Alfred’s Commentary on the Human Condition

By way of definition: According to Wikipedia, AGW stands for 'anthropogenic global warming'. This is global warming Supposedly caused directly by humans. Natural climate change is known as 'climate variablity.

Why is this debate about beliefs, AGW is either true or not, and science not belief will be the judge in the end. What the American public believes is irrelevant, and should not sway public policy, they still believe in magic (why else would anyone buy a lottery ticket). Scale is an attribute that is routinely ignored in all these debates, ie. nothing we can do voluntarily will make one iota of difference in the outcome of AGW (if in fact it is real) in any reasonable time frame. The solution will come by some accident of human ingenuity from some completely unexpected tangent. The future has never been a linear projection of the past, it is logarithmic and chaotic. Impoverishing millions for a belief seems the heights of arrogance.

Does anyone understand that as individuals we live in a zero sum game to a certain degree. If Rich people are rich because they presumably own businesses (I am excluding inherited wealth), and you tax them, what do you expect to get? I know that I as a businessman will try and compensate by increasing prices to make up for the lost income, lay people off to make up for the lost income, or spend less on new business infrastructure (ie. job making) to make up for lost income, etc. There are no alternatives. Keeping a company healthy is the same as a farmer taking care of his crops, either I feed and nurture the business or it fails (and it might anyway, luck does not always run in your favor). And that requires saving money in the good times to make through the winters. Tax that money away, spend it instead of investing it, and you get what you pay for. There can be no good in bringing us all down to the least common denominator. If you have ever played a sport, you know that to get better you have to "play up", but without that motivation, that carrot you get mediocrity. Hmm, seems like that is what we are seeing now. Many individuals and/or immigrant have succeeded in building this country because if they did not like what they had, they could get together with others and presumably do it better themselves. Tax laws that encourage wealth creation and "rich" people are the solution not the problem.

Although there are obviously many illnesses that must be treated in the hospital and are no fault of the individual, nowhere in the National debate over health care is there any mention of personal responsibility. The cheapest prescription for good health as any physician will tell you is eat right (I think everyone knows that beer and cigarettes and twinkies do not constitute a sound diet), get plenty of sleep and exercise 5 days a week for at least 30 min (preferably an hour). Why is this not part of the national debate, no healthcare system in the world can fix an over weight, out of shape, abused body, come on people this is not rocket science, or even onerous. Lets add this to the healthcare fix, and we will all feel better as a side benefit.

[link retired — InvestorsInsight.com, home of John Mauldin's newsletter]

[link retired — “A simple question” posted by alfredholzheu in InvestorsInsight Member Introductions]

I am a small business owner (an upscale Supermarket) in the Santa Ynez Valley (the home of the that incredibly stupid movie "Sideways") and have been reading John's newsletter "for free, thankyou John" for the past year. Truth and reality are a nice change to the general stupidity of the official business press. But I have a question that no financial guru of any sort has been able to clear up for me. Why is the stock market considered an investment. Bets on the table at the local Chumash Indian Casino can yield an "investment" return, but is it an investment. When I spent $50K on a sushi bar in my business, I was banking on a return that depended on attracting new customers who would by a product for more than its cost to produce, ie. we added value to the fish and rice that we bought. In what way is that part of an investment in a stock that does not at least pay dividends, why is our country so focused on this illusory metric. For the most part, except for the IPO market or expansion fueled by equity, companies can not even benefit by the movement of the stock market. I just don't get it, from a real perspective.

