The Electoral College - A good idea or a bad idea?

Ever since Donald J. Trump was declared the victor in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. He won it not because he won more popular votes. As of Wednesday, Nov 16th, 61.8 million votes had been cast for Hillary Rodham Clinton, 60.8 for Donald Trump, a difference of 1 million votes. That is 50.4% to 49.6% respectively.  This is also the second time in 20 years that this has happened.  Both times, the GOP candidate was the victor.

Just as happened in Bush v. Gore, many liberal voices are clamoring for the elimination of the Electoral College.  Is that a good idea?

History

Let's briefly look at the history of the Electoral College. First of all, the Electoral College is not a place, it is a process.  The drafters of the U.S. Constitution had a mighty debate about how the U.S. President would be selected.  Some wanted Congress to pick the president. Others wanted a direct election. However, the Framers recognized that a direct election would favor the heavy population of the nascent industrial states of the north. Note that this is exactly what those who lived in the north wanted, because they saw the President as the future foil to abolish slavery.  This was not missed by the Southern Constitutional Convention delegates.  It's unsurprising that the both the beneficiaries of this particular system (George W. Bush in 2000, Donald J. Trump in 2016) ran the table of what is today called "flyover country", or rural America.  This is what the final design of the Constitution desired. This is defined in Article II Section and modified by the Twelfth amendment of the Constitution.

The Electoral College is made of up of electors chosen by each state according to their own laws. The number of electors allocated to each state is based on the number of representatives they have in the House of Representatives plus their two Senators.  The allocation of representatives is based on population density, which is why states that have large metropolitan areas, like California, New York and Texas have large numbers of electors, while the smallest states may have only 3 electors. Washington DC, which has no representation in Congress, is given 3 electors, the minimum number of electors of any other state.

Net Effect of the Electoral College

I built a little spreadsheet to try and determine the effect of the electoral college on the Presidential election and what I found was very interesting. I will cite two extreme examples: California, which has 2 Senators and 53 representatives for 55 electors, and Montana, which has 2 Senators and 1 representative or 3 electors.

There are a total of 538 electors, represented by 435 represntatives, 100 senators, and the 3 allocated to Washington DC which has no congressional representation.
If one were to divide the total Representatives of California (53) by the total number of U.S. Representatives (435), California represents 12.1839% of the total vote.

However, if one divides the total electors for the same state(55) by the total number of electors (538), they have 10.2230% of the Electoral College.

Using the same formulas for Montana, they have .2299% of the total representation (1 divided by 435), but they have .5576% of the electors (3 divided by 538). This practically doubles their "representation" in the Electoral College.

Looking at the total effect, the 17 highest states effectively donate 7.1038% of their representation in the Electoral College to the 33 remaining states and Washington DC.

And that's how Trump won the election. Although he still had to win "key" states like Florida, North Carolina, he also won states like Michigan and Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania. He paid more attention to the rural states than Clinton did.

Can it be dismantled?

With regards to dismantling the Electoral College. Since the College is part of the U.S. Consitution, any amendment to permit the election of the President by a direct vote of the people (known as the "popular vote") would require two-thirds of Congress to propose such an amendment, and if signed by the President, would then require three-quarters of the states to ratify it.  As I mentioned before, 33 states are net recipients of "representation" in the Electoral College, and I do not see how states such as Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Alaska and the Dakotas would ever vote to ratify it.

American Demographics

An excellent article was published on July 27, 2015 in the Business Insider. Written by Matthew Speiser, it summarized the findings in "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America" by award-winning author Colin Woodward.  I have purchased the book but I have not yet read it, so I'm hoping that Mr. Speiser's article accurately sums up Mr. Woodward's findings.  Here they are:

Graphic from Business Insider

Yankeedom: Northeast US, spreading through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They value education, intellectual achievement and citizen participation in government and they are comfortable with government regulations being used to "improve society."
New Netherland: New York City and north New Jersey. Settled by the Dutch. Comfortable with capitalism, materialistic but also tolerant of religious and ethnic diversity. Committed to freedom of inquiry and conscience. Tends to ally with Yankeedom.
The Midlands: Southern New Jersey, the "Rust Belt", Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. They are predominantly middle-class, welcoming and spawned the culture of the "American Heartland". Moderation is the word of the day in political discourse, and government regulation is frowned upon.
Tidewater: Eastern Virginia and North Carolina. Founded by young English gentry, started as a feudal society that embraced slavery. They respect authority and tradition. Woodward notes that Tidewater is in decline as it is consumed by the Federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk.
Greater Appalachia: Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and western Virginia, western North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and rural Indiana, Illinois. Settled by refugees or peasant farmers exiled from war-ravaged Ireland, northern England and Scotland. They value personal sovereignty, individual liberty and they are intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers. They are characterized as "hillbillies" by those that live outside this region and they resent it. They tend to align with the Deep South.
Deep South: Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, rural Texas, Georgia and South Carolina. Principally settled by Englishmen seeking to establish land holdings who depended upon slaves for cheap labor. Rigid social structure and intense distrust in any government regulations that limit individual liberty or state sovereignty.
El Norte: West Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. "A place apart" per Woodward. Hispanic culture dominates the region, which values independence, self-sufficiency and hard work.
The Left Coast: Coastal California, Oregon and Washington. Colonized by New Englanders and Appalachian Midwesterners. A hybrid system value has developed that embraces Yankee utopianism and Appalachian exploration and self-expression.
The Far West: "Flyover Country". Pretty much the United States from the Left Coast to The Midlands, between Canada and Mexico. Very conservative. There was an initial large investment in industry yet these people resent Eastern controlling-interest in the region. An example is the extensive management of lands by the Federal Bureau of Land Management, which represents a greater percentage of these states than all others.
New France: New Orleans and the U.S. bordering Quebec. Very liberal, these people seek consensus, are tolerant and comfortable with government intrusion in the economy and society. Woodward posits that New France may be the most liberal place in North America.
First Nation: Scattered throughout, but concentrated in The Far West. Native Americans. Their territory is huge, especially in Canada, but only 300,000 live there.

Graphic from 270towin.com

Trump won the Midlands, Greater Appalachia, the Deep South, 1/2 of El Norte, New France (shock) and the Far West. These are mostly rural or "rust belt" areas that resent government intrusion. These areas also include nearly every state that benefits from the Electoral College. These regions are traditional, distrust change and resent intrusion.  Clinton won Yankeedom, New Netherland, 1/2 of El Norte, the Left Coast and Tidewater. These areas are heavily urbanized, embrace change, are culturally very diverse (which has it's own problems).

