RoR: Forum

Ed:

What we just experienced in this current financial crisis, I think, is the results of a tribal perversion of risk management. But the blame goes far and wide.

Our tribal regulatory model, the financial industries, our academic half baked credit/wealth theories running loose in the nation ("lack of access to credit is what keeps poor people poor") as well as the irrational whims of those receiving the tear-off warm body credit.

The blame for our tribal failure goes from POTUS of both parties to Congress of both parties to SCOTUS paving the way for monopolistic models of banking and lending regulation to the boardrooms of banks and brokerage houses and the far too creative financially engineered attempts to finesse unavoidable risk onto others, to the bankers who sailed ahead without voicing strong objection and (by law) threw out conservative banking and lending principles, to the irrational wage earners who cashed out all the equity of their homes repeatedly as the bubble was inflating, or who took on way more debt than they could possibly afford in any downturn and who are now underwater as a result.

It's all, at the face of it, a massive tribal attempt to shed/repeal/ignore the intelligent management of risk and the rules of the risk management game; when you play with ROI at risk and you win, you win, and when you play with ROI at risk and you lose, you lose, and when you play with ROI not at risk, you don't whine about receiving a guaranteed rate of return as discounted wages, especially when the model gives you a totally self-modulated chance to participate in the risk/reward game at any level of exposure you self-choose.

"Hey, maybe there is a way to 'socialize' risk" is the stupidest idea ever to visit mankind; risk is already 'socialized' by the three tiered model described above, and unavoidable risk is fairly managed by the rules of the game.

Post 21

Friday, December 30, 2011 - 8:39am

AIG is an example of a perversion of risk management.

"Gee, we placed too many insurance bets. We never actually beleived we'd have to pay up on these bets, we only thought we'd have to collect premiums on them. And now there are a lot of managers of teachers pension funds and so on who were chasing risk free returns, and they are going to get hosed up if we don't pay up, so because of our gross incompetence, the tribe must rush in and pay off our bets for us."

Heads we win, tails we don't lose. Lather, rinse, repeat, let's all go give this same game another round of the Old College Try.

What needs to happen: managers of state teachers pension funds take a hosing. State teachers go ballistic when they are told their pensions are unfunded. Hue and cry and discipline end up with heads on pikes, and these fools never, ever, ever do any such crazy nonsense again, and the managers of state teachers funds are freshly educated and tuned up, and AIG is no more.

Only, ten years ago, with LTCM, when this was only a 3.5 billion education. Or as Merlin points out, in the 80s with the S&L failure. As the tribe has toyed with this whole 'too big to let fail' nonsense, the size of the resulting failures are growing unbounded. LTCM was a 3.5 billion 'near global species ending event.' It was supposed to be a 'once in a hundred year event.' Not ten years later, the government is throwing around trillions of dollars of panic OPM.

Are we out of our fucking collective mind? If so, the "S"ociety has shown itself to be one totally insane, irrational bitch and Durkheim got it exactly 180 degrees wrong.

Post 22

Friday, December 30, 2011 - 12:01pm

Hi Fred,
I have a little trouble with your tribal characterization. I see the problem as a bunch of people (our "Leaders") throwing $Trillions into the air so they can grab a few million for themselves. And obfuscating the process while pointing fingers. If, somehow, our "leaders" were forced to be honest and not lying sacks of excrement we would have a better quality of "leaders". I wouldn't believe in free markets if I didn't believe people on average were honest and likely to make the right decisions given good information.

Post 23

Friday, December 30, 2011 - 1:38pm

Mike:

Do you mean, in the sense that I spread too much of the shared blame in too thin a layer, spread too far, and aimed unfairly at JPF(just plain folks)as well as government and business and academic leaders?

That's probably fair. It certainly wasn't -all- folks who applied for mortgages and LOCs that abused reality.

The spread/shared blame is no doubt a lot 'lumpier' than that, and piled up among our leaders most of all.

I guess my point is, in what just happened, even among JPF loan consumers who were largely just blithely taking advantage of what seemed like tribal policy at the time, there certainly was no incentive among that part of the tribe to say 'Stop! Don't! Enough already!'

Where was that incentive? That is the point.

