The government monopolization of student loans should be a warning to every business in America. What began as a government incentive by offering discounted rates to banks who would promise to issue educational loans is now being vilified as ineffective—thus prompting further intervention in the form of private obsolescence favoring public ubiquity.

Any business that now takes a tax cut, tax credit, or some other discount for participating in a government agenda must follow the consequences to their logical conclusion. Our current government will—as it did with student loans—eventually portray your service as the intermediary to their benevolence, and argue for public socialization of your business.

This is already happening with the Health Care Reform law. President Obama knew he needn’t completely nationalize health insurance immediately; by acting as an innocuous intercessor, the path quickly follows to make them a frustrating arbiter, and then finally an oppressive master. They must only convince enough people that it is the private company that serves as middle-man, rather the government, to consumer benefits.

After all (their argument may go), why work for a private corporation, who skims off the top to line their CEO’s pockets while receiving tax benefits, when you may receive employment or benefits directly from their benefactor? Why purchase oil from Chevron when the government may provide it at a reduced price? Why sell shoes when the government may distribute them more fairly?

The real question all along, however, should have been, why was the government artificially propping up complementary prices through their initial intervention? Education tuition costs have skyrocketed since the government’s first involvement in distributing loans; health care costs have skyrocketed since Medicare, Medicaid, and forcing emergency rooms to admit patients; automobile prices have risen drastically since the imposition of stricter emissions and safety standards.

The nationalization of student loans will give more people access to education, the demand for college enrollment will rise exponentially, and tuition costs will necessarily rise in direct correlation in order to maintain order and population ratio on campuses. At that point, the government will intervene once again in the name of fairness, eliminate the educational middle-man, and nationalize college education.

Every concession of liberty is one more authorization of tyranny. By allowing the government to restrict the liberties of banks, schools, and ultimately the consumer in their choice in the loan market, we have given them the authority to control one more aspect of our lives. If any middle-man should be eliminated from business it must be the one whose responsibility it is to protect the pursuit of wealth, not the one who provides the path.

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The Deathmobile of Bureaucracy

President Obama, campaigning in Iowa for a law already passed, rebutted the Republicans’ rhetoric to repeal and replace the Health Care overhaul. After taunting the Republicans by double-dog daring them to repeal his landmark accomplishment, he told his supporters in the Hawkeye state, “I don’t believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver’s seat. We’ve been there already. We’re not going back.”

The problem is, the insurance company has not had control of the driver’s seat for a very long time. The government has increased its regulation over the industry for a very long time, most notably refusing their operating across state lines.

Even at the health insurance industry’s conception, when it was almost free from all government regulation, it didn’t have the power or authority of a totalitarian bus driver from a horror movie, as Mr. Obama has attempted to portray them. No, the insurance industry—and any industry in a free market—is more like a taxicab driver. They may choose the vehicle, they may set the price, they may even choose the customers; but it is the consumer that has the authority.

The vehicle of government health care

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I received a message from a liberal friend on Facebook yesterday. Her son, in his mid twenties, has had Type I diabetes ever since he was very young. Yet even after the health care bill passed, my friend at once began complaining that she had to wait another four years for Obama’s plan to cover her son; she also began asking any of her conservative friends to fork over the dough for medical care and find an insurance company that would help her.

How selfish.

Arguments that appeal to sympathy are popular among liberals. They must use this type of argument because their logic is inherently flawed. Instead of demanding charity (an oxymoron at best) and complaining that she must endure the toils associated with survival, she could have adopted a different perspective—a perspective that is grateful for the technologies that have allowed her son to progress as much as he has while still allowing her to keep her 100-acre ranch.

After all, if universal health care were really her fundamental priority, she could have moved to France or any number of countries a long time ago. Instead, I believe she knows that the quality of care in the United States is far better than anywhere else, but still believes that care should be distributed freely. To borrow from tired old phrase, she wants to have her insulin and inject it, too.

