When Joe Biden was right...

I decided to spend my free time exhaustively researching when Joe Biden was right at any time (but mostly foreign policy) about any thing. As always, my goal is to share my knowledge to allow us all to grow.

So here are my findings...Joe Government was right in these situations:

• ....
• [chirp] [chirp] [chirp]

Phew! That was tough! My fingers hurt from typing. Re-read the list when you get a chance...

Central Planning Anyone?

I listened intently to the final Presidential Debate tonight. Folks you may not believe this but I actually did listen with a VERY objective mind and as much of my bias removed as possible. Just so you understand, I don't have a personal thing against Obama at all (like I do with the Clintons). I would have a beer with Obama (someone has to tell him how wrong he is about so many things). So I listened, as always, to understand each candidate's ideas and the underlying principles and foundation of each man.

My conclusion...I continue to be completely baffled how normally rational thinking adults even entertain half of Obama's ideas. As I listened to Obama during the debate tonight all I heard was Central Planning.

My wish would be for all likely voters to read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics before pulling the election lever. I know we have a few months to go for Christmas but I will give up my desire for a Golf Sky Caddy GPS system if someone can grant me this wish. It would make this election a no brainer...it really would.

What do I mean by Central Planning? It is a concept of socialism and it is the mechanism by which a government manages all aspects of life. It is how a central government or committee manages supply, demand, prices, manufacturing, energy, food production, do you get the picture? Obama talked at length during the debate about how he will do this and that. How he will ensure automakers make more efficient cars; how he will lower the cost of healthcare; how he will ensure all of our pains and hurts go away. He wants to engineer everything -- just like the feudal lords of old and like any good socialist.

Somebody please tell him that it is NOT HIS JOB! Pretty please.

Every experiment in socialism fails -- it has been tried, tested, and found wanting. Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics performs a knock out on socialism. Mr. Sowell points out how Mikhail Gorbachev, a previous USSR prime minister, walked into an American grocery store and was fascinated at the full shelves stuffed with thousands of brands. You see, USSR never enjoyed packed grocery stores. It is also said that Mikhail Gorbachev asked British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: How do you see to it that people get food? The answer was that she didn't. Prices did that. The British people were better fed than those in the Soviet Union, even though the British people have never grown enough food to feed themselves in more than a century. Prices bring them food from other countries. What does she mean by "prices" -- capitalism and freedom.

You see...most good socialists react to past socialism failures by saying that they can do it better then the last government. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Now you may say this is extreme and that Obama is not talking about controlling grocery store items. But it is the principal that I am addressing. In principle, "Obama thinking" makes the arrogant assumption that government run by Obama thinking minds will do a better job then free enterprise.

Yes, the USSR was not a socialist state...it was a communist state but there is no difference in this regard. Look at any other socialist experiment. India is abandoning socialism for free markets and look at the explosion in the middle class there. Venezuela has lost 25% of its oil producing capacity since Hugo Chavez's socialist government took charge. Ireland is shedding the UK nationalist trends for free markets and is growing rapidly as a business magnet. The list goes on.

Let's not experiment with socialism here in the US. If you still have doubts, let me bring it closer to home, when was the last time you enjoyed your experience at the DMV? Government can't run anything well. Period.

If this was a radio or TV show, I would fade out at this point to Pink Floyd's "Mother", from the album, The Wall. But since this is a blog...I'll leave you with the lyrics that keep going through my head...I think the words are appropriate ending to this debate night...

"Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mother's gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mother's gonna put all her fears into you.
Mother's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama will keep baby cozy and warm.
Ooooh baby ooooh baby oooooh baby,
Of course mama'll help to build the wall..."

ExxonMobil Bashing

Let's talk briefly about ExxonMobil. This is a company that provides us with products that we simply cannot live without. It is baffling to see and hear so many in the media and "tree-hugger" organizations continuously bash, demean, and attack the company. It proves once again, losers always stab at the ankles of leaders in an attempt to bring them down. But why bring them down?

Because they make too much money? Their primary product, oil, is hated?

Let's tackle the money thing. They are a global entity and you and I cannot fathom the size of their operations. Every number that measures the size of the ExxonMobil or the oil industry is large. You need a calculator with extra digits like the IRS uses just to add up the numbers without causing a stack overflow (a little geek lingo for you fellow geeks -- hey, I aim to please). People like to throw out large profit numbers as if all the employees of ExxonMobil stalked the dead of the night and stole from your homes. Yes, $11.66B is a lot of money earned in a quarter (Feb 2008). But, their profit numbers need to be viewed from a percentage basis to truly understand. Their net income has ranged recently from 7% to 10%. That is not that exciting of a number. Talk to anyone in business.

