Citizens United

A good friend and fellow traveler in the liberty movement recently asked my opinion on last year’s U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  The ruling still generates controversy, especially when its effects are described as “chilling” - conveying personhood onto corporations and equating money with speech.   

The notion that corporations are separate legal entities – i.e. “persons” - is not new; it is a foundational concept in commercial contract law and torts.  It is what spares us from having to get each of the stockholders of ATT&T to sign our cell phone service contract among other useful considerations. And when President Obama is preparing to spend over $1 billion in his re-election bid, money is speech, whether we like it or not.  Color me “not”.

While all rights belong to individuals, the individual right to free speech can be amplified via the companion right of association. A corporation is a form of association; and while we think immediately of huge multinationals, most corporations are small and many are non-profits.  If we think of McCain/Feingold as muzzling the family farm or a local co-op, the Court’s decision to strike it down takes on a whole different cast.  

We all tend to forget the specifics of landmark legal cases. Citizens United, a non-profit advocacy corporation, tried to buy advertising for its documentary film about Hillary Clinton within the window that McCain/Feingold banned corporate purchases of “electioneering” speech – 60 days before an election and 30 days before a primary.  It was their law, not the Court decision, which equated money with speech.  

Citizens United challenged the law on constitutional grounds – freedom of speech, freedom of association, equal protection.  Amicus briefs supporting Citizens United were filed by Heritage Foundation (conservative), CATO Institute (Libertarian) and the ACLU (liberal).  I thought that alignment was a sign of the end times.    

And the court ruled in its favor, deciding 5 to 4 that it is (duh) unconstitutional to ban free speech selectively - only certain forms, only at certain times, and only to certain types of associations.  Previous cases had struck down other provisions of McCain/Feingold, so another defeat should come as no surprise.   

The criticism from Democrats and media was predictable – McCain/Feingold protected incumbents from competition and created a virtual monopoly for the mainstream media – themselves big and powerful corporations – to control the narrative during the weeks when regular people actually pay attention to elections.  The stacked deck was unstacked by the Citizens United decision and the deck-stackers are still whining.

Not my team, but I don’t imagine that the Republican establishment was all too happy with the ruling, either – it enabled 2010 tea-party candidates like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Allan West, Nikki Haley and dozens of others to break through against the old-guard of the GOP and a media openly hostile to the liberty movement. 

Feingold himself was defeated by a novice, and McCain barely survived an insurgent primary challenge.  60 new faces went to Congress and changed the trajectory of the debate on spending, deficits, and debt. Could the 2010 revolution have succeeded under the old rules that bought Barack Obama his victory?  Maybe, but I doubt it.

What I find most troubling about the Citizens United case is that the dissenting opinion of the four liberal judges did not rest on any constitutional principle; rather it questioned the wisdom of rejecting the “common sense of the American people…who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”  Say what?

This is quite remarkable, yet almost never remarked upon. First of all, it is not the job of the Supreme Court to judge the wisdom of laws, only the laws themselves. Not to mention that the collective common sense of the American people is vested in its elected representatives, not in 4 partisan jurists appointed for life.  Finally, the theories and ideologies of the early progressives (Roosevelt) are not the standard against which constitutional challenges are to be judged – the Constitution is the standard.

During my own fleeting campaign for Congress as a Libertarian Party candidate, I would have loved to have some corporation write me a check for $100,000 so I could take a full swing at socialist (c’mon, just say it) incumbent Tammy Baldwin – better yet, a dozen of them. I would have worn their logos on my suit like a NASSCAR driver so you all know who it is that loves liberty enough to send it a check. I would be happy to modify my stump speech: “I want to be your Congressman, not your Mommy…and buy all your ammo at Todd’s House of Guns.”

And Congresswoman Baldwin could have worn her backers’ logos, too – knowing Tammy, I’m sure she would do so with pride, as would Republican challenger Chad Lee.  That debate would have been refreshingly honest, transparent as all get-out, and, heaven forbid, fun. Are we better off with processed-cheese candidates marketed on TV like timeshares and bankrolled by billionaires who have been sanitized by 7 layers of McCain/Feingold facades?   

Isn’t it better to just know the truth than to hide the money trail through a labyrinth of PACS, 427s, 501c, foundations, institutes, associations, and all other mutant forms of “independent expenditures” that only exist to protect incumbents, insulate the two establishment parties, and seal the deal for entrenched special interests?

The best campaign finance reform is a blank piece of paper; let individual donors – and only individuals - give to individual candidates and put the entire sham-ethics industry out of business. Milton Freidman argued that corporations should make no donations of any sort, as it deprives shareholders of dividends that rightly belong to them.  I agree. Let individual shareholders decide what causes, candidates, and charities are worthy of their donations, and remove all limits on their generosity.  And ditto for individual union members.      

It doesn’t concern me terribly that corporations seek to influence government; what concerns me terribly is that government has enough influence that they would bother.  It was not supposed to be like this.  Government was supposed to limited, and the “general welfare” was supposed to be the handful of things that are good for everyone, not favor one minority interest at the expense of another.

And the Supreme Court was supposed to set the boundaries for the political process, not be an extension of it.  The 5-4 Court did not split over how to apply the Constitution in Citizens United; it split over whether or not to bother.  That is chilling.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Pensions For Dummies

The CATO Institute recently reported on the state of public employee pension solvency, summarizing the actuarial research of Andrew Biggs.  The gist is that public pension funds are severely underfunded when the private sector regulatory standards are applied to them. 

The State of Wisconsin’s latest financial report states that its public sector pensions are 99% funded under the rules for public pension funds.  But under the rules applied to private sector pensions, Wisconsin’s pension reserves are 32% underfunded; so say Biggs and CATO, and I have no reason to doubt them.

No one knows for sure why actuaries disagree, as that would require us to actually listen to them speak.  The amount of contributions made to date is pretty straightforward, but assumptions of future contributions and future returns can make funds look rock-solid to south-of-Enron or any point in between.         

Biggs and others point out that in order to truly be “fully funded”, most public pension plan returns would need compounding returns of 8.5% or better each year until hell freezes over.  No dips, sags, crashes, doldrums, inflation, or hiccups of any kind between now and the day the last surviving spouse of the newest-hired state worker expires.  The anti-capitalist wing of the public sector should stop and think about where those kinds of returns are possible.  

There is no government-backed asset class that pays even half of that. Money markets pay zero; over 100 large municipalities are at risk of default, state bonds are wobbly, and U.S. treasuries run from .5% to 4.5%, and S&P just downgraded its rating outlook from “stable” to “negative”.  The University of Texas bought physical gold, but that is Texas - land of Ron Paul, gun racks, the 10^th amendment, and the last laugh.    

The only sources for 8.5% compounding returns are commodity futures or the stock market. In other words, public sector workers are completely dependent upon the capitalists they revile to fund the retirements they cherish from the profits they denounce. I wonder how many of them understand that.

While public servants fearing benefit cuts are leaping to take early retirements in droves, those who remain in government have gone hard after Boeing, oil companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the banks, the fast-food industry, tobacco companies, the automobile companies that compete with state-owned GM, utilities, Koch Industries, transportation companies, speculators, and basically anyone else that burns a gram of carbon, operates in a Right To Work state, builds or buys overseas, pays a bonus, or makes a buck.  

Dummies is the kindest descriptor I can think of; depressing corporate profits lowers dividends and reduces capital gains – the only two means by which equities generate cash to fund public sector pensions payouts.  Duh, winning.   

Here is a suggestion to those statists and unionists who are hell-bent to hand us immoral capitalists our comeuppance: bet your retirement on your own team. 

Sell off all of the company stocks in your pension fund portfolio and buy nothing but government debt (bonds) from now on.  No, seriously - we liberty lovers would never think of forcing you to invest in something you don’t believe in.  Bet your own ranch on that government you love so dearly and trust so completely.    

And let’s say that by some miracle, the current government debt bubble does not burst like the housing bubble, the dot-com bubble, the defense bubble, or the savings and loan bubbles which preceded it like clockwork over the past 25 years.

And let’s also assume that Bernanke and Geithner have figured out the secret to circumventing the laws of economics and can somehow keep their monetary policy plates spinning on their skinny spindles forever while “Sabre Dance” plays furiously in the background.

In that best case, you would get something like a 2% return on your invested funds. Not the 8.5% your “fully-funded” pension promise is currently based upon, but 2%. So take the amount you expect to receive as your annuity payment in retirement and reduce it by 76%.  

This is what idiocy looks like. 

We capitalists don’t mind carrying you on our backs, but you guys have to quit biting us in the ass and banging your stupid drums in our ears, ok?  Those obscene and excessive profits we produce are your only hope of ever seeing your holy-grail pensions; and those demagogues encouraging you to keep going after us with gusto are not your friends.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Boeing...Boeing...Gone!

Even the most cynical observer did a double-take last week when President Obama told Boeing it could not move its 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina, making them build planes in Washington State instead.

No one could blame Boeing if they just keep right on going when they hit the Pacific and build their planes over in China.  For that matter, no one could blame South Carolina if they secede from the union again. 

On a personal level, I do not want to fly in a plane built by a second-choice reject workforce under the direction of an angry management team forced to live and work in a place they do not want to be.  Let them build the President a new Air Force One out there and call it a day.   

The International Association of Machinists has cost Boeing over $2 billion in the four strikes it has initiated at its Puget Sound facilities over the past 20 years. The AFL-CIO NOW! blog site proudly reports that Boeing’s attempt to move production of 787’s to South Carolina from Washington “followed years of production delays and an extraordinary round of mid-contract talks” that failed to reach any agreement. 

Years of delays, excess costs, and extraordinary negotiations with knuckleheads who like to strike – oh yes, that sounds like the perfect spot to build things that can fall out of the sky over populated areas.  Thank God we have our public servants to keep the private sector from making awful mistakes like hiring people who actually want to work. 

It is possible – anything is – that a handful of political hacks appointed to reward powerful donor-constituencies know better than the world’s #1 airplane builder where to build airplanes.  But perhaps the government should try to tackle a more modest aviation problem first – say, keeping its hands off of little kid’s privates or keeping its air traffic controllers awake – and slowly work its way up to the big stuff.   

The head of the NLRB said that Boeing’s decision was a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Act - an open and shut case where he had no choice but to apply the law.  Nice try.  I’m sure he will tell us later why his only scruple came to him after he allowed Boeing to spend $2 billion on a new plant and hire 1,000 workers. 

People with no understanding of economics and no experience in commerce firmly believe that every facility siting decision is made on the basis of labor rates and union status alone.  And when I was three I believed my mom stopped where her legs met her skirt hem and some other lady popped out of the neckline – so what?  “Believe” and “know” are two different things; and it is never a good idea to put people with no understanding and no experience in charge of anything.

Cheap labor hasn’t chased Boeing overseas, but cheap shots from partisan dipsticks might just do the trick.  And when the unions are done high-fiving each other over the spanking their man delivered, they might want to check how much Boeing stock is owned by their pension funds.  The right to be stupid is Constitutionally protected; but it is simply good manners to confine your idiocy to your own accounts. 

