Open Choke

Musings on Hypocrisy

First, a light note...

Apparently the Union of Concerned Scientists, that group of very wise folks that happen to be, I guess, scientists, and that are known for their advocacy against industry and global warming and nuclear power and Star Wars type weapons using the argument that such technologies are  "not feasible" or "impossible", does not have a chapter in China. 

China was recently able to knock out a satellite with its own Red version of Star Wars!  We need to send a crack team of Union Scientists to China toute de suite to remind our inscrutable friends that what they are doing is "impossible" according to Concerned Scientists... 

I called up Union of Concerned Scientist Local #453 boss Dr. Leonard "Lenny the Mac" MacKenzie this last week to find out how things were going with the UCS/CIO. 

"People are still just not smart enough apparently to understand that we scientists, especially those uf us in academia, have ALL the answers for their ethical and spiritual growth," he said to me.   

When I asked him about the recent Chinese Star Wars successes, he commented

"How typical of you to put these things into a Western perspective... like the West knows everything.  What is physically impossible here in the West could very well be possible in eastern anti-imperialist communo-socialist physics".

In other good news, he outlined his plans to unionize all geologists and geophysicists in the US oil and gas patch.  "With any luck, we can make sure that petroleum gesocientists finally understand that no more oil and gas exists in the US so that they quit pushing their silly superstitions to gullible legislators and oil and gas exploration managers.  The sooner we figure out that no more is left and it is a fools errand to look for it, the faster we can get to important research, such as proving that mice have as much human rights as, well, humans".

In other news,

I don't really keep up with evangelical Christian news, it being a couple of shades removed from my own (CHOOSE ONE: beliefs, superstitions, spirituality, ethics, moral framework), but I read an article a while back that one Mike Jones, a homosexual prositute by profession, was writing a tell-all book detailing his  loving fiduciary relationship with Ted Haggard, an Evangelical Minister and leader of the  National Association of Evangelicals which purports to represent 45,000 churches and over 30 million members and the pastor of his own 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. 

His reason for penning this tome?  Mr. Jones "hates hypocrisy" and is on a crusade to expose it, apparently.

Being a rednecked, ballcap-wearing, reptilian brained oilman, something struck me as kinda off-kilter. I have noticing an increasing moral outrage professed towards the act (or is it a state?) of hypocrisy over the years.  Why did this guy's stance bother me?  It struck me like a bolt of shortening.

I am, for lack of a better word, a sinner,  for those of you that believe in that sort of thing.  I do or say things that I am not consistently proud, and I either know it in the back of my mind when I do 'em, or I regret doing them later.  Sound familiar? 

Our choice is to either 1) recognize our sins or 2) rationalize them as "not sins".  Seems the road to proverbial Hell is paved with what is behind door number 2. 

"Dang it 'Choke, we all know you are a Hellish sinner!", you say... but that really isn't the point.

The point is... If I were to, say,  murder someone in a fit of rage, does that mean I can no longer believe or state that murder is wrong?  Reprehensible?  Am I no longer able to judge if I am guilty of such actions that I do judge?  Does the actual awareness of the wrongness of my behavior make me a hypocrite? 

Apparently.  That is the logic of Mr. Jones' argument.

Personally, I choose the road of the hypocrite, if that is my only option, instead of the road of the rationalizer.  In fact,  I am gonna wear that label proudly from now on. 

In any case, since I have never a) sold illicit pharmaceuticals or b) rented out access to my various orifii to randy churchmen, I am NOT a hypocrite when I say that being a hypocrite seems to beat being a drug dealing male prosititute.

At the Gates of Heaven, with St. Peter or Mr Jordan or Lord Krishna guarding access, would you rather be in the position of Ted Haggard, who gets to say

"I spread God's word, making millions of people believe that there was something better they could strive for, and lived a life of riches and privilege afforded by that message, and was tempted in ways I thought wrong, an succumbed by hiring a fallen man to satisfy my lusts rather than seduce an innocent to my baseness"

or Mr Jones...

"I spent my life providing methamphetimes to the weak and renting out my body to satisfy the lust of the ashamed, but I fought the sin of hypocrisy and exposed it when the ashamed were either powerful or famous for their  good works".

I would guess that you are gonna rot in hell Mr. Jones.  If you believe in that sort of thing.

MY "Progressive" Tax System!

I am comin' to LOVE the idea of wildly progressive or even Windfall Profits taxes... a tax that nearly by definition is arbitrarily and puntively imposed upon one particular segment of our society that the majority holds an unhealthy  prejudice.   

Below are my ideas for the fair application of the US tax burden:

All Members of Congress.   The tax starts at 10% of their gross income (regardless of source) on top of their regular tax burden and increases 10% every year they are in office.  After one term, a Senator should be paying close to 100% of their income , and after three terms, a typical representative will.  This can replace term limits!  However, I'll bet it has little or no effect on their lifestyles.

All Members of the Screen Actors Guild Who Make Over $1 Million Per Year.  I know that they are not ALL nincompoops, but, like me, they chose to work in an industry that many hate.  And by God, THAT compensation is  a windfall!  Not only that, their job gives them way too much undue influence on public discourse... a dangerous thing to hand to talking chimps.  So, those that don't avail themselves to the Bully Pulpit- 10% Off the Top.  Those that do- 75% Off the Top.

