Carnival of Political Solutions -- May 20, 2008

Welcome to the May 20, 2008 edition of carnival of political solutions. This edition brought once again a lot of excellent posts, many from our regular contributors. Unfortunately, many were off-topic, and as such, not included in this carnival.

Lets start with 30 years old, but still relevant article on American Spirit entitled Have we Forgotten of Clyde W. Kirkman posted at Fred Black's Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..

Jeffrey Stingerstein presents 'in vitro meat', a -- still hypothetical, unfortunately -- solution to many ethical and economical problems in A Question to the Carnivorous... posted at Disillusioned Words.

John Phillips discusses the stigma related to mental health problems in Mental Health and the Workplace posted at The Word On Employment Law.

Phil B. argues against tariffs and subsidies Subsidies and Tariffs are Anti-Capitalism « Phil for Humanity posted at Phil for Humanity, saying, "Are subsides and tariffs fair in a free market?"

Chicks With Guns Magazine presents a tongue-in-cheek diatribe Whirled News - President, Candidates Address Gasoline, Climate Crisis posted at Chicks With Guns.

Mark Schauss calls for a crash R&D program for clean energy in An Apollo Program for Clean Energy? posted at Toxic World Blog - Detoxify and Heal Your Body.

Shan Siddiqi presents Immigration - the key to economic success? posted at Globally Rational, saying, "Some of the most successful countries are also the most cosmopolitan. But which comes first: the immigration or the economic success?"

John Phillips discusses race issues in Would you hire Hillary? posted at The Word On Employment Law.

Rickey Henderson presents a political review of action hero movie in Rickey Reviews This “Iron Mensch” Movie That The Kids Seem Rather Keen On… posted at Riding with Rickey.

Lucynda Riley argues for less government and more market in PayDay Loan Companies prevented from doing business in Arkansas. posted at Quietly Into the Night.

Working 3 or 4 days a week seems like a very fine idea, but may or may not be economically feasible. It was presented though by Lucynda Riley in Just some ideas posted at Bound Down South.

An excellent point: I am not terrified!, posted by Adam Pieniazek in War on Terror Ends! at Adam Pieniazek.

Dr. Jose DeJesus discusses the unsustainable current arrangement where large payers, including government, insurance, and large employers have negotiated payment rates that do not reflect real healthcare costs. Those who have limited benefit or no health insurance face rates that often reflect distortions created by these large payers, and mandated but unfunded costs. Finally, Dr. DeJesus suggests some alternatives to the current situation in Cash Before Treatment - The Crisis in Medical Care Funding posted at Physician Entrepreneur"

Jeffrey Stingerstein discusses oil problems in Oil Oil Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink (Part One) posted at Disillusioned Words.

Matthew presents Project "Elected Official Accountability" posted at Conservatives and Normals . Com - The Blog, saying, "An attempt to hold elected officials accountable."

APH discusses the infamous gas-tax-holiday in How McCain or Obama Can Permanently Eliminate the Gas Tax, Cut Pork, Help the Environment, and Save Face posted at Market Urbanism, saying, "A unique free-market solution to the gas tax:
John McCain and Hillary Clinton have both supported the idea of a “Gas Tax Holiday“. The whole idea of a Holy Day to celebrate the worship of socialized transportation catered by Santa Clinton/McCain seems pretty absurd to me. Nonetheless, they expect pandering to gas-addicted voters to pay off in their election hopes.
Unfortunately, such a gas holiday would burden the deficit, incentivize the burning of fossil fuels, and further socialize our transportation system."

Adding his voice to the current debate on presidential candidates is SteveW, who presents Why Obama Shouldn?t Be President. at PurposePlansLife.

And we finish with a cartoon by Jeremy Zongker entitled Election Promises posted at Debt Comics.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
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Stop Farm Subsidies

In a few days the Congress is going to vote on the $300 billion Farm Bill. Its passage is pretty much assured, however, there is still hope that president Bush would veto it, as he should.

The bill contains a significant number of provisions, all of them either wasteful, harmful or downright scandalous. Yes, scandalous! How else can you call a provision, added by the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that gives tax breaks to the owners of the race horses? How do they dare to create taxpayer funded welfare for race horse owners?! Well, McConnell is from Kentucky after all, I guess he or his friends/relatives own some race horses...

