Someone asked me today if I would support a cut of government social programs: social security, welfare, medicare and medicaid.
I say we take whatever is in these funds, turn them into a private charity and cease all government funding.
They will then sink or swim based on charitable contributions and the charity's ability to balance the objectives of the charity with people's willingness to give to it. I might well give $1000/year to a Social Security charity. This is considerably less than I am forced to pay into it now.
It's always been my goal to work my finances such that I can one day retire without government aid. I could have a nicer car, a nicer house and better stuff but I don't because I want to retire one day and owning a really nice BMW today would impede my ability to one day retire and be independent.
If I could have all of my social security payments in my bank account, that would amount to a nice little raise that would help me retire that much earlier.
My parents would either be living with me or I'd be helping them out financially to live somewhere on their own, but at least that's a decision we can come to on our own.
There may be certain minimums I would be willing to see the government do. But we are talking bare minimums. A roof over your head, food to eat and a place to sleep. Anything beyond that should be left in the hands of private charities and volunteer programs.
We're too dependent on the government.
People aren't willing to go out and volunteer or give money for programs they believe in, because they expect the government to do it for them. It's horseshit. Someone wants to help old people? Volunteer. Donate. Ring a bell in front of a bucket in front of the local shopping mall. But don't mug me every April 15th for an amount of money you think is appropriate to steal from me in order to support your charity.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
You can't make this stuff up.
The New York Times loves this video:
http://storyofstuff.com
So your kids might be getting to see this propaganda in school.
I'll just address a few things as I watch the video.
She claims the US military takes up 50% of our budget. That's either misleading or "a lie" depending on how generous you want to be. DOD is 50% of the budget only if you don't count social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare and interest on our debt -- the so-called "mandatory" budget items. If you do count those, it's about 16% (social security is 21%).
Almost a breath later:
"It's the government's job to watch out for us, to take care of us; that's their JOB."
I don't think Ben Franklin or Jefferson would have quite agreed with that. But that's the modern day liberal viewpoint, isn't it? (Or as Mark Levin calls them, "Statists" instead of "liberals" -- people who seek the growth of the state rather than individual independence from the state.)
"The corporation is bigger than the government."
She says it like it's a bad thing. The animation is of the government shining the shoes of the corporation. Although if it comes down to it, is there any corporation in America who makes more money per year than the government? From Wikipedia:
"Estimated [tax] receipts for fiscal year 2008 were $2.66 trillion."
Does any corporation bring in $2.66 trillion? If I'm reading it right, the #1 corporation in the world is Wal-Mart, which brought in about $379 billion in revenue.
So no, the government appears to be much, much, MUCH bigger than Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is the #1 corporation. (Exxon-Mobile is #2 at about $373 billion.)
"[America has] 5% of the world's population but we use 30% of the resources."
Yeah, being technologically advanced sure is a bitch. If only we could go back to living in grass huts and hunting fish with a spear, we'd be in line with a lot of the rest of the world.
"We mix toxic materials in with the natural materials to make toxic, contaminated products."
Uhh.
Okay, I'm not even 5 minutes in and I give up on this video.
I would be pretty furious if my kid was shown this propaganda video in school without some serious discussion about the truth of the "facts" given and whether it's a fair assessment and what parts of the video have merit and what parts are a fine example of liberal extremism gone awry. I would use it as an educational video to show the kids how emotions can sometimes cause adults to lie to children, and that they should always be on guard against this.
Although this does remind me of some of the crap we were shown as kids when I was in school: oversimplified, inaccurate garbage meant to drive your opinion in a particular direction.
http://storyofstuff.com
Ms. Leonard put the video on the Internet in December 2007. Word quickly spread among teachers, who recommended it to one another as a brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation.
...
More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web.
It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video.
So your kids might be getting to see this propaganda in school.
I'll just address a few things as I watch the video.