To me, a major flaw in what just occurred is that we/the tribe and maybe even especially tribal leaders permitted a confluence of interests over too great a scale; we had one overbearing national model, and not 50 sets of independent state banking and lending regulatory models.

In court case after court case and even USSC case, there was a systematic -- in the courts, via cases raised by real human beings -- campaign to replace those 50 sets of largely conservative state banking and lending regulations, and replace that whole constellation of regulation with a single overbearing federal model. The reasons for doing that were many-- it was a confluence of interests.

Too few or an ineffective few -- there must have been resistance to this or else why were there court cases?-- were seeing the monopolistic, single point of failure danger in this tribal experiment, and it bit the nation in the butt.

We still don't largely see this singlepointoffailure system design as a problem; my lament about the danger being a massive confluence of interests all heading off the same cliff, advocated by many different interests for many different reasons, is fringe in the extreme.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 12/30, 1:40pm)

Post 24

Friday, December 30, 2011 - 10:07pm

"
I guess my point is, in what just happened, even among JPF loan consumers who were largely just blithely taking advantage of what seemed like tribal policy at the time, there certainly was no incentive among that part of the tribe to say 'Stop! Don't! Enough already!'

Where was that incentive? That is the point.
"

Understanding economics is a specialty few people possess. What all people possess is the desire to increase their wealth and security. I would guess the average person overextending themselves during the mortgage bubble thought "my investment is less than peanuts compared to the mortgage companies, their loss would be much greater than mine if something happens. They're the experts, they must know what they're doing." My house which I bought in 1985 for 88K was valued at $560K around 2005 or 6. I knew that was crazy stupid, I took no money out of my house at all. I know people who way overbought, and bought extra homes as "investments". They have since had to "walk away" from foreclosed properties after losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. They actually thought they were insuring a secure future. Now may never be able to retire.

What was their incentive to not do what they did? Knowledge they didn't have. An expertise they didn't have. They had too much trust in the "experts", not knowing the experts faced punishments for NOT writing bad loans. This is a failure of the leadership of this country. We have an extremely hard time electing good leaders to any level of government. They are money grubbing arrogant megalomaniac liars. Somehow we need to find a way to keep the liars out of power. What amendments would you add to the Constitution to improve two things: 1. The quality (truthfulness) of the candidates. 2. Insure that only those with "skin in the game" [your idea] have the right to vote. Or do we need to throw out the Constitution and start over?

I agree that the concentration of power in an overbearing national federal government is a huge part of the problem. But itself a symptom of a flawed constitutional definition of government. Separation of powers has not worked well. Replacing the rule of law with a huge bureaucracy has not worked. Giving the executive branch monarchical powers has not worked. Depending on the press as a fourth branch of government (supposedly assuring we get honest politicians) has not worked.
Best Regards,
Mike Erickson

Post 25

Friday, December 30, 2011 - 11:38pm

Mike,

You made some excellent points:

Replacing rule of law with regulations has been bad,
Depending upon the press to keep politicians honest has totally failed in recent decades. (and TV which should have made things better has made them worse - now we have 30 second sound bites done by people with good hair).
And you alluded to the shift from a confederation of states type of government to a large federal government - that argument was alive when the constitution was being written but the Progressives didn't have their way till early 1900's.

I disagree that separation of powers has not worked - I'd say that it has been the only thing that has kept us being far, far worse - but I'd agree that the separation is fraying badly and needs readjusting and strengthened.

I think the founders did an extraordinary job - they started so close scratch. Without the constitution (the very idea of which is revolutionary) I don't imagine that we would have lasted 50 years before falling into tyranny without the constitution (Which I'd agree needs some key improvements).

I'd add this... For whatever reason, the defenders of freedom never saw how damned effective the progressives were in getting into the universities and spending generations changing the understanding of government and economics. They rewrote history and infected every nearly every department. From them we have our current set of journalists, editors, and intellectuals. This long-term, multi-generational, parasitical infection of the center for transmitting knowledge to the next generation has worn away our freedom as dripping water does to rock over time.

Post 26

Saturday, December 31, 2011 - 10:58am

This angers me (speaking of "monarchical powers"; note the "three directives per week"):

"In 2012 Obama to press ahead without Congress"

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20111231/D9RVHE981.html

---------------------------------
Excerpts:

"...having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers accomplish little in 2012."

