Monthly Archives: September 2010

More Minimum Wage

Posted on September 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

The intentions of those that preach the minimum wage are noble. Who isn’t interested in helping those folks who are the poorest among us? What person that we would care to associate with could not help but have feelings of sympathy for people who struggle to make enough money to eat, to cloth themselves or pay rent?

Who?

No one. Not one single person I know would brush those feelings away.

However, with that said, the singing of the platitudes of the minimum wage has to end when the effectiveness of those laws are considered.

And the result? The verdict?

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Posted in Economics, Liberty, Politics: International

Tagged Free Market, Liberal, Minimum Wage, Unemployment

Senate Race 2010: XI

Posted on September 24, 2010 | 1 comment

Time for some status. All the big primaries are over and we know who is running against who.

First, the Retiring Democrats:

State	Status	Democrat	Republican	Incumbent	Front Runner	Spread
CT	Ret. Dem	Blumenthal	McMahon	Democrat	Democrat	7.5
DE	Ret. Dem	Coons	O’Donnell	Democrat	Democrat	15
IL	Ret. Dem	Giannoulias	Kirk	Democrat	Republican	1
IN	Ret. Dem	Ellsworth	Coats	Democrat	Republican	16
ND	Ret. Dem	Heitkamp	Hoeven	Democrat	Republican	27

I think we lost Delaware. And that’s okay. We weren’t going to take the Senate and this sent a message to the Republican establishment; Come big or Stay Home.

From my count, we moved from taking 4 to only taking 3.

The next group is the retiring Republicans. The only news of note is that Florida is steadily moving away from I-Crist to R-Rubio. One for the good guys:

State	Status	Democrat	Republican	Incumbent	Front Runner	Spread
FL	Ret. Rep	Crist	Rubio	Republican	Republican	10
KS	Ret. Rep			Republican	Republican
KY	Ret. Rep	Conway	Paul	Republican	Republican	7
MO	Ret. Rep	Carnahan	Blunt	Republican	Republican	5.5
NH	Ret. Rep	Hodes	Ayotte	Republican	Republican	6.4
OH	Ret. Rep	Fisher	Portman	Republican	Republican	13.3

We lose 0.

The biggie. This is the one that counts; Term Limited Democrats. In my mind, we move from taking 4 to taking 5. Ohio went our way.

State	Status	Democrat	Republican	Incumbent	Front Runner	Spread
AR	Term Dem	Lincoln	Boozman	Democrat	Republican	25
CA	Term Dem	Boxer	Fiorina	Democrat	Democrat	5.5
CO	Term Dem	Bennet	Buck	Democrat	Republican	2.4
HI	Term Dem			Democrat	Democrat
MD	Term Dem			Democrat	Democrat
NV	Term Dem	Reid	Angle	Democrat	Democrat	0.5
NY	Term Dem	Gillibrand	Blakeman	Democrat	Democrat	6
NY	Term Dem			Democrat	Democrat
OR	Term Dem	Wyden	Huffman	Democrat	Democrat	16
PA	Term Dem	Sestak	Toomey	Democrat	Republican	6.8
VE	Term Dem			Democrat	Democrat
WA	Term Dem	Murray	Rossi	Democrat	Democrat	6.2
WI	Term Dem	Feingold	Johnson	Democrat	Republican	8

Now, I admit, I AM ASSUMING that we win one of the three: New York, California or Nevada. BIG assumption. But that’s 5 to the good.

And the Term Limited Republicans? The news is so good I’m not even going to post it! We lose 0. Not even close.

That means I have the Republicans picking up 8 in the Senate. That moves us from 59-41 to 51-49.

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Posted in Elections 2010, Politics: National, Senate

Tagged Democrat, Politics, Republican

You Can’t Do It

Posted on September 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

I’m listening to the Brad and Britt show this morning. The topic of the hour is taxes and health care. Both are timely and appropriate topics. Health care reform is being implemented soon, or at least portions of it. And taxes, well, taxes have been the hot topic because of the expiration of the “Bush Tax Cuts” as well as the new Republican “Pledge to America” that’s being released this afternoon.

Both topics are fascinating. And, to a degree, related.

Any way, while discussing the reforms that are kicking in soon, Brad takes the stand that if you object to Health Care Reform, you can’t take advantage of it. “You Can’t Do It” he yells, “You Can’t Do It”.

This, of course, is asinine.

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Posted in Health Care, Liberty, Politics: National

Tagged Brad and Britt, Leftist, North Carolina, North Carolina Politics, Politics

Why Government Spending Your Money is Bad

Posted on September 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

The main objection by folks who want the government to remain small is that money in the hands of individual people gets spent faster and better than money taken from those people to be spent at government discretion. Every single dollar the government spends is a dollar that has been taken from someone and handed to some government agency. For every $20 an hour job created by government there is one less $20 job in the private sector. It can’t be any other way. The government produces nothing.

But the argument is that when folks get scared and hoard their money, the government has to intervene, take their money and forcefully interject that money into the economy.

And fast.

But does it work that way?

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Posted in Economy, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

Tagged Abuse of Power, Barack Obama, Michigan, Stimulus

Great News for Third Party Candidates

Posted on September 18, 2010 | 1 comment

For ever we’ve had to pick our leaders from one of the two main political parties. And the problem with that is we tend, especially lately, is that the primaries seems to give us only the most extreme candidates that each party has to offer.

If you want moderation, or if you want something other than the party line down the line, you’re kinda oughta luck.

Want a fiscal conservative but a social moderate? Good luck.

Want a social liberal but a fiscal moderate? Again, good luck.

So it seems that we’re stuck in the middle. Sending our “Knights” out to do battle that look like every knight before him.

Rather depressing.

But there may be a way out.

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Posted in Elections 2010, Politics: North Carolina

Tagged Instant Runoff Voting, IRV, North Carolina, North Carolina Politics, Politics

That Whole Life Expectancy Thing?

Posted on September 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

Yeah…not so much.

It turns out that there are a number of problems in determining life expectancy numbers. As I mentioned the other day, in some cases, nations aren’t reporting their “deaths” correctly.

And THAT could make a huge difference.

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Posted in Health Care, Politics: International

Tagged Abuse of Power, Japan, Life Expectancy, Statistics, WHO

7000

Posted on September 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

the previous 3 months it’s taken an average of just shy of 2 months to get a 1000 hits. Today marks a new best:

19 days.

Again, trivial nonsense, but not bad for a little kid from a small farm town.

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Posted in Fun

Tagged blogging

What Did They THINK Was Going to Happen?

Posted on September 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

We are seeing–living–the impact of government intervention in markets. Most notably, the housing market.

Not only has the housing market largely been responsible for the current economic conditions we’re seeing, but it’s also responsible, in large part, for the slow and anemic recovery.

The sad part?

It didn’t have to be this way. And THAT, gentle reader, is a text book lesson in markets and external impacts.

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Posted in Economics, Politics: National

Tagged Abuse of Power, Free Market, Housing, Politics