Senator Dick Durbin Says to Put Down Ayn Rand's Books

Senator Dick Durbin of the Democrat Socialist Party of the highly indebted state of Illinois, has told Senate Republicans to put down their Ayn Rand books and get to work on the socialist agenda, including perpetual unemployment insurance payouts.  He claims that if Republicans want to help the public, they should vote to take money by force from those who are working and give it to those who have largely stopped looking for work.  We know that many have stopped looking for work because Big Government has so degraded the economy with endless similar takings of income and wealth that private sector job creators have largely stopped creating jobs.  Labor force participation is the lowest it has been since that great failed Democrat Jimmy Carter was in the White House.  Durbin's solution is to take still more money by force from those who are working and give it to those who are not!

Durbin's solution is immoral, as Ayn Rand most ably made evident to rational thinkers who have read her books despite the vilification of collectivists.  Durbin's solution has been the modus operandi throughout this never-ending Great Socialist Recession, now starting its seventh year and likely to continue for at least one year after Obama has retired.  We can expect a 10-year recession due to such continuous nonsense as Durbin is backing.  So, any rational observer can clearly see that the Democrat Socialist Party solutions do not solve the problem, but instead are the problem.  It is always interesting to observe that extended attempts to ignore morality always end in disasters, such as this great American Lost Decade.  But then, as Ayn Rand said, one needs a moral code in order to assure one's survival and in order to flourish in life.  In other words, the practical man is a moral man and a moral man is a practical man.  Those who believe it is practical not to be moral are horribly mistaken.  So do read Ayn Rand.

Dick Durbin has never created more jobs than those of a small law practice in Springfield, Illinois, which he started after passing the bar in late 1969.  He mostly ran his private practice as a sideline while working for the Illinois legislature and running for offices in losing campaigns until he finally became a Representative in 1982.  One of his winning campaign issues was that he would solve unemployment problems.  He has yet to figure out how that is done.

It is a strange thing that so many people are now helpless to find work when most people were once capable of creating their own jobs in America.  Apparently for many Americans that enterprising spirit is dead.  Perhaps that is the main problem with employment today.

Does a loving Father tell his children that he does not care whether they learn to read and write or not?  Does he tell his children that they need not bother to learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers?  Does he tell them they are not to have chores to do, so that they will be happier?  Does he say that he does not care what they will do with their lives because he will always take good care of them?  No, he pushes his children to learn the skills they will need to take good care of themselves.  Yet Dick Durbin is telling us that we should not care about the effort our children make, we should without reservation promise to always care for them.  Well, as any good parent knows, you have to make demands of your children.  You have to raise them so that they will understand the need for work and the pleasures that being a competent worker provide.  If you are a loving parent, you push your children to become competent in managing their own lives and in choosing their own values.  You teach them the morals and the many skills they will need to live well.  You teach them that pride and happiness are well-earned when they abide by their morality and manage their lives well.

If this is the path we follow with those whom we love best, then how is it that anyone can entertain Dick Durbin's claims that it is better to treat your fellow Americans the way a poor parent would raise a spoiled brat with no hope of ever becoming a real adult?  How can it be wise to take the advice of such a fool then to put down Ayn Rand's books?

So, visit the Atlas Society and read about Ayn Rand's ideas if you have not.  Then buy her books and read them carefully.  Think deeply about all you know about life and evaluate her ideas as objectively as you can.  It is the practical and moral thing to do!  It will also be a most appropriate reply to the self-destructive and wrongheaded advice of Senator Dick Durbin.

Soaking Electricity Customers with Taxes in Maryland

I just received my January electricity bill for electricity used in the 33 days from 5 December 2013 to 7 January 2014 for my laboratory.  The total BG&E bill was for $158.20, which was a very small bill compared to months when we are running air conditioning.  Our heating is with natural gas.  The bill breaks down as follows:

BG&E Distribution and Account Services = $119.92
Electricity Generation Charges = $16.08
Maryland Taxes = $22.20

My laboratory paid 1.38 times more in taxes than it paid for the actual generation of the electricity we used!  Taxes were 14.0% of my total bill.

Of these taxes, the biggest single tax is the Maryland Universal Service Program charge which is a flat monthly fee of $10.29 to provide welfare aid to the poor.  Interestingly, this fee of $10.29 is also subjected to the 6% sales tax, so this is really a charge of $10.91 each month.  Note that this is discriminatory against very small businesses, since it is a fixed fee.  It is also, as are other charges on the bill, a disincentive to reduce one's energy use since it is not proportional to energy use.

Another tax is the Francise Tax, which is proportional to the number of kWh used.  That tax is also subjected to the 6% sales tax!  The remaining tax is an Environmental Surcharge, which was the only tax not subjected to the 6% sales tax.

The 14% taxation is not the whole story.  The state of Maryland buys into the same ideas on energy that Obama does.  Gov. Martin O'Folley does everything he can to increase energy costs.  BG&E and electricity generation companies have to pay the high costs of the solar and wind generation schemes favored by the Progressive Elitists, as well as biomass fuels.  Fortunately, these increased costs have been offset by the lowered cost of natural gas and a program which allows one to buy electricity supplied by companies other than BG&E.

Increasing Mobility of Low Income People to Higher Incomes

I am going to comment on an article by W. Bradford Wilcox posted at the American Enterprise Institute on income mobility in the United States.  He has presented some data of Harvard economist Raj Chetty, a principal investigator at the Equality of Opportunity Project, based on local variations of local income growth, the share of single mother households locally, and local government spending.  The mobility is question here was actually one with a very high bar.  A child born into a lowest quintile household has to be a highest quintile earner by age 30.  Most highest quintile earners are well into their careers and tend to be much older 30.