However, this, and other provisions like this, are just a drop in the bucket (or trough, as some would have it). The real problem lies in the commodity subsidies.

The federal government is giving out some $30 billion a year to farmers, for producing certain commodities: corn, rice, soybeans, etc. These subsidies create a lot of troubles, and solve nothing.

First problem, the redistribution of income. It is always bad when the government takes money form one group and gives it to another, but in this case it borders on ridiculous. In 2005, the average of farm household income was about $80,000 while average of all household income was close to $65,000. So, in effect, the subsidies move money from the poorer general population to the wealthier few. Very few. The list of recipients of the federal farm subsidies include such names and companies as David Rockefeller, Chevron, Eli Lily, Ted Turner, Kenneth Lay (of Enron fame). In fact, about 75% of the subsidies go to the wealthiest 10% of recipients. The other 90% of recipients receive in average some $500, that is, less than one percent of what Mr. Turner gets. And with current (and most likely, future) commodity prices at record high, why should we subsidize them at all?

Well, the federal government argues that we get lower food prices in return for our subsidies. Maybe, but since the price cuts are paid for with our taxes, where's the gain? Considering that the money go through the federal redistribution, it is a safe bet that half of it is wasted and/or stolen on the way from taxpayer through the federal government through the farmers back to the taxpayers (in the form of lower food prices). I would much rather keep the tax money and pay 3 cents more for an apple.

Another problem created by the subsidies is the distortion in the commodity market. The farmers, having even small incentive, will produce more what the farm bill tells them to produce, instead of what is needed. Rather than paying attention to the demand and supply (which is the only way to have real competition that brings prices down), the farmers pay attention what the central government want them to grow. Currently, our lawmakers want mostly corn. That leads to overproduction of corn, which is then wasted (actually, it is distilled into ethanol, but since creating a gallon of ethanol from corn uses about a gallon of oil, it is pretty much wasted effort), and underproduction of everything else. Have you been grocery shopping recently? These prices are results of such underproduction, coupled with the oil price and the weakness of the dollar, of course.

Then there is the current budget deficit. Farm subsidies are paid by either borrowed money, or "printed" money. The first method is rather costly, and results in ever-increasing taxes; the second one raises inflation and increases prices, defeating the very purpose of the subsidies. If there ever was something to cut from the federal budget, it is farm subsidies.

There is still time, write your representative!

Housing Rescue or Highway Robbery

I have never thought it would come to this, but I actually agree with president Bush. He threatens to veto the new "housing rescue" bill, and I can't hope enough he will actually do it.

The House of Representatives must share Hillary Clinton's opinion on economists and other "elite" specialists: "who needs thinking if we can get votes". And what is the easiest way of getting votes if not giving one group of people money squeezed from another group?

In particular, two of the bill's provisions are particularly harmful. First the House want to spend $15 billion buying foreclosed houses. I don't know where to start on that, even. What business the government has buying houses? If I want invest my money in real estate, I will do it myself, thank you very much. I do not need a bunch of politicos in Washington telling me that my (tax) money is best spent speculating on foreclosed houses. And if it is not a speculation on real estate than what? Bailout for the morons bankers and investors who made bad decisions, gave money to unqualified borrowers and ended up holding empty houses in disrepair? If so, the only thing that should be said is "if you can't take the risk of investing, don't invest." And not, as the House would have it, "if you lose on your investments, and have some friends on the Hill, the taxpayers will make up your losses." This is nothing but a robbery.

The second brain-dead provision would have the federal government pay up to $300 billion for the shaky loans that unqualified borrowers cannot pay. Three hundred billion dollars! Of taxpayer money, channeled to those who got houses they couldn't afford. And where are they proposing to find this money? Raise taxes? That wouldn't do in an election year. Sell Alaska back to the Russians? Same here. Borrow more from China? I guess. Isn't it ironic how our leaders think they can get out of the mess caused by reckless borrowing by recklessly borrowing even more?

In effect, this bill would reward the greedy investors who take more risk than they can; the unscrupulous loan pushers giving money to whoever they could catch, regardless of qualification; the reckless home buyers getting loans on houses they could not really afford.

