

Conversely, when you have no clearly defined rules, you have chaos instead of order. This is exactly what is happening in America in particular and the world in general. Rules are the glue that keeps a society together. Rules make the family into a functioning unit. Rules create the framework for dispute resolution.

In America, as in most countries, murder is deemed wrong and society universally punishes the perpetrators. Killing can be justified (self-defense), but murder (the taking of an innocent life) can never be justified. Honoring one’s mother and father is just simply expected in our society.

These rules are necessary to create a society where there is structure and order. Rules also create a sense of security and freedom for the people.

How can you have a functioning country when you can no longer define the family unit? For time immemorial, the family has been mother, father, and children; and in some cases grandparents, uncles, or aunts, also known as the extended family. Now, agreement on the definition of the family unit has become mired in controversy. Some want Johnny to have two dads or Jenny to have two moms. Some want Rahim to have one father, but three mothers (all legally married to the one father). Some simply want mother and child.

Study after study has shown that the family unit is the most stabilizing force in a society and that children who are reared with a mother and father are best positioned to be successful in life.

You can’t prevent or resolve disputes unless you have rules that have been agreed upon by society that are compatible with the values of a country. Most Americans don’t commit crimes because we have been instilled with a sense of what is right and wrong; also because we know crimes will be met with certain punishment.

When there are disputes, you have courts, Congress, and government to turn to for redress. Today, you have judges ignoring case law and the will of the people and injecting their personal feelings into cases such as homosexual “marriage.” Congress is incapable of passing bipartisan legislation that is truly in the best interest of America. Government is totally incapable of solving conflict because there is no consensus as to what the rules of engagement are.

I am a huge proponent of individual freedom, but freedom can’t exist without some agreed upon rules of engagement. You can’t have children born as one sex and then be allowed to simply “self-identify” as to something totally different. You can’t – or shouldn’t – seek to become a member of, say, a Pentecostal church and then refuse to comport yourself in a manner consistent with their rules (including a prohibition against homosexuality), and then call them a bigot if they refuse you membership.

This altering of what it means to be an American will lead to our demise as a global leader. Even freedom has its orderly limitations.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is a photo of smaller chancel window depicting ‘The Life’ at Holy Trinity Church Leicester by P.J. Parkinson.

Why the Periphery Is Crumbling: The Spoils System Is Cracking

March 5, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy/by FedUp USA

Instability starts on the periphery and moves into the core.

While it is clear that the instability in periphery nations is arising from dynamics unique to each nation, there is one unifying causal factor: the spoils system in each nation is breaking down.

Every nation-state, from brutal dictatorships to nominal democracies, ultimately depends on a spoils system that provides the various factions, classes, etc., with sufficient material and status benefits to accept the Status Quo arrangement.

The more a regime relies on oppression for its legitimacy (for example, North Korea or Saddam’s Iraq), the greater its vulnerability to erosion in the spoils system, which naturally favor the military and the regime’s Elites.

In broad brush, the spoils available for distribution are the surplus generated by the national economy. In the case of North Korea, this surplus stems from extortion (of donations from other nations), satrapy (free oil from China) and illicit activities (arms sales and counterfeiting). A common source of surplus is oil (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) or some other desirable commodity.

The vast majority of surpluses outside oil exporting nations have been generated by three factors: cheap energy, rising productivity and the expansion of credit. If we examine periods of rapid expansion and generalized prosperity, we find these three factors were active: cheap energy, rising productivity and ample credit.

Just look at Europe and the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s, Japan in the 1960s and 70s, and China in the 1980s and 90s for examples.

Any reversal in these factors reduces surplus and the spoils being distributed.Sharply higher energy costs crimp profits and cause recessions, stagnating productivity leads to near-zero growth and institutional/state sclerosis and credit contraction leads to recession and the destruction of malinvestments.

Since ruling Elites are by definition constantly picking winners and losers, any Status Quo operated by Elites is systematically malinvesting on a gargantuan scale. This is the ontological imperative of any Elite: skim as much of the national surplus as possible and funnel it to cronies and loyal toadies. The prudent Elites (and imprudent Elites don’t last long–the spoils system is quite Darwinian) set aside enough surplus to distribute as spoils, effectively buying the complicity of key sectors, classes, factions, etc.

Thus the default policy of any ruling Elite is bread and circuses: supply the potentially disruptive masses with food and entertainment, and they’ll continue their grudging support of whatever arrangement is supplying the bread and circuses.

Any mob that appears threatening can be dissipated with a “whiff of grapeshot.”

In the U.S., the spoils system is almost unlimited: corporate welfare for capital, food stamps and SSI disability for the lumpenproletariat, big-bucks jobs as water-carriers for the Elites for technocrats in the State, finance, think tanks, elite universities and Corporate America sectors, a variety of quasi-secure lower-level positions as enforcers, lackeys, apparatchiks and factotums and a smattering of tax subsidies (mortgage interest deduction, etc.) to placate what’s left of the non-state-dependent middle class.

The spoils system is not only the foundation of every Elites’ political legitimacy, it is the thin layer of plaster that covers all the longstanding ethnic, regional, linguistic, religious and political fault lines that run beneath current nation-state arrangements.

As noted in yesterday’s entry Ukraine: A Deep State Analysis, numerous national borders were drawn after World War II (1945) with little regard for historical divisions between various groups or preceding borders.

