President Obama has blamed President George W. Bush for everything under the Sun, including the Sun rising in the east.  He has not (yet) blamed Bush for the situation in Afghanistan, yet it really is Bush’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s faults.

In hindsight, America’s objectives in going into Afghanistan after 9-11 should have been: 1) destroying the Taliban’s and al-Qaeda’s training bases and making it much more difficult for them to strike the United States, and 2) killing Osama bin Laden. Period.

The first was achieved fairly quickly.  The second took much longer and ultimately did not require extensive ground forces.

In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on being against “nation building” and that America could not be the world’s police force.  Yet, America ended up bogged down in Afghanistan as it tried to use it military for nation building and as a policing force.

Afghanistan has never been a nation in our American understanding of nation.  Americans do not understand the tribal nature of countries such as Afghanistan.  No matter how large an America military presence or the nature of the mission, America is never going to be able to “secure” the countryside or insure the safety of the people of Afghanistan.  America will never be able to facilitate an effective central government in Afghanistan.  The countryside has never been secure, the people never safe, and there has never been a central government that exercised control over the nation.

The war in Afghanistan is President Obama’s “good war”. Yet, the Taliban and al-Qaeda were defeated before Obama took office.  The “good war” was over.  Except for killing Osama bin Laden (and it is a major exception) all America has done for the past several years is pursue the mirage of a safe and stable Afghanistan.

Do you remember the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign?  I for one, thought it absurd.  However, many, many people (dare I say especially liberals) jumped on the Drop the Debt Campaign.

Here is some of what was said:

• Debts should be cancelled because they are unjust in terms of their origin, and also because they worsen poverty.
•  Poor countries are paying debts to the World Bank, the IMF, other international bodies (all controlled by rich countries), to rich country governments and to companies.
• High levels of debt divert scarce resources from health care, education, clean water and other socially beneficial programs to make debt service payments.
• Much of the debt results from borrowing that has benefited primarily the rich while the burden of repaying the debt falls heavily on poor people, and can not be paid without causing great social and environmental harm.

 Fast forward to 2012 and use Greece as a test case.

• Debts should be cancelled because they are unjust in terms of their origin — check
• and also because they worsen poverty — check
• Poor countries are paying debts to the World Bank, the IMF, other international bodies, to rich country governments and to companies — check
• High levels of debt divert scarce resources from health care, education, clean water and other socially beneficial programs — check
• Much of the debt results from borrowing that has benefited primarily the rich — check
• while the burden of repaying the debt falls heavily on poor people — check
• and can not be paid without causing great social and environmental harm — check

I bet the people of Greece and many other countries would agree that their debts should be cancelled.

If it was a good idea for poor countries in 2000, it certainly is a good idea for the new poor countries in 2012.

The EMU should operate under a dual currency system.

To some of us it has been clear from the start that the Euro could not last, that a unified monetary system can never succeed without a unified political system. 

Ultimately, there are only two paths for the Euro: Political union or dissolving the monetary union.

As we have seen over the past several months, at each turn the leaders inEuropehave been unwilling to make the difficult and painful steps.  It is like watchingEuropein the late 1930s – in hindsight one can see every step where Hitler could have been stopped, if only the European leaders were willing to accept the short term pain.  Of course, few (Churchill being the obvious exception) understood that each hard decision averted, each step, tookEuropecloser and closer to war.

While the Euro crisis deepens and threatens the whole world, the two real solutions political union or dissolving the monetary union are still stepsEurope’s leaders (and perhaps many Europeans) are unwilling to take.

There may be a third way out of this crisis, a way which could provide years to resolve the deeper issues, and yet a way which might be slightly more palatable than political union or dissolving the monetary union.

When a country gets into economic difficulty similar to what the Greeks and others face, that country could attempt to solve the situation by devaluing its currency.  However, the members of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) no longer have national currency to devalue andGermanywith its cultural memoriesof the hyper-inflation of the early 1930s is steadfast against devaluing the Euro.

What is needed is a Euro that can be devalued. The EMU should operate under a dual currency system and create a second Euro, perhaps a blue Euro (for easy identification all blue Euro coins and paper money would be a distinctive color of blue). 

The European Union (EU) would determine an exchange rate between the Euro and the blue Euro, say 1 Euro equal 2 blue Euros. On a nation-by-nation basis the European Union would determine which countries would use the blue Euro.  An announcement would be made that as of a specific date Euros would no longer be accepted in a designated country and anyone wishing to use Euros in that country would have to exchange them for blue Euros.  All investments (e.g. sovereign debt, individual savings accounts, etc.) would be revalued to the blue Euro.

