Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Samuel Johnson
Twinkies To Be Back in Stores Soon
Private equity companies Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. entered a winning bid of $410M in bankruptcy liquidation proceedings after a crippling strike forced Hostess Brands to go out of business. They should be back in stores by summer. I don't think I've had one since I was a kid, but for me there's a touch of nostalgia: I still remember my maternal grandfather's grocery store and remember the ubiquitous ads for Wonder bread, etc. I'm sure Mayor Bloomberg sees it as the gateway to obesity.
Speaking of the Big Nanny billionaire, Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling set aside the preposterous big sugary drink prohibition as "arbitrary and capricious". The restriction was patently absurd; I'm sure you can buy, say, pizza and 2-liter bottles of soda pop at any New York grocer: how fair is it for pizza shops to be unable to offer the same? Not to mention you could always work around the size limit by ordering multiple servings. Bloomberg is picking the wrong policy fight. I myself have battled weight issues much of my adult life. There are a number of consequences to being overweight: it's more difficult or expensive to date, buy clothes or health insurance, or travel. Weight gain can result from a number of factors, including slowing metabolism or health conditions, lifestyle/exercise, etc. A lot of overweight people, including myself, use artificial sweeteners or drink diet soft drinks. (In fact, I hardly ever drink carbonated beverages, period.) The fact is, these arbitrary restrictions unduly restrict the consumer choices of people whom are not in Bloomberg's target group, I'm not aware of any studies tying the consumption of large-serving drinks to obesity, and even if one could restrict consumption of calories in public, the individual could make up the difference through private consumption. So what's the point?
Finally, kudos to Sedgwick, ME, which passed a local ordinance declaring food sovereignty:
Citing America's Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the ordinance proposed that "Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." These would include raw milk and other dairy products and locally slaughtered meats, among other items.
This isn't just a declaration of preference. The proposed warrant added, "It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance." In other words, no state licensing requirements prohibiting certain farms from selling dairy products or producing their own chickens for sale to other citizens in the town.It's heartbreaking such an ordinance is necessary, that armed federal agents would not come between a dairy farmer and a willing, knowing consumer of delicious, nutritious raw milk or any shenanigans, like I described in a recent post on Michigan DNR outlawing certain pigs; here's a related story:
"Graphic photos have surfaced of the baby pigs and momma pigs that a Michigan farmer was forced to shoot in cold blood to avoid being arrested as a felon. This is the latest development in the outrageous story of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which conducted armed raids on multiple farms, using police state legal tactics to trespass onto private property and search for any living pigs that they consider to be "feral" breeds. In reality, these breeds have been raised as domesticated livestock by Michigan farmers for decades."Guest Quote: Doug Casey
There are around 2.7 million people directly employed by the federal government, by all the hundreds of agencies, bureaus, commissions, and whatnot; that’s been fairly stable for a long time.Some 25 million people, more or less, employed by government is one thing. That’s a lot. But of course, many are doing things that would otherwise be done privately. The real problem is so many major corporations have the state as their major customer — military and aerospace contractors, construction firms, computer outfits — everything you can imagine. But there’s much more. The US government has 50 million people dependent on food stamps, 7 million on disability, and scores of millions more on Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs.
In my ideal world, government would exist for two reasons: as a police force to protect the citizens, and as a court system to allow citizens to adjudicate disputes. The economy is far too important to be left to the government and the kind of people who are drawn to work in it.
I recommend readers look at the entire DR interview, but I also wanted to single out his quote about Europeans and the "austerity" myth:
Europe is in much worse shape than the US. Socialism is totally ingrained in the psyche of the average European. The European idea of austerity is cutting back some government programs around the edges, making a few cosmetic changes. Maybe an occasional headline upbraiding a particularly egregious example of corruption. It’s all public relations and generalities. But the idea of pulling the plant out by its roots is totally anathema. That’s because they really believe socialism, welfarism, and all kinds of state intervention is morally correct. Most Europeans actually want a stronger state, all paid for with money stolen from a diminishing pool of productive taxpayers.
Most Europeans believe the state owes them a living and that the rich should be eaten to finance that. That attitude will not be changed without real tumult. There is no impetus for gradual change or reversal in Europe.There's another great point that most people whom have taken at least one accounting course understand--the difference between cash and accrual accounting. We should be setting aside adequate reserves every year so Baby Boomer entitlement costs won't crowd out necessary government spending or force younger generations to raise taxes to make up the difference. This will not end well. My fellow Baby Boomers will fight even modest reforms on the pretext they've paid into the system all their lives; the latter point is valid, but in fact funding has been inadequate (by as much as $4T per year if we were properly using accrual accounting to reflect unfunded liabilities). The system wasn't funded with the idea retirees would be on the dole for decades.
