Greetings everyone on this 18th day of October 2012, I sincerely hope
your day is going better than those who live in Syria where the refugee
border camps are filling up and neighboring nations can't really afford
to take anymore, as 36,000 people have already died in that civil war
according to UN figures, which I guess one could say are unreliable,
nevertheless my sources do tell me the numbers is very high, perhaps
even close to that 36K number. So, it's a tragedy anyway you look at it.
Okay
so, let's get right into today's talk show and well you know the
format; "I talk you listen, you listen, then we open up the phone lines
for your questions and comments, and feel-free because you don't have to
agree, you just have to have an intellectual counter argument, or a
decent comment, and we are all good to go, if not, as you know - click
goes your dial tone - so fair warning."
Since the up-coming final
presidential debate will be primarily on foreign policy, we will start
there, as these last few debates, if you can call them that, well, they
certainly aren't helping along our national dialogue with sound bites of
2-minutes at a time and with at least enough interruptions to run you
out of toes and fingers to count with. Reminds me of a reality TV series
where 2-people are left on the island and they are arguing to stay -
well, let's get into it now - because we are once again at the top of
the hour and it's time to play - game on!
Now then, according to
the Futurist Magazine, November-December issue 2012, there was an
article in Future Scope in their September-October issue on page 4
discussing the challenges with the beef industry. You see, droughts in
the US have hurt the beef industry something terrible, and according to
the article; "China's Growing Appetite for Meat Will Strain Global
Supply," these challenges could be exacerbated. We already know this is
something we've been told from reading the news and understanding the
serious nature of the drought this year. Of course, we know some of the
pacing and moaning has been due to the Farm Bill (packed with pork for
food stamps I might add - which is corporate welfare plus a social
program) which Congress is trying to get passed, and the lobbyists such
as the big corporate farms.
Still, it is a serious and real issue,
even on the Mississippi River they noted that many of the barges were
parked, and there was a traffic jam of some 100 barges as they had to
navigate the center of the river due to the low volume, and there was no
two-way traffic. This doesn't bode well for US farm exports, or
manufacturing exports which use that waterway to get to the Gulf of
Mexico, the port in New Orleans.
We also know that many of the
cattle ranchers took their cattle to slaughter early because they
couldn't afford to feed due to the drought issues, and cattle drink lots
of water as well. This meant be prices were at an all-time low for a
very short period of time, and now the demand has far outpaced the
supply and the prices are will be far too great.
Incidentally, in
Tennessee the favorite restaurant chain "Backyard Burgers" filed
bankruptcy, and there will be more, the price of beef was a factor along
with new regulations and health care costs - aka Obama Care.
Saudi
Arabia is now attempting to get into the beef and dairy industry, even
though there is very little water and they must import their feed, but I
suppose they can trade for oil, plenty of that stuff, plus new fracking
strategies allow for more - so peak oil is going to have to take a hike
for a while, although that day too is coming to a Kingdom near you if
you live in the Middle East.
Still, what about the perpetual
drought problem in Saudi Arabia, pretty much a desert in many parts?
Well, yes it is, but they are using desalination techniques, and trying
their hand at building special airflow condensers to keep the cattle
cool. Could this be a new industry for them, they think so. Not to
mention the fact that there is a huge market and demand for meat around
the globe. China for instance, they're eating more and more beef these
days.
Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal cattle
ranchers are working to use predetermined-sex artificial insemination
strategies now, why you ask, to produce more female cows. This will
allow them to increase their herds more rapidly when the water comes
back, the feed prices come down, and things return to normal - question
is; what is the new normal going to be? In the past it's taken years to
rebuild the herds after large scale droughts, and that doesn't bode so
well for our first world nation which eats quite a bit of meat. It looks
as though free-market capitalism in the global marketplace is working
around these issues, but the beef industry is hardly out of the woods
yet.
And speaking of the global marketplace, we aren't the only
nation anymore looking for an intelligent workforce and recruiting from
all over the planet. Today we are competing with Europe, China, Brazil,
India, the Middle East, Japan, Australia, Canada and many other nations
some first world, some emerging. My question is; are we burning are
potential here at home? That is to say; are we playing too much
patty-cake in our schools, using too much political correctness, and
creating too many socialist tendencies to produce the hard work ethic
needed for math and science at the upper divisions?
Do we have
enough Tiger Moms and parents that value education to get this done?
Speaking of which in Discover Magazine in the October 2012 issue there
was a very interesting article by Derek Lowe titled; "The Contrarian
View - America Doesn't Have a Scientist Shortage," and the author
stated; "we need to worry about the quality, not the quantity of US
scientists." Indeed, I think I concur with this because it has also been
noted that while India and China are graduating more engineers and
scientists, and are now surpassing the United States in the number of
research papers produced and patents filed, much of the quality is not
up to par, and their research papers are not publishable in the higher
end scientific journals.