"...the White House says, Obama's re-election year will focus almost exclusively on executive action."

"...Obama will come out with at least two or three directives per week, continuing the "We Can't Wait" campaign the administration began this fall..."

------------------------------------------------

If Obama gets a big win on Obamacare (it doesn't get overturned) I expect Obama to serve a second term. There will be voter fraud, all in favor of Obama. There will be a lot of noise & rabble rousing increasing up to the election mostly as mis-direction covering up the fraud. Romney appears to be the probable Republican candidate. Romney desperately wants to be President. At his core I don't think he believes in any limits to government. His attempts to appease voters as someone who will not "takeaway" any benefits will make him appear like no alternative at all to Obama. Only the establishment Republicans will end up voting for him. If Obama serves a second term the changes in our system of government will be so deep as to never be reversed. The system of government we thought could be preserved is over.

Sorry I can't be less pessimistic than this right now. The corruption is deep. It's not just a matter of convincing ordinary folks to believe in limited government. The fix is in. I practically begged you to support McCain in the last election. Do you think we'd be worse off now if McCain had been elected?

Post 27

Saturday, December 31, 2011 - 12:16pm

Mike,

Let me answer your question first. You asked, "Do you think we'd be worse off now if McCain had been elected?"

It is hard to imagine that we would be worse off. But, there is something very wrong and very damaging about Republicans being the ones to cause the destruction of our freedoms. They are the supposed protectors of economic liberty. So when they are the ones to destroy liberty, all the consequences unfairly get blamed on capitalism (Look at Bush and his contribution to national debt, and his initiation of bail-outs. Look at Nixon who took us off the last vestige of a gold standard and gave us the inflation we've suffered since 1971).

McCain was the key sponsor to the worst single legislative act we've ever seen. The amendments to the appropriations bill that recently passed and destroyed posse comitatus, habeous corpus, probable cause, and due process - all in two simple amendments. Under that bill, now passed into law, our military can be used to enforce law on American street corners at the order of the administrative branch, anyone can be snatched out of his living room with no warrant - by military or police, held incommunicado, no lawyer allowed, no right to appear in front of a judge, no jury trial, and the imprisonment can be forever.

McCain is second only to Senator Linday Graham as a crusading militarist who wants to attack all Muslim countries. He was the lead cheerleader of the Republican support for our involvement in Libya. He might well have taken us a long ways towards a military dictatorship as president.

McCain broke off his campaign for President and flew back to Washington for the financial crisis - and what he did there was to come out in favor of the bail-outs. He is big government, he advocates for more world wide military interventions, he has no understanding of individual rights or the constitutional protections against government abuses.

What Obama has done is to help stimulate the anti-big-government forces and the anti-progressive forces. He has been the fuel and the catnip for the TeaParty movement. Those are good things and they would not have happened (except among libertarians) under a McCain presidency. Because of Obama and the progressives the conservatives have vastly increased in number while at the same time a large portion of them have moved towards Libertarianism - at least towards small government conservatism. Obama may have been the needed catalyst in finally framing the debate in the country between big government and a constitutionally limited small government. And the debate about eliminating the current income tax and replacing it with some simpler, fairer tax and that would revitalize the economy.

So, would be worse off? I don't know.
--------------------------------------------

I agree with you on Obama's naked grab for power using executive directives. He is a constitutional scholar, but one whose studies have always been towards learning how to eliminate constitutional restrictions on government's power.
---------------------------------------------

If Obama gets a big win on Obamacare (it doesn't get overturned) I expect Obama to serve a second term. There will be voter fraud, all in favor of Obama. There will be a lot of noise & rabble rousing increasing up to the election mostly as mis-direction covering up the fraud. Romney appears to be the probable Republican candidate. Romney desperately wants to be President. At his core I don't think he believes in any limits to government. His attempts to appease voters as someone who will not "takeaway" any benefits will make him appear like no alternative at all to Obama. Only the establishment Republicans will end up voting for him. If Obama serves a second term the changes in our system of government will be so deep as to never be reversed. The system of government we thought could be preserved is over.

