Pointing out the Obvious

Aside from the fact that they let the unions strong arm them for decades- especially the 1970's and 1980's, or even the fact that they mothballed production capacities in favor of spinning off internal supply chains into spun off barely independent companies, or using gimmick financing to enable them to charge inflated prices to their consumers < 72 month auto loans? give me a break>- the real problem is they build crap.

Seriously- they build crap. Their engines have barely developed in 30 years. Ford, aside from its Volvo and Jaguar acquired engines- date from the early 1980's. Aside from cosmetic changes to the front ends and roof lines none of the trucks or cars have substantially improved in terms of form & function. In a very real sense the Detroit of today is little different from the Detroit of the 1950's when it was taking pre-war chassis and engines and slapping fins and chrome on every possible surface.

Have there been some high spots? Sure cars like the Riviera, Thunderbird, and 300M were great. They also were essentially custom built, used as test beds for other simpler cars- and the abandoned. GM's Quad 4 engine and the Oldsmobile Aurora were a world class combination of form and function. Yet you can't buy an Olds anymore because GM wanted to streamline for marketing purposes. And the union agreed because in exchange for shutting down assembly plants like Fisher, the union got huge severance packages and garuntees for the now idled workers. Ford shut down its assembly plant in Atlanta and GM shut down its plant in Doraville. Never mind the former was home to the Taurus chassis lines and the later was home to the Uplander - a car that created the crossover class.

Even when they got things right as is the case with projects like the Prowler or GT40, the idiotic moves they made in terms of hamstringing their production, logistics, and supply always reflected an impact on the workers and marketing. Chrysler's launching of the cab forward Sebring line created pretty impressive numbers in terms of sales- to a point that Daimler Benz even bought them. Yet the reality is that even Daimler couldn't manage to run Chrysler at a profit. Whether or not the institutional legacy contributed to Chrysler's eventual decline is debatable.

The real point is that in terms of technology, innovation, and actual product availability to the consumer the Detroit companies out right fail in comparison to other makes. In short the offerings from Detroit fail in terms of chassis design one of the least modified or improved components in their inventory. Their engines are overweight, made in a manner little improved in the last 30 years, and are modern only insofar as the top end mechanical systems have included multiple cams and electronic engine management systems. While fit and finish have improved markedly, the durability of appearance items is pathetic. The paint is barely resistant to scratching of its clear coat. Plastic bumpers and front facia still tend to shed paint and spider. Interior grades of cloths and fabrics are almost universally inferior to those on even the cheapest imported cars. The tactile surfaces show wear in a matter of months, and often are made of inferior plastics that quickly shed their painted on finishes.

The cars are lacking in design based on reality. The cars look like they were cobbled together from parts bins. The era of great designers that ended with the 1970's gas crisis has only gotten worse. American cars are either small econo-boxes or leviathans on the order slab sided Hummers. The sense of style is very limited in terms of addressing the needs of consumers in terms of utility and mechanical efficiency. It is as if Detroit simply cant suffer any eye pleasing form factor or even be bothered with designing a car based on optimizing performance effiencies and user utility.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler may be selling gangbusters in Asia right now. The thing is, their cars sell there only because their vehicles are cheaper than the preferred cars in the market. In China, the number one car is Volkswagen. And it increases its share every year. GM and Ford may crow about how successful they are over there, but the reality is that their cars are bottom feeders. VW sells multiple brands that most of you wouldn't recognize, but the thing is VW will wind up selling a million cars this year. That is around 18-20% of the entire market. GM has around 15%, Ford somewhere similar. Chrysler even less. The Chinese buy VW or Toyota products when they can afford it. They still buy their state owned automobiles most. And what is further telling that in terms of GM's presence in China, it is a subsidiary of SAIC one of China's largest automotive groups. GM may have "sold" 1 million cars in China this year- but they weren't really GM cars for the most part. The reality is that Detroit is basically the bottom feeder in the Chinese market. They plan on selling most of their cars outside of the United States in the next decade. It seems their business model is to try and sell their cars in places where consumers don't realize the cars are crap.

Even in motorsport, Detroit can't compete. Give Toyota a few more years and NASCAR fans won't be watching Detroit plated cars. Aside from the Corvettes competing at LeMans every year and usually taking their class, Detroit is not a factor in racing. To those of you saying "So What?" I point you to Porsche AG. Porsche races in dozens of classes, wins in dozens of the harshest racing venues of the world and as a result is the most profitable automaker in the world because it takes racing technology, perfects it on the tracks of the world, and places them into its consumer cars.

What about the other major car manufacturers? Honda is all over motorsport. The same can be said for Volkswagen, FIAT, Renault, Nissan, and Toyota. One of the best indicators of healthy consumer car sales is whether or not a manufacturer competes in Formula One racing. Toyota, FIAT, BMW, and Renault do- and all of them are doing far better than their Detroit rivals. When it comes to technology development the only place Detroit can be competitive is NASCAR- and lets face it NASCAR is about as low tech as racing can get.

For whatever reason, Detroit offers inferior products. And what is worse is that the cars start out overpriced and lose their value rapidly once you buy it. Design sense and esthetics are not world class. They may be better built compared to Detroit's offering in the last decade, but the reality is that they are often very inferior compared to other automakers. People can blame the unions, or legacy costs, or incompetent management. The real problem is the cars simply suck.

After the fire, I had a brand new Pontiac G6 Coupe. The fit and finish was so bad that there were three separate controls that broke off in my hand. I pushed on a button in one case and it went through the dashboard. Granted it was a rental car but the ergonomics were straight out of the 1980's. Gas milage was hideous. The thing averaged 12 MPG. 12 MPG on a car that was less than 1 month old. The engine bay emitted so much heat that one person who was standing next to the driver side window talking to me actually complained about how much heat was flowing away from the engine compartment. The AC was so feeble that according to the interior cockpit temperature gauge the air temperature in the car only managed to drop 6 degrees after a 30 minute drive.

And that was a new redesigned forward to the future GM offerings that is supposed to take consumers along for the ride.

Now ask yourself if you would buy the following. It is a decades old chassis with minimal modifications. The front end is a plastic cowling with a grill that actually isn't functional and is purely cosmetic. The fit and finish of the interior is so poor that parts break off with little effort. Ergonomics of seating and layout of controls isn't. The AC is so poor it cannot cool a car off in the Summer time- and by cool off I mean get the temperature less than 85 degrees. It gets 12 MPG city and 14 MPG highway. The engine design is so inefficient that the entire engine bay radiates excessive heat.

I don't think you would either.

A very telling thing is that I have a used Porsche. It isn't a very common model. Only 2,200 or so made it into the country the year it was new. As it has sat at the construction site it has often been oogled by the workers. A game has developed between myself and my general contractor. When we see people gawking at it we ask them what year they think the car was made- and this is after one of us tell them that it is a used car. The average guess is 2002 model year. When I tell them it is a 1992 model car you can pretty much knock them over with a feather.

And that is the embodiment of the failings of Detroit.

My car is a decade old and more, yet it is pleasing to the eye, has modern features like anti lock breaks, 16 way power seats, power windows, multiple airbags, gets 20 something MPG, multiple airbags, and enough other stuff to convince the average person that it is a new car.

You put a 1992 model car from Detroit on my construction site and there isn't any question at all that it is a 1992 model car. Detroit hasn't changed that much so I suspect that in a decade people will be able to tell a 202 Model Detroit car is a piece of junk.

My Porsche? I suspect they will be thinking its a 2011 model year car.

Detroit's collapse is inevitable. It isn't the fault of the unions, but it also isn't a wise move to bail them out. Bankruptcy may be the only thing that might save them because it would require the removal of all the unsound business models that Detroit can't seem to overcome.

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Ignorance in voting

There will always be a sizable minority of people who will judge a person by their skin color. Nothing is likely to ever change that. Living in the South, the idea of voting for a person based on skin color is simply not an issue to me. Personally I voted for four people this election who happen to be black and three of them were Democrats. What mattered to me was what their qualifications and experience was. Followed closely by what they wanted to do as an office holder and how they planned to use that office to accomplish those goals.

Frankly, I seriously doubt any person I voted for got elected. I am so disinterested in this election's outcome, that I haven't even bothered to look at any of the returns or even if any of the amendments passed. That said, one thing I did notice during this cycle was the wholesale ignorance exampled in the "man on the street" interviews on the national cable networks as well as the broadcast network affiliates in Atlanta. I concur on the examples of voters for Obama- except that it was not just black people who were seemingly clueless as to who they intended to vote for. The generalized gross indifference towards voters educating themselves was pretty apparent. Whether the interviewee was white or black, about the only thing they could spout as to why they intended to vote for Obama was because he was going to "change" things.

What a nebulous basis to vote upon.

As to the lockstep vote by blacks for Obama, partly it is ingrained political separatism that involves people growing up in families where being a Democrat is simple rote outcome. Partly it is because the public officials who are predominately focused to serving communities in urban areas tend to be black and tend to be ingrained in terms of social, economic, and political power. It is too simple to say blacks vote for blacks. Instead blacks vote for those leaders who probably are already leaders in their local communities. Political powerbases thus become established and black officials get progressively pushed up the ladder of elective offices to the ultimate level of the Presidency.

