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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Miscellany: 10/14/15

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True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of a genie
Puzant Kevork

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Yes, Bernie Sanders IS that damn creepy...

Unsustainable Public Pensions: Another Case Example

The following example of a six-figure city police chief in Michigan taking a six-figure position at a state university is a fairly egregious example of public employment double-dipping. The news story doesn't identify this chief's prospective pension payments; I don't know his years of service, the vesting schedule, etc., but you can make a rough estimate of 60-80% of his final year salary ($130.5K). The only positive aspect of this story: as a state employee, he will be in a 401K/403B type system. Now the Michigan systems aren't nearly the horror stories you hear from neighboring Illinois, which I've constantly written on in FB comments over the past couple of years, but pay attention to my highlighted points:
A husband and wife who were both Ann Arbor police officers retired within a year of each other. The husband, a lieutenant, retired in 2009 at age 46. His wife, whose job title was telecommunicator, started collecting pension checks in 2010 at age 51. Since 2009, the city of Ann Arbor has seen 43 individuals age 51 or younger retire and begin collecting police pensions...The problem for the city and its taxpayers is that Ann Arbor’s pension system is underfunded and its costs are skyrocketing. The city paid $2.9 million to fund employees’ pensions in 2006. By 2014, the figure had nearly quadrupled to $11.2 million.In 2014, the system was underfunded by $89.6 million. Ann Arbor Police Chief John Seto retired July 31, 2015, at the age of 48. One month later, the University of Michigan named Seto as its new director of Housing Security and Safety Services, the Ann Arbor News reported. Seto earned $130,491 as the police chief and will make $113,000 in his new position — plus his monthly pension checks from the city of Ann Arbor.
The Dem Presidential Debate: An Assessment

I had no interest in watching squealing pigs fight over their how to spend their grandchildren's taxes.



 More Food Politics



TSA: Reality Check



The Williston Oil Boom Is Over--For Now

I have hinted at this during the last weeks as the US shale oil producers have been attacked by the lowest-cost producers, the Saudis. Oil prices have recently reached the $45-50/barrel range. (I discussed this in explaining why we need to allow oil exports, the US price at the lower end of the range.) Whereas costs vary by location, geological characteristics, etc., many shale oil producers can't make money below, say, $65/barrel. In the boom days, you had many oilfield workers making in the upper 5-figures or higher, and even lower-skilled workers, say, in fast food or many positions at Wal-Mart were starting at twice the minimum wage:
At the peak of the boom, starting pay for oil workers topped $100,000 per year. Starting pay for fast food workers in Williston was $20 an hour…175% above the federal minimum wage. Plus an immediate $500 signing bonus. Plus benefits. From July 2010 to July 2013, Williston was the fastest growing town in the country. Rents skyrocketed. In February 2014, an Apartment Guide survey found that the average rent for a one-bedroom, 700-square foot apartment in Williston was $2,394…The number of active rigs has plummeted by two-thirds in just a year...So oil companies have cut back on drilling in the Bakken. The number of wells pumping oil in the area is now at a six-year low. More than 4,000 workers lost their jobs in the first quarter. Taxable sales in counties at the center of the nation’s second-largest oil region dropped as much as 10% in the first quarter from a year earlier. Vacancy rates are around 65% for new apartments and 70% for housing camps. Apartments that used to rent for $2,000 a month are now renting for $200 a month.
Facebook Corner

(Cato Institute). "For those of you who did not watch the Democratic Party presidential debate last night, Senator Bernie Sanders says he wants America to be more like Denmark. In some ways, that is an excellent idea."
To suggest that the Socialist government of Denmark a nation of only 6 million with demographics totally different than the U.S. would work is totally asinine.
The point is, whereas the Scandanavian countries cripple their economic growth with an unsustainable welfare state, they are considerably economically freer than US businesses, are more pro-trade, etc. The fascist Sanders has a vested interest in the bureaucratic State.

(Lew Rockwell). A few funny moments from the Dem debate:
Lincoln Chafee trying to explain his vote to abolish Glass-Steagall, which he says never should have happened. Well, it was his “first day in the senate, and his father had just died, and it was a 99-5 vote.” He kept repeating this, in whining tones, when Anderson Cooper asked if he had not understood the vote, or been confused. He still sounded out of it.
The unreconstructed Noo Yawker Bernie trying to explain why he was not a 100% gun-control nut, repeating “I represent a rural state.” His fellow urbanites were not impressed.
Jim Webb noting that people constantly surrounded by armed guards (he did not mention Hillary) want to take away regular people’s guns.
Then they all (except Webb) adamantly agreed that “black lives matter,” not, Heaven forfend, “all lives.”
He is right about Glass Steagal. It appeared to be a check on the power of Big Banks but had hidden clauses which actually increased their power, especially over small banks, furthering financial monopoly. See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Glass Steagal did nothing about the Federal Reserve Act, the source of the problem, which gave control of the nations money to a select group of shareholders.
The fact is Glass Steagall was never a Holy Grail of banking and had ZERO to do with the house of cards that collapsed in 2008. FDIC was a morally hazardous piece of shit that perverted the real market. The small bank populist nonsense is crap; unit banking, reserve restrictions, monopoly of banknotes, etc., had more to do with US banking instability--none of which impacted Canada's more robust banking system.

