MOMENT OF CLARITY

Behold The Walmart

2012-01-26T15:20:00.002-06:00

The largest employer in the United States is Walmart. The second largest is the United States Postal Service (USPS).

One is a private sector, for-profit corporation; the other is a government non-profit entity. One is non-union, and the other is unionized. One returns profits to its owners, the other must be subsidized by its owners. One pays an average wage of $11.75/hr with limited benefits, and the other pays an average of $24/hr with generous benefits. One is younger than I am; the other is older than the nation.

There are 142,000 products in the average Walmart Superstore. Each day, 2.1 million people go to work in 9,749 Walmart stores in 14 countries. There is no government Czar telling them what to do, and none of them know me from Adam. So what I am about to tell you is really amazing – check this out.

I never told any one of those 2.1 million employees where I would be today, or what time I would arrive, or which of those 142,000 products I would buy; it is a little ninja test of the capitalist system I run every so often for Quality Control to make sure that markets still work. The odds against them guessing which products I will choose to buy and from which store are astronomical, and yet they nailed it.

Kingsford, Michigan; 5:45 PM; Colgate Cavity Protection toothpaste and M&M Peanuts. Scary, man - I’m still shaking. It’s like they put a chip in my head or something. And they do it every time; way better than Chriss Angel.

Now let’s give contestant #2 a try. The United States Postal Service has had over 200 years to perfect its craft. They have only 28 products. Each day 700,000 people go to work in only one country. They deliver my mail to one of only two possible locations once a day, six days a week and they get to pick the time.

It’s the government, so I had to dumb-down the test quite a bit to even give them a shot. I gave them my location months in advance, let them pick the service, pick the day, pick the time, and pick the parcels. There is only 1/3 as many of them to align their efforts and they make twice as much as the Walmart folks, and for the 30th day in a row, they forwarded my mail to the wrong address.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between markets and government.

Behold the wonder that is the Walmart. Do any of those hundreds of millions of people from all over the world who designed, built, transported, and merchandised those 142,000 products to their 9,749 stores know or care what I want or why I want it? Why do they want me to have healthy gums and no chocolate mess more than they want to go fishing with their kids?

The answer, of course, is that they did not make anything for me; they made it for profit. Profit is the reason that I can buy generic medicine for $4, a wastebasket for $1.69, 2 dozen golf balls for $9.49, and get my tires rotated while I buy groceries. I have no idea if the person(s) who made the Garden Weasel is black, white, male, female, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, disabled, old, young, liberal or conservative. Nor do I care, and neither does he or she; profit makes us do what bumper stickers cannot – coexist.

He or she is working at the best opportunity available to them, and I am buying at the best opportunity available to me. We both decided what is best for us on our own without coercion. Two families have optimized our benefit in voluntary and peaceful exchange with each other. Profit does that every day without breaking a sweat; no government has ever pulled it off, not even at gunpoint.

It gets a lot better. A person of modest means can buy high quality goods beyond the reach of the richest people in the world just one generation ago. Moms who grew up wearing hand-me-downs can buy new clothes for all of their own children. People who never had to do that probably can’t appreciate the anxiety of that first day of school when you have on your brother’s stuff all patched and darned and rolled up; or the relief when you discover that most every other kid is in the same boat. And now kids worry if their smart phone battery will run out before the Justin Beiber download is finished.

Profit did that. Profit delivers luxury to the poor; government delivers promises to the poor. That is the difference. That is the thing that the haters of free market capitalism don’t grasp. There is nothing capable of replacing it - nothing.

Of all of our governmental agencies, our military is the most able, the most accomplished, and the most admired. With an almost unlimited budget, the most advanced logistics system of any government entity anywhere in the world, and the most advanced weapons to force compliance, they still run out of socks in the combat zone.

Do they ever run out of socks at the Walmart? There’s your moment of clarity.

The next time you walk into a Walmart, take a minute to look around; think about all the millions and millions of people from all over the world who made the miracle that is the Walmart come together just for you. All it would take is for one of them – just one – to not do their job, and the product you came in to buy will not be on the shelf. Now grab your cart and go see if any of them failed.

Not only did they pass my ninja QC test and deliver a decent return to their shareholders, but Walmart also gave $170 million of its profits to charities here in the United States alone last year. The USPS lost money and had nothing to give to charities; in fact, it asked for a subsidy from its owners and proposed cutting back service in exchange.

Lower quality, higher prices, unreliable, unsustainable, uncharitable. And with the benevolent government as the employer and a union workforce, surely the USPS would be a perfect socialist utopian workplace, right? No, the term “going postal” has become slang for violent workplace rage.

And they say capitalism doesn’t work?

And they also insist that we free marketers need the government to step in and fix us? What can government possibly teach markets? What could Walmart possibly learn from USPS about giving me what I want, when I want it, where I want it, and at a price I am willing to pay? Why should I expect people who go postal to protect me from the greeter?

Forget what rubbish you have been taught by your professors about failed capitalism; go teach yourself about its miracles. Walk in and trust what you see with your own eyes – and behold the wonder that is the Walmart.

“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 Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!”

It's Raining Coin

2012-01-24T20:58:00.000-06:00

Like most other “rich” people, I slept in this morning; rolled out from under the spun-gold sheets at the crack of noon, showered in Evian and went outside to fill up my humungous money bucket with the golden coins that fall out of the sky on people like me.

No, no really – that’s where it comes from, don’t you know. The raining of the coin doesn’t happen everywhere, as it would be silly of us who already got ours let the middle class siphon off any of the loot. You have to watch Fox News and know the secret code words to learn where and when the Koch brothers are going to make the next drop. There’s an app for that, too.

They teach us all about this stuff in that secret rich white boy’s school – how to steal the poor people’s buckets and rig the game so we are always first in line when prosperity rains. That way there is nothing left for the working class and they all have to go on food stamps so we can belittle them, just like Juan Williams said…

Sadly, it is necessary to tell some people now that this is satire. For the record, there is no secret rich boy’s school and wealth doesn’t really fall out of the sky - you have to earn it. Sorry to burst your bubble, lefties.

Actually, I don’t even know if I am rich or not – certainly better off than I ever dreamed possible growing up in my little mining town, and super-rich in all the really important ways that don’t involve counting up money. When the Democrats start the drumbeat for more taxes on the rich, sometimes the line is as low as $106,000 and sometimes it is $250,000 and sometimes you have to be a millionaire or billionaire.

I guess it doesn’t really matter; it is one of those questions of which came first - the chicken or the chicken-tax.

The President just gave his State of the Labor Unions address (yawn) and announced that taxing the rich (yawn) will be the backbone of his new plan (yawn) to build the economy. Funny, since he just decided we wouldn’t be building pipelines, power plants, drill rigs, Gibson guitars, planes in South Carolina, or cars that people actually want to buy. I guess the economy is something else.

And incidentally, I think that Republican congressman who boycotted the President’s speech was as wrong as the Wisconsin state senators that fled to Illinois. Until the day the next President is inaugurated, President Obama is everyone’s President, and we all have jobs with stuff we don’t like to do. But I digress…

Just in case there is one liberal somewhere whose brain is not bolted down to the deck of the U.S.S. Economic Suicide, let me try one more time to explain why increasing tax rates on the rich is a really bad idea, even though it might feel good to think they won’t miss a couple scoops out of their rain-money buckets.

The Wall Street Journal did a recent piece on a 2007 Congressional Budget Office analysis of tax burdens – a CBO which was under the control of Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats at the time. Nancy doesn’t bring up this particular tax study very often.

CBO found that the average total tax rate of the top 1% was slightly less than 30% of their income, while the middle class paid an average tax rate of 15%, and poor people (bottom 20%) paid just under 5%. It turns out that the rich indeed do not pay their fair share of taxes; they pay nearly twice their fair share.

And if we raise the top marginal tax rates on the rich – as Democrats like Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi propose - it will increase the tax burden on the middle class. That is not economic theory, it is economic history.

In the 1970’s, when the top marginal tax rate on individuals was 70%, the top 1% paid 19% of all taxes collected, while the rest of us paid 81%. Today, with the top marginal rate reduced to 35%, the wealthiest 1% pay 40% of all taxes and the rest of us now pay only 60%. Trickle up economics.

Imagine if it were the middle class who earned 28% of all the income and paid 40% of all the taxes – would Krugman and Reich be clamoring for tax increases on teachers and firefighters? Would Buffet’s secretary come forward and volunteer to pay more? What would the protesters occupy, an Applebee’s?

The liberals tell us we must increase tax rates on the rich – they say to put them back up to the pre-Reagan rates that were “fair”. Ok, but if we do, taxes on the rest of us will go back up by 35% to make up for the shortfall in tax revenues. Been there, done that.

Why do higher tax rates produce less tax revenue? Because the rich quit earning taxable income when we take away more of what they earn – guys like Michael Moore make less movies (ok, wishful thinking, but you get the drift). Investment also dries up because half of the reward is no longer worth all of the risk. Investment is what creates jobs; we do not need less of it.

And for those who enjoy only a casual acquaintance with the obvious, this is not the only country where it rains money. The very rich can take their buckets to the Caymans, or Ireland, or Singapore or a dozen other places who would be thrilled to tax them at lower rates than we do. And 70% of zero is zero, whether you are a Keynesian, an Austrian, or Chicago School economist. Or just from Chicago.

Last year the state of Illinois slapped a 67% increase on tax rates for wealthy individuals – the Obama/Pelosi magic pill to cure budget deficits. But taxing the rich did not reduce their deficit; it made things predictably worse. Much worse.

$4.5 billion of unpaid bills sit past due, with another $4 billion coming due that can’t be paid – tax refunds, employee health insurance, invoices for road repair, things like that. The state is losing residents at a rate of one every 10 minutes. Hint: the poor and unemployed are not chief among them.

The President apparently doesn’t get back home much; or he is too busy blaming everyone else for his failures to bother about economics and home-state reality. “Tax the rich” is good chanting material, and that is what passes for deep thoughts these days.

If you want to bet your prosperity on Tooth Fairy Government doing any of that stuff the President promised you tonight, then put out your bucket and wait for it to start raining coin. As for me, I’m getting up early tomorrow and going to work.

“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 Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!”.

Dr. Tim's Walker Rally Speech

2012-01-21T17:04:00.000-06:00

(Note: a grass-roots rally in support of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was held today in Wauwatosa, where thousands of Walker supporters stood outside for 3 hours to listen to a virtual who's who of GOP speakers...and me. If you were not there, here is what you missed.)

Well, Wisconsin, they did it; they got enough signatures to force a recall election for Governor Scott Walker.

Did anyone really doubt you could find 540,000 graduates of Wisconsin public schools who would demand a sticker and a hug and a do-over when they lose? That’s how they roll nowadays.

So now $20 million will have to be cut from state and local budgets for education, the environment, the elderly, cancer research, day care, special needs children, bike paths, and bridge repairs to pay for their little tantrum. Own that, Madison.

It also means that more than 3.3 million eligible voters in Wisconsin said no. We listened to the protests for a year, we thought about our options for 60 days, and we decided not to waste $20 million and to just stick with the guy who was elected fair and square.

So what do I think of the recall?    Two words: BRING IT!

Now, all these other speakers here today are Republicans, and they all came to say “I stand with Scott Walker.”

Well, not me. I’m not a Republican and I don’t stand with Scott Walker. I’m a Libertarian - and Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for jobs.

I stand for job-creators.

I stand for free markets, open competition, lower taxes, and sensible regulation.

I stand for developing our natural resources responsibly.

I stand for rewarding hard work, and not punishing success.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I believe in less government and more liberty.

I believe in fiscal responsibility.

I believe in school choice.

I believe in the right to carry.

I believe in the right to work.

I believe in the right to vote…once…residents only…with ID.

I don't believe in Scott Walker. Scott Walker believes in me.

In the past three years, 132,000 teachers have been laid off in the other 49 states.

Why? Because their Governor is NOT Scott Walker. There is only one. And as everyone knows, one Walker beats 14 runners.

The tens of thousands of teachers and government workers in Wisconsin who did NOT get laid off have Scott Walker to thank for it.

And those few hundred who DID get laid off – in Madison and Milwaukee - can thank their unions.

You guys with the signs and cowbells over there are drumming for the wrong team.

If we Libertarians got a mulligan every time we lost an election, we would need a full time department of voter nullification. Oh, wait – we already have that, it’s called the Government Accountability Board.

And in a few days they will rule that all those millions of votes we cast in November 2010 didn’t count. They will hope for better luck this time.   They are wrong.

I write a blog called Moment of Clarity, and if there ever was ever a time for clarity, this is it. So here’s your moment: this has nothing do with Walker, or rights or any high-minded principle at all – this is the last tug of war between the taxpayers versus the taxeaters.

There is no fence to sit on; there is no rock to hide under. It is the State versus you.   Pick your side.

I’ve picked mine; I’m going to stand on the side of liberty, and Scott Walker stands with me.

Recall Your Mom

2012-01-17T10:14:00.000-06:00

And kudos once again to opponents of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who celebrated their Dr. Martin Luther King Day holiday yesterday by hissing and chanting at the Governor during a solemn proclamation honoring Dr. King at the State Capitol in Madison.

In doing so, the Democrats notched yet another important victory for loutish self-absorption over common decency in the continuing battle for the hearts and minds of independent voters in the Badger State.

The highlights of their perfect season, undefeated by couth, includes shouting down the Pledge of Allegiance, booing the National Anthem, disrupting a ceremony honoring Special Olympians, and hassling returning troops, just to name a few. Their behavior in our Capitol rotunda would get them thrown out of Walmart.

Forget Scott Walker; you guys should recall your mom.

Or whoever it was that raised you to believe it was ok to interrupt ceremonies, hurl vulgarities at 14-year-old girls, disenfranchise cloistered nuns, bribe children with cigarettes to sign recall petitions, stalk the families of public officials, throw beer or coffee on opponents, make death threats, and try to shut down dissenting media outlets.

That might be what Democracy looks like in Venezuela or Iran, but not here. That’s not even what 4th grade looks like here. Our moms raised us to wait our turn, to let everyone speak, to compromise, to watch our language in public, to be gracious in both victory and defeat. We learned to stand our ground, but not to stand in the path of others’ rights to pass. We learned tolerance and patience – from our moms.

We don’t taunt, we don’t bully, and we don’t respect people so undisciplined that they cannot put a sock in it for one hour to honor the memory of a man who sacrificed his life for a cause he carried with dignity and respect.

I can understand why Democrats and unionists might not think disrupting an MLK commemoration is any big deal; after all, Dr. King had to fight Democrats to get black people their right to vote, and he had to fight unions to integrate the workforce. It is unlikely that the union/government schools tell students who was the party of the KKK and separate-but-equal back in the day.

So what if Dr. King gave his life? That is nothing compared to having to pay 12% of a health insurance premium, right? And how can we equate something trivial like institutionalized segregation with something really awful, like allowing school boards to compete those WEA trust insurance contracts now that the scam is blown?

I’ve heard the comeback: both sides do it. No, they don’t; one side does it. And that one side is not winning over any unaligned voters by pitching fits in public.

We are about to waste $9 million of our hard-earned money to give our Democrats another mulligan, money that will not be available for education, the elderly, the environment, cancer research, bridge repairs, or bike paths. Or, God forbid, tax relief for working people who can hardly make ends meet, thanks in part to one of the highest tax burdens in the country.

2/3 of that recall money will be paid by Republicans and Independents, both of whom overwhelmingly approve of the job Governor Walker is doing – the job he was elected fair and square to do.

It will come out of township budgets across the state, townships run by common-sense people from both Parties who would prioritize snow removal over an unbudgeted election if it were up to them – and us. If it were up to us, we would have the election to recall Scott Walker in November of 2014, when it was originally scheduled.

But it’s not up to us. It’s up to people whose moms did not teach them to wait their turn. It is up to union bosses from out East, together with the Madison liberals who think everyone’s money is their money, the Chicago urban vote factory which views Milwaukee as a colony, and out of state students who will leave us after graduation, taking with them the benefit of one of the best educations taxpayer subsidies can buy.

Many of those students putting their idealism and energy behind the Walker Recall will relocate to the low-tax, Right-To-Work, concealed carry, energy-friendly, business-friendly states where there is opportunity. I wish they would use that enthusiasm to help Governor Walker and his successors turn Wisconsin into one of those states, so they could find opportunities here.

That would make all our moms happy. They could see their grandchildren without having to pay a bag fee and endure a public groping at the hands of TSA.

“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.

Rich Is The New Gay

2012-01-11T12:52:00.000-06:00

It’s ok to hate them for who they are. It’s ok to vandalize their property, taunt them, seize their assets, deny them government benefits, make them register and buy a license to practice their alternative lifestyle.

You can hound them at their workplace, you can bully them in schools, you can picket their homes, you can send them death threats with impunity, and you can occupy public buildings for months on end chanting bad things about them.

Rich is the new gay.

It is no longer permissible in our civil society to hate based on skin color, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual preference. But wealth – that’s a free-fire zone. Wealth is evil. Capitalism is sodomy. Free enterprise is lewd and lascivious conduct. Wall Street is the new Castro Street, only it’s ok to light it on fire. Even Tiffany Newt feels free to tee off on Mitt Romney for being (gasp) too rich – think Ellen reefing on Elton John to win George Michael’s vote.

You can say the most hateful things imaginable about rich people - even the President does it, cheered on by a wealth-o-phobic media. Imagine how the fur would fly if a President blamed all his failures on homosexuals, or if he expressed support for violent mobs rioting in the streets if it were the 3.6% instead of the 1% whose heads are demanded on a pole.

The left/right paradigms for wealth and sexual preference are pretty much the same: liberals insist that material preference is assigned at birth; conservatives believe it is a choice. Closet richos like Michael Moore or the Obamas possess the same self-loathing false piety as Ted Haggert or Larry Craig. Their response to being outed is loud, angry denial; wide stance or baseball cap, the disguise doesn’t fool anyone.

The rich even have their transgendered equivalents – trans-wealthered, I suppose - who have crossed over from the poor side to the rich side. I don’t think the abuse hurled against Herman Cain was because he was black; it was because he is black and refused to stay poor. To the haters, that is one sick puppy. Tim Tebow is even worse – openly rich, openly humble, and openly Christian. Unforgivable.

I can’t explain the liberals’ reflexive hatred of wealthy people. Perhaps they are guilty about the way their own leaders have enriched themselves – Obama, Corzine, Soros, Pelosi, Kennedy, Gore, Trumka, Jackson, Hillary the pork belly whisperer. If all you know is swindling and influence peddling, then maybe that’s all you can imagine.

Whenever I say something nice about rich people in a column, I can count on a deluge of angry comments and personal attacks. The number of things haters guess wrong about me reveals a prejudice so deep-seated that it can’t be tempered by reason. The last acceptable negative stereotype is the rich white guy – presumptively unethical, presumptively privileged, presumptively unaccomplished and undeserving.

People who hate rich people don’t like it when I credit rich businesspeople for improving our living standards. They say that the only reason that rich people ever improve products, workplace rules, and the environment is because unions or government force them. Rich people are inherently evil and greedy and left to their own devices would poison us and starve us to death – they can’t help themselves.

But let’s think about that. The government only forces them to pay their workers a wage of $7.25 per hour, and yet private employers pay a median wage of $21.10 per hour. Why? Who makes them do that?   Not unions - only 7% of private sector employees choose to be represented by unions. How is it possible that rich people would voluntarily pay poorer people triple what the law requires? Hmmm.

And government does not force any employer to provide benefits, either; yet the average private sector employee receives $17,000 worth from his evil rich employer. Health insurance, holidays, and how about vacation days - nobody forces rich people to pay you to take time off with your family, but they do. How un-greedy is that?

Want more? Tuition reimbursement, retirement savings matches, private loans, contributions to charities, service on community boards, partnering with schools and government agencies, funding recreation, the arts, museums – show me the law that was passed by the progressives that makes rich people do any of that.

Or tell me what union went out on strike until the employer agreed to build a soccer field for inner city kids or fund scholarships for girls in non-traditional careers?   Which one traded a wage increase for increased funding of Boys and Girls clubs or Junior Achievement? That’s what owners do all the time, into the billions.

Some employers’ subsidized cafeterias are the only decent meals their employees will eat during the week. Nobody made them do that; and they want to starve the poor, remember?   Poison their water, take away their health care, shut down schools for their kids, hate women – stuff like that. Not offer free mammograms.

Do you think that executives must sit on civic boards under some court-ordered community service sentence? Is it like the Huber law – we get a pass to get out of work to do it? Why would rich people give so much of their time and money to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged if they really hated them as much as liberals say we do?

Most of the rich people I know used to be a lot poorer than most of the people I know calling them names. Now that I think about it, most people I know calling them names have never been poor a day in their life – not really poor, not like the poverty I have seen.

The average American worker earns 29 times as much as the average worker in the world’s bottom quintile – that is a lot bigger guilt-gap than between our worker and his CEO. What does that prove – that the American workers are even more greedy and selfish than the dreaded CEO? No, it proves we are very productive top to bottom in the working class, and yes, business owners work their tails off.

Rich is the new gay, so go ahead and hate if you must. But remember this: gay people can’t make you gay, but rich people can make you rich. That is, if you quit screaming at them long enough to ask them how they did it. That is how most of us trans-wealthered people started our rise on the updraft.; we shut up and listened.

I bet you Romney’s $10,000 that any one of them would be glad to tell you if you asked nicely. Try 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.

It's Not Complicated

2012-01-09T15:02:00.000-06:00

Freedom is difficult, but it is not complicated. Either you wish to make your own choices in life (freedom) or you wish to let others make them for you (government).

Ron Paul likes to say “freedom is popular” and he is right, when it comes to our own freedom; none of us wants someone else to spend our money and tell us what to do. That’s not complicated. It is when we think about extending that same courtesy to those who spend their money in ways we find offensive (buy drugs, for example) and do things that we do not approve of (take them), that is gets difficult.

Ever since Rick Santorum surged to a virtual tie in the Iowa Caucuses, the national debate has turned back, at least temporarily, to social issues and the central question of what role government should play in promoting morality and values. Most Republicans think the government should take an active role in promoting civic morality; most Democrats think government is civic morality. Most libertarians think this is why mute buttons were put on remotes; we’ll check back in when they get back around to war and economic collapse.

I hate sin as much as any of my social conservative friends do; the difference between us is our willingness to imprison those who hate it a little less.

Violent crimes are committed by violent criminals, and we need laws and prisons and courts and private arms in order to defend ourselves and property from predators. Force and fraud are the libertarian lines in the sand where freedom ends and crime begins. Most of us are actually “tougher” on real crime than the average Republican. Freedom and consequence are reciprocal; we don’t like either to be metered out in small doses.

But victimless crimes are something else altogether. The buyer and seller of contraband – whether it is raw milk, below minimum wage labor, drugs, sex, a wager, scalpers’ tickets, usury loans, alternative medicine, unlicensed haircuts, RYO cigarettes, or Gibson guitars – have forced or defrauded no one.

As a principled matter, it is none of my business how you choose to live your life, and from a practical perspective, I don’t want to pay the costs of enforcing futility. If eternal damnation isn’t already enough of a deterrent, adding 260 hours of community service is not going to make anybody sit up straight and fly right. Immorality has survived 7,000 years of moralists; this won’t be the year we snuff it out by electing one guy or another guy. And just like anything else, the quality of morality suffers when the government takes it over.

The issue isn’t really morality, anyway; it’s the role of law. Conservatives think the law should punish what we don’t approve, libertarians think the law should make us tolerate what we don’t approve, and liberals think the law should make us pay for what we don’t approve. To the Progressives – in both Parties - civic morality is achieved when a few of us pay to impose their beliefs on all of us.

Over the years, I have come to realize that immorality is its own worst punishment; most people I know who have chosen vice as a lifestyle live in misery and squalor. I love them, of course, but have zero sympathy for them; the picture was on the brochure when they made their reservation. Laws are just words; they won’t fix anyone who is broken. And our obligation to be our brother’s keeper takes a lot more than paying taxes.

Last year, our units of government passed 40,000 new laws. The mind boggles.

No one even knows for sure how many laws there are in the United States – hundreds of thousands certainly, millions perhaps. It is absolutely impossible to be a law-abiding citizen in this country; none of us knows all the laws and we have all most certainly broken several last year…or yesterday, for all I know. I used to break lots of them on purpose when I was young and fun; no challenge now.

Have all these laws made us a better society? Are we more righteous, just, compassionate, prosperous, healthy, and happy because of them?   Do we treat each other better now that we have made it a crime to offend? Do we hate less because we made hate illegal?   Sure doesn’t look like it on the nightly news.

The miracle that was 19th century America was described by Alexis de Tocqueville in his epic “Democracy in America”. He correctly identified the parallel importance of liberty and religiosity in a free society:

“In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country."

That ascending America that so fascinated de Tocqueville had a limited and distributed government that consumed less than 10% of GDP at all levels combined.   That is a fraction of the footprint that is advocated by either Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, our two most prominent libertarian politicians. That is how far off the rails we have veered over the past century – even our crazy libertarians aren’t radical enough.

It was that Constitutional America, where government was limited and morality was privatized, that inspired the industrial revolution, abolished slavery, institutionalized philanthropy, developed a middle class, achieved universal literacy, eradicated disease and improved life spans at a rate not seen before or since. In the latter half of the 19th century, a flood of immigrants voted with their feet for free market capitalism. Freedom is indeed popular – always has been.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s argument that freedom breeds immorality ignores the history of America when it was most free. We are now at our least free, and at our most immoral, by any measure of social pathology. We have proven for decades on end that government can deliver neither prosperity nor salvation – no matter who runs it.

We don’t need 40,000 more laws each year to live free. The Constitution is just a skinny pamphlet; the Ten Commandments fit on a recipe card.   Even a society of atheists would live peaceably together if they did not lie, covet, steal, kill, disrespect parents, commit adultery, or attempt to play God.

Some people think we should take those Ten Commandments down from our government buildings. Not me. I think we ought to take down the government buildings.

“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.

AFP Town Hall Speech

2012-01-07T14:12:00.004-06:00

[I was invited to speak as a panelist at Americans For Prosperity "It's Working" Town Hall today in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Here is my closing speech]

Some of you may have read a piece I wrote recently, entitled “Downward Wisconsin”. It begins like this:

“We used to make things here in Wisconsin. We made machine tools in Milwaukee, cars in Kenosha and ships in Sheboygan. We mined iron in the north and lead in the south. We made cheese, we made brats, we made beer, and we even made the napkins to clean up the beer we spilled. And we made money.”

That essay was a celebration of the working men and women in Wisconsin and our great industrial entrepreneurs – those old geezers with beards whose family name was their guarantee to the world that the products made here were the best in the world.

I wasn’t a very good student in college, but I do remember this: there are only three ways to create wealth in this world – make it, mine it, or grow it. We used to do all three of those things here in Wisconsin.

Reality check: here are our top 10 employers in Wisconsin today:

Walmart, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Milwaukee Public Schools, U.S. Postal Service, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Menards, Marshfield Clinic, Aurora Health Care, City of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

That is where a century of progressivism will get you. That and a $3.6 billion structural deficit.

In 2010, a survey of Wisconsin employers showed that only 10% thought we were headed in the right direction. We came into 2011 year ranked 44th in business climate, and 47th in new business formation. We are one of the 10 worst states in retention of our college graduates.

In just one year, Wisconsin has moved up to 24th in business climate, the largest single year jump ever recorded. 94% of employers now believe we are headed in the right direction.

What changed? Gee - I don’t recall.

A state budget that could not be balanced for a decade was balanced.

Taxes on businesses and business owners were reduced after a decade of increases.

A hostile regulatory posture was shifted back into neutral.

We quit throwing money at our failing government schools and finally tackled the root cause of our problems in education – Act 10 is working.

And so is Wisconsin. Our manufacturing companies are coming back strong. Wisconsin employers currently have 32,000 unfilled positions – jobs available but no one qualified or willing to take them. We are doing our job.

You may have read about the Wisconsin company that just signed a 5-year deal to build Chinese products here. Man bites dog.

That is our company; those are our factories and our employees; I’m just the guy who did the deal.

Do you know what Governor Walker and the State of Wisconsin did to help us get that deal done? Nothing. Perfect. Thank you, Scott Walker.

In fact, there was no government participation on either side. It took only two days to work out the details – amazing what you can get done without lawyers and bureaucrats helping.

We are not alone. There are thousands of terrific companies in Wisconsin. Those of us who still build things in Wisconsin are damn good at it. We don’t need government subsidies to succeed; we just need government to get out of our way. Get off our back; fix a bridge; go lay by your dish.

Why do 9 out of 10 employers think Wisconsin is headed on the right track? Because government IS getting out of our way. Wisconsin is open for business.

And yet, there are those in this state that don’t want Wisconsin to be open for business; they want to go right back to the way it was. At least I think that is what they want – I don’t speak drum.

Imagine what a chilling effect that would have upon the people who will make decisions about where to build their next factory, or open their next store or restaurant, or relocate their headquarters.

You can’t be for jobs and against the corporations that create them.

You can’t be for prosperity and against the things that make us prosper.

You can’t be for liberty and surrender yours to the state.

You can’t be for the working man and against his Right To Work.

There are tens of thousands of protesters and occupiers who have spent the last year insisting that theirs are the only voices who speak for the working man.

I have a message for them: I’m a working man. You don’t speak for me.

And there are 2,350,000 more of us who DON’T work for the government, and this is our state too.

It’s working, and we all need to get working to keep it that way.

Thank you.

[Note: when I accept invitations to speak, the opinions expressed are my own, not of my employer. Our company does not take positions on candidates or political parties.]

Worker's Liberation Front

2012-01-04T17:11:00.000-06:00

We should change the name of National Right To Work Committee to the Worker’s Liberation Front. Maybe then we could get some sympathetic press coverage for the real civil rights issue in the employment realm – and no, I am no talking about collective bargaining privileges for public sector employees.

