Hello Again

Several of you have e-mailed and complained over the last several months that I haven't blogged in a long time. What started out as a short break turned into these 4 months. I started down a philosophical rabbit trail that kept going and going.

More specifically, my religious beliefs and my economic beliefs, which had been mostly separate, began to converge. When push came to shove, it was my politics that failed. Not the accuracy or my general embrace of libertarianism and Austrian economics, but my zeal failed. It failed because I realized I believed in a utopia that could never be. Human nature simply will not allow it.

I am hoping to blog more regularly, but there will be a significant change in direction. My writings will mostly deal with Christianity and philosophies that surround it, although I'm likely to dabble in politics and economics as well. I have recently been greatly influenced by Nobel Laureate economist Frederick Hayek, philosopher and author C.S. Lewis, and the theologian Francis Shaeffer.

Do not be mistaken that this will be a blog that defends the Christian status quo. Some will find it irreverent, blasphemous, shocking and appalling. Serious problems exist within modern Christian culture and plenty of traditions need to be wrecked. Don't worry, I'll also hammer a few silly atheists along the way.

Video of a British Evisceration

Whenever I happen to watch members of the British Parliament I am embarrassed by the lack of comparative eloquence of American politicians. It is little wonder that England birthed so much literature and poetry. You may have seen this video clip already (it was on Sean Hannity's show last night), but just in case you haven't, it's brilliant. Daniel Hannan simply eviscerates British P.M. Gordon Brown.

How to Think About the AIG Bonuses

As a member of the financial services industry, I just want to make a few disclaimers:

I have never received any bonus from my employer. I own no stock in any particular financial firm outside of shares included in general mutual funds. I know few specific details beyond what you can read in a newspaper.

Having said that, I think that the bill that passed the House is absolutely hurrendous. If this doesn't fall under Bill of Attainder, I don't know what does. From the outside looking in, many activities within a company or industry can seem idiotic, immoral, etc... Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't.

Bonuses are paid as compensation so that managment level employees care about the future of the company. If not for this kind of mechanism, an employee will often view the employer as merely a means to a paycheck. If the company fails they only face the nuisance of finding another job. Without paying some kind of retention bonus, employees would be leaving by the droves. This would leave the mess to a skeleton crew comprised of individuals who are less attractive to other potential employers. Banning retention bonuses would not have fixed anything, only made them worse. Many financial firms will fail without some of this high priced talent.

Why do they get paid so much? I don't know. I've never understood why they were paid so much. But, I also don't understand why someone would buy a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse. Clearly someone thinks it's worth a lot or they wouldn't pay for it. Their pay may be excessive, but the general concept is a sound one that is not often understood outside of the financial services sector.

The precendent that this sort of legislation creates is an awful one. No company is safe that has any deals with the federal government. Any company can face confiscation of property based merely on political theater and not the tradition of the rule of law.

As an illustration to my brother, I used his particular industry. He works as a manager of a fast food restaurant in Oklahoma. From the outside looking in, there are certain routine acts that could be manufactured into an outrage.

I can see the headline now: "Burger company throws out thousands of pounds of food every week!" This food could go to feed the homeless, or to charge the customer less. What a bunch of wasteful and lazy people who work there!

At the company everyone is perplexed. Of course we have to throw food away. Sometimes it goes bad. Sometimes French fries get stale and burgers get burned. No one would eat them. Someone returns a burger because we missed that they requested no onions. Who wants a burger that's been rifled through by another customer. We have to throw it away. We work tirelessly to keep costs down by not throwing out food.

Our politicians and media personalities refuse to dig deeper than superficially to consider the consequences of their over-reactions. Facts don't matter, only rage in the New America. Once we cower to the mob once, the mob expects blood everymore. Let us not devolve into Jacobins.

A Note to All My Readers

FYI - There seems to be some unwritten rules about self-promotion on blogs, and I want to dispel some of them for my blog.

If you have written something on your blog that relates to the topic of my post (for or against), feel free to write a short blurb and post a link to your post in the comments. If you see an article that relates to my post (for or against), feel free to write a short blurb and post a link to that article.

A Pretext for Oppression

I've tried to express to some friends my concern of how bad Barack Obama's administration could be. I have been shocked over these last months to see the personality cult that has grown around him. I have been saddened over the massive movements he has made towards European style socialism. I have been distressed by comments he, Rahm Emmanuel, and other Democrats have made that reveal their lust for power as they drive my beloved country towards another failed experiment with statism. The question of "Where will this end?" fuels the saddest parts of my imagination.

I fight my darkest fears by trying to convince myself that this will all blow over in a few years. They will overreach and economic liberty will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of our future years of economic malaise. I quell my worst fears because I can not see any reason that we are moving towards anything, but slightly bigger government and higher taxes.