From the 1940's into the 21st century, America moved with increasing speed towards liberalism, which culminated in huge changes in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations.  However, the "new" conservative counter-movement that began in the 1980's, peaked again in 1994 and since 2006 has been gaining a lot of traction due to the speed at which social change has been occurring, with the religious segment of the conservative movement becoming a louder voice and more visible component. And they have learned a lot about how to influence elections from the other side.

Is It Fair?

Our Constitutional Framers were very much aware of the possibility of large areas of the country being dominated by much smaller areas. Although they had no democracies or republics to look at as working examples, they saw the tyranny of London in Britain, where a small aristocracy was able to impose their will upon the remainder of the nation. In the nascent United States, they (especially the Southern States) were very much concerned about more populous North creating policy that would actually change their way of life and traditions. I will not debate on slavery here other than to say I'm glad it's gone. But the South also looked at the North as being libertine and unfriendly towards the more gentrified and class oriented south.

Today, the players are different but the effect is similar.  The "heartland" believes that the government does not have their best interests at heart and that their futures are being directed by the intellectual elite of the coastal regions, and the "heartland" is the new bastion of tradition-loving, resistant to sweeping change and they see the coasts as hotbeds of licentious behavior that they find morally repugnant.  

All of this is said in the context that the Electoral College is unique only to the Presidential election. It has no affect whatsoever on elections for U.S Congress or at the state levels. And yet we also see that the conservatives control more statehouses and governor's mansions than practically anytime in U.S. History. Therefore, it can be said that the Electoral College has managed to reflect what is happening in the States.  

Only time will tell if this is still the way to go, but as I said before, it's very, very unlikely to change.

2016 U.S. Federal Spending vs. Revenues

2017 is just around the corner.

We have Donald J. Trump for President-elect.

How will he fix this problem?

I've harped on this many times in this blog, and I've been very inactive on this blog for the last several years for many reasons, not the least of which is that because with a GOP-controlled Congress and a Democratic President, and with the particularly acrimonious environment in Washington D.C. these days, I didn't think it was even worth my time to discuss this.

But elections have consequences, and now it will be the GOP in charge of both the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Federal government to figure out what to do with the mess we've gotten ourselves into. They have run the good run, but as many people on CNN, MSNBC and all the alphabet broadcast news outlets have stated, they are now the metaphorical dog that has caught the car.

For your consideration, I'd like you to look at this graphic, taken straight from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan department of the Federal government whose job it is to monitor how much money the U.S. government collects in revenues, and how much it spends.



There was a meme going around the internet last year that showed that military spending was 57% of the Federal Budget.  You can find it for yourself. This chart was very deceiving, because it only showed the discretionary spending. In the statistical world, this is known as "cherry picking" your data.

Any analysis of the U.S. Federal budget must consider the whole pie, not just one-third of it.

The first thing that you should notice is that the pie for revenues is smaller than the pie for spending. This is done on purpose, because the actual shortfall is about $445 billion dollars. If we divide the shortfall by the total spending, we get about 12.066%. Compared to my blog posts in 2010, this is a huge improvement. It also reflects that as the 2009 financial crisis moves further in the past, the revenues are slowly catching up with spending. Go team!

But as you can see, this is still a pretty big shortfall.  Imagine that you earn $50,000 a year. But you spent $56,000 and ended up being $6,000 in the hole.  That's exactly where the federal government is as of this year.

The favorite budget target of progressives is military and defense spending. This is a huge chunk of the budget, representing about 16% of the total amount spent.  Now, I will not get into a debate as to whether the United States needs a Navy that's bigger than the next 8 navies combined, but I will say that 2016 finds the United States dealing with foreign ascendancy that we only had glimmers of in 2010.  Russia has taken the Crimea from the Ukraine and is making considerable trouble in that country still.  Russia is also spending a lot more on tanks, airplanes and warships and they are now fielding new equipment that may be a match against the best the West has to offer. Consider this. The U.S. M1 Abrams tank, a mighty engine of destruction, was developed in the 1970's and has been our main battle tank since the early 1980's. The Russians have now put into production the "Armata", and it doesn't look good for our side. China is pushing hard to claim the South China Sea as it's own backyard even though Japan, the Phillipines and Vietnam also have equally good claims in that territory, and much merchant sea traffic moves through that area.

The only reason I bring this up is to illustrate a point. The world is competitive and an ascendant China and a resurgent Russia are going to complicate our lives greatly whether we wish it or not.  And yet, the Navy is down from 600 ships in the Reagan era, to 271 ships in 2016.

So, with that stage set, let's consider the following:
Between discretionary nondefense spending (transportation, education, veteran's benefits, health, housing assistance and the like) and mandatory government programs (unemployment, federal retirement programs, supplemental nutrition programs, we are spending just slightly over 30% of the Federal budget.

The three big categories in mandatory spending are Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Everybody says that we cannot recalculate the formulas for those programs, and yet they account for nearly half of all Federal spending.

And then there's the debt servicing, which accounts for 6% of all spending.  Ouch. By debt servicing, we mean the money the federal government has to write out to those who have purchased the Federal debt, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Kingdom, China and others just to pay the INTEREST owed on the debt.  I repeat, that does not go against paying on the principal owed, just the interest.

It is completely silly for anybody to argue that we can balance the budget by simply reducing the defense budget.  To do so would completely emasculate the military and at the same time put millions of people out of work.  Can we do better in the military-industrial complex? Sure we can. And since Trump has a lot of say over how the money is spent on the discretionary spending side, I hope that he focuses on the rampant waste and corruption in that segment of the budget. Lawsuits and prison time should be the order of the day.  But let's say that we reduced the DISCRETIONARY side of spending only in order to balance the budget.  Well, goodbye military. And also say goodbye to any hope of rebuilding our decaying infrastructure, or assistance for health, housing and education.  Those programs plus the military would have to be cut by 50%, at a time when more Americans are collecting some form of assistance and at a time when the world seems like a more dangerous place than ever.

President-elect Trump says he will immediately begin funneling money into both the military and the infrastructure projects. With what? Where's the money, sir?

President-elect Trump says that he will not touch Social Security or Medicaid. So the money ain't coming from there. That means the only place he can pull money from would be the "Other" category. About $200 billion from that "Other" category. Read the balloon under that category and tell me if that isn't going to hurt a lot of people.

President-elect Trump says that he will lower taxes across the board. Asinine. Cannot be (prudently) done without grossly inflating the deficit to levels seen back in 2010 and 2011. And that will also dramatically increase the net interest payments our country will owe to our debtees buying that deficit, assuming there are any debtees to be found. For they will become skeptical that the U.S. has the political will to get their financial house in order.

So how will he fix the problem? Well, that was a trick question. For those of you who understand U.S. civics, you already know that the budget originates from the House of Representatives. The President has a hand in that budget, but is can only be approved by the House and then sent to the Senate for reconciliation. If both sides of Congress can then agree (and they eventually will, after they've added a couple of tens of billions in earmarks to be sent back home to their consituencies), then they send it to the President for approval.  Ha ha ha.

