Good luck America

I couldn't vote today, as an expat without any local residence
it doesn't seem possible to absentee vote anywhere, but my good
wishes go with those in the tea party that seem to agree with what
I want; as small a federal government as possible, almost all government
should be within rock throwing distance.

I've tried explaining to foreigners our political system, how
America really was better than most places, and that's not just
nationalism. Unfortunately our current government isn't better,
it's not any better than Europe, and really just the dollar being
the reserve currency separates us from Mexico, where most of the
population lives in un-airconditioned cinderblock shacks, and are
the hardest working people in the world because if they don't work
they won't eat.

Our only hope is to try to dial back the clock as far back as possible.
People have to be self reliant. The government should be as the founding
fathers intended, small and mostly powerless. If most of the power and
the rights are reserved for the people, then they will be self sufficient
or starve.

The founding fathers were an amazing group, they had been educated post-
enlightenment, but still classically educated so that they knew the
dangers of too much central power. That their system worked until the
20th century as intended shows how smart they were. We don't need another
revolution, or another constitution, we just need to follow the one we have
more closely, without interpretation from liberal judges.

The first step on that road are the tea partiers running for election right
now, and people like Governor Christie in New Jersey. Hopefully the
great country of the usa will rise from it's current problems, and I won't have
to spend my declining years shaking a wrinkled fist at the CNN on the TV
from somewhere far south of I-10.

Devils at deem and pass

Watching the political machinations in washington as the deemocrats
sneak the healthcare bill through, it looks to me like the economy is going to
have to get much worse before it can get better. They are finally going to
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs of american exceptionalism.

Every country has smart, well educated people with new ideas, but what I think
made america different was that small percentage of innovators that combine
that education, intelligence and new ideas with ridiculously hard work that
in most countries doesn't pay off so it doesn't happen.

Here in italy people are smart, elegant and well educated, but once you reach a certain
level of income one has to pay 45% income tax plus 9% health care tax. If one has
a choice between working hard or going up to the mountains and skiing with other
beautiful people, most people here go for the skiing, the beach, the museum or
the 4 hour lunches.

Another component of america's exceptionalism is fear. If you know that you are
working without much of a net, or the idea of going on hands and knees for a handout
sickens you then working extra hard to make sure that you stay employed and get
ahead is normal. As the government becomes the source of all things, healthcare, mortgage payments, and discount cars it will become much easier to not work extra hard to get ahead but to take up the 'they pretend to pay us so I'll pretend to work mentality'.

These effects will happen much more rapidly than expected, as soon as people start
to get paychecks with less than half of gross income productivity will decline, tax revenues
will then decline leading to higher tax rates with everything spiraling downward pretty fast to
default on a debt that is pretty unpayable at this point anyway. So maybe things will
work out for the best.

Thanks again President Bush

I just watched a clunky B-movie called Deterrence, starring Kevin Pollack
as the president of the USA, Timothy Hutton as an advisor and one of the hobbits
from LOTR's as a local redneck. It's a pretty bad movie that I was semi watching
by flipping back to Top Gear to see their space shuttle launch (super cool)

The movie was interesting because it was made in 1999 starring a couple of
left wing actors and written and produced by French guys, yet the premise
of the movie was that Iraq was reinvading Kuwait, we threatened them with
nukes to stop and they responded by launching nuclear bombs at us.

It contained a lot of information that was common knowledge at the turn of
the century, the president of Iraq was Uday Hussein (so we couldn't just wait
for Saddam to drop dead), Iraq was trying for years to get NBC WMD's and they
had them, and were ready to attack Kuwait or the US at any time.

It was just another data point that tells me almost all of the Bush lied meme was just
cynical political posturing by democrats scrambling for power. Things that were common
knowledge in 2000 became hard to track intelligence data points pumped up by
political pressure by 2004.

Bush instead took the much harder decision not to nuke bagdad, or conventionally
bomb them for days or weeks as Clinton did, but invade. I would have nuked them
from orbit, or tomahawked them for months before risking american soldiers, but
Bush didn't. He took the non-cynical more moral decision that I still think will have
long term positive effects, for Iraq at least, even though it cost us a hella lot of money.