She claims the US military takes up 50% of our budget. That's either misleading or "a lie" depending on how generous you want to be. DOD is 50% of the budget only if you don't count social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare and interest on our debt -- the so-called "mandatory" budget items. If you do count those, it's about 16% (social security is 21%).
Almost a breath later:
"It's the government's job to watch out for us, to take care of us; that's their JOB."
I don't think Ben Franklin or Jefferson would have quite agreed with that. But that's the modern day liberal viewpoint, isn't it? (Or as Mark Levin calls them, "Statists" instead of "liberals" -- people who seek the growth of the state rather than individual independence from the state.)
"The corporation is bigger than the government."
She says it like it's a bad thing. The animation is of the government shining the shoes of the corporation. Although if it comes down to it, is there any corporation in America who makes more money per year than the government? From Wikipedia:
"Estimated [tax] receipts for fiscal year 2008 were $2.66 trillion."
Does any corporation bring in $2.66 trillion? If I'm reading it right, the #1 corporation in the world is Wal-Mart, which brought in about $379 billion in revenue.
So no, the government appears to be much, much, MUCH bigger than Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is the #1 corporation. (Exxon-Mobile is #2 at about $373 billion.)
"[America has] 5% of the world's population but we use 30% of the resources."
Yeah, being technologically advanced sure is a bitch. If only we could go back to living in grass huts and hunting fish with a spear, we'd be in line with a lot of the rest of the world.
"We mix toxic materials in with the natural materials to make toxic, contaminated products."
Uhh.
Okay, I'm not even 5 minutes in and I give up on this video.
I would be pretty furious if my kid was shown this propaganda video in school without some serious discussion about the truth of the "facts" given and whether it's a fair assessment and what parts of the video have merit and what parts are a fine example of liberal extremism gone awry. I would use it as an educational video to show the kids how emotions can sometimes cause adults to lie to children, and that they should always be on guard against this.
Although this does remind me of some of the crap we were shown as kids when I was in school: oversimplified, inaccurate garbage meant to drive your opinion in a particular direction.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Decline in Journalism; The Rise of the Blogger
Partial transcript from Morning Joe on MSNBC:
The reason is pretty simple, I think: old media has become lazy. Their jobs are easily taken over by armchair amateurs. I created this blog largely because I, using only the power of Google, can come up with better in-depth articles than the New York Times. Obviously I don't do this very often but then, I'm not getting paid. But there's an army of people like me, so between the lot of us, readers don't really need the New York Times anymore. Do I make my calls and get my two-to-three sources? Do you, Mr. Williams? Did the New York Times make their calls when they published a fake letter from the mayor of Paris?
I used to have a lot of respect for reporters -- specifically for investigative reporting. I confess, I'm kind of lazy. If I had to go down to the library of Congress to research stuff, I wouldn't do it. But when I can prove an Associated Press article to be wrong, biased or simply incomplete using only the power of Google and a couple links to the census data, something is wrong with classical media.
What's wrong is that they're just as lazy as I am, except they're getting paid to be lazy. They aren't checking their sources. They aren't delivering unbiased reports. They aren't digging down except when it suits their personal political views. Why did we hear so much about Palin and so little about Biden? Why are negative stories about Iraq put on page 1 and positive stories put on page 11 or not printed at all? Why do I have to go to the blogs of private journalists (classically trained or otherwise) in order to get the full story?
Mainstream media has allowed bias and laziness to overthrow investigative reporting and hard work.
It should be no surprise to Brian Williams that we are turning away from people like him and turning towards private sources and bloggers for news. I can glean more truth from a handful of bloggers (some from both sides of the story) than I can from any single mainstream media source.
Journalism as a profession can easily come back, but now they have to compete. Now they have to WORK. You guys at the New York Times and MSNBC want to still have a job ten years from now? Get to work. Start investigating. Put more effort into your story than the average blogger and maybe we'll come back. Keep being lazy and biased and you'll be replaced by bloggers because you aren't doing anything we can't do.
