Category Archives: Economics

Maybe now they will let people defend themselves

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California is likely going to be forced to release 40,000 inmates from prisons due to over crowding.

With the economic in shambles few of these people will be able to find work and will resort to crime for the basic necessities. With the huge deficit and debt California has don’t expect an expansion of parole officers and/or police to protect the public from people that are still dangerous. And besides, what would they do with them if they caught them committing a crime? Put them back in the prison that was already overflowing?

California politicians who oppose people being able to defend themselves may face a sudden change of attitude in their voters in regards to gun control.

One might also expect a rise in the black market. The excessive regulation and high taxes stifle the utilization of cheap labor these newly released inmates represent. If the incentives to go straight are strong enough (getting shot for committing a minor crime could be sufficiently motivating) the price of the labor will become very low. If the labor is cheap enough entrepreneurs will consider getting into a grey market which bypasses the regulations and taxes. I would not be surprised that a dollar earned “below the radar” of the state is worth two dollars earned in full compliance with the state. If this does happened the underground economy will further erode the financial position of the state.

And what will be the end result? Will it be a Mad Max world, a libertarian utopia, or an invitation for the Feds to create a police state?

The Science is Settled

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As we all now know, if you want to answer a question scientifically, you take a poll.  That’s the New Scientific Method.  Scientific American magazine took such a poll regarding anthropogenic Gluball Worming (that’s Kim Du Toit’s term, IIRC) and since they didn’t like the results, it would seem Reasoned DiscourseTM has kicked in.  I suppose the New Scientific Method will have to be amended – you take a poll of Open Society socialists only.  Then you’ll get the right results.

This from Hockey Schtick, which has ostensibly maintained a link to the unwanted results.  Take it for what you will.  Do your own investigation.  Myself, I find it hard to believe even though I know the left like the back of my hand and therefore such things should come as no surprise.  I heard of this poll on the Dennis Prager show last week, and figured I should share.

I used to subscribe to Scientific American, until I received the impression that desperate academics were using it merely as a vehicle for getting published.  I got tired of wading through so much evidence of non-inspiration, just to find the few interesting tidbits.  Still I’ll give them credit for being the only place I’d heard of superfluids, pre internet.

To me it’s not terribly important one way or the other.  The left has been crying “Wolf!” for generations now and it has worn thin, and worn out, for me decades ago.  The planet Earth was supposed to run out of oil in the 1980s, and so we were supposed to adopt more socialism.  The “Population Time Bomb” was going to get us by then too, we were told as elementary school students, and so we were supposed to adopt more socialism including forced population controls.  The planet was going to freeze up in a new ice age, we were told back in the 1960s, and then it became Glueball Worming, and now it’s “Climate Change”.  Those are just a few highlights, but this crap has been non-stop for what – about 150 years?  They’ve lost control of the narrative now.  What will happen as a result?

I figure it’ll have to get more down to the point – It’ll have to be plain old threats from the left at some point.  When the spoiled child’s attempts at lying and manipulation fall flat, the all-out tantrums come next.  The best we can do I suppose is ignore them, but when they start breaking things it gets difficult.

Quote of the day–President Barack Obama

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I believe it is a mistake for us to borrow $700 billion to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires and billionaires. It won’t significantly boost the economy and it’s hugely expensive, so we can’t afford it.

President Barack Obama
November 14, 2010
Obama Says He’s Committed to Middle-Class Tax Cut Extension
[Just the phrase “we can’t afford it” and the word “expensive” in reference to a tax cut tells you how out of touch with reality he is or desires to change your perception of it. The proper usage of those words is more like, ‘You can’t afford spending money on expensive items.” You use a different set of words to describe taking money from people at gun point.—Joe]

Perfect!

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There was a call-in to one of the Marks that fill in for Limbaugh, responding to the Mark’s favorable comments on the “Fair Tax” today.  The Mark repeated Steve Forbes’ call for a flat 17% income tax.

The caller tried to make the point that, although 17% would represent a large tax cut to the rich, which isn’t a bad thing, it would represent an undue hardship for those with the lowest incomes.  The Mark’s reply was that at least this makes everyone a taxpayer, and therefore we’d all have a stake in things.  True, but the major point was missed, in my opinion, by the host.

