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Friday, July 31, 2015

Miscellany: 7/31/15

Quote of the Day
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter F. Drucker

Image of the Day


Reason's Nanny of the Month

You have to vote for it to see what's in it: fascist grab bag....



Facebook Corner

(Ron Paul). Bernie Sanders does not believe in private property, voluntary exchange, individual responsibility, supply & demand, or even the proper definition of the word "right."
http://bit.ly/1DWrjNj
He may have different views than me, but he isn't a sell out corporate shill like all the other candidates (including your son)
I have some policy differences with Rand Paul, but anyone who thinks he's a corporate sellout is a retard. He has pulled in a fraction of his competitors and much of that is small donations. From USA Today:

"In a report filed Wednesday night with the Federal Election Commission, the Paul campaign reported raising $6.9 million between April — when Paul announced his candidacy — and June 30.

Of that total, $3.2 million came in small donations of $200 or less. Within the group of 15 GOP presidential candidates, only retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has raised a higher percentage of his contributions from small donors.

"Fundraising for Paul has been lackluster, especially because his team has not lassoed a big-dollar donor like the billionaires bankrolling other candidates...Paul campaign spokesman Sergio Gor declined to comment to The Courier-Journal. But he told Breitbart News last week that 108,205 individual donors have given to Paul, with the average contribution of $65."

(Cato Institute). "Immigration is a benefit to the U.S. economy....More immigrants...expands the size of the economy...More people buying things means the rest of the economy needs more workers."
Why Bernie Sanders' anti-immigrant economic protectionism is flawed economic policy....
Legal immigrants are a good thing, illegal immigrants are a bad thing for the economy. Legal immigrants pay taxes and contribute to the economy and their community. Illegal immigrants drain the economy thru criminal actions and demand welfare. Keep the ones that do it the right way and get rid of those who refuse to.
The OP is an economically illiterate, morally corrupt, know-nothing right-fascist. Most of these anti-immigrant quote Friedman out of context. Friedman was all for "illegal" immigration: "Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal." (He didn't want immigrants exacerbating unsustainable domestic welfare programs) 

The moron is wrong on literally everything he said. In fact, hundreds of billions of payroll taxes paid by undocumented aliens and their employers have kept our senior entitlements in better shape than they would be otherwise. The fact of the matter is every credible economic study bears out the benefits of immigration and our economy became the biggest and fastest growing in the world under unrestricted immigration. I could go on and on but Nowrasteh doesn't need my help.
Mischaracterization of an opposing point of view is beneath a valid position. Sanders is for LEGAL immigration. That is not anti-immigrant anymore than having secure borders. And it is a hell of a lot better than flooding the country with millions of new welfare recipients like the man in the Whitehouse, who you SUPPOSEDLY oppose, is doing. Now we have to wonder about CATO.
Oh, listen to the morally corrupt anti-immigrant troll argue "some of my best friends are immigrants...." You need to stop reading derangement syndrome propaganda and read REAL economics. What about the fact that until WWI (with some notorious anti-Asian exceptions) we had essentially unrestricted immigration--and had become the world's largest economy? The unions (who Sanders represents), the xenophobes and bigots want to manipulate the labor markets by restricting competition. All of you anti-immigrant fascists are un-American at your core; all people have an unalienable right to migrate--this is supposed to be the "land of the free". It's none of your business who lives and works in this country. You only have say over who is invited to your house.

(continuing exchanges of a "progressive" troll ranting against LFC's opposition to anti-price gouging laws)
 LFC, the same DC's that supply the water are the same fucking ones the other stores ship their goods to ship to your local store. Do you even know what the fuck logistics are?
What LFC knows, and you don't, is State intervention is part of the problem, not the solution; your "solution" is prohibit voluntary transactions from buyer to seller.. Logistics is a major reason why Wal-Mart is the industry leader.

Just for the sake of making a point, you could book planes, barges, trains, beyond existing distribution channels--perhaps at higher costs. And LFC doesn't really talk about the distributions; it could be a case like a limited supply of Tickle Me Elmo dolls delivered daily but they sell out quickly because of artificially low prices. Eventually we get to an equilibrium level, but this is like the madness of the economically illiterate fascist FDR's ludicrous handling of the Great Depression. Retarded government adds economic uncertainty to the economic context--that's EXACTLY why this economy has sucked under the current Fascist-in-Chief. Everyone wants to blame Bush for the fiasco of Katrina but it was Blanco and Nagin who failed to act on evacuation plans, etc. The government, as I cited above, actually turned back supply trucks. Central planning at its finest hour, buses left in low-lying area to be flooded out, unused..

I guarantee what will not work is some fascist logistics "expert" in a state of denial about the reality of spontaneous order. And another thing: the fascist troll has never passed Accounting 101. One of the first things they teach you is past costs are irrelevant.

Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Through the Years"

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Miscellany: 7/30/15

Quote of the Day
The dogmatist within is always worse than the enemy without.
S.J. Gould

Tweet of the Day
Taking a Stand Against Union Tyranny (I Think I'm in Love)



No on Tyranny of the Majority



Facebook Corner

(from yesterday's Lew Rockwell's thread on Donald (Four Bankruptcies) Trump)
,,,[Trump] with his schoolyard bully antics is stealing the oxygen from worthier candidates like Rand Paul and Rubio.
Rubio isn't a worthy candidate. He's a pandering neocon.
In fact, Rand Paul is my favorite. Yes, I agree Rubio has some issues (beyond the foreign policy issue, he has backed Florida's Big Sugar producers, he's not great on NSA privacy,) But he's been good on Ex-Im and general budget and domestic policy issues. I do think from a political standpoint he positions very well against Clinton with an almost-JFK like charisma. If Rubio doesn't win it, look for him to show up on everyone's short list for VP.

