Alfred’s Commentary on the Human Condition

This is a phenomenal interview with a real "realist". I can't stress enough how important this principle is, in my view

YouTube: Milton Friedman interview

Does anyone remember that the term "playing the market" is just that, no better than a horse race. Stocks have not been based on real returns for quite some time (only 30% of public stocks pay a dividend), so the "value" is a fantasy, not an investment. The DOW is just Las Vegas dressed up in a suit, and stealing just as much as Vegas.
Alfred

WTRG Economics: oil price history

Facinating historical look at oil

This missive will illustrate one of my core beliefs for better or worse. Anyone who wants to have his hand on the big button needs to have a fundamental belief in the value of human life, any life, any time, no question. I assume that everyone of my approx age (54) will remember as a young child how evil we all thought abortion was, and it still amazes me how such a barbaric act could become as common as pulling teeth. As the danger of a crumbling civilized society become apparent, it is crutial that this fundamental principle never get diluted. Without that core central fundamental belief in the value of human life, everything else becomes some how less terrible in comparison, and all manner of evil pervades.
Alfred

I think the socialism argument regarding Obama is rooted in the fact that tax "relief" for one class and not all amounts to income redistribution, especially in light of the fact that the revenue will have to be made up somewhere. Since the other 5% of the people who already pay the lion share of the taxes, have the largest share of income, they know they are going to get soaked.

According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is "highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying most of the individual income taxes each year.

• In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
• The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group's tax share has grown faster than their income share.
• Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total. Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush's tax cuts with shifting a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
• The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
• The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.
• The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27 percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent. The White House has announced it will lobby Congress to pass legislation making most of President Bush's tax cutting measures permanent.

A universal healthcare systems is almost by definition socialist (I know they deny that it is, but I can't see it turning out any other way over the long term, given how it is structured).
Government is probably the worst place to concentrate capital to try and create real economic growth. And if the primary goal is to create JOBS, I don't think giving a tax break to the people least likely to do so, especially since most do not pay taxes anyway, will do much. Wealth can only be created by mankind adding value to whatever he finds lying around, everything else is just a shell game. Giving the doers of the world an incentive is the only solution that makes logical sense to me. I also don't understand the concept of taxing corporations, where do they think they get the money to pay the tax, from their consumers. Even the oil companies eventually have to transfer all that excess profit to individuals, or spend it on new equipment, either of which would be taxed or good for the economy.

Before you compare and contrast the Republican ticket, let me say that I think their candidate is pathetic also. His grasp of economic reality is as tenuous as the democratic candidate. (I am not using their names because I am sick of seeing them in print) and he could not negotiate himself out of a room full of gullible monkeys. I can't believe that "my" party is putting this guy up.

'I Felt Like I Was Taking Crazy Pills'
Politico's Ben Smith reprints a disconcerting email he received from an unnamed Republican consultant, describing a focus group in "an upper-Midwestern state" that had just been shown an ad that was "no-holds-barred attack" on Barack Obama, "cut for an independent group, which hasn't aired." Quoting verbatim from the email:

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....

Maybe this guy just happened upon a couple of especially odd voters, but let's speculate as to what it means if this pair represents a significant voting bloc. If a lot of people like this are out there, the result may be an unexpectedly large Obama victory, perhaps combined with big congressional gains for Democrats.

In that event, the Democrats would see themselves as having a mandate and would have both the ability and the motivation to push major legislative initiatives. But if their "mandate" is the product of the sort of emotional anti-Republican backlash Smith's correspondent describes, it may prove illusory--and an anti-Democratic backlash could develop, perhaps as early as 2010. Something like this happened in 1992 and 1994.

Things could of course go in a completely different direction, but it does appear as though Obama is benefiting in the short run from what can be termed a political bubble. Members of both parties, like investors in the market, would be well advised not to get too caught up in the emotions of the moment.

How can we expect to get good representative government if the even the "intelligent" people are so challenged, not too speak of the other 50% (just a percentage I pulled out of the air)

From a speech by Obama

But it's also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it's important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.

95% of the people are middle class by Obama's reckoning, so it make logical sense that 95% of the military enlistee's should come from that group. Both Binden's and Palins kids are on the ground in Iraq, my guess both from the other 5%. This is a straw dog.

American Thinker: “Senator Obama's Four Tax Increases”

Obama is a Democrat and a liberal one at that. No matter what has happened in the recent past, do you really think he is going to push for lower taxes, expect maybe on those who actually have something and don't have the numbers to protect themselves. But what after that, then the wealth has been redistributed, what then?

[link retired — Breitbart.tv video clip]

From the Horse's mouth

[link retired — Newsday local news story, Oct 2008]

As well intentioned as this is, it scares the hell out of me. Putting absolute power in the hands of anyone, no matter what the reason is stupid, it always ends up bad.

The Sun stream magnetic particle at us on a direct route, every 8 min, and you think that will not have an effect on our climate

PhysOrg: the Sun's magnetic connection to Earth