There is one group of people, mightier than the President and Congress that can fix this problem and they are the electorate. That's right. That's YOU. Every American currently receiving assistance from the Federal government should be looking at what they NEED vs. what they WANT. This is literally the moment that John Kennedy was talking about when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

How GlaxoSmithKline Helped the Big Government Supporters Today

In a report from USA Today on July 2, 2012, we learned that prescription drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pled guilty and will pay $3 billion to resolve federal criminal and civil inquiries arising from the company's illegal promotion of some of the drugs it produces. About $1 billion will go towards the federal fine, the remaining $2 billion to resolve civil claims that were made under the US federal government's "Falls Claims Act".

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

This is a staggering announcement, not to mention one of the largest if not the largest penalty ever levied against a drug company by the US federal government. The article quoted the federal government as saying “GSK's salesforce bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations to pay doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours to a European pheasant hunt to tickets to Madonna concerts, and this is just to name a few”, which was a statement reportedly made by Carmin M. Ortiz, a US attorney in Massachusetts.

The civil claims also presented evidence that GSK was inappropriately and illegally engaging in "off-label marketing” in which a drug that has been approved to treat one kind of illness might also have other beneficial uses. However, the US FDA still requires that those alternative uses be documented and proved prior to marketing. Two examples cited were: The promotion of the drug Paxil for treating children suffering from depression from April of 1998 to August 2, 2003; and the promotion of the use of Wellbutrin for weight loss, sexual dysfunction, substance addiction and ADHD from January of 1999 to December of 2003 even though it was only approved by the FDA for major depressive disorders.

Such a large penalty cannot have been an easy thing for GSK's executive management to swallow. I can imagine what the stockholders will say at the next annual meeting. But the only reason I can think of that would prompt GSK's senior management to accept such a staggering penalty is that the government had them dead to rights. And this is the issue that bothers me the most. I usually argue that most companies will do the right thing for their customers because loyal customers result in repeat business and repeat business results in long-term business growth and stability. Something is very wrong when the leadership of a company in the business of providing medicines would consider, much less execute any strategy that intentionally results in a doctor prescribing, or a patient taking a medication that has no proven benefit to fight their illness. Shame on GSK's sales force and incidentally, shame on any doctor that in so doing has contradicted the oath of "Do no harm." How can I, as a strong fiscal conservative who constantly argues for smaller government, in part by reducing the hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations and thereby reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy, when companies like GSK clearly show quality of products and services to their customers takes a back seat to profit? Where's the morality?

GlaxoSmithKline has created many products which have been of enormous benefit to our society. For that I applaud them. But when it is proven that they show no hesitation to incorrectly market their products in pursuit of greater and greater profits, then they have lost my trust and I would like to think that they have lost the trust of the general buying public. I would also like to think that what I was taught about basic economics is true, which is that the free market will reward companies that provide a good service or product and will force companies that provide inferior products and services or which have questionable business practices to fail. But with GSK being so big and being serviced by exceptionally bright and skillful lawyers, I am being forced to reevaluate my position.

Any person that calls themselves a true conservative should not be doing business with a company that knowingly puts you in jeopardy by misleading you to think that the medicine that you are taking, sometimes at great expense to either yourself or your insurance company, is effectively treating your illness when in fact it may be doing nothing or worse.

"I Like to Fire People" -- A non-controversy by the MSM

As is usually the case, if the media can take a comment, cut it out of it's context and then regurgitate it as pablum to the masses who lean the same direction as the media outlet, they can definitely make it run.

The BostonHerald.com today reported the following. I will provide the text verbatim so that you can see what they claim the former Masschussetts governer said at a Nashua, Hew Hampshire meet and greet.

“GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney – who has based his campaign on his sometimes controversial record as a corporate czar – sparked a furor today with the remark that he likes 'being able to fire people.'

The former Bay State governor was discussing health insurance when he said that insurers give fairer prices if they know they will be held accountable.

'It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me, ' Romney said.”

There was more in that article, about 600 words more... but nothing else from Mitt Romney's actual statement. With only that chunk of the statement, it would be pretty easy and quite reasonable to think that Mitt Romney is a ruthless man who enjoys firing people for no real reason other than he can.

Fortunately, we have YouTube.com and you can find the entire clip of what he actually said.

“It also means that if you don't like what they do you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If, if, you know, if someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say 'you know, that if... I'm gonna go get somebody else to provide that service to me.' And so that's one thing I'd change.”

See the difference? In the entire context, what Mitt Romney said is; if you can find somebody that provides a service and does a better job at it than your current provider, you should have the right to terminate the relationship with your current provider. Further, he says that you should be unapologetic about it.

In my opinion this is a contrived controversy. There is nothing radical or controversial about a successful businessman stating that in the course of his business dealings he would have no hesitation to fire a service provider if he can find somebody else to provide the same service for less cost, more service for the same cost, or more service for less cost.

What we really should be looking at in a free-market economy is at what point do we as consumers insist that providers continue to cut costs to the point that the labor to provide the service or good cannot live on the wages. But this isn't Mitt's problem, this is America's problem.

If 41 cents of every dollar you made was going on your credit card, would you keep doing it?

According to the Department of the Treasury, 41 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government of the United States was borrowed. 

Think about that. Think about that long and hard. Can you imagine that any sane person can possibly think that this kind of reckless spending can be sustained?  This is the equivalent of a private person making about $25,500 spending $50,000 dollars every year. That means that they had to put $20,500 on the credit card in a single year to hit the same ridiculous deficit spending percentage our government has.

The Bi-partisan Debt Commission report has come out. It's harsh. It's going to ask Americans to accept deep cuts in many of the entitlements that we hold dear. It holds nothing back. Deep cuts are found in health and human services, Social Security, the Department of Defense, all of which been "untouchable" and "third rail issues" until now.

So its surprise to me that the commission itself was only able to get 11 of 17 to support the conclusions of the commission. 

Two examples:
Max Baucus of Montana refused to support it because of the proposed gasoline tax hike that would damage the agriculture industry.  That's nothing. If it were me I would end farm subsidies and let farmers grow whatever the heck they want in quantities they want.

Andy Stern, the president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) also refused to support it, because it would have deep consequences for federal government employee union pension plans.

As long as people continue to think "Think not what I can do for my country, think what my country can do for me" we are going to head down the road of national insolvency.  When will We, the People, wake up and realize that we've allowed our politicians to walk us down a path paved with the false glitter of lies and promises right to the very trapdoor of financial hell?  When will we stop demanding that our government take money from some and give it to others, when in fact there just isn't any more money to take?  Yeah, the rich are rich, but there aren't enough of them nor do they make enough that by themselves they could pull us out of this mess we are in.  We have to reduce spending. All across the board.

