Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Liberals Verses Limited Resources

If everyone in the world was enabled to live as we do in the advanced world, there would be one problem. Not enough resources to go around.

On the other side, have you noticed that with Liberals, there is a solution to any problem that faces mankind?

We often point to the bottle with a banana inside and a few fruit flies with a cork in it. Lets just take a city like Los Angeles. How many days would it take to evacuate the city if everyone was ordered to leave? Answer, about 8 to 10 days if fuel trucks could continue deliveries. Or how many days could you survive in Los Angeles if it was not being supplied with food? Maybe 20 to 30 days. How far will a tank of gas take you if the roads are jammed with stalled cars? How many people might all of a sudden want to shop at your home for food to eat?

We don’t think about things like this. But it could happen from several different corridors. A massive bank failure could paralyze food deliveries nationwide. Why would a truck driver, drive a load of food from NY to LA, if he had no way to be paid? A massive power outage could limit communications for several years. There is only one company in the US making power transformers and I am told it would take 20 years to replace them all. One good solar flare and we are back in the dark ages again.

We have reached certain limits of supply, that demand things continue in a normal fashion, for our standard of living to continue uninterrupted without glitches. The average liberal has no idea of what logistics is all about. Unlimited Government funding, ready access to fuel, food, water, and housing are assumed as a given, for any area. But what if they aren’t? Reality will set the tone. Three fourths of the world cannot afford political philosophies like Liberalism in their daily life, dreams don’t pay the bills.

We as a nation need to comprehend that our consumption of resources is so intense, that there is no way we can offer this life style to the rest of the world. The reason being, our standard of living must drop to accommodate them.

Liberals don’t realize is that most problems without any help, work themselves out very successfully given time. You still have the flask; the banana is gone and fruit flies are all dead. Funny how global warming was the perceived problem when in reality it has always been overpopulation.

Our national debt just hit 21 trillion dollars. Has anyone bothered to ask, who the government borrowed the money from? The answer is they borrowed it from banks and retirement funds. They borrowed it from people who saved money. If you are worried, talk to a Liberal to calm your nerves. Everything is under control. That last straw to break the camels back is probably years away. Probably while you are retired enjoying the good life.

The Liberals are going to give this country away, and I haven’t figured out who they are going to give it to yet. But I do know, if you if you are approaching retirement, a decent shopping cart to store your belongings in is highly desirable; now might be a good time to start looking for one.

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Economics a Flawed “Science”

Trump just issued import quotas on Steel and Aluminum. And then you hear the press talk about trade wars and I am mentally reviewing my 3 semesters of advanced economics. I kind of nod my head but then I remember back to the birth of this country, up to World war I and reflect that tariffs are what funded the Federal Government.

I’ve looked at several economic models and the theory behind them and often marveled at what is holding these bubbles up in place. You throw up you hands and throw in the towel, what makes sense shouldn’t and what shouldn’t violate the models.

Somebody once said that Astrology was made a science so that they could also include economics as a science. If you think about it, economic theory is almost 99% an explanation of what went wrong and why during financial and economic collapses. It in no way explains where we are right now.

A trade war has economic implications that in most cases is undesired. At the same time, a country’s inability to produce steel to support a war could lead to it being conquered by a country with a large steel base. Our country has literally trashed steel production as a part of GDP. Remember Bethlehem Steel or US Steel? They built the ships that won World War II.

Any way we look at all of these economic revelations, is the assumption that tariffs will ruin trade. We have been turning a blind eye to the blatant trade violations of the rest of the world. Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that probably the USA is the largest consumer of Chinese dry wall in the world and the trouble is, it isn’t dry wall that we are buying, but prescription drugs stuffed full of calcium sulfate dehydrate (gypsum). You buy a Fram oil filter and the name is miss spelled or the directions make absolutely no sense.

We hear that Europe will ban blue jeans and Jim Beam Kentucky bourbon. Why don’t we just set 1000 BMW’s and 1000 US Cars in a group and say you can import 1 to 1. And of course, you cannot forget the VAT tax. Net result, our cars and theirs will not sell.

The net thing we need to realize is that over the long haul of history, economic theory works. The trouble is over the short term is that it is abused to create a desired outcome that can have very bad consequences in the future. It has been glossed over for the last 30 years.

The science of Economics is not exact. It can only judge the past. It’s a mistake to try to use it to portend the future.

Let’s back off and give President Trump his earned 4 years to do his magic –economic theory be damned.

Monday, March 05, 2018

Gun Ownership

You want to buy a gun. Well by god, you had better fill out all of the required paper work and go through a background check. And then you get the gun of your choice. Everyone upon turning legal age, has the right to purchase a weapon if they have not yet committed a crime.

Of course, if your dad bought a gun or two, the kids don’t need to register to get their hands on the weapon if they want to use it.

If Grandpa dies with several nice weapons, grandma could sell them to a gun dealer at about 20 cents on the dollar or go out and find friends of her husband that would want to own them at a reasonable price. The unrealized condition here is that this gun is worth far more money to any gun purchaser because it is untraceable at this point.

The real problem I see is a rifle that can shoot more than 6 rounds. If you are stupid enough to unleash 20 rounds at neighbors during civil unrest, guess what they will do? They will burn your house down with you in it. Shotguns tend to more of a deterrent to violence, for the main reason, you don’t have to be a good shot, you’ll rarely discharge it.

I wonder how many of the gun records show people over the age of 100 still owning guns? Kind of makes you wonder what happens to those guns after the person dies. It looks like the kids inherit the weapons. Sadly, there is nothing the state can do to control the passage of guns to next of kin at death.

I would be for banning hand guns. A couple of drinks and you could end up in jail for life. Same for Assault rifles. Our youth tends to learn this the hard way. But shotguns and regular rifles for hunting game with up to a six-load magazine capacity seem acceptable for just about anyone I can think of.

Two things we need to look at. Why do we need semi-automatic rifles? Animals do not shoot back. And second, if you missed it with the firsts shot, does that mean the target may shoot back? If the answer is yes, then you can pretty well determine that the hunter and the hunted were both human. That’s why some shooters need the better rifle and more ammunition. More ammunition takes into account that they are a piss poor shot. The big lesson overlooked here, this shooter is someone who wants enough ammunition that they can kill you after you run out of ammunition. Not sure how you weed this person out of society.

The sad thing to realized is that there is no real effective legislative control of the gun user.

I do think that there should be a move to eliminate military ammunition that can be used in rifles and get rid of clip loading rifles. None of us that buys a gun to protect our family wants a round that will go through two homes before it stops.

What we need to define is Military and Civilian weapons, they are not one and the same. And of course, I have always defined our right to bear arms as those that were in effect in 1789. Ever try to hold up a store with a flint lock pistol?