We are at the point where there are about 3 workers for every social security recipient. Or, at least we would be if there were enough jobs right now. It doesn't take a brilliant economist to realize that we need more workers, or fewer SS recipients, or each worker has to pay more, or each recipient has to get less, or we will have to borrow to pay SS.

So if we are Barack Obama and his lackeys what we do is mount a public relations campaign that positions Social Security payments as "entitlements," which somehow has taken on an ugly connotation even though it is a perfectly good word. (You are entitled to the money in your bank account.)

There are two kinds of entitlements -- those that people paid for and those that they didn't. Social Security is a "paid for" example. 

Next we tell the public that we are going to cut entitlements. Many of our supporters will shout: "Hoo-rah. Nobody should get something from the government that I'm not getting."

The entitlements that are cut won't include the "unpaid for" entitlements, like welfare programs for people who have sex irresponsibily or who are in the United States illegally. These are liberal supporters.

The entitlements that will get cut include payments to people who had no choice but to place their faith in the government by paying mandatory FICA taxes or getting fined or jailed as the alternatives.

How might we reduce Social Security payments? Here are the ways:

(1)   Pay the average recipient less, perhaps based on need.

The unfairness of this is that many of the people who need Social Security payments less are the people who, because of higher earnings over more years, paid more into it. 

Are not the people who paid more into the system entitled to more out of the system? The answer is no -- if one agrees with Karl Marx's economic philosophy of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

The answer is yes if we value the quaint American cultural value of "fairness" as it was defined before it started being spun semantically to sell essentially unfair programs and concepts by liberals.

(2)   Reduce the number of Social Security recipients.

One way to do this is to require people to wait to draw Social Security until they get older than 65. There are two potential flaws in this strategy:

·         One flaw is that this will keep older people in the labor force longer, thus reducing job opportunities for younger people.

·         The other flaw is that as the skills of older workers become less in demand there is a risk of an earnings gap between the cessation of employment income and the start of Social Security income. Individuals would have to plan financially to bridge this gap. This seems unlikely to be feasible except under greatly improved economic conditions.

The second way to reduce the number of Social Security recipients is to shorten their lives by withholding health care at a certain point in aging or health decline. 

The plans drawn up by our government for socialized medicine (euphemistically called by the more palatable name of universal health care) provide for the costs of individual medical treatment funding to be weighed against the individual benefits of treatment in terms of years remaining of quality life.

In raw economic terms think of an old car. If it needs a water pump you might fix it to keep it running. If it needs a transmission you might decide to junk it. Who knows what expensive repair might be needed next?  Besides, the old hack doesn't run as well as the newer models like those bearing the ACORN marquis.

There would be no Social Security problems if seniors were Redwood trees or polar bears. Liberals would be scrambling to preserve them.

Chuck

This was written in response to an e-mail from a friend concerning Obama’s economic plans. The e-mail asked: “What’s wrong with this guy?”

I preface this by saying that I’m in the age group where culturally we have been taught to respect the President of the United States, even if he is not the person we would have chosen.

Those of us who have been in the military respect the President as the Commander In Chief, and if we don’t like the orders we have been taught to suck it up and obey them anyway.

Trying to answer the question posed in the e-mail forced me to seek a logical answer and I reached a conclusion that I wish I could avoid. Obama is either a complete blunderer or we don’t understand him because of our disbelief in what is taking place in America. I think it is the latter.

Hope your ears aren’t too delicate at this moment.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS GUY?

Unfortunately, there is nothing wrong with this guy -- other than being a narcissistic arrogant egomaniac far left lying communist front man for a bunch of socialists, that is.

When he was elected I was one of those who said "all right.  He's our President.  I don’t like it but let's see what he can do." 

I'm seeing it.  I'm not liking it.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE SCORE CHANGE THE GAME

Let's stop judging him by our conventional American values.  Every time I try to do so I am amazed and disgusted. His game is not our game. He doesn’t keep score the way we keep score.

