Greed's Saving Graces

When in a provocative mood I have proclaimed to liberals that greed is a virtue. When I make such a statement, you can see their face turn red with anger and almost see the steam come out of their ears. How can one say such a thing? How can greed be a virtue? Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. Greed is a desire for excessive wealth. Greed is the inappropriate desire for excessive wealth. Greed is an excessive desire to acquire or possess more wealth than what one needs or deserves. Greedy people commit immoral acts to take advantage of others. Greedy people raise the price of gas in the summer. Greedy people price gouge. The payday lender is greedy. Big corporations are greedy. The ticket scalper is greedy.

Maybe “greed” is an unnecessarily provocative word. But “self-interest” or the “profit-motive” is a virtue. I accept that we need morality to moderate “greed”, but even without morality in a free market, greed is moderated. I would contend that the profit motive or self-interest or “greed” feeds, clothes, houses, and heals more people than generosity and sharing and caring could ever do. While we should condemn unfair practices, failure to honor contracts, deception, and cheating, the desire to obtain excessive wealth is a not to be condemned. If all of the greedy sold all of their worldly processions and gave the money to the poor, we would have a lot more poor and the poor would starve.

In this article George Will examines greed and argues that when markets are allowed to operate, greed generates its own punishment.

George Will: Greed's Saving Graces

Townhall.com - [excerpt] Greed, we are agreed, is bad. It also is strange. It has long been included among the Seven Deadly Sins, which suggests that it is a universal and perennial facet of the human fabric. But the quantity of it, at least in America, responds to political cycles.

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Bobbie Patray, the stary-eyed high priestess of the Christian Right

In today’s issue of the Nashville Scene, columnist Jeff Woods reported on a bill that just passed the state legislature, which would allow parents to have access to their child’s medical records. Predictably, he thought it was a terrible development. (link)

What got my attention was this passage from his article: “As Bobbie Patray, the glassy eyed high priestess of the state's Christian Right, watched with approval from the front row.”

I know Bobbie Patray. I do not know her well but have been to several meetings and functions with her and have a speaking acquaintance. I think Ms Patray is an attractive women. I don't know what makes her a "high priestist" instead of just a lobbyist. I have never noticed her to be “glassy eyed.” I am not even sure what Woods means by that. Anyway, should that not be hyphenated as “glassy-eyed?”

Bobbie Patray is the Tennessee lobbyist for Eagle Forum. I generally agree with the positions taken by Eagle Forum. I especially find myself in agreement on economic and constitutional issue. I generally support Eagle Forum on their social agenda. I oppose gay marriage and abortion but admit that I don’t have a lot of passion around those issues. Some of Eagle Forum’s moral positions make me a little uncomfortable however. They sometime come across as a little too narrow-minded and moralistic for my taste. I am afraid they would want to stamp out strip clubs, ban smut, and close bars.

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I very much parted ways with Eagle Forum over the issue of selling wine in grocery stores. I am 100% in favor and think our liquor, wine, and beer laws are an embarrassment and often make Tennessee look like a state of backwoods hicks the way we are often portrayed. Basically however, I just want the convenience of being able to buy a bottle of wine when I grocery shop. I do not appreciate the religious right and liquor industry from not allowing that to happen.
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Anyhow, I thought it was unnecessary to refer to Ms Patray as “glassy eyed.” I remember how the libs were outraged that Limbaugh talked about Hillary’s fat ankles. I also think it was out of line. It was not Hillary’s ankles that turned me off but her ideas. I generally think it is in poor taste to start attacking your opponent’s physical attributes in political discourse. In this case it simply leaves me baffled to understand what it is about Ms Patray’s eyes that make them “glassy.” They look normal to me, but maybe I missed something. Jeff, could you explain that?

I wanted to find a picture of Jeff Woods so I could see if he was perhaps “bug-eyed” or maybe “doe-eyed” or maybe “four-eyed” or maybe he is also "glassy-eyed." I could not find a picture, and it is just as well; I would not want to sink to his juvenile level to retaliate.

