Good Day for Terrorists

Imagine a terrorist cell in a dark basement. They are putting together bomb vests, meant for suicide bombers that other cells are busy recruiting from the poorest segments of the local population. It's a simple plan of attack: find people with nothing to live for and convince them that blowing themselves up in the middle of lunch hour at a local cafe will make them a hero.

This terrorist plan works. It kills innocents and creates a tragic story that generates a lot of press coverage. The cost of the strategy is low, as the suicide bombers are as cheap to obtain as the bomb vests they wear. The biggest problem for terrorists is how to get into areas that Americans frequent, because after all, killing Americans is the fastest way to the jihad wall of fame.

Today these terrorists can celebrate a good day. Not only is the U.S. Attorney General opening investigations into CIA interrogations, but layers of bureaucracy are being added to the law enforcement process to avoid future problem of a similar nature. Instead of protecting Americans from terrorists, the CIA is now expending a lot of energy protecting it's own agents from federal prosecutors.

All of this adds up to less pressure, less resources, and less motivation to chase terrorists. And if we are foolish enough to drag a CIA agent out and publicly embarrass him or her for interrogating a terrorist harshly, you can guarantee that the story will be a top headline on Al Jazeera, prompting much celebration.

God help us. We've become more interested in chasing our own protectors than we are in chasing our enemies.

No More Cash 4 Clunkers

We have recently learned that if you give $4,500 to people that trade in junk cars that we can raise auto sales. It was so important that we borrowed money from China to fund the program. But at what expense?

As I walked my children to their first day of school this morning I caught myself wondering how much debt we, as a country, have taken on in the name of quick auto sales. In 2015, as we continue to pay interest on our national debt, will we still think the Cash 4 Clunkers program was worth it? I doubt it.

The U.S. government is literally risking the future of my children over these programs. These silly little, multi-billion dollar programs that have great media tag lines and very little (if any) economic effect mean more tax burdens for the future. The math doesn't work any other way.

We are spending government (taxpayer) money at a record pace. We are mortgaging our future.

I don't care how much we need change, if we can't pay for it, we don't deserve it.

Where Did the Anti-War Movement Go?

Last night I watched clips of president Obama as he spoke concerning the war in Afghanistan. It was eerie. He said things like:

• This is a war of necessity.
• It will not be easy, or over quickly.
• This war is about freedom, and make no mistake, we will win.

If you were to read such quotes without knowing who the speaker was, would you dream it was anyone other than Bush? Where did the anti-war movement go?

We still have roughly 130,000 troops in Iraq. We are on our way to 68,000 in Afghanistan. We are actively fighting terror in 2009 in exactly the same way we fought it in 2007. But I haven't seen any media coverage of peace vigils. I still see bumper stickers with anti-Bush messages, but now that the commander in chief has changed I don't feel any of the same energy in the discussion.

Is is possible that Bush ignited such hatred in the U.S. that simply removing him from the white house has made the war on terror acceptable to millions of citizens? I'm at a complete loss on this one...

The Fallacy of a Public Mandate

The false idea of a public mandate has created problems for the white house and its most loyal followers at critical moments. Cap & Trade is dead, and health care reform is dying. How could this have happened? Didn't Americans give president Obama a mandate for change? No, but the media sure did.

Jay Cost, writing for RealClearPolitics.com says:
Yet the election of 2008 was not like the 1932 contest. It wasn't like 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, or even 1988, either. Obama's election was narrower than all of these. FDR won 42 of 48 states. Eisenhower won 39, then 41. Johnson won 44 of 50. Nixon won 49. Reagan won 44, then 49. George H.W. Bush won 40. Obama won 28, three fewer than George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 reelection.

When I read this I was extremely surprised. The election certainly never felt that close. And yet this begins to explain why democrats are having trouble pushing a more liberal policy agenda. The majority of voters are centrists, and these centrists have always feared big swings in government policy.

Just as important, these centrists do not trust the U.S. government to control costs in any way. Neither republicans nor democrats have a recent track record of fiscal control, and attempting to push reform with a "we can do it cheaper" argument borders on comical.

There is no mandate. There was instead a vote of no confidence for former president Bush. But confusing these two could prove very harmful for the white house.