Meanwhile, here in Wisconsin, conservatives are still angry at the loser of a recent Supreme Court race for her decision to waste a million dollars of taxpayers’ money and tens of thousands of man-hours to learn exactly how badly she got beat. 

Libertarians come at it from a different angle – we are angry that someone so petty and vindictive got to be a career superstar in the Department of Natural Resources before anyone but us seemed to care. “You peons exist to satisfy me” - this is the basic mentality that governs all of the agencies that govern our daily lives.         

It is an infestation, not a lone beetle.  Whether is it the NLRB, TSA, FAA, or the state DNR, the problem with government is that it always – always – takes a good intention and runs it right into the dirt. Clean water turns into shutting down a lakeside restaurant; a bargaining right turns into telling a company where it can build things.  If you have an uncontrollable urge to shut a business down, then by all means buy one and shut it down; but don’t wait to pass the civil service exam and then do it on our dime.

I don’t know if government makes petty tyrants or if it attracts them; probably recruits the talent and perfects it. Unlike the private sector, there is no competing brand of government to come in and wipe the floor with an organization whose core value is time off.  Or so it thinks; China is doing a pretty darn good job, along with Brazil, Vietnam, India, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Colombia, and Peru to name just a few of the places that have welcomed the jobs that we have so callously tossed away as political pawns.

The Machinists Union called the NLRB sanction against Boeing a victory for aerospace workers - in South Carolina!  There’s your moment of clarity: better to have no job at all than to have one where their union can’t steal a rake off your right to work. Tell me again why busting them is immoral.  

What’s wrong with the President deciding where Boeing can build planes?  Mr. Obama is not the President of Boeing; that's what.  And he is not the President of the AFL-CIO.  And he is not the President of the Government.  He is the President of the whole United States of America – all 300 million-plus citizens, the vast majority of whom choose to work and live free of union impairment.  

His constituents include the non-union workers in South Carolina, the non-union employees of Boeing, the stockholders of Boeing, the customers of Boeing, the suppliers of Boeing, and the Americans who fly in Boeing aircraft each day, including those who pay through the nose for the privilege of sitting in Business Class, subsidizing everyone else’s affordable coach fares. You’re welcome; I’m sure the card got lost in the mail.  

President Obama has no more right to decide where planes get built as he does to assign passenger seating based on campaign contributions and party affiliation.  That was dumb of me to give him the idea, sorry.  Probably have a Seat Czar appointed by Wednesday.

In business, we teach our young people that it is better to be humble than to have humility thrust upon you.  Needless to say, our President has no business experience, so he hasn’t yet grasped that concept.  The light bulb will go on for him in November of 2012 – little dairy queen kind that takes an hour to warm up and then shows up all your zits.  I still hate those things.     

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

   

Same As It Ever Was

April is the month we all like to discuss who is not paying their taxes.  If you watch MSNBC it’s “millionaires and billionaires” and if you watch FOX it’s “the bottom 47%”.  Either directly or by implication, their respective house-band pundits will tell us our nation is broke because their favorite someone-else did not pay their fair share.       

For the record, the nation is not broke; our government is broke.  It is our pool boy that can’t pay his bills; not us freepersons who own the mansion.  I know the pool boy has convinced his friends he owns the joint, but it is ours - the Constitution is our deed.      

Let’s be honest.  It’s not how much the rich pay in taxes in taxes that makes liberals’ teeth grind, it’s that they are too stinking rich in the first place.  To liberal economists like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, the increased concentration of wealth in the hands of a few in recent decades is proof positive that Republican economic policies have looted the middle class in order to enrich the wealthy.    

Democrats, write this down: I agree with those guys completely on the numbers.  I own it.  Over the past 30 years, the top 1% of Americans increased their percentage of the nation’s wealth; relevant statistics are sourced very well on Inequality.com website, one of yours.  Surprised?  You know what they say about assumptions...  

But the fun begins when I ask for your theory of operation for how all that wealth was transferred from the “middle class” to “the rich”.  It is a serious and civil question and one of my favorites: just how did the money move from one of your bank accounts to one of theirs?  That’s what “concentration of wealth” means.   

Here’s how: U.S. household debt doubled from 60% of disposable income in 1975 to 127% in 2005, while the wealthiest 1% reduced their debt ratio by nearly 40%.  Didn’t that just suck; the rich got richer by lending us money. You can’t make that sound evil even if you lace it with F-bombs or say it in drum.        

The principle is easy to illustrate in the economy of two:  we each start with $2,000 – no wealth gap.  Then I borrow $1,000 from you for 10 years at 15% simple interest ($150 per year). At the end of the term, you will have $3,500 and I will have $500 – wealth gap.  Did you screw me over, you rich, capitalist shameshameshame? 

No, you lent me money. A well-raised person like me would say, “thank you”; an ungrateful lout would hurl obscenities and demand you pay their taxes, too.  Rather, rinse, repeat that borrowing for 30 years with boatloads of zeros and commas added and there you have it – the flow of wealth from the middle class to the rich.      

Who else did you think was loaning you the money to buy that 4-head VCR you just hadda hadda hadda have - the kid calling in the authorization on the phone at Radio Shack?  Did you think he was asking his mom to run over with $240 from his sock drawer to cover the till because he thought you were “good for it”?   

Visa isn’t a gift card from the Tooth Fairy; it is a handy little device that makes it unnecessary to drive all the way to Warren Buffett’s house every time you want to buy another book at Borders. Don’t blame him because you used it.     

