That’s Right Nate

My first reaction when I see a cellphone is "Wow! he must be loaded".

On Thursday March 5th, Michelle Obama visited a Washington D.C. homeless shelter. It was the epitome of all that is wrong with the Democrat Party in this country. I believe Rush Limbaugh said it best, “Because everybody or enough people are going to need the goodwill of Democrats in power in order to get by. Like, you’re going to have to see the first lady behind the counter at McDonald’s when you go in there as your poverty-stricken day drags on — take a picture with your cell phone while you go in there and get your McNuggets or whatever’s being handed out that day.”

What Limbaugh is getting at is that the First Lady’s trip to the shelter is yet another slap in the face to the people in this country who are making over $250,000. Wouldn’t it have been more effective for the First Lady to volunteer her time at an exciting Washington D.C restaurant like Citronelle. Chef Michael Richard and Executive Chef David Deshaies can do amazing things with a black truffle and with a 9 course tasting meal for $175 and a 15 course tasting meal at $225, the restaurant has something for people of all income ranges.

A restaurant like Citronelle will use only the freshest ingredients. As a result, it doesn’t take long before the restaurant will refuse to serve something to its customers. What happens to these leftover lentil coated salmon or squab leg confit? It gets donated to area homeless shelters. This is supply side economics at work. This is the approach Nancy Reagan would have used. This is what a responsible first lady would have done. What Michelle Obama is doing is agitating for class warfare. Why not just let the homeless eat quail egg?

Also notable about Michelle Obama’s homeless shelter trip was the homeless man taking her picture with his cell phone. If he’s homeless you have to wonder how could he afford a cellphone and where would they send the bills? My fellow conservative blogger Jon Swift already examined this issue in depth in his call to make poverty less enticing and I don’t want to duplicate his efforts, but the point remains cellphones cost hundreds of dollars per year to operate and there is no reason for a homeless person to be spending his day downloading apps when he should be looking for a job so he won’t be homeless anymore. I urge the homeless person who took the First Lady’s picture to think about the value of that cellphone. You may be able to sell it for the cost of a cheap motel room or at least start a fire with it to keep warm.

Tom Brokaw penned the term “the greatest generation” to refer to those Americans who grew up in the Great Depression and went on to fight in World War II, as well as those who made their contributions on the home front.  These were pretty impressive people right?  Not according to the Democrats.   President  Obama said that another Great Depression such as the on that produced the Greatest Generation would be a “national catastrophe”.  This irresponsible fear mongering is designed to get Americans so scared of a Great Depression that they would be more concerned with finding food, clothing, and shelter than with the size of their government.

Fortunately, Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) has emerged as a voice of reason in the congress.  Decrying the Democratic fear mongering that looks at inactivity as a bad thing, Kyl has called Obama out for “casually throwing out some careless language.”  Words like unemployment, homelessness, starvation, and poverty panic people and take their minds off the good things that are going on in the country right now.  Ask yourself, what these things have in common (Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Jazz, Superman, The Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby).   Give up?   They’re all part of the culture of The Great Depression.  “If it’s true that adversity and hardship can bring out creativity,” said Miles Orvell, professor of English and American studies at Temple University, “then the Great Depression was one of the great creative periods of our time.”

So before you Democrats decide to panic everybody by bringing up how much trouble they will have buying their next meal, maybe you ought to remind them just how much of our American character was forged out of this time.  We need the American people to remember, Depressions can be fun.  The most important thing is reducing the size of government–food, medical care, stuff like that has a way of taking care of itself.

You have to admire John McCain for his ability to be one of the common people.  Sure, he’s married to a wealthy heiress and he wears $5000 shoes, but the man doesn’t go in for pretense.  He’s so unconcerned with the trappings of wealth that the man literally doesn’t know or even care how many homes he owns.

When asked to define rich, John McCain makes a great point.  I define rich in other ways besides income,” he said. “Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionares.”

I am reminded of Charles Dickens’ A Chirstmas Carol. In this story we meet Scrooge a man who is one of the wealthiest men in London, but finds his money gives him no happiness.  We also meet Bob Cratchet who is poor (and raising a handicapped child without government assistance I might add), but Cratchet has a loving family and could indeed be called rich.

