A Chinese finger trap is a weaved tube. Once you stick your fingers in the open end, you can’t just pull them out. If you try, the weaved fibers that make up the tube pull and gets tighter around your finger. The harder you pull, the tighter the trap gets.
The big lesson we should learn from Greece and the other failing European states is that once entitlements are like a Chinese finger trap. Once enttitlements are granted, you can’t just pull them back.
I think it highlights a fundamental flaw of democracies. The flaw is that the motivated minority are rewarded at the expense of the disorganized majority. Unions, special interest groups and lobbyists have all grown rich and powerful around this flaw. These groups organize and bitch and moan until they are rewarded with the special rights or outright pay-offs.
This is not just a Greek thing. The same fights are being played in Wisconsin and many other places around our own country.
The lesson to be learned is that if freedom is to survive, those who feel entitled must be resisted.
Europeans have been living in the moment for years. Spend now…forget about tomorrow. No babies. No savings.
Guess what? The future has arrived and it aint pretty. The economies of Greece and Italy are collapsing. Not coincidentally, they have had extremely birth rates for years.
As Mark Steyn puts it
If the problem with socialism is, as Mrs. Thatcher says, that eventually you run out of other people’s money, much of the West has advanced to the next stage: It’s run out of other people, period.
A saw a couple of Democrats with glowing smiles on their faces when discussing Barack Obama approval ratings. He has had a bump lately. I don’t deny the bump, but I don’t see what caused it.Maybe people are feeling a sense of optimism because 2011 is almost over.
My opinion is that his leadership was absent while the tax issue was debated in Congress. A two month extension just means Washington will be debating the extension again…after the debate extending the debt ceiling. When you endlessly debate the same issues, it reminds voters that nothing is getting fixed.
The President will have the State Of the Union speech. He will get another bump then, but the Republicans will start to rally around a candidate soon after that. By spring time, I expect Barack Obama approval rating to be near all time lows.
How The Government Has Caused America’s Obesity Problem: The theory is that the grains and bread are carbohydrates that is converted into sugar, keeps you hungry and saps your of energy. Your cells thirst for protein and fats. If true, this would be yet another example of the government using science incorrectly. Science is never settled. Someone please tell Al Gore.
I don’t want the government telling me what to eat. It’s like fat nurses telling me how to be healthy. When you blowhards can play competitive a sport at an age approaching 50 and burning over a 1000 calories in the process, then you can tell me your opinion on health. Otherwise, stop wasting my money acting as some authority on health.
As a side note: I’m on a diet that has been going great. I lost 15 pounds (from September until Christmas) and I did it by simply reducing my calorie intake. During that time, carbohydrates have ranged from 30% to 55% of my diet. My speed and endurance has improved dramatically.
I have been using an app on my phone and on my computer called LoseIt to track my calories, weight and nutrition. I was so successful, that my wife started using it and she is halfway to her goal after a month.
I talked to my brother over the holiday. He told me that a long time friend of his new wife is a producer at CNN and that producer posted on Facebook that all Republicans are racist. His liberal wife does not dispute his telling of the story.
It strikes me that 1) liberal bias is as bad as ever and 2) CNN is a ridiculous organization for promoting someone who is too stupid to hide his bias.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Liberal Bias on December 27th, 2011
Christmas is over. It’s time to pay off those credit cards. Responsible adults realize that the spending spree can’t continue so they cut back on their purchasing.This doesn’t mean you don’t spend money on anything. You buy the things you need. You buy the things that make sense.
Politicians on the other hand continue to purchase whatever they want…with your money…before and after Christmas.
PolitiFact doubted the Republican claim the federal government now borrows $4 billion a day. This took investigation? It is pretty widely known and undisputed that the annual national deficit has been over $1.5 trillion dollars every years. It is also widely known and undisputed that there is 365 days in a year. Some wide eyed liberals would probably dispute this, but even an idiot like Chuck Schumer would acknowledge these numbers to be factual. So let’s get out our handy calculators. (These are big numbers, so you liberals might want to review junior high school math regarding scientific notation)
1.5 trillion = 1.5E12
1.5 E 12 / 365 = 4.1 E 9
4.1 E 9 = 4.1 billion
So….Republicans were actually understating the average amount borrowed every day. If you are living under a rock, it’s time to pull your head out. This level of spending is unsustainable and raising taxes on the rich isn’t going to solve the problem.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Debt on December 27th, 2011
The EPA is harming the country. The latest move is aimed at reducing the release of mercury from electric power generation. It is doubtful the new rules are even needed and likely that they will do more harm than good.
Craig Rucker lays out the junk science behind the EPA mandates at WattsUpWithThat.com
What struck me was this line:
US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air. Thus, even if EPA’s new rules eventually do eliminate 90% of mercury from power plant emission streams, that’s still only 90% of 0.5% – ie, almost zero benefit. The rest of the mercury in US air comes from natural and foreign sources, such as forest fires, Chinese power plants and the cremation of human remains
When Barack Obama was president he said he wanted to make coal fired power plants too expensive to operate. This rule goes a long way to making that campaign promise a reality. But the other reality is that more expensive power will drive even more production to China. This in turn will create more airborne mercury.
Good thing Barack Obama was a Constitutional Scholar. Just think what he would do if he acted like the Constitution didn’t even exist. Wait…
Well, what we’re going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill. (VIDEO LINK)
The general public believes we are running out of oil and have been told we need to make radical changes at extreme costs in order to avoid a disaster. It’s not true.
30 years ago, we were told that we would be running out of oil about now. 10 years ago that said we had 40 years of oil left. Now we have 45 years of oil left. These numbers come from the Reserve/Production (R/P) ratio which is nicely explained at WattsUpWithThat.com
Solyndra, cap and trade, wind mills, farmers trading corn fields for solar fields, rising energy costs…this is the crap you get when you let politics trump markets.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Free Markets on December 14th, 2011
In 1972, Sallie Mae was created to federally guarantee students loans. Since then, the price of tuition and books has sky rocketed. In 2004, Sallie Mae was privatized, but the federal guarantee still exists. Privatization only lead to a faster rate of inflation.
How long can this inflation continue when “Recent data shows that many graduates are working in fields that don’t even require their college degree“?
The solution is so simple. Don’t guarantee student loans. The bubble will burst and college will be affordable again. Of course, some liberal iconic institution may crash and burn. I can live with that.
I just saw an Google advertisement for Alan Grayson on Instapundit. That’s a very strange place for a liberal to advertise. But it occurred to me that if I click the ad, then Grayson will have just a little less money to spread his nonsense. So next time you see an online advertisement for someone you disagree with…CLICK IT. You don’t have to read it. A million clicks can drain a bank account.
Jon Corzine says he has no idea where the MF Global funds are (over $1 billion) that the company under his watch lost. The tax payers in New Jersey will tell you those customers got off easy. He has not idea where the money went to in New Jersey either. How about his time as a U.S. Senator. He has no idea where trillions of dollars went that he voter for.
When asked about accountability, he says he never intended to break any rules. Well there you go.
Jon Corzine is an idiot under his own admission, and Democrats hold him up as some kind of financial genius. This is why geniuses scare me so much.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Economics on December 9th, 2011
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