Would you rather swipe your card at the Walgreens and have the little box talk back to you, “Sorry, Susan, but Michael Moore can’t live with himself any more over this whole wealth concentration thing. Put back the Gold Bond and ProActive and bring cash next payday…oh, and Right On!”

The rich got richer since 1975, true enough.  And here is what else happened since 1975: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Paychex, Check-N-Go, Countrywide, Lending Tree, Quicken Loans, GM credit, Ford Credit, GE Capital, Kohls, Menards, Best Buy, and all those barbarians in your wallet. The national savings rate plummeted from 10.1% to -2.1%.  The financial services sector – i.e. the debt industry - is double the percentage of GDP as it was back then.  

Six Presidents, three from each party; half of them increased taxes on the rich (Carter, Bush Classic, Obama) and half cut taxes (Reagan, Clinton, Bush Dance Remix).  It may make us feel good to blame someone else for our economic circumstances, but the laws of economics don’t know or care how we feel. Debt impoverishes the debtor; same as it ever was.

Barring true calamity, we choose our relative wealth for ourselves; and we move up or down the rankings as we discover how high is up for us.  Some will deny that relative wealth is a choice; and in doing so they have already made theirs. Upward mobility is the gift of capitalism, but it does you no good unaccepted and unopened.

Libertarians oppose taxing income on principle, but until we convince the rest of the nation, the only practical way to tax income fairly is a flat and equal percentage, either when it is earned (Flat Tax), or as I prefer, when it is spent (FairTax). Our current tax system cannot be fixed by partisan tinkering; it must be scrapped and replaced, and the sooner the better. 

Not paying taxes isn’t enough to make you rich – ask the bottom 47%...or Wesley Snipes. You get rich by spending less than you earn, earning more than you did, and acquiring skills that people value highly.  And yes, it is that simple.  

Children, teach your parents by saving and investing – and stay out of debt.  May you live long and prosper.     

 

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”   

Own It

Although I am not a Democrat or a Republican, I used to understand why other people would choose to be one or the other.  And I can still understand how some people can be Republicans, but it is beyond my comprehension how anyone could still be a Democrat in Wisconsin in the age of YouTube.

The Democrats’ response to losing an election here has been appalling; disgraceful conduct documented with phone cameras for the whole world to see.  Democrat rallies and protests have been marked by profanity, intimidation, death threats, vandalism, trespassing on private residences, anti-American rhetoric, boycotts of neutral businesses, extortion, and fraud.

My dear Democrat friends, that is not what democracy looks like; it is what Democrats look like. Your Party has become vile, disgraceful, and disgusting, and you have lived long enough in denial of what and who you have become.

Own it. 

It’s not just the mob scenes that disgust.  Perhaps the most dishonest political ad in history was run by Democrats in a supposedly non-partisan Supreme Court race, exploiting the victim of child abuse for political gain.  Own it, Party of the children.

Your Democrat legislators wore union t-shirts on the floor of the assembly while in session; shouting and throwing things and threatening to kill a female Republican lawmaker.  This is how you treat women who think for themselves. Own it, Party of women.

Your public sector unions – firefighters and teachers - organized a campaign to drown out yesterday’s taxpayer rally on the steps of the Capitol building. You exist now only to deprive others of their right to be heard; and your idea of civil is dropping F-bombs at a child who came to hear Sarah Palin speak. You have embraced disgrace – so own it, Party of civil rights.

You booed the national anthem.  Read that again, friends; take a moment to reflect fully upon the depths to which your Democrat party has sunk, and then OWN IT.   

On that same day the office of a recall drive against one of the 14 AWOL Democrat Senators was burglarized with computers and petitions stolen – just like Nixon in 1972.  You also threatened to blow up a radio station over content you don’t like.  You were busy little fascist criminals on Saturday - own it, Nixonites.

If these are just isolated examples of people acting out, then show me where your Party leaders have denounced them.  Who have you expelled from your Party for the shame they have brought to it?  And who is your Ron Paul, your conscience who calls you out when you have strayed from your core values - Charlie Rangel?    

Your Democrat State Senator Lena Taylor recently got herself on TV to rant against some $142 million of tax breaks Governor Walker has given to his cronies, but when asked, she could not name one.  Your comprehensive plan to balance the budget and avoid default is to chant “Fox Lies!”  This is the depth of your intellectual curiosity and the extent of your economic literacy.  Own it.  

Yours is the party that extended our military stay in Iraq, increased our commitment in Afghanistan, spread that war into Pakistan and Yemen, and started another in Libya.  When it was Bush dropping the bombs, you came to us Libertarians and begged us to join you to stop him; haven’t seen you around now that is your guy killing little brown people.  He lies to you and you love him for it. Own that.     

What does it take for you decent Democrats - and I know there are many of you who will read this - to walk away from a Party that has already abandoned the principles that attracted you to it in the first place?  How much of your pride are you still willing to forfeit to a Party that has none?  What is your last straw – does blowing an angry horn at a downs-syndrome person for waving a flag not do it for you? 

It’s your mirror you need to look in every day, not mine.  It was a far less obnoxious abandonment of principle that led me to leave the GOP many years ago.  It is true that I get along better with them than with Democrats as a rule; that rule is that they don’t send me death threats when I write something they don’t like.

Nearly a third of the American electorate is now non-affiliated with either of the two major Parties; each Democrat/socialist/union rally drives more of you into our camp.  You Democrats do not persuade us with temper tantrums, threats, profane personal attacks, and all manner of judicial chicanery.  I don’t even know what you stand for anymore; I don’t speak drum.  

Yours was once the Party of Kennedy; it is now the Party that boos the national anthem.  Own that – and then walk away.  You will feel better about yourself, and you might just save your Party from the hooligans who have run it into disrepute.    

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”   

Fiat Math

I have finally figured out how to attain my ideal weight.  I will have a council of economic advisors say that I am 6’4” tall, and a special commission report that I weigh 185 lbs.  That’s how the government does it – fiat math.         

As long as I do not pass by a mirror in my clingy Under Armor or listen when you point at me and laugh, I can just pretend that my Keynesian diet plan – eating 1.6 trillion extra calories to stimulate my metabolism – is working.  Besides, Joe Biden assured me I have already lost or avoided over 3 million pounds. 

Last week was an especially bad week for the truth.

CBO reported that the $39 billion in Republocrat budget “cuts” described only a week earlier by President Obama as “historic” were 99% fudged.  All that remains is for the real President - Ashton Kutcher - to jump out from under the podium, spin his hat around to the front, and yell “Punk’d!”  Good one, Ashton.

It gets worse for those who shovel fictitious economic data for a living.  Turns out that inflation, which we all knew was running over 10%, really is running at 10% if we count it as we did when I studied economics in college. And if we measure unemployment as we did back then, it is at 20%, give or take the margin of error.  If I would have known we were going to have to do this for ourselves, I would have paid more attention in class; check that, I would have gone to class. 

But government is sticking by its new and improved fiat math formula, calling unemployment at 8.8% and inflation at 2.1%.  Add the two and those delivering the misery come up with a misery index of 10.9, while those on the receiving end are feeling the 30 points you get when you actually include unemployed people in the unemployment rate and things people buy in the inflation rate. I know, I know – hairsplitting. 

And none of us knows what is happening with the money supply anymore, another one of those econ things we had to study by torchlight on our chiseled stone tablets.  The Fed’s answer to its critics was to simply stop reporting weekly M1-M6 a few years ago. The new procedure is for Congressman Ron Paul to sue the Federal Reserve, who loses and appeals up to the Supreme Court.  Two years after the fact we finally get our chance to gasp in horror.  Transparency.

But wait - there’s more.  A new study shows that women really make 8% more than men, turning 40 years of feminist propaganda and government EEOC policy on its head.  And for the umpti-eth week in a row, the government’s economic models forecasted the wrong number for new jobless claims - not even close.  Finally, GDP was again oh-by-the-way revised downward from what was previously reported; a story so boring it doesn’t even make the papers anymore.

Two words: toldya! 

So let’s recap: the government’s smartest people, with unlimited funds and an army of minions at their disposal, do not know what government takes in or what it spends; do not know how many of us are working, what we earn, or what we produce; and do not know what things cost, or how much money they printed.

Those are the smartest people.  The second tier of know-betters rely on that lack of information to decide what we can buy, what we will pay for it, how much we can earn, how much we can keep, what we can weigh, drive, watch, read, learn, teach, carry on a plane, do with our cell phones, heat with, shoot, and a thousand other things that are none of their business. 

And the third tier is getting ready to run for office again in 2012.

It should surprise no one that a government unable to count has made a mess of everything we have entrusted it to do.  The only thing either Party remotely cares about is votes, and they can’t even count them right.  It goes straight downhill from there.

The only reform that will improve the federal government is to jettison large chunks of it.  With all due respect to Congressman Ryan, there was no need to develop a fiscal “roadmap” to save the nation; we already have one called the Constitution. 

Start with a budget of zero, then take Article 1 Section 8 and add the amount needed to perform each of the enumerated powers; stop when you hit Section 9.  There’s your federal budget; about a quarter of what we are spending now, probably less. 

Show me your plan to get there, leaders of either party, and I will support it. Until then, I’m with Joe Biden – let’s just take a nap until they get serious. It is frankly offensive to be lectured by middle-aged adolescents about the other guys’ “real” motivations.  I’m quite certain Congressmen with autistic children do not secretly want to give them to billionaire cannibals for tax write-offs.  And I doubt that the President’s real goal is third world nation status; it would be the first thing he set out to do that is actually working.        

The legitimate negotiations over the size and scope of the federal budget were completed when each and every member of Congress swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.  It’s what they say next that makes clear just who it is she must be defended from.        

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Mommy Dearest

The libertarian argument for less government is made each and every day for us by the things that government does.  The more distant the level of government, the dumber those things are.  That is the founding principle behind the United Nations; some things are just too stupid for one country to do by itself. 

This year’s U.N. float in the Stupid Parade is a proposed treaty which would recognize the earth as a living thing with rights equal to humans – Mother Earth.  This is the sort of notion that distinguishes blithering idiots from the non-blithering generic kind of idiots.

The language will be patterned after Bolivia’s Law of The Rights Of Mother Earth, recently enacted by its socialist President Evo Morales.  That Bolivian law establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth and provides an Ombudsman to listen to her complaints.  No, seriously. I honestly can’t decide which U.N. idea is goofier: ascribing human rights to a planet or emulating Bolivia.

For those unfamiliar, Bolivia is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  Not coincidently, its President Morales has imposed the most anti-capitalist and anti-corporate policies in the Americas.  While neighbors Peru, Colombia, and Brazil are prospering by developing their resources, embracing industry, and attracting foreign investment, Morales is digging himself a deeper hole with socialist insanity and superstitious hoodoo like his Mother Earth Law.   

