The-Asterisk

As I write this blog post, we are less than three hours away from "shutting down the government". As you know, the Republicans in the House, led philosophically by the "Tea Party" caucus, want to de-fund or delay the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare). I am among those who believe that Obamacare will cause much more grief from unintended consequences than any good it will do. As I have stated in previous postings, our health insurance market in the US was badly broken. High annual premium increases, Nazi-like intimidation concerning pre-existing conditions (even if you had unbroken coverage from your previous policy), illogical groupings and rating experience based upon a small cohort of employees on a plan, little competition and huge profits made for an all-around distrust of the insurance companies. Even though I don't think that the Congressional Democrats were smart enough to craft legislation to do this, I feel that President Obama and m...

I have a dream… Over the past several days I have listened to bits and pieces of speeches from all manner of “civil rights personalities” as well as numerous politicians and three Democrat Presidents during the memorial services up to and including the 50 th Anniversary Celebration on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. While a few of their words expressed a bit of honest self-reflection on why some in the black minority have not achieved the “big dream”, most of the rhetoric was a screeching litany of programs and cures that would magically fix everything if there was just enough money thrown at it. I actually felt repulsed listening to it all, realizing that Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech was about giving the “Negro” a level playing field and an equal shot at whatever they wanted to pursue compared to anyone else. No, I take that back… it was not about “giving” them a level playing field, but removing the barriers thereto. I think that an honest assessment of the past 50 ...

Google is releasing a new map program for tablets . Since the demise of the original mapping program that came stock with Apple iPads and iPhones until iOS 5, I have felt that neither the Apple replacement nor the Google free-standing app have been as good as the original. I look forward to trying the new Lat Long out. For the record (and I hope Google reads my blog!) there are a few peculiarities that I wish they would fix. Don't get me wrong, all of these popups for great restaurants and flags showing where your friends are sounds really cool, but I just don't need those features as much as I need features for great driving and getting un-lost experiences. Here are a few of my suggestions: When the big blue line covers a proposed route, don't let the line obscure the street names or route numbers. VERY annoying when driving. Very annoying. Allow the "traffic" view to be your default (I mean, why wouldn't it be?) When you zoom in to get a better view ...

Iranian centrist candidate Hassan Rohani From Vetted List, Iranians Pick a President .  That was the headline in the dead-tree version of the Wall Street Journal on June 15, 2013. The sub-head read " Voters in Increasingly Isolated Nation Seek Economic Boost From Slate of Candidates Approved by Clerical Council " As I read that, I kind of snorted to myself "Yeah, they get to pick the best from the worst", but then it hit me like a two ton heavy thing , that this is virtually the same situation that we have in the United States.  No, we don't have our prospective President picked by a Council of Elders from an established religion, but we certainly have our choices for President narrowed down by a very small group of activists, on both sides, who subscribe to the religion of the Left or of the Right. Between straw polls and conventions, only a rare few of "the folks" get to be involved in the sausage-making process of picking the party's...

Having broken through the 100,000 mile barrier several months ago, it was inevitable that things would start needing to be replaced on my 2009 Toyota Highlander. My last state inspection and oil change in May prompted a replacement of the 12v battery (no, not the hybrid battery, that would be disastrous...) Yesterday, while backing out of the driveway, I noticed in the reflection from the windows in the front of my home, that I had a burned out headlamp. The last time that I had replaced a headlamp (in my Isuzu Trooper), the experience had caused me to question the intelligence of Japanese engineering. So, I headed down to Pep Boys where a helpful parts desk lady showed me which bulb I needed and took me over to the rack where they were displayed. The proper lamp is the 9003. I purchased a pair of 9003/HB2 lamps which cost me around $25. These lamps are up to 30% brighter than OEM and since one had already burned out, it only made sense to replace both of them at the same time. I w...

What a week for a government entity who's initials not that long ago stood for "No Such Agency". The National Security Agency (NSA) is a part of the Department of Defense, not a part of the Justice Department like the FBI, nor is it an independent agency like the CIA. As such, its purpose is military intelligence gathering, not law enforcement and not explicit spying. Recently it has gotten into hot water because of leaks from former Booz Allen contractor, Edward Snowden. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported Snowden claiming that US intelligence had been hacking Chinese computers since 2009. Well, I certainly hope they did! C'mon, folks... spies spy, right? Haven't we been all up in a tizzy about the Chinese hacking everything we Americans do? Well, we should be hacking their stuff, too. The difference is what we do with the intelligence we gather. There is evidence that the Chinese use information gathered by spying on us to further their commerci...

