The Grumpy Pundit

First They Came for the Smokers….

Selling other people’s stuff is a very profitable business. Ask any burglar. It works just as well when the ‘stuff’ is intangible. Ask any government.

It has become common practice to persuade people to vote for restrictions on activities that they do not participate in. Don’t ride motorcycles? Then you probably won’t mind if there’s a law requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet. Don’t own a gun? You probably won’t mind if there are more legal restrictions placed around gun ownership. Don’t smoke? You probably won’t mind if smokers are taxed more heavily, and limited more in where they can smoke. Don’t drink? You probably don’t mind if legal limits on blood alcohol are lowered to the point where having a bottle of beer in your refrigerator can make it illegal for you to drive. Not overweight? Then you probably won’t mind if overweight people have to pay more for health insurance, are maybe told how much they can eat, how much they have to exercise.

That’s a common refrain these days. This or that lifestyle choice–smokers, the overweight, people engaging in ‘risky’ behavior–are driving up the cost of health care. They are costing us money. (Whenever someone talks about someone’s behavior costing ‘us’ money in healthcare, what they really mean is that they are costing the insurance companies money. Keep that in mind.) They are a problem to be solved.

That sort of thinking is very troublesome. Everyone, you see, uses some sort of freedom that some other people don’t. Thus, everyone can be turned against everyone else, and in the end we all lose.

“First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.” — Pastor Martin Niemöller

The old Roman saying, divide et impera is usually translated as ‘divide and conquer’ but that’s not quite right. A better translation would be, ‘divide and rule.’ Divide the people against each other, and you can always gain the support of one group in putting down any other. “He who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.” A cynical old aphorism, but our government today exceeds it. Now they rob Peter to pay Paul one year, and then rob Paul to pay Peter the next, and so gain the support of both.

We have forgotten something, here in America. We cluster in our little tribes–Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Christian, Muslim, white, black, smoker, non-smoker, Mac, Windows–and we forget that ultimately, we are all in this together. If the country, if society as a whole, suffers, we all suffer. Eventually, the government will want to take something from you, and your neighbors will be more than willing to sell it to them. Just as you were willing to sell their stuff to the government.

Maybe it will cost us a little more money, allowing people to drink, smoke, be overweight, eat meat, drive cars, participate in sports. But isn’t freedom worth paying for? If it’s not, then what is?

Perhaps it is time to close ranks, at least on this one principle. Perhaps it is time to say, “No. Our freedoms belong to all of us, and they are not for sale.”

Auto Non-Industry

Posted by Robert M. Brown on March 26, 2009 No comments

I just sent this to President Obama (or rather, of course, whichever staffer gets to read these things):

Regarding the auto-industry bail out.

As a long-time General Motors stockholder, I would like to say PLEASE STOP. General Motors are Chrysler are bankrupt. Chrysler will never be a viable business on its own. General Motors might be, but it will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer (MY) money to get them to that point…if it ever happens, which is improbable.

The arguments based on jobs don’t work. Workers will have to be laid off anyway as the companies scale back. The arguments based on patriotism don’t work. A Honda built in the US is a more significant part of the US auto industry than a Chevy built in Mexico.

Ford MAY be viable, if they can survive their huge debt load long enough to get the products in the pipeline into the hands of consumers. They’ve done many of the right things, and have good products. They just need some time.

It is time to perform triage. If there must be an auto industry bail out, the limited resources available should be put into a company that has at least a chance of surviving without infinite taxpayer support.

Abandon Chrysler. There is no hope there, and never will be.

If you MUST bail out GM, do so through a structured bankruptcy. Simply giving them a blank check without forcing any change will simply led to more blank checks to a non-viable company.

Put most of the resources behind Ford, if they need it. The money there might do some good.

The American taxpayer is tired of opening his wallet to bail out incompetent companies who just happen to be short on brains and long on lobbyists. Stop the madness.

History Pop Quiz

Posted by Robert M. Brown on February 23, 2009 No comments

Extraordinary optimism sustained an orgy of speculation. Books were written to prove that economic crisis was a phase which expanding business organisation and science had at last mastered. [….] In October a sudden and violent tempest swept over Wall Street. The intervention of the most powerful agencies failed to stem the tide of panic sales. A group of lending banks constituted a milliard-dollar pool to maintain and stabilise the market. All was in vain.

