The Standard Perception of the Wealthy

Today I had a jousting with an individual who goes by the name of Solar on a comments section to a news article (his comments are in quotes):

Trickle down economics primarily benefits the very wealthy, which of course, even further widens the already enormous divide between the very wealthy and everyone else.

How does it affect you that there are a bunch of billionaires in the USA? The only way that it affects you is in your perception that someone out there has more money than you! And that bothers you. Wealth 'inequality' is the product of a successful free market system. It lets those with the hard work, risk tolerance, and ideas thrive.

The socialist system works the other way. It doesn't catapult people from the lower ranks to economic prosperity, but instead prevents everyone from reaching economic prosperity. Now tell me how a system where there is no 'wealth inequality' is a good thing when everybody is poor?

How does it affect me? That's easy: 1. I do not accept that MY air and water belong the David Koach's and Exxon Mobil's of the world to do as they please. MY air and water belong to ME. You hear that? Do not @#$%&! up my environment to put more dollars on your already over-stuffed pockets. Got that? 2. I do not accept that Wall Street has the right to leverage the American dream, i.e., the housing market, then when they lose that over-leveraged bet, look to ME to bail out their miserable @#$%&!. Got that one? Wake up you miserable FOOL! I don't mind billionaires who care about the environment, support legislation to improve the environment, and try to do some good for ordinary people with their money. But I do have a problem with billionaires who buy lobbyists to advocate less consumer and environmental protections. In other words, I have a problem with Republican billionaires. Open your eyes FOOL!

Solar, 1) So what you are saying then is that you'd be okay with bad water as long as the guy running the company isn't rich? If they brought in a poor Chinese manager, then you'd be okay with pollution then? And is Mark Zuckerburg somehow polluting your water that we don't know about? That would make a great headline that everybody would like to know about. Please share.

See, here you are making an absurd accusation that somehow a person being 'rich'' means that they are polluting your water. Oh and by the way, Exxon Mobil is not a person, it is a corporation.

2) It looks as if you continue to move farther away from your original statement. But okay, so you think it is fine if Americans take out loans on everything that they really can't afford, such as over-sized houses, hummers and home equity lines for vacations? And you are okay with the fact that the government mandated through the Community Reinvestment Act that banks have to provide sub-prime loans if they are allowed to service geographic areas? And you are okay with the conflict of interest where mortgage backed securities were created by a government sponsored entity that provided the catalyst for the underestimating of risk to take place?

So once again you didn't prove a point how someone being wealthy negatively affects you.

See you are invoking a logical fallacy that goes along like this: All 'Rich' people like ice cream. All terrorists like ice cream. I hate terrorists, therefore I hate 'Rich' people.

So you think that only Republican billionaires buy lobbyists to do these things, eh? LOL, it is obvious that YOU are the fool!!

Wealth Flight

I came across an article from earlier in the year that details the wealth flight from New Jersey. New Jersey chose to fund its coffers by taxing its wealthy residents and so those residents started leaving the state. This is a good example of what can happen on a grander scale in the United States. Or perhaps instead of Americans leaving, since it takes a lot more commitment to leave one's homeland than simply crossing state lines, wealthy foreigners avoid immigrating here.

Obama and the Deficit

Okay, so we now have proof that Obama is full of crap. Today Bloomberg reported that Obama has added some demands to the bill that would keep current tax rates from increasing come January 1. Before, he was so busy crowing about how by not raising taxes on high income earners, their gained income was going to "cost" the country too much in the form of a higher deficit (see my Oct 2 post). But come today, the deficit doesn't seem to be a problem anymore now that he is making a deal that includes extending the unemployment benefits to infinity which will add another $150 billion (a year?) to the deficit. Remember when Bush a couple of years ago ran a deficit of $445 billion and that was the biggest ever? Well Obama makes even him appear as a tightwad in comparison. When will Obama next embarrass himself about keeping the deficit under control?

Just a TSA thought

What is to stop a terrorist from blowing himself up while he is waiting in the airport security line? Usually there are lots of people around and it would mock the airport security.

TSA Gone Wild!

One poor man has his urostomy bag ripped off his body leaving him covered in urine.

Another lady has her blouse pulled down exposing her breasts to the entire screening area.

You could be arrested for refusing to submit to either scan once you enter the screening area.

And one lady mocks the TSA by stripping down to some transparent underwear... and films it!

An Analogy

Let's say you have a race out in the ocean where the first swimmer to get to the shore gets a new car.

There are a few amateurs and a guy named Peter who has been training for the race for months. Peter is a real go-getter who is really determined and goes after things that he wants. The amateurs, fearing that Peter will have the upper-hand, lobby the race organizers to have Peter penalized. So the race organizers organize a meeting and agree that if they let Peter race unpenalized, they will just be 'giving' the car to him. So they decide that they are going to attach some additional weights to his legs to make the race "fair."

A gun fires into the air and the race begins. The swimmers start splashing and kicking, chugging towards the shore. Peter starts lagging behind the other swimmers due to his exhaustion from the extra weight burden that was placed on him. George, one of the event organizers, fearing Peter will drown decides to give this guy a break. He speeds a powerboat out to remove one of the weights, but leave the other one on so that Peter doesn't have some 'unfair advantage.' The race continues. So at this point do we expect Peter to suddenly run across the water and beat everybody to the finish line because one of the weights was removed? No, of course not. And let's not forget that he still has a weight attached to him.