Alfred Holzheu

It all seems so obvious:

1. Bring the military home, we do not build nations nor can we fix insane problems (either that or drop the guns and turn the whole international military into the Peace Corps, seems like our soldiers are doing that already)
2. Legalize most drugs, we have had the exactly the same success in the "war" on drugs that we had during Prohibition (the success has been in making the bad guys rich and giving the DEA something to do)
3. A Flat tax or national sales tax, if the incoming Treasury Secretary can't figure it out, neither can the rest of us.
4. Fix the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all, Social Security. By every definition it is a Ponzi, as it depends on the new investors (kids coming into the work force) to pay a return to the retiring investors. Had it been invested in anything, even real estate, it might truly have assets that would see us through.
5. Stop subsidizing non-work. Everyone is educated to some degree, everyone works, no more welfare without effort.
6. Every prison is a Sheriff Joe Arpaio Prison. And if we stop the drug nonsense, there will be fewer prisoners to begin with.
7. Every child is either taught a trade or prepared for college.
8. Universal catastrophic health care coverage, otherwise exercise, eat right, stop smoking, stop fornicating without protection, stop getting high or suffer the consequences in silence. Of course, there are exceptions for the truly mentally incompetent (great job for the welfare people, it does not take much training to care for most disabled people, they just need a helping hand) or truly disabled and/or elderly.
9. The government never produces anything (that is not their purpose) only consumes, give people the freedom and incentive to produce and then get out of the way. Of course people can not then produce pollution, war, crime, or all the stuff that we generally agree we don't want as a society, (ie. The government is society for all intents and purposes, which is the purpose of government)
10. You can not legislate morality, any more than you can make your kids behave. As long as one human does not infringe on another human (someone over 18, before that you have no frame of reference by which to make decisions, and for lots of humans 18 years is a minimum only, most males don't seem to have a clue until 26) it is all good. There are some intrinsic basic human rights conferred by just showing up on the planet, but beyond that stop with the silly laws!

The Primacy of the Businessman

It seems to me that everyone in the current debate about the economy is forgetting the most important element. Without the businessman, the butcher, baker, candlestick maker, farmer, miner, etc. there is no economy. The forward development of mankind appears to hinge on which societal structure and/or governmental structure that most successfully encourages economic leaders to risk time, money and mental peace to produce more than they consume, so as to produce surplus, ie. Wealth! The rest is all talk. Furthermore, economic enterprises do not self-organize, anymore than sand can self-organize into the Empire state building. The intellect that organizes and develops a better mouse trap is the basis of the real economy. No government does that, they are the entropy to the businessman's syntropy. Governments on the whole consume wealth through income redistribution, wars, useless political dialog and the child like manipulation of the economy. When have price controls ever worked, when has income redistribution ever eliminated the poverty, when have we ever been able to legislate morality. Their only purpose is keeping the playing field fair, be it civil, criminal or international. But that is a service we gladly pay taxes for, to have a functioning, fair society based on law and the inalienable rights of the individual. We actually fought a revolution for just that purpose. The generation of the founding fathers were virtually all independent businessman, and I would believe that they knew the power of the individual through self-interest to produce more wealth than any society ever or since! The scale of the current government's insertion of its influence into the economy can never work, as we are driving out the very people we wish to generate the jobs, much like food aid to impoverished nations only increases their dependence on outside food by destroying their already vulnerable farmers. It might be well intentioned, but the results are the same. If we wish wealth in all its forms, then we must encourage wealth creation, not penalize it or crowd it out with short term fixes.

New York Times: “What is a life worth”

Center for Freedom and Prosperity

These guys have got it right! The problem is that the general public is brain challenged. We still sell Loto tickets, even though there is not a snowballs chance in hell of winning anything ever. All the logic in the world can not compete with a Nancy Pelosi telling people that she can invalidate the rules of commerce, and by force of will make GM produce and sell cars (and make us buy) that anyone actually wants. And without credit, how can anyone even think of buying a car anyway. Maybe they can make free loans to everyone on the planet, then GM might do well, but for how long, and what would their incentive be to produce anything but a Volga or worse. And what do you do with the "foreign" produced cars built by US workers. It is all insane and everyone knows it, but Barney Franks and Company don't give a flying poop about logic or common sense, all that matters is getting re-elected.

City Journal book review on vaccinations and autism

A very interesting book review about vaccinations and Autism, that probes a very important societal question. Should the scientifically challenged be allowed to potificate on matters they don't have a snowballs chance in hell of understanding