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More Pelosi 'toons.

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The Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

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The Obama Card

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Cap and Trade: The Maxman-Markey Pay to Play

The Heritage Foundation, Wednesday, May 20, 2009

When Congress passed its last major energy legislation in 2005, a minor provision was added late in the legislative process that created a $1-per-gallon tax credit for “renewable diesel” fuel created through “thermal depolymerization.” The measure was included to benefit a single firm that produced boiler fuel from turkey waste, but in 2007 the Internal Revenue Service ruled that the tax credit also applied to other livestock waste. This led corporate giants ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods to form a joint venture that turned chicken, cow, and pig fat into diesel fuel.
But just as ethanol mandates drove up the price of food, diverting Tyson’s animal fat into the energy market drove up the costs of manufacturing soap. So the soap lobby fought back and earlier this year Congress cut the thermal depolymerization tax credit in half. This made the Conoco/Tyson venture unprofitable, which they have since discontinued.

What does this have to do with the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation currently being debated in Congress? Everything. In order to win enough votes to pass cap and trade, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has given the corporate members of the United States Climate Action Partnership (which includes both private and government-controlled firms like General Electric, Duke energy, Chrysler, and General Motors) a front-row seat in writing the legislation. The motives of these major corporations are simple: if they cooperate with big government in drafting the legislation, they can cut deals to protect their bottom line. If they don’t play ball, then big government will just tilt the regulatory scheme in their competitors favor.

As the New York Times reports, this is exactly what is happening in the House now:

Cap and trade, by contrast, is almost perfectly designed for the buying and
selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits
to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional districts. That is
precisely what is taking place now in the House Energy and Commerce Committee,
which has used such concessions to patch together a Democratic majority to pass
a far-reaching bill to regulate carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade
plan.

The Center for Public Integrity released a study today showing that lobbying on the Waxman-Markey bill has been dominated by just 10 major lobbying firms. And yesterday the United States Climate Action Partnership released a statement in support of Waxman-Markey explaining:

As USCAP has indicated, there are several key linked issues that must fit
together to ensure a climate protection program is environmentally effective,
economically sustainable and fair. In some instances, that does not occur in
this legislation. … Individual USCAP members will continue to work with Congress
to address these matters in a satisfactory manner.

Oh, we’re sure they will.

Comment: Unless all credits are sold, cap and trade is an ineffective sham and is nothing but a bazaar for buying and selling of political favors where congress picks winners and losers. I think we need to address global warming, but the proposed cap and trade bill will not achieve its objectives and will institutionalize the worse of government corruption.

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Stop Spending Our Future - The Crisis

Our economy is in crisis, and our government says that bold action is required. So we're diving in head first to get things back on track. But... what are we diving into exactly? Take a closer look...




It is hard for me to fathom the reckless disregard with which the US is going into debt and hard to fathom the size of the debt. Our nation has never been this deep in debt. In real constant dollars adjusted for inflation, the debt is much greater than any time in our history. Expressed as a percent of GNP, the debt is just a little shy of the debt of World War II. The difference, of course, is that when the war ended there was large pent up demand. In World War II a large segment of the population was serving in the Armed Forces and not available to be consumers and the US was under rationing and many products, includig cars, were simply not produced. All it took for people to start spending money was the end of the war. We could grow ourselves out of our debt. That is not now the case.


Another factor is that in World War II much of the debt was owned by Americans; now much of the debt is owned by foreign governments. If is highly unlikely that we will experience sufficient growth to grow ourselves out of this hole we are daily digging deeper. We will have to borrow more and more to pay the interest on our debt. I see no way we can ever pay it. The debt will have to me monetized. In essence we will print money. I fear that massive run away inflation is in our future.


I think I know a little about economics but I am not a professional economist; but to me, it seems we are rolling the dice and the odds are not in our favor. If I am wrong to be so concerned, I am open to being enlightened. Please feel free to leave a comment that explains why I am wrong to be so gloomy about our future. Actually, I hope I am wrong.

