The debt showdown in D.C. is getting really nasty. This week Obama upped the ante by claiming that if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the government might not be able to send out Social Security checks.
This is an old Democrat scare tactic. Whenever there is a budget battle at any level of government, unscrupulous Democrat politicians hold up the programs that would be most painful to cut as a way to scare voters to put pressure on the GOP to cave into their demands.
The GOP shouldn't fall for it any longer.
The Federal government is expected to take in $179 billion in revenue in August. Interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and military salaries will add up to $143 billion in August. That leaves $36 billion left over for everything else. Yes, other things will have to be prioritized -- that's called living within one's means.
Here's what the House needs to do: immediately pass a bill mandating that if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the administration must prioritize paying the interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and military salaries above everything else. If the Democrat Senate fails to pass the bill, or if Obama fails to sign the bill, then everyone will know who is responsible for Social Security checks not going out.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Cain: Obama could not run one Godfather’s pizza restaurant
Newsmax is reporting that in an interview, former Godfather's CEO Herman Cain said that Obama doesn't have the capability to run one Godfather’s pizza restaurant.
Let's take a quick look at what an Obama pizzeria might look like:
1.) He'd pay his pizza flippers 6 figure salaries and endow them with lavish retirement plans.
2.) He'd force his delivery drivers into $40,000 Chevy Volts -- only a three hour recharge between each delivery.
3.) He'd implement a progressive pizza pricing policy. 50% of his customers with the lowest incomes would get free pizzas. In fact, he would pay them to eat his pizzas. The top 2% of his customers would have to pick up 40% of his cost if they wanted to eat his pizza. He'd borrow the rest of from Domino's.
4.) To make up for past discrimination, where Godfather's would refuse to deliver pizzas to crime ridden ghettos, Obama would implement a pizza reparations policy. The drivers would go to the ghetto, with extra money in their pockets so they would be worth robbing.
5.) When the business came crashing down, he'd blame the "greedy rich" for not wanting to pay $10,000 for each slice of pizza from his store.
Let's take a quick look at what an Obama pizzeria might look like:
1.) He'd pay his pizza flippers 6 figure salaries and endow them with lavish retirement plans.
2.) He'd force his delivery drivers into $40,000 Chevy Volts -- only a three hour recharge between each delivery.
3.) He'd implement a progressive pizza pricing policy. 50% of his customers with the lowest incomes would get free pizzas. In fact, he would pay them to eat his pizzas. The top 2% of his customers would have to pick up 40% of his cost if they wanted to eat his pizza. He'd borrow the rest of from Domino's.
4.) To make up for past discrimination, where Godfather's would refuse to deliver pizzas to crime ridden ghettos, Obama would implement a pizza reparations policy. The drivers would go to the ghetto, with extra money in their pockets so they would be worth robbing.
5.) When the business came crashing down, he'd blame the "greedy rich" for not wanting to pay $10,000 for each slice of pizza from his store.
Friday, May 6, 2011
America at the Crossroads
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.0% in April. Economic growth is anemic. Gas is well over $4 a gallon is most states, and over $5 a gallon in Hawaii.
Over the last couple of years the government has implemented several programs, that cost around $1 trillion each, designed to "stimulate" the economy, including the Bush TARP, Obama Stimulus, and the Federal Reserve's "Quantitative Easing".
The economy has only gotten worse.
Obama and the left keep talking about implementing more of the same type of programs to "stimulate demand".
The problem is that the entire Keynesian notion of stimulating demand is obsolete in a global economy.
Sure, the government can temporarily hand out borrowed dollars to stimulate demand. What demand are they stimulating? Largely demand for products made elsewhere, which doesn't create any jobs in America.
I’m a free trader, but borrowing money to buy products made abroad is the path to ruin. We need to earn money to buy those products. Earning money requires us to make things that people want to buy.
To fix the ills that plague us, America needs to increase investments in innovation and productive capacity.
Today, there are two huge challenges stopping us:
First, our tax system is a complete disaster. According to OCED, American has the most progressive tax system in the world. We also have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We also have one of (if not the) most complicated tax systems in the world, which costs us a half a trillion dollars a year just to figure out our taxes. To top it all off, there are huge U.S. corporations that don't pay any taxes at all, because they were able to successfully lobby politicians to implement loopholes in the tax system to specifically benefit them. Not only is our tax system unfair, it's also counter-productive and hurts our economy.
