It's all relative

In the early 1960s, gasoline cost $0.25 per gallon and the minimum wage was $1.00 per hour.

Stated differently, you could exchange an hour's worth of minimum wage labor for 4 newly minted quarters, or 4 gallons of gasoline.

Currently, the minimum wage is $7.25, and gasoline is around $3.50 per gallon. An hour's worth of minimum wage labor can now only be exchanged for roughly two gallons of gasoline. Measured in gasoline, minimum wage labor has lost half of its value. Or, measured against the minimum wage, gas is twice as expensive.

That's not all. Until 1965, quarters were 90% silver and 10% copper. If you can find one of them, at current spot prices you can buy almost two gallons of gasoline, and nearly a full hour of minimum wage labor. Measured in gas, silver has nearly doubled in value. Measured in labor, silver has nearly quadrupled in value. Gas has lost half its value compared to silver. Labor has lost nearly 4 times its value compared to silver.

A quarter from 1963 was worth $0.25 at the time. That same quarter is now worth around $6.50, or approximately 26 newly minted quarters.

In other words, our currency has lost about 96% of its value since the early 1960s. That's scary. What's more, it's lost half its value against silver in just the last few months.

This is why higher stock prices are not all they're cracked up to be.

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and there is no "Trust Fund"

What's amazing is that one of the Social Security Trustees admits it in this interview. Or should I call him a "Trustee" instead? He also explains what a terrible deal it is for young people.

Don't ever let anyone fool you into thinking that Social Security is solvent, either short-term or long-term. It's insolvent by its very nature.

He says that young people will end up spending 1 out of every 3 dollars they earn on paying for Social Security and Medicare for the old.

I can't believe this guy can still support it, when he realizes all of this.

Let's end these fiascos now. The problems will only get worse over time.

Rand Paul wants to eliminate foreign aid to Israel - and everyone else

See "Rand Paul's Lonely Battle Against Aid to Israel."

Read the comments on the article. I don't think he's that lonely.

Think about this. We borrow money we don't have from communist China and autocratic, misogynistic Saudi Arabia, and then give it to one of the wealthier countries in the world. And we don't just give it to Israel. We give a roughly equivalent amount to Arab dictatorships at the same time.

Every year - for decades - we've given billions of dollars to totalitarian military dictatorships in Egypt and elsewhere.

Our grandchildren will be sending checks to China and Saudi Arabia to pay off the guns the Egyptian government is currently using on its citizens, who are protesting for basic democratic freedoms and human rights.

This is crazy, but not new.

In the 1950s, Britain was concerned that the secular, democratically-elected prime minister of Iran was going to cut off the unfair oil siphoning Britain had imposed on Iran when occupying it after WWII. Britain convinced Eisenhower to allow the CIA to instigate a coup. The CIA actually overthrew a popularly elected democratic leader of another country. They replaced him with the Shah. The Shah was a brutal, autocratic dictator, but he was on "our side." We gave him money and weapons, and he tortured his subjects. The Iranians hated him so much they eventually rebelled and overthrew him. Unfortunately, they replaced him with the guys running the show now. Everyone ended up worse out of that deal.

To try to offset Iran's displeasure with us, we supported Saddam Hussein's aggressive war with Iran during the 1980s. Even though he was using chemical weapons on Iranian civilians.

The main differences between what Saddam did to Kuwait and what he did to Iran were 1) We didn't like Iran, 2) We supported his war against Iran, and 3) he didn't use chemical weapons on Kuwait. Saddam used a border dispute as a pretext for both wars. With Iran, we gave him money and weapons. When he invaded Kuwait, we pounced on him during the First Gulf War.

After the end of hostilities, we then instituted economic sanctions against Iraq. Keep in mind that sanctions are really an act of war. They work the same way sieges did during the Middle Ages - by creating starvation and disease. These sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children. Madeline Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State, admitted this on 60 Minutes, and claimed all these children's deaths were "worth it". Check it out for yourself.

Also, as a result of the First Gulf War, and in order to create a buffer against Saddam, we built up a huge military presence in Saudi Arabia. Another autocratic dictatorship which is way worse to women than Iraq or Iran.

Those two things inspired bin Laden to create Al-Qaeda, and ultimately carry out the September 11 attacks. Since then, we've spent trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of foreign lives, tens of thousands of American limbs, thousands of American lives, and a decade fighting two hopeless wars.

