Cue the Sharks...

Any proposal to "privatize" a portion of the Social Security program is met with pitchforks and torches from the Left. They kvetch about gambling with the old folks' money in the stock market. However, they feel it is perfectly reasonable to lure savers and investors into the promise of a "guaranteed annuity" from the Gummint in exchange for taking their IRAs and 401(k) accounts to plug the federal debt, or to purchase annuities from that bastion of financial strategery, AIG. Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara consider where this may lead.

Some Social Security Math.

Just a point of reference for understanding what is reasonable in the discussing Social Security reform: under the present system, consider a person enters the workforce at 25, with a starting yearly income of $20K, an annual raise of 5% (inflation + merit), and an employee+employer deduction for Social Security of 12.4%, using the current cap of $106,800. Upon retirement at 65 the citizen will have a personal savings of about $290K. The retiree living to 85 will then have a monthly income from this savings of about $1210.

Now, allow this stagnant savings be partially invested (like the federal employee program) such that it results in an annual return of just 2%. The personal savings after forty years will be $390K, for a monthly income (assuming no additional growth) of $1625, more than 30% higher than the stagnant system. Assuming a 1% return on the savings will result in a personal savings of $335K. Of course, these calculations assume that the government didn't spend the money on something else, i.e., they didn't steal it.

The Rant Heard 'Round the World.

February 19, 2009: the day we finally said: NO! It's not about birth certificates, secret socialist plans, or all that other nonsense. It is about preserving the greatest economy in history by insisting on responsibility by individuals, corporations, and the government. The true message is not partisan, it's about accepting some very bitter medicine: serious and painful reform on all government spending, entitlements and otherwise, living with one's means, and allowing the market to reckon with foolishness.

GOP: Come Out Swinging.

The President has asked for a sit down with GOP leaders on healthcare. Call his bluff: come in with a lean, free-market plan that solves the problems that all agree upon.

Oh, If Everyday Could Be a Snowday!

The Gummint will be closed tomorrow because of "The Big Snowjob" (not to be confused with "The Budget Freeze", but the latter does possess qualities of the former). Perhaps Mother Nature can do what the Congresscritters can't: restrain the growth and spending of the federal government.

Walking with Brahms.

The University of Michigan's Music faculty perform recitals regularly; this afternoon featured Brahms's Piano Quartet in A Major, Opus 26 (1862). The opening, Allegro non troppo, carries one away to wet, windswept ridge (well, that's where it carried us). Here is part of the opening, as performed by Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet.

The Truth That Nobody Dares To Speak.

Except for David Rosenberg, as reprinted by one of the best financial websites in the world, Minyanville:

The current level of US outstanding nonfederal debt is $27 trillion, which is astounding both in absolute terms and even more so relative to nonfederal GDP -- a 206% ratio. It is down fractionally from the 208% peak, but here is the rub. If mean-reversion means that we get back to some norm of the 1990s, then we are talking about the need to extinguish $8 trillion of nonfederal debt. The only question is how this happens, not if. If we’re talking about mean reverting to the very stable trend of the 1960s and 1970s, then the credit contraction is very likely to exceed $11 trillion.

How do you extinguish debt? Well, most households do so by deferring new purchasing in favor of paying off previous purchasing. Credit will continue to be tight, regardless of government machinations to make it otherwise. Therefore, we're not expecting the consumer to stampede the stores anytime soon. This is going to be a long, painful recovery, but it was a heck of spree that got us to this point.

The Definition of Insanity.

Small businesses not expanding? Well, let's give them the Subprime Special!

Speaking of Fannie and Freddie... - Stephen Spruiell - The Corner on National Review Online

Bill Gates, Red China Doll.


Bill Gates has pooh-poohed concerns about internet censorship in Red China (yes, we still think that way), undercutting Secretary of State Clinton calls for greater freedom of expression there and Google's claims that Red Chinese operatives have conducted cyber espionage against its employees. Gates claimed that internet censorship in Red China is "limited", comparable to internet restrictions that exist in other countries, and easy to bypass. "[And] so you've got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you're in, or not?" said Mr. Gates. Yes, Mr. Gates you certainly have asked the right question. Alas, throw another industrialist on the Totalitarian Collaborator Pile.

Piracy on the Internet Sea.

The Financial Times reports that hackers are targeting friends of Google workers, compromising their social networking accounts to lure the Google personnel into clicking on their spyware links.
The source of these attacks? From the article: "the evidence pointed to a government-sponsored effort that only large spy agencies or perhaps some of the most advanced big companies could have withstood, experts said. China on Monday described accusations it was behind cyberattacks as 'groundless'."

It is our opinion that China is engaged in economic warfare through a massive effort to steal proprietary information, and refusing to adhere to world-accepted agreements on intellectual property and trade (note the recent steel dumping episode). Our dependence on their "beneficience" in buying our debt cripples our ability to retaliate in force.

Preztel Tax Policy.

Larry Kudlow asserts that the "Bank Tax" is just blatant crony capitalism. We agree:
Obama Rewards Losers, Punishes Winners by Larry Kudlow on National Review Online

An Apocalypse.

Official sources are now estimating 140,000 dead in Haiti. God, please clear a path of rescue for these poor people.

The Volt's Electric Appetite.

Electric cars are being offered as die Wunderlösung to solve our transportation system's dependence on petroleum. But what would the wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles require in terms of increased electricity production?

We will take as a representative electric vehicle the Chevy Volt. The Volt is expected to operate such that it will consume 8 kW-hr to provide 40 miles of driving (which is a reasonable assumption for a day's mileage of a passenger car). The total distance driven in passenger cars and light trucks in the United States in 2008 was about 2.4T miles. If half of that distance were to be driven in Chevy Volts, the total required electricity to support this yearly travel budget would be about 240M MW-hr.

Note that the total electricity generated in the US in 2008 was about 4.2B MW-hr, so we would need to increase our generation capacity by about 6% to support the widespread use of electric vehicles. In terms of electric-power generation plants, this would mean we would need to build either 20 new nuclear-fueled plants, or 60 more coal-fired plants. This is a substantial investment in infrastructure; a typical coal-fired power plant runs about $1B to build. By the way, using the effective yearly output from a 2MW wind turbine, the number of turbines one would need to provide this electricity would be about 40,000 at a cost of about $120B just to install the turbines. Good luck with that.

One could argue that the energy needs for electric vehicles could be met with the present inventory of generating plants combined with an diligent electricity conservation program. Maybe, but it will take some fancy footwork when combined with the needs for increased electrical power to support robust economic growth.

Then there's the matter of the onerous cost of electric vehicles, but that's another detail the Ultragreen crowd likes to sweep under rug.

Thank God It's Friday!

A Young Man's Return to God.

Our reading so far has told of his retreat from Christian belief, through a modus operandi that was all too familiar from our own adolescence: Creeping Pessimism. The journey of a kindred soul!

Christmas Eve, 2009.

Titus 2:11-14: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

God, we know we can be a better people. We thank you tonight for providing the light for our path to you.

(Medieval stained glass depicting the Nativity, Claremont Cathedral, France)

Cody, Our Beloved Brittany Spaniel, 1999-2009.

(shown here with Grandpa, Thanksgiving 2009)

"The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

"If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death".

George Graham Vest - c. 1855

A Pavlovian Response.

On the Cigar Afficionado forums we recently read of a comrade, enjoying a Hoya de Monterey in Maine's great outdoors, confronted by some indignant dowagers who claimed that the odor of his cigar had wrecked their soiree some twenty yards away. Our friend went to great lengths in hydrodynamical and micro-climatical analysis to determine that in no way could the aroma of his stogie have reached the ladies in perceptible concentrations. To which we replied:

"The actions by the Ladies of Disapproval had nothing to do with any real olfactory sensation. They saw you smoking. They have been trained by the Mass Culture, much like Pavlov's dogs, to associate the visual cue of cigar smoking with disgusting smells, and so their brain invented a reaction. You should have asked them to play a game of solitare, waited for the Queen of Diamonds to appear, and reprogrammed them.

"In these times with so few predilections for which the State permits its citizens to possess reservations that when one comes along, such as cigar smoking, where the State actually sanctions disapproval you can expect persecution with a ferocity not unlike the burning of witches."

Another State-sanctioned persecution? Perhaps consider the previous post...

An Appeal to Heaven.

Recently, we have been reacquainted ourselves for the joys of hunting and the shooting sports. In the course our adventures we have also rediscovered the enormous separation between the stratum of our society that enjoy and cherish their rights to firearms possession and that which regard these rights as tasteless, immoral, and threatening; something to be suppressed for the good of all.

As our society falls deeper under the spell of lawyers, ersatz TV-psychologists, behaviorists, and social engineers, we fear the pressure to solve our "problems" by racheting up gun control laws will become unstoppable. It certainly is a far easier to do so than to address the deeper problems of pandemic personal disfunction and the enabling milieu.

So When Can We Call It Terrorism?

Victor Davis Hanson provides sobering context for the attack at Fort Hood:

...some 20 other [Islamist] killers [besides Hasan] since 9/11 [who] have shot, stabbed, or run over innocents at malls, airline counters, military facilities, and Jewish-affiliated centers.

We have wondered with incredulity how the elites in the West could have been so silent about the total evil of Stalinism. Are we reliving those times?