Pat Buchanan: Is the old media that we all grew up with, is that really passing away and this new media the kids got, with the internet and the rest of it, is that the future? ...Old media is being replaced by bloggers.
Brian Williams: ... when people hear me lament the passing of that media, they think, oh, that's just your own self interest. And it's not. It's Jefferon's kind of educated and enlightened democracy. ... And if you're going to tell me it's, it's someone with a web site, well, have you been, as a friend of mine says, classically trained? Do you know to make your calls and get your two-to-three sources? ...
The reason is pretty simple, I think: old media has become lazy. Their jobs are easily taken over by armchair amateurs. I created this blog largely because I, using only the power of Google, can come up with better in-depth articles than the New York Times. Obviously I don't do this very often but then, I'm not getting paid. But there's an army of people like me, so between the lot of us, readers don't really need the New York Times anymore. Do I make my calls and get my two-to-three sources? Do you, Mr. Williams? Did the New York Times make their calls when they published a fake letter from the mayor of Paris?
I used to have a lot of respect for reporters -- specifically for investigative reporting. I confess, I'm kind of lazy. If I had to go down to the library of Congress to research stuff, I wouldn't do it. But when I can prove an Associated Press article to be wrong, biased or simply incomplete using only the power of Google and a couple links to the census data, something is wrong with classical media.
What's wrong is that they're just as lazy as I am, except they're getting paid to be lazy. They aren't checking their sources. They aren't delivering unbiased reports. They aren't digging down except when it suits their personal political views. Why did we hear so much about Palin and so little about Biden? Why are negative stories about Iraq put on page 1 and positive stories put on page 11 or not printed at all? Why do I have to go to the blogs of private journalists (classically trained or otherwise) in order to get the full story?
Mainstream media has allowed bias and laziness to overthrow investigative reporting and hard work.
It should be no surprise to Brian Williams that we are turning away from people like him and turning towards private sources and bloggers for news. I can glean more truth from a handful of bloggers (some from both sides of the story) than I can from any single mainstream media source.
Journalism as a profession can easily come back, but now they have to compete. Now they have to WORK. You guys at the New York Times and MSNBC want to still have a job ten years from now? Get to work. Start investigating. Put more effort into your story than the average blogger and maybe we'll come back. Keep being lazy and biased and you'll be replaced by bloggers because you aren't doing anything we can't do.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Decline of America?
In the "Afterword" (his spelling) section of Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Hegemon, he's reviewing some of his thoughts on why he had the politics of the book play out the way they did. He describes America as "a nation in decline, and my people have little will to be well led". We prefer individuality and the modern comforts and we will not unite to change the world. In the book, America is largely taking a back-seat role in politics while the movers-and-shakers are the Russians, Chinese and Indians -- cultures with a strong sense of nationalism, easily united to focus on a common national goal (such as, e.g., taking over the world).
I can understand why he thinks this about America, and to some extent perhaps it's true. I recently saw the South Park episode where South Park is overrun by hippies. Initially, Stan and friends (minus Cartman, who hates hippies) were taken in by their desire to fight the corporations, but they eventually realized that hippie talk is really just talk, and somehow fighting the corporations turns into a big festival with lots of music and pot smoking and if you wait for the part where they actually stick it to the man, you're going to die of old age (or smoke inhalation). Like most South Park episodes, there's a seed of truth in there.
I see the same thing a lot on various political oriented websites. A lot of strong talk, but not much action. What action there is tends to come in the form of donation to charity rather than any real move. Oh, genocide in Africa? How terrible. Let's all donate to Doctors Without Borders! And then, presumably, we'll all go eat some pot brownies and that'll fix everything. Stop the genowhatnow? You want who to do what and go where to stop whowhatsit? No no, that's the MAN talkin', man! Just donate to this charity group and replace your old lightbulbs with CFLs! Wooo! Free Bird!
