Madoff, Cancer is Too Good For You

According to Reuters, Burnie Madoff is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer. His prison "buddies" are quoted as seeing him take "20 pills a day".

You know what I say? Good! This sorry excuse for a human being deserves every second of suffering coming his way (and hopefully it is prolonged and agonizing). This ALMOST makes me believe in the existence of God or a Karma-esque system where evil do-ers get their come-uppins.

This begs the question, do we let him out to die outside of the prison system like the UK did with the Lockerbie bomber? The answer is absolutely not, the American public hates this guy far too much for that. But what does that say? A guy who took money (in the end, money is just money and no more) is hated more than a guy who killed 259 people. Since when did money become more important than lives? I am not arguing to let Madoff out but I am extremely upset that Al Megrahi is back in Libya. The fact that he is out is a giant slap in the face to the US, even Scotland doesn't take us seriously. Imagine what the US would have done to Al Megrahi if he'd been tried here keeping in mind that we sentenced Madoff to 150 years. That's the way it should be done, with a vengeance (cue John McClean and Die Hard theme song). America, f*ck yea.

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2413380120090824

Just a Quote for Today

Here is an excerpt from an old Teddy Roosevelt speech concerning American nationalism. I think everyone, no matter the political leaning, can agree with this:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

If It's Broken, Make it Bigger and Give it More Money

Sorry guys, I have to talk Cash for Clunkers (C4C) again. It came out this morning that dealers and manufacturers are giving up on the program. The problems stem from the Dept of Transportation not paying dealers for the cars traded in under the program (check out my last post on C4C for more details). So the dealers took it on faith that the government would pay them back for the $3,500 or $4,500 discount they have the consumer on the new cars. No the government mullah hasn't materialized and the dealers (who were already desperate for cash in the first place) are stuck with all this fictional cash. So GM has stepped in for some of its dealers and is providing cash advances to the dealers themselves. Let's keep in mind that GM just came out of bankruptcy on July 10th. How good of an idea is to have a company that come out from Chapter 11 protection a little over a month ago lending large sums of money to faltering dealers? It's not a good idea at all but GM has little choice in the matter, the federal government has forced the auto industry into a corner (as if they needed the government's help). Once again, lofty goals from the federal government results in downright dismal policy and implementation.










Ok, now let's move on, the program sucks, let it die. But let's not forget to learn from this (the now infamous "teaching moment", copyright Boh'Rock during the Gates incident). The government can come up with these grandiose plans with extremely noble goals (save the auto industry and decrease emissions for example) but when it comes to writing the policy to "get shit done" so to speak and finally putting that plan into action, the government is lousy, inefficient, and dog shit slow. This often exacerbates whatever problem was trying to be fixed in the first place and everyone ends up worse off.





So take the above lesson and ask yourself "After this exhibition of governmental failure to manage a relatively minor amount of money, $3 billion, do we really want to hand them the keys to the healthcare system worth MUCH more than $3B?"




I was talking to a few people about this today and I came up with an analogy that I know my parents can relate to:

Your kid wrecks a nice car worth a good amount of money that you bought him (like my first car, nice but not that fast). Do you go out and then buy him a $200,000 Lamborghini capable of 200+mph? Absolutely not.



I don't want the government crashing and burning at 200mph because, guess what, all of us are riding shotgun.
























source: http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/20/news/companies/clunkers_sales/?postversion=2009082010

Freakin' Favre

Just signed with the Vikings. Seriously dude, make up your damn mind. I used to idolize this guy (even as a Bears fan) but I can't respect him anymore. He was the last real franchise player and he ruined himself.

Should make for an interesting season in the NFC North though.

Lofty Goals, Piss Poor Execution: The Story of Every Government Program

Ok, let's talk Cash for Clunkers again. Let's also put aside the arguments that I've had with countless people about the criteria and goals of said program (these points are moot now). It just came out that 2% of all clunkers claims have been paid out. (source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/16/auto-dealers-paid-just-percent-clunkers-claims-congressman-says/?test=latestnews) I don't care if you liked the program before, but you cannot argue with this.





Why is this you ask? Apparently there are a number of reasons but under-staffing (staff of 225 for 338,659 vehicles) and minor paperwork glitches are cited as the main causes. Isn't this typical of any government program? Hugely impressive goals coming from the mouths of politicians (they want to be remembered for having such a positive program when it comes election time) but, once the program has been met with positive poll results, the wind falls from the sails.





Now this begs the question, where is the collective $3B authorized by our "officials" to come from our pockets? According to my math (338,659 vehicles * $4,500 per vehicle to be nice and then take 2% of that), only $30,479,310 has been released to dealers. $30M out of $3B? What a terrible track record.


Now here's the real kicker. The dealers are not being paid for the cars they "sold" which means they still own the cars. This means they can take back the cars sold under the program that haven't been paid off.

The lesson to be taken from this (well one of them anyway) is that Congress should not act on their knee jerk reactions to popular opinion. For the most part, I would say the public knows best but they do not create and implement policy. It is Congress's job to take popular opinion (like "we can't afford new cars") and research if there can be policy built around it. In this case, the research was lacking in respect to funding and (I'm guessing it will come out later) the environmental impact.

So, big government, let this be a "teaching moment" (since you love that term so much). Research policy before you enact it. Better policy does not mean more policy.

The Newest Political Guru, Chuck Norris?

Believe it folks, Chuck is now writing about the healthcare issue and is making some sense. I didn't know he had half a brain.

It's a good read: http://townhall.com/columnists/ChuckNorris/2009/08/11/dirty_secret_no_1_in_obamacare

Getting away from Politics for a Minute

Let's talk about GM. No, not the government's role in GM (no matter how misguided it is) but more along the lines of the latest to come out of GM. In the news this morning, it came out that GM's new electric car, the Volt, will receive a rating of 230 mile per gallon rating (how they give a mile per gallon rating to a car without any gallons to speak of is beyond me).

As a headline, I have to admit that my first thought was "Thank god someone is building a real electric car instead of a faux-environmental car like the hybrid". But if you actually read an article about the car, you find the Volt is limited to ~40 miles on a single charge and then a gasoline motor takes over. So this car is being marketed (rather well I may add) as a full blown electric car when it is, in fact, a hybrid. The only difference between the Volt and existing hybrids like the Prius and whatever the Honda rip off is called is the fact that the Volt uses only electricity for the first 40 miles then runs exclusively off gasoline after that (how much that matters depends on each person's driving habits).

In order to really adopt any sort of alternatively fueled vehicle (electric, hydrogen, or even nuclear powered), the performance measures (speed, range, cost, etc) must be on the same level as the petroleum powered cars we already base our lives around. An electric car that only has a 40 mile range will not fulfil our needs as a people. I can't even get from DC to Baltimore on that. Now if I could just pull over after those 40 miles and fill back up like I do with gasoline, that would work but that is not the case. You have to charge the car for hours to get the charge back to maximum. So sorry GM but your "electric car" ain't gonna cut it for (BTW what happened to your real electric car from the early 90s? The EV1 I believe? Bet you are regretting scrapping that about now. If you don't know what I'm talking about please watch Who Killed the Electric Car?)

Now let's shift gears in regards to GM. My next issue with GM comes from the following text from the same Volt article:

Plans also include doubling the current size of Buick's showroom from three vehicles to six within 24 months. In addition to an SUV crossover hybrid announced last week, GM is preparing a small crossover SUV and midsize and compact sedans.

Buick?!?! This is the same brand that sells 36 cars per year per dealer (or 3 cars per month per dealer). The only brands that have lower figures are Rolls Royce, Isuzu, and Ferrari which are MUCH smaller operations). Buick has been a dying/dead brand in the US for quite some time now for their market segment is the AARP crowd who are either losing their driver's licenses or their lives entirely (not exactly an ideal target market).

