Meet Adam Kokesh

In his blog today, former Marine Adam Kokesh explains his anti-war stance:

We should all, as human beings, be "anti-war." What is war but the widespread, systematic destruction of human bodies by machinery? Who could be for that? Only those who are missing a part of their humanity. Sometimes the experience of war or the bloodlust of the military can take that away, but it is always ours to reclaim.

I am against this war because it is bad for America. It is bad for our security, it is bad for our military, it is bad for our economy, it is bad for our reputation abroad, and it is bad for our brothers and sisters who continue to loose their lives for lies. I am against war because I am a human being. I believe in the right to self-defense, and even collective self defense, but we should never take joy in even the most righteous acts of causing pain and suffering for fellow human beings.

(italics mine)

Check out: http://www.kokesh.blogspot.com/ when you get a chance.

Monday's Quiz

I think it is important to do an occasional self-examination of where one stands politically. Here is a quick little quiz from the Advocates for Self Government:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

BTW--I frequently claim that both the right and the left are for big government. That chart above clearly illustrates why I come to this conclusion.

The Medicine Is Making You Sick

The problem with President Obama's solution to our economic woes is that his "cure" is what made us sick in the first place: over-spending and too much debt.

The Business Insider Blog had a great post explaining how Treasury Secretary Geithner's plan to fix the banks is totally ass backwards and full of totally false premises. I believe the administration knows this, but is following through because it is in the best interest of their banking buddies. Here are the five misconceptions they have:

The trouble with the economy is that the banks aren't lending. The reality: The economy is in trouble because American consumers and businesses took on way too much debt and are now collapsing under the weight of it. As consumers retrench, companies that sell to them are retrenching, thus exacerbating the problem. The banks, meanwhile, are lending. They just aren't lending as much as they used to. Also the shadow banking system (securitization markets), which actually provided more funding to the economy than the banks, has collapsed.

The banks aren't lending because their balance sheets are loaded with "bad assets" that the market has temporarily mispriced. The reality: The banks aren't lending (much) because they have decided to stop making loans to people and companies who can't pay them back. And because the banks are scared that future writedowns on their old loans will lead to future losses that will wipe out their equity.

Bad assets are "bad" because the market doesn't understand how much they are really worth. The reality: The bad assets are bad because they are worth less than the banks say they are. House prices have dropped by nearly 30% nationwide. That has created something in the neighborhood of $5+ trillion of losses in residential real estate alone (off a peak market value of housing about $20+ trillion). The banks don't want to take their share of those losses because doing so will wipe them out. So they, and Geithner, are doing everything they can to pawn the losses off on the taxpayer.

Once we get the "bad assets" off bank balance sheets, the banks will start lending again. The reality: The banks will remain cautious about lending, because the housing market and economy are still deteriorating. So they'll sit there and say they are lending while waiting for the economy to bottom.

Once the banks start lending, the economy will recover. The reality: American consumers still have debt coming out of their ears, and they'll be working it off for years. House prices are still falling. Retirement savings have been crushed. Americans need to increase their savings rate from today's 5% (a vast improvement from the 0% rate of two years ago) to the 10% long-term average. Consumers don't have room to take on more debt, even if the banks are willing to give it to them.

In the end, you can not fix a problem unless you accurately define it's cause. In this case, the medicine the administration is administering is going to create an even bigger future economic disaster. Getting people to borrow more is not the answer to fixing our economy. We need to become a nation of producers again, not a nation of debt-ridden over borrowers...

Can You Say Inflation?

The BBC reports the US government is unveiling a plan to spend up to one trillion dollars to unload "toxic" assets. Why not let these assets drop to their true market value, the price at which they are not artificially propped up by government and the price which they are no longer "toxic"? Let the assets be bought up at fair market value? No. That is not how government works. Government must protect it financiers.

How will the government pay for this? The government creates nothing. They can only raise money by taxing, or, since no one has anything left to take, they will just print more money.

How will you pay for it? Inflation...

Who Doesn't Love a Good Earmark.

