FaceUpToFred

I’ve wanted to write my views on this ridiculously titled program for some time now, but did not feel that I had a genuinely original comment to make. I was so impressed with Jeff Jacoby’s article in the Boston Globe that I felt it would cover the issue. I especially liked his format. Go ahead Jeff.
Clunker Q&A
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe

August 26, 2009 — Q: Congressman, was “Cash for Clunkers” a success?
A: Of course it was! I’m surprised you’d even ask. “It has been successful beyond anybody’s imagination,” President Obama said last week. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said he was thrilled “to be part of the best economic news story in America.” GM executive Mike DiGiovanni raved that “it really is all thumbs up,” a rare example of an undertaking “that it’s hard to find anything negative about.” If that’s not success, I don’t know what is.

Q: If it has been such a wonderful program, why did it end this week?
A: Well, nothing wonderful lasts forever. All the money available for rebates has been claimed, so the program has come to a close.

Q: But why close down “the best economic news story in America?” You extended it once; why not a second time? Why not keep it going forever?
A: You forget that Congress has other priorities too. Cash for Clunkers has been terrific for automobile dealers, but there is more to the economy than cars.

Q: Oh, you mean you’re now going to offer rebates to consumers who buy other things, like new couches or paint jobs or airplane tickets?
A: No, that wasn’t exactly what I –

Q: But aren’t those purchases as deserving of subsidies as cars? Surely Congress wants to help furniture dealers and housepainters and airline employees too?
A: Yes, of course, but — I mean — well, let me think about that.

Q: By the way, if the “clunkers” program were really such a boon for the auto business, why did so many car dealers back out of it early?
A: “So many?” Don’t exaggerate!

Q: It’s no exaggeration, congressman. Associated Press reported that AutoNation, the largest dealership chain in America, pulled out of Cash for Clunkers last Thursday — three full days before the deadline. Automotive News ran a story about other dealers who found the government so difficult to deal with that they got out even earlier. “It’s just a mess, an absolute mess,” one of them said. The News surveyed dealerships, and more than one-eighth of those responding said they had stopped doing “clunker” deals because it was such a bureaucratic nightmare. According to the New York Post, half of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association dropped out early. Does that sound like something the president should be calling “successful beyond anybody’s imagination?”
A: OK, maybe there have been snafus with the government’s computers and whatnot, but you’re missing the forest for the trees: This has been an incredible shot in the arm for the economy. Thousands of jobs have been created or saved, and hundreds of thousands of cars were sold.

Hundreds of thousands of drivable cars are being destroyed as part of the “Cash for Clunkers” program

Q: Yes, but for every car sold, a car had to be destroyed. I understand why that might make GM happy. But how does the destruction of 750,000 used cars — all of which had to be in drivable condition to qualify for a rebate — help your constituents who can’t afford a new car? All this program did for them was guarantee that used cars will become more expensive. Poorer drivers will be penalized to subsidize new cars for wealthier drivers. Isn’t that immoral?
A: Look, there are tradeoffs to everything. You’re overlooking all the benefits that those new car sales will generate.

Q: No, I’m refusing to ignore all the costs that inevitably accompany those benefits. Congress and the administration took $3 billion from taxpayers in order to boost car sales. That’s $3 billion taxpayers will not be able to spend on groceries or tuition or a down payment on a new house. Before you can credit Cash for Clunkers with the “multiplier effect” of those new-car sales, you have to charge it with a negative multiplier effect at least as great: all the jobs and growth and stimulus that won’t materialize because the government decided to spend $3 billion disabling, crushing, and shredding used cars. Don’t you see that everything government does, it does at someone’s expense?
A: You can say what you like, but this was a popular program.

Q: According to the polls, 54 percent of Americans opposed it. You call that popular?
A: Look, I have to go. But let me just say this: If Cash for Clunkers were as dubious as you suggest, it wouldn’t have had so many takers.

Q: Oh, for heaven’s sake, congressman: If you give away money, won’t people always line up to take it?

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6145/clunker-q

Our problem is that we have a President who can not distinguish a problem from a project. Let’s say the rain is coming. If you have a house with a gaping hole in the roof and a detached garage that leans over a little bit, the hole in the roof is a problem, the garage is a worth while project that can be looked at after the problems are solved.

In our country we have a gaping problem. Our economy is crashing while our people are loosing the jobs that would make our nation whole again. Washington DC needs to address our problem, not an ancillary project. You see it is really very simple. Our people need to become productive again. We need to understand that productivity is not e-mailing each other with an offer to buy insurance. Productivity means that we grow food, mine natural resources or manufacture something that can be exported at a profit. Only then will our economy rebound. This is how our country rebounded from the “great depression.” It was with world renowned mining, farming and manufacturing.