And those who wisely managed their money, did not live above their means, got modest houses or apartments, paid their tax bills and worked their behind off to be able to earn money for it all?

They get robbed blind.

You can express your opinion on this issue at Where I Stand.

Elite Economists

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Hillary Clinton said when asked which economist thinks her proposal is sane. Then she declared that the "elite opinion" of specialists in their fields is somehow harmful to the "vast majority of Americans." This is scary. A presidential candidate, who dismisses educated advice in favor of wishful thinking is really going to make mess out of our country. Didn't we learn something in the last 8 years!? "Cakewalk", "they will greet us with flowers", "mission accomplished", "that's helluva job, Brownie". When will we understand that even the best of our wishes do not become true just because we want them? The laws of physics are immutable, and so are the laws of economy. The President does not have to know everything, but he -- or she -- has to listen to those who know about a particular area. And if those who spent years of their life figuring out economic results of our actions tell us that what we want to do will be at best wasteful and at worst disastrous, we ignore them at our own peril.

What's next? Dismissing the "elite opinion" of engineers that the paper bridge we want to build will collapse? Rejecting the "elite opinion" of doctors that shooting ourselves in the foot will hurt?

The egotism of Hillary Clinton thinking that she and her ignorance is better for the country than specialists and their education is truly staggering. It is scary. But not as scary as what happened in Indiana the day after her speech: she rose in the polls. Instead of tanking to the bottom, she actually rose. I guess the populace feels some resentment towards more educated and more knowledgeable people. After all, who likes them nerds. Especially in America, where, in the 21 century, belief in ESP (extrasensory perception) is more widespread than knowledge that electrons are smaller than atoms*.

What's next? Perhaps Ms. Clinton, as the president, will remake our health care system, replacing these elite physicians with witch doctors? Put the Chief Astrologer as the head of NASA? Get rid of the elite telecommunication engineers and tell people to use telepathy instead of telephones?

People! Wake up! Ms. Clinton is a disaster in making. Unless we stop her right now, we will be in a really big trouble.


* http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c7/c7s2.htm

Assassination of D.C. Madam

I am not much of a conspiracy theory buff. I do not believe in UFO hold at Area 51, and I laugh at people who tell me that the CIA did in JFK. But today a headline caught my eye: "Police: D.C. Madam killed herself..." I have looked more closely: it was an article form AP written by Mitch Stacy. I read it, and I could not believe my eyes.

Specifically, the following comment just blew my mind away: "... making good on her vow never to go to prison for running a high-end Washington prostitution ring..." I thought that reading on grade level was a prerequisite for being a writer for AP, but apparently I was wrong. What the D.C. Madam said was: "I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever. Not for a second. I'll bring every last one of them in if necessary."

Got it? Not "I will hang myself", but "I'll bring every last one of them." And now she is dead. There will be no bringing anyone, no deputy secretary needs to tremble thinking about his escapades. Yeah, trembling. Remember what happened to Eliot Spitzer? The Client Number 9, who used to be a powerful err... someone or other? I bet the politicos on D.C. Madam's list wouldn't like to share his fate and be remembered only as a next client number XYZ.

So, what is going to happen now? My guess would be - nothing. The police will accept the suicide story. Why not? It is convenient, and it is safe. If they try to dig deeper, some congressman, deputy secretary or commissioner will come after them, so why bother? The politicos will be only too happy to let the story die, lest someone finds his own name on the client list. The public? Well, the public is apathetic enough not to do anything, as usual. And the media? They have abdicated their responsibility as the nation's watchdog, and so we should not expect anything but talking heads reading press releases prepared by the politicos.

We, the people, have to demand a thorough investigation. We have to reject the cover story, and dig deeper. We need to publish the list of prostitutes' clients anyway, thus denying the crooks their objective.

I have not been this outraged about the death of a public figure and the subsequent stories about it since the year 2000. Do you remember? The plane carrying Senator Paul Wellstone crashed, killing the Senator and his family, and, by quite a coincidence, handing the control of the Senate to the Republicans for the next six years.

To quote a TV commercial: "People, wake up!" Do you really want a country where politicians get troublesome people murdered and no one even makes a peep?