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Barack Obama's Risky Deficit Spending

What? me worry?

Barack Obama's Risky Deficit Spending

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By Robert Samuelson, Real Clear Markets, May 18, 2009

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[excerpt] Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he's labeled

"irresponsible"?

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[excerpt] From 2010 to 2019, Obama projects annual deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that's atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009. By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70 percent, up from 41 percent in 2008. That would be the highest since 1950 (80 percent). The Congressional Budget Office, using less optimistic economic forecasts, raises these estimates. The 2010-19 deficits would total $9.3 trillion; the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 would be 82 percent.

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But wait: Even these totals may be understated. [Full article]

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Comment: Please read this article. We should be worried, very worried.

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President Obama slashes Budget $17 billion dollars

President Obama has taken a fine-tooth comb and a magnifying glass to the Federal Budget and has examined the proposed budget item by item and has cut a whopping $17 billion dollars.

This from CNN Money:

"There is a lot of money being spent inefficiently, ineffectively, and -- in some cases -- in ways that are actually pretty stunning," Obama said.

The $17 billion in savings amounts to roughly 0.5% of the more than $3.5 trillion in spending approved for next year, or 1.2% of the projected $1.4 trillion deficit next year if the president's overall budget is adopted.

Obama said it nevertheless is real money -- even by Washington standards.

"To put this in perspective, this is more than enough savings to pay for a $2,500 tuition tax credit for millions of students as well as a larger Pell Grant -- with enough money left over to pay for everything we do to protect the National Parks," he
said. (link)

Seventeen Billion dollars is a lot of money. Why am I not impressed?

To put this in perspective, let us assume I have a household budget of $60,000. My anticipated income is only $36,000. I take a hard look at where I can cut and I discover $300 of wasteful spending. Maybe I find I can give up my twice a week trip to Starbucks for my Grande latte.

Impressed? But wait, I don’t actually reduce spending by $300. I find that that $300 can be better spend elsewhere, so I reallocate the $300 and use my credit cards to fund the missing $24000. Impressed?

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Classical Music Rocks!

On my recent vacation to London, one day near the end of our vacation when we had seen all of the sites we wanted to see, we just aimlessly wandered the streets near our hotel. We were in the Covent Garden area, which is a lively area that includes a lot of restaurants and shops and we came upon the Covent Garden Piazza. This is a site which was a flower, fruit and vegetable market from the 1500s until 1974. Since about 1980 it has been a retail center. The area has lots of old historical building and the main feature of the area is an arcade. We watched street performers and wandered the shops in the area including a large flea market.

In the arcade, there was a basement level courtyard surrounded by shops. Musicians were playing in the courtyard and we entered it and got some wine from the wine bar that adjoins the courtyard and set and listened to the music. It was a somewhat cool day drizzling rain on and off, but in the arcade in the sunken courtyard, it was not unpleasant.

The music was great! A six-piece chamber orchestra consisting of four violins, a viola, and a bass were playing classical music. I don’t thank I have ever enjoyed classical music so much. The orchestra played for about 30 to 45 minutes, then a young man came out and sang opera accompanied by music on a CD player. He belted out songs for about 20 to 30 minutes and was remarkable. After the opera, the band played again and they rotated sets and we set through about three sets each. We splurged and drank the good wine. Louella had Madeira and I had a good port. In the cool air of the courtyard the wine was warming. We ordered a cheeze plate and ate various cheezes and read newspapers. During breaks between sets we had pleasant conversation with a couple who sat at our table for a while. We stayed in the courtyard listening to music and drinking wine for most of the day.

My favorite kind of music is country music. I especially like the music that is now called “Americana” and I love hard core honky tonk and classic country. I can appreciate all most all kinds of music however. I usually end up going to hear the Nashville Symphony a couple times a year play in our new beautiful Schermerhorn Symphony Hall and will go listen to other classical music at other venues from time to time. The Blair School of Music offers a lot of free music and I occasionally attend concerts there. Belmont University has a series of chamber orchestra performances in the Belmont Mansion every year and I usually attend a couple of those performances.