Realtors, politicians, lawyers, bankers, administrators, agents, accountants and academics can not fix America’s problems. They do not have the means to do what must be done.
America’s strength can only be built on industrial and technological supremacy.

Mining, farming and manufacturing are money.
The rest is just talk.
Without mining, farming and manufacturing there is no production of real wealth.
Mining, farming and manufacturing followed by export puts money in our bank. That is to say, someone else’s money. The result is that we have more money. Not a redistribution of our own money. In a family, if daddy pays mommy, mommy’s income does not add to the family’s wealth. If mommy works outside the home and brings money additional to daddy’s, to the family bank, the family becomes more wealthy. Do you see how simple it is?

If a man who makes his living in America sells his house to another man who makes a living in America and one of them pays a banker and a realtor, it is wonderful, but the nation has not increased its wealth by one thin dime.

Right now we don’t have any money. We really don’t, in fact, we’re in debt.
Washington DC needs to get out of the way of the incredible machine that will employ American’s in productive, profitable work. We need real businesses that produce exports. We need to create technology and production of all kinds. Once our technological supremacy and productivity make us rich, we will be able to afford to look around and develop improved social programs. Right now we can’t, we simply don’t have the money. That is our problem. Health care is an issue that should be addressed. Yes, of course, as soon as we solve our immediate problem. Our resources are limited.
Please, first things first.

It irks me that Washington DC is working on the garage while we still have a hole in the roof of the house, and did I mention it? The rain is coming.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2009
Got ‘em!
The Constitution of the State of California – Article I, Section 9 – says quite plainly:
“[An] … ex post facto law … may not be passed.”

Wikipedia, on types of “ex post facto” (”after the fact”) laws, says:
“… a form of ex post facto law commonly known as an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts or alleviate possible punishments … retroactively.”

Translation: ANY law made concerning the consequences of an act, made after the act was performed, that affects the actor either positively or negatively as a result of committing the act (e.g., makes him guilty when he was innocent at the time, or innocent when he was guilty at the time), is illegal.

This means that our Legislators’ callous and in-our-faces grant of retroactive immunity under SBX2-11 for the thousands of criminal acts (over 108,000 by our count) by LA County Superior Court judges in taking payments from LA County’s Supervisors (Antonovich, Knabe, Molina, Yaroslavsky and Ridley Thomas) to the tune of over $300 million dollars (using stolen tax dollars), is unconstitutional. (They had to have known this, which leave us with the obvious question hanging … what did they get for themselves in return? Here’s hoping the press will hammer their doors down and find out!)

The judges knew the payments were illegal all along. They have known since 1988, twenty-one years, that what they were doing was illegal and corrupt. And yet they continued, month-in and month-out, year-in and year-out, buying trinkets and luxuries with OUR dollars.

The judges even managed to get ANOTHER raise for themselves recently … they’re now each getting an extra $57,000 per year, up from the $46,000+ they were receiving previously … and THEN they ever so graciously announced they’d take a cut-back in pay along with the rest of the court staff during this budget crisis (”in a show of solidarity with court employees who are facing furloughs”). The truth is that, even with the cut, they’re still making more than they were!

[Readers of the sorely-missed "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strips will see and understand that the judges and Legislators have been playing a game of "Calvinball" with us; in Calvinball, the rules change whenever the rule-maker can think of a new one that will benefit himself.]

Here’s a clue about the futures of those given “retroactive immunity” under SBX2-11:

Gov. Schwarzenegger had better start clearing out the prisons soon to make room; five hundred new prisoners will soon be coming their way. In the meantime, perhaps Arizona’s Sheriff Arpaio can give us some guidance on setting up tent city prisons in the desert, and help us figure out how many pairs of pink boxer shorts to order for the new inmates.

Question of the hour: To whom do you turn yourself in if you want to get on the right side of the Law before it’s too late? We’ll find out and post an answer soon.

[Follow-up report: Who, exactly, is afraid of which LA County Supervisor behind passage of SBX2-11 (Antonovich, Knabe, Molina, Yaroslavsky, or Ridley Thomas) ... and why?]

HELP WANTED AD: Lawfirm needed to assist in defense of current and former Los Angeles County Superior Court judges and involved members of the Board of Supervisors, members of the Judicial Council, members of the Legislature, lobbyists, developers, their counsel, and others. Apply for consideration in the Comments section. (Just kidding, barely. Although your phones will be ringing soon, no doubt. We look forward to seeing your clients in court!)