Entire nations were penciled into existence by Imperial dictat in complete disregard for existing historical groups–Iraq and Syria being just two examples of many.

As long as the stick of repression and the carrot of the spoils system were sufficiently persuasive, the tectonic plates beneath the regime were masked. But once the spoils system and the machinery of suppression crack, the old rivalries arise anew.

The spoils system can crack for two reasons: either the national surplus declines so there simply isn’t enough spoils left to keep everyone placated, or the spoils diversion to the Elites and their cronies exceeds the tipping point of legitimacy.

Greece and Venezuela are examples of the first dynamic, and Ukraine is an example of the second dynamic. Greece essentially funded its vast spoils distribution system with borrowed money. When the regime’s free-money machine finally broke, the spoils system crashed along with the legitimacy of the Status Quo.

Venezuela is suffering a similar crash, based not on a withdrawal of credit but on the current Elites’ destruction of the nation’s oil industry and what was left of its productive private economy.

In Ukraine, the plundering of the national surplus by oligarchic Elites finally exceeded the populace’s threshold of legitimacy, and once the armed forces and police refused to murder their cousins, brothers, nieces and nephews in the streets, the Status Quo arrangement collapsed.

Now that the spoils system has crumbled, all the historical tectonics and fault lines are emerging in full force. the same can be said of Iraq and many other inherently unstable nation-states/regimes.

Why is the periphery crumbling? It’s simple: the conditions that enabled rising national surpluses and the distribution of spoils is breaking down for three reasons:

1. Energy is no longer cheap (compared to past prices)

2. The low-hanging fruit of higher productivity has all been plucked

3. The free-money flood of cheap, limitless credit is drying up

As regimes find surplus and credit are both contracting, their ability to placate every key group with spoils is also declining, and the conflicts between them can no longer be patched over with bribery or brutality.

Instability starts on the periphery and moves into the core. I have covered this in depth a number of times:

Instability Start on the Margins (October 31, 2013)

The Core-Periphery Model (June 11, 2013)

EU Leaders Throw Europe a Plutonium Life Preserver (October 27, 2011)

Everywhere, the instability from a failing spoils system is seeping from the periphery into the core: the E.U., the U.S., China and India. Two Powder Kegs Ready to Blow: China & India (January 23, 2014)

This erosion of the spoils system has a peculiar characteristic: once the old spoils system cracks and collapses, it cannot be put back together. A new arrangement arises, despite the best self-serving efforts of the current Elites.

Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds

Going Outlaw – It’s not necessarily a bad thing!

March 5, 2014/in Culture War, Gun Rights, Policy, Regulation, Video/by Bill Finlay

If a tyrannical government passes laws we cannot obey, we will be outlaws. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Y_DLqmnoYGA[/youtube]

How the U.S. Shale Energy Boom Can Help During Crises Like in Ukraine

March 5, 2014/in Economy, Energy, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics/by Sean Hackbarth

The crisis in Ukraine illustrates clearly the importance of energy security. The Wall Street Journal reports that Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled oil and natural gas company, is using natural gas prices to pressure Ukraine:

Russian state-controlled natural-gas giant OAO Gazprom said Tuesday it would raise natural-gas prices for Ukraine—a move that ratchets up financial pressure on Kiev and raises the economic stakes in the standoff between Moscow and Western Europe.

Ukraine’s lack of energy security has placed it in this unenviable situation.

Today, the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy released its 2nd International Index of Energy Security Risk, measuring the energy security of 25 large energy-consuming countries. Norway is at the top of the list followed by Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Ukraine ranks last.

For the United States, its energy security situation is quite different. It ranks six, climbing one place since last year and four places since 2002 because of the shale energy boom.

The Index finds that increased U.S. energy production has resulted in lower price volatility and improved energy security for all countries in the Index. For instance, increased production by the United States (835,000 barrels) made up for Iranian oil production (687,000 barrels) taken off world markets because of economic sanctions.

The report finds that the shale energy boom also has lowered natural gas supply risks:

Gas import risks remain very high for many countries, especially in Europe and Asia. It is now expected that by 2020, the United States will be a net exporter of natural gas. This is already having an impact on overseas markets, where shipments once destined for the United States are being diverted to European and other markets.

In short, improved energy security in one country–the U.S.–has improved energy security in all countries.

Going back to the Ukraine situation, an implication from the Index is that if oil and natural gas export barriers were removed, U.S. energy abundance could play an important role in stabilizing world energy markets during times of instability and global uncertainty.

Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the Energy Institute told Bloomberg, “This is a geopolitical fulcrum that we could be utilizing if we didn’t have this protectionist constraint on U.S. energy.”

On a press call, Steve Eule, vice president at the Energy Institute noted that since Russia is “not afraid to use its energy power for political ends” this argues for greater U.S. energy exports.

Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, also on the call, added, “Sending a market signal” like speedy approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities “will have a calming market effect.” “Democratic [oil and natural gas] molecules from the West” will reduce volatility and improve energy diversity and security for both a Europe reliant on Russia for gas, and a Japan who has become less energy diverse following the Fukushima reactor disaster in 2011.

Foreign policy analysts agree. “[A]dditional suppliers will give European customers leverage they can use to negotiate better terms with Russian producers, as they managed to do in 2010 and 2011,” write Council on Foreign Relations Fellows Robert Blackwill and Meghan O’Sullivan [via Lachlan Markay].