(FEE). There is little evidence that immigrants make countries less free.
I will no longer respond to FEE's continued attempts to conflate "immigrants" with "illegal aliens". It is a deceptive ploy that is obvious, or one that is ignorant of strategic necessity. It is also a black eye on what is otherwise an excellent on-going work by FEE. Without resolution to the fact we are a welfare state, allowing the unchecked flow of aliens into our country provides no opportunity for repair of liberty within our country, and simply moves us towards Cloward-Piven's collectivist vision. We must resolve one (welfare) before we can address the other (increased openness of immigration law). Blind academic arguments in a vacuum of unreality, however, will not produce effective strategies to restore and sustain individual liberty in our country. Further, to continue to attack those who get this and those who support true, legal immigration, is alienating common sense lovers of liberty. Respectfully, does the FEE leadership (Leonard Reed) not see this? "You cannot simultaneously have a welfare state and free immigration.” –Milton Friedman
Am I surprised a bunch of anti-immigrant derangement syndrome xenophobes and bigots would spam this FEE thread?

First of all, I'm calling out the idiot OP because I'm so sick and tired of reading the same morally illiterate economically illiterate talking points. I'm pissed off by idiots knowingly quoting Friedman out of context. This is the REAL Friedman:

"You had a flood of immigrants, millions of them, coming to this country. What brought them here? It was the hope for a better life for them and their children. And, in the main, they succeeded. It is hard to find any century in history, in which so large a number of people experience so great an improvement in the conditions of their life, in the opportunities open to them, as in the period of the 19th and early 20th century.

"The United States before 1914, as you know, had completely free immigration. Anybody could get in a boat and come to these shores and if landed at Ellis Island he was an immigrant. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?' You will find that hardly a soul who will say that it was a bad thing. Almost everybody will say it was a good thing. 

"Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal."

You got that? Friedman was NOT arguing to build a fence, he was NOT arguing to deport undocumented aliens, he was NOT in favor of limiting immigration. So STOP this disingenuous quoting Friedman out of context; he simply didn't want immigrants to add to the social welfare deficit. By law, they don't qualify for welfare benefits.

Now as to the bullshit talking point between "legal" and "illegal" immigration. As Friedman pointed out, except for some racist (Asian) exceptions, we had unrestricted immigration (including my French-Canadian great-grandparents), there were no intrinsically unconstitutional violations of the unalienable right to migrate. Who the hell do you think you are to keep families apart, to stand in the way of employers hiring who they want to hire, to stand in the way of others wanting their taste of the American dream? The fact of the matter is unions have attempted to bar foreign workers from getting temporary worker permits in their attempts to manipulate the labor market, one of the reasons they support minimum wage laws. The fact of the matter is that when the American government made it more difficult to travel back and forth, it actually made it more likely for migrants to stay permanently. No, buddy, in free market forums you will not find people who worship Big INS or want to back un-American know nothing restrictions on immigration?

(Reason). A wage increase raises the pay of some people, it also reduces employment of young and low-skilled people. The CBO calculated that an increase in the federal minimum wage from its current level, $7.25 an hour, to $10.10 per hour would cost about 500,000 jobs.
Complete bullshit. The minimum wage has been raised several times since its inception in 1938, and the empirical data clearly reveals that there is absolutely no correlation, let alone causation, regarding raising the minimum wage and job losses/economic tragedy. In point of fact, jobs have increased and the economy has improved every time the minimum wage has been raised. Moreover, it isn't up for discussion; it isn't a matter of opinion, but LAW. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 mandates a livable minimum wage. If the current minimum wage were simply adjusted for inflation, it would be well over $10/hr, if adjusted for productivity, it would be well over $20/hr. So, the current minimum wage is not only criminal, but immoral - never mind the fact that it's just plain bad business.
Economically illiterate fascists all over this thread. Look, the fact of the matter is that less than 3% of jobs are minimum-wage jobs, and wage/job growth elsewhere can mitigate the adversarial effects on low-skill, lower-experienced/younger workers. The indisputable fact is that a plurality of minimum-wage jobs is with smaller companies barely cracking a profit. The basic law of supply and demand holds--as labor cost increases, there's less demand for it; technological substitutes become more feasible, etc. The question is where the market-clearing wage is; price floors generally result in gluts (e.g., in lower-skill workers, aka unemployment). It is, in reality, an unconscionable discriminatory tax on low-wage labor. If you can't find a minimum-wage job at current levels, you are simply facing an even worse probability of future employment. A minimum wage increase isn't a way of "forcing employers" to pay higher wages. Employers have budgets; they can't always pass along their increased costs. They will likely respond by doing things like increasing job objectives and raising hiring criteria. The real story: fascists declaring it illegal for a willing employer and applicant to do business; the unionists benefit from fewer experienced competitors--they fear a future competitor getting his foot in the door of the job market. It is a corrupt special-interest bargain with political whores.

Marriage and Family











Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Blaze of Glory"

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Miscellany: 7/29/15 Happy Blogiversary #7!



Quote of the Day
Judge not the horse by his saddle.
Chinese Proverb

Image of the Day

Visit here
Via Catholic Libertarians
The Unconscionability of Net Neutrality: A Statist Power Grab



Guest Blog Post: Uh, Oh! Trouble in Libertarian Paradise: Kochs split from Trump

As to the moron who said there is no such thing as a libertarian-conservative, he is delusional; I'm one, and there are a number of others--the Pauls, Amash, Massey, Sanford, etc. Conservatism depends on the context of tradition, and in this country, we've had a tradition of classical (economic) liberty. But as to those of us fusionists being the minions of the Koch brothers, I do get tired of the fascists using the Koch brothers as their whipping boys, but the candidates that the Koch brothers have backed over the years have not been libertarians or fusionists, and I have differences with the Koch brothers on a number of issues. We libertarians want to limit government, which is in everyone's best interest, not just the Koch brothers.