Wilcox has fit these data sets with linear functions.  The data are interesting, though the linear fits are problematic for two of his three plots of the data.  In light of the recent renewal of Obama's redistributionist efforts, only partially and even falsely carried out by ObamaVaporCare, this is a good time to talk about what really affects income mobility.

The first plot, which is reasonably fit with a linear function, is:

This is not surprising.  Where income growth is strong in America, labor is more valued and those who want to work hard have many opportunities to make money.  Of course Obama's anti-business policies, high energy costs, excessive regulations, and the costs of ObamaVaporCare decrease income growth and are therefore likely to decrease income mobility on the national scale.  Nonetheless, local government efforts to suppress the free market will still leave a strong imprint on local mobility variations.  There is no question that it is much easier to start a business in some areas than in others, as an example with important affects on mobility.

Another critical effect on income mobility is:

Clearly an increasing share of households run by a single mother has a very negative effect on income mobility for their children.  The linear fit here is nonsense.  The proper fit is with a hyperbolic curve, which indicates a much stronger impact of single mother households on income mobility than a linear effect.  It has long been understood that there was a strong effect, but this data makes it very clear how strong and dominant that effect is.  It is well-understood that entitlement programs tend to increase the number of single mother households, so most of Obama's likely efforts to decrease income inequality will likely make it worse.  One of the many impacts of his policies already has been to increase energy costs, which really hurts those with little income badly.  How local government welfare programs are run will have a big impact on the number of single mother households.  Generally, the more money spent on such programs, the more single mother households.

The third plot is:

The thought here was that local government spending supports education, so with better local education systems, income mobility would be increased.  There probably is some such effect in some school districts, but we also know that generally increased spending on schools does not really correlate well with greater learning.  In some school districts, the people do have a high regard for education, but in many other districts it is just another labor union entitlement program to gain the teachers union votes.  Many inner city school systems are well-funded, but horribly managed.  So it is not surprising that the data does not follow any definable dependence in this case.  The data more nearly resembles a hand print with the palm pressed firmly and the fingers splayed out and pressing lightly.  Indeed, the thumb is nearly straight up, indicating that one can get virtually any result from spending $2,000 per capita on income mobility.  Clearly, neither local government spending nor local education spending is the primary effect on income mobility.  This is not to say that real learning is not important.  That I am sure is a critical effect.  But, sad to say, real learning is not something Obama is interested in.

Income mobility depends upon the opportunity to earn a living, which is heavily dependent upon government policies not shutting down or over-regulating opportunities.  Because freedom of contract is heavily suppressed in the USA, many opportunities to earn are decreased.  One such egregious way to decrease opportunity to earn and to develop a career is to increase the minimum wage.  Doing so hurts the under-educated the most by keeping them from getting their first jobs.  This keeps them from acquiring skills and from establishing a record as a worthy employee.  It forces many to turn to crime.  The high costs of providing health insurance under ObamaCare and the minimum wage increases that took effect just before and during the start of the Great Socialist Recession have already had a disproportionate impact on ensuring the unemployment and part-time employment of those in the lowest quintile income households.  Obama has been no friend to the small businesses that often hire young people and give them their first opportunity to prove themselves.

It is another Obama farce to claim that he is going to do something to increase income mobility and to reduce income inequality.  As always, he will cause effects opposed to those he claims he will achieve.  Of course his main purpose in this income inequality rhetoric is to distract the American People from the disasters he has already caused in the economy and with our medical care.

Harris Poll of Some American Beliefs

A Harris Interactive poll of 2,250 American adults conducted in November 2013 found the following:

• 74% believe in God, down from 82% in 2005, 2007, and 2009.  This is a decrease of 2% per year since 2009.
• 83% of those 68 or older believe in God, but only 64% of those between the ages of 18 and 36 do.
• 6% of those who believe in God are neither absolutely nor somewhat certain.
• 59% are either very religious or somewhat religious, which is down from 70% in 2007.  Religiosity is falling at a rate of nearly 2% a year.
• 23% are not at all religious, up from 12% in 2007, which is increasing at a rate of nearly 2% a year.
• 47% believe in Darwinian evolution (up from 42% in 2005), while 36% believe in creationism.
• 42% believe in ghosts, 36% in UFOs, and 29% in astrology.

And more than half of American voters voted for Obama in November 2012, despite observing his rule for four years.

If the Great Recession has Ended, Why Are Fewer Prime Working Age Men Employed?

We are constantly being told that the economy is getting better, albeit slowly.  I have pointed out many times that the employment participation rate has not improved throughout 2010, 2011, 2012, or 2013.  I have pointed out many times that the real, per capita GDP has not grown, though this is a far better measure of our real condition than the GDP or that fake real GDP according to the government.

Another of many indicators that there is no improvement is the terrible plight of employment among men of the prime working ages 25 -54 years old.  Unemployment among men of these ages has continued to climb at rates in excess of population growth since the government declared recession supposedly ended.

It sure is difficult for Obama and the government to call a spade a spade.  This is some recovery when 12% of men of the prime working ages are unemployed!