And that is no different from what happens in any other voting community- with one exception. Almost all other political polities are no so demographically exceptional. By that I mean, in almost any other demographic if you take a basic data point, say sex, ethnic background, education, employment status, sexual orientation, or even the trivial such as freckles or hair color, and then took a sample of that one data point and mapped out independents, republicans, democrats you see a fractured data set.

All the people you sampled may have freckles, but it is incredibly unlikely that 90%of them self describe themselves as democrats or leaning to democrat candidates. In the data point represented by blacks, you will see somewhere around 90% of all the sample being democrats.

Line up almost any other group of people with the same skin color and you won't duplicate that.

This is again not racist or even based upon racism. To a very real degree however, it represents one aspect of political unity as a social institution within the black community. Unlike many communities that are based upon skin color or ethnic origins, the black community has a political solidarity that is national in impact. Irish Catholics in Savannah Georgia will vote very differently from their counterparts in Boston and New York City. But the black community in Athens, Georgia will vote in lockstep with the black community in Atlanta, Georgia, and also as the same community did in Chicago, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, -- or just about any other community that happens to be black across the entire country.

I noted this as much before the election. The black community voting at 95% in favor of Obama to me almost makes it certain that blacks did not vote for Obama because he happened to be black. I assumed that this race would be a swing of 2-3%. As a voting block if the 10% of black who are not self identified as democrats had all voted for Obama out of simple skin color preference, then the percentage of blacks who voted for Obama would have been at around 98% and translated into the spread of the margin of victory. Instead its 95%, meaning you cannot attribute McCain's loss to black racism. His support would have been much higher among blacks if it was due to racism.

However I do think Obama won because the entire voter population is now systemically over run with voters who received zero civics education and simply take the process of voting about as seriously as they do when picking their NCAA basketball tournament office pool ladder.

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Rubbernecking

I had to go out today a little after 4:00 PM. It was raining, but not bad enough to require anything other than intermittent wipers. I also happened to forget it was homecoming weekend at UGA. So it is a pretty fair bet to say that the population in town for the weekend is somewhere over 200,000 people. Normally we are around 80,000 with an additional 35,000 illegal aliens.

Having spent the last six or so years driving a minivan and a couple of SUV's, I guess I have become far more used to and comfortable with being in a large vehicle with very large crush zones. It was rather unnerving to be driving in traffic in a small Porsche again.

Normally at 4:00 in the afternoon, I can get from one side of the county to the other in about 20 minutes if I travel straight through town. If I take the interstate grade highway loop that goes around Athens, I could do it in maybe 10. Unfortunately, I had to go to a bank on the other side of town to drop off some additional paperwork regarding our construction on the burned house < aside, the credit market seems to be changing hourly>

At any rate, there isn't really anyway to go to that bank from my house other than the main road through town.

Let me offer my views on rubbernecking.

If you are a visitor from Tennessee and you have no idea where your hotel is and cannot seem to read all the multitudes of signs directing you to the campus- stop slowing down to ask traffic officers on the side of the road how to get to the RV parking lots. Further even with his advice, you seem to go out of your way to ignore his directions, upon which you then guide your 80 foot RV directly into downtown. A place even sub-compact cars have a problem navigating.

If you happen to be yet another Vanderbilt booster in yet another RV, and you SLOW DOWN to see if the RV in front of you got any info from the traffic cop with the blue lights flashing on his cruiser- DON"T slow down to 5 MPH in a 55 MPH zone. And if you happen to be a local yokel from Athens- REALIZE that the people driving the RV's are almost universally clueless as to where they are or where they need to go to begin 24 hours of tailgating. Get out of the way of these leviathans BEFORE they slam on their brakes to ask the cop where they are supposed to be.

If you are too stupid to be aware of the fact that every Fall, we get clueless drivers every couple of weeks, then for the love of God don't slow down just to observe the spectacle of yet another lost RV driver traveling in the opposite direction. This isn't even an event. You should know that they are lost. There are multiple WalMart parking lots available for them to wind up in. If they get hopelessly lost don't worry they will eventually have a safe place to stop, turn the 80 foot beast around, and look at a map.

If you are lucky enough to get past the endless line of RV stalls, and the people slowing down to look at them, then for God's sake please don't become mesmerized by the spectacle of two garbage trucks on main street stopping to pick up garbage. Pay attention to the street lights and keep moving. What should have been a 3 minute drive through downtown took me over 30 minutes because for some reason two garbage trucks picking up garbage in the rain is somehow a novel thing that must be looked at.

Then once that rubbernecking incident was over, I spent the next five miles nearly getting run over by Cadillac Escalades. All the while I was also having to avoid a never ending display of Vandy fans gawking at co-eds and slowing down to honk at each gaggle they passed on the side of the road. ACT like you have seen rain drenched females wearing white t-shirts before. Yes they have nipples under those shirts- and since this is one of the most liberal cities in the nation- most of them are not wearing bras.

What should have taken me maybe 30 minutes took me an hour and 20 minutes.

And almost all of it was due to rubbernecking.

Leia Mais…

Socialism or?

Hoover indeed felt that the economy was sound. What he also thought was that given enough time, those companies which were unable to function in the market would be replaced by those that could. What he could not forsee, because it had never been possible before in human economics, was the utter collapse and resultant hyper-inflation that occurred in Europe.

Consider, the French and English who had sought to redeem the costs of the war by essentially taxing the only Central Power left when the shooting stopped. Then also consider the nature of the former Austro Hungarian Empire states. It broke into several smaller nations with very weak and primitive economies. All of which had a very limited ability to function outside of the former system. Imperial Russia's collapse had huge shocks as well.

Then if you add to this the fact that rail rolling stock was limited in Europe after the war, the road networks were not sufficient to efficiently move and shift resources effectively, and the naval fleets that had formerly been sufficient to move goods globally in 1914 were now not capabale due to the tonnages sunk after 3 years- you suddenly have a case where the global economy which had been emerging under European Colonialisim was impossible to maintain.

The British compensated by sucking as much cash out of Germany as possible and also attempting to turn most of its colonial empire into unit markets, allowing each one to become specialized in goods or resources ideally suited to each colony. France sucked as much cash out of Germany as it could and turned to a brutal resources strip mining of its colonies- especially its North and West African ones. Italy simply imploded early as did the remainder of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Their economies became almost subsistence in nature. Russia withdrawing from the world markets for almost a decade meant that cheap resources suddenly stopped flowing into Eastern Europe and especially Germany.

Europe essentially ground to a halt. In the USA the buying of stocks on margin coupled with the utter exuberance of the nation after it had won a war, emerged almost unscathed, and saddled with a large returning army of very young men who had "seen the world" and were not content to return to the farm lead to an explosion of goods, companies, resources, and markets for all three. While the USA was not a relatively major player in terms of markets world wide before the war, after the war, America was almost over night the leader in almost all technologies and resources. And for a time the world readiliy bought and could afford the goods America was selling.

What brought it to a halt in America was when the Europeans simply collapsed in terms of currency purchasing power. Exports to the former combatants virtually ceased. Countries like Belgium teetered on bankruptcy and began simply exploiting their colonial possessions, as much as possible. Holland began draining the Dutch East Indies. Great Britain began forcing market access restrictions in India and South Africa, and aggressively began turning formerly self sufficient colonies like Kenya into single product factories .

When the export market began collapsing, and the loans that had been made by the United States government to the European Allies ceased being paid, the capital markets in America were unable to absorb the loss of cash from both trade and war debt repayment. With the resultant slow down, the first uncoordinated attempt to keep the American economy running was in the form of margin purchases of stocks and options on goods/resources. It became an issue when the numbers of warehouses with filed capacity neared almost 100%. The excess goods and services on the market, represented by the options to trade bought on margin were now essentially worthless because there was neither doemestic nor international capacity to absorb these goods into the economy.

Hoover was right in that what should have been done was allow the options to buy to result in losses. That would have eventually brought both the commodity price down, as well as result in market set purchase options in the future in line with the actual value and the actual demands for goods in the future. The problem was the money needed to settle the options was huge. Hoover injected funds into the market in order to make availible dollars to cover the difference between the actual money that had been placed on margin options and the actual paper value of the contracts for those options.

Instead what happened was everyone began trying to dump their options and stocks- making the paltry funds Hoover had re;eased utterly useless. It set up the 1929 stock collapse as well as set up the currency runs in the banks.

Hoover was right in believing the only sound solution was one where the existing options sold at losses, the goods and resource production fell to the level the American economy could absorb, and companies unable to financially weather the environment were allowed to collapse of their own accord.

And in the end that is exactly what happened. The alphabet soup of programs, stimulus packages, socialist handouts, and federal government manipulations of all types of markets, not only continued the economic collapse we call the Depression, but it inadvertently extended it.

There was a cabinet meeting I learned about in early 1940 where the topic was actually Germany and Europe. I really don't remember much more than that about the meeting in detail, but one of FDR's advisors made the remark that at the rate they were going it would take a war to get America out of its economic mess because nothing they had done had worked so far.

Point is, much of what FDR tried did not work. Establishment of Social Security, grand projects like Boulder Dam, and the dozens of alphabet soup programs all had had a marginal effect. And he knew it.