As readers of this blog know, I hang, shall we say, to the right of center. In the past several months, I have tried to give the political discourse a rest, but after today's defeat of the National Instant Background Check Amendment, better known as the Manchin-Toomey Amendment, and hearing President Obama's impassioned comments about its defeat in the Rose Garden, I had to speak up. I just read the contents of the Amendment to see what the buzz was all about. Basically, in my not-so-legal opinion, this Amendment wasn't too onerous. It made specific points to disallow a national gun registry and to allow kin-folk to buy and swap guns without background checks. It mandated that all sales in and around a gun show, on internet commerce sites and (loosely speaking) advertised in print media, must be subjected to an instant background check. It also went into detail about how criminal convictions and mental conditions would be entered and maintained in a national registry. ...

I am not a scientist, but neither are our politicians, pundits and eco-terrorists. After this past, crazy-cold winter and predictions of a blazing summer, has anyone considered the fact that our atmosphere might be TOO CLEAN? Think about it. In the middle of the winter, a greenhouse is usually a lot warmer than it is outside. In the summer, it is hot as well, but the temperature is moderated between the highs and the lows. Also, there is not a lot of turbulence inside a greenhouse. So, if they are claiming that increased CO2 in our atmosphere causes a "greenhouse effect", then the Chicken Littles had better get their metaphors straight. Consider this: if the air was devoid of smoke, smog, dust and other particulate matter, the sun's immense heat would have nothing to stop it from warming up the earth. And the opposite might be true as well... nothing to stop the radiant heat from dispersing when there is no sun (at night and in the winter.) Another phenomenon of we...

I consider myself a fairly intelligent chap in spite of my lack of graduate and post-graduate degrees. I can hold my own in many discussions both on and off the political field, but when it comes to monetary policy theory, well, that is where I punch out of the debate. We might as well talk about quantum physics as far as I am concerned. I understand the fact that if a nation floods their system with new currency, inflation should soon follow (see the Bernanke Anomaly) because more money (buying power) is chasing fewer goods, but the mechanics and minutiae behind it is something that I have never been able to wrap my head around. Terms like M3, M4, quantitative easing, discount window, multiplier effect, and concepts like the role of the Federal Reserve, balance of trade vs. currency trading, currency manipulation, and how the gold standard keeps things in balance make sense on the surface, but digging in deep to understand how it all works togethe...

No, I am not talking about the Republican answering machine that repeats the same tired message over and over and over. Well... maybe I am. Republicans are always talking process, Democrats are always talking about how great things will be. Which goes over better: "No, you can't have a candy bar and besides, it is right before dinner and you are already too fat"? Or this: "Sure, you can have another Snickers. We are having kale for dinner, and since you won't eat kale, the candy won't spoil your dinner"? The face of the right is Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan (pushing Granny over the cliff.) The impressionable 'yoots' of America see Ann Coulter as a caricature of herself and Sarah Palin has been rendered a into holographic cartoon character. Is anyone on our side even the least bit cool? Even the highly respected Clint Eastwood was reduced to wacky curmudgeon status after a one stand-up bit at the Republican Nation...

If you go back 40 years and follow the progression of taxes, rates, brackets, loopholes, dodges, etc., it becomes readily apparent that people don't like to pay taxes and will do just about anything to avoid them. It also is true that the middle and lower classes (i.e. the famous 50%) pay very little income taxes. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, everyone paid around a 20% effective tax rate regardless of what bracket they were in. Jealousy and greed kicked in when Congress decided to make the wealthy pay more for wages over $1 Million. Corporations pushed back by capping wages at $1 Million and providing deferred compensation to make up the difference. Thus began the fulfillment of the law of unintended consequences to where today we have CEOs and other corporate leaders making hundreds of millions of dollars, and the same group of people is still jealous. . I personally think that everyone should pay some taxes so that they have at least a little skin in the game of funding our...

I'm no Alton Brown , but I have a quick and easy recipe for a fluffy omelette that I kinda, sorta made up. It is really tasty and not hard to cook, which is a prerequisite for any kitchen adventure on which I embark. First, the ingredients: Eggs Optional ingredients: Cheese Tomatoes Lobster (or other meat) So here's the deal. I use one of those non-stick skillets that has a curved side so that I can flip the omelette.  This is the skillet that I use  (and no, I didn't pay that much for it. It was part of a set.) You take your eggs (my omelette today had 5 eggs) and separate the whites from the yolks. The yolks can go into a small bowl, but the whites need to go into a mixing bowl. Since we used cheddar cheese this morning, I dumped some shredded cheddar onto a cutting surface and just chopped the cheese up until it was in small little pieces which makes it better for quick melting. I then poured the cheese into the yolks and mixed them together into a thi...

Watching the Sunday morning news shows today, it amazes me the perspective of Dems vs Republicans. Rep. Chris Van Holling (D-MD) was on Fox News Sunday with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). The juxtaposition between the left and the right could not have been clearer, nor could it have been more stark. Van Holling shook his head in disgust at Jordan's assertions on the budget as well as gun control. "Balanced" this, and "comprehensive" that... everything to him is a compromise. They all pine for a bi-partisan resolution to disagreements. That is how progress is made, isn't it? It is only fair to give a little for the American people, right? What we are really seeing is the math of the Democrat Two-Step . It is a variation of the famous "one step forward and two steps back" but in this case it is "two steps forward and one step back" with a twist. While Republicans are pragmatic and are quite happy to leave most things as they are, the Democrats alw...