Indiana is about to become the 23rd state to pass Right To Work legislation, liberating its working citizens from compulsory unionization and adding workplace freedom to the state’s already favorable business climate. Union leaders have expressed their obligatory condemnation of freedom; they will be joined by liberals, Democrats, media, and timid Republicans for whom liberty is a statue and a bell, not a lifestyle.

Up North we called it a woofing contest – you know, when the first dog starts barking, which gets the next going and the next, and pretty soon the whole neighborhood is yapping and howling without any idea why; even the first one forgot if it was a squirrel or the postman that got it all agitated. Mention the word “union” and all the mutts go off – as if the past 100 years hadn’t happened and children were still working in textile mills. Check that, as if there were still textile mills to work in.

That’s where the WLF comes in – the media lapdogs wouldn’t know what do with us. We could wear berets and army jackets and wrap-around shades and cross our arms over our chests while scowling. I’ve been watching that move for 45 years now; one little guy talks smack into a microphone while some big guys stand behind him and nod on cue - kind of like a stationary Little Anthony and the Imperials with a bad attitude and no talent.

Nobody on the left ever questions an organization with “front” or “liberation” or “worker” in its name. They reflexively fawn over berets and army jackets – maybe it is a thing for uniforms, I don’t know. I read somewhere recently that women like brooding guys, and maybe it’s that sulking pout that does the trick. Guys are easier to figure – we pretend to like whatever our girlfriends are into until football comes on or they marry us, whichever comes first. C’mon, get over yourself, it was just a joke...

But rights are no joking matter. The debate over Right To Work in Indiana will be once again be argued on a false premise, namely that compulsory unionism, imposed by government force, is the default setting from which the departure to workplace freedom needs to be justified. Wrong. Freedom is the default setting in the land of the free; it is union extortion that needs to be justified. Good luck with that.

Your individual right to work trumps any collective privilege that allows me plus 50% of our co-workers to deny you that right unless you pay a third party tribute to the organization of my choosing. When the mob extracts protection money from a business, it busts windows and knees to enforce compliance; when a union does it, the state does its dirty work at taxpayer expense. The tax-paying employer gets beat with his own belt and the workers ultimately bear the welts.

Compulsory union membership as a condition of employment is extortion, and no number of gooey solidarity songs or Sally Field movies can make it anything different. Forcing an employer to be an accomplice, through mandatory dues withholding, is conspiracy to commit. If it were any other organization holding the employer and employee hostage – the mob, KKK, Catholic Church, NRA – prosecutors would be drafting RICO charges. If it were Al Qaeda instead of AFL-CIO, we would be sending drone aircraft to take out Richard Trumka.

Is Al-Qaeda a bit over-the-top? Perhaps - but it was Trumka’s unionists, not the Taliban, that literally did take hostages recently at the illegal strikes in our West Coast ports. That’s what they think of the working man (and woman) over at Team Extortion. That’s who is doing the war-mongering against the middle class. Read down the list of Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans – none of them have ever taken hostages.

Those union knuckle-draggers will excuse their criminal behavior (what criminal doesn’t?) and say that the labor movement has to crack some heads to get justice, that we have a tradition of violence in this country’s labor history. That is an asinine argument; we also have a tradition of beating gays, killing prostitutes, spiking Haloween candy, abusing Congressional interns, and driving drunk – that doesn’t make any of those things right.

Invest in Indiana. Surrounded by fiscal insanity (Illinois, Michigan, Ohio) they will take one more step out ahead of the pack when they pass Right To Work. The people of Indiana are going be very happy they did this; good jobs at good wages beats no jobs at unaffordable wages. The honchos at the UAW don’t care how many autoworkers they put out of work – they get their new Cadillac every year regardless.

The Midwest’s best and brightest will flock to Indiana when they pass Right To Work, and a rush of new capital will be there to meet them. The best managers and designers want to work where their ideas can be implemented willingly; it is not just the blue collar workforce that will be upgraded. They will innovate; they will grow; they will thrive and prosper together. And the unions will either add value or die – and I’m not taking “add value”, even with points.

The bottom line the unionists don’t want you to know is that states with Right To Work laws have seen their median incomes rise at twice the rate of states without Right To Work protections. Wisconsin could have been the first Midwest magnet for investment and job growth that Indiana will now become; we missed our chance to be first in line for the updraft.

But it’s ok to be the second, and it’s not like Governor Walker has to worry that the unions might get mad about it and do something rash, like try to recall him or something. At this point, it would not matter if he joined the Teamsters and discovered Jimmy Hoffa’s body at the Koch brothers’ HQ, so he might as well give himself and the rest of us a shot at those 250,000 new jobs he promised and pass RTW right now.

Act 10 gave Wisconsin public employees the right to join a union or work union free; now private sector employees should have the same right. Wisconsin should join Indiana in guaranteeing workplace freedom for all of its citizens, and let Illinois keep their unions, tax hikes, corruption, the Obamas, and the Bears.

“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.

MOMENT OF CLARITY: They Lie

2012-01-03T14:25:00.000-06:00

MOMENT OF CLARITY: They Lie

They Lie

2012-01-03T14:24:00.000-06:00

One of the advantages of writing an opinion blog is that opinions are never inaccurate, even when they are wrong. But we should expect better from government agencies who publish statistics that policy makers, businesspeople, academics, journalists, and citizens rely on to make decisions and draw conclusions – like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), for example.

Recently, the Bureau named Wisconsin as the state with the worst job loss in November, with a decline of 14,600. This came on the heels of 9,700 jobs BLS reported lost in October. The Badger State’s two-month total of 24,300 jobs lost led the nation in workplace suckage; and opponents of Wisconsin Governor Walker eagerly jumped on the November BLS presser to bolster their sagging effort to recall him.

One anonymous commenter on my blog site asked me (ok, taunted) what I had to say about those BLS numbers, since I had just written a piece opposing the recall. Instead of reading the BLS press release, I visited the underlying data tables (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t03.htm) and discovered a slightly different story.

The BLS data show that Wisconsin’s workforce dropped from 3,057,800 in September to 3,055,200 in November, while the number of unemployed in Wisconsin fell from 238,600 to 223,800. Since the workforce is only made up of two parts – the employed and the unemployed – simple subtraction reveals there were 2,819,200 people working in September and 2,831,400 in November.

Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?

That’s right - the BLS data shows an increase of 12,200 jobs during those two months, not the loss of 24,300 reported to the press by the union humps who run the joint. I asked them for an explanation – two bucks says I will hear from Dick Clark again before I get any response from the humble public servants who work for me. Five bucks says no journalist will even bother to ask.

The BLS data reconciles perfectly; unemployment drops by 14,800 because 12,200 jobs are added and 2,600 leave the workforce (retire, move out of state, go back to school, etc.). On the other hand, I could find no combination of numbers that can be tortured into a computation of a 24,300 job loss in October/November. If you can crack the code, I will be happy to print the recipe here at Moment of Clarity.

So, what do I think about the BLS report of Wisconsin’s job losses in November? I think they lied; that’s what I think. It would not be the first time.

My doctoral dissertation in 2006 (late bloomer) was a study of government contract bundling and its impact on small businesses. The conventional wisdom at the time was that 34,221 illegal acts of contract bundling had caused the failure of over 15,000 thousand firms since 1990. My thesis was that the problem was actually far worse than the government was reporting, particularly among minority businesses, and I constructed a study which expected to prove how much worse it really was.

What I discovered, without boring you to tears, is that less than two dozen actual cases were reported by contractors victimized by the practice. The whole issue was bogus – a complete fabrication to increase funding for an agency put on the block during Clinton/Gore’s reinventing government initiative. The government’s data did not support the headlines trumpeted by its agency heads – sound familiar?

I was invited to Washington to brief the heads of procurement for all of the national security agencies, was received begrudgingly at Small Business Administration, and was invited to testify at Senator Kerry’s committee on small business. The Senator apparently had misunderstood my research findings, because when his staff was informed that I had disproved the contract bundling myth, he cancelled my testimony. No hard feelings, Mr. Kerry.

My work was honored internationally for its methodology, and I published a couple of journal articles to scrutinize my findings through academic peer review and publication. From time to time someone still contacts me, as my research is still the most recent academic literature on the subject. But it is not my life’s work; I have a company to run, a family to love, friends to laugh with, and a blog to write.

So I am not surprised that the BLS data does not support its agency heads’ pressers. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess at possible reasons why Obama appointees at the Department of Unions might want to propagandize against the nation’s top union buster, Governor Walker. Or perhaps it was just a simple error - two months in a row. Yeah…yeah, that’s the ticket.

And don’t even get on your high horse, Demski’s; it’s not about you. I don’t care if they are Republican, Democrat, or just members of the Permanent Government Workers Party, they say whatever they want if it serves their own interest. If my Libertarian party ever took control, we would soon be corrupted too; human nature does not grant waivers to humans.

That’s why we need to shut it all down; all but the 18 essential services authorized by the Constitution. Put the Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics high on the list of first to go. If you want accurate labor statistics, buy them from Manpower; they are a private sector firm that makes their living by accurately assessing job markets. They are not too big to fail, so they have to get it right.

Profit is the cure for the sloth that makes government worse than useless. Of course, that is just my opinion. And thank you, Anonymous, for asking.

“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.

Libertarian Island

2011-12-28T15:37:00.000-06:00

Alone on an island, one has no choice but to be libertarian; self-sovereignty is the only kind there is.

The question of where rights come from is answered definitively, as our island dweller is endowed with a complete set of natural rights even though there is no one else to grant them. Freedom is complete, and the self-owned islander who produces in surplus can not possibly be considered greedy, heartless, selfish, or evil for his extraordinary productivity.

It is only when a second person arrives on the island who demands to live off the surplus of the first that the libertarian’s self-sufficiency is suddenly called selfishness. The irony of envy is that greed is always assigned by the demander, and selfishness is the accusation hurled by those who insist their own needs must be tended at the expense of others.

When a third person arrives on the island armed with laws and guns and chains, he taxes the property of the first to give to the second under terms imposed by force of law and the threat of imprisonment at gunpoint. We call him government.

The amount to be confiscated from the first is determined by vote of all three. This is what democracy looks like. The admonition “no man is an island” is most urgently advocated by that third guy on it, the one whose livelihood depends on convincing the second guy he cannot survive without the looting of the first.

The island of three – one to produce, one to depend, and one to regulate - is the prism by which both our modern-day Republicans and Democrats view the world. They fuss over who gets to be the third guy on the island, differing only in how much they will take and what they reward and punish with the takings.

Neither abides by the Constitution they have sworn to defend, and both use the law as a weapon against the people. Both embrace a crony corporatism that defeats free market capitalism’s liberation of the human spirit.

Dependence is an unnatural state. It is created by excessive government and perpetuated by the continued expansion of government power. America has been turned into a nation where that first person on the island is vilified, the second is canonized, and the third is revered. That is the twisted morality we call progressive.

A libertarian Island of Three would be different; all would be self-sufficient, self-owned, and self-governed equals. Our vision for America is not just three, but three hundred million free first persons, to whom dependence is a temporary and episodic condition.

We would prefer a government small enough to exist unseen; with laws few enough that we could actually know them and abide by them. Anarchy can also be millions of laws and regulations so complex that none of us could possibly be law-abiding.

We believe that markets regulate better then men; not because we read it somewhere, but because we have lived with our eyes open. We believe that government is necessary only to protect individual rights; not to herd people into groups to be collectively gifted or punished by force. We believe that freedom is the natural state of mankind; that volition is what is meant by the “image of God”. Many conservatives share our vision of America; many more say that they do.

Government and Liberty are two opposite destinations; it is not possible to seek one without leaving the other behind. Libertarians and liberals divide over which way to go; libertarians and conservatives divide over the length of the journey. We are about to begin the New Year 2012, a year when critical elections will decide both direction and length of the journey we will take as a nation.

Be informed, be involved, and be invested in liberty. Choose your island.

“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.

Going Stag

2011-12-26T07:47:00.002-06:00

The best thing about being a libertarian is that you can do it all by yourself.

Liberals need someone else to pay for all the things they promise to other people. And naturally, they need those other-people to be dependent on the government, which is just more other-people who spend most of the someone-else’s money on themselves and then let what’s left trickle down to the first group of other-people that they made dependent on them in the first place. Follow?

You need even more people than that to be a socialist. Theoretically, you need everybody, but in reality someone still has to make the money to redistribute so you need almost everybody, except a few to tax the bejeesus out of and hope they don’t leave your country. Keith Richards’ lawyers should have argued that he could not possibly have been a drug burnout since he had the presence of mind to flee England with its 90% top tax rate. And unless you think sober billionaires are less able than Keith to make correct economic choices, don’t think they will just sit there when we come at them with forks.

Conservatives come in lots of flavors, but nearly all of them need a crowd of some sort. The NeoCons need people to invade. The TheoCons need slackers and degenerates to convince the nation that they could make government be our moral compass. The FauxCons need a whole bunch of regular conservatives to dupe – preferably good-hearted folk long on principle and short on memory. All of them will need lots and lots of cops, judges, and prison guards to throw everybody in jail if they ever get their way; making the objectionable criminal is labor intensive.

Fascists need someone to order around and bully; that is not nearly as much as fun to do to yourself. Communists aren’t very good at anything, so they need a whole lot of people to build up the things they swoop in to confiscate in the name of liberation. Plus, there has to be a proletariat before you can claim the dictatorship of it. The gulags and killing fields need to be filled with intellectuals and bourgeois, and the bourgeois need communists because otherwise they do not even know who they are. So you can’t even be the enemy of the people without people.

Theocrats need a great unwashed mob to impose their Godly laws upon. Unemployed and undereducated brutes are ideal - it doesn’t take much to convince them to hide the missus under a burqa and use the wardrobe savings to buy themselves a leather club jacket. Slightly off topic, but Barney Frank’s recent casual day fashion statement made burqas for men seem like a very, very good idea, don’t you think?

Internationalists need more other-people than anybody. Can’t have a World Bank without a world. The IMF needs half a world of suckers to fleece in order to come up with the money they give to the tyrants who rule over the other half of the world. The real internationalists don’t need too many other people - a handful of central bankers to print all the money and drown us in debt will do…and somebody to polish the Bentley.

You can’t be a Democrat or a Republican by yourself; what kind of convention would it be when you are the only one there? Who do you wave your sign at? And how do you explain it to your wife when all the hookers show up? “Must be somebody’s niece” only works when there is a flock of other old goats roaming around wearing buttons.

But you can be a libertarian, or I should say be libertarian, without forcing anyone else to come along for the ride. Not initiating force or fraud is something you do all by yourself; natural rights are the ones you can exercise all on your own. Tolerance only requires a tolerator, and volition – the exercise of free will - needs only one actor. Free exchange only needs one more.

Free market capitalism is based on voluntary exchange with only two parties to the trade – one to sell and one to buy. Crony capitalism needs many more than those first two parties; add one to regulate, one to tax, one to lobby for preferences, one to sue, one to unionize the buyer, another to unionize the seller.

Libertarians do not compel, we persuade; and persuasion only needs one persuader. No one can force you to believe anything anyway; they can only force you to comply – that’s the thing that takes so many people. Good ideas are readily adopted, and popular beliefs spread quickly on their own merits. We only need to force compliance with unpopular beliefs; and government is the enforcer of choice when the belief is unpopular. Its size is inversely proportional to the merits of the ideas it imposes; the worse they are, the more government it takes to impose them.

Our present government is entirely too big and getting bigger by the day; so what does that tell you about the beliefs it is imposing upon us? Our Founding Fathers had a much different idea – a small and limited government charged with defending our rights, protecting our liberty, and insuring that each of us could live according our own conscience and beliefs. That was the original American Dream.

Self-sovereignty requires only a self.   It takes a village to smother a dream.

“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.

Christmas Clarity

2011-12-20T20:18:00.001-06:00

To all of my Moment of Clarity readers, I wish you a sincere Merry Christmas.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, socialist or libertarian, Democrat or Republican, Christian or non-Christian, Tea Party or Occupy, activist or apathetic, I have nothing but love in my heart and good will to offer in this week’s MOC post, the last as I head out to spend Christmas with my family.

This is not the time to focus on our differences; rather to celebrate our common humanity and contemplate our shared redemption made possible by the birth of our Savior that we celebrate each December 25. Like the song says, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…

…and then let it end at 12:01 AM on December 26th, so I can get back to sass-typing and butt-rippin' before the deluge of stupidity that will be visited upon us by our politicos over the next week makes my head explode. Truce for one week; that’s the best I can do.

Oh, lighten up; it’s just a blog. Merry Christmas everybody!

Dr. Tim

Recall Them All

2011-12-17T18:06:00.000-06:00

Another winter in Wisconsin,and another round of primal scream therapy for our unionists hell bent onputting the entire state through another round of failed recalls.

The leftist diehards are helping us to celebrate Christmasby shoving annoying recall petitions at us while we shop. When given the opportunity to tell me their singlemost convincing reason to recall Governor Walker, the two that I encountered todayyelled “recall Walker”very loudly. So there you have it – the reasonthey are doing this to us is that they want to do this to us. Loudly.

That is what I suspected all along, but I hate to speculatewhen it comes to the motivations of others; you never know when a principlemight break out by accident like a pimple on an airbrushed photo in a ProActivead.

Now, I have several reasons for opposing their recall ofGovernor Walker. Chief among them is mypreemptive opposition to whatever freedom-hating, bubble-wrapped tax lamprey the Union Party of Dane Countyand Most of Milwaukee – a.k.a. the Wisconsin Democrats - will serve up toreplace him.

Because any candidate the UPDCMM decides to run as theAnti-Walker will be a communist disguised as a raving socialist, the latterbeing their idea of center-right. The Anti-Walkerwill represent the broad spectrum of shared values of Wisconsinites from East Washington Avenueall the way to…West Washington Avenue and every part of the Isthmus in between.

They must have someone exceptionally awful in mind, as theywon’t even tell us who it is until after the petitions have been signed. As you may have surmised, my name won’t be onone of them.

Many libertarians and tea partiers, myself included, havebeen disappointed with Governor Walker over his acceptance of ObamaCare funds,his watering down of Constitutional Carry, his strong-arming of Roll Your Ownstores, his undermining of micro-breweries, and his foot-dragging on Right ToWork, raw milk, and smoking ban repeal.

But my friends, if you want to go out and sign that recallpetition, then bring your new concealed carry permit with you, along with yourlower tax bill, your voter ID card, and your application for one of thosehigh-wage jobs in the mining industry. You won’t have any use for them when he is gone so you might as well asturn them in to the drum people now.

And after you sign your petition you can kiss your jobgoodbye, as Wisconsin’semployers will understand the clear message being sent and will move elsewhere.We have work to do and there are lots of other places that would love to haveus come there with our jobs. And no, we don’t owe you jack squat. We paid the taxes, we built the parks, weendowed the universities, we funded the charities and populated their boards. We can do that anywhere; so don’t worry aboutus, we will be just fine.

I don’t know why it is so difficult for the Walker-haters toget the signatures needed to force a mulligan on the elections that brought himin to office. They only need half of themillion people who voted against him the first time to say they didn’t do so byaccident. Why is that taking sixweeks? That they are still out theredoes not bode well for the Mulligan Movement.

Of course, it doesn’t matter whether they have enoughlegitimate signatures or not. They willjust have the guy who already admitted to signing 80 times sit down with a bigpile and go for the world record. Mightas well, since the Government Accountability Board has publicly promised itwill not check for duplicates and will not even disqualify the names of AdolphHitler and Mickey Mouse. How fitting fora Mickey Mouse protest against a guy they compare to Hitler.

We have all seen the tape of Democrat hustlers tradingcigarettes for petition signatures of minors in Milwaukee’s inner city, and the screenshotsof people on FB telling their friends how to sign multiple times when they comein from out of state. We have all hadtrolls type obscenities in comments to our blogs when we don’t set our brainson “follow” and call for Walker’s head on a platter.

We have seen the clips of protesters harassing theGovernor’s family at their private residence. We know about the death threats and assaultsthey have committed upon opposition party officials. We were not surprised to see charges dropped;respect for the law does not come easily for those with no respect forthemselves.

It is clear to anyone with working eye and a functioningbrain that the UPDCMM does not care about the integrity of the process, thefairness of the outcome, the rights of citizens to have their votes count, orthe rule of law. They do not even havethe common decency to leave a family alone, or to prosecute criminals whencrimes are committed by their own party activists.

They care about one thing and one thing only: forcing thestate to collect dues for them again. AndI should also like to make one observation about the notion that the endsjustify the means; over the years, I have come to recognize that only assholesbelieve that. Pardon my word choice;there is no suitable alternative.

This is not about forcing a recall of Scott Walker; thisabout accelerating the recall that was already scheduled for November of2014. That’s how we do it in thiscountry - we recall them all on a regular cycle. All of them.

This present union tantrum is all about cutting in line, notwaiting your turn, disrespecting others. It is about assholes willing to win at all costs, and then laying those costsoff to others who had no dog in the fight. The UDCMM will not reimburse townships, towns, cities, and counties forthe costs of their do-over. They don’tcare how much they cost us; they never have.

The taxpayers will pick up the tab for the recall, alongwith the costs of the recounts and court challenges, plus the security andcleanup costs for the inevitable protests that will erupt after they get their headshanded to them AGAIN - for the fourth time in a row.

And the best reason they can give me for why they will putus all through this? “Re-call Walk-er”. A year to think up a reason, and that was thebest they can do. They want to recall Walker because recall Walker. Good luck with that.

“MomentOf 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.

Game On

2011-12-15T21:39:00.000-06:00

Well, this Presidential race just got a whole lot less complicated.

The Democrats have unveiled their keen new strategy for re-electing the most unpopular incumbent President in history; the game plan is to convince us that our American system of limited government and free markets has never worked. It is hard to imagine how the Republicans could find a way to lose to that – but never underestimate the Party of McCain’s capacity for epic fail when victory comes knocking .

For reasons which escape logic unenhanced by chemistry, the Republicans have stonewalled Gary Johnson, ignored Ron Paul, and decapitated Herman Cain, marginalizing the three candidates who generate the most enthusiastic grass roots support in its base. Using contrived televised debates and juiced polls, the GOP establishment has tried in vain to shape its nomination race into a Newt/Mitt battle of the insiders. Too bad that quirky little fellow from Texas foiled their plans, and I do not mean Rick Perry.

Like most Republican standard bearers going back to the days of Richard Nixon, Mitt Romney’s chief qualification for the nomination is that it is his turn. Newt Gingrich has risen to first among his rivals by scolding the media and remembering things. Neither man suffers from chronic consistency or principled position. And while either would be preferable to going over the falls with Obama, neither excites the passions of the liberty movement who rolled Washington in November of 2010.

Narrowing the field to a contest between the richest man (Romney) and the whitest man (Gingrich) makes for bad optics in a party suspected of caring only about rich white men. But what is more problematic for my Republican friends is that neither of those two guys is the anti-Obama; that would be the afore-mentioned Ron Paul. From where he stands on nearly every major issue, Paul must look past both Romney and Gingrich to get a glimpse of the President’s position.

I am a libertarian, so naturally I’m a Paulie; have been ever since he ran as our party’s standard bearer in 1988 against Bush the Elder. My conservative friends like Ron Paul but get all hinkey about his libertarian views on the drug war and his aversion to real wars of the undeclared variety. I remind them that their beef is with the Constitution, not with the cranky Texan baby doctor who stands steadfast in its defense. And besides, he’s in pretty good company on these matters – Washington, Jefferson, Goldwater, Buckley, and Will, to name just a few.

Let’s cut to the chase: only 33% of Americans self-identify as Democrats with another 33% calling themselves Republicans. And don’t kid yourself; none of those folks are going off the reservation unless their team springs Charles Manson from prison to head the ticket with Octo-mom as his VP. Whoever’s name is followed by (D) or (R) respectively is getting their chad punched by the straight-party-line voters.

Which means the next President of the United States will be the one who can get the most members of the last 33% - the independents – to get up off the couch and stand in line in the rain to vote for him. Do you think Romney can do that? Gingrich? When is the last time you even saw a bumper sticker for either one of them? No seriously – those guys are not setting off an epidemic of leg tingles.

A great number, if not a majority, of that independent 33% are conservative on economic and fiscal issues, neutral on social issues, and non-interventionist in foreign affairs and military matters. Does that sound like Newt, Mitt, or Barry?   No, but I just described Ron Paul – and that’s why he would wipe the floor with President Obama in the general election. As he says, Freedom Is Popular and we are about to find out how popular in less than a year.

I wish Ron Paul really were a raving bat-stuff-crazy nutcase, because then all the things he has been warning us about for the past three decades would not be unfolding right before our eyes. Warrantless wiretaps, indefinite military detention, drones used on North Dakota farmers, confiscation of Gibson Guitar inventory, Fast and Furious, the Fed’s secret trillions, the housing bubble – do I have to keep going?

Ron Paul has been liberty’s best friend for decades. He has often been its only friend, at those moments when the passions of the day led even good conservatives in Congress to trample on the Constitution they swore an oath to defend.

Ron Paul is the real deal. His economic plan cuts spending by $1 trillion; Mitt Romney has 59 points on a PowerPoint. He could forget two of the cabinet departments he will abolish and still be ahead of Rick Perry by 50%. He called out the Federal Reserve before Herman Cain ever joined a Fed board. He doesn’t have as many kids as Michelle Bachman (who does?), but he has delivered a few thousand more. He has voted alone against more Bills than Newt Gingrich co-sponsored with Nancy Pelosi.

With Gary Johnson pondering a Libertarian Party run, there is a real danger of a third-party challenge splitting the anti-Obama vote and re-electing the worst President in history on a plurality. A Ron Paul GOP ticket forecloses that possibility and unites conservatives, libertarians, GOP moderates, and liberty-minded voters from across the political spectrum. Ron Paul’s Supreme Court appointments alone will be worth the price of admission.

It is ironic that the oldest candidate in the race – Ron Paul – engenders the most enthusiasm among young people. Ron Paul rocks on campus, and his supporters turn out at straw polls, conventions, and rallies in large numbers. As he says, freedom is popular, and a freedom candidate would enlist a new generation of freedom lovers in the movement to take our country back.

He was Tea Party when it was a party of one. He had the drop on Wall Street before it was Occupied. He’s a pro-life libertarian and an anti-war conservative, the fly in everyone’s ointment. If you are looking for the anti-Obama, there is only one choice that will satisfy – Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.

“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.

For The Poor

2011-12-13T13:07:00.000-06:00

You can’t be for the poor and against the things that endpoverty.

You can’t be against the corporations who create the jobsthey need to care for themselves. Youcan’t be against the Walmarts and Targets who sell quality goods at prices theycan afford. You can’t be against thedrug companies who treat their chronic diseases.

You can’t be against the mining projects that will liftwhole communities out of economic depression. You can’t be against the pipelines and energy projects that powerprosperity for everyone. You can’t beagainst the liberation of industry from smothering regulations that limit theirjob opportunities. You can’t be againsttheir Right to Work. Not if you are forthe poor.

You can’t be against parental rights. You can’t be hostile to the religioustraditions that keep poor families strong. You can’t be against school choice that gives them a chance to beeducated and equipped with life skills. You can’t be against alternative education opportunities that deliver vocationalskills.

You can’t be for a political philosophy that celebratesdependence and need. You can’t be for aprohibitionist drug war that incarcerates fathers and empowers gangs. You can’t be for a bloated government thatsiphons off resources earmarked for poor families and breeds corruption. You can’t be for a caste system of ineffectivegovernment programs that assign stations for life based on race. Not ifyou are for the poor.

You can’t hate the rich and be for the poor. It is not your place to tell another how manysteps forward out of poverty you will allow before you punish the next - nobodymade you Simon. Each person decides forhimself/herself how much is enough, how much to give back, who to give it backto, and in exchange for what. If you areunhappy with how your sister spends her millions, make millions of your own anddo with them as you see fit.

We all started out equal – naked, crying, totally ignorant, and100% dependent. We came into this world fullyvested with a complete set of natural rights endowed by God and protected by ourConstitution. Equal at birth and unequalat death; what separates us at the end is the lifetime of choices we have madefor ourselves. Money, friends, love,knowledge, wisdom, faith, humor, charity, kindness, skill, joy – our wealth inall of its forms is acquired over a lifetime bit by bit.

Good fortune is not announced with cameras rolling and EdMcMahon at our doorstep presenting a six-foot check for millions ofdollars. It sneaks into our lives unannounced- disguised as the stern parent, the tough class, the demanding coach, the disabilitywe overcame, the bad job that inspired us to go back to school, the infatuationthat turned to lifetime love, the precious child that made us put our childishways behind us, the business that failed so we could learn how to do it rightthe next time, the bad break that turned out to be the best thing that ever happened.

Bad fortune doesn’t bother with a disguise. It is the bad marriage we saw coming, the addictivedrug we knew we should pass on, the debt we knew we could not afford, thedrunken drive we could have avoided, the investment our spouse told us was toogood to be true, the bad crowd we were warned against, the classes we skipped,the diseases we brought onto ourselves with unhealthy lifestyles, the job wetook despite the bad feeling we had at the interview.

Poverty is not a birth defect or a life sentence. For most of us, it is a curable and transientcondition; most everyone I know has tasted it while only a few have acquiredthe appetite. Longitudinal studies showthat over a lifetime, most people born into households below the poverty linerise two income quintiles or more. Youcannot be against capitalism and its signature upward mobility if you are forthe poor who most benefit from it.

Libertarians do not hate poor people; we hate the thingsthat keep them poor. One of those thingsis an oversized activist government that breeds dependence. Our goal is not to make poverty bearable; ratherit is to make it temporary.

“MomentOf 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.

China Trade

2011-12-08T13:15:00.000-06:00

Everybody has an opinion about trade with China, and here is mine: let’s trade ‘em Ben Bernanke for Fu Ying. Throw in a minor league pitcher if we have to – President Obama comes immediately to mind.