Then, I see comments like this from Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton:

Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.

If someone this powerful and this influential is building the case that the opposition is filled with Nazis, where does this end?

How To Cure a Leftist

Much to my chagrin, many Americans have become so besotted with pragmatism that the ability to decipher between freedom and socialism has been dulled by an ignorance of principles that would otherwise expose the ugly brutishness that is the logical end of even quaint collectivisms. Of course, there is no cure for an ardent leftist, or an ardent adherent to almost any ideology, much as a Red Sox fan who has tattooed “Yankees Suck” to his chest is beyond repair. The hope lies in inoculating those in the muddled middle whose personal philosophies are a grab bag of cliché’s and just-so’s.

In my attempts to persuade, I have come to realize is that if you present a principle or axiom with which someone cannot break down they will likely adopt it. Mind you, not everyone immediately cleaves from logical contradictions flowing from other assumptions they hold, but it allows a partial conversion. An added convenience is that my experience has been that people are usually open to a conversation about principles in the abstract. Instead of debating with them the most recent political headline, burrowing down to the underlying principles can avoid some hostility due to party allegiances and other sentiments attached to politics.

Another angle is to cast doubt on their assumptions. I have started to listen more intently during discussions to see if they state some imperative or “it is just so” comments. Questioning these comments can be more fruitful towards changing minds.

Don’t be confused that these are easy targets. First, you have to know what these assumptions are to hear them spoken in conversation. Secondly, you have to know how to deconstruct these arguments. And finally, be aware that people can be as passionate about certain principles as they are about politics.

Over the coming weeks I plan to detail some conversations that I have with people who will remain anonymous, but should help shed some light on what I perceive is going on in their heads when they say what they say.

Note – As you read my posts you will eventually notice that I almost never use the term “liberal” when referring to those on the Left. There is little that is liberal about the Left, and I will not confer such an exaggeration to them.

Is America Getting Angry At Obama? Exhibit A

If you haven't seen this rant by Rick Santelli of CNBC, I highly recommend it. In it, he rails against Obama's new housing plan and all the stupidity coming out of the White House. Near the end he recommends a "Chicago Tea Party" in revolt against what the government is doing. The traders in the background of the Chicago Board of Trade are cheering him on.

One man's rant does not make a trend. But, if you look at the poll...

Notice the mere 221,533 responses? Wow!

Three Cheers for Ideology

Seemingly for the American Left, destroying economic freedom is their raison d'etre. As pretext for their invasion of our pocketbooks, they have fabricated weak evidence that allowing "too much" freedom is to blame for our current economic problems. The alleged failures of capitalism are everywhere.

One problem: The minor exception of Texas.

Ah Texas, without a single Democrat holding a statewide office in over a decade. Texas, with a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature. Texas, with 9 of 9 Republican state Supreme Court justices. Texas, with no income tax. Texas, with light regulation and lightly planned cities. Where else in America could the economic failures of free market ideology be on greater display?

Only Texas doesn't seem to cooperate with the presuppositions of Obama's new statism. I have written about the massive budget surplus here. I have written about Texas' FALLING home foreclosure rate here and here. And how Texas has the 2nd most free economy in the U.S. here.

Today, Tory Gattis at his blog HoustonStrategies links to an article here, and a list here, that demonstrates the results of free market ideology in Texas.

The first, is an article at EcoHome Magazine that lists the 15 healthiest housing markets in the United States:

1. Houston, TX
2. Austin, TX
3. Fort Worth, TX
4. San Antonio, TX
5. Dallas, TX

Wow, Texas takes the Gold, Silver, Bronze, Honorable Mention and the Participant ribbons. Surely light land regulation had nothing to do with this at all!

The second link is a list of #1 rankings given by various publications for Houston and Texas.
Some selections are below.

Houston:

Best City to Live, Work and Play Kiplinger's Personal Finance — July 2008
Best U.S. City to Earn a Living Forbes.com — August 18, 2008
Best City for Recent College Grads Forbes.com — June 26, 2008
Fastest Job Growth (11/07 to 11/08) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment – January 4, 2009
Lowest Cost of Living Among Major Metro Areas ACCRA Cost of Living Index — Second Quarter 2008
Largest IT Service Economy Onforce, Inc. (VoIP Monitor) – December 5, 2008
Top U.S. Manufacturing Cities Manufacturers' News Inc. (as reported in the Houston Business Journal) — May 30, 2008

Texas:

America's Top State for Business CNBC.com — July 2008
Most Favorable Business Climate in the Nation Development Counsellors International (DCI) — "Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing" — July 2008
Best State To Do Business Chief Executive Magazine — January 2008
[Most] Fortune 500 Headquarters Fortune Magazine - April 2008
U.S.'s Top Exporting State WISERTrade — February 2008

I'm sure this is all coincidence and probably due to some evil conspiracy by George W. Bush, but I'm willing to wager (literally) that Texas' unemployment rate will be lower than in California and New York for at least the next two years.