Because unlike you or I who have our mortgage company or credit card company to send us into bankrupty, the federal government instead gets to answer to China and Qatar and the United Kingdom.  And they aren't likely to be any more understanding than your local debt collector. What kind of a debt collector would China use, anyway? Do we really want to find out?

8 Stood in the Way

Eight GOP senators voted against the 2-year earmark moratorium.  They are:

1. James Inhofe (OK)
2. Bob Bennet (UT)
3. Susan Collins (ME)
4. Thad Cochran (MS)
5. Richard Shelby (AL)
6. Lisa Murkowski (AK)
7. George Voinovich (OH)
8. Dick Lugar (IN)

With their votes, the resolution failed 56-39.

I hate earmarks. I hate them because they are a backdoor currency to buy votes. And they are hard to find because they are not in the budget package. They can be attached to anything the house or senate passes.  I note that only one of these senators is actually up for re-election next year. That's Mr. Lugar of Indiana.

There are also 7 Democratic senators that voted for the moratorium. They are:

1. Evan Bayh (IN)
2. Michael Bennet (WI)
3. Russ Feingold (WI)
4. Clair McCaskill (MO)
5. Bill Nelson (CO)
6. Mark Udall (CO)
7. Mark Warner (VA)

Which just goes to show that doing the right thing isn't necessarily being done by just the right wing.

Earmarks are a symptom of the problem.

In 2005, the Congressional Research Service found that earmark projects accounted for 1.92% of all federal outlays (spending). Now... that doesn't sound like a lot of money.  Well, OK, in the jaundiced and stratosphere-high world of federal spending, that doesn't sound like a lot of money.  In fact, it would work out to about $47.7 billion dollars, which compared to the $1300 billion that we overspent in 2010, doesn't really seem like much.

However, earmarks are a symptom of a Washington problem that John McCain and a few others have been warning us against for years.  Earmarks are used to buy votes in both houses of Congress.  It's a form of political currency that is used to influence members of both the House and the Senate to vote in a manner that they might otherwise have done.  Here's an example:

House Leader: This reform legislation is very important and we really need your vote in order to guarantee it's passage.
Representative: I realize that this is important to you, but you have to understand that my constituency isn't effected that much by the problem your legislation addresses. And they will object to its cost.
House Leader: Well, what is your constituency interested in?
Representative: We've been trying for years to build that new county library, but the economy has made it difficult to get it done.
House Leader: Well, what if we were to attach, let's say, $600,000 in earmarked funding for that library to the proposed legislation?  
Representative. My constituency will be grateful.  You have my support.

See the problem?  So even though earmarks themselves only represent a small amount of the total federal funds spent, they contribute to a bloated federal budget by making it more palatable to some members of Congress by sending some funding back home where it will do some good.

In the above example, would a new public library be of benefit to the community? Almost assuredly so. But because it's earmarked legislation, it never gets debated as part of the budget.  Therefore, this funding is hard to find and hard to track.

If you get rid of these "pork-barrel" projects and hidden earmarked funding riders, then bills tend to be voted on based only on their relative merit and not because votes have been bought and paid for.  For example, without the sweetheart deals that were made to certain members of Congress in states like Kansas and Louisiana, the United States National Health Care legislation (aka "Obamacare") would probably never have gotten enough votes to pass.

And that's why the Tea Party wants earmarks eliminated.

Quantitative Easing and the 2010 G20 Summit.

From the FT.com (Financial Times): In an article by Ralph Atkins while in Frankfurt, Germany, he wrote about the "collision" course that Germany has plotted with regards to the United States.

Our policy makers are whining about our trade imbalance.  Wolfgang Schäuble accused the United States government of undermining its own policymaking credibility.  "It is not consistent when the Americans accuse the Chinese of exchange rate manipulation and then steer the dollar exchange rate artificially lower with the help of their printing press." He went on to say that American's have lived for "too long" on credit, overblown their financial sector and neglected their industrial base.  There are lots of reasons for the US problems -- German export surpluses are not part of them.

He further pointed out that we don't have a liquidity problem. There's a LOT of money in the system right now.  What he didn't say, but was definitely implied, is that borrowing is low because banks have increased standards for borrowing and therefore far fewer borrowers are found to be credit worthy. 

I've harped on this for years.  Part of our problem is that in the noble but misguided effort to make home ownership attainable to more people, the federal government put great pressure on banks to ease lending requirements, with the result that potential borrowers were not required to provide much proof that they could pay back the money they were borrowing. This risky behavior resulted in the mortgage bust of 2008, although signs could be seen as early as 2005-6.  Federal policy makers tried to exert pressure to roll back these practices but were soundly rebuffed by a Democrat-controlled Congress. 

If our government continues to "monetize our debt", soon the Federal Bank will be the only organization that will be willing to buy our debt, and at that point the "Weimar moment" as Glenn Beck puts it, will happen.  

Call your congressman, call your Senators and inform them that printing money is no solution to our problem.  Demand that they reign in federal spending, but be aware that in so doing you will be asking the government to reduce services, some of which you or someone you love and know are depending on. How tight are you willing to pull your belt in order to gain federal fiscal responsibility? Because until you are willing to live with less entitlements from our government, our government will continue to spend its way into debtor's prison.

Maybe the GOP gets it. Day 2.

Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), who will likely become the House Majority Leader in January, distributed a document called "Delivering on Our Commitment" that will be given to new the new class of Representatives.  In it, Mr. Cantor reveals some detail on his proposed congressional agenda.

1)  He opposes a VAT.
2) Create a forum with the nation to seriously discuss entitlement changes necessary to maintain our obligation to retirees while still reducing overall entitlement expenditures. Outreach to the "minority" party is stressed.
3) Continue the GOP moratorium on earmarked appropriations and based on an outcome of the Organizational Conference, extend it to both parties. In short, no House legislation including earmarks will be allowed to the floor for discussion or balloting.
4) A systematic, piece by piece approach to repealing or defund the United States National Health Care act and replace it with "common sense" legislation. I have no ideal what "common sense" legislation means.
5) Implementation of rules for articulating clear standards for bringing legislation to the floor of the House. In summary, an argument must show that the legislation is not more appropriately a state or local government issue and that Congress is within Constitutional limits to pass such legislation. Further, the legislation must include a plan for paying for its implementation.  Shrinking the size of the Federal Government is a primary goal of these rules.
6) Changes to the Legislative Schedule and House Calendar, with focus on committee hearings and oversight uninterrupted by floor activities such as House votes.  Oversight committee reports can be brought to the floor for debate or even adoption.
7) Eliminate expressions of appreciation and recognition for individuals, groups, events and institutions in order to focus on the critical work ahead of us.  Also, consider designations and namings of post offices or other federal buildngs only once day a month.
8) A renewed focus on standardized goals, objectives and formats of oversight reporting in connection with a greater emphasis on individual member oversight initiative.