With the start of war, FDR was able to instead drop the facade of "doing something" to actually fixing the problem by getting the government out of the economy.

FDR adopted laissez-faire, used the excuse of war time expedience to encourage volunteer efforts, and quietly shut down most of the alphabet soup programs in a matter of months. It was the result of this adoption of Hoover's plans as they had existed in Treasury Secretary Mellon's interpretation of what the government should have been doing beginning in 1929, that the American economy finally started to get going again.

What FDR did- with the exception of keeping Smoot Hawley on the books- was what Hoover had been doing. Hoover was ultimately correct- the government should only keep people from starving but not attempt to jump-start the economy by managed administration and cash injections. Whether Hoover actually believed that government interference would condition Americans to depend on the government is open to debate. But the reality is that the American people did indeed come to depend upon the federal government to a degree that caused the Depression to continue longer than it should have.

For example, in America unemployment was still over 15% in 1941 and the GNP was pretty flat still in spite of Lend Lease. FDR's economic plans were Keynsian and followed a model of executive administration of the economy. In Germany, the model was decidedly non-Keynsian and placed government in a role of hands off but supervisory administration of the economy.

1932 was the height of the World Depression. In 1936 the Germans were performing at or above the economic levels of 1928 with an unemployment rate of around 6%.

Under FDR, the Depression lasted another 6 years. In 1939 America's economic indicators were at or near the 1928 levels, with a 17% unemployment rate. It would not be until the end of the first quarter of 1942 that the American economy would universally exceed the 1928 levels and drop unemployment under 10%.

The difference? FDR installed socialist stimulus economic models. Hitler didn't install any stimulus packages based on socialism. He allowed the bad companies to collapse, allowed the market to regulate itself, and limit government intervention into industries and corporations only to the extent that undue replication of goods or services was not an artificial drag on export and import exchange.

In short, once the Germans stopped acting like socialists and Keynsians, the economy recovered.

That was what I was pointing out. Obama is pushing hard for Keynsian style stimulus. McCain isn't.

One method historically has worked, one has worked better when the economy is tanking.

The economy is tanking. Therefore the candidate you should support is the one who is advocating the plan which has a better track record of lifting an economy out of collapse.

Real easy decision.

Vote for the Keynsian plan= really bad economy.
Vote for the non-Keynsian plan= bad economy followed by an actual recover in a much shorter period of time.

Using FDR as an example- once he dropped Keynsian directed economy, it took about 16 months to recover fully.

The choice however is yours.

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McCain's Economic press release

Well McCain's press release is as clear as it can be.

He supports NAFTA, CAFTA, and free trade agreements. He supports cutting the draconian tax rate on corporations and investments. Dropping the estate tax rate to 15% vs Obama's proposed 55%. Allowing for the reality that most small businesses and farms at time of transfer currently run afoul of the Estate tax when the original owners die.

Things like proposing an alternative tax system which is more in line with the means and methods employed by the leading economies of the world. Encouraging R&D with a targeted credit available to any company that is researching new innovations and products. Making healthcare portable and available without considerations to pre-existing impairments. Removing the red tape that prevents private companies from building nuclear power plants. Removing the impediments to companies being able to actually drill for oil and minerals on federal leases they hold.Streamlining the current hodgepodge of laws, regulations and tax credits that have not allowed the alternative energy market to be fully developed.

And that is just the surface. In all cases McCain is stating that government inefficiency is preventing a free market from providing for the economic needs of the American consumer and the companies that could potentially provide the goods and services that would answer the requirements of an expanding economy.

To a very large degree, what McCain is advocating is drawn from presidents as diverse as Carter to GWB. Namely, a free market, and a role of federal government that is a steward of fairness in the market. Not a case as in Obama's plan where the federal government becomes the administrator of the economy.

McCain is calling for a free market solution. By its very nature, that would make him an advocate for capitalism.

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Obama's Economy- Socialist or ?

Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:
Why is this tax being considered? It ammounts to taking the legal profits away from companies that had no expectation that they would be denied or even be compelled to pay a tax for making a wise business choice. Instead their profits will now be devoted to providing a $1000 a year public entitlement.

Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs:
This would create a $1 billion fund for each state to essentially provide funds for government public works. Instead of promoting fiscal responsibility at the state level due to budget balancing, Obama instead intends to use the Federal government's ability to create debt funded payments to provide social programs which would otherwise not be funded or would be funded at the level each state's economy is capable of funding.

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

Under his plan 37 million people will cease to pay any income taxes. And additionally create a tax system where banking records and transaction records will be centralized to an extent where taxpayers will receive individualized pre filled out tax forms. If the taxpayer has formerly filled 1040 long forms with extensive itemized deductions and economic exchanges that include depreciation, small business sole proprietorships, or charitable deductions they will essentially red flag themselves for audits if they choose to fill out the tax forms with their own data. It is very interesting that the people most likely to file such returns are also more likely to be Republican. It also is interesting that Obama's plans for the tax code as pertains to individuals will most likely benefit low income Democrats. Manipulating the tax code to benefit primarily those who back you at the ballot is suspect.

Fight for Fair Trade:
Since when is fair trade with other nation states defined by placing the worker in the trading partner's own economy as most important? A trade agreement is about removing artificial barriers to free and open markets. Further, since when is a trade agreement based upon artificial restrictions on environment? Wise market choices would be those agreements which allow for another nation to realize that if it wants to sell goods to the USA consumer market, "green practices & sustainability" are the only way that they will be able to enjoy significant market penetration. The opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement is a strong case in point against the logic of what a trade agreement should be under their interpretation. CAFTA would indeed create a neutral tariff free economic zone with open markets. Their interpretation of what fair trade is would be more in line with a centralized planning based on social goals. Namely workers should be treated across all boarders as economically equal and protected and the resources consumed by them in the process of creating goods should be determined on grounds of ecology.

Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement:
One of the few highlights of the Clinton administration was NAFTA, and with few exceptions, its enactment has exceeded even the most pessimistic predictions on its impact to the three nations. In short it has benefitted all three nations, and in the case of the United States it has greatly increased income based upon goods, services, transport, and investments in almost all industries that come under NFTA. It is therefor puzzling as to why Obama plans to amend this treaty to prevent a supposed decline to our collective economic security. Hats off to Bill for getting this one right.
Improve Transition Assistance:
In this day and age, most human resource managers and people employed in the various state departments of labor freely advise people that two things are required of all workers in this day and age. First, all workers must realize that technology innovation will now occur at such a fast pace that almost all workers will be forced to transition between multiple jobs and skill sets in their productive lifetime. The second is that all workers should realize that continuing professional education and continuing trade skills education is a fact of life. A wise individual will realize that technology will more than likely impact their career over their lifetime and failing to keep current in terms of education applicable to their careers will make them less of an asset to any company. What they propose is a creation of a continuing education entitlement funded by and directed by the government.

End Tax Breaks for Companies that Send Jobs Overseas
This one is truly laughable in the face of the reality that we live in an increasingly globalized economy. Further, American companies that have international and multinational footprints simply cannot just employ American citizens. Consider things such as Apple, IBM, CISCO, GM, Exxon Mobile, GE, CNN, Coca Cola, Pepsi, or any other well known company that is based in the USA. Because of globalization and free trade, our companies are expanding and growing irrespective of boarders. Free Trade makes this possible, and the fact is that often the American workers find that the old jobs that get shipped away from the physical confines of the USA tend to be replaced with better jobs that require less physical labor and pay higher salaries to those who take on these new roles. To enact a trade barrier in the form of issuing federal contracts based upon the citizenship of the workers of a company will instantly put most American multinationals into the "Do Not Apply" column when it comes to attempting to bid on a contract.

Reward Companies that Support American Workers:
In a further affront to open and free trade, Obama wants to enact legislation that would subsidize a system where companies would be favored with tax breaks. All they have to do is use the tax to subsidize their employment of American citizens instead of basing their employment needs on the market conditions. All they need do is stay incorporated in America, pay a federally approved wage rate, provide a retirement package, provide healthcare, and subsidize the pay of military personnel.

There are just a few examples of what Obama proposes. And all of them are a direct form of Federalized administration of the economy to achieve social agendas.

Deploying broadband, Public-Private Business incubators, EFCA and its dropping of the secret ballot, denying a company's right to replace striking workers, low income mortgage credits beyond what is already provided to everyone, federalizing credit scoring, even fundamentally changing consumer credit are all examples of a socialist based economic plan.

There is no other way to define what he is proposing. It is indeed socialism.

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Chris Cox

Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission probably should be sacked. Allowing debt to be turned into securities and specifically how mortgage debt was turned into a security with floating cash returns is something that Cox should have and could have prevented.

As to McCain pointing out that Obama has stated publicly he will not draw back on the social spending programs he has promised- as well as differing from McCain in also calling for individual mortgages holders getting direct government pay-offs isn't a case of vehemence, its just reiterating what Obma was saying as recently as last night.

I do agree utterly that the Republicans are acting in a way FDR would have never have attempted. It is indeed a naked power grab.And I do wonder if McCain sees this and expects to have unprecedented power in terms of capital in his new administration. Maybe Obama recognizes it to be a power grab favoring the Republicans because he is now stating the solution being presented to Congress should be viewed only as a first stop-gap test, that will need further expansion and refinement with a new administration's oversight in January.