Second, the government monopoly schools are an even bigger disaster. America spends more per student than almost every country, yet the government monopoly schools are among worst performing schools in the developed world. America's economic prowess depends on our ability to innovate. Over the last couple of decades, most of our advanced technology talent has come from importing people from China, India, and other foreign countries. Luckily, these people still want to come to America. But importing talent is not a substitute for growing our own talent. The government monopoly schools don't graduate enough people with the basic math and science skills to move the country forward.
We need to do two things to get the country on track:
First, we need to simplify our Byzantine tax and regulatory system.
Second, we need to fix the broken government monopoly schools.
Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, there are a huge number of special interests (from General Electric to the National Education Association) that benefit from the current system at the expense of the country. Those special interests are not about to give up their tax-funded goodies and go quietly into that good night. So, changing anything becomes increasingly difficult.
That's the problem.
Here's an undeniable fact: The rate of change in the world is changing exponentially. Unfortunately, the U.S. government is stuck in the industrial age, when the pace of change was much slower.
Unless America has some real reform that moves the special interests out of the way, our decline as a nation will accelerate rapidly.
Who will stand up and say: "no more"?
How about you???
Over the last couple of years the government has implemented several programs, that cost around $1 trillion each, designed to "stimulate" the economy, including the Bush TARP, Obama Stimulus, and the Federal Reserve's "Quantitative Easing".
The economy has only gotten worse.
Obama and the left keep talking about implementing more of the same type of programs to "stimulate demand".
The problem is that the entire Keynesian notion of stimulating demand is obsolete in a global economy.
Sure, the government can temporarily hand out borrowed dollars to stimulate demand. What demand are they stimulating? Largely demand for products made elsewhere, which doesn't create any jobs in America.
I’m a free trader, but borrowing money to buy products made abroad is the path to ruin. We need to earn money to buy those products. Earning money requires us to make things that people want to buy.
To fix the ills that plague us, America needs to increase investments in innovation and productive capacity.
Today, there are two huge challenges stopping us:
First, our tax system is a complete disaster. According to OCED, American has the most progressive tax system in the world. We also have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We also have one of (if not the) most complicated tax systems in the world, which costs us a half a trillion dollars a year just to figure out our taxes. To top it all off, there are huge U.S. corporations that don't pay any taxes at all, because they were able to successfully lobby politicians to implement loopholes in the tax system to specifically benefit them. Not only is our tax system unfair, it's also counter-productive and hurts our economy.
Second, the government monopoly schools are an even bigger disaster. America spends more per student than almost every country, yet the government monopoly schools are among worst performing schools in the developed world. America's economic prowess depends on our ability to innovate. Over the last couple of decades, most of our advanced technology talent has come from importing people from China, India, and other foreign countries. Luckily, these people still want to come to America. But importing talent is not a substitute for growing our own talent. The government monopoly schools don't graduate enough people with the basic math and science skills to move the country forward.
We need to do two things to get the country on track:
First, we need to simplify our Byzantine tax and regulatory system.
Second, we need to fix the broken government monopoly schools.
Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, there are a huge number of special interests (from General Electric to the National Education Association) that benefit from the current system at the expense of the country. Those special interests are not about to give up their tax-funded goodies and go quietly into that good night. So, changing anything becomes increasingly difficult.
That's the problem.
Here's an undeniable fact: The rate of change in the world is changing exponentially. Unfortunately, the U.S. government is stuck in the industrial age, when the pace of change was much slower.
Unless America has some real reform that moves the special interests out of the way, our decline as a nation will accelerate rapidly.
Who will stand up and say: "no more"?
How about you???
Monday, May 2, 2011
bin Laden - Obama Credit and Blunder
In a dramatic late night announcement, President Obama went on national television last night and told the American people that a Navy Seal team killed Ossama bin Laden.
The U.S. government announced that they sent bin Laden to his watery grave, probably somewhere in the Arabian Sea.
Bravo to Obama and CIA Chief Leon Panetta for brining bin Laden to justice.
However, the decisions surrounding the disposition of bin Laden's cold, dead body were not without controversy.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I wonder why the government didn't keep bin Laden's body around for independent verification.
Obama is from Chicago -- a town notorious for winning close elections within the margin of error coming from dead people voting from the grave. Those dead folks put Kennedy in office in 1960.