The EU would set criteria that when met by each nation it would reverse the process and return to the Euro.

What if a nation never met the criteria?  It would stay on the blue Euro and be subject to changes in the exchange rates between the blue Euro and other currencies. Ultimately, if a nation decided the blue Euro system was not working, leaving the EMU and returning to a national currency would pose much less risk to the rest of the EMU.

From a blog I wrote in 2008…

There are perhaps 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in theU.S.

In 2007, in theU.S.some 4,000,000 people were arrested for major crimes in cities of over 100,000 people.

First we secure the border so no one else could enter illegally.

Then if we had all local, state and Federal law enforcement officers ignore all other crimes (murder, rape, robbery, etc.) and focus on rounding up illegal aliens, it might only take 3 years to catch them all.  We would not want to release these people on bail (would they show up for their court dates?), so we would have to have jails to hold them all.

Let’s say we could arrest and detain the 12,000,000 illegal aliens, then what? In general the illegal aliens have the same legal rights as a citizen.  Thus, all would have the right to legal representation and hearings/trials and appeals.

John Demjanjuk is a former autoworker from Cleveland who is accused of being a Nazi death camp guard. The Justice Department first brought charges in 1977 seeking to deport him for falsifying information on his application when entering theU.S.in 1952. In 2009, “only” 31 years later, he was finally deported.

I wonder how long it would take to deport 12,000,000 people? Not to mention that it would totally tie up the court system.

Also, what kind of society would we be creating?

I am not suggesting we do nothing about the illegal immigrant situation, but while you may not like the idea of illegal aliens in theU.S., it would seem highly unlikely that we are going to arrest, detain, and deport 12,000,000 people.

If President Obama and other socialist liberals really want to redistribute wealth, let’s do in a way that is “fair” to everyone living inAmerica.  Everyone would be issued an OWS Charge Card based on his or her family’s total wealth (including retirement plans, home ownership, savings, stock, etc.).  In order to purchase anything you would need an OWS Charge Card. (Let us leave aside the issue of providing such cards to illegal immigrants.)

To buy any item from a candy bar to a yacht you would first swipe your OWS Card.  Then scan the item.  Based on your wealth the register would calculate the price of the item.  The wealthier you are, the higher the price. For example, say a candy bar’s set price is $1.00.  If your total wealth (not income) is very low, you might be charged 5¢. On the other hand if you are Warren Buffett the same candy bar might cost $10,000.  Or perhaps gasoline, set price of $4.00 per gallon: poor person 25¢ a gallon; Mr. Buffett $25,000 per gallon.

Since many items are taxed based on their price, this would also mean the wealthier would pay more taxes providing government with additional resources to redistribute.

The candy bar manufacturer would make more money when Mr. Buffett buy’s his candy, but the company would also pay more taxes – more opportunities for wealth distribution.

Now Mr. Buffett might decide to hire a poor person to buy his candy and gasoline.  That would also be wealth redistribution, sending some of Mr. Buffett’s wealth to the poor person.  If that poor person spends his or her income he or she could improve his or her standard of living without significantly increasing his or her wealth and thus not endangering their job.

You could even get an OWS Card with a picture on it of your favorite politician: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer.

Seems like a win, win, win to me.

From its very founding America has been a fantasy, a dream of utopians.

Only people fantasizing about utopia could come up with:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Imagine a military commander defeating a much superior enemy, winning his country’s independence, and then retiring to his home. No one since ancientRomehad done that. “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world” stated King George III.  But this was George Washington’s utopian vision forAmerica.

In the latter part of the 18^th century, on a globe covered with people ruled by kings, chiefs, and strongmen, who but utopians would attempt to create a government based on:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For the first 150 years or so Americans common utopian vision was of a land of opportunity. A nation where anyone, regardless of class, education, ancestors, etc. could through his or her own efforts achieve. (Of course, it was not perfect, the most egregious issue being slavery, which took a civil war to begin to resolve.)

As the 20^th century rolled by, and not coincidently as Americans wealth grew, the utopian concept of individual opportunity and responsibility was supplemented by the acknowledged social responsibility of government.

The issue of role of government in supporting the individual has a long history in theUnited States. In 1776, before there was an America, the first pension program was established for soldiers fighting in the American Revolution.  After the Civil War hundreds of thousands of disabled soldiers, widows and orphans received pensions. The Great Depression brought about Social Security.