The correct reply to the caller’s concern is; “Perfect!  Now you’ve started down the road to understanding, Little Grasshopper!  If 17% percent is too much for the poor, it is too much for everyone else.  If 17% will restrict the poor, it will restrict everyone else.

Let’s refer to the poor as our canaries in the income tax coal mine.  If 17% makes the canary sick, we’re all being slowly poisoned, and whether we notice it right away or not, we’re all inhibited or restricted because of it.


Reduce taxes and investment and employment increase.  Raise taxes and investment and employment decrease.  Even if all you care about is revenue to the fed gov, and the issue of personal liberty is meaningless to you; do you want 17% of 14 trillion, or say, 8.5% of 28 trillion?  That’s the sort of question we’re asking here.  I say if there’s going to be an income tax it should be constitutionally limited to 5%.  Any more than that not only cuts into charity in a big way, it encourages a black market, and stifles liberty and economic growth.  If the fed gov can’t make it on a 5% flat tax, they’re either doing too much or wasting too much, and they need to be replaced with someone who can do the job right.

There’s another mechanism working here, that is at the same time obvious and proven, largely unreported, and almost never discussed.  That is; America once was, and can be again, a haven for creativity, productivity, wealth creation, and a haven for wealth in general.  Make it a safe bet that your property rights will be protected, and capital will flock to America, while at the same time wealth creation will be, once again, popping and scintillating across the fruited plains.


Let the enemies of Mankind go off and bang their heads against a concrete wall someplace.  It doesn’t matter, so long as they’re ignored and powerless here.

Our mission is to defend the homeland

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Chet came by my office today and started talking about “When we were kids.” We are about double the age of most of our co-workers and have a little more in common with each other than we do some of the other people. We both grew up on farms. He in Kansas. And, of course, me in Idaho. It gives us a perspective that “some of the younger folk” don’t really appreciate. We remember when most of the homes had outhouses instead of indoor toilets. And our parents lived through the “Great Depression”. We remember what our parents told us about what they and others had to do to make it through. I keep wondering if that will someday be referred to as “GD I” and this go around “GD II” but that is another story.

We talk about economics quite a bit. “What is it going to be like this time?”, we ask each other. Back then it was a world-wide thing too. That was what enabled Hitler to gain power.

This time it wasn’t economics that Chet wanted to talk about.

“Remember those old movies about WW II when the Germans would stop someone on the train and demand their papers?”, he asked.

My officemate had stepped out for bit and I knew we were going to have “a session”. I leaned my chair back and put my feet up on my desk and said, “Yeah. I remember.”

He continued, “We used to think how scary that was. How terrible it was they would do something like that. Right?”

“Absolutely!”, I agreed.

“There is an article in the New York Times today about how our government is doing that today on trains that run between New York City and Detroit”, he said.

I told him I had just read a blog post about that same sort of thing this morning. We chatted a while about it. Neither of us knowing what we could really do about it. “But it sure ain’t right.” we agreed. We always used to believe it couldn’t happen here. We were “special”. We were a free country and that sort of thing just didn’t happen here. It couldn’t happen here.

But it is. It is happening here, right now. And as Roberta X said this morning, Getting Used To It Doesn’t Make It Right.

My officemate returned and Chet left with us both shaking our heads in sadness.

I found the New York Times article and after I read it I went over the Chet’s office. “The government is claiming that if they are within 100 miles of an international border or the three mile limit off the coast they don’t need warrant or anything. They can just grab people they think are ‘of interest’ and demand they prove they are citizens”, I told him. “Right here in this office we are within 100 miles of the Canadian border.” I let it sink in for a couple seconds then continued, “Think of what 100 miles inland from both coasts, the Gulf, and both the north and south borders cover. I’ll bet 50% of the U.S. population is covered by that.”

Chet and I didn’t have much to say after that you wouldn’t have already concluded. We could be headed for some scary times. We talked about it for a couple minutes and went back to work. I think we just got used to it.

If it makes you feel any better about the whole thing–the agent in charge of the Rochester station told the New York Times, “Our mission is to defend the homeland.”

Yeah, I’m sure it is. I think I heard that line in a movie when I was a kid.

Once Again, Ladies and Gentlemen…

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…Bill Whittle, or rather, not Bill Whittle but an essay written by Bill Whittle.  He’s an excellent writer to be sure, but his work is backed by research which makes it downright valuable.



