From  the United States of America...
WWW.PERPETUALCOMMOTION.COM
"Give with a free hand, but give only your own."
 -- J.R.R. Tolkien The Children of Hurin
"Thou Shall Not Steal"

With these four little words, the foundation of all laws of man is established.
June 8, 2007
"America's wealth is in it's culture, not it's soil"

The wealth of America is in it's culture, not it's dirt.  If it was in the dirt, Canada, Mexico and Central America would be just as prosperous.  The dirt here is just about the same as the dirt anywhere else.  The American culture knows how to make use of the dirt we have. Immigrants who do not take up the American culture and language bring with them a part of poverty and squalor they wish to leave behind in their homeland.


June 8, 2007
"Jobs Americans won't take"... b.s.

Absolute b.s.!  Pay enough, and you will find someone to do anything.  Immigrants are suppressing pay levels well below what the fair market wages should be because immigrants are willing to do anything just so they don't have to go back to the bad conditions in their home
country.  That may mean you get a roof replaced for less, or your oranges are picked for less, but these immigrants can't afford to buy whatever it is you do, or whatever it is your neighbors do either.  At some point, your neighbors won't be able to afford to buy whatever it is you do because the pay levels are being set by desperate immigrants and slave labor in communist countries.  All the while the American culture and the unified American language-- the very things that makes America prosperous-- are vilified and rejected.

Pray that there is never an economic depression the likes of the Great Depression of the 1920's and 30's.  At that time, many extreme political and social movements that promised to "fix the problem" swept over countries resulting in violence and horror on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.  If the world economy collapses in these days, you will see violent riots and wars between peoples based on anything that divides them:  Race, religion, language, culture.  Economic prosperity is the only thing that will make diverse groups tolerate each other.


June 5, 2007
"The gulf that divides Liberals from Reagan Republicans"

This is the gulf that divides Liberals from Reagan Republicans:  Stealing is wrong, Liberals refuse to accept it.  The entire philosophy of Liberals is rebellion against this simple basic law that it is always wrong to take something that belongs to another by force, stealth, or deception.  Since obeying the mandate of "you shall not steal" leads to a whole host of other morally correct behavior steeped in "tradition", Liberals find all such tradition repulsive.

There is a simple test to determine if a law or idea is Liberal or not:  Does the law or idea require that the rightful possessions of one person be confiscated in order to provide something to someone else?  If it does, then it is a Liberal law or idea.

Or, to put it another way...

Democrats fear and loathe devoutly religious people because the supreme commandment of "Thou shall NOT steal" is always lurking about in there somewhere.  If any part of a religious belief is accepted by Liberals and Democrats, then they might be acknowledging the righteousness of "Thou shall not steal", and how all of their laws, policies, and ideas violate this simple prime directive.


May 29, 2007
"Universal Health care Coverage Guarantees Universal Rationing"

Let's give everyone free health care.  Hmmm.  Who will do the work?  Physicians, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, janitors in the hospitals... a whole host of people.  Great.  Now, all we have to do is get those people to do their jobs for free.  Certainly these people are altruistic enough to do what they do purely for the benefit of their fellow human beings!  Certainly.

I wonder where they will live?  Do they have mortgages to pay?  Rent?  Property taxes, and gas bills, and electric bills and water bills?  Do they eat?  Do they need to buy food?  Do they own a car?  Do they have children that need clothes, and food and a place to sleep too?  Well, the answer is simple:  Anyone whose occupation is related to providing health care will be provided everything they need.  Great!  That takes care of that.

Oh wait, how much do they need?  Who will determine that?  I know, we'll elect a council of wise people to sort all that out.  But what if the health care workers don't think the council is giving them as much as they need?  What if the health care workers get the idea in their heads that they could be better off doing some other job?  Is it conceivable that they might abandon the needs of their fellow human beings to pursue their own selfish interests?  Might happen.  Selfishness is one characteristic of human nature that doesn't seem to be diminishing in the least from one generation to the next. Well, then, the councils will just have to make sure they provide enough to keep the health care workers satisfied.   Uh oh, I forgot, the council is elected by the voters.  The voters are the ones who will ultimately have to provide the goods and services that the wise council allocates to the health care workers.  If the voters get jealous that the health care workers are doing better than they are, they might elect a different set of members for the wise council.  The wise council won't like that a bit, so they will provide the minimal amount that the health care workers will accept to keep them working, while extracting the least amount of resources from the voters to pay for it all.  That should work.  Now all we have to do is keep costs down so that the voters and the health care workers are both happy.