Going out into society and hearing the voice of the people I meet is always shocking to me. I recently learned and wrote about “the dupe factor,” and now I am confronted with a revelation brought to me by a mentally ill man who I had the misfortune of encountering.

Too lazy to get quotes, I will make up my own numbers for the sake of ease of making my point. Anyone desiring to give me the “actual” numbers is welcome to do so, but bare in mind that if your source is main stream media, than probably your numbers are just made up too.

The assertion is that we have a population of 300 million people and among those people we have 50 million who are uninsured for medical problems. The people opposing the assertion say, yeah but 12 million don’t want insurance because they are young and believe that they are immortal, 12 million are between jobs and will have insurance next week, and 20 million are illegal occupants who shouldn’t be here anyway, so in reality we only have 6 million people that we need to care for.

Enter the mentally ill guy. His assertion is that Barack Obama must be respected because he was elected by 51% of the voters and that my friend is a majority. Good logic from the nut job, impressive. The people opposing the assertion pointed out that of the 51% majority, 10% were racists who chose by race. 10% were radical feminists who chose by ideology. 10% were women who chose by sex appeal. 10% just vote “the party line” out of pure ignorance and apathy, and 10% were like the mentally ill guy. This guy was twisted into a mind set of hate as a result of America being a party that he was not invited to. Starting life in “country club society” and falling to a much lower status he considers himself a loser. This being difficult to take and unable to re-elevate himself, he in his miserable emotional state, has decided to drag down the rest of the country with him by voting for the candidate who would also take revenge on America. (Actually his choice was quite logical. His mental illness manifests itself in his rage, not his rationality.)

This leaves the last 1% who carefully studied the information they had, considered the direction they wanted the country to go and made the decision that Barack Obama was the right man for the job.

Now, the other candidates had the same smattering of racism, party line bone heads and hateful, mentally ill people voting for them too. This is what prompts my question. Why is the most important job on earth granted to someone selected by the group that I’ve been describing throughout this writing?

The enlightenment issue is this. I’ve lived through 10 presidential administrations in my life. This election was the first time I have seen people cast a vote based on the fact that they hated America. For me, this is new. In the past I believe that people may have selected poorly but at least they voted with a constructive attitude. This time, in addition to everybody else, the F*** America people had a candidate they could believe in. He won, and theirs was the deciding vote.

They say that history repeats itself. The problem with that is that it seems that the other thing that repeats itself is that we never learn from history. We live in 2009 but a trip back to 1913 is in order. At that time we had a President who was not the leading candidate when he was elected. He was a two year democrat governor from New Jersey who won because the Republican Party was in disarray. Sound familiar? The Republican Party was split between William Howard Taft and the, are you ready, “Progressive” Republicans, that’s right, who supported Theodore Roosevelt. The Republicans crumbled and the “Progressive Democrat” Woodrow Wilson who espoused “progressive” policies won. Ah to have been alive on that day. We would have been so innocent. In addition to being instrumental in the development, and our involvement, in the “League of Nations” he authorized the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve was a European banking group who ended America’s financial sovereignty. Along with the Federal Reserve came new duties for the IRS ( Internal Revenue service).
The IRS, which was formed in 1862 to collect taxes to finance the Civil War, would now be turned on the American people as a collection agency for the European Bankers.

Many Americans consider the IRS to be an agency of unregulated tyrants who destroy people and their lives without the due process of law. This opinion and fear is based on experience. In 1913 the greatest blow to our American freedom was put in place. The financial freedom enjoyed in 1912 would never be seen again. Woodrow Wilson betrayed America, he knew it and in fact, he confessed it. Now, our finances are under constant scrutiny and control by a government agency. We are not free.

At least you’ve got your health.

We do have freedom to control our own health care. We can pick our doctor and we can pick our treatment. We understand this as a fundamental right.

2009. Here comes the “Progressive Democrat” who espouses progressive policies again. Guess what he wants to do. He wants to create a government agency to control YOUR health care. He wants to take that freedom away from you. He and his crew, who he refers to as “Czars,” point out the inability of the private medical system to do a better job of administering health care than the government can. This is actually their claim. They certainly can’t be claiming to do it worse. The President’s example is the postal system.
Fed Ex and UPS are doing great. They are private industry.
The government run postal system is in collapse despite government subsidy.
Uh, great example Mr. President.
Well nobody said he was a business man.

Once the government is in charge, it will act as it is in charge.
Wild bureaucracy will flourish.
Policies will be based on the wants of special interest groups.
A new political entity will be born. Medical institutions who kick back money to support political campaigns will be the ones who are funded. Look at the funding of ACORN.
The person with the medical need will scorned as an impediment to the real business at hand which will be funding, funding, funding. Need a real life example? Just look at the divorce industry. The welfare of the child is last on the list of the government’s concerns. Funding bureaucracies reigns supreme.