But the amateurs, looking back because they heard the speedboat racing to Peter, start complaining about Peter being given a break. "Now they are just giving him the car," complains one of the amateurs, "it is so unfair!" But the race continues and Peter starts cutting down the distance between himself and the other racers; His hard preparation is paying off, but he is still quite tired from the extra burden that had been placed on him earlier in the race. He swims past Paul, who is a couch potato and didn't think it was worth any additional effort to prepare for the race.

So Nancy and Barrack, two of the other event organizers, start debating if they should put the other weight back on. Barrack convinces everyone that Peter should have a rope attached in order to tow Paul behind him to make things "more fair" for Paul. "We need to spread the ability around," he says.

Welcome to America.

Obama Understands.

Obama Says Understands Ire Over Airport Screenings?

He's the one that paid for them in his budget!!

"Obama's budget for next year calls for $371 million for 500 more body scanners..."

Naked Body Scanners

So unless you haven't flown on an airplane over the last several years, you are probably aware of new scanning devices that air travelers are subjected to. These devices pummel your body with X-rays which allows an image of your body to be shown to a TSA screener. Critics have likened it to a "virtual strip search" because high resolution images of your most intimate details are exposed. However, I am even highly suspicious of the quality of the images hand released to the press. Usually they provide a tiny 2 inch square on your screen with key zones blurred out. I am quite sure that the resolution is much higher on the TSA's screen.

If one is not comfortable with the naked body scanner, one can opt out for a hand screening instead. Previously, they would pat you down and only touch your buttocks with the back of their hand. The TSA, however, under a guise of "increased security" and instituted an "enhanced pat down" which is a little more invasive and demeaning. Now they use their palms and fingers on the buttocks and groin. Of course, the real reason for this "enhanced" procedure is to make the hand pat down alternative to the naked body scanner much less pleasant. They want travelers to acquiesce to the naked body scan. The TSA claims that only 1% opt out of the scanner, but I am highly suspicious of this number and think they are understating it. They are invoking network effect thinking where if they can convince the public that "everybody else is fine with it" then the rest of the public will accept it as well. The government wants make this scanning device acceptable over time and eventually make it mandatory where one does not have an opt out option.

So whats wrong with the naked body scanners? Aside from the discomfort of knowing that someone is looking at a picture of your naked body and that it may be stored for later viewing, and because TSA screeners are so professional that they will taunt a coworker about the size of his penis after he submitted to scan, or laugh about exposing a traveler's breasts to the entire screening area, there's also the issue of having x-rays beamed at your body. Now of course, the TSA and some research puppets have claimed that it is super safe and that you would have to get 1000 dental x-rays to get the same amount of radiation. Really? It would be more effective to use a more believeable number of say 10 dental x-rays, because I am not buying the 1000 number. And of course, what else are they going to say? Dr. Brenner, head of Columbia University’s Centre for Radiological Research, says that the radiation dose is actually 20 times higher than the official estimate. Other radiological scientists have also called for an independent review because they are concerned with the safety of these machines. They also mention that because the 'safe level' metric that the government uses involves the volume of the entire body as opposed to just the skin, the radiation safety level is understated. Either way, all it takes is a single X-ray to damage DNA which has the potential to cause cancer many years later, and you are having a machine blast your entire body with them.

And this is an early stage device. Time and time again history is looked back upon and mistakes of was considered harmless or good for you which later turned out to be harmful
(remember when smoking was claimed to be good for you? Or drugs that have been given FDA approval, but later were found to cause problems, such as Vioxx). One scientist has estimated that you end up with the same risk of dying of cancer from one of these machines as getting killed by a terrorist.

Then there's the issue that some variants of these machines, like the millimeter-wave scanner, might not even be that effective at exposing certain types of threats. "Material [that] is low density, such as powder, liquid or thin plastic – as well as the passenger's clothing – the millimetre waves pass through and the object is not shown on screen."

The sheeple and naysayers will quip, "Well, if you have nothing to hide..." But this is always a superbly weak argument as it is equivalent to the Ad Ignorantiam logical fallacy. And these scanners encroach on an individual's privacy and freedom to not be seen naked or be subjected to an experience they consider humiliating. Let's not forget how Ben Franklin stated (paraphrasing here) that those willing to sacrifice liberty in exchange for security deserve neither and will lose both.

These devices only give an illusion of additional security, as the naysayers are certainly missing one critical fact: If a terrorist is willing to kill himself to kill others, what is to stop him from placing a stick of dynamite up his ass? What will be next, proctology exams before boarding flights?

A good read by Arthur Laffer, the economist of the "Laffer Curve."

Deficit Commission

There is a proposal out by Obama's deficit reduction commission. From what I have read, it sounds pretty outstanding. A lot of government spending waste is reduced, entitlements are pared back, and tax rates are dropped while simultaneously dropping deductions. But as you read the article you will see why it will never happen: too many vested interests that will fight nearly every aspect of the proposal! These groups are so myopic that real change such as this will never occur in this country. If everyone would work together and look at the big picture, this proposal would have the potential to have a real lasting positive impact on this country. I seriously hope the commission members put this to congress and they vote for it.