Let's see, how to keep costs down?  Well, the wise council only needs to keep a majority of the voters happy.  So what ailments do most voters suffer from?  We'll allocate resources for treating those, and ailments that are uncommon, well, we'll just let them take care of themselves.  I mean, if you don't treat the uncommon ailments of a minority of voters, then those voters go away, right?  You don't have to worry about votes from the graveyard!  (At least you're not supposed to.  I know that unethical political parties have managed to extract votes from these places.)

So there we have it:  Health care workers will be compensated for their labor by the government, and a wise council will be elected to determine how much the health care workers get and which illnesses will be treated.

Of course, we could make that wise council unelected.  Then they wouldn't be answerable to the voters.  They could compensate whoever they wanted by whatever they wanted, and compel the rest of the people to do a portion of whatever jobs they do each day for whomever the wise council dictates.  Farmers would farm and give a portion of their produce-- an amount dictated by the wise council-- to the health care workers.  All other occupations would be compelled in the same way.

That means that we will have to have a lot of means to do an awful lot of compelling.  More police.  More government enforcement.  We'll need a whole lot bunch more resources from the people to feed, house, clothe, and generally keep the enforcers satisfied; since enforcers don't really produce anything themselves.  They just keep the producers in line.  I wonder how much it takes to keep an enforcer satisfied?  Satisfaction is the standard, isn't it?  We don't want the health care workers and enforcers to become dissatisfied and abandon their work, or the whole system would collapse.

And why do we need a wise council anyway?  Wouldn't it be more efficient to just have one man make the decisions?  So this one man will take the place of the wise council in making its dictates.  Let's just call him a "dictator".  That works.  And we will just require everyone to do whatever it is they do for whatever compensation the dictator dictates.   You know, we might even just require the people to do their jobs for free, like slaves!  Yeah, that's it, we'll make everyone who serves the system, the government, the state a slave to the state.  Their whole existence will be to serve the state.  They will have no purpose other than that.  Who is the "state"?  Well, it can't include the slaves and surfs.  It's got to be the the elite few who run it all.  We'll make everyone else who isn't in the elite ruling class into slaves and surfs.

Hmmmm.....  I don't know if I like this whole "wise council" and "dictator" thing.  I might not end up as one of the ruling class, and have to be a surf!  I don't want to be a surf.  I don't want any dictator or wise council dictating what I do and how much I get paid to do it.  Maybe it's not such a good idea to give everyone free health care.  Is there another way?

Well, maybe we could try lowering the cost of health care to the point where most people could afford it.  Then, those of us who are compassionate could donate some of our bounty to help the less fortunate.  But we wouldn't "compel" anyone to donate anything.  Compelling someone to donate something is the same as stealing and making them a slave.  That's not right.  That's never right.  And if I allow other people to be compelled to donate against their will, some day, it will be me who is being compelled to give away what I worked for.

But why does health care cost so darn much?  Why is it so expensive?  I know that gold is expensive because there isn't much of it, and everyone seems to want it.  Same with diamonds.  So the scarcer something is, yet at the same time, the more people want it, the more they are willing to pay for it.  Those who pay the most get the most, and anyone else who wants some has to compete by offering as much or more money for it.

Could this be the same with health care?  Is there any limit to how healthy a person would want to be?  When you are healthy, I guess you have no need for health care, and aren't willing to pay for something you don't need.  When you are sick, there is no limit to your desire to be healthy again, and you would be willing to pay all that you have, especially if the illness threatens your life.  So, let's assume that there is a high demand for health care.  For the sick, this demand is for all practical purposes limitless.

What about the supply of health care?  Are there things that limit the supply of health care, making it scarce?  Of course, you need people who are smart and well trained to do the work:  Physicians, medical researchers, nurses, pharmacists etc.  And you need good equipment, supplies, and drugs.  There will be a natural limit to getting good people to do these jobs.  People who can do this sort of work can do other work too, so you have to make the health care job attractive, and there is nothing more attractive than money!