I have only one relevant piece of advice for Mr. Cantor. Every single category of federal spending needs to be critically scrutinized and that there are no sacred cows.  Defense, Health and Human Services, the Federal bureaus and agencies, and yes, even Social Security all need to be looked at with an eye towards the reduction of spending.

Grumpy Conservative, The 2010 Midterm Results Prove Nothing.

As of 5:00 PM on November 3, 2010, I've heard a President admit he made mistakes and I've heard a resurgent GOP and their pundits talking about a "mandate". 

Florida Senator-elect Marco Rubio said it best. This election result is not an embrace by the people of the GOP, it is a second chance to get it right.

I'm already betting they don't. Because in order for the GOP to get it right, they are going to have to finally convince the American people that we no longer can afford all the programs, services and entitlements that we have come to expect from our federal government. They are going to have to convince the American people that they are going to have to cut over $600 billion dollars from the 2011 federal budget.  They are going to have to repeal parts of the health care reform. But that's only the start.

They are going to have to convince the people that every category of the budget will need to be cut.  They are going to have cut over $150 billion from health and human services. They are going to have to cut over $150 billion from the federal defense budget. They are going to have to dramatically change the way social security payments will be made to people who retire five or more years from now. They are going to have to cut and I mean DRAMATICALLY cut the budgets of federal agencies like the Dept of Education, the Dept of Energy, the Dept of Agriculture, the National Endowment for the Arts, the FBI, CIA. Across board. Nothing is sacred.

Oh yeah, they are going to have to RAISE taxes too. On everybody. Even those who currently don't pay.

And if you the American people don't buy it, then the GOP and the Democratic party are both screwed and the United States defaults on it's debt in 2012.

But the American people won't buy it so why in the hell am I even bothering? I'll see you in the bread line.

Funny stuff. TOTUS comments.

I follow a blogger site called Barack Obama's Teleprompter Blog. If you are a progressive, you'd be better off not following that link. Stay away. But if you are a little more on the conservative side, like I am, I find this guy to be pretty darned funny.

So here's a "tweet" from TOTUS (Teleprompter Of The United States).

Big Guy says he's been fighting for America for 2 years, unfortunately for him America has started fighting back.

OK. That's funny.

Quantitative Easing, Round Two.

Read this CNNMoney article.

Back in March of 2009, the Federal Reserve Bank printed $2 trillion dollars ex nihilo, which means that this money was being added to the money supply but was backed by no additional value in our actual treasury.  In April of 2009, every dollar owned by everyone everywhere was worth 17% less than it was just before they printed the money.

Why would they do such a thing? Well, as the article explains, they are doing this because the federal government is finding it harder and harder to get anybody to buy our deficits. You know... those deficits where our beloved federal government, at the behest of the American people is spending more money than they are willing to pay it for the services they demand their government provide.  So, if China or Bahrain or Qatar or the UAE or the UK are no longer willing to buy our bonds, then the Federal Bank is willing to step in.

Yup, they are going to electronically credit the Federal Reserve with an addition $600 billion dollars in order to be able to purchase our own debt. This is also called "quantitative easing", a desperation move that is taken by a government when an economy is stalled but interest rates for lending are already close to zero.  This is also known as "monetizing the debt", something that has been tried before. I document this in a previous blog posting you can read here.

The Weimar Republic, the German government after World War I did this in order to pay off the massive reparations that they were obligated to pay per the Versailles Treaty.  Look it up. It was not a happy time to be a German.

If you are OK with your government reducing the value of every dollar that you have saved or invested, then don't do anything. But if I were you, and especially if you are a Republican, now is the time to fire up your word processor and write your Senators and Congressman and tell them to STOP THIS NOW!

Republicans have to sit in the back of the bus.

As distasteful a tactic as it has been, the Republicans have finally gotten some cojones and have refused to participate in the current administration's reckless spending spree.  Although this President promised to be post-partisan and post-racial, nearly every major GOP led initiative with regards to the health care, TARPII and cap and trade have been rejected out of hand by the dominant party.

So here's President Obama's most recent olive branch to the GOP going forward. He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

No, Mr. President. If the current batch of GOP-ers are going to be true to their campaign promises, then the GOP is going to continue to fight you if you continue to add to the crushing debt that is now threatening to destroy our entire way of life.

But thank you, Mr. President, for so eloquently sum up your feelings about the GOP in particular and conservatives in general.  It helps to clarify our choices for the upcoming elections.

Amtrak Posts Record Ridership.

USA Today, in a Mike Chalmers article, reported that Amtrak posted record ridership with 28.7 million riders, an increase of 5.7% from 2009.  Ticket revenue increased by 9% to 1.7 billion.

However, Amtrak posted $3.5 billion in expenses for the fiscal year.
Let's see....  $1.7 billion from ticket sales against $3.5 billion in expenses.  Yup, another year in the red for Amtrak.

Separation of Church and State and the Politicians that Don't Understand It

Recent debate comments in Delaware serve to illustrate just how ignorant or disingenuous our current crop of politicians are with regards to the concept of "separation of church and state".

In a debate on Tuesday October 19th, Republican candidate Christine "the witch" O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coon's position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

O'Donnell asked "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?", and Coons replied that the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents Congress fro making laws respecting the establishment of religion, whereupon O'Donnell said "You're telling me that is in the First Amendment?"

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says verbatim: "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

At play here is the fact that the concept of "separation of church and state" doesn't exist anywhere in our Constitution. Historically, this term first appears in a private letter written in 1802 from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association.  He writes: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Interestingly enough, this letter was in response to a written concern by the Danbury Baptist Association that, at that time (prior to the establishment of the 14th Amendment), the Federal Government could force out a state's official church. 

It is important to remember the context in which the States demanded the addition of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution before they would ratify it.  The First Amendment prevents the government from imposing its will upon the people with regards to religion. With their freedom only newly won, the memory of religious oppression and forced conversion by royal rulers was strong enough that they wanted this freedom specifically protected.

Does teaching the concept of creationism in public schools rise to the level of "establishment of religion"?  I do not think so, although better minds than mine have spent much time debating this touchy subject.  Although the United States was founded by men who were primarily Christian in their beliefs, the concept of the world having been created by a singular divine intelligence or pantheon of divine beings is common among nearly all religions. I would agree that any program that would teach the concept of creationism to students in public schools would need to present more than the history as expressed in the book of Genesis (which is a common belief of Jews, Christians and Muslims). But again, would even such a carefully designed program actually bring about the establishment of religion in our schools? I argue that it would not.

