Category Archives: Politics

General, Politics

Some Daunting Numbers

I was just checking out the Census Bureau Population Report on Households. We are up to about 114M households in the US today, with about 2.55 persons per household. (Read the report if you want to see how they breakdown household compositions.) Of course, another Census Bureau report says we are at 116M households with a average of 2.56 people per household. I’m sure it all depends on what their definition of a household is, related vs non-related, etc.

With the National Debt at about $10,000,000,000,000, that runs to about $87K per household. The $700,000,000,000 bailout Rescue Plan that Congress is reviewing at present would add another $6K to average household debt. The median household income per year is about $50K per year. All that means is the 58M households make less than $50K per year and 58M households make more than $50K per year. So our national debt could be paid off in less than two years if nobody spent any money and just paid down the debt. In the meantime, the operating budget of the US for the next year is budgeted at $3,107,000,000,000, or $27K per household. (that doesn’t include the bailout figures). But US Households will only have to pay ~$19K each, for $2,200,000,000,000; $500,000,000 will be paid by other income sources. (Corporate taxes are expected to gather up to $339,000,000), and the remaining $400,000,000 will be tacked on to the debt. (Good ol’ Republicans, leaving their legacy ever deeper.)

I am finding it very difficult to find an ‘average’ household income. Everyone wants to list the median income. Whether the average is relevant, I am not sure. Incomes in the 5th quintile can be very skewed.

Economics, General, Politics

re: Executive Compensation

I have been hearing a bit that, as a result of the current financial meltdown, the salaries, the golden parachutes and the exorbitant compensation many (if not all) financial executives receive should be reduced due to their incompetence and malfeasance, especially if they expect the fed to bail them out.  On the other hand, the company/corporation and its shareholders are the ones that set the compensation and they are the ones that pay it out.

I would suggest that any annual compensation in excess of the US President’s salary be treated as taxable profit for the corporation.  So the corporation can still pay an executive $1M, $10M, $100M, but everything over $400,000 is taxed as pure profit. ( I also suggest that the President’s salary be no more than 10x the average household income in the US. )

I’m sure that these executives will try to  find a way around this limit – like ‘personal service contracts’ a la sport compensation packages – and I will leave it to the legislators to figure out how to deal with this violation of the spirit of the rule. Maybe something as simple as “executives can’t be contractors”. From my limited understanding of the corporate structure, executives are the ones that can commit a corporation to liabilities by signing a contract or agreement.

The other area of compensation that gets really outrageous is bonuses. I don’t know if bonuses can or should be tied directly back to the salary tax, but I would suggest that bonuses be deferred. An executive’s bonus should be based on how the company is doing 5, 7 or 10 years down the road, and not on what has happened in the past quarter or the past year. If a bonus is premised on an increase stock price, then let it be the stock price 5 years from now.  If the executive is no longer with the company, big deal, they, or their estate, still get the bonus.  Give the executives an incentive to lay a solid foundation for future growth rather than trying to game the system for a short-term spike in the market. That is a call for the board of directors and the shareholders, but maybe we can motivate them to go in that direction.

Politics, Preparing for the worst

it is still a lot of money…

$700 Billion, $700 Billion, $700 Billion.  Now matter how often I say it, that is still a lot of money.  Maybe if I try $.7 Trillion, $.7 Trillion, $.7 Trillion. Yeah, that’s not as bad, but it is still a lot of money.

Let’s see, about a week ago the Bush administration proposed buying up a lot of ‘toxic’ debt from various institutions to help free up the engine of the US economy. We, the American People, are being asked to bail out a bunch of de-regulated institutions who went and did what the lapsed regulations were meant to prevent.  $700 Billion. And we are being asked to blindly follow the dictates of the very people who created this mess and to decide very quickly, like by tomorrow, before we even know what the full scope of the problem is.  $700 Billion. I don’t think so.

But let’s say the idiots in Congress decide to further mortgage the future and attempt some sort of bailout. I would suggest that we don’t pay more that $.10 on the $1, and that we don’t buy any derivatives*. This purchase should only limited to base mortgage securities.  With Fannie Mae, et. al. we already have half the mortgages in the country.  Then once we have all these sub-prime mortgages, we can renegotiate with the original mortgage holder for $.50 on the $1.  And We, The People, can make a bit of profit and maybe let folks keep their homes.  Of course, the drawback is that it will take 30+ years to close the books on this.  Maybe once we have restructured all these mortgages from sub-prime to prime, we can bundle them up as security instruments and sell them back to the free marketplace?

And we will take our national debt from $9.7 Trillion to $10.4 Trillion. When you say it that way, maybe it isn’t a lot of money. Oh, but wait, don’t we still have another $400 billion to add to the debt in the next budget? $10.8 Trillion – let’s round it out to $11 Trillion –  we can live with that.

Or maybe the institutions that are going to sell these securities to us at $.10 on the $1 can avoid the middle-man, take the write-offs and renegotiate with the mortgage holders directly for $.50 on the $1.

*Whatever we do, we should not buy derivatives, at least not until a majority of the country has passed an introductory calculus course.

Economics, Liberating Thoughts, Politics, Preparing for the worst

Whose Economic Policies Work Best?!?

Personally, I consider the National Debt to be the greatest threat to the future well-being of the United States. Followed closely by deficit spending. Given the economic news of the past week, with the Federal Government doing its best to socialize losses, I expect the debt will continue to grow. (Did you know the National Debt is about to hit $10 Trillion? That’s Trillion, with a Tr.)