Eric is delusional if he thinks that right-fascist Donald "Four Bankruptcies" Trump is a libertarian. According to Jeffrey Tucker, almost nobody at FreedomFest bought into Trump's act. He was brought in as a celebrity speaker to sell tickets. This self-promoting, incompetent crackpot has an unfavorable rating of nearly 60%--this means, he has no chance of getting elected anything...Case closed. You guys have got to get off this morally corrupt anti-immigrant kick; it's the surest way to elect Hillary Clinton.



Facebook Corner

(I was getting trolled on an LFC thread of a recent crisis of a Georgia county when the government-operated water utility had to shut down; there was a run on bottled water. It turns out this county is one of those with an anti-price gouging law in effect. The moderator and all free market types, including myself, strongly object to anti-price gouging laws; I said something to effect of rent a UHaul and find a Sam's Club with bottled water in stock in another county; lift the price caps, and let the market find an equilibium--high prices would attact suppliers, mitigate shortages, and the price would reach a new equilibrium. I ended up getting spammed by "progressive" trolls arguing all sorts of nonsense about demand shocks and the impossibilities of resupplying, that there was already incentive enough for suppliers to resupply at current prices, etc. I wanted to rant at the latest troll, and the moderator stepped in, and I followed with my response.)
As of yesterday (Tuesday), Kroger shelves were still without water, even in surrounding counties. Had there been a free price system, 3 days would have been plenty of time to make sure that shelves would have been adequately stocked. Allowing fluctuating prices in a disaster is the quickest and most efficient way to restore needed supplies
Finally, a voice of sanity. I was getting trolled by Statist idiots. Is there any doubt when some idiot writes something as ludicrous as "Although, I'm calling bullshit on price caps creating a shortage." He wasn't smart enough to say "price caps above the market equilibrium'--but the main point is how you deal with a shortage and it's not the role of incompetent politicians or bureaucrats to intervene in a voluntary transaction, PERIOD. Some retailers would try to manage a run by imposing customer quotas and/or raising prices. Scarcity is the core issue behind economics. People make all sorts of runs in a crisis. I lived through a hurricane while I lived in Houston. There were people in San Antonio, almost 200 miles away, buying a month's worth of groceries and cleaning out supermarkets. But the one thing we know; Statist planners will bleep things up; remember this gem from Katrina? "The story they tell is shocking: U.S. and local government officials ordered the local drinking water turned off and refused to allow water or food relief into New Orleans. ...Even three Wal-mart trucks loaded with drinking water were denied entry and turned away. No water was allowed into New Orleans." Supermarkets should not have to worry about whether the local fascists are going to go after them for any price increases. The price is what the market decides and not some "progressive" troll without a constructive idea except to attack the notion of getting the hell out of the way of consumers and suppliers. I would say if anybody is able to replenish supplies, it's Wal-Mart, whose logistics know-how is legendary.

(This is a follow-up exchange of a National Review thread on the GMO kerfuffle)
Ronald, your last comment [Perhaps we should require a warning that this non-GMO rice does not have beta carotene, which can save thousands of children from blindness or death] sounds like something a liberal would say: "if you don't want healthcare reform you want to throw granny off a cliff." Absurd to say if you're against consuming something that has unknown consequences on your body, you want to see thousands of children inflicted with blindness & death. Really just absurd.
I'm talking about golden rice, of course. We have a humane solution for a serious problem, and I am, in fact, saying that you morally corrupt, anti-scientific nut jobs are morally responsible for unnecessary suffering with your irresponsible fear-mongering bullshit propaganda: 

"On November 7, 2013, Pope Francis gave his personal blessing to Golden Rice (GR). Why is this significant? Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is responsible for 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and up to 2 million deaths each year. Particularly susceptible are pregnant women and children. Across the globe, an estimated 19 million pregnant women and 190 million children suffer from the condition. The good news, however, is that dietary supplementation of vitamin A can eliminate VAD. One way that holds particular promise is the administration via GR, which had been engineered to produce large amounts of vitamin A. A 2012 study by Tang et al. (http://bit.ly/1bc6FJx) published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that 100-150 g of cooked GR provided 60% of the Chinese Recommended Intake of vitamin A. Estimates suggest that supplementing GR for 20% of the diet of children and 10% for pregnant women and mothers will be enough to combat the effects of VAD."

(Lew Rockell). Trump Schools the Republican Establishment
The delusional self-promoting, thin-skinned, incompetent right-fascist "Four Bankruptcy" wannabe proves that a crazy old uncle can attract the votes of gullible derangement syndrome right-ring populists. This asshole has a nearly 60% unfavorable rating, which means he's dead on arrival in a general election campaign.

I know Lew Rockwell gets a kick out of the GOP elites crapping in their pants that a Trump-led ticket could lead to the biggest wipeout since the Goldwater campaign. But the idea of a Trump thinking he can order Ford to insource a factory back from China, that his bluster can win the day in diplomacy, threaten tariffs without launching a lose-lose trade war. This guy is an angry, dumber Bush on steroids. I mean, seriously--7 years of declining median income and net worth, does it really make sense running an even richer guy than Romney in a party dying to run a class warfare campaign. This guy with his schoolyard bully antics is stealing the oxygen from worthier candidates like Rand Paul and Rubio.


