Reinke Faces Life

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/06/random-thoughts-on-senate-race.html

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Sen. Menendez voted in favor of increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour this week, announcing on the Senate floor that "nine years is far too long" for low-wage workers to wait for the federal government to boost the wage, which currently stands at $5.15 an hour.
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Nine years is too long for those who work round the clock, hoping to save a little extra for groceries, for those working so they can buy schools supplies or clothes for their children, or for those saving so one day they can live in a place they are proud to call home. I ask members of Congress who receive a cost-of-living adjustment, how can they vote to not give those hard working Americans earning minimum wage the first increase in nine years?

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Can we talk? Minimum wage!
The minimum wage isn't for the poor hard working Joe six pack. Minimum wage laws really benefit a very interesting group.

First, the highly paid government "workers" get raises. A rise in the minimum wage jacks up the bottom of the pay table. So all the higher and highly paid "workers" all get a raise.

Second, all the union workers who have a pay table in their contracts gets a bump up.

Third, the politicians get the "moral high ground" as champions of the "little people" while rewarding the government and union workers.

Basat's Law tells us to look for the silent hidden losers in any "economic problem". SO who loses here?

Everyone loses because now they have to pay higher prices. Taxpayers lose because government workers now have to be paid more and, of course, pensions are keyed to that higher rate. People on fixed incomes get a double whammy in higher taxes and higher prices.

So, ANY politician, regardless of flavor, who advocates a higher minimum wage, shouldn't be elected. You shouldn't EVEN consider voting for them. Either that politician is: too stupid to understand the minimum wage is a bad idea OR too dishonest to admit what the truth of the minimum wage.

Is he dishonest or just dumb as a stump?

By the way, minimum wage jobs are the bottom rung on the economic ladder. People don't work at minimum wage jobs for life. They don't support households on them. But they are the training ground for the future great jobs.

The little businesses, the typical employer of minimum wage employees, are hurt by the raise and either have to fore go hiring, layoffs, or downsizing.

So raising the minimum wage is like pulling up the economic ladder to a better life.

And, just a little side effect, an unintended consequence, it impacts the young and the minorities disproportionately.

Oh, and by the way, this law, like all law, is the use of force on a peaceful market transaction. The worker doesn't have to work at that lower rate. With this law, the government puts its guns at the head of the workers and the employers.

Sigh. It seems so obvious!

—–Original Message—–
From: A Friend Of Mine (yes I have a few)
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 3:33 PM
To: John Reinke
Subject: Defeat these Senators!

Below is a list of U.S. Senators who just voted to give illegal aliens
Social Security benefits; in essence, your FICA monies. Money to people
who are here illegally. Remember this at election time. They depend on
us to forget, and most of us do.

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE ILLEGAL ALIENS SOCIAL SECURITY
BENEFITS. REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE
DEFEATED IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010 WHENEVER THEY COME UP FOR OFFICE.
SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU KNOW IN ANY OF THE STATES LISTED. THE ENTIRE
POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION. THAT IS
UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS
WHEN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT.

—–Reply Message—–
How about if we stop using force on everybody in sight?
As far as bad guys coming in, if we pull our troops home, and stop messing in other people's business, we'll be much much safer.

As far as freeloaders coming in, just end welfare. It's just the theft of people's stuff to give to other people.

So kill social security, all the other forms of government welfare to individual, corporate welfare, the drug war, the public skoolz, and all the myriad of things that the government does!

And, make no mistake, Social Security Insurance, is a deliberate mislabeling of a Ponzi scheme designed to put all older Americans on welfare. Their pay in doesn't even come close to matching the payout. SSI is nothing more than a transfer from poor minority males to old rich white females! SSI has single handedly demolished the traditional family. Before Roosevelt, families of different generations bonded together to help each other. Old folks lived with or near their children and helped with the economics and the grand children. With the advent of SSI, they had the wear with all to move to Florida and "retire". Until such time as then need a nursing home, all of their assets magically disappear and it becomes the government's burden. In the old days, the family figured it out. And, there were charities to help. Remember the old soldiers home, and such? I do.

Then, there will be NO need to use force on people?

Prior to 1924, there was no immigration control. Then, only people willing to work come here. There was a vibrant civil society, outside of the government, to help them. The various fraternal organizations have there roots in the need to help immigrants to land. The Churches had a huge role in social services. All as a balance to government.

See that is all what it is about — government control! They get us fighting over the scraps that they the rulers deign to allow drop from their table. e fight with each other over this issue or that issue.
The free market allows people to CHOOSE what services they want. Only government gets to dictate what services we will pay for.

Arghh!

Let's shine up the Statue of Liberty and get back to those ideals.

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/06/pensioned-in-budget.html#comments

Monday, June 19, 2006
A pen(sion)ed-in budget 
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The Star-Ledger today offers a pretty solid overview of the fiscal calamity facing the state, which raises unstated questions about the current budget discussions that neither political party seems willing to answer.

Gov. Jon Corzine, as I've written many times, has put together a painful budget that makes some effort to right the state's fiscal ship. The problem is that he is asking taxpayers to help foot the bill though an increase in the sales tax rate and an expansion in what it can be applied to.
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1. The state has been spending more money than it has generated in recurring revenues for years

So, that's easy. Hard times are here. Cut the spending to the level of theft.

Yes, money extracted involuntarily from people is theft. Let's get the gubamint out of the theft business. A start would be to cut ALL the services that are not Constitutionally required. Even those, that are required, but should really be dumped or minimized, could be unenforced by the Guv. They are enough lawyers in Trenton to justify whatever the Guv really really wants to do!

Why is the gubamint the only thing in the world that can force us to "buy" its services and "pay" outrageously for it? If I can't avoid it, then it's a tax. Let's have truth in gubamint labels. If a service is SO important that people want it, then let thems that want it pay for it and leave the rest of us out!

Gubamint is ineffective and inefficient. Ineffective, in that, it ALWAYS hurts the people it is intended to help and has unintended consequences. Inefficient, in that, it can not do what a market can do because it always has overhead and is never permitted to fail going out of business. No one can name ONE effective and / or efficient gubamint program.

2. The state has been underfunding its pension plan

Well, IBM, Delta, and a host of other companies have shown the Guv how to lead us out of this problem. Get the State out of the pension business. Now don't screw the people. They have a right to depend upon what they were promised. So, lets unwind it. New employees get a defined CONTRIBUTION plan like a 401k. Old employees are "frozen" with a Net Present Value of what there pension is worth. If we don't have the money in the pension plan to unwind it. Give them a partial payment and an IOU for the difference. The IOUs are basically bonds for the future value. We should be fair but not fools.

Some reforms are needed:
** one job per person period;
** no relatives under your supervision, sorry your family have to get real jobs;
** vacation, use it or lose it;
** sick pay, you have to be kidding, use it or lose it;
** we eliminated pensions; so the era of adding sick and ot pay to your pension base is over.

Yup, Guv C wouldn't tolerate this Barbara Streisand when he was on Wall Street, so why is Trenton different? Yup, no cajonies!

Hey Guv C, hire me for a dollar a year, and in one year, we could have it cleaned up. I've worked for Wall Street bosses who would only need six months. My mother in her prime could have done it in three!

Cablevision and a seasonal shore house

A MATTER OF DEFINITION  June 16, 2006
By L. Neil Smith
For “L. Neil Smith At Random” on http://www.BigHeadPress.com
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A long time ago, in a Wichita far away, I met Robert LeFevre for the first time at a week-long seminar in the basement of the Ramada Inn. I learned a lot from him in that week, and over the years that followed. For example, as Americans, each of us has the right to vote as our individual conscience may dictate — for the socialist of our choice. LeFevre referred, as I have myself ever since, to so-called liberals as “left wing socialists” and to so-called conservatives as “right wing socialists”, pointing out that there isn’t any other option on the conventional political spectrum, or on the ballot at the polls.Vote for the socialist of your choice, but vote.
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You have to admire people who can spike the verbal volleyball! I'm going to steal this argument, with attribution of course. 

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle372-20060618-04.html

The Battle of Wakarusa
NLG and ACLU Fail to Defend Liberty
by Jim Davidson
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In early June 2006, the Wakarusa Music Festival took place around the USA Army Corps of Engineers Clinton Lake park facilities. About fifteen thousand people from around the country came for the festival, camped out, listened to live music, and brought millions of dollars in sales to area businesses.

But it wasn't all good news. With a USA feral "high intensity drug-trafficking area" grant, the State of Kansas and the Douglas County Sheriff's Department organized blockades of Kansas Highway 10, US Highway 59, and off ramps from Interstate 70, causing a three-day traffic snarl, violating individual liberties, and generally making a mess of the festival. The organizers who have brought the event to Lawrence, Kansas for three years in a row are considering not having it again, due to the oppressive police presence. 
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There goes the Fourth Amendment. The writer correctly asserts that the lawyers, a government granted monopoly, can't seem to get organized in time to defend our freedoms. But, they have no problem getting organized to take the benefits of a government monopoly. Sigh, what can one person do? 

Unemployment is an uninsurable risk!

The purpose of insurance is to take the risk from an individual and spread it among a large number of people and  / or organizations that are exposed to the same, or similar, risks.

So, rather than one person absorbing a million dollar loss, it's preferable to have a million people lose a dollar. In theory  and practice, this is done by an insurance company. But, Lloyds of London is a partnership. 

In order to transfer the risks, someone has to estimate the probability and cost of losses.  So, losses have to be estimable. Also there needs to be a large population to spread it over. Or, at least, some population who wants to pool their risks and minimize their losses. So this assumes that there are a class of people who all are exposed to the risk. 

I have full control over being employed or not being employed. All I have to do is tell my boss what I really think of him and I will soon be unemployed. On the other hand, I can almost always make sure that I will be employed if I am willing to take drastic wage cuts, for instance. If I were to work nearly for free, I would be employed.

So obviously this is not a risk that is insurable. It falls into the realm of individual responsibility.

It's a scam by gubamint to: confuse the issue, make people dependent upon gubamint as opposed to self-reliant / family -reliant, destabilize families, train people to taking welfare, eviscerate charities – unions – fraternal organizations – clubs, create make work jobs for gubamint "workers", and above all make the politicians look good.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north461.html

Textbooks as Ideological Weapons by Gary North

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For four decades, 1961–2001, R. J. Rushdoony was the best-known Protestant defender of Christian education and the de-funding of all tax-supported public education. There were other defenders of Christian education in the twentieth century, but none equally committed to the complete de-funding of public education. The others were defenders of Christian education as supplementary to public education. His position was hard-core: Take away the public schools' money.

His position was grounded on a concept of responsibility: Parents, not taxpayers, are responsible for their children's education. He accepted church-supported schools, but he thought they were generally a mistake. Parents do not pay for 100% of their children's education, so parents must share responsibility with church members. This leads to division in the churches over how the money should be spent. His ideal was either profit-seeking schools along the lines of Fairfax Christian School in Virginia, or home schooling.

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Even the good Brothers who taught me didn't understand that they were being fooled into indoctrinating me and their other charges.

I particularly like North's two prong test for indoctrination (1) the Federalist debate; and (2) the war of Northern Aggression aka the Civil war but what really should be called the end of the American Revolution. While the new nation state survived, it was set inexorable and inescapable down the path of empire.

It is a tremendous burden that Libertarians have to overcome. We have to reverse literally nearly a century of brainwashing. It makes the Communists look like amateurs. 

So how do we take back "our revolution"?

We have to roll back the Socialist's victories. Their key wins: the "publk skoolz"; the fiat currency; the progressive income tax; and the militarization of the American empire.

Focusing on the schools, they are: immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. 

By definition, they are funded with stolen money (i.e., taxes). So using the principle of the "end can not justify the means", they are the result of an immoral theft.

They also teach from a common agenda. That can possibly match what the parents believe in, so that's an immoral brainwashing of children.

We have evidence today of their ineffectiveness. We're last in the world in so many categories that it's a joke. We hear the stories about dropouts and rigged tests. We know from personal interaction with children that bright inquisitive children go in and brain dead functional illiterates come out the other side. 

The famous Objectivist Branden compared education to shoes, arguing that private enterprise is more efficient at providing goods and services than the government. So we know that they are inefficient.

So how do we strike back. I'd advocate a three pronged approach: (1) Make fun of the whole idea. Big Gubamint doesn't like to be perceived as a fool. It's hard to oppress the people if they are are laughing at you. The recent roll back of the Spanish American War cell phone tax was imho primarily due to the late night monologues making it obvious to even the graduates of gubamint skoolz that they were being screwed. Make the whole subject of gubamint skoolz a laughing matter. (2) Parents want the best for their children. Educate them about what their children will turn into after 8, 12, 16, or 20 years of what passes for education in Amerika. (3) Have an agreed paln about how we get out of this mess. It took us 70 years to get to where we are. We can't fix it overnight. Let's have a forty year plan to get out of this mess. I blogged about 20 to switch to a free market school system and the second twenty to end the taxpayer funding. People need time to adapt. (4) Don't let up keep hammering the message: ridiculously funny, immoral by theft, immoral in what they teach, ineffective, and inefficient. And wrong, un-American, and anti-Liberty.

http://www.mises.org/story/2196

The Case of Government Retirement Programs
by Mark A. Pribonic
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006

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I call these programs misdeeds by the political caste because it has been obvious since their inception that there is not enough wealth created to ever sustain them but for a short period of time. The lessons of defined-benefit pensions, which Social Security is the largest example of, have been well documented in the recently revealed financial troubles of the domestic auto companies, airlines, and others. Ignorance of economic law is no excuse.

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Clearly Social Security Insurance is not insurance. Ponzi scheme would be a better description. Insurance company executives would be in jail if they did what the politicians have done. If we think about these benefits as a discounted cash flow, that anyone in an MBA or an undergraduate course knows, then there has to be an asset to balance the teeter totter. The ROI of social security insurance is negative. There is no asset to provide the needed balance. So that bill will come do. There is a reason that business has moved from defined benefit pensions akin to social security. But, the business had to create that pool of assets to pay off its pensioners. Otherwise, the government would send the executives to jail. Note that politicians and professional bureaucrats don't go to jail for the same behavior. What's different? The change from  defined benefit to defined contribution plans puts the onus on the employee, not the company.

Clearly, governemt employee pensions are not funded like a company's pension plan. Unfunded liabilities abound in the government. And, we get to make good on these when they come do.

Just as clearly, the chickens are going to come home to roost, and they are going to be big, dirty, and nasty.

Consider when all these unfunded liabilities come due, there are only a few choices to make good on them:

• Increase taxes to stunning levels;
• Decrease benefits to manageable levels;
• Sell off the national treasures;
• Inflate the currency;
• Or, do the unthinkable and renege on the promises.

My bet is for inflation. It's the "quietest tax" on accumulated savings, cash, and fixed incomes. The market will respond to the increased amount of money chasing the same amount of goods. It'll make Carter's 21% inflation look tame. It will be like the German hyperinflation in the 20s.

http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_165172930.html

School Cell Phone Fight May Be Heading To Court
Mayor Does Not Appear Ready To Budge On Issue
Kerri Lyon Reporting

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg said they're a distraction in the classroom. Parents and students said cell phones are a necessary lifeline in case of an emergency.

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Silly people, Michael Bloomberg, by virtue of being elected mayor, knows what is right in eddykation. Those sentenced to gubamint reeducation camps, aka publik skoolz, should not the resemblance to Father State's prisons. Since they can't keep drugs, weapons, and cell phones out of prisons, they are going to try with an easier target the prison's traing grounds … the skoolz.

Personally, I hope that everyone fights a lot and ridicules the skoolz. It seems that when we can attach a derogatory label on something, it morphs or get repealed. The gubbamint doesn't like to look stupid! And, it certainly doesn't want ot wake the sleeping people, the sheeple, the sheep people, who are being shorn of their rights.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz43.html

Why I Am Not a 'Conservative'
by Vin Suprynowicz
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who in Washington today are more conservative than the so-called liberal Democrats, yapping like protective bitches, should anyone approach their overgrown brood of social welfare programs? 

*** AND ***

But after the Republicans came surging back 20-odd years ago, vowing to close down the wasteful and counterproductive federal Departments of Energy and Education (it would have been a good start) – they did none of it. Never even tried. In 22 years they have repealed no significant infringement of the Second Amendment, closed no significant federal agency or program.

They smile like Br'er Rabbit in the briar patch as the leftist press dances their stylized political Kabuki, decrying Republican "budget cuts" that are really nothing but modest reductions in the rate of bureaucratic growth.
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And neither am I. Like the Classical Libertarian of the pre-French Revolution, I am taking the logical high ground for freedom. Downsize DC, Down with Conservatives, Liberals, Red States, Blue States, Democan, and Republicrat. 

I vote for small government every time, no exceptions.

Hopefully others will get the idea and make the Second American Revolution a bloodless one!