Avedon compiled a review of past administration economic results that Dwight Meredith studied “Just For the Record” – covering 1962-2001.

The link has some specific numbers and links to other interesting pages.

A bit of Summary:
Continue reading Whose Economic Policies Work Best?!? →

Politics

McCain still thinks economy is strong

YouTube – McCain still thinks economy is strong.

I would like to hear John McCain’s explanation as to what the fundamentals of our economy are. Will any of the debate interviewers ask that question and work to get an answer to the question?

For that matter, I would like to hear Obama’s answer to that question.

Between McCain and Obama, which one is more likely to “fix Wall Street”? I’m definitely not betting on the Republican. And I haven’t heard anything to make me think the Democrats will either.

General, Liberating Thoughts, Politics

Trying to make history : AFA professor eyes run for Lamborn’s U.S. House seat

Trying to make history : AFA professor eyes run for Lamborn’s U.S. House seat : Local News : Local News : Colorado Springs Independent : Colorado Springs.

I had a chance to meet Hal last night. He is a very engaging speaker – recounting his adventures up at the DNC in Denver. And he has some good ideas on what Congress needs to be working on, check out his web site –

It’s the Alexander Hamilton bit that worries me…I tend to be more Jeffersonian…

Liberating Thoughts, Politics

Reflections on the Fourth:

I have sort of half been paying attention to the buzz going around this year on the pending elections. The Nominees have been determined and now each side is looking for a VP that will make a difference.

I saw a reposting of a Washington Post piece on the allegiance of a patriot an American. It does well to capture what I think of as the base ideals of America, ideals that are run over roughshod in the current political climate.

I see that Clark made a statement that being a war hero, to have made a large personal sacrifice for your country, does not mean that you are qualified to be commander-in-chief. I also heard the follow-up – that reaching the strategic command level begins to reach the level of qualification Clark was referring to. Clark was lambasted for dissing McCain, which he wasn’t doing. And McCain’s people can’t say that just because McCain has made great personal sacrifices for his country that he is qualified to be President. Neither approach is correct; neither being a war hero nor being a strategic genius qualifies you to be the President – or Commander-in-Chief. And it is foolish to pretend it does. But, I suppose the pundits need to prattle on about something. The very thought of MacArthur as President sends shivers down my spine.

The President is a civilian authority. He, or she, has the resources of the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs to call upon to review military options. That’s their job. I am afraid that too many in the current administration see the military as a foreign policy tool and since we paid so much for it, it seems kind of silly not to use it. So they invade sovereign nations that are not an eminent threat to the US or to its allies and squander billions of dollars of the US treasury and thousands of soldier’s lives. And Congress, our representatives, lets them get away with it. Why are WE letting THEM get away with it?

The President is not the King of the United States of America. Yet many seem to think of him as a king and to treat him as a king. His deciding decisions are the final authority on all matters great and small. If the President makes a decree that the pundits agree with, then it is treason to disagree with the President. (Of course, if the pundits disagree with him then he is a buffoon or a criminal.) Presidents shouldn’t make decrees; they should make suggestions, and maybe even suggest how a suggestion can be implemented, but they shouldn’t make decrees. Leave that for the idiots in Congress.

As we have observed this past Fourth, the United States of America was founded on the principle that we do not owe allegiance to one man, to one sovereign. The people are sovereign; the citizens are sovereign.

And there are natural rights that apply to all humans. These are inherent human rights that we hold to be self-evident. We started to define them in our Declaration of Independence and further refined them in our Constitution. These are natural human rights, unalienable; not just American rights. We just happened to be the first to codify these rights for all and our prosperity. It does well to ponder these rights on the Fourth, to remember where we came from and why, and to look upon our current path, and to see if we are still moving, progressing in the desired direction.

Liberating Thoughts, Politics

“The Four Freedoms”

The essential human freedoms don’t change over time, driven by partisan politics. They are a constant basic foundation of our social fabric.

Please don’t forget them.

American Rhetoric: Franklin D. Roosevelt — “The Four Freedoms”


In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception — the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Economics, Politics

Entering the economic quagmire…

I read an article over on Making Light and it got me to pondering.

What libertarians (and the softheaded quasi-libertarian burghers of science fiction fandom, most of whom think the Economist is a voice of reason) need to learn is that capitalism is never about free markets, or in fact “freedom” of any sort; it’s about using the power of the state in order to make it easy for large amounts of capital to get together and rearrange the rules for its own convenience. “Privatize the profits, socialize the losses” is the logical consequence of capitalism’s prime directive. What we wind up with is socialism for the powerful, and tough shit for everybody else.

“Privatize the profits, socialize losses” seems to be a very apt description of Wall Street Capitalism.  Every decade or two we seem to need to learn the lesson all over again. If rules and regulations get set up, the players learn to game the system while continually trying to undermine the regulators – Oh! they’re not needed anymore since we learned that lesson!

But I did start to ponder about the full matrix that the statement creates.

  1. Privatize profits ——socialize losses
  2. Socialize profits——socialize  losses
  3. Socialize profits——privatize losses
  4. Privatize profits——privatize losses
  1. is straight Wall Street Capitalism
  2. is probably straight Socialism
  3. is never going to happen, or is it philanthropy?
  4. is complete anarchy/ true capitalism

I must continue my pondering.