But are there artificial limits that make the supply of people, equipment and medicine more scarce than it could be?  There are the government supported medical guilds, such as the those authorized by the government to train and certify physicians.  There is the Food and Drug Administration that must approve medicine and equipment.  But we want safe medicine, equipment, and certified health care practitioners, right?  Well, the result is a de facto monopoly in supplying these goods and services.  Competition is limited, and upward pressure on prices is the result.

Speaking of upward pressure on prices, since the cost of the health care for a very large percentage of people is borne by employer-provided or government provided health care funds, the individuals receiving the care don't feel the burden.  They don't care how much is being charged, as long as their ailment is being treated.  This is great for the health care providers since they can charge just about as much as the system can bear-- and it can bear a lot-- but for people who must pay for their own health care, it pushes up the price, just as people clamoring for the latest video game can make the product scarce, and push up the price.  This means that since most people are spending other people's money to pay for their health care, they don't care how much it costs.

So there are natural restrictions on the supply of health care, and artificial restrictions, and artificial supply of money.

What to do?  Well, let's start by removing the incentive for people to have their employer or the government supply their health care.  That can be done with a simple change to the tax law in either of two directions:  1)  Tax all health care provided by employers or the government as income; or, 2)  Don't tax any money spent on health care no matter if it comes out of your own pocket, or out of your employer's pocket.  This will put all people on the same level.  It seems more compassionate to go with the second option.  The only way that government or employer provided health care can work without bankrupting those who pay for it is if most people who pay, never use it.  Health care plans like this have to "increase the pool of participants".  This means that they get a lot of young healthy people to pay for health care that they never use.

Second, you have to remove the barriers that create artificial scarcity of health care goods and services.  Government certification can still be granted, but whether a practitioner or medicine has the certification or not should be up to the consumer, not the government.  Independent certification organizations would also be acceptable.  A simple way to avoid fraud is to make the punishment for claiming certification and then causing someone's death so severe, that no one will want to claim it if they don't have it.  For example, if someone claims to be a certified physician, either by the government or some independent organization, but isn't, and a person in his care dies, he should be charged with a capital offense.  But if someone wants the services of someone who does not have government certification, then they should be able to.  The consumer takes the responsibility for what he gets, and pays the cost he is willing.

Third, artificial barriers to drug availability caused by the requirement for government approval should be treated the same as certification for practitioners.   Government certification or independent certification is a good practice, but if a product has it or not should be left up to the fully informed consumer, and stiff punishment-- up to the death penalty-- should be imposed on those who claim certification but do not have it.

These things would make health care affordable to most and available to all.  There is no need for "wise councils" and "dictators" to sort it all out for us.  There are no giants out there to solve all of our problems.  And putting a bunch of people together in a room doesn't seem to make them any wiser.

May 25, 2007
"None dare call it slavery"

The Democrat lifestyle requires that someone else foot the bill.  Have you ever noticed that all of their ideas, grandious schemes and visions inevitably revolve around forcing one person to work for another?  Oh they disguise this as "taxation" to "pay for services", but the result is that one man is forced to work for another's benefit.  Call it "transfer of wealth" if you want to sugar coat it, but I call it slavery.

None dare call it slavery.

Monopolies, labor unions, government supported trade guilds, "special arrangements", secret deals for a price, back room negotiations, transfer of wealth from those who create to those who consume... these are the things that have stolen the fruits of unequalled productivity that should now be providing the American middle class with a three-day work week.

Isn't it an astounding thought that the engine of the American economy is the "consumer", not the producer; the eater, not the grower; the taker, not the maker?