Marriage and Family









Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall
 Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Share Your Love With Me"

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Miscellany: 7/28/15

Quote of the Day
The market is not an invention of capitalism. 
It has existed for centuries. 
It is an invention of civilization.
Mikhail Gorbachev

Image of the Day

Totally Awesome Judge Napolitano Rant



Little Pink Houses, Kelo and You



Africa Discovers Capitalism



Facebook Corner

(continued from yesterday's  National Review comments on non-GMO nonsense)
Anti-science really? I have two friends who are microbiologists and both work in GMO fields. Both agree that GMO's do not increase yields, harm bees, and that patenting life is wrong. And how dare you call us leftists. You would be hard-pressed to find someone more conservative than me. I am pro free-market and GMOs are anything but. When you have a government subsidizing and industry to the tune of $1 billion a year there is no free market. It's simply government subsidizing crap. No one wants GMO's and they will fail.
I'm an empirical researcher, and I don't care how many crackpot scientists in name only you claim to know, this is all utter alarmist bullshit and completely false. I am not going to review all the debunked junk science you and other gullible non-researchers believe in; I don't have the time or inclination to debate garbage, but just to disprove your absurd bee statement:

(Reason). In case you thought Donald J. Trump couldn't get any more awful..
It's scary to me how many "libertarians" and "conservatives" admire Trump. He's easily the most "big government" candidate in the entire race and that includes Bernie Sanders. Does anyone really think a bombastic protectionist with a penchant for cronyism is going to shrink government?
You are absolutely full of crap. I am a libertarian/conservative, and there's not a genuine libertarian or conservative ANYWHERE who supports Trump. Case closed! He appeals to right-wing populists like nativists and anti-intellectuals. I have published many critical pieces on this self-serving right fascist. Jeffrey Tucker wrote a brilliant piece on Trumpism a while back.

A taste: "It’s not too interesting to say that Donald Trump is a nationalist and aspiring despot who is manipulating bourgeois resentment, nativism, and ignorance to feed his power lust. It’s uninteresting because it is obviously true...The ideology is a 21st century version of right fascism — one of the most politically successful ideological strains of 20th century politics. Trump has tapped into it, absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable bourgeois resentment: race, class, sex, religion, economic... I watched as most of the audience undulated between delight and disgust — with perhaps only 10% actually cheering his descent into vituperative anti-intellectualism...When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant."


(IPI). Chicago's police and fire pension funds have just 26% and 23% of their required funding, respectively, and are just years from running out of cash. They are already bankrupt under any private-sector measure.
We're are all you police loving conservatives? You only love them when they are brutalizing minorities. I think police and firemen deserve a damned good wage and pension. So lets just call it a big bank or corporation instead of a pension, then it will be too big to fail!
 First of all, you economically illiterate "progressive" hack, no true conservative or libertarian believes in "too big for fail". We are not the Fascists who passed Dodd N Frankenstein or the President in Name Only who signed it into law. But let's point out by all means, if you want to give all your paycheck to the public sector parasites at the expense of your own pocket, show us you are not simply playing a cynical hypocrite. As for the rest of us, keep your morally corrupt pickpocket fingers out of our wallets.

My Greatest Hits: Blog Lifetime

Tomorrow will be the blog's seventh blogiversary; In addition, sometime next month, I'll probably publish my 2500th post. Google/Blogger started tracking page views sometime around 2010 and there were also one or 2 posts that seemed to be targeted by spammers with unrealistic pageviews and I republished. Apparently Blogger only lets me see my top 4 (it seems in the past I could track more). The top one currently was one after now Congressman Brat primaried former Majority Leader Cantor; I was not happy Brat played the nativist card during the campaign:
Political Cartoon

Courtexy of Ken Catalino via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "I Don't Need You"

Monday, July 27, 2015

Miscellany: 7/27/15

Quote of the Day
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Image of the Day

Via Chris Walker on FB
GMOs: A Great Talk From a Co-Founder of Greenpeace





The Imprisonment of "Progressive" Policies



Facebook  Corner

(from yesterday's IPI thread on sentencing reform)
That's Illinois liberal Democrats for you... Jack booted Nazi, fascist thugs every one.
 So if I understand you correctly, the same people who advocate not imposing penalties are the ones who actually made all the myriad of laws that were violated to result in incarceration????? Overregulated society.....and who decided that we needed all the regulations to protect us from ourselves and who is continually trying to pass new laws and regulations about every aspect of our lives???? Who created the mess of overcrowded court dockets and prisons?
To the first commenter: fascism refers to a government-dominated State--people want security of some type and are willing to sacrifice liberty to strengthen that authority. Quite often in this forum, I reference left-wing authoritarians as fascists for trying to intervene in the economy vs. the free market. In this case we are likely talking right-wing "law and order" authoritarians who worship "the law", no matter whether "the law" is overextended at the expense of liberty. Yes, the fascist left loves to pile on rules and regulations, which contradicts the very concept of the rule of law. To the State, if they really want to get you, they'll find something, anything, like convicting Capone on taxes.

The second commenter makes a similar conceptual error. The fact of the matter is that prisons have largely exploded because of bad public policy of the War on Drugs. (And I'm saying this as someone who has never touched the stuff.) When the government tries to restrict the supply, it makes the prices high--and for suppliers, the lure of huge profits. This is a classic Bootleggers and Baptists story, i.e., Baptists by bad public policy in restricting the ability of others to transact in the white economy are the useful idiots for profit-seeking bootleggers. Yes, the left-wing fascists do create "the law is the law" mess that right-wing fascists worship. For pro-liberty conservatives like me, it's clear that politicians, mostly leftist but right-wing also (consider the unrestrained NSA), think they aren't doing their job unless they pass retarded laws telling people what they can't do. Any true fiscal conservative knows when our incarceration rates are only matched by those in highly repressed countries, there's something wrong with our laws and legal system.

(IPI). The Democrat-controlled Rules Committee has refused to call a vote on House Bill 4225, which would stop lawmaker pay raises for the current fiscal year.
Make lawmaker compensation an issue decided at the general election ballot box. If you don't want to work for the money your bosses, the taxpayers, decide, then get the hell out of politics. But putting professional politicians in charge of their own compensation is like Barack Obama grading himself a solid B+.