One might get the impression that we are becoming a nation of wusses. Big on talk, small on action, surely our days of changing the world are coming to an end.
What's more, Card seems to follow the belief that China and India will become huge world superpowers due to their massive populations. I'm starting to suspect that they may not be able to become huge world superpowers precisely because of their populations.
Look at, oh, say, the D.C. area, especially around where I am, in the Rockville area. Traffic is absolutely horrible and they're only building more places to live. I was talking to a coworker the other day, who has lived here all of his life, and he mentioned that originally, there were supposed to be 2 beltways around D.C. and several more bridges across the Potomac to Virginia. The environmentalists sacked the bridges, the second beltway never got made and the Intercounty Connector (which won't help much, I think) is having to fight in the courts. The more people you have, the harder it is to actually do anything because there are too many groups you have to appease. As it is, the planned route for the ICC is rather curvy and ridiculous looking because of all the places they absolutely couldn't go through.
If these are the kinds of growing pains that America has, I can only imagine what a mess it must be in India and China, and it seems to me that it's only going to get harder as time goes by. India has a rate of deaths-per-10k-motor-vehicles-per-year of 20 while in the U.S., it's 2. They have a huge incentive to improve their infrastructure but I'm willing to bet that right now, they can't. The large population is, I suspect, hindering their ability to adapt as much as it's helping supply a base of wealth and power.
I also figure it's a bit like chimpanzee vs elephant. For all of the elephant's brain mass, they never became kings of the animal kingdom because they're so huge, they have to spend all day finding things to eat. The basics of life are complicated enough for them that they don't have time to sit around and ponder better methods of throwing poop at the local jaguar population. It was the leaner, more efficient apes that became kings of the animal kingdom. They're the ones that ultimately invented guns.
So, is America really in decline?
I don't think so. I think we might be losing our will to go out and effect change in the world with our bombs and our bullets, but I don't think we're in danger of losing our will to maintain our position remotely, through financial clout, political manipulation and the traditional selling of weapons to the enemies of the people we don't like. India and China are like the elephant, seemingly huge and unstoppable and brilliant, but all of their strength and brains are focused internally, trying to solve the problems that are brought on by being so big. We're the monkeys. Smaller but more adaptable.
I don't think we're on the decline. I think we're just now really beginning to establish our place at the head of the table. Be glad you're here, because I think it will prove, ever increasingly, to be one of the best places to live in the decades to come. Yes, nations like Sweden have peace, freedom and universal health care, but the only thing preventing them from being stomped on by their neighbors is a temporary lack of desire to do so. Who knows what the future holds for them? Who knows where China, India, Pakistan and the volatile Muslim nations will end up? America is the greatest country on earth because I think we have the most reason to look ahead and see ourselves still in a position of strength and influence in the world. In the long run, I think we're still the place to be.
I can understand why he thinks this about America, and to some extent perhaps it's true. I recently saw the South Park episode where South Park is overrun by hippies. Initially, Stan and friends (minus Cartman, who hates hippies) were taken in by their desire to fight the corporations, but they eventually realized that hippie talk is really just talk, and somehow fighting the corporations turns into a big festival with lots of music and pot smoking and if you wait for the part where they actually stick it to the man, you're going to die of old age (or smoke inhalation). Like most South Park episodes, there's a seed of truth in there.
I see the same thing a lot on various political oriented websites. A lot of strong talk, but not much action. What action there is tends to come in the form of donation to charity rather than any real move. Oh, genocide in Africa? How terrible. Let's all donate to Doctors Without Borders! And then, presumably, we'll all go eat some pot brownies and that'll fix everything. Stop the genowhatnow? You want who to do what and go where to stop whowhatsit? No no, that's the MAN talkin', man! Just donate to this charity group and replace your old lightbulbs with CFLs! Wooo! Free Bird!
One might get the impression that we are becoming a nation of wusses. Big on talk, small on action, surely our days of changing the world are coming to an end.
