sic vis pacem para bellum

Sidelined Government

For those of you that don't know me, I spend too much time on the net looking for news and global events. Most of the time I find the news and an extra dose of disappointment. That disappointment is usually in the notion of government, mine or others, it doesn't matter and in humanity. Not that humanity is bad but generally disappointing in the current times. Well today I found an article worth writing about and emailing in one of those mass emails. I rarely involve myself in those huge group pass along emails but this time I will be starting one. Ok, ok, enough about my pessimism and off to the story.

This is a breath of fresh air! In Kauai earlier this month, March 23, to be exact, a group of local citizens took matters into their own hands, and won!

In early march there was some flooding on Kauai. Not odd, and it ended up destroying a bridge, this bridge was a main artery to the local state park. Without this bridge in place the businesses on the other side would face bankruptcy. Without customers businesses tend to have a rough time. I digress.

After the flood the locals went to the government and were told a few things. First, there was no money, second, when the money shows up, all four million of it, it would probably take about 2 years to complete the new bridge. This was the wrong answer. Without that bridge in place many businesses were facing eminent failure. That's about the same time they decided to sideline the government, take matters into their own hands and fix the bridge themselves.

That's where March 23 comes into play. On that date, the locals, armed with only the machines they already had and donations collected, they set out to build a bridge. Eight days later on April 1 that bridge was operational! EIGHT DAYS. The local government said 4 million and 2 years, the locals said NAY, we counter with 8 days and donations! I will probably never meet any of those people but from the windy town of Prescott, Arizona I salute you all! That's excatly what kind of drive this country was built on and I hope to see more of it!!!

Source

Before

After

Barney Frank Gets Owned

North Korea

I've been watching the news cycle around the N. Korean missile launch and thought it would be appropriate to examine it in context.

On Saturday night the North Korean regime launched a Taepodong-2 missile. This is a two to three stage missile that has a theoretical range of 3000 miles. As it has been reported the current launch successfully separated from stage one to stage two over the sea of Japan and then the missile fell into the ocean at a range of about 1700 miles. Clearly another failure in a long line of technological failures that the N. Koreans have attempted in the last few years. The Koreans and Russians both claim the launch was successful and deployed a satellite. The U.S. Aerospace Defense Agency disagrees and has stated that no satellite was deployed.

With the facts being what they are, where should the average American rank the N. Korean threat. I would suggest a closer look at the leader of Korea and his history of actions. Kim Jong Il, succeeded his father Kim Il Sung as the Leader of N. Korea. Since that time he has developed a nuclear program and become the largest proliferator of ballistic missile technology in the world. Mr. Kim, known as the "Dear Leader" from his country men sells his wares to who ever will pay. Most of his customers coming from the Middle East. Remember the Scud missile? It was the mainstay of the Iraqi threat. They came from N. Korea. As I understand it all missiles coming from N. Korea require a guidance system upgrade if the buyer expects to have a chance of hitting a target. As far as the Dear Leaders actions are concerned he has done little more that kidnapping and killing his own people. Now, I don't want to down play how many millions of his own he has killed but it should be weighed objectively with other global security threats. In my opinion it is time to start ignoring the tiny man from N. Korea. He is dead set on survival and nothing more. He would never threaten his survival and we as the U.S. can count on that. With the global economic meltdown, Iran on the rise and Europe on the fall the U.S. would be wise to leave the N.Korean issue to China, Russia, S.Korea and Japan. We as the global superpower need to focus our energies on successfully negotiating the next couple of years and not lose focus on true global threats to security.

AIG

Ok, so the national media has been up in arms about the bonuses handed out to AIG executives. I get it! We're all real mad that a company touted as to big to fail, made some decisions that almost killed itself and the U.S. tax payer was led by the nose by our leadership in D.C. to hand over something like 150+ BILLION so that the mighty AIG would not collapse. Whew, crisis averted! Of course the markets have lost something like 40% since our live saving intervention. Sorry I digress.

Now we have a situation where a company that received billions is handing out 168 million in bonuses to the executives that were involved in selling financial packages that leveraged the company to this suicidal moment. Wow, these guys must have no soul! Their so evil!!! Really, and this is a shocker why? Now don't misunderstand me, I'm upset that this happened but I'm not at AIG. Remember, AIG did this to them self. At some point they determined that the gamble would go as follows. Heads I win and tails I come out even. Not bad odds, hell, I would take odds like that. If they were to big to fail then why not gamble the house every time?

So, if you find yourself upset at this evil soulless company take a moment and think about how they were able to pull this off.

They were made able because the government decided to hand out tons(literally) of cash to keep this private suicidal company alive. The company had proven that if left to their own devises they would lie, steal, cheat, and we, the public are all of a sudden upset that they took our money and rewarded the suicidal tendencies within their own company. Not really strange if you ask me.

Remember, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Well, shame on us America!

Ok well I got that out of my system, but I would feel bad if I didn't offer up a solution.

Nationalization. I know, I know! It's socialist and evil, and to that end you would be half right. As I see it there are two kinds of nationalization, one good and one bad. Shocka!

We'll start with the bad one. Bad Nationalization is when the government steps into a private industry and decides that it will now run it, forever! See Mr Chavez in Venezuela. Government has proven over the course of time that they are horrible at running industry. They are good at taxing and spending, for the record.

Now to the good one. Good Nationalization is when private industry commits seppuku or at least attempts it and the government steps in, seizes their assets, cuts them into pieces and then tries to liquidate them over time. Clearly these choices suck but at a time when our financial future hangs in the balance I think the government should grow try to lead instead of make us feel better.

More to come!

Well that didn't take long!

Mr. Geitner the Treasury secretary just issued his edict on the subject. He wants 168 million back. Let's get this straight, company "x" made bad decisions, government "x" stepped in with it's dump truck of cash and set company "x" awash in it, company "x" honors constitutionally sound contracts with financial package department, government "x" asks for less than 1/10 on 1% of it's cash back as punishment for company "x' obeying the law and honoring it's agreements.

You'll have to give me a second while I catch my breath. I feel like we might be lost, if you have a map please forward.