I would argue analogous insights are relevant to the American experience. And I think DR and Doug Casey are signaling that by entitling their piece "The Kabuki Theatre of Demopublicans". Two incidents from the recent Presidential campaign stand out: "Big Bird" and Paul Ryan, famously the "throw granny over the cliff" poster boy of partisan attack ads, prominently showed up on the campaign with his mom, a retiree and Medicare program participant, reassuring the voters he has not come to kill Medicare but to save it.
I do understand the GOP dilemma. The Democrats can't win national elections in a center-right nation based on a European-lite, social democratic agenda; they try to argue in purple or red districts they are the true "centrists", but keep in mind these "centrists" are easily marginalized by mainstream progressive Democrats in leadership. A large chunk of their base is, of course, is urban with extensive domestic social support programs affecting the base; labor unions enjoy many government-conferred privileges; and academia is dominated by progressive groupthink. Paul Ryan is, I think, more honest with his approach which gets government out of the insurance business and provides a voucher for private sector purchases. Seniors are worried about guaranteed issue, but they still have to find doctors willing to accept the high paperwork, below-market reimbursements. Government should focus on support for catastrophic expenses and allow muti-state pooling and policy competition.
But, just as we this past weekend had to "spring forward" into daylight savings time, it's time for us to do some serious spring cleaning on this progressive packrat federal government with unused offices and real estate, bringing to an end to obscure or redundant functionality, delegating to the state or local government or shuttering any government function not the common defense or justice system. We need broad, deep cuts in spending. I do want to prune crap like RoboSquirrel (next segment) out of the budget, but we need to lower headcount, tighten program criteria, cap transfer payments, jettison obsoleted regulations and taxes. Romney was right about PBS and Sesame Street, of course. But when we are spending more on defense than the next several countries combined, we need to go beyond cutting the parsley from the federal spending plate. Yes, of course, there will be resistance to change: people will scream like crazy just like the idiots in Europe whom think the government should support them in the lifestyle they've grown accustomed to. But guess what? They've been playing a game of musical chairs, they have an aging population and too few young people/workers to support them in their old age.
America is going down the same path, and Democrats are fighting necessary givebacks every step of the way, even on inflation adjustments. It's all politics. It's time for the GOP to stop being defensive. They need to point out the Democrats want the rich to pay everything, but there's not enough rich people. We have to get our expenses down now, not when interest rates quintuple and force defense and domestic spending programs to make deep cuts making current sequestration pains look like paper cuts. The GOP needs to say , straight up, the other side is lying; it took us decades to get to this place; this won't be easy or popular, but it is necessary.
RoboSquirrel is Back
Yes, even though Obama is taxing future taxpayers 40 cents on the federal dollar they will never benefit from in a highly competitive global economy, it's good to know scientists and engineers have decided to improve on God's design for creating squirrels... Are we that far from building the $6B Squirrel?
And here is geek enthusiasm for follow-up research:
Cool stuff, and the research group is already planning for the deployment of RoboSquirrel 2.0 later this summer (maybe it's powered by nuts?), and they've got a RoboKangarooRat (!) in the works as well.Maybe not powered by nuts, but certainly approved and paid for by nuts.
Flash Mob for Bush 41
I think he had that same look on his face when he first saw a supermarket price scanner. Very sweet gesture; I'm glad to see him about after that health scare a few weeks back.
Towards a Sustainable Infrastructure
I think the first bullet item in the captured still below is intended to read "user fees are still taxes"; the second point can be seen in terms of fuel taxes. These taxes are often used to maintain not the roads the drivers uses but less-traveled roads or even to subsidize mass transit. "Free" roads in metropolitan areas, as the law or supply and demand might suggest, can become congested. One thing: I naturally cringe when I hear Poole talk in terms of public-private partnerships: that's often a euphemism for cronyism; I prefer to hear things like "privatization", "competitive bidding", etc. The last point references the cash vs. accrual accounting distinction raised above. For example, take a road built to last 30 years in 1985. We shouldn't treat it all as a periodic operating expense during 1985. We should be recognize the cost at 3 1/3% per year over the life of the road. I would have liked to hear more of a rant over politicians raiding all sorts of alleged lock boxes, pensions, highway trust funds, etc., but I would happily run for office on this approach to transportation, versus gigantic boondoggles and voodoo project financing used by Barack Obama, Jerry Brown and others.