(National Review). The war against genetically modified organisms is full of fearmongering, errors, and fraud. Labeling them will not make you safer.” -- Slate.com
Why should I be surprised that the anti-science/anti-Monsanto nut jobs are spamming this thread? Let's get a few things straight:

"In 2012-2013, two separate courts acknowledged that Monsanto has not taken any action – or even suggested taking any action – against organic growers because of cross-pollination.."

"Monsanto’s average of roughly 13 lawsuits per year “is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million.”


The food fearmongering fascists want nutritious GMO foods to wear a scarlet letter. It's absurd--it's like demanding blueberry producers to identiffy if the berries came from Michigan or the Northeast. If a producer wants to provide that information, fine, Perhaps we should require a warning that this non-GMO rice does not have beta carotene, which can save thousands of children from blindness or death
I am far from being a leftist but I want GMOS labeled so I can make the choice to buy them or not. I would not!
Anti-science bullshit. First of all, GMO's are healthy; the scientific evidence is compelling. There's no reason to label them, although given the fact that GMO's are often nutritionally superior, perhaps we should consider require labeling of nutritionally-inferior non-GMO/organic products. People should be made aware unscrupulous non-GMO producers are charging excessive prices based on junk science.

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Lady". Kenny Rogers' only #1 solo hit on the Hot 100; a pop masterpiece written by one of our greatest singer-songwriters, Lionel Richie in the transition period of launching a hugely successful solo career apart from the Commodores. One of my all-time favorite songs, a song I've wanted to sing all my life to the love of my life (still waiting...) I could put the track on auto-replay for a half hour or more. Rogers' vocals are perfect and Lionel's gift for unforgettable melodies brilliant...

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Miscellany: 7/26/15

Quote of the Day
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Oliver Goldsmith

Guest Quotation for the Day

We in Serbia call him Barack Obmana(on Serbian,obmana means ,,dellusion'' ) - from Libertarian Catholic on FG

Image of the Day
No, Obama: NOT a To-Do List
Murray Rothbard On the Origins of Cronyism

I haven't had time to read Rothbard's major works, mostly excerpts on various topics in the history of US economics, but this is a brilliant sample. FDR's disastrous policies during the Depression are straightforward reflections of what Rothbard illustrates here, including the lie that falling prices are a bad thing. Today I can buy a vastly more powerful PC for roughly the down payment on the first desktop PC I bought as a professor--and that was with more expensive dollars. Lower prices did not kill the industry. I have little patience with "progressives" or "left-libertarians" who argue that corporations run America and assorted nonsense. As Rothbard points out here, governments have always been at the core of the problem because they have a monopoly on force--only they can prohibit competition or keep cartel members "honest".  Crafty crony capitalists put lipstick on a pig; they'll seduce gullible leftist "progressives" (like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) and academics with political spin on the "public interest". The political whores aren't necessarily sellouts to the companies; they're simply naive and economically illiterate: they really, really believe in the spin, but in reality they fail to see the wolf in sheep's clothing--the purported "reforms" are simply an anti-competitive measure that harms consumers as a whole.

Take the Uber kerfuffle playing out in NYC and elsewhere or restaurant assaults on food trucks. The typical fear mongering about criminals operating Uber cars or food trucks being a license to food poisoning. The idea is "without government", who would be there to protect the consumer? First of all, be clear: everything that government does to filter competitors, by delaying or prohibiting or otherwise imposing burdensome restrictions (e.g., food trucks may have limited parking options, time limits, etc.), is anti-competitive in nature, which serves to protect incumbent businesses and impoverishes consumers without robust volumes, variety and pricing of goods and services. Second, whether or not government regulates, businesses that harm consumers through faulty or dangerous goods and services are liable through our court system, and for small businesses, legal bills could put the company out of business. It would be suicidal for a small business not to be preventive, e.g., minimize the risk of food contamination, following best practices, etc. Third, companies like Uber know to anticipate the customer's needs, wants and concerns. Obviously they carefully screen their drivers, ensure the cars are well-maintained, etc. This has nothing to do with government stamping its approval on a business. Companies that kill their customers have an impossible time staying in business, whether or not they have a Statist imprimatur. Independent third parties could provide validation inspections without government involvement, not unlike how CPA firms attest to fair financial statements.



Facebook Corner

(LFC). The government owned (monopoly) water producer in my county issued an advisory yesterday stating that its water is currently unsafe to drink. Yet there are laws against "price gouging," so there is little incentive for Kroger to move bottled water inventory from its stores in unaffected areas to stores in affected areas. The predictable result: a bottled water shortage and empty shelves.
The fascists would rather make all of the people equally thirsty. Seriously, banning voluntary transactions? The people trust the same government that mismanaged its water supply to pick the right market price out of their asses? Rent a truck and head for an alternative county Sam's Club... High prices attract suppliers; suppliers cut prices in a glut, etc. Econ 101 law of supply and demand.

(Drudge Report). [I Pay My Own Way, Unlike Bush, Walker or Clinton...]
Without Donald "Four Bankruptcies" Trump, who would retards vote for?
The last time I checked, you pompous jerk, self-promoting, economic illiterate, incompetent buffoons cannot buy the Oval Office.