While I enjoy classical music it is a different kind of enjoyment than going to the bars of lower Broadway and listening to Country. When one goes to listen to classical music, no one talks and everyone must be very quite. Don’t cough! At a classical performance, one can not spontaneously applaud to show you appreciate the music. It is not correct to applaud at the end of a movement, but only at the conclusion of the piece. I always have to wait to see if it is the correct time to applaud. Classical music is for serious listening. It is much like going to church. It can be enjoyable but it is not a time to let your hair down and enjoy yourself. It has to be approached with quite reverence.

I can understand people wanting to engage in serious listening and not being distracted. Serious music listening is different than partying. I don’t know why, however, classical music has to be for serious listening only. If classical music could loosen up a little and let people enjoy themselves while enjoying the music the genre might win more fans.

I don’t think classical music will ever go away but I doubt it will ever be popular music. Classical music is never played on a commercial radio station. If you go to a classical concert and observe the audience it is overwhelming an older audience. Also, I have noticed that even a sold-out performance has about a quarter of the seats empty. A lot of people buy season tickets but don’t attend. I suspect that many of the wealthy support the symphony more out of a sense of obligations to be good citizens and to support the arts rather than because they really love the music. Classical music is also heavily subsidized by corporate contributions.

Classical music does not have to be so serious. It can be fun! At this performance at Covent Garden, the band played some songs I recognized such as Revel’s Bolero and The William Tell Overture. They played a lot of other songs that were recognizable tunes but I did not know the name of them. It was like the Top 40 of Classical Music. The musicians actually looked like they were having fun! Instead of sitting stiffly in tux’s they were dressed is regular street clothes. They played with expression and body movement and enthusiasm. They got down. They entertained! Between songs the leader cut-up and hammed for applause and he hawked the bands CD’s. I wish we had chamber orchestras playing for regular folks in sitting where you could enjoy a beer or glass of wine in Nashville. Classical music can be fun and approachable. It doesn’t have to always be so serious.

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Energy deal clubs Obama tax hopes

Most carbon permits to be free

By Tom LoBianco, The Washington Times, Saturday, May 16, 2009

House Democrats touted a weakened global-warming package Friday, releasing a compromise plan that undercuts President Obama's hopes to raise nearly $650 billion from the climate bill to pay for middle-class tax cuts.

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who have been locked in debate over how to tax carbon-dioxide emissions while protecting American industries, said Friday that their revised plan would give away 85 percent of the plan's carbon permits for free. [full article]

Commentary

This is bill is worse than no bill

I depart from many of my conservative brethren in that I accept the majority opinion of the scientific community that global warming is a reality. This is not a position I came to easily. I started out a skeptic. (If you are interested you can read this post: My Conversion on Global Warming.)

The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that global warming is real and is caused by human activity. If I accept that global warming is real then I must also conclude that we must try to do something about it. While I opposed Obama’s candidacy and did not support him for president, I was nevertheless hopeful that he would address the issue of global warming. I was disappointed that George W. Bush and a Republican Congress had ignored it.

If President Obama allows this proposed bill to pass, he will be just as irresponsible as was the previous administration. A revenue-neutral carbon tax would be a much more efficient way to reduce green house gases. Unfortunately, a carbon tax has not gaining traction. In theory, a cap and trade system could have the same effect as a carbon tax, although less efficient and covering less sectors of the economy than a carbon tax. The reason cap and trade could have the same affect as a carbon tax is that it is in effect a hidden tax on carbon. Cap and Trade can only be effective if, like a carbon tax, it imposes a penalty on those who emit carbon and by comparison makes non-carbon-emitting energy less costly.

If credits are given away instead of sold, there is no cost to emitting carbon and no incentive to stop emitting carbon until some distant point in the future if ever. Giving away the credits completely destroys the purpose of having a system of cap and trade in the first place. If we don’t do it right we might as well not do it. If Congress passes this bill then the environmentalist will be off their back and everyone can be happy and can congratulate each other for addressing global warming and then ignore the issue. Passage of this bill will take the issue off the table and lull the public into complacency.