Obama might get a second term - lots of things could lead to that (voter fraud, improved jobs numbers, massive negative campaigning, having the press in his pocket, Romney not making a strong case for liberty and failing to paint Obama for the socialist and liar he is, big screw-ups in the Romney campaign, etc.) But Obama isn't the key to turning the political tide - it is the senate (while retaining the majority in the House and even moving it more towards small government people). Obama can have his feet nailed to the ground and rendered impotent by a majority in the Senate and the House. With major reforms, like repealing ObamaCare (if it isn't overturned by the Court) can be pushed through. They can just keep sending it to him for his veto, again and again, while they whip up popular support till he has to cave in or risk a popular wave of anger so great that the usually cowardly legislators would bring up impeachment. Without the Senate, even a win in the Presidency will not be as effective as people think.

There are big unknowns... how much resolution do the Tea Party folks still have. As a movement, it isn't in a visible phase, so we need to ask, has it faded away some, with lost hopes and diminished enthusiasm, or has it grown stronger and more resolute? And, how much will these middle-America voters work to increase Tea Party type of candidates that are elected, or will Obama and the Democrats succeed in their blame game and cause a reduction in the Tea Party type candidates elected. Some Democrats are predicting a loss of 20 to 40 percent of those seats to moderates of one sort or another. I think it is more likely to go the other way with an increase in the small government people elected. But it is very much an unknown... as is the outcome of the Senate elections.

The biggest problem is that without a real power house of a president who is willing to be bold in his reforms, and the senate majority,and the House... events will overtake intentions. They always do. There will be various crisis unfold and take over the center stage. And without solid economic and moral principles in both houses, they will react in the wrong ways to any major crisis.

I'm very pessimistic, but in a different way. I think our economic chickens will come home to roost in the next four to five years (or sooner) and that will be the cause of our political downfall - from a constitutional republic to something else.

Post 28

Saturday, December 31, 2011 - 5:04pm

Steve,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I don't have any intelligent or informed answers. I don't know for sure whether we would have been better off if McCain were president. I don't know what's going to happen next year up to and including the election. I don't know how much of Obama is cause or symptom.

I agree there is a financial catastrophe waiting to happen. Replacing Obama is simply attempting to triage that event. The patient may die anyway.

Post 29

Saturday, December 31, 2011 - 9:47pm

Mike,

I think you have already supplied a lot of thoughtful and intelligent answers... but like me, we are trying to look into the future and there is too much chaos and too many unknowns to have any certainty - just some informed guesses.

Thing are so contrary. If the tea party and good people of the country rose up and threw out the bums and insisted on reforms we'd both approve of, it still wouldn't stop us from having to pay the economic price for the decades of Keynesian foolishness. And then when the crash hits, the blame will be put on Capitalism and deregulation.

Post 30

Monday, January 2, 2012 - 1:29pm

Mike&STeve:

There is an old expression, "The fix has long been in."

I think in our case, "The break has long been in."

Decades. I think the 80 election might have been the last chance this nation had to change course-- when the center of mass of the boomers were at the beginning of their earnings/tax years. When we still could have done something about this train wreck. The hill just got ever steeper, every election past 80. By the 90's, we were in full blown denial mode.

As Steve says, "it still wouldn't stop us from having to pay the economic price for the decades of Keynesian foolishness."

Poor Keynes; we never got close to Keynes' full theory; we only borrowed and spent, period. We borrowed and spent when the pig was making its way through the python, we borrowed and spent now that the boomers are about to retire. We borrowed and spent always.

It had little consequence when the pig was still in the python, but now, the consequences of decades of governmental failures to act responsibly are unavoidable.

I think both parties long recognized that the nation was long a train on tracks, with every year more drastic adjustments required to avert what is coming, and thus, every year yet more unlikely that any gutless politicians were going to be the bearers of the bad news, leading to the current circus of massive denial clownfest. Politics in this nation among the two parties of power has long devolved into a graceless jostling for position in the ultimate wreck; Train Wreck Politics.

"They did it." "No, they did."

Carter, Reagan, Clark. Clark spelled out the economic arguments in "New Beginnings"...and got 1% of the vote for his efforts.

At least we got Reagan, right?

We got Reagan and ... the Great Compromise. Mo' guns and mo' butter.

Yet it is the butter, undeniably, that is tubing us.