Free Preventive Health Care is a Lie

Proponents of health care reform have changed their talking points, now it is all about "Free preventive health care for all!". They tell us that preventive medicine saves money for all of us. But this is a big, fat lie.

At first take this story sounds plausible. If we can help someone avoid a heart attack, then the treatment it takes to prevent the heart attack is certainly cheaper than treating the crisis of an actual heart attack. But this is only true in individual cases. When you spread the costs out across our entire country, it ends up costing us billions more.

Here's how the math works:

Paying for Heart Attacks-

• Each year roughly 1.1 million Americans suffer a heart attack
• A heart attack will cost roughly $20,000
• Total heart attack costs for all 1.1 million patients should be roughly $22 billion

Paying to Prevent Heart Attacks-

• There are over 300 million Americans in this country
  If we granted preventive care to the 20% that are at the highest risk we would need to treat 60 million people (which may not be a big enough number for the biggest disease problem in the U.S.)
• If we could take the entire $22 billion expense of treating heart attacks and divide it by the 60 million people needing preventive treatment we would be allowed to spend $367 per person on preventive care.

What would $367 get us? Nothing of substance I'm sure, at least not with the government in charge of it. And that number assumes we stop all spending on treating actual heart attacks, which is a terrible assumption. It would be a huge deal if we could cut the number of heart attacks in half (saving 550,000 heart attacks annually). But that means we can only spend half of the $22 billion, or $184 per person, on preventive care. And this is with zero savings!

So please, let's not lie about saving money by opening up free health care to millions of people. Free health care may be a lot of things, but free isn't one of them.

Where's the Recovery?

The stock market has rallied in a HUGE way, the government and media are telling us the worst is over, but is it? Personally, I haven't felt any recovery. In fact, I've got a whole new round of friends that have lost jobs in the last two months.

In a recent article posted on CNN, Ian Shepherson, Chief U.S. economist for High Fequency Economics, said:
"The big story is the core [retail sales]. Excluding autos, gas and food, sales fell 0.4%. That's the fifth straight decline," Shepherdson said. "People are cash-constrained and credit-starved. Remember, their spending accounts for 89% of private sector GDP."

Consumers are spending less money because they are afraid for their jobs. Nouriel Roubini, on Forbes.com, had this to say about the job situation which has recently been reported to show improvement:
The decline in the unemployment rate from 9.5% in June to 9.4% in July was not due to an improvement in the employment situation but is explained by the large decline in the labor force (-422,000). Workers facing hiring freezes, fewer full-time jobs and jobs at lower wages are leaving the labor force.

"Leaving the work force" is a reference to the fact that after too many months of being unemployed we simply stop counting people as workers. Instead, we say they have "left the work force". So last month, the number of people that "left the work force" was 422,000.

The job situation is terrible, people aren't spending, but the government is still saying:
"We're probably looking at a turnaround in GDP before the end of the year, so then we'd expect jobs to normally start growing shortly after that," said Christina Romer, President's Council of Economic Advisers.

So while the some talk recovery, I'm left wondering what we are recovering. American households lost $14 trillion in wealth in the last 18 months - that amount is greater than one year of our country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP - a measure of the value of EVERYTHING produced in this country).

Reforming Medical Malpractice

With everyone screaming for health care reform, why aren't our elected officials considering tort reform? Why are we afraid to limit legal liability for doctors?

From a recent Washington Post article:
Health-care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deals with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more -- that's how doctors make money and that's how they protect themselves from lawsuits.

In short, doctors pay huge premiums for malpractice insurance, and end up ordering more tests in an effort to protect themselves from mistakes. This is a lose - lose proposition, adding costs at an increasing rate. And who do you think pays the bill? You! The medical consumer. Through increased fees.

Here's how it works. Let's imagine that you go to a surgeon to remove a mole. That surgeon is paying $240,000 per year in malpractice insurance ($20,000 per month). This surgeon has a low (yes, that is a low surgeon's rate!) rate of insurance because she hasn't made many mistakes in the past that ended up in court. So not only will you pay higher fees to help your surgeon recover the insurance premium, but the chances are very high that she will order unnecessary tests just to be extra sure you won't have a legal leg to stand on if something goes wrong.

