QUOTE: Attributed to Ben Franklin?

Friday, September 4, 2009

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

— Benjamin Franklin?

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SOFTWARE: FASTDIAL lost all my settings

Friday, September 4, 2009

Argh!

And, I don’t know where it kept them.

Argh!

And I didn’t keep a list of them.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Keep the H1Bs here in the USA

Friday, September 4, 2009

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/free-the-h-1bs-free-the-economy/

Free the H-1Bs, Free the Economy
by Vivek Wadhwa on August 30, 2009

*** begin quote ***

This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.

I have a suggestion for our President on how to boost economic growth without spending a penny: Free the H-1B’s.

*** end quote ***

I know Vivek from our days at First Boston.

He’s absolutely correct. We need to disassemble the “illegal immigration” infrastructure. If we stop putting out milk (i.e., welfare in the form of freebies like education, health care, food stamps), then we will get fewer stray cats (i.e., immigrants who come for the wrong reasons).

Clearly, the H1Bs are valuable additions to the workforce. Let’s keep them rather than, thru ignorance, allow them to slip away.

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POLITICS: The philosophy of taxes

Thursday, September 3, 2009

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/08/31/the-truth-about-taxes/&cp=1/#comment-195287

The Truth About Taxes
Monday, 31st August 2009 (by J.D.)

*** begin quote ***

Note: Although I try to keep GRS a politics-free zone, today’s topic is inherently political. I’ve stayed as neutral as possible in the article, but I know that there’ll be some political discussion in the comments. Please keep conversation civil, as always.

Because I was frustrated with my own ignorance about the U.S. federal budget and our tax system, I recently spent twelve hours researching a variety of tax topics. From my research came two articles: last week’s short guide to the federal budget and today’s post, which answers some of my personal questions about taxes.

*** end quote ***

Welcome to the “tax wars”, by the time we’re finished with you, you too will be a raving loon!

Tactically, you can’t figure out how much “tax” you pay. We need to recognize that ONLY real people pay tax. So, the taxes that companies pay is really a hidden tax on the people who buy their products. BUT you can’t see it. Further, if there are capital goods used by a company, the taxes on that capital good are buried in the product’s price. Also, recognize that “costs”, “user fees”, or any unavoidable expense imposed by or as a result of the gooferment’s actions, laws, regulations, or diktats is a TAX! Try and figure out all of those. Good luck. One quick example, drugs. The FDA has rules, pharmacies have regulations, doctors have laws. Argh! It’s IMPOSSIBLE to figure out exactly what you pay in tax. And, then we can talk about monetary inflation as a gooferment tax. When you sum it all up, it might be greater than your annual income!

Strategically, taxes are NOT “the cost of living in civilized society”; they are THEFT. How does what dead old white guys did 233 years ago obligate me? It’s a principle of contract law that there has to be offer and acceptance to have a contract. Where is the offer? Where is my acceptance? What obligates me to pay? The definition of citizen states there is an exchange for the state’s “protection”, yet the courts have repeatedly held that there is no specific enforceable duty of the government to protect me. So why again do I have to pay for “services” that I don’t want, can’t use, and are horribly overpriced? In the case of Federal Abortion funding, it’s also morally offensive to me; yet, I still must pay.

Welcome to the tax wars. This is theft by deception. IMHO!

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TECHNOLOGY: Google doesn’t index comments

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Interesting. Google, the be all and end all of internet search, does NOT index comments. Very interesting.

Leaves an opening for a competitor.

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RANT: “Health care” is not a “human right”!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/yes-virginia-insurance-companies-do.html

Friday, August 28, 2009

‘Yes, Virginia, the insurance companies do ration’

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MY RESPONSE

Two “minor” points.

FIRST!!!

“Health care” is not a “human right”!

Place a human alone in a forest. Where is their “human right” to health care?

If you assert that is a “right” then their is an obligation for some one to provide it. If I have a RIGHT to health care, then my neighbor is FORCED to provide it. If he’s a butcher, baker, or a candlestick maker, then my health care will not be so good!

OH, you’re just going to FORCE him to PAY for my healthcare. Just as I am going to be forced to PAY for his.

Don’t you see the moral hazard in that? Don’t you see the stupidity in that? Don’t you see the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of that?

Argh!

Please go back and revisit the whole history of John Locke and concept of negative rights.

SECOND!!!

No one want to see people treated like in a third world country. Sick and dying, covered in flies, in human misery.

BUT, (there is always a big butt), you have no right to compel “charity”. America is an unbelievably charitable country. You can not “force” it. When you make it a gooferment program, then you have “free loaders”. Part of our current problem is that people want something for nothing. In my childhood, there was charity care in hospitals. My relatives would pass the hat around the family rather than have a relative use “charity”. They were embarrassed to have their neighbors think that they didn’t love their family member enough to care for them. Freeloaders weren’t tolerated; down on your luck, you were given a hand up. That’s the essence of true charity.