As a simple example, conventional values say lying is bad, honesty is good.  That’s why we swear in court witnesses.

But socialists and communists believe the end justifies the means, the end of course being socialism and/or communism.  In their perverted morality lying is good if it helps bring about the change they want.  Except for cover-ups, Obama's campaign was lie after lie -- his funding, associates, beliefs, religion, and agenda.

HOW COULD AMERICA HAVE DONE THIS?

What’s still difficult to understand is why the American people were so sucked in by this guy.  This is one premise: It is a statistical fact that half the population has a below average I.Q...  This gave Obama a lot of votes right there – people who voted on feeling, and racial affinity, and to make a social statement about themselves, and who did not vote on reason.  Add the "intellectual elite" who often have high I.Q. s but believe in socialism and there you have Obama's victory.  With the war and the economy it was easy to sell "hope and change," and let the public supply the definitions of the hope and change it would like to have and thought he would bring.

Members of the intellectual elite are atheists for the convenient reason that if they believed in God they would have to admit that they are not the supreme intelligence in the universe.

Race played a part. If black voters had voted white in the same proportion that white voters voted black, it is a mathematical fact that McCain would have won in a close race.

If Obama had run with the same amount of funding as McCain, McCain would have won. Obama spent approximately $7.39 per vote and McCain spent $5.78 per vote. If Obama had spent $347 million, the same as McCain, McCain would have won 56% to 44%. Obama paid $17.50 for each vote that contributed to his margin of victory. We needn’t remind ourselves that we have not been told who funded this, but the “usual suspects” include George Soros, and Middle Eastern and other foreign interests. The Obama forces bought the White House.

I think there were a substantial number of supporters who were enamored of Obama and then used current events like the war and the economy to rationalize their support rather than making a cognitive choice of candidates. Chris Matthews got a thrill up his leg from Obama and then pulled out all the stops to find reasons to support Obama.

ACORNS ARE NUTS

And then there were the young people, many too young to vote, who were trained in political support of Obama and then turned loose to try to register voters for him and gather support. These ACORN youngsters, funded with our tax dollars, worked the university campus where I teach, and I talked with them. Their arguments and beliefs were straight, plain socialism: “Is it fair that one person has a better house than another?” This is where it is at. These are the minds that are being shaped. I didn’t notice any difference in the ethnicity of these youngsters and the armed robbers who come onto campus. The ACORN people, already known for their extreme liberal beliefs and practices, are going to be conducting the 2010 Census for us.

KEEP THEM OFF-GUARD

Dealing with Obama is like playing poker with a dealer who keeps changing the rules to his advantage, during which you are unable to quit the game, and you know that his intent is to own you in the end.  Every day it seems that the deck gets stacked a little more in his favor, and every day sees new cards being added.

FREE ENTERPRISE? WHAT’S THAT?

We must realize that Obama’s concept of service to America is to socialize it. That’s what drives him and is all he understands. He doesn’t understand free enterprise. There is no documentation that he has ever even run a lemonade stand. 

His influencers have been socialists and communists.   He, himself, says that he sought them out in college. His early rearing imbued him with pro-socialist teachings. He wants to bring socialism to America -- socialism with the power of choice denied to citizens and seized by the socialist elite, of which he is one.  Socialism, with all the enslavement it will bring to the American people.

Socialism brings order to society. Not the order that results from free people pursuing their self-interests but the order imposed by edicts of the ruling class of socialists.

Obama tries to sell his agenda by not calling it "socialism" and by telling us his programs will solve our problems.   His programs are socialistic.

America’s problems gave Obama and his socialist allies their opportunity. We should not expect that they will attempt any solutions other than socialism.

GOV’T MAINTENANCE OF YOUR BOD.

With a government-run health system we will be dependent on the government for medical treatment.

