It’s The Economy, Dumbass!
by Timothy Nestor on Dec.08, 2010, under The Condemnation of Socialism
Or
How It Works*
“If any would not work, neither should he eat.” ~Second Thessalonians 3:10As you watch this clip, change the word “brawndo” to “unemployment benefits”, “electrolytes” to “money,” “plants” or “crops” to “the economy,” and “water” to “freedom.”
Since the recession began, I have been bothered by something, and I have been painfully reminded of that something yet again. The something is the fact that next to no one understands what the economy is or how it works, and the painful reminder was the calling for further extension of unemployment benefits by the Socialists in government and media. If what they say is to be believed, untold damage is going to be done to the economy if the unemployed go off the dole.** Supposedly, unemployment checks have a positive impact on the economy because the layabouts spend all of the money thus putting it into the economic flow. It is hard to imagine how a person can hear this type of argument and not come to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong in all this.
Let’s start with jobs. Jobs are the underlying issue of unemployment after all. Since 2009 there has been an awful lot of talk about needing jobs, creating jobs, and the best way to go about it. To hear people go on about this I am becoming increasingly convinced that jobs are a commodity that can be mass produced. I’m not quite clear on which industry makes jobs though, although due to the quantities in which they’re being demanded they must either be built in a factory or grown on trees. The Republicans keep talking about Barack Obama’s “job killing policies,” so maybe jobs are livestock. Seeing as there is such a large demand for jobs, I would think that people would be jumping to supply these jobs and thus make a tidy profit by filling a clearly unexplored market.
The consumers buying these new jobs would then be able to redeem weekly paychecks (or biweekly, depending on the model of job purchased; the J.O.B. 3000 has a monthly paycheck in fact) and then use those paychecks to buy other things to spur the economy forward. After all, if the Keynesian Democrats are to be believed, the only thing which makes the economy grow is consumer spending.
Despite all the talk of jobs by Conservatives and Socialists a like, jobs are not a commodity.
Thus far in my life, I have worked for no less than twelve employers. In every case, I was hired not because the employer in question was trying to create jobs, but because something needed to be done. My contribution to the economy was not simply the pay check I brought home and ultimately spent, but the work I did for the businesses. It is working individuals who create wealth, not money being spent.
Let us now recall two fundamentals of economics: 1) Competition between buyers causes prices to increase. 2) Competition between suppliers causes prices to decrease.
There is a finite number of goods within the economy at any given time being bought, sold, produced, and consumed. This finite number of goods can only be used to a finite extent, and this finite number of goods is directly dependent on a finite number of people within the economy buying, selling, trading, and consuming them. There are two sides of the economy: buyers and suppliers. Increasing the number of buyers without increasing the number of suppliers creates a situation in which there is an increase in competition on only one side of the economy. The result of increasing competition within the buying side is to cause prices to increase without seeing any overall growth within the economy. This is known as inflation.
We have observed this kind of inflation already. Wal-Mart, which is where those on unemployment can afford to shop, has seen price increases, as much as 6% in a single month.1
Consumer spending generated by unemployment insurance doesn’t help the economy. Quite to the contrary, it causes the cost of living to increase for those who can afford it the least. It also has the effect of raising the cost of hiring.
Normally ,when an employer is making an offer to someone who is unemployed, the employer is competing with an income of zero. The potential employee will be required to work a certain number of hours in order to gain an agreed upon income. Let’s say the income is $500 a week, or $12.50 an hour with a forty hour work week. Those are forty hours the person cannot use to do anything else in exchange for $500. But if the unemployed person has a steady income of $300 if he does nothing, the job only offers an increase in income of $200 a week for which the individual must work forty hours. In terms of the opportunity cost, that’s only $5 per hour. Thus, for an employer to offer a competitive wage against the government-provided compensation to the unemployed worker, he must increase the salary, possibly over the amount which he is willing pay to fill the position.
Now, here it may be objected that $300 really isn’t enough to get by on, that someone who is on unemployment would take the job because $500 every week is better than he would have otherwise. While that might in some cases hold true for a single individual living alone, it does not apply to a household with two or more potential workers in which either one or both of the people are on the dole. Add in to the equation food stamps, WIC, and other welfare programs, and you find that people are able to live quite comfortably on the public dime, and in terms of the time and labor required only stand to lose by going back to work unless the pay is considerably greater than what they can achieve by doing nothing.