Extortion of Businesses Using a Safety Regulation Scam

This is a particular examination of a regulatory case which applies to relatively few people.  This makes it a more viable scam which does not generate voter ire during elections.  Some voters are actually deceived into thinking that big government is doing its job of protecting them.  This case is instructive in terms of understanding what motivates most regulatory agencies and about their competency as a regulator.  In that way, it should of interest to everyone who wants rational, ethical government and cares about the rights of the individual.

The state of Maryland under the Dept. of the Environment has a Radiological Health Program which regulates all x-ray generating equipment except the cathode ray tubes (CRT) used in the older TV and computer monitor technology.  Yes, CRTs generate x-rays.  The electron beam that causes the light to appear generates x-rays at moderately high energies such as 25 to 40 KeV energies.

My laboratory operates a scanning electron microscope whose electron beam energy is commonly in the 15 to 25 KeV range and so can generate x-rays with energies up to the electron beam energy.  But, unlike a CRT computer monitor or TV, the SEM has very thick stainless steel walls.  Just as is the case with a CRT, the x-rays are contained within a vacuum system into which no human body part can be inserted while under vacuum.  When the sample insertion door is opened, no x-rays can be generated because if the electron beam-producing filament was on, it would instantaneously burn out and the electron beam would be eliminated.

This SEM instrument and the entire class of them was ruled a couple of years ago in Maryland to be safe enough that it does not have to be listed and no x-ray tube tax is assessed on it by the state of Maryland.  I thought this meant that the only reason my laboratory still had to register as a certified radiation facility was because of our x-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) system.  Apparently not quite so.  Under this belief, and knowing that there is no conceivable safety hazard in operating the XPS system and that it is actually clearly much safer even than either a CRT or an SEM, I attempted to get it exempted from regulation.

As a regulated radiation facility, I have to hire a state-licensed inspector to come to my laboratory every two years and run around with a Geiger counter looking for radiation near the SEM and the XPS system.  He sometimes thinks he can see something, but never enough radiation to warrant any health issue.  What he is actually seeing is the radiation emitted due to very energetic cosmic rays hitting the massive steel structure and generating x-rays at higher levels than does the air when he backs up a couple of feet from the instrument.  He is not seeing any radiation from the inside of the instrument due to its operation.  But, he does not know enough radiation physics to know this.

I pay the state Radiological Health Program a $215 x-ray tube charge every second year for each x-ray tube they require to be listed.  I also have to pay for radiation badges, which in 18 years of operation have never had a quarterly reading other than 0 mRem.  This is despite the fact that I leave a badge on the instrument at the most vulnerable point 100% of the time, so it collects at least 100 times more radiation than any operator possibly could.  It is a hassle to mail these back to the radiation measurement company to be read and recorded due to the unusual size of the envelope and the bulk of the badges.  The post office requires a different amount of postage almost every time.  In addition, I am supposed to have my instruments maintained by a state-licensed company, none of whom know anything about an XPS instrument.  Presumably, this is to assure that safety issues are addressed, but if there are no safety issues, I am baffled as to how they are to address them.

A couple of years ago, I had a phone conversation with one of the radiological health bureaucrats about getting the absolutely safe XPS exempted.  He flat out told me that the radiation physics and the fact of whether there was any possible danger or not was of no concern to him.  He said their purpose was to make people feel as though they were safe from radiation.  Whether there actually was any radiation or not was of no interest to them.  This time around, I thought I would write them a letter and explain why this instrument should be exempted and why my laboratory should not have to register as a radiation facility.  This letter follows:

Roland G. Fletcher

Program Manager IV

Radiological Health Program

Air & Radiation Management Administration

Maryland Dept. Of the Environment

1800 Washington Blvd.

Baltimore, MD 21230

Phone: 410-537-3000

Dear Roland Fletcher,

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. does not now and never has operated any radiation machine with any safety hazard.  The only radiation producing equipment we operate produces low energy radiation completely contained by a vacuum containment vessel, which cannot be breached without the instantaneous destruction of the filament which creates the electron beam and hence the x-rays.  These instruments are:

•                    Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Computer Monitors

•                    Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)

•                    X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS)

These are listed in the order of the danger posed by each.  Your agency has rightly acknowledged that the first two do not require registration as a radiation facility.  Therefore, the much less dangerous XPS system does not require registration either.

The CRTs have electron beam energies of 25 KeV and higher and therefore can generate Bremsstrahlung radiation inside their vacuum containment vessel up to an energy equal to the beam energy.  Our SEM is operated in the electron beam energy range from 15 to 25 KeV.  These are acknowledged safe instruments.

Our XPS system is operated at only 10 KeV and the radiation is only emitted into the analytical vacuum chamber after passing through an x-ray monochromator which filters out all x-ray energies except those precisely at the 1.487 KeV energy of the main aluminum Kα characteristic x-ray.  This is an incredibly low energy x-ray, which precisely suits the purpose of having as much of the x-ray absorbed in the outer 20 nanometers of a material surface as possible.  The only photoelectrons useful to us are those emitted from this depth or less.  This beam has no penetrating power!  If it were possible to enter air, its mean free path is still less than 1 millimeter.

I have raised the issue of getting this instrument exempted before and I have been ignored.  I am unable to continue spending money and my time on this pointless nonsense.  The Obama economy has sapped our resources sorely and your new requirement that only licensed x-ray maintenance companies provide the maintenance on this highly unusual system with no safety issues is not one it is possible to comply with.  They know nothing about this system and nothing they can do can possibly make the system safer than it already is.  There are no fail-safes which have any possibility of failing to work.