Fu Ying is China’s Vice Foreign Minister, who Friday announced that China would not use its foreign exchange reserves (i.e. dollars) to rescue other countries (i.e. Europe). She explained that “foreign reserves are akin to savings” and not to be squandered by governments. Whoa.

While the U.S. and European central bankers have all promised to infuse defunct European governments with as much cash as it takes for them to become even more defunct, Ms. Fu has decided to “follow market economy principles” instead, which she listed as “safety, liquidity, and proper profitability.”   Yes, the “P” word!

Her explanation in China Daily reads like the Daily Paul. She does not believe that Europe can be saved by bankers; she does not believe economic decisions should be driven by political considerations; she does not believe that foreign investments should be made to gain power and leverage over another nation’s affairs. She does not see debt as a pathway to prosperity. Have mercy.

Ms. Fu makes the gibberish spewed by Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner sound like…gibberish. Our money men lobby the Chinese to strengthen their Yuan to assist us in weakening our dollar, and then we call them currency manipulators when they refuse to play along. We lecture China about lack of transparency while Bernanke is pumping unknown trillions into the western banking cartel in secret.

While the Chinese decided not to risk a nickel on Greek debt, they invested almost $400 million into Hungarian factories in just the past few months. Not because they particularly love Hungary, but because they make stuff at a profit in those factories. Those are the “market economy principles” that the Chinese seem to understand completely and we seem to have forgotten entirely.

They bet on winners while we bet on the losers’ banks. That is why their economy is growing and wages are rising, while our economy is stagnant and our wages are falling. China’s economic growth has “cooled” to 9.2%; that is suckage here.

Winning is why the tone of a China Daily article on the burgeoning yacht market here was so prideful; a nation that could not even feed itself a generation ago is now buying yachts. The Chinese are not ashamed of prosperity; they are grateful for it, and to the people who have brought it to them. We take our far-greater abundance for granted.

The Chinese people have actually lived the squalor of atheism and communism.   They know what it is like to be equal – equally starving. They tried “We are the 100%” for half a century and it left them as the collective owners of nothing worth occupying.

And they learned first-hand how unlimited government power turns to mass murder; they cry on the graves that taught them. They don’t need a lecture from Ben Bernanke about central banking or central economic planning or central anything else for that matter. While we make noise, they make things. They don’t theorize about free trade here in China; they trade.

The Mayor of Zhengzhou City joined us for dinner on Sunday night after a long day of work. “Us” is a group of Canadian, American, and Chinese firms doing a deal without the assistance (or should I say interference) of our governments. All of us were working yet another Sunday at the end yet another 80-hour work week while our own President was calling us lazy on his way out a 17-day vacation from doing nothing about our nation’s problems. Eat your own peas, Mr. Obama.

The President also had the gall to tell a high school audience that market economies have never worked. Perhaps he should order his Department of Teleprompters to cook something up for him since that thing the capitalists invented must be an illusion. Or try this: come to the border of the Koreas, look North then South and tell me which one works – markets or government. The trouble with things plainly obvious is that they can’t be seen by people whose heads reside deep inside the orifice.

President Obama’s singular achievement in the realm of industrial policy was to commandeer General Motors and deliver them to his union patrons. We now have to recall 40,000 Government Motors Volts before they blow up and explain the 653,000 cars sitting in dealer inventories built to make GM appear profitable after the government bought it. He is half-right: market machinery doesn’t work when he is the operator. And it was not the market that gave us 15,000 abandoned windmills when the government subsidies and tax breaks dried up; it is going to take a boatload of carbon and scads of dollars to tear them all down and dispose of all that metal.   Thank you again for saving the planet.

That’s exactly the kind of nonsense Mao used to do over here - build a mountain of unneeded tractors according to the 5-year plan just to prove the 5-year plan was genius. It is the sort of thing that makes sense to people who spend other people’s money for a living and know nothing else. In case you have learned your history in a government school, here’s what comes next - censor anyone who questions the pile of tractors (or wind turbines, or Chevrolets), detain the ones who won’t shut up about it (just passed that law), and eventually start killing en masse when the prisons fill up.

Talk to an ancient Chinese person and they will tell you that they never dreamed it could ever come to that in China, either. No one ever does until the relatives start to go missing.

Socialism’s apologists will bemoan the income gap in China just as they do in the United States, and just like Chairman Mao did here when he forced his capitalists out of the country and took their property 75 years ago. But according to the World Bank, only 4% of Chinese live below the world consumption poverty line now, down dramatically from over 65% when economic liberation began in the 1990’s.

Poverty was not cured by Mao’s government-imposed equality; he made it lethal. Poverty was eradicated in China when they rejected the socialist ideology and turned to wise leaders – like Fu Ying and Mayor Hu - who were committed to “follow market economy principles” and let their new 1% lift a whole nation out of despair. Maybe President Obama can find some time on his vacation to read a little Friedman or Hayek; or maybe Mayor Hu would lend the President his autographed copy of “Capitalista!” to start him off gently.

Shared sacrifice is only a noble goal if your aim is to be sacrificed in the first place. They have had their fill of the collectivist lie in China, and they are putting it in their rear view mirror by adopting American’s gift to the world – free enterprise. Bring on the yachts.

“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.

On Your Own

2011-12-01T13:16:00.001-06:00

Speaking at a fundraiser this week, President Obama tried to frighten Americans with the grim warning that if he is not re-elected in 2012, “you will be on your own.” Promises, promises.

Fear not, wards of the State; on January 21 of 2013, the only part of government that we will be rid of is the current occupant of the White House. There will be another President, and he or she will preside over the same unmanageable leviathan that Mr. Obama would like us to believe will simply vanish into thin air if he is not re-employed to run it for four additional years.   If only it were that easy.

There is no question that this is now a nation divided, and the President’s dire warning brings the line of separation into clear focus. To the dependent class, the idea of being left “on your own” is terrifying. To the producing class, it is liberating.   Pick your side.

What is wrong with being on our own? That was our #1 priority growing up. As teenagers we could not wait to graduate from high school, to get our own car, to get the heck out of our boring little mining town, to get out from under our parent’s stupid rules, and to go out and find our place in the world.

Some of us went into the service, some of us went to college, some of us went to work in the big cities, some of us went to California or Arizona or Las Vegas or Alaska, and some of us stayed home. We discovered that the world had not reserved a place for us to “find”; we discovered how to make our own way in the world. And we did - on our own.

We became doctors, lawyers, architects, executives, professional golfers, radio personalities, business owners, teachers, firemen, pastors, airline flight attendants, career military, casino dealers, accountants, public administrators, nurses, salespeople, artists, welders, loggers, firefighters, mechanics, beauticians, tavern owners, and every other profession and trade imaginable.   We wanted to make our friends and family proud of us and we did - on our own.

We became parents, spouses, volunteers, advocates, investors, philanthropists, community leaders, chaperones, mentors, coaches, bloggers, advisors, board members, deacons, council members, scoutmasters, carolers, big brothers and sisters, fundraisers. We wanted to make a difference and we did - on our own.

We did not do all those things because government made us; we would not stop if there was no government to give us its permission. And “on our own” does not mean alone – we were taught by our mentors, encouraged by our friends, supported by our families, strengthened by our congregations, inspired by great leaders, challenged by our adversaries, and developed by our bosses, paid by our customers, made great by our competitors.

If President Obama is not re-elected, we will not be alone; we will still have our mentors, friends, families, congregations, leaders, adversaries, bosses, customers, and competitors. But according to him, we will be on our own; and thank God if he is right. Because that’s what freedom is – being on your own.

The President encourages his constituency to think like children - afraid to be on their own, jealous of the other kids’ toys, coveting the bigger allowances of the neighbor kids, angry at their own parents for not giving more, frustrated that life is unfair. They hate the rich for being rich, the pretty for being pretty, the happy for being happy, and the winners for winning. They demand a world of stickers and hugs and do-overs; they don’t like bedtime and they don’t like to get up and they don’t mind pitching a fit in public so we can all be unhappy with them.

And Mr. Obama has also burdened his opponents with the unwanted responsibility to be the parents of his beloved dependent class. We resent having to care for our shiftless and surly teenagers; we tire of their sass, their ingratitude, their eye-rolling certainty that we are stupid and uncool. We have tired of paying their way, fixing the car they crash over and over, apologizing for their rude behavior in public.

All of us have been teenagers, and many of us have now raised teenagers, so we can see a bit of ourselves in both caricatures. And we know what it took to put the rancor and resentments that builds between parents and children behind us and to start again to treat each other with respect. What it took was for the teenager to move out and live on their own. That is when we got along.

When our son went out on his own, it was my proudest day as a parent. We knew he would struggle, as we did; we knew he would make bad choices and suffer painful consequences, as we did; we knew that he would become responsible when he had to; as we did. And we trusted him that he would succeed on his own terms, taking care of himself and his family and helping others in their hour of need. The rebellious youth became a man - on his own. Same as it ever was.

Need is not an acceptable lifestyle choice; dependent is not a career. If we cannot live on our own, who are we supposed to live “on”?   Who is it that owes us our existence at their expense? Why is it our neighbor’s obligation to fend for us when we will not fend for ourselves? Who will keep us when all of our brothers are kept?

The President has done us the great service of presenting his vision for American with rare and remarkable clarity – a nation of stunted-development dependents incapable of living on their own. And he has revealed to us the full measure of his ego – the entire nation of wards could not possibly survive without him as our President.

Mr. Obama, you can spend the rest of your life dependent on the government and its pension – being President is a tough job and you have earned it. But the rest of us would be thrilled to live on our own, to make this the land of the free again. Thank you for telling us what we need to do to bring that dream to reality.

“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.

Debt U.

2011-11-28T12:23:00.001-06:00

One good thing that has come from the OWS protests is the light that has been shed upon the economics of college degrees.

In 2009, the year before local banks were cut out of the action by Team Obamalosi in their eleventh hour amendment to the health care reform bill, outstanding student loan debt was $114 billion, a staggering figure. It is now $392 billion, an incomprehensible one. Those numbers come from the Federal Reserve so they must be right – they know a thing or two about staggering, incomprehensible debt.

It didn’t even take two years for the government to turn a routine family financing decision into an unsustainable collective entitlement that has triggered riots in several American cities. This may be a new land speed record for socialist rot.

The first thing to know about post-secondary education is that over the past 30 years, its costs have risen at more than three times the rate of inflation.   Yes, those same academics and government employees who lecture us incessantly about greed, oppression, and profiteering in the private sector are three times as greedy and oppressing when it comes to pricing their own products.

Recall that it is the iconic capitalist pigs at Walmart – not the University of Wisconsin - who give us rollback pricing with a smiley face. Occupy Regent Street! And like most other things in the real world, individual choices greatly determine how badly a student will get mauled by the debt he/she takes on to purchase a college degree.

According the College Board, the average annual tuition paid by full-time students at four-year institutions last year was $21,198. Average does not mean everyone; on average, humans have one breast and one testicle. 44% of students attend colleges with published tuition under $9,000 per year, and 28% attend colleges with tuition and fees higher than $36,000 per year. By way of comparison, the average cost of tuition and fees at two-year colleges is only $2,963 - and Econ 101 is the same at any price.

The average dorm fee for four-year institutions was $4,785 last year, and the average boarding rate (food) was $3,937. The average full time student also spent $1,082 on transportation, $2,066 on personal expenses, $1,168 on books and supplies. That puts the average total cost of full-time resident attendance in four-year institutions at $34,236 per year.

The College Board advises prospective students and parents not to be overly concerned about those high published costs, however, since student loans and other forms of financial aid make college “affordable”. Of course, “affordable” just means someone else pays, mostly that is someone is the student himself after graduation. The average amount of aid per student last year was $12,455; about half of that is loans and the other half grants and scholarships.

So roll up all the data together and the average college graduate will have spent $136,944 of somebody's money and owe $25,250 in student loans if they finish their degrees in eight semesters. And what is the return on that $136,944 investment?   Just like the cost of education, the value of a degree in economic terms varies greatly.

The website www.payscale.com lists the median starting pay and median mid-career pay for 125 common bachelor degrees. Petroleum engineers start at $97,000 while elementary education majors start at $29,000. No wonder the world’s social scientists hate big oil.

High school seniors, pay attention here - the top-paying bachelor degrees in order are: petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, materials science, aerospace engineering, computer engineering, physics, applied mathematics, computer science, and nuclear engineering.

And the worst-paying degrees in order are: child and family studies, social work, elementary education, culinary arts, special education, recreation and leisure studies, physical education, public health, theology, and art. The various ethnic and gender studies majors are not even listed separately as there is no market for them.

Going on to graduate school will not fix a low-paying degree choice, either. According to Forbes Magazine, the worst master’s degrees for employment (job availability and pay) in order are: music, history, divinity, English, psychology, social work, library science, counseling, education, and chemistry.

So if your goal is to get the best return on your investment in post-secondary education, then start out taking your math and science foundations at a two-year college and then transfer to the cheapest four-year college that offers a degree in Petroleum Engineering. You will spend less than $30,000 for a credential that carries a $97,000 median starting pay. Ask a business major (#58) to explain ROI to you.

But the College Board offers much different advice to prospective students: “Your goal is to choose a college that’s a good fit for you; think about whether you like the campus culture and if there is enough academic support to help you do well in your classes.”

Well, if “a good fit for you” is the object and you really like the campus culture at one of those $36,000 yacht club schools (who wouldn’t?) with enough tutors to help you get through your degree in child and family studies, you will spend north of $200,000 to earn a credential that pays $28,500 per year. Should you find yourself in such a predicament, my advice is to marry a Petroleum Engineer – with the new relaxed admission standards to marriage, you no longer have to settle for one of the opposite gender.

Some pandering Democrats trolling for votes among OWS protesters have proposed forgiving all student loan debt. But bailing out the children of bankers in 2012 is just as wrong as bailing out their dads was in 2008. Is it fair to ask engineers and scientists who worked their way through school to pay off the debts that the leisure studies majors racked up while protesting at the Capitol and hitting the bong? Can we ask veterans who earned their tuition benefits the hard way to pay off the debts of those who chose not to serve? I think not.

Millions of people have managed their student loan debt responsibly; millions more chose vocational training and work over university studies. Those who did should not have to pay the obligations of those who didn’t. Living large on borrowed money is always fun; it’s paying it back that’s the bitch. That may be the most valuable thing many graduates will take away from their college experience.

If it makes you twenty-somethings feel any better, most of us old guys would trade places with you in a heartbeat, debt or no debt. If you're poor, you can get richer; if you're old you just get older.

“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.

Tax Truth

2011-11-25T10:09:00.001-06:00

Now that the Super Committee foolishness is behind him, President Obama can focus his full attention to the more serious business of blaming all of his failures on George W. Bush.

Let me say at the outset that I am no fan of George W. Bush. One of the worst things he ever did was attach his name to a sensible economic policy that worked. Yes, worked.   I thought it might be useful to pre-empt the next year of carnival-barking with a number or two for my liberal friends who prefer their economics to be delivered to them in slogans.

Start with this one: the FY2003 budget deficit was $377 billion. The significance of that milestone is that it is the year when the Bush tax cuts were implemented. Four years later, in FY2007, the deficit had fallen to $161 billion. The deficit shrunk by 57.3% in the first four years of the Bush tax cuts; you will not hear that on TV, in schools, or on the campaign trail in the next 12 months.   You’re welcome.

And it didn’t happen because of those famous “draconian spending cuts” Senators Clinton and Schumer made a fortune complaining to their base about back then. In fact, government spending increased over those four years by 26% - more than double the rate of inflation. Two wars, No Child Left Behind, Katrina, the Patriot Act, and Medicare Part D will do that for you. The deficit was reduced in spite of all that spending because tax receipts rose by 44%. That is what reducing tax rates on producers will do for you.

In FY2003 receipts were $1,782 billion, and in FY2007 they were $2,568 billion. Yes, MSNBC junkies, tax receipts went up when top rates went down; just like Arthur Laffer said they would. Go ahead and hate Bush as much as you want, but don’t take it out on math.

And don’t even call them the Bush Tax Cuts, as I can’t imagine that he sat down one day by himself and wrote up changes to the tax code. He was not the only one who understands the difference between tax rates and tax revenues, and besides it is Congress, not the President, who levies taxes and controls spending. Amazing what you can find out when you actually read the Constitution.

Bill Clinton lowered capital gains rates (seriously, he did) and the resulting surge in tax receipts caused the balanced budget that Democrats and Newt Gingrich now take credit for. Clinton knew what Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy did – like the people who own it, capital will move to where it is punished the least. And capital formation is the necessary predecessor of job creation.

And if you don’t like those stubborn facts about deficits during the Bush years, don’t get mad at me; take your grievance to Office of Management and Budget – President Obama’s OMB – who publish the numbers on actual receipts and actual outlays. Cash flow doesn’t lie, and receipts and outlays are the bottom line of fiscal policy.

Tax-the-rich obsessive-compulsives will still complain that tax receipts fell as a percentage of GDP from 2003 to 2007 and they will be correct. But so what? Would you turn down a 44% raise because mine was 60%? The sad thing is, there are a whole lot of Americans who probably would; such is the state of the coveting class these days.

In case you missed it, Bush has already been punished by the voters. Too much spending, debt, and war weariness cost the Republicans both houses of Congress in 2006. Taking office in January of 2007, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid inherited a 14,000 point Dow, a 3.5% growth rate, and unemployment at 4.4%. They promised to do much better and they got their chance, starting with the FY2008 budget.

But they did not even wait for the budget process to begin; they announced their economic agenda right off the bat – increase taxes on the wealthy, increase taxes on corporations, cap and trade, card check, tariff increases, more government regulation, nationalization of health care, “green” mandates, restricting energy production, and commandeering the nation’s student loan programs.

Their war on capitalism was declared while the movers were still hauling boxes in and out of the Capitol. Mission accomplished, to borrow a phrase. In FY2011, after four years of Pelosi/Reid budgets, the federal government’s deficit is now $1.3 trillion - almost ten times what it was when they took over. 15 million Americans are unemployed.

So let’s recap: Republicans controlled the House and Senate and enacted tax cuts; four years later their deficit was reduced by 57.3%. Democrats controlled the House and Senate and declared war on capitalism; four years later their deficit was increased by 819%. And they call George W. Bush dumb.

To be fair to the Democrats, the financial system melted down on their watch. And to be fair to Republicans, terrorists flew planes into buildings on theirs. Neither party asked for the trouble that dropped in their laps; none of us ever do. But we don’t pay our elected officials to be lucky and we don’t pay them to make excuses; we pay them to fix things.

President Obama’s idea of fixing things is to repeatedly threaten to punish job creators by repealing the “Bush tax cuts”. He creates investor uncertainty every time he opens his mouth and then he blames the investors for their risk-aversion. The President himself is the risk that investors are avoiding now, and many have finally come out and said so in recent weeks.

Here is what they know that the President apparently does not: the knife cuts both ways. If cutting the top selective tax rates increased tax revenues by 44% and reduced the deficit by 57%, then what do you think will happen when those tax rates are raised? That’s right, revenues will plummet, the deficit – already obscene – will blow up even worse, and the economy will crater.

The $2 trillion that has accumulated on corporate balance sheets is not being hoarded to punish the working man; it is being saved for a time where it can be responsibly invested, when returns and risk can be reasonably estimated – in other words, when Mr. Obama is gone.

Here is the difference between political science and economics: mastery of the former will get you elected, while ignorance of the latter will get you a Presidential pension after just four years.

“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.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

2011-11-22T21:53:00.001-06:00

Crank up the Tammy Wynette, the Congressional Super Committee on deficit reduction failed. Irreconcilable differences, I think they call it.

Like an estranged married couple enduring court-ordered counseling because they had to, the Republicans and Democrats recited their irreconcilable differences, whined about how hard they tried to go the extra mile, and blamed each other for the breakup. For those of you who find the language of fiscal negotiations incomprehensible, let me translate for you.

The Democrat position: “he is an uncaring cheapskate sonofabitch who doesn’t care about me or the kids or anything but himself and that goddamn stock portfolio. I gave up everything for this family and now that my looks are gone he wants to cut me off? Fat chance, a-hole.”

The Republican position: “that frigid bitch spends all day eating bon-bons and running up the credit cards on stuff we can’t afford to impress her European friends. I work my ass off and she spends twice whatever I make on implants and Jimmy Choos. I’m cutting my losses.”

It’s a little more complicated than that, but not much. We independents are like the kids watching mommy and daddy rip each others guts out; hoping against hope that they really love us, even when we know they are fighting for custody just to get the alimony and child support. We hate ‘em both, and would like to just move in with the neighbors next door who have a pool.

Our Counselor-In-Chief was a no-help making this bad marriage work, as usual. He didn’t even come to a single session, just yelled at everybody and called the whole family lazy, as if it wasn’t HIS family, but let’s not start that whole birther thing up again now that we finally got Trump off TV. The President got his teleprompter replaced just in time to tell us it was all the Republicans fault; sort of like having Gloria Allred decide who’s telling the truth about Herman Cain.

This whole Super Committee thing was stupid from the start. Thank God it failed; maybe now we won’t be tempted to try something so idiotic ever again. They preened and postured and pretended and in the end, kicked the can down the road. No surprise there; that isn’t dysfunction in Washington, it is political science. That is how they roll, it’s what they do.

There is no Constitutional authority for such a monstrosity as a Super Committee, and let’s be honest – those were not the 12 smartest folks out of the pool of 535. The Super Committee as more like an expanded Village People; dressed up caricatures to entertain us with some predictable shtick and a bit of narrative in between songs – I expected John Kerry to break into “In The Navy” at any moment.

Actually, I don’t consider it a failure that they couldn’t agree on anything – not even how to end their silly charade. Because they couldn’t get their job done, spending will supposedly get cut by $1.2 trillion; that is $1.2 trillion more than anybody else has come up with. Failure is when these ninnies actually pass something – like Obamacare, for example; that is when the system lets us down. Because 9 times out of 10 what they pass is unconstitutional, and the tenth time it’s bad policy.

C’mon. Does anyone seriously believe that any of these “automatic cuts” will ever happen? They don’t kick in until after the next election, so a new Congress, one that is not bound by what this one pretended to do, will meet to decide which of the dozens of tunnels and ladders left for them in the debt ceiling bill to use to breach the “firewall of austerity”.

We all know this: Mommy and Daddy are never going to work it out. They both want to be married to somebody else – anybody else. Us kids have fended for ourselves long enough that frankly we don’t care if we never see either one of them again. I don’t want to go to the circus anymore on Dad’s weekend and Mom’s home cooking tastes a lot like last week’s KFC microwaved. Don’t bother.

But here is a practical solution to the budget stalemate, if anyone cares anymore. Start with this: we have been taxed enough, and you don’t get anymore taxes from the people who already pay them. Argue over how to spend it; that is the role of Congress in our system. If you want to spend more, then get the money from well-head taxes on new oil production and pipeline fees on the one they want to bring down from Canada.

You want to spend more? Fine – then give us cheap gas. You don’t want us to have cheap gas and energy independence? Fine – then cut spending and go sequester yourself. Let us know what you decide.

“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.

Land of Opportunity

2011-11-21T12:03:00.000-06:00

This is a story about two nations with two very different ideas about equality. One nation is named Opportunity, and the other is called Outcome.

When they run a 100-yard dash in Opportunity, everyone starts at the same time and place and runs the same distance – they call that equality in the land of Opportunity. No two people finish exactly the same because some people run faster than others; that’s how God made them.

When they run the 100-yard dash in Outcome, however, everyone finishes exactly the same. The only way to do this is to make the rules unequal, to let some people run a shorter distance and add burdens onto others to slow them down. Each runs according to his ability and starts according to his need – that’s what they call equality in the land of Outcome.

In Opportunity, the winner of each 100-yard dash gets $100. Everyone else gets a dollar for each yard they have completed when the race is won. Some get $99, some get $80, and some only get $50. The slower runners who want to earn more train harder, run faster, and earn more. The faster runners who don’t want to lose income also train harder, run faster, and earn more. So in the land of Opportunity, everyone runs faster and faster, earning more and more.

Some of the slowest runners in Opportunity decide they can’t make very much money running, but think they could win the $200 singing contest. And some of the bad singers see that they can make a lot more money running than singing.   So people find the work that is best suited for them, train hard, and compete against each other for rewards. Before long, Opportunity is a nation of very fast runners and exquisite singers and they are all earning more and more for their efforts.

In Outcome, however, everyone gets a sticker and a hug for trying, and keeping track of time is discouraged as it is believed to damage self-esteem. The fast runners see that they don’t earn any more for all that hard work they put into to training, so they stop working so hard. The slow runners don’t want to run faster because then they would be forced to run longer or start later. In Outcome, everyone runs slower and slower.

The people of Outcome think it isn’t fair that the singers make more than the runners, so everyone gets the same income whether they sing or run, and whether they do either one well or poorly. Nobody in Outcome trains to get better at anything, and no one bothers to learn a new skill. Outcome quickly becomes a nation of slow runners and bad singers; they believe they are entitled to run or entitled to sing, no matter how badly they do it.

Meanwhile back in Opportunity, the fast races and beautiful singing make the contests very popular; people are willing to pay more to watch excellence, so the rewards paid to runners and singers increase. The runners and singers of Opportunity get rich, and everyone else works hard to afford the expensive tickets; there is abundance from all that hard work that everyone does in Opportunity.

In Outcome, however, no one is willing to pay their own money to watch slow running and bad singing. The only way for runners and singers to earn more money is to demand it from the government. The government in Outcome taxes everyone else to give money to the people who now feel entitled to high pay and lavish benefits for running slowly and singing poorly. Anyone who questions those high taxes is called greedy.

The fastest runners and best singers in Outcome begin to leave; they come to Opportunity where they are free to run or sing or do anything else they please. In Opportunity, they make more money and they keep more of what they make - no one covets the earnings of another. They are happy; that is the gift of liberty.

The leaders of Outcome assure their people that everything is fine; to prove it, they have their central banker print a bunch of fiat money so it looks to their grumbling singers and runners as if they are making more money, too. The whole world rejects Outcome’s paper money as reserve currency and starts to buy gold instead.

The people of Outcome are angry that they are slow runners and bad singers with worthless currency. Their leaders blame Opportunity for all of their problems.

And then one day, there is an international competition; the slow runners and bad singers of Outcome must race the swift runners and face the glorious singers of Opportunity. Opportunity demolishes Outcome and wins all the prize money. It is clear to everyone in the world that the quality of Opportunity beats the quality of Outcome.

Everyone, that is, except the dull and unthinking people of Outcome. They were brainwashed in their government schools to believe Outcome is better than Opportunity, so they assume that Opportunity must have cheated in order to have won so much prize money. Some of them occupy spaces and poop on things. The President of Outcome cheers them on when he is not golfing or fundraising.

The slow runners and bad singers of Outcome send their union muscle and government agents to Opportunity to take away Opportunity’s winnings by force. The fast runners and exquisite singers of Opportunity are not intimidated; they smile and calmly pull back their jackets to show their concealed-carry weapons. Outcome’s thugs go lay by their dish, and the patriots of Opportunity live happily ever after.

Here is the moral of the story: don’t mess with patriots in the land of Opportunity; we run faster, we sing better, and we are packing.

The End.

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.

Downward Wisconsin

2011-11-19T12:13:00.001-06:00

We used to make things here in Wisconsin.

We made machine tools in Milwaukee, cars in Kenosha and ships in Sheboygan. We mined iron in the north and lead in the south. We made cheese, we made brats, we made beer, and we even made napkins to clean up what we spilled. And we made money.

The original war on poverty was a private, mercenary affair. Men like Harnischfeger, Allis, Chalmers, Kohler, Kearney, Trecker, Modine, Case, Mead, Falk, Allen, Bradley, Cutler, Hammer, Harley, Davidson, Pabst, and Miller lifted millions up from subsistence living to middle class comfort. They did it - not “Fighting Bob” La Follette or any of the politicians who came along later to take the credit and rake a piece of the action through the steepest progressive scheme in the nation.

Those old geezers with the beards cured poverty by putting people to work. Generations of Wisconsinites learned trades and mastered them in the factories, breweries, mills, foundries, and shipyards those capitalists built with their hands. Thousands of small businesses supplied these industrial giants, and tens of thousands of proprietors and professionals provided all of the services that all those other families needed to live well. The wealth got spread around plenty.

The profits generated by our great industrialists funded charities, the arts, education, libraries, museums, parks, and community development associations. Taxes on their profits, property, and payrolls built our schools, roads, bridges, and the safety net that Wisconsin’s progressives are still taking credit for, as if the money came from their council meetings. The offering plates in churches of every denomination were filled with money left over from company paychecks that were made possible because a few bold young men risked it all and got rich. Don’t thank God for them; thank them that you learned about God.

Their wealth pales in comparison to the wealth they created for millions and millions of other Wisconsin families. Those with an appreciation for the immeasurable contributions of Wisconsin’s industrial icons of 1910 will find the list of Wisconsin’s top ten employers of 2010 appalling:

Walmart, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Milwaukee Public Schools, U.S. Postal Service, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Menards, Marshfield Clinic, Aurora Health Care, City of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

This is what a century of progressivism will get you. Wisconsin is the birthplace of the progressive movement, the home of the Socialist Party, the first state to allow public sector unions, the cradle of environmental activism, a liberal fortress walled off against common sense for decades. Their motto, Forward Wisconsin, should be changed to Downward Wisconsin if truth in advertising applies to slogans.

There is no shortage of activists, advocates, and agitators in this State. If government were the answer to our problems, we would have no problems. The very same people – or people just like them – who picketed, struck, sued, taxed, and regulated our great companies out of this state are now complaining about the unemployment and poverty that they have brought upon themselves. They got rid of those old rich white guys and replaced them with…nothing.

Wisconsin ranks 47th in the rate of new business formation. We are one of the worst states for native college graduate exodus; our brightest and most ambitions graduates leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Why shouldn’t they? Our tax rates are among the worst in the nation and our business climate, perpetually in the bottom of the rankings, has only recently moved up thanks to a Governor who now faces a recall for his trouble.