All Members of the Directors and Screenwriters Guild.  Ditto.  Except for Michael Moore.  120% and all of his candy bars.

Professional Athletes.  I don't think we need to worry about 'em.  Most of them will be broke soon enough anyway.  Those that aren't, well... they are Masters of the Universe.

Anyone That Advocates Taking My Money For "The Schoolchildren of Whatever State".  All of it.  They have ceded their souls for a soundbite.  Best they lead me by example.

Anyone Involved In the Womens Apparel, Cosmetics, Vanity Business.  These vampires have hobbled the psyche and the soul of the better half of our society by trying (mostly successfully) to make even the most beautiful, the most intelligent, and the most productive American women nearly neurotically insecure about  themselves in an effort to sell them silly sh**.  We have seen the psychic wreckage that they (mostly males) have done to our wives, girlfriends, and daughters... women intrinsically capable of  ruling the world.   Now they are focusing on our young men.  Well, thanks a pantload for this.  150% tax, and off with their heads.

Lawyers.  Mine 0%,  Others, 50%.  I just threw that in because I knew you all would agree with the statement.  Your own lawyer is a great guy, the rest are parasites.  I really don't think we should tax 'em preferentially, I think we shouldjust tell them we are all full up now, and we need to decrease the number by about 50% in three months, and let them figure it out themselves.  Preferably with Bowie Knives.

Anyone Who Works In A Professional Job For the IRS.  Regular Joes, 35%.  Enforcement, 75%.  'Nuff said. 

Anyone Who Works For the Government.  Across the Board... 50%.  We gotta pay your ridiculous non Social Security pensions somehow.  Why should it come out of my pocket?   Talk about hobbling the "schoolchilrun"...  wait until they have to pay for these retired hordes!

My Next Door Neighbor.  He is a jackass.  75%.  hah.

TV and Radio Pundits.  90%.  I don't care what side of the political spectrum, they lead to the polarization of the body politic.  The fact that Republicans look at Democrats as traitors, and that some far left Democrats will ACT like traitors, falling over themselves to do deals with Hugo Chavez and cry on the shoulder of the "great man" Fidel Castro just in order to undercut Republicans show how low we have sunk.  It makes me sick. I cannot help but think that Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt and Nixon on the one side of the political spectrum, and Ronald Reagan on the other, are turning in their graves.  (Yes, I said Nixon on the left.  After all, he gave us price controls,  the EPA, expanded welfare, and the "Beta Chimp" approach to foreign policy that nearly allowed the worst form of government ever invented to take over the world.  In fact, he is so far left of Kennedy, Roosevelt, and Truman, all of who REALLY hated Communism, that Nixon belongs in a category of Hell that will be shared only with Jimmuh Carter and Cyrus Vance.  Of course Cyrus and Nixon will clean Jimmuh out of his Hell dollars pretty quick in crooked poker games, because I still choose to believe that Jimmuh's road to his final resting place was paved with good intentions, whereas Vance and Nixon were paved with diabolical hubris and power seeking).

People With Whom I Am Competing For  A Lease.  1000%.  May you rot in hell, you lying bastards.

Stupid People that Don't Agree With Me, and Bad Drivers Who Bother Me. 100%.  think of how calm and serene I will be in knowing that if you disagree with me or annoy me in the least little bit, all your income for the year will disappear into the vast Keynesian zero multiplier nothingness of government.  Kind of Zen Taxing for me.  Not so Zen for you. heh heh.  VERY satisfying!

I am sure you can come up with creative ways of Progressive taxing on your own... it is fun, and free!  At least for now!

 

The PROPER Way to Evaluate the Economics of Shale Plays (Part 1)...

Lots of folks don't want unconventional hydrocarbons to be viable in the US, for any number of reasons.  Art Berman is the most popular skeptic and is a popular speaker on the Peak Oil circuit.  I just wanted to show you some simple illustrations that deconstruct his major argument.

First, he has run economic analyses on various shale wells and says the average production is below economic breakeven, so the whole thing is a scam perpetrated on the investing public.  A cartoon of this kind of analysis is shown below.

Makes sense, I guess.  Superficially.  Next, let's look to see if the averages have been getting better....

And we see that they are.  This, again, is typical in most plays.  Operators get better at recovering the hydrocarbons under the lands they own.  Call it a "Learning Curve".  They all have it.  What happens when you run an "average type curve" by operator?  You see, as shown below, that a small minority might be producing economic hydrocarbons.  This will typically be misidentified as geological "sweet spots", which do exist.  This still drives the conclusion that "this play is uneconomic.  Only a couple of guys in sweetspots will make money".  But what about what we saw vis a vis operators producing  more every year?  Is the forward prediction correct that this play is Uneconomic based on these averages?

The answer, of course, is "Of Course Not".  From a predictive point of view 40% of the companies are currently economically producing and another 20% will join the ranks next year... thus a majority of the operators are producing economically.

These numbers are cartoons of what is happening in virtually all unconventional plays SAVE the Cotton Valley.  This is the reason to be excited.  If you can't help yourself, and insist on gloom and doom, the answer for you is to NOT invest in these companies!  That keeps the price lower for those of us that let the data really talk....

