Medical Care and Expensive Hotels

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As noted in earlier posts, we believe that common sense is often a much better guide to  economic policy than the schemes that our “leaders” come up with.  Consider this example.  Imagine what would happen to the price of hotel rooms if:

 

  • The guest does not have to pay for the room.  Someone else pays.
  • No matter what room you pick, fancy or not, someone else gets the bill.
  • The prices for the rooms and all of the guest services are hidden. The price doesn’t really matter, though, because someone else pays.
  • People can enjoy the rooms and guest services whenever they feel the need.
  • If you use a room and don’t have someone else pre-arranged to pay, that’s no problem, the hotel operator can hide your bill inside the bill of those who do pay.

If customers don’t know or care how much rooms cost, what will happen to prices?  The customers have no incentive at all to be careful with money.  Quite the opposite.  They will demand their fair share of this service and they will want the best that someone else’s money can buy.

The provision of medical care is very much like that.  If you ask a provider how much a medical service will cost, you are likely to be met with a surprised look.  Asking how much a procedure costs is the exception, not the norm.  Since cost does not matter to the individual consumer, costs are rising rapidly.

In parts of medical care where the consumer is more likely to pay directly, like cosmetic services or laser eye surgery, costs are directly controlled by the consumer.  Prices must remain at a level acceptable to cost-conscious consumers.

A group of Doctors in Oklahoma who realized the insanity of the current system decided to do something about it.  They have successfully attacked the high cost of medical care in a way that should be a model for the nation.  Take a look:

As you evaluate their approach, remember that all it does is dramatically reduce the cost of medical care.  It does not give politicians or unions more power.  So it’s not an option they would want to consider.  For them, it’s all about power.

Common Sense Economics: Spain

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The Real Madrid vs Barcelona rivalry is about to heat up…

One of the most ambitious, and successful, efforts of the academic Left has been a war on common sense.  True economics is a science governed by very intuitive rules.  Extremely complicated monetary theories have arisen to confuse the subject and contradict common sense conclusions any high school graduate can come to with minimal effort.  The confusion puts up a veil behind which leftist social engineers can operate with reduced risk that someone empowered with simple intuition can identify that the King, in fact, has no clothes…

On of the most intuitive rules is the following: The more you punish success and take the fruit of people’s labor, the less productive they will be.  Spain has ignored this rule for many decades.  Years of anemic growth and re-distribution of capital from productive hands to the lazy regions of the country have created a fragile economy unable to weather the global downturn.  More importantly (here comes one of those intuitive laws economics/human nature), the productive parts of the country are starting to resent supporting the dead weight. The Catalan region of eastern Spain has long been the industrious part of the country.  As per a recent article in Reuters, a significant part of the economic output of the region (8% or $21 billion) is redistributed from Catalonia to the remainder of the country every year…

Which brings us to our second super-simple economic lesson:  People grow entitled to charity quickly.  Give someone a dollar one day and they say “thank you”.  Give that same person a dollar for seven days and then try to walk by on the eighth day.  He will angrily ask where ”his” dollar is.  Appreciation turns quickly to entitlement.  When I lived in Spain eighteen years ago, I don’t recall a “Catalonia appreciation day” for supporting the rest of the country.   I am guessing that it hasn’t started since.

Liberals will argue that there has always been a separatist movement in Catalonia, and they would be right.  However, it didn’t gain any political power until the economy tanked and the country raised taxes to meet the bills.  Since tax burdens weigh disproportionately on the most productive parts of society, Catalonia was hit especially hard.  Rather than continue to support an entitled country incapable of balancing the checkbook, the people of Catalonia are looking to shrug off the oppressive weight.  Just recently, the local government gained a majority capable and willing to vote for separation.  Who can blame them?

How much worse does it have to get before we see the same thing in the US?  Secession petitions have been submitted by people in more than 30 sates in the US, but there is no real political will behind them.  However, what happens when the people of Texas and Florida see their taxes going to bail out the entitlement groups of California and Illinois.  Like in Spain, England, and France the increased taxes in those states will not bring in nearly as much revenue as their predictions and certainly not enough to meet their debt obligations.  Eventually, like with Greece and Spain, the other states will have to come to their rescue, but the constituencies of the bailed out states will not allow any fiscal restraint. We will see riots and paralyzed liberal politicians who, like a child whose gambling debt comes due, will be backed into a very uncomfortable corner.  At some point Texas and other productive states will not want to pick up the tab for California.  Secession risk will become real.

The road we are on and where it leads has never been so clear. You don’t need a crystal ball to figure it out, just pick up the paper.  Only a nation that has lost its ability to exercise common sense will be caught by surprise.

