Free advice to Paul Ryan

Keep focused on energy production, freedom from regulatory chains, energy production, certainty in the market, limiting the power of government, energy production, creating a level playing field for small businesses/ending corporate welfare, energy production, free trade, rolling back Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and then energy production.

Like Rubio, Ryan is becoming a disappointment

I give up. Within the political realm, players on the Right who call themselves conservatives are incapable of developing a principled stance regarding limited government and a free market and sticking with it, or they take a wrong-headed principled stance on government creations which are the very realites destroying the nation. Paul Ryan is taking a stand on the military which is out of touch with the bloated/military/wasteful/cronyistic/interventionist military/industrial complex. Rubio did the same thing once he reached DC -- he became a hawk and is now calling for even more intervention in the mideast.

Rubio and Ryan are rising stars on the Right, but I will not hitch my wagon to these stars yet, because if the military/industrial complex is not audited and reformed, and if we don't develope a foreign policy of non-intervention and strong defense, then the stars will fall like all stars in DC and around the nation as America sinks into financial collapse and national decline.

Up with Chris Hayes 8/19/2012 -- Paul Ryan the Hypocrite

Although Chris Hayes could go back and find quotes from Barack Obama or Joe Biden or a great number of Democrats which contradict their current positions, Hayes chooses only to reveal Republican hypocrisy, especially Paul Ryan's hypocrisy on Keynesianism. It's a confused argument that goes something like this -- Ryan is really a believer in Keynesian principles, but if he and Romney get elected they will destroy Keynesian stimulus policies, thus hurt the most vulnerable in society who are now hurting severely under the policies of Barack Obama. Hayes had the author of the New New Deal on, Michael Grunwald, to make the claim that Obama has talked like a moderate but has achieved like a Super Progressive.

All of this is confusing. Grunwald claims that Obama's actions/solutions are basically long term, although the stimulus stopped the loss of 800,000 jobs a month. This claim is popular on the left, even though it's economically ignorant. During a recession companies shed workers at basically the same time, then the job losses level off. Grunwald expects us to believe that without the stimulus 800,000 jobs would have been lost until.... what? -- until there were no more jobs? Grunwald claims that Obama has succeeded in transforming America, especially the beginning transformation from oil and coal to renewable energy sources. Solyndra, Grunwald says, is only a small example of the failure of government subsidies regarding green energy, although Solyndra is not the only failure. I've said all along that Obama has built a regulatory structure that bureacrats are filling in constantly, but I was told by Leftists that Obama has not created a lot of regulations, that Obama is basically a moderate. Grunwald states otherwise, and Hayes used this to make his case for Keynesian stimulus.

It's difficult to unravel the tangled web of logic woven by Hayes and his guests. Hayes had on his show the obligatory "example" of a real live person who lost her job, along with her husband, in this recession. Both the woman and her husband receive government benefits like food stamps, plus they receive money from government to pay for their schooling which will give them new skills to get good jobs in a changing economy. The real life woman said that Obama has helped her family, although I'm not sure what Obama did specifically to help them, since the safety net benefits were there before Obama. The real life unemployed woman said that Ryan will destroy the dependency that enables her family to get by, but that her and her husband have paid into the system when they made $100,000 a year, so they are just getting back what they've put in. It's true that people like the real life woman pay into the system, and it's reasonable to expect help when it's finally needed. Ryan wouldn't disagree with this, but Hayes dishonestly gave the impression that Ryan considers the real life unemployed woman a moocher.

Ryan has criticized the welfare system in America because for a certain part of society it becomes an option to working a steady job. The Left says Ryan and other critics are talking about people of color as the group who use welfare as an option to avoid work, but that's not the case with most critics -- it's not the case with Ryan. Ryan is not a racist, but the Left loves to imply racism when welfare is criticized. It is the Left that automatically brings up of people of color when the subject of welfare is discussed.

Hayes's point in his show this morning is that Ryan supported Keynesian policies in 2002, Grunwald has proved that Obama's Keynesian actions prevented total unemployment, real life people use the safety net and make reasonable plans to adjust in a recession so that long term they can succeed, and all this justifies the welfare state, so we should spend more money on a greater stimulus and a greater, more comprehensive safety net, so there.

I don't know the context of the excerpt Hayes found from a Ryan speech in 2002, but I have no doubt that 10 years ago Ryan supported some government effort to help put people to work in a down economy. Statism has been present on the Right and Left, and Ryan is no exception. It's the American people who will have to hold politicians' feet to the fire in order to stop the interventions. The interventions created by bipartisan support in 2002 led to a greater bubble effect than the dotcom bubble they were trying to fix. It's all the government "fixes" which have led to this crippled economy. Hayes only looks at what government should do to help those hurt by the recession -- he doesn't acknowledge that government created the deep recession through previous interventions.