More importantly, the "separatists" are perfectly happy to quote the first segment of the first sentence of the First Amendment, but often fail to address the second segment of that same sentence: ... "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".  While I do not fall into the category of those who take a very literal interpretation of the creation of the universe and the earth from the book of Genesis, there those who do.  If our public schools fail to teach about the alternative belief of creationism, would the government by proxy be guilty of prohibiting the free exercise thereof?  Those students are being presented with a view of the creation of the earth (evolution) which is, in their interpretation, entirely invalid. In other words, those students are being forced to supress their belief in how the world came to be.  I think that this is clearly a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

So... to bring this back around to Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell.  Chris Coons clearly believes that teaching creationism is schools would be a violation of the principle of "separation of church and state". I would only agree with him if only the Genesis creation story would be presented.  But in contrast, Christine O'Donnell should be aware of the fact that when President Jefferson first laid the words "wall of separation between Church & State", he specifically quoted the entire first clause of the First Amendment. Therefore, President Jefferson clearly intended those words to be associated with the protections provided by that Amendment.

The Unfinished Business of the Federal Government (or We have met the enemy and they is us)

I'd be willing to bet that more than 70% of the American public is completely ignorant with regards to the responsibilities of the U.S. federal Congress.  Article I Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states: "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

But the partisanship being displayed by both the Republicans and Democrats have made the environment in Washington so toxic that Congress has utterly failed in this fundamental and Constitutionally mandated responsibility. 

A federal income-tax hike in the midst of our weak economic recovery seems unfathomable. Such a hike will surely stifle consumer spending and either stall or dampen any recovery we might experience going into 2011.  And yet, our Congress completely failed to come to any agreement on the extension of the "Bush tax cuts", which are scheduled to expire on December 31st of this year.  Worse yet, here we are in late September of 2010 and we don't even know what the tax tables are going to look like for next year. How can our vaunted and esteemed Congress possibly budget when they don't even have a GUESS as to what revenues will be?

So we don't get a federal budget. Of course, the political junkies will tell you that Congress is not required to provide a federal budget. And they're mostly right. But how can you possibly control spending unless you create a budget and then try and stick to it? Or maybe it's that our "transparent Congress" doesn't want to pass a budget because then they might be expected to actually control spending. Hmmm...

That same "transparent" Congress (reference to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous promise) has failed to adequately investigate misconduct charges leveled against Representatives Charlie Wrangle (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA).

But Congress CAN raid our empty treasury to authorize a $42 billion "small business  stimulus" bill even though small business aren't likely to borrow money for expansion or hiring because the tax hike will discourage consumers from parting with what little discretionary spending they still have in their own household budgets. More "chicken in every pot" politics and Americans LOVE it.

Every taxpaying citizen I talk to (I don't talk to non-taxpaying citizens because they have no skin in the game so why in the hell do I care about THEIR opinion?)  laments the fact that the government spending is completely out of control. And yet, when I start mentioning reduction of the budgets for the Dept. of Education, teachers scream. Or if I mention reduction in Medicare/Medicaid then seniors and the unfortunates of our society scream.  Or if I mention reduction in military spending, then the hawks and those serving in the military scream. 

Our elected leadership has utterly failed (for at least 60 years) to give it to us straight, to give us the plain, unvarnished truth.  If you want to have a healthcare system like Sweden's, or Canada's, or the United Kingdom's, then you have to pay taxes like a Swede, a Canadian or an Englishman. Or, if you want lower taxes, then you must do more for yourself and your community and expect less from your government, especially with regards to entitlements and the redistribution of wealth.  But our Congress and our President (again, for over 60 years), has told us we can lower taxes and still provide all the entitlements that you could ever ask for.

I do not lay the huge mess, the possibly unrecoverable mess, at the feet of Pelosi, Reid and the President. I lay it instead at the feet of every Congressman that ever asked for an earmark, every President that pushed social-engineering through government programs, every Senator that ever tacked on unrelated resolutions to authorizations (ala Harry Reied and the "DREAM" act for the current Defense Spending Authorization). Ultimately, I lay our huge mess on every American that still refuses to do with less of their piece of the entitlement pie and still expects our bloated federal government to reduce spending.

So Congress is going into recess. Well, during that period I guess the important and constitutionally mandated business of the people will have to wait. But by the same token, if they are in recess then they can't do any more harm to us.  I guess that's the silver lining. But that sure isn't the American Exceptionalism I grew up with.

Glenn Beck cranks up the culture wars.

Rich Benjamin, in an article on cnn.com (click here) made a series of arguments designed to support the position that Glenn Beck, the wildly popular conservative pseudo-religious radio and talk-show host, has "cranked up" the culture wars.

His first argument is based on the claim that despite Beck's assertions to the contrary, the August 28th rally in on the Washington Mall was a political rally. He points to the presence of a rally participant wearing a t-shirt with the message "If you can't love America, move back to Kenya."  Even though Beck specifically directed the attendees to not bring signs of any kind.  Even though not one speaker mentioned President Obama by name, or the Democratic party. It's reaching way down into the barrel to label this a patriotic rally based on a few t-shirt slogans. 

With regards to the "tea-party" opinion that President Obama is a marxist/socialist, well, it does seem to be that way. The massive expansion of nationalized health care at the same time that 47% of American workers (the majority who are in the poor, lower income and lower middle income brackets) do not pay any income taxes at all is seen by most fiscal conservatives as redistribution of wealth, a fundamental tenet of socialism.  He also rammed cash for clunkers down our throats, encouraging people to buy cars with taxpayer subsidies. Again, money moving from those who pay taxes to many who do not.  This was followed by cash for toasters, encouraging people to buy new appliances with... you guessed it... taxpayer subsidies. 

And for good measure let us not forget the first time homebuyer credit of $8,000 dollars (in 2009) and homebuyer assistance program of $6,500 dollars, again targeting those in the lower income brackets (most of whom pay no or little in income taxes) with money taken from the income tax payers.

There's lots more where that came from, but I think that the citations above are a clear indication of a political motivation on the part of the president and his party to move money from those who can afford to pay taxes to those who cannot. Is, or is that not socialism?

He further claims that the claims on the part of the conservative factions that President Obama is a communist or marxist or socialist is similar to admittedly similar claims against Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1960's  The huge difference is that the attacks against Dr. King where clearly fueled by racist hatred, especially in the South.  But in the case of President Obama, we only have to look at the record of legislation passed during his administration to see what is plainly written.