But their growth is extremely beneficial to....yes....us. They are spending record amounts to find and develop new sources of energy -- not just oil. They just announced spending $125B over the next five years on new energy projects to meet our growing energy needs. Think about THAT number. That is a huge number. $125B. Now don't think it is an altruistic move to spend this much on finding new sources of energy. They are a private company and they HAVE to do everything possible to ensure they are an ongoing concern. Meaning, they want to stay in business for a very long time. I'm sure they'd like to be in business in 200 to 300 years selling us gas-neutrino discharge power cells when our oil may be dried up. So, look what we have here. A private company spending money they have earned on something we want so they can provide what we need. Hmmm.

If you still think their profits are too large, add up how much they pay in taxes. In 2007 alone they paid $105 B in world wide taxes. For every dollar they earn, they pay two and half dollars in taxes. And this does not include the taxes charged at the pump. In the US alone, they paid $65 B over the past five years. Now here is an interesting stat...during that same period of time their US earnings was $19 B less then the taxes paid. Let me do the math for you...they made $46B in the US over the past 5 years but paid $65B in US taxes. Do you think they will continue to be a US corporation over time?

We should be proud of them as a US corporation. They are up against companies that dwarf their size! They rank 14th in the world in terms of oil reserves and probably even lower in terms of revenue and profits. The companies above them are state run enterprises from (listed from largest to smallest): Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, Russia, Kuwait, Venezula, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, and Malaysia.

So turn off the radio or TV the next time you hear about taxing wind fall profits. If anyone should be taxed it should be the government's wind fall tax confiscation.

We also need to stop buying into this tribalism -- that is -- the "us" versus "them" mentality. It is easy to paint a large company as "them" and how "they" are raking in profits over "our" hard work. But who is this company? It is "us". It is made up of people just like you and I...proudly working hard to achieve their dreams.

Do we really want this?

Ok folks, I would like you to indulge me. Please read the article below in full. The article is a rather long editorial from Investor's Business Daily and it is WORTH THE READ. I know many of you are Obama supporters, but I want you to think beyond the rhetoric of the parties and really ask yourself do we want the programs he is proposing?

My opinion...Obama's programs and words may sound good but it is a lot like a frog placed in a pot of water on the stove with the heat slowly turned up. The frog never realizes that he is being cooked alive until it is too late. We are the frogs.

Do we want to go into Socialism or remain in Capitalism? That is what this election is all about. It is as simple as that. America's growth and prosperity is a result of capitalism. There is not one country in history that has achieved as much under a socialistic economy. Every country that has experimented with socialism has resulted in misery and suffering for most of their population.

If you disagree, don't comment with hate or anything. Do what you must, vote your mind (but not your heart) and if the below doesn't change your mind then so be it...we'll just agree to disagree and talk about this decision in 20 years and see who is right. It will take that long for the water to get hot enough to cook us just like this financial crisis took that long to come to a boil.

Please do read the below and then decide...

If you do still decide to vote Obama, do me a favor, put all of your money into some trust or something. Hopefully it will grow to be large enough to pay for my portion of the bailout that will be needed when these programs blow up in a few decades. All this on top of the Social Security bubble that is going to burst.

--- From Investor's Business Daily Opinions - 30 September 2008 ---

During Friday night's debate in Mississippi, Obama disparaged what he called "this notion that the market can always solve everything and that the less regulation we have, the better off we're going to be."But the subprime crisis Washington is dealing with is the result of three decades of the federal government pressuring banks — via the regulatory demands of the Democrats' 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which was expanded by Bill Clinton — to make tens of billions of dollars in bad loans to poor people with lousy credit ratings.

It was Democrats' regulatory and litigious assaults upon the mortgage market in pursuit of "social justice" that left our economy in its precarious position of today; indeed as an attorney, Obama himself in 1994 represented a client suing Citibank, accusing it of systematically denying mortgages to blacks.

But if the taxpayer rescue of Wall Street and Uncle Sam's taking over the banking system scares you, the broader socialism planned by the Democratic presidential nominee should leave you petrified.