There are many other examples of the government providing for individuals. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), another outgrowth of the Great Depression, provides individuals with a guarantee of safety of deposits in member banks, currently up to $250,000 per depositor per bank.

At the 20^th century drew to a close, many Americans were questioning just what was the proper proportion of individual opportunity and government social responsibility?

One side believes that government should play a dominate role in bringing about Ameritopia.  Most govtopians are not seeking a Marxian utopia: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Instead they seek a utopia of “to each according to his/her wants.”

Big business made bad decisions, simple answer have the government bail them out. People bought houses they could not afford and now are underwater; no problem government can solve their problem.  Student loans too large, no worry the government will forgive them.

The other view is that individuals bear most of the responsibility for creating their utopia. That while utopia is an ideal to be worked toward it is not realistically attainable and thus no amount of government intervention can make it a reality.

It was much easier when welfare was the symbol of the entitled.  It was those lazy people who didn’t want to work who collected welfare. Having more-or-less addressed the welfare issue during theClintonadministration, the cost of government social programs was placed on a back burner.

In the second decade of the 21^st century the continual growth of government social programs and the inability or unwillingness of the taxed public to support these programs caused by the Great Recession, has brought back into focus the government social support system.

Today the Social Security System has become the poster child for entitlements. Correct or not, as understood by the public the idea of Social Security was: I pay in while I am working, I get back when I retire. The public was generally uninformed and unconcerned about how many people were paying in, how many would be collecting, how much they were paying in, and how much they would be collecting.  That is, until it became time for them to collect.

It is now becoming clear to Americans (especially baby-boomers who are about to retire) that there was no “lock box”, there is no pool of money invested somewhere. People were paying in to support those who were collecting. The idea was that in the future others would be paying in to support those who had paid in and wanted to collect.  What no one wanted the public to know was that this system only worked if either: a) more people were paying in than collecting; or b) those paying in paid much higher amounts.

This is the quicksand upon which all government social programs are based.  There either needs to be a larger number of people paying relatively small amounts to support a smaller number of people; or the people paying in must pay considerably larger amounts to support people collecting. In either case, it becomes obvious that too many people collecting too large amounts will collapse the system.

Ultimately, this is the impossible premise of the govtopians. The more government social programs you have, the more people being supported, the larger the amounts needed to fund the programs, means fewer and fewer people are paying more and more in taxes to support the programs.

Despite all the talk of government printing money, there is no money tree in the National Arboretum.  Any and all money the government spends ultimately comes from only one source, the public.  Corporation may pay tax, but where do corporations get their money – from the public. Government may borrow from the Chinese, but where does the money (including interest) come form to pay back the Chinese – the public.

Today the obvious evolutionary dead end of the entitlement society is that many people truly believe that government has an unlimited pool of money to support an unlimited number of people and programs.

Government social programs do have a place in America. But, government funded social programs can only exist if a large number of people individually pay small amounts to support a relatively small number of people.

Rick Perry faces a rapidly deteriorating campaign due to his own puzzling handling of obvious questions with seemingly simple explanations and thus he is allowing his opposition to frame the debate.

On the HPV vaccine, Perry was asked if it was that a mistake? His response:

“It was. And indeed, if I had it to do over again, I would have done it differently. I would have gone to the legislature, worked with them. But what was driving me was, obviously, making a difference about young people’s lives.”

Perry did not state that no girl in Texas was ever vaccinated under his order, perhaps because he did not want to admit that the Texas legislature overturned his order. In any case, the impression he left was that he had girls be vaccinated.

On the issues of Texas offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens, the sound bite from Perry was:

“But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.”

The impressions left the public with were: 1) He supports in-state tuition discounts for illegal aliens; 2) Anyone who doesn’t is heartless.

What he never explained was that the Texas law applies to all (not just illegals) and requires that a child live in the state of Texas for at least three years, has  graduated from a state high school, and the person must agree to pursue full citizenship.

While you may not agree with the position, had Perry stated forcibly, that Texas had decided to make in-state tuition available to anyone who met these criteria, not just illegal aliens, he would have defused the issue.

These were not surprise issues.  He and his advisers must have known the questions were coming. Perry’s inability to defend himself, his decisions, his positions is becoming a puzzling trend.

Perry has said, “It’s not who is the slickest candidate or the smoothest debater that we need to elect.”

He’s right.  But, can someone who cannot defend his own decisions win? More critically, do we want to elect someone who cannot defend their decisions?

Good afternoon.