In fact, in all of human history, there has been only one genuinely progressive, genuinely liberating idea: a lightning bolt across the pages of history – the why in 1776, the how in 1787 – the idea of limited government, god-given rights, personal liberty and rule by the vast collective wisdom and industry of the common man, and not by the bored, pampered and self-hating elites that have run everything before and since. This is a once-in-history idea. This is why we have to conserve it. We have to conserve this fundamentally liberal idea.


That’s our argument.  Ronald Reagan said it in different words, but that’s the come-back to any and all modern “liberals” or “Progressives”.


I was a little disappointed by the lack of mention of education.  Talking with each other, yes, but that bloated, hateful, destructive monster we’ve been accustomed to calling “Public Education” has to go.  Just as our first amendment protects religion from corruption by government, so too must we protect education from corruption by government.  It is every bit as important.  Hillsdale College perhaps shows us one way to do that, but feeding the monster at the same time one is trying to mind one’s own business makes it more difficult.


Whittle wraps it up thusly;



We can do it. And we’re gonna do it.  We are going to whip these communists out of their boots. And starting next time, we’ll start figuring out exactly how.


Ok.  Good.  By all means, read the whole thing.

Quote of the day–T-Shirt

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The economy is worse than a divorce.


I lost half my money and I’m still married.


T-Shirt
August 7, 2010
Seen on a t-shirt in a restaurant in Camdenton, Missouri this evening.
[I wouldn’t mind the temporary economic situation so much if it meant we were getting a divorced from an oppressive big government. But like the t-shirt says (after twisting the meaning a little bit), we are stuck with both.–Joe]

We’re All Gonna Die! – Details at Eleven

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This post from Uncle reminded me of John Stossel’s campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide.  It’s about what I call ignoracracy– control of the people through ignorance, or the “Ignorati”– those who use that tactic.  Stossel got plenty of signatures on his petition.  He told people things like; dihydrogen monoxide, used heavily in industry, corrodes metal, and it kills thousands of people each year including children.  Congress is doing nothing about it!  All totally true of course.


Yellow journalism could be seen as a form of ignoracracy, except that we can turn it off or look away at will.


Education would be the obvious antidote, except that education is owned by the Ignorati.

Obfuscation and Delusion as a Way of Life

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Someone gave us some “tofu milk” and some “vegan rice milk” they didn’t want.  It comes as a powder.  If we run out of real milk, I’ve been mixing up a batch of one or the other for my morning coffee.  It’s not too bad.  If you’re desperate.


Reading the ingredients on the rice milk, I find one of them is “evaporated cane juice”.  Seriously; who are we kidding, hippies?  “Cane juice”?  I’m pretty sure it’s not bamboo we’re talking about.  It must be sugar cane.  That’s right; we don’t like added sugar, but we like the taste, so we’ll use sugar and call it something else.  It’s not sugar.  It’s “evaporated effing cane juice”.  How dare you say otherwise.  What are you, a racist teabagger?


I’ve seen “evaporated cane juice” listed on some hippie kids’ cereal boxes, along with warnings about how corporations hurt animals and kids!


Call it “raw cane sugar” if you want to be accurate.  But no– you don’t want to be accurate.  You want to be deluded.  You want to fool yourself and hope no one else notices.  It feels better.  And instead of “statist” or “totalitarian” you call yourself “progressive”.  That makes it all better, doesn’t it?  Just use the language differently.  Now it all sounds perfectly wonderful, and anyone who calls you on it is a bad person.


Don’t anyone come on here and say I’m being unfair by conflating the use of “evaporated cane juice” with statism.  Note the aforementioned cereal box– it does that all by itself.  The same people who can’t be honest about adding sugar are warning us against corporations (while profiting in selling sugar-laced cereal to kids).  It’s all part of the same culture, people.

Quote of the day–Dmitry Orlov

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The mid-1990s did not seem to me as the right time to voice such ideas. The United States was celebrating its so-called Cold War victory, getting over its Vietnam syndrome by bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age, and the foreign policy wonks coined the term “hyperpower” and were jabbering on about full-spectrum dominance. All sorts of silly things were happening. Professor Fukuyama told us that history had ended, and so we were building a brave new world where the Chinese made things out of plastic for us, the Indians provided customer support when these Chinese-made things broke, and we paid for it all just by flipping houses, pretending that they were worth a lot of money whereas they are really just useless bits of ticky-tacky. Alan Greenspan chided us about “irrational exuberance” while consistently low-balling interest rates. It was the “Goldilocks economy” – not to hot, not too cold. Remember that? And now it turns out that it was actually more of a “Tinker-bell” economy, because the last five or so years of economic growth was more or less a hallucination, based on various debt pyramids, the “whole house of cards” as President Bush once referred to it during one of his lucid moments. And now we can look back on all of that with a funny, queasy feeling, or we can look forward and feel nothing but vertigo.


Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I had a conversation with a friend earlier this week and he was of the opinion (pharaphrasing) we went from “it was too early to shoot the bastards to it’s too late to do any good and it’s just a matter of riding things out as best we can as we auger into the ground”.


I can’t say that I have any factual basis to refute his assessment.–Joe]

Judge Faces Death Threats

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We learn from Bayoubuzz, via Michelle Malkin that U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, who told Obama his power is limited, is now receiving death threats;



“Last night, Feldman served as a celebrity judge at a cooking contest at a school gymnasium in Uptown New Orleans. Due to the threats, Feldman was accompanied by a federal marshal security team.

It is a sad indictment of our society today that a judge with such a sterling record of integrity and service to his country would be subject to such threats. Feldman was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan in 1983. Today, he is in the eye of a political hurricane unlike anything he has ever experienced.”


A sad indictment of our society today?  Not my society, thank you.  Leave me out of this.  This is about the Left.  And it’s not an “indictment” of the left so much as another in a very long string of verifications of the left’s mindset.  It’s also a vindication of the American Founders’ ideas.  See; they knew our government would try to seize power unconstitutionally.  That’s what happens as a matter of course.  That’s why they took steps trying to prevent it.  After having taken these steps, they also knew things would come to blows once in a while.  Those who lust for power simply cannot help themselves, and they routinely resort to threats and violence.  That’s what political power is at its fundamental level, after all– threats and violence for the purpose of taking our treasure and trampling our liberty.


That being said; an actual death threat most likely means that the person making the threat isn’t going to act.  Otherwise they’d just go for it without all the talk.


Judge Feldman; I hope you’re packing heat, and know how to use it.


He’s accused of being a tool for the oil industry.  I suppose anyone who favors liberty and human rights (asuming the judge does– I don’t know) is a “tool” for this, a “tool” for that, and a “tool” for any worthwhile activity, so long as that activity doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.  We’ll see if the good judge can make that argument with such clarity, or if he’ll cough, splutter and squirm like a Republican.

Your Safety and the Rights of People You Hate

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This started as a comment to this post of Joe’s, but Joe has told me not to bury so much in comments.


Getting to basics; rights (or equal rights) have a long history of being extremely unpopular.  The American Founders knew this. They knew our rights would be constantly under attack, and tried as they could to protect them.


I spent some time, during the Cold War, listening to Radio Moscow, Radio Havana, and several other English broadcasts from not-so-friendly countries.  These programs were aimed at Americans, and attempted to malign, impugn, and smear the capitalist, libertarian ideals upon which the U.S. is founded.  The people they had as speakers were extremely good at sounding like your favorite, American-born uncle.  Very nice, well spoken, friendly, and (drum roll) they sounded exactly like today’s more reasonable sounding pundits of the American Left.


The posted quote instantly reminded me of listening to Radio Moscow back in the day, except that it is much more vitriolic than the Soviet broadcasts.


Yes; the protection of rights makes many more things possible, however, a potentiality is not actuality.  One of those things made possible by rights protection is a prosperous, dynamic society in which people can live their lives and pursue their dreams without looking over their shoulders all the time wondering when and why they might get arrested, fined, audited, stopped at a checkpoint, harassed with no recourse, et al.  Without rights protection, that vibrant society is impossible, mainly because doing less makes you safer from the above harassment, doing more makes you a target, and doing far more, and being good at it makes you the target…at some point Atlas shrugs.


As for the safety that the left pretends it wants to force on all of us;
Just as a matter of general practicality, are you safer with your rights protected, or without?  “Safe from what” would be the next question, or “from whom”?  As we’re discussing “safety” in the public arena, keep in mind the question of whether your and your neighbor’s rights are safe.