(IPI). The Illinois Department of Corrections reports that 62 percent of inmates are parents. Seldom is a family better off with a nonviolent mom or dad is behind bars.Alternatives to prison must be deployed.
 Why should I be surprised that the morally corrupt fascist supporters of the prison industrial complex are in a state of denial over one of the highest imprisonment rates in the world, in the alleged "land of the free"? In today's overregulated society, some authors argue the typical American unknowingly commits up to 3 felonies a day, where the law has become vague and intent is increasingly divorced, even the son or daughter of a fascist can be arbitrarily charged and convicted.
 Alternatives for prison? How about alternatives for criminal decisions and actions.
Most of this thread is full of fascists. We have among the highest incarceration rates IN THE WORLD, well beyond any other democratic republic. So either you fascists believe we are intrinsically the most criminal people on earth or there is something very screwed up with our laws and justice system. Anyone with a functional brain knows it's the latter.
They can't be very good parents if they are in jail. When you become a parent it is time to make sure you don't break the law to end up in jail.
The problem is the legal system, lady. Look up the facts--we send MULTIPLES proportionately than any other republic. Stop pretending "the law" is not the problem.
They already have an alternative, it called not getting arrested.
They have an alternative; it's called living in a country without a prison industrial complex.

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "Love the World Away"

A Baby Boomer Tries to Mentor a Millennial

This is a different type of post. I know there have been a number of posts by others talking about millennials in the workforce (Wikipedia by Google: "Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Researchers and commentators use birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.) My college teaching career, to the current day, stopped in the middle of an early 1990s recession. Most of the people I've worked with in my post-academic careers have been more experienced Baby Boomers or Generation Xers.

Now I've probably mentioned my first real professional job (after earning two math degrees and a short stint teaching at a Navy facility) was in an end user support area for the property actuaries in a well-known insurance company. Basically, end user support was IT resources dedicated to the area vs part of some big IT department. Actuarial applications were often written in an IBM-developed rapid programming language called APL; APL is a concise, powerful, mathematically-notated interpretive language that reads from right to left, and the company had problems trying to retrain COBOL programmers to do APL. The company decided, given my MA in math, to hire me as the trainee in a 4-person area.

The first employee, Joe, was a middle-aged programmer who had started out on the property actuary track. At the time I think you had to go through 10 exams to get certified as a fellow. I don't know why he washed out of the exam track but he eventually transitioned into computing support.  I think he had some military-related hearing disabilities, not unlike my Dad. For whatever reason (his lack of managerial experience, past history, communication issues, etc.), the actuaries decided not to make him supervisor of the team and decided to hire experienced Blue Cross personnel to the outstanding supervisor and staff programmer positions. The supervisor candidate backed out at the last minute.

The company told Joe to take on training me, but the first day Joe said to me, "Nothing against you, Ron, but training others is not in my job description." So basically I had to train myself. About 3 months later, the actuaries decided to hire an IT department middle-aged guy who had been instrumental in installing APL (but couldn't read a line of code and didn't have a college degree) as the supervisor. From day 1, Jesse made it clear he wanted me gone: he was intimidated by this 23-year-old kid with an MA in math. He told me directly, "The only way you can advance in this company is through my position, and I'm not going anywhere." When I eventually left the company a year later, he replaced me with someone from the general office support staff, without a college degree. He had no incentive to assign me to a high-profile project and worked a number of gimmicks to force me to resign. One example is he arbitrarily took a project assigned to me and decided to give it to a summer intern and basically put my nose into it by assigning the kid's crap back to me when he went back to school.

But I learned enough APL to attract an offer from the largest APL timesharing company in Houston. (The timesharing industry gradually folded under the onslaught of cheap PC computing by the time I earned my doctorate. In general, timesharing was a bridge solution to buying another expensive mainframe. We basically offered an enhanced version of APL and metered access to rapid prototyping applications to managers working around backlogged corporate IT. One anecdote I remember from that first employer was a colleague looking for an input-processing utility; I quickly fashioned some code off the top of my head. The colleague measured the cost at about 80 cents; the branch manager tried his hand multiple times and never got closer than about $1.15.  On another occasion, an Exxon client wanted me to devise an application for tracking timesharing. I had very little to go on beyond his initial comments; he was absolutely thrilled and told me that my utility was spreading like mushrooms around Exxon--at least 15 more implementations.)

Now the reason for mentioning the above is not to brag about past accomplishments or to argue they're unique or significant, but to point out one basic thing: one often has to deal with uncertainty in professional environments, and your ability to be productive under poorly defined circumstances is something prized by employers. I used to tell my students, "Employers aren't looking for someone to simply retype someone else's code." [Some professors used to hand out pseudocode assignments.] I used to do my fair share of maintenance programming, written and patched by different people with alternative coding styles, uncommented code, little or no documentation. I've gone into gigs with literally less than 2 days of transition with a departing DBA, still others where I replaced a terminated DBA with zero transition. I've worked for managers who literally could not do my job.

I haven't really discussed Oracle DBA work in the blog, and I'll try to avoid to be unduly technical in my discussion. I went onto an Oracle EBS (ERP) project a few months back [I have significant experience with EBS as well as general DBA experience]. One unexpected development was my hiring manager was in the process of transitioning out of the company, was no longer a manager and spent much of remaining time at home in Idaho. (The project is on the East Coast.) He had made a couple of trainee type hires, one a young woman with little professional experience hired a few weeks before me, the other more of a middle-aged Windows administrator. Other colleagues included more of a senior general Oracle DBA from Michigan a couple of weeks before me and a CPA female who had migrated into an EBS DBA role a few years back. The Windows administrator quit (in the middle of a staff meeting) shortly after my Idaho colleague left the project. The Michigan DBA, who was in the midst of moving his family to the East Coast, got an offer from a former employer to stay in Michigan. Another functional team member just accepted a federal civil service position. So we were down to 3 project staffers and were warned that project funding could dry up by September or even next month.

For the most part, the CPA and I have been doing the real work. It's not really clear what the trainee was doing from a project perspective; it seemed she was studying from some Linux (operating system) manuals and some Oracle course training using a PC database. The CPA tried to mentor her shortly after her hire but quickly turned sour of what she thought was gross incompetence; in particular, the young woman didn't even know how to create a shortcut on her desktop. 