As was mentioned before, jobs are not a commodity; labor is. The price of labor is being made to increase by unemployment insurance, and the ability of the economy to fill the jobs it has created is limited by the fact that people are payed so well to do no work.
Despite what everyone in government and the media say, there are jobs out there, but they are dreadfully low on the totem pole, requiring their holders to work hard for what seems very little. Thanks to an overly generous government***, the economy has stalled. If there were no unemployment insurance, people would be forced to take whatever jobs they could get, and work their way from there, and slowly the economy would begin to grow.****
What our policy makers need to do is not focus on creating jobs, but on freeing up the labor market by reducing the cost of hiring, and lowering the opportunity cost of working. Currency, after all, simply eases transactions; it is people acting and interacting to achieve their goals that is the economy
* I initially thought of titling this piece “It’s The Economy, Stupid.” “Stupid,” did not express the amount of scorn I have for the matter, however. “Dumbass”may be a bit too strong and crude, but sometimes it is necessary to go to such lengths to make people understand the depths to which they have sunk.
Permalink to this post: http://www.young-conservative.com/gc/?p=484
**There have also been tearjerker stories about Christmas being canceled, but that’s about par for reporters, most of whom can get no more than their mothers to read through their entire articles.
1http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6791MH20100810
***The Chinese government to be precise.
****The economy would grow only to a certain extent. Much of what is happening economically in this country is due to the Baby-Boomers preparing for retirement. As the largest generation in existence saves it money for when they can’t work anymore, consumer spending will not match the production, and there will be a shrinkage in the economy. This has been made worse by the stock market crash of 2008 which hurt a lot of the retirement and now the losses must be regained.
The TeaPublican Party
by Timothy Nestor on Nov.29, 2010, under Predictions & Idle Speculation
A recent Rasmussen Report stated that 72% of likely Republican voters believe the the GOP lost touch with its values and the values of its base in the past several years. From this it might be concluded that the current Republicans who have won seats this past electoral cycle are on a very short leash, and must fulfill the wishes of their constituency lest they face the same fate as they did in ’06 and ’08.
Such a conclusion, however, would be incorrect.
The questions asked by the poll are as follows:
1* Over the past several years, have Republicans in Congress done a good job of representing Republican values? Or have Republicans in Congress lost touch with Republican voters from throughout the nation?
2* Do you have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party movement?
The first question only deals with past performance. If anything, it simply echoes the results of the two elections before 2010. It asks nothing of future performance, nor how voters will cast their ballots should results continue to lack.
Although Karl Rove was correct in his remark during Fox News’ election night coverage that candidates aren’t elected for the sole purpose to get the incumbent out of office, a large factor in the Republican tidal wave were the disastrous policies enacted by the Democrats since they took power. The Conservative voting fears a return of the Democrats so much that they vote for Republicans simply because they cannot be as bad as what they ended up with after 2008.
Healthcare reform showed us that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat. Voters in Conservative and moderate districts can no longer look to an alternative candidate in a general election. An independent would split the vote, and a Democrat, no matter how moderate he pretends to be, is a Democrat at the end of the day, and the Democrat party is a party of liberalism.
After all that has happened, there still is no real reason for Republicans to be completely accountable to the people who put them in power. Even we of the TEA party cannot influence them too greatly, for, as the numbers for TEA party support play out, there is really only a 50/50 chance that TEA party support will mean anything.* The TEA Partiers are also those who want to see Democrats in power the least, so when their candidates lose, they have no choice but to show solidarity for the Republican.
Now this is not to say that the Republicans in congress, particularly John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, will simply avoid being as bad as the Democrats from here on out. Indeed, every indication so far, including the Pledge to America which was not too Conservative to be believed, indicate that they will take a more and more Conservative stance as things move along. The Tea Party movement must realize, however, what its position really is, for if they do not know where they stand, they will be leaping into the dark on any endeavor they begin. The next hurdle for the TEA Partys is the 2012 election. For now, we all are in the Republicans’ hands. As they work, we must work hard to ensure that electable candidates triumph in the Republican primaries, and we must work day and night to see that they are put into office.
*In the same Rasmussen Report poll, 41% had a favorable view of the TEA Party while 40% had an unfavorable view and 19% were undecided.
