Saturday, September 11, 2010

Paul On Large Projects

Comments Paul:

 maybe the model of private equity seeking profit does not easily work for large projects unless a significant partner is the gubment.  The latter needed as a practical matter to levy eminent domain to acquire land where needed, or to cut through a military base, indian reservation, etc.
Quoth I:

I like what Tom Wolfe said in Our House to Bauhaus:  Beautiful architecture is not too expensive, it is only more expensive.  It's a fine trope.  Government involvement is necessary for what we now achieve, but is not necessary to achieve what we need.  Eminent domain is anathema to a free market, and given 1 Samuel 8, I doubt more than a few really want a free market.  But there are alternatives to eminent domain:  the greeks had property tax, and each citizen would assess his own property value, and the tax would be based on that.  Sounds crazy at first, but any stated valuation was at the same time an offer to sell.  In such a tax regime, we would not need eminent domain...  corps would just buy up the land needed, and the market would dictate the route.  And of course, don't get me going on indian reservations and military bases in a republic.  I swoon.

Indeed, the US govt incents what is going on, which ought to incense us all.  I'll say it again, it ain't about cheap labor, it is about cheap management.  My bro-in-law is making astonishing bucks helping foreigners model their oil fields, in so doing, is making tech transfer.  Yes, he is compensated well, but nothing compared to what he is saving his masters.

I think I heard that the chinese were building their own choochoos now...  and would it not be wonderful if they began building railroads in USA.   Again.


Thursday, September 9, 2010

Import Export Trade Data Out

US Census reports imports slightly down and exports slightly up, in a trade data roundup.


Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Six Billion Dollar Swine Flu Hoax

Flu vaccines are being offered again, in spite of the expensive dangerous hoax perpetrated last year by the medical profession. Vaccinations work, but they are dangerous when in govt hands.

We all want to believe doctors are a selfless lot, but they are just as oppressed as anyone else, even more so since they are so highly regulated, and want to go along to get along like anyone else.

Since the Catholic church is the only one that hears confessions of people's sins, they have quite a feedback system on what commonly occurs, and in turn they call to sinners's consciences.  Look what is included with greedy businessmen and greedy lawyers...


Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2537 It is not a violation of this commandment to desire to obtain things that belong to one's neighbor, provided this is done by just means. Traditional catechesis realistically mentions "those who have a harder struggle against their criminal desires" and so who "must be urged the more to keep this commandment":
. . . merchants who desire scarcity and rising prices, who cannot bear not to be the only ones buying and selling so that they themselves can sell more dearly and buy more cheaply; those who hope that their peers will be impoverished, in order to realize a profit either by selling to them or buying from them . . . physicians who wish disease to spread; lawyers who are eager for many important cases and trials. 322

(Although what an individual says in the confessional cannot be disclosed, alarming trends are reported in toto to bishops. In the 1650's Rome was awash with young widows, each whom had confessed poisoning her husband.  Investigations were launched, homicidal apothecaries discovered and arrested, and young widows were whipped through the streets of Rome, dishabille, for their impertinence.)

There are hoaxes throughout history, as outlined in Charles Mackay's book on the subject.  Once they get government backing they are disastrous.  In a free market, there is a free market of information as well, which keeps nonsense in check.

Doctors are getting perturbed that patients, especially parents, are trusting them less and less. With good reason... doctors are irresponsibly following the party line.  We need more doctors constrained by science, not public policy.


New Product Intro - Mag Lev

MagLev transport is the future, and we can use it now to jump start our economy.  Of course, this kind of activity has been usually govt funded, but the govt is happily bust.  So how to do it now?  Free markets, of course.



 I think there is one heck of free market solution to maglev in USA...  Gianni "the torpedo" Fuoco who has 20 acres in Elizabeth New Jersey, and Eddie Feldstein who has 20 acres in Long Beach California should announce the Great American Mag Lev Transport Co... and sell stock to buy up the land across usa to lay down mag lev transport.  Put their map up on the net, and let googlemaps show everyone who has property how they might sell out (or trade their home equity for GAMLETCO stock) ... of course obstinate landowners will find they have been bypassed, but in essence this would be the game.

We need to leapfrog the rest of the world in tech..


It's All Barack's Fault

So the liberal elite is calling Obama a failure, which is a precursor to assigning blame.  This was all so predictable...  wait... I predicted it!  It gets better... the very background of the president that no one checked on before voting, is now being spilled out... on the fringes first, but son enough to the center.  We really do need to pull back government, way back, to say 1990 levels.

Obama had to know this was going to happen, but who cares, he gets to be a US president.  The powers that be need a distraction from what is important, and both McCain and Obama filled the bill.  Either one would have worked (especially with Sarah Palin as Veep... she is HOT!)

AS the powers that be and their media minions entertain us with vaguely racist pontifications, we really ought to not pay attention.  They will know from the internet traffic what you care about.  Read Mish Shedlock and Lewrockwell.com/, and by inference let them know you are not amused with their "blame the black guy" gambit.


Monday, September 6, 2010

Sunday Entertainment a Day Late

For some reason we had this album in our home when I was youth.  It is a Catholic Mass composed within the Bantu musical tradition, with no Western influences whatsoever.  It dawned on me long ago, that there is much good music out there.  But to like it it you have to hear it over and over.  If the airwaves are controlled, then what you like is controlled.  Culture grows and improves when it encounters other cultures,  and in this case the Congolese got the better part of the deal.


Reconquista, No! - Independencia, Si!

It won't do to review a movie I have not seen, nor will I see it, but here is an interesting review of the movie Machete.  It is controversial for themes and portrayals.  It sounds pretty objectionable overall, but the part of the review that lists eugenics-purposed charities as funders is quite interesting. The economic problems we are facing will go better for those who caused the problems if they can get blacks and hispanics to turn on each other, and fool hispanics into thinking violence will gain them anything in USA (or Mexico for that matter.)  Both political parties are ready, willing and able to unleash unspeakable violence on protesters and resisters.  Far uglier than what the reviewer has to say about the movie is the comments section.  Here hatred is being born faster and nastier than any mere movie starring DeNiro and Alba could foment.

The powers that be must have some idea that certain stories cannot be told, especially white-on-black violence.  In Seattle a white kid shot in the back and killed a black kid and the big story is how under-and-misreported the story, focussing on the victim, and his imagined threat and gang membership.  All nonsense.  But not just white on black, white on hispanic, as in a film of a pair of Seattle police officers, surrounded by dozens of others, stomping a kid face down on the ground.  The Fox station sat on the video a couple of months until the station freelancer finally released it himself. (The kid stomped, is named Monetti, but when racism is in play, Italian is close enough for police work.)

Instead of reducing taxes, eliminating stupid regulations, cutting back and largely going away, government and their beneficiaries in law, medicine, education, labor, religion, housing, food, entertainment, and why not, apparel...  are going to play the race card and cut costs and reduce excess productive capacity by fomenting racism and hatred.  That card is in play.

Of course, the free markets have a better way: property rights.  There are no real borders, but there is a USA and there are property owners.  The roads are privately owned, transportation is privately owned, schools and hospitals and hotels and apartments are privately owned.  Anyone with ticket can move across the border, and at the destination if they are welcome it is no business of the government.  if someone from Jalisco wants to work on a farm in Ohio, and a Ohio farmer wants to hire him, why should anyone else care?   It is between the farmer and the worker.  If you want to complain about welfare costs, go back and note I said hospitals are privately owned.  Let the Catholic Church have its hospitals back, and let them worry about sick immigrants, as they once did, before the bishops became welfare queens.  If welfare is a problem, get rid of welfare, not people.

If you are worried about crime, then arm yourself, and learn to shoot well.  May I recommend the this when the criminals are in your driveway, this when they are in your hallway, and this when they are in your bedroom?  If you fear for your safety, don't ask others to pay for yet others to make you feel secure.

Better yet, integrate with the world better, and find you have little to really fear, by becoming self-employed.  Places with high self-employment like Hong Kong and Switzerland, about the same population,  (places where unemployment is dropping) are prosperous and peaceful, and guns apparently do not matter, for Hong Kong citizens have next to none and next to everyone in Switzerland has an equalizer.

And finally, the idea of Reconquista is madness.  Why would Mexicans escaping from that socialist hell want to establish that here?  On the other hand, a third country, based on Jeffersonian free markets, that is independencia, makes sense.  Or at least a free market special economic zone, like Hong Kong, but her in USA.