One thing mitigating McCain's motives would be if Cuomo was appointed SEC head. Cuomo is indeed a nightmare to Republican leadership, but he is also an ideal person for the job.

Conservatives in the Republican party are afraid of this tendency in McCain. He isn't as partisan as many Republicans want him to be. And often they mask this fact by claiming they hate his temper.

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Is Palin a Feminist

Marriage isn't a circumstance of luck. You do not decide one day to marry someone because you believe it is a lucky thing to do. Anecdotally, I am sure all of us can retell a story of people who have "lucky" marriages. The reality however is that marriages that endure and eventually become perceptively apparent as "lucky" to outside observers tend to be those marriages that are fundamentally partnerships in full measure and extant.

Palin is lucky only in the sense that she and her husband share a common perception and common goal for their family. In practice it means that her husband willingly takes care of the children because they share the idea that the cheif parental responsibility is the children. If the children get sick, the parents see the primary responsibility as being theirs. One of them must take care of the child. It then becomes a case of which parent should take that role when their are external responsibilities. It is very common sense based pragmatism on the part of the Palins. Mom happens to be governor and Dad happens to be a seasonal jack of all trades.

It is not necessarily true that Todd is willing to work flexible hours. The reality is that his choice to work and when to work is fundamentally linked to the nature of his wife's employment. Given a chance to actualize his own personal career fantasy, he may indeed wish that he worked a 9-5 job with full time pay and benefits package. But, the reality is that even if he wanted to do that, his children come first because the Palins hold to an old idea that it is the parent's primary responsibility to take care of the children personally. If he had a 9-5 job I am sure he could afford a full time nanny to take care of the children. For that matter, I am sure that as governor Sarah could certainly maintain a state paid full time nanny.

The thing is the Palins are the embodiment of the feminist idea that children should not be an impediment to women having successful careers outside the traditional role of women being primary care givers and homemakers. Todd is also part of that feminist idea that men should willingly act as primary care givers when there is the need for them to do so. In the end, their marriage is indeed a full partnership of a jointly agreed upon goal of the children coming first in their combined priorities. It is not luck that Sarah can be a devoted public servant nor is it luck that Todd is willing to be a secondary contributor to the family income. It is instead a case of both believing that their responsibility is to their children and not a nanny or institutionalized childcare. They have fully bought into the feminist idea that a woman has both the right and capability to be the primary economic resource of a family.

They ultimately see their children as their joint primary responsibility. That is indeed one of the original goals of feminism in the United States.

As to the Palins not being the norm, the reality is that most married couples with children make exactly the same choice the Palins have. These people put their children first. They choose to take care of the kids. Even if it is due to an inability to find or afford childcare, one parent takes the responsibility for the child. The reality is that the numerous tax credits for child care, social welfare programs, and even government sponsored institutional child care programs all contribute to the opportunity for essentially any family to chose to have someone else care for their child. Yet, many people chose to do exactly what the Palins did.

A parent takes primary care duties instead of passing it off to someone else.

This is the norm in America, and although it flies in the face of the leading intelligencia and academia beliefs of the American political left, this is another example of their perception of idealized reality being wrong. Just as many people became offended by Hillary Clinton's book on the need for a village to successfully raise a child, there are now many Americans again questioning the left's criticism of how most people chose to raise their children. Most people do not use nannies and child care. Most people do share responsibility with their spouse to raise the children. For that matter most parents do not even consider gender stereotypes when it comes to defining what each parent should individually take responsibility for in child care roles. Most of America's parents with children know from personal experience that it doesn't take a village to raise your kids as well as also knowing that parental gender does not define parental responsibility.

That the left is trying to declare Palin to not be a feminist is ironic. Because, Palin is indeed the very embodiment of the future the ERA movement and NOW advocated and argued for. She is that reality.

Children are indeed expensive. And it is a responsibility I would not even be able to fathom as a single parent. Any parent, regardless of gender who is faced with sole responsibility of raising a child will face amazingly difficult choices in options related to raising a child alone. Tax credits for single parents for in home child care would help all single parents regardless of gender. No amount of tax credits will change anyone's social or legal equality. Feminism is simply about removing the impediments created by the legal framework of society. In no way would it be possible for the feminist movement to hold out a solution which would place a woman on a legal ground that makes her a special legal class.

If by legal enactment, a body of law was created to enable a single woman to benefit from having a child as a sole caregiver while also being given the legal facility to also have a legally mandated right to a career , then feminism would be a hypocritical movement. Its goal has always been to make women equal, not insulate them from any consequences of their own choices. Any political movement which would seek to secure legal mandated improvement to a stay at home mother and also secure her a right to a mandated "outside" career should be shunned due to the obvious gender bias and also the fact that it would discriminate against 50% of the population. If feminism wants to make it better for any gender stay at home parent and also mandate an outside career for that same class of people that would be one thing. But if this is really what feminism stands for then it is simply an insult to any parent with a penis.

It is indeed Republican policy to remove legal impediments to anyone's ability to enter the work force. The institution of on site child care, flex-time, and telecommuting came from the private sector. And the laws permitting it were aggressively supported by Republicans. In fact the laws covering compensation packages and right to hire laws have realistically removed institutionalized discrimination based on gender. Equally qualified people of equal experience regardless of gender now tend to closely earn the same salaries and compensation packages. The so called "gender gap" is now more understood as a reality that it is instead a "parentage gap".

Regardless of a person's gender, when a parent stops their career, or scales back their professional career to instead care for a child, they are making an economic choice that will impact their current and future earnings. A man who stops working a career to care for his child suffers the same impact on his earning as a woman who is of equalitive experience and qualification. The reality is that if one parent has chosen to be a primary care giver. their option for outside work is inherently limited. The feminist argument has always been that a woman has the right to work in the manner she choses. Their argument has always been that the woman has just as much a right to be the person who makes the "real bread" as a man. But if feminism really wants to argue that the woman should have the right to be the chief bread winner of a family simply because she is a woman, then that is again a very illogical and flawed political goal.

The issue is that Palin is a living breathing example of what feminism has advocated. She has her own career. She has not been impeded by society or cultural bias in terms of her having had children. Her husband takes an equal role in child care duties. They are in fact fully equal in the relationship- which is something feminism has always argued for. It seems that her "shortcoming" is that she also is religious, thinks abortion is morally wrong, has a husband who is a man's man despite his being a stay at home dad, and she has an "R" after her name.

Any argument that Palin isn't a living example of feminism would have to argue either that she has a penis or that feminism didn't mean what it has meant for the past 30 years.

Either way, such an argument would be pretty laughable.

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Genocide, Compromise, or Withdrawal

Yeah we really don't disagree. In terms of Iraq, and the trickle of reports regarding incidents like the originator on this thread, it remains unclear what we are trying to do. We have no intention of controlling Iraq beyond what it takes to install a government that can exists without USA direct support on the ground perpetually. Meaning, we obviously are not going to go the genocide route. But, it also means we can't simply withdraw. And for that matter since we have no intention of being directly in control, compromise would seem to be out of place as well.

So in the context of those options, incidents like this one are hard to place into context. It doesn't fit any of the three options. And while RK is a fine poet, his surmising of the situation where it costs lots to field an officer and a pittance to field a suicide bomber, we are not in the role of empire building or even a post colonial liberation. The sympathies we might have for in antiquated "white man's burden" simply can't be applied because we are not attempting to establish a dominion for their benefit.

About the only thing that can place our actions into context is the stunning plausibility that we are really just in it for our own selfish interests, without regard to any Iraqi condition except that they happen to have a stable government. We are ironically paying for a government that is running a huge surplus budget, with contracts for infrastructure going to Russia and European firms, and a political system that seeks the ability to essentially install an elected coalition dictatorship.

At this point, given the reality that nothing is actually going to change concerning our regional interests, Maybe we should refrain from ever attempting to remove dictators. Because, we have created a situation where objective evaluations tend to support an improvement across the board for Iraq as a nation whole. Yet, on a subjective basis we can evaluate the situation as one that is not what we either thought or want to be the condition. We look at all the objective data, and then subjectively- if we are being fair- decide that at best it is a C- result from an A+++ effort.

The longer we are there, the more common will be cases where the indeterminate nature of our deployment coupled with the frustration such a deployment brings cases where violence against Iraqis becomes one of objectively judged retribution by our point of view. But to the Iraqis, being unable to evaluate whether we are intending genocide, compromise, or withdrawal, will make all such incidents equally barbaric.

This will result in the Iraqis eventually deciding how to treat the USA forces deployed in Iraq. I have a feeling they will not be in the mood for compromise nor withdrawal by that time.

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Critical Thinking

In order for a democracy to function in a stable manner, ie it continues to exist, serve its citizens, and provide for a durable legal framework for the society, it must have a citizenry who are capable of informed critical thinking.

This is, ideally, the only purpose for a systematic public education system. The inherent problem in this solution however, is when a public education program becomes encumbered by either a politicized professional corps of educators or the course of study becomes encumbered by idiomatic doctrinal goals. The injection of a political bias into the administration and classroom education can have the unintended result of damaging critical thinking in terms of a biased presentation of study or a requirement of students to subscribe to a particular frame of reference in order to be "successful" in classwork. If a classroom's study programs are also encumbered by dogmas that demand an inherent favoritism over other views on purely judgmental grounds instead of empirical comparatives the class that leaves such an environment will be decidedly disadvantaged when it comes to critical thinking skills.