Congratulations to Bud and the other good folk at Brigham on their sale to Statoil.  I understand Norwegian is a bitch of a language!

A Soft (Like Toilet Paper) Society...

(Reprinted from 2005) I have this theory... humans have a finite capacity for psychic pain and outrage.  If you're poor and living in Calcutta, the psychic pain you feel may be focused on the fingers falling off your leprous hands and the fact that you have not eaten in a week.  If you live in the US, are the beneficiary of the labors of your antecedents, and living a comfortable life without survival needs, then YOU are the target of the biggest American growth industry... those that seek to exploit that vast reservoir of human psychic pain once used for leprous fingers and where the hell am I gonna fee my family tomorrow... and the misplaced guilt of having plenty.... on issues like animal or vegetable rights or stopping the US from producing energy, housing, or infrastructure.  It is Self Hate and it is a psychological malady, and largely confined to the haves of the world that have been removed from the labor connected to the creation of their wealth or the infrastructure that supports their very soft lives, in the whole scheme of things. Of course, it is better than worrying about your fingers falling off.

The Environmental Ethic is a GOOD ethic.  It has its roots in Muir and the writings of Aldo Leopold, who identified the need to recognize the impact that humans have on the Earth and its habitats.  Their call was to create an awareness and an Ethic for this value, similar to that which we have for Profit and Religion to enjoy the myriad of good that came from properly adopting an honorable Ethic.  That the Environmental Ethic has been absorbed strongly by our society and incorporated as the law of the land in the last 50 years is without any doubt.  We have been the beneficiaries of the real good provided by that Ethic over the last 40 years. 

What, then, is the problem?  The Environmental Ethic has begotten a MAJOR industry that fights for the increased influence of that ethic over all others.  Like any industry or individual, survival is its paramount goal. This industry manufactures and sells Fear of Potential Catastrophe to its market comprised of guilt-ridden, conspicuous-consuming SUV-driving, urban or suburban dwellers who rarely see nature.  Its workforce?  Our poorly-educated youth; the product of our disturbingly rotten educational system ruled over by union members who value mediocrity over excellence, who don't teach our children to think or reason, but rather indoctrinate our children with concepts about right and wrong, good and evil, that would do Lenin proud. Since our courts have decided that our societal foundations of religiously derived ideas of good and evil are constitutionally non grata in schools, and further derided by our intelligentsistas as corrosive and wrong (what is wrong, anyway?),  the embodiment of evil promulgated by those to whom we trust our children and the future of our society is now capitalism, corporations, industry, profit, employment, and the work ethic.   The courts are silent on teaching pure balderdash as gospel, apparently, but that's what you get when you get Derridian DeConstructionists in the court system.  Sure glad we have turned the keys of society over to attorneys.  Good stewards, they!

I, for one, would prefer my kids not adopt eco-warrior monikers like Walnut or Rain and sit around singing "Gentle Warrior" with other fellow travelers.  'Look Who's Coming to Dinner' at my house wouldn't be my daughter with Sidney Poitier, but with Walnut. 

Don't think we have a national religion?  We do... it even has its own department!  It is called the EPA, and it enforces the religious law proposed by churches like the Natural resource Defense Council, presided over by their Lawyer Priests.   When called upon to advocate for Energy Security, a senior DOE official told us "We are forbidden by law to advocate". We forgot to ask whether that law was DOE specific or did someone forgot to tell the EPA? Like food or heroin, any one of our Ethics is poisonous in its pure form, whether it be the Environmental Ethic, the Religious (or Secular Humanistic) Ethic or the Profit Ethic. Unlike the others, the Lawyer Priests of the Environmental Ethic have declared war on the other balancing Ethics.   They believe they have the one TRUE Ethic.  Of course, it is more likely that they are closer akin to the Borgia Popes who could care less about the Ethic, but are just milking that church for the power and wealth they can derive from it.

I was reminded of all of this while driving back from the funeral of my 90 year old great aunt in Val Verde County a couple of years back.  She was a tough woman... a childless school teacher who loved her family and despised weakness.  She was born in a time where  most people had nothing, and, for most, family survival depended upon back breaking work; a world where most families built their own homes, and grew their own food.  Her husband, my great uncle, was a kind man whose mother was stowed, at age 3 along, with her brother, under  the floorboard of her family's Refugio County ranch house and warned not to cry as Cortinistas, Mexican bandits associated with the South Texas and Northern Tamaulipas strongman Juan Cortina, slaughtered the rest of her family 6" above her head.  His father, her husband, died when he was 4 years old, and their family ranch taken away by the man his mother married shortly after being widowed who stripped all of her assets and gave them to his children.

It was a tough, strong family, or at least the women were... like a McMurtrey novel.  Weakness was just not tolerated.  Shortly before she died, my great Aunt described how she did not care for the  new, young Presbyterian minister in her church who would soon preside over her funeral.  She thought him weak... "wishy washy" was how she described him... in his faith and in his demeanor.  Hugely practical, my people were not strongly political, they believed in doing for themselves and had a strong belief in the work ethic.  They gave freely to others when they had extra.  I remember my own grandmothers' anger when, after my grandfather died, his safety deposit box contained IOUs from dozens of people to whom he had loaned money over a 50 year period, many of those unpaid IOUs dated during times when his own family had very little for themselves.

