Bizzaro World

The incredible lack of knowledge about basic economics in this country has lead us directly into Bizzaro World. You remember Bizzarro World don't you. That was the parallel universe in the Superman comic books where everything was reversed. Ugly was beautiful, people collected trash instead of throwing it out and doctors made you sick instead of curing you. Well, we're there.

Obama the Redeemer was in Florida flip-flopping on off shore drilling. Now, he might be for it, but only if it will help break the gridlock and get meaningful energy reform passed.
Yeah, that and the fact that polls overwhelming show voters favor drilling. But in the middle of his speech a black man interrupted and demanded that Obama answer about "the attacks against the African-American community" by the "same U.S. government that you aspire to lead." He pointed to sub-prime mortgages aimed at black and Latino communities, instances of police profiling, the Jena Six and the slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Sub-prime mortgages were “aimed” at blacks and Latinos. Just like a gun. You see those bastards at Country Wide were just lying in wait. They spotted those juicy credit risks and just pounced. They cleverly induced their targets into this hopeless situation by giving them money that they clearly knew they couldn’t pay back. But they gave them the loans anyway, the bastards. They knew it was only a matter of time before the adjustable rates would rise, the exploited blacks and Latinos would default and fulfill their master plan to corner the market on bad debts and abandoned homes. Of course this was all just a side benefit. Their real objective was to financially ruin as many black and Latino families as they possibly could. Well heck, it was even worth ruining a few white families as long as they nailed the minorities. And it worked beautifully. Just look at the riches they reaped in the last quarter alone! Thornburg Mortgage took a $3 billion loss and Merril managed a $2.24 billion loss. J.P. Morgan was a little less successful. They only managed a $1.1 billion loss.

If this weren’t bad enough, Obama defended himself by agreeing. In fact he had always been against “predatory lending.”

I’d like for everybody to take a minute or two to say that term, “predatory lending” out loud and reflect on it.

OK, first I’d like to point out that when Obama was being a “community organizer” in Chicago, he was heavily involved with the liberal activist group ACORN. They did a lot of fraudulent voter registration, but they also issued many tirades aimed at banks and mortgage companies. They did “studies” where they “determined” that since blacks were getting turned down for mortgages at a higher rate than whites, this was clear evidence of racial discrimination. Of course a mortgage application isn’t allowed to ask a person’s race, but they figured that info got through somehow (nod, nod, wink, wink.) And furthermore, it wasn’t just race, it was location too. This, they called “redlining.” Here the banks were simply saying that’s not a part of town where we want to loan. And they were saying that because those parts were predominately black.

It was pointed out to ACORN that Asians were approved at a higher rate than whites, but they really didn’t have an explanation for that. Likewise, when this “sophisticated point” was made: If blacks were being held to a higher credit standard than whites, then it would follow that the backs who did receive mortgages would likely have a lower default rate, correct? Yes, that would seem to be correct. Unfortunately for ACORN the blacks who did receive mortgages actually had higher default rates.

Despite those facts, great pressure was exerted on the banks to make these loans to people they had deemed uncreditworthy in places that they did not want to lend. Laws were passed to make it easier to loan that money, and the banks complied. It was either that or get sued. But that was then and now they are "predators."

But what really struck me as perverse this week was the reaction to the news that ExxonMobil had a quarterly profit of $11.68 billion. People were outraged. They were offended and angry. Obama spoke of taking that money and using it to send checks of $1,000 to $500 to middle and lower class families (Hillary threatened to take their profits in the previous quarter.) Greed, which was identified as the reason behind these “obscene” profits, was denounced. Everyone seemed to agree, these profits were “excessive,” I mean, they were just too much.

And on the other side of the newspaper page was a different profit story. It was about how General Motors was posting a $15.5 billion loss. I could only assume such news would add a little cheer to a liberal’s day. Certainly this was something of a counter weight to the bad news that ExxonMobil had posted the largest corporate profit in history. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Aside from the fact that virtually every 401k and IRA in America has some oil stock, when did profits become bad? Do these people understand how big a part of our economy ExxonMobil represents? Do they know how many people they employ at very good wages? Do they understand the amount of assets they control? Do they know that oil companies are the ones researching and investing in those alternative energy sources they all like to hype, like wind and solar? Do they understand that those profits are exactly the source of funding for that research and investing? I’d have to say the answer to all those questions is no, they don’t understand.

Energy Obstructionists

There is just no pleasing the tree huggers.