Twinkie Update…

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In a column entitled “The Twinkie Manifesto”, Paul Krugman uses the demise of Hostess to make several economic points.  They seem to me to be just as nonsensical as his judgement that the destruction of 9/11 helped the country economically. [ See the Broken Window Fallacy.]

 

The lessons he thinks we should learn from the death of Twinkies include the following:

  • We need stronger unions
  • We need higher taxes on wealthy people.  He suggests 91%.
  • People who think we live in a collapsing nation of moochers need to realize that,  ”the collapsing, moocher-infested nation [Ayn Rand] portrayed in “Atlas Shrugged … was basically Dwight Eisenhower’s America. “

Stronger unions and higher taxes.  That’s the answer.  Krugman says people won’t “go Galt” if you tax them at 91%.  He says they may “work harder than ever”.

Neal Boortz view of the death of Hostess seems to me to be much more sane than Krugman’s.  Boortz writes:

You know the Twinkie story .. and if you don’t, how about some bullet points.

1. Hostess bakeries file a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy petition.  You do not use a Chapter 11 petition to go out of business.  You use a Chapter 11 petition to reorganize your debts and your contracts with unions so that you can survive and stay IN business.

2. After hearings in which all parties, debtors, employees and employee unions have their say, the Bankruptcy Judge grants an order to Hostess allowing it impose wage and benefit changes on employee unions.

3. The Teamsters Union, which represents some Hostess workers, accepts the modifications to its contract with Hostess.

4. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union refuses to accept the changes and tells Hostess to go eat cake.

5. The Friday after Dear Ruler’s reelection the Bakery Union goes on strike.

6. Hostess tells the union that if it is unable to make or ship product from any of its 55 production facilities, it will close those facilities permanently.

7. Early the following week employees at three Hostess production facilities refuse to cross the picket lines.  Those facilities can neither produce nor ship product.

8. Hostess closes those three facilities permanently and fires over 600 employees.

9. Hostess then tells the union that if their workers do not return to work by last Thursday afternoon, it is going to shut down the company, fire 18,500 employees, and liquidate.  For you Obama voters, that means go out of business.

10. The Bakery union takes a vote .. not a private vote, as I understand it .. and decides that they’re going to continue with the strike.  They do not show up for work by the end of the day on Thursday.

11. Hostess files a motion with the Bankruptcy Judge on Friday morning to close down their entire business and to shut down the company. The judge will rule on that motion today.  There is no real legal basis upon which the Judge can refuse to grant’s Hostess’ motion.

12. Union Goon Richard Trumka holds a press conference and blames the entire Hostess mess on …. now get THIS!  … Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.

…[snip] The amazing thing here is that these union goons never seem to understand that they are part of the problem.  I mentioned this in the bullet points above, but here’s your case-in-poing. AFL-CIO goon Richard Trumka responded to the bankruptcy of Hostess and the subsequent loss of 18,500 jobs.  Take a look at his remarks:

What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor. Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price. These workers, who consistently make great products Americans love and have offered multiple concessions, want their company to succeed. They have bravely taken a stand against the corporate race-to-the-bottom. And now they and their communities are suffering the tragedy of a needless layoff. This is wrong. It has to stop. It’s wrecking America.

Isn’t it amazing?  In the mind of a union boss it’s always bad management that drives a company into the ground, not unions.  You do realize, don’t you, that this man Richard Trumka is the man that Obama chose to meet with about the fiscal cliff before bothering to meet with business leaders?  Last Tuesday, Obama met with labor leaders including Trumka about the fiscal cliff.  We will see results of that meeting as soon as this week.  Labor leaders are launching a major ad campaign urging members of Congress to support increasing taxes on the rich and to protect entitlements from cuts.  Here’s how CNN describes the ad campaign …

The groups will argue, using new polling data, that the public does not favor major cuts in entitlement programs like Medicaid, but wants to see a solution to curbing the nation’s deficit based on raising the tax burden on the wealthier parts of the population, as well as policies that encourage job growth.

Let’s raise taxes on those wealthy people, many of whom are small business owners who create the jobs .. yeah, THAT will “encourage” job growth!  Also, just remember what they say about democracy/majority rule: It’s like two wolves and a sheep trying to decide what’s for dinner.  Half of this country doesn’t pay income taxes as it is.  Only about two million American households earn more than $250,000 a year.  So it’s not usual that most people would support these tax increases because odds are it wouldn’t affect them!  Now are you starting to see why a true democracy is so dangerous?