And If We Win?
by Timothy Nestor on Aug.15, 2010, under Predictions & Idle Speculation
“I conclude, thus, that when fortune varies
and men remain obstinate in their modes,
men are happy while they are in accord,
and as they come into discord, unhappy.”
~Niccolo Machiavelli
As November draws closer, a decisive victory on the part of Republicans in the congressional elections becomes ever more likely. The momentum gained by Conservatives since January 2009 is still growing, and there is next to nothing the Socialists in the government and media can do to change that. The New Media is rising as the leading influence upon the political landscape, and the internet, which provides a golden opportunity for people to hear and be heard, is inspiring many individuals to become fully engaged in the current political battle. The hope is that the present anger with the Socialists who control the federal government will be carried forward into the 2012 electoral cycle.
Hope must be grounded in reality, however. It does no good to hope for rain in drought, and in that hope wait. For like the rain, elections are unpredictable and driven by factors so complex only God can foresee and influence with certainty. Even if dark clouds hang over head it is not unheard of for a strong wind to carry them away to release their torrent elsewhere. In this same way, we must not hope for our current storm to remain until the presidential election, but instead we must dig trenches and wells to seek the water at its source so that when the time comes for us to plant our seed we shall not gaze with despair upon a parched field.* 
If all goes well, the Conservatives will take over congress in November. The transformation of the political landscape that follows will be radical. Up to this point, we have seen a one sided fight in which the Socialists have had no real enemy, but this will change once a Republican congress is capable of controlling the budget. As everyone must now realize, it is vital to make cuts to medicare, medicaid, and welfare in order for the budget to be balanced. This will not only anger the Socialist base, but win over many moderates who will become caught up in what the media will portray as widespread suffering.
At this point it becomes difficult to predict with any certainty what will follow, but it may be surmised with caution that one of two eventualities will unfold. If the Republican party fears too great a backlash, they will try to diffuse the situation by backing away from the necessary budget. This will result in a loss of momentum for the Conservative resurgence. The TEA Party movement will surge, but there will likely be a feeling that even if Republicans are elected, they will not fulfill their obligation to their electorate. Consequently, there will be a push for a third party, and if it succeeds the Conservative vote will be split. The lines it will fall upon will likely be younger voters and moderates in the new party, while those in their late thirties and up will remain in GOP. Such a split of the vote, following hard upon the heals of threats to the entitlement programs, will be a disaster for Conservatives at the ballot box. It may be that the Socialists are counting on something like this occur, and so do not fear losing the House this November. Indeed, the behavior of congressional Republicans during the George W Bush years supports this theory.
There is another possibility, however. As unlikely as it seems, there is a chance the Republicans could grow a backbone. If they walk lockstep and embrace the identity of the Party of No, then they will stop the Socialists in their tracks. Good fiscal policy dictates that cuts be made to Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and Social Security. As a result, Conservatives will rally behind their representatives in congress, and liberals will rally behind theirs. Moderates and independents will be split. This should eek out slight majorities in both the House and Senate for Republicans, for Conservatism is the largest ideological movement in the country.1 Barring a disaster such as Mitt Romney winning the Republican primary, the Presidency should also fall to the GOP.
With Conservatives controlling all three branches of government, it will be possible to maintain the necessary cuts in spending for some time. The Socialists will neither be silent nor inactive, however. It is difficult to foresee what they will do, but when legal means fail, extra legal measures are often undertaken. Communism has never taken root in a country with a majority. It is vital for us to remember this, for a Conservative majority may not prove a match for an active, dissenting element that is bent on the destruction of the current system. We must be wary and ready for the seeds of revolt should the Republicans hold the course long enough.
And if that should happen, if in all this we should fail, if the irrigation and wells we dig run dry and still there is no rain, if the Communists at last triumph so that they can be revealed, even then we shall have hope. For then we shall consign ourselves to death, knowing what lies beyond the veil, and without fear fight for what we hold most dear: our liberty.
This is the mindset we must have now, and for many years to come. We must always remember that in the end everything could fall apart, and that we could be left with an all out war for what we believe. We must always bear in mind that what is at stake is worth our lives.
*The Socialists are much better at this than we ever have been. The 50 State strategy is a testament to this fact. Conservatives tend to wait for the rain. It rained in 2000 and 2004, but the years that followed were drought.
Immigrants
by Timothy Nestor on Jul.15, 2010, under Illegal Immigration
We are immigrants. That is who we are, all of us. As a nation, it has been one of the most defining elements of our culture. We pride ourselves on our mixed ethnicity. Just ask anyone, and he will be more than happy to say that he is Italian, Irish, German, or Polish. Seldom will the answer “American” be heard, for that is understood. We are all American, all equal, all free. The only question worth asking is from whence we have come, for we all have come from somewhere else. All our ancestors took it upon themselves to flee oppression and a static life in which they were born into their profession and class to come to America, to be free and to pursue their fortunes without the hindrance of status. That is the American Dream, the dream of immigrants.
What a sad state of affairs have we that immigration has now become the mess it is today, such a debacle and no solution anywhere in sight. Eleven million Hispanics have now entered the country illegally, flaunting our laws, and wreaking havoc on border states. Because of this, there is now a great deal of hostility towards those who have come here from Spanish speaking nations.
The problem before us is not simply the eleven million illegal aliens currently in the country with more arriving every day. The problem is lack of assimilation.
To begin with, the illegals do not respect our laws, as is clear from their blatant refusal to enter the country through legitimate channels not to mention the drug trade and the crime they bring with them. Such a disregard for the law is fundamentally unAmerican. Our republic is a republic of laws and not of men, and if, as in the case of the Hispanics, the power of family and friends is stronger than the law, we will have regressed into the patriarchy of old Europe. Indeed, this is already coming about in the gangs towards which the illegals have a strong tendency to gravitate.*
Then too, many illegal aliens refuse to learn English to any degree of fluency, and look down on those who use English within their community.** This distances them from the population at large, ensuring that there is always an us and them mentality toward Whites or Blacks. The result is that they live within their own communities as Hispanics instead of new fledged Americans. To make this worse, many are simply here to work and to send money back home for their families. While it is certainly admirable that they would do such a thing for their loved ones, it ensures that their hearts are not with them here.
When the Italians or the Irish came to the United States, they came with their families with the intention of building new, better lives for themselves here instead of their native lands. They came to be Americans, not to be Italians or Irish in America. The same is true of every other group that has immigrated to our shores. They fled oppression and hardship, and came to America to build a new life.
The illegals, on the other hand, have simply fled oppression and hardship, and intend to live their old lives here, aliens in a foreign land.***
Illegals are also a drain on public resources. Not having green cards, they cannot pay taxes, and so even by working cannot offset the public cost of their presence. Citizens and legal immigrants are left to pick up the tab for the education, emergency room visits, and welfare of the illegals, and it does not take an economist to understand that such a system will ultimately bankrupt.
How can this issue be resolved? How can we stop the influx of illegals, deal with those who are here already, and bring about some kind of assimilation?
In order to put a dam on the flood of illegals entering the country two things are needed: to reduce the cost of legal immigration and to increase the cost of illegal immigration. The first step ought to be to completely reform the system for coming to the United States. Red tape needs to be drastically reduced, and the immigration quotas need to be raised to reflect our current population level. Heavy, diplomatic pressure needs to be put on Mexico to enforce the law on their side. Once this has been accomplished we can crack down on the Mexican border. Many Conservatives are advocating the creation of a fence along the border, but that is premature. First the border needs to be flooded with troops who are authorized to shoot at anyone armed. This will help clamp down on the drug trade, and frighten many of the other immigrants away from crossing. Once this occurs, the infrastructure to secure the border may be put in place.
The most difficult problem to solve is what to do with the millions of illegal aliens already in the country. Amnesty is not an option, for we cannot reward people for breaking the law. The illegals need to be held responsible in some way for their crime, but at the same time we cannot possibly deport them all. A solution to this conundrum might be to create a special program to provide green cards to those illegals already in the country by a certain date, and then to place a special tax on anyone who gained a green card through the program.
The final problem, the problem of assimilation, will ultimately sort itself out once there are no more aliens entering the country illegally. Without the constant increase of people within the Hispanic community, consumerism will take its course. The immigrants will drive the same cars, wear the same clothes, and watch the same television and movies as we do. Over the years they will be slowly swallowed by our culture, and eventually they will even lose their native tongue. This may take a generation or two to unfold, but in the end it will happen, just as it did to the British, Dutch, Italians, Irish, Japanese, and all the others. For just as a larger lump of metal takes more heat and time to melt, so too does a larger group of immigrants take longer to be absorbed into the melting pot of our culture.
*It should not be construed that I am, in any way, criticizing the strong family values of many of the illegals. Indeed, their respect for life
**This I know from working with Hispanic immigrants. They only speak English as a matter of necessity.
***This is not true in every case, of course, but in many.
A Problem With Law
by Timothy Nestor on Jun.01, 2010, under The Condemnation of Socialism
It seems that Barack Obama has a problem with law, be it constitutional, federal, or state. His utter disregard for the limitations placed upon the federal government by the constitution which prevent the government mandating the actions of the citizenry was but a mere foretelling of the extralegal stance which has been taken by the Socialists in regard to Arizona’s new immigration bill. Law, it would seem, is entirely irrelevant to the position taken by the Obama regime, so much so that they have not even read the seventeen page bill in question. In fact, the Socialists in government can now be counted upon to do whatever is not allowed by the law or is expressly forbidden.
Starting with the Arizona immigration reform, the Obama regime began by condemning the law for, as they saw it, inevitably bringing about racial profiling. This accusation came despite language in the law which clearly prohibited such behavior by law enforcement, and even though more wording was added to further remove racial profiling from the enforcement of the law. At the same time, Los Angeles passed a boycott against Arizona, preventing any business between the city and the state. The boycott was a clear violation of the commerce clause of the United States constitution, but, strangely enough, the Democrats have been silent on the encroachment by Los Angeles on federal authority. Now too, John Morton, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has said that the department may not process illegals referred to them by the state of Arizona.
Yet that has simply been the most recent series of crimes against the law. Indeed, Barack Hussein Obama’s extralegal stance began with his presidency. Even before he was sworn in, he announced his stimulus package, which was supposedly to to pull the nation out of the recession, but to this date has not had the desired effect. Despite the fact that Obama is the executive, and despite the fact that it is the legislature which is supposed to determine law, the Democrats in congress threw all independence and initiative to the winds and passed the president’s bill for him. Obama then added to their agenda an energy bill, a healthcare bill, and now a bill meant to strangle Wall street. These items then went on to be the main focus of the United States Congress, and have since dominated the agenda.
At about this point in time, the token liberal is probably raising two objections: first, that Republican presidents have done the same thing, most notably Bush who pushed through No Child Left Behind, and secondly, the legislation in question was in keeping with the goals of the Democrat party and the fact that the president was vocal in the process irrelevant to the fact that all the congressmen and senators voted for it.
While the points are certainly valid, they are not applicable to our present state of affairs. There is a certain push and pull between the legislature and the executive, in which each does its best to push, prod, and coerce the other into doing what it wants. This is the purpose of the separation of powers, which is illustrated beautifully in the presidents authority to make treaties with foreign powers, and the senate’s authority to ratify them. In this process there is a tension, a pulling, between the two which is meant to prevent one becoming too powerful, and in the end the real authority lies with the senate, not the presidency.
This is a system in which the various branches of the federal government are meant to be at each others throats and in which the legislature is meant to have the real authority. Now, compare the manner of the passing of Obamacare. It came from the White House, dominated the attention of congress for nearly a year, and was passed despite the impact it was to have on the reelection efforts of incumbent Democrats. How on earth could it be said that the true power in our government lies with the legislature when a bill is forced through to the detriment of congress simply because the president made it a high priority on his agenda? It cannot.
It is hard to say, one way or another, whether Obama’s issue with the law is on account that he sees it as irrelevant to the accomplishment of his goals or is purposefully supplanting it to make the institution of Socialism all the more easy. Mostly likely, both are the case. It would explain how a narcissist, who’s primary concern is his public image, would be foolish as to make statements on a short law without reading it. Not only did he see the immigration bill as a political goldmine in terms of playing the race card, but it was also an opportunity to make the people more used to a disconnect between law and governance. While this was assuredly going to anger many an older, more experienced voter, but to the young, who are passionate and fiercely idealistic, it would have struck true to show the (perceived) cruelty of a bad law and those who passed it and demonstrate the concern for the people shown by the central authority figure. The sustainability of Socialism and Communism has always been the indoctrination of the youth. It is a simple fact of life that the first president that a young individual comes to like will have a place in his heart like no other, and he will always look back kindly at that president. If we are not careful, one president’s problem with law may become a generation’s problem with liberty.