When it comes to formulating a national energy policy, there is nothing that can please them. Oil is downright evil in their book. Coal isn't far behind. Ethanol? It will make food more expensive. Wind power? The turbines kill lots of birds and they spoil the view. Nuclear power? Are you kidding? What do we do with the waste? We can't be absolutely certain that the waste will be handled in a safe manner. So what energy sources does a good environmentalist prefer? Why wave technology and cold fusion of course. And for those who are smugly pointing out that neither of those technologies are currently available, I just want to say you must be one of those global warming deniers.

There are problems with every kind of energy. If the liberals would recognize that one simple fact, we might be able to move forward and make some choices. And, yes, that means trade offs, something that makes those of the liberal persuasion go crazy. They just don't seem to understand that we are not going to come up with a fuel that produces oxygen as it burns and is in abundant supply.

I don't know if I believe that man made global warming is taking place or not, but if I did believe that I'd certainly be looking hard at the one type of energy that produces zero greenhouse gasses, nuclear. But it turns out that Jane Fonda made a movie 25 years ago about a fictional nuclear disaster and we haven't gotten over it yet. But here is something to ponder if you are concerned about how we would reassure ourselves that nuclear waste in the United States was being handled properly: China has recently opened 8 new nuclear plants, and has another 45 on the drawing board. It appears that nobody in China has ever seen The China Syndrome. So while you can sleep better knowing that Americans will not have to face the question of how to safely handle our nuclear waste, I'm hoping you will now lose a lot of sleep wondering if China, where they just had a devastating earthquake, has built those new plants up to code.

My point is the nuclear plants are going to be built. It's just a matter of who will build them where and who is capable of doing so safely. So from what I see, it looks like we are convinced that the Chinese can do it better than us.

Recession, To Be, or Not To Be

On the way into work this morning, I heard the radio news lady tease the upcoming newscast on the hour. I can't recall all the exact words, but the gist of it was that we're certainly in the midst of an economic downturn, "which the administration STILL refuses to call a recession." The tone was of course that this administration is just denying what is obvious to every right thinking Madisonian. It was said as if this is another example of Bush not being in touch with reality.

Since economics is so universally misunderstood, I feel compelled to start with a definition. A recession is defined as having had two straight quarters of negative growth in our economy. Now I know this part requires some lateral thinking, but just hang with me and I'll get you through it. If you read that definition closely, you'll notice that it is in the past tense. That is, the two quarters must have already ended. And I'm hoping you'll agree that in order to accurately record the results from a particular quarter, you must wait for that quarter to end and then collect all the necessary data. So, BY DEFINITION, WE WILL NEVER KNOW THAT WE ARE IN A RECESSION UNTIL WE ARE SIX MONTHS INTO IT.

So, you may say, "But that's just a technical point, we all can see what's going on, we can pretty much guess that a recession is under way, can't we?"

And you'd be right. But you'd still be guessing. But there is an even bigger point as to why it is not a good idea for public officials to speculate thusly. That would be the phenomenon that occurs regularly in economics, the self fullfilling prophecy. It is a fact that the "prevailing wisdom" has a real and immediate effect on the economy. If I can convince a majority of people that the cost of gasoline is going to rise $1 a gallon by next week, you can bet that the price will rise. Commodity speculators would buy up futures contracts and regular folks would simply go top off their tanks. And prices would rise as a result. If I convince them the price will drop, speculators will bet on a price decline and consumers will ride the bus and wait for the lower prices to arrive, which will drive prices down.

I don't have the ability to convince enough people. But public figures such as the President or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve certainly do, and that's why they tend to be very careful about what they say. If the President starts talking about how awful the economy is, he will absolutely make it worse. If the Fed Chairman mentions that he is now buying Euros, you can bet that the dollar will soon be in a freefall.

So just understand, that when ANY President is faced with an economy that is likely in recession, you should never expect for him to offer confirmation or a prediction.It can only make things worse.

Wooden Stake in Hand

Yes, once again we are poised over the sleeping vampire with a stake in one hand and a mallet in the other. Will she awaken at the last minute and once again cheat death? Well it is Hillary and I won’t make the same mistake and count her out before I see the body. I need to see her feet curl up under the house. I am writing this today (2/13/2008) so that I can be on record as predicting the nastiness that I believe is coming.

