Random Thought

The world is made of matchsticks but America won't burn.

I couldn't sleep last night. I think it must be from stress. It looks very likely that the company I work for will close and I'll be out of a job again.

Anyhow, while I was laying in bed not sleeping I was thinking about the issue of flag burning and how I would protest a law banning it (I don't know why, maybe it had something to do with seeing the protests in Iran). While I was deciding if it would make a bigger impact to burn a flag on public or private property, the above phrase popped into my head. I don't think I've heard it anywhere before so I wanted to put it someplace so I don't lose it. Maybe I'll use it in the future if I need to write an essay about freedom of expression or flag burning in particular.

-Jay

Edit: 06.24.09

One more thing...I have two band names I'm going to use in Rock Band: "Secular Taliban" and "Wolves of Self Reliance."

Whew...

Eighty degrees. That's what the radio told me the current temperature was at 5:39 this morning; before sunrise.

We've had several days of +95 degree temps and several more on the way. Looks like we'll get a break toward the end of the week though...it's supposed to only be in the lower 90's.

-Jay

Now where did I put that sickle...

Okay, when I started this blog I didn't really think I'd be writing about weighty matters all the time and especially not on a Friday. But this is too fresh in my mind and too outrageous to let go without comment.

Yesterday, in Wisconsin, President Obama gave a speech about health care reform and uttered this, "If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down."

Are you kidding me?! Set aside the wonderful care our veterans get through the VA and the stellar financial shape of Medicare , the administration is going to, yet again, pick winners and losers in Corporate America.

Just to recap in the last two weeks we have:

• the New GM and Chrysler backed by tax dollars competing with Ford (and Honda and Toyota, etc.)
• a new Czar that is going to start with limiting the compensation of executives working in the bailout funded section of the financial industry (he'll get to the rest of the financial industry soon and then see if you are making too much money after that)
• and now a proposal to use the backing of law and the largess of the US Treasury to compete against the health insurance industry

This isn't tinkering around the edges of economy. This is evidence of supreme mistrust of our capitalist system. Obama even explicitly says he doesn't trust the market. "If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down." Do you really think this desire to keep private companies honest through competition with a "public option" is limited to the health insurance industry? Why not all insurance companies? Or health care providers for that matter? Government doctors wouldn't have any incentive to order unnecessary tests. Maybe credit card companies? Reasonable rates, the Treasury makes a bit of a profit and if you don't pay up, Uncle Sam just takes it out of your tax refund...

All its going to cost you is some liberty. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some kook that thinks Obama is trying to take over and become a dictator. But capitalism is the manifestation of our freedom and independence from the government. It's vital that we protect it and reject the steps toward central planning and socialism.

We don't have to go ask our lords and masters to give us anything. We make it. We buy it. We sell it. We trade it. We make a profit and use that profit to enrich our lives. We make mistakes and we fail. We innovate and improve. This is what has made our country the richest and most free in all the world.

-Jay

You can't spell crazy without C, Z, A & R

According to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the federal government is concerned about what companies pay their top executives.

"We need to help encourage substantial reforms and compensation structures, particularly in the financial industry," he said.

Of course you're thinking, "But Jay, these companies are getting tax payer money in the form of bailouts from TARP." True, and I don't have much heartburn with telling the CEO's of AIG, GM, Chrysler and the dozens of banks that took bailout money that they deserve a pittance of pay until the money is all paid back to the Treasury. But we're not just talking about that. According to this story from the not particularly right wing Marketplace radio program (distributed by Public Radio International) we have this to look forward to:

But the government's push to limit compensation may not end with companies receiving taxpayer help. Members of the administration are also talking about reining in pay in the financial industry as a whole. They'd like to replace the current bonus-heavy system with one that pays people for long-term performance.

President Obama is set to appoint a "Pay Czar" to carry out the administrations reform of compensation. Beside the fact that this is an extra-constitutional position accountable to no one except the President. I am deeply troubled by ease of this power grab. Are we just going to stand by and allow the federal government to decide not just how much to tax the highly paid, but how high that pay should be? The argument for this "reform" is that the bonus structure encourages high risk for short term gain and is therefore poses a "systemic danger" to the stability of our financial system.

Suppose the next issue the government wants to tackle is the potential for housing price bubbles. Having solved Wall Street's problems with a new, fair compensation plan for the financial institutions, the Pay Czar asks, "Is it reasonable to cap amount a realtor can make by commission selling a home so they don't have an incentive to 'artificially' inflate the price?" It almost sounds reasonable doesn't it? That's why its so dangerous.

The United States is not like France. We won't have massive strikes that shut down cities with people demanding social safety programs from the government. It isn't that obvious. But what we are experiencing right now is a well intentioned administration doing things that seem reasonable leading us down a path to socialism.

If we are going to walk this path, let's at least do it being led by people who are accountable to us and must get elected on a socialist plan, not these "czars" that are appointed without review of the Senate and answer to no one but the President.

-Jay