As an aside, Reverend Al Shaprton claimed that the push by the "tea party" to restore "state's rights" is a direct assault on the civil rights movement and is a conscious effort to rollback those hard won gains.In this case the US federal government through civil-rights legislation signed in the late 60's forced states to accept a federally mandated standard for guaranteeing the protection of the civil liberties and rights of minorities.  There is no question that under the guise of state's rights, many states (again especially in the South) implemented legislation that unarguably were designed to deny or obstruct the rights of minorities, and particularly blacks, to vote, equal access to education and government services. 

But today, the resurgence of state's rights advocacy is couched firmly in the US federal government's failure to uphold its end of the contract that binds the states of our union together.  The federal government continues to spend more and more and yet services seem to decline or fail altogether. Immigration laws, especially with respect to the prosecution and deportation of aliens living here illegally, including border security is one aspect of the federal failure. Another is the inability of the government to respond quickly to natural disasters. The 2005 hurricane Katrina disaster clearly demonstrated the red-tape that obstructs swift response by the federal government as well as the complete and utter lack of coordination between federal, state and local emergency response agencies.  Our national infrastructure is coming apart. Roads, bridges and dams are falling into disrepair before our very eyes, and yet there is no money to fix them!  People who genuinely need government assistance can't get it while shysters and thieves who have studied the system collect "overpayments" from the government with impunity. The US Dept of Education consumes more tax revenue than ever and yet our nation continues its slide into mediocre scholastic performance among industrialized nations.

States are understandably outraged.  They are being forced by federal mandate to spend more money on federal programs and yet they do not have the access to print more money when their budgets are bled dry.  Not to mention that progressive legislation in states like Michigan, California, Arizona and Ohio have literally bankrupted them. States and local communities would very much like to have more say in the standards of education and welfare that they provide to their citizens, but are continually stymied by an outrageous and bloated bureaucracy that is reflected in the HUGE amount of regulatory law that those bureaucracies are expected to enforce. 

I understand the need for regulations, but when the process for getting FDA approval to get a drug to market can cost multiple billions of dollars. And yet, after getting such approval, a drug company is completely unprotected against expensive lawsuits when unknown side-effects not discovered during the FDA approval process inevitably arise. Question: If the FDA won't stand behind its approval process by helping to defend the pharmaceuticals, why in the hell do we force them to seek FDA approval? 

With regard to Mr. Benjamin's concern that a third of the nation thinks that President Obama is a muslim. Well, I don't get that either.  And we further agree that birthers are idiots. 

But I think that the charge of the current administration's movement of the nation to a more socialist government is completely founded and beyond debate.

Alan Simpson Calls It Like He Sees It on Social Security, a Giant Milk Cow

Read the article here on CNNMoney.com

Things have gotten so bad here in the United States that I have just about given up blogging about it.  Why bother? No matter what I say (or I do) it doesn't look like anything's going to change.

Republicans are going to win some seats in the House and Senate. So what? Who cares?  Republicans spend money almost as fast as Democrats do and what's worse.  Americans are learning their lesson. Consumer credit card debt has dropped to it's lowest level in 8 years, and that trend seems to continue. No kidding. I wish Congress and our state legislatures would go to town on that little lesson. When times are tough, you stop or slow spending and you sure as heck don't rack up even more crappy debt.

Speaking of trying to stop or slow spending... our country is in big trouble. We've added 3 trillion (with a "t" folks!) to the national debt in just two years and at the rate we are going, we will be unable to even pay the INTEREST on that debt. At that point, insolvency is just around the corner and then everything will become unhinged.  Whether it's the military, the welfare state, or social and civil engineering, the fact is that the American people are about to face the biggest crisis of this nation's history, and that is that unless we accept some pain (quite a lot actually) RIGHT NOW, we will completely collapse before the end of the decade if not sooner.

Americans expect to receive their Medicare and Medicaid, and WIC, and Food Stamps, and Social Security payments, etc. And any time anybody talks about cutting them, the political discourse turns into a caterwaul of biblical proportion.  Social welfare programs represent about 37% of our nation's total annual expenditure. The other big pole under the tent? The military, which accounts for about 32% of our total annual expenditure. When you include the money we spend annually to service the national debt, only about 20% of our annual budget (budget, ha ha, that's a good one, we aren't running on a budget right now and Pelosi & Co. have informed us that we won't get one this year) is "discretionary spending" on items like... regulation enforcement (FAA, SEC, SCC, HUD, Dept of Education, USDA, USFS, USPS, etc....) all the other services that we like to have.  So... as I've previously stated on this blog.  Not only must taxes go UP, but government spending in ALL areas of the budget has to go down.  Which means a lot more people out of work...  If you cut the military, then all those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines find themselves without work.  You get the idea.

Finally, Americans themselves are addicted to entitlements.  Former US Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) is in hot water because in an email response directed to an executive of the Older Women's League called it right on the nose when he said in part:
"I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Securityy who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too. It's the same with any system in America. We've a point where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"

Yah, it's probably a bit more blunt than the email's recipient (a woman) probably can handle.  But it's right on the nose. We've been getting dire warning and predictions from wizards of smart for more than two decades that the national debt and the entitlement system in this country were going to push us into national insolvency.  And while the sky was falling we continued along as those everything was just fine.


Well, everything is not just fine. Standard and Poors, a premier financial ratings company, has warned the United States just today that it better do something about the ballooning debt right now or our AAA credit rating will be lost.  Once that happens, you can kiss any chance of getting anybody to buy anymore of our debt goodbye. And when that happens, the Federal government will run out of money. Not just to help fund stimulus packages, but to pay out social security checks, pay for interstate highway maintenance, and send out federal inspectors to make sure our eggs don't have salmonella poisoning in them.  Oh wait.... we're paying for that?  Didn't work out so well, did it.

Have a nice day.

Capitalist Hogwash Concerning SB1070

I've never heard of Alex Nowrasteh before today and I've only heard in passing of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  But the headline in his June 28th FoxNews.com opinion article, "Arizona Declares War on on Capitalism", certainly caught my eye.

A summary of his dissertation is as follows: Illegal immigrants don't commit a disproportionately high rate of crime and Arizona is simply punishing businesses. He then cites US Bureau of Justice Statistics to show that from 2006 to 2008 both violent and property crimes dropped significantly. 

Mr. Nowrasteh doesn't bother to mention that in that time frame (specifically, 2007) Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which requires that all employers use the Federal e-Verify system (admittedly a flawed system) and that any employer that knowingly hires undocumented workers will face a 10-day suspension of their business license on the first offense and permanent suspension of their business license on any subsequent violations.

It is believed by many in Arizona that the drop in crime can be at least partially attributed to the enforcement of this act, which went into effect on January 1, 2008, because of a sudden migration of undocumented persons away from Arizona (to Texas, I am told. Sorry, Texas).