Human rights protection means that, no matter who you are, a lot of people are going to be doing a things that you absolutely hate, but are perfectly legal anyway.  A lot of other people are going to hate what you’re doing too, but they won’t be able to stop you without committing a crime of some sort.  That’s what it means, People.  It means all the good things that go along with liberty, but it also means you have to actually be tolerant, along with being tolerated, and not just talk about tolerance to make yourself look good in public forums.


Try this mind experiment, next time you see or think of someone or some activity that you hate, or that someone else hates.  Ask yourself; “who’s rights are they violating, or trying to violate?”  That’s a very clarifying and even liberating question.  If the answer is “no one’s” then move along.  Nothing to see there.  It’s time to dig in and start minding your own business, and hopefully you’ll have the freedom to mind your own business without someone trying to mind it for you.


ETA; I was once in a very long debate with my communist brother-in-law.  He was reciting the litany [as he saw it] of horrible, evil things that Wal Mart [a big target because they do so much so well] had done over the years.  When I asked that magic question; “Who’s rights are they violating?” he shut right the hell up.  In his mind I was just “tricking” him with clever rhetoric, but in fact he had never considered rights in his extensive evaluations of Wal Mart [or, presumably, in most other areas of consideration].  Again, I blame education [or what used to be referred to as Soviet propaganda] for the mass ignorance with regard to America’s Promise.

Opposing Gun Control

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I want to expand on a comment made here, since Joe often says I shouldn’t bury certain things in comments.  I’m never really sure what he means by that, so I can only give it a go;


The citizens have been declared incompetent.  Posing a danger to themselves and others, they cannot be entrusted with their basic rights.  That is, in a nutshell, the entire message of the left, and they call us hateful, racist and divisive.


 


It’s really simple; in their efforts to rob us of our treasure and trample our rights, they have to portray us as evil by way of justification and to rally others to their side.  That’s the whole gig, right there.


 


In opposing them, always keep that in mind.  When you cut right to the chase with the basics, there’s nothing for them to do but express outrage, kicking and screaming, pointing fingers and lying in the hope that we’ll be distracted off-subject, that we’ll embarrass ourselves with a reply in-kind or be intimidated into silence.  Maintain your course and composure, argue principles, and they lose every time.  This takes practice.


 


Remember that this is not about the person, or the people, making the argument.  If this or that person weren’t making the silly assertions, it would be someone else.  “It” will always find a willing accomplice.  You’re not fighting the person or the group of people on the attack.  You’re fighting the urge toward theft and coercive power.  That urge feeds on weakness, and can infect a lot of people.

They are getting impatient

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It appears the left is getting so close to their victory they are getting impatient. Sort of a “I’m so close I can taste it” type of thing. This is from Woody Allen:



“It would be good… if [President Obama] could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly,” Allen is quoted as saying.


Allen is also to have said: “I am pleased with Obama. I think he is brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him.”


I read this last night and spent a lot of time thinking about it as I went to sleep and after I work up this morning.


My first thought in response was Allen would probably think it was a less desirable situation that he thinks because the health care system would probably be heavily strained by all the lead poisoning that would result from such a change in our form of government.


Then this morning I thought, “No. That wouldn’t happen. The military would be required to implement it and the leadership would quietly and firmly tell him that they took an oath to defend the constitution from all enemies–foreign and domestic. But then it occurred to me that the military course of action would probably be to replace Obama with the next in line to succeed the President. I’m not certain what Biden would do but I am of the opinion that Pelosi and the Marxists in Obama’s cabinet would all be inclined to take the role of dictator. What would happen if all the Commander-in-Chief replacements said their position was that a dictatorship (or the equivalent) was what was required?


Bear with me for a minor tangent…


Last week a friend (who I think I might have already known had a gun but he does not identify as a “gun-owner” like many of my friends) was on a rant about the debt, the bailouts, the health care farce, etc. and said he was about ready to get out his gun and start oiling it. He might have to start shooting pretty soon he said. I asked, “Who would you shoot?” After a long pause he said, “I would figure it out.”


This is would be the problem the military would be faced with. If there is just one or two (or 1000) people that are a threat to our form of government then the solution, even though “messy”, illegal, and perhaps immoral it would still be plausible to implement. But what if it is 20% of the population that is intent on enslaving the other 80%? Do you still think it could be done? Before you answer keep in mind that only about 1% to 2% of the German population was involved in the Holocaust and yet that small percentage was not stopped by the vast majority. Predators have a different mindset than gives them an advantage in many situations.