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Charles Martel really slaps you in the face with some straight talk about Republicans and ethnic minorities.  The Big Tent is Empty.

Mark Hendrickson explains the partisan divide between big city folks and those who live closer to reality in the countryside.

Mark Steyn adds to the subject of race-obsessed politics with his column, Tribal America

Jill Kelly apparently seduces generals for both fun and profit.  She is horribly in debt and was allegedly peddling her imaginary influence to businessmen.  She would be a classic candidate for selling secrets and is the reason why people in positions of power need to avoid compromising relationships.

Here is a truly sick and disgusting government program.  In this time of exploding deficits, the Obama administration is working with the Mexican government to increase the use of food stamps by illegal aliens.  Think of it as a Democrat voter registration drive with the cost passed on to your grandchildren:

In honor of Jess’s post on the demise of Twinkies:

From my daughter, Holly:

1)Only in America, could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event.

2) Only in America, could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black while only 12% of the population is black.

3) Only in America, could they have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4) Only in America, can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

5) Only in America, would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just ‘magically’ become American citizens.

6) Only in America, could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country’s Constitution be thought of as”extremists.”

7) Only in America, could you need to present a driver’s license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

8) Only in America, could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

9) Only in America, could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year – for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn’t have nearly enough money.

10) Only in America, could the rich people – who pay 86% of all income taxes – be accused of not paying their “fair share” by people who don’t pay any income taxes at all.

 

 

The Broken Window Fallacy

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Economic illiteracy may be the primary cause of two problems:

  •  bad legislation by politicians and,
  • the willing acceptance of the bad legislation by the citizens.

An understanding of basic economic concepts by the voters would stop many foolish politicians from successfully selling their harmful plans.

Maybe the reason that public education fails to teach basic economic principles is because politicians prefer malleable voters.  Whatever the reason, one of our goals here at realitybatslast.com is to contribute to  the economic literacy of voters.

The bad news is that most people view economics as a dry and boring and very complicated subject.  The good news is that basic economics, the kind that will make us smarter voters, is readily accessible to any thinking person.  And it’s our responsiblity as voters to make the effort to educate ourselves.

One economic fallacy that is everywhere in politics is the Broken Window Fallacy.  See the brief explanation here:

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that property destruction does not increase the wealth of a society.  Property destruction constitutes a net loss of wealth.   It may take a real “expert”, like a Harvard Professor or Nobel Laureate to be foolish enough to think otherwise.

You saw in the video that Paul Krugman said this after the 9/11 attack on New York:

“Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could do some economic good.”

Harvard Professor and former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers said that the terrible destruction of the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami, “may lead to some temporary increments, ironically, to GDP as a process of rebuilding takes place. In the wake of the earlier Kobe earthquake, Japan actually gained some economic strength.”

It’s too bad the earthquake didn’t destroy Tokyo, too.  Think of how much that would have helped.

19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat explained that there are two types of economists:

 ”There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”

We are surrounded by bad economists who tout the visible effects of their actions and think nothing about the less visible consequences.  So called stimulus spending and government job creation schemes fit this pattern.  There is much hoopla about the wonderful spending and little concern about what those dollars would have accomplished if they had not been taken by the government.

Think of it this way.  Imagine a boastful doctor who is giving a man a blood transfusion.  You can see the blood going into the patient and you can hear the Dr. explaining how he is helping.  What a great guy.  What you can’t see is that the blood tube is coming out of the patients other arm, and half the blood is being spilled and wasted in the process.  A patient could die from that kind of help.

Twinkie Tribute

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Our perception of the insidious slide from freedom to tyranny powered by a democratic system which ignores constitutional limits can best be described as that of a slowly boiling frog.  It is important for DC to chip away at our institutions rather than bring in the demolition team.  Proud Americans, like a frog thrown into boiling water, would revolt if we saw politicians take all our freedoms at once…

So, it will be interesting to see how America reacts now that the temperature in our pot shot up from simmer to boil this week.  I am not talking about the realization that our government has taken over the health care system with Obamacare, or that it controls our credit markets with Frank Dodd… I speak of the loss of our collective Twinkie.