(Reason). "Libertarians can take some real comfort in the fact that each party is ripping us off more and more with every passing election."
Well, to quote President Zipper, trying to make Democrats look libertarian is the "biggest fairy tale I've ever seen". The unsustainable 70% portion of the federal budget spent on individual entitlements, the $1.8T regulatory chokehold on the economy--virtually all that came from the Democrats. When it comes to the Defense Department, just remember our involvement in the 4 bloodiest wars over the past century all started on the watch of Democrat Presidents.

 "Marriage equality" is simply further intervention in the private institutions of marriage and family; gays always had freedom of association and the right to contract. The legitimate libertarian position is to privatize marriage, not further add to the politically correct laundry list of minority exceptions to equality under the law. To take as a simple example, Catholic adoption agencies have been thwarted from operating by the fascists because they cannot, by moral principle, place children in nontraditional family settings.

 When you get to immigration issues, do you honestly think their crony union bosses will allow a viable visiting worker program? Let us not forget--it was not the GOP but the Democrats who put the Western Hemisphere nations into the anti-liberty quota system and who ended the Bracero program under the pressure from the union bosses. 

 Do any of the Democrats renounce Obama's undeclared drone war expansion? His contention he has the right to intervene in the Middle East without Congressional approval? The attempts of this administration to build a regulatory empire over the Internet? Besides using Turing/Daraprim as a whipping boy to demonize the pharmaceutical industry, did they acknowledge the issue here with the FDA chokehold on generic drug competition to the off-patent drug?

 The problem I have with Nick's piece is that he's putting lipstick on a pig, as if we need any additional government pork. They might have soundbites that sound libertarian, but it has more to do with their coalition politics (e.g., sentencing reform).
Nick got the analysis correct: All of the Democrats are more libertarian on most issues than any of the Republican candidates, with the possible exception of Rand Paul. But then Nick says he couldn't vote for any of them because they talk about Glass-Steagall, inequality, health care and maternity leave. That's crazy. Aren't libertarians against the rigged markets and crony capitalism criticized by the Dems?
Bullshit! The Democrats have built the goddamn welfare state from scratch, never mind the regulatory madness that has a $1.8T chokehold on the economy. Did you hear any of the fascists explain how they were going to balance the budget, particularly the 70% of mandatory spending/individual entitlements? "Rigged markets and crony capitalism"? If and when this exists, it's an artifact of the State, which has been built by the Fascist Party.

(Catholic Libertarians). "[The MIssionaries of Charity] have cited ideological issues with our adoption guidelines related to giving a child up for adoption to single, unwed mothers. They have their own agenda and now when they have to come under a unified secular agenda, they are refusing it." ~ [Government]
Why should we be surprised by the lack of religious liberty in India or elsewhere? Catholic Charities in Illinois and elsewhere have had to shut down vs. comply with gay fascist legal requirements mandating nontraditional family placements. https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2011/12/29/illinois-catholic-charities-close-rather-than-allow-same-sex-couples-adopt-children/Km9RBLkpKzABNLJbUGhvJM/story.html

Here's what you're all missing. Single women who are in a position to adopt live *completely* differently than the single woman who gives up a child for adoption.

 The adoptive mom is ready, willing, and ABLE to give a child a loving home - and she has to prove it. Every aspect of her life is scrutinized before she can be approved. For any number of reasons, the birth mom is not ready, willing, or able.

 As a foster care adoptee myself, I know for a fact that growing up with a single mom who had the desire and resources to give me a good life would have been immeasurably better than aging out of the foster care system.

 Once again, dogma is being allowed to triumph over love & rationality. And, again, those most vulnerable pay the price: the children.
The point here--which you seem to miss--is that the State policy doesn't allow Catholic agencies to operate on the policy of placing children into traditional household settings. Whether or not children can thrive in single-parent settings settinhgs is not the point; I'm sure that war widows, for instance, have done an admirable job raising their families. They believe children should grow in a traditional family setting with two parents. Now, granted, I don't know from experience, but given the alternative, I would much rather have been raised in a Catholic vs. State orphanage, and I would have more confidence in a Catholic vs. State placement.

Choose Life: Baby Ethan Crashes Daddy Coffey's Concert



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via IPI
Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Meat Loaf, "You Took the Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)"

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