We have to stop this.

Revolt in the Middle East

I get the sense the billions of dollars we've borrowed from China to give to the dictator shooting these people who are burning his picture was a poor investment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI&sns=fb

I think my two year-old will agree, when she and her children are still working off our debt to China long after I'm gone.

There's more where that came from. Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen...even Saudi Arabia. Maybe Pakistan, before all is said and done.

People don't like the repressive autocrats we've propped up because they were supposedly "important partners" in our war on terror. Imagine that. Same thing with Iran, in our efforts to stop communism. Look where that got us.

I don't think these people appreciate our meddling. Nor do they buy our hypocritical calls for democracy.

Our "help" is neither wanted nor necessary. It isn't even help.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Can't argue with this

What goes around...

I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin. Trust me.

But it's terribly frustrating to watch the media unfairly drag her through the mud over the Arizona shootings. There is not, and has never been, any proof of a link between Loughner and Palin, or between Loughner and conservative ideology in general. But the media couldn't resist the opportunity, and soon began escalating the irresponsible, slanderous speculation that the shooter was inspired by the Tea Party in general, and Sarah Palin in particular. This absolute dishonesty was based purely on stereotypes and fueled by political pundits with axes to grind and agendas to push.

In the frenzy, the media and a depressingly large segment of the public started demanding something be done about the clear and present danger presented by ... the First Amendment. Politicians were happy to oblige. Not content with wrecking the First Amendment, our representatives promoted equally unworkable and unconstitutional legislation targeting the Second Amendment as well.

I haven't been this frustrated with a news story since the ridiculous "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy.

Wait a minute...

At that time, I joined some of my liberal/progressive friends in arguments with some of my conservative friends. Many conservatives were demanding the government violate the constitutional rights of Muslim property developers based on a scandalously unfair smear campaign pushed by a coalition of scumbags to advance their own purposes.

I've found myself using the same arguments in relation to the Giffords shooting - but my allies have switched sides.

To my conservative friends and family, the mere thought of a Muslim community center on Manhattan Island was enough to trigger a knee-jerk, emotional reaction to accept hateful, politically-driven lies as justification for violating the constitutional rights of American citizens. Apparently the mere thought of Sarah Palin was enough for my liberal/progressive friends to do the same.

With a little reflection, maybe we can try to be less partisan, less hypocritical and more reasonable. Now that she's on the receiving end of an unfair smear campaign, maybe even Palin will see the light and stop her own demagoguery. After all, two wrongs don't make a right.

I told you I don't like her.

Ridiculous

Immediately after the Giffords shooting, the media began a game of speculative one-upmanship. Pretty soon, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and even traditional Republicans were being condemned for contributing to the attacks.

There was, and remains, no evidence that the shooter was in any way influenced, or even aware of the now infamous "crosshairs map" or any Tea Party issues at all.

But rather than retreating, the media is ratcheting up the false association between conservative talking points and a pot-smoking, atheist, Karl Marx fan - and likely a schizophrenic one at that. This is wrong, people.

There's no connection at this point. Even if there was, when an insane person does insane things, you can't blame people for that. If so, you'd have to blame violent imagery in music and television for people committing violence. You'd have to blame the Beatles for the Sharon Tate murders. You'd have to blame the Son of Sam killings on his neighbor's labrador retriever.

You can't do it. At least in those cases, the perpetrators had heard those things, or at least thought they did.

Again, there was, and remains, no evidence that the shooter was in any way influenced, or even aware of the now infamous "crosshairs map" or any Tea Party issues at all.

This AP article points out how the media, particularly NPR, screwed up by prematurely and inaccurately reporting that Giffords died, while bragging about the fact that they didn't fall for it.

Two thoughts:

Isn't this the exact scenario the mainstream media has used for years to argue that the Drudge Report, bloggers, etc. aren't real journalists, and therefore shouldn't be extended the same legal protections?

Also, the article has only the slightest hint of the real story - the widespread blame immediately levied on Sarah Palin and the entire Tea Party. That error was the worst part. It was based on absolutely nothing - and appears likely to be completely wrong.

War is not a Conservative ideal

He's right, of course. Traditional Republican ideals do not involve foreign wars or nation building. World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam all occurred under Democratic presidents. Americans were so desperate to get out of Vietnam that they elected Richard Nixon.