May 25, 2007
"Rich people on their knees"

The government really doesn’t need money.  It needs things done.  It needs labor.  The “government economy” works by confiscating labor from one person to compensate another who has done something for the state.  This is merely the government’s way of  laundering the enslavement of people to do its bidding. So, let’s tax the rich people, they say.  They have more than they need, right?  Rich people can afford to be generous, even if that generosity is motivated by the business end of a gun.  What do rich people do?  Rich people own things.  But ownership is not taxed, only the acquisition of wealth.  Rich people run businesses.  If government needs things done, confiscating what rich people do results in the government taking a part of the labor produced by businesses.  This means that the labor burden of government doesn’t fall on the backs of the rich, but rather on the backs of the people that work for the rich:  the people that do the lifting, the building, the designing, the farming, the cooking, the cleaning, the digging, the real work.  Rich people never have, nor will they ever—hear this— the rich never have and never will bear the burden of the government.  It doesn’t matter how the tax system is sliced and diced.  The one and only way to reduce the burden the government places on the backs of productive laborers is to reduce the size of the government.  Enslavement, you say?  Yes, even today, slavery is alive and flourishing.  But to make it more palatable, they call it “transfer of wealth”.
Competition brings rich people to their knees, not taxation.  The only way to “spread the wealth” is by eliminating monopolies and any government enforced practice that limits competition.


May 25, 2007
"There must be a pot of gold at the end of college gauntlet"

The only way to encourage young people to enter any field as a career is to show them that there is a pot of gold at the end of college gauntlet.  Young people smart enough and tenacious enough to endure the rigors of an engineering curriculum are also capable of pursuing careers that are more financially rewarding.  Or, judging that the preparation to enter a science or engineering career requires too great of an investment of time, effort and money, and does not result in a significantly higher income than pursuing some other occupation that doesn't involve so many years of difficult college education; a young person will opt for the easier road.  Wages for scientists and engineers are significantly lower than what a fair and free market would set them at.  This is the result of the government's policy that allows hundreds of thousands of people with science and engineering backgrounds to enter the United States' work force under the H1-B visa program.  The number of foreigners with science and engineering degrees entering the country's workforce each year equals or surpasses the number of U.S. citizens graduating with science and engineering bachelor degrees.  As long as this policy continues, wages will be artificially suppressed, and all efforts by government, industry, educational institutions, or philanthropic organizations to encourage young American citizens to enter science or engineering careers will fail.

Our media, business, political, and military leaders choose not to see this lack of U.S. citizens entering science and engineering careers as the threat to our economic and national security that it is.


May 11, 2007
"Four political parties"

There are essential four major political parties:  Leftist Democrats,
"Blue Dog" Democrats, "Country-Club" Republicans, Reagan Republicans.  The
Leftist Democrats and Country-Club Republicans basically want the same
thing by different means:  Elevation of the elite who by birth are
entitled to rule and subjugate and exploit the unwashed masses.  The
Blue-Dog Democrats and Reagan Repubicans hopefully believe that following
the 10 commandments leads to a better life for all.  Liberals find the Ten
Comandments quite inconvenient, and strive to tear down all traditions
hoping to undermine the power in their simple truth.  This leads to them
supporting all sorts of silliness and bizzarre behavior.


May 10, 2007
"Give with a free hand, but give only your own"

It's so easy to be generous with the things that belong to other people.
"Give with a free hand, but give only your own," J.R.R. Tolkien wrote.
That should be everyone's motto.  You can't "give away" something that
belongs to someone else.  If you give away something that doesn't belong
to you, first you will have to steal it.  But there are consequences to
theft that go beyond the mere illegality of the act.  If you worked at a
department store, and started giving away clothes to your friends,
wouldn't that be stealing?  I'm afraid the department store would insist
that you take a trip through the legal system.  There is no compassion in
theft.  Stealing is not an act of compassion.  But you say, "This poor man
is hungry and suffering.  I'll just betray the trust my neighbor has in
me, stretch out my hand and take food from his pantry so that the hungry
man can eat."  Sounds compassionate.  But then your neighbor's children
goes hungry.  "But only took one can of beans.  He had plenty.  There must
have been a hundred other cans there."  Oh didn't you notice that a
hundred of your other neighbors heard from the hungry mand what you did,
and said, "I know a hungry person, I will be compassionate too."  So now
there is no food left in the pantry.  Where will you get the food for your
next burst of "compassion"?  Will that neighbor refill his pantry?  Will
he now lock his house?  If you and your "compassionate" neighbors compel
him to work and provide supplies for your "compassion", have you not made
him your slave?  Is there any compassion in slavery?