Now I have to admit that Buick is setting records in China in terms of sales numbers but that doesn't mean diddly here in the US. Buick dealers are dying in this country, why not make Buick a China only brand like with Opel in Europe? Eliminate the costs to keep US dealers going but keep the huge sales numbers in China.

So, let's back up and take a look at the bigger picture. GM is back to making bad choices after coming out of bankruptcy. No matter how rosy of a picture their marketers paint, the company is still making downright stupid choices and producing crap cars, this time with the government's (aka our) money.

Update: It was just published that the Volt will cost ~$40,000. Who is going to pay that for a poorly equipped, semi-electric American car?

I Find It Funny.....

that our illustrious leader maintains his own personal site while being in office.

http://www.barackobama.com/

So this website (also called Organizing for America) is 100% about his own personal agenda while in office. It is in no way affiliated with the United States government. Does anyone else find this strange that a sitting President continues to operate his own campaign site? Shouldn't he be busy with other, more pressing matters?

The Fundamental Problem With Universal Healthcare in America

Lately there has been an ungodly amount of debate regarding Obama's version of universal healthcare (lovingly dubbed "Obamacare"). Most of the hubbub has been over if people will be able to keep their own doctors, what this means for existing insurance, and if this will impact the overall quality of care. Those issues I am not going to address here. There is a more basic, fundamental issue with universal healthcare in our country.

If we lay down the political arms for a few minutes and analyze our own lifestyles and routines, we see that we all make decisions using our own free will every day. Each of these decisions has an impact on a person's overall level of health. For example, Joe chooses to eat at McDonalds for dinner every night, drink ten beers daily, and to smoke a pack every day. Now I don't do any of these things because I have a certain level of respect for myself but, when it comes down to it, Joe has the freedom to make these decisions without anyone telling him otherwise. To be quite honest, this is exactly what I believe makes America great (cliche, yes, true, yes).

Now when Joe's unhealthy decisions catch up to him, he will inevitably have to enter the health care system for some sort of procedure. In days past, Joe either had insurance to cover these costs or he paid out of pocket. The financial responsibility for Joe's poor choices were on him and him alone. Under a universal healthcare system that is funded with taxpayer money, the general public has to bear the cost of Joe's decisions.

Nothing about what I've said thus far is groundbreaking but here is the paradox. A person that is free to make their own choices their entire life but doesn't have to bear any of the responsibility for the consequences of those actions does not have much incentive to act responsibly. If we take that logic and build upon it, we find that the next course of action should be to regulate the actions one can take during their lifetime to minimize the cost of healthcare (aka cost to the government and taxpayers) later in life. In Joe's case, this means regulating his caloric intake, requiring him to exercise, mitigating his drinking, and prohibiting him smoking. This would result in Joe being less of burden on the healthcare system.

How would you feel if the government told you what to eat, when to exercise, and what to do in your spare time? How American is that?

What I fear is that, if we implement Obama's proposed healthcare plan, we, as a nation, take one of three paths: (1 like described above) we continue to regulate what a person can and cannot do based on what impact that will have on the person's health or (2) we draw the line in the sand, refuse to regulate an individual's activities, and abandon the universal healthcare system or (3) refuse to regulate an individual's activities, keep the universal system in place and it bankrupts the country.

The results of those three paths respectively are: (1) a distopian future where everything is heavily regulated (for an example of what I'm talking about read A Brave New World or 1984), (2) we end up back where we are now but after burning through a whole lot of taxpayer dollars, or (3) the unthinkable.

So if we pull ourselves away from this partisan battle over the minutia of Obama's plan and look at what the real issue is here and how it can impact our entire nation, we can see there is no positive outcome.

In a fundamentally free country, a universal healthcare system is bound for failure so you need to get rid of one or the other. So choose: a free country or a universal healthcare system. Which will it be America?

A thought.....

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." Edward Abbey