Literally, Big Labor just took our Twinkies away from us.  It is not surprising that socialists would target the Twinkie. To our secular society, Twinkies were the closest thing we had to the “opiate of the masses”.   As a society that frowns on heroin usage, the opioid receptors of our brains depended on that creamy filling surrounded by moist cake and yellow #5 for a daily rush.  In a society with BMI’s high enough to make walruses heading north green with envy, letting our Twinkie industry go down was a serious miscalculation.  Where were you in this Chapter 11 Obama!!!  My fellow Americans complain all the time about the not-so-mysterious rattling sound in their Chevy, but I have NEVER heard a disparaging word about the Twinkie…

There really isn’t a generation in my lifetime that hasn’t celebrated the Twinkie as an iconic symbol.  Who doesn’t remember this scene from the 80′s:

Over 20 years later, Twinkies would serve as a motivating influence for life itself in a post-apocalyptic zombie world:

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to give the impression that Twinkies are perfect.  If they were, people wouldn’t have to deep-fry them to get the full daily recommended allowance of calories in one cake:

Needless to say, Big Labor and the Democratic party should be expecting a ton of outrage from Americans. Granted, that could just be three people, but they will be really really angry…

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As a side note, 18,500 people lost their jobs in an economy that probably won’t be quick to pick up ex-Hostess factory workers…

California’s Road To Hell

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Those Golden Bears aren’t doing so well these days:

Not only are the businesses in the Golden State facing the federal fiscal cliff tax hikes next year, but they also get a swift retroactive-tax-hike-kick-to-the-shorts for anything earned this year as well.  When you know a certain number of people are going to leave your state after yet another tax hike, it is good to make it retroactive since people can’t leave retroactively…

There was a great article in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day describing how much the state genuinely despises private sector job creators. Unless, of course, those job creators start “supporting” some of the “business friendly” legislators in congress…

The game of tyranny was described in explicit detail by Ayn Rand over 50 years ago in her novel Atlas Shrugged: In a free society, people can start businesses and succeed without ever knowing their local legislator.  The only barrier to success would be their own ability to create something people want better than a competitor.  Power-hungry rulers recognize that the free system doesn’t allow them to gain power.  The same people who created products that make people’s lives easier, produce jobs, and a create a social ladder for society must be made to look evil so that politicians can lever themselves into the system. The rulers use the tragic human character flaws of jealousy and greed to malign the successful.  The accomplishments of the entrepreneurs are discredited (“you didn’t build that”) and their intentions are painted as exploitive rather than constructive.

Once the democratic (or revolutionary) mandate is achieved with popular consent, the legislators use two powerful tools to gain power: business-crushing regulations and heavy tax structures.  The taxes allow the legislators to look “charitable” by funding a redistribution of wealth and creating an entitled class of reliable voters.  The taxes can also be used to subsidize favored groups like unions and large banks that will then support those in power.  The heavy regulations are used as a gun to the head of business.  Legislators create laws that make it difficult/impossible to do business.  If companies want to survive the taxes and regulations imposed by the government, they must “support” the legislators to gain subsidies and loop-holes.  Anyone not willing to play the game are publicly denounced by the politicians as evil exploiters (Wal-Mart, med tech companies, surgeons, etc) and special taxes/regulations are applied to their livelihoods until they submit.  Once everyone is under the thumb or supported by the government, the rulers have ultimate power.

Am I exaggerating?  In addition to the link above, Joel Kotkin describes how business owners feel about political expression in the following article, “For A Preview Of Obama’s America In 2016, Look At The Crack-Up Of California”. The article describes the consequences of “free speech” for California business. The exact same thing is happening on a national scale in DC.  The system is rigged in favor of the tyrant.  Who is a better bet to give money to:  The politician extolling the virtues of liberty and fighting for your right to pursue it, or the politician saying that he is going to crush you when he gains power so you better pony up to the table? We saw what happened to each side when Obamacare passed.  The med tech companies fought for freedom and now have a special tax just for them.  The pharma companies paid tribute to the master and got branded pharmaceuticals on the formularies of the expanded coverage.  Welcome to the ‘Nanner Republic of America…

The scenario has played over and over and over again throughout history.  Democracy is the most insidious mechanism for tyrants, because it needs/uses the sanction of the very frogs being boiled to work.  Forced or fooled, at least 50% of the frogs have to vote for their own demise. If you feel a little sick to your stomach these days, it is because we can see the “cooks” applying butter and salt to the frogs in California and Europe.  A system we thought only existed in banana republics and “those other countries” is suddenly revealing its true colors much closer to home than we had suspected.

It is getting harder and harder to hide the dire consequences of political tyranny… Especially now that Europe and California are laying it out for us in explicit detail.  California, like the US, was once governed by Ronald Reagan.  That fact makes his foreboding quote all the more powerful:

 

Conceding the Point

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Republicans have their guns blazing, shooting themselves in the foot.  One way that conservatives regularly harm themselves is that they start an argument by conceding defeat.  They take the false premises of the enemy as the starting point of their own argument.  If step one of your defense is to agree with your opponent, you are helping them more than you are helping yourself.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave us an example of this technic on Monday.  He called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” .  He said,  “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

Does he believe that conservative principles of limited government are only good for wealthy people?  This is exactly what his opponents believe and they express it in almost the same way he does.  Jindal accepted and repeated their premise.   If he understood conservative principles, he would argue that liberty and limited government are the keys to prosperity for all.  The stupid party is the party that thinks otherwise, against all evidence of history.