In 1970, the new environmental movement joined unions and socialists in a coordinated effort to demonize industry. When I was in college, the ranting against “polluting profiteers” was like white noise – always there. They won, and here is the price of their victory: in 1970, manufacturers paid 18.2% of Wisconsin’s property taxes – the major source of school funding - and in 2010 those who remained paid 3.7%.

So who is it that caused the funding crisis in our schools and the skyrocketing tax rates on our homes? It is the same ignoramuses who are sitting on bridges, pooping on things, and passing around recall petitions. The unemployed 26-year old in the hemp hat looking for sympathy might look instead for some inspiration from Jerome I. Case, who started his agricultural equipment business at the age of 21, miraculously without an iPhone 4s.

Mr. Case got rich by asking people what they want and making it for them. He did not get rich by telling people what he wanted and waiting for them to do something about it. If you want to declare war on your own poverty, memorize that.

In the last decade alone we have lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs in this state – over 25%. And it’s not just jobs that have been lost; the companies that provided them are gone. Those jobs are not coming back, no matter how long we extend unemployment benefits pretending they are. The 450,000 people who still work in manufacturing in Wisconsin are damn good it at, but we are now outnumbered by people who work for government. A significant number of the latter are tasked with taxing, regulating, and generally harassing the former. While it is true that many manufacturers chased low-wage opportunities on their own, many more were driven out of the state by the increasing cost of doing business here.

It is a myth that unions improve wages. If you consider only the 1,000 jobs in a closed shop, you might think an average union wage is, say, $30/hr. But if you add in the zero wages of the 10,000 jobs lost in companies chased out by union harassment, the average of all 11,000 union workers is reduced to $2.72/hr. Do you know the average wage of union iron miners in this state? Zero. And the left is fighting hard to keep it that way in Northern Wisconsin - looking out for the working man, they call it.

It is also a myth that free trade causes job losses. Over the past three years, U.S. manufacturers sold $70 billion more goods to our Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners than we bought from them. Conversely, we suffered a $1.3 trillion trade deficit with countries where no FTA’s exist. I doubt that kids are going to learn that in our government-union monopoly schools – it doesn’t fit the narrative.

No one wants to see another person suffer in poverty, and liberty is the best economic policy there is. The great industrialists of Wisconsin took less than a generation to lift millions up to a life of dignity, pride, prosperity and good will. When enterprise was free and government was limited, we all prospered.

Those great men of industry were not anointed at birth to be rich; they rose from nothing to great wealth through their own hard work and the value they added to their employees and their customers through choice, competition, and voluntary exchange. That is the only sure path to real prosperity; the debt economy is a temporary illusion.

Look again at the list of our famous industrialists and the list of our current employers. Who would you wish your child or grandchild to grow up to be? Who do you think will do more good on this earth – Jerome I Case and his tractors, or the Coordinator of Supplier Diversity at MPS.

If you chose MPS, then apply now – that job is open, and it pays up to $72,000 plus benefits and early retirement. Go in peace and save the world. Me, I'm going with the tractor guy.

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.

Bring It

2011-11-16T13:13:00.004-06:00

They are at it again in Wisconsin. The perpetual hissy fit that is the Union Democrat Party in this state has launched its campaign to recall Governor Scott Walker. The rallying cry of Walker's Republican supporters is "I stand with Scott Walker".

Well, not me. I don’t stand with Scott Walker.

Nope. I stand for the right to work. I stand against compulsory unionization. I stand for the right of every employee to join a union, and for the equal right of every employee to work free of union impairment. I stand for the right of every union to collect its own dues directly from its members. I stand for the right of every business owner to deal directly with his/her employees or to work through an intermediary as he or she sees fit. I stand for the right of any business to refrain from political activity altogether without being targeted for boycotts by extortionists.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for fiscal responsibility. I stand for balancing the state budget. I stand for making government services both accessible and affordable. I stand for repaying our old debts and not taking on any new ones. I stand against raiding trust funds set up for one purpose to pay for another. I stand against increasing taxes on the overtaxed to fund lavish new benefits for the over-lavished.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for choice and competition that will improve the quality and reduce the cost of our schools. I stand for letting local school boards, teachers, parents, and taxpayers decide how best to educate their kids. I stand for rewarding the great teachers and I stand against letting the bad ones waste one more hour of our children’s precious learning time. I stand against spineless administrators, conniving pension-grubbers, placeholders counting down their days to retirement and serial indoctrinators who see 4th graders as political props.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for representative Democracy where a majority of citizens elect a government which serves its full term and then stands for re-election. I wish they would vote for Libertarians but I accept it when they don’t. I stand against voter fraud. I stand against rigged elections. I stand against one political party spending millions of taxpayer dollars to overturn an election they lost fair and square.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand against death threats. I stand against tormenting the families of public officials at their private residences. I stand against the profanity, vulgarity, and brutishness of the weak-minded who can only find courage in the anonymity of the mob or an alias on Facebook. I stand against the seizure of our public places, the occupation of our streets. I stand against those whose twisted moral compass equates breaking a monopoly with killing millions of Jews.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for the right to bear arms. I stand for the right to defend myself, my family, and my property. I stand against those who would leave me defenseless simply because they do not value their own life enough to defend it. I stand for Senator Pam Galloway, who stood up for me and my right to carry.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for jobs. I stand for job-creators. I stand for free markets, lower taxes, and sensible regulation. I stand for a business climate that attracts employers, not one that drives them away. I stand for private property rights for every citizen. I stand for developing our natural resources, for encouraging entrepreneurs, for rewarding hard work and for celebrating those who succeed in global competition.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I stand for less government and more liberty. I stand with the overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites who had the opportunity to vote for Democrats in 2010 and chose not to. I stand against shipping in busloads of paid operatives from out of state to nullify that choice. I stand against those who believe pro-choice means the right to inflict yours by force.

I don't stand with Scott Walker. Scott Walker stands with me.

I am a Libertarian, not a Republican. I don't let the Koch brothers or Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or Vicki McKenna tell me what to think. I am a grown man, a self-sovereign with my own conscience and beliefs. Those beliefs do not include overturning election results because my side didn’t win. We have learned that the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker was initiated before he even took office; this has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with privilege.

The Democrat Party in the state of Wisconsin believes they have a Divine right to rule; perhaps it explains why so many are hostile to real Divinity. It is inconceivable to them that the citizens of this state would have decided to give the Republicans an opportunity to fix what the Democrats could not or would not. It is humiliating to them that their coarse and unrefined rivals achieved in just a few months what they could not do in a decade. Their panic is understandable, but that does not make it actionable for the rest of us.

I can't say whether or not I would vote to re-elect Scott Walker. If he is to win over libertarians, he has a lot of ground to cover between now and the next election for Governor, which is not until 2014. This recall process is not an election; it is a subversion of an election, and I will not vote to subvert elections. The reasons for or against this recall are irrelevant; every assassin has reasons. This is a contract hit; the motivation is money, and it is the taxpayer who will pay the contract.

So no, my dear Democrat friends, I will not be signing your recall petitions. When you come to my door I will not be ungracious; I will not be unkind.   I will not tell you “I stand with Scott Walker” and slam the door in your face. I will tell you instead that I stand for Liberty, and then I will ask you why you will not stand with me. It is a reasonable question, and I expect you to answer it. It is the least you can do if you want me to help you turn the whole state upside down to rehash your grievance over again for the umpteenth time.

And don’t send the junior varsity, either. I don’t speak drum, I don’t cuss in mixed company, I am not going to learn those twinkly-thing hand signals, and “shame-shame-shame” just reminds me of a lame disco tune. When I point to New Berlin on a map, if that poor rent-a-mob kid in a Bucky tee-shirt with the tags still hanging on it says it like they do in Germany, I’m going to boot his bony ass all the way back to Ohio. Figuratively speaking, of course.

I’m ready. Bring 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.

Thank You, Veterans

2011-11-10T13:03:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, and I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all of my Moment Of Clarity readers to thank our nation’s veterans and their families for your service.

Those of us who have not worn the uniform will never fully comprehend the range of emotions that you veterans will feel tomorrow on the day that the whole nation pauses to honor you. We can only pray that your pride will match our gratitude.

You are our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, family members, school mates, friends and neighbors, employers and employees. You may sit next to us in church or attend a different church, you may belong to our clubs or belong to clubs we would not choose to be associated with, you may share our political party affiliation or a wear a different button, you may stand with us at Tea Party rallies or attend OWS protests instead, you may cheer for the Packers or perhaps the Bears. We will even forgive you for that - but only tomorrow.

Most of you chose to give up your liberty to serve your country; you volunteered to join the military. You sacrificed years of your lives, time with your loved ones, your own safety, and in many cases your health, so that we could live free. You answered the call; you did not leave it to someone else to defend the freedoms that we all hold dear. No one hates war as much as a war-fighter, yet many of you volunteered to return to combat on multiple tours.

I have no idea how many Americans will read this post, or how many of you are veterans. But I know that every single one of the former wants to say this to every single one of the latter:

Thank you. Thank you for your service.

We remember with respect the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who were denied by death the opportunity to return to civilian life, as well as those who returned broken, either in body, mind or spirit. The honor of military service does not end with discharge and neither do our obligations to veterans and their families.

And what too many veterans need now from us is a job. I urge my fellow employers to seek out veterans, as well as current members of Guards and Reserves, for openings we have in our companies. It is not charity; these are men and women of character and commitment with a demonstrated ability to work and lead in teams to achieve goals. You want these folks on your side.

They have given it all up for us, and now it is our turn to repay the favor. On this Veterans Day, I would like every Chief Executive to walk down to his/her HR department and ask them what they have done this past year to hire veterans. And if they give you that 2nd Lieutenant salute, then go all CEO on them – you will feel good about it, trust me. And you will upgrade the talent in your organization.

“Thank you” is nice, and we should all say that to every veteran we meet tomorrow; but what many would rather hear is “you’re hired.” Let’s see if we can do both. Happy Veterans Day to all my veteran friends – you are too many to list, but you know who you are, and you know how we all feel about you. God Bless You.

“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.

Lay By Your Dish

2011-11-09T14:42:00.002-06:00

We went past the straw breaking the camel’s back some time ago; we are now spearing its humps while it writhes on the ground in pain.

Of course I am referring to the Obama administration’s decision this week to tax Christmas trees. This, apparently, is what he meant by going around Congress to get things done for the American people. Because taxing Christmas was what we were all clamoring for him to get done. Riiiight.

And I still can’t figure out which is dumber – taxing Christmas or trying to balance the budget 15 cents at a time. What kind of fool adds a three-nickel tax? All that does is make the guy in the tree booth take his glove off to count 85 cents change that I will drop in the snow. Besides, at 15 cents a pop, you would have to clear-cut Canada just to pay for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses we paid last week.

The timing of this new tax is impeccable; millions of still-unemployed Americans must be thrilled to know there will be even less money for their children’s toys this Christmas so that the Agriculture Department won’t have to postpone their bonuses, raises, and staff additions. I’m sure we will all start with government when we list the things we are grateful for this Thanksgiving.

It’s all part of the President’s own 9-9-9-15 plan: 9 percent unemployment, 9 trillion in new debt, 9 wars all at once, and a 15 cent tax on joy just to show Boehner who gets tops.

This decision to tax a religious symbol raises the obvious economic policy and Constitutional law question: what the front door is wrong with these people? No seriously…where do they get off putting the government bite on our Christmas? If Christmas is so bad it has to be taxed, then why are they all going to take the day off to celebrate it?

Here is what I want from government this Christmas: plow the snow, arrest a criminal, and go lay by your dish. Just leave us alone; read the Constitution and see if you can find anything in there that authorizes you to do even half the stupid things you do to us. And then read the Bill of Rights again – pretend it applies to you.

The unsolvable problem with too-big government is that there aren’t enough smart people to run it, and taxing Christmas trees just proves the point.

You can’t fix people who think it is a brilliant idea to tax Christmas trees. You can’t protect us from these cretins by holding their budget increases to half the rate of inflation over the next decade; you have to abolish the Department that employs them. If the GOP candidates ever decide to start talking about real issues again, why don’t they all list the departments and agencies they would abolish if we give them the job? If they can’t come up with one, let them pay our Christmas tree tax out of their own pocket and then ask them again.

Abolishing most of the federal government would be a mercy killing. Whatever bunch of nut-balls sat in a conference room and decided to serve the American people by taxing our Christmas needs to be set free from the shackles of government service, along with the whole bureaucracy that approved it. Remember, this is the best idea they came up with that day; it could have been a lot worse if tree-tax genius would have been off on a sick day looking at condominium foreclosures with her friend from HUD.

And of all the things to punish; Christmas brings out the very best in people. Charities, professional organizations, businesses, unions, the military, churches, schools – we cheerfully give billions to help those less fortunate than us. We buy toys for kids, and necessities for families, and feed the hungry and shelter the homeless and reconcile family differences, our churches are packed.

There is no law that compels us to give. There is no regulation that mandates generosity. We do not need to apply for a permit and attend a class. There is no fee, or license required. There is not a Democrat Christmas and a Republican Christmas. No one is forced to celebrate Christmas, and no one is punished if they choose not to. The smiles at Christmas are what the safety net looks like when government is not involved; that is what every day would look like if we made government go lay by its dish.

But government won’t go lay by its dish. It won’t leave us alone for a minute. God forbid we would just do things for each other by ourselves and feel good about it. It must have driven them crazy to know that we would spend an hour with our families picking out a tree and not obsessing about their politics; they had to find one more way to inject their craving for drama into our private time.

And for what? We could bring a lot more revenue into the federal government if Buffet and Gates just paid those higher tax rates they said they ought to be paying. Well go ahead, boys. Hear that bell ringing in front of the K-mart? Pretend it is the Agriculture Department, stuff a billion into the IRS kettle and get them off our backs.

They taxed Christmas trees. You can’t even say that without getting angry, whether you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or just a person with a shred of decency left in you. It doesn't even matter that the President put this loopy idea on hold when we hurled our collective outrage right back in his face. They tried. That is the salient point.

“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.

Ambassadors

2011-11-08T13:45:00.000-06:00

The sun has not yet risen here in Acapulco, but in a few hours hundreds of U.S. Ambassadors will try to secure trade agreements with thousands of Mexico’s most skilled negotiators.

No, it is not another round of NAFTA; I am here for the 29th International Mining Convention, an industry trade show which is held every other year. And our U.S. ambassadors are not pin-striped suits from the State Department; we are the businessmen and businesswomen who travel the world every day selling American goods and services, creating jobs and prosperity back home and improving living standards in the developing world.

Every day all over the world, deals valued into the hundreds of millions get done without the participation of government. I didn’t bring anyone from the Commerce Department with me to Mexico, and the Mexican mining executives who we will meet with at the convention do not have their government officials tagging along, either. Those guys are having a nice Waldorf salad together in Mexico City, telling each other how important out two nations are to each other for the kazillionth time.

Here in Acapulco, we will be discussing the projects that miners are developing; the equipment they will need; the mix of technical features, price, and service that adds the most value to their operations. NAFTA won’t come up; frankly, none of us have read it. The deals will be done on the basis of best value and company reputation, not government policy. We don’t talk about trade; we trade. The whole world is competing for the same orders; it is a buyers’ market.

Over dinner, we will discuss culture, sports, world affairs, economics, and politics – both ours and theirs.   We will talk about family and faith, values and beliefs, our philosophies about managing a company, leading a community, developing the next generation of business leaders. They will laugh at my Spanish, but the attempt will be appreciated.

We will find we have more things in common than things that separate us. And I will be reminded that Mexican people love America and Americans for the products we make, for what we stand for, for the things we have accomplished, for our commitment to liberty. It is only the actions of our government and our central bank that anger them. It is the same all over the world.

Ron Paul is ridiculed by the press for proposing a defensive military posture, as if military bases and embassies are the only means of interaction between Americans and people of other nations. Big-government spokesmodels like Meet The Press’ David Gregory express genuine bewilderment at the idea that less government would mean more engagement. To the business person, Paul’s suggestion is self-evident. Government does not facilitate commerce; it impedes it.

When American businesspeople trade abroad, we are the face of the nation; I have been in many places where I am the only American they will ever meet in person. The world has an insatiable appetite for all things American; we are a topic of endless fascination and our founding principles are genuinely admired wherever they are understood. Most of us are happy to help them understand, and we take our responsibilities to represent our nation seriously.

Businesspeople, students, missionaries, public health workers, tourists, educators, engineers, researchers, airline crews, technicians, interpreters, and athletes – American interests are advanced every single day by interesting Americans. Here in Acapulco, the only American government presence is the guns we sold to the narcos in Operation Fast and Furious, but that is a rant for another day.

Many misperceptions of Americans and American ideals are spread by our enemies to foment hatred. And by enemies I also mean American leftists and unionists whose only export is anti-capitalist rhetoric which paints all economic development as exploitation and assigns all under-developed peoples to perpetual victimhood.

The most effective antidote for this poison is for standard-issue Americans to interact with the people of other countries; this is the real importance of free trade. The miners of Mexico don’t buy into the exploitation myth. Sure they are poor compared to the owners of the mines which employ them; there is no disputing that. But they are rich beyond their wildest imaginations compared to how they lived before the capitalists came in to develop the mines – Americans, Canadians, Chileans, Australians, South Africans.

You can’t buy a bag of beans with the gold that is in the ground. Perhaps if our eco-terrorists had to live on $2 a day for a while, they would show a little more appreciation for the people who dig it up and make it unnecessary for them to do so.

Libertarians are often called isolationist because we would reduce the American government’s footprint around the world - closing military bases, reducing embassy and consulate staff, and eliminating foreign aid programs that enrich corrupt foreign leaders with money we must borrow from the Chinese.

Reducing our government’s footprint does not mean reducing America’s engagement with the world. On the contrary, our commitment to free trade, tax and regulatory relief, and trans-border mobility would unleash tens of thousands more of our best ambassadors into the every nook and cranny of the world, spreading the message of liberty, democracy, and capitalism. Of course, some will do lots of other less noble things, too, but go to either Party’s convention and tell me that businesspeople have the exclusive franchise on debauchery.

A maintenance superintendent at a mine in Zacetecas State will never meet the U.S. Government’s ambassador to Mexico, but he will meet with an American ambassador in an hour or so - me. It will be my pleasure to represent my country and hopefully bag some orders to keep our American factories humming.

“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.

Block Buster

2011-11-05T11:50:00.001-05:00

The moment I saw it, I knew Mark Block should not havesmoked in that ad.

When you engage in cloud-seeding, you can’t complain aboutthe deluge that follows. Not only did Blocksmoke on camera - worse than a snuff film these days - but the ad was not runon paid media. The latter, of course, isthe real crime that has brought about the flash-mob hit on Herman Cain.

In the world of political punditry, Herman Cain is doingeverything wrong and it is working. Heis the most dangerous man in America. If this guy can win the nomination withoutspending hundreds of millions of establishment money and employing thousands ofpoliticos, then the jig is up, and the whole electioneering industry isdoomed. They can’t have that, so theyhave to take him down - now.

One week into the corporate media beat down and we still don’teven know what he is accused of: apparently someone told someone else about arumor he heard from another guy about something that Herman might or might nothave done or said or gestured that someone might or might not havemisunderstood or might or might not have taken offense to at some time in thelast century. There’s your blockbuster,pun intended.

Unless you are clairvoyant, the 90 articles Politico has alreadydevoted to this mirage add nothing to the description I just provided. All we know for sure is that Gloria Alred hasnot yet magically appeared like David Copperfield behind a battery ofmicrophones in Atlanta; if there was really anything to this, she would have pulled a hamstring running for the cameras.

People who wouldn’t be caught dead parking the Mercedes amongthe F-150’s and walking their facelift into a Waffle House might reach for thepepper spray if someone calls them “honey”, but most of us human beings actuallylike it. South of the NASCAR line, it isjust a word they attach to sentences without thinking – like “eh” for Canadiansor “recall” for Wisconsin Democrats.

But this isn’t about sexual harassment and everyone knows it;this is about money. And money does notcare about truth, or justice, or fairness, or morality. Who is behind the hatchet job on Cain –Perry? Paul? Romney? Rove? Obama? Soros? DNC? RNC? trial lawyers? unions? The answer is…yes. Chargesof skirt chasing aren’t going to work on Ron Paul, so who knows what they will comeup with if he puts 10 points on the pack.

The electioneering industry used to be the ultimate cyclicalsector – every two years a minor bump, every four years a boom, and scratchingfor survival in between. So the smartguys who run corporate media and the major party apparatus figured out how tomake that cycle continuous and billions have been pouring into the politicalsector ever since. Call it the electionbubble. There is a ready stockpile of fundraisers and candidate marketersavailable, and they pick their candidates like waterfront hookers choosesteamships – whoever is in port and has cash.

The action has been non-stop since 2007. That nomination process started a yearearlier than normal – most of us were sick of it already before the firstprimary vote was cast in Iowa. The inauguration trash was not evenpicked up when they swung right into the selling of Stimulus, then almost ayear of health care and the rise of the Tea Party, which bled right into thehistoric 2010 mid-term House flip.

In Wisconsin the hits justkept right on coming: a winter of protests over budget reforms, then judicialelections, recounts, senate recalls, and now the Walker recall petition drive which will takeus right into the 2012 primary season. Itis as likely to end as Cher’s goodbye tour.

A lot of people profit handsomely from elections - campaignstaff, consultants, PR firms, law firms, security, private investigators,travel agencies, advertising agencies, pollsters, media outlets, pundits, eventorganizers, hotels, food service, paid “volunteers”, fundraisers, moneymanagers, bloggers, social media managers, the guys who paint the busses, filmcrews, the list goes on and on.

So whoever had the idea to turn governing from a non-profitpublic service gig into one continuous for-profit election cycle must be themost popular guy or gal in the business - full employment and big fat checksfor campaign ramrods and their menagerie of hangers-on. Palin figured out which side of the bread wasbuttered with c-notes. Life isgood.

And then along comes this guy Cain. No prior office. No staff. No money. No plan recognizable tothose who sell them off the shelf. Hetalks without a teleprompter; speaks without a script. He answers different questions with differentanswers, he wears a hat. His man Block smokes. And people love him. Ruh-roh.

We libertarians oppose any initiation of force orfraud. Either Herman Cain sexuallyharassed someone (force) or he has been falsely accused (fraud). Americans are fed up with hypocriticalmoralists running for office and telling us how to live our lives; and we arealso fed up with the politics of personal destruction. So there is no middle ground here, someone isgoing to win and someone is going to lose.

The keepers of the conventional wisdom did not see 2010coming; and still don’t get it. Thisisn’t politics as usual; we don’t keep score of cheap debating points andgotcha moments. We want someone who canlead us out of our malaise. Someone is lying and someone is telling thetruth; whoever is telling the truth has just won the White House this week.

We have devolved into a society where taking offense is anoccupation, where feeling uncomfortable entitles us to compensatorydamages. You want to see what realsexual harassment looks like? Go toSturgis. You want to see how real womenput an ape in his place without a lawyer? Go to Sturgis. You want to turnthis whole country into Eggshell Nation because a few delicate flowers didn’tget enough attention from their daddy? Go to hell.

If a guy makes a rude suggestion in a restaurant, the womanshould slap his face. That’s how wehandled it before we handed the country over to the lawyers, parasites, andbedwetters. Her honor is vindicated andthe cad’s low character is exposed to the public and it takes a second forjustice to be served.

$45,000 and a sealed agreement accomplish neither, and predationleaves a cloud over an innocent man for life. This is not progress.

“MomentOf 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.

Who Owns You?

2011-11-03T17:56:00.000-05:00

[Tim has another book in the works - here is an excerpt from the draft]

...We have known the answer to the problems that face our nation for over 200 years; the maintenance manual for happiness and prosperity is so thin I carry one in my jacket pocket most of the time – it is the Constitution.

Libertarians believe that the enumerated powers delegated to government in Article I, Section 8 represent the proper role of government. We believe the Bill of Rights properly delineates the State from the People and sets the correct boundaries for the limits of State power against its citizens. Liberty is good foreign policy; Liberty is good domestic policy; Liberty is good economic policy.

The less your government takes from you, the more of yourself you own. Self-ownership is the path to economic recovery, a path that requires the obstacle of government to be removed, not improved.

And self-ownership is also the path to pride and self-respect. No one wants to grow up to be a ward of the state. No one aspires to be dependent upon someone else for sustenance. Dependency must be learned; the spirit must be broken before subservience can be achieved. Is that really our dream for 21st century America – a nation of broken spirits dependent on government for sustenance? I think not. I pray not.

Perhaps you do not believe in this principle of self-ownership; perhaps you are skeptical of an idea that runs counter to the preaching of the socialist progressives over the past century. Perhaps this is not what you have been taught in your government-union school. What, then, is your alternative?

If you do not fully own yourself, than who owns you? Society? And who is that but your neighbors? Why do they own you? In the economy of two, the rest of society is me. What is the basis of my claim on you, and why is mine superior to your own? Which will be the more peaceful coexistence between you and me – voluntary exchange, or surrender by force?

The operational theory of the progressive welfare state is that my need represents a superior claim against your property. The socialists’ purpose for government is to re-allocate wealth that a handful of people determine to be surplus. They claim authority over everyone's property to achieve their notion of justice – a notion that forced upon both the self-owner and the recipient of the taken property. Your obligation as a citizen is to surrender yourself to them for the good of society – good as they define it.

This is also the operational theory of piracy.

The underlying moral premise of the socialist – my need trumps your right of self-possession - is no different than that of the pirate, the looter, the rapist, the con-man, the gold-digger, the extortionist, or the thief. The socialist wraps the taking in high-minded words of compassion; so does the pimp. The socialist excuses his brutality on the basis of superior moral intentions; so does every fallen evangelist.

Who owns you? That is the first question to be answered. It is the only tough one; the rest are easy.

Who is selfish - the person who asserts his right to self-ownership or the person who demands the taking of that which he has not earned?

Who is compassionate – the person who gives his own money quietly to the charity of his choosing, or the person who loudly redistributes the money of others?

Who is just – the person who respects the rights of others equally or the person who forces his beliefs onto others and takes it upon himself to allocate rights and privileges?

Who is moral – the person who takes instruction from God, or the person who imposes his personal beliefs on others through the force of legislation?

Personal liberty and economic liberty are two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to keep heads when you throw tails away. All the money in the world is useless if you are not free to spend it as you see fit; and freedom to choose how to spend is useless if your earnings have been confiscated...

What's In A Name?

2011-11-01T21:47:00.002-05:00

Whoever named it MF Global Holdings sure had some foresight. Today’s business headline: Securities firm fails by loaning money to people who can’t pay it back. By-line: Duh.

Only this time, the deadbeats are the governments of Europe. And the CEO of MF Global is a government guy too - Jon Corzine, Democrat ex-governor of New Jersey, ex-Senator, and former head of Goldman Sachs, AAA farm club for U.S. Treasury Secretaries. That bankrupt MF was one of just 22 institutions offered direct trading privileges with the Federal Reserve, our shadow government.

So with the bankruptcy of MF Global, can we now please stop pretending more government is the answer?   Oh by the way, $700 million is missing from that lousy MF, and that MF CEO Corzine will receive a $12 million bonus as his lovely partying gift for running his giant MF right into the ground. So can we also stop pretending Democrats aren’t greedy, too?

This spectacular Wall Street crash-and-burn comes after the implementation of Dodd-Frank, mind you. Corzine is the guy the unions supported, mind you. Corzine is the guy who said we should be happy to pay more taxes, mind you.

Mr. More Government bet the ranch on government and sunk a $40 billion firm that had survived in the private equities markets for over a century. It is the eighth largest bankruptcy in history. He took down all the stockholders and a bunch of pension funds with him – funds invested in government bonds to avoid the risk of the stock market.

Now what?

Our President told us he fixed the problems of Wall Street – all that unregulated greed and betting of house money on leveraged deals…gone with the stroke of a pen, remember? And the leaders of the EU were high-fiving last week when they fixed the sovereign debt problems on the continent by another stroke of a pen, remember? Their stupid deal – default on 50% of the Greek debt held by private institutions – didn’t even last a week. MF Global is just the first casualty.

Betting on government is a bad wager.

Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, Beacon Power, and now MF Global – the list of firms whose business models rely on either government subsidy or simply government competence grows by the month. If the smartest of the Keynesians – Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, Romer, Corzine – can’t make that dog hunt, it is time to quit hoping something might change.

The United States debt just went over 100% of GDP a few days ago, and the media is consumed with whether or not Herman Cain made a gesture 15 years ago. Romney actually touched Perry – that must count as sodomy. There isn’t much to cover anyway; no politician in either party that has a plan to pay it off. Gary Johnson is the closest thing; he promises to balance the budget, which would merely freeze the debt where it is.

We can’t just hold down government spending and grow the economy; it is too late for that. We need to cut government spending and cut it dramatically. Those same Keynesians who don’t know how to fix the economy today will warn us that cutting government spending will hurt the economy tomorrow. Yeah, whatever.

I received a research report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University last week that recounted the 75% cut in spending that occurred in the United States after WWII. The economy boomed. In the 1990’s, New Zealand faced up to its debt crisis by cutting government by 75% also – and the economy boomed. Canada has cut its national debt in half in recent years – and has shot up to #1 on the Forbes list of best countries in which to do business.

Do we see a pattern here? Cut government spending and reduce debt and the economy booms. Let’s try that again…cut government spending and reduce debt and the economy booms. Krugman, are you listening? Reich? How about Cain, Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Bachman, Huntsman, Santorum? I know Ron Paul gets it.

The argument for free enterprise is won at “free”. The un-free kind has shown itself to be unsustainable even with massive infusions of capital borrowed from future generations. If anyone could thrive in the debt economy, it would be MF Global, wedged between the “free” money of the Fed and the “guaranteed” returns of sovereign debt. It could not make it even sitting in the catbird seat.