In the United States, the Mother Earth argument has already been used to block economic development, particularly in natural resource industries like mining, timber harvesting, water, and oil and gas exploration.  The tortured reasoning goes that nature is a person, too, and every activity of man injures her.  Get ready for a full dose of it as the mine project in northern Wisconsin moves forward towards permitting.

The word selection is important – she is always feminine, and always victimized by men. There is no movement for White Dude Earth, the uncaring rich old bastard that hoards his minerals and water underground where poor people can’t get at them and rains on Gay Pride parades.  No, the earth-person of the United Nations and communist environmental extremists has mommy bits, doesn’t shave her legs, hates guns, and thinks teachers are underpaid.     

The idea of inanimate object having human rights is proof that if you think long enough, you can make yourself believe anything.  To state the obvious, human rights are – duh – the stuff of individual humans.  Not collective humans, not their pets, not the Simpsons, farm animals, crops, trees, wind, planets, the universe, dead things, words, rocks, or cheese hats made of plastic. 

Even if there were such a thing, Mother Earth would not be kindly June Cleaver, cleaning the oven in heels and pearls and offering up fresh cookies to Wally and Eddie Haskell after track practice.  She would be Mommie Dearest, a raging Joan Crawford marinated in alcohol and stoked on amphetamines, cussing us out and beating the crap out of us with coat hangars.  What comes to mind when you think back to that 24” inch blizzard this winter – “thanks, Mom”?  Not.

Just to humor the UN whack jobs, let’s say that Mother Earth does have rights; well then she has responsibilities, too. Hey Mommy - here’s the $8 billion tab for Katrina; it’s already a couple years past due and headed for collections.  Tsunami, floods, blizzards, droughts, earthquakes, volcanoes – you went on quite a rampage recently, there, sister; hope you have paid up insurance and a good lawyer.

The Mother Earthers, I’m sure, would say that all those horrible natural disasters are the punishment we should expect for being loathsome humans. Oh, yeah?  What did the dinosaurs do to deserve extinction, leave reptilian paw prints on the coffee table?  Graze with their mouths open?  And how do you know what she thinks - did she tell you?  Do you two speak Earth when you chat?  Ask her if this Global Warming thing was just a hot flash, now that it’s over.   

There is no arguing with the Mother Earth crowd – theirs is a religious conviction based on hatred of humans generally and human economic activity specifically.  The only sure way to derail their Mother Earth movement is to tell them the Koch Brothers gave her a few bucks and watch them vibrate in place.

Earth Whore!  Planet Bitch!  Nature Slut!  Misspelled signs calling her a K-word, Michael Moore cussing out vegans, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin demanding Eric Holder’s Justice Department put humanity in foster care until there is a recount – you get the picture.  President Obama would appoint a commission to determine where her ass is so he could kick it.  Sarah Palin would drop to #2 on the list of the left’s most despised moms.

Clearly, the United Nations has too much time on its hands.  Having secured world peace, eradicated hunger, lifted mankind out of poverty, vanquished disease, educated all the planet’s children, and written thousands of sternly-worded letters to dictators, what is left to do? 

Besides empower a new class of parasitic lawyers and a slew of mentally unbalanced Mother Earth activists to sue humanity on behalf of a plaintiff who can’t file her own complaints because she is dumb as a stone.  Not surprising, since she is a stone.      

And speaking of lunatics, how in the world did we get to the brink of shutting down our own government without first defunding the United Nations?  Democrats and Republicans agreed to cut $39 billion out of domestic spending but both thought it urgent that this bunch of foreign fruitloops maintain their lavish lifestyle on our dime?  Is Rosetta Stone translation software co-owned by the teachers’ union and the Ohio chamber of commerce or something?

Here is what we should do about the United Nations: cut them off, cut them loose, and when they throw a tantrum about it tell them to ask their Mommy Earth to increase their allowance and let them use her credit card.  

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and  order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”  

Leave Me Out Of It

The libertarian position on social issues can be summed up in five words: leave me out of it. 

I have heard libertarians described as economic conservatives and social liberals; I prefer socially neutral, as liberals do not seek freedom on social and cultural issues, they demand state approval and subsidy of their specific moral choices. 

For example, liberals do not simply propose tolerance of gay couples; they demand that the state approve and sanction those unions as marriage, and provide a plethora of taxpayer-funded benefits.  Conservatives seek legislation prohibiting gay marriage, demanding the state defend the sanctity of traditional marriage. 

My libertarian approach to the issue is simple: be as gay as you want, just leave me out of it. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t care.  Don’t care about your choice of partners; don’t care to re-write the dictionary; don’t care to pay for your LGBT agenda. 

Many social conservatives would find “be as gay as you want” to be unacceptably tolerant; and many liberals would “leave me out of it” to be homophobic and hateful.  My response to both is:  be as intolerant or as indignant as you want, just leave me out of it.  Have you detected the theme here?    

You pick the issue, and my answer is going to be the same: be as fill-in-the-blank as you want, just leave me out of it.  Be green, be socialist, be churchy, be feminist, be whatever, just don’t make me approve of your choice or pay for it.  You have a right to tolerance; you have no right to approval. 

I don’t care what you choose to eat, smoke, drive, worship, own, defend yourself with, party with, listen to, read, heal yourself with, weigh, say, buy, sell, own, save, invest, gamble, teach your kids, do for a living, or anything else, particularly.  It’s a free country…used to be, anyway.        

Not wanting to tell you what you can and can’t do – how did that get to be a radical political philosophy?  And not wanting to pay for your lifestyle choices – how did that get to be a matter of public morality? 