I respect these people. Their expectations and values are my guides, not those advanced by worthless teachers afraid to be tested for competency, nor by the Lawyer Priests who preside over the huge environmental industry-church who shrink-wrap package a set of bogus values and fears for modern guilt-ridden consumption.  Grandaddy, Abuelita, Aunt and Uncle, I miss you and I thank you.

Congress Acts on "Occupy" Demands!

AMERICANS WITH NO ABILITIES ACT PASSES SENATE

October 21, 2011 

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) - The Senate approved sweeping legislation, which provides new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA), lauded by President Barak Obama shortly after its passage, is being hailed as a major victory by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

"Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said Obama, a longtime AWNA supporter.

"This is why many of them voted for me. We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and marginalized. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they do a better job, or have some idea of what they are doing", said Obama.

President Obama pointed to the success of the US Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance and the EPA, an agency that is able to create economically smothering regulations that serve little or no purpose and provide meaningful tax-dependent employment for those that combine the skill-less capabilities and anger at capitalism necessary to run a modern US regulatory agency.   Approximately 80 percent of both postal and EPA employees lack job skills, making these agencies the single largest US employers of Persons of Inability. 

Private sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), Copy/Printing stores (67%) and home improvement "warehouse" stores (65%). President Obama has also set an example, personally selecting hundreds of Nonabled people for top government positions, including many cabinet-level jobs.

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million "middle man" and positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given, to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations which maintain a significant level of Persons of Inability in top positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Nonabled, banning discriminatory interview questions such as "Do you have any goals for the future?" or "Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?" and "Are you awake?"

"As a Nonabled person, I can't be expected  to compete with people who have something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, MI due to her lack of notable job skills.

"This new law should really help people like me."

With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation.  It is a fundamental human right equivalent to and no less important than our  other fundamental rights such as free college education, free quality healthcare, free retirement benefits and free other various stuff.  As long as they continue to vote Democrat."

Acknowledgement:  Paraphrased from an old email from Ron Nickle several years ago..

 

Tap Dancing Antelopes!

I was taking with a friend of mine in Georgetown, Texas who was filling me in on the latest Salamander controversy that essentially promises to shut down most future development in Williamson County.  An endangered vertebrates can shut down a whole development, apparently, anytime before or after approval, while endangered invertebrates can only shut down development prior to approval.  I thought to myself “gee, those invertebrates have a class action cause for discrimination versus those smug vertebrates”.  In any case, it reminded me of a column I wrote in 2004 about antelopes…

 

I attended a very interesting roundtable discussion a couple of weeks ago (actually now in September 2004) in Denver at the annual Colorado Oil and Gas Association meeting.  The discussion, entitled  “Smart Development”, was comprised of a panel of speakers that included Joe Jaggers of Williams, Ron Hogan of Questar, Reeves Brown of Club 20, Dr. John Beckman of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Dr. Patricia Limerick of the Center of the American West from UC Boulder.

 

Jaggers and Hogan talked about the difficulties of drilling and producing on federal lands, and the tightening noose of interlocking breeding seasons, and the clever, industrious ways they had found to both address the concerns over winter-time mule deer mating habits posited by the plethora of environmental concern groups while still being able to drill and develop the Pinedale Anticline, thought to contain over 20 Trillion Cubic Feet of natural gas.

 

Dr. Beckman then rose to speak.  He described his organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society, as NOT a rabid environmentalist group. In fact, he said, it was comprised of PhD ecologists, and was, in reality, the New York Zoological Society, who presumably adopted the nom de guerre Wildlife Conservation Society for its hipper, more modern and sensitive mien than the archaic "New York Zoological Society", which connotes caged-in suffering yankee animals. 

 

In any case, Dr. Beckman's group is studying the large mammals along the Pinedale area to determine if there is anything unusual about them that could drive some sort of "protected status" claim.  To their great surprise, they identified a group of pronghorn sheep in the area that has a migration route of some 330 miles.  In fact, it is the 2nd or 3rd longest existing large mammal migration route in North America and the 5th to 7th longest in the world. 

 

Why the range, you ask? Because, honestly, I don’t remember the actual rankings, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the ballpark.  On the basis of this spectacular finding, the Scientifically-Based Wildlife Conservation Society felt that this special group of Pronghorn Sheep and its migratory route be assigned a (presumably Scientifically-Based) "World Treasure" designation.   It was not immediately clear what worldwide regulatory body, in fact, is in charge of said "World Treasure" designations, or whether said regulatory body would consider 20+ Trillion Cubic Feet of Gas worth $100 billion dollars and capable of heating every Western city in the US a "World Treasure".

 

In any case, the Wildlife Conservation Society's proposal, which the Scientifically-Based group considered to be a “Win-Win”, was to remove from any future development the minerals along the migratory route forever. 

 

Are you marvelling yet at the flawlessness and beauty of the Scientifically-Based study and its proposal?  A few things helped clarify their reasoning.

 

Upon questioning from the audience, Dr. Beckman stated, that, AT ITS PEAK, the migratory herd contained some 400 members.  Since this is 400 of some 4 million animals of the SAME FRIGGING SPECIES in the state, membership in this group is harder to come by than a Skull and Bones knock on the door at Yale.