Nothing is free. Nothing is guaranteed.   Let’s all quit pretending.

“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.

My Occupation

2011-10-29T14:04:00.001-05:00

The word “occupation” has another meaning. For those of us who have one, it refers to what we do to make a living. I am a businessman; that is my occupation.

Businessman was not always my occupation. My undergraduate majors were art and psychology, although I did not quite exactly graduate; it was more of a mutual agreement with the college administration that instead of coming back for my final year, I would benefit from matriculating at any other institution anywhere else on the planet. One suggested a facility with bars and guards would be a good choice. I prefer to call it finishing early.

In 1975 the economy was in the ditch, there was little demand for an art/psych dropout, the Marines wouldn’t take me, and I was raised in the belief that it was a disgrace for an able-bodied person to accept welfare. My parents had made it clear their home would not be occupied by adult children, and the age of dependency had not yet been raised to 26. The party was over and it was time to grow up.

I cut my hair and shaved, ditched the jeans for chinos, put on a tie, and made up a resume that listed every job I ever held (12), all of my accomplishments and awards, my academic record and grade point, and all of my volunteer work – I didn’t mention the rowdiness that got me expelled from my one-man Occupy Carthage College movement. No hard feelings, by the way; I had it coming.

And I hit the streets, stopping in every business and factory and asking to see the boss. Not the personnel department, the boss; the lines were too long at the personnel department and all the people there were just filling out forms. I didn’t stop at night; I hit on every factory night shift foreman and restaurant manager and tavern owner right up until bar time.

It took a zillion rebuffs until one boss liked how I got around his personnel department firewall and gave me a job working in a warehouse for $1.15 an hour – minimum wage. I did not get that job because I could draw an apple or recognize obsessive compulsive traits in adolescents; I got it because I could lift 110 pound boxes over my head and that saved the company time waiting for a forklift driver.

That was my employable skill – lifting; that was how I could add value for the firm. But it was my foot in the door, and I was grateful to be employed. And no, minimum wage was not a livable wage back then, either, so I added another job and then added a half-time job until I could learn enough and add enough value to cut back down to just one.

The rest is pretty boring everyday American Dream kind of stuff - small town boy makes good. I won’t bore you with the details of how I went from human forklift to company President, and there are many more compelling stories then mine if you are looking for inspiration.

Over the past 36 years I have made it my business to learn new ways to add value for my employers and our customers – that is what the occupation of businessman is all about. Adding more value is how the ladder is climbed. I look now at the Occupy Wall Street protestors and wonder if they have any idea what it will take for them to swim with the big fish if and when they get around to the grown-up business of choosing and mastering a real occupation and providing for themselves and their families.

It is difficult for guys like me to sympathize with those protestors who expect high-paying jobs simply just because they have college degrees. In case any of you are reading this, I have to tell you that college isn’t even that hard anymore, and your need to pay off your loan is not a reason why I should hire you to work for me. It is on you to show me what value you can add to my firm; it is not on me to provide you with income. And you must compete with others who want that job as much or more as you do. Hit the gym, vocationally speaking.

Do you have 12 jobs to put on your resume? Can you list the charity work, sports and club awards from your school days that demonstrate your commitment to excellence? Did you figure out how to get around the personnel department to get to me? Are you willing to start at the bottom and lift heavy things just to have the opportunity to show us what else you got?

If you are sincere about wanting a job, start with the basics. Pull your pants up; turn your hat around – better yet, take it off; and take that hockey puck thing out of your earlobe and all the staples out of your face – you look like a freakin’ tackle box. Cover up your tats even if you have to wear a burqa to do it; either grow a proper beard or shave, knock off that indecisive stubble thing; comb your hair and wash those red and blue streaks out of it. And don’t call me “dude”.

But do tell me about the charity work you have done during your extended period of unemployment. Uh-oh…all that time on your hands, such great needs, and you couldn’t find a way to make a difference in some kid’s life? Head Start, Big Brothers & Sisters, Junior Achievement, Boys and Girls Club, 4H, Scouts, any church, and you can't figure out how to do any of that giving back you keep talking about? That tells me a lot more about you than your misspelled resume does...dude.

You know who impresses me in an interview? Those who serve in the National Guard or Reserve and the veterans returning from their active duty service, especially those who served in combat. Many have left pieces of themselves in foreign lands, but few complain; in a job interview, the disabled veteran really stands out against the scores of inabled civilians whose first question is how much time off they will get.

These terrific young men and women who served gave up a life of privilege and denied themselves and their family in order to do defend our liberty. They understand sacrifice, discipline, teamwork, goal-setting, innovation, planning, strategy, and character. They know results matter, they have demonstrated an ability to overcome obstacles, and they possess instantly transferable skill sets and vocational training. Plus we owe them - to the serially ungrateful, this may be an incomprehensible sentiment.

I don’t need a law to tell me to give a hiring preference to veterans; it is good business as well as good citizenship. The Department of Defense has a program called Employer Support for the Guard and Reserves (ESGR) which helps employers reach out to current military and those leaving the service to return to civilian life. Check it out, employers.

The Occupier who took the dump on a cop car Wall Street is going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job – not because he took a dump on a cop car, but because he thinks taking a dump on a cop car with kids around is cool. That brain isn’t a disability; it is a liability. We employers don’t have the time nor the inclination to fix him.

“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.

Banksters

2011-10-26T14:26:00.001-05:00

It is easy to hate the banks; bankers and tax collectorshave been our favorite targets since the beginning of time. Jesus threw the money-changers out of thetemple, and forgave a tax collector just to show us He really did meaneverybody when we were instructed to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The term “banksters” accurately describes the cabal of big New York banks who usethe Federal Reserve to print their money, the IRS to collect their interest,and the regulators at Treasury to give them the cover of decency. The protesters on Wall Street did not inventthat term; it has been a staple of us libertarians, tea partiers, Paulista’s, andNWO paranoids for years.

But the demand of OWS for more regulation of the bankingmonopoly is misguided - the answer to government-regulated corruption is notmore government-regulated corruption. Youdon’t bust a monopoly by wrapping even more government sanction around it; youbust a monopoly by busting a monopoly. Let’s shall.

It would be useful to remember what triggered the financialcrisis of 2008, namely the imploding of the sub-prime mortgage industry thatbegan to unravel in late 2007. And letus recall how sub-prime mortgages – loaning money to people who could not payit back – came to be a big enough deal to break the world. If you know your local home-town banker, youknow this is not an idea that they cooked up on their own after Rotary Club one Tuesdaymorning.

No, making the banks loan money to people who can’t pay itback is an idea so colossally stupid that it would take an act of Congress tomake it happen. Literally - that law was the CommunityReinvestment Act, which required banks to loan money to unqualified borrowers. It was a response to a call formore regulation in the 1970’s, and its provisions were strengthened in responseto a call for more regulation in the 1990’s – careful what you wish for intwenty year increments.

Bank regulators wrote the rules and the banks followed. TheFederal Reserve provided the money, and Fannie and Freddie guaranteed the loansagainst default. The sub-prime loanswere so risky that there was no market for them; they had to be pooled withother investments to disguise the risk. The Wall Street banksters were happy to oblige, but only if they couldcharge hefty fees and be immunized from regulations that prohibited such wildlyunethical behavior.

Congress and Treasury gave them said immunity, but stationedfederal regulators right on their premises to insure compliance with the rulesthe government set down. Good sheepdogsdo not spend years negotiating terms with the wolves; our government regulatorsdid not simply allow the fleecing of America, they engineered it. I’ll take my chances against the wolves.

And now they say they couldn’t see it coming? And neither could Congressman Barney Frank,or Senator Chris Dodd, the chairmen of the House and Senate committees withresponsibility for oversight of the banking system? The head of the SEC, the FDIC, Fannie, Freddie,the IG at Treasury – none of those guys saw that the government-induced housingbubble was going to burst and take the banking system with it?

Then how come Peter Schiff saw it coming? How come Ron Paul saw it coming? Wayne Allyn Root, Wes Benedict, Thomas Woods,Jim Rodgers, and hundreds of others who didn’t have offices inside LehmanBrothers and Goldman Sachs warned us months and years before the bubble burstthat we were headed for disaster. Theyare not clairvoyant, just economically literate.

The banksters, regulators, and currency manipulators at theFed drove housing prices out of the reach of ordinary Americans. Their answer to each problem they created wasto add another problem, including easy access to crushing debt. And now millions of Americans who bought atthe peak of the bubble have discovered that the illusion of equity can vanishovernight, but debt is forever. ThePSA’s from HUD forgot to mention that part in either language.

To my knowledge, there have been no convictions of WallStreet bankers for violating banking laws, so it is reasonable to assume thatthey followed the regulations to a tee. And if the quality of regulators stationed right inside the New York banks was sobad they either didn’t know rules were violated or were too timid to cite, thenwhat makes us think that hiring more of them would help? Adding second stringers does not solve aquality problem on the A team.

We don’t need government regulation to regulate greed – themarket not only does it, but does it better and faster. There is no call to add internet penis pillsto the portfolio of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco; we seem beable to avoid some scams without having to call in people with windbreakersthat say ATFIPP on them.

When Enron failed, the government refused to bail them outand their executives who broke the law went to jail. Correct answer; there hasn’t been anotherEnron since and we did not run out of energy. When the banksters failed, the governmentbailed them out and paid them bonuses, and nobody went to jail. Wrong answer; they went right back to doingthe same crazy stuff they were doing before, only now they are packaging toxicsovereign debt in with toxic mortgages when they engineer theirincomprehensible derivative products. And we have run out of money.

The problem of how to protect the public from the bankingcartels is no different than any other monopoly threat in the economy. The answer to the corrupting power ofmonopolies is not to sanction them with the even more corrupting power ofadditional government regulations; the answer is to use the anti-trust laws tobreak up the monopolies and allow free markets to cleanse the economy of itsbad actors...

...starting with the Federal Reserve.

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary byLibertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz,Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.comto find your moment.

Thank You, One Percenters

2011-10-23T15:27:00.001-05:00

I wonder how many of those we-are-the-99% OWS protestors know what household income it takes to join the evil 1% they seek to destroy: the answer is $384,000.

Not exactly the millions and billions President Obama keeps talking about, but why let numbers get in the way of a good demonizing? Did you ever think about who makes that kind of money? Well, doctors and lawyers for sure, dentists, optometrists, small business owners, architects, builders, lobbyists, chiropractors, motivational speakers, popular authors, professional athletes, pension managers, car dealers, couples who teach in Universities (or high schools in Wisconsin if both pull that double-dip retire and come back to work maneuver), retired Democrat congressmen, union bosses – folks like that.

And of course, those devil-dog bastard CEOs. The AFL-CIO tells us that CEO’s average income is $11.4 million, calling it immoral that our top executives earn 642 times the median secretary salary of $29,980. Not to diminish the profession, but I am pretty sure that a committee of 642 secretaries at Caterpillar could not run the company. The unionists demand is a return to the pre-Reagan 1980 ratio of CEO pay, when top executives made 29 times the median wage of all workers. Give me a button; I’m in.

In fact, I would bet that a majority of CEO’s would take that deal, since the median CEO pay, according to Salary.com, is $706,000 while 29 times the national median wage of $49,000 would be $1.4 million.   Who knew the AFL-CIO would be the ones to make the case for doubling the pay of CEOs? Not even them, apparently; and I bet the guys taking dumps on police cars and sniffing feet at OWS New York didn’t see that one coming either.   Some minds are a terrible thing to waste; others are just terribly wasted.

Maybe CEOs should form a union, because the average income of the ten highest-paid CEOs is only $27 million, while the average income of the top ten celebrities is nearly double that - $43 million - and they are all union. Clearly, celebrity greed is the cause of CEO suffering; let’s all go occupy Rodeo Drive.

Packer linebacker Clay Matthews is another evil one-percenter. You want to talk injustice - how is it fair that one guy gets to be so handsome, rich, athletic, smart, and cool while the rest of us can’t see our shoes anymore and have to ask what fork to use? And what is Clay Mathews supposed to do about our man-crush envy - cut off a bicep so we can have one, too? Spread the hair around? Share some of his snaps with the unemployed and uncoordinated?

Clay Mathews is in the top one percent of income earners because he is exceptionally good at doing something only a few other people on the planet can do; he got that way by working harder and longer at it than the millions of other kids who dreamed about being an NFL player but didn’t put in the work. He earned it; just like the surgeon, singer, business owner, CEO, and derivatives trader who made it into the top 1% of income earners in this nation did. They get paid a lot because they are worth even more. Even Lady Gaga.

Drumming all day long won't change a thing; it is the purchase of the drum that picks winners and losers. That transaction decides which manufacturer, distributor, and retailer will take one step towards membership in the 1% club, the bane of the coveting class. The market decides who will be a one-percenter, and free market capitalism is the purest of all democracies; each dollar has one equal vote.

$384,000 isn't an excessive amount of money to pay for exceptionalism when you think how many civil service and political patronage jobs pay six figures for mediocrity these days. Don't you think the guy who repairs your baby daughter's heart valve is worth four times more than the fellow who will teach her to read poorly when she reaches school age? If she ends up on food stamps, it will not be the fault of that one-percenter surgeon; it is the slack-o-crat teacher and his union protectors who will condemn her to the impoverished life of the opinionated illiterate.

There are 1.4 million Americans who make up the top one percent. They earn 16.9% of the nation's income and they pay 37% of all the taxes. If the eat-the-rich crowd got their way literally, our nation’s GDP would drop by 17% and taxes on the rest of us would go up 58% to make up for what we just devoured. And we would still have a 1%, but it would be today’s second stringers.

Is killing the one-percenters a little too extreme for you? Ok, how about we just round up all 1.4 million of them and exile them to an island. And then let's round up the bottom 1% and send them off to their own island, too. The socialists’ playbook says that the rich 1% are parasites who would die without the 99% to oppress. They would also tell you the poorest 1% only find themselves in that predicament because their opportunities have been denied by the richest 1%.

If the socialists have it right, then the citizens of Poor Island would prosper while Rich Island would perish. What do you think - who would prosper and who would perish? Which island would you choose to live and raise your family? Where do you think your children would have more opportunity? Which would you throw in with if your life depended on it?

And now quit kidding yourself that it doesn’t.

The fools who are trying to destroy our nation’s one-percenters don’t understand that it takes wealth-builders to build wealth. Ask the folks in Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea how much fun it is when The Occupation works. President Obama and his OWS mobs have sent a clear message that one-percenters are no longer welcome here. Well, I have a different message for them: thank you.

Thank you for employing us, feeding us, housing us, clothing us, curing our illnesses, giving us sight, bringing abundance to market, financing our startups, inventing new technology, buying our insurance, contributing to our 401k, teaching us employable skills, heating our homes, sponsoring our educations, entertaining us, paying more than your share of taxes so we can pay less than ours, funding our charities, endowing our universities, and sacking opposing quarterbacks so the Packers go back to the Superbowl, as God intended.

Thank you very much.

“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.

Separation Anxiety

2011-10-21T12:59:00.001-05:00

While expressing his solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement this week, President Obama said something very weird - that OWS and Tea Party protestors share the frustration of feeling separated from our government.

No we don’t. I desperately want to be separated from my government again; separation from government is the whole purpose of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It draws the lines between us and our government; it is our national restraining order against a stalking pervert who climbs through our windows every chance he gets to steal our stuff and cop a feel while we are sleeping.

I doubt if separation from government is what makes the employees of Gibson Guitars frustrated these days. My guess is that the feds busting down their doors and shutting them down indefinitely for no reason whatsoever is probably more of a concern. They are probably more than a little frustrated that the guy who keeps yammering on about his jobs bill is the reason they lost theirs.

And it is a safe bet that the small regional banks that are being choked to death by regulators under the Dodd-Frank bank “reform” bill don’t see separation from government as a major problem. Congressman Frank sees no conflict between his taking heaps of cash from the giant Wall Street banks and writing the new rules that effectively take out their smaller competitors while guaranteeing their profits. He supports OWS, too, providing a role model for schizophrenics with political ambitions.

And weren’t you happy to learn that First Lady Michelle Obama wants to “shape” your children for you?   Personally, I would like to establish some considerable distance between me and someone who thinks children should be shaped, like little pieces of clay. Does she want to dress them up and take pictures, too? We like our kids to be separated from strangers like that…and we like our First Ladies to be a little less creepy. I’m not sure how the OWS crowd feels about it.

By linking the Tea Party and OWS, President Obama once again shows us he doesn’t know his country very well. Most of us do not want government to sit in our lap; we want it to go lay by its dish. Americans are united in the things we are against; what divide us are the things we are for.

No one wants more crime, poverty, injustice, racism, drug abuse, inflation, illiteracy, pollution, unemployment, bankruptcy, fraud, illness, and premature death; we only disagree about how to combat them. And everyone sees war as the last resort; we just disagree on what comes second to last.

President Obama and his ideologically aligned liberals, Democrats, progressives, and socialists are for more government and less liberty. Like helicopter moms, they see separation from government as way too risky for their citizen/children; they demand a government that protects us from ourselves at our grandchildren’s expense.

Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, principled Republicans, and political agnostics are for less government and more liberty. We do not want to be mothered by government; we want to live free of government supervision and approval. Separation from government does not cause us fear and anxiety; we crave it.

When asked if we want more government or less of it, Americans consistently choose “less” by 2:1 margins. That has been one of the most consistent polling questions over the past three decades. OWS is not the 99%; it is some tiny fraction of the 33% who say “more”.

When I went off to college, my mom and dad did not cry and neither did I; after 18 years of dependence on them, we were both happy to empty the nest. I was grateful to them for preparing me for that day, and they were even more grateful that it finally came.

There were other kids who spent that whole day bawling with their parents; I didn’t understand why back then, but a little wisdom has stuck to me over the decades that have passed since. We all grew older but we didn’t change much.

Some Americans see every new day as an opportunity to learn and grow, to overcome new challenges, to succeed and prosper, to be responsible, to discover how high is up for ourselves and to help others do the same. The happy kids.

Others wake to dread the dawn; seeing only hurdles that can’t be overcome, barriers that can’t be breached, disadvantage and unfairness, and a world so difficult to manage that only government can protect us from it.   The bawling kids.

The painful truth is that we choose which of those two worlds we will live in. The happy kids and the bawling kids all went to the same campus. And the awful truth is that politics is the imposition of one viewpoint upon the believers of the other.   The genius of democracy is that is allows us to change who wins without killing each other.

In the natural order of things, the mighty fall. The prodigal squanders, the haughty are brought low, nations decline, empires implode. This creates space at the top for the lowly to rise. Our iconic national story is one of humble beginnings which end in glory.

The problem with government is that it disturbs that natural order; it props up the mighty and crushes the meek. In a free market, privilege cannot be defended, it must be re-earned. Enron’s separation from government allowed it to rightfully perish alone; Fannie Mae’s incestuous relationship took us all down with it.

Maybe the bawling kids are still fooled by the teleprompter President, but the happy kids aren’t buying it. We are not still mired in recession almost four years later because government can’t clutch us tight enough to its bosom; we are stuck in the ditch because it won’t get off our backs.

Mr. President, with all due respect, we are not frustrated over our separation from government; it is that your separation from government can’t come fast enough.


“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.

3-3-3

2011-10-20T16:25:00.001-05:00

It didn’t take long for the establishment GOP to figure out how to dump on Herman Cain – if you can’t attack the man, attack the plan.

For the record, I don’t like Mr. Cain’s 9-9-9 either; I would much prefer 3-3-3. Because the problem is not just how we tax; as Milton Friedman said, the real rate of taxation is the rate of spending, and we spend about 12-12-12. We can thank both of the establishment parties for that.

And spending is what candidates should be focused on; yet to date only Ron Paul has told us specifically what he would cut - $1 trillion worth in year one. That puts him $1 trillion into the lead in my book. The rest talk in platitudes about economic growth and spending restraint, not unlike then-candidate Obama in 2008 who promised the moon and stars while conveniently leaving out the part about how much the spaceship would cost us in cash and lost liberty.

Here’s my plan to cut down to my ideal weight: I will only add three pounds per year instead of the five I was planning on for the next decade, and I promise to grow to 7’6” in year 10. Economists would score that as a winner; the CBO would issue a glowing report; Joe Biden would start counting millions of pounds not gained and threatening to rape me if I quit wrapping my donuts in bacon before I deep fry them. Or something.

I know exactly what Herman Cain is thinking with 9-9-9, because business people like us understand that human behavior changes in response to incentives. Prices will come down when costs are lowered because competition will demand it. Leveling the playing field will allow capital to flow to the best investments, not tax-gimmicks like Solyndra, and the jobs will come roaring back. People will buy things based on their intrinsic value, not overpay just to get a deduction.

Markets will begin to function again and the good times will roll; it is a plan of economic liberation based upon an understanding of human action - the kind of thing a business guy would come up with and a politician would stare at dumbfounded for days on end. The attacks on the 9-9-9 tax plan ignore human action, relying on static analysis and arithmetic comparisons to current pay rates to try and discredit it.

But economics is not arithmetic; it is the study of how people get what they want. When the rules change, so does behavior; and in predictable ways, even if the current administration’s economic team doesn’t understand how to predict them. Business people – the main street kind – develop a pretty good sense of human nature, as we are dependent upon the voluntary decisions of our customers to succeed. It does not surprise me that Cain would be the one to solve a problem; or that the establishment in both political parties would hate him for it.

They like the status quo just fine, and they have orchestrated misleading attacks to thwart any effort to simplify and flatten the tax system. When Governor Perry unveils his flat tax plan, you can count on them ripping it to shreds also. They are betting that all of us have by now been hooked with one rock of tax-crack deduction or another that we cannot imagine living without. Most of us who will howl about losing our home mortgage deduction will never put two and two together and realize that our loophole is one of the causes of the housing bubble and economic crisis it brought about. We all like bad things to be someone else’s fault; we just disagree about who else to hang it on.

Fair is when everyone is treated the same. 9-9-9 does that, as would 3-3-3 or 29-29-29; the most ridiculous standard to hold up a tax reform plan against is what some people pay now under the current code. If the deal-breaker is anyone paying a penny more than they did this year, then let’s just leave the most corrupted and corrupting tax scheme in the history of mankind in place and wait for the collapse to come. Just quit making fun of people who are investing in ammo and gold; you will soon be begging them to share their MRE’s with you and they won’t need your vote.

Zero is not a fair share, whether it is a migrant worker or GE who is the free rider. When Buffet, Gates, Trump, Wynn, and Carlos Slim go to lunch together, somebody is in the bottom quintile – are they entitled to free lobster bisque and a pity party? Taxing income is itself an idea so dumb they had to change the Constitution to allow it; taking at differential rates is an even worse idea that had to be stolen from the communists.

Here is the tax comparison that matters. The federal government spends about 24% of GDP; if everyone paid our fair share we would each pay 24% of our income in federal taxes. Do you? Not if you are poor, and not if you are rich, not if you have deductions and exemptions, and not even if they put us all together do we pay that much.

We collectively pay about 16% of GDP in taxes; those other 8 percentage points we borrow each year is why the national debt is skyrocketing and we are speeding towards our big fat Greek collapse. That is the destination of the status quo; the goal line that is being defended at all costs against any attempt to simplify and flatten the tax system, be it flat tax, FairTax, 9-9-9, or Ron Paul’s excise tax ideas. Insanity.

Those who read this blog regularly know that I am a proponent of the FairTax for pragmatic reasons. In an ideal libertarian world, I would finance a Constitutionally limited government (about 20% of our current one) with a land tax and head tax – trip on that, Michelle Bachman, former IRS attorney, mother of 6, foster mother of 23, and starter of a business who has made a payroll. Even Romney’s one illegal gardener would have to pay $500 to live here – consider it a cover charge for the greatest rave party on the planet. Can’t scrape up $500? How did that tattoo get there?

But we must live in the world that is until we can create the world that should be. The two principles behind sound practical tax reform are simple: as broad a base as possible at the lowest possible single rate. Whether we tax income or consumption or both is not as important as that we stop using the tax code to reward and punish, to pick winners and losers, to advance political agendas, and to provoke class divisions. Thank you Herman Cain for taking the heat to get the ball rolling.

And for exposing politics as usual in Tuesday night’s ambush. Do you really think that all those other smart candidates for President of the United States do not understand the difference between state taxes and federal taxes? Do you believe they don’t know that people pay both state and federal taxes now? Do you think they honestly do not know the difference between a VAT and corporate income tax?

Or do you think a powerful lobby of special interests 100% vested in keeping the current system of preferences, loopholes, subsidies, guarantees, and pork in place might have put them up to it? Like perhaps the same folks who are making Ron Paul invisible, and turning this whole election cycle into a made for TV Romney/Perry WWE main event.

They think we are stupid. They are wrong.

“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.

American Idol

2011-10-19T15:14:00.000-05:00

Seeing the GOP presidential debates in person is whole lot different from watching them on TV.

Thanks to our friend Herman Cain, we were seated right up front at the CNN debates last night in Las Vegas. Our section mates included gaming moguls Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, the Romney family, Wayne Newton, and too many other notables to list. This was not just the 1% crowd, these were decimal pointers.

If you are reading this, you undoubtedly saw the debate yourself - and perhaps noticed Joanne and me in the audience shots or up on stage with Herman immediately following the show (my son liked that part of the debates the best). So I won't go over what you saw, just tell you a little about what you didn’t see.

We rode to the event with the Cain party, cleared by security into a large warehouse area where a fleet of RV’s awaited the candidates – identical mobile green rooms where the candidates prepared themselves. Probably the closest any of these Republicans will get to a trailer park.

The campaign staffers milling about the campground looked to my aging eyes to be in their teens, and mostly stared at their Blackberries while furiously texting the other teens to schedule whatever it is all these teens do for the campaigns. The bodyguards were all as big as the Winnebagos and we were escorted to our seats by not one but two of the sun-blotters with the squiggly ear things. Rock star.

One of the grown-ups in the room described this election cycle to me as "American Idol on steroids". In a series of national televised auditions pitched as debates, the field is winnowed as the pundit class disposes of them one at a time. I never thought of it quite that way, but it rings true; the new paradigm is being made up as we go.

This is why a candidate like Herman Cain actually has a chance in this race - all of Romney's money and boots-on-ground organization in 50 states can't win him a talent contest. The more people see of Herman the more they like him; that's why the powers that be have stooped to smearing his 9-9-9 tax plan to try and slow him down.

I love Ron Paul. He was rolling his eyes, shaking his head, looking around at the set visibly bored while Perry and Romney wasted large gulps of our short time on this earth pulling each other's braids. Everybody wanted to, and Ron Paul did it; there is the man’s whole career encapsulated for you.

I got a chance to chat with Dr. Paul during a commercial break; thanked him for his service to liberty and for inspiring young people to discover the Constitution. Since Ron Paul is my idol and Herman is my friend, I asked them both to play nice. I was surprised and happy to learn they get on well personally, and I got to see it first-hand; I wish their supporters could learn from their example. Please.

Michelle Bachman had her hand up to say something the whole time like that Horschak character in Welcome Back, Kotter. Could you guys hear her calling out, "Anderson, Anderson!"? It was a little annoying and very weird. I lost $20 bucks when she didn't count her kids for us again - it's true you can bet on anything in Vegas.

In person, Rick Perry throws off a jerk vibe that makes your hairs stand up from 40 feet. That guy has got some seriously bad juju going on; and oversized hands, in case you wondered. The crowd booed him twice, nobody came up to talk with him on breaks, and the other candidates gave him that look of disgust I used to get from dads when I showed up to take their daughters out.

Newt Gingrich has to be one of the smartest guys on the planet - and he doesn't have a prayer. Rick Santorum is not one of the smartest guys on the planet - and doesn't have a prayer, either. Huntsman didn't even show up, answering many prayers. And Gary Johnson was not invited, for which CNN should pray for forgiveness.

At each break, Mitt Romney came over to visit with his wife and son; since they sat next to us, he was standing two feet in front of me each time. The guy looks like a President, and that might be enough to seal the deal. For a guy who claims not to be a politician, he sure can turn that smile on an off on command, and mostly the command is the presence of a potential donor.

I don't watch TV, so I hadn't seen Anderson Cooper before. My opinion of Communist Network News is not great, but he did ok for a guy with no first name. He is not 360; maybe 135 dripping wet. He made tiny Michelle Bachman look statuesque. David Gergen is a big guy. Newt was the only fat guy in the whole room – rich people must pay someone else to go to seed for them.

So there you have it; Dr. Tim’s take on the CNN Las Vegas debates. Does anyone remember what any of them said? I don't. And who cares anyway. People aren't going to vote for a tax plan or vote to eliminate fractional reserve banking. Touting experience as an IRS lawyer is suicidally stupid, to steal the best line of the evening from Newt. And neither one of the Bickersons is going to even get their families off the couch to vote for them if they keep this up.

So Herman Cain will win the GOP nomination, because he is the most liked and most trusted - American Idol on steroids, like the man said. If you are looking for a libertarian candidate, Mr. Cain is not your first choice, please quit telling me he was on the Fed board, I knew that a long time ago. But if you are looking for a conservative candidate, he should be your guy.

Check our his 9-9-9 plan for yourself and you will see that just about everything the others threw at it last night is bullsnot; they knew it and slung the poo anyway, all those faith-driven values candidates. They only one who didn’t was Ron Paul, who simply proposed his own plan to replace the income tax with nothing.

Herman Cain is my friend and Ron Paul is my idol. They are front-runners and have the whole field talking about less government and more liberty; I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. My lasting memory of the debates is watching them share a laugh at one of the breaks – the former Fed board member and the guy who would tear it all down.

The fact that one of those two could be the next President of the United States is simply amazing. Let that day come not a moment too soon.

“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.

We're Number Ten!

2011-10-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

Each year, Forbes magazine publishes a ranking of the best countries in which to do business. The United States has fallen to tenth place.