JFK's early 1960 budget: $100B, about $55B or so of which was for defense(at the peak of the Cold War). Over half.

CPI/inflation: x 7.5
Population: barely x 2

- factor of x15 adjustment to today.

That adjusts to about $1500B/yr of federal spending...not over $3600B/yr

That is 240% over CPI/population *fully* adjusted number.

So, where is it? What explains the 240% over-bloat?

Defense in early 60's: about $55B
Same adjustment: about $825B
Actual: about $895B

That is 8.5% over CPI/population adjusted number.

Medicare in 1966: $3B. Adjusts to about $45B today, but actual spending is over ten times that number $466B/yr)

That is 1035% over CPI and population adjusted number.

SS in JFK's America: about 12.5B
Same adjustment: about 187.5B today.
Actual today: $695B

That is 370% over CPI and population adjusted number.

"Grand Compromise:" 240% increase in federal over-bloat as payment for 8% increase in defense spending.

When the butter melts, we get Greece.

Yes, I remember 60's America; possibly the last time that the America government ever actually inspired the nation.

Mercury/Gemini/Apollo was a $2B/yr program for 10 years.

But today, to inspire a generation, we have...

... endless butter bills to pay.

The specter of a nation changing each others bedsores bandages is so ... deeply inspiring. Who would ever think that a species would trade off watching their children look up into the sky at the lights of the new colonies on the moon for the opportunity to pay for grandma and grandpa's final unwanted bout of C-Diff at some Medicare Rehab mill?

That is so turning out to be so ... compassionate.

Post 31

Monday, January 2, 2012 - 1:42pm

Another interesting throwback to JFK's America; 'Twilight Zone' marathon this weekend.

I happened to catch "Obsolete Man" and also the one about the 'grotesquely deformed' beautiful woman in a nation of pig-like folks, with her face bandaged up. At one point she is railing against 'the State' and its rules of majority based norms. She is getting banned to a colony for grotesquely deformed folks like her. In pure Twilight Zone goodness, this speech is also before the viewer knows she is a beauty in a tribe where pig faces are the norm.

This was intensely political theater, very anti-tribe, anti-scientific state. I must have been propped up in front of one of these marathons as a child in the 60's, it would explain so much about my now minority views.

What happened to art and theater in America?

Another example of being over-run.

Post 32

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 - 1:05pm

This still floors me; I can't wrap my head around it.

JFK's 100B in early 60's fully CPI/population adjusts to 1500B/yr today, and half of that was for defense at the peak of the Cold War.

Today: > $3600B/yr.

And yet...if Congress reached a 'new' grand compromise, and eliminated 100% of defense and 100% of MEDICARE, we would -still- only be half-way unwound from today's $3600B/yr to JFK's fully adjusted $1500B/yr...over half of which was for defense.

Said another way...if we separated out defense from JFK's adjusted $1500B/yr, it would be adjusted to $630B in non-defense spending, compared to today's approx $2700B in non-defense spending.

Where is all the added bloat? JFK's defense budget adjusts to maybe $825B, and we're at $895B. Bloat, but only by 8%(of an admittedly big number. But...still does not explain the bloat, even if eliminated 100% of that big number PLUS MEDICARE!)

With JFK's budget fully CPI/population adjusted to today, that is an increase of about 2.1 trillion dollars in non-defense spending over JFK's fully adjusted budget.

Ron Paul only wants to cut a trillion/yr, not 2.1 trillion/yr. But in order to get the American economies back to JFK's 60's (when America as whole was on a tear), we'd need to drop the federal bloat by a full 2.1 trillion/yr, down to $1500B/yr in federal spending.

Our population has barely doubled in this time.

We haven't added a single star to the flag.

And, government future credit fueled borrowing is exactly the source of endemic CPI/inflation, but I've fully adjusted for that using a factor of 7.5 for CPI/inflation and a conservative 2.0 for population.

Our federal spending is not just 'a little' bloated, it is wildly bloated, and totally out of all control.

Not even Ron Paul is advocating severe enough cuts, and he's got a snowball's chance in Hell of taking power and getting any cooperation from the likely still status quo GOP/Dem Congress on the required stand-down.

Paul is the only candidate -close- to wielding an axe; the rest are at most showing up with scalpels around the edges-- symbolic tweaks--as if this was sustainable.