Obama has already installed one of his supporters as head of the FDA, which he says must be overhauled.  The news media reports her qualifications but not her beliefs. So, Obama’s going to control the approval of pharmaceuticals, and by doing this he will also control the pharmaceutical companies on which he's already placed blame for high health care costs. Read this: “Play ball or your new super drug, Obamacillin, won’t get approved. Make the cost to our socialized medicine program 25 cents a dose, even if you have to cut corners to do it. You can sell it on the open market at $250 per dose.” Instructions for Obamacillin: “Administer the shot in the patient’s posterior. If the patient is old, administer the 5 cent placebo.”

He is planning to take away the rights of medical people to act according to their conscience.  Without belaboring it this means doctors and hospitals will not be able to refuse to perform abortions, or to refuse to care for the elderly except as dictated by the government. If medical providers want to get paid by the government they will have to serve patients in the manner approved by the government.  And that means spending no more on an individual’s treatment than the government decides is warranted by the number of years the patient might be expected to benefit by that treatment. More to the point of what this means is that one is more likely to die of untreated pneumonia the older one gets.

TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED

One by one, the building blocks of socialism are falling into place.  A socialistic government needs to control the size of society to provide goods and services for its members.  When the fruits of society are divvied up "to each according to his need" one would be well advised to make sure his need is not inordinately great. You better make sure you are politically connected for this assessment to be favorable to you.

FURTHER OBAMA’S AGENDA – DIE

Why would Obama want to take care of the health of elders anyhow?  He is better off if elders all die.  Besides eliminating substantial health care and Social Security expense, that would get rid of a lot of conservative opposition from a lot of people who remember a better America than what it is becoming.  The ACORN youngsters are his future. He's already shown his lack of regard for human life by his abortion stance and plans for medical care.

AS THE TWIG IS BENT…

Look for socialism of education at the national level, even though distribution will have to remain local.  You can bet that teachers will have to chant the party mantra to have jobs, and that there will be centralized control of curricula by the Federal Government.

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Look for the wimpy, sniveling left-wing MSM to get bailed out of their financial mess by the government, meaning us, all the while wrapping themselves in the same phony cloak of unbiased servitude to "the public's right to know" that they have worn shamelessly through the 2008 Presidential campaigns.  The First Amendment will be a joke and the MSM will become a bunch of little Pravdas. They won’t have far to go to get there.

BLOODY NOSE PERSUASION

Look for union elections to be conducted by hand vote, with all that implies.  "Hey Joe.  Me an da boys didn't see your hand up in da union vote.  Some of us wanna talk to you about dat outside in da alley."  Obama will run the union leaders who will, in turn, run the unions.  Again, if you want to work you vill support the party, yesssss comrade?

TASMANIAN DEVIL INSTINCT

You say this is gloom and doom talk and it can’t happen? It's happening.  But right now it's like a three dimensional chess game where the shape of the game is unclear except mainly to those who are moving the pieces. As more pieces are played the outcome becomes more assured. The outcome is socialism.

America didn't elect a stupid man.  America elected a brilliant orator fronting for forces unknown to us, who sprinkled glittering fairy dust all over the numb minds of whole segments of American society, and who is, in fact, a coldly calculating ruthless socialist.  His mask has slipped many times and we caught glimpses of what he is.  Even David Brooks, the liberal New York Times op-ed writer saw it and identified it early in the campaign. We should stop expecting something different. The New York Times itself suggested during the campaign that Obama may be ruthless enough to deal with Putin.

What Obama can’t supply for himself is on his teleprompter, written by fellow travelers, no doubt.

Socialism is in every fiber of Obama's being.  He can no more stop ramming through his socialist agenda than a Tasmanian Devil can go on a fast.