The whole wealth so swiftly gathered in the paper values of previous years vanished. The prosperity of millions of American homes had grown on a gigantic structure of inflated credit, now suddenly proved phantom. Apart from the nationwide speculation in shares which even the most famous banks had encouraged by easy loans, a vast system of purchase by installment of houses, furniture, cars, and numberless other kinds of household conveniences and indulgences had grown up. All now fell together.

It should not, however, be supposed that the fair vision of far greater wealth and comfort ever more widely shared, which had entranced the people of the United States, had nothing behind it but delusion and market frenzy. Never before had such immense quantities of goods of all kinds been produced, shared, and exchanged in any society. There is in fact no limit to the benefits which human beings may bestow upon one another by the highest exertion of their diligence and skill. This splendid manifestation had been shattered and cast down by vain imaginative processes and greed of gain which far outstripped the great achievement itself. –Winston Churchill

Winston was talking about events now 80 years gone. But history does not, despite the popular saying, repeat itself. It just gives pop quizzes to see if anyone was paying attention.

Why History Matters

Posted by Robert M. Brown on February 6, 2009 No comments

A friend mentioned that she wasn’t very good at history, and I’m afraid my reply ran a little long. It’s a subject that has fascinated me almost since I first began to read, oh so many years ago. (Clay tablets back then. This fancy ‘paper’ stuff hadn’t been invented yet. It was a LONG time ago.) So, for the edification of the masses, I have reproduced my latest sleep-deprived ramble on why you should know something about history.

The problem most people have with history is the way it’s taught. They just get a bunch of names and dates to remember, and that’s it. The teachers don’t make the history come alive, and they don’t make it relevant. People will learn something if it’s interesting, and they’ll learn something if it’s dull but important, but something dull and meaningless, not so much.

The problem isn’t history, it’s the teachers. History is the story of how people used to live, and how we got where we are today. History let me predict exactly what would happen when we sent troops into Somalia, and Iraq. You’ve heard the old sayings about history repeating itself? Not true.

Brown’s Law of History: History doesn’t repeat itself. It just gives pop quizzes to see if you were paying attention.

If you know history, it is much harder for governments to fool you. You have perspective. If you can draw on a pool of knowledge five thousand years deep of what people and governments and societies do, you have a much greater understanding of what is going on in the world around you than someone who only lives in the TV news cycle of three days or so.

For example: April 2003. US forces are preparing to invade Iraq. Think on this quote, from nearly 60 years before:

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” — Hermann Goering

It gives some perspective, doesn’t it? Look at those last two sentences. Doesn’t that precisely sum up US foreign policy over the last several years? It has worked exactly that way for, literally, thousands of years. Some tricks work well enough that they stay in use for a very, very long time.

Back in ’89, right after the Berlin Wall came down and all the media were talking about the end of war and all like that, a friend of mine asked me who I thought the next enemy was going to be, now that The Commies were gone.

“Islam,” I said without hesitation. “We’re going to go back to the old enemy.”

It took a little longer than I thought, but I was dead on. Because I knew the history.

Of course, being so clever hasn’t done me much good, has it? I still have to work for a living.

History isn’t the only important thing to know, but it does matter.

Wait, What?

Posted by Robert M. Brown on December 30, 2008 No comments

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

After The Counting

Posted by Robert M. Brown on November 12, 2008 No comments

There has been a lot of fuss about the recent election here in The United States. The Democrats, of course, are smug. The Republicans, well, some (not all, but some) are in a positive frenzy of angst, predicting the end of freedom and the coming Socialist Apocalypse.

I pretty much don’t give a damn. I’m more concerned about getting done some necessary home repairs and wondering what kind of drapes the wife is going to pick out for downstairs.

I am, you see, a real independent, not a “can’t make up my mind” independent. My beliefs do not fit neatly into the obligatory party line of either party, but I will throw my weight, such as it is, behind whichever party seems to best suit the needs of the moment. Typically, that means that I am opposed to whichever party is in power at the moment. This time I supported Obama, because of the gross incompetence of the current regime. Next time around I might support someone else. I’ll see how things look then.

The one unwavering plank in my party platform is a firm belief in personal freedom. In being left the hell alone. Neither party is even vaguely committed to that. It’s not even a talking point. As far as that goes, the only difference between them is that the overlap of which freedoms they want to restrict is not 100%. (The rule of thumb, not entirely accurate, particularly in the current changing economic climate, is that Democrats want to regulate the economy and Republicans want to regulate morality. It works as at least a vague guideline.) As the man sang, everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.