So, there is no reason for Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. to renew its Radiation Facility license # 27-0563 and there is no reason we should be taxed for having an x-ray tube.  It is high time that some semblance of rationality is applied here.

Best wishes,

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.

President & Principal Scientist

I would have viewed a reasonable response one in which they simply said OK the XPS instrument is exempted or we will send our radiation physics expert out to your facility to make a determination of whether it might be exempted or not, perhaps at my expense.  The response to this letter strongly suggests that it was viewed as an insurrection to be dealt with even more sternly and forcefully than King George III moved to put down the rebellion in the colonies in America.  Here is the response, not from Mr. Fletcher, but from the Queen herself:

Dr. Anderson,

Thank you for your letter dated December 6, 2013 in response to the Notice of Violation that the Department issued.  I appreciate the concerns that you have raised but each of our 5,000 regulated facilities must adhere to the Maryland regulations in order to ensure the the general public and the occupational worker are not exposed to unnecessary radiation.  

The scanning electron microscope does require the registrant to denote possession of this unit on the Radiation Machine Facility Registration Form (RX1).  Also the State licensed private inspector does inspect and perform an area survey of this unit.  

The X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS) must undergo a state certification inspection by one of the state licensed private inspectors. This unit is not exempt from complying with the Maryland regulations.  

Failure to comply with these regulations will subject the facility to further enforcement actions.

Thanks,

Eva  

Eva S. Nair
Division Chief, Radiation Machines
Maryland Department of the Environment
Radiological Health Program
(410) 537-3179

It is interesting that all of my letters to my Congressman and my Senators and any bureaucrat of the state of Maryland start with a thank you for my letter and then an assertion of complete disagreement without any attempt to actually address the argument I gave for my viewpoint.  This is the response to be expected from Imperial Government which prefers a minimum of insurrection, but will put any insurrection down with brutal force if that proves expedient.

The violation she claims is because I had not put in for a renewal of my radiation facility registration by 16 November because they demand 45 days to process those registrations.  In reality, I am only in violation if I operate the XPS instrument after 31 December when my current registration and certification runs out.  So, I probably will not be able to operate that instrument in early January or maybe all of January.  If that condition continued longer than that, I and my employees will all be unemployed.

So, once again, I am forced to apply for a radiation facility certification when the most dangerous radiation sources in my laboratory are the CRTs we still use on a number of our computers.  Logically and rationally, any CRTs in residences and offices throughout the state should be regulated by the Radiological Health Program given that my equivalent or safer instruments are.  Imagine the insurrection if this were done.  That would be a loser at the polls, so it is not done.  But, it is always easy to extort businesses, whose owners are but a small fraction of the vote.

Now in the mind of a big government bureaucrat, no possible instance of misleading the public into believing they are being protected by that big government can be missed.  The more facilities they regulate, the bigger their income from the x-ray tube tax, the bigger their budget from the taxpayers, and the higher their inflated salaries with the least risk of unemployment.

Yes, medical and dental x-ray instruments do have real safety issues.  But, this Maryland agency does not at all care if an instrument has no safety issues by virtue of its function, design, and radiation physics.  It is only interested in setting itself up under the pretense of providing safety.  It reveals itself as having no actual radiation physics expertise, which makes one wonder how it can be doing a credible job of protecting the People from those radiation-producing instruments which can do real harm.

The Emperor has no clothes.  But the nude Emperor is vicious and brutal.  This is nearly an invariable rule with government regulatory agencies.  They are particularly a plague upon businesses, because that is where the money is and because most of them have little political clout.  They care not a fig for the legitimate function of government of protecting the sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.  They get rich by violating the individual right to earn a living providing one is doing no harm to others.  The Emperor lives high on the hog pretending he is protecting the People, few of whom understand that most of those claims are fraudulent.

Medicaid and ObamaCare are Racist

The Progressive Elitists have told us over and over that those of us who believe one should have to have photo identification to vote are racist.  Of course there are many actions for which a photo ID is required, such as setting up a bank account.  That is not just a bank policy, but it is actually required by law.  One is sometimes also required to show a photo ID to enter a courthouse or many a federal facility.  All apparently racist policies.

Why is it racist to require a photo ID?  Well because the poor are more likely to be of certain racial or ethnic groups and the poor are less likely to own a car or have other easy transportation.  They are also less likely to have a stable address.  Yet, ObamaCare either requires you have a computer, or go to a few sparse and undependable centers for registering, or to undergo an exchange of mailings which tends to depend upon a stable address.  It clearly discriminates against the poor by the criteria of the left.

Now many of the poor will qualify for Medicaid in those 26 states that chose to expand Medicaid under the PPACA or ObamaCare law.  How do they apply for that Medicaid once they find out they qualify for it?

• Go to your Social Security, health department, or social services office.
• Produce a birth certificate or a passport
• Produce your Social Security card
• Produce a utility bill with your address on it
• Provide a recent paycheck or a tax return
• Provide a photo ID

Now, having enrolled in Medicaid, call and travel all over tarnation trying to find a doctor who will actually treat any medical condition for the severe underpayment amount provided them by Medicaid.  Clearly, the Medicaid program does not consider those on it to be worthy of an adequate payment for their medical care and has no concern for their travel time or problems, long waits for care, or even if they can actually find care at all.

As is usual for Progressive Elitist programs for the poor, it is all a pretense and there is no actual concern for the poor.  Yet, the existence of the programs is supposed to fool everyone into believing that they care, while those of us who point out the absurdity of the programs are claimed to be uncaring and racists by criteria the Progressive Elitist laws themselves require.