Here are a few examples, with price tags provided by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation:

• Politicized financial regulation: Obama would establish a Financial Market Regulation and Oversight Commission to "end our balkanized framework of overlapping and competing regulatory agencies" and "which would meet regularly and report to the president, the president's financial working group and Congress on the state of our financial markets and the systemic risks that face them."
Translation: more centralized and heavy-handed regulatory power over businesses for Washington.

• Government-managed medicine: Even left-leaning health care experts concede that Obama's expanded coverage plan will cost $100 billion; with no real cost containment, that will mean a second wave of reform that could impose full socialized medicine on our country.
Obama declares that "governments at all levels should lead the effort to develop a national and regional strategy for public health, and align funding mechanisms to support its implementation."

His plan also presumes racial discrimination, "requiring hospitals and health plans to collect, analyze and report health care quality for disparity populations and holding them accountable for any differences found."

• Community health centers: Your local doctor may become obsolete in Obama's brave new world in which $6.7 billion will be spent over five years building "community health centers" featuring "preventive, diagnostic and other primary care services."

• Antitrust enforcement: Promising this "is how we ensure that capitalism works for consumers," a President Obama would "stop or restructure those mergers that are likely to harm consumer welfare, while quickly clearing those that do not" and "working with foreign governments to change unsound competition laws."

Behind this harmless-sounding rhetoric is the misguided belief that the government must shield companies of its choosing from their competitors' lower prices and innovative practices. Courts and government bureaucrats under Obama could be expected to use antitrust to claim the existence of imaginary monopolies and squash mergers and other business transactions.

• Required IRAs: Under Obama, "employers who do not currently offer a retirement plan will be required to automatically enroll their employees in a direct deposit IRA account."
Costing $292 billion annually, according to the NTUF's latest analysis, Obama's plans are far more than just "change"; they would transfigure American society into full-blown socialism. With little more than a month to go before this most consequential election, voters seem not to appreciate the danger.

• Dictatorial energy policy: Obama would spend $150 billion over a decade "to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids" and create other ways to force uneconomical forms of energy on the auto and oil industry.

A Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund would artificially finance the environmentalist pet projects in which private investors have little faith.
Negating the global labor market, the Illinois senator also promises to "provide specific tax assistance and loan guarantees to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient cars and trucks" are built within the U.S.

• Bullying utilities: The Chicago Democrat would require that 25% of electricity consumed in the U.S. be "derived from clean, sustainable energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal by 2025." Unless those alternative sources get cheap fast, that likely means a big escalation in consumers' electric bills.

Obama also proposes "to 'flip' incentives to state and local utilities by ensuring companies get increased profits for improving energy efficiency, rather than higher energy consumption."

• Billions for teachers unions: Instead of school choice for parents, in which competition would improve public educations and give the poor access to private education, Obama proposes "an accountability system that supports schools to improve, rather than focuses on punishments."
His five-year, $90 billion education plan would dole out "a $200 million grant program for states and districts that want to provide additional learning time for students in need," double federal funding for afterschool programs, provide "professional development and coaching to school leaders, teachers and other school personnel," "develop multi-tiered credentialing systems that encourage principals to grow professionally," and cook up other ways to keep public school teachers on the clock longer.

Uncle Sam would also "collect evidence about how prospective teachers plan and teach in the classroom" in an Obama administration.

• Required public service: In return for the federal government paying the first $4,000 of college tuition through a tax credit — which would be tough for most American families to turn down — Obama would require recipients "to conduct 100 hours of public service a year."

• Required sick leave: Spending $1.5 billion over five years, Obama would "encourage" the states to adopt paid-leave systems that "guarantee workers seven days of paid sick leave per year."

• Thought police: In what sounds like the outdated and unconstitutional Fairness Doctrine on steroids, Obama would "encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum."

What would the "public interest obligations" of liberal Democrats' opponents within the media end up being in an Obama administration?

• Green Corps: Barack Obama would spend $390 million over five years to fund "an energy-focused Green Jobs Corps to engage disconnected and disadvantaged youth . . . to improve the energy efficiency of homes and buildings in their communities, while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment."
It's a quasi-paramilitary organization dedicated to environmentalism that promises inductees that they would be getting practical employment training for future "green jobs."

• Teaching parents parenting: The senator would spend $300 million over five years establishing "Promise Neighborhoods in cities that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement." A key feature would be "parenting schools for parents."