 

A federally-protected subset of Pronghorn Sheep?  I have visions of a caste-like stratified Pronghorn Sheep society with Mayflower descendant-like exclusivity.  Wasn't there a Dr. Seuss book about this?

 

On a more serious vein, a scientific study made with the sole purpose of finding ANY unique characteristics that can then somehow be classified as a Treasure Needing Preservation is not science at all.  When the end result is pre-ordained… how do we keep dirty (CHOOSE ONE: Big Oilmen, Big Mining Conglomerates, Timber Interests, etc)  from (CHOOSE ONE: Wrecking, Wasting, Pillaging, Raping, etc) our pristine wilderness... the reasons found to rationalize this are incidental. 

 

Not covered in Dr. Beckman's talk was 1) exactly why a 330 mile migration pattern is valuable?  2) of the several other pre-historic migration patterns identified, what caused their eventual extinction and how did those extinctions negatively impact the ecosystem? 3) exactly how many pronghorn sheep today are migrating today?  4)  can we build the remaining Pronghorns a light rail system? 

 

It boggles the mind what they would have proposed as a "Win-Win" solution had  they discovered a herd of tap-dancing antelope...

 

 

Some real good comes from this...   The Mayer Anomaly, named after its creator, is a Direct Economic Natural Resource Indicator.  If more than two endangered species habitats, and/or more than one mating ground or migratory route overlap, you have a statistically phenomenal likelihood of encountering an Economically Attractive Natural Resource!  Ignoring, for the moment, sampling issues (ie that any areas  areas of interest to Evil Capitalists are sampled far more robustly by the resource exploitation slayers than trailer house developments,  farmland/ranchland, scout camps, etc. even though no compelling evidence that E&P operations have EVER significantly negatively impacted wildlife in the past), we might have finally found a way to remotely locate big oil and gas accumulations!

 

 

 

What the "Occupy {Your CIty Here}" Movement is All About...

A reader of this blog, who goes by the name "Rely on the Prize", posted this as a comment.  A brilliant description...

"I agree that people are angry, and those of us used to the norms must heed this unrest, and realize what it means. However, so should the supporters analyze the protests. I had a two hour discussion with my liberal wife last night about Occupy Wall Street, because I have a hard time understanding it. I said "honey, even the hippies in the 70's had an end goal in mind - they wanted the US out of Vietnam." I can relate to that - I want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan...but that isn't what they're protesting. I could support and end to the Fed and the unmonitored, pseudo governmental, yet privately controlled system it upholds...but that isn't what they're protesting. I would even support a rally against oversized, monopolistic banks (10 banks controlling ~80% of American capital is not a good idea)...but that's not what they're protesting. The fact the banks paid back their TARP money makes you wonder why the ire is aimed at these banks. Why not rally at the doors of GM? I would DEFINITELY support the protests if they marched their asses to Washington and protested the contributing factors to our financial woes. Banks paid back TARP, but what about Obama's $787 BB spending bill, the $410 BB omnibus spending bill, and now another $400 BB spending (er...jobs) bill? Government does not create jobs or value, and the last three years pretty well hammered that point home...but that's not what they're protesting.

They are protesting against capitalism and the free market, and I cannot support such a protest. I am just as angry that a century of covert politics resulted in the pseudo socialist system currently in place in America, but the answer is not totalitarian government, as these protesters are manipulated into thinking. Look at the signs - the protesters are being used by the unions demonstrating they can direct an angry mob. The unions want a stronger government...so long as they have a seat at the table. The problem is that such goals are all hogwash in the end.

Strong central government works only in a completely homogeneous society. Marx himself wrote the only way his system would work is if EVERYONE was so fed up with their current system they willingly gave their independence to the commune. If you accept that a diverse society will always have differing opinions (and should), then you must accept that strong centralized forms of governance, such as socialism and communism, will never work. The ridiculous irony is the misguided protesters are aiming for the wrong thing. They want individualism. They want to do what is cool. They want to celebrate the power of the people. The system that gives the most power to the people is free market capitalism. The free market is based on the collective opinions of the entire population when they each place a value on everything around them. Rather than ceding your individual power (and right) to decide what everything is worth to a "superior," capitalism gives those infinite choices to ALL OF US. Power to the people indeed - by simple definition there CANNOT be anything more democratic than the free market.

History shows us there are essentially two ways to organize - centralized power or distributed / individualized power. If Occupy Wall Street had clearly stated goals (that make sense - their website states a "living wage" as a clear demand...I don't have the time to decry the ignorance of paying people for breathing...what does a pay cut mean?), I would support every goal that limits central power and actually does give that power to the people. From what I can discern, these protesters are rallying for stronger central power, in the form of Soviet flags, "support socialism" signs, and union participation at all levels.

I agree with Scott that the American dream is cracking, but it is because we are confiscating We The People's power...and these protesters are willingly delivering their souls, their individual choice, to a very devious group of manipulators who are all too eager to claim this independence in the name of stronger central government. A central government controlled by the very few who are truly behind these protests and this anger."

Thany you "Rely on the Prize".  If you agree with this, I urge you to forward to your friends and facebook friends.  It is the best encapsulation of this I have read yet...