The Ukraine situation makes clear that by lowering energy export barriers, the United States’ shale energy boom can help lower energy price volatility and improve global energy security especially in times of crisis.

The full International Index of Energy Security Risk and an interactive map can be found at the Institute for 21st Century Energy’s website.

UPDATE: Lachlan Markay at the Washington Free Beacon reports that Congressional leaders are calling for lifting energy export restrictions in light of the Ukraine situation. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) for example:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told an audience in Houston on Monday that current export restrictions are reducing the country’s ability to “respond quickly and nimbly” to punitive market manipulations by Russia and others.

“If this was a situation where we wanted to use our natural gas opportunities as political leverage, we’re not in that place now,” she said.

Liam Neeson movie explains why Obama wants to decimate the military

March 4, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, Policy/by Allen West

The new Liam Neeson film reveals exactly why Obama wants to shrink the military – and accommodate more turbans, beards, and hijabs. We’ve got the good and bad guys all mixed up!

You know, I’ve always enjoyed Liam Neeson, since his 1995 adventure film Rob Roy where he portrayed the18th century Scottish hero Rob Roy MacGregor. And I even got my entire family of West women to sit down and watch the first “Taken” film, one of their favorites. So when I saw the trailers for Liam Neeson’s film “Non-Stop” I was kinda excited. Now, thanks to an article in Breitbart.com, I’m kinda not.

**SPOILER ALERT** You can’t read the rest of this article without having it ruin the surprise ending for you. But after you read this article, I don’t think you’re going to want to see it anyway. Unless you want to get pissed off.

John Nolte writes at Breitbart.com, “There is no question that “Non-Stop” is a well-made, involving, not-terribly-dumb action-thriller that delivers plenty of suspense and endears Liam Neeson further into the heart of those of us who love well-made, involving, not-terribly-dumb action-thrillers. “Non-Stop” is a good movie. Heck, it is darn near very good. But the left-wing sucker punch at the end is a new low, even for Hollywood.”

On an international flight over the Atlantic, burnt-out alcoholic flight marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) is hoping for a nice easy flight in first class. But he gets a text message informing him that one person on the flight will die every twenty-minutes unless $150 million is wired to an account.

People start to die. Marks is fingered as the hijacker. Who’s doing this? Why are they doing this? What is their motive?

Well, here’s the kicker folks. The villain is not a hijacker but a terrorist with a political goal. The terrorist is a 9/11 family member, yep, that’s right, a family member who lost a loved one at the World Trade Towers.

But that’s not all — after 9/11 this family member joined the military but found himself disillusioned by the “pointless wars.” So now we have a 9/11 family member, former US Army serviceman, who will be seen as having suffered from PTSD due to America’s involvement in a worthless combat endeavor.

But that is still not all — the 9/11 family member-former serviceman-turned terrorist is upset because America hasn’t done enough to ensure there will never be another 9/11. And so he figures if he can get an air marshal blamed for a terrorist attack forcing America to wake up. And who is his sidekick? Another former member of the American military. But the insidious left wing plot doesn’t even end there, as Nolte reveals, “The one passenger on the plane who is forever helpful, kind, reasonable, noble, and never under suspicion is a Muslim doctor dressed in traditional Muslim garb including a full beard.”

So now we know why President Obama wants to shrink the US military — clearly they are actually all a bunch of undercover terrorists who will eventually blow up planes and kill innocent Americans. Now I thoroughly comprehend why Obama has mandated the US military accept turbans, beards, and hijabs — they are the good guys.

I don’t hold any of this against Liam Neeson — well, perhaps I do. He should have read the screenplay and said, as John Nolte does at the end of his review, “screw you, Hollywood.”

And that’s exactly my sentiment. You’re not getting a dime from me to watch this FUBAR film.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Common Core’s Little Green Soldiers Fighting Climate Change

March 4, 2014/in Education, Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Science/by Dr. Mary Grabar

Remember the children singing praise songs to Obama back in 2008? Remember young teenage boys marching in formation and shouting out thanks to Obama for their promising futures?

The appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education initially was seen as a savvy bipartisan move. But under his watch the Department of Education has become a propaganda arm used to influence the next generation to accept the idea of catastrophic man-made climate change as per the UN, the Environmental Protection Agency, and such groups as the National Wildlife Federation.

In a multi-pronged approach, the Department is teaming up with various non-profit and government organizations and curriculum companies to promote “fun” contests and activities for students, while promoting the next phase of Common Core “State Standards”—in science.

For example, the Department’s latest Green Strides newsletter (February 28) announced three contests for K-12 students who display their agreement with the government’s position on climate change.

In that newsletter, the Department of Education announced that another federal agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and its National Environmental Education Foundation, have “launched an exciting video challenge for middle school students called Climate Change in Focus.” In this contest, middle school students are asked to make a video that “expresses why they care about climate change and what they are doing to reduce emissions or to prepare for its impacts.” To win loyalty to the EPA, it is announced that winning videos will be highlighted on the EPA website. The effort sounds like the kids’ cereal box promotions of yore: the top three entries will receive “cool prizes like a solar charging backpack,” winning class projects will receive special recognition for their school, and the first 100 entrants will receive a year’s subscription to National Geographic Kids Magazine.

Another contest, National Wildlife Federation’s Young Reporters for the Environment, invites students “between the ages of 13-21 to report on an environmental issue in their community in an article, photo or photo essay, or short video.” Entries should “reflect firsthand investigation of topics related to the environment and sustainability in the students’ own communities, draw connections between local and global perspectives, and propose solutions.”