Not to mention they are often plagued
with plagiarism, errors, mistakes, and false data through cheating on
the tests and results within their scientific studies. Interestingly
enough doesn't this get back to the 80/20 rule? Where 80% of the people
are taking up space and only 20% of the people are really doing
anything? And really isn't there an 80/20 rule on top of that where 80%
of the remaining 20%, equaling 4% is really where it's at? And if only
4% of the scientists are really making significant headway, why do we
everyone else, why not focus on the best and brightest?
Merely
sending people to school so they can make more money or get better jobs,
or become scientist may not be relevant unless they can pull their
weight, make new discoveries, and therefore we get a return on
investment for all those research dollars are government is pumping into
the sciences. Besides that have you looked at college tuition costs
rising at 5% to 7% per annum, wouldn't you like that level of return in
your investment portfolio since the turn of the century? And what about
9.6% and rising student loan default rates? We need to rethink all this,
well, your thoughts might be interesting once we open up the call
lines.
In Foreign Affairs Magazine September-October 2012 issue
there was an interesting article by Andrew J Nathan and Andrew Scobel
titled "How China Sees America" where they state that China sees the US
as aggressive and hostile, and to that I say; "what a coincidence, does
anyone have a mirror they can borrow, or did they already steal that
intellectual property and design to make those mirrors to sell to
Wal-Mart to sell here?" What brought on that article on, why did the
author write it you ask?
Well, I suppose it was the comments by
Mitt Romney on the campaign trail, and part of his five-point economic
plan where he said he would crack down on China as a currency
manipulator, along with their intellectual property theft, cyber-attacks
and information stealing, along with their own aggressive actions in
their surrounding territorial waters which are also claimed by nations
like Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam. All of which
have had words, and conflicts on the sea, sometimes over mere shoals,
protruding rocks, and tiny islands.
Now China has an aircraft
carrier in its Communist Red Army's Navy and so one could say that their
military is no longer just about protecting the mainland, but
projecting force, after all isn't that what aircraft carriers are for?
This new aircraft carrier of theirs, albeit an old refurbished one which
should have been sold for scrap or turned into an amusement park like
the now famous Noah's Ark replica in Hong Kong, will soon begin sea
trials and aircraft operations.
Perhaps The RAND Corporation made a
terrible tactical error, albeit perhaps politically correct at the time
when they wrote the paper about "China's International Behavior" where
the paper insisted that China was consistent and nonaggressive, and yes,
even the CFR Council on Foreign Relations, which I've often called the
Council on Foreign Appeasement is still out today promoting China as
benevolent. Still, it wasn't more than a year later after that Rand
research report when all this other stuff started, along with their new
military bases and port operations which are often referred to as the
"string of pearls" which keep growing in size and numbers all the way to
Pakistan which signed over a deep sea port of theirs on the Arabian
Sea.
Therefore maybe Mitt Romney is right, and maybe the authors
of this Foreign Affairs Magazine should be more concerned with what's
going on, rather than what either of our nation's thinks about the
other, because obviously they don't care, and they see trade along the
same line graph as war, only to a lesser degree, they've even stated so.
Further, it's hard to say why people in the United States trust any
product coming from China after the poisonous pet food, the chemicals in
the drywall, the lead in the toy paint, or the protein in the fish feed
and livestock feed where those products are then processed and sent to
the United States consumer. Mitt Romney is right and China needs to play
fair, why is that not the order of the day in the Obama Administration -
I mean last time he went to visit they dressed him up in a Mao Costume
for the stage, remember?
Next, there was another interesting
article in that Foreign Affairs issue, it was titled "America the
Undertaxed - US Fiscal Policy and Perspective," by Andrea Louise
Campbell and in her article she had a chart showing which nations were
taxed the most, and which were taxed the least. The socialist European
nations were taxed the highest starting with Denmark and Sweden at 48%.
The United States, Chile and Mexico were at the bottom at 24.1, 18.4,
and 17.4 respectively. Personally, I don't think it is right to compare
the United States to a socialist nation, and I believe with our
self-reliant upbringing, and our strong traditions we need not go in
that direction, nor would we really enjoy a large centralized big
government Nanny State.
You see, those other nations have very
small populations, and previously very homogeneous perhaps not as much
today, but then again their economies are not doing all that great now
are they? The United States is a nation of immigrants, and people have
come here from all over the world, we have many cultures mixing in our
society, and huge populations.
Most of those socialist Nordic
countries have very small populations, and we have many cities with
populations far more than that, not to mention some of our largest
states. We shouldn't compare a country with a population of 4 to 12
million and assume those strategies will work with the United States
with states like California and just Southern California alone will soon
be approaching 20 million.