Get Out of Jail Free Card...

I was reading an article yesterday on how Hugo "Juice" Chavez is confiscating the private residences, yachts, and hotels in a resort area of Venezuela to "give to to the poor".  These last 5 words are a depot's favorite, because it confers some sort of twisted moral legitimacy to any specific high crime and misdemeanor.

Try it at home kids...

"I didn't eat my brocolli.  I gave it to the poor."

"I shoplifted the candy. I gave it to the poor."

I shot a man in Reno.  So the poor could watch him die."

"I raped some nuns.  For the poor.  To highlight the venality of the Church."

It is easy, AND  effective!  Never do the right thing again!  Give into your basest desires, because you have the perfect rationalization ready to throw down like trip aces... "For the poor!"

I have the good fortune to count amongst my friends those across the political spectrum.  I have seen an increasing stridency in the progressive movement against those that have assets or businesses.  The polemic is approaching hate speech in its ignorance, prejudice, and frenzy.  Make no mistake, this is being orchestrated carefully, and resembles movements we have seen several times in the last Century that resulted in wholesale destruction of life, liberty and property.  The same play book.

For the record... I have been broke twice and destitute once in my adult life, and, but for the charity of a couch from a friend, would have had to depend upon a disappointed family to provide comfort and roof.  I never once identify myself as a victim of society or as poor.  I focused on how to be successful, a net producer, not a net consumer, and learn from my mistakes.

THAT is the American Dream.  it works, and I am proof.  

As I was reading through the various articles lauding Steve Jobs, I stumbled over one in Gawker that, essentially, called him a fat cat industrialist who was rich and was inferior in meaning and in purose to another fellow who had died the same day, a minister who had devoted himself to a life of sacrifice to make others lives better.  It was a provocative article and it made me think...

I think everyone agrees that making the world a better place for others is a laudable goal.  A life well lived.  A life of meaning.  How should we measure this?

Should we measure it by how much one has sacrificed or should we measure it by how much one has made others lives better?

Is "sacrifice" all that it is cracked up to be?  Is sacrifice laudable if it does NOT accomplish the goal of making others lives better?  Does 'sacrifice' in and of itself make the world better?  

I don't think so.

Take a man who has a blueberry pie.  He shares it with his various neighbors, leaving none for himself.  He has fed his neighbors for a short time, and dies of starvation in the process.

Take another man who bakes blueberry pies.  He trades his pies with his neighbors for what they have to offer... one makes bread, another candles... or, even, God Forbid, evil MONEY, the stuff we use to exchange blueberry pies for bread, candles and other things we need but the other guy doesn't necessarily have, although the guy down the road, who doesn't want blueberry pie actually DOES have.  In  any case, he feeds the whole town blueberry pie for a long time.  

Who has done more Good?  From an objective standard of having people eat, the baker has done more societal good.  Of course, this depends on the others in the town doing what THEY do best in exchange for unlimited blueberry pie.

What if the baker gets filthy rich and gorges on blueberry pie every day?  In other words, his blueberry pie is so popular that more people want to eat it than the average of what other people want to consume?  His product is in more of a demand than others?  Is he eating more than "his fair share"?  Should he quit selling blueberry pie?  

He has still done more objective good, because he has fed more folks for a longer period of time, and those folks willingly gave him more of a share of the collective labor because of it.  It is "sustainable".  This sustainability is based on others doing work making or doing things that others want to trade for.  If too many don't do anything valuable enough to support themselves, then the system changes from Producer to Consumer.   This is unsustainable.

Sustainability is Noble, Unsustainability is Not Noble.  Actually, it is venal.

Our goals should be to make others sustainable and contributors.  Those are noble efforts.  They make us all contributing members of the tribe.  Efforts to make the tribe unsustainable are fundamentally destructive.

Right?

If your neighbor's kid is selling his dad's $10 bills for $5 down the street, what should you do?  I mean, after verifying that Dad was supportive of little Junior giving away his money...

You would buy up as many of the $10 bills as you could, right?

The right answer, apparently,  if you are an American politician or bureaucrat, is to react by selling OUR $20 bills for $5 to "be competitive" with our neighbor's seemingly asinine decision.   

This is exactly the case happening in the case of solar panels today.  China heavily subsidizes its industries to sell stuff for, according to experts,  less than their cost.  Why would they do that?  First, the political chesnut and short term benefit of staying in power via jobs, regardless of how unsustainable those jobs are based on shoveling unrecoverable money out the door.   Eventually the money runs out.  Ask Greece. 

Second, perhaps they want to drive out competition so that you can later raise prices.  This is a proven loser business strategy, as every first year MBA student learns. One never recovers the money spent because it doesn't make it any harder for a competitor to ramp up to compete when the price dumper decides to raise prices. Thirdly, perhaps they think that by reducing the consumer cost to compete with alternatives, thus guaranteeing a stable sales environment, the cost will drop to breakeven or profitability over the long run.  Maybe they are right.  In any case, we get to take advantage of the lower cost efficiencies WITHOUT paying for them as a bystander. 

