Happy Halloween

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45087391#45087391

I don’t know about the rest of America, but this is getting scary (and just in time for Halloween)

In the above link, President Obama says that if Congress won’t pass his proposed jobs legislation, then he will do the same things by executive order.

Hello, does that not bother anyone. It bothers me, a lot.

Constitutionally, a president does not make the law, he enforces the law. He proposes,  Congress disposes.

I find it exceedingly uncomfortable when a president starts acting on domestic matters via executive fiat.

I am not sure, but I would hope our members in Congress would rise to this challenge and seek to restore the checks and balances that make the United States practically unique. Yes, those checks and balances make for gridlock. Yes, they make the government look inefficient and slow moving. But, honestly, that is more prudent than acting on impulse or seeking immediate gratification.

I think President Obama is wrong in seeking to enact his plans by executive order. Not because the policies are necessarily bad, misguided or wrong, but because it should not be in any president’s power to do so.

Whose business is it anyway?

I was reading a story/commentary on MSNBC about eight corporate executives who, in the author’s judgment, apparently are not worth the very large compensation packages they receive.

OK, other than pointing out that the people who invest in these publicly held  corporations are not getting what they probably should, what is the point? If you don’t hold common stock/voting stock in the company, then your interests are pretty much zero.

OOPS, my bad. That is right, we are supposed to resent others who have more than we do and demand that we get our share of the pie.

Greed

I really feel like running screaming into the streets.

What is greed? Would someone please define it, as Pappy used to say, in words of one syllable or less so us old farts can understand it.

Now we have a US congressman proposing that the US government put 15 million unemployed on the government payroll at $40k per year and use another $200 billion to bail out local and state governments.

Did I miss something or did the world go blind?

Now, it seems the US media is giving big play to the “occupy” movement going worldwide. With all due respect to the young people involved, but there ain’t nuthin’ that comes free in life and it ain’t gonna be given to you.

Skepticism

Ok, folks. Something doesn’t quite add up here.

I have been trying to piece together exactly what the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was all about and how it supposedly was to come about.

Either there are some IRGC Al Quds people who are incredibly stupid or these guys make some of the crackpot schemes of the CIA look absolutely brilliant.

First, I admit I am never going to see any of the NSA intercepts that may be linked to this, but it sort of beggar’s belief that some Iranian sleeper is going to go down to Mexico to link up with somebody he doesn’t know from Adam but is supposed to be from one of that nation’s drug cartels and offer them $1.5 million (do you want that in small bills or in opium) to off the ambassador. If I was some Mexican cartel guy, I would have tossed this yahoo in a heartbeat. Shooting up ICE and Border Patrol people is one thing, but I would think that the Mexican drug lords have got enough on their plate to even contemplate getting involved in that sort of international shenanigans. And then it turns out that the cartel contact is a DEA informant …  like great choice Iran.

Next, I admit I don’t have any inside dope on the machinations of the Iranian regime or the theocrats who pull the strings, but this sounds about as dopey a plan as a poor novel plot or movie script. It takes a certain suspension of disbelief to think someone really thought it might work.

Let’s assume what has been reported is true. Some low to mid-level functionary at Al Quds decides to enhance his career and go rogue. He contacts his American cousin and tells him to hoof it down to Mexico to see if he can troll up someone in the Mexican mafia to provide a hit man/team.  This guy in Al Quds obviously has some pull, cause he is able shift $100 K electronically to some bank account.

But why use a Mexican cutout? They  don’t have any reason to play square and a lot of reasons not to.

It would seem cheaper and more reliable to get a Jihadi to do it.

And the blowback on this hit is going to be intense. If you are going to try something like this, you better have something better than just plausible deniability going for you, especially when you are coming from the Dark Side as far as the US and its erstwhile friends seeing things.

It all just tends to make one wonder why any Persian with more than two functioning brain cells (and these people really do go way back in the smarts department,  chess versus checkers anyone) would do this without having some really important goal in mind. It doesn’t make whole lot of sense.

Occupy what?

I have been trying to understand and follow the “Occupy Wall Street”  protests of the last three-plus weeks (and its various stepchildren around the country) and I have yet to figure exactly what point the protesters are trying to make.

That corporations are “bad” … all a corporation is is a voluntary – yes, I said voluntary – legal construct to allow people to unite for some purpose while limiting their liability. This limited liability is part of the reason for the success of the modern world because those who voluntarily invest in any corporation, of whatever size, shape or purpose, are only liable to the extent they are invested in the corporation. That actually serves a good economic purpose, rather than bad … in my humble estimation.

If you eliminate the corporations, then what are you left with? I am not sure anyone has an answer to that or at least I am not hearing any.

Ok, so five percent of the nation controls most of the nation’s wealth … since when is that news. It always has been that way, and besides, most of that wealth these days is on paper and is not real “wealth” … however you want to define that.

So the people who manage corporations are “greedy” … so what? First of all, I wish someone would give me a practical working definition of what greedy means, because I am not sure what it means.

Are we saying that individuals can’t own their own labor and profit from it or leverage it to their advantage? That they are not allowed to exchange the fruits of their own talents and labors for whatever the market will bear? If that is your viewpoint, then you have seriously missed out on the historical lessons of the last three centuries. By granting the individual the right to own their own labors (and the results of that labor) and to exchange it is the reason why millions –if not billions - of people are not living at subsistence levels, particularly in the US,

The biggest problem I have with the devotees of the concept that society/government  owes individuals the satisfaction of their “needs” is that nobody ever gets around to defining exactly what satisfying those “needs” means. At what point do needs become merely desires or even luxuries?

If you mean survival, then a shirt, coat, pants, socks, shoes, a puptent, a blanket, a portapottie (1 for every hundred people or so) and maybe 2,000 calories a day should do the trick … anything more than that and you are getting into discriminatory choices that differentiate individuals and then we are not treating people equal.

Oh, that is the point. We all are supposed to be equal … but in what way? We should be equal before the law (the law should be blind to our differences and our treatment therefore should be equal) … But that doesn’t happen because we happen to be individuals, different and unique, and discriminatory by nature.

Equal outcomes (incomes, etc.) are about as fallacious as anything that can be proposed. If you are not happy where you are, then change something … usually starting with yourself.

Anyway, so much for my ramblings.