Thought it was worth sharing this nugget. Six of the top 10 Senate earmarks? Yeah, those came from Republicans.

1. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.: $474 million
2. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.: $391 million
3. Mary Landrieu, D-La.: $332 million
4. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa: $292 million
5. David Vitter, R-La.: $249 million
6. Christopher Bond, R-Mo.: $248 million
7. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: $235 million
8. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii: $225 million
9. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.: $219 million
10. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: $199 million

For more, check out the full story on Slate:
http://img.slate.com/id/2213556

How Much Is A Trillion

I stumbled on this thing called The Crash Course by Chris Martenson. If you can't fathom what a million dollars looks like, check this out:

www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-11-how-much-trillion

Chapter 10 on Inflation is also simple, but enlightening.

Many people complain about the government diminishing wealth through taxes, but the government impoverishes it's citizens much quicker (and more deviously) through inflation. The more money it prints, the poorer you become.

Grand Ol' What?

Last week, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) got together to make the American public (at least the ones watching C-SPAN or CNN or ...) continue to question the GOP's existence.

A friend of mine e-mailed me this:
Watch this video ...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=219518&title=cpac-after-party
... and then ask yourself the following question: If you could've blown up this entire building, killing everyone inside -- except maybe for Ron Paul -- and no one would ever find out, wouldn't you at least have to consider it?

Hmmmmm.

So, what happened to this once-grand party? They seem at a loss. But to me, it's so simple: A complete loss of what they stand for. Even if you disagreed with their platform, there was a day when you knew what it was.

I have a confession to make: I'm a registered Republican. I have been since the day I turned 18. I espouse Libertarian views, but have resisted registering LIB because I can't vote in the AZ primary without a major party affiliation.

When I registered, I felt I had a choice of foregoing economic freedom or social freedom. A the time, I opted to retain my economic freedom through supposed lower taxes and took my chances with the social freedoms.

Since that time, I've seen my party of fiscal responsibility pass measures that achieve anything but. I've seen a Democratic president be the only leader capable of balancing our budget and a Republican squander a budget surplus and drive our country into massive debt and near economic ruin. Our own Republican governor in Arizona just suggested the Legislature raise taxes because of the state's "economic situation," completely ignoring the "economic situation" of our state's businesses. Meanwhile, I continue to see government encroach deeper and deeper into our communities, homes and bedrooms.

Thus, my recent voting track record has included Obama (OK, after a Ron Paul vote in the primary), Gov. Napolitano and even John Kerry. The GOP can't endure if it permanently loses a younger generation of voters ... Yet, the rebranding brain trust that's been called in to save the party is led by the same gas bags who've brought it to this point and a new leader who's spent most of his time in his new position arguing with none other than Rush Limbaugh -- one of the many reasons the GOP's devotees have dwindled, I suspect. And still, there is no coherent position: What does party stand for? My best guess is anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion. That seems to be the only platform of consistent messaging. Can they bring along an entire cohort of voters on these two issues alone? My gut says no, especially now. At least out of the deep south, where those cornerstone issues carry more weight than I can comprehend.

Not that I aspire to see the Republican Party do well in 2012, but for them to do so, a re-branding is in order as well as a massive communications effort to let the country know where they stand and an effort to act on that message. Curious what you think ... Is there a future for the Republican Party, and what does it look like?

Follow the Money

Your country, bought and paid for by lobbyist dollars. Here is another example of why I hate the Democrats and Republicans.

This week, AIG reported $61.7 fourth-quarter loss, the largest quarterly loss in U.S. corporate history. The US government is now going to give them $30 billion dollars and is going to ease the terms on the $150 billion it already dumped down that toilet.

So why do we keep flushing the money? Well, who were the biggest recipients of AIG lobbyists? 1. Chris Dodd, 2. Barack Obama, 3. John McCain, 4. Hillary Clinton, 5. Max Baucus, 6. Mitt Romney, 7. Joseph Biden.

If politicians really care about the middle class, why do they dump trillions down these failed institutions and stick us for the bill?