The usurpation of the banking industry by the government institution of the Federal Reserve of 1913, stands as the most egregious affront to the American people in their history. The usurpation of the medical industry by the government will be the second most. The right to privacy and sovereignty of your own wealth was stripped away in 1913. The right to privacy and sovereignty of your own health is in peril today.

The banking industry - get the government out of my business.
The divorce industry - get the government out of my home and family.
The medical industry - get the government out of my …. blood.

Thank you to Harry (see California Men’s Centers) for posting the “letter from Bob.” This kind of constructive commentary is an inspiration to me to work harder on the quality of my own writing.

Though I am impressed with the scholarly style of Bob’s letter, I also appreciate the “meat and potatoes” quality of Steve Crooks comments. He speaks for a lotta’ people and he speaks “like” a lotta’ people.

I had this “difference of style” thrown in my face yesterday at the meeting of The Los Angeles City Council on Domestic Violence. The members of the council conducted a very professional meeting addressing their concerns. One person even had concerns for the victims of domestic violence. The rest were basically concerned with DV industry funding. For over an hour it was an exercise in scholarly conduct. As the type written agenda neared its end, a woman stood up and reported on an event that was nothing less than a man bashing festival. The sleepy room came alive with fervor, a lot of yeah, yeah, yeah and one woo hoo. Another woman stood up and declared triumphantly that this same group of bashers would be featured at the upcoming IVAT conference. The room literally applauded. The chair women then said “with that we adjourn the meeting.”

The real irony of the moment was that after that meeting, most of the same group went to attend the “Council on Gang Violence.” Uh……….

Today the “Gallop Poll” indicated that our president was suffering a large drop in approval rating. In fact his Gallop Poll approval rating is lower than President G.W. Bush’s ratings at this point in his Presidency. Well, you know that these polls are highly suspect and I personally don’t put much stock in them, but they do spark comment. I heard some comments in the grocery store of all places, and one comment in particular was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

A tall black man in his sixties stated “Well, Obama showed he’s a racist and he didn’t shut down Guantanimo, and he didn’t change a thing and I ain’t any better off and I guess I got duped but I just can’t admit it, so for now I’m just gonna’ stick with him and hang on to the hope.” This hope, by the way, is hope for entitlement. Hope for unearned prosperity. It is certainly not hope that you can work hard to support someone else. I’m sure that hope for that was never a campaign promise.

I realized that whatever his approval rating is, a great deal of the approvers, are hanging onto something. Many are hanging on to racism. Many are hanging onto hatred of America. Many are just plain ignorant. A great many of the disapprovers are guilty of the same list. The difference is the “Dupe Factor.” The approvers and disapprovers are about equally split. Only the approvers can feel betrayed or “duped.” It is only they who can regret their vote. You never hear anyone say “Damn, I should have voted for Obama. What was I thinking? I’m sorry. I guess I acted stupidly.”

The opposite of the “dupe factor” is the “unqualified satisfaction factor.” In other words there is a group of people out there who are entitled to say “SEE.” This group can drive the duped group to frustrated madness.

This “Revelation at Ralph’s” (Ralph’s is the grocery store) led me to see many parallels to the Presidential election, feminism and family court. I realized that the racist element of the election and the gender biased element of the election were a big factor in the election. The election was won on factors other than merits of the candidate. Family court decisions are made on factors such as racial prejudices, gender biases, ignorance and financial corruption, rather than merits of the candidate. In short, no truth, all agenda!

Feminism has failed America. It was touted as a giant leap forward in social thinking but because it is contrary to human nature it was doomed to corruption, failure and betrayal of its loudest proponents. The true leaders who were pure of heart with their original intentions have learned by their mistake and have recanted their positions. Ahh…. But what about those who just can’t? The ones who just can’t come to terms with having been duped? Feminism was a bold project. Many deceived women and double duped men invested so much into it that they just can’t, they just can’t, they just can’t watch it go down in flames. It defined them, and without it they are nothing. It’s just too much for them so they “hold out.” They fight. They chant the dogma. Repeated lies “got them there,” and their faith is that repeating those same lies will keep them there. There are many of them and they are hoping that through sheer force of numbers they can make the lies “stick.” One strand of “hope” (unearned prosperity) was, the “gender role confused” Obama and his VAWA girl friend Joe Biden. They lined up to vote for Obama.
Oprah was so proud.

Feminism is an affront to human nature.
Socialism is an affront to that same human nature.
Not to worry though, for the Duped, there is always hope.