What's more, Card seems to follow the belief that China and India will become huge world superpowers due to their massive populations. I'm starting to suspect that they may not be able to become huge world superpowers precisely because of their populations.
Look at, oh, say, the D.C. area, especially around where I am, in the Rockville area. Traffic is absolutely horrible and they're only building more places to live. I was talking to a coworker the other day, who has lived here all of his life, and he mentioned that originally, there were supposed to be 2 beltways around D.C. and several more bridges across the Potomac to Virginia. The environmentalists sacked the bridges, the second beltway never got made and the Intercounty Connector (which won't help much, I think) is having to fight in the courts. The more people you have, the harder it is to actually do anything because there are too many groups you have to appease. As it is, the planned route for the ICC is rather curvy and ridiculous looking because of all the places they absolutely couldn't go through.
If these are the kinds of growing pains that America has, I can only imagine what a mess it must be in India and China, and it seems to me that it's only going to get harder as time goes by. India has a rate of deaths-per-10k-motor-vehicles-per-year of 20 while in the U.S., it's 2. They have a huge incentive to improve their infrastructure but I'm willing to bet that right now, they can't. The large population is, I suspect, hindering their ability to adapt as much as it's helping supply a base of wealth and power.
I also figure it's a bit like chimpanzee vs elephant. For all of the elephant's brain mass, they never became kings of the animal kingdom because they're so huge, they have to spend all day finding things to eat. The basics of life are complicated enough for them that they don't have time to sit around and ponder better methods of throwing poop at the local jaguar population. It was the leaner, more efficient apes that became kings of the animal kingdom. They're the ones that ultimately invented guns.
So, is America really in decline?
I don't think so. I think we might be losing our will to go out and effect change in the world with our bombs and our bullets, but I don't think we're in danger of losing our will to maintain our position remotely, through financial clout, political manipulation and the traditional selling of weapons to the enemies of the people we don't like. India and China are like the elephant, seemingly huge and unstoppable and brilliant, but all of their strength and brains are focused internally, trying to solve the problems that are brought on by being so big. We're the monkeys. Smaller but more adaptable.
I don't think we're on the decline. I think we're just now really beginning to establish our place at the head of the table. Be glad you're here, because I think it will prove, ever increasingly, to be one of the best places to live in the decades to come. Yes, nations like Sweden have peace, freedom and universal health care, but the only thing preventing them from being stomped on by their neighbors is a temporary lack of desire to do so. Who knows what the future holds for them? Who knows where China, India, Pakistan and the volatile Muslim nations will end up? America is the greatest country on earth because I think we have the most reason to look ahead and see ourselves still in a position of strength and influence in the world. In the long run, I think we're still the place to be.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Black Friday 2008: Best Ever?
CNN
This goes back to my general wondering of how much of the "depression" is real? And how much does a stock market crash impact the average American and their willingness to spend?
I'm curious to see November's unemployment figures but October's number was 6.5%, which is high for recent history but still pretty low in the grand scheme of things.
Latest unemployment numbers
The pattern there is rather interesting as well.
This goes back to my general wondering of how much of the "depression" is real? And how much does a stock market crash impact the average American and their willingness to spend?
I'm curious to see November's unemployment figures but October's number was 6.5%, which is high for recent history but still pretty low in the grand scheme of things.
Latest unemployment numbers
The pattern there is rather interesting as well.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Voter turnout 2008. All hype?
I was seeing some people saying how voter turnout in 2008 blew the lid off of 2004's numbers and since Obama won by a landslide, this proves the country is really behind him.
Actually...
I already demonstrated that Obama only got 52.5% of the popular vote, so not exactly a landslide. So how was voter turnout?
I'm having trouble tracking down good numbers right now, as I guess it's too early, but here's what I could find so far:
Voter turnout same or slightly higher than 04
Registrations were way up (ACORN?) but actual turnout was not.