And these problems cross both sides of the current political landscape. It can be justly and unbiasedly argued that the NEA has simply hijacked education policy to conform to its own political dogma. It can be argued that Creationists are trying to encumber science coursework with an unscientific dogma. Both are examples of my point. For brevity we shall skip over the thousands of other examples.

The founding fathers were, without exception, elites or at least came from an elite class. They publicly stated individually and often the fact that the Republic was intended for a well educated and critical thinking elite. They did not intend for the Republic to be a massively enfranchised citizenship. If you doubt that fact look to the early suffrage standards that were allowed. For that matter look at just how small the eligible pool of voters actually was.

The thing that these early participators in our Republic had in common was that for the most part they were literally the leading men of their individual communities and often educated to a degree that we would find hard to fathom. Imagine if the current electorate consisted predominately of people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, presidents of colleges, leaders of industry, - basically only the hob nobs of the hob nobs.

There wasn't much diversity- and they did not intend such a diversity. The actually reflected that if the voting pool was consistently made up of only those who are most likely to have developed the skill of critical thinking, then the need for political parties would be non-existent and most decisions could be made in an effective and logical manner. They had in mind a fraternity open to the best leaders who would exercise a patrician like benevolence upon the remainder of the citizens in the Republic.

It lasted about 8 years.

What we have now is a hodgepodge of precedents which has either expanded the voting public membership or sought to influence that voting public into becoming blocks of votes for programs that can be offered by politicians.

I think Ben Franklin made the remark that once the voters realize that they can vote themselves blank treasury checks, the Republic would fail. And to some extent we endure that situation. About the only check to that disease is the fact that there are still an active minority of people who exhibit the facility for critical thinking. On both sides of the aisle. Thankfully the average great unwashed pool of eligible voters member is simply not even interested enough to register or vote.

I say thankfully because such voters eliminate the votes of people who have considered both sides of an argument and cast very reflective intelligent votes. People who vote straight tickets, or party line votes, or randomize whom they pick without any critical evaluation are collectively doing a disservice to themselves and the remainder of the country. And it is largely due to such uneducated voters that we have what is essentially political deadlock in Washington.

This deadlock isn't between just the two parties. Rather it is a deadlock which derives from individual elected officials being so mindful of the lack of critical voting of the citizenship, that they instead pander to the lowest and most populist sentiments of the voting public.

The ultimate cause for this decline is education. Children today are exposed to social science that often contain only the most cursory examination of Constitutional Law and even basic civics and government. Children now can explain what political correctness is- without ever even realizing that they are being politically correct nor recognizing the self inflicted bias such a dogma imposes upon their thinking. Often, they do not even know what the term Political Correctness is. It is part of an inherent dogma that is now part of the educational norm. They often cannot explain the actual rights retained by the citizens of the country- but they will willingly jump on the ideas of wealth envy, fairness, and victimology. They replicate a point of view which isn't exampled critical thinking. It is instead an example of what happens when students do not develop the ability to critically evaluate a problem or issue without an imposed external framework. It is in a way, an example of the way citizens of China reply as to what the freest nation on Earth is. They almost always respond "China" although to the rest of the world, China is better known for its repression, dictatorship, and systemic abuses of its citizens.

While they have the right to vote without a single critical judgement or evaluation of facts, they are setting the stage for a governmental collapse in the future. Brought on by the needs of populist support, the ever increasing payout to voters in entitlements, and a stagnation of actual action in solving problems instead of group thinking things to a permanent committee- the role of an elected official is rapidly becoming one of pandering offers of money in exchange for the votes of the self interested.

That situation has happened a few time in the last sixty years. And in all cases the outcomes were abysmal.

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Emperor's New Clothes

I BELIVE i said, his relationship with his current wife started before he was divorced. I don't think the question I answered was about any other women.

As to Booster seats.. Obama has gotten one since this whole race started and the media has found itself unable to remove it. Any time any of the major outlets attempt to retract the artificial support/ awe they lent to Obama to make a horse race out of the Democrat Party primaries- you get the issue of unfairness/race-card/hate radio expletives.

The issue of horse race press and yellow journalism isn't new- or even unnoticed by me.

What is seemingly going unnoticed by most people is the white gloved treatment Obama has enjoyed throughout this process. Were it not for Fox News and WSJ- therte would have been absolutely no negative events on the way to Obama's coronation gala.

The slowness isn't whether I recognize the media need to have a nose to nose stretch at the tape. What is slow, is the fact that you and many other people like you- haven't realized what a crap candidate Obama is- and were it not for the media life-support system, the guy would not be on the final ballot card in November.

McCain ain't much of a candidate either. But then the Republicans didn't really fight to hard amoungst themselves over trying to get elected in a year where almost no one thinks any Republican is going to win. If McCain wanted it- not to many people seemingly cared- especially the media. In fact the most controversy on McCain was the generalized grumbling in the conservative world over the fact that McCain isn't even a Republican.

Obama is literally on a media life support system.

He should be 20 points lear of McCain at this point.

He isn't.

The Emperor seems to have no clothes on... its just the media refuses to report it because they created the fiction of his clothes in the first place.

Leia Mais…

major fire

our house was destroyed on wednesday. more details to follow.

Leia Mais…

Using $100 Artillery Shells to Save Money.

But if you are just using simple artillery shells, you are committing yourself to a strategy that sacrifices accuracy, depends on multiple launchers for the shells, and increases the instances of accidental fratricide & collateral damage. That single smart bomb may cost $50,000, but it also requires less manpower to place into combat, is accurate to within feet, and dramatically lowers fratricide & collateral damage.

Plus, the laser guided munition is a one shot to effectiveness weapon. A mass of artillery could be as high as a 50:1 shot effectiveness.

Weapons development runs in terms of decades. Existing systems may be adequate for the most recent combats. And often, these weapons systems will remain a superior technology for many years. The reality however is that militaries that have not innovated weapons technologies often find themselves behind the 8 ball when combat erupts.

It is very rare that a weapons system is developed that is so superior that it can remain the preeminent technology choice for tactical combat use. For example, the B-52 is a system that has undergone continuous modifications to enable it to maintain its tactical value. But while the B-52 program is decades old, oter systems which took decades to deploy have fallen by the wayside. B-36, B-47, B-57, B-58, & B-70 projects all took millions of dollars to develop ( in today's dollars all were billion + projects. Most saw service, and most were withdrawn from service when their tactical benefits were outweighed by expected combat realities.

In some cases prevailing technologies simply made packages obsolete. Eg the B-36. In other cases the expected role for a weapons system vanished. EG B-47 & B-57. Or in some cases the expected need for a system became so remote that keeping the system on program became the equivalent of making sure you had a sledgehammer for every mosquito. Eg. B-70, B-1, and to some extent the B-2 since the intended number of airframes and general missions for the plane were dramatically scaled back.

The costs with the changes can be mind boggling. For example the B-36 was originally developed to replace the then in service B-29, But even though it took half a decade to deploy the B-36 as originally designed, jet propulsion had become necessary for strategic/tactical bombers. The B-52, B-47, & B-49 were in varying phases of development, but were not ready to deploy. To fill the expected mission need, the B-36's were all retrofitted with tandem engine pods which, lead to the description of the B-36 as "Four burning-Six Turning" plane. Four turbojet engines & six turboprop engines being the source of said power for the plane.

The thing is that the development of plane systems sometimes forces such measures. The B-47 was first started in 1945, didn't get fully deployed until 1960, and was withdrawn in 1965 because it was already obsolete. The B-49 of course took years to develop first as a turbo-prop driven bomber. Then it was changed to turbojet powerplants. And then when the B-52 was judged to be "good enough" to do both strategic and tactical bombing- all the B-49 planes were cut up for scrap.

But consider that on average most plane based systems take at least 15 years to move from request for design to an actual flying system. In the case of the B-2, it was first requested in 1981, had its first test flight in 1989, & had its first delivered operation plane in 1994. That is fourteen years from request to delivery. And like the B-52, the system's original role became different by the time it deployed. The expected 100+ airframes wound up being cut to less than 30. And its nuclear only role was changed to both nuclear and conventional strategic/tactical roles.

The cost of a system like the B-2 is assuredly fantastic. But if you are intending to provide your military with the most tactically flexible and effective weapons platforms, you will need a lot of time to make such systems available. In the passage of time, the expected combat reality may change so much that detrimental things can happen. Such as the need for the system no longer exists as happened to the B-49. The combat effectiveness of a system gets over taken making the system ineffectual as happened to the B-47. The costs associated with the system become to excessive to maintain compared to the tactical advantage offered by the system, as happened to the B-70, B-1 & B-2- resulting in outright cancellations or order reductions.

But however you want to look at it, these programs have a very good track record of offering our military systems that were the best at the time. It may be cheaper to build a single system and then simply maintain that system in quantity to offset the effective combat quality decline. The Soviets did that with their Tupolov bomber systems. They were on par with the B-36 in the 1940's. Were already obsolete by the 1950's compared to any American bomber or interceptor aircraft. And while the Russians are still flying the same original design today, no one realistically expects that those bombers could complete a combat mission unless their mission was taking place in an environment of zero air opposition.