The consequence of stealing-- of looting-- is that the looted passively or
actively make their possessions unavailable to the looters.  If the looted
stop making things, growing food, or doing productive things because they
assume that the fruit of their labor will be taken from them by force,
deception, or  stealth , they will stop producing.  Then all will suffer
because what the producers used to produce and trade will no longer be
available to anyone.

There is NO compassion in theft.


May 9, 2007
"Leadership is more than just being bossy"

http://finance.yahoo.com/print/expert/article/leadership/31503#

"The Taboos of Leadership," Anthony F. Smith, CEO coach and founder of
Leadership Research Institute

Leadership is more than just being bossy.  True, one important aspect is
being able to get others to do work, and that means you are the "boss".
But let's look at the tradeoffs that must occur.  A "leader" is actually a
broker of favors.  He gets one man to do something, but in return somehow
pays this man for his service.  But a leader can't do the work himself. He
must be able to channel the labor of someone else to pay for the favor
done by the first man.  If he does this successfully, he is then seen by
all involved as an effective coordinator, and more coordination work comes
his way.

Like most skills humans possess, the skills of leadership can be learned,
but only through much practice.   Some people get to practice these skills
very early in life, often as children, and are seen as "natural-born
leaders".  But a person can start a business, and through necessity, learn
the skills of leadership.  True, people who learn things early in life can
often perform them with an ease that appears to be instinct, unlike
someone who learns these things in his 30's.  But it can be done.  The way
to learn to swim is to let go of the side of the pool, and head out for
the center.  You will never learn to swim if you just hug the side wall of
the pool.

A successful leader will be a "favor broker", directing the labor of
various groups or people to accomplish a task that ends up benenfitting
all involved.  The end result , the task itself, may not benefit all, but
in the process of acheiving it, all will benefit, and the "favor broker"
earns the title of "leader".


April 30, 2007
"Employers invade your privacy during hiring process"

Where do these companies get off demanding so much information about you when you apply for a job?  I guess they can ask anything they want, but why do people allow it?  Why do people submit to the bullying?  Why on Earth does a lumber mill need to know if you are up to date on your credit cards before they will let you cut down trees?  Does being behind on your Macy's account mean that you will be a bad risk and go around the camp wielding a chainsaw in a fit of madness?  It just seems to me that there is an effort on the part of employers to prevent people from changing jobs.  It all goes back to the only way to improve your standard of living is to have employers compete for your skills.  Knowing what's on your credit report is a trans-corporate fad that need to be stamped out by prospective employees telling these corporate bullies to go pound sand.  Or maybe an even more effective protest is to demand more money for a squeaky-clean credit record.  After all, if your credit rating is a criterion on which your prospective employment depends, then it must be difficult to find people with excellent backgrounds.  So you might as well turn it to your advantage.  These things actually make you more valuable, right?

Here is a typical "carte blanche" style of background check release form.


March 22, 2007
"Where's the compassion for the wagon pullers?"

The media keeps wanting to pile more and more people on the wagon in the name of compassion.  "We need to help these poor people," or "The victims of that natural disaster are hurting," and they insist that the "government" help.  But where does the "government" get the labor to help?  I has to get it from the people who can do the things that need to be done.  These are the people pulling the wagon.  When people are forced against their will to pull a wagon, are they not slaves?  If more and more people climb on the wagon, are not the slaves whipped even more lest they slow down and the wagon stops?  Where, then is the "compassion"?  Why does one group deserve compassion while another does not?

The reason all this doesn't work is that the government can not dispense compassion without the influence of influence.  That is, politicians are trying to buy votes with labor stolen from the wagon pullers.

True compassion, generosity, and giving is a free will act on the part of one person to another.  If giving is not done voluntarily, then what is named "generosity" is in reality theft.  The Prime Directive, "Thou shall NOT steal" is violated, and no good will ultimately come of it.

If a society rejects God's laws-- "Thou shall NOT steal" is definitely one of them-- there will be terrible consequences.  What's wrong with America?  The people have selfishly created a government system to institutionalized the violation of the Prime Directive.