Conservatives were furious when Clinton went into Somalia, Haiti and the Baltic states.

People forget that George W. Bush actually ran against Al Gore on this very issue.

I really like what Bush was saying there. It wasn't out of line with Republican ideals from only a few years ago. Unfortunately, he totally fell apart on this issue after the September 11th attacks. The real tragedy was that he took the majority of the American public with him, not just the Republican party. It's taken a long time for people to come back to their senses on this issue.

While we're talking about Bush, please don't mistakenly believe he was a conservative, free market, limited government president. There's nothing conservative about unprecedented levels of federal deficit spending. Creating the biggest entitlement expansion since Johnson isn't a free market activity. Neither is bailing out failed private companies with funds taken from taxpayers. Creating the Department of Homeland Security has nothing to do with limited government. Reagan campaigned on ending the Department of Education. It was part of the official Republican platform in 1996, when Bob Dole campaigned on the issue. Bush, on the other hand doubled the Department of Education's budget during his tenure - and gave us No Child Left Behind.

Bush was not a free market, limited president. He was a big government, deficit-spending president who led us into disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have yet to find our way out.

A huge number of Afghans have no idea why the U.S. is in Afghanistan

Well, we have something in common, I guess.

Except these guys aren't using "no idea" as a figure of speech. They really have no idea. Ninety-two percent of males in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces have never even heard of the 9/11 attacks.

I've always wondered about that. It's not like they get CNN. A lot of them probably don't have electricity.

Don't expect miracles, people.

Or even any real spending cuts. Don't let the last two years make you forget the way things were going before.

Let's get specific with the cuts, starting with military spending overseas. Cutting about 30,000 pages of regulations out of the Federal Register would reduce the burden of government without cutting any services. Then we can move on to cutting services.

This isn't the time for vague calls to cut discretionary non-defense spending. Let's institute specific, large cuts across the board. 

The single biggest thing Congress can do is refuse to raise the debt ceiling. It will hurt, but it has to be done. Rand Paul might do it by himself, if necessary. 

FDR on the side of liberty?

Politicians should be rewarded for getting the government off our backs. According to this article, they actually are. I never considered FDR's administration to be favorable for personal liberty - on balance it certainly wasn't - but this is a very interesting point.

An increasing number of people are no longer willing to complacently rely on impossible promises from politicians regarding our big problems. More people are willing to look behind the curtain. As a result, more and more people are thinking critically about the size, scope and costs (seen and unseen) of government.

More and more people are now challenging conventional wisdom on things like entitlement spending, regulations, drug prohibition, and war. People are more likely to understand the unintended consequences of these government actions.

I think New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's popularity proves the public actually likes it when someone levels with them. People who support kicking the can down the road are already being kicked out of office. This is a big change.

For what?

As of July, 2010, 1,822 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan - and it's getting worse. June was the deadliest month ever for Americans in Afghanistan - but that record didn't last long. July was even worse.

Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already killed over twice as many coalition troops as people killed by al-Qaeda in the September 11th attacks. And that's not including the wounded, disabled and disfigured soldiers. It's not including the wrecked marriages and ruined lives of soldiers and their families. The Army averaged one suicide per day last month. At this rate, we'll lose more soldiers to suicide than roadside bombs very soon. And a lot of soldiers are killing themselves unintentionally, too.

Nor does it include the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

You know what we need more of?

Entrepreneurs. This guy makes the case.

Will the anti-war crowd finally say something now?

"WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is predicting that only a small number of U.S. forces will come home from Afghanistan when a presidentially mandated withdrawal begins a year from now." -AP article, via Yahoo!

According to the Congressional Research Service, there are over twice as many US troops in Afghanistan as when Obama took office. According to the AP article linked above, there will be well over three times as many by the end of this summer.

This is like a shady oriental rug store doubling its prices right before having a 50% off sale. Actually, that's not fair to the rug dealer. This is more like the rug dealer tripling his prices before advertising a minor, but undetermined discount.

I'm thirty years old, and we've been at war in Afghanistan for one-third of my life. My college-age sister was in fourth-grade when we invaded Afghanistan. In 2010, the year in which Afghanistan became the longest-lasting war in American history, we have three times the number of troops as when Obama was swept to office by an American public already tired of war.