Once the glow has fully faded from The One, the comparisons will be even clearer.

Great rant from Victor Davis Hanson

VDH has a great rant from a battered american, much more eloquent than I
could ever be:

“I’m sorry Mr. President, but we are just not dictatorial in the Middle East. You said the Saudis, not America, showed courage over there. But, Mr. President, the Saudis, they live under Sharia law! And my God!—they once engineered crippling oil boycotts against our nation. And wasn’t it they who produced 15 of the 19 killers on 9/11? So no, Mr. President, those Saudis—they simply are not courageous. Now Mr. Biden, there is no reason to set the reset button on foreign policy, as you promised all those Europeans. None at all. Tell that resetting stuff instead to Ahmadinejad, Chavez, that Korean nut, Putin, and all the other thugs who kill and cause misery, but not to our America that saves and feeds and helps. Mrs. Clinton, it’s now your turn. We are not impulsive as you told the world. So you can stop apologizing for America’s recent behavior—unless you think the world would be a better place with the Taliban, and Saddam and his two boys in power. Or maybe Europe should have Schroeder and Chirac back, or Libya with nuclear weapons, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed freed from Guantanamo. Or maybe America shouldn’t have given that $15 billion for AIDs relief in Africa, or helped with earthquakes in Pakistan and tsunamis in Indonesia. Now all that was sorta impulsive.”

And he continues on to domestic affairs. I agree completely with what he says and I've
even popped off several times over here when I can't take the abuse silently anymore.
American hating euros have no sense of history and no sense decency or honor. All
the things that the usa did for europe in the 20th century was money and time wasted.

I get even angrier thinking about mortgages being bailed out for idiots that bought too
much house. We've always bought smaller houses then we could afford, bought camrys
instead of lexus' to try and save money for the future. Now Obama is rescuing the idiots
and inflating the economy to destroy anyone that saved any money. the better use for
money was going to casinos and gambling, same risk as the market, but at least I got
free drinks.

Cold reality and the Batman problem

Over at redstate there's a great post discussing the left's problems
as they take power:

As inauguration day moves closer, one detects an unusual air of anxiety among the chattering classes of the left. Even though the election is over and their man won it handily, they are hypersensitive to any criticism of him.

What gives? Could it be that they sense that their era of cheap grace is over? During the presidency of George W Bush, the nutroots and their spokespersons in the leftward precincts of the Democratic party enjoyed the freedom of being one of the most irresponsible oppositions in this nation’s history. In a time of war (9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq) and natural disaster (Katrina), they could blow every mistake way out of proportion and get their echo chamber in the MSM to trumpet it 24/7. They exuberantly attributed every misstep to some dark night of the soul of GWB- he’s a racist, hates black people, a tool of Dick Cheney and the neocon Zionist conspiracy, yada, yada, yada.

I agree totally, the shrill excoriation of the president will have to change to "that's a sensible
solution to the problem of terrorists captured on the battlefield". There's not an infinite range of solutions to most problems, it's either this, that or the third thing. doing 'that' isn't indicative of
an evil conspiracy to conquer the world, it was just a decision taken in a meeting. Doing nothing isn't an option when the press and the left will immediately jump on doing nothing as evil.

We watched "the dark knight" finally last night. i got it for christmas but I put off watching it for a couple of weeks so that it would get lost in the hubub of christmas. Batman has the problem that he's the good guy and can't just put a bullet in the bad guy, even when that would have saved his girlfriend's life. We have a similar problem with the terrorists, we can't live with them and if they are captives we can't kill them. What will Obama's solution finally be, the world wonders?

The problem with making Caesar an outlaw

The crazy people on the left want to hold "Nuremberg style" trials
for Bush administration officials. This is nuts, but it is also stupid.

