Free kibbles

HEALTH CARE:

Max Baucus introduces so-called compromise health care oppression bill. This bill sounds almost exactly like Democrats' other health care oppression bills, but the visible cost is $900 billion instead of $1 trillion, though I'm sure it hides another half a trillion in costs just like the others. I don't know how a bill that's at least 9/10s of the way to full Obamacare can be called a compromise. It also renames the public option as health care coops as if government won't run them exactly the same as the public option. This bill is designed to attract RINOs like Olympia Snow. We're going to have to put up one heck of a fight to kill this oppression plan. We need the people of Maine to really come through on this, or their RINOs will harm us all.

Obama to get specific on health care oppression. He's got nothing to lose. He's already the least popular new president in polling history other than Ford. He's already lost his honeymoon. He's already trapped between the great mainstream of America and his radical leftist base. He's already suffered the damage from this health care oppression plan. He might as well get specific and try to twist some arms.

FEDERAL BUDGET / DEBT:

Government to spend more on interest payments than on any other programs besides Social Security and Medicare.

"The re-estimates of projected deficits and federal indebtedness just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget show that deficits are worse than forecast just a few months ago and federal indebtedness is greater. At a symposium on deficits and debt in late spring hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the foremost federal budget experts in the country were unanimous on three things: Deficits would rise, not decline, from forecasts; total federal indebtedness over the next decade would continue to surpass any previous estimates; and the United States was nearing a level of indebtedness that could undermine both the nation's economy and its security."

It took experts to notice that? What this article is really saying is bunches of so-called experts, like those in the Obama administration that projected much smaller debts and deficits, didn't see it. The press has ruined the word expert by applying it to idiots, and we need to take it back. People who are constantly wrong are not experts.

"Our current-year deficit will hit 11.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest percentage since the end of World War II. By the end of the next decade, the United States will spend more money paying the interest on the public debt than it will on any other governmental activities except Medicare and Social Security.
America will be spending more to service its debt than it will spend on education, the environment, infrastructure, scientific research, national defense and all the other things our Founding Fathers thought were important to the nation."

Obama's right about one thing. He didn't create this problem. George Bush didn't create it either, though Bush made worse and Obama is making it far worse. This is the result of decades of loose monetary policy, growth of government and growth in taxes.

POLITICS:

Obama has put himself in a position where it's impossible for him to win. Progressives are unhappy he fired his Marxist, 9/11 truther, green jobs czar. Every decision Obama makes will either anger the vast majority of Americans or his radical leftist base. He can't win. This firing provides insight into why Obama's popularity is in free fall:

"[T]he rise and fall of Mr. Jones is one more warning that Mr. Obama can't succeed on his current course of governing from the left. He is running into political trouble not because his own message is unclear, or because his opposition is better organized. Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn't tell the American people that the "change" they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones."

In other words, Obama pretended he wasn't a radical leftist, and even though the evidence that he was a radical leftist was overwhelming, many voters chose to be ignorant.

MISC:

In another sign of the decline of America, placebos are getting more effective, meaning people are becoming less rational. We see that in politics every day.

This Obama speech for school kids is drippingly paternal. He has no business expecting things of school kids. He's not one of their parents. He should not try to assume the role of a surrogate parent. He has no business making their education about the country. That's collectivism. As I predicted, this speech isn't about liberal versus conservative, but it promotes collectivism, the nanny state, government control of education and the expectation that the president and the Federal government should be involved in our daily lives. That's political, and I reject it all. No child should be forced to watch it.

How government policy including the minimum wage, subsidized college loans and child work laws are stealing productive years from America's youth.

"It turns out that half of college graduates under the age of 25 are working in jobs that require no college education at all. Think of Starbucks, the Gap, Target, and the like. Not that there is anything wrong with these jobs. But here's the thing: these positions used to be held by young people before they finished college (which is in turn devoting itself to remedial education on the basics)."

Thanks to the government monopoly on education, a bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. How'd you think that's going to work out for us?

Why intellectuals don't like capitalism - it seems boring.

"To a "man of system," to borrow Adam Smith's terminology, capitalism just isn't that exciting. Participants in the market economy are wholly beholden to consumer wants. The academics envision a grand world, where Great Men fight Great Wars, periodically inventing Great Things or developing Great Ideas. Instead, the market provides us with incremental processes, which expend enormous piles of resources, in a quest to make better Triscuits. It is hardly the stuff of high drama, to say nothing of Great History.
...
The idea that great statesmen are not needed — to say nothing about being wanted — can no doubt be galling to many who decry capitalism for its excesses. For the people who derive their self-worth from being paternalistic, this is a sorry state of affairs indeed."

Great observation.

"The fundamental problem with government intervention is not that our leaders lack sufficient wisdom to guide the global economy. The fundamental problem is that such wisdom is impossible. The science of human action has very clear implications about what can, in fact, be known, and it therefore places very sharp limits on the potential wisdom of the man of system. Radical schemes aiming at creating utopia are doomed to failure — or worse — and this is indeed disheartening for the critical idealist.
Yes, some might look down upon capitalism because it is at its heart about the search for a better, cheaper Triscuit rather than "nobler things." But it delivers the goods, and it does so in abundance. Interventionist alternatives do not."

Exactly.

Because government obtains revenue by force, it cannot calculate the allocation of resources. We know whether to buy more apples or more oranges based on our desire and their price. Farmers know whether to plant corn or wheat based on prices. There are no prices to guide bureaucrats. They have no way to know how much something is worth. Great example of number of fighters given.