So why aren't we fixing this? Are we afraid to limit damages paid in cases of terrible mistakes? Do we feel it is unjust to put a price on death (the worst possible case)? Or are we simply seeing what happens when politicians are afraid of lawyers?

I think we are afraid of lawyers. I know my doctors are!

Pelosi is a Wing-Nut

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House. And she is totally a Wing-Nut!

• Her home state, California, is a mess. IOU anyone?
• Her approval rating poll numbers are worse than Bush's.
• Her policy ideas are toxic.

Given her way, Congresswoman Pelosi would tax everyone more, grow the government, and attempt to save the planet (whatever that means). She is for government run everything and is certain the rich can pay for all of it (and her definition of rich gets lower every day).

It would be laughable except for one very important fact - Congresswoman Pelosi is the most powerful democrat after the president. She has taken the lead in drafting the bailouts, the proposed health care reform, and environmental reform. She is literally steering this country from a legislative perspective, that is what the Speaker of the House does.

If the republicans want to come back, then Pelosi is their chance. It's simple. A vote for a democrat is a vote for Pelosi. Chew on that thought. It's almost too easy. Even the president looks bad next to her...

Don't Deny Anyone Anything

Voters agree on some very basic ideas; suffering is bad, justice is good, and we deserve more of everything. This is the only set of rules I can find that explains why we refuse to deny anyone anything.

• We can't deny illegal immigrants government services, despite the fact that they do not support these services.
• We can't allow a union worker to lose a job, even if the company that employs him is tragically bankrupt.
• There is never any reason for someone to be denied health care, regardless of expense, diagnosis, or available resources.

The theme here is a big one. There should be a magical system that takes care of jobs, sickness, and anyone who might happen to need help. Sounds fantastic. If only we could wave a magic wand. (insert MP3 of Dreamweaver)

Have we become unable to say the word NO? Can we even imagine a defensible position that involves some group NOT getting more (despite the evil rich)?

I have a personal rule that may help: If you don't have the money to pay for it then you can't buy it. This works for the government, individuals, and corporations. Finite resources cannot, by definition, provide infinite services.

Iran & North Korea - Do You Feel Lucky?

President Obama extended his hand and the leaders of both Iran and North Korea clenched their fists. The hope that all the U.S. needed was a peace loving president willing to talk openly about new ideas has turned out to be false, but the delay has been valuable just the same.

Some might argue that recent efforts at diplomacy allowed our enemies more time to further their weapons programs, and there is some truth to that argument. But we need to remember our own situation and be very careful not to over commit. The U.S. should not be eager to engage in more military action:

1. The U.S. has been on a war footing for 8 years (since 9/11) and is fighting real and dangerous fatigue among soldiers, commanders, and equipment.
2. The U.S. is already in active engagements in Afghanistan (also known in history as "The graveyard of empires").
3. The U.S. economy is strained to the point of making war spending difficult.
4. The U.S. public is tired of conflict, wanting to focus on their own problem rather than those of foreigners.

It may be best is we allow our enemies to goad us into violent and decisive action - that is all we have the energy for. So my question to our enemies is, do you feel lucky? Do you really want to test a tired American public whose leader badly needs to be seen as strong and decisive? Do you really want to question our courage?

The U.S. may be slow to violence, but history shows we are more than capable of it.

New Definition of Wealthy

The U.S. has a simple plan: reform everything, go into debt to pay for it, and then tax the wealthy to pay off our debt. Great plan, except the numbers don't work out.

We need to raise taxes on the top 1.4% of tax payers by almost 50% to pay for all of the new debt we are taking on. That raise would allow us to tread water, but not pay down additional debt. So how does this work?

I'll tell you how it works, we redefine the word wealthy. Here are a few attempts:

• If you have a job, you're wealthy
• If you every had a job, you're wealthy
• If you have children, you're wealthy
• If you can see out of at least one eye, you're wealthy

And if you're wealthy, you're taxes are going up! Congratulations on being so successful! Now you can help us pay to reform the environment, health care, energy, and fashion (OK, I threw that last one in on my own, but hey, we need to look good if we're wealthy!).

You're taxes are about to go up, and not just a little. States are raising every fee they can (vehicle registration, inspections fees, camping fees, etc.) due to budget shortfalls. The federal government is about to raise income tax, medicare, and social security rates. But don't worry, you can afford it, you're wealthy.