Why shouldn't we buy as many of the ten dollar bills as we can?  Why should we  get into the business of selling $10 bills for $5 bucks?  That seems to be a sucker game.  China is offering to subsidize us with cheap energy! In return, we sell them Sponge Bob Square Pants!  Yay, I say.

But... but... what if China, based on low wages, is actually MAKING a buck on the $5 buck sale?  So what?  We don't have that same option, do we?  We have a high wage society.  We have no choice but to sell $10 for $5 in that exact business .  It's like saying "I am a lawyer that makes $300k bucks a year, but I really want to make sock bunnies.  That's cool.  But don't expect to make $300k per year doing it!  No one wants to buy $1,000 sock bunnies.   And don't you dare ask the government to subsidize your sock bunny business.  They probably would today!

So let's choose NOT  to sell $10 for $5 bucks.  Let's choose to sell $10 bucks for $20 bucks.  Labor has to be mobile.  Slide rule manufacturers just can't employ the same number of people they could in 1960.  Those jobs didn't disappear, they moved to areas where they could actually do something people were willing to pay for.  The political appraoch would have been a bailout to support the US slide rule industry. 

It's simple, really.  Labor resources need to go where profits can be made on on their deployment.  This grows the economy.  Artificially allocating any resources to areas where no one wants to buy the product is a pure waste.  It removes from the economy.  A job without a willing buyer for the product or service provided by the job is welfare, pure and simple, and unsustainable.

We have led the way on worker productivity, enabled by technology...  selling these $10 bills for $20 dollars.  I have an acquaintance that makes Chinese $10 dollar bills into American $20 bills by networking and monitoring the Chinese solar panels to achieve highest possible energy output.  Brilliant stuff!

Here is a radical idea.  Let's quit competing on things we shouldn't want to win, and instead take the opportunity to stock up on the free value offered us by others less enlightened so that we can concentrate on building or doing those things we do best.

The Bigger Blueberry Pie Theory...

As I was reading through the various articles lauding Steve Jobs, I stumbled over one in Gawker that, essentially, called him a fat cat industrialist who was rich and was inferior in meaning and in purose to another fellow who had died the same day, a minister who had devoted himself to a life of sacrifice to make others lives better.  It was a provocative article and it made me think...

I think everyone agrees that making the world a better place for others is a laudable goal.  A life well lived.  A life of meaning.  How should we measure this?

Should we measure it by how much one has sacrificed or should we measure it by how much one has made others lives better?

Is "sacrifice" all that it is cracked up to be?  Is sacrifice laudable if it does NOT accomplish the goal of making others lives better?  Does 'sacrifice' in and of itself make the world better?  

I don't think so.

Take a man who has a blueberry pie.  He shares it with his various neighbors, leaving none for himself.  He has fed his neighbors for a short time, and dies of starvation in the process.

Take another man who bakes blueberry pies.  He trades his pies with his neighbors for what they have to offer... one makes bread, another candles... or, even, God Forbid, evil MONEY, the stuff we use to exchange blueberry pies for bread, candles and other things we need but the other guy doesn't necessarily have, although the guy down the road, who doesn't want blueberry pie actually DOES have.  In  any case, he feeds the whole town blueberry pie for a long time.  

Who has done more Good?  From an objective standard of having people eat, the baker has done more societal good.  Of course, this depends on the others in the town doing what THEY do best in exchange for unlimited blueberry pie.

What if the baker gets filthy rich and gorges on blueberry pie every day?  In other words, his blueberry pie is so popular that more people want to eat it than the average of what other people want to consume?  His product is in more of a demand than others?  Is he eating more than "his fair share"?  Should he quit selling blueberry pie?  

He has still done more objective good, because he has fed more folks for a longer period of time, and those folks willingly gave him more of a share of the collective labor because of it.  It is "sustainable".  This sustainability is based on others doing work making or doing things that others want to trade for.  If too many don't do anything valuable enough to support themselves, then the system changes from Producer to Consumer.   This is unsustainable.

Sustainability is Noble, Unsustainability is Not Noble.  Actually, it is venal.

Our goals should be to make others sustainable and contributors.  Those are noble efforts.  They make us all contributing members of the tribe.  Efforts to make the tribe unsustainable are fundamentally destructive.

Right?

If your neighbor's kid is selling his dad's $10 bills for $5 down the street, what should you do?  I mean, after verifying that Dad was supportive of little Junior giving away his money...

You would buy up as many of the $10 bills as you could, right?

The right answer, apparently,  if you are an American politician or bureaucrat, is to react by selling OUR $20 bills for $5 to "be competitive" with our neighbor's seemingly asinine decision.   

This is exactly the case happening in the case of solar panels today.  China heavily subsidizes its industries to sell stuff for, according to experts,  less than their cost.  Why would they do that?  First, the political chesnut and short term benefit of staying in power via jobs, regardless of how unsustainable those jobs are based on shoveling unrecoverable money out the door.   Eventually the money runs out.  Ask Greece. 

Second, perhaps they want to drive out competition so that you can later raise prices.  This is a proven loser business strategy, as every first year MBA student learns. One never recovers the money spent because it doesn't make it any harder for a competitor to ramp up to compete when the price dumper decides to raise prices. Thirdly, perhaps they think that by reducing the consumer cost to compete with alternatives, thus guaranteeing a stable sales environment, the cost will drop to breakeven or profitability over the long run.  Maybe they are right.  In any case, we get to take advantage of the lower cost efficiencies WITHOUT paying for them as a bystander. 