• Birth certificate or passport
• A power or light bill showing your address
• Something that shows your Social Security number
• A recent paycheck or tax return

Let's see; did I forget anything? Oh, that's right… A PHOTO ID!

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/obama-racist-promoting-obamacare/#ep0PgVDhw432vRDE.99

Did You Know that We Need Big Government to Protect Us from Walmart?

Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world, with $443.85 billion in sales in 2012.  It has 2.2 million employees.  It offers low prices to bring in customers for the goods it efficiently supplies.

The U.S. federal government can only tell us how many employees it had in 2011.  It had 4.403 million employees.  The state governments had 3.779 million full-time employees and 1.534 million part-time employees.  The local governments had 10.786 million full-time employees and 3.202 million part-time employees.  Each of these governments inefficiently supply services for which their customers are forced to pay.  They also produce copious mandates that the People are forced to obey. They command forced labor from employers and businesses for the convenience of government.  Federal, state, and local governments all produce mandates that Walmart must obey.  Federal, state, and local governments spent a mere $6.5 trillion out of the national GDP of $15.0 trillion (43.3%) in 2011. 

Now which of these would a rational person fear, Walmart or Government?  I fear Government, but Progressive Elitists fear Walmart!  Yes, they offer Walmart as a primary reason why we must have Big Government.

Why?  Well the story is that Walmart moves into a town or small city and offers goods at such low prices that they drive all other businesses that used to be in the town out of business.  Walmart pays its employees so poorly that they are in danger of starvation and poverty overtakes the town.  A minimum wage increase mandated by government is required to make Walmart pay a "living wage."  In addition, Walmart is killing American jobs because it brings many of its goods in from other countries.  Walmart is a monster, a very unethical killing machine!  Progressive Elitist after Progressive Elitist will use this story to justify Big Government, including MBAs from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Columbia Business School.

OK, let us ask a few questions about this story. 

When Walmart moves into a town, how does it find the manpower to open its store before it has driven all of the other businesses out of business and taken their employees away?  Does it not have to pay prevailing wages to induce those initial employees to work for them?  It is common for new stores to have tens of applicants for each person they can hire.  Yes, according to studies for every 100 jobs created at the Walmart store, in time about 50 retail jobs in other stores are commonly lost.  Yet this is a sizable net creation of jobs.

It is said that Walmart is evil for putting many other retail businesses out of business.  But all Walmart does is to offer products for sale at good prices.  It is up to the people who used to go to the pre-existing retail stores to actually choose to go to Walmart.  They are the ones who do not go to Joe's Grocery Store and Madeline's Clothing Store.  They have the option to choose to pay higher prices in those stores and support those who have long been in their community.  If anyone made unethical choices, would it not be these customers who had no loyalty for the original shop owners of their towns?

Of course, it is not always the case that these smaller stores were even doing their best to provide the lowest prices they could.  A few of them may have taken advantage of having little competition in the town for the kind of goods they sold.  Some of them morally deserved to go out of business in many cases.  No doubt others did work hard to provide the best service they could, but so surely did many a buggy maker, a stabler, a blacksmith, a wagoner, and a saddler when they were mostly put out of business by the advent of cars and trucks.  Logically, the Progressive Elitist claim would be that all car and truck makers and trucking companies were unethical in putting these older companies out of business.

On Black Friday, there were labor union organized protests at many Walmart stores.  They claimed that 825,000 Walmart employees make less than $25,000 a year.  This may be true, but many of them are likely part-time employees.  The majority of Walmart employees are full-time, which is actually unusual for retail stores.  The average full-time associate earns $12.81/hr. and the average employee (full and part-time) earns $11.83 per hour.  Walmart says that 99% of its employees make more than the minimum wage in their areas, which is highly at variance with the usual story told casually by the usual Progressive Elitist.

Walmart, in a McKinsey & Company study that George Will referred to in 2006, found that Walmart contributed 13% of all of the national productivity increase in the late 1990s, which held down inflation greatly and made Bill Clinton look good as President.  It accounted for $200 billion in savings on the cost of goods each year, which is surely a larger savings now that Walmart is even bigger.  George Will pointed out that the average Walmart shopping household makes less than the national average, so these cost savings go to these poorer households, doing them much more good than food stamps and earned income tax credits did for them then.  But as usual, one can count on the Progressive Elitist, who claims to champion the poor, to actually abhor anything that really helps the poor outside of a government dependency program.  They hate Walmart.

But, Walmart's business model depends upon these less affluent customers and those customers respond in droves by going to Walmart for its convenience and low prices.

24 States Expand Medicaid Under ObamaCare

The CBO predicts that 9 million more people will go on Medicaid in the next year.  Most of this increase will be in the 26 states that expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare.  These states are shown in gold in the map below:

The states not expanding Medicaid coverage under ObamaCare have the number of additional people they would cover with coverage to 133% of the poverty level shown on them.  This represents a huge future savings for these states after 2022 for their state budgets when the federal government stops paying 90% of the bill for the added state dependents.  Those living in the states in gold had best have piles of gold to pay the tax bills after 2022 for all of the people on Medicaid.