Yes, bin Laden is probably dead, but the Obama administration should have produced independent verification of bin Laden's death. They didn't.
The administration's mistakes around verification of bin Laden's death will result in bin Laden's demise joining Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination in the chronicles of American conspiratorial political history.
It didn't have to be that way. But the administration's actions made it so.
The U.S. government announced that they sent bin Laden to his watery grave, probably somewhere in the Arabian Sea.
Bravo to Obama and CIA Chief Leon Panetta for brining bin Laden to justice.
However, the decisions surrounding the disposition of bin Laden's cold, dead body were not without controversy.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I wonder why the government didn't keep bin Laden's body around for independent verification.
Obama is from Chicago -- a town notorious for winning close elections within the margin of error coming from dead people voting from the grave. Those dead folks put Kennedy in office in 1960.
Yes, bin Laden is probably dead, but the Obama administration should have produced independent verification of bin Laden's death. They didn't.
The administration's mistakes around verification of bin Laden's death will result in bin Laden's demise joining Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination in the chronicles of American conspiratorial political history.
It didn't have to be that way. But the administration's actions made it so.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Consumer Reports: Chevy Volt doesn't make economic sense
Consumer Reports recently wrote a scathing report on Government Motors new Wundercar -- the Chevy Volt.
Consumer Reports concluded that:
"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy."
They are exactly right.
In real world conditions, the Volt will go about 28 miles on a charge. It takes 3 to 4 hours to recharge it.
Contrast that with the Tesla Roadster (made in America) which gets up to 245 miles on a charge and the upcoming Tesla Model S sedan, which will get up to 300 miles on a charge.
Unlike the Tesla models, the Volt has a gasoline engine that kicks in to recharge the battery when it runs dry. As Consumer Reports concluded, the combination doesn't live up to GM's hype.
Plug-in electrics are not the future anyway.
I've been convinced for quite a few years that Hydrogen Fuel cell electrics are the future. Most of the major auto companies, including Mercedes, Toyota, and even GM, seem to agree.
Fuel cell cars are powered by the most abundant molecule in the universe -- hydrogen. They produce electricity through a chemical reaction that is caused by combining hydrogen and oxygen. That energy is fed into an electrical motor. The only tailpipe emission is water vapor.
GM has a pretty good fuel cell prototype in the Equinox Fuel Cell SUV. The Equinox is a full size SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
The Equinox will currently go 160 miles on a tank full of hydrogen in real world conditions. It can be refueled in a couple of minutes. On a fuel cost basis, it gets about 70 miles to a gallon of gas. Not bad. And it's electric, so you get close to full torque at all RPMs, even in reverse!
Toyota has been showing off a similar fuel cell SUV. Mercedes is currently piloting a small "B-class" fuel cell car, with plans for larger fuel cell cars in the near future. Toyota and most other car companies have major fuel cell efforts underway.
The big challenge to fuel cell adoption is the refueling infrastructure.
GM has partnered with the Hawaiian Gas Company, which is building hydrogen refueling stations across Oahu. Mercedes has formed similar partnerships with energy companies in Germany who plan to roll out 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations in Germany over the next five years. California already has a handful of hydrogen refueling stations, with plans for many more.
Tesla has proved that electrical cars can be sexy and powerful. The Telsa Roadster is a great looking car. It goes from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds, which is as fast as the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, Corvette Z06, and Porsche 911 GT3.
Electric cars are definitely the future.
What we need is an electric car that can be refueled in about the same time as a gasoline car.
That is what hydrogen fuel cells provide.
Hat's off to GM for trying something new and innovative with the Volt. Innovations don't always succeed. I suspect that the Volt will wind up amongst the long line of failures that GM has tried to bring to market over the last several decades.
However, GM is also on the forefront of fuel cell technology. That's a good thing.
Consumer Reports concluded that:
"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy."
They are exactly right.
In real world conditions, the Volt will go about 28 miles on a charge. It takes 3 to 4 hours to recharge it.
Contrast that with the Tesla Roadster (made in America) which gets up to 245 miles on a charge and the upcoming Tesla Model S sedan, which will get up to 300 miles on a charge.
Unlike the Tesla models, the Volt has a gasoline engine that kicks in to recharge the battery when it runs dry. As Consumer Reports concluded, the combination doesn't live up to GM's hype.