Why shouldn't we buy as many of the ten dollar bills as we can?  Why should we  get into the business of selling $10 bills for $5 bucks?  That seems to be a sucker game.  China is offering to subsidize us with cheap energy! In return, we sell them Sponge Bob Square Pants!  Yay, I say.

But... but... what if China, based on low wages, is actually MAKING a buck on the $5 buck sale?  So what?  We don't have that same option, do we?  We have a high wage society.  We have no choice but to sell $10 for $5 in that exact business .  It's like saying "I am a lawyer that makes $300k bucks a year, but I really want to make sock bunnies.  That's cool.  But don't expect to make $300k per year doing it!  No one wants to buy $1,000 sock bunnies.   And don't you dare ask the government to subsidize your sock bunny business.  They probably would today!

So let's choose NOT  to sell $10 for $5 bucks.  Let's choose to sell $10 bucks for $20 bucks.  Labor has to be mobile.  Slide rule manufacturers just can't employ the same number of people they could in 1960.  Those jobs didn't disappear, they moved to areas where they could actually do something people were willing to pay for.  The political appraoch would have been a bailout to support the US slide rule industry. 

It's simple, really.  Labor resources need to go where profits can be made on on their deployment.  This grows the economy.  Artificially allocating any resources to areas where no one wants to buy the product is a pure waste.  It removes from the economy.  A job without a willing buyer for the product or service provided by the job is welfare, pure and simple, and unsustainable.

We have led the way on worker productivity, enabled by technology...  selling these $10 bills for $20 dollars.  I have an acquaintance that makes Chinese $10 dollar bills into American $20 bills by networking and monitoring the Chinese solar panels to achieve highest possible energy output.  Brilliant stuff!

Here is a radical idea.  Let's quit competing on things we shouldn't want to win, and instead take the opportunity to stock up on the free value offered us by others less enlightened so that we can concentrate on building or doing those things we do best.

Idjitry...

If your neighbor's kid is selling his dad's $10 bills for $5 down the street, what should you do?  I mean, after verifying that Dad was supportive of little Junior giving away his money...

You would buy up as many of the $10 bills as you could, right?

The right answer, apparently,  if you are an American politician or bureaucrat, is to react by selling OUR $20 bills for $5 to "be competitive" with our neighbor's seemingly asinine decision.   

This is exactly the case happening in the case of solar panels today.  China heavily subsidizes its industries to sell stuff for, according to experts,  less than their cost.  Why would they do that?  First, the political chesnut and short term benefit of staying in power via jobs, regardless of how unsustainable those jobs are based on shoveling unrecoverable money out the door.   Eventually the money runs out.  Ask Greece. 

Second, perhaps they want to drive out competition so that you can later raise prices.  This is a proven loser business strategy, as every first year MBA student learns. One never recovers the money spent because it doesn't make it any harder for a competitor to ramp up to compete when the price dumper decides to raise prices. Thirdly, perhaps they think that by reducing the consumer cost to compete with alternatives, thus guaranteeing a stable sales environment, the cost will drop to breakeven or profitability over the long run.  Maybe they are right.  In any case, we get to take advantage of the lower cost efficiencies WITHOUT paying for them as a bystander. 

Why shouldn't we buy as many of the ten dollar bills as we can?  Why should we  get into the business of selling $10 bills for $5 bucks?  That seems to be a sucker game.  China is offering to subsidize us with cheap energy! In return, we sell them Sponge Bob Square Pants!  Yay, I say.

But... but... what if China, based on low wages, is actually MAKING a buck on the $5 buck sale?  So what?  We don't have that same option, do we?  We have a high wage society.  We have no choice but to sell $10 for $5 in that exact business .  It's like saying "I am a lawyer that makes $300k bucks a year, but I really want to make sock bunnies.  That's cool.  But don't expect to make $300k per year doing it!  No one wants to buy $1,000 sock bunnies.   And don't you dare ask the government to subsidize your sock bunny business.  They probably would today!

So let's choose NOT  to sell $10 for $5 bucks.  Let's choose to sell $10 bucks for $20 bucks.  Labor has to be mobile.  Slide rule manufacturers just can't employ the same number of people they could in 1960.  Those jobs didn't disappear, they moved to areas where they could actually do something people were willing to pay for.  The political appraoch would have been a bailout to support the US slide rule industry. 

It's simple, really.  Labor resources need to go where profits can be made on on their deployment.  This grows the economy.  Artificially allocating any resources to areas where no one wants to buy the product is a pure waste.  It removes from the economy.  A job without a willing buyer for the product or service provided by the job is welfare, pure and simple, and unsustainable.

We have led the way on worker productivity, enabled by technology...  selling these $10 bills for $20 dollars.  I have an acquaintance that makes Chinese $10 dollar bills into American $20 bills by networking and monitoring the Chinese solar panels to achieve highest possible energy output.  Brilliant stuff!

Here is a radical idea.  Let's quit competing on things we shouldn't want to win, and instead take the opportunity to stock up on the free value offered us by others less enlightened so that we can concentrate on building or doing those things we do best.