I don’t know the answer. But I do know the left is getting impatient and that recent gun sales show people who value their freedom are contemplating such solution to the looming threat.

Cold Call

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I just got off the phone with a rep who called us from one of the big optics companies.  He started the conversation by asking if we sold gun accessories.


Need I say more?


OK; any half-baked salesman would spend at least one whole minute researching the company he’s calling, you know, before making the call.  I point out this failure because it’s rare, but it keeps happening.  Along with failure “a” usually comes failure “b”; salesman wants to do all the talking and no listening.  He’s going down a list of phone numbers and reading a canned presentation.  That might result in some sales, but that’s not a salesman.


We knew a musical instrument salesman from the American affiliate of Big International Music, Inc. and he was the best in the business.  Here in the Northwest, the sales reps were generally given larger commissions due to the vast expanses they had to cover to make the same sales volume one of the big city reps could make within 20 square miles.  This guy did so well that he started to make “too much money” at the higher, Northwest commission rates.  Big International Music didn’t like that, so they cut his commission.  Mind you; no one had ever sold so much in the Northwest as this guy in all the history of the company.  THAT was the “problem” that was eating away at them, and they solved it alright.  When they cut his commission the guy quit and went to work for the competition, who suddenly started doing quite well for themselves.


That’s a salesman.  He knew about your business before he contacted you, for one thing.  This was before the internet, when it took more than a minute or two.  He’d talk to local professors and musicians– people most likely to know about you.  He’d go in with actual knowledge, and he’d talk WITH you rather than AT you.  Always looking for a deal, he’d also check all the local classified ad papers.  On one visit he left with a ’50s Oldsmobile he found here in town, figuring he could turn a profit on it.  I believe they’re more born (or bred) than trained in a month.  It’s a personality type.

Quote of the day–Say Uncle

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This would be catastrophic for a few reasons. First, a good portion of funds invested in the market are now government property. Second, if you tried to take money from folks’ plans, they’d just take their money out of the plans. And third, they’d probably kill you for trying.


Say Uncle
May 5, 2010
401(k) and union retirement
[I’m not sure about the first point. I’ll take his word for that.


I have some questions on the second point–money and most hard assets such as your home and vehicles are far too easy to trace.


On the third point I suspect he is spot on.–Joe]

Illegal Immigration – a Primer

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You can speculate over the notion that so many legislators over the decades proposed and passed immigration laws that they never intended to see enforced.  You can speculate over the intentions of said legislators, whether or not they’re evil or just retarded, or some combination of both, or whether they should be tarred and feathered or simply stripped of their citizenship and deported to Cuba.  There are some things regarding illegal immigration however, that I believe are not arguable (though I know well that most readers will argue passionately all the same.  You shouldn’t bother on my behalf, as I’ve heard it all before, more times than I can count).


One assertion at a time;


“They’re takin’ our jobs, Man.”  Uh,.. no.  First, you don’t own your job.  Your employer, and to some extent your employer’s customers, own your job.  Illegals are coming here, some of them, to work for below minimum wage.  They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t consider it an improvement over their previous situation.  American citizens also work for below minimum wage, under the table so to speak.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  Minimum wage and income deduction laws are the issue.  Government has no business getting between a worker and a prospective employer.  Peaceable, voluntary exchange is not a crime, since no one’s rights are being violated.  Repeal minimum wage laws and the sixteenth amendment, eliminate 95% of the IRS, and that government-manufactured problem goes away overnight.  Instate a fixed 5 to 8% national sales tax and all the legitimate functions of government will be more than paid for, given the massive increase in GDP that will soon follow, plus we’ll save billions of dollars, and countless productivity hours, on tax preparation.


“They’re using up government services, breaking the bank of local governments, Man…”  That’s a case of socialist services being used as a magnet to attract freeloaders and deadbeats (more socialists).  American citizens take advantage of the same goodies– more slowly perhaps, but with the same results eventually.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  The socialist goodie spigot racket is the issue.  If people are not being attracted by the socialists’ confiscated goodies, they’ll only come here for the right reasons, and in that case the more immigration the better.  More people equals more productivity, not less resources.  Turn off the spigot completely, remove the pump, dig up the plumbing, dynamite the well, and that problem goes away literally overnight.