Bill Kristol showed that he accepts the premise of the Democrats when he said a few days ago, “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires  … I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer.”  Why, he wondered, should we “defend a bunch of millionaires”.

Does Kristol not understand what Kennedy and Reagan understood when they argued that tax increases in a recession will slow growth and decrease government revenues.  The argument is not about millionaires.  It’s about rational tax policy.  Why not make that argument rather than concede the argument with the language of the left.

And beyond the tax question, the real problem is wildly out of control spending.  Taxing the 1% even more will not remotely fix our budget problem.  Taxing high earners at 100% would only be a drop in the big, big bucket.  The debt would still be enormous and growing.  That’s the story that needs to be told.

After the election, much of the discussion among Republicans about the Hispanic vote started with the premise that conservative positions are anti-Hispanic.  That is our opponents position exactly.  But is there something racist about wanting secure borders?  Are Mexicans racist for protecting their southern border?  Is it racist to be against a socialist welfare state?  These are not racist or anti-Hispanic positions and we will never out-Democrat the Democrats in pandering on these issues.  Never.  If we say the liberals are right and we favor open borders and expanding welfare, then we have lost the battle at that point.

When you hear a Republican like George Bush say he is a new kind of Republican - a “compassionate conservative”,  you should realize that he is saying that regular conservatism is not compassionate.  That is wrong and is a good example of accepting the premise of your opponents.  Watch for it.  Republicans do it all the time.

One other possiblility to consider is this.  When establishment Republicans say, essentially, “We agree with you Democrats and want to be more like you”, they may mean exactly that.  They are striving to be Democrats-lite.

On Democracy

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There is Liberty, and there are many forms of tyranny.  Democracy is one form of tyranny.  It is another name for mob rule.  Our Founding Fathers understood that clearly and they attempted to control the dangers of democracy by strictly limiting the sphere of government action and by proclaiming that each individual had inviolable rights that were not subject to a vote.

It was a nice try; the best the world has ever seen.  But our government has broken many of the bonds limiting its power.  And our government is increasingly willing to abrogate individual rights, especially property rights.  As our gargantuan government grows, liberty shrinks.

Thomas Jefferson knew history very well.   He knew that the task of limiting the power of government would be very difficult because, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground”.

Even though we often hear that democracy is the ideal form of government, that is simply not true    …at least for those of us who value individual liberty.  Starting with our Founding Fathers and ending with Karl Marx, here are some insights on democracy:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.  John Adams

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.   Thomas Jefferson

The Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.   Thomas Jefferson

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.  James Madison

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.   Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.   James Bovard

All government is, in its essence, organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man.  H.L. Mencken

Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods.   H.L. Mencken

The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that — however bloody — can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.  Lysander Spooner

A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful.     Charles W. Pickering

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.   Theodore Roosevelt

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.    Edmund Burke

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.   Winston Churchill

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.   Winston Churchill

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.   Isaac Asimov

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken

The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse – that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it.  H.L. Mencken

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.   John F. Kennedy

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.   Noam Chomsky

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.  Charles Bukowski

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw

Democracy passes into despotism.    Plato

Democracy is the road to socialism.   Karl Marx

These quotes are not an explanation of what might happen in America if we are not careful.

These quotes are an explanation of what did happen. 

What a Tangled Web We Weave…

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There was a bit of humor in the way Fox news presented the story of the Petraeus -Broadwell affair.  They said that “Broadwell was embedded in Petraeus unit”.  I would say that they had that backwards.

But the idea of this compromising relationship is not funny.  It opens two possible threats to national security.  First, the head of the CIA made himself more vulnerable to blackmail.  Second, secrets may be shared with the mistress that the mistress inadvertently shares.

There is breaking news tonight that the second threat happened in this case; state secrets were shared.  In this case it is partly a threat to national security but mostly a threat to the pack of lies promulgated by the administration.. Broadwell spoke at a University of Denver alumni Symposium last month and said,

“Now I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually had taken a couple of Libya militia members prisoner. And they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back.”

This is stunning information.  Do Hillary and Obama have a secret prison there?  Do you mean the attack wasn’t about a YouTube video? Golly.  Who knew.