Live how you want to live and leave me out of it; and then give me the same respect back.  Believe what you wish and tell me why it makes you happy.  But don’t use the power of the state to shove your beliefs down my throat.

Don’t tell me I can’t send my kid to school with a brown bag lunch and don’t tell me I must pay for NPR to make a version of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.  You want to buy school lunch and fund a Muslim Big Bird, go right ahead; just leave me out of it.     

Morality is its own reward, and immorality is its own punishment; the state does not have a dog in the fight when it comes to most of the social issues that define the “culture war” that rages in this nation.  If you covet, lie, steal, murder, disrespect, aggress, and commit adultery, you will be miserable and impoverished all on your own. 

I will have no sympathy for you, and it pisses me off that the state would intervene with my tax dollars to try in vain to insulate you from the consequences of your own choices.  Prohibition does not prevent bad behavior; state acceptance encourages it.  

It’s not that us libertarians dismiss the importance of public morality; quite the contrary, we find values and traditions to be far too important to trust them to government.  Most social issues get down to religious convictions; sin and salvation are the business of churches, not government. 

When God wants to set you straight He will come and find you, speaking from personal experience.  And He is not about to subcontract the job of soul-saving to a mob of self-absorbed partisan hacks whose only priority is grinding axes and feathering their own beds.  

Government does the worst possible job of instilling moral values, preserving cultural traditions, and providing a common framework of civility.  Would you describe government employees, statists, and unionists as “civil” in the budget debates all across the country in recent weeks?  Not me. A different word comes to mind.

While I generally avoid profanity in my writing, the Thesaurus provides no suitable alternative for the word “asshole”.  If the suppository fits, wear it.  

Those are the people we are entrusting with development and enforcement of public morality. Those boobs in SEIU shirts making fools of themselves are who government is.  The argument against intrusive government is best made by exposing the public to the people who will be doing the intruding.  I’ve seen quite enough of them, haven’t you? 

Betting our potholes on the 'holes is one thing; it is quite another to hand them our children, our culture, and our values.  If you still trust them, go ahead – but leave me out of it. 

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and watch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Bouffant Nation

You probably don’t think of yourself as an employer, but you are: you create a job every time you hire someone to cut your hair. So let me ask you something: why do you create that job?    

Do you create that job to help the economy recover?  Do you create that job to reduce the unemployment rate among stylists?  Do you create that job to correct a trade imbalance?  Do you get your hair cut more often because President Obama or Governor Walker wants to create more jobs?    

Would you get twice as many haircuts to earn a $5 rebate from the government?  Would you go get yourself a B52-style bouffant if the government paid half through cash-for-coifs? If your state put a $100 tax on each haircut, would you pay it or create that job across the state line where there is no haircut tax?  See - this employer stuff is not so complicated.

Unless you are a muttonhead, you only hire someone to cut your hair because you need a haircut – keyword need. And you hire a stylist with skills that meet your requirements – keyword skills. And you hire someone you can afford – keyword afford. 

Job creation only happens when those three things come together: demand, skill, and price. No demand, no jobs; no skilled workers, no jobs; too pricey, no jobs.  Can government compel those three things to heel?  I think you know.  

Government fiscal and monetary policy can do little to stimulate demand, as the past three years under both President Obama and President Bush have demonstrated.  All the Keynesian multipliers in the universe cannot make your hair grow any faster, and deficit spending merely borrows from Friday to make Monday’s appointments more expensive.  See - economics isn’t that complicated, either.    

Government schools have diminished employable skills – reading, math, courtesy, ambition, competitive drive, achievement, standards, loyalty, discipline, accountability, respect – for decades.  Government Affirmative Action programs and feel-good academic silliness have dumbed-down standards for college entrance tests, civil service exams, and professional certifications, diluting skills to achieve dubious social engineering objectives.  

Government’s economic interventions almost always increase the price of labor.  Regulation, taxation, unionization, and protectionism all add costs, but do not add any value.  

So if government can not create demand, improve skills, or make labor more affordable, what can it do to help the private sector create jobs?

Watch it.  Stand back and leave it alone; take as little as possible in the way of taxes, regulate only enough to make regular, and protect the sanctity of the exchange instead of picking winners and losers.  Did you need government intervention to get your last haircut?  Can you imagine how hideous a one-size-fits-all government-issued haircut would look like? 

When this nation was founded, 95 out of 100 Americans grew food to feed themselves and the other 5. Today, with modern farm equipment and chemicals, 3 out of 100 Americans feed the whole nation and a good bit of the rest of the world.  The industrialization of America spanned two centuries; the de-industrialization is occurring at a much faster pace.  Since 2000, manufacturing employment has dropped by 63% to just over 11 million.  And government has grown to 22.5 million and unemployment to over 15 million. 

Our great-grandparents left the farm to work in the factories.  Where will our kids go to make their dreams come true – the DMV? Subway? Paychex?  Is the future going to be 10 of us driving around in Volts writing up carbon violations against the 3 of us that make windmill parts to fill up a warehouse until the tax subsidies run out and the Dutch owners close up shop? That seems to be the Obama/Biden vision.  And trains, because…well, because. 

The difference between the 19^th century and the 21^st century is that federal, state, and local government back then consumed less than 10% of GDP, so free enterprise was 90% free.  Today, our runaway government spends over 60% of GDP, nags and nannies us to death, and deprives us of the energy we need to sustain our living standards based on a superstition that honest science has already abandoned. 

Should we wonder why the recovery didn’t come again this time around like the Easter Bunny always does?  The more our governments do to “help”, the more we prolong the deep recession and high rates of joblessness we have become mired in. You can’t be for jobs and against the corporations that provide them.   