I've been more patient with her requests, but there have been some circumstances that had me shaking my head. One is what I call the scp (secure copy) incident. In a typical cloning environment (say, for a test or development database) you might copy software and database backup files to the target server. So I was demonstrating the process from one of our backup servers to her personal virtual machine (think of a computer in a computer; she was running a Linux virtual machine on a Windows PC). She even took notes on what I was doing. In any event, 2 days later she asked for help from the Michigan DBA (Bob) . I hear them talking about scp, and Bob is going to Google at his cubicle to look up the syntax of the scp command. I flatly don't understand this at all; why was Bob doing this? Couldn't she look up the syntax on Google herself? It's bad enough she didn't seem to remember what I taught, with notes, 2 days earlier.

A second puzzling example was maybe a week or two back. She was having difficulty bringing up the database "Agilex" on her PC.  So I go to a location where there should be an initAgilex.ora file. I found nothing but an initorcl.ora file. I source orcl and connect to the database--and find the database "orcl" is already up. She says there's only one database on the box. So why had she tried to start up a nonexistent database?

A third example is her conceptual misunderstanding involving wildcards. For example, suppose that I want a file from /u01/app/abcdefghi. If app was the only directory under /u01 and only one subdirectory started with abc, I could cd /u01/*/abc*. She never quite got the concept of wildcards down; she started to put asterisks everywhere; for example, suppose the app directory also included directory cghid. She would try *ghi*, which would fail, but *ghi would get there. I often had her do filtered greps (string searches) and she would often just attach * at the end of the search string. (You can use *, but it's a repetition character; the wildcard character is '.' Simply putting an asterisk at the end of the string filter could pull in results without the last string character.) I would ask her, "Why are you putting an asterisk in that expression?" I suppose she could have viewed the question in a defensive manner, but I was performing my role as a teacher or mentor.

More recently, she had been tasked with creating a repository database. I had to tell her how to structure her task--here's where your find documentation, here is the process of installing the 12c software, downloading a template for the repository and running dbca. Oracle often zips database software under the same directory across different zip files; if they aren't combined, Oracle Installer won't work. She asked for my help in merging zipfiles: something I had previously demonstrated to her on multiple occasions. (Actually it's very simple: you simply unzip one file in a working directory and you unzip the other.)

Last Friday she once again came to me for  help in resolving prerequisite issues for database software installation. Briefly, there are operating system requirements, including (on Linux boxes) kernel requirements, package version prerequisites, some user oracle setups. Now I have personally walked her through these (on an earlier version of software) 2-3 times. She had stopped at the Oracle installer's prerequisite check screen; among other things, none of the kernel parameters had been adjusted. She defended it, saying she couldn't find where Oracle documented the parameters. (It took me less than 5 minutes to find it.) I quickly guided her down to a remaining 2 patches with some dependency problems.  (Her trial license had expired; I suggested an alternative solution, but she refused. I think she wanted someone else to get a trial license so she could use.) There was a first button to refresh her prerequisite check (although we already knew two packages had failed). She was pushing back and wanting to use a different button option.

It's not clear why she got upset; maybe she was impatient at how I was walking her through the interface; maybe she was on the defense because I wanted her to explain her actions with the interface; I was totally professional and patient; I never made disparaging remarks at any time, I did not scream at her.. At some point around refreshing the prerequisite check, she accused me of being a "hothead"--and walked of her own cubicle on me. HINT to millennials: this is extraordinarily disrespectful, unprofessional behavior; I have seen people discharged at a fraction of the provocation. I have never addressed a boss or senior colleague in a judgmental fashion, never mind the hand that is feeding you. It wasn't the first time she pulled this walkout stunt. I recall on a prior occasion, she told me "Dude! You need to chill!" "You're grumpy..."

On Tuesday she sent me an email to the effect "I hope you're mature enough to get past what happened on Friday." She went to say that her Oracle software installation blew up. I wrote back and asked whether she had fixed her packages or had she decided to ignore the warnings and proceed with the install. She basically confirmed the latter. She sent a final email some time later, saying that she had a new job and she was leaving sooner than later. I could take over her server for all she cared. And she said something to the effect I had some good points, but there was a side to me she didn't care for. Classy to the end.

I would not have hired her; I will never serve as her reference. It doesn't have anything to do with her unprofessional behavior. I simply could never trust her in a DBA role. She is too impulsive, impatient and reckless; I've seen incompetent DBA's set back projects for weeks or cause hours of downtime in a business day.

All that time I invested in her professional development was for nothing. I have mentored dozens of developers or DBAs over the years, not to mention former college students. I doubt I'll ever invest that much time with a junior team member in the future. I know she'll never find anyone who is willing to mentor and help her like I did.

Another minor point: cellphones. I know a lot of people, not just young people, are obsessed with their phones. I get only a fraction of calls of other people, but if it goes off in a private meeting, say, with a manager, I'll send the call to voicemail and turn off the phone. It seemed like this young woman's phone at times was going off every 3 minutes--her mother, her boyfriend, whatever. If someone is taking the time out of his schedule to help you, interruptions can be very rude. Now the lady did sometimes not take a call, but it seemed over a number of sessions every time I thought we were making progress, the phone would go off, and it would take 5 minutes to get back on track. I never really lectured her over her phone (perhaps she was aware of my annoyance, but that should be obvious and a matter of common sense and consideration).

It's difficult to generalize from this one case study. But some advice for millennials:
  • show some initiative and a hard work ethic
  • be respectful of your senior colleague's time constraints
  • show some genuine appreciation and gratitude
  • be tactful in how you address and communicate to your colleagues
The young lady in this post is headed for a failed career; she had extraordinary access to her hiring manager (Idaho) and me, and it was not lost on her managers she constantly seemed to be seeking my help, six months into the job; I suspect they were in the early stages of her termination. I asked the CPA how long she thought the new job would last. "Two weeks." That long, huh?