Does it really make sense to make Scrooge, who is already miserable pay more for the same government services as the Cratchets?  Of course not.  Scrooge should be taxed less because despite having more money he is poorer than the Cratchets.

I hope that John McCain will continue this train of thought to its logical conclusion.  Let’s adopt a flatter tax that is less punitive on those who happen to have a lot of money and make up the budget shortfall by taxing those things which we know statistically bring joy.  Families, churches, and people in careers with a high degree of satisfaction should be taxed at a higher rate to make up for their increased happiness.  Only then can we truely have a less regressive tax structure.

If you’ve been to the grocery store lately you have noticed the high price of food.  This is partly due to our weak dollar and the rising cost of fuel, but this is a problem being felt all around the world. 

Food prices are rising everywhere with bread riots in Egypt, spaghetti prices doubling in Italy, and miso putting a hit on Japan. 

The real problem is China where the per capita meat consumption has increased by 150% since 1980 and where the government is selling rice out of its own reserves to stabilize prices.

Exasperating this problem is the traditional Chinese diet which leaves people hungry 30-40 minutes after eating a large meal and promotes more consumption of food as Chinese inevitably go to their regrigerator to steal an egg roll or crab rangoon from one of the cartons in the fridge.  Furthermore, the Chinese traditional storage containers do a poor job of keeping more watery sauces contained and food is frequently wasted out the bottom. 

There is no doubt that the Chinese need to change their diet to one more approximating Europe or the United States if we are to get ther cost of food stabilized.  Chinese fortune cookie say “Man who eat American food much more efficient.”

WordPress has changed their setup and it seems that adding pictures isn’t working too well.  I apologize for that.  Today the government announced that employers cut 80,000 jobs in March. 

“The labor market has indeed turned south,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. “That was the one last bastion of hope to stay out of a recession. Now the question is how deep and how long will it last?”

I’m getting kind of sick of this sort of naysaying attitude.  America didn’t get where it is by backing down from anybody.  Some of you may have lost a nice cushy job, but you know there’s nothing wrong with good honest hard labor.  For some of you it is time to downsize and rediscover the joy of working hard for your survival.  In truth I’d love to have that kind of job if not for my current economic situation. 

Take inspiration from the great Scottish poert Robert Burns:

Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, an’ a’ that
The coward slave, we pass him by
We dare be poor for a’ that
For a’ that, an’ a’ that
Our toil’s obscure and a’ that
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp
The man’s the gowd for a’ that

What though on hamely fare we dine
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a’ that
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine
A man’s a man, for a’ that
For a’ that, an’ a’ that
Their tinsel show an’ a’ that
The honest man, though e’er sae poor
Is king o’ men for a’ that

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord
Wha struts an’ stares an’ a’ that
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word
He’s but a coof for a’ that
For a’ that, an’ a’ that
His ribband, star and a’ that
The man o’ independent mind
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that

Words to live by

I owe readers of this blog an apology.  It seems that I accidentally printed some information from the Hitler Youth Handbook.  Some people had a little fun with me and I bought it.  In my article Poor Children Cause Poverty Part II (http://thatsrightnate.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/poor-children-cause-poverty-part-ii/) I quoted some figures from German scientists.  These facts and figures were correct, but the German scientists were Nazis in 1930 Germany who were using the statistics to justify Hitler’s ideas.  The perpetrators of this hoax simply changed the currency from marks to euros.  I am embarrassed to have fallen for this, but I still believe there is some truth to the statistics.  I just didn’t want to imply that I was in favor of anything like the holocaust.  In fact my dad fought against the Germans in World War II or would have if he were a little older.

Following an excellent blog post I saw last night http://notyourdaddy.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/how-to-stop-propagating-poverty/, I commented and further expanded with my own comments http://thatsrightnate.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/help-fight-poverty/.  Now, a friend of mine sent me even more interesting stats on the issue.