• Housebuilding army: the Youthbuild program would be expanded from 8,000 to 50,000 over eight years at a cost of $257 million to "construct and rehabilitate affordable housing for low-income and homeless families."

• Patent reform: Obama's idea of "opening up the patent process to citizen review" would make it much tougher for businesses to challenge the government's judgment on the ownership rights of an invention, which will have a negative effect on the incentives to innovate.

• Private parklands regulation: Obama would "do more to encourage private citizens to protect the open spaces and forests they own and the endangered species that live there . . . and encourage communities to enhance local greenspace, wildlife and conservation areas."
The Obama campaign uses the word "encourage" over and over in numerous areas of policy. Expect it to be the form of encouragement practiced by Don Corleone — making you an offer you can't refuse.

• Autism czar: If you weren't convinced that the Democratic nominee intends to use the federal government's powers to solve every known problem, consider his promise to spend $2.5 billion over four years on appointment of an "Autism Czar" to "ensure that all federal funds are being spent in a manner that prioritizes results."

The fat lady has not yet sung

My friends we are going to feel the effects of the bailouts this year for a very long time to come. I think I am going to quit my job and start another business and make it big enough -- there is no risk -- the government will back me up I'm sure...

There are many lessons that need to be learned from the financial crissis. One is that we have to realize there is not an endless supply of money. It was so easy for the Washington nimrods to bail out companies...$85B here, $100B there...no worries...like I always joked about in college...we have plenty of checks. But when you add up numbers with that many zeros it eventually gets to a point of no return.

Remember, it was OUR money that just bailed out these businesses...

If you were paying attention this week you no doubt had a moment when you thought all was going to end from a financial perspective. It really was that scary.

Now, are you ready? Are you sitting down? This is not over yet.

We have a coming crash that is going to make this week look like child's play. Social security. Just as with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Social Security warning bells have rung over and over, but no one has been able to deal with it due to politics and lack of courage. The amount of money that will be needed to fix Social Security will be significantly more then that poured into the bail outs this week. Can you say 80% tax rate?

I was reminded of Social Security this week when I heard something Joe Biden said. I do try not to listen to him but this one stuck. He said "Imagine if all the money that he [John McCain] wanted to put in the market were in the market today," Biden said. "Tens of thousands of elderly women would be in a worse situation than they are in today."

So this blow hard would want Government to do something and not the private market. Just like the Government did such a wonderful job overseeing the housing and financial markets...right?

Citizen government?

Ok, try to forget any political bias while you read this and I will try to do the same as I write.

The reaction to the Sarah Palin selection for Vice President has been interesting to watch. Again, stay out of the political argument and sit back and re-assess what we have heard and seen over the last few weeks.

Here is what I see...

The established political class reacting to a new comer. Our government was supposed to be based on the idea of service. Meaning, citizen's taking a break from their normal lives and serving in government temporarily. When the service was concluded, they are supposed to return to their normal lives and let another take his/her place (ok it was "his" for the longest time). We are so far from this vision...we now have mainly established, career politicians who view their main job as getting re-elected. Actually, I may take up a mini research project to find out how many of the 535 nimrods on the Hill are career politicians versus serving citizens.

So back to Palin...

It is simple, the establishment is threatened. If Palin is successful in becoming VP, then a non-elite, rube, ordinary, gun toting, motorcycle riding, beauty queen will be second in command. How can that happen when so many ivy league educated people are "smarter" then her? It is that very arrogance that has led to her popularity and the establishment still doesn't get it.

She is a regular joe citizen intending to serve...

Can we put the government on the South Beach Diet?

We are so far from the original vision of a small government. The evidence is everywhere and it was crystalized with an article I read in Investor's Business Day. It was depressing. The article discussed A. Gary Shilling's, an economist, research on government dependency. Mr. Shilling dove into data about how involved government is with our daily lives. He found that as of 2004 over half of the country (52.6%) depended on the government in one form or another.

Intentional pause.

Think about that for a moment.

Over HALF of the country depend on government. Consider this:

• 20% of Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending
• 20% receive Social Security or a government pension
• ~19 million others get food stamps
• 2 million receive subsidized housing
• 5 million receive education grants.

This dependency has been growing steadily from the 1950's when it was 28.3% until Ronald Reagan took office when it hovered around 55%. It then declined with Reagan's smaller government push to about 49% in 2000 and has once again crept up. The expectation is that we'll return to 55% in the next 10 years if the current trends continue.

God do we need change...save us from this socialistic trend and to a freer life...