Monthly Archives: October 2009

The Cost of the War

I was tooling around the internet this morning and hit upon Ben Hoffman’s site.  He had some really good activity on the War in Iraq.  One of my comments there gave me reason to maybe make a post of my own.

Make no  mistake about it, this war is and always has been about what is good for America.  We may have been wrong, we may have been right.  But the reasons we invaded were reasons that would benefit the good ‘ol US of A.

Some think that we invaded because we thought there were weapons of mass destruction.  Others think that we invaded to give us better leverage in Middle East politics.  Some feel we invaded for oil.  And others yet think that we invaded because Dubya wanted revenge for his Daddy.

Whatever the reason we went in, the fact remains that we did.  And those from the Left are pissed.  Pah-issed. If it ain’t the money we spent it’s the lives that have been lost.  Not only ours, but those of the innocent Iraqi civilians too.  They just scream that we are killing civilians.  Let’s take a look.

Saddam Hussein became President of Iraq in July of 1979.  The United States overthrew him in April of 2003.  During that time, Saddam was responsible for between 600,000 and 1,000,000 civilian death.  When you break down the deaths per month, and only Iraqi civilian deaths–not ALL deaths, you get between 2,105 and 3,509 civilian deaths per month.  These are deaths due to Saddam Hussein being in power.

Now, let’s flash forward to the US invasion.  We removed Saddam from power 78 months ago.  If Saddam remained in power for those 78 months, he would have put to death between 164,190 and 273,702 innocent Iraqi civilians.  Using the numbers provided by this Liberal website we see that between 93,793 and 102,330 people have died due to the invasion.  The difference for the average civilian in Iraq since the US invasion toppled Saddam?

Between 70,397 and 171,372 more of their neighbors, friends and family would have been killed.

Makes you wonder why the Liberal Left hates the average Iraqi so much, doesn’t it?

This Is What It Will Look Like

A foretaste of the feast too come:

LOS ANGELES – It was bound to happen: Some people who aren’t at high risk for swine flu complications got the much-in-demand vaccine.

Sometimes they were healthy adults or senior citizens instead of kids, pregnant women and people with health problems.

Before Los Angeles County health officials stepped up screening at their flu clinics, Natalie Thompson sailed through the long line and got the vaccine along with her 8-year-old son, even though she’s not in one of the priority groups.

“If I can get it, I’m not gonna say no,” said Thompson, 35, of Hollywood Hills.

Another mom, Katy Radparvar, didn’t say no either.

“Our doctor doesn’t have it yet,” said the 41-year-old woman who was vaccinated along with her three children at a public health vaccination site in suburban Encino last week.

Public health officials don’t want to be vaccine police. Many don’t turn anyone away who wants the vaccine, though some locations are tougher than others.

“For many this is a frustrating process and we really sympathize with those who show up at a clinic and can’t get vaccinated,” said Los Angeles County public health director Dr. Jonathan Fielding.

Across the country, thousands have waited in line and many have been turned away, as manufacturers have trickled out the slow-to-produce vaccine. Things are improving, and now about 25 million doses are available, the government says.

Aware of scant supplies up front, Santa Barbara County clinics administered their 4,400 shots to pregnant women only. San Diego County is only immunizing those on the priority list, but is taking the word of residents.

Look, it’s simple.  Like anything in this world, there is never enough of it to satisfy everyone’s desire for it at full capacity.  That is, if free, there would never be enough Coke, gasoline, tennis shoes or hair brushes.  Medical care is the same.  And when organizing a nation, that fact should not escape anyone; especially the leaders.  The hard thing to acknowledge is that we know people will get sick.  Some people will die.

The good news is that medical technology will continue to hum along generating new and better services and techniques that will cure or heal people today that a mere five years ago would have been fatal.  And you simply HAVE to take solace in that.

What You Will Never Hear On Main Stream Media

The other day a story broke about the Texas man that requested his Latino employees to Anglicize their names.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they’d be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

Not sure where I fall on this one.  I mean, jeez.  On the other hand, he has a point.  If a customer can’t understand your name, it makes it hard to relate to that customer.  Maybe he should have made it clear that he was going to have the employees change their names when he hired them; I don’t know.  But what I DO know is this clip from CNN is awesome.