Beyond that position, I don’t much care. The form of government doesn’t matter much to me. Democracy, Republic, Kleptocracy, Monarchy, whatever; if they’ll leave me alone, I’m fine with it. Hell, I’m not even irrevocably wedded to capitalism. Capitalism is great at finding the most efficient way to do certain things, at least on quarter-by-quarter bottom-line basis, but efficiency is not necessarily the highest goal in human society. (Maintaining nursing homes and orphanages isn’t efficient. It would be much more efficient to kill the old people and enslave the orphans. There have been societies that did exactly that, but we do not admire them for it.) A far-right society ruled by the unrestrained greed of huge corporations would be as much a nightmare to live in as a far-left society ruled by the all-powerful State.

Besides, capitalism is a system of shortages, limited resources. “Supply and demand.” As technology evolves, and we move out into space, where the resources and the energy to exploit them are practically infinite, how will capitalism work? We could be facing that situation as soon as a century or two from now, maybe sooner. That’s not all that far in the future; my grandchildren, if any, may live to see it.

So forgive me if I can’t get too worked up over which set of thieves gets to rob us for the next four years. I think we’d be better just picking people at random; then we at least might get someone honest and competent.

The Pillars of Civilization Shaken

Posted by Robert M. Brown on October 6, 2008 No comments

A terrible crisis has been averted, at least for now.

You’ve probably heard about this so-called ‘Credit-Crunch’ that the United States is going through, but I will summarize very briefly. In the simplest terms, financial institutions and consumers in the US lent and borrowed so poorly, so stupidly, that the the system was in danger of grinding to a halt, with people and businesses only able to lend or borrow with great difficulty.

Obviously, that would be a terrible situation. Home prices in some markets would fall down to the point where middle-class families could afford them. People would have to live within their means, and might even begin to dig out from under a crushing burden of debt. Companies would have to manage their resources sensibly.

Spending, in short, would no longer exceed earnings. Taking out a home equity loan to go on vacation and buy a big screen HD TV would no longer be the order of the day.

Of course, some people would (and may yet) lose a lot of the stuff they bought that they couldn’t pay for, which would make them very upset.

Obviously this would never do. The financial institutions called up their friends in Washington and the government sprang into action with a rapidity hardly ever seen from our ponderous bureaucracy. A Bill was quickly thrown together, promising that the US Taxpayers (that’s you) would give the financial institutions hundreds of billions of dollars, no strings attached. But that Bill wasn’t bad enough, so they went back and put in a bunch of other crap, to make sure everyone got a little bit of the pie the taxpayers were so generously serving up. That passed, of course.

To paraphrase BusinessWeek, Wall Street and the US financial firms in general want the government to stay out of their business; they want no regulation or government oversight at all. But when they get in trouble, they want the government — meaning the taxpayers — to bail them out. This is exactly like a young adult who does not want his parents to have any say in how he (or she) conducts his life, but who wants them to pay his bills for him when they get to be too much. We wouldn’t put up with that from our kids, but we’ll send billions to people we don’t even know, just because they say they’d like to have it, thank you very much.

And, of course, because they threaten us with Financial Armageddon if we don’t give it to them. Government, remember, is all about fear.

Remember; saving is Un-American and will be punished. If you’re not over your head in debt, the government hates you and will take your money in order to help people who are over their head in debt. If you’re not willing to go into debt yourself, the government will do it for you.

Isn’t it nice of your Congressmen to do that for you? The Wall Street executives, running their companies into the ground and then bailing out with hundred-million dollar bonuses, appreciate your patriotic generosity.

For The Children

Posted by Robert M. Brown on May 5, 2008 No comments

I was knocking around the web last week, hitting the usual variety of sites that I read to keep up on what is going on in the world and came across a link to a WSJ essay by Peggy Noonan. It was a good essay, about how America’s political leaders are out of touch with the common people and the indignities that are regularly heaped on them. The actual content doesn’t matter much, though, particularly as it has since rotated off the WSJ’s site. What really struck me was the picture accompanying the article. This picture.

I know it’s probably a staged picture. That doesn’t matter. It was the thought of my little boy being in that position that got to me.