Students are also encouraged to make nominations for “Champions of the Earth,” a “UN-sponsored award for environment, Green Economy, and sustainability.” Among the 2013 laureates are Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo, who orchestrated a public-private biosphere reserve status for a region in Mexico, and Brian McLendon, of Google Earth.

Students already get exposed to climate change and sustainability in textbooks which are bought with taxpayer funds, as well as in videos and online materials produced by taxpayer-supported Public Broadcasting. Many students, of course, have had to sit through Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Quite obviously, a middle school student does not have the necessary scientific knowledge to make videos about climate change—a particularly challenging scientific problem.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)—the next phase of Common Core—will make the situation worse, however. Students will be even less capable of distinguishing science from propaganda. These standards, like those for math and English Language Arts, were produced by Achieve, a nonprofit education group started by corporate leaders and some governors.

As in the standards for English Language Arts and math, the NGSS are intended to be transformative, or as Appendix A states, “to reflect a new vision for American science education.” They call for new “performance expectations” that “focus on understanding and applications as opposed to memorization of facts devoid of context.”

It is precisely such short shrift to knowledge (dismissively referred to as “memorization”) to which science professors Lawrence S. Lerner and Paul Gross object. The standards bypass essential math skills in favor of “process,” they asserted last fall at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation blog.

Common Core standards, in all disciplines, are written with a lot of fluff to conceal their emptiness.

Lerner and Gross discovered “inconsistency between strong NGSS (and Appendix C) assertions and what was actually found by the mathematicians, among others, of our reviewing group.”

(The Common Core math standards themselves have garnered much criticism among teachers, parents, and students; focusing so much on “process,” they make simple problems bizarrely confusing, as a collection of examples illustrates.)

Lerner and Gross condemn the “Slighting of mathematics,” which does “increasing mischief as grade level rises, especially in the physical sciences.” Physics is “effectively absent” at the high school level.

“Several devout declarations” appear, however, the authors sardonically point out, as they note this one from Appendix C:

In particular, the best science education seems to be one based on integrating rigorous content with the practices that scientists and engineers routinely use in their work—including application of mathematics.

Lerner and Gross attack the “practices” strategy, as an extension of the “inquiry learning” of the early 1990s, which had “no notable effect on the (mediocre) performance of American students in national and international science assessments.”

With some sarcasm, they write, “It is charming to say ‘. . . students learn science effectively when they actively engage in the practices of science.’” However,

Students will not learn best if they practice science exactly as do real scientists. A firm conclusion in cognitive science contradicts that claim. Beginners don’t and can’t ‘practice’ as do experts. The practices of experts exploit prior experience and extensive build-up in long-term memory of scaffolding: facts, procedures, technical know-how, solutions to standard problems in the field, vocabularies—of knowledge in short.

Not only do the Next Generation Science Standards shirk the necessary foundations in math and science knowledge, but they explicitly call for including ideological lessons, such as “Human impacts on Earth systems.” For grades K-2, students are to understand, “Things people do can affect the environment but they can make choices to reduce their impact.” In grades 3 through 5, students will learn “Societal activities have had major effects on the land, ocean, atmosphere, and even outer space. Societal activities can also help protect Earth’s resources and environments.” This is from part ESS3.C of the NGSS standards.

“Human impacts on Earth systems” are huge topics, when approached legitimately. They present quandaries to scientists at the top levels. Yet NGSS imposes them on kindergartners. The objective, of course, is not teaching legitimate science, but indoctrination.

Amazingly, ten states have already voluntarily adopted the Standards.

Such efforts, coordinated by the Department of Education, threaten the future of science itself.

Soviet Socialism in the 21st Century – World War III: The Deadly Boomerang of Stalinism

March 4, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Simona Pipko

I write about Stalin, because I am a child of Stalinism. I saw and heard Stalin many times. As a young girl, I was mesmerized, like the vast majority of Russian people, listening to him. At the time I did not know the meaning of the word “propaganda.” Growing up, I have learned this word and I am surprised to hear propaganda here, in America. The recent attempt to present Communism (socialism) in America as “our bright future,” is appalling. Watching this difficult political time in America, I found some resemblances with Soviet Socialism here. Unfortunately, both the Democrats and Republicans are not competent on the subject: hence the nature of our country is openly and fundamentally transforming.

It is for this reason I published an earlier article, presenting Josef Stalin and his ideology—Stalinism, a developed system of Soviet Socialism. His domestic policies destroyed Russian agriculture and industry; however they could not be implemented and enforced without the involvement of Stalin’s security apparatus, including secret police. Seeing a rare situation on the globe and America’s vulnerability today, I purposely used the image of a deadly boomerang in the article, because Stalin also waged a war against Western civilization. I gave this war a new title—WW III.

Glenn Beck continually warns his listeners that WW III is coming. His efforts to prepare Americans for the war should be praised. Yet, with all my respect to Glenn and his activities to prevent the tragedy, in this particular topic, he is wrong. WW III began decades ago and never ended. To confirm my statement, let me give you some background and a document, which shows the details and significance of the war already upon us.

Stalin’s idea of a world government under the Kremlin’s auspices has been a major agenda of the Communist Party for all further leaders. The ideology translated into expansion, invasion, and occupation: the East European Warsaw Pact testified to that.

In 1955, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the idea to the members of the Communist Party—drugs and narcotics trafficking should be viewed as a strategic operation that would directly weaken the enemy. “Accordingly, he ordered a joint military-civilian, Soviet-Czechoslovak study to examine the total effect of drug… on Western society; its effects on labor productivity, education, the military (the ultimate target at that time), and its use in support of the Soviet Bloc intelligence operations.” Red Cocaine, The Drugging of America, by Joseph D, Douglass, Jr. Clarion House, 1990.

The effects of drugs were analyzed by scientists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the conclusions were that the drug trafficking would be extremely effective and the most vulnerable countries would be the United States, Canada, France, and West Germany. This study was approved in 1955 by the Soviet Defense Council. It was the first formal Soviet decision to launch narcotics trafficking against the bourgeoisie and especially against the American capitalists:

“Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. …First was the increased training of leaders for the revolutionary movements—the civilian, military, and intelligence cadres. The founding of Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow is an example of one of the early actions taken to modernize the Soviet revolutionary leadership training. The second step was the actual training of terrorists. Training for international terrorism actually began as ‘fighters for liberation’…The third step was international drug and narcotics trafficking. Drugs were incorporated into the revolutionary war strategy as a political and intelligence weapon to use against the bourgeois society and as a mechanism for recruiting agents of influence around the world.”

Read the rest of the quotation:

“The fourth step was to infiltrate organized crime and, further, to establish Soviet Bloc sponsored and controlled organized crime syndicates throughout the world. The fifth step was to plan and prepare for sabotage throughout the whole world. The network for this activity was to be in place by 1972. …The decision on organized crime… was to be a global operation targeted against… the United States, along with France, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy… The main reason for infiltrating organized crime was… information on political corruption, money and business, international relations, drug trafficking, and counter-intelligence—was to be found in organized crime. …A secondary reason was to use organized crime as a covert mechanism for distributing drugs.”

As a matter of fact, I have already mentioned the Soviet operation on drug trafficking in my first book: Baltic Winds: Testimony of A Soviet Attorney, Xlibris, 2002.

At that time I discussed the Soviet and Cuban intelligences and their activities in cahoots with drug cartels drugging America. Red Cocaine described in detail the concealed operations of the Cuban DGI and the Soviet KGB, using a powerful drug syndicate in Colombia and Panama against America. I wrote the book in 1992 and for the first time I also gave the notion of Soviet Fascism in the 1990s. Certainly Red Cocaine helped me to arrive at that conclusion. Now at the time of global terrorism, I have a duty to give the reader a detailed explanation of all the terms I used in my first two books and all the avenues the Soviets organized to drug America. Red Cocaine provides me with needed information and data.

In the Soviet operation of drugging America, besides Cubans, the central role was given to Czechoslovakia as well. The first plan was put into action in 1956; it instructed Czechoslovak strategic intelligence to infiltrate seventeen different organized crime groups including the Mafia in France, Italy, Austria, Latin America, and Germany. I have already mentioned that 20 percent of the Italian police were members of the communist party and the Italian Communist Party used them heavily in the infiltration operation. “These members helped the Soviet Bloc intelligence agents infiltrate the Mafia. War criminals, e.g. Germans were also coerced into assisting the Soviet Bloc agents in this endeavor, especially throughout Latin America.” What is Happening to America? The Hidden Truth of Global Destruction, Xlibris, 2012

You will grasp the current situation by reading both books, especially Red Cocaine, which warns us about upcoming narcotics warfare with striking details and documentation. Its summary is equally impressive:

“Narcotics, terrorism, and organized crime were coordinated and used together in a complementary fashion. Narcotics were used to destroy the society. Terrorism was used to destabilize the country and prepare the revolutionary situation. Organized crime was used to control the elite. All three were long-range strategic operations, and all three were incorporated into Soviet Bloc planning by 1956.”

Look at our world now fifty years later and you will find incredible “achievements” of the Soviet fatal design. Red Cocaine was a harbinger of our future and we missed it.

While I am writing these words, Russia positions itself to invade Ukraine—the world is stunned and confused, I am not.

Moreover, I can predict again—Russia will never leave the Crimean Peninsula—Crimea is a strategic military post on the Black Sea and has pipeline under it. That is why the Ukrainian flag was taken down and replaced with the Russian flag (a typical Soviet behavior). I see Russian soldiers without insignia occupying Crimea. Life and current events in Ukraine confirm my definition and the use of the term – WWIII. The situation is more that dramatic in the entire globe—the aggressor must be stopped by economic sanctions. Mr. Romney was right—Russia is our geopolitical foe NO.1. Arguing that statement in 2012, Obama has exposed himself as a person out of touch with reality.

The consequences of that we are reaping today—we and our economy are the hostages of WW III.

In the preceding articles, discussing Stalinism, I called some leaders charlatans, mobsters, or thugs. If you want a real confirmation of my words, just study the biography and the behavior of the Ukrainian President Victor Yunukovich, who ran to Russia. I can offer another suggestion, please find out about the leaders and the conditions in which people are living in Abkhazia and Assetia, annexed the Georgia territory by Russia in 2008. Do you remember a young KGB’s diplomat of the Soviet Embassy, Vitally Churkin 25 years ago? He is the current Russian Ambassador in UN. All of what we are watching today is Soviet Socialism in the 21^st Century–To move ahead, Russia will try to provoke a civil war in Ukraine, while blaming the West.