Just listen to the females reporter’s voice as she “interviews” this guy.  Her tone is simply dripping with intent and scorn.  Then listen as Rick Sanchez weighs in.  I’ll tell ya this much; the Main Stream Media will NEVER play this for you!

Check Your Work

Global Warming.  GLOBAL WARMING!

The globe is warming, man is causing it and we are all going to die!

And this is settled science.  ‘Cause that’s what all the science says.  And the news is telling us so!

PHILADELPHIA –- An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years. In addition, this jump appears to occur between 1879 and 1915, a time of industrial change that may provide a direct link to human-induced climate change.

The rate of relative sea-level rise, or RSLR, during the 20th century was 3 to 3.3 millimeters per year, higher than the usual rate of one per year. Furthermore, the acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Holy Moly!

But wait.  What happens when a skeptic goes and checks the data?

Fortunately they provide the data with the plot. You can read all about the Topex/Poseidon data preparation here. I took that raw data and plotted it here in an expanded size and did a trend line.  The result was surprising. A slight negative trend.

See, this is the problem I have with the Global Warming crowd.  They claim they have data.  Back away from data that shows their data to be wrong.  They make predictions suing bad data and then ignore the fact that their predictions are always wrong.

This Isn't Going To End Well

We know what happens when the government pressures banks to lend to people they wouldn’t otherwise lend to, right?

So, what does Obama wanna do when banks won’t lend to people they don’t want to?  He pressures ’em.

President Obama is prepared to take “every appropriate step” to pressure banks to lend more money to small businesses, he said Saturday, the latest in a week of salvos his administration has directed toward financial institutions.

Obama said banks should return the favor for a $700 billion taxpayer-financed financial bailout package by lending more money to small businesses, without specifying what steps he would be willing to take to mount pressure on the banks.

Too many small business owners remain unable to get credit, Obama said in his weekly radio address, despite his administration’s efforts to jump-start lending, which was virtually frozen when the financial crisis took hold last year.

“These are the very taxpayers who stood by America’s banks in a crisis, and now it’s time for our banks to stand by creditworthy small businesses and make the loans they need to open their doors, grow their operations and create new jobs,” Obama said.

“It’s time for those banks to fulfill their responsibility to help ensure a wider recovery, a more secure system and more broadly shared prosperity,” said Obama.

Because 9.8% unemployment just isn’t high enough.  You know what happens when you start a Rookie?  He gets beat.

Crossing the Line

Okay, so the Fox News folks are a little defensive because Obama tried to bar them from an interview.  It was nice to see Obama lose that by the way.  But really, at some point the battle between news source and political theory has to stop.  And I think that Fox News may have done that today.

fox stop pelosi care

I just don’t think that Fox should be campaigning to “Stop Obamacare”.

Unbelievable

It had to be sensational journalism, right?  The headline had to be built to create viewers and/or rating or something, right?

Nope.

It’s true.  The White House tried to bar a Fox News reporter from the round robin interview given to the press pool.  Awesome.

Predictable

I have posted here and here about the price wars going on between some of the worlds largest retailers.  These companies are duking it out for the right to sell books to the public at a price LESS than their competition.  That’s right.  The GALL.  The utter horrible greed these companies exhibit is unconscionable.  To sell books cheap.

And the result?

By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

The American Booksellers Association has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the book price war under way between Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. to determine if it constitutes “illegal predatory pricing.”

In a letter dated Oct. 22, the ABA said it believes that the discount pricing—which has led to 10 of the most anticipated hardcover titles being priced as low as $8.98 on Walmart.com—amounts to such an act and that it is “damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.”

The letter said while it may appear that the prices will generate “more reading and a greater sharing of ideas in the culture,” many of the independent stores that belong to the ABA won’t be able to compete.

Unreal.

What we have here is capitalism at it’s best.  Competition driving down the price of goods that people want.  And we see organized unions working to stop the effort.

The best analysis:

Although independent booksellers typically stock only a smattering of best sellers, the steep discounting of such well-known authors ultimately could cause consumers to question whether all hardcover books are priced too high, at $25 or so.

Right.  So selling a product well above its natural market value is a good thing?  Freakin leftists.

Where Brad and Britt Are Wrong

The boys over at WZTK are at it again.  This morning they are talking about Obama reducing the pay of executives whose companies took money in the bailout program.

Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in federal bailouts, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.

Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. The executive’s total compensation — including bonuses and retirement contributions — will drop, on average, by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup, Bank of America, the American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers.