“They’re comin’ here to sell drugs, Man, and that results in violence, Dude…”  (sigh) Did we learn absolutely nothing from alcohol Prohibition?  Seriously?  Prohibition’s primary legacy is the empowerment and enrichment of international organized crime.  Its secondary legacy is the encroachment and entrenchment of official government corruption.  Together, those two inevitable results are vastly worse than the actual drugs’ effects on society.  Government has no business telling any emancipated adult what they may or may not put into their bodies on their own property.  No rights violation, no crime.  That’s the proper test.  Eliminate all vice laws and that whole set of problems goes away almost overnight, plus we save billions and billions on drug enforcement and the corrupt sons-a-bitches in government will have to resort to more conventional crime.


Immigration is tedious and takes a long time, so it’s much easier to jump the border.  Simplify the process, which will be easy after the above steps are taken, and that problem goes away overnight.


Take those simple steps, and we can all get on with howling over some other man-made/government-created problems we’re unwilling to face honestly or with courage, or compassion, or tolerance.


Is all that too “extreme” for you?  Can’t handle the nation’s founding principles?  OK then, this manufactured problem will persist and grow and become far more expensive, which is of course the intention, and it is just one of countless examples of how, as I put it some fifteen years ago; every little bit of socialism requires just a little bit more.  Just a little.  Hope you like crap.

Dealer Discounts

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You won’t learn about this in public schools.  If you haven’t been in business before (or if you are new at it) I feel compelled to educate you a little on the facts of life.


It’s quite common that a small dealer will call us for the first time, and want to order one or two items at a dealer discount.  When we inform them that there is a minimum buy-in for dealer pricing, sometimes they’re just fine with it, but other people act all disappointed.


I have to wonder why they think it is that we offer discounts to dealers in the first place.  Maybe they just don’t think about it.  This is not the manufacturers being nice, or considering dealers to be part of some good-ol’-boys club or something.  We offer discounts because it benefits us to have our product stocked and promoted at the local level.  We could sell direct only, taking the same money we offer as the dealer discount, and put it all into advertizing, but we feel it is a better value to have certain dealers invested in the product and thus promoting it for their own benefit.  When done right, it’s a symbiotic relationship.


If all you want is one or two units, you’re not a dealer, by definition.  You’re just some guy who wants a discount.


Our buy-in is pretty easy, even for the smallest mom & pop store.  One of the branches of Yamaha that I’ve dealt with for decades has an annual purchase requirement (or did) of $100K to consider you a dealer.  Part of the language in their dealer agreement (which must be signed and witnessed) states that the dealer must “promote the product in such a manner as to elevate its perceived value”.  Yes; that’s what they’re paying you for, in the form of a dealer discount.  You’re expected not only to stock a “representative selection of the product line” but to maintain it, keep it looking nice, display it in an attractive setting, know the product and be able to demonstrate it, and you’re expected to advertize.  Some manufacturers want to see your advertizing budget and see your ads.  Our current, one-time, minimum buy-in requirement is around 500 or 600 dollars (five hundred or six hundred dollars– not thousands) more or less, depending on the model mix (it’s a unit count minimum).  You want to tell me you’re a dealer, but you can’t produce a few hundred bucks for something you say your customers want?  Seriously.

The Most Sociable of Social Activities…

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…and the most intense.


If you really want to get acquainted with your fellow man, if you want to understand people and society, start a business.  I’ve run a business since January of 1978.  Originally it was in musical instruments.  First repair only, but that quickly led to retail and installment sales.  It’s a walk-in store and shop, plus we do on-location sales, sound system installation and setup, and on top of all that I was part of a performing group (sound engineer) that also traveled.  All that’s still going on, but I’m now doing the design, manufacturing and internet sales thing with the gun accessories.


Please; this is not about me, though it may sound like it.  It’s really about you.  And people.  It’s about the world.


You cannot really understand your fellow human beings until you’ve sweated, worried, obsessed, invested, committed, risked everything, issued credit, and experienced the range of reactions, to that effort, from your fellow citizens.  You end up knowing the bank managers (they come and go) on a first name basis, the county clerk on a first name basis, several lawyers, teachers, fellow business owners.  You end up in small claims court, as a repo man, in debt yourself.  You end up in district court and in federal court trying to defend the property you sweated, cried, and devoted your life to.  You develop a relationship with the local collection agency, the local churches, and the local schools.  You deal, haggle, plead with, and give charity to, many people per day, every day.  In our case it was six days a week, plus weekends in the taverns, conference halls, churches, farms, businesses, and convention centers playing music.  One gig was in the garage/shop of a trucking company, for a company party.  Another was for a wedding of two friends.  Later, we played for their “divorce party”.  We played for a lot of weddings.


