Why centrally controlled economies fail

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote Pasco pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASApage on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany ..

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're an aide in the Obama Administration", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. ...

Now give me back my dog

Hat tip to Mike L!


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Angels and other stuff

I read somewhere that in the Middle Ages monks were known to sit around and debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The answer, of course, is as many as God wants. And you would think that would end the discussion and the monks could then go into the village and help the locals feed and clothe themselves.

Of course they didn’t. Esoteric arguments are always more fun than actually doing things. Besides, arguments require no effort and your hands don’t get dirty and you can refuse to lose an argument but in the real world results can be denied for a time, but sooner or later they are known.

I mention the above because while I have been busy gardening and cleaning up the mess caused by the tornados and high winds the media has been busy telling us not about why gasoline prices or so high, but why Weiner should resign. And that definitely includes the conservative side of the page. Could I mention something?

I think Weiner is not qualified to be a Congressman and that he should have resigned immediately. But his mental health and employment intentions pale alongside sky high gasoline and soaring prices at the grocery. I mean, if you want to indict a Democrat just throw out some facts regarding Obama’s energy policy which is designed to raise gasoline process.

And, as an aside, I remind all the Repubs out there that they let Clinton win in ’96 by worrying more about the BJ’s he received than how he was doing his job.

At the risk of repeating myself, we have this damning statement made by him in the summer of 2008 and then the actions by Udal immediately after the election.

Link

Yeah, I know. The account has been cancelled. Well, what was in it was an interview with candidate Obama saying that high gas prices would be okay if they increased slowly….. Aint it funny how things that show Obama’s real positions just disappear.

Oh well, here is what Udall did at Obama’s direction.

Facing gas prices near $4 a gallon and a pivotal national election, congressional Democrats allowed a ban on offshore drilling to lapse in September

But times change, and on Tuesday, the Obama administration - with gas prices roughly half what they were and many Democrats’ having been swept into office - blocked offshore drilling plans put in place at the last minute by the Bush administration, including plans to open the national outer continental shelf for drilling.

Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar also announced last week that his agency would block drilling on public lands in Utah, criticizing the Bush administration for releasing its offshore drilling plan just days before leaving office.

Link

And gas went from $1.81 to above $4.00

Link

As the man said, “There is no shortage of gasoline. There is a shortage of cheap gasoline."

And in the meantime we have Obama’s Justice Department doing what it does best. Ignoring voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers….

When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default. Instead, the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law.

Link

……..and trying to get a case against the CIA’s people who are probably guilty of no more than trying to defend us.

Link

And Southern Baptist, who have never been shy about ignoring separation of church and state have decided the way to improve declining membership is:

The Southern Baptist Convention approved a new resolution at its meeting in Arizona this week advocating a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, in a move that policy leader Richard Land described as “a really classic illustration of gospel love and gospel witness.”

Snip

All Southern Baptist churches are independent, so the resolution is not binding on them, but it does represent the will of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, with more than 16 million members.

The resolution was one of several signs at this year’s meeting that the SBC, which has been declining in membership, sees ethnic diversity as one of the keys to a turnaround.

Link

Uh, someone should tell these folks that declining membership is a sign that the people are not interested in the message from the pulpit, not a desire to expand the illegal alien population by extending amnesty. And that, despite that the Reverend says, is what this would be seen as by the 11 to 12 million illegal aliens that are now in the country.

And if they want diversity…. They can always take their kids out of the private schools they are attending and enroll them in local PUBLIC schools.

Yeah. Sure that’s gonna happen.

And I don’t blame the folks. People, who are often straining to keep their economic lives together, send their kids to private schools because the public school system has proved it cannot educate their children and it is more interested in indoctrinating them in the Leftie mind set than teaching them the basics of math, science, reading and English. You know the stuff that will let them survive in the modern world.

As many of you know, I am a fan of science fiction and fantasy and have a collection of over 4000 magazines dating from 1926 forward. And I am often amazed at just how accurate the predictions are from a genre that was largely action adventure, paid a penny a word and was mostly published on pulp paper that was designed to provide news one day and wrap the garbage in the next.

I started this post writing about angels and how monks would argue over how many could dance on the head of a pin. We now consider such actions crazy.

I now give you, “Angels in the Jets,” by Jerome Bixby and published in the Fall 1952 issue of “Fantastic.”

The story is about how an expedition is stranded on a distant planet and has discovered that the atmosphere has a trace gas in it that drives people insane…. Their supply of uncontaminated oxygen is running out and members are succumbing to the effects of the gas…. Thus, “Angels in the Jets.”

Look around you and tell me that premise is pure fantasy.


"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Palin and rockets and Islam

In fact, Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”

Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”

Patrick Leehey of the Paul Revere House said Revere was probably bluffing his British captors, but reluctantly conceded that it could be construed as Revere warning the British.

Ya gotta love the "reluctantly conceded."

Link

The other day over on TalkLeft some Left winger said that I have no faith in human ingenuity. Why? Because I had dared to note that solar power and wind power is kin to Unicorn farts when it comes to being a reliable, and thus usable, source of energy to power our electric generators and thus allow modern civilization to exist.

I could have accurately retorted that he was addressing someone who received an F for a science paper in high school that described space stations. Unrealistic the teacher opined. But that would have begged the issue.

The issue was that in 1955 the vast majority of educators thought that space travel was not realistic because the technology hadn't been developed. Some of us thought the technology could and would be developed, some did not.

But no one found technology harmful and inherently evil.

And that is the difference between then and now.

The Left and the environmental groups have been seized by people that, basically, hate people and love critters. And since they see the West as the culture that has produced all this excess food and energy, at the expense of the critters they love, they support whoever is attacking the West.

Thirty years ago it was the Soviets. Today it is radical Islam.







OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

GM chief wants a gas tax

And while he is eager to say goodbye to the government as a part owner of GM, Akerson would like to see it step up to the challenge of setting a higher gas tax, as part of a comprehensive energy policy.

A government-imposed tax hike, Akerson believes, will prompt more people to buy small cars and do more good for the environment than forcing automakers to comply with higher gas-mileage standards.

Yeah, that's what he said. Of course he doesn't seem to understand that if the gas mileage doesn't increase then there is no reason for someone to buy a new car.

"You know what I'd rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas," Akerson said.

"People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans."

Of course the economy is tanking now because of high gasoline prices. And he doesn't seem to have a clue that people with no jobs don't buy new cars.

This guy is dumb. He is truly living proof that the majority of our business leaders need a harness and tether when let out side the office.

As for me.. I haven't owned a Ford car since '82.

But there is one in my future. I am done with GM.

Link


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

The difference between Bush and Obama

Hat tip to Dave T!


OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Palin and Kasie and speedo

Hat tip to Mostly Cajun!

By KASIE HUNT | 6/3/11 9:14 AM EDT
SEABROOK, N.H. — Sarah Palin’s bus is plastered with a mock-up of the U.S. Constitution. But her entourage — both the three-vehicle motorcade that includes the bus and the smaller, two-SUV version she uses for smaller events — hasn’t been very respectful of traffic laws.

Snip

Journalists in the caravan trailing her “One Nation” tour bus describe the experience as harrowing, a rolling menace careening up the East Coast in hot pursuit of the former Alaska governor who declined to provide any advance itinerary of her tour over six days on the road.

As they left the clambake she attended Thursday in New Hampshire, Palin’s two-SUV caravan traveled at 52 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone as it peeled away from the hosts’ neighborhood. Both cars blew through a stop sign about a mile later. They did 70 mph in a 55 mph zone on I-95 — and then, after they got off, without signaling, flew right past a flashing sign informing them they were going 45 mph in a 35 mph zone.

Link

Uh, don’t you just love it???

Kasie, two things.

1. Quit whining. There are probably a million folks who would gladly take these terrible risks for the money you make! So shut up already. Climb out of the Obama Tank and start being a REPORTER!

2. Besides, they were just trying to make it to all those 57 states Obamie visited.

I mean, can the media’s hatred of Palin be made any plainer??

Oh well.

The garden is doing fine, thank you. The onions are delicious and the peppers are close to being big enough to be picked. I hoed it out today and put mulch around the tomatoes. I have suckered them and put up the metal cages I use instead of sticks and they are loaded with blooms. The Crook Neck and Patty Pan squash looks great and the candy, aka Okra, has finally caught on and is growing so fast you can almost see it shoot up.

Summer time and the living is easy….. Whoever wrote that never had a garden and a big yard.

Took time out today from cutting up downed trees and gardening and such to go pick up my wife’s Buick Regal from the repair shop at our local GM dealer. The car had started quitting and then restarting and dying when stopped at red lights and I took it in yesterday.

The problem, according to the Service Manager, was that the Mass Airflow Sensor had gone bad and was turning of the air to the cylinders from time to time. After market sensor $253.22, cleaning throttle body and other labor $197.18, one gasket $8.82 and $45.74 tax and the total was $514.82.

Yeah. Wow. Ouch.

Now, no complaint. The Regal has performed royally and its supercharged 3800 cc V6 can outrun a jack rabbit being pursued by a rattler. And no complaint about the mechanics. I’ve used’em for years and found them to be honest, trustworthy and helpful.

It’s just that my first car cost me $50.00. A 1950 Ford 2 door. Black. Flathead V-8, stick shift. Bought it from my father-in-law when we got married.

Sad to say mine didn't look this good. But it got me where I needed to be.

Yeah. $50.00. Wow. Kept it for about three years. It had a nasty habit of chewing up clutch throw out bearings. I think the part cost about $4.00 and the labor was free since I was the mechanic. I got so good I could fix it in the dark, or at least with minimal lighting….

I remember the axle inner race bearing driver side went and started allowing grease to get on the brake lining. That provided a rather interesting stopping paradigm. …… Tap brake, correct pull to the right…tap brake, correct pull to the right, etc., etc…… and yeah lady, I almost hit you but I didn’t so quit giving me that look.

A buddy and I fixed it in the back yard of the house the wife and I had rented. It was cold and she kept us supplied with coffee. We didn’t have a blow torch to heat the bearing but we did have a (at least) a 5000 watt soldiering iron that did the job of heating the bad bearing so we could get it off.

Being married, short of cash and needing transportation can lead to perspiration followed by inspiration.

It could find its way to the squadron’s hangout almost without steering and after those cold nasty nights when we had Sea Air Rescue (SAR) duty it could produce warm air from the heater by the time I arrived home.

We’d pre-flight our aircraft and bunk down in a Quonset hut left over from WWII. Fully clothed with all our logs and maps and other necessary stuff we would play endless games of pinochle. We even had our very own pick up truck poised and ready to rush us to our plane.

Doctor Strangelove had nothing on us!

Along about 2200 we’d get horsecock sandwiches and coffee. They would be any cold cut of meat, with mustard on white. And assuming we didn’t take off to save some hapless person’s behind we’d often have a patrol take off around 6AM and some other crew would become SAR while we looked for Soviet subs and played other games.

But that’s another story.

And unlike Kasie, we never whined and made barely enough to feed ourselves.

Of course a few of us died. And I am damn resentful about that. Good men dead and in their graves…. Just so people like Kasie could grow up and write the nonsense that she does.

What a waste. What damnable fucking kiss my ass waste.

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson

Once upon a time in Russellville

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. - A middle school yearbook in Arkansas has created controversy around the country after it named Former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in a list of the "worst" people of all time.

The yearbook included a list titled the "Top 5 worst people of all time." The list begins with Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson, but then lists Bush and Cheney.

Students didn't vote on the list, and it was taken from an opinion website. Parents in the community are outraged.

"I'm furious as a parent and as a board member and as a tax payer and as a resident of Russellville," resident Chris Cloud said. "It's wrong."

Parents spotted the list after the yearbooks were printed. The school's solution was to cover the list with tape.

The superintendent said the yearbook's editing process is under review.

Guess whose job security is also under review?

Once upon a time I spent about a month in Russellville. First helping install a new telephone Solid State Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange (EPABX) system for the college and later fixing problems. It featured something called DID (Direct In Dial) and DOD (Direct Out Dial) trunk lines that could be accessed by the students dialing “9” for a local call... To dial long distance the student supposedly dialed “0” and was connected to a long distance ATT operator. “1+” was supposedly blocked.

We were told three college employees who had previously been operators were "reassigned" to other tasks. The long march to underemployment had begun.

I say supposedly because it took the students about 15 seconds to figure out how to defeat the system’s "Toll Restriction” and call whoever they wanted free of charge. Of course when the bill came back to the school the accountants went postal and we were summoned back to fix the problems. One of the not so sweet things about it was that we could only work on the system after 10:00PM because it was carrying live administrative traffic as well as the future Masters of the Universe’s desperate calls home for money during the day and earlier night time hours.

Of course the school just looked at the “Called number” on the bill and decided that John Smith, Jr from Forest City was the person who called John Smith Sr in Forest City and billed the criminal.

Never, never, never doubt the ingenuity of an American college student when they are given a chance to show that they can “beat the system!” Or the system's ability to have the last laugh.

But that was the least of our woes. The trunks lines were spread over two different Central Offices by the telephone company. One was an ITT 71/72 stage by stage and the other was a North Electric NX1 cross bar. That meant if you dialed out, the dial tone, that’s the sound you get when you pick up the phone to use it, would be different depending on what equipment was connected.

And since our equipment was electronic it had an “Allotter” that selected trunks at random. That confused the users but they eventually got use to it.

Worse, if you dialed a number that was connected to the NX1 andyour trunk was connected to the 71/72 you had to trunk between exchanges. (You can only have 10,000 numbers in one exchange.) What that meant that the connect time was so long that people would hang up and file a trouble report. Worse, if they stayed within the same exchange the connect time was much shorter. Confusion reigned.

The solution? We installed a Tick Tone generator on the intra office trunks that provided a scratchy “tick” that the caller could hear which told him the call was being made.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn, which is still there. Unusual given that the typical business plan is to not do any maintenance, depreciate the property down to zero and then sell it to someone who will refurbish/upgrade and turn it into a EconLodge or some other chain.

The room bill was $14.00 a night and my boss, a Turkish immigrant who was Director of Engineering, complained bitterly. He smoked Turkish cigarettes that were about 6 inches long and never took them out of his mouth. He would just put them in the center of his lips and talk around them. As the ash got longer and longer it would finally fall off onto his tie and he would just wipe/smear the ashes...

He did the same thing when he interviewed me and we had a “failure to communicate.” I didn’t understand three words he said. Fortunately one of them was “Boolean” and I desperately sketched some AND, NOT and OR gates. All of these are now available by the gad zillions on trillions of chips smaller than the eye of the needle those rich men must go through on their way to heaven.

But that was not the case when Holiday Inn rooms were $14.00 a night in Russellville, AR.

OnTwitter I am Lesabre1

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt

"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson