Daily Mutterings

Let me state for the record I'm not a huge fan of mortgage bailouts. I could be made to understand why the government feels the need it has to "do something" about this pressing concern--because the chattel (voters) are clamoring for relief from "predatory lenders" who took advantage of them. "It's not our fault," they cry, "We wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for the big, bad wolf with huge eyes, and big teeth, and 0% down mortgages. Besides, it's for the good of the economy."

What a fairy tale.

Defaulting borrowers and lenders alike are equally at fault for low lending rates, bizarre mortgage products, and fast 'n easy money. It's not solely on the shoulders of the lenders. They made the money easy, but somebody reached into the cookie jar and took far more than they could eat--"Their eyes were bigger than their stomachs."

Borrowers and lenders made their bed, they should be made to lie in it. Many families could have emulated the neighbors (now in danger foreclosing) and taken out variable rate loans with 0% down to buy their houses; many could even have used such techniques to buy "more". They did not. Fiscal prudence forced them to accept the reality they could not (should not?) afford "more" where their neighbors pretended the economy would supply their desires. Historical insight reminded them of the adjusted maxim, "Whatever goes down, must come up." Too bad the neighbors didn't look to the past.

What part of cyclic economies did the neighbors not understand?

Economies run in cycles and grow in spurts. The incredible growth in recent years must inevitably result in a time where the gears of the nation must rest and catch its breath. 'Tis natural. It's like pruning a tree, the deadwood--the inefficient companies, the bad fiscal decisions, the poor lending practices--must be cut away and burnt. Hence, I see no reason why the government should bail out greedy corporations or greedy borrowers. The problem with a bailout is that the welfare of the greedy lot will be forced upon those of you who were fiscally conservative, or smart enough to know when to refinance.

Here's an Idea...BUDGET

So, California finds itself in another budget deficit brought about by a combination of a declining economy and increased spending. So obviously, the answer is to raise property taxes by reassessing businesses benefiting from Prop 13. In the article, the union-backed California Tax Reform Association calls assessment of business property under Prop 13 "poor fiscal and land-use policy". The gist of the article is to flog the idea for yearly property reassessments of businesses for the purposes of taxation.

Wrong-headed move my friends. This just shows the problem of the public mindset towards government spending.

The liberalists intend for you to believe the woes of a budget deficit are brought by the underpayment of taxes by businesses and, although not explicitly stated but certainly meant, those citizens in certain tax brackets. After all, it is a truism in American politics that "faceless" corporations and the "rich" are getting away with robbery. In short, the CTRA wants us to buy into the idea "not we're spending too much, it's that we're not making enough".

How many of us have fallen to that line of argument in our own personal fiscal operations? I'll raise my hand as long as you raise yours. But the first rule of mastering your personal finances is not getting a higher paying job or winning the lotto. The first rule is to control your spending.

The solution to California's fiscal problems is to spend less. Don't create additional programs. Don't allow the status quo to drain the treasury. Don't raise taxes. When there isn't any money in the checking account, don't charge up the credit card. What's true for the kitchen table budget is true for public government.

Opps

ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug.

Now, Lifelock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.

Ouch.

The perception and truth of Wal-Mart

Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area.

"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing."

Gee, I thought all corporations only existed to gouge the poor consumer. The perception of Wal-Mart again does not live up to the reality of Wal-Mart. Of course Wal-Mart is a fierce competitor, is a big and therefore easy target to hate or envy, but they still remember they are a business and do not have a monopoly on the customers. If they don't do the right thing, someone else will and the customers will go there and that will be the end of Wal-Mart.

Too bad we don't have that option with public schools or even government, except by expensive options of the public.

And this is a surprise?

In Texas, where they now have a lot of wind generators, had an emergency when the wind died down and the power fell. So the wonderful wind power has problems and we still have to have gas, coal or oil generators online standing by to replace power when the wind dies.

How is this supposed to help prevent global warming??? Or rather climate change?

The future of California??

New Jersey's Governor has unveiled a budget that cuts spending in absolute terms by $500 million from last years budget.

The NJ lawmakers are NOT happy with the budget which cuts spending in all areas, but they no longer have a choice.

California is or will soon be in the same situation. We currently are looking at a $16 billion dollar deficit for this year, which is half over, and a greater deficit for next year. A lot of programs are going to have to be cut because tax increases are not likely. People can say we should just raise taxes, but if the Republicans won't do it (thank goodness, State income taxes is already over 9% of income on top of federal income tax, not to mention sales tax and property taxes), then spending will have to be cut. Government programs are going to have to be consolidated or eliminated and Sacramento will not be able to micro manage each aspect of our lives.
The sooner we start the cutting, the less pain there will be. Its like getting into a cold pool. If you ease yourself in, its painful, but if you just jump in and get it over with, its a shock but its not as painful as the slow entry.

Cuba

Two stories on Cuba, here and here.

It looks like Castro is finally dying so now maybe the people of Cuba will have a chance to recover from their 50 year nightmare.

We don't care what the USSC says

That seems to be the State of New York's attitude towards out of state businesses and the collection of sales taxes. NY wants Amazon to collect the tax because there are affiliates operating in NY state. If NY was being truthful, they would go after the citizens of NY who buy stuff out of state and don't pay the sales tax (like they are supposed to) because the politicians don't want to lose their jobs. Corporations don't vote after all, angry citizens do.

Illegal Immigration

How to fix it?

1. Well, building a wall is a good idea because it will slow down future illegal immigration. It doesn't have to be perfect to be effective, but just make it harder for people to enter this country illegally.
   
2. Enforce the current laws, that only people who are in the US legally can work and hold employers accountable for it. The US Government now has E-Verify, which the employer takes the applicants name, date of birth and SSN, enters it into a web page and gets an answer if the SSN is valid or not. If not valid, then the employer tells the applicant to go to the SSA and get it fixed. Notice I did not say call the police.
   
3. Most illegal's in this country are economic immigrants so make it harder for them to get jobs, they will move to where they can, or return home. Its working in Arizona right now.
   

This will not end illegal immigration, but it will reduce the number that will come each year and will also reduce the number here as many will go home because they can not find work here.

Back to work and blogging

Was off work on Thurs and Friday and didn't even feel like blogging those days, was just nice to relax at home. Instead of separate posts today, the few stories I want to share are all in one post.
Presidential Elections:
The presidential election continues. Can McCain win? John Fund at the WSJ thinks its possible.

The Mayor of Toledo is trying to take the spotlight off Berkley for its treatment of the Marines by focusing it on his city. The City Council is appalled and have called on the Mayor to apologize.

On a slow news day we find the States of Ohio and Kentucky are fighting over a ROCK that was on the bottom of the Ohio River between the two states. This isn't like a cross town rivals, were talking about the Legislatures are getting involved and even comments by public officials as a raid to get the rock have been mentioned. And politicians wonder why the public thinks they are fools and wish they would all go away.

Have a good week.

The importance of free speech

Mark Steyn wrote a book that some people who claim to be Muslims found offensive. So these people are trying to get Canada to punish Steyn for upsetting them rather then suing him for libel. Of course these people won't sue him because what he said is true, just not flattering.

If we do not watch out in the US, we can end up with the same restrictions on what we can say and not say because it might hurt others feelings.

This is just wrong

The NY Governor is trying to make abortion a civil right.

They don't like it when we protest

Roy Mallette, in Cicero County New York, saw the assessed value on his property increase in one year from $200,000 to $980,000. Almost a 5 fold increase. To show his unhappiness in this tax system, he paid the tax bill in coin and small bills. The county treasury office that receives the payment spent a day counting the money and the workers complained how he was protesting at the wrong office. They just collect the tax not make the assessment. That may be true, but by paying his bill on time and paying in coin and small bills, his plight got the attention of the media and therefore the politicians. If he had written a letter to the paper or to the politicians it would have been much easier to ignore. Now the County has experienced some of the pain he felt having the property reassessed with the increase in taxes as a result.

Animal Population Control

Animals will increase until they run out of food and disease and starvation thins them out if there are no predators to keep their numbers in check.

In New Jersey a small wilderness park has too many deer and so they finally hired hunters to thin the herds. The park is near expensive homes so introducing wolves is not an option. Of course many of the comments are condemning the thinning because shooting animals is bad and deer are cute. Of course no one who is writing to oppose the culling has offered any alternative to prevent the deer population from destroying the park habitat, nor would they be happy to see the deer starve to death.

Many of the commentators would most likely be the same who would be paralyzed if their Starbucks couldn't sell them their latte or their grocery store ran out of food.

Florida and the state of the campaign

Today the Republican Primary in Florida is being held. I have no idea who will win as the polls I've seen show either Romney or McCain winning by several points or they are tied. Basically, you can find a poll to support either candidate or to say the race is a toss up.

Rudy and Huckabee don't have any polls showing them winning. But then again, we all know how accurate polls have been this year.

David Freddoso looks at the Huckabee campaign and wonders why he isn't doing better when he should be. I'm glad he isn't doing better and can only hope McCain does not win the State.

Democracy in action

Or as the Stones song goes "You can't always get what you want".

Norma Heyser is an activist. She has been her whole life. She helped organize her neighborhood of single family homes to oppose a library which was too large.

Now she wants to tear down her single family home and put six condos on it for senior housing and the neighborhood is saying NO. And she is not happy that the people she encouraged to become involved and active in the neighborhood oppose her plan strongly.

Democracy is the will of the people, even when the people oppose your ideas as Heyser is finding out.

Church and State Separation

Very interesting article whereby a pastor openly endorses Obama, who was visiting the church.

the pastor of the Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ, speaking from the pulpit, advocated for Obama, possibly breaking the law. Pastor Leon Smith told the congregation that "the more he (Obama) speaks, the more he wins my confidence, and ... if the polls were open today, I would cast my vote for this senator.

Of course, the MSM doesn't follow up on this.

As much as the article doth protest, I think that we take separation of church and state too far in this country in that never the two shall mix in any context. This, to me, is a duality that I cannot support. If faith is true, then faith must inform politics. What then does separation of church and state mean? It means we must abide by the principle set by the framers: no religion should be excluded from public discourse or made verboten.

I found this comment by the pastor more disturbing:

[Pastor Leon Smith] urged them to [vote] the same, saying, “If you can’t support your own, you’re never going to get anywhere."

One blog commentator sums it up:

"In other words, blacks should always vote for blacks in order to “get anywhere,” which must mean that as President Obama is expected to favor blacks over whites in signing legislation, in awarding positions in government and in giving out lucrative contracts. He will not be the President of all the people, but of one slice of America. Note too that Obama apparently didn’t have any problem with that remark. Judging by his silence, that’s apparently what he intends to do." (emphasis mine)

I'm just as alarmed as he is, although I'm not quite ready to tar Obama with motives not yet proved out.

(hat tip Mark Stricherz at getreligion.org)

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Thompson's out - now what??

Well its official, Thompson has dropped out of the 2008 race.

He was the person I was most interested in as a candidate.

So who is left to choose from???

Republicans:
McCain - as I've said before I WILL NOT vote for this man
Huckabee - as I've said before I WILL NOT vote for this man
Giuliani - There are lots of things I do not like about his positions, but he will fight the GWOT, and appoint conservative judges, which should protect the 2nd amendment. I can hold my nose and vote for him.
Romney - He is similar to GWB, but much more polished. I'm not sure I want another 8 years of continuation of the Bush policy on the domestic front. He smells a little less then Giuliani and could vote for him.
Paul - Either he is nuts, doesn't know or doesn't care what his supporters are doing in his name. I WILL NOT vote for this man.

Democrats:
Obama - Nice guy, does he understand there are people out there who just do not like the US and never will? And some of those people have weapons that can hurt us?
Clinton - No, I can't stand the thought of another 8 years of the Clinton's in the White House.
Edwards - He is a fool or is doing a wonderful job of playing one. With him in the WH and a conservative Republican Congress, the country would survive. But with a Democratic Congress, some of his foolish ideas would get passed.

In the primary, I may still vote for Thompson, because I want to vote FOR someone rather then picking the lessor of two evils. In the general, I do not know.

Thompson Plans to Withdraw?

Looks like it from the "Breaking News" banner over at FoxNews.com. Booo! I so wanted to vote for the guy who said,

Plan? Son, the Russians don't go to the bathroom without a plan."

Alas, another actor bites the dust. Seriously, though, I don't really like many of the remaining choices at all. Could this be the year I don't vote the party line? It may very well be.

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Canada and Israel

The thought police have come to Canada. This is in the province of Alberta, which is more conservative then say British Columbia or Ontario. This is rather frightening from a free speech point of view.


The PM of Israel is telling the folks living in the Gaza strip since they are allowing rockets to be fired from their land into Israel, Israel isn't going to supply anymore gasoline so they can walk. Wow, actions have consequences. Besides it will be harder to move the rockets from the factories to the launching site by hand cart and easier to detect them.

The EU of course is asking Israel to resume the fuel to Gaza. I think Israel should tell the EU to go pound sand or deport the entire population of Gaza to Belgium since they are so fond of rocket launching terrorists and their supporters. Remember, the people of Gaza elected Haamas and actions finally have consequences.