Canada, our good neighbor to the North (and the home of Athabasca University, my grad school alma mater I may add) has moved up from number four to number one. Sandwiched in between are Hong Kong and Singapore, some of the smaller European countries, and New Zealand. Not a sweatshop nation in the bunch – toldya.

This is not your father’s America. Once the undisputed economic champion of the world, we have let ourselves go to seed. Overtaxed, overregulated, over-entitled, over-governed, we have taken our prosperity for granted and deluded ourselves into thinking that printing money is the same as creating wealth.

Tenth place is disgusting, and yet only a small fraction of Americans will be disgusted. An even smaller fraction will feel any responsibility for our decline in the rankings. Fewer still will feel any personal obligation to turn things around and only a tiny minority of those will actually do anything about it. A few will even cheer that we have received our comeuppance.

And that is why we are number ten and falling fast.

A generation of stickers and hugs for trying hard has made us a nation complacent and confused about actual achievement. Many can no longer distinguish between demanding a reward and earning it. We have not lost our ability to compete, we have lost our will. Those of us who are still driven to succeed in the world economy are vilified for our success. Perhaps the call will come to occupy Canada, now that winning itself deserves punishment in the eyes of the class-obsessed.

The governments of the countries who are climbing in the world rankings have reduced taxes on businesses, eased regulatory burdens, avoided deficit spending, pursued sound money policies, and maintained competition (and sanity) in their banking industries. Capital loves predictability and a balance of both risk and reward. Capitalists do not choose to dine with cannibals when there is a choice.

The best thing about Canada is that it is full of Canadians. While it is tempting to paint the country with a broad leftist brush because of its public health care system, there are many elements of the Canadian system that libertarians and conservatives admire and all Americans can learn from.

It is ironic that while the United States central government has usurped authorities guaranteed to the states by our Constitution, Canada maintains a relatively weak central government deferential to Provincial authority - Newfies don’t get to tell Albertans what to do and Ottawa does not sue Edmonton at the drop of a hat. And their governmental units are, by and large, competent.

Although I am fond of teasing my Canadian friends about needing a law for everything, they take their law-making seriously in the legislatures and abide by what their elected representatives have enacted. Not like America where Presidents and governors circumvent laws by executive order and judges just make it up as they go from the bench.

Canadians develop their natural resources. They mine, they drill, they extract oil, they harvest timber, they make wise and responsible use of all of nature’s abundance, unlike Americans who have banned drilling, outlawed mining, and limited logging. Canadians are happy to sell us the stuff that we sue ourselves over to leave in the ground.

The United States of America has been blessed with abundant natural resources, strategic geography, a heritage of enterprise and innovation, cultural diversity and a tradition of liberty. There is no reason on earth why we should not be the number one place to do business; free market capitalism is largely an American invention.

We are number ten because we have chosen to be number ten; or rather number ten has been chosen for us by foolish leaders whose understanding of economics and commerce is only slightly less developed than their common sense.

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. has proposed that President Obama declare a national emergency and take “extra-constitutional” measures to create jobs. Note to Rep. Jackson: President Obama IS our national emergency. Every time he talks, his mine-mine-mine tax plan drives businesses to more hospitable places. The nine of them ahead of us are not low-wage countries; they are low-hassle countries.

As my friend Herman Cain says, “we don’t do two”. We are Americans; we are a nation founded on an economic foundation of free market capitalism. We are wired to prosper, to win, to reach beyond our place and dream beyond our reach; failure is not in our DNA. We can beat the industrialists and workers in the factories of China, Mexico, Vietnam, and South Korea; we do it every day. But we can’t beat the bureaucrats in the cubicles of Washington, D.C. and statehouses around the country.

Those consumed with directing the allocation of a shrinking pie should get out of the way of the pie makers. Those content to be number ten should get out of the way of those of us who know how to erase the zero behind the one.

And those who think going around the Constitution is the sure path to prosperity should read it first.

“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.

Own That

2011-10-12T15:48:00.001-05:00

[Author's Note: upon publishing this column, several readers contacted me to inform that the photo referenced was taken at an earlier anti-capitalist protest in Portland, not at the OWS rally in New York, as was cited in a number of blogsites that inspired my piece. Apparently, the OWS defecation was directed at a police vehicle, not the burning flag. I do not "pull" my mistakes, just acknowledge and correct them. The point of the piece is still relevant if police cars are defaced, but I apologize to my readers for the unwitting error. Tim]

There could be no more perfect iconic image for the bowel movement that is Occupy Wall Street than the photo of the guy with his red pants around his ankles taking a dump on a burning American flag.

That single disrespectful, aimless, and irrelevant act of stupidity encapsulated the disrespectful, aimless, and irrelevant OWS protest for people like me who have spent weeks trying to understand its purpose. I get it now – they hate America. I feel foolish that I wasted even a minute of my time looking for something more to it, something of possible substance.

I suppose some liberal apologist might be able to torture up some absurd symbolic meaning out of this act (“we’re number two!”), but here is what it conveyed to me: this guy is an ungrateful piece of excrement - his cause personified.

To a Libertarian, the difference between Republicans and Democrats is not always clear. But events like OWS remind us that while Republicans often lose sight of what liberty is, Democrats know it full well and hate it. The signs say they want to end capitalism. Crapping on a burning American flag was not an olive branch to the liberty movement from OWS; it was a challenge. Bring it.

When someone booed a gay soldier’s question at the Republican debates, every candidate quickly denounced it. Still, Democratic media pundits savaged the field for waiting even a few hours before issuing their rebukes.

It has now been days since I first saw the pictures of OWS flag burning and defecation but I have yet to hear a single Democrat condemn it - an act that any reasonable person would consider despicable if not criminal.

Just the opposite; President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the head of their patron SEIU, and celebrity mouthpieces like Kanye West and Tim Robbins stepped forward to embrace and encourage the OWS protest shortly after the boy in the red pants dropped a deuce in the name of…of…exactly, there is no point to this whine-in.

Clearly, Democrats are capable of expressing outrage; that is pretty much their Johnny-one-note note. So one can only conclude that they do not find burning and defecating upon the American flag outrageous behavior. That is all you have to know about the current sorry state of the Democrat Party.

I was appalled this week when the Tea Party embarrassed civil rights icon John Lewis; the sight of a bunch of white guys shouting down a black Congressman who came to address them showed that racism still…oh, wait, that wasn’t the Tea Party, it was the OWS protestors, so never mind. Haven’t seen mass hypnosis like that since the Manson family or Jonestown; the only question is whether the least hinged among them will end up killing themselves or someone else when they lose their grip on that last marble. Thank you, thank you, Second Amendment.

Earlier this year, this same left-wing rent-a-mob distinguished themselves in Madison by booing the national anthem, drumming out the Pledge of Allegiance, screaming vulgarities at 14-year old girls, blowing the eardrums out of downs-syndrome kids, disrupting a Special Olympics ceremony, threatening to sodomize a gay photographer, threatening to kill opposition politicians and their families, extorting businesses, picketing a sheltered workshop, and committing mass insurance fraud.

Do you remember? Own It, Democrats. Now your boy lit our flag on fire and took a dump on it. Own That, too.

That’s right - Own That. You educated them, you encouraged them, you put them up to it, you paid them to turn out, you cheered them on as they did your dirty work – blaming others for your failed socialist policies. Knuckleheads led by knuckledraggers – that was Madison, and it is now OWS. Think we don’t know?

I fully support the right of every American to protest, including the right to perform stupid and outrageous acts like flag burning. But I also support the right of citizens to enact local safety ordinances and lighting things on fire is certainly prohibited in Manhattan, as is pinching a loaf on the sidewalk.

If I were the judge, his sentence would be to have a T-shirt made with a picture of his act of fecal protest and make him wear it for a day at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Let that useless pile mingle with the brave and noble wounded warriors who have left pieces of themselves on foreign soil defending that flag. It is neither a proper Christian nor Libertarian thought, but it would be ok with me if they beat him to a pulp with their stumps, and I bet they could. Please forgive me.

The OWS protestors demand money from those who have earned it, health care from those who must provide it, education from those who can impart it, and housing from those who build it. In exchange, they offer nothing.

I hate to be the one to break it to you Jedi’s, but this is not the kind of keen business acumen that employers are looking for in a tight job market. Herman Cain is right – it is your own fault that you are unemployed.

And enjoy the sleeping bag sex with those idealist OWS girls while you can, gamers; because they will soon be grown up women with an appetite for Louis Vuitton and you will be back in your mom’s basement dating your imaginations again. When it’s time to pick the father of their children that prick from Citibank with the BMW is going to start to look pretty good. Hey, I did not make the rules.

Amber and Chad won’t be sharing that Condo in Boca with you, Poop Boy. So grow up, pull up your pants, go apologize to a Vet and learn a trade. You still have your whole life in front of you, and this is still a great country - don’t mess it up.

“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.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2011-10-10T15:34:00.000-05:00

Many libertarians are pleased that the Defense Department’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been rescinded.

I am not one of them; in fact, I was hoping that DADT would be expanded in scope to cover every single means of categorizing people for differential treatment, and expanded in breadth to bring every single department and agency in government to heel.

The Fourth Amendment specifically prohibits government snooping: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

Don’t Ask.

And the Fifth Amendment specifically protects us from having to answer the government: “…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself…”

Don’t Tell.

That is how liberty is supposed to work. They can’t ask about gender, race, age, sexual preference, religious affiliation, party membership, health status, disability, business ownership, housing status, occupation, income, charitable contributions, source of income, place of residence, firearm ownership, vehicle choice, diet, intoxicant choice, number of children, insurance status, travel destination, vaccination history, or smoking preference. But they do anyway.

They can’t ask us what’s in our home, our cars, our boats, our tackle boxes, our computers, our phones, our pads, our emails, our phone calls, our mail, our diaries, our health records, our checkbooks, our account balances, our businesses, our transaction histories, our bank boxes, our churches, our clubs, our land, our pockets, our purses, our shoes, or our briefcases. But they do anyway.

Given the tens of thousands of laws, statutes, ordinances, and regulations that exist, it is hard to imagine what might not be a potential criminal case these days. One day you are a freeman making guitars at Gibson, the next day you are a criminal for doing exactly the same thing. How do you think the government knew how many trucks to bring when they shut that factory down? Who was forced to fill out all the forms that told them? We are being beaten with our own belts.

Think for just a moment about all of the personal information that the government has already accumulated about you; imagine how much more they will learn when your health records are “consolidated” under ObamaCare. We worry that identity theft may allow criminals to ruin our lives, yet they can access only a fraction of the information the Nannycrats in government have at their disposal. Membership in the entitlement society is not free; the cover charge is your liberty, the rent is your privacy, and the dues are collected in pride.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists the specific things that the federal government is empowered to do. Section 9 lists things the government is explicitly prohibited from doing. Section 10 prohibits the states from doing things we have assigned to the federal government, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments prohibit the federal government from doing things reserved for the states and for the people. It is not complicated; unless, of course, you are a liberal judge.

Nowhere in the Constitution is the government permitted to ask without a specific cause and warrant, and everywhere we are protected from self-revelation. The whole document is a job description for a servant government, one who respects its masters’ privacy and keeps its own mouth shut. The meanings of the words in that job description are plain; it is just that they mean things that people who seek unlimited government power to advance their own agendas wish weren’t in there.

Go get your copy of the Constitution and read Article I, Section 8 again to see if you can find a single one of those enumerated powers that would require the government to profile us in order to do their job. Why would the feds need to track the calibers, serial numbers and clip capacities of our handguns – to maintain Postal roads?

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was enacted to protect the rights of homosexuals who wished to serve in the military. DADT is the same policy that is applied to heterosexuals everywhere - except when your wife is trying to set up one of her girlfriends with your buddy who hates football, takes his shoes off in the house without asking, and wears socks that match his sweaters.

“Must Ask, Must Tell” is not the relationship between the citizens and their government that was envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. And that pesky little Constitution is the only thing standing between you and the people who wish to deprive you of your liberty in the name of their “public good”. Every abuse of power ever undertaken was justified by some noble-sounding public purpose.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will forever go down in the lexicon as a symbol of discrimination, and that is indeed unfortunate. It should be the battle cry of a new generation committed to restore the liberty their parents squandered in a fool’s trade for the empty promises of an entitlement society whose benefits are unaffordable and a security apparatus that only keeps military spending safe.

“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.

Dear Occupiers

2011-10-06T16:12:00.000-05:00

Dear Occupiers: You are absolutely right to fight against the corrupting influence of corporatism in our political system, but your 13 point demand list is a victory dance for the very guys you are drumming against.

Do you want to actually do something worthwhile? Then cut your list of demands down from 13 to just these 2: abolish the Federal Reserve and enact the FairTax.

The Government could not spend 60% more than it takes in without someone loaning them the money. Would you loan your own money to a deadbeat who had neither the wherewithal nor the intention of ever paying it back? Let me rephrase that. If you had any money, would you… And neither would the rest of the world, which has pretty much quit buying U.S. debt.

So the Federal Reserve steps in and prints money out of thin air, virtually gives it away to those Wall Street banks, which turn right around and loan it to the government at 3.7% interest at the Treasury auctions, a damn fine profit for the couple of nanoseconds it takes to process the two transactions on their servers. You can’t rack up billions in profits one $2.00 ATM fee at a time, you know; people take too long to push the buttons.

And what do you occupationists’ demand? Even more government spending - which means more borrowing, which means more counterfeiting of currency, which means more profits for the Wall Street banks, not less. They are secretly cheering you on behind those brass doors you are hollering at. And all that fiat money inflates the currency, raising prices and depressing real earnings. You would already be making a living wage if the Fed hadn’t turned your dollars into dimes; your ideas turn them into pennies faster than they are headed already.

Here’s an analogy the stoners among you might understand – it’s not fair that your street dealer has such fine rims and a smoking hot girlfriend so your answer is demand even more addicts. Wrong. Abolish the drug cartel (Federal Reserve) and shrink the number of addicts (Government programs). Here’s what will happen; drug prices drop (currency normalization) the girlfriend leaves (externalities) and the guy in the wife-beater has to make an honest living (real GDP growth). There is a little more to macroeconomics and monetary policy than that, but not enough to warrant taking out another student loan.

You are wasting your time on the wrong street, my friends. You aren’t even in the right town, unless Timmy Geithner still has an office there. Go down to K Street in Washington D.C. if you want to stop corruption in politics. That’s where all the lobbyists hang out, and that is where the actual corrupting takes place.

There are more than 14,000 lobbyists in D.C. and their job is to take the money from special interests (meaning the other guy’s association, not mine) and spread it around to Congressmen and regulators, who gladly provide a return on that investment in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, boondoggle spending, and regulatory preferences, which further enrich the special interests, who give even more money to lobbyists, who spread it around like manure – and round and round it goes, getting deeper and deeper with each lap of the spreader.

Who do you think will put an end to it – those guys? The status quo is a win-win-win for the revolving door of special interests, lobbyists, and politicians sucking away at the public teat down on K Street. One day you’re the nipple, the next day the lips; and the taxpayer gets milked – there’s your moment of clarity.

Those Wall Street banks are just the errand boys that move cash from the Fed to the government to the special interests to the lobbyists to the regulators and campaigns of the folks desperate to operate the machinery for next four years. Rich errand boys to be sure, but errand boys nonetheless.

Want to put an end to the racket? Then join us to enact the FairTax – a national sales tax which replaces all other federal taxes and abolishes the IRS. With no tax breaks to give, there is no reason to lobby, and no purpose for the special interests. Just like the dealer with the spinners, everybody with their snout in the trough down on K Street has to go get honest work.

And we save $400 billion in compliance costs that the current tax system extracts from the economy each year. Hit the bong and contemplate that one for a moment; that is a $400 billion job stimulus - not just this year but every single year until hell freezes over. C’mon President Obama, say it just once, I double-dog dare you - “Pass This Bill!” I didn’t think so; there is a campaign war chest to fill.

If abolishing the Federal Reserve and implementing FairTax is a little too radical for you (in which case I have no idea why you are reading this column), then Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan and re-purposing of the Fed mandate onto sound money is the next best thing. Keynesians mock it and Arthur Laffer loves it; good enough for me. Mr. Cain’s plan takes the best of the FairTax, the best of the Flat Tax, and levels the playing field for all businesses while improving our global competitiveness.

And if you want to close your own personal income gap, go occupy North Dakota. The place is busting out at the seams with the oil boom that is going on there; 3.4% unemployment and jobs going to the highest bidder. You lefties drew your line in the sand on fossil fuels – the unemployment line. If you want to make a living wage, put down your bongos and get your butts out to Williston.

We just lost Steve Jobs – my generation’s Thomas Edison. The guy secured over 300 patents and unlike the politicians and charlatans who heap praise upon themselves, he did literally change the world. We lose phones with more computing power than the million dollar mainframe computers he liberated us from. And he got mad, silly, stinking rich doing it. Should we hate Steve Jobs because he climbed to the other side of the income gap? No, we should thank our dear Lord for him and people like him with each click of the mouse that he invented.

Dear occupiers: the liberals who have promised you hope and change don’t have either to give you. You are waiting for a bus to prosperity that will never come. Start walking; you will be surprised how fast you can catch up.

“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.

Occupied

2011-10-04T16:50:00.000-05:00

The organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protest finally released their list of 13 demands, about two weeks into the protest. Better never than late.

First among them is a demand for a law that raises the minimum wage to $20 per hour. Leading with such a foolish idea makes it pretty hard to read the other 12 without thinking it is the first draft of a David Letterman Top Ten List compiled by someone who learned math in a government school.

Paying somebody $20 is easy, but it takes more than a law for someone’s work to be worth more than $20. They have to possess employable skills that are in demand, exhibit a positive attitude, be accountable, and work well with others – and then actually do something that is worth at least $21 to someone else. Coming in two weeks late with a badly composed single page list is not the kind of performance that is worth $20/hour to anybody - I can see why they think a law is necessary.

But they are wrong; minimum wage laws are unnecessary. Median income in the private sector is just under $50,000 per year, or $25 per hour, which is roughly three times the minimum wage mandated by Congress.

What law makes a company pay an employee $25? Better yet, what law forced that employee to become worth more than $25? It is the Law of Supply and Demand; and it is apparently 3 times better, as laws go, than the one Congress passed to set a wage floor. It is useful to remind ourselves why more than half of the people working in this country are already paid $5 more per hour than what these Wall Street occupiers consider “justice”.   The answer, of course, is that their work adds more than $25 to the value of the company which employs them.

The story is the same for the $12 wage and the $12 million salary. Brett Favre used to be worth millions, and now he isn’t; Aaron Rodgers wasn’t worth millions watching Brett play; now he is worth every penny of the millions he makes playing, but in a few years he won’t be worth millions again. It’s what you do that pays, not what you know.

There is no government legislation that forces companies to pay more than the minimum wage, just as there is no law that forces companies to provide benefits, or schedule 40 hour weeks, or name holidays, or grant paid vacations. And yet most firms do. Why? Because the law of supply and demand tells them to; and they must obey the laws of economics or perish. Unlike the perverted corporatism practiced in New York and Washington D.C., the free market has no mechanism to bail out fools, frauds, and failures.

In reality, there is no law that forces companies to actually pay that minimum wage either; most just eliminate the job that is only worth below-minimum. Setting the minimum wage to $20 would eliminate all the jobs worth $19.99 and under. This will add many tens of millions of Americans to the ranks of the unemployed and push us over 50% unemployment.

I don’t think the occupiers understood how this economics stuff works, but as luck would have it they don’t have to, since they included a separate demand that everyone who doesn’t work receive a living wage. “Eaters”, Henry Kissinger called them; who knew it would become a professional vocation one day.

Another occupation demand is a free college education for everyone. I’m all for that, but not for the reasons you might think. A no-cost education is only possible if there is no cost to it – no salaries, wages, pensions, maintenance, heat, light, books, etc. I think it is a terrific idea for University faculty and staff all across the nation to put their money where their mouth is and work for free in unheated classrooms to show their solidarity with the unionist occupation movement and stick it to us greedy, heartless, libertarian capitalists once and for all.   Fists up, anyone?

The rest of the demand list is pretty lame and predictable economic suicide – cut off all the energy that is charging the iPhones, Droids, Bluetooth headsets, pads, and notebooks they use to spread the word about the occupation. And re-elect President Obama – appropriate, since their goal is to collapse the economic system.

But this one is bold: wipe out all debt all over the world. Private, public, corporate, sovereign – just forgive it all. Write off the tens of trillions owed to bond-holders and bank stockholders and start over; one giant global financial mulligan. I don’t suppose it has occurred to them that the entire U.S. Social Security system and every other pension plan in the country would be immediately wiped out and nobody would ever loan a penny to anyone ever again. Dark Ages, Part Dieux, and not one of those fools could shoot his dinner once Taco Bell goes dark.

Maybe if the occupiers had another two weeks to think about it, they would demand we annul all the marriages in the world, too – as long as we are tossing aside solemn commitments. Just throw the whole world’s car keys into one giant swingers’ bowl to give everybody a fair chance at landing Miss Venezuela or George Clooney, as you prefer.

Why not – this is all about fairness and privilege, right? It is certainly not fair that the privileged 1% are so unnecessarily beautiful while us 99%ers have to struggle just to be presentable. That is the whole point of this occupation thing – forcing the privileged few to give it up. I bet most of those guys, and a bunch of the girls, would take Eva Mendes over Trump’s money if you gave them the choice of which unjust deprivation they would cure first.

Don’t get me wrong; the protestors have every right to protest, and watching them comforts me that we are still a free country, Hank Jr. notwithstanding. What they don’t have a right to do is occupy; private property is private and public property belongs every bit as much to those Wall Street brokers as it does the dude in the dreads calling them names.

The occupiers should watch and learn from the Tea Party: get your permit, hold your rally, pick up your trash, and go back to work. Ask Nancy Pelosi if that was effective. And not to rub it in, but it is a safe bet that the Tea Party will send more of its own to Congress in 2012 again than will the Occupation Movement. Gingrich has a better shot of getting candidate pledges for his Contract Addendum with America than do the occupiers with their 13 points of light.

The good news, if you are an occupier, is that you got our attention and made your point; the bad news is that you got our attention and you have no point. You demand that we surrender our liberty to a mob that couldn’t even get your list of demands typed up on time. Sorry, I’m taking “or else”.

Want to do something useful to stand up to the Wall Street banksters? Why don’t you take a break from your occupation to read Ron Paul’s book “End The Fed” and then get back to us. Some of us have been rousing the rabble long before you occupiers were even born. Maybe we can do something useful together.

“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.

Roll Your Own

2011-10-03T09:52:00.001-05:00

The Cowboy was once a symbol of freedom, a uniquely American icon. He wore his guns with pride, he said "thank you, ma'am", he prayed before supper, he rolled his own smokes, and if anyone would dare tell him he couldn't, well, "them's fightin' words!"

When we were kids, we all wanted to be one. We wore little cowboy outfits, we said "howdy, pardner", we rode the pony machine outside the A&P store, we went to the Saturday matinees and we cheered when the good guys in the white hats shot the bad guys in the black hats - saving the town and winning the gal.

What the hell happened to us? When did we start hating the good guys? When did we become the nation that cheers for that fat guy in the paisley vest, the slimy lawyer that forged the deed, the crooked judge who ignored the law, and the sneering tax man who foreclosed on the orphanage?

Wisconsin's Department of Revenue apparently has enough excess cube monkeys on its payroll to waste our money closing down stores that sell loose tobacco and provide the machines for people to roll their own cigarettes. I don't smoke myself, but I understand these Roll Your Own (RYO) stores have become pretty popular since the government taxed the bejesus out of manufactured cigarettes. To quote that great economist Gomer Pyle, “surprise, surprise, surprise!”

The owners of these small businesses earn their own way, employ other people, pay a boatload of taxes, and sell a legal product to adults who want to buy it with money they earned themselves. That is called liberty; it drives some people nuts.

One such driven group calls itself Smoke Free Wisconsin, who has nothing but praise for Governor Scott Walker's ham-fisted RYO crackdown. These are the same folks who led the drive to ban smoking on private property. There should be an injunction against them using the word "free"; real liberty lovers would insert one more little word to get our priorities straight: Smoke [in] Free Wisconsin.

Where is the outrage from the left over the RYO beat-down? Rich people can afford to buy manufactured cigarettes and pay all that tax; it is the poor and middle class who roll their own at these locally-owned stores. Why aren't you Madison moonbats drumming on Walker about taxing the poor and hammering small businesses? And aren't you guys supposed to be pro-choice, or does a woman only own her body while a second life shares it?

I have no idea what the Governor was thinking, but it's stupid crap like this that turns Republicans into Libertarians. He may want to take a mulligan with another recall season just around the corner, but hey - I’m not the coach of their team.

Look, if someone wants to smoke that is their business; I am not threatened by their choice. The real danger to the public is not smokers or RYO stores, it is allowing ourselves to be ruled by self-righteous prigs with so many sticks up their butts they fart sawdust.

We are not safe from the Sawdust People when they are awake, so I say coffee is a public health hazard, too. Let's tax the snot out of it; make it a dollar for each word it takes to order a cup of the stuff at Snob-bucks. Extra grande fair-trade iced minty whipped mocha mocha latte? Ten bucks tax - welcome to Marlboro country, Tiffany.

That’s it - tax Big Coffee and then send out the goons from DOR to start shutting down all those brew-your-own, tax-evading sons of bitches with their subversive don't-tread-on-me Mr. Coffee machines. Make them pay fines and permit fees and buy licenses and keep bleeding them until they die. Start with the quickie oil change joints; theirs are the most disgusting, anyway. Then roust the mom-and-pop motels, the real estate agencies, the hair salons, the bridal shops and work your way up to the Indian casinos.

On second thought, why not start with the Indian casinos, and why not start tomorrow? Forget the free coffee - why do those rich guys get to smoke, give away tax-free drinks, gamble, and sell untaxed cigarettes in their businesses while the State is stomping down the tiny RYO stores for doing none of the above? And don't say respect for their traditional way of life unless you think "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding" is some kind of sacred rain chant that makes prairie grass grow to fatten the buffalo. They bought their privilege with campaign cash and it was the last Governor, not this one, who sold us out to get re-elected.

Here's a radical idea - how about our government respect everyone's way of life, including the poor working stiffs who feel like rolling a smoke after putting in a double shift? And how about we let the Constitution tell the government what to do instead of letting the Sawdust People tell the government what to do to us?

And before you uber-caring heart-bleeders start thumb-typing your anonymous comments wishing me a fatal disease because I dared to defend smokers' rights, don't waste your time. I've lost as many family members to cancer as anyone, but I won’t force everyone else to suffer for my loss, ok? I cry on my own time.

The phrase "roll your own" is a slang expression meaning to do something your own way; and doing things your own way is what liberty is all about. It is not about forcing someone else to conform to your idea of a proper lifestyle - that is called tyranny. Crushing those little RYO entrepreneurs is a fitting symbol of government over-reach; it is do-gooder tyranny, the most insidious kind, the easiest to ignore.

So go ahead and look the other way while the brutes shake down the RYO industry and throw even more people out of work. But when you brew that next cup of java at home on your own subversive Mr. Coffee, just remember that someone somewhere in the Department of Revenue is reading this post and thinking, "hmmmmm...coffee tax...now there's an interesting idea."

Maybe then you will understand why we libertarians keep fussing over silly things like the Fourth amendment...and why we thank our Founding Fathers for the Second. If you do too, support your RYO entrepreneurs and share this post with 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.

Looking Backwards

2011-09-30T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Thursday headline read, “Survey: Obamacare Raised Costs”. The byline was a head-cocker, “White House accuses survey of 'looking backwards’.”

How else can we learn what actually happened besides looking backwards? Looking backwards is the only way to test theory with fact, to verify assumptions, and…never mind, I forgot the central tenet of liberalism: because it was supposed to it did, and you are a hater if you dare to question it.

Obamacare was supposed to improve health care and lower cost, so we are supposed to simply accept that it did. Just like all those other programs were supposed to end poverty, improve education, extinguish racism, heal the sick, eradicate drug use, cleanse the environment, feed the hungry, house the homeless, reduce crime, make industry competitive, give the disadvantaged a leg up, create a safety net, give everybody a leg up into the safety net.

The Kaiser Family Foundation study found health care costs increased by 9% in the year after President Obama’s signature reform legislation went into effect. This is nearly 3 times the rate of increase (3.1%) recorded in the year before the legislation kicked in. This was not the direction that the cost curve was supposed to be bent.

Is anyone surprised? The Bill added 2.3 million 18-26 year-olds to employer plans, forced pre-existing condition coverage, and mandated so many other additional costs that waivers had to be handed out faster than Kleenex at a funeral. Do you think all those unions and businesses and charities were rushing to get those waivers in order to avoid cost savings?

The White House did not dispute the Kaiser findings; rather, it “accused” the researchers of looking backwards, as if that were a treasonous act. Mr. Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff’s rebuke said, "When we look to the future we know that The Affordable Care Act will help make insurance more affordable for families and businesses across the country."

Oh, well, that settles it, then. Because it was supposed to, it will, or did, or does, or something. The sand would be an upgrade from the hiding place of the head naïve enough to believe that.

I can see why looking backwards would be uncomfortable for the Obama administration. When we look backwards, we discover that the stimulus did not create jobs, that the earth did not warm, that health care costs went up, that GDP has yet to recover, that home prices are still falling, that Solyndra went belly up, that ATF sold guns to Mexican drug cartels, and that boots are on the ground in Libya.

It is much more pleasant to talk about things that will never happen as if they already did. That’s how he won the Nobel Peace Prize, after all, and the best jobs bill is always the next one. With real unemployment hovering around 20% and GDP growth within rounding error of zero, it is no surprise this White House prefers daydreaming to data.

To be fair, not all of the increase in health care costs was due to Mr. Obama’s PACA; each year America gets older and fatter and new and better treatments hit the market which cost more than the ones they replace. No one likes it, but it is better to be alive and bitching about the price than to be affordably gone.