CONSERVATIVE HOPE FOR CHANGE

I have feelings of hope for change.  I think Obama and his liberal followers may blow it so badly that we will see a major turnaround in the Congressional elections 2 years from now.  I still have faith in the American people if not in the present government. In 2012 I think we will see Newt take him on and win.  McCain is a war hero and a fine man.  I think Newt is the more capable warrior when it comes to Obama's brand of bare-knuckled politics.  I think right now Newt is sizing up his adversary. Note that Newt, while expressing views, is not presently establishing a voting record that can be attacked. The last president who got elected had little voting record to attack also. Now if the Supreme Court justices can stay well…

THE SECOND AMENDMENT BULWARK

I think the Second Amendment may be Obama's stumbling block.  On one hand he would like to disarm America.  There is no question about that.  Gun owners are in the minority.  But so are the anti-gun people.  And the people in the middle can be influenced.  If Obama comes after guns some hard-line groups may rebel and things could get ugly.  There are paramilitary organizations in many states that train regularly and can get mighty upset. These are conservatives who believe in individual rights and freedoms.

Obama's chance to take the last measure of control will come if there is civil disturbance of any magnitude. That will be his excuse for his National Civilian Police Force, martial law, the disarming of citizens, and all-out war – on the American people.

The Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was a member of a paramilitary militia group.  What he did was an unpardonable atrocity.  I mention this only to show that some people will take violent action.

NOBODY SAID LIFE WAS FAIR

McVeigh was a bomber who killed people, took his medicine like a man, was tried, executed and cremated.  He did not try to stay alive on appeals.

Bill Ayers is another person who took violent action. He was a bomber and he, or his Weathermen organization, or both, killed people.  He's now a professor of education at the University of Chicago, a friend and adviser to the president of the United States, and never received so much as a jail sentence.  Another dissimilarity between the two is that Ayers had a rich father who had the money to get him off the hook.  The similarities are that both were anarchists, both used home-made explosives, neither used firearms, and neither repented his actions.

CROSSED PURPOSES

If we judge Obama on our goal of preserving the fundamental principles and freedoms of the American way of life, it is reasonable to question his intelligence.

If we evaluate Obama on what he must do to enslave America to socialism, his actions and policies make perfect sense. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we will understand him.

A heuristic approach to making decisions might be applied when there is no decision algorithm that can be applied to lead to an expected outcome. It is in short, an attempt to reach conclusions that may or may not be sound, but must be made because of the absence of a reliable decision algorithm.

If a person does not understand diamonds, the heuristic that higher price equates to higher quality in diamonds of the same size leads to a conclusion that may or may not be correct in a given application.

You don’t touch a hot stove because as a kid you learned the algorithm that the outcome will be getting burned. 

In your first experience with a hot stove as a child you may have tried a heuristic approach and learned by trial and error that you would get burned.

This groundwork leads to a short discussion of government heurocracy. The Obama campaign promised us economic solutions as if the algorithms to restore the economy were known to him and results were guaranteed if only he were elected to office so he could save us all by pressing the right buttons. Now we hear that it is going to take much longer to fix and the cost is high and unknown.

The Democrats did not have an algorithm that would lead to predictably desirable results. It does not exist. If it did there would be no disagreement among economists.

If the Democrats thought they had the magic medicine they were foolish. If they thought they might have it but weren’t sure they should not have raised false expectations.

There was hope all right – the hope they might get lucky and something would work.

But let’s tell it like it is. Having a solution was not the priority. Getting elected was.

Many situations in life don’t have predictable outcomes. War is one, yet Obama and his cohorts, who are now taking a heuristic approach to fixing the economy are the same people who decried the lack of predictability of events in the Iraq war. A student of the subject knows that it was specifically the lack of predictability that prompted McNamara and his WWII whiz kids in the development of the branch of probability known as game theory. One wartime application of this was to estimate how many bombers had to take off for a given number to get through the flak and the Messerschmitts to deliver their payloads.

So now we are being led by a government of clueless heurocrats who convinced the American people that they had the answers and could solve the problems, but who, in reality wanted to take a shot at making their own guesses and trial and error attempts at solutions.

There is one huge difference between America’s present economic situation and the preceding hot stove example. The Washington heurocrats will try to find economic solutions through heuristics. It will be the American people who get burned.