Remember the great hospitals in America were created by the Churches and Fraternal Organizations. Only when the gooferment took over, did we create the mess we have now.

SUMMARY

(1) Health care is not a right.

(2) There will be true charity without the gooferment intrusion.

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LIBERTY: Let’s try peace and liberty

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/whole-foods-hit-by-protests.html

MY RESPONSE TO: “Whole Foods hit by protests”

>People like Mackey, soulless wealthy sociopaths

Now I’m not going to assert that capitalists are the Mother Teresa’s of the world. BUT, (there is always a big butt), they are not the Devil Incarnate either.

Mackey feeds the hungry. OK, you’re not going to see it that way. And, he’s well compensated for his modest efforts.

I read his WSJ op ed and I thought the fellow has courage. He could have just as easily said nothing. Like the “Silent Majority”, who don’t have the stones to speak up and give us the benefit of their wisdom or whizdumb!

I think you misread his text and his intention. Creating more gooferment isn’t the solution to ANY problem. Fixing the gooferment’s perverse incentives is almost always the best answer.

>just don’t give a damn that there are tens of millions of Americans without health care in this

For the moment, let’s ASSUME that there are 45 million uninsured. They do GET health care via emergency rooms and hospitals, but there is some modest agreement that: (1) it’s not cost effective to do that; (2) it delays small problems into big ones; and (3) it’s not efficient.

Wouldn’t it be better to give everyone a tax credit to buy insurance? (Certainly better than ‘cash for klunkers!) I’m sure the “greedy” insurance companies would happily “suborn” the premium (i.e., like the tax prep firms, your social security number gets you a ‘refund anticipation loan’. So to your social gets you an ‘insurance anticipation loan for health insurance’.)

So why isn’t this idea debated?

Because the special interests don’t get control! Politicians don’t get to tell people what’s good for them.

And, obtw, those rich youngsters who don’t want to buy insurance don’t have anyone else to blame.

And, the supposedly “illegal” aliens wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t have welfare programs. (That is, if there was no “free” education, welfare, and healthcare, then the only folks who came wanting to work would be coming here. Like the old days. Get on the boat and come, we always have room for more workers. Most of us have ancestors who hit the dock with just a smile! Heck, I’d be issuing green cards with tins at the dock and thanking them for coming. That’s the America personified by the Status of Liberty. Come one and come all. We have enough freedom for everyone. That’s Libertarian.)

And, criminals — “illegal” or not — lock them up!

And, obtw, in a Libertarian America, the drug dealers would have to find other work. We’d eliminate all the drug laws. (What would the Columbian Drug Lords do? Go back to farming or cheating widows?) So, we turn Big Pharma loose making the best cleanest drugs possible. (It’s estimated that currently “illegal” street drugs would cost little more than aspirin. And, do you think that WalMart or Walgreens would sell heroin to children? WalMart won’t sell X rated videos because their customers would punish them.) We could empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders.

America would be supercharged!!!

>He’s filthy rich, he’s covered, his loved ones are covered and beyond that he does not care.

And, how about all those ‘caring’ politicians who say ‘good for thee, but not for me’.

>FDR called them economic royalists.

FDR was the biggest souless empoverisher, next to old “Honest Abe”, in American history. His economic ignorance created Social Security to empower the Democratic Party and set us on the Road to Hell. By eliminating gold currency, he permitted the welfare warfare state to explode.

>

I really hope that some day we can try peace!

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MONEY: FDIC “insurance”?

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi117.html

FDIC Walks a Tightrope
by Bill Sardi

*** begin quote ***

Bair’s second assignment is to slowly put small insolvent American banks out of business, over a thousand of them, while fostering public confidence in the FDIC insurance company’s ability to insure the public’s money. The FDIC admits to only 416 on the agency’s “problem bank” list. Frankly, without bailout money, few banks would have adequate reserves. By collapsing small banks, depositors are likely to bank their money at larger institutions. So Bair is really a shill for the large bankers to rub out their smaller competition, though she may have no other option in this instance.

*** end quote ***

So, why if “too big to fail” is bad, does the gooferment limit the size of a single bank to say ONE ONE THOUSANDTH of it’s reserve. And, oh by the way, why doesn’t it have a REAL RESERVE? Not so IOU from the FED or the Treasury.

Argh!

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QUOTE: Babe Ruth

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, “It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”

Babe Ruth

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LIBERTY: When the President speaks … …

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

FROM DRUDGE

*** begin quote ***

Obama to make unprecedented address to all public school students; September 8…

*** end quote ***

What the …

This is unprecedented all right!

When will folks learn the true purpose of “public education”?

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