Is the Russian bomber better because it has existed for over half a century? Probably not. But the Tupolov bomber sure did save money for the Russian tax payer. But if the Russians needed to use their current bombers in anger, would they be combat effective and sustainable as a weapons platform? Not a chance.

So a lot of people complain about these systems as being too costly, ineffectual, or unneeded for current threats. The reality is that maintaining the superior tactical and strategic advantage is a lot cheaper than showing up with a weapons system that isn't up to the circumstances of the combat it finds itself deployed against.

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Clinton's Gaff?

The context- they asked why she is still in the race. She answered that historically it isn't over until all the votes are in and a candidate gets nominated. She used two examples her husband not getting the nod until june and RFK seemingly coasting to a nomination that didn't happen.

It is a very valid point in a political context. Depending on who is doing the counting, Clinton has the popular vote. If that alone has been the factor for Democrats to whine on about how the "election" has been stolen in 2000 &2004- imagine how whiney they would be if the top vote getter in the party is forced out by party functionaries before the convention?

She really didn't say anything wrong at all. It was a statement of political reality. She shouldn't just drop out because it is inconvenient to Howard Dean.

I absolutely loath Hillary Clinton to degrees that are hard to express. I have actively sought to not even see her on the TV or read about her during this campaign. I would like nothing better than for her and the Clinton machine to falter and disappear from national politics. To me anything that keeps her out of the White House is a blessing.

Except if she isn't being given a fair shake.

And in this case- she certainly isn't. She was asked a fair question and gave the only answer that makes logical sense. She is in it because it isn't over, and history has shown repeatedly that the candidates really are not finalized until June in contested nominations. It is unfortunate for the DNC that in an otherwise perfect storm for the Republicans, the Democrats still have a contested race between two nearly equal candidates. Obama needed a short primary season because he really has only won caucus states and states that have motivated majority young voters. He hasn't played well in the big states. He hasn't played well in older populations. Meaning he really is only where he is because he correctly judged that Super Tuesday would attract a lot of first time voters who wanted to cast a novelty vote for a black man. He knew that a strong showing- even if he didn't win- would place him on the same tier as Clinton and allow him to exploit the one weakness Clinton had- an almost skeletal caucus resource.

Obama had the caucus forces ready to go if he survived Super Tuesday. Clinton didn't. Obama strung together a string of minor caucus states into a seemingly unstoppable wave. Point is, Clinton kept winning the big states and capturing the core of the Democratic party. Obama got the college kids, first time young voters, intelligentsia, and blacks. Clinton captured everyone else- including those voters most likely to vote in the general election. In a very real sense Clinton is indeed the stronger candidate. She has more physical votes, she has more victories in primaries, and her only weakness was she really SNAFU'd the caucuses.

When it gets to the convention, and the closed door smoke starts flowing, a lot of DNC leaders are going to be faced with the fact that Obama is primarily the presumptive candidate based on poor Clinton campaign practices following Super Tuesday. And a lot of them are going to look at the polls amongst Democrats who voted for Clinton that show they will either not vote for Obama or vote for McCain in the general election.

It isn't much of a stretch at all for Clinton to really think she has a realistic chance at walking out of the convention with the nomination. So when some local newspaper editorial board asks the question "WTF are you still running?" and she answers "Because history has repeatedly shown the nomination isn't a done deal until its off the convention floor" it isn't an offensive insult or gaff.

It is the truth.

Ted Kennedy almost walked out of the 1980 convention with the nomination. He was clearly the more electable compared to Carter. But for some unknown reason, Kennedy suddenly agreed behind closed doors that for the sake of party unity, there wouldn't be a floor fight. Instead of giving his speech while still seeking the nomination, he announced he was throwing it all behind Carter.

He then gave the single best political speech I have ever heard. The people on the floor- including Carter's supporters- attempted to vote by acclaim to make Ted Kennedy the nominee of the Democratic Party. He came out on the podium with Carter and pushed Carter to the mike.

Incidentally, the speech Kennedy gave after he agreed to drop out was the same one he had been prepared to give as a candidate seeking the nomination. Had he not conceded for the sake of unity and per the DNC leaders who were desperate to get the general campaign initiated infomercial style during the convention coverage, Kennedy would have been the nominee and Reagan would have flamed out in November of 1980.

So, if Clinton telling some newspaper editors that she is in it until the nominee is determined for whatever reason- be it a landslide comeback slaughter as her Husband did in the last primaries or an assassin's bullet as happened to RFK- is a gaff, then politics has been defaulted to the least logical and educated value that can be imagined.

If the Kennedy's weren't offended by the statement of fact- its pretty sorry that the media and those below Obama himself in his campaign have been all too willing to script it as such.

As a Clinton despiser, I would be more than happy to jump on any valid criticism bandwagon aimed at her. But this is really wishful propaganda being spun against her.

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Campaign Rallies

Obama was at some campaign rally over the weekend. It was some outdoor location next to some river, and the camera shot of the event was a wide angle view from a great distance in the air.

The numbers of people there was pretty shocking. The CNN reporters said it was an estimated 78,000 people. The campaign is essentially over, and he has almost zero chance of not getting the nomination. Yet, he is drawing crowds of a size that has almost no precedent in United States Presidential Election Primaries. Kennedy drew some big crowds. McGovern drew some big crowds. FDR drew some in his second campaign. T. Roosevelt drew some as a Bull Moose. But in general no one drew such large crowds, so often, and so consistently as Obama- especially after the nomination was a foregone conclusion.

Heard Boortz briefly on the radio today talking about Obama. And one of the things he said was that many people are flocking to his campaign appearances as if he were a messianic figure. He could not find any previous equivalency between Obama and other candidates, and took a few calls from listeners to his radio show to see what Obama's supporters saw in him and why they kept attending these mass events.

One comment that kept coming up was that his supporters kept calling Obama the " next President" and that they were going to see him still because they just wanted to see him up close and be close to him before he tales office.

Boortz made the comment that this is pretty unusual for any candidate, postulating that maybe these people really are to some extent reacting to Obama as if he is a political messiah.

The only equivalent behavior of an electorate that I could come up with was a certain series of events held in one of the very first modern media rich political campaigns. Where routinely, people showed up in mass events often numbering over 50,000 people and sometimes closing in on 100,000 people. They too often stated that they just wanted to see the candidate up close and hear him in person before he became Chancellor.

Of course that was in 1932 under the auspices of the N.D.A.S.P.

Leia Mais…

Campaign Rallies

Obama was at some campaign rally over the weekend. It was some outdoor location next to some river, and the camera shot of the event was a wide angle view from a great distance in the air.

The numbers of people there was pretty shocking. The CNN reporters said it was an estimated 78,000 people. The campaign is essentially over, and he has almost zero chance of not getting the nomination. Yet, he is drawing crowds of a size that has almost no precedent in United States Presidential Election Primaries. Kennedy drew some big crowds. McGovern drew some big crowds. FDR drew some in his second campaign. T. Roosevelt drew some as a Bull Moose. But in general no one drew such large crowds, so often, and so consistently as Obama- especially after the nomination was a foregone conclusion.

Heard Boortz briefly on the radio today talking about Obama. And one of the things he said was that many people are flocking to his campaign appearances as if he were a messianic figure. He could not find any previous equivalency between Obama and other candidates, and took a few calls from listeners to his radio show to see what Obama's supporters saw in him and why they kept attending these mass events.

One comment that kept coming up was that his supporters kept calling Obama the "next President" and that they were going to see him still because they just wanted to see him up close and be close to him before he takes office.

Boortz made the comment that this is pretty unusual for any candidate, postulating that maybe these people really are to some extent reacting to Obama as if he is a political messiah.

The only equivalent behavior of an electorate that I could come up with was a certain series of events held in one of the very first modern media rich political campaigns. Where routinely, people showed up in mass events often numbering over 50,000 people and sometimes closing in on 100,000 people. They too often stated that they just wanted to see the candidate up close and hear him in person before he became Chancellor.

Of course that was in 1932 under the auspices of the N.S.D.A.P.

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Obama's Diplomacy

Did you catch Obama's remarks yesterday? Paraphrasing, he pointed out that Iran became a problem because the Bush administration removed Sadam's government from Iraq that resulted in the removal of Iran's chief enemy. Further he blamed the current problem in Gaza on the Bush administration for pushing for and wanting elections in the Palestinian Authority, even though Israel warned that Fatah would likely lose and resultantly place Hammas in power.

Two issues to draw from this. Firstly, the issue of Iran's nuclear program and the support of groups like Hezballah and Hammas. According to the N.I.E. released a few months back, Iran's secret nuclear program was moving along ful steam towards weaponization until the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Whereupon, Iran not only halted its program, but even informed the United Nations' I.A.E.A. that it had a nuclear program. Also the issue of Iran supporting Hezzballah and Hammas suddenly became an issue upon which their government reasonably assumed that further support of these groups could place them in military conflict with the United States. Iran unilaterally halted such support long enough for Hezballah to suffer its collapse that happened in Lebanon, and also forced Hammas to consider political solutions because its source of armaments dried up.