Mr. Nowrasteh then goes on to say that SB 1070 and the Legal Arizona Workers Act essentially turns every business and employer into an immigration agent of the state.  Well... in a word, Yes.  There is precedence for this.  Every business that sells goods or services to consumers are expected to collect local, state and federal sales taxes.  Every business that hires employees (as opposed to contract workers) must withhold federal taxes from employee paychecks and forward that money to the IRS.  Every business must conform to OSHA, Dept. of Labor, or Dept. of Sanitation requirements.  Every business must conform to equal employment opportunity regulations to prevent discrimination.  Every business must pay a wage not less than the federally mandated minimum wage.  So, Mr. Nowrasteh's point is somewhat muted by the fact that businesses are already conforming to a myriad of laws, rules and regulations being mandated from all levels of government.

What Mr. Nowrasteh does not point out is that any undocumented worker must provide some form of identification in order to be employed. That's what e-Verify is all about.  So of course, any illegal immigrant that is using bogus identification is causing material harm to a legal U.S. citizen.  That illegal immigrant can cause irreparable damage to credit ratings and worse, legal history. 

Mr. Nowrasteh makes the claim that many of the people that illegally migrate to the United States do so because they have no chance of doing so legally.  Really?  It may be hard, yes. It may cost money, yes.  But have "no chance of doing so legally"?  Please, Mr. Nowrasteh, would you mind submitting any kind of example or proof to support this statement. What utter hogwash.

I believe that Mr. Nowrasteh's underlying motive for this article is exposed in this one sentence buried deep in the midst of this article: "Now, businesses are going to be further punished when they do what naturally comes to them: lowering costs and passing those savings onto consumers."  Yup, if you run a business that is caught hiring illegal immigrants and paying them sub-minimum wage or worse, under the table in order to avoid federal tax withholding collection, then you are going to be punished.  Mr. Nowrasteh's capitalist world of minimized costs at all costs is creating and perpetuating a permanent serf-class in this country. Is that really what America is all about in your world, Mr. Nowrasteh?  Laborers who are viewed as two-legged mules, to be fed and watered occassionally, but who ought not to expect any joy in life? 

If Americans want a high standard of living (high pay), then they have to expect that they will have to pay for that standard when buying goods and services from domestic businesses.  I take pride in the fact that many of the companies that I do business with aren't the cheapest, but that every time I make a purchase, I'm helping their employees to live the "good" life.

Kevin Costner, Actor and Environmentalist Entrepreneur

British Petroleum has been largely "stymied" for 52 days with a oil spill disaster of immense proportions. Some estimate that the amount of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico may actually be 100,000 barrels, or five and one-half million gallons per day.  I think this is a highly pessimistic value, but even one-tenth of that is far too much.

While BP has spent nearly two months either trying to stifle, plug or siphon the gusher results appear to be disappointing. On June 5 they claimed to capture 640,000 gallons and yet the "spill cam" looked like most of the oil was escaping into the ocean.  BP is also employing clean-up crews to begin the labor-intensive process of cleaning decaying crude oil from the coast line of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Florida. CNN reporters have caught video images of many of their workers spending most of their time sipping water under pop-up tents instead of actually cleaning, so this effort is questionaable.

It may not be too facetious to say that God is doing his part. So far, the weather has kept the oil slick away from the dreaded "loop" current that would whisk the oil out of the Gulf around the Florida peninsula and north along the U.S. eastern seaboard.  But we can't count on that forever, especially with hurricane season's official start on June 1st. 

It's hard to tell what the hell the federal government has been doing. There is no question that Vice-admiral "Thad" Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard has been working hard monitoring the situation and coordinating efforts. In fact, he officially retired in May but he's still the operational commander. Kudos to him.

Congress, on the other hand, wants to criminally investigate BP. Good timing. BP's stock prices plummeted on that news. That removes money from BP's liquid assets that are going to be needed to pay for the repairs to the wellhead, cleanup effort as well as the loss of income from tens of thousands of Gulf residents who directly make their living from the sea.

President Obama is looking for whose "ass" to kick. Good for him.

With all this... up steps Kevin Costner, the star of the much-maligned movie "Waterwold", a forgettable movie.  In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 it occurred to his research scientist brother Dan Costner that there must be a way to separate oil and other fluids from water, as long as their specific gravity is different.  What they developed was a high-speed high-capacity centrifuge.  Since oil is lighter than water, when spun rapidly in a cylinder the water will pool around the outside off the cylinder while the oil will collect in the center of the fluid column. The oil is then pulled from the center while the water "spills" out of vents at the top of the center. Testing has shown that water heavily contaminated with Alaska crude was extracted with a better than 99% purity level.

He applied for a federal license from the U.S. Department of Energy in 1993 and the devices have been shown to work for nearly two-decades. Kevin Costner is a partner in the two companies that manufacture and sell these devices: Ocean Therapy Solutions (http://www.ots.org) and Costner Industries Nevada Corp (http://www.cincmfg.com). While these devices were designed with oil-spill cleanup in mind, they can be used for other purposes, such as water-contaminant removal.  Considering the magnitude of the Prince William Sound contamination, you would have thought that these things would be purchased by the federal government and/or the oil companies by the dozens. Mr. Costner has to date sunk nearly $26 million of his own money into this idea, and was quoted by the London Mail in 2007 as having lost $40 million in all the technologies that his companies have invented.  But for some reason, neither the U.S. federal government (especially MMS or DOE) or the oil industry seemed to be very interested in this technology.

Until now.


Mr. Costner is reported to have said that the ideal use would have been to immediately collect the oil/water from the gusher and process it. The largest unit that his company makes, a 2 1/2 ton stainless steel monster called the "V-20", can process 200 gallons per minute, or 12,000 gallons per hour. The other beautiful thing about his centrifuges is that they are chemical-free. That's right. No dispersants of any kind. Additionally, they are relatively mobile and easily installed on barges, sea platforms or ships.  Ten of these devices theoretically can process 2.8 million gallons of fluid per day.

Why the hell aren't these devices on every drilling rig and oil platform? Why is there no stockpile of these devices?

Having reviewed the information from the literature on their websites, I'm comfortable in stating that had these devices been in place, the Gulf Coast would have seen little to no contamination.

If one assumes that these centrifuges work as advertised and the video shown on OTS.org is not doctored, then the fact that the MMS did not insist that there be a stockpile of these devices, purchased by the oil industry and stored by the federal government as a hedge against disasters such as this should be the real criminal investigation.

Mr. Costner and his companies are the proof of what people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other so-called "right-wing wackos" have been braying: Private entrepreneurs will always be the provider of solutions to our problems.  Kevin Costner can apparently do what neither BP or the U.S. federal government cannot; turn oil back into water.