 It seems that German scientists have also been studying the problem.  Here is what they found out:

I’m not sure where their figures come from, but if this study is to be believed, healthy well taken care of children are becoming a smaller and smaller segment of society.  Furthermore the study goes onto say:

Thus the number of unfit inhabitants rose from 10 per 1,000 to 40 in only 50 years. The population as a whole rose by about 50%, but the number of the unfit rose by about 300%, six times greater than the average. It is no wonder that in Germany today we have:

• 1,000,000 feeble-minded
• 250,000 cases of genetic mental deficiency
• 90,000 epileptics
• 40,000 inherited cases of physical handicaps

Most of those with genetic diseases and deficiencies are entirely unable to survive on their own. They cannot care for themselves, but have to be cared for in institutions. This costs the state huge sums each year. The costs of caring for a genetically ill person are eight times as high as those for a normal person. A child who is an idiot costs as much as four or five healthy children. The cost of eight years of normal schooling is about 10,000 euros. The schooling for a deaf child costs about 20,000 euros. In all, the German government  spends around 1.2 billion euros each year for the care and treatment of citizens with genetic diseases.

These enormous sums cannot be used to benefit the healthy part of our people. How many sport fields, swimming pools, housing developments and kindergartens could be built with this money, had the danger to our people by the unfit been recognized in past decades. He who has visited an institution for the genetically ill cannot but feel a sense of guilt for these unhappy creatures, who despite the principles of genuine humanity, were brought to life.

Some of the translation is a bit rough obviously, but the point remains, the least able to take care of themselves are having the most children and it is society as a whole that suffers.  We need a movement for the better off and the healthier to produce more of our country’s children.  Perhaps some of you attractive female readers would like to start with a professional 39 year old blogger.

I read a brilliant blog entry last night and I wanted to comment on it this morning.   On the Government is not Your Daddy Blog http://notyourdaddy.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/how-to-stop-propagating-poverty/ the author does a great job of laying out certain unfortunate facts:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2006), 10.8% of adults in the U.S., and 17.4% of children, live below the poverty line. As long as the poor reproduce at a higher rate than the non-poor, it stands to reason that the rate of poverty will  increase. We’ve tried for years to reduce poverty by subsidizing it. That hasn’t worked. No matter how much money we pay poor people to have more children, the numbers of the poor keep increasing.  It would seem that a more effective approach would be to try to reduce the rate of reproduction among the poor.

She then goes on to do a lot more than any of the Presidential candidates by laying out 4 concrete steps to stop this:

1. Stop paying people to have babies. Those who can afford to raise children don’t need to be subsidized, and those who can’t shouldn’t have them.
2. Make birth control readily available. Providing birth control does not encourage immoral or irresponsible behavior. Obviously, that behavior happens anyway. I’m far more concerned with the consequences to society of the lack of birth control than with making sure people who don’t care are aware of our disapproval.
3. People who are too irresponsible, or stoned, or whatever, to use birth control are likely to be too irresponsible, or stoned, or whatever, to raise a child. Any children they end up having are at a high risk for the kind of irreversible neurological defects that exact a huge toll on society. While I’m opposed to abortions of viable fetuses, I do not oppose early-term abortions. In some situations, there are worse things than not being born.
4. Sterilization should be made an option for people seeking abortions. For women seeking abortions at government expense, I’m in favor of offering a monetary incentive  for voluntary sterilization. It would be far more cost effective in the long run to pay a lump sum up front than to pay indefinitely after the child is born, and it would reduce the overall number of abortions as well as the number of future children to be raised at taxpayer expense.

Good stuff!  However, I don’t think she goes far enough.  In order to balance out these kids being born in poverty it is the responsibility of those of us with means to produce more wealthy offspring.  Every child that we have lowers the number of children living in poverty.  Furthermore, there are an awful lot of people who have been slacking in this department and its hurting this country.  Rush Limbaugh has never fathered a child.  How can we let him get away with this.  Its time for him to train an offspring to take his place. Bill O’Reilly only has two kids.  If our great thinkers produce two kids between them our country loses.  What’s more, I am sure if I examined othere great people in this country I’d find a similiar lack of kids.  As I think about this, I am more impassioned ever to get married again and have more children.