We haven’t had to travel by plane since he was born. We haven’t traveled much by plane since 9/11, for that matter. Everyone in America knows what it’s like, though. Even if you haven’t flown you’ve heard the stories. The long lines, the pointless indignities and silly rules, supposedly in the name of security but we all know better. Is there anyone who doesn’t realize that taking off your shoes and only carrying very small bottles of liquid doesn’t do anything at all to make air travel safer? At best, it’s a big humiliating dog and pony show all so the government can say they’re Doing Something. We all know how silly it is. We all know one other thing, too.

We know that you’d better not say anything about it. Keep your eyes down, don’t do anything to be noticed, don’t talk back to the security people. Be quiet and obedient or things will go very very badly for you.

Be afraid.

Much of what passes for public policy in the United States these days is based on fear. Fear that the terrorists will get us. Fear of losing our jobs, and our home. Fear of not being able to keep up a middle class lifestyle in the worsening economy, and slipping down into the terrifying abyss of the poor.

Fear of what will happen if you tell that cop or TSA guard what you really think.

When did we Americans become so afraid? Is this really what we have been reduced to? Shuffling along in our stockinged feet, obeying the silliest rules, not out of fear of what some terrorists might do but out of fear of what the people who are nominally there to protect us will do.

When did our own government become more frightening than the people they are supposed to be protecting us from?

And, more to the point, how do you, as a parent, pass that fear along to your children? How do you explain to that small child, who looks up to you as a superhero, that daddy (or mommy) has to do whatever these people tell him to do, no matter how demeaning, or they will take him away?

How do you tell your child that he or she must do whatever the people in uniform say, or something bad will happen? Stay in your place, obey orders, or the men in uniform with the clubs and guns will take you away.

Is that what we want to teach our children?

People around the world are afraid of America. Not just our enemies — it is good for our enemies to fear us — but our friends too. Fewer tourists still visit us from overseas than seven years ago, before 9/11 and the subsequent hysteria, despite the fact that our currency is now practically worthless and we’re a bargain for rich foreigners. It’s not terrorists they are afraid of. It’s our government. It’s us.

The United States is not, for all of our problems, a terrible place. There are many worse countries in the world. But neither are we the place we once were. Once America was a place where nearly everyone wanted to go, a place where you could be free and your children could have a better life.

There was a time when we said to the world, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Now we say, “Papers, please.”

Look around you the next time you are in an airport, or standing in line at some government office, or waiting to go through some security checkpoint. Look in a mirror. Look within yourself. Ask yourself, “How did we get here? Is this the kind of country I want to live in, my children to grow up in?”

Is this the best we can do?

Playing Little Money

Posted by Robert M. Brown on April 21, 2008 No comments

There’s a style of play in baseball known as ‘little ball’ or ‘small ball.’ What it boils down to is rather than always swinging for the bleachers just doing little things to move runners around the bases. Bunt, steal, sacrifice fly, take any small advantage you can get and move men slowly around the bases to score. Its not as dramatic a style of play as banging out home runs, but it can get the job done.

The same thing applies to your household finances. Clipping coupons may not have the same drama or thumping impact as a big raise at work, or winning the lottery, but the little things are easy to do and they add up.

The simplest thing you can do, if you have the self-control to handle a credit card, is to get a cash back card. There are a variety of different kinds, but they all have certain things in common. They give you 3% cash back on some of your purchases, and 1% on everything else. I have a few different cards, each offering a 3% kickback in different categories, to maximize the return. A 3% kickback on a five-buck meal at Wendy’s doesn’t amount to much, but 3% on a new laptop is something you can notice. And 3% on what we spend keeping two cars gassed up is definitely worthwhile.

Sometimes you can get a combo deal. Our local grocery store sells gas too and gives you a discount of ten cents per gallon for every $100 you spend there on groceries. I do my grocery shopping there, with a card that gives me a 3% kickback on purchases at grocery stores. Then I buy the — discounted — gas with the same card, which also gives 3% back on gas purchases.

It doesn’t take any particular effort at all to do. Just a few minutes to fill out a credit card application, or on the phone with customer service getting an account changed to a different type of card, and then it’s just a matter of pulling the right card out of your wallet. The return on that small investment is several hundred dollars a year.

Of course, if you’re going to try that, you have to pay off your credit card every month, or the interest charges will eat up any savings.