Last night Barack Obama spoke here in Madison in front of a packed Kohl Center crowd with the overflow watching from the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion next door. He took the stage a little late, because, I believe, they were waiting for the official results from the Maryland primary. He was then able to lead off with an announcement that they had just captured their eighth primary/caucus in a row. The experts have been putting the pencil to the scenarios unfolding and their judgment is that she is toast. She is apparently going to concede Wisconsin and Hawaii to Obama and try to make her last stand in Ohio and Texas. The problem with that strategy, they say, is that she is already in a position that says she has to win the remaining contests with at least a 55% to 45% margin. But with each additional primary she loses, that percentage goes up. After she loses in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that percentage goes to 57%. If she then loses the next group (Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota) it goes to 60%. Considering that she lost Virginia 63% to 37%, that’s looks pretty much impossible. He’s got all the momentum, which is even more important in politics than it is in football. He’s got, and is raising more money, and he is having a whirlwind romance with the media. And all of those are good reasons that he’d better double the size of his secret service protection detail.

I’m only half joking when I suggest she’d try to take him out physically. Her preferred method will likely be a sudden revelation about something shady in Obama’s past. They hinted a long time ago that they had a real juicy bit on Barack when they were trying to promote the idea that he can’t beat the Republicans. Of course it was always pitched that they, the Clintons, would never think of releasing that information, but they had no doubt the Republicans would when they thought the time was right. Which implied that would be right after he secures the nomination. See? Then it would be too late to have Hillary rescue the Dems. Clinton surrogates have been whispering for months now that “Well, we all know that there is a certain element in the American electorate who will simply not vote for a black man.” But the problem with that canard is that they never consider that there is also a large element who will never vote for a white woman either. And furthermore, neither of those two groups were ever likely to vote for a liberal Democrat to begin with! So you are really talking about losing votes you never had.

But look, the bottom line is Clinton is losing. And that is not acceptable to Clinton Inc. They may have gotten burned after going negative in South Carolina, but that won’t stop them because going negative is what they know and what they know works. I’m predicting that a “scandalous” issue will surface. It will not come directly from the Clinton camp. They will try to make sure their fingerprints aren’t blatantly on it, but frankly, that’s of secondary concern now. Everybody will suspect it came from them anyway, so they won’t be able to totally avoid any blowback. But they can see that if they don’t bring his train to a screeching halt, and soon, none of this will matter. I think (hope?) that she is not the least bit interested in the VP slot. That would require an eight year wait for her turn and God knows how she’ll be viewed by then. I said a year ago that she’d pick Bill Richardson as her VP, but now I’ve heard that Bill recently ripped Richardson when he wouldn’t endorse Hillary. Supposedly the comment to his one time UN Ambassador and Energy Secretary was “What? Two cabinet appointments weren’t enough?” God I hope that’s a true story. I think Richardson, like the Super Delegates, is waiting to see who comes out on top. In fact, he’d probably be more valuable as Obama’s VP than he would as Hillary’s.

I’m fully expecting to update this post once the scandal breaks.

2/21/08 Update:

She got absolutely trounced in Wisconsin and Hawaii so they uncorked the scandal.

So far the "scandal" has fizzled. About 5 days ago Clinton Inc. fed a story to reporters that Obama was plagarizing his speeches. They showed them clips of a recent Obama speech and then clips from Governor Deval Patrick's (D-Mass.) speech from two years ago using the same language. Oh, and then they denied that they were the source, naturally. It got no traction at all. It makes me think that they really don't have anything on him, or they would have used it. At this point even her most ardent supporters are admitting that she's toast, and are reduced to speculating on the reasons why she is losing. And the parade of negative stories just keep on coming. Lots of stuff about the profligate spending and their mounting finacial woes. But they just can't stop themselves from spinning the story. Check this quote from a Politico story:

" Clinton’s 2007 year-end report showed her owing more than $5 million to vendors ranging from phone bank firms and pollsters to charter airline operators and telephone companies. Her campaign last month dismissed those debts as a matter of bookkeeping. "These are not true debts accruing by (sic) the campaign, but simply unpaid invoices," said spokesman Blake Zeff.

Zeff pointed out the campaign at the end of 2007 had enough money in the bank to pay off its debts (it finished the year with $13 million on hand after subtracting the debt and contributions earmarked for the general election). "Sometimes invoices are not paid immediately because we need additional information for our records, or to verify expenses," said Zeff. "

Mr Zeff should take an elementary accounting class so that he might discover that unpaid invoices are exactly and precisely "true debts accruing to the campaign." But aside from that, does he really expect us to believe that they haven't paid $1,300 to Dunkin' Donuts because they need additional information for their records? Like how many were jelly filled?

Women and Minorities

The joke goes like this. One day God gets fed up with the world and decides that he’s going to end the world and bring about the apocalypse. So, as a courtesy, he calls up the New York Times and tells them what he’s going to do. At first they don’t believe him, but he performs a few miracles and pretty soon they’re convinced they are talking to The Almighty. So the next morning the Times headline was “World to End Today! Women and Minorities to be Hit Hardest.”

Seriously, though, the term “Women and Minorities” is curious because of how the terms seem so intertwined while they are often at odds. Women, for instance, are a majority. They may only be a small one, but by being slightly more than 50%, they are the only group who can lay stake to that claim. Anyway, in yesterdays Wisconsin State Journal there was a story about the Madison Affirmative Action Commission and a study they released on the ethnic and gender make up of city managers. It was oh so typical of the position these kinds of commissions tend to take. It even had the obligatory misleading statistic to back up their findings. I could have told you their findings before reading a word, but sure enough the opening sentence stated that the city “should do more to hire and give equal pay to women and minority managers and top paid professionals...” Nothing surprising there. Later in the article they mention that “women and minority managers and top paid professionals make about 95% of the earnings of men or non-minorities...” (By the way, isn’t that worded in an odd manner? If you are not a woman, a man or a minority, what kind of “non-minority” could you be? Are they double counting white women when it suits there agenda? Are they counting minority men twice?) And they point out that the gap for agency heads is even bigger with the women and minorities only getting 86% as much as men.

But then they toss in the caveat that the “reports don’t factor individual seniority or level, or education into the formulas.” And my question would be, why not? Was that too difficult to do? I don’t think so. Aren’t those factors the most likely to have a dramatic effect on ones’ income in a bureaucracy? Of course they are. By leaving those factors out are you more likely come up with a report that says there is work to be done to close the gap? Obviously yes, unless it turned out that the women and minorities were the ones with the superior education or seniority level, in which case their argument would be even stronger. And that is exactly why I’m pretty sure that was not the case. They would not have missed that opportunity.

But the kicker came in the paragraphs that had the raw numbers:

“Just 34 percent of the city’s 429 top paid professionals are women and 10 percent are minorities, about the same as 2003, the report says.

Yet women represent 41 percent and minorities 8 percent of the available labor pool for those top positions, Dane County and state data show.”

That’s right, minorities are actually 25% over represented, and women are only 20% under represented. The differences are small I agree, and I’m not looking to get 2% of the minorities fired just to even things up. But don’t you think they could at least acknowledge that there isn’t a need to hire more to close a gap that isn’t there? Couldn’t you say we’re doing great on minorities but we have way to go on women? Why can’t these groups be separated since their circumstances are different?

The lefties are always so mind numbed in their quest to support women and minorities they can’t even recognize success. I remember a few years ago there was an article about a teacher at West High School who was something of a curmudgeon. He’d sit his van outside and smoke cigarettes while he graded papers. He complained about the lack of male teachers and thought it was not a good thing that one gender dominated the profession. When they went to the head of the DPI for a comment all she could come up with was that they were trying to hire more women and minorities.

Just Quotes

Today's posting will consist solely of two quotes and a news item.

Quote #1

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot


Quote #2

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C. S. Lewis

News Item

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans

More Carbon Nuetral Nonsense

Today I heard a radio spot from Madison Gas and Electric. They are now offering a program where they claim that if you send them a little more money each month ("$6 for the average home") that they will see to it that 100% of the carbon your electricity produces will be 'offset." Does anybody actually believe this? Considering that my average energy bill is around $300 per month, they are saying that for a measley 2% more they can totally eliminate my carbon footprint. So why don't they just go ahead and do it and raise my rates 2%? Even the Citizens Utility Board would buy in to that. Certainly a 2% increase would br worth ending the "dire" threat of global warming. It would stop it instantly. Even conservatives like me would approve of it so we wouldn't have to keep hearing all that idiotic whinning about how we 're going to have to kill the economy in order to save the planet. And they'd have to stop giving Al Gore major awards (The only one he hasn't bagged yet is a Tony.)

My guess as to why this is being ignored is that most people instinctively know that you probably can't offset the carbon produced by $300 worth of electricity and gas with $6, no matter what you do with it.