Sight Seeing at the Fiscal Cliff

Boy its a long way down. 

The neologism of the "fiscal cliff" is pretty powerful.  Good(ish) economy up here.  Bad economy down there.  Tax cuts expire, government spending stops, and so-on to a tune of 600 billion that will be such a drag on the economy that it will seem to have plunged off a cliff.

I can't say I'm that worried about the so called "Fiscal Cliff."  Obama will raise taxes.  That battle was lost on election day.  Republicans caved last time and extended the problem until now.  Nothing has changed, so get on with it.

Unless the Republicans plan a stunning suicide move, then there is nothing to worry about.  Do they think that America is better off without them?  If so then by all means jump off the cliff.  You could gamble that people would forget who jumped, or more likely it would give Obama his second excuse for a second term of a dismal economy.

How does it make sense to jump to stop someone from pushing you over?  It must be hard with Pharaoh shouting "FORWARD! FORWARD!" Obama is king now, though I think Pharaoh suits him better (fair-O). Let Pharaoh Hussien rule this economy. 

The economy is toast under Obama anyway.  The Eurozone is posting negative growth and so is Japan.  I know we are going down to the bottom one way or another, but still I'd prefer to take the stairs. 

Another Great Green Debate

I like Alex Epstien.  He thinks the same way that I do and he's working hard to change the way other people think.

This time he's gone up against Bill McKibben, a leading warmist though not a scientist.  He's got the entire debate on YouTube and I'm happy to post it here.  Its about 1.5hrs in its entirety.



Having watched the whole thing, I have to be fair and say that Alex lost this one.  I agree with Epstien 100% on the substance of his argument, but McKibben appeared to own the subject while Epstien was visibly nervous and compensated by measuring his speaking cadence.  The overall effect is to undermine the power of his message: that fossil fuels are essential to our way of life. 

When I judge a debate, I try to imagine how a complete stranger to the subject would be swayed by the dialog.  The average person isn't expecting isn't expecting spin and obfuscation so merely the appearance of confidence will give this debate to McKibben.

He did really well in his first debate with Greenpeace so I'm not sure what happened.  Pressure can do that and McKibben is a much bigger fish than the Greenpeace guy was.  I'm sure Alex will grow into it and be a regular Ezra Levant in no time.

McKibben's ideas are nonsense of course.  Its simply impossible to implement what these eco-nuts talk about: a forced abandonment of civilization for the sake of some mollusks breeding in the dark. 

The most the eco-nuts will ever accomplish is to seize control of our industrial society.  Even the stupidest mis-educated liberal blogger would tie the noose themselves when you turned off the power for a month.  The eco-nuts will be able to give the stamp of approval to those who pay tribute to them and accede to their demands.  They would be become a ruling class by their power to bless one "polluter" and condemn another. 

I know people get turned off by "conspiracy theories" but I'm a systems guy and this is how I see this system coalescing from the different players involved.  It doesn't require a Central organizer to emerge.  The various players, the activists, the politicians, even the scientists, recognize their own role and self coordinate to their own benefit.  The system emerges. 

Its happened before.  Call them Bishops or Commissars or Lords.  The environmental consultants of the future will have the same power over society as the former ruling classes.

This is why I believe Alex Epstien and the Center for Industrial Progress among others are doing important work to keep us all free.  Remember that the concept of individual liberty is an aberration in Human history.  Powerful natural human tendencies are at work to stratify society into distinct impermeable classes once again.

I Remember

I'm lucky not to remember any wars personally.  I'm lucky because of the people who, even now, have put themselves harms way for me. 

For a time these great citizens give up thier freedoms to serve the Crown and project our national will wherever it leads.  For some it leads to the ultimate sacrifice.  Our debt to them is too great to describe.  All these noble heroes ask in return is we honor them and thank them.

Thank you.

What I remember on Rememberance Day are Rememberance Days past.  I remember the cold rainy ones in front of Cenotaphs where only Legion members, Cadets and thier Officers would show up.  Seeing those old veterans there in the weather with thier medals dripping and their eyes dry and alert; the memory gives me great comfort.  There is deep and enduring strength in the people of this land. 

Parents, put your kids in Cadets.  I can't tell you enough what a great experience it was for me.  Rememberance Day is just one example of the invaluable life lessons that a Cadet is exposed to.  Citizenship, athleticism, and skill building are a few of the benefits to a teen in the Cadets.  They can learn to fly, sail and shoot.  They learn self confidence and pride.  They are sent to far flung corners of Canada. 

Myself, I spent many fine summers at RMC learning to sail.  I went to Greenland, and Resolute Bay and Iqaluit with the Coast Gaurd.  I was on the Range Team, the First Aid Team, Both Drill teams, Sheer-legs team, the Band, became Chief of the corps.  What a fantastic time it was.  All of it paid from donations and the government.

My parents were immigrants and didn't have any extra money for hockey or whatever.  I went farther and did more in my than many others my age on a shoestring budget. 

It shaped who I am:  A Canadian Citizen and Patriot.  That is how I remember on November 11th.  I remember how good this country has been to me and that it cost some heroes everything so I could live in it.

America Deserves Obama

Obama won.  Americans lost.  Oh well.

I wanted Romney to win, not for Romney, but for me.  -for we.  We all do well when they do well.  Economics is pretty simple.

This isn't the end.  Mark Steyn has it wrong.  A negative "hockey stick" is just as improbable as the positive ones.  We never hit the asymptote.  That is we fly right past where its supposed to be.  Time is the x axis and time never stops.  So if the area behind the asymptote is undefined then we know that infinite exponential curves plotted along a time axis, positive or negative, will always be wrong.  Always.  Another variable always intrudes on our simple little graphs to change the outcome.  The curves either plateau or they crash. 

Obama will not be the end.  Obama will be their Pierre Trudeau.  An icon of an age and then everyone will agree he was wrong on most everything.

Obama put ~$1,000,000,000,000 on the American credit card in the first term.  There is only one direction that number will go.  He is raising taxes across the board with Obamacare and still plans to tax job creators.  He stepped in to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline twice for political reasons that seem to have paid off.  All the while the economy suffers.

This might sound like partisan campaigning but I'm sorry the problems above are not going away.  These are real problems caused by Obama.  Binders, Bain Capital and Big Bird, those are going away forever because they were never there.  Smoke and mirrors.

Socialism ends in misery my fellow Humans.   

Europe is in tatters.  The Middle East is burning (still).  China is building ghost cities with slaves.  The United States is blind and stupid.  I just can't see how any of this will be resolved painlessly.

The affirmative action presidency is just not up to the job.  I think what Americans really wanted was a mascot when they picked Obama.  Oh well.  What else can I say?  Some kids don't learn until they get punched in the face.

The invisible hand of markets is going to be a fist next time around.

I think the world economy is hooped.  America's credit card is maxed out.  They are incapable of slowing down their spending rate, nevermind staying below the "Fiscal Cliff" credit limit.  Then they print money, thereby increasing the need to borrow even more because that money doesn't buy what it used to.  Then you have government spending on pet projects that creates false demand that raises prices for real profitable private businesses.  Don't forget the borrowing for the spending and interest on borrowing that all has to be paid with taxes someday. 

This is a flushing toilet bowl.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out this is a recipe for negative growth. 

The only way to overcome this is with a booming private economy that grows so much it pays these extra costs without blinking.  Do you see that happening?  What kind of an economy can make a trillion borrowed dollars feel like nothing?   Not this one.  No sir.  This is an artificial economy propped up by deficit spending and low interest rates.  You want unsustainable?  Look at current fiscal policy around the world.

Oh well.  I still have my xbox. 

I hope I'm wrong about it all.  I'll tell you this though: I will be contributing as little as possible to this economy.  I've set myself up to cruise to my destination with fuel to spare.  I can afford to lose some altitude and climb back later.  I've built that into my flight plan on account of the massive obstacles ahead.  I encourage you to think about your flight plan and watch out for mount Obama.