A lot of money can be saved simply by paying attention. People will quite commonly negotiate hard on big purchases, like cars and houses, but not pay much attention to the little things. (Men are notoriously bad about this.) For example, an item you buy every week on your regular grocery store expedition may cost twice as much at store A as it does at Store B. But you buy it at store A because most of the other stuff you buy is as cheap or cheaper there. Now, sometimes that’s just fine. There’s no sense spending two bucks in gas to drive to another store and save a buck on a package of hot dogs.

But something like that should raise a flag, tell you to look more closely at your purchasing patterns. You don’t want to set up some overly complicated plan, with so many different items at different stores that you can’t keep track of it. Keep it simple; compare two stores that carry the same items and which are both convenient to you. Look at the stuff you purchase regularly, and see which are significantly cheaper at which store.

You’ll probably end up with just a handful of items that are much cheaper at one store than the other. Keep doing your regular shopping at your usual store, but don’t buy those items there. (Barring emergencies, of course, or a killer sale.) Instead, every couple of weeks or so, depending on the stuff you’re buying, make a second trip to the other store and stock up on those cheaper items.

This little-money trick might take you ten or fifteen minutes of thought, to determine what stuff is noticeably cheaper at which store, but after that, it doesn’t take much effort at all. Just driving a few blocks every couple weeks.

Example. We do most of our grocery shopping at Kroger’s, the above-mentioned store with the gas kickback, and which also happens to be right around the corner. But a few things (most notably hot dogs — and with a hungry two-year old in the house we go through a lot of hot dogs) are a LOT cheaper at Wal-Mart. (Contrary to expectations, most of Kroger’s prices are very close, and cheaper in many cases.) So every now and then we drive the extra few blocks to Wal-Mart and stock up.

Stocking up on staple items is another good trick. We try to buy groceries that are on sale whenever possible, and buy enough of them to last until the next sale. I’d much rather buy three or four two-liters of Coke one week at $.89 a bottle and not buy any again for a month than buy one two-liter at $.89, then two or three at $1.59. That seventy-cent savings may not sound like much, but multiply by each item you can do it on, and do it for a year, and it adds up. It’s not unusual for us to have our grocery bill discounted by 30-40% by sales. Every week. And all it takes is buying more of the stuff on sale that you know you’re going to use (and which will keep) and sticking it on a shelf.

(Don’t get carried away with this. My grandfather used to buy cans of coffee whenever it was on sale, much to my grandmother’s disgust, even though they had a whole cabinet full of the stuff already. Their supply of coffee, in fact, outlasted both of them. I have no idea what eventually happened to it all.)

Then there are coupons.

Oh, who am I kidding. You’re not going to clip coupons. I don’t clip coupons. My wife, fortunately, does clip coupons. Sometimes she even remembers to use them before they expire.

People who are really dedicated can save huge amounts of money with coupons. For most of us it is, let’s be honest, too much trouble.

Once you start looking for them, and get in the mindset, you should see a lot of ways to save a few buck here and there. Down here in the desolate wasteland of north Texas, for example, keeping your house cool is a much bigger expense (and problem) than heating it. Once of the best investments I have made was a couple of years ago, when I spent a few hundred dollars to put dark solar screens on the south- and west-facing windows upstairs. That not only cut our electric bill by a significant fraction (about 25%), but it keeps the house much cooler and more comfortable when the temperatures outside exceed the melting point of lead.

Take a few minutes to look over your expenses and see if there are any ways you can move a few dollars here and there. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s sitting there waiting for you to find it and pick it up. You’re not just going to leave it there, are you?

A Taxing Time

Posted by Robert M. Brown on April 14, 2008 No comments

It is, once again, time for all good citizens to send thousands of their hard-earned dollars to their penurious Uncle Sam, who, let’s be honest, is probably going to just blow it all on hookers and cocaine.

The whole Earth is covered up in tax-time advice, and I’m not going to try and add to that. I’m just going to point out something equally obvious.

If anyone wanted to bring about the downfall of the United States Government, there’s no need to waste time stocking up on RPGs in their secluded compound in Montana. Just do away with the payroll withholding tax. Require everyone to write a check for the full amount of their tax bill on April 15th. That would destroy the government twice over.

First, people would be horrified at outraged at the sudden realization as to how much they actually pay.

Second, hardly anyone would actually have the money to send.

Which, of course, is where there is a withholding tax in the first place. The…probe doesn’t hurt quite as much if it’s slid in just a little bit at a time.

Happy Tax Day.

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