To be continued www.simonapipko1.com

The Crony Gap: Political Inequality is the Real Problem by Stewart Dompe, Adam C. Smith

March 4, 2014/in Culture War, Economy, Policy, Politics/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

When it comes to public discourse, inequality is immensely fashionable. Along with its featured position at this year’s Davos conference, it received top billing in President Obama’s recent State of the Union address. But most of this talk lacks merit.

Some inequality is in fact necessary; it provides the incentives for creativity and innovation. In other words, if inequality is a consequence of overall growth, then it’s a positive symptom. Apple revolutionized cell phone and tablet technology—fields littered with less profitable models—and very few would argue their profits were unearned, any more than they would argue that ordinary people have been made worse off by owning iPhones. If we can agree that some inequality is needed to incentivize wealth creation, the question becomes: What are the illegitimate sources of the inequality we see in the world?

Sources of Inequality

Inequality has emerged in the modern world for a number of reasons. For one, more money is currently accruing to capital than labor, as capital becomes scarcer in a regulated market. These returns to capital outpace that which goes to labor, and the divergence becomes significant over time.

The marketplace for labor has also changed, favoring those with unique skills in technology and finance. Those who are most productive in these areas are compensated handsomely. People who can put their skills to use in the new knowledge economy also often find increasing returns to their investment as compared with more traditional industries, which face diminishing patterns of growth.

President Obama’s answer is to spend more on education. His argument is that higher levels of education lead to increased productivity and better wages. But even if every dollar of additional spending was translated into human capital, this would be insufficient to prevent inequality. After all, many people eschew careers with high salaries because they want something different for their lives—think of art history majors. While these preferences may generate greater well-being, they will not necessarily alleviate income inequality; after all, engineers and computer scientists would see their productivity rise alongside their peers’.

So what about politics? Oxfam made waves at this year’s Davos World Economic Forum with a widely touted study of rising global inequality, “WORKING FOR THE FEW: Political capture and economic inequality.” What sets this piece apart from the virtual avalanche of recent anti-inequality manifestos is that it calls attention to an underreported, though fundamental, cause of economic inequality: political capture. Coming from Oxfam, which doesn’t exactly have the best record when it comes to economic assessment, it’s a welcome development.

The difference between political and economic causes of inequality is that political inequality is an artifact of government control, while economic inequality flows as a natural consequence of voluntary human action. Political inequality arises when the State controls access to markets or intervenes with largesse extracted from the market. It creates juicy prizes that only the politically connected can access and increases the value of otherwise expensive routes around the State.

The irony here is even when we properly diagnose the problem, we are just as likely to reinforce it as address it. So it is with the Oxfam report. While chastising the business community for putting its hands in public coffers, Oxfam cannot help but recommend policies that encourage only more political panhandling. Progressive taxation, greater public presence in education, health care and social protection, demand for a living wage, and stronger regulation of markets—each, in its own way, contributes to the very problem Oxfam ostensibly hopes to solve.

Take progressive taxation. On the face of it, this is a simple transfer from the rich to the poor. But if that’s the case, why does Warren Buffet pay so little in taxes in an already-progressive system? Or Mitt Romney? Steepening the tax curve only benefits wealthy accountants as the rich discover legal loopholes and tax shelters. Cayman Island accounts provide little in the way of “public benefit,” instead enabling such assets to go to greater capital investment. And greater capital investment only serves to widen the inequality gap, as we explained above.

Regulation of markets is another disturbing entry on the list. Regulation has long been a means for special interest groups to toy with the market process to further their own interests while burdening their competitors. Studies show there is a strong correlation between market regulation, political corruption, and an erosion of trust in public institutions. In other words, talented rent-seekers learn to rig the rules in their favor.

Furthermore, regulatory uncertainty can lead to capital scarcity as lenders will only invest in new ventures with a high enough rate of return to compensate for the increased risk. Firms also operate within a given capital structure that depends on the productivity of their employees. If well-intentioned regulation prices these employees out of the market, there might not be a viable substitute, in which case the productivity and return to that capital falls. Put another way, highly skilled workers are not always a substitute for unskilled workers if you have to radically alter the capital structure to accommodate them. So, say, if meatpackers are priced out of the market, their tools might not maintain their value; instead, the firm may hire an engineer to monitor and maintain a chicken de-boning robot. Ultimately, if regulation causes the existing capital structure to shift radically, existing capital might lose value—leading to far greater returns to what capital remains, increasing the divergence in income between those who hold the capital and those who don’t (e.g. computer coders vs. art history majors).

Finally, wage controls are probably one of the surest ways of undermining the efforts of the poor. It’s no wonder that unions are among the fiercest advocates for wage controls; they jump at any chance to push workers willing to accept lower wages out of the running for jobs. Even worse, those who are willing to work for less are usually the very poor who need the income most. It might not pay all the bills, but it’s certainly better than no job at all. This was indeed the finding of a recent CBO report indicating that current proposals to raise wage floors to $10.10 would result in the elimination of 500,000 jobs.

To competently address any justifiable concerns regarding income inequality, we have to maintain focus on the problematic features of society that lead to it. Simply decrying inequality itself clouds the issue. Political inequality is the sort that makes people worse off, and kudos go to those who are willing to admit this. But it takes more than acknowledgement. It takes an understanding of how wealth is created and how it is distributed to truly root out the illegitimate causes of wealth inequality. Considering just how political inequality operates to undermine the economic forces of wealth creation is therefore a useful lens in determining what makes our society less equal.