We are creating a fatal Catch 22 -- the adjustment needed in a recession to remove unproductive activity so that productive acitivity can tak its place is becoming a greater, more painful adjustment because government has pushed the adjustment down the road and created bubbles in lieu of adjustment. The Fed has kept interest rates low and has kept the economy afloat through money creation, but the fundamentals don't support the economy. Government interference is preventing recovery, yet progressives like Hayes and his guests are clamoring for more interventions.

So, what should be done? What about the people harmed by government interventions which cause recessions and have now caused a Great and Deep Recession? Total readjustment to a free market is the solution. This real life unemployed woman could have had a private insurance/retirement plan that was purchased by her parents for her when she was born, and that policy would be much more generous that government welfare when a safety net is needed -- the policy could have been designed. The woman on Hayes' show said she is a planner -- well, she could have planned real solutions in a free market sans government intervention which make such plans impossible. In an economy in which people such as the real life unemployed woman works and is able to keep most of what she makes, people such as her would surely give to charity to help those who are unfortunate and can't help themselves. Surely this is a better solution than the government mess we currently suffer under.

Up with Chris Hayes 8/18/2012 -- Paul Ryan ain't no Ayn Rand

Partisan hack and pseudo-intellectual, Chris Hayes, attacked Paul Ryan for defending Medicare and claiming to spend more on Medicare, when Ryan also praises the philosophy of Ayn Rand. If you don't know Ayn Rand's philosophy, don't feel bad -- most people don't. Briefly, Ayn Rand promoted individualism, reason, capitalism, free markets and limited government.

Hayes' partisan point is that Ryan is defending a government program, Medicare, when he preaches limited government. This is one of the most trite smears from the Left. Ryan understands that Medicare was created by government long ago, and that government has taken money from the paychecks of those who work in order to pay for Medicare. Government doesn't give Americans free healthcare in old age -- Medicare has cost all of us who've worked and paid taxes. If this same money had been placed in low-risk private savings plans, we'd have much better coverage in old age. Ryan is telling those over 54 years of age that government will honor what's been paid in, and that those younger than 54 will have options which includes private options.

Democrats are using Ryan's plan to reform Medicare to attack Ryan, and they aren't coming up with a better plan. Democrats are attacking and smearing, not looking for solutions. Medicare is in a financial mess, and something must be done -- however, partisan hacks like Hayes are more concerned scoring cheap political points that with finding fundamental solutions to the fundamental problems caused by the welfare/warfare State.  

Morning Joe 8/13/2012 -- Romney's bold move

On Morning Joe today, the subject, of course, was Romney's VP pick -- Paul Ryan. Everyone said it's a bold move. It can energize the campaign. It can clarify the issues. It can hurt Romney in Florida because Medicare issue. On and on. The guests were basically regulars, Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd, Mark Halperin, John Meacham, blah, blah, and blah.

The main subject was the potential for Romney to be tarred by Ryan's budget proposal which attempts to reform Medicare through a voucher system.Obama had already thrown the Ryan budget tar on Romney, so that's not really a concern. One guest said that most people believe Medicare is fine. Scarborough said it doesn't matter what people think, Medicare and other middle class entitlements are going to consume all revenues in the near future unless there is reform. The way these pundits talk about the problem gives the impression that the middle class has demanded and received goodies from government and now the goodies are too expensive.

No one full-throatedly said that government created the entitlements, took money from American workers to pay for the entitlements, invested the money stupidly, mismanaged the money, spent the money and screwed up their own creation. Romney and Ryan should make it perfectly clear that it's not the fault of greedy middle class welfare recipients -- it's the fault of government money managers -- if a private insurance company did what government has done with customers' money and policies, they'd go bankrupt and be prosecuted for fraud and theft. Romney should reiterate that anyone who's already paid into the system substantially is fine, but that younger people should go for something better -- private plans. Since there has been so much government/corporate enmeshment, some coordination with private industry is necessary to unravel the entanglements. Government should ask private insurance companies to develope comprehensive policies so that younger people can see what they could have. Private insurance companies should be asked to present the policies based on a free market approach, sans the regulatory obstacles. A comprehensive policy that a parent could purchase for a child at birth, and that would go with the person throughout their life, unless the person chooses to change companies, or go it alone without any coverage or promises from government that the person will be given assistance if they need it, would be 100 times better than government entitlements. The returns on such a policy would be tremendous over a 60 year period, and retirement would be comfortable. There are many kinks in such a plan that have to be worked out, but with tens of thousands of smart people designing plans, free from government chains, the kinks would be worked out.

Romney and Ryan will not likely go this far, but it's where we'll have to go at some point, because the Morning Joe crew is right about one thing -- entitlements are devouring the nation.