So volatile are these times that friends keep adding caveats to the wishes for a Happy New Year. My variation on this has become, Happy New Year, whatever it may bring!
But amid the uncertainties, there are a few things of which we can be sure. Some are so obvious that only among experts and politicians do they really need spelling out. Nonetheless, given the abundance of experts and politicians currently jockeying for the cockpits of the planet, I offer below a small selection of axioms for 2012:
1) The government does not “create” jobs.
In matters of the economy, all the government really has the ability to do is force the transfer of assets — in too many cases eroding liberty, destroying real jobs and wasting resources. Any candidate, from any party, who tells you he or she has some great program for job creation is offering another big bamboozle (unless that jobs program boils down to simply getting the government’s all-too-visible hands out of the marketplace).
2) Diplomatic persuasion has its limits: Negotiations will not persuade Iran’s regime to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
3) Ditto the bit about diplomatic persuasion: No matter how many variations on 2-party, 3-party, 4,5,6 or umpteen-party talks might for the umpteenth time sound tempting, North Korea’s regime will not be negotiated out of its nuclear weapons program.
Thank you. And Happy 2012 to you too!
Excellently said, and I will celebrate life, too.
–as it determines everything in the economy in the US and the rest of the oil dependent world.
If we attack Iran then the price of oil will go up to $ 300 + from the current
$ 100 per barrel.
That would destroy all western economies.
I call bullsh!t on that one Vic.
Get a life in 2012.
Victor, if the Iranians successfully close the straits of Hormuz what will the price of oil rise to? How will that affect world economies, not just those in the “West?” There are no good options when it comes to Iran. Have no fear Obama, as usual, will back down. You know, soft power, while leading from the bunker! Incidentally, the Western governments are doing a more than adequate job of destroying their collective and respective economies.
congrats Vic. Wrong, wrong and wrong.
In 2012, try looking at things through a lens other than your myopic ideological one.
If Iran was attacked, the price of oil would certainly go up for a while, just as it does when there is ANY significant world event. And the price of oil hardly controls “everything”. And the US has a lot more oil in reserve than Iran has. Maybe if Iranian oil wasn’t available, libwits and other nuts would come to their senses about US energy policy.
If Iran managed to sink one or two supertankers in the Persian Gulf, the oil companies would stop sending supertankers through there until hostilities had been concluded. Until then, Middle Eastern oil would be essentially off the market.
Then watch the price of oil soar.
Attacking supertankers would be Iran’s best counter to U.S. military action.
It is frustrating to hear the same people who agree with your point #1 (the federal government doesn’t create jobs) turn around and criticize that government (or its putative leader) for not creating jobs.
The federal bureaucracy has, reportedly, expanded some 20% under Obama, so those are “jobs”, eh wot ? I think it was Obama who self-righteously speechified a few months back as to how we gotta respect all those newly created bureaucratic “jobs”, as he self-righteously proclaimed as to how working in the federal gov’t should be more highly respected !
Shirley Sherrod of dept. of agriculture infamy advised people to seek jobs in the federal bureaucracy, lifelong security, baby.
A confederacy of dunces comes to mind, ok, a federacy of fools.
When an administration takes on the responsibility to produce private sector jobs it is legitimate to criticize that administration for its lack of production. It is also legitimate to point out that administrations’ lack of understanding of the real world. Failure to understand the reason for failure leads to repeating that same mistake!
Every government job is a huge drain on the economy, and takes multiple productive jobs to support. Creating a government jobs is one of the worst things the country can do.
The exceptions are public security, protection and defense jobs, and to some extent, jobs in k12 education (which would be much more effective if they were in the private sector).
proreason: I think there are a few things beyond defense and security where government plays an important role. For one, I don’t see how private sector schools can replace a public education system in terms of educating the populace. Although private schools may generally be better than public schools, our nation can’t afford to forsake the education of those who can’t afford private schooling. Also, the government can play a useful role in creating infrastructure – another service that we can’t count on the private sector to provide in situations where it doesn’t profit, but a service to which all citizens deserve access.
I think both of these government services deserve your attention, because in both cases the government jobs in question surely can’t be called a pure drain on the economy. They may involve the forced transfer of assets from taxpayers to the salaries of government workers. But investing in our workforce and our infrastructure will undoubtedly benefit the economy. You might argue that those benefits won’t outweigh their cost in taxes, but you’d be hard pressed to prove that they don’t exist. Not only that, but those on government payroll spend their salaries on goods and services just like the rest of us; clearly it’s hyperbole to say they’re nothing but a drain on the economy. The difficult question to answer is always whether the benefit outweighs the cost.
It takes the full taxes of many taxpayers to pay the salary and benefits of a single government employee. While not all government employees are useless, IMO way too many of them are and represent a massive drain on the economy.
Government can’t be a net producer of private sector jobs. Sure, it can use “stimulus” to give money to politically connected cronies and benefit them but the net result is the loss of jobs elsewhere. The government taxes money from the private sector, skims off a huge percentage for “overhead” and returns a bit of the money. For that, we’re supposed to be grateful. If you gave me $100 and I gave you $50 in return, odds are you wouldn’t be grateful. Neither would I if the roles were reverses.