As you all know, late Friday Standard and Poors, one of three rating agencies downgraded the United States’ credit rating one notch; the two other agencies have continued to give our nation their highest rating.  Let me be clear, the full faith and credit of the United States has never been doubted, is not in doubt, and will never be in doubt.

Recently the world has witnessed a messy display of our republican democracy in action over raising the debt limit. The fact that there were differing voices, unafraid to publicly proclaim their opinion, is a strength not a weakness of our great nation. The founders of this great nation wanted a messy government to prevent an authoritarian government.

This does not mean that we can just ignore recent events and go merrily on our way.  Everyone is only too aware that our nation is facing difficult times: far too many Americans are unemployed, far too many Americans are on food stamps, the housing market has yet to recover, our economy is recovering far, far too slowly, and our debt is reaching unmanageable depths.

Thus, today, as President of the United States, I am calling Congress back into session to immediately and as soon as Congress convenes I will present legislation to begin to address these critical issues…

New York State allowing gay marriage has once again focused attention on the issue.  The real issue is not should gays be allowed to marry, but rather that we should end the special government privilege granted to heterosexuals who are married.

If two consenting adults want to say they are married, why should government prevent it?

If a heterosexual couple’s beliefs are that marriage requires a religious ceremony that is their right.   If a heterosexual couple’s beliefs are that marriage does not require a religious ceremony that is their right.   If a heterosexual couple’s beliefs are that marriage is only between a man and a woman with or without requiring a religious ceremony that is their right.

Similarly, if a gay couple’s beliefs are that marriage can be between two people of the same gender and requires a religious ceremony that is their right.   Or if they believe marriage does not require a religious ceremony that is their right.   If a gay couple’s beliefs are that marriage is only between people of the same gender with or without requiring a religious ceremony that is their right.

Why should government define for two consenting adults the description of their relationship?

When the government recognizes two people as married, certain special privileges are automatically bestowed on that couple. Why?

If one of the two people in a marriage dies without a will, the other person inherits the estate.  If one married person gets health insurance through his/her employer, her/his spouse can be covered. Etc.

Why does government provide these special privileges?

Let employees claim one other adult as part of their health insurance benefit, it could be her husband, his partner, her mother.  If the employer is willing to extend coverage to a man and a woman, why not two women, or me and my mother? This could provide medical insurance to more people: an employed wife could add her uninsured cousin and the wife’s employed husband could add their uninsured adult son.

Websites could provide a check list and fill-in PDF forms. Married or not, go down the list and fill them out the forms.

Do you have a retirement fund? Who did you declare as the beneficiary? If you cannot take the time to make your desires known, there should be no legislated determination of beneficiaries.  Let the courts or arbitration decide each case (and take the court costs out of the estate).

Do away with any benefit or penalty for two adults filing a joint tax return. Allow two adults to file jointly, but provide neither an incentive nor deterrent.

End the special government privilege granted to heterosexuals who are married.

Not since 480 BC and the 300 Spartans have a relatively small band of Greeks fought to a standstill a much superior force.

Imagine the 730,000 people of Detroit, Michigan could force economic policy on the entire population, the 312,000,000 people of the United States. Now I am sure most of the people in Detroit are very nice; but would all Americans want the people of Detroit setting economic policy? Do Detroit’s economic needs reflect the entire nation?

The population of the European Monetary Union (EMU) is about 329,000,000 and this is, in effect, what the politicians have created in the EMU over the Greece default crisis.

The magic word is: contagion. Think domino effect.

If Greece defaults it will send a tsunami through economies around the globe. First, everyone holding Greek debt is in trouble, especially the banks (public and private) in France and Germany, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Those banks will bring down other banks. At the same time other sovereign debt (think Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy) will become more expense to fund, leading to the possibility of more nations defaulting. If the nations of the EMU get in trouble, they will drag down the USA and the rest of the world.

So Greece cannot be allowed to default and everyone knows Greece cannot be allowed to default.

There are about 740,000 union members in Greece. They know Greece cannot be allowed to default.

If Greece was not a part of the EMU, Greece’s economic policies would condemn the people of Greece to the punishment of very high inflation, the devaluation of their currency, and ultimately perhaps a military coup. But, being part of the EMU means Greece uses the Euro and cannot devalue its currency.

Knowing that Greece cannot be allowed to default and that they will not be severely punished economically, why should the union members agree to austerity measures?

So, thanks to the steps taken to avert a Greek default crisis, the 329,000,000 people of the EMU (and the rest of the world) are held hostage by 740,000 Greek union members.