The CBO is predicting that ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid will add 9 million people on Medicaid by the end of 2014 and 13 million by the end of 2020.  These additions and the future large increases in state budget costs will occur in the states in the above map in gold.  Of course, Progressive Elitists will complain that the added 5 million people who might have been added in the blue-gray states have been sadly neglected in this redistribution of wealth.  In fact, they like to complain that even more of those in poverty live in many of these blue-gray states.  See the map below from one of their websites:

So the states not expanding Medicaid have an average 9.1% of their populations qualifying as below 133% of the poverty level, while the national average is 8.0% of the population.  But one thing that is overlooked is that there is one single poverty level for the 48 contiguous states and higher levels for Alaska and Hawaii.  So, this map of those below 133% of the poverty level has to be compared to one for the cost of living.  Clearly, some people at 133% of the poverty level are much better off in low cost of living areas than are others at that level in high cost of living areas.  The cost of living map:

Now we see that the states that refused to raise their Medicaid dependency levels to 133% of the poverty level are mostly states with most of their population below or at the national average in the cost of living.  Most of the states that raised the Medicaid eligibility level to 133% have most of their populations living in high or average cost of living areas.  Of the 24 states not raising the Medicaid eligibility level to 133%, Wyoming, Montana, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine are the only ones mostly at the average or higher in cost of living.

There is a reason that Republican-dominated states tend to have lower than average costs of living.  The governments in those states mostly extract less from the private sector to use in unproductive ways in the government-sector.  Their present choice not to increase the eligibility for Medicaid in their states is a move to continue having a lower cost of living.  That means that people in those states above 133% of the poverty level will continue to be better off than will people in the expensive government states that mostly raised their Medicaid eligibility levels under ObamaCare.

After 2022, when those mostly above average cost of living states have to pick up the cost of the 13 million people added to Medicaid, their cost of living will shoot up even higher.  Their taxes will increase further and some of them will go bankrupt.  More and more people will migrate out of those states and move to the states that did not raise their Medicaid eligibility levels.  There will be a further easily seen lesson on the perils of redistribution and socialism.  Socialist transformation and change will have seriously damaged the middle class who will have to pay the bills in the mostly Democrat states that made this bad choice to expand Medicaid.

Government Continues to Lower Expectations for Pre-paid Health Care Exchanges

The federal government pre-paid medical care exchanges are supposed to be working better today.  They are supposed to handle up to 50,000 people on-line at one time now.  Since the federal exchanges are claiming you can sign-up for plans beginning on 1 January 2014 until 23 December, this means that counting today, there are 23 days to sign-up.  So far in two months, it is thought that about 150,000 have chosen plans.  At 50,000 sign-ups per day henceforth a grand upper limit total of another 1,150,000 sign-ups may occur before time has run out.  Some people will not sign-up for anything until they have been on-line over the course of several days examining the offerings and then looking into the provider networks elsewhere.  The enthusiastically socialist state of Maryland, which operates its own exchange, has a much earlier sign-up deadline of 10 December and a very confusing website.

It is not at all clear that even if one signs up by 23 December on the federally operated exchanges, that one will have an actual plan by 1 January 2014.  This is because you do not have a plan until you have paid the company offering the mandated ObamaCare pre-paid medical care plans.  The federal exchanges do not yet have a means to enable such payments.  Given their track record to-date and the methods they are using to manage the exchanges still, it seems unlikely they will have a working mechanism for making payments to the plan providers before Christmas.  So, it seems very certain that fewer than 1,300,000 plans will actually exist on 1 January 2015.

Recall that ObamaCare was passed so that 47 million Americans without health insurance would have pre-paid medical care once it was implemented.  Nothing was said about many millions of people who had insurance losing that insurance.  As it happens, to-date more than 5.55 million insurance plans have been cancelled and the federal government wants to declare success for ObamaCare if 1.3 million new plans are issued under it.  But, this is a net loss of 4.25 million insurance plans, while the supposed 47 million Americans uninsured before will all remain uninsured.  Yes, of course some of them will get ObamaCare insurance and more than 4.25 million of the newly cancelled plans will have no replacement.  The few state-run exchanges which work better than the federal government exchanges will manage to sign-up a few more of the 4.25 million lost plans, but will not sign up most of them either.

Meanwhile, throughout 2015, tens of millions more health insurance plans offered by small businesses and big businesses will be cancelled or replaced by more expensive plans with much increased employee contributions.

On 1 January 2014, many more Americans will have no health insurance and no pre-paid ObamaCare medical care than the original 47 million claimed uninsured who were the very justification for the wrenching changes to our medical care system including the loss of our doctors and hospitals, especially the better ones, the cost of much increased premiums for most of us, the increase in deductibles for most of us, the need to travel much greater distances to the health care providers for many of us, long waits to see doctors or nurse and pharmacist substitutes, a decrease in medical innovation, a decrease in covered medical procedures, more trips to medical facilities to get through a given medical procedure, decreased medical and financial privacy and security, and the many aggravations of having to choose and learn new health networks and how to do their increased paperwork.

ObamaVaporCare Website is Not All That is Vapor

So we have learned that the ability to cruise the ObamaCare federal website anonymously was yanked with false claims that it caused problems for the website in testimony to Congress.  Of course it was yanked so that people could not so easily discover that most people were going to face higher premiums and higher deductibles.  I noted with some anger that the need to give all of your personal information including Social Security number up front was to prevent you from assessing how ObamaCare was financially going to affect your family members and your neighbors and fellow countrymen.

In reality, the user has to spend much more time entering such information and then the website goes to numerous federal databases at numerous federal agencies to verify the input information.  This process puts great strains on the website and it is clearly unable to handle those strains.  In addition, when one gets all of one's information in and picks a plan, one may really only be picking it for further evaluation of the doctor and hospital network it has.  In other words, it need not be a final pick, but ObamaCare does not care.  It thinks you are committed.  Of course, the coercive planners behind ObamaCare are the ones who should be committed, though I understand we have a shortage of the needed mental health institutions since Democrats believe the mentally ill should be out on the streets voting and running ObamaCare.

Late last week, the breakdown on so-called sign-ups on the California state exchange, which works better than the federal exchange does, were announced.  Only about 16% of the 30,830 "enrollees" in October were eligible for subsidies or cost-sharing.  56% of them were of the ages from 45 to 64, though only 25% of the California population is in that age range.  So older and sicker people are 2.24 times more likely than their population to sign up for ObamaCare.  Those desirable low cost healthy people 34 or younger only signed up at a 28% rate, though they are 49% of the California population.  So, just as expected by the many rational critics, ObamaCare assumptions that many young and healthy Americans are going to happily subsidize the health care of older and less healthy Americans is already proving wrong.

Some have tried to explain this as being simply because the federally run website does not work.  They say that when it works, then the young will sign up in droves.  But the California website works better now than the federal website is likely work by the end of the year when people must sign up to have health insurance in 2014.  Yes, we shall see soon what will happen.  But, my money is on this is continuing to be a total disaster.  Health premiums for ObamaCare health insurance will be much higher for 2015 insurance.  As though it is not too high now!

In 2014, participating insurance companies are going to take a bath in cold water and many are going to drown.  Making money was posited by them on the assumption that many more people would have insurance and many of the new insurance holders would be young and healthy.  They assumed the websites would work and send them correct personal information.  Instead they are having to put much more manpower into checking that information than they expected.  This is raising their operational costs and ObamaCare put a very low upper limit on what they can spend on administrative costs.  Those insurance companies that trusted ObamaCare to deliver are going to be big losers.

We also learned late last week that there is as yet no means in the federal website for the insurance companies to be paid for policies that people might think they had signed up for.  No policy actually exists until the insurance company is paid.  The Obama Regime claims they will have this part of the software working by the end of the year.  Of course, the rational observer must have his doubts about this claim.  What is more, even if the claim comes true, can you imagine the chaos on the site as millions of such payment transactions occur within days of the start of policies beginning on 1 January.  Can you imagine the chaos at the insurance companies if they receive a flood of such payments within a few days?

It is not just the federal website that is ObamaVaporCare.  No, it is all of ObamaCare that is VaporCare.  It is exploding and releasing nothing but noxious gasses.  Unfortunately, the medical care industry will suffer, the health insurance industry will suffer, the tens of millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance will suffer, and everyone will suffer with fewer choices and lower quality medical care.

Such is the whirlwind the American People created in selecting a heavily socialist House of Representatives and Senate and President in 2008 and their failure to oust them from the Presidency and Senate in 2012.  Irrational choices have very bad consequences.

Recalling the Vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act - A History Lesson

It is now largely forgotten that a larger fraction of Republicans in both the House and the Senate voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act than did Democrats.  This is a reminder or a history lesson.

In the original bill in the House of Representatives the vote by party was:

Democrats for 152, out of 248 Democrats voting, 61.3% of them voted Yea

Republicans for 138, out of 172 Republicans voting, 80.2% of them voted Yea

In the Senate:

Democrats for 46, out of 67 Democrats voting, 68.7% of them voted Yea

Republicans for 27 out of 33 Republicans voting, 81.8% of them voted Yea

Yet today most Americans think that this civil rights law was opposed by Republicans, when the real opposition was always within the Democratic Party, just as the support for Jim Crow laws and for slavery itself had always been in the Democratic Party.

Maryland Health Connection Website Down

Maryland enthusiastically embraced ObamaVaporCare and set up its own health insurance exchange and website.  While some of the state-sponsored ObamaVaporCare websites work better than the federally-run websites, Maryland's website is not one of them.  It is down every day from 11 PM to 5 AM for repairs and fixes.  Except, tonight it was down at 10:05 PM already.

It is a good thing that no one in Maryland has a job and children to care for, because if they did, they sure would not have a chance to go on-line after putting the children to bed and sign up for a federally mandated health insurance plan.

Maryland Congressman Sarbanes' Vapid Energy Ideas

Having written a note to the Congressman who rules my incredibly highly gerrymandered Congressional District in the Socialist State of Maryland that I support a free oil and gas industry, I received this pablum reply:

November 21, 2013

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the oil and gas industry. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

It is my hope that our energy sector will innovate and adapt to the needs and opportunities of a clean energy future. I believe that if we rise up to meet the challenge of climate change, we can solve so many complicated problems that our country is facing. By developing a long-term and sustainable energy strategy, we can address economic, national security, and environmental policy priorities in one fell swoop. We can diversify our energy portfolio and end our dependence on energy sources from volatile parts of the world. By revolutionizing our energy industry and becoming an exporter of clean energy technologies, we will be able to maintain our competitive advantage as a nation and ensure a prosperous future for our children. Just as growth in information technology served as the driving force behind the economic boom of the 1990's, the development of clean energy technology and green jobs will spur tremendous growth and offer long-term relief to the American economy.

Marylanders know that preserving and protecting our environment can go hand in hand with economic growth. The Chesapeake Bay, one of our most treasured natural assets, is at the center of our regional economy. As a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, I will continue to support reasonable measures that give Americans more energy choices. I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind when voting on relevant federal legislation.