You deal with many thousands of people on a very personal level.  You learn of their troubles, their struggles, their marriages, their kids, and their extended families– their successes, their failures, their medical problems, their births, their schooling, their graduations (and do come, please) their weddings, their new children, and their deaths.  All of those things become part of your business.  They buy things from you, they utilize your services, and many of them owe you money.  They are your life.  One family could no longer pay us because their mother was in jail.  Another customer could not get into the Air Force because he’d rented a saxophone from us and immediately pawned it for cash, eventually losing the pawn, and had never paid us.  He eventually got in on a promise to pay, but I must have spoken to four or five base commanders on several continents, before we ever saw one payment.  Another family invited us to their son’s graduation party, being as we’d been so much a part of his music education.


You owe a lot of other people money.  You get to know your account rep at General Motors finance, at TransAmerica, and at Textron Financial.  You get to know the sales reps at the manufacturers, while you must see and judge the credit reports of hundreds of your customers.  Can these people be trusted with a thousand dollars worth of my sweat, blood and tears.  They sure think so themselves, but that’s not the benchmark.  The proof is in the pudding.


Wal Mart gets to know millions of people– their habits, their wants, their needs, their strengths, their weaknesses, their successes and their failures.  They have to.  It’s how they stay in business.  Some people love them, some people hate them and want them eliminated, and some don’t care– all for the same things Wal Mart does.


Then there’s hiring and firing.  You find out what’s being taught at the universities.  And what isn’t.  You make friends, and then you have to fire them.  You make other friends that are permanent.  You share in their successes and their failures, their sickness and their health, in good times and in bad.  You learn of their families, and their extended families, and you meet their circle of friends.


You learn more about life than you can ever tell.  You learn that utility rates (phone and power) are nearly double the rates paid by residents.  You learn that property taxes are also nearly double the rate for a live-in home.  “Home Owner’s Exemption” they call it here.  You learn that property tax isn’t just paid on real estate.  Those tools you built yourself?  Those are property too, and subject to the same tax.  You wanna spend forty grand to beautify the exterior and improve the sidewalks of your downtown business?  That’s gonna raise your assessment, and increase your tax bill, you money-grubbing motherfucker.


You get to know the police, too.  Very well.  You end up testifying as a witness when that customer you though you knew, ended up embezzling the entire trust fund his bed-ridden mother signed over to him as executor.  You end up in federal court when you refuse to hand over an instrument that you’re still making payments on, but a customer rented it (on a rent-to-own plan which is deemed legally as a “purchase”) and then filed bankruptcy, and it’s a big no-no when you try to exert your property rights without permission from the trustee (you also find out how a trustee can get a personal hatred for business owners who try to assert their rights without permission, and launch into a years-long vendetta).


Back when we were still operating, out of a one-car garage in my brother’s back yard, our competition in town (a music store that had been in business for many years, was much bigger and had a downtown location) started to lose franchises.  Having no one else to sell to in the area, the factory reps came to our garage.  We eventually bought a pathetically few instruments from them.  A personal friend of the competition in town reacted by visiting us to yell at us for “grabbing up all the business”.  Yeah; that’s us.  Two kids in a garage we’d rebuilt ourselves, in a backyard.  It had no inside walls– just bare insulation.  Living hand-to-mouth.  Virtually no assets other than our brains and our hands.  We’re the “privileged class”.  We’re “The Man” out to suck the life out of the righteous, with our dirty, no-good instrument repair tools (many of which we built ourselves) and little more than the trust and faith placed in us by some wholesalers’ credit departments.


People are funny that way.  You’ll never be able to please all the people all the time, but you can sure as hell please a few of them some of the time.  That’s the best anyone can do, and in the process you’re being as sociable as sociable gets.  You’re participating in life, and interacting with the community, to a degree that few people ever experience.


Sometimes it is very, vary sweet to be alone.  Only for a while.

More cheery news

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Chet is just full of good news today. He emailed me this tonight: