RANT: The road to hell — entitlements!

Thursday, July 6, 2017

FROM THE WSJ

*** begin quote ***

John P. Donchess of Ohio weighed in: “The Senate health-care bill will pass, be reconciled with the House bill and be signed into law by President Trump. Anything less is political suicide for the Republicans. This entitlement is here to stay, despite what conservatives (including myself) would prefer. This bill advances the ball in the right direction and allows for further improvements to be made in the future.”

*** end quote ***

Once an “entitlement” is “given”, it’s HARD to claw it back.

“Conservatives” should have fought harder to prevent it in the first place. Medicare, Medicaid, and “welfare” are classic examples.

The road to hell is paved with entitlements! 

The USA is broke; its bankruptcy will be the ultimate “claw back”.

Argh!

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OBSERVATION: People can be clueless

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

FROM THE WSJ 

*** begin quote ***

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We warned them, we told them this oil can catch fire any second but a lot of people still came.”

Imran Shah, a highway police spokesman, on the explosion of a fuel truck in Pakistan that killed at least 138 people and injured nearly 150 others. Traffic officials closed the highway on either side of the overturned truck, but a large crowd, including residents of nearby villages, gathered to try to scoop up the fuel.

*** end quote ***

Wonder if they were just so poor that it was worth the risk?

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LIBERTy: Independence Day + local self-government, secession, and strict construction

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

2017-Jul-04

FROM TOM WOODS’ EMAIL

https://www.libertyclassroom.com/

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Independence Day is coming up, and I wonder how many people really get why it matters.

In school, we were told this: “No taxation without representation.”

Zzzzzzzz.

The real principles were more like the following.

(1) No legislation without representation.
The colonists insisted that they could be governed only by the colonial legislatures. This is the principle of self-government.

This is why a Supreme Court ordering localities around is anti-American in the truest sense. It operates according to the opposite principle from the one the American colonists stood for.

(2) Contrary to the modern Western view of the state that it must be considered one and indivisible, the colonists believed that a smaller unit may withdraw from a larger one.

(3) The colonists’ view of the (unwritten) British constitution was that Parliament could legislate only in those areas that had traditionally been within the purview of the British government. Customary practice was the test of constitutionality. The Parliament’s view, on the other hand, was in effect that the will and act of Parliament sufficed to make its measures constitutional.

So the colonists insisted on strict construction, if you will, while the British held to more of a “living, breathing” view of the Constitution. Sound familiar?

So let’s recap: local self-government, secession, and strict construction. Not exactly the themes you learned in school.

*** end quote ***

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VOCABULARY: “Stray Dog Attacks”

Monday, July 3, 2017

FROM THE WSJ

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The Lone Wolf and the Stray Dog 

Two botched attacks in Europe in recent days signal that Islamist terror has entered a new phase, security officials say, one that is more disorganized and less sophisticated but risks spawning more attackers determined to kill using any means at their disposal. Because of a lack of direct training and know-how, many of this new breed of assailant fail. Still, the absence of a connection to terror networks makes it difficult for intelligence services to track these individuals, and their often unsophisticated weapons—such as knives or cars—are easy to obtain. So authorities fear the attacks will increase. “We may be entering an era not of lone wolf, but stray dog attacks,” said one Western security official. The changing nature of the attacks also reflects improved security in Europe, but officials warn it would be reckless to underestimate the continuing threat of extremist groups.

*** end quote ***

An armed citizenry is need to defeat this particular type of attack.

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” – George Washington quotes from BrainyQuote.com

The USA, in the Red States, is more likely to be secure.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Why not make it a “standard treatment”?

Sunday, July 2, 2017

https://www.care2.com/greenliving/does-intravenous-vitamin-c-for-terminal-cancer-patients-help.html

Does Intravenous Vitamin C Help Terminal Cancer Patients?
By: Dr. Michael GregerJune 23, 2017

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Critics understandably attacked the study for using after-the-fact controls. One can see how this could introduce bias. If researchers consciously or unconsciously chose control group patients who were sicker than the treatment group patients, the control group patients would die sooner than the treatment group patients, but it would have nothing to do with the treatment; the control group folks may have just started out in a worse place. Indeed, there is evidence that is what happened: A full 20 percent of the control group died within a few days after being declared terminal compared to none in the treatment group, which really does seem fishy.

Nevertheless, the trial was successful in finally convincing the National Cancer Institute to fund randomized controlled trials—performed by the prestigious Mayo Clinic, no less. What did they find? Stay tuned.

*** end quote ***

Why can’t this just be immediately administered? Vitamin C has to be cheap. (Maybe that’s why there’s no impetus to use. No big profits to be made.)

If me or mine has cancer, I’d insist on this treatment.

How bad could it be?

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EVLYNN: A sad day to be remembered

Saturday, July 1, 2017

2017-Jul-01

Sigh! It would have been her 71st birthday. All that she’s missed. Makes me sad.

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GOVERCIDE:

Friday, June 30, 2017

http://beepb.com/must-see-rare-historical-photographs/

#29 Georges Blind, A Member Of The French Resistance, Smiling At A German Firing Squad, 1944

Yes, it can happen here!

— 30 —

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QUOTE: “I don’t know, man. I’m just a fisherman.” — David Morris

Friday, June 30, 2017

FROM THE WSJ

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I don’t know, man. I’m just a fisherman.”

Capt. David Morris on being nervous during a failed polygraph test for a multimillion-dollar fishing competition. High-stakes tournaments are using the tests to tamp down fish tales.

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Seems a simple thing to me. Start the “contest fishing time” when the boat leaves the dock? 

No polygraph required! 

— Captain Obvious?

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ECONOMICS: Lessons Leaned from Kansas

Thursday, June 29, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-19/the-kansas-supply-side-experiment-unravels

ECONOMICS
The Kansas Supply-Side Experiment Unravels
Tax cuts were supposed to spur growth, boost revenue and create jobs. The results were the exact opposite.
By Barry Ritholtz
June 19, 2017, 11:19 AM EDT

*** begin quote ***

When a governor announces an economic theory as a solution to a state’s fiscal problems, while challenging all comers to observe the results, that’s something I want to pay attention to. And so for the past five years, I have been watching the public-policy experiment in Kansas with great fascination.

With the state legislature now rejecting the governor’s experiment, we can move onto to the next phase: Not recrimination and blame, though there is lots of that going around. Instead, I want to look at how the experiment played out, and what lessons there are to be learned from it.

*** and ***

By just about every measure, Kansas’ economic laboratory experiment is now over, and the results are in. Supply-side tax cuts as executed in Kansas don’t generate more economic growth or create more jobs. They reduce tax revenue and forced the government to cut spending on essential goods and services like roads and schools.

*** end quote ***

I don’t think Ritholtz’s analysis goes quite far enough.

He doesn’t consider that “time” in his lessons learned.

It takes more than a generation to get folks to change. So a quick tax slashing with a large deficit spend is not how to spur the growth promised in the Laffer curve. It takes time to adapt.

Hence, the tax rate needs to be gently reduced over time with cutting waste and abuse. Then, strategic complete cuts to programs that are ineffective, and inefficient. With those savings either “banked for a rainy day” or returned to the taxpayer.

A one trick pony shot is not going to “fix” the decades of “training” that “We, The Sheeple” have in what Gooferment will do for them. 

Rigorous fiscal discipline, while not showy, will bring prosperity. 

IMHO this is needed at all layers of Gooferment.

Sad to say, but at one time, it could be found in both parties. Not any more in either.

Argh!

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WSJ: Need to cut Mammoths down to size

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Trump Team Proposes Broad Rethink of Financial Rulebook

The Trump administration proposed a wide-ranging rethink of the rules governing the U.S. financial sector in a report that makes scores of recommendations that have been on the banking industry’s wish list for years.

The report, described in a summary provided by the Treasury Department on Monday, gives the most detailed roadmap yet for President Donald Trump’s promise to revisit a wave of regulations put in place after the last financial crisis, affecting activities from mortgage lending to Wall Street trading.

If Mr. Trump’s regulatory appointees eventually implement them, the recommendations would neuter or pare back restrictions from the Obama administration, which argued the rules were necessary to guard against excessive risk taking and a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

Personally I’d like to see a rule that limits a “corporation” to a maximum size. THe only way I can think of it is that balance sheets should be limited to some number of digits. Maybe $999,999,999?

Over that size and it has to divide into smaller units with no interlocking parts.

The Gooferment did it to the Bell System. Why not Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netfix, and Google?

Seems like a good idea to me?

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