How does this work much longer? I mean...at all?

Don't see it.

If possible, don't get caught with money in any regulated plans in the coming years...that one is way easy to predict.

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 1/03, 1:07pm)

Post 33

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - 7:32am

Last night was the first time I'd heard of Santorum's "cut 5 trillion over five years" plan. But then, Santorum has gotten next to no exposure in the media or debates. It will be interesting to see how he holds up when he is newly invited to the Grownups Table at Saturday's debate in NH, freshly painted with a new target on his back.

Not quite the same as Paul's 'cut 1 trillion the first year', but in the ballpark...sort of.

How does any POTUS do anything other than propose a cut over 5 years to Congresses not even elected yet?

I though they all had an opportunity in front of the cameras to give credible speeches, and was kind of surprised at how good a job they all did presenting their brand. Newts simmering speech probably played the worst, but it wasn't all that bad, he made his points.

This media circus process, whatever it is, is honing these candidates into well oiled machines.

What is remarkable about Iowa is how, other than Romney, the #2 and #3 finishers were both uniquely the candidates that the media elites and talking heads have snickered at the most as having absolutely no chance at all.

When real people hit the streets and talk to real people, real people do quite well. Iowa is really unique in this aspect. When it is all robo calls and TV/radio ads and signs on lawns and total bozo crap, then it is all about throwing money into a washing machine and laundering it into a 'win.'

Santorum and Paul _earned_ their wins in Iowa; Santorum's "$ per vote" number(it is like a factor of 10 or more less than Romney and the others)is a giant slap in the face, a glaring indictment of what is wrong with our process.

I still see this primary as Romney 25%, not Romney 75%, and whoever is standing the longest in the not Romney field gets that 75% and runs against Obama.

Obama will be running against two opponents:

1] The GOP nominee, whoever it is.
2] The Obama of the last 4 years.

He can run from 1] but he can't hide from 2].

His only play is "Forget what I said, forget the last four years, I just need more time to bring about Fundamental Change."

In a once free nation? No thanks.

Post 34

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - 5:09pm

Fred, it is just a single state caucus that picks about 1% of the delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses

2012 - Mitt Romney (25%), Rick Santorum (25%), Ron Paul (21%), Newt Gingrich (13%), Rick Perry (10%), Michele Bachmann (5%), and Jon Huntsman (0.6%)[21]
2008 – Mike Huckabee (34%), Mitt Romney (25%), Fred Thompson (13%), John McCain (13%), Ron Paul (10%), Rudy Giuliani (4%), and Duncan Hunter (1%)
2004 – George W. Bush (unopposed)
2000 – George W. Bush (41%), Steve Forbes (31%), Alan Keyes (14%), Gary Bauer (9%), John McCain (5%), and Orrin Hatch (1%)
1996 – Bob Dole (26%), Pat Buchanan (23%), Lamar Alexander (18%), Steve Forbes (10%), Phil Gramm (9%), Alan Keyes (7%), Richard Lugar (4%), and Morry Taylor (1%)
1992 – George H. W. Bush (unopposed)
1988 – Bob Dole (37%), Pat Robertson (25%), George H. W. Bush (19%), Jack Kemp (11%), and Pete DuPont (7%)
1984 – Ronald Reagan (unopposed)
1980 – George H. W. Bush (32%), Ronald Reagan (30%), Howard Baker (15%), John Connally (9%), Phil Crane (7%), John B. Anderson (4%), and Bob Dole (2%)
1976 – Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan

Strike out the Unopposeds and you see what a dice game it is. Iowa is self-identified as special.

And Iowa is special in many ways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7ZcVFSWWU

Post 35

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - 7:24pm

The Iowa Caucus is not that tightly connected to the picking of the delegates to the GOP national convention. The votes at the precinct level (1,774 precincts) select delegates to the 99 different county conventions where they select delegates to District conventions where they select the delegates to the state convention where they select the delegates to the national convention.

It is also non-binding. Delegates are not bound to vote for delegates who will support the winner of the precinct they represent.

Iowa is the first to speak, but the date of the state convention makes them the last to select their delegates to the national convention.

The caucuses also make motions to introduce planks to the party platform... I assume these bubble up to the state level in a similar fashion.