I don’t work in the White House, so I am not required to see sunshine and kittens when I look into the future. That affordable health care for families and businesses they keep telling us about does not jump out at me when I peer into the dismal next they have created for us.

No, I see every single penny of the President’s rich-bastard tax that will be levied on doctors, dentists, anesthesiologists, radiologists, surgeons, and high-end nurses being tacked onto our medical bills. I see nothing but new mandates, fines, and administrative red tape for every employer in the country; increasing the cost of doing business, forcing layoffs and depressing wages.

I see billions of dollars going to consultants to tell us what we have to do to be in compliance with a steady stream of new regulations from a dozen agencies that don’t talk to each other. I see a string of court cases a mile long to sort out all of the conflicting mandates that those federal agencies and their counterparts in the states will impose.

I see millions of working Americans scurrying to enroll in state exchanges when their employers drop coverage. I see every liberal in the nation blaming the employers when this happens, not the Party that wrote the provisions of the law which incent employers to opt out. For the record, that was not the Libertarian Party.

Want to find a politician who actually did reduce health care costs? Try Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He exposed the WEA trust health insurance racket and busted it; in cities and towns all across the state, tens of millions – hundreds, ultimately – are being saved through choice and competition. The unions had to be broken for the cost curve to be bent. Our President doesn’t have the stones.

There was never a health care problem in this country; we have a cost problem. President Obama and the Democrats imposed their big-government solution and premium costs went up by 9%. Governor Walker and the Republicans imposed their market-competition solution and premium costs have been reduced by tens of millions. The politics are debatable; the math is not.

The irony is that the same people who demanded the President’s reforms are the ones screaming bloody murder about the cost of getting what they wanted. They also opposed the Governor’s reforms with all their might and are hell-bent to recall him despite the daily flow of municipalities reporting lower health care premium costs, the very thing they coo and purr over Mr. Obama for merely promising. I suppose nothing is as affordable as forcing someone else to buy your care, but lowering its cost has to be the next best thing.

Mr. Obama went too far and Mr. Walker did not go far enough. Looking backward reveals trajectory, but not opportunity. The Libertarian solution is to withdraw government from the health care system entirely. Choice and competition will produce better care for more people at lower prices. Doctors and patients don’t need any costly help from parasitic consultants, lawyers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, IRS agents, politicians, activists, advocates, pundits, think tanks, and social scientists.

It is neither the priest nor the policeman that keeps the auto mechanic honest in a small town; it is the second auto mechanic. Choice and competition, not government control, will make our health care system affordable and accessible. Real health care reform will come when Obamacare is repealed and the system is liberated from government interference.

That will be a good day to look backward. We will have accomplished something.


“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.

The Next Kid

2011-09-28T14:28:00.001-05:00

It is a rare day when the radical left does not give us at least one or two more good reasons NOT to let them run the country. Yesterday was a triple play day.

It started at the local level with the discovery of Milwaukee’s outrageous $150,000 license fee for taxicabs, imposed because too much choice and competition was driving down fares. God forbid there would be a choice of affordable taxis when you need one.

Moving to the state level, the Governor of North Carolina proposed doing away with representative democracy for a while so President Obama could implement the rest of his jobs agenda unimpeded by such trivial distractions as Congress or elections. As if the Constitution was written only to cover those times when we don’t need jobs.

And then there is the wisdom of Elizabeth Warren, candidate for United States Senate from Massachusetts, the state whose idea of conservative is Mitt Romney. Ms. Warren believes rich people who own factories do not deserve to keep the money they have earned because there are roads and schools. It is unclear what she thinks about Michael Moore, George Soros, or Oprah Winfrey’s money.

Her arguments deserve to be answered one at a time. She begins by saying, "You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for…”

Where is “out there”, Elizabeth? Do you mean on our own private property that we bought, improved, and pay taxes on? Do you mean the formerly empty urban lots inhabited by rats, garbage, and dregs where people are now employed? Do you mean the small towns where a factory is the prime employer, the engine of economic life? I lived in a township once where there were no property taxes for homeowners because the industrial base paid for all local services and schools – is that the kind of place you mean by “out there”, Elizabeth?

And is “Good for you”, the best you can do? How about “thank God for you”. When a young child is gravely ill, the doctors and nurses do not hold hands and chant; they use devices and machines to bring her back to life. Every one of those devices was made in one of those factories out there, Elizabeth. Every one of those machines consumes energy, Elizabeth - energy you want to cut off. Somebody got rich, and someone’s child lived; ask the parents who got the best of that deal.

Just who are “the rest of us” that paid for those roads, Elizabeth? The people pedaling in the bike lanes? People who travel on subsidized urban mass transit? People who demand high-speed trains for free? Do you even understand gas tax and highway trust funds? Who pays more highway taxes, the guy driving the Ford F-250 or the guy driving the Volt with the Recall Walker sticker? Or how about the guys and gals who drive those big rigs that move all those goods from where they are made to where they are needed? Are they the rest of us?

And who benefits by having roads to get goods to market? Do you prefer that you take your donkey and cart along trails to the factory and haul your refrigerator home from Ohio, Elizabeth? Are you running your Senate campaign hiking from Quincy to Hyannis, or are you using the roads the rest of us paid for? You should be giving money to gas-tax-paying Teamsters instead of the other way around.

“…you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate…”

You had me at “you hired workers”. Should have stopped there. Since public education is funded primarily by property taxes, it is those awful, terrible, capitalists in their big fancy houses who pay most dearly to educate those workers. And to be honest with you, Elizabeth, your team is doing a pretty lousy job of educating tomorrow’s workers. We have to do a lot of warranty work on the functional illiterates and clueless dependents you guys crank out of your union-government monopoly schools; where do we send the claim forms?

“…you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."

Actually, none of us would have to worry about marauding bands if you would read the Constitution all the way to the second amendment, Elizabeth. Do you even read the news? The roving bands doing the factory marauding these days work for the Government – ATF, DOJ, EPA. Ask the folks at Gibson guitars who did them more harm this year, the Visigoths or the Feds? It is precisely that work the rest of you did that has left our liberty in tatters.

"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

You will let us keep a hunk of what we earned? How big of you. Rich people take big hunks of their wealth and give it to charities all the time; they don’t have any problem paying forward. They have a problem paying the government, since it screws up just about everything it tries to do. Roads, education, and domestic security make up about 4% of the federal budget. Why don’t you explain to that next kid what you want to do to him with that other 96%? And how, exactly, does giving his money to Pakistan help him succeed in Poughkeepsie?

You want to do something to help that next kid, Elizabeth? Teach him about liberty, capitalism, competition, self-reliance, patriotism, ingenuity, individual rights, American history. Give her parents the choice of where to educate her, let her compete for rewards, and give her faith its rightful due. And quit trying to turn this country into Greece.

You had one thing right, Elizabeth: no one can get rich on their own. They need customers to buy products, employees to join in producing them, bankers to finance operations, investors to provide capital, suppliers to provide material and technology, distributors, transporters, exporters, and firms to assist in marketing, legal, accounting, and other necessary administrative services. Voluntary exchange between all those free people is what creates the wealth you seem to think is yours. It's not.

They need limited government – my kind of government. They need their property rights secured, their contracts to be enforced, the roads to be plowed, their currency sound, and their patents to be respected. They do not need a government that will punish their success, unionize their workforce without a vote, or subsidize competitors who bankrolled an incumbent’s campaign – your kind of government.

And they do not need another socialist Harvard law professor in the Senate, especially one whose last gig was handing out TARP bailout money to the world’s most despicable banksters. Why don’t you explain to that next kid how paying bonuses to Swiss derivatives traders enriched anyone but the Swiss derivatives traders, Elizabeth?

“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.

Hate-baiters

2011-09-27T21:08:00.001-05:00

Liberals call conservatives many things: racists, heartless, greedy, selfish, sexist, homophobic, and now…haters. Last week a popular liberal blogger announced that calling conservatives haters will be the Democrats election strategy in 2012.

Like most other things, the standard for hating has been dumbed-down in recent times; it used to be that you had to actually hate someone to be a hater. Nowadays all it takes is to oppose increased funding for any government program, or in the case of DADT, merely oppose a policy, or in the case of the Tea Party, merely gather.

And if conservatives are haters simply for what they believe about government, then we libertarians must be drooling, vein-popping ragers. We don’t just hope to restrain government programs; we would prefer that most of them be abolished altogether.

Sure – I’m a hater. I hate ignorant talk like calling people haters for no reason. I hate the partisan demagogues who profit from peddling such blatant nonsense. I hate the stifling of speech, the intimidation of opponents, and the suppression of dissent that the hater-card is intended to accomplish. I hate the arrogance that Statists display by playing it.

How weak is the mind that would conclude the only possible explanation for policy disagreement must be an opponent’s hatred for whole classes of people? How blithering must be the idiot who can see only two possible sides in a debate – his own and you-are-hater? How flimsy must the case be when the best argument to support it is “you hate”. How dreadfully stupid must be the second-best?

Yes, my dear Govbots - it is possible to question government programs without hating people. A transition from Social Security to private ownership of retirement accounts would increase pension income six-fold; why would we advocate for it if we hated old people? Or why do we work for school choice if we hate children and parents?

Why defend the right to carry if we hate the people who live in the most dangerous neighborhoods? Why fight for sound money if we hate poor people living on fixed incomes? Why push pro-growth economic policies if we hate the unemployed? Why oppose the welfare state if we hate the minority communities which have been decimated by it? Why uphold the Constitution if we hate all the citizens it was put in place to protect?

The idea that anyone who comes to hold an un-liberal belief arrived there by hate is so middle-school that it deserves an equally juvenile response: “He who smelt it, dealt it.”

If you think everyone else is racist, it is probably because you are. Ditto if you think everyone hates homosexuals, or women, or men, or Jews, or Muslims, or blacks, or illegal aliens, or poor people or whoever you want to lump together into a herd. In fact, it is that herd mentality that gets people started down the road of hating.

And if you smell haters everywhere then chances are you are dealing that yourself, too. It would never occur to me that someone who comes to a different political position than mine got there because he/she hates. I’ve never heard anyone suggest such a thing, because I know very few people who hate. Life is too short.

For some reason, the anti-hater left especially hates the Tea Party, citing their boisterous rallies and too-white demographics, as if that should seal the deal.

I have been invited to a few Tea Party events, and found them to be less hostile to opposition views than the Milwaukee Brewers fans were at Miller Park Saturday night – that poor girl did not even say anything, just wore a St. Louis Cardinals jacket.

And the racial make-up of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Sunday was no more diverse than the Tea Party events that I have attended. SGK is not a government program - do we hate women because we chose to participate?

I have to believe that every conceivable political and religious viewpoint was represented in the lakefront crowd of 20,000 as well as in the large group of breast cancer survivors who were honored. Does anyone really think that half of them hate on the other half of them? Anyone?

And yet, that’s what the hate-baiters on the left would have you believe – that half of those nice people wearing pink hate the other half of those nice people wearing pink, ergo you should vote for a Democrat, any Democrat.

That is their victory strategy for 2012? That’s the big idea? The scary thing isn’t that they think it will work; the scary thing is that they paid somebody to think it up.

“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.

Tax the Terps

2011-09-24T13:05:00.001-05:00

Liberals view income disparity as social injustice, proposing to remedy the income gap by taxing higher income people and giving the money to lower income people. The premise for such action is that rich people have more money than they need and poor people are entitled to that surplus.

The state of Maryland has the nation’s highest median family income of $69,202. It is nearly twice the state of Mississippi’s median family income of $36,646. Using the logic of the redistributionists, that income gap is unfair and unjust and the only way to lift Mississippi out of poverty is to tax the Terps.

Now, I’m sure that once the Terp Tax is enacted those Marylanders will work a lot harder knowing that the money they no longer keep for themselves will go to someone who needs it, don’t you? And Mississippians will work harder too, just to show their appreciation to those Terps who leveled their playing field, don’t you think?

Not to mention that famous 1.6 Keynesian multiplier that kicks in anytime you take money away from one person and give it to someone else. No, no – it really works. I took a dollar from my wife’s purse and told the guy at the Kwik Trip it was worth a buck sixty. The only thing was, I couldn’t prove it was her dollar, so next time I have to get it notarized by a mental health professional, he said. That’s cool; I didn’t know I had to do that.

Yes, taxing the Terps would solve everything. You don’t suppose anyone would move out of Maryland once the Terp Tax kicks in, do you? If we equilibrate all the states, then the Terp gets to write a check for $18,991 while his cousin right across the border in West Virginia deposits a $12,786 transfer payment. Can’t imagine that would cause any family stress, would it?

Well, you see where this all is going. If you think taking the wealth of one state to give to another by force is a dumb idea, you are right. It does not get any smarter if it is county to county, city to city, or house to house. Taxing the rich, whoever that even means nowadays, will not make the poor richer. It will only incent the rich to avoid, evade, move, or to simply quit producing.

And subsidizing the poor does not change the factors that caused their poverty – it would be nice if it were that simple. The people of Mississippi are not poor because the people of Maryland are rich.

The only people who prosper when forced wealth transfers occur are the people doing the transferring. It is no accident that the top two ranks in median income are now locked down by the company town of Washington, D.C. and its suburb-state, Maryland. The redistribution industry – the U.S. Government – is thriving.

Karl Marx described the essence of his socialist philosophy, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Can you think of a more concise description of our nation’s tax and welfare framework?   Can you find justification for either progressive taxation or entitlement transfer payments in our Constitution?

In the months to come, Republicans and Democrats will once again posture and preen over tax policy, and journalists will read partisan sound bites with no earthly clue what they mean and call it news. Pick your victim and villain – billionaires and paupers will work fine in either role – and you will have no problem finding “proof” on the internet that some other guy is not pulling his weight. About all you will really prove is that data is not information.

Over the past decade, our government has nearly doubled while our median income has remained flat. The former explains the latter; in fact, there is not a lot more we need to know to judge the wisdom of the Keynesian prescriptions that President Obama and Chairman Bernanke continue to promise will restore our prosperity. They haven’t and they won’t because they are wrong.

Our prosperity will only be restored when we produce more. Our median income will rise when our work adds more value. We earn more when we are worth more, not the other way around. You will make more if you can weld a pressure vessel than if you can weld a bike frame; more still if you can weld a leaking gas pipeline; even more if you can weld it underwater.

And taking more money from the folks who own the underwater welding firm will not increase their welders’ incomes. Giving it to Pakistan will not trigger some fictitious magic multiplier effect here in this country. Printing fiat money at the Fed that is given to Goldman Sachs to lend to the U.S. Treasury who bails out Citibank so they can pay billionaires’ bonuses that are taxed to fund government is not the way to fund government, even if Krugman says so.

Our real billionaires – Buffet, Gates, Zuckerman, Whitman, Jobs, Turner – did not start out that way; and Government did not select them. We bought their products; they are rich because we decided to make them so. I gave Steve Jobs a few hundred dollars for an iPad; if I wanted that money to go to ACORN, I would have given it to them myself. I don’t need President Obama to do it for me; more importantly I don’t want President Obama to do it for me.

Why not take the billionaires money? For the same reason we should not take it from all the Terps of Maryland - because it is their money. There is a commandment against such things. We should not kill them, either, or commit adultery with them, or covet their house, or covet their things, or bear false witness against them, or worship them.

We should buy their stuff, or not, as we see fit. Billionaires, like Terps, are our fellow Americans, not some cows to be milked.

“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.

Incontrovertible

2011-09-22T16:12:00.001-05:00

Another Nobel-winning scientist has come out publicly against the claim of climate alarmists that the science of global warming is “incontrovertible”.

Norway’s Dr. Ivar Giaever has joined over 1,000 other notable scientists now on record as skeptical of the theory that human activity endangers life by raising global temperatures. I’m not one of the 1,000 but only because I am not notable...or a scientist.

Politicians and eco-priests firmly wedded to their belief in environmental apocalypse have perverted the meaning of two terms – consensus and skeptic – in their zeal to control other humans under the guise of saving the planet.

Science is skepticism. It is the testing of theories, the search for alternative hypotheses, the corroboration and refuting of the existing literature. Expanding our understanding only occurs when we are skeptical. Blind acceptance rots the mind.

And consensus is a universal agreement to adopt a course of action; it is not universal belief. I’ve served on many boards; we first debate alternate courses of action and ultimately arrive at a consensus for single course to be followed. It doesn’t mean that single mind has been changed or opinion reversed; it simply means that we all agree to move in one direction.

There is no consensus on the theory of man-made global warming, let alone the course of action to be taken in response. Americans are perhaps more divided now than we were ten years ago. Even world leaders sympathetic to the cause have been unable to agree on any particular course of action; not even the wording of meaningless proclamations from their last two international conferences.

To use the term “climate skeptic” as a pejorative, as do the climate change zealots, is to applaud ignorance. To simply declare “consensus” on global warming in order to avoid debate is to engage in intellectual tyranny.

Most people still do not understand that the vaunted “science” of global warming is only computer modeling of the effects that increased carbon emissions might have on the earth’s temperature in the future. It is your weatherman giving you his 5-day forecast day after day, and never telling you the temperature.

These models were developed over 20 years ago; they assumed carbon emissions growing at roughly half the rate that which has actually happened, and they forecasted a temperature rise more than six times that which has actually occurred. In other words, they whiffed it by a factor of 12. I hope that is not what passes for incontrovertible across the board in the sciences these days.

When I first read about global warming, advocates warned that if global greenhouse gas emissions were not rapidly cut in half from then-current levels (this was 1990), the polar ice caps would be melted in 20 years, Manhattan would be under water from the ocean rise, and U.S. agricultural output would be halved. Who would not have been concerned?

But those 20 years have now passed; carbon emissions have gone up, not down, while the poles remain ice covered, Manhattan is dry, and agricultural output has increased dramatically. Temperatures have not risen at all for the past decade, even though Chinese and Indian industrialization has increased carbon emissions enough it should have caused our hair to spontaneously combust.

The real inconvenient truth is that the models of the global warming theorists were wrong; that is what the science tells us today.

In recent months, we have discovered the earth’s ability to both absorb heat in the oceans and throw off heat from the atmosphere is vastly more robust than the climate modelers – those incontrovertible guys – knew. Recent research strongly suggests that solar flares – not SUV’s – most likely cause temperature variations on earth.

If anything, these recent discoveries of the earth’s adaptability support the theory of intelligent design, an idea mocked by elitists as ignorant religious superstition. I would suggest that ignorant religious superstition is clinging to 20 year MS-DOS floppy disks whose temperature predictions have been proven false by actual temperature readings.

Dr. Giaever called the earth’s temperature “amazingly stable’ in his resignation letter from the politicized American Physical Society. He cited the society’s own published data that concluded the earth’s temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 Kelvin during the past 150 years of global industrialization.

Less than 3/10 of one percent - that’s what this has all been about.

We have wasted two decades, trillions of dollars, billions of man-hours, and a generation of research combating the stuff we exhale. Those resources could have been put towards reducing real pollution, a far more serious threat to our environment, property, health, and safety.

Misappropriation of resources on such a grand scale is inevitable when government controls choice; science and research are not immune from the corrupting ineptitude of State control. Government has shielded corporations (and itself) from liability for pollution of the commons, sacrificed our industrial base to appease advocates of a theory (global warming) now largely discredited, subsidized colossal failures of favored firms, and distorted the operation of markets in order to advance an unsustainable “green” agenda.

Every thoughtful person supports conservation, environmental protection, and responsible resource development. The libertarian reverence for property rights and individual liberty demands strict accountability for damage done to the persons and property of others. Private ownership improves the environmental quality - no one dumps toxins in their own garden.

The lesson to be learned from the global warming episode is that when it comes to environmental stewardship, the only thing more dangerous than government is world government. Collective ownership and collective response produces collective failure.

“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.

Libertarian Haiku

2011-09-21T17:23:00.000-05:00

It is my money

You go piss up a rope

Shame on you, wood tick

Do not take my gun

You will find it is unloaded

My other is not

Leave me alone

Hey! I said leave me alone

Leave me alone, asshole

Do as you wish to

You are none of my business

Quit making it so

Live out your conscience

Celebrate all your choices

Don’t send me the bill

I hear your crying

Your pain is felt by the sun

I will call the government for you

Because I care

Drum, balloon, pink slip

What could be more urgent?

Badgers at 4-0

Could you be my mom?

I see you are not my mom;

Quit telling me what to do

Where were you hiding

From me when I earned it?

Jerk

Who owns you, I ask?

Again, I ask – who owns you?

You don’t even know

My life is not yours

How brief is our encounter

Thank God it’s over

Have you fixed the bridge?

Leave my money, guns, and stash

Go lay by your dish

Can't take a joke? then

Pull the stick out from its dark

Resting place

Hookers and Heroin

2011-09-20T17:52:00.000-05:00

These GOP Presidential debates on television do very little to educate the public on the principles, positions, and policies of the various candidates.   A 30 second response to a “gotcha” question allows 10 seconds to throw off a sound bite, 10 seconds to mischaracterize an opponents’ position, and then 10 seconds to change the subject.

So-called moderators seem to be especially bent on hanging Ron Paul with ridiculous questions intended to belittle principled libertarian positions on matters of individual rights or personal responsibility.   No one remembers his answers; the indictment is made with the questions.

Breathe easy, America. Libertarians would not require all Americans to relinquish their health insurance, then go into a coma and die. Nor would we take all the money from Social Security and give it to Iran to build more nuclear bombs. And we would not force you to use hookers and heroin.

A younger Congressman Paul would have handed Chris Wallace his lunch when asked that vapid hookers-and-heroin question in the first GOP candidate’s debate. If I may be so bold as to suggest an answer that would have still left 10 seconds to change the subject:

“Yes, adults should be free to choose their own intoxicants and personal services. No, the government should not regulate either of them. Yes, that means you should make the choice of things like hookers and heroin for yourself, Mr. Wallace. And no, you should not expect the rest of us to keep you from making bad choices; you have a mom and a wife for that.”

As a practical matter, we are going to have to tolerate hookers and heroin whether we like it or not; no civilization has yet succeeded in exterminating either one. The only question is whether or not we are willing to pay a great deal of money for ineffective random and arbitrary prosecution of a tiny fraction of those who break laws prohibiting both.

The libertarian response to unwanted hookers and heroin at your doorstep is the same as the libertarian response to unwanted Girl Scouts and Girl Scout cookies: “no thank you, sweetie.” Do Americans lack even that much spine now?   That seems to be an incredibly dismal view of the character of our friends and neighbors. And the question itself trivializes the principle of liberty. Why hookers and heroin?

Why not ask us who should choose our schools, charities, means of self-defense, medical care, food, travel destination, occupation, guitars, energy source, transportation, investments, currency, curricula, worship locations, insurance coverage, student loan source, pension option, taxation rate, public debt obligation, property use?

Libertarians do not advocate immorality; we argue that the cost of government regulation of morality – our loss of all those other liberties – is too high.

And who is it that encourages dangerous behavior – the libertarian who declines to imprison you for it, or the Statist who relieves you of responsibility for its consequence? And who prescribes the more effective deterrent - Republicans who would put you in jail at taxpayer expense, Democrats who would put you in treatment at taxpayer expense, or Libertarians who would leave it to your spouse to extract retribution at your own expense? I know which I fear most.

Personal morality is not a suitable subject for legislation, and government is a poor substitute for family, church, and community in regulating personal morality. If all vice laws were struck down tomorrow, the authority of the wife, husband, mother, father, child, sibling, pastor, friend, in-law, and neighbor would not diminish one whit.

The hookers-and-heroin question is only intended to divide libertarians and conservatives. It defends the progressives’ stake in state-regulated choice by reducing self-ownership from a noble ideal to a coarse pursuit. It presumes that freedom will bring out the worst in us, rather than our best. It assumes that only persons employed by the State are capable of making correct moral choices.

That notion of morally superior government would require that only morally superior people are selected for government service, or that somehow government service induces moral superiority in those selected. Not a day goes by that belief in such nonsense is shattered by a news story of corruption, abuse of authority, personal debauchery, criminal activity, or betrayal of public trust committed by those whom the statists insist must regulate choice for the rest of us.

Sin is a bi-partisan activity practiced in Washington, D.C. and in statehouses, county seats, and city halls across the country. Although an argument could be made that their experience and expertise qualifies them to regulate immoral behavior, they should concentrate on defending our rights and upholding the Constitution instead.

“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.

Bunnies And Small Children

2011-09-16T17:29:00.001-05:00

The math is deceptively simple: minus one plus one equals zero. Government cannot add a single dollar to the economy that it has not first taken out of it.

The economics are even simpler: people spend their own money more carefully than they spend other people's money.

The spectacular failure of "Green Economy" poster kid Solyndra will cost the taxpayers over $500 million. More important than why we gave them those loan guarantees is why they were needed in the first place. They were only necessary because no one would use their own money to back the venture.

States and local governments do it too. In Wisconsin, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on incentives to lure Talgo, a Spanish train car company, to locate a factory here that never built a train. In the city of Oconomowoc, the government is planning to spend $10 million, roughly its annual budget, to build a community center that will offer wedding receptions in competition with private firms.

Now, if there was a critical shortage of reception venues in Oconomowoc, don't you think entrepreneurs like Rick and Rudy Eckert at Olympia Resort would expand their space to meet the demand? By the way, if you do not know of the Eckerts, you should; liberty has no greater friends in the Badger state. And if you live in Oconomowoc, you should find out what on earth is going downtown and what it will do to your property taxes.

Or if it made economic sense to build railcars in Wisconsin, don't you think someone a little closer than Spain would have done so with their own money? Should I name them, our industrial entrepreneurs who put their family names on the line? Do you think they have lost the instincts that made them wealthy beyond even their own imaginations? No, it was those experienced instincts that told them not to put their own money - real money- into any of these losing propositions.

And I would be curious to know just how much Al Gore lost when Solyndra went bankrupt - I would bet he didn't put single penny of his own money where that big mouth demands the government puts ours.

"But we need the jobs", the public works lobby will plead. Indeed we do need jobs; precisely why government needs to get out of the way of those who create real ones.

The statists' promise of jobs created by emptying public coffers on this or that high-minded project ignores the far greater numbers of jobs that were killed by filling up those coffers in the first place. That $500 million that the government tossed down the Solyndra rat hole took more like $600 million out of the economy (it takes a lot of overhead to piss away someone else's money).

What would taxpayers have done for themselves with that $600 million? Add a deck on the house, buy a car, invest in a business, take a vacation, buy a Gibson guitar, perhaps? I did, just to say screw you to our President and all the union job-killers who have thrown in with him. Are going to come and take my rosewood fretboards, too, boys? Bring your lunch.

Taxpayers would have spent or saved their own money on something more economically viable than Solyndra. More jobs are created, more businesses prosper, and more incomes rise when economic exchanges are voluntary and people who earned the money decide what to do with it.

Voluntary exchange only occurs when both parties gain more than they trade away. No one needs an extra incentive to make a smart deal; it's only the stupid ones that need a government subsidy.

The amount of capital is finite, even if the amount of government currency used to measure it is not. Government does not create capital; it only diverts it to purposes other than which its rightful owners would have put it. The rich did not get that way by making bad financial decisions, and government did not go broke by making good ones.

The crowd squeals with delight when the magician pulls a rabbit out the hat; we forget that behind the curtain some child is crying her eyes out wondering where her little cuddly bunny went.

Clearly, President Obama hates bunnies and small children; he wants to take away $470 billion of their parents' money to fund more stupid politician tricks like Solyndra, Talgo, and the Oconomowoc public wedding chapel. If we love him, he tells us, we should pass his bill.

I never thought about it before he brought it up, but I guess I love bunnies and small children more than I love some slick magician from Illinois. The only trick that worked so far for the Great O is the one where he talks into a teleprompter and makes the jobs disappear.

So here's a better idea: let's love ourselves and our neighbors and not pass the bill. The President will be fine in the love department; he has a wife and two daughters and the whole crew over at MSNBC to rub his feet.

The government can not pull rabbits from hats and it cannot create jobs; it can only create an environment in which job-creators flourish, or convince them to invest elsewhere. If the President would quit unwisely picking the latter, he would not need to beg us to love him.

“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.

Friend or Foe

2011-09-12T17:39:00.000-05:00

A single day does not pass that I do not receive many e-mails telling me that one or the other of the Republican candidates for President is an imposter to his/her cause - not really a conservative or not really a libertarian, as the case may be. It is frankly very annoying.

The tactic is ineffective, and the underlying premise – that political piety exists – is deeply flawed. Political orientation is not digital - 1 or 0, left or right, approve or disapprove. Think of it as a continuum with utopian socialism anchoring one end and utopian libertarianism at the other.

Each of us first chooses one of those directions - State or Self – and then discovers a comfortable destination along the route we travel in search of our core beliefs. Our resting places have names - progressive, liberal, moderate, blue-dog, centrist, neo-con, conservative, paleo. Those fixated on labels will drill even deeper, pursuing their happiness by defining sub-categories of sub-categories of sub-categories.

Too many of us judge each others’ politics by the absolute distance between our places on the spectrum. This seems unnecessarily divisive and is mostly counterproductive. Some hairs are too fine to split, and purity exists only in the mind of the purist. No two people will agree on every single issue unless both have surrendered their brains to an ideology they have memorized.

Years of living over here on the libertarian lunatic fringe have taught me to define others by the direction of their steps, not by the number it would still take for them to reach me. If I can see your face as you travel, you are my friend; if you have turned your back on me we will be adversaries. These days, when each election is a virtual referendum on the Constitution, it does not have to be much more complicated than that. It’s ok for conservatives and libertarians to be good neighbors; we don’t have to be family.

Free trade, limited government, individual liberty, private property - is there any conservative or any libertarian who does not embrace these four principles? More importantly, is there a single liberal, progressive, or socialist who does not oppose them all?   The choice of trajectories is so starkly opposite that such surgical sub-species labeling as “neo-progressive post-libertarian anarchist” serves no practical purpose. But if you are one of these, I hope it makes you happy.