As far as I am concerned it's
unfortunate that Foreign Affairs Magazine has such jaded articles
towards the socialist point of view. Yes, it is an academic intellectual
point of view, but that doesn't make it right, that just proves that
our academia has also been infiltrated with these poorly thought out
economics theories, ones which don't not work, and for example we can
look at Argentina, Venezuela, Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and of
course Portugal - and realize I'm only naming a few.
Some of the
same people do not believe in free-market capitalism or capitalism at
all. In fact in that same Foreign Affairs Magazine there was an article
suggesting that positive GDP growth might not be good at all; "Is Growth
Good - Resources, Development and the Future of the Planet," by Francis
Beinecke, who immediately suggested; "environmentalists do not oppose
growth," however, here in the United States they surely do. And if some
of these academics would get out of their lecturing halls and run a real
business in the real world they might see it is quite evident that
environmentalists do oppose growth, on every corner in every city and
town in the United States or the world for that matter.
Just go
try to put in a new restaurant, carwash, retail store, apartment
complex, or God forbid some industrial business? You will be tied up in
Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) until you either run out of money
pain lawyers, or the bank which was going to fund the project gets taken
over by the FDIC, got to love Dodd Frank and "too small to survive"
theory. You might think I'm just kidding, but I'm not go try to run a
business in this country and see what you'll be up against. Many of our
rules and regulations have everything to do with environmentalism,
socialism, and that agenda against free-market capitalists.
Still,
when it comes to austerity it doesn't seem that the socialists want to
cut back and live within their means. Rather they would just like to tax
everyone in "until they run out of other people's money to spend,"
which of course is a famous quote I borrowed from Margaret Thatcher. In
that same issue of Foreign Affairs Magazine, there was an article titled
"Stimulus or Reform - Charting a Path out of Recession - No Time for
Austerity," by Mezie D. Chin.
Of course, even though Barack Obama
had spent over $5 trillion over the federal government's tax revenues
over the last four years it was suggested in The American Prospect
Magazine in September-October 2012 that the Obama administration should
have used more stimulus money but chickened out. Can you imagine what
the federal budget deficit would be if we had been allowed to spend even
more? The reality is that they wasted the money - funding huge
alternative energy projects that happened to be run in 50% of the cases
by their crony capitalist friends and campaign contributors, as Mitt
Romney noted in the debate and the "fact-checkers" didn't challenge -
why? It's the truth.
The way I see it, that is basically using the
taxpayers money for paying back there political contributors to ensure
that those same campaign donors would continue to give them money in
their next round for re-election in 2012, which is where we are right
now. If you disagree, all you have to do is look at the campaign
donation records, and all the names of the executives, and investors
behind those projects. It's all there in black and white - or call in
with proof otherwise when we open the phone lines.
Still, the
socialist say we need to give more money to the poor, but now we are
giving money to the middle class, or what used to be in the middle
class, as we have 47 billion people on food stamps now. Meanwhile the
same folks want the US taxpayer to give more money in foreign aid to
help in the war on poverty.
Okay, sure let's talk about poverty
for a moment, since I brought it up. You see, there was an interesting
article titled "The Other War On Poverty" by Leon R Kass in
International Affairs Magazine, Number 12 - Summer 2012. Now then, I
have to ask, having written a couple of e-books on some of the poorest
people in the very poorest nations either living in rule poor areas or
in urban slums that often the war on poverty causes more poverty, what's
happening in this regard. Poverty is increasing in the US remember?
Indeed,
this shouldn't surprise us because the war on terrorism seems to have
caused a greater ability of the terrorists to recruit more, therefore
there is more terrorism. And the war on drugs seems to have increased
the cost of drugs, crime, and violence. There are more people on drugs,
and more money flow because of it. When it comes to our foreign policy -
well, maybe the entire concept of "winning their hearts and minds"
isn't working, and that familiarity is merely bringing more contempt,
further, it should be noted that the law of unintended consequences
seems to live within these socialist strategies, as if it is a cancer on
humanity as we teach more folks to take a fish rather than to learn how
to fish and remain self-reliant, now everyone is becoming weak, and
they cannot stop wanting more - so which problem have they solved lately
- none, certainly none using those silly socialist strategies - I'd
say, perhaps you might opine? What say you, my faithful listener and
article reader?
Further, it seems that we are stifling free
enterprise, and free-market capitalism at every turn through
overregulation. We are driving businesses away from our shores due to
these increased rules and regulations, union demands, and over
lawyering. It's getting very difficult to build anything in this country
(even hamburgers, as I mentioned) and still compete on the global
market, we've increased our wholesale prices due to regulation and taxes
on just about everything from the fuel that our corporations use in
delivery to the raw materials they need to make the basic products.