I'm in Italy now and the first book I read here is a history of the roman
empire, from Republic to the fall the empire. In the section on Julius Caesar,
it's easy to see that what might have driven him to revolt and becoming
emperor was he had basically no choice. If he gave up official power as proconsul,
he was to be tried as a common criminal. Rather than risk that, he chose the other
option of seizing total power

So, if you're a lefty nut and you think Bushhitler is truly evil, then you should
keep your stupid mouth shut until Obama is in office, otherwise you are nuts, stupid and
foolish.

Globalization, not so good for the home team

There's a great article in The Nation that discusses free trade
as a losing game for the USA, and how the government needs to do
something about it. (here's an exerpt that summarizes what I
think, but go read the whole thing)

Americans can choose to blame China or disloyal multinationals, but the problem is grounded in US politics. The solution can be found only in Washington. China and other developing nations are pursuing national self-interest and doing what the system allows. In a way, so are the US multinationals. "I want to stress it's a system problem," Gomory says. "The directors are doing the job they're sworn to do. It's a system that says the companies have to have a sole focus on maximizing profit."

Gomory's proposed solution would change two big things (and many lesser ones). First, the US government must intervene unilaterally to cap the nation's swollen trade deficit and force it to shrink until balanced trade is achieved with our trading partners. The mechanics for doing this are allowed under WTO rules, though the emergency action has never been invoked by a wealthy nation, much less the global system's putative leader. Capping US trade deficits would have wrenching consequences at home and abroad but could force other nations to consider reforms in how the trading system now functions. That could include international rights for workers, which Gomory favors.

Whenever you find yourself in an argument with a liberal or
a canadian about globalization, they'll usually start calling senior
managers at global companies evil, and senior managers are just
out to oppress poor people to become richer. As if all the people
we know are 'good', but once a manager rises to a certain level in
an organization a chip is inserted (or a modification of the
management chip that makes new managers spout the party
line and limit vacation days) that suddenly makes them evil
and take on a ratbert zombie stare.

Some people are assholes and only want become rich, but
99.9999% of the people in the world are only trying to get
ahead using the rules that are already setup in the world.
So a ceo who gets paid based on maxmizing shareholder
value or boosting profits generally can't come out and say he's
going to do something that reduces profits, unless there is a
compelling story that will show his company will come out better
in the end. In fact, if a CEO does something that hurts his company
or shareholders, he runs the risk of doing the enron shuffle into jail.

Since we are nothing but moist robots, much like the
Game of Life simulation, if you setup the rules of the simulation
and press play,
(the rules are)
- maximize profits
- workers are cheaper outside the USA
- there is no penalty for making something outside the USA, bringing it
in and keeping the profits.

the simulaiton will churn and you'll add jobs to poor countries and we'll
lose jobs in the usa. Which might be morally ok, but eventually we'll
have no more good jobs to lose and all that we'll have are debts and
bunch of lawyers. We should rethink free trade, there are countries
who deserve to be able to suckle at the nipples of the USA gravy
train (India, Colombia) and there are counties that should be sucking
high priced store bought formula until they change the way the
operate some more (China, Venezuela). We need some solutions
that protect some jobs without leading to our companies producing
1977 caprice classics.

Ralph Gomery's ideas from the article are:

Gomory's proposed solution would change two big things (and many lesser ones). First, the US government must intervene unilaterally to cap the nation's swollen trade deficit and force it to shrink until balanced trade is achieved with our trading partners. The mechanics for doing this are allowed under WTO rules, though the emergency action has never been invoked by a wealthy nation, much less the global system's putative leader. Capping US trade deficits would have wrenching consequences at home and abroad but could force other nations to consider reforms in how the trading system now functions. That could include international rights for workers, which Gomory favors.

Second, government must impose national policy direction on the behavior of US multinationals, directly influencing their investment decisions. Gomory thinks this can be done most effectively through the tax code. A reformed corporate income tax would penalize those firms that keep moving high-wage jobs and value-added production offshore while rewarding those that are investing in redeveloping the home country's economy.

sounds reasonable to me.