March 19, 2007

"At what cost political correctness?"
The high cost of being politically correct.  There is a cost in competitiveness.    The normal American implementation of "diversity" is to set quotas for how many of each group will be hired.  Then the management, mired in political correctness, trumpets their unfounded and illogical dogma that "there is strength in diversity".  But using criteria to hire people other than their raw talent means that a company will be populated with many who are less than the best.  There is no room for "diversity of talent" in a competitive marketplace. Diversity for diversity's sake comes at a high cost that competing countries do not incur.  They laugh at  how we handicap ourselves with such foolishness.  Hire the most talented people for the job regardless of what group they belong to.   This is true diversity.  It is the only way.

"Religious toleration, religious freedom."
Religious toleration and religious freedom means that people are free to be wrong.  Dead wrong.  While it does not mean that you must accept what other people believe as being on par with your beliefs, it does mean that one's religion should have no effect on their ability to get a job, participate in commerce, education, or whatever.  The ability to tolerate the bizarre beliefs of others is a unique societal characteristic of the American Christian dominated society and form of government.  It has been the only one able to pull it off.  Christ did not compel people to believe in him.  As part of the exercise of one's free will, you are free to be totally wrong.  If this were not so, then you wouldn't have a free will.

Groupism is the enemy.  Monopolies, guilds, labor unions, restrictive trade associates, secret societies, criminal gangs an syndicates, and people that insist that "those who are not members of my religion or caste or race or ethnicity are less than me"; these are the enemies of all man.  Members of these groups do seem to prosper, but only by exploiting those who are not.  The only reason such groups can prosper is that only a few can be members.  If all people were accepted, then there would be no relative prosperity, and there wouldn't be much need for the group identity to continue.

What we have been doing is no longer working

The way we have been used to doing things are obviously no longer
working.  Let's try a simple change.  Let's start following the simple rule of
"Thou shall not steal", or to put it another way, "You will not take that which
does not belong to you", and let's see where that leads.

Many laws and policies-- and supported by the people--
that are causing the problems we now face violate this simple rule.

There is no compassion in theft.

There is no generosity in robbery.

There is no kindness in extortion.

Violate God's law, and God will punish you.

God is punishing the people of the United States because the people of the
United States have institutionalized the violation of His law forbidding theft.

March 12, 2007
The Truth has a frustrating way of ignoring concensus.

People must be causing global warming because only people can pay taxes.  But if
God was causing the Earth to warm, this would be a problem for liberals:  To send
God a tax bill, they wouldn't know where to find him.

February 18, 2007
Liberal philosophy:  Ruling power belongs solely in the hands of the elite class.
Liberal policy:  Confiscate labor from the productive to distribute per the needs
                 and desires of the elite ruling class.

January 23, 2006 "It's what the American people want"

When you go to Target, and buy something made in China, it tells the executives running the company that Target is likely to sell more stuff if that stuff comes from China.  Every dollar is like a tiny little vote.  So far, China is winning the American "dollar vote" by a landslide.

This dollar vote victory is not being ignored by the management at Ford or other US companies, or even the politicians in the US government.  The huge dollar vote gorilla wants stuff made in China while a few mice in the corner peep about losing US jobs, US preeminence in technology, and loss of the American standard of living.

The one thing it seems that US companies, managers, boards of directors, and politicians seem to be ignoring is that the "dollar vote" is not targetting just US manufacturing.  It is also rejecting US engineering, US management, and even US ownership.  This same dollar vote will eventually say, "we don't want to buy stuff from companies managed by Americans, or even owned by Americans, because paying Americans to own and manage companies costs too much."


To put it another way, Americans are saying "we don't want what our neighbor does."  But aren't we all our neighbor's neighbor?  If we refuse to buy our neighbor's labor, who will buy ours?  America will be reduced to a land of farmers, lumberjacks and miners living in squalor.
 
We are the prodigal sons spending the inheritance from our fathers.

America is getting what Americans are voting for with their dollars.  It is the truest form of direct democracy ever devised.  In order to turn this around, we need courageous leaders who will actually lead, instead of just riding the turbulent waters of politics.  Government imposition of trade barriers, tarrifs, or any other intervention would be disastrous.  It will cause a depression, and likely lead to a third world war.

No, rather we need leaders to educate people that we truly prosper when our neighbors prosper.  People need to understand that monopolies of any sort, corporate, labor, professional, or criminal diminish our competitiveness, flexibility to respond to changing markets, and our standard of living.

We need leaders to lead us away from self destruction.

You shall not take that which belongs to another.

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