The best thing government can do to stimulate private sector job growth is to reduce the tax and regulatory burden on businesses. In other words, get off of everyone’s back. This, of course, they will not do because it weakens their power over us.
“It takes the full taxes of many taxpayers to pay the salary and benefits of a single government employee.”
Not right now. Right now the money to hire employees and finance new government projects is being created out of thin air, by the Federal Reserve.
Obama signed his $780 billion stimulus package into law without abrogating the Bush tax cuts. So taxes didn’t go up; the money for the stimulus package is being printed.
tanstaafi,
It’s like this. If a mobster agrees not to kill you, it doesn’t mean he gives you life. Likewise, asking the government to stop job-killing policies is not the same as asking the government to create jobs.
8. Whatever happens in the Mid-East, Israel will be blamed.
9. Whichever Muslem leaders do not call for genocide in English will be labeled “moderate” by our media and perhaps even by our own government.
I just love this lady at the Wall Street Journal. It was always like the anticipation of a great VDH PJ article on Friday. Must read. You make the trip over to see if they posted anything.
There are sane voices in the media. Just not enough of them.
People will continue to pursue the best interests of themselves, their nuclear families, their extended families and friends, and their immediate communities, in that order. This includes the politicians and bureaucrats of the Progressive or Socialist state. No amount or indoctrination or re-education will change this immutable fact of human nature. Nonetheless, the Progressive/Socialists will continue to search for the mix of policy and educational prescriptions that will convince a sufficient number of citizens to work exclusively for the benefit of those who don’t, and to whom they have no natural relation, all the while, of course, collecting from the public trough an income and a prestige that is the appropriate measure for men and women of unbounded compassion and social commitment.
Socialists/Progressives will continue to push the idea of Equality enforced by an all-powerful state administered, in the large, by people who have (1) never conceived of, established, and successfully run even a minor enterprise at their own financial risk; (2) who could not have conceived of, invented, manufactured or even repaired any of the major technological innovations that have improved modern life; (3) who have not the slightest idea of the major physical, mental and psychological needs of those they govern, nor of the wide variation in these, nor any idea how the policy prescriptions they prescribe will affect even the majority, much less all, of these needs in a positive manner; (4) and who imagine that people can be leveled by leveling their wealth and income, irrespective of the other human assets, such as natural intelligence, physical stature and abilities, attractiveness to the opposite sex, temperament, etc. To the Progressive, the short, unathletic, intellectually untalented, ugly man in a wheelchair is the equal to the tall, dark, intelligent, sociable and handsome man; and the dumpy, unfortunate-looking, unscholarly, awkward woman is the equal of the curvaceous, well educated and loquacious beauty, because their incomes and wealths are equal. They make no provision for those with an unfortunate physical, intellectual or emotional inheritance to improve their stature through industry, prudence, thrift, or even luck in a lottery.
I await the thundering insight that the natural inequalities of man can be remedied, not by leveling wealth and income, but by a state-enforced, tilted redistribution of larger wealths and incomes to those less endowed by nature. Anyone for a Department of Natural Endowment Assessment and Redistribution?
“Anyone for a Department of Natural Endowment Assessment and Redistribution?”
They’d have it, by George, if they thought they could get away with it.
The don’t believe it themselves.
It’s just a way to acquire power. It’s the con to fool the rubes.
But many of the marks believe it, because it’s in their self-interest to buy into the con. They may even know it’s a con, but they’re gambling that the con will continue. The allure of the con is overwhelming for many, to the point that they are willing to suspend believe and assume the con artists can walk on water forever.
Happy New Year, Claudia.
Today marks the start of the race to see if we can beat the Mayan Calendar.
The UN, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran…certainly will impact how the race is run.
Our present group with their hands on the reins want to negotiate with the Taliban, by using a murder-plotting jihadist. In other words, “negotiating” is the method of choice for those who wish to kill us and Israel,…but SUING the state of Arizona is a better way to deal with one of our own states.
It is important to this crew to shut down our space program and make Muslims feel good about themselves…but making Evangelical Christians and Jews feel that they are “the enemy” is the better tactic. Clearly at the UN, beating on Israel is a bloodsport of Olympic status.
Murdereres who shoot people at Ft Hood and elsewhere are “police matters”…Tea Partiers who want small government are “terrorists”.
If it was not clear in 2008 who were the “enemies” of this administration, there certainly are pretty clear signs today.
All the “outreach”, all the “negotiations”, all the “reaching out” and “reset” buttons and deep bows…seem to not go to Americans or our allies. Those that want to kill us, wipe Israel off the map…don’t get called names, nor are they left to dine alone.
The ones who get called names, for whom there is never outreach, negotiation, or ‘reset”…are…us.
Our present group with their hands on the reins want to negotiate with the Taliban, by using a murder-plotting jihadist.
Reportedly, this creep.
Obama Recruits Qaradawi
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
OOOPS !
The “cool” guy with the sun glasses it’s there because I did not remember to put a space between the
8
and the
)
Succinct, witty and true. I especially thank you for using the correct word for these grown-up brats.