I actually think it's closer than that CNN blog says. They're using "124 million" as voters in 2004 (and another CNN story says it "shattered 2004's mark of 122 million" -- the 2004 number keeps dropping!) but the census table I'm looking at right now says 125.7 million voted in the 2004 presidential election. That's 58.3% of the voting age population for that time.
Let's see... voting age population for this election was 231.2 million, so if 127 million voted in 2008 (latest preliminary estimate I could find, Nov 6th) then we're at 55%?
Hmm, that can't be right. That shows us as actually having a lower percentage turnout this year than in 2004.
Well, we'll check again when there are some final numbers, I guess. I would love to see the Census Bureau report on it but it looks like those don't come out until the following spring.
Don't believe everything you hear about Obama. Look it up for yourself first.
Actually...
I already demonstrated that Obama only got 52.5% of the popular vote, so not exactly a landslide. So how was voter turnout?
I'm having trouble tracking down good numbers right now, as I guess it's too early, but here's what I could find so far:
Voter turnout same or slightly higher than 04
Registrations were way up (ACORN?) but actual turnout was not.
I actually think it's closer than that CNN blog says. They're using "124 million" as voters in 2004 (and another CNN story says it "shattered 2004's mark of 122 million" -- the 2004 number keeps dropping!) but the census table I'm looking at right now says 125.7 million voted in the 2004 presidential election. That's 58.3% of the voting age population for that time.
Let's see... voting age population for this election was 231.2 million, so if 127 million voted in 2008 (latest preliminary estimate I could find, Nov 6th) then we're at 55%?
Hmm, that can't be right. That shows us as actually having a lower percentage turnout this year than in 2004.
Well, we'll check again when there are some final numbers, I guess. I would love to see the Census Bureau report on it but it looks like those don't come out until the following spring.
Don't believe everything you hear about Obama. Look it up for yourself first.
Defining a "landslide"
I'm seeing a lot of verbiage about Obama's "landslide victory" and how this means "Americans were sick of Republican rule and demanded change". Articles like this don't help matters:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYbBmMmElgU_AjfYlbWgYFe66cqAD948IC2G0
"Obama becomes first black president in landslide".
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/presidential-race/233562
"Obama wins election in landslide"
Before we jump to any conclusions that this means America is sick of the Republican party and has wholeheartedly embraced Obama's calls for change, perhaps we should look a bit deeper.
These articles go on to talk about the "electoral college landslide", which is true.
What they fail to mention is that it was a very close race in terms of the popular vote.
Obama 65,125,043 (52.5%)
McCain 57,178,049 (46.2%)
Someone recently said to me that "Americans stood up and yelled they wanted this change. The election was as close to being called a landslide as it gets. This country is tired of Bush policies and those that support him."
Well, 46.2% of Americans stood up and yelled that they wanted McCain.
Don't misattribute something to "Americans" as if you spoke for all of us or even some overwhelming majority when in fact Obama's calls for "change" only appealed to about 52% of the voters.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYbBmMmElgU_AjfYlbWgYFe66cqAD948IC2G0
"Obama becomes first black president in landslide".
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/presidential-race/233562
"Obama wins election in landslide"
Before we jump to any conclusions that this means America is sick of the Republican party and has wholeheartedly embraced Obama's calls for change, perhaps we should look a bit deeper.
These articles go on to talk about the "electoral college landslide", which is true.
What they fail to mention is that it was a very close race in terms of the popular vote.
Obama 65,125,043 (52.5%)
McCain 57,178,049 (46.2%)
Someone recently said to me that "Americans stood up and yelled they wanted this change. The election was as close to being called a landslide as it gets. This country is tired of Bush policies and those that support him."
Well, 46.2% of Americans stood up and yelled that they wanted McCain.
Don't misattribute something to "Americans" as if you spoke for all of us or even some overwhelming majority when in fact Obama's calls for "change" only appealed to about 52% of the voters.
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