You can vote for a president even if you are 17 years old, in the Iowa caucuses, as long as you will be age 18 by the date of general election.

(Trivia plucked from Wikipedia)

Post 36

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 10:05pm

Failure To Engage?

The report card is in on 50+ years of weak GOP alternatives to Democratic insanity, and that is, fail.

At most, Reagan conceded to a lot more butter in order to reach his grand compromise of more guns, too. I voted for Clark, not Reagan, in '80, but after his 1% fringe symbolic whisper, by '84 I had signed on to the false hope for freedom GOP as the only party of power in play; hope was reduced to 'maybe libertarian principles can influence this gigantic blob of gladhanders...sort of what Ron Paul is fighting to do.

As this latest GOP primary largely ...disheartens us all with its weak hopes, a friend of mine sent me an article from The American Spectator which I missed a year and a half ago.

It's the clearest description of this nation's infestation -- and totally inneffective antibodies-- that I've seen in a long time.

Regarding a Ron Paul third party candidacy; if it is so crucually important that Obama be defeated, and a Ron Paul candidacy would hand the election to Obama, then ... why doesn't the GOP step aside? For 50+ years, all they've shown is that they can't turn things around in the least; they are aa totally inneffective alternative to the Democrats, at most Democrat-Lite. Is 50+4 years of the same, with Mitt Romney the latest affable bus driver, really going to restore freedom in this nation? What is the point of the GOP taking its turn with Mitt?

Worrying about Romney or Obama is like worrying who is driving the bus when it drives over the cliff. At most, Romney serves as the 'He Did it!' target for the coming train wreck politics. Great Society/New Deal has already run the nation into the dirt, if that is going to be the case anyway, then better that Obama and the Democrats own it. If we're going to do nothing to turn this around, then showing up to have the just slightly right of Obama alternative take the blame for the train wreck isn't helping any post-train wreck reality.

Post 37

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 10:17pm

Unfortunatly we don't really have a galts gultch to hole up in while the shit hits the fan even though were are aware of the need for one.

Post 38

Monday, January 9, 2012 - 10:52pm

Good post, Fred.

I grew up with a lot relatives and friends of the family who were conservatives so I had an early take on conservatives who were good people. It wasn't till I was out on my own and saw that there were also bad conservatives.

I certainly agree with Ayn Rand's harsh judgment of the conservative movement. If you put the Democrats and the Republicans up side by side you'd say the Democrats are the worse. Because clearly they are more in favor of big spending, push for bigger government, push for more regulations, etc.

But side by side is NOT the proper comparison. The context is that the Democrats openly advocate for a bigger government to feed starving children, then if they get that, starving adults, then to tell obese kids what they can eat, and so on. Their job is to grow government and centralize power to serve their altruistic demands.

The context for the Republicans is to ensure we are safe from war and crime and have a free economy. They keep telling us that, but they are really lies since they don't focus on safe from wars as much as they focus on wars we didn't need and are allowing the economy to be destroyed.

So, the Democrats are, in this limited way, more honest (but clearly not in any other way) and succeeding at achieving their goals, while the Republicans lie to us about their true goals and fail to do what they swore they would.

As to the conservatives, the good thing is that they are fracturing now - with the first step being a growing recognition of the fracture lines. Before the Libertarians were far outside of the main stream and seen as totally fringe nutcases. Now we see the Conservatives split into GOP Establishment Conservatives (mostly NeoCons and big government pragmatists), Social Conservatives (they come in different flavors but all come with a bible), Constitutional Conservatives (somewhat Libertarian), Economic Conservatives (somewhat Libertarian), and I've even, to my delight, heard a pundit refer to the Libertarian wing of the Republican party. This is a new phenomena and very exciting. The good thing about the Conservative movement of today may be in opening a the door the Libertarians are walking through and starting to convert (well, let's say 'educate') the other Conservatives (bit by bit).

In this struggle, I posted a blog a fellow wrote about Nullification as a move to restore liberty from grass roots up. With growing voter awareness of libertarian principles and the degree of corruption we see now, the top-down corrections to the system will come from those Conservatives that are elected and move towards Libertarianism.

Post 39

Sunday, February 12, 2012 - 4:56pm