We already know there will be a Democrat incumbent President running for re-election in 2012 who hails from the left-most nether regions of the spectrum. We know he is an anti-capitalist, a serial statist, an internationalist, an anti-constitutionalist and an interventionist. We know that we will never see his face from where we stand; he will never travel in this direction. Not ever.

We know that he fears liberty enough to extinguish it; what we don't know yet is who liberty will choose to defeat him.

While we each may have a preferred candidate among this year’s lineup of challengers for the Presidency, it is foolish to think our favorite can win our country back by tearing down the others. To imagine our guy or gal is the only one who can lead a nation of self-sovereigns is to deny self-sovereignty at its essence. We are not electing a savior; that position has been filled for all eternity.

The first primary is still months away. The process of nomination is long and arduous for a reason; it will show us what we don't know now about each of those who seek the office. It is a contest that must be played out, not a coronation ritual staged for TV ratings months before the first vote is cast.

We will discover the true character of the candidates. We will observe their leadership style in the management of their campaigns. We will judge their stamina, consistency, and temperament. We will see how they handle disappointment, victory, deception, unfairness, adulation, and defection. We will watch to see if their positions can mature without abandonment of principle. We will study their gaffes, their recoveries, their missteps, and their strategic prowess. We will see them get angry, and judge them by what they get angry about. We will watch them gloat and judge them by what they gloat over.

Those of us who have left the Republican Party should not tell it how to pick its standard bearers. But we should remind our GOP friends that they cannot win elections on their own. They will need all of us tea partiers, independents, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, patriots, and disaffected Democrats to secure their victories.

And we will not blindly support whoever they select; fitness for office is more than simply being the least unfit in the herd. If a third-party candidate draws large numbers of votes in 2012, it will be the fault of the GOP fielding a bad ticket that could not win us over.

Republican activists working on campaigns are not making that job easier on themselves by sending out daily emails telling us what a lying, corrupt, unprincipled poser this or that one of their rivals is. At this point, any one of them could find themselves at the top of that ticket, and words are not so easily eaten in the internet age.

President Obama has proven that you cannot lead this nation on a last-guy-bad platform. All of the GOP challengers have said they would repeal Obamacare on their first day in office – we get that. If they want to move up in the polls, they should start talking about day two.

“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.

Jobzilla

2011-09-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

Let’s play “Who wants to be a CEO?” Ok, you are about to create or save a $50,000 job just to claim that new $780 one-time payroll tax credit when the Department of Justice comes blasting into your office with guns drawn and confiscates all your raw materials.

Do you a) thank the President for his bold leadership in job creation, b) blame the Tea Party for foiling his perfect and most wonderful vision of our nation, or c) move your plant to another country where they need warrants to seize your property. Ding ding ding ding ding ding!

Let’s stay with No-Brainers for $400, Alex. Ok, you are about ready to place orders for a few million dollars of new capital equipment that you don’t even need just to take advantage of the President’s one-time accelerated depreciation rule when the NLRB forces you to abandon the billion-dollar plant you just built in South Carolina and move the work to Washington state and overpay union guys who go on strike a lot.

Do you a) praise Mr. Obama for tinkering with an obscure accounting rule in order to benefit Wall Street banks, b) blame the Republicans for not doing it first, or c) build your next plant in a country where mobbed-up union bosses don’t threaten to “take you out” when they welcome the President to their stage. Ding ding ding ding ding ding!

Bonus Round: You are trying to decide where to site a new industrial facility that will employ thousands when you learn that EPA has passed arbitrary rules that will shut down over 20 power plants, double your energy costs, and cause rationing of electricity. Do you, a) salute the President for his commitment to his donors’ green job subsidies, b) blame George W. Bush for global warming, or c) build your plant in Brazil where they will sell you all the energy you need at low costs. Congratulations – you just won an all-expense-paid trip to Sao Paulo!

I must confess I did not watch the President’s speech last night, I just read a transcript this morning. While he was putting lipstick on his recycled 2009 stimulus pig, I was driving home from a meeting with Wisconsin Governor Walker at one of our plants up north. What a contrast.

President Obama told us (again) what Congress needed to do to create jobs, as if they could; Governor Walker asked us how we create jobs in our company. The President dictated incentives and demanded we hire more workers; the Governor asked us what government could do that might matter to us.

President Obama encouraged everyone (again) to go to college. We talked with Governor Walker about the shortage of skilled trades and technicians and the high-paying jobs that we can’t fill for lack of qualified candidates. I learned that most students at Wisconsin’s two-year technical colleges have four-year degrees (and a mountain of student loan debt) in fields where there is no demand.

President Obama promised to plug school budgets and increase teacher pay for a year (again); Governor Walker asked us what Wisconsin students need to learn in school to be employable. The President lectured a room full of professional politicians; the Governor took questions from our plant employees – and he answered them.

Our Governor came to learn; our President hasn’t learned a thing.

The President’s words don’t really matter anymore, because his actions are pure Jobzilla. Stomp – Obamacare. Stomp - repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Stomp – union card check by executive order. Stomp – drilling ban. Stomp – EPA edicts. Stomp – $1.4 trillion deficit.

But here he goes again with the roads, bridges, and schools shtick - $150 billion to rebuild our infrastructure after he just threw $800 billion down that rat hole with nary a single new road, bridge, or school to show for it. Here’s a clue: 15 million unemployed Americans aren’t going back to work on roads unless President Jobzilla has 15 million surplus CAT D7 bulldozers stored with the cheese in those government warehouses of his.

And am I the only one that sees pure hypocrisy in the President’s “payroll tax holiday”? You realize, I hope, that the payroll tax he is talking about is your Social Security withholding. So not only are you contributing less, which might reduce the amount of benefit you will receive when you retire, but your “holiday” will be taxed at ordinary income rates come the end of the year.

Not to mention that those payroll taxes are what funds Social Security, an already broken system that Republican Rick Perry correctly called a “Ponzi scheme” in Wednesday’s debate. That “tax holiday” money was supposed to go into the Social Security Trust Fund, the pot of money they keep saying is really there for you even though they spent it all on other stuff like teleprompters and tour busses from Canada.

The President just proposed to defund Social Security by 50% and not one liberal went hysterical on him. Not one drum, not one “war on the middle class”, and nothing but gurgling coos from the infants at MSNBC. If a libertarian did that (or Paul Ryan) all hell would break loose. And how did Social Security get so flush with cash all of a sudden that President Obama can afford to defund it for a whole year? A month ago, we didn’t even have enough money to cut checks to recipients without raising the debt ceiling and borrowing more money – remember all the wheelchairs going over the cliff on August 3?

I’m not sure if our Jobzilla President even knows how any of this stuff actually works. The advance hype for his big speech said Mr. Obama would solve our jobs problem with over $400 billion of “tax cuts and spending increases that would be paid for by deficit reduction.” Three letters: W, T, and you-pick-em. That statement would need a lot of editing just to be upgraded to stupid.

Here is what is so sad: someone with a college degree wrote that talking point, dozens of people with college degrees approved it, and hundreds of journalists and editors with college degrees printed it. And our President thinks even more people should go to college.

I think less people should go to college and more people should learn to drive bulldozers. And build them and design them and service them and make parts for them, and mine the iron and make the steel and drive the trucks and drill the oil wells and refine the diesel fuel and build ships and nuclear power plants and windmills and appliances and foundries and factories and all the cranes and machine tools to fill them up.

The only jobs plan we need is to get the government off our back so we can do all those things here again. That will put 15 million Americans back to work - for real.

“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.

Jack and Jill

2011-09-06T16:14:00.000-05:00

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill became a libertarian. What the…?

Here’s how it happened. First, the IRS took half her water in taxes. Then the Department of Justice took her bucket because it might be made out of illegal wood from India. Then the DNR fined Jill for disrupting the habitat of some creek guppy no one ever heard of.

The NLRB ruled Jill could only fetch water in Washington State and had to pay union guys to do it. TSA did a full cavity search and a double pat down of her mommy parts; that had nothing to do with the bucket of water, they just get off on that stuff. When she gasped, the EPA fined her for an excessive carbon dioxide emission.

Then Bruce and Lance named Jill in a class-action lawsuit because she got to inherit her husband’s bucket of water while they couldn’t even get married. She was banned from the Labor Day parade in Wausau because Jack never joined the water-fetchers union and voted Republican once. The USDA had her detained when a tip came in that she might have raw milk in that bucket.

President Obama decided Jill had more water than she needed, and said we would all be better off with him “spreadin’ the wet around”.   Joe Biden later claimed he hydrated or moistened over 2 million Americans. One solar panel company took 365 million gallons of government stimulus water and then moved to China. Al Gore made a Power Point movie that showed Jill boiling polar bears in her bucket on coal-fired stove. He made billions off the fakery.

An angry mob stalked Jill wherever she went because she wouldn’t buy their water, shouting “shame, shame, shame” and drumming for months. When she suggested they could just Segway up the hill and fetch a pail for themselves like she did, the Congressional Black Caucus called her a racist and Maxine Waters told her to go to hell. Jimmy Hoffa said he would take sons of bitches like her out; she was pretty sure he didn’t mean on a date.

Afraid for her life, Jill went to buy a handgun but had to wait five days. Then she found out she could not carry it in her purse in Wisconsin until November anyway. While she counted the days down, a teen flashmob beat and then pistol-whipped her after the state fair. “Wow – how’d you guys get your training and permits already?” she marveled, spitting teeth. Jill was a little naïve about criminals and guns.

Meanwhile Ben Bernanke started printing trillions of new bucket-o-water redemption certificates, and Jill’s bucket of real water shot up in price from 300 certificates per fluid ounce to over 1,900 of the bogus Fed water-coupons. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff said “toldya” while Michael Moore made a movie about Jill’s obscene water-wealth entitled “Koch Whore.” When Jack Jr. got suspended from school for calling some gay kid a “teabagger”, Jill wondered why all those liberal commentators on TV still had jobs.

And then Jill started to notice that fewer and fewer people were hiking up the hill to fetch their own heavy pails of water, while more and more people sat at the bottom of the hill, demanding government quench their thirst. After a time, they did not even know where the water came from; and they did not care. They just wanted more; they said they were entitled to it.

They elected politicians who promised them free water. Her government blamed the rich water-fetchers like Jill for the thirst of those who sat at the bottom of the hill in poverty. That same government took and more of Jill’s water away from her in taxes; they forced her to pay fetching permits; they regulated her route; they mandated airbags for her buckets; they forced her to buy insurance she did not want; they invaded other countries and sent her the bill.

And they did not stop at taking her property. They told her where she could send her kids to school and what they must be taught. They made her pay a union in order to fetch buckets of water for herself. They told her what she could eat, drive, smoke, own, sell, buy, wear, drink, study, build, party with, heat with, light with, listen to, watch, flush, shoot, visit, record, say, write, and marry.

They told her she could not be trusted to make those decisions for herself; and they built new prisons to hold her if she made choices they did not like. One Party told her this is what democracy looks like; the other Party couldn’t even come up with a catchy slogan for it.

Both Parties buried the nation in debt so deep that neither Jack Jr. nor Jack III would ever see it paid back.   They spent Jill’s money on themselves and their friends; then they had the nerve to call her greedy and heartless for wanting to keep what she earned for herself and her children.

And then one day, Jill had a moment of clarity. She read somewhere that liberty is the absence of government in choice; that government is the absence of liberty in choice; that tyranny is the absence of choice in government. The dairy-queen light bulb finally went off for Jill.

She saw tyranny for the first time in the good intentions of those who would take her liberty for her own good. She never asked them to save her, and they never asked if they could. Jill discovered they did not care about her. She remembered that her rights were endowed to her by her Creator, not created by any legislature. She realized that they only took as much liberty from her as she gave away.

Jill reclaimed her liberty. She made liberty her first principle - that is what it means to be a libertarian. Did she live happily ever after? No, that only happens in fairy tales and in the imaginations of empty heads who believe the lies of politicians who promise happiness they cannot deliver.

But she did live free ever after; she owned herself. And so should you.

“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.

Labor Day

2011-09-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

It is unfortunate, yet oddly fitting, that the abysmal August job numbers came out right before the Labor Day holiday. The least-working President in American history had to endure yet another economic wedgie to add to his unprecedented string of epic fails.

Or maybe it is a grand design. Liberals have been working for years to take Christ out of Christmas, Thanks out of Thanksgiving, Independence out of Independence Day, Memorials out of Memorial Day, so maybe it is just a reflex action for them to take American Labor out of Labor Day.

Labor Day parade organizers in Wausau, Wisconsin banned Republicans from the holiday parade this year because the GOP stood up to public sector unions – the principle of the thing, don’t you know. In an instant after the city informed them they would have to pay for the parade themselves if they made it a partisan event, they relented. Principle just ain’t what it used to be.

But at least we now know for certain what that first principle of liberalism is: I am entitled to celebrate my own bad self at your expense. That pretty much sums up what they do every day of the year in cubicles and conference centers and vans with red plates; they call that daily celebration of their own bad selves at our expense “government”.

Funny they should claim Labor Day for their own; it should be about doing work, not avoiding it. Last week, the govbots got on their horse in one Wisconsin school district to defend the “right” of teachers to take 20 sick days off during a school year already punctuated with union holidays, winter and spring breaks, summers off, and conferences galore. In another district, anger boiled over at the suggestion they up their work day by 30 minutes and put in a (gasp) full eight hard. No, really – and for as many as five straight days in a row. I know, I know.

In yet another pre-Labor Day noogie from our vacationer-in-chief, Mr. Obama’s EPA issued a slew of regulatory pronouncements designed to choke the life right out of the American industrial and energy sectors last week. The President had to quickly back off and rescind his own edicts, deciding we really can’t afford to enact job killing regulations right now.

Which begs the obvious question: when could we ever afford to enact job killing regulations? A month ago, when the President gave his EPA the go-ahead to unleash their regulatory kick in the nuts? Did he think that was a good time to enact job killing regulations? Please don’t tell us that Mr. Obama just figured out this week that we need jobs. Although that would explain a lot.

I read that some Congresswoman from California took the opportunity of the upcoming holiday to blame the high rate of black unemployment (16%) on racism. Three words: crock.

I forget - was it the KKK or the skinheads who drove vocational educational programs out of public schools?   And whose idea was it to pass kids that can’t read to the next grade so we don’t hurt their self-esteem? Who was it that replaced basic skills with a curriculum full of politically-correct pabulum? Who was it that insisted on bi-lingual education and tried to get Ebonics recognized as a language? Who sued and sued and sued until all moral instruction and teaching of traditional values were driven out of the school systems?   Who taught situational ethics and cultural equivalence?

Who blocks school choice and prevents inner city kids from having a fighting chance to be educated and employable? Who was it that tried to replace grades and awards with stickers and hugs for everyone? Who was it that insisted that unions run the schools? Who was it that packed school boards in order to negotiate work rules with themselves?

Liberals, that’s who. A half-century of unionized government monopoly schools has produced an unemployable underclass who can’t read or cipher and lacks the basic social skills to win and hold a job. You guys expect us to throw you a parade for that?

And who was it that taxed employers out of the cities? Who didn’t want those icky, icky factories in their gentrified Chardonnay neighborhoods? Who shut down the offshore oil industry? Who cut off the water to California’s agriculture industry? Who was it that increased the minimum wage and drove black teenage unemployment to over 50%? Who was it that forced banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them and now can’t move to where the jobs are because they are handcuffed to upside down mortgages?

Liberals, that’s who. They have ruined public education; they have ruined the economy; they have sacrificed our jobs on their altar of environmental guilt fantasy; they have chased producers overseas; they have unionized the public sector and increased both its bloat and its sloth. You guys expect us to throw you a parade for that?

I don’t know why you think this is your day. You are the enemies of work; the job killers. They should throw you a parade in China; you have delivered world industrial leadership to them by driving it out of America. Enjoy your bratwurst.

Those of us who work rings around you are not ceding Labor Day to you just because you have the arrogance to claim it for yourselves. 93% of private sector workers choose to work free of union interference. Labor Day is our holiday, too. More of us are left-handed than belong to your unions. You are not even the most popular lefties in the workforce anymore.

Work is freedom of association put to the purpose of mutual prosperity. The exchange of one’s labor for capital is the most basic of capitalist transactions; it is the daily proof that we still own ourselves. That is indeed something to celebrate.

Celebrate workplace liberty this Labor Day. Enjoy yourselves.

“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.

Heartless

2011-09-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

A reader called me “heartless” recently for my libertarian view that three sacred-cow entitlement programs – social security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation - should be abolished as we return to Constitutionally-limited government.

I didn’t take personal offense; the bar has been set pretty high for fighting-words by liberal elected officials who have recently called me a terrorist, declared war on me, called me a lyncher, and told me to go to hell. “Heartless” has been downgraded from its previous AAA rating.

As difficult as it might be for the unquestioning govbot to imagine, life without these safety-net programs would not simply be possible, it would be better – much better. The market mechanism for insuring against calamity is called, conveniently, insurance.

In a 1995 study, Cato Institute concluded that if a worker born in 1970 would purchase private insurance with the money paid into social security taxes each month over a working lifetime, the annuity benefit paid at retirement would be six times higher than the benefit he will receive from social security. Six times higher.

Tell me, govbots, how is increasing the retirement benefit six-fold heartless?

Let’s try Medicare. Most of us are covered by employer-provided insurance, or were until President Obama decided to screw that up. If the Medicare taxes we paid over our working lifetimes would have been invested into private accounts, the annuity stream at retirement would purchase health insurance far superior to the Medicare benefit we will receive from the current government program.

Tell me, govbots, why is better health insurance for seniors heartless?

Unemployment compensation already is insurance; employers pay your premium into a state-run insurance fund. We are just starting to get socked with premium increases in response to the high numbers of unemployed and the extended periods of benefits doled out by the government. Don’t kid yourself that you are not paying; those increased premium costs reduce the money available for wage increases or in extreme cases force layoffs.

How much better for each of us to purchase his/her own unemployment insurance suitable for our circumstances and desires; think AFLAC without having to injure yourself. It would be risk-weighted, just like car insurance or property insurance; people with stable work histories would pay far less, while people who have trouble holding jobs would pay far more. Employers with lousy layoff history would have to pay higher wages to attract workers. You – not the State – would decide the amount and duration of benefits you would receive and you could insure your full salary if you choose to. I would.

Tell me, govbots, what is heartless about giving workers control over their own income continuation plans?

I’ll tell you what is heartless: forcing people into a crappy government pension program that pays one sixth the annuity of private plans is heartless. Forcing people into a crappy government medical insurance program that costs more, delivers less, and drives the best doctors out is heartless. Forcing hardworking people to subsidize chronic job-droppers in a crappy government salary insurance plan is heartless.

What is cruelly heartless is that our government officials knew these entitlement programs were unsustainable 15, 20, even 40 years ago and decided to ride them to perpetual re-election anyway - all the way into bankruptcy. Lying to young people about the certainly of their benefit, lying to old people about the security of their next check, lying to the nation about a trust fund that was raided years ago – now that’s heartless.

Government is heartless, not me. I’m a hunka-hunka burnin’ love compared to the Republocrats who continue to promise benefits that can only be paid if Ben Bernanke succeeds in turning dollars to nickels over there at the Fed’s printing presses. Speaking of things that we would be better off by abolishing…

Liberty is compassionate, and don’t let any overeducated simpleton repeating 1930’s talking points tell you different. If social security were abolished, you could receive six times the retirement benefit. If Medicare were abolished, you could have more money to spend on health care. If unemployment insurance were individualized, you could continue your weekly pay while you looked for a new job. And if the Fed were abolished, you would receive those benefits in real dollars. What sucks about that?

But you can’t, because the government won’t let you. They don’t need a reason.

Chile privatized their public pension program years ago. Even those who transitioned in mid-career received double the benefit in retirement than what would have been paid under the old government social security system. Doubled it - top that, Congressman Ryan. Why are we trying to save ours?

Are the Chileans inherently smarter and more responsible than Americans? I’ve been there; they seemed pretty ordinary to me. If Americans really are too stupid to fend for ourselves, then for Heaven’s sake let’s quit hiring us for government jobs where we will have to take care of some other human being, too. Let’s just hire nothing but Chileans from now on. Maybe that’s the President’s next jobs plan.

The choice is not liberty or compassion; it is liberty or government. You must decide whether you wish to govern yourself or be governed by someone else.

In Wisconsin we get an up close and personal view of just who that someone else is nearly every week, as they disrupt Special Olympics, vandalize elementary schools, harass food pantries and sheltered workshops, threaten school boards, occupy public buildings, hound the children of elected officials, slander judges, target businesses, abuse the court system, stalk elected officials, and discriminate at parades they insist be given in their honor.

Even if that guy was right about me, heartless still beats mindless any day. I choose liberty.

“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.

Wood Tick Nation

2011-08-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, a liberal columnist dismissed the libertarian philosophy as “survival of the fittest”. No dear, our philosophy is simply survival. The social welfare state that the progressives have constructed is a suicide pact between the parasite and the host, and the pace of our self-destruction is accelerating now that we have the Jack Kevorkian of Presidents assisting us.

There is nothing compassionate or caring about destroying the greatest nation in the history of the world. Survival is a good thing when freedom is on the line. And fitness is a good thing, especially the fitness of a people to self-govern.

My use of the term “parasite” will no doubt cause welfare state apologists to vibrate in place, but it is kinder than the alternatives returned by the Thesaurus – slacker, scrounger, sponge, moocher. The American Heritage Dictionary defines parasite as “an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host”. The origin of the word is the Greek parasitos - a person who eats off another’s table.   Any takers?

The thing about parasites is that they cannot live without the host, while the host thrives in their absence. There is no doubt that if the wood tick could speak, it would list all the laudable reasons why it needs our blood worse then we do. The Wood Tick Party would call us greedy and heartless for keeping it all for ourselves when there are so many ticks in need. They would annoy us daily with their pathetic displays of buffoonery so we might learn what tick-ocracy looks like to them.

You need not be poor to be a parasite; the wood ticks come in all shapes and colors, and belong to both establishment parties. There are plenty of millionaires and billionaires with their snouts in the public trough – profiting from unproductive subsidies, preferences, grants, credits, bailouts, government-sheltered monopolies, and near-perpetual warfare. They are sucking us dry just as surely as the little drummer boys.

At least in nature, ticks can’t recruit hosts over to their side. The only thing progressive about socialism is the progressive elevation of dependency; it has risen from something scorned to something avoided then tolerated then excused then enabled then encouraged and finally entitled. Throw in a dozen foreign wars and you have the progressive century distilled to its essence.

Dependency has risen from a temporary condition brought about by external misfortune to a revered lifestyle choice. Victimhood is now a career; activist is a job description; advocate is a profession; collective grievance is how we now define community. It is our modern day caste system - just ask Sarah Palin or Herman Cain or Juan Williams or Ron Paul or Clarence Thomas what the wood tick media do to you when you don’t know your place.

The progressive’s bedrock belief that you are entitled to the benefits of someone else’s labor is toxic; their entitlement culture is the poison that is killing our nation, organ by organ. You are entitled to only this: the respect of your individual rights as befitting a co-equal child of God. Not one more thing. Not one.

The idea that the State’s rightful purpose is to confiscate the property of its citizens is what has set this country on its downward path. We were founded on the exactly opposite belief - the State’s only just purpose is to protect the rights and property of every citizen from confiscation.

That is what America means; and allegiance to the liberty principle is what it means to be an American. We are not an accident of geography, a pile of dirt that keeps the two oceans from co-mingling their sea water. We are a people; a nation borne of liberty and sustained by its enduring blessings. Our rights are not of our own making; they are the endowment from our Creator. We squander free will at our peril, and it is peril of our making that now surrounds us.

State-ownership of our work product is the immoral foundation upon which socialism, or progressivism if you prefer, is built. Libertarianism is the polar opposite of socialism; it is the philosophy of self-ownership. Socialism and Libertarianism are two different utopian destinations, and utopian destinations can only be approached, never reached. At one extreme is complete slavery to the State; at the other complete freedom from the State. Choose your course; with each step you either face liberty or turn your back on her.

Self-ownership relies on voluntary exchange between equal sovereigns to create and distribute wealth. State-ownership relies on forcible seizure and authoritarian allocation to redistribute the wealth created by others; it creates no wealth of its own. That is the simple reason why totalitarianism always impoverishes; it is why turning to government for prosperity never works. Never.

“Survival of the fittest” may sound cold and heartless to those not accustomed to thinking for themselves, but it certainly more humane than the socialist alternative, “certain demise of the universally unfit”. The rising tide lifts all boats unequally, that is true; but the slack tide leaves all boats stranded on the mud flats, equally useless and completely dependent.

We can see the finished product of socialist progressivism everywhere – flashmobs, unionist vandals, legions of permanently unemployable, crony corporatists, petty bureaucrats, elected degenerates, race pimps. Unfit, useless, dependent – parasites in the truest sense of the word.

The worst of the unionist haters were out in force last week protesting an inner-city choice school in Milwaukee that works miracles with the same kids that the government’s union-monopoly schools – 2nd worst in the nation - have given up on. Thank God those beautiful children inside were saved from the angry selfish bastards carrying signs and carrying on outside - what a waste of liberty they are.

And what a blessing that those kids inside will have a fighting chance because enough of us are still brave enough to stick the match-head to the wood ticks’ ass and leave it there until they drop off and go away, not matter how loud they squeal or how long they kick their tiny little legs.

And one more thing...I’m going to go out and buy another Gibson guitar to say go-strum-yourself to President Obama for his brutish shake-down of that great American company. Been more of a Fender guy lately, but from now on I’m going to play Gibsons until this guy is done playing President.

“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.

Problem Solved

2011-08-25T17:51:00.000-05:00

I asked a few of my fellow company Presidents how many rounds of golf they have played since our nation’s President was inaugurated in 2009. I’ve only managed four myself, most others have squeezed in a couple dozen; nobody is within a 7 iron distance of President Obama’s world record of 80-something and counting.

Apparently being President of a whole nation with 310 million people is a lot easier than being President of a corporation with hundreds or thousands. By population extrapolation, China’s President Hu must just be able to just phone it in from the 8th tee at the People’s Pebble Beach.

A week or so ago, President Obama interrupted his 3-day vacation in Iowa to announce he would unveil a detailed plan for revitalizing the economy and creating jobs for Americans…right after his next vacation in Massachusetts. Let them eat lobster bisque, eh Michelle?

At first, that made even less sense than buying a Canadian bus to talk about boosting jobs in America. If he had a plan already, then why wait weeks to get it rolling; and if he had no plan, then why take a vacation – better to get to work on the plan since you just told the whole world you had one.

And then it hit me – the plan is to simply pass a law that says everyone is employed. Problem solved. No need to even call a meeting to explain it to his Cabinet. Fore!

That’s how they roll at the White House these days. When some people couldn’t afford health insurance, they just wrote a law that said everybody gets affordable health care. Problem solved. We still don’t know what’s in that law, but that’s immaterial; the important thing is that they passed a law. That shows they care.

Economy needed recovering? Pass a law with “recovery” in the title and call it recovered. Problem solved. Worried about global warming and greenhouse gasses? Pass a law that says cars must get 100 miles per gallon or have a windmill on the hood. Problem solved. Too much deficit spending and debt? Pass a law that says we won’t spend so much…someday…maybe. Problem solved. Banksters running wild? Call the take-out menu “financial reform”, vote it, and send out the bonus checks. Problem solved.

They will name it something dopey like the “Every Person Who Ever Walks On American Soil Is Fully and Happily Employed For Life Because I Said So Act”. Problem solved. Adjust unemployment to zero, schedule the Joe Biden victory lap, might as well pre-print the fourth quarter GDP growth at pick-‘em - say, 8%.   Tell Bernanke to fire up the printing presses and give the money to Goldman Sachs, we must be booming again because everybody is now back to work; we passed a law.

I can see the dramatic two-bar chart at Senator Kerry’s Committee hearings – one bar that shows real unemployment in August at 17% labeled “hideous post-Bush transition era”, then dropping instantly to 0% in September with a label “I – me, your President Obama - stopped waiting for Congress to care about you instead of the tea party era”. The high-fivin’ media will be so leg-tingling giddy that Rachael Maddow might even go straight. Headlines will shout: “President Obama Saves Humanity From Itself – Again!”

But wait a minute - what about all those millions of people who don’t have any real job to go to? That’s where his plan turns brilliant, with the addition of the “Unlimited Family Leave Extension For People Who Don’t Have A Family Emergency Or Even A Family Amendment”. Problem solved.

Nobody will ever be unemployed anymore, they just go on leave.   The teachers' union told him you don’t count as unemployed when you are on leave, and believe me, those public sector unions know a thing or two about time off. Family leave is genius; oppose the law and you are against families.

That explains why Maxine Waters told us to go to hell – we hate families. Busted. Ron Paul was just pretending to be libertarian to create millions – no, tens of millions - of families of prostitutes on heroin so that Michelle Bachman’s husband could bill the state to counsel them in his Christian Cure camps. That’s why they tied in Iowa; they were in kahoots. Oh yeah, it’s a racket – Michael Moore is working with Oliver Stone on the documentary, working title “They Hate You And We Really, Really Care, Now Give Us The Rest Of Your Money”. Oscar.

You have to hand it to ‘em; their full employment law plan is pure genius. And how fitting that the least-working President in history delivers full employment to the fewest-working American public in history. How perfect that the teleprompter President fixes the job crisis by reading that it is over from his teleprompter. How appropriate that the guy who talks game but has none will simply declare it done.

In reality, of course, President Obama will have something else to say about jobs when he takes to the prime time airwaves in September. But we won’t have any idea what it is, because we will be watching something more relevant, like “Hoarding Bridezillas Dancing With Swamp People”.   Or - thank you Jesus - football.

He does not have a plan; he does not even have a clue. Here is the only viable plan to put large numbers of Americans back to work: elect a new President in 2012. Problem solved.

“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.