In
National Affairs Magazine, Summer 2012 there was an article by
Christopher DeMuth titled; "The Regulatory State," where he simply
stated a known truism to anyone in the DC Metro area; "Washington is on a
regulatory growth spurt. Hundreds of rulemaking proceedings underway or
pending," and he cited; Dodd Frank, Obama Care, the EPA, and the FCC. I
ask what about the FAA, FTC, DHS, and FDA just to name a few more?
Still,
another author of an essay in The American Prospect Magazine,
September-October 2012 issue wrote an article titled; "What If Labor
Dies, What's Next? By Harold Meyerson. Well I'll tell you what would
happen, it would be wonderful because the American taxpayer would not be
put on the hook to bail out the underfunded pensions, the American
consumer would not have to pay too much for all the products they buy,
and we wouldn't have some people getting Cadillac healthcare benefits
driving up the cost of healthcare for everyone else which has increased
8% per year. We wouldn't have as many protests, work slowdowns, folks
trying to sneak out early and get disability benefits. And we wouldn't
have giant voting blocs lobbying politicians and electing more socialist
thinking leaders into our legislator or executive branch in our states
or in our federal government. It actually could be wonderful for our
country.
Now then, I ask where is all this socialist type thinking
coming from anyway. Well, much of it is coming from the intellectual
elite of academia. Of course I don't see them as anymore intellectual as
anyone else and remember I run a think tank so I am not just spouting
hyperbole here, as a matter fact I see that they are missing some space
on their resume because they've never run a business in their life, so
they don't understand economics or how the world works. Some of them
actually assume that government is the creator of jobs and the economy.
It's not, despite what our President has mentioned previously in
speeches that inadvertently hurt my feelings and the feelings of small
business entrepreneurs around this great nation.
It's not supposed
to be that way, especially in the United States where we have a private
central bank. Of course, under threat from the legislature and
executive branch, they seem to be bending too much to political
pressure, and they keep loaning the federal government money that our
government cannot pay back with its current economic strategies, or
won't pay back one day, meaning they will default.
Just the other
day, I was at one of the big box bookstores sitting in the coffee shop
and I talked to a nice lady who was getting her teacher credentials so
she can teach at the college level; history and anthropology. Part of
her certificate required her to take a prerequisite class on economics.
She thought that was unfair, she thought economics was too hard, and she
was upset that she even had to study it. However, if you look at
history, various socioeconomic strategies have either succeeded, or
failed and caused entire civilizations to collapse. And I'm just not
talking about Amsterdam moving forward, or the challenges in Europe with
the textile industry produced in India, or the changes in trade with
the great Silk Roads.
We can go all the way back to the coins
which were often cut into pieces because they were traded by weight not
necessarily by what was on the coin, some of which they found in Norway
recently dating extremely far back, more than a thousand years. It seems
unfortunate that a history teacher at the college and university level
feels that learning economics isn't an important foundational basis for
her studies. But indeed, isn't that really the problem were looking at
here?
We have students graduating from high school who may never
go to college who cannot balance a checkbook, who never took an
economics class, but they still vote. If a politician stands up the
podium and says; "you can get free stuff for the rest of your life, and
the government will pay for it, just vote for me," then they will, and
they have, and it's still going on in this current election, and you
think people would know better after looking at the dismal economic
performance and failure an economic recovery from the Obama
Administration. Am I showing my political colors here? Perhaps so, but
if you listen to this radio show long or read my articles enough you
know exactly what I'm talking about, but you are one or the informed
ones, an informed voter, what about all these other folks? They are
voting too you know.
Personally, I have seen the future, but
Obama's vision of it doesn't exist in that future, it can't. Because if
the United States of America is to have a future at all, it cannot be a
socialist one, or this whole thing is going to come down like a crashing
house of cards being run over by a cement truck, laden with all that
dead weight, debris, and debt. Well, I guess that's my opinion, and I
thought it was rather great when Mitt Romney stated at the end of the
third debate during this political season; "The Obama Administration's
policies have failed, this is the United States of America and we don't
have to live like this," and then offered up his five-point plan one
more time. I guess I'm with him and those words, and as you know we like
to get a little opinionated on this radio show and with the articles I
write.
So here we are once again at the end of 30 minutes of me
talking, and you listening, and now it's your turn to sound off I will
now open the phone lines, or if you are reading the transcript online
post a comment or two, or shoot me an electronic mail message.
Remember
the rules; bring your mind, engage in intellectual dialogue, and maybe
we can do better than these tit-for-tat cat fights in these presidential
election debates we've been listening to? That's the goal here today.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it, and you
can start dialing that phone now, or posting a comment below if you are
reading this online.