Except for those poor souls who win life's lottery early by being born into wealth, most of the people in this country who are rich, are rich by choice. Having been in business for 30 years, I know a little bit about pricing and profit. I make a comfortable living, my employees make a decent salary, I pay enough taxes for myself and a few others, but I don't make Bill Gates-like amounts of money. I don't make Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Alex Rodriguez, Lil' Wayne, Bill Clinton or Warren Buffet type of money. Why not? Are they that much smarter than me? Mmmm, maybe. Lucky? Probably quite a bit of that. Maybe they ask for too much money and then people give it to them. I have always had a bit of a problem with people who can sell something for $1000 when it takes them $100 to make it. Even more so, if they sell 100,000 or even 1,000,000 of them with the same margin. Now that is gross profit. Sure, I know what value is. It is the price someone is willing to pay ...

Today on Fox News Sunday, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was on to talk about the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT. What Sen. Durbin, who always sounds sincere and grandfatherly when he speaks, said was this: But gun control is part of it. We need to sit down and have a quiet, calm reflection on the Second Amendment. Are there guns that really shouldn’t be sold across America? Military assault weapons such as the one involved in this horrific incident in Connecticut? Are there high ammunition clips, high capacity ammunition clips that have no value, whatsoever when it comes to sporting and hunting and even self-defense? The person could buy body armor, take that body armor and use it to protect themselves as they kill innocent people. Can we have a thoughtful, calm, reflection on these things? And do it in the context of our Second Amendment? I think we need to. David Muir, on ABC News Sunday Night, said on several occasions that they will be fostering a "national conversation...

Tuesday's agreement by mega-bank, HSBC, to pay a record $1.9 Billion in fines has inadvertently revealed a secret Obama administration scheme to quietly reduce the national debt and allow more social spending which, according to one unnamed administration official is "the funnest part of getting that mandate from the American people." In light of the HSBC $1.9 Billion, the Standard Charter $327 Million, the $619 ING Million, and previous penalties assessed against Barclays, UBS and Citi, today's page one article in the Wall Street Journal about UBS's near settlement of yet another penalty due to interest-rate rigging, it appears that Washington has fallen upon a win-win situation. Because these violations never result in prosecution of any individual ( I guess corporations are people after all ) due to a newly revealed trick called deferred prosecution, several beneficial benefits occur. First and foremost, the number of attorneys both on the financial si...

Is it time for a new murder charge? Let's call it "intended" murder rather than "attempted" murder. According to a front page article in today's Wall Street Journal , homicides are falling despite soaring gun violence. Part of the decreasing number of deaths by shooting or stabbing is not from reduced numbers of violent acts, but from better trauma care. Just like the space program gave us Tang and integrated circuits in the 1960s, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s has taught our medical practitioners how to patch up and save victims who would have surely died if their misfortune had occurred only a decade before. While this advance is hailed as a societal benefit of modern medicine, does it actually benefit the perpetrator more than the victim? The victim of traumatic violence will likely have to endure painful and sometimes disfiguring injuries for the rest of their unnatural life, while the purveyor of the deed will avoid being charg...

Let's be clear. Most consumers of the Obama post-campaign campaign agitprop have as much of an idea of the difference between an increase in the tax rate and an increase in tax revenue as they do the difference between profit and profit margin. President Obama campaigned relentlessly on raising the tax rate on the top earners... "those people like me, who can afford to pay a little bit more to help reduce the deficit", he would say in that sotto voce that became so familiar on the stump. And really, who could disagree that the filthy rich (most of whom are Democrat Party supporters), couldn't afford to pay "just a little bit more"? After all, for them, a checkbook rounding error would fund my family for a year. So what is the harm in raising the top rate from 35% to 39.6%. I mean, that was the rate during Clinton's final years in office. They were the golden years and look how great a shape he left the economy in. (Discussion of the Internet bubbl...

I found myself yelling at the TV today while watching Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner telling interviewers what "we" (meaning the President's administration) are willing to give up to avoid plunging over the Fiscal Cliff. He talked about needing a tax rate  increase (nevermind the ultimate goal of revenue  enhancement). He spoke to Chris Wallace of Fox New Sunday about the trillion dollars to be saved by not fighting two wars (that President Bush had already started ending), and how they want to increase beneficial spending on extended unemployment benefits (to help relieve the mortgage crisis {he actually said that}), $150B in infrastructure, and another year of payroll tax holiday and more. Is this guy kidding? I have never seen as cocky and condescending an individual in politics as Geithner. No wonder Sen. Mitchell laughed at his proposals and Speaker Boehner called it a "silly" proposal that left him "flabbergasted". It all reminded me of...