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Miscellany: 7/25/15

Quote of the Day
No obstacles fell in his way that seemed to him insurmountable. 
He might be defeated, as he sometimes was, 
but he shrank from no hardship through impatience, 
he fled from no danger through cowardice.
J. P. Morgan writing about Napoleon Bonaparte

Forbes on Politics 2016



Facebook Corner

(Independent Institute). "Few economic policies are more offensive to basic morality. To tell a dealer in goods or services what he can charge is presumptuous and extremely invasive, reeking of pretensions of the state’s prior ownership of all of society’s fruits, to be distributed only upon the good graces of the central-planning elite. All who love freedom should hate all price controls with a deep passion. All who understand economic cause and effect in even the simplest terms should recognize that, all else being equal, price ceilings cause shortages and price floors result in gluts."
The issue I have with Gregory's piece has to do with the drug reimportation kerfuffle, which Gregory makes passing reference to approvingly. If we take the obvious example of Canada, Canada is hardly a deregulated market; it de facto maintains price controls and controls supplies. How can you argue that we should import Canada's price controls? That's as contrary to free market principles as one can get. Not to mention many of these corrupt States threaten to ignore intellectual property rights and allow generic drug companies to sell copies, which is in its essence a declaration of a trade war.

I have no problem with robust free trade, and I understand why many of us see reimportation as a free trade issue, even if it's only temporary and one-sided. But let's be clear here: the problem has more to do with the FDA's chokehold on drug innovation. We need to privatize drug approvals.

 Canada's rigid price controls are subsidized by high prices in the U.S. Thus, the drug companies made a reasonable calculation that they could expand revenue/profits across both markets despite the Canadian price controls as long as U.S. prices remained static. The contribution margin would be much lower for Canadian product distribution, but the revenue it would also absorb cost allocations.The model doesn't work if the U.S. tried to follow suit. If the U.S. did impose Canadian style price controls the revenue to investment (profit) would radically change and the drug companies would need to rethink their investment in new drugs in light of this market change. The obvious affect would be to curtail new nvestment.
 The point I'm making is that the Canadian market is not a free market, but if the "progressives" did import the drugs at cheaper prices they would, as you point out, result in cannibalization of existing domestic sales. The Canadian price would quickly become the going rate, which is what I meant about importing Canada's price controls. Yes, the companies would respond, e.g., by withdrawing from the Canadian market or by limiting production. This is why I referred to importation as a short-term solution at best.
Overpricing is what you are talking about . Unrealistic prices is what the the market is doing .Price controls are successful . Commodities for one needs to be taken out of the trading market, speculators are not free market . They are price manipulators . price controls help the economy giving the ability back to the people, to have money to spread into the economy not just survive
Fascist whore expressing fascist claptrap. No, if you can't recoup your costs, you go out of business, pure and simple. What we need is to free the market. Econ 101 says that price caps result in shortages and price floors create gluts (I think the author pointed that out). What you need is more competition, which necessarily means less government.
You obviously don't realize that what needs to happen is the insurance industry needs to get out of the medical business. ..then we would all benefit. Some of those CEOS are making $3,000,000 per WEEK in total compensation. ...for the privilege of denying people medical care AND OVERRULING the Physicians who are SUPPOSED to be the decision makers.
Retard "progressives" all over this thread. How many times are fascists going to bash executive compensation for insurers? For example, WellPoint's net income exceeds $2.6B a year and its CEO (including bonuses) has made roughly $13M a year. WellPoint's margins have been something like 4%. 4% is not a huge profit margin; consider the S&P average is near 10%. So you are talking about a CEO making about 0.5% of a relatively speaking small profit based on revenues. The real story (and the fascist obviously didn't read the article) has to do with the federal government interventions exacerbating sector costs, tax incentives to shift ordinary health expenses, etc.

Now let's deal with the idiocy of the government "negotiating" drug prices. Government doesn't negotiate; it sets price schedules. How it's worked in Medicaid is an offset of private-sector cost--which means if the Medicaid market share is big enough, the manufacturer has an incentive to increase prices in the private-sector to maximize its Medicaid revenues.


(IPI). Mitsubishi USA announced it will shut down facilities in Normal, Illinois, jeopardizing the jobs of 918 workers.This announcement comes after a string of 4 major manufacturing losses over the span of 10 days.
The new Normal in Illinois business until Illinois decides to get serious about public sector reform and pares back spending, taxation, and regulation. You also have to do something about the corrupt Illinois judicial system.
So the justices of the state supreme court which are from both parties are Whores? So because they read the constitution as it was written that makes them corrupt? Sorry, but if something just doesn't go your way that doesn't mean that its wrong. The writers of the 1970 IL Constitution knew someday something like this would happen because it was happening back then. The funds have been underfunded for decades and that causes lost investment income. There are three legs to a fund 1) employee contributions at 9-10% of their gross income 2) employer contributions (which weren't made or were grossly underfunded 3) investment income that averages 6-9% depending on the year. Number one hasn't missed a payment and number 3 took a huge hit when Wall Street and the Bank pushed our economy over the cliff due to their greed. That leaves number 2 and when you don't properly fund something you also hurt number 3 because the money isn't there to invest.
Don't be a retard. The issue has ZERO to do with past payments; it has to do with funding at excessive benefit levels for increased lifetime payouts and larger retiree populations, RETARD. It has to do with an ILLEGAL transfer of liabilities to future generations, RETARD. I don't give a damn what political party a judicial whore belongs to; vetoing modest reforms is self-serving corruption. And. by the way, RETARD, I seem to recall that the state has been sued--unsuccessfully--to make pension contributions--blessed by the Illinois Supreme Court. I do know more recently the unions in NJ unsuccessfully sued Gov. Christie over cutting similar contributions.

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers (with Kim Carnes), "Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer".