September Unemployment by Region and State

I have an interest in regional and state unemployment levels since I believe these levels are often indicative of government mandated policies, either pro-business or anti-business.  These rates are now available for through the end of September.  There are regional, geographical divisions (9 in the regions), and state unemployment numbers.  The national unemployment rate at the end of September was 9.8%, well above Obama's promised 8.0%.

By Region:

West, 10.6%

Midwest, 9.8%

South, 9.3%

Northeast, 9.0% [Most of the TARP money went here and much of the Stimulus Socialist Payoff Money]

By Geographical Division (Partial List):

Pacific, 11.6% [Bad business climate, few Obama Payoff Channels]

East North Central, 11.0% [Bad business climate]

East South Central, 10.4%

West South Central, 7.9%

The Highest Unemployment States:

Michigan, 15.3% [Cash for Clunkers did not do so much.]

Nevada, 13.3% [Harry Reid does not deliver what Nevada needs, private land.]

Rhode Island, 13.0% [Democrat socialist lock here for ages, bad influence of Brown University]

California, 12.2% [Over regulated and mandated expensive electricity]

South Carolina, 11.6% [Governor flies to Argentina and brings back no business?]

Oregon, 11.5% [Vote for Obama does not pay their bills?]

DC, 11.4% [High taxes, over-regulated, school holding pens, only good for lobbyists]

Florida, 11.0% [With home and 401K values down, no one retires?]

Kentucky, 10.9%

North Carolina, 10.8% [They deserve it, they voted for Obama.]
Alabama, 10.7%
Illinois, 10.5% [It does not pay to be crooked.]
Tennessee, 10.5% [Government-run TVA, Gore uses all the electricity]
Georgia, 10.1%

The Lowest Unemployment States:

North Dakota, 4.2% [Good business attitude, allow oil & gas development]

South Dakota, 4.8% [Good business climate]

Nebraska, 4.9%

Utah, 6.2% [Mormans work]

Oklahoma, 6.7% [Anderson Clan produces]

Iowa, 6.7% [Corn subsidies, ethanol subsidies?]

Virginia, 6.7% [Better paid Federal workers live here, good business climate]

Vermont, 6.7% [Dean delivers the payola?]

Wyoming, 6.8% [Good business climate]

Kansas, 6.9%

Colorado, 7.0% [Good business climate]

Well folks, it appears that the People of the Flyover States are better managers of the economy than are the elitist socialists of California, Illinois, Michigan, and the Northeast!  Unemployment went up 0.5% in Illinois in September over August.  The Pacific geographical area had the biggest one-year increase in unemployment of 4.2%.  Michigan had the biggest state increase in the last year of 6.4%, followed by Harry Reid's state of Nevada with a 6.0% increase.  Meanwhile, the record holder for the smallest increase in unemployment was the stalwart North Dakota.  Amazing what a good business climate and some oil and gas field development can do for a state economy!

The bottom line is that if a state has a good business climate, its unemployment rate in hard times will probably be decidedly lower than in the states with a bad business climate.

Valerie Jarrett Speaks Truth to Power

Valerie Jarrett is one side or the other of Obama's brain.  I forget which.  It is a side of his brain he turns to constantly for advice.  Such as the advice to hire Van Jones, the communist, as Green Jobs Commissar.  He turns to her for advice on all things political.  Here is some of her recent wisdom:

"I think that what the administration has said very clearly is that we're going to speak truth to power. When we saw all of the distortions in the course of the summer, when people were coming down to town hall meetings and putting up signs that were scaring seniors to death."

 Gee, Valerie, a lot of those signs were made by seniors who were themselves scared to death.  Did you miss that?  Grannys who do not want the plug pulled on them are the power you great big socialists power mongers were hired to bring under control?  Do you really mean that you think you were hired to beat down Granny?  Boy, that sure would explain a lot!!!

"All war is based on deception." —Sun Tzu

Obama clearly believes in a corollary to this.  For Obama, "All politics is based on deception."

It has to be.  Obama is a radical socialist.  The American People are not radical socialists.  Examining his major program elements we find that he has applied this principle of politics as deception to each of the following:

• No one making less than $250,000 a year will see their taxes go up, yet he is trying to tax many health insurance programs for people making much less than that.  He is going to tax individuals for not buying the health insurance that he wants them to buy.  He is going to tax small businesses whose owners make less than $250,000 a year for not offering approved health insurance to all employees.  There was serious talk of added taxes on soda and sugary fruit drinks, which are known to be drunk only by those making more than $250,000.  The taxes on medical clinics, medical devices, and drug companies he is adding are apparently only going to be passed on only to the wealthy.  He is eager to collect huge payments for the right to use fossil fuel energy and has exempted many very large companies from having to pay these payments in the very near future, so the large payments will fall directly on small businesses initially, but all businesses in time.  These costs will be passed on as increased costs for goods and services to everyone, in a deceptive form of taxing us all.  His advocacy for card check for the labor unions can also be viewed as a huge tax on everyone who buys goods and services, whose costs will increase, or who has ownership in the companies to be taken over.  With all the government debt, any future inflation that may result is a deceptive tax on all of us.  Meanwhile, this debt is causing the value of the dollar to drop, so everyone who buys foreign-made goods is going to be paying more for them.  Another form of tax, a very deceptive one.

• Obama said we needed health care insurance reform to lower the costs of health care and to insure everyone.  The reality turns out to be that everyone, except the very sick currently without health insurance, will see their health care costs go up.  Those who are healthy and can well satisfy their needs with a high deductible plan will see their costs skyrocket as they are forced to buy government approved plans which mandate very low deductibles and low co-pays.  Pressure is being put on the young and the healthy to buy insurance with high premiums so the insurers can cover the costs of the unhealthy, who will jump onto plans only when they need treatments.  The new Obama taxes on health insurers, medical laboratories, and medical devices will make health care more expensive.  The huge increase in paperwork for the benefit of the many government bureaucrats who will be looking over doctor's shoulders will also drive up costs.  The government requirements that more and more procedures and specialist's costs be covered in plans, the path most state interference on approving insurance has followed, will drive up costs.  Doctors, beaten down, will leave their practices.  The demand for health care will go up at first and the number of doctors will drop.  Either supply and demand will be honored with prices going up or health care quality must go down even more than it would otherwise under ObamaCare.  As the costs for health insurance go up, more and more healthy people will go without insurance, even at the cost of paying the uninsured tax.  Thus the number of people uninsured will go up rapidly.  The end result of the political deception will be higher costs and fewer covered, not to mention a great decrease in health care quality.

• Obama says we must stop poisoning the planet by producing CO2 by using fossil fuels, stop global warming, achieve energy independence, and create green jobs so the economy will go.  All deception once again. CO2 is nothing but beneficial to plants, which are beneficial to humans.  Global warming or cooling is very predominantly due to natural forces over which we have no control.  Some global warming is actually beneficial to humans, plants, and animals, but we seem to be in a cooling cycle now whether we wish to be or not.  The path to energy independence is blocked by reality and will not be achieved.  But, what we can and should do is develop and encourage a great multiplicity of energy sources all over the world.  By doing this, our increased future options will provide more access to energy at lower prices than if we take Obama's restrictive approach with a huge taxpayer funded gamble on solar and wind power, his policy of allowing virtually no exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the U.S., his attempt to put coal out of business, and his failure to remove roadblocks to nuclear power.  The claim that he will create more jobs in green energy than will be lost due to restricting coal, oil, and gasoline use fails entirely to understand basic economics.  First, the solar and wind power industries are heavily dependent upon subsidies and mandates for staying in business and even so, many are failing.  Those subsidies are based directly upon taxes, which cause businesses to have higher operational costs and hire fewer people, while consumers have less to spend on non-energy purchases.  The mandates do the same by forcing higher energy costs on everyone.  Meanwhile, the jobs of those in the coal industry, the oil industry, the mining equipment, the railroads that transport coal, shipping companies that carry coal overseas, oil drillers, oil and gas pipelines, and many another industry will lose jobs as fossil fuel use is discouraged by Obama.  Wind and solar will not replace these lost jobs.  No way!

• Obama claims to favor the working man.  Yet he is mandating that companies must use union labor for many government contracts, thereby forcing the working man to pay higher taxes or higher prices to cover the higher costs of government.   Obama wants to bring on union card check, which will deprive the working man of a secret ballot to determine whether his work relationship will be between him and his employer or between him and a socialist labor union.  The working man in the private sector has figured out that being in a union means bowing to socialist labor bosses; paying union dues, a good part of which will go to socialist politicians; losing his self-respect by doing his job well; and harming his company, which will hurt his future.  This is why the working man is not joining the desperate unions anymore in the private sector under secret balloting elections.  This is why the labor unions want to end the secret ballot and put their goons to more effectively intimidating workers into checking cards.  But, Obama would try to deceive us with an act claiming to be about employee freedom.  Ha!!!

• Obama says he wants to make education reforms.  What he wants is more power for the federal government over education and students.  The only really useful reform would be to break the power of the socialist teachers unions in government-run schools and privatize education.  Obama has signed on for some minor improvements, but he has also failed to fundamentally sign on to what is most essentially needed.  He is also bent upon using the schools to further indoctrinate children in socialism and service to the government and those who are downtrodden or victims.  He is using the schools to channel children into his favored charities and into the Democrat Party.

• Obama took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution.  Yet, he gave a radio interview a few years back in Chicago in which he acknowledged that the Constitution did not allow the kind of income redistribution he wanted.  Despite this, he is happy to ignore the highly limited power restrictions of the Constitution and madly redistribute income and wealth.

• Again, despite his oath to honor the Constitution, Obama is doing everything he can to subject Americans to the rulings of various bodies of foreign countries who have no regard for the basic rights of the individual, let alone all of the individual rights our Constitution recognizes and makes it its purpose to protect.

The primary purpose of Obama's life has clearly been to become a master deceiver.  He is a magician-level politician.  Despite this, he has come off the blocks so fast in trying to achieve the more important goals of his socialist agenda that the American People are beginning to see through his magic and his deceptions.  Some see this very clearly now.  I hope enough will see before the 2010 elections that we will greatly reduce the power of the Democrats, his very socialist henchmen, in the Congress and at least stop most of his legislative program in its tracks.  He will still be able to do great harm through regulatory powers and in foreign policy and defense issues.  He will also be able to veto any strong efforts to repeal the great harm he and the Democrat Congress will do between now and 2010.

We must throw him out in 2012 and achieve Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.  I recognize that usually less government mischief is done when one house of Congress is controlled by each party, but in this case, we must actually roll back some very bad legislation, as opposed to the usual advantage of stasis.  We must turn back the clock on socialism.  To do that, the Republicans will have to control the presidency and both houses of Congress for at least 2 years.  They will also have to have a clear understanding of why the American People gave them such power and a goodly concern for the fact that we are watching over their shoulders a lot more carefully than we usually do.

Robert Bidinotto on ObamaCare

My friend Robert Bidinotto has written a very good evaluation of ObamaCare which he has invited everyone to copy and make available to others.  Here it is:

How ObamaCare Will Hurt YOU -- and How to Defeat it NOW

Now that the House and Senate finally have drafted their enormous health-care bills, we can see what the final provisions will be. Their differences are far less important than their similarities. Either bill will be a disaster for our economy—for our personal well-being, both financial and medical—for our precious rights and freedoms—and for the futures of our children and grandchildren.

If “ObamaCare” becomes law, we will never again have the same America that was given to us by our nation’s Founders—that was defended by the blood of our ancestors—and that we have enjoyed as the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Both bills are coming up for crucial floor votes as early as this week. Many in Congress are very nervous about what their votes will mean for their political careers.

This coming week is thus critical in either passing or defeating this legislation, once and for all. Now is the time that you can weigh in and make a real difference with your congressman and senators.

Here is what you need to know. Rather than overwhelm you with arcane details of each bill, it is more important that you understand in principle what ObamaCare will mean for you and your family.

ObamaCare will mean:

Outrageous Costs. At a time of exploding federal spending and budget deficits, both the House and Senate bills would add far more than a trillion dollars to the mind-boggling financial liabilities we taxpayers already face. Even the stated price tags of these bills are fraudulent products of statistical manipulations. One way they pretend reduce costs is to remove a quarter-trillion dollars in doctor Medicare reimbursements from the bills, but instead add that gargantuan spending into separate legislation. Another way they pretend to balance the books (“deficit neutrality”) is to impose years of tax increases to fund these bills, before the outrageous spending actually kicks in. When it does, the “cost curve” in later decades will soar upward, and deficits will pile up by the billions. In addition, the bills would vastly expand the already-bankrupt Medicaid program; this would impose on state governments, which already face crushing budget crises, tens of billions of dollars in new taxing and spending commitments. You will ultimately pick up that tab, too.

Soaring Taxes. ObamaCare is not “insurance,” but a gigantic new entitlement scheme meant to “spread the wealth around.” To pay for this spending spree, both bills will drain our ailing private economy of hundreds of billions of dollars in higher taxes. These taxes will fall disproportionately upon the young and healthy: They will be forced to buy costly policies, thus expanding the “pool” of payers who will subsidize those older and sicker. Higher taxes also will fall heavily upon “the rich.” But these include the same entrepreneurs and employers whom we expect to create businesses and jobs to lift us out of the recession—and also the very doctors whom we expect to provide the medical services to the millions of new patients. The legislation also proposes hefty taxes on better private-insurance plans, which would penalize and undermine existing employer-employee benefits packages. These are just a few of the many new taxes and fees the bills would impose on us.

Perverse Incentives. ObamaCare would subsidize and greatly expand the demand for health care, while discouraging the supply of health care. It would create a gigantic new federal entitlement program that would add millions of new, taxpayer-subsidized claimants for health-insurance coverage. Then it would force insurers to accept all comers—regardless of any actuarial risk factors—and to provide them coverage that is far beyond what many people actually require. On the other side of the equation, ObamaCare will increase taxes on those private insurers (who now average only 2-3% profit margins), while expecting them somehow to pay all the new benefits. It will also increase taxes and fees on hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the inventors of new medical devices—thus punishing those who create and provide medical treatments. Inevitably, this will deter many of them from developing or offering vital new medical treatments for patients, and it will even force some of them out of business.

Government rationing. When soaring demand for medical care overwhelms shrinking supply of providers, the only outcome would be government rationing of medical care—which has occurred in all socialized-medicine regimes—and which is the intended outcome.

Lost Individual Choice. All talk of adding “choice and competition” to the health-insurance market is a complete fraud. The bills do not free individuals to buy insurance across state lines—“choice and competition” that would actually reduce the cost of insurance. Instead, the bills propose a host of new mandates on private individuals, employers, and private insurers. Under penalty of fines or jail, individuals will be forced to buy costly coverage; employers will be forced to provide it and to comply with countless petty regulations; and doctors, hospitals, and private insurers will be forced to comply with a mountain of new government orders, requirements, restrictions, demands, and regulations. Compliance with all these ever-expanding governmental edicts will drive up the costs for physicians, hospitals, medicines, treatments, and private insurance premiums. Skyrocketing costs will force more and more people into the “public option.” Meanwhile, the bills would slash reimbursements to Medicare Advantage plans, killing a private-insurance option now exercised and enjoyed by one-fourth of all seniors.

Broken promises. The pending legislation will not cover all the uninsured; it will not add to freedom of choice for consumers; it will not be “deficit-neutral”; it will not “bend the cost curve downward”; it will not prevent illegal aliens from receiving taxpayer-subsidized medical care; it will not prevent government payments from funding controversial procedures such as abortions; and it will not allow people to “keep their current coverage.” All of these are the loud promises of ObamaCare’s advocates; all are demonstrable falsehoods.

Instead, ObamaCare will do only one thing, which was the overt objective of its proponents from the outset: put the federal government in charge of the delivery of all health care in America.

A single-payer, government-run program of socialized medicine is the stated objective of those who designed this legislative monstrosity—from President Obama, to the vast coalition of unions and advocacy groups, to the congressional leaders who drafted these bills. They explicitly intend to bankrupt the private-insurance marketplace, so that only the government option remains. Far from adding “choice and competion,” then, ObamaCare aims at imposing on us a government health-care monopoly.

But only if we allow it to happen. Because this power-grab still can be stopped.

Congress remains deeply divided over many provisions of this legislation. If it passes, it only will be by a handful of votes. That means we can defeat this monstrosity by changing just a few minds. Now—this week—is the time for you to raise your voice and put on the pressure.

To contact your congressman, by phone, mail, or email, go here:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

and contact your two senators by going here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm


Tell them the following, preferably putting the ideas into your own words:

The House and Senate bills will not create “universal, affordable insurance.” They instead would create a gargantuan, unaffordable new federal entitlement program. They would further explode our soaring deficits; hugely increase tax burdens on our ailing economy; create perverse incentives that would expand the demand for medical services, while discouraging and punishing the suppliers of medical care; and deprive Americans of true choice and competition, by imposing an endless stream of new “mandates” on individuals and employers. This legislation would destroy existing private health-insurance plans, and ultimately destroy the quality and affordability of health care in America.

This legislation is so flawed and destructive in principle that it cannot be “fixed” or amended; it must be scrapped in its entirety. True health-care reform is necessary, but it must be based on our free-market system—such as:

• allowing individuals to purchase insurance from companies across state lines, and letting them take that coverage with them when they change jobs;
• letting individuals buy high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic coverage, by freeing insurers from laws that force them to offer only costly, state-mandated provisions in their policies;
• enacting tort reform, to eliminate the costly practice of “defensive medicine.”

Such reforms would expand coverage to millions of the uninsured, while actually reducing costs to employers, policy-holders, and individual taxpayers.

I feel so strongly about this, that I cannot consider you for re-election unless you vote against this legislation, in any shape or form.

* * *

Whether or not you have ever contacted a congressman or senator, now is the time to do it. This week may be the last time we can influence the outcome on this issue.

Your health, your financial well-being, and your nation’s future hang in the balance.

Please act today—then copy and/or direct this message to your family, friends, and associates.

The Effectiveness of Federal Government Spending on Education

I am going to keep this very short and very graphic.  Let us examine the relationship between federal spending on K-12 education as shown in this graph:

This graphic is from an entry posted by Neal McCluskey called Federal Education Results Prove the Framers Right on the Cato@Liberty blog.  He notes that there is no federal government constitutional power and then suggests that this graph of federal government spending on K-12 spending shows that spending to have no beneficial impact upon actual student learning.  Note the very flat test scores generally since 1970 and the huge increase in federal spending on education.  All that meddling and no result!

The Effectiveness of Government Management

I have grown a bit weary of constantly pointing out the nonsensical, idiotic, wrongheaded, uneconomic, unconstitutional, thieving, and brutal aspects of what the Democrats want to do to change our health care system.  I have pointed out that the things they are already doing in medicine are largely unwise.

I have noted that the U.S. government mismanages these functions very badly already:

• Health care as in Medicaid and Medicare
• The U.S. Postal Service
• Amtrak
• Ethanol production as alternative fuel
• Subsidies and mandates for wind and photovoltaic electricity generation
• Crop subsidies
• The identification of pollutants and toxic substances
• The forests and wildlands
• Permitting for oil and gas exploration and field development
• Gas mileage requirements for vehicles
• Medical device testing and quality assurance
• Scientific research and development
• Energy research and development
• Climate research
• Home mortgage lending
• Monopoly identifications
• Business accounting rules
• Business and medical liability torts
• Education (see my next post)
• Defense (largely due to too unfocused attention given diffused meddling in everything)
• Foreign policy
• Constitutional law
• Flight safety and route controls
• Interstate bridge safety and maintenance
• Airwaves licensing
• Drug testing and evaluation
• Anti-discrimination (turning it into discrimination)
• Business destruction by encouraging labor unions
• Immigration and border control
• Taxation and government revenue
  
• Economic growth
• Job creation
• Interstate commerce
• International trade
• Government property
• Government purchasing and acquisitions
• Eminent domain
• Drug use prohibitions
• Wage controls
• Price controls
• Patent controls
• Alcohol controls

It sure is a strange thing that so many Americans are on a constant search to find some other aspect of our lives to turn over to the federal government.

Institute for Justice to Fight for Bone Marrow Donor Compensation

The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act makes it illegal to compensate people for donating their bone marrow.  Donating bone marrow is nothing like donating a kidney, part of a liver, or a lung.  It no longer even involves the insertion of a long needle into the pelvic bone.  Nowadays, a donor is given a drug to stimulate blood stem cell production and the cells are collected from the blood using the same equipment used to collect blood plasma, for which donors can be paid.

Because marrow cells produce white blood cells and these cells attack foreign tissues and cells, it is particularly important to get a very close match between bone marrow donors and recipients.  For white people awaiting bone morrow, there is a 75% likelihood for finding a match.  However, for minority members, the probability of finding a match falls to 25%!  Apparently, the restriction on bone marrow donation compensation, which would help address the problem of such limited matches, was added to the National Organ Transplant Act at the last moment and no one really considered what they were doing.  How typical for Congress.  Apparently they rushed proposed legislation to a vote in 1984, perhaps without reading it, much as they do now without understanding its consequences!

The Institute for Justice is now working on a legal case to make it possible to pay bone marrow donors so that the chances of finding bone marrow matches will increase.  This could save the lives of thousands of cancer patients.  The Institute for Justice has done great work already in protecting individuals and small businesses from eminent domain abuse and ridiculous business licensing and regulations.  It is a non-profit organization well worth supporting.

Socialism - My Definition

Recently, a commenter was upset with the way I used the word "socialist" in my blog entry Tides Foundation Screed Against Capitalism in Schools.  The individual with no name and identified only by a negation did point out that

Socialism is defined by The Princeton WordNet as:

1. a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
2. an economic system based on state ownership of capital

 The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says socialism is

1. A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration and distribution in the interests of all.

2.  A state of society in which things are held or used in common.

Most Americans reading definition 1. from either to these sources would say, oh, so socialism and communism are the same thing.  I am sure that some or maybe all real Marxists would say, not necessarily.  But let us check out the definition of communism offered by the OED.

1.  A theory which advocates a state of society in which there should be no private ownership, all property being vested in the community and labour organized for the common benefit of all members; the professed principle being that each should work according to his capacity, and receive according to his wants.

This definition for communism is the same as that for socialism, except in the very last part.  Apparently socialism allows for a distribution which may be on a slightly different basis than according to everyone's wants, since it is to be in the interests of all.  Rather subtle difference and actually very academic, since by these definitions, both socialism and communism are impossible!

It is frankly impossible for a community to find any way to distribute production, capital, land, property, etc. in the interests of all.  It has never happened and never will, so socialism does not, has never, and never will exist.  Similarly with communism, no society has ever or ever will be able to distribute enough goods and property to satisfy everyone's wants.  That would be the end of economics.  It would require infinite resources and infinite free pools of labor and genius.

So, Not a Socialist is hardly a surprise.  There is no such thing, unless we allow for those who dream for the impossible, which in the real world we must do.  People are often subject to control by their irrational dreams, or even the irrational Dreams of My Father, in the case of one well-known socialist of our time.

Indeed, many people think they are socialists.  In addition to the Marxists and before Marx, the founders of New Harmony, Indiana, there have been many who have been socialists.  Mussolini and Hitler thought they were socialists, yet they did not advocate the end of all property.  Instead, they sometimes stole property, but more often they used government regulations and just plain commands to force private property owners to do as they were told.  They believed in control of the economy and the means of production, but not necessarily in the need to bother themselves with all the pains of actually owning property.  Besides, people would work harder for you if you allowed them the pretense that they had some control over their property.  But Hitler and Mussolini did claim to be running societies organized for the purpose of distributing goods and services to the people for their best interests.  They actually did redistribute the wealth with such popular aspects of socialism as government-run health care systems.

During and after WWII, it became an embarrassment to many socialists in the West that these fascists had been considered socialists.  It became very important to then try to define socialism in such a manner that the fascists were excluded.  As the Marxists and other varieties of socialists took over most universities, the dictionaries fell more and more into line with this effort to define the fascists out of socialism.  Despite this, in more recent years, many have come to be embarrassed to be called socialists, since almost everyone now understands the terrible evils of socialism in the USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, and elsewhere.  Now, these same people and those they have taught are more likely to be environmentalists or social democrats, or some other new fad.  Strangely enough, the policies these people favor are those of fascism.  It is not practical to have community ownership of all property and Americans do not like the idea of that anyway.  So, those who seek major redistribution of the wealth leave most property in the hands of the prior owners, but saddle them with extensive regulations and controls.

A much more practical and useful concept of socialism would be:  A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership or the extensive control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the government, and their administration and distribution in extensive measure as is favored by the government of the community.

Under this definition of socialism, everyone does not have to share the same toothbrush or at least put them all in one pot and pick one out with one's eyes blindfolded.  Socialism is a broader concept which some people might strive for and achieve.  It is not a desirable state of affairs at all in my opinion, but the concept has some usefulness in describing what people actually might do and can do.  By this definition, Obama, Pelosi, Mao, Stalin, Hugo Chavez, Mussolini, and Hitler are all socialists.

Like it or not.

Obama's Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom Admires Mao Too

Jamie Glazov, in a WorldNet Daily commentary, quotes Obama's Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom as another of Obama's henchmen who admires Mao.  For the quote and the history of Mao's murderous ways, this commentary is well worth reading.

In addition to Obama's Anita Dunn, who I discussed here, he also lists some other leftist admirers of Mao.

U.S. Ground Temperature Record is Very Upward Biased

The global warming data relied upon by the global warming alarmists is surface temperature data.  The satellite and ocean surface data for the latter part of the 20th Century indicated a much milder temperature increase.  But, as I have discussed previously here, the surface temperature records kept by the Climate Modeling Unit at East Anglia in the U.K. did not keep the original recorded temperature data and has only kept the much upward shifted data for the period of warming and the downward shifted data from the 1950s until the last warming period began in the 1970s.  I have also discussed the tree core data bias Steve McIntyre has found with the temperature record in the Yamal Tree Ring Cores from Siberia used by Briffa.  The global warming alarmists have long claimed that the temperature increase in Siberia was especially large and that this is what you would expect given increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.  It turns out that the Yamal data set plays an especially important role in producing a hockey stick upward surge in the surface temperature record, just as the earlier discredited Mann data set still does.  In this entry I want to discuss the problems with the "best" weather station system in the world, the extensive U.S. weather station system.

Anthony Watts has examined a large number of U.S. land surface temperature stations and found that 89% have site problems that produce falsely warmer measurements.  He says that according to the federal government's own site guidance and maintenance criteria, the stations create a margin of error larger than the entire claimed surface temperature warming of the 20th Century.  The IPCC report says that temperatures rose by 0.74 C in the 20th Century.  Watt's study of the U.S. stations, using the guidance of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), found 89% to have a margin of error greater than 1 C, 69% with an error of 2 C, and 11% with an error of 5 C.

NOAA's rules say the temperature sensors should be at least 100 feet away from heat sources and radiative surfaces.  Instead, most sensors are very close to buildings for the convenience of the person maintaining the station.  This is not a very surprising outcome given human nature, so the policing of the stations would have to be very thorough to prevent it.  This policing is non-existent, perhaps because higher temperatures are welcomed by NOAA and the government generally.  Buildings are heated in the winter, when the upward trend in temperatures has been the greatest.  In the summer, many a building's air conditioning units blow out warmed air extracted from the inside of the building.  Buildings and black top areas nearby absorb heat during the day and re-emit it at night.  Again, the surface temperature record has increased more at night than during the day.  Again this is cited as reason to believe that CO2 in the atmosphere has caused the global warming that explains much of the upward temperature spike in the surface temperature data in the late 20th Century in the U.S.

Similar big increases are found at the weather stations in Siberia and the night time and winter increases are the greatest.  If you lived in Siberia and maintained a temperature measurement station, how eager would you be to hike 100 feet from a warm building to read or maintain the station?  Nope, as your prosperity increased from decades ago and you came to enjoy a warmer building, your weather station would be given the same warmer pleasure of being closely sited to your warm building.  This warming of the Siberia surface temperature record is again often said to be just what would be expected given global warming due to CO2 atmospheric concentration increases.

Watts describes a number of obviously warm biased temperature measurement stations.

• The Forest Grove, OR station is close to a home and directly in the path of the warmed air output of a large window air-conditioning unit, which probably was not around in the 1950s.
• The Redding, CA temperature sensor is under and close to a large light.
• The Tahoe City, CA sensor is 5 feet from a trash burning barrel.
• The Hopkinsville, KY station is shown both now and 30 years ago.  It was once 10 feet from a brick house, but at least it was surrounded by grass.  Now it is closer to the house and very close to a huge brick fireplace chimney which is very wide and extends well above the roof of the expanded brick home.  It is also very near a very wide asphalt driveway.  An outdoor grill is also situated close by.  Prosperity seems to have come to this home in the last 30 years.
• The Marysville, CA station is beside a large asphalt parking area and the heated air outputs of two very large air-conditioning units.  It is also close to a large brick building, with the massive heat capacity of brick buildings.

One would think that the increase in the U.S. population by a factor of three, the increased urbanization, and the increased wealth with accompanying housing improvements would surely cause the temperature stations to record heat island effects and cause a general upward bias in temperatures.  Despite this obvious fact, NOAA has generally adjusted the temperature records from these stations upward, not downward!  NOAA's upward adjustments alone account for nearly one half of the U.S. surface temperature increase in the 20th Century.  This is in addition to the upward bias already present due to the increased urbanization and standard of living.

It is also in addition to another upward bias to the temperature record.  In 1979, NOAA specified that white latex paint should replace whitewash for the temperature shelters.  This was early in the last warming spurt in the 20th Century.  Watts found that the white latex paint adds 0.31 C to the temperature readings.  This is about 45% of the claimed warming of the 20th Century.  One of the effects of latex paint was a generally thicker and more thermally insulating coating on the stations.  This would have the effect of causing the temperature sensor to stay warmer into the night as the housing retained its daytime heat longer.  Again, the biggest increase in claimed temperatures was in night time temperatures and this was said to be consistent with the CO2 greenhouse gas effect.

In summary, there appears to be nothing reliable about the surface temperature measurements made at ground stations in the U.S. and similar effects are probably influencing stations throughout much of the world, especially those in Europe, Russia, and China where prosperity increased in the late 20th Century.  The much more reliable satellite and ocean surface temperature measurements which cover 70% of the Earth's surface found much less warming in the late 20th Century and are clearly the only reliable temperature records.  The ground surface temperature record was biased upward by rising prosperity, increasing population, human nature wanting more comfort, technology changes, more use of asphalt, latex paint, and flatly dishonest upward adjustments.  These effects especially would have increased winter and night time temperatures in the record.

The large increases in these ground surface records, added to the historic tree ring upward biases of Mann and Yamal data, were the basis for the UN IPCC claims of a man-made global warming catastrophe due to fossil fuel use and the resulting carbon dioxide emissions.  To this was added an exaggerated CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere and a neglect of the primary sources of CO2 in the atmosphere.  The IPCC claims are broadly bogus and clearly the result of unmitigated bias.  The effect of man's CO2 emissions upon the climate have been very small in actual fact and the climate is still clearly dominated by a number of natural effects, some of which we understand fairly well and some of which we are just beginning to have some understanding.

This false record of late 20th Century temperature increases is now being used to justify the huge tax and cost increases for our economy being proposed under the carbon cap and trade bill passed in the House of Representatives and soon to be considered in the Senate.  It is also the basis for submitting the U.S. to the upcoming Copenhagen Agreement and for the present activity in the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions as pollution.  The bogus catastrophic global warming claim due to fossil fuel use is generally a very convenient tool for socialists to exercise much more power over our lives, our comfort, our safety on the highways, our economy, and our freedom of movement.  It is also a way to give far more power and influence to world governing bodies which will try to subject the U.S. to their rules and transfers of our wealth and income to poorer countries throughout the world.  The entire direction of the response to this catastrophic temperature increase lie is in the direction of fascist controls over the rights of the individual and to reduce American's protection by our own great Constitution.  This has been a tremendous incentive to encourage the bias of the ground temperature measurement record.

Transparent Health Insurance Reform

During the election, Obama promised, very solemnly, that he would do many things that he has not done.  One of the things he pledged was that his administration would make his upcoming reform of health insurance very transparent.

Has anyone seen any indication of any attempt to do that?

No.  Instead we have seen a flurry of bills hastily cobbled together in the middle of a night prior to a vote or maybe only outlined, as in the case of the Senate Finance Committee.  It seems that not only are the People to be kept in the dark, but most of our Congressmen are also.  We have some Congressmen, mostly Republicans, even being locked out of rooms in which bills are being assembled.

Far from any attempt at transparency, the Obama administration is very notable as the most opaque administration since the Clinton health care reform effort.

Good Law Should be Understood and Enforceable by Government

It used to be often remarked that good law must be readily understood by the People.  Perhaps an understated further principle of good law is that it should be readily understood and be practically enforced by the government.  There are other principles of good law, but most of those are covered by our Constitution, so we can summarize them by simply saying Constitutional Law.

At many levels today we have problems with the law being understood by government.  At the very most basic level, it cannot be said that Congress understands the bills it votes on to become law.  First, our Congressmen do not read the bills before they vote on them.  When they do read the bills, they do not understand their implications and effects upon The People in most cases.  In many cases, they rely on government agencies or the courts to give the vague laws meaning.  Finally, many enforcement agencies do not understand the laws either.

The Monday, 26 October 2009 Washington Times has an editorial with an enlightening illustration of how little the government understands the laws or is able to apply them.  In particular, it deals with the tax credit for first time homebuyers of 2008 and 2009.  This case illustrates problems that tax filers had as well, but more egregiously it shows how well the IRS understands the law.

It has been found that the IRS gave the tax credit to 580 taxpayers younger than 18 who could not sign the contracts legally to buy a home.  Some were as young as 4 years old.  The IRS granted $4 million of such tax credits.

The IRS paid out $139 million to almost 20,000 returns to people who had not bought a house, but said they planned to do so in the future.  Then there was the $480 million in tax credits given to those who have previously owned homes as indicated on prior returns by prior mortgage interest deductions, prior deductions for closing points or the residential energy credit.

Because the tax credit was increased from 2008 to 2009 from $7500 to $8000, many people declared only for the $7500 amount in 2009 and lost $500 because the IRS did not want to correct their returns.

This is just one overly complex tax law among many.  Then there are those hopelessly complex laws on pricing in the market.  There are the many overly complex regulations and accounting practices.  All intrusive government means government which deluges citizens and bureaucrats both with too many and too complex laws for them to understand or apply. 

Bast -- Ask Not If the Science of Global Warming is True ...

Joseph Bast wrote a review of a book published by Cambridge University Press called Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme.  The review is from Environment & Climate News, September 2009 issue.  Mike Hulme is an IPCC report scientific author and a self-described "democratic socialist."  The disagreement he is talking about in the book's title is that between those on the left, such as him, and those even further on the left, who he describes as "eco-anarchists," eco-socialists," and "eco-authoritarians."  The debate is not about global warming itself, but about how that supposed scientific fact is to be acted upon by governments.  It is also about how to lead a scientifically ignorant people to accept climate change as an emergency requiring great government activity.

Far into the book on page 326, Hulme writes "We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us."  He goes on:

We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise them in support of our projects."

These 'myths' transcend the scientific categories of 'true' and 'false.'

 This reminds us of Stephen Schneider, another IPCC scientific author, saying

We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts one might have ...  Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

Is it any wonder the anthropogenic global warming alarmists are paying insufficient attention to the ever-strengthening scientific case that natural forces dominate the climate and its changes?  Is it any wonder that they are unperturbed by the incredible weakness of the science for man-made global warming due to CO2 emissions?  It is clear that the drive for socialism with its control over all aspects of the lives of the People is the real driver for what they claim is the science.  For them, policy dictates the science, not reality.  That policy and wishes take precedence over reality is a common current in socialist dogma.

From Obama, we see the socialist tactic that a lie is not a lie, if the purpose of misstatement is to advance the cause of socialism.  This is why he is such a practiced and at-ease liar.  All his life, he has been trained in the philosophy of socialism.  That cause defines moral action, not reality.

The Magnificently Efficient U.S. Postal Service

One of the relatively few things the federal government does that is actually constitutional, is the operation of the U.S. Postal Service.  One can question whether this function ever should have been a government function, but it was made so by our Constitution.  Now one would think that the government would take its actual constitutional duties more seriously than its unconstitutional actions.  The reverse often seems to be true, though there is also a problem in that Congress' taking something seriously only means that the politics involved is taken seriously, not the actual delivery of any real service.  The Postal Service has come under renewed evaluation as an indicator of how a government-run health care system will evolve, not that we do not have many more direct indicators of that!

John Potter, the Postmaster General, says the U.S. Postal Service is in acute financial crisis.  He has been the Postmaster General for the last 8 years.  In FY 2009, the Postal Service lost $7 billion.  Its mail volume decreased by 28 billion pieces compared to the year before.  The recession economy has reduced its business, as well as the Internet and e-mail.  Its Christmas mail has been way down.  In response, Potter cut $6 billion of expenses and 40,000 employees.  Despite this, Potter expects the Postal Service to lose $5 billion every year for many years.

Potter bragged that the fleet of 219,000 vehicles included 44,000 alternative-fuel-capable vehicles.  I'll bet they cost a pretty penny to buy.  Most people do not buy these vehicles because it is difficult to rationalize on an economic basis.  But if you are a government-run business, where politics is everything, you have to back the government story, however fictional, that man-made CO2 emissions are a catastrophic threat to the planet.

This U.S. Postal Service always had plenty of positions considered to be ripe political plums.  Local postmasters were often chosen by politicians.  Nowadays, that still happens, but also political correctness, rather than on-the-job skills, dictates who gets many of these positions.  White males need not apply in many cases.  Having a relative in the Postal Service, I have heard many a story that would make any real businessman's blood boil.

U.S. Postal Service facilities were also long considered great pork.  No doubt, many a facility is badly located and sized as a result.  Politics still limits the closing of many of these facilities.

It is interesting to observe that the U.S. Postal Service tried competing with Federal Express and UPS on next-day deliveries and found that it could not.  It contracted its next-day service to Fed Ex in the end.  Of course, it charges more than Fed Ex does.

Shades of government rationing of health care services, the U.S. Postal Service is now thinking it will have to cut services.  It wants to cut Saturday deliveries, which it says will save it $3 billion a year.  It also wants to offer new products, as the postal services of Japan and France do.  In other words, it wants to compete more with the private sector, which should be considered unconstitutional.  Evidence would suggest it cannot compete successfully.  But, those long lines waiting for counter service are a tempting market.  They could offer them sodas, coffee, candy and other survival goods to enable their captive customers a chance to survive the long waits.

Will our government-run health service do the same?  Imagine severely ill old folks lined up around the block waiting to see the few tired and bored doctors taking a break for sanity from their mountains of paperwork.  Think of all the unskilled new jobs for union members peddling water, sodas, hot dogs, aspirin, renting wheelchairs, and stealing their money!  Think of all the additional money their SEIU union will be able to give the Democrats to further transform America into a socialist peoples state, which is a misnomer for a socialist leaders state.