Again, thank you for your input on this important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me about any matter of importance to you in the future.

Sincerely,

John P. Sarbanes
Member of Congress

I am sure that John will not keep my thoughts in mind when he votes on issuing orders that will cause oil and gas prices to rise for entirely irrational reasons and force residential and business users of energy to pay these high prices in exchange for unreliable energy.  John is advocating the same use of so-called green energy that is causing Germany and Spain so many problems now.

He talks about a degree of energy independence which alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass have never delivered, but that the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing is substantially delivering with oil and gas today.  Maryland Gov. O'Malley has forced electric utilities to buy future wind and solar energy with the intent to pass the high costs onto Maryland users.  This is how John Sarbanes plans to address our economic problems at the national level also.

Ah, but these black and blue energy projects, called green by John, will produce jobs in Maryland!  Well, so far the only reason jobs are in Maryland is because a large fraction of the federal government employees, who suck in tax revenues from the entire nation, live in Maryland.  In addition, larger businesses in Maryland tend to be heavy government contractors in defense, medicine, and other R&D.  This is what really explains John Sarbanes' wish to have the government strongly take control of the energy sector and of energy use.  He knows that increased energy R&D funded by the government will disproportionately be contracted out to Maryland institutions and businesses.

This is badly needed in Maryland because between 2007 and 2012, there were 24 tax and fee increases in Maryland, which cost the economy $2.4 billion a year.  The Tax Foundation ranked Maryland number 41 for the worst state tax environment for businesses.  Maryland lost 6,500 small businesses with fewer than 100 employees between 2007 and 2012, while losing 40,000 jobs and 31,000 taxpaying households.  Imagine the conditions if Maryland were not so heavily funded by the federal government.

So, it is hardly surprising that a Democrat Representative is eager to damage the People of the USA in order to have Marylanders suck in their productive output through a straw from DC.

By the way John, climate change is one of the primary reasons a rational individual prizes our ability to use oil and gas.  Of course I say that understanding that it is natural forces, not man's emissions of CO2, that produced climate change in the past, does now, and will continue to in the foreseeable future.

With dumb fools like Barbara Mikulski and John Sarbanes and evil fools like Ben Cardin thinking themselves the Progressive Elite and better capable of making my life decisions for me than I am, you can see why I am an enemy of Big Government in a very concrete form.  This trio gets virtually everything wrong.  One would live a better and happier life by doing the opposite of what they want every Marylander to do in every case than one would following their preferences.  Yes, they are that wrongheaded.

Dictator Obama Strikes Again

Any time the many harms of ObamaCare become apparent to some constituency that might cause a real political problem for Obama, he simply changes the law for a time he hopes will be long enough for the People he thinks stupid to forget the harm.  At first, this was exemptions from the law aimed at labor unions and businesses whose owners supported Democrat candidates for offices.  Then he delayed the larger business mandate that forced them to offer health insurance meeting Obama's gold-plated requirements at great expense.  Then he ruled once again in favor of unions by protecting their health insurance plans, and only theirs, from taxes on the so-called Cadillac plans.  Now, he has declared that individuals can keep their insurance plans that they like for a year, if their insurance company will allow them to do so.

The government does not have the constitutional power to regulate and control our health insurance and our medical care.  But, the strict limits on government power in the Constitution have long been ignored.  However, the only branch of government that has any law-making power at all is Congress, the legislative branch.  It is certainly not the executive branch.  The President of our Republic is supposed to be the Commander-in-Chief and the executor of the laws, not the lawmaker.  The Constitution made this division of function because they knew that a President with the powers of a medieval king was a very dangerous man.  They absolutely would not trust such powers to their President.

But Obama does not believe in the Constitution.  He only believes in socialism and the Constitution is a barrier to socialism.  His ObamaCare law is a great step toward a more complete socialism in America and it will accomplish a huge redistribution of wealth if it survives the many problems of its initial phases.  Obama, the great socialist Leader, desperately wants ObamaCare to endure.  To do so, he has to keep it out of the hands of a Congress no longer completely controlled by committed socialists as it was when the fraudulently name Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was shoved as a fiery coal down our throats.  He is happy to violate the Constitution to protect the PPACA and because he wants badly to establish precedent for the Imperial Presidency.  He wants to be that Great Socialist Dictator the progressive elitists have long wanted and worked for.

Congress, when still under complete control by the Democratic Socialist Party in 2011, endowed the Dept. of Health and Human Services with $1 billion to provide most of the funding to implement ObamaCare.  This was done to make it harder for the incoming Congress with a House under Republican control to defund ObamaCare.  At the end of the 2013 fiscal year that ended on 30 September 2013, HHS had already spent $811 million of this money and presented the website that will not work and about 20,000 pages of new regulations.  The remaining funds of $189 million will not be anywhere near enough to complete the implementation of ObamaCare.  Yet, Obama will not go to the Congress to get the necessary funds appropriated to finish this process.  No, Dictator Obama will simply take money appropriated by Congress for other purposes and use it as he sees fit to ensure that his signature "achievement" plows on, ripping through the lives of most Americans.

Americans generally, and both Congress and the Federal Courts, must stand up to this dictator and stop him.  ObamaCare is a national disaster of incredible proportion.  An even greater catastrophe would be to enshrine the Great Socialist Dictator as our executive branch leader for all of America's foreshortened future.  History tells us that will be worse than a furious civil war.  In fact, such a war is often the only salvation for such a horrific circumstance.