The conversations mostly centered on the fact that it was these big companies executives fault that the economy has gone through this latest recession.  And, as such, these executives should “suffer”.  Or, at the very least, should not continue to reap the rewards of their position by continuing to make all of this money.

I completely resonate with the concept of reward by performance.  I think that bad teachers should be fired.  Bad lawyers not be allowed to pass the bar.  Bad soccer players not make the team etc etc.  But the idea that we somehow cede this normal working of things to the government to satisfy the political need of the day is very very dangerous.  Very.  Not to mention it may be illegal.

However, the part that really got me going was the inevitable conversation surrounding the cause of this whole mess; the housing bubble.  The boom and bust.  The left just SCREAMS when anyone suggests that government regulation is responsible.  That somehow, by passing laws and creating rules that force people to do what they normally would not do, isn’t going to disrupt the market, always in ways that are unforeseen and undesirable.

For example, if a friend or family member asked to borrow $100 I would enter into that arrangement.  And prolly for free.  That is, I would give them 5 twenties and if they gave me a hundred bucks later, we would be “even.”  No juice or interest.  Now, if I were in the business of selling money, I would want to see some reward to hand money out.  This comes in the form of interest.  Soo I begin to borrow money to people.  Sometimes I get all of my money back with interest.  Sometimes I get most or some of my money back and then sometimes I don’t get any money back.  I begin to try to figure out what characteristics trend to me getting paid back.  I really want to lend only to those people who are going to pay me back [crazy talk, I know!  Wanting my money back.]  However, I am not the only money seller out there so I have to compete, in terms of lower interest rates, with other firms.  This keeps my profits down.

Now, a guy walks into my office and says he would like to borrow $100.  I say nope, the 5% interest isn’t enough to overcome my doubts that you’ll repay.  He looks at me and says, well, how high of a rate do I need to agree to before your fears are overcome?  I say 8%.  He says okay.  And now I sell money to another group of people for 8%.  And so on.  However, there is a group of people who I will not sell money to under any condition.  Just won’t do it.  Will not.

Enter the Libtard.  They claim that it’s not “fair” for me to deny lending opportunities to those people.  And because they have the power of law and fiat, they create rules and laws that force me to make a set % of my loans to these people.  Because I enjoy paying my mortgage and feeding my family, I comply out of fear they will put me out of business.  And low and behold, these people begin to default and I start losing money.  No one is surprised.  I sure ain’t.

And this is the beginning of the crisis.

Shocker

Because buying money isn’t any different than buying plywood it is no surprise that banks are going to change the way in which they sell plywood.

On Friday, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will join FDIC Vice Chairman Marty Gruenberg and others in a discussion of “new, safe and affordable credit options for America’s underbanked.”

The policy discussion on Capitol Hill comes as banks – reacting to new credit card rules imposed by Democrats – start pulling the plastic from current credit-card holders, a move that is sure to lead to even more “underbanked” Americans.

Press reports note that Citibank recently canceled a number of credit card accounts affiliated with the Shell, ExxonMobil, Citgo and Phillips 66-Conoco oil companies.

Citibank also has notified some customers that interest rates on unpaid balances are going up – to a whopping 29.99 percent APR, effective Nov. 30. As the new law requires, customers have been notified that they may reject the change to their accounts, in which case their accounts are closed immediately and they may continue paying off their balances at current rates over five years.

So, when people who have a track record of not paying back their loans no longer have to pay the price of not paying back their loans, banks are going to react by no longer loaning them money they have no hope of paying back, that’s news?

Stop.

But then again, maybe it is.

Dave seems to think that credit card companies are simply soaking the folks that use their cards and imposing new rules will not result in increased fees:

The new rules are likely to reduce some of those profits (that is, to the extent that companies don’t find new “gotcha” fees to replace the old ones). However, the rules are not likely to raise rates or fees for responsible card holders.

But that is not what we are seeing, in fact, it’s the opposite:

On Wednesday, USA Today noted that starting next year, Bank of America will charge a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99 – an “experimental” move. Even card holders who have never carried a balance or paid late fees could be among those affected, the newspaper said. “You could be spanked for staying out of debt,” the article stated.

So once more, we see government stepping in and regulating where they have no business regulating.  The result?  Predictable.  Higher prices and reduced supply.

Go Obama!