Secondly, the Bush administration's efforts to promote a democratic initiation to the Middle East countries as a policy goal became possible. Jordan held elections that were not rubber stamp events. Syria relinquished its occupation of Lebanon and for the first time in decades free and fair elections were held the resulted in a stable government. Egypt held its first reasonably free elections since before Nassar was in power. Iraq held elections for the first time since the end of the British Mandate. And even the Palestinian Authority held elections that were free and fair for the first time ever since the end of the British mandate.

If the United States policy was through the second half of the Twentieth century and has remained to be policy in this century that the United States will support the removal of dictatorships in violation of the United Nations Charter and the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, then why would Obama view such a continuation of this policy as being wrong? Further, since the declaration of President Wilson on the necessity and right to free and democratic elections in 1919, the United States has sought to promote democratic political systems that hold free and fair elections as a central need to peaceful government, why would Obama hold that the Bush administration's continuation of this now almost one hundred years old policy to be wrong?

Obma posits that he would speak to our enemies. Holding out the examples of Nixon going to China, Carter going to the P.L.O., and even Kennedy meeting with Kruschev as times when the President has met with enemies, he neatly depends on the historical ignorance of the American public as to the details of such events. Few remember for example that Nixon's visit was in reality an attempt to further enlarge the divide between Soviet and Chinese Communism as well as personally inform the Chinese leadership that Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao would be grounds for war if China invaded. Few people remember that Carter's meeting with Arrafat was then end game in a diplomacy that had crossed the time period of three preceding Presidents and also was at a time when the P.L.O. was seeing its power-base erode to the point that it was finally willing to seek a diplomatic and political resolution. That is a far and marked difference in why previous Presidents negotiated with enemies than is the case with Obama seeking to parley with nations and leaders who not only do not want to parley but also see no need to parley with any President of the United States.

The fact that Obama sees the political method of being elected to office and governmental control by Hamas as being something that should never have been allowed brings to light the plausible conclusion that for whatever reason Obama supports democracy only if it is without consequence.

Why should we vote for a political leader who would no longer openly confront the worst leaders in the world, who would meet with any leader no matter how detestable, and who would avoid democratic institutions if it meant possible negative ramifications to the United States?

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Cutting the Petroleum Knot

t current regulatory and infrastructure rates of change, yes, it would be fair to say that it is 10-20 years off. But in terms of technology being practically applied right now the cars exists, function, and are completely consumer ready. In terms of manufacturing, the German marques are all quite serious when they say they could be mass produced in the next available model year. Aside from my somehow ingrained cultural and genetic predisposition to things German that might be blinding me into thinking hydrogen is the superior future fuel, the issues that compromise the other alternatives seem to me to be the more likely ones to have unintended consequences.

For example, the cars that rely on a hybrid system of a gasoline primary engine coupled to an electrical storage/redistribution system have two problems. The first is obvious- it still uses gasoline as a primary fuel. If the goal is to reduce or eliminate the need for a fossil fuel, then any vehicle that still requires gasoline remains part of the long term problem even if such a vehicle seems better compared to a standard gasoline fueled vehicle. Sure it might boast of getting 30 MPG combined performance, but it would ultimately remain a problem in that even if every car was a gasoline/electric hybrid we would still need massive amounts of gasoline for such a fleet. Given that our population will continue growing, as will the numbers of households with automobiles, in a very short time of years we would again return to our current levels of consumption of oil. If oil is a scarce market commodity now, what is the likelihood that it will be plentiful in the future?

The second problem with the gasoline/electric hybrids is tied up in the added resource costs and ultimate disposal costs associated with such vehicles. In terms of manufacturing, the additional need to put larger DC alternators on gasoline engines so that they can additionally serve as an electric drive do not just grow on trees. The additional requirements for copper windings of larger diameters means that copper would become and even more stressed resource. In the case of hub-driven hybrids, instead of having a single alternator per-vehicle, you have five. Then there are the batteries themselves. In terms of efficiencies they have become better at holding a charge, delivering a charge, and returning to the pre-charge level. It is this development which has made it feasible to even make gasoline/electric hybrids.

The problem is that these new batteries are made from essentially exotic metals. Nickel, cadmium, lithium, & other exotic metals are not exactly materials that grow on trees and aren't better used in other tools. Imagine for a moment if we were now having to dispose of such batteries after their utility as
storage for a hybrid drive system has failed. Many cars never make it to junk yards. Do you want such metals decaying into your water table? Even if recycled, the recycling costs are almost as high as the original construction of such batteries. Plus there will be unrecyclable material that cannot be reused and cannot go into anything other than an inert landfill. Do we really have such an abundance of landfills that meet this qualification that we can absorb the yearly waste metal slurry from hundreds of thousands of batteries? We have enough problems with the waste left over from the yearly recycling of standard automobile batteries right now. Imagine if the waste was double or triple the amount, but instead of being plain old lead byproducts it is instead lithium or cadmium.

The other pollution component is a function of it still being a gas powered system. You still have exhaust gasses. Yes when the gasoline part of the engine is idled in favor of the electric side, the emissions are zero. But, the minute you turn it back on it still churns out noxious gasses that at the least effect the local environment. If the Global Warming nutcases are serious in their belief system, any automobile power plant that still releases noxious gases should be a problem due to the scale of numbers of such cars that would be on the road. Surely, such cars would likely cut in half the current automobile pollution levels from exhaust. But if Global Warming is such a dire disaster, the priority should be to replace cars that emit tons of noxious gases per hundred miles with cars that release pounds of non-noxious gases per hundred miles.

Environmentally the hydrogen cars are the better solution because in the short term, they can utilize the old petroleum based gasoline distribution system while the hydrogen distribution system is deployed. Meaning the upfront costs of deploying the fleet can be spread across a decade. Meaning we wouldn't have to destroy our economy with a massive emergency deployment. As more hydrogen cars come online, automobile emissions will decline rapidly. Within ten years, passenger car emissions of noxious gasses would drop to less than 10% of what it is today. In ten years of deployment of a hybrid based system, you would possibly drop it to only 30% of today's value- but eventually the numbers would start to climb as new population growth put more vehicles into service. At some point you would again face the same problem we do right now in terms of pollution and consumption requirements of fossil fuels.

I can't remeber the name of the General Motors all electric car that was leased to people in California. I think it was the Impulse. Alex is wanting to go play so I will just make my point quickly. The car was a response to a California legal regulation. It made it possible for General Motors to meet California zero emissions standards and allow it also to keep selling normal cars. Any way, the cars cost a fortune to make and GM lost around $4,000 on each car. You couldn't buy one but could only lease it for three years. Then the car would need to have its batteries removed and new ones installed, the car was supposed to be cosmetically refurbished, and then the car was supposed to be re-leased to a new person. They made something like 1000 of the cars- and they were ugly, small, practical only for a concentrated urban environment, and prone to battery failures/fires. As the first ones began being returned, GM discovered that the batteries were essentially unrecoverable and had to pay a fortune for each disposal. If GM had added the cost of disposal to its original finished good cost, the price would have increased by half. It became very obvious to GM that a car that cost that much to refurbish and required each car to need a sanitary secured disposal burial plot was an idea that made zero sense. Plus, after three years of trying to lease the things, they still hadn't managed to lease all of them.

In the end, GM collected all but a handful of the cars which went to a handful of museums. The rest, including the ones that it never managed to lease one time, were sent to a specially built landfill site. The cars were all crushed, deemed toxic waste, and buried.

The thing is companies in America including Ford, GM, and Chrysler all bet that electric cars would be legislated into viability by California and the infrastructure would be mandated legally. It didn't happen. Environmentally, the cars were supposed to be vastly superior to standard cars. They weren't since 99% of the entire material in the construction run is now toxic waste in a secured sanitary landfill. The only net positive that resulted from the failed product was that GM, Ford, & Chrysler all decided it would be better for them economically if they took a baby step into gasoline/electric hybrids.

And that is the real problem. American companies jumped on the gasoline/electric hybrid bandwagon with the Japanese manufacturers. Its really where most of their R&D investment has went for the last ten years. They knew about the Germans and their various duel fuel hydrogen systems. But they reasonably concluded that an incremental step would be regulatorilly neutral and remain compatible with the existing fuel delivery system in the country. Now that petroleum is pushing the futures markets at $120 a bbl, they see the potential to be able to have the public make their investment profitable.

They do not want to see the hydrogen cars come easily to market.

The benefit to Hydrogen system cars is obvious. They can run on either existing fuel sources or on hydrogen. They are essentially the exact same engine as a standard gasoline only engine. The canister bottle is almost indestructible and 100% recyclable. The hydrogen car is as recyclable as any standard car is. It holds the potential to ultimately derive all of its energy needs from non-fossil fuels. It has the potential to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from the national automobile fleet to levels not seen since the early 1900's. Additionally it has the potential to contribute only H₂O as an automobile derived greenhouse gas.

In short, the Germans invented the magic bullet. The American & Japanese makers gambled on an incremental step, the Germans succeeded on an evolutionary step.

If we expect to remove the Middle East oil flow from our considerations in the future, the only viable solutions are those which eliminate fossil fuels from the equations.

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Hillary's Misspeak.