I have been wishing friends NEW YEAR. Happiness is up to you, more so now than ever.
Unfortunately, I expect this to be as true at the start of ’13 as at the start of ’12: we’ve tried everything else, we might as well try freedom.
2011 Sucked, 2012 Could Be Even Worse
On a personal, family level, 2011 was one of the worst years of our lives, but that’s our problem.
On national and world levels, 2011 sucked just as much with the added downer that, unlike us, 2012 holds the prospect of being even worse for the United States and the planet.
Of course, good things happened last year; they always do.
Navy Team 6 dispatching Usama bin laden was the highlight, an economy showing meager signs of improvement was less noteworthy but nevertheless a good thing, GOP candidates having the nerve to debate incessantly and make their opinions known to the electorate was a refreshing novelty, the stock market did fairly well, the Iraq War temporarily ended, and the number of abortions declined.
As is too often the case, the bad outweighed the good both at home and throughout the world in 2011.
Domestically, MSNBC and Bill Maher are still regurgitating, the economy is still wallowing in the doldrums, poverty is increasing as planned by the administration, our borders are farcical, and the nation suffered through a series of unprecedented natural catastrophes as well as social upheaval with 1960′s precedents in the persons of the Occupiers.
However, although Mother Natures’s onslaughts are inevitable and unavoidable, we are free to pull the plug on MSNBC and Maher, the economy will recover, the poor really aren’t really all that bad off, various states are attempting to perform the federal job of stemming illegal immigration, and the Occupiers are more and more recognized for the anarchists they are.
As opposed to those 2011 negatives with silver linings, above all else in the negative category is the fact Barack Hussein Obama still reigns as America’s Chief Executive.
Overseas, cataclysmic natural, economic, and political events were far worse than our own. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11968.)
Yo, Tanstaafl…
Your reference to the lovely Ms. Shirley Sherrod might be a little too obscure even for PJ media. In one of the truly egregious intentional media failures since the Obamazoids came into power, the “Pigford” settllement got about zero MSM covereage (nearly two $2 billon in reparations to “black farmers” who s’pozedly got screwed by the raciss USDA). Definitely worth delving deep into that stinking mess, which big flat rock was prised up by Andrew Breitbart, whom for his troubles is deepi nto defending himself from litigation by whoever’s punching Ms. Sherrod’s ticket. For Breitbart’s astonishing in-depth coverage, see:
http://biggovernment.com/pigford-investigation-resources/
Read it and weep.
I have read some about it, and wept.
Where a lot of the “black farmers” receiving “reparations” have never even farmed, or where growing tomatoes in the backyard served to qualify you as the beleaguered farmer, deserving of cash recompense.
Some of the windfall recipients themselves were scratching their heads, wondering exactly why they got paid.
Yet another appalling government boondoggle.
All this blather about governments not being useful in creating jobs, and that such efforts erode ‘freedom’, should be given some context with an example like Finland. You probably don’t know that today Finland consistently leads in almost every international indicator for social, economic and environmental innovation, productivity and quality of life, including the lowest level of government corruption. Their system steadily produces brilliant software developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, designers, managers, musicians, orchestra leaders, hockey goalies, etc. They have done this despite suffering a nasty series of geopolitical shocks in the 20th century comparable to the reunification of Germany.
Nokia, Kone and other Finnish companies are thriving in the international marketplace. It’s forests are only .1 per cent of the world’s forests yet Finland supplies much of the equipment for forest-based industries around the world, including the IP for 90 per cent of Canada’s forest equipment. And why? Because they pay high taxes, and trust their governments, given the successes to which those governments have contributed.
Some notes on Finland’s economy from Wikipedia:
“State and municipal politicians have struggled to cut their consumption, which is very high at 51.7% of GDP compared to 56.6% in Sweden, 46.9 in Germany, 39.3 in Canada, and 33.5% in Ireland.[28] Much of the taxes are spent on public sector employees, many of which are jobs-for-life and amount to 124,000 state employees and 430,000 municipal employees.[13] That is 113 per 1000 residents (over a quarter of workforce) compared to 74 in the US, 70 in Germany, and 42 in Japan (8% of workforce). . .The state has a programme where the number of jobs decreases by attrition: for two retirees, only one new employee is hired. . .Tax cuts have been in every post-depression government’s agenda and the overall tax burden is now around 43% of GDP compared to 51.1% in Sweden, 34.7% in Germany, 33.5% in Canada, and 30.5% in Ireland. . .”
Not quite the high tax rate paradise you describe, Albert!
Oregonian, you neglected to include the following Wikipedia comment from your reaction to my comment. Even the part you quoted seems to be a further compliment to how Finland is managing a difficult situation. Because they are paying high taxes is WHY they have, as Wikipedia notes, ‘one of the most peaceful, competitive, and livable countries’. And I didn’t even get into the issue, again quoted in Wikipedia, about how that they have the best educational system in the world.
“Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialisation, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. Thereafter, economic development was rapid. Finland built an extensive welfare state and balanced between the East and the West in global economics and politics. With the best educational system in Europe,[9][10] Finland has recently ranked as one of the world’s most peaceful, competitive and livable countries.”