Mexico Converting to English

Surprisingly, the contents of this article from the Houston Chronicle did not make much news in the United States as far as I could tell.

Mexico launches effort to teach its students English

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico — With its economy increasingly hitched to the United States, Mexico’s government has launched an ambitious plan to teach English to every schoolchild, even those in kindergarten.

Given that one of the common complaints iterated by anti-immigration adherents is that Mexican immigrants can't speak English and don't even try, this should be an interesting development. Does this pressure the U.S. to be bilingual as well, or does it take pressure off, now that our largest neighbor is determined to make English speaking skills more common?

Will Obama Get the Blame for Afghanistan?

It has been mentioned for months, but I hadn’t seen any data until recently. The chart below is the number of American combat deaths by month in Afghanistan fom Icasualties.org



According to ABC’s Jake Tapper’s Politcal Punch: (HT: EPJ)

As the U.S. military under the Obama administration increases efforts in Afghanistan and the surrounding region, there will be more American casualties, Vice President Biden said this morning on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be," Biden said in response to a question from host Bob Schieffer. "There will be an uptick. Because as the commander in Afghanistan said, he said, 'Joe, we will get this done, but we're going to be engaging the enemy much more.'"

If Only...

If you weren't already aware...

Pam, an American, was working in the Phillipines when she and her husband found out that she was pregnant. Rather frighteningly she had also contracted amoebic dysentery. At one point she slipped into a coma. While recovering she underwent a series of strong medications. Doctors told her that the fetus had been damaged, and recommended an abortion. She chose not to.

Doctors later discovered that her placenta had separated from her uterine wall. Again, they recommended an abortion. She again said no.

Two months later, the child was born. He was malnourished, but mostly healthy. Pam survived with good health. They had called the child "Timmy" from the moment they knew he had been conceived, and now here he was in their arms.

End the end, it's hard to know what will happen to "Timmy", but so far he has exceeded expectations: 2 BCS College Football National Championships and a Heisman Trophy. Pam Tebow shows that sometimes it's better to live than to merely survive.

Oh, and he was homeschooled, from K through 12.

Note - I paraphrased some excerpts from this article at the Gainesville Sun if you want to read more about him.

Taking a Break

Friends,

A few months ago I increased my blogging significantly. However, because of my desire to only blog on topics that are unique has forced me to spend a disproportionate amount of time reading. To make a better balance of my time I've decided to scale back my blogging. I may blog once or twice a week. Thanks for all your feedback and readership over the last few months.

Staying on the Subject of Africa

This article has little to do with standard economics or politics, but I found it very profound.

From the London Times:

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset

Some excerpts:

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
...
Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
...
The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
...
I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.
...
Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

Should We Recognize Somaliland?

Because of the plague of piracy in Somalia, should we look to recognize the one working government within this failed state?

Somaliland is a small country near the horn of Africa, not to be confused with Somalia. The international community does not recognize Somaliland, but it declared independence in 1991. It was previously a British territory and briefly a separate country until the 1960s when it joined Somalia. Somaliland is today a fledgling democracy. It is vastly more stable and peaceful than Somalia.

A BBC film crew created a short documentary that reveals the differences between Somalia and Somaliland. The three sequential youtube videos can be viewed here, here, and here. In the videos it is clear that traveling anywhere in Somalia requires a small brigade of armed guards, as the journalists routinely run into people pulling out guns. The streets of Mogadishu (Somalia) are filled with armed men. In Hargeisa (the capitol of Somaliland) however, guns on the streets are rare. Even the stop lights are operating and abided by.

The BBC journalist is welcomed into a seemingly clean, modestly modern and operating maternity hospital. They are guided by a woman who runs the hospital and sits in the government. She takes them right into a large room where the government is conducting business. The President of Somaliland, who speaks English, is affable and humble about the role of government there.

Lest you think that this government is conning the journalist, he has made a series of videos on break away regions, including one of Trans-Dneistre, which he clearly makes out to be a scary police state. There are a few other lower grade videos available as well and found this view to be the consensus of journalists who have traveled there. It appears to be a remarkable place that deserves some consideration for international recognition.

Michael Williams, A Video

Recently, I gave my support to Michael Williams in his run for the U.S. Senate in 2010 for my state of Texas. I found a video of the speech I heard him give at Redstate.com. The video is below. Note: Skip the first 3 minutes. It's more appropriate to the duties of the office that he was running for re-election at the time. I agree with most everything, and you have to admit that he is quite gregarious.