ABOUT STEWART DOMPE

Stewart Dompe is an instructor of economics at Johnson & Wales University. He has published articles in Econ Journal Watch and is a contributor to the forthcoming Homer Economicus: Using The Simpsons to Teach Economics.

ABOUT ADAM C. SMITH

Adam C. Smith is an assistant professor of economics and director of the Center for Free Market Studies at Johnson & Wales University. He is also a visiting scholar with the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University and coauthor of the forthcoming Bootleggers and Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics.

Dirty Dozen Sexual Exploiters of 2014 list includes Eric Holder, Verizon, Google and American Library Association

March 4, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

Morality In Media (MIM) has released its 2014 Dirty Dozen LIst: 12 Leading Contributors to Sexual Exploitation. The top purveyors of pornography in America are:

Attorney General Eric Holder – Mr. Holder refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against hard-core adult pornography, despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and effectively enforced by previous attorneys general.
Verizon – Verizon pushes porn into our homes now through hardcore pay-per-view movies on FIOS, smartphones and tablets and as an Internet Service Provider with insufficient filtering options.
Sex Week – Yale and other colleges and universities repeatedly offer Sex Week on campus. Porn stars are routinely invited to lecture, and pornography that glamorizes “fantasy rape” is screened.
Playstation – PlayStation’s live-streaming abilities are filling thousands of homes with live porn, and the PlayStation Store sells hundreds of pornographic and sexually violent games.
Facebook – Facebook has become a top place to trade pornography, child pornography and for sexual exploitation. Facebook’s guidelines prohibit such behavior, but the company is doing little to enforce them.
Barnes & Noble – This Fortune 500 Company is a major supplier of adult pornography and child erotica. They regularly put pornography near the children’s sections in their stores and provide free, unfiltered porn publications on their Nook e-reader.
Hilton – This hotel chain, like Hyatt, Starwood and many other top hotel chains, provides hardcore pornography movie choices. Porn channels are often the first advertisement on their in-room TVs.
American Library Association – The ALA encourages public libraries to keep their computers unfiltered and allow patrons, including children, to access pornography.
Google – Google’s empire thrives on porn. Porn is easily available, even to children, through YouTube, GooglePlay, Google Images and Google Ads.
Tumblr – This popular social media blogging site bombards users with porn. Users must only be 13, and the filters do not work.
50 Shades of Gray – This bestselling book series and upcoming movie are normalizing sexual violence, domination and torture of women. Oprah Winfrey Network, Broadway and other mainstream outlets have even promoted this abusive lifestyle.
Cosmopolitan Magazine – The magazine is a full-on pornographic, “how-to” sex guide, encouraging women to accept the pornified culture around them. They specifically market this content to teen girls.

Destroying the U.S. Military

March 3, 2014/in Commentary, National Security, News, Policy/by Alan Caruba

It tells you everything you need to know about the idiots running this country. As the Russians were invading Ukraine, our Secretary of Defense was discussing major cuts to our military budget.

Si vis pacem, para bellum is wisdom passed down to us over the centuries from ancient Rome It translates “If you want peace, plan for war.”

One of the requirements the early presidents of the nation faced was the creation of an army and navy to protect it from the imperialist powers of Britain, France and Spain, all of whom had their eyes on parts of the continent they wanted to claim. After the Revolution, the nation fought a succession of wars to protect and expand the map we now have.

The world to the Founding Fathers and all presidents since was seen as a dangerous place because it is.

The only “success” of President Barack Obama has had to date has been to impose six trillion more in debt than when he arrived. A variety of programs such as the failed “stimulus” added to the debt and the deficit.

He has been consistent in seeking cuts to our military budget. From his first year in office Obama has sought to reduce the military in every way possible, though part of the reductions are attributed to the sequestration limits to reduce government spending. There are areas that most surely require reductions, but the security of the nation to protect itself and maintain and project its influence is critical.

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has exerted this power. In the 1950s President Truman extended protection to South Korea after it was invaded by the Soviet-backed North Korea. The war ended in a stalemate that exists to this day. There have been other conflicts with less successful outcomes and they include Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In each case, we stayed too long. After the 9/11 attack the Afghanistan conflict was essentially won by 2002, but we stayed on. The Iraq War outcome has been a spectacular failure because the Obama administration was unable or unwilling to retain a military presence there. The Syrian civil war has cost over a 130,000 lives after Obama failed to respond to the red line he drew and turned Syria over to the Russian Federation. Iran is also an ally of the Assad regime there.

In an act of incredible naiveté or stupid or both, the U.S. is negotiating with Iran in the belief that diplomacy will have any effect on an Islamic republic that has regarded itself at war with the U.S. and Israel since it came into being in 1979.

No matter the outcome of the current budget cut proposals, Americans know they owe a debt of gratitude to those who put their lives on the line to fulfill the outcomes they were called upon to fight for. We won World War II because we destroyed the capacity of Germany and Japan to wage war. That is the only way to win a war.

Earlier, after our entry into World War I resulted in bringing that first modern conflict to an end, its veterans returned home to discover that benefits they had been promised were not fulfilled. The Bonus Army was the popular name given to an assemblage of an estimated 43,000 marchers, some 17,000 veterans and their supporters, who in 1932 wanted the cash payment redemption of their service that had been promised. The nation was in the midst of the Great Depression, not unlike our present economic decline. In July, after being ordered off of all government property, the marchers along with their wives and children were assaulted by U.S. infantry and cavalry, support by six tanks. Some deaths ensured. A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 was defused by the Roosevelt administration. In 1936 Congress voted to pay the veterans.