Strange at it may seem for me to be defending Hillary, I really do think she was simply a victim of campaigning. Call it diarrhea of the mouth, brain fade, or simple exhaustion- what she said compares to the other instances where politicians on the campaign trail say things that are simply untrue. I don't think it is or was intentional on her part. The part of me that holds Hillary to indeed be insanely smart and insanely calculating tells me that I should be taking her statement as an outright lie, intentionally told, to serve one of her machinations that would place her in the White House. But the rest of my thought processes tell me that there is absolutely no machination plausible that would account for her having ever mad this statement.

It's much like Obama's "bitter" comment that was followed by examples of provincialism that results from such bitterness. Do people buy guns because they are bitter over their economic situation? Do people go to religious services because they are bitter about the economy? The man is suffering from campaign fatigue. Plain and simple. Given a couple of weeks of sleep he probably would never have phrased his comments the way that he did.

McCain confusing Sunni & Shia sects at least twice falls into the same category as well. Taking into account his Senate committee assignments, it is very doubtful that were it not for continued campaigning, he would not have made such a slip up.

Reagan, Ford, Carter, and even Bill Clinton had their gaffs as well during campaigns. The difference is that technology has so caught up with campaigning methods that almost an entire candidate's run gets digitally recorded. What gets said in New Hampshire is worldwide news for 24 hours. There are no private moments.

And as an example today you have video of Clinton doing a Crown Royal shot & Obama serving cheeseburgers in a restaurant. In a very real sense, the camera lens combined with digital signal streaming feeds makes it entirely possible to catch every single hiccup made by a candidate. At some point, normal mortals will break.

All three remaining candidates have broken. It's that simple. Would Clinton have said what she said if she wasn't a political zombie right now? Would Obama be caught on camera serving cheeseburgers to white people in a style that practically screams "House Slave" ever have happened were it not for the ghoulish campaign?

Honestly, while such gaffs are entertaining grift, what do they actually indicate about the candidates? In a word-nothing. They are instead concentrating on explaining away the gaffs, while real issues such as their plans for domestic and international policy get ignored by the camera. It is very telling that even though all the candidates have given policy speeches, the only ones that even get more than a few minutes of live media play have been Obama & Romney speaking on their own religion. McCain's speech on solar energy policy was only covered because he was expected to get an endorsement from Guilianni at the same speech. CNN & Fox started covering it, but when it became apparent that McCain wasn't planning on handling the endorsement until after his policy speech, both networks broke away.

It is a function of salaciousness, that our media has devolved its coverage down to such important questions as "Boxers, Briefs, or Freeball?". The current crop of candidates I think tried to earnestly put policy plans of multiple issues on the table. But, despite that attempt, we have instead gotten coverage of the exceptional. Such as Oprah hosting a campaign rally for Obama. Hillary "crying" in New Hampshire. And a few hundred more trivialities that really were never important campaign events or even being news worthy.

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Home Mortgage Crisis?

House equity is only being sucked away if they are trying to sell heir house, and once agreed to it being sold, sell it for a value less than the outstanding loan amount left on their mortgage. If you aren't selling the house you aren't losing any equity value.

95% of all loans are being paid. 3% are 90 days late. 2% are being foreclosed. In historic terms- its normal.

About the only people actually taking a equity hit, are house flippers who bought high on the expectation of selling high & people who incompetently took on more debt in purchasing a home than they could afford.

Case in point, when we went to shop a loan for our current house four years ago, the approval prelim came back and we were told that we could afford a $500,000 mortgage. We laughed our buts off when we heard that. We knew what our cash flow was, what our budget was, and what we could reasonably afford in a worse case scenario. We took a loan out for $160,000K plus closing costs out the yazoo.

After pouring approximately $40,000 into our house, we have scene its actual market value put it between $230-240K. Meaning in terms of equity on our home we probably have $60,000 in equity on the property right now. We have not opened a line of equity credit, nor do we plan on selling any time in the near future. So in a real sense, over the past four years we have poured 40K into a mortgage/property taxes & 40 K into home repairs/ improvements.

We could have dumped that 80K into things like investments or simply having fun and saving money by renting a house for far less. I don't think we are an exceptional circumstance either. We certainly aren't dealing with a cash flow problem even though it hasn't changed in four years. If anything our expenses have repeatedly turned out to be unexpected things like water heaters and walls.

I simply don't think a lot of people know what debt is. Or equity. Or loss, profit--- or even how the money pool functions at all. Those that don't are among the 5% of mortgage owners country wide who are now finding out that just because you qualify for a McMansion 100% financed- does not mean you should sign the closing papers on such a house.

As your quote indicated, and you even emphasized the "Money" part of it, most people do exactly what your quote says. They do not understand what equity is. My equity in my house is properly termed, only the amount of the mortgage I have paid off. All improvements made to the propert have been funded without any loans. IE we saved cash for each project, and then paid for them outright. In a very real sense those purchases are adding to the equity of the home- but only if the mortgage is paid off.

Many people- lots of them being idiotic, looked at market values and took out equity lines of credit based upon the potential sales value of their properties. They then used this creit line to purchase on credit improvements to their homes. The problem is that these improvements are credit purchases. They may improve the over-all salebility of the home, but for them to be considered equity, one would have to first pay off the equity line and second also manage to sell the house at a price level that covers both the original mortgage and also the cash purchase price of whatever improvements they purchased with the equity line.

If your credit goes south, or the market values fall, or the market becomes a buyers market, anyone who made equity line purchase improvements would have to be extremely lucky to break even or even net an equity profit on a final sale.

The true equity value of a house is only reached in one of two ways. Way one is you look at it as a long term investment and take a couple decades to pay off the mortgage without adding on equity lines or churning your loan. The other way is to opportunistically sell the house on terms that far outweigh the mortgage costs left on the house while also being able to purchase a replacement home for less than the original home you sell.

Most people instead look at their houses as virtual piggybanks. They assume that since the local market sales price has increased, their properrty must also be worth that much. So they assume that they can afford second mortgages or equity lines.

It is an idiotic theory, especially if it is your primary home.

Right now I have 40 K off my primary mortgage. Assuming I could sell the house for the original purchase price, I'd take out 40k in equity. But in order to make it a good sale, I'd have to be able to find a very simular house for 40K. Something which is entirely doubtful and next to impossible. The longer I hold this house and keep paying for it, the higher my take vs original mortgage sale price will become. First because inflation will negate some of the up front quoted price. Second because the closer to term the mortgage gets, the more advantageos the value of the mortgage becomes.

Eventually, once the house is paid for, which would incidentally be about the time my kid gets ready for college, I will have only a property tax as a liability against the property. If I need to purchase tuition for my kid, I will be able to access the equity in the house by taking out a new first mortgage. The difference however in valuation at that time will however be based on both market values & the results of all the improvements I have made. Only then will the equity value for example of installing a new kitchen from the studs up get included in the valuation.

Most people assume that since they can get an equity line, they should. They assume that their home improvements are instant equity in their home. It isn't the case.

A lot of people made that mistake, so 5% of the mortgages held in the USA are going belly up.

Its not true in every circumstance, but most of the people in mortgage trouble are there because they are/were idiots due to the simple fact that they understand equity as a real estate agent defines it vs. what an accountant undersands it to be. 

You shouldn't "trust" the system. You should understand the system. And if you don't understand the system, you should take steps to learn exactly what the costs and benefits are before you sign a contract. You should be smart enough to get a second opinion on the property's value from a non-affiliated real estate agent. You should shop your loan with several mortgage brokers. You should also engage a closing attorney who is an advocate for you during the closing process- and not one lined up due to a convenience factor tat benefits others.

Failure to take those steps is indeed idiotic. People in general take more time and effort to research consumer electronics purchases than they do when buying real estate. Do you assume that your home theater system, video display, computer, and service provider will all seamlessly integrate because they are part of the electronic entertainment industry? Do you just assume everything will work as represented without doing any research? Without consulting with salespeople? Without looking at multiple manufacturers? Without visiting multiple retailers?

To make such a purchase in that manner simply invites easily avoidable problems. There are indeed many people who bought HD-DVD systems without doing much homework, trusting the industry to work seamlessly. Had they done even a marginal effort at research on whether to buy a HD-DVD or Blueray based video-data disk playback system, they would have easily come to the conclusion that Blueray was the most likely winner in the industry standards race. Those who did aply effort have Blueray systems. Those who didn't and bought an HD-DVD system in the last year or so just got impacted by what amounts to a market collapse. HD-DVD was dropped.

In the same way, those who jumped on the bandwagon of buying homes in markets of ever increasing property values even though they did not understand they purchase are now finding themselves being responsible for continuing to pay off something they bought without regard to being informed consumers. So do these people deserve a Federal amnesty? Do the people who bought HD-DVD systems deserve a Federal amnesty?

There isn't much I am missing on this issue that needs to be addressed. The issue is consumers not doing their own due diligence, and are now paying the penalty. It is really only an issue right now because it has become a political issue. Two candidates are offering and forebarances to prevent any foreclosures for up to 6 years. One candidate is describing the situation correctly as being little more than a statistical blip in terms of historic foreclosure rates & advises that the market is already correcting itself.

Where was the demand for amnesty and forberances in the 1980's when people had 12% mortgage rates and 3% were being foreclosed?

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