We all have our priorities in life. My friend’s position is the archetypal liberal argument. She and other socialists believe that their own priorities should also be the priorities of the society, and they seek governmental intervention to regulate them. They believe that another’s property should assist them in pursuing their own goals. Again, how selfish.

Margaret Thatcher said “The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money.” While that is true, it is only a problem. What causes the government to run out of other people’s money? The problem with socialism is that it imposes the fiscal burden of others’ priorities on an unwilling people. The more this happens, the more these people will be drained of their wealth. When they have lost their financial independence, they too will demand the government to subsidize their goals.

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Obama Proof – Health Care Email

Email received 23 Mar 2010 @ 1539.

It’s a shame that so many people think of our President as a master orator. It’s a shame that more people don’t read his speeches. It’s a shame that his intelligence is vastly overestimated. It’s a shame he attaches his name to such a flawed document as this one below.

Mr. Obama, in the interest of bipartisanship, I will gladly take a job as your proofreader because it is obvious neither you nor your staff at OfA have a basic grasp of simple sentence construction.

V/R

Andrew Schwartz

(Click on the image for better resolution.)

PROTUS

Fortunately for him, Obamas are heard and not read...

Twenty-eighth Amendment

Over 3/4 of the United States have expressed an intent to block the federal government from mandating their citizens to purchase health insurance. Among these states is Virginia, and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has vowed to sue to the federal government as soon as President Obama signs the bill into law.

Even if for some reason the Supreme Court allows this dastardly power grab, the news isn’t all bad. With approximately 40 states fighting back against the individual mandate, a new amendment to the Constitution may be possible. I, for one, offer the following language to be amended to our governmental charter that the Democrats have recently ignored.

Amendment Twenty-Eight:

Congress shall make no law that requires or compels on penalty of fine, fee, tax or imprisonment, any state or its citizens thereof to purchase any good, service, or participate in any agenda, that deprives them of life, liberty, or property.

Steve Danyluk wrote on CNN.com that the Obama administration did not follow proper protocol after the attempted bombing on Detroit-bound Flight 253 Christmas Day, despite Obama’s statement that, “once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, it’s clear Homeland Security and Aviation Security took all appropriate actions.”

Danyluk, a commercial airline pilot who was flying over the Atlantic for six hours during the same time as Flight 253, said that he did not receive any information regarding AbdulMutallab’s alleged terrorist attack until he landed, at which time he found a report on CNN through his iPhone.

This, says Danyluk, is a clear violation of the procedures supposed to be intiated in the event of a terror attempt, and is asking the Obama administration to review post-handling procedures in addition to the intelligence failures Obama has already begun to review. According to Danyluk, the federal Domestic Events Network–ultimately a responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security–was charged with communicating real-time threats to all commercial pilots. Danyluk asked, “So why, after eight years and billions of dollars, was the information concerning the incident available to me only on my iPhone?”

Clearly disgusted with the mishandling of the situation, he said, “I’m left with the sickening sense that after 9/11, the government spent horrific amounts of money to create the ‘mother of all’ pre-mishap plans, but never effectively tested it. Why? Because unlike the military, where commanding officers rise up through the ranks based on professional competency, our government operates on a different model.”

Polarization Analysis of Rasmussen Monthly Approval Numbers

Rasmussen Reports just published its monthly approval averages for President Obama in 2009 along with its own Approval Index (Strongly Approve – Strongly Disapprove). As a statistician at heart, I felt that a further analysis was warranted. As is seen in the chart below, the percentage of those disapproving opinions who hold a “strongly disapprove” stance has risen from 59% to a very high  77%. That is to say, only 59% of those who disapproved of President Obama’s job performance held a strong disapproval opinion of him in January, while 77% now do.

Similarly, in January, 69% of those who approved of his performance held a “strong approval” opinion. This number has declined dramatically to nearly 56%.

Analysis of Rasmussen Reports Approval Index

Analysis of Rasmussen Reports Approval Index -- Source Data from Rasmussen Reports

The “Polarization Index” is the weighted difference of  [|1-(PSA/A - PSD/D)|], where (more…)

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