Changes for Doctors and Patients Under ObamaCare

The House bill 3200HR is one of the bills being folded together in some mysterious way in Congress.  The Senate has some Democrat Senators and Rahm Emanuel huddled behind closed and locked doors meshing together the Health Committee bill and the Finance Committee bill, which seems to have become 1500 pages long suddenly after the Finance Committee voted on a conceptual plan a bit under 300 pages long.  We do not know precisely what the ill-chosen provisions of the final passed bill will be, but the way everything is being rushed and so much is being hidden, we have to evaluate as much as we can from the available information, or we will be caught flat-footed when the final version is rushed blindly through Congress.

Here are a few provisions of HR 3200 we had best take note of:

• Doctors are in the public option unless they opt out.  There is no mechanism for opting out.  The Secretary of Health and Human Services will set up a mechanism someday and it may include penalties, fines, taxes, and who knows what other disincentives.  In effect, the plan is to make doctors slaves who may then have some onerous option to buy their freedom, their manumission.
• The paperwork required of doctors has been increasing rapidly over the last 15 years.  This bill will increase it much more, cutting down on patient time, attendance at seminars and on post-graduate education.  They will have to document all interactions with the many new federal bureaucracies to be set up, as well as the greatly expanded ones.  They will have to document all referrals, determine if there are fraud risks, and continually update quality assessments.  They will be bored to death!
  
• The expanded patient records will include copious financial records, medical data, mental health evaluations, and such things as any sexually transmitted infectious diseases.  This data will be available to huge numbers of medical people and to many bureaucrats.  Imagine what the Democrats will do with this information on a Republican running for public office?  Apparently, they will use such information on that Republican's entire family, if we can extrapolate from Sarah Palin's case.
• If patient's must be readmitted to a hospital after being released, there are fines.  Those with chronic diseases, the disabled, and the elderly are most likely to be readmitted.  Doctors and hospitals will become reluctant to treat such people because they inherently bring with them an increased likelihood of fines due to readmission.  There will be attempts to transfer such patients to other facilities.
• End-of-life counseling will be required as part of the regular medical practice.  The government will train and approve the counselors.  It will provide the films, brochures, and the data to be given to the patients.  It is expected that this advice will be for them to forgo more than ordinary medical treatments and play upon their guilt in being a burden.  The health czar, Ezekiel Emanuel, believes doctors are obsessed with the Hippocratic Oath.  He serves on an advisory panel for the Hastings Center which states that patients should reject ordinary and extraordinary care and accept death.
  

ObamaCare is Meant to Increase Private Health Insurance and Medical Costs

ObamaCare was initially sold as a means to reverse or slow down the rate at which health care costs have been rising in the U.S.  It was always nonsense that this would be achieved, since the federal government has never had much success in managing the costs of any rather complex operation. It has a long history of managing medical programs specifically, whose costs have not only skyrocketed, but have caused the costs of the private health care sector to go up far more than they otherwise would have.  The claim that ObamaCare would bring down costs was simply a political lie told to ease its passage.  The intent, the purpose, of ObamaCare is to increase the costs of private health insurance to the point that most people cannot afford it.  Then, the People will demand that the government rescue them by providing a totally nationalized health care system.  This is the socialists ideal:  create the desperation and then appear as the champion of the suffering little guy.  To do this, socialism aims to pull us all down into economic poverty so that we will all feel we are little guys and helpless without the socialist state.

The initial ObamaCare bill will do a number of things at the minimum, which are designed to force costs upward.  The direct taxes on the health industry discussed are those from the Baucus conceptual plan and are likely to be worse in the final bill.  Among the forces designed to increase the cost of private health insurance are:

• The individual mandate will force more people to have health insurance, which will increase demand on the limited supply of health care workers, so prices will go up.  That old law of supply and demand cannot be denied.
• The government qualified plans will require many services to be covered which many people do not need, so they will have to pay more for services they will not use.
• More young people will have to subsidize older people in larger pools, which will help lower the costs for older people, but will leave younger people, who are usually lower earners, in more strained financial circumstances and prevent them from building wealth.
• Relatively affordable high-deductible plans will not be allowed.  Co-pays are also to be set at very low values.  Health Savings Accounts will no longer serve a purpose.  Those people who only need insurance for major medical expenses will have to pay more expensive insurance costs to cover almost every penny of their medical costs.
• Health insurance companies are being taxed $20 billion between 2013 and 2015 to be allowed to issue health insurance and to manage benefit plans for major medical coverage in those years.  This cost has to be passed on in the form of higher insurance premiums.
• Insurance companies will have to contribute $5 billion to a high-risk insurance pool which will exist until 2013 to cover uninsured individuals who have been denied health care coverage due to a pre-existing condition.  This cost will have to passed on to others these companies insure.
• Anyone manufacturing or importing prescription pharmaceuticals will have to pay in a share to create a contribution of $2.3 billion annually from 2010 for the Medicare SMI trust fund.  This cost will be passed on to the privately insured.
• Medical device manufacturer's and importers will have to pay fees totaling $4 billion annually.  Necessarily, medical devices will cost more for the privately insured.
• U.S. health insurance companies will have to pay fees totaling $6 billion annually.
• Clinical laboratories will have to pay fees totaling $750 million annually, thereby increasing the costs of medical tests for the privately insured.

It is clear that ObamaCare is trying to drive up our private health insurance costs well beyond the already high rates that Medicaid, Medicare, the regulatory costs of the FDA and NIH, the limitations on the numbers of doctors educated in medical schools, the already high costs imposed by state qualification requirements on health insurance, and the costs of excessive medical malpractice awards have done.

The People should be furious about the Obama and Democrat Congress lies that they are trying to reduce health care costs.  They are not.  They are only interested in causing the private sector of the health care system to fail, so they can force all Americans into medical dependency upon a socialist government.  Forcing the once proud American individual into submission before the ruling state is their purpose! This is clear and undeniable.