Plug-in electrics are not the future anyway.
I've been convinced for quite a few years that Hydrogen Fuel cell electrics are the future. Most of the major auto companies, including Mercedes, Toyota, and even GM, seem to agree.
Fuel cell cars are powered by the most abundant molecule in the universe -- hydrogen. They produce electricity through a chemical reaction that is caused by combining hydrogen and oxygen. That energy is fed into an electrical motor. The only tailpipe emission is water vapor.
GM has a pretty good fuel cell prototype in the Equinox Fuel Cell SUV. The Equinox is a full size SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
The Equinox will currently go 160 miles on a tank full of hydrogen in real world conditions. It can be refueled in a couple of minutes. On a fuel cost basis, it gets about 70 miles to a gallon of gas. Not bad. And it's electric, so you get close to full torque at all RPMs, even in reverse!
Toyota has been showing off a similar fuel cell SUV. Mercedes is currently piloting a small "B-class" fuel cell car, with plans for larger fuel cell cars in the near future. Toyota and most other car companies have major fuel cell efforts underway.
The big challenge to fuel cell adoption is the refueling infrastructure.
GM has partnered with the Hawaiian Gas Company, which is building hydrogen refueling stations across Oahu. Mercedes has formed similar partnerships with energy companies in Germany who plan to roll out 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations in Germany over the next five years. California already has a handful of hydrogen refueling stations, with plans for many more.
Tesla has proved that electrical cars can be sexy and powerful. The Telsa Roadster is a great looking car. It goes from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds, which is as fast as the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, Corvette Z06, and Porsche 911 GT3.
Electric cars are definitely the future.
What we need is an electric car that can be refueled in about the same time as a gasoline car.
That is what hydrogen fuel cells provide.
Hat's off to GM for trying something new and innovative with the Volt. Innovations don't always succeed. I suspect that the Volt will wind up amongst the long line of failures that GM has tried to bring to market over the last several decades.
However, GM is also on the forefront of fuel cell technology. That's a good thing.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Random Thoughts on the Situation in Japan
Japan is suffering through a horrendous series of back-to-back catastrophes that are starting to make the world question whether or not Japan will survive.
I've been to Japan 25+ times. Japan is a great country. The Japanese are a great people. They will survive these catastrophes.
However, they may not be able to survive their own brain dead politics which have:
A.) Kept Japan in a rolling recession for 20 years because the politicians refuse to reform their financial system.
B.) Torpedoed population growth by discouraging young women from marrying and having babies. (Only single women can really have careers in Japan, so many young women just don't get married and don't have kids.)
As sad as it sounds, perhaps the Earthquake, Tsunami, and resulting nuclear challenges will wake Japan out of it's 20 year old slumber and ignite their spirit of quality, excellence, and results that typified Japan in decades after WWII.
I've been to Japan 25+ times. Japan is a great country. The Japanese are a great people. They will survive these catastrophes.
However, they may not be able to survive their own brain dead politics which have:
A.) Kept Japan in a rolling recession for 20 years because the politicians refuse to reform their financial system.
B.) Torpedoed population growth by discouraging young women from marrying and having babies. (Only single women can really have careers in Japan, so many young women just don't get married and don't have kids.)
As sad as it sounds, perhaps the Earthquake, Tsunami, and resulting nuclear challenges will wake Japan out of it's 20 year old slumber and ignite their spirit of quality, excellence, and results that typified Japan in decades after WWII.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Libyan War Hypocrisy
The reaction to the Libyan war on all sides has been hilarious and the worst demonstration of hypocrisy that I have ever seen.
Republicans who cheered Bush when he attacked Iraq are now up in arms about Obama doing essentially the same thing.
On the other side, the same Democrats who attacked Bush are either cheering Obama or remaining silent.
The ONLY two groups who have been completely consistent are the far-far left (Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, etc.) and libertarians (Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, etc).
Obama's foreign escapade has done a great job uncovering how screwed up things have really become in America.
Republicans who cheered Bush when he attacked Iraq are now up in arms about Obama doing essentially the same thing.
On the other side, the same Democrats who attacked Bush are either cheering Obama or remaining silent.
The ONLY two groups who have been completely consistent are the far-far left (Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, etc.) and libertarians (Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, etc).
Obama's foreign escapade has done a great job uncovering how screwed up things have really become in America.
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