How bout them Aggies

SmartMoney magazine produced a ranking of colleges and universities that offered the greatest return on your education dollars. My alma mater Texas A&M ranked a lofty #2, right behind the University of Georgia. That other mostly overrated university in Austin came in just beneath us (as usual) at #3. Texas A&M pulled ahead because the median Aggie makes more money 15 years after graduation.

Somali Pirates - We're Still Not Using Guns

Back in November I was perplexed as to why ships sailing near Somalia were not hiring mercenaries and arming themsevles with high powered guns. Well, it seems some companies have hired mercenaries and it didn't work, because they gave them NO GUNS!

From Bloomberg:

The owners of the Biscaglia, a Liberian-flagged chemical tanker, paid thousands of dollars for three guards to protect it from Somali pirates.

It didn’t work. Brigands struck on Nov. 28, seizing the 27,350-ton vessel and its crew of 25 Indians as it headed toward the Suez Canal. After failing to repulse the pirates with deafening sonic devices, the unarmed guards jumped ship to escape and were plucked from the Gulf of Aden by a German navy helicopter.

Guns people, Guns!

Michael Williams For Senate

Way back in June of this year, I attended the Republican Party Convention of Texas as a delegate. A number of people gave speeches, some good, some bad, but the person who really caught my attention was Michael Williams. This is what I wrote at the time:

Michael Williams, Texas Railroad Commissioner - Very good! He came across knowing much more than I do about the economics of energy, which is unprecedented in any politician that I have ever heard. Funny, engaging, and persuasive. I hope that he runs for the Senate in 2010 to replace the retiring Hutchinson. The crowd loved him.

Well, now he is running for Senate as announced here. If elected, which it would be hard for him to lose, I fully expect him to quickly rise to national prominence. I'd like to know more about his policy positions, but he came across having a good grasp of free market fundamentals as I recall. I suspect that he will be more stridently pro-market than Kay Bailey Hutchison, of whom I am not a big fan. We shall see.

This Is Why I Don't Take Environmentalists Seriously

It's not often that I see a news report that makes my jaw drop, but this one took the cake.

The Title from Reuters:

In "eat local" movement, Cuba is years ahead

Ahead? A country that struggles to feed itself is ahead of the U.S.?

Salcines says he is hardly sleeping as his 160-member cooperative rushes to plant and harvest a variety of beets that takes just 25 days to grow, among other crops.

As he talks, dirt-stained men and women kneel along the furrows, planting and watering on land next to a complex of Soviet-style buildings. Machete-wielding men chop weeds and clear brush along the periphery of the field.

Life is so great that they are hardly sleeping?

Since they sell directly to their communities, city farms don't depend on transportation and are relatively immune to the volatility of fuel prices, advantages that are only now gaining traction as "eat local" movements in rich countries.

Advantages? Are you serious? Modern civilization thrived because we could trade for food from far off places. What did primitive people do when drought or pestilence attacked their "eat local" lifestyles? They starved to death!

They [urban gardens] sprang from a military plan for Cuba to be self-sufficient in case of war. They were broadened to the general public in response to a food crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's biggest benefactor at the time.

So they planted these gardens because they were having a hard time feeding themselves. We should emulate them why?

In Alamar, the members get a salary and share the garden's profits, so the more they grow, the more they earn. They make an average of about 950 pesos, or $42.75, per month, more than double the national average, Salcines said.

Wow, $42.75 per month, now I'm seeing why Cuba and its "eat-local" plan is the ideal.

The gardens sell their produce directly to the community and, out of necessity, grow their crops organically.

It's a necessity because they are so poor that they can't afford pesticides or fertilizers.

Unlike in developed countries, where organic products are more expensive, in Cuba they are affordable.

Of course they're affordable! These people are only making $42.75 per month!

Some experts fear that rising international food prices along with the destruction of the hurricanes will return Cuba to the path of agrochemicals.

Fear!?! Are they afraid that Cuba's people will rise above subsistence style farming? What is wrong with these people? How divorced from any rational moral system do you have to be to describe the possibility of people rising above $42.75 per month as something to be feared?

El Paso Paradox - More From the Houston Chronicle

I previously blogged about the odd fact that the city of El Paso, TX has one of the lowest murder rates in the U.S., but is located across the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the Western Hemisphere: Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The Houston Chronicle had some interesting data about these two cities in Sunday's paper.

El Paso, a city of 600,000 reported just 16 homocides, a rate of 2.7/100,000.
Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1,500,000 reported 1500 homocides. A rate of 100/100,000.

The murder rate in Ciudad Juarez is 37.5 times that of El Paso.

The Chronicle article goes on to say:

Overall, reports of violent crime are down about 4 percent compared with 2007, El Paso Police spokesman Darrel Petry said.

An interesting phenomenon.