Even where cap and trade was structured with fewer give-away credits, it has been a failure. Countries with caps have failed to meet their carbon cap goals and the carbon credit system has been tainted by scandal. (See: The Great Carbon Bazaar) Even when on paper cap and trade has appeared to reduce carbon output, in reality it has often simply shifted emissions from European countries to Asian countries and the total carbon emissions have not really decreased.

This bill is not a bad bill because it does not raise revenue; it is a bad bill because it will not reduce carbon emissions. I hope Obama rejects this bill and tells Congress to present him with a bill that will actually do something.

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White House calls End to War on Drugs

When you have been fighting and losing a war for over 40 years and it still looks like you are no closer to winning, it might be time to sue for peace. That is what the Obama Administration is doing. Below is a report from the Wall Street Journal:

White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs'
By GARY FIELDS
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues.

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country." [full article]

The article goes on to say that the Obama administration has called for a change in policy that would end the discrepancy between how powder cocaine and crack cocaine are handled and also says that the federal government will no longer raid medical marijuana facilities in those 13 states where medical marijuana had been made legal.

The new Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske said that he does not support efforts to legalize drugs but favors a change in policy that would emphasize treatment rather than arrest and punishment of users. This is an encouraging development and is a good first step. I hope the administration goes much further.

The governments policy toward marijuana in particular makes absolutely no sense. For far too long many people have had their lives damaged, not by marijuana but by a policy that criminalizes a harmless activity. People lose their right to parental visitation or custody of their children, they lose their job, they lose their college scholarships, and they go to jail for simply smoking a little dope.

Casual use of marijuana is much less damaging to society than alcohol. I think marijuana may actually be good for society. If some of the people who drink alcohol switched to pot, we would probably see fewer violent brawls, less domestic violence and fewer fatal car wrecks. Some uptight people might be less uptight and more pleasant if they occasionally got stoned. I suspect the world might actually be a better place if more people got high every once in a while.

I think we should have an immediately end to federal pot prohibition and let each state decide the issue. I would hope that the several states would then end state prohibitions. Using pot should not be a crime and neither should pot users be considered to have a “drug problem.” While I would much rather see people forced into drug treatment rather than sent to jail, requiring treatment is also hypocrisy. Casual users of marijuana do not have a “drug problem.” They just have a preference for a recreational drug that is less dangerous than the society-approved recreational drug alcohol.

I think procession of small quantities or growing small quantities of marijuana for your own use should be legal much like brewing your own beer is legal. I think dealers should be licensed and taxed. The government at all levels loses a lot of money because this large segment of the economy is not taxed. If marijuana was distributed much the way alcohol and tobacco are distributed the criminal element would be driven out of business, much the same way that ending alcohol prohibition drives out bootleggers. Also, with commercial distribution of marijuana the consumer would benefit by having quality control. The consumer could expect honest weights and measures and proper labeling. I can see the day when shopping for pot could be like shopping for wine. I can imagine a weekly pot review article in the Tennessean. It should happen.

While I would not want to see an immediate legalization of all dangerous drugs, I think we should deemphasize prosecution of users of these hard drugs. For the more dangerous drugs, I think we primarily need to educate people to the dangers and then realize that sometimes free people make poor choices. Just the way that some people now abuse alcohol or people make poor financial decisions, we must accept that some people will get strung out on drugs. Help should be available for those with a drug problem who want help, but putting people in prison is not the help they need. Drug treatment would be less costly and more humane than imprisonment.

I suspect that if we end the crack down on the supply of drugs, the price would fall. Those with a real addiction would not commit armed robbery to feed their habit if drugs were less costly and less profitable and we would not enrich Mexican and Colombian drug lords. We might even deny the Taliban a major source of funding

While I have been a critic of the Obama Administration on many issues, I applaud them for this change in policy. It is past time to end the “War on Drugs.”

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