And we cannot just be Bouffant Nation, where the Fed prints scads of money and we all cut each other’s hair. We need to invent things here, to make them here, and to export them from here all over the world. That takes energy, a skilled workforce, sound money, and less government than we have now – a lot less.

The trick to free enterprise is the “free” part.  Get government out of the way and we will quickly discover that American ingenuity did not die; it has been napping until the day when it can again thrive free of government interference.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and  order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”  

Judge Tim

Silly me, I thought that it was the job of the legislature to make laws, the job of the executive branch to enforce them, and the job of the judiciary to keep the Constitution between those first two and me.

Had I known that the job of the judiciary in Wisconsin is to overturn the decisions of the legislature, prevent the executive from carrying them out, and impose their own personal ideology on the whole state, I would have never wasted my time running for U.S. Congress.  I would have aimed high and gone straight for county judge right off the bat.

And I know the perfect county for a libertarian judge - Iron County, home to the city of Hurley, "where Hwy 51 ends and the fun begins!"  We have a cottage near there in Oma Township, otherwise known as the Kingdom of Oma.  Libertarian Judge Tim from the Kingdom of Oma would be your best friend or worst nightmare, depending on whether you are a freeperson or a taxeater.

Dane County Judge MaryAnn Sumi didn't like the way the legislature passed Governor Walker's budget repair bill so she put it on ice.  Well guess what - Judge Tim doesn't like the way the legislature passed the income tax; so that will be my first injunction and we can all stop withholding tomorrow.

You know what else I don't like?  Bar time.  Do you have any idea how many bad marriages can be traced back to the pressure of finding someone before the lights came on and the music stopped?   In the Kingdom of Oma the party won’t stop until you run out of cash. 

And I would put the ki-bosh on that smoking ban, for sure.  If you are not old enough to walk out of a too-smoky bar, you are not old enough to drink.  In fact, the drinking age in the Kingdom of Oma will be when you stop whining; Dane might be our first dry county.  Back when I was on the tour, my tri-fecta package was a Black Russian, a bottle of Rolling Rock for a wash, and a Marlboro.  Two out of three is like ZZ Top without Billy Gibbons.  Glad I quit when I did.

Want to bet on the Badgers, the Packers, or the over/under on how many voters rise up from the dead in the Kloppenburg recount?  You won't have to drive to an Indian Casino; you can place your wager at the Kwik Trip…or the M&I bank. I’ll order that one out of spite.

Know what else you can do at the KT?  Fill up your SUV, ATV, and Jet Skis with high octane, no ethanol, manly gas.  For about a buck a gallon, because Judge Tim doesn't like gas tax, either.  Want to run your Prius on corn?  Put the bikes on the rack and move to Iowa; they are addicted to the stuff over there.

But how would we pay for the DNR with all those tax cuts, you ask?  Simple answer: “you're welcome”.   Here's how the DNR would fare in Judge Tim's court:  "Attorney Kloppenburg, show me where your name is on the deed to this property...I didn't think so...now sit down and shut up.  And buy this guy's pier; no, buy him two just for being a dork." 

And don't even think about boycotting our fine businesses up here in the Kingdom of Oma, because Judge Tim knows how to spell extortion and throw your miserable butts in the hooskow for 20 hard.  While I'm at it, I think I will rule that the Federal anti-trust waiver for unions is nullified in Wisconsin.  There – now your whole amalgamated brotherhood can drag your knuckles back home to Illinois.  And as long as we are nullifying...sayonara, Obamacare!  You have just been injunctified! 

I like guns, don't you?  Concealed carry, open carry, locked and loaded and ready to defend against the dirtbags and gang-bangers who are already packin'.   Not just allowed, but mandatory, just like recycling used to be before Judge Tim ordered the prisoners in jail to sort the garbage so honest citizens didn't have to waste our time doing it.  What's that, ACLU - sorting trash is cruel and unusual punishment?  I know! I know!   

Let's see, what else don't I like?...seat belts, car seats, dairy queen light bulbs, out of state college kids voting to increase taxes they will never pay.  Drink raw milk if you think you should, don't worry about motorcycle helmets, and consider the speed limits on rural interstates to be suggestions.  And of course, I'll reverse any injunction Judge Sumi issues.  I’ll get an app for my iPhone to alert me.

You think Obama has power?  Hah!  Judge Tim can make a hundred thousand people suddenly get glaucoma just by making medical marijuana legal, and then cure them all when I end prohibition altogether.  Just don't come into my court expecting unemployment when you flunked your drug test at work, stoner.  Judge Tim has no sympathy for slackers.

If you think the people in the Kingdom of Oma will vote me out over pot, you’ve never been to Hurley.  Did I mention I would Voter ID the whole state by decree and make everyone cast their ballot in gun shop, church, or Harley dealership?  Think of it as affirmative action, making up for a century of liberal home-field advantage voting in public schools.  Besides, once I order the state to give every parent vouchers, there won’t be any public schools left to vote in.

Now, I know that my liberal opponents for county judge will point to my lack of judicial experience and say I should start out on the Supreme Court until I know what I am doing, like their guys do.  And my conservative opponents will be lecturing about impartiality and temperament and separation of powers and things that people under 40 never learned.  That is noble.

But I'd wipe the floor with them both. There wouldn’t be no Franken re-counts when Judge Tim stands for re-election.  You know why?  Because freedom is popular, just like Ron Paul says. And free people would rather live in the Kingdom of Oma than the People’s Republic of Madison. 

It’s too bad they don’t have the choice.  

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”