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| Still captured from Poole/Reason video (below) |
Political Cartoon
In case any reader is confused by the context, the #1 movie in the country is a special effects prequel to The Wizard of Oz. There are so many ways a talented cartoonist could go with the metaphor, e.g., Nancy Pelosi as the Wicked Witch of the West, Barack Obama as the Wizard behind the curtain, the Democrat scarecrow (below) yelling "sequester!" to no effect on the crows, Dorothy getting arrested for flying a house without a license, Washington DC as the Emerald City, Dorothy having to get a security clearance to enter or having to make a donation to see the Wizard, missing the balloon ride back to Kansas because she has to go through TSA with those ruby slippers (and guess who the TSA agent is demanding the slippers?) or Dorothy seeing the national debt, government handouts, etc. and saying, "Toto, we're not in America anymore..." There are millions of them...
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| The Over-the-Rainbow Coalition Courtesy of Jerry Holbert and Townhall |
Political Humor
When the cardinals are done selecting a new Pope, smoke appears up the chimney. White smoke means a new Pope. Black smoke means they have not reached a decision. Blue smoke means
[Obama's nomination was rejected because his baptismal certificate was considered to be a fake.]
It was announced that China is opening its own Disneyland, which Disney says will be both "authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese." Which explains why the parents of Huey, Duey, and Louie had to pick just one. - Jimmy Fallon
[And Pluto and Goofy make a special appearance on the dinner menu.]
Entertainment Potpourri
- The Life and Death of JR Ewing. As a fan of perhaps the greatest anti-hero ever scripted for television, I knew that they had to somehow write Larry Hagman's death into the series (or improbably recast the part, like the producers of Bewitched replaced Dick York as Darrin Stevens). To be honest, Larry Hagman, probably for health reasons, was only briefly on camera in my judgment, for the duration of the renewed series, as the series rightly focused on the emergence of the next generation of Ewing cousins. JR in the new series seemed more focused on mentoring son John Ross; he couldn't micro-manage the process--John Ross had to have enough room to make his own mistakes and learn from them. Still, the JR fan in me relished those moments when the old master put the young pup in his place and showed everyone that he still had it, JR was still the force to be reckoned with.
Still, as a writer and a fan, I didn't like the way JR met his demise, the apparent victim of random violence in Mexico; I was hoping that it had been scripted before Hagman's passing as yet another elaborate JR scheme, only to show up at his own wake to confront his prematurely celebratory rival. The writers seem to be hinting that JR was intent on destroying a Dallas business rival, the ex-husband of Bobby's third wife Ann, whom was intent on leaving her cruel first husband keeping custody of their only child. He then staged the kidnapping of their young daughter, whom has grown up believing her father's poisonous stories about her mother. The ex-husband gets involved in the Ewing clan war and uses the occasion to reveal their daughter is alive and well.
I'm not sure I liked how the writers booked this angle, because JR notoriously disapproved of younger brother Bobby's taste in women. Perhaps he saw it as the patriarch of the Ewing clan, the first-born son of Jock (JR senior) Ewing, although Miss Ellie, the surviving matriarch, left the infamous Southfork ranch to Bobby. (There's a middle brother Gary whom was never a good oilman and a focal point of a spinoff series and a half-brother Ray, the result of a Jock Ewing wartime affair.)
Unless it turns out Ann once had a secret affair with JR, and the estranged daughter is really JR's love child, it's hard to see the motivation. I don't recall Ann-JR confrontations booked with any hints of a romantic past, and I don't think JR would have kept that secret from Bobby. Still, if "who shot JR" was the greatest cliffhanger of all time, "who killed JR" would have been even greater. It's possible JR had an arch-rival Barnes-like conflict with Ann's ex (or maybe Ann's ex has ties to Barnes), but there hasn't been much storyline in that direction. The renewed series started off with JR having lived his last several years in a nursing home. His legacy oil business was in mothballs. Rebuilding a business empire from scratch in his senior years? Unlikely.
There were a couple of well-written moments at the wake: ex-wife Sue Ellen revealed that JR had written a letter seeking reconciliation just before JR's murder; and adoptive nephew Christopher, John Ross' bitter rival, mentions how after Pam left Bobby, JR reassured him that he was a Ewing.
It should be interesting seeing how the storyline progresses from here: how will the Ewing clan avenge JR's murder? Will we see Bobby stepping up as the patriarch, developing his own dark, ruthless side? Is John Ross ready to set his own mark as Jock Ewing's grandson and JR's son?Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Journey, "Girl Can't Help It"