America has enacted veteran appropriation bills on time only three times of the past 25 years. There is a huge backlog in the disability benefits claims. Four years ago, recognizing the harm to the Veterans Administration healthcare system, Congress passed and the President signed legislation to fund it a year in advance, removing it from the gridlock affecting so much of the nation’s programs. The problem, however, continues.

Any nation seen to be weak will have to deal with its enemies in some fashion.

The ancient Romans knew that and it is no less true today. A recent poll indicated that Americans believe that the U.S. is no longer respected by other nations. They are right and the source is Barack Obama who was in part elected by his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. will be out of the latter by the end of this year.

The announcement by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel regarding major military funding reductions reflects the President’s efforts to destroy its ability to respond to a future conflict. The likelihood that we might have to fight global wars such as WWII is offered as the reason for the cuts. That has not precluded lesser conflicts. All wars, however, are very expensive. Not having to fight them is a very good investment. It is an essential reason for maintaining a powerful military capability.

The budget put forth by the Obama administration would shrink the Army to pre-World War II levels. The current 520,000 active-duty soldiers would shrink to 440,000-450,000. The U.S. Marines, now numbering around 190,000 would be drawn down to 182,000 or to 175,000 if sequestration –level cuts were continued in 2016 and beyond. The Air Force will reduce the number of tactical air squadrons and retire the entire A-10 fleet; a Pentagon recommendation that reflects their primary anti-tank mission which they deem to be no longer needed.

The Army National Guard and Reserves would also be drawn down—from the current 355,000 to 335,000 for the Army and the Reserves from 205,000 soldiers to 195,000. If sequestration returns, the former would be reduced to 315,000 and the latter to 185,000.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says that Obama would “rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military and support for our troops”, believing that “somehow, a strong America, well equipped, with a strong military, is a danger to international peace and stability.”

“And just exactly the opposite’s true,” said Cheney, “I think if history teaches any lesson, it’s that the world’s a safer, more stable place when the United States is strong and is prepared to use that strength when necessary.”

If one does not learn from history, as a sage once noted, you are likely to have to repeat it.

Having weakened the nation’s economy, causing millions to be unemployed, and having attacked its healthcare system, the nation’s military strength is now openly being attacked by the proposed reductions.

Nothing good can come of this.

Blinking Lights Project

March 3, 2014/in Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

“One night we asked people to blink their lights if they believed in freedom for Poland. We went to the window, and for hours, all of Warsaw was blinking.”

Over the last 25 years, leaders in the free market movement have stressed the need for sound public-policy research and basic economic education. Though important, they are proving to be insufficient to overcome trends that are eroding our liberties. Why?

The missing focus is on personal character.

The Blinking Lights Project is a new effort at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) designed to highlight and emphasize the vital link between personal character and a free society.

In America’s first century, strong personal character kept our liberties substantially intact without the need for think tanks, policy research, and economic education. Americans from all walks of life generally opposed the expansion of government power not because they read policy studies or earned degrees in economics, but because they placed a high priority on character. Using government to get something at somebody else’s expense, or mortgaging the future for near-term gain, seemed dishonest and cynical to them, if not downright wrong.

A free society is impossible without character because bad character leads to bad economics, which is bad for liberty. Ultimately, whether we live free or stumble in the dark thrall of serfdom is a matter of our individual character.

The Blinking Lights Project at FEE connects character, liberty and economics. On this webpage you will find resources designed to explain that connection. We are launching this project by offering the inspirational movie Amazing Grace, numerous written articles, videos and recorded webinars.

If you find these resources helpful, please share them with your family and friends. Our future depends on it.

Why is it called the Blinking Lights Project?

It stems from an experience Lawrence Reed had back in 1986, when he took a trip behind the Iron Curtain to visit freedom-fighters in communist-run Poland.

There he met with Zbigniew and Sofia Romaszewski, two brave dissidents who had just been released from prison because of their work to spread the word of liberty.

They had run an underground radio station that communicated the truths that the state-controlled media wouldn’t let their people hear. They could only broadcast eight to ten minutes at a time before moving their location to stay ahead of the police.

Lawrence asked them “how did you know people were listening?” So they told him something he’ll never forget:

“One night we asked people to blink their lights if they believed in freedom for Poland. We went to the window, and for hours, all of Warsaw was blinking.”

Those blinking lights were a harbinger of freedom to come for Poland, as just three years later the Iron Curtain fell and Eastern Europe was freed from communist oppression.

Here is Lindy Vopnfjörð’s song inspired by the story:

Are We Good Enough for Liberty?

Without Character, A Free Society Is Not Just Unlikely . . . It’s Impossible.

“Ravaged by conflict, corruption, and tyranny, the world is starving for people of character.

Indeed, as much as anything, it is on this matter that the fate of individual liberty has always depended.

A free society flourishes when people seek to be models of honor, honesty, and propriety at whatever the cost in material wealth, social status, or popularity. It descends into barbarism when they abandon what’s right in favor of self- gratification at the expense of others; when lying, cheating, or stealing are winked at instead of shunned.

If you want to be free, if you want to live in a free society, you must assign top priority to raising the caliber of your character and learning from those who already have it in spades.