And yet they blame farmers?
There was a story in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun by Timothy Wheeler which was brought to my attention, a story which documented the troubles both Baltimore City and County are having with a sewage infrastructure which, in some cases, is over a century old. Between the two municipalities over 160 million gallons of untreated sewage has leaked into the watershed this year alone.
Obviously this is a situation which is slowly being addressed, as the story points out over $2 billion is being invested into repairing the system over the next decade. Certainly that’s a legitimate function of government, and I have no objection to local tax dollars being used in such a manner.
It’s the unfortunate tendency of farmers and rural interests getting the blame for a problem that occurs because of urban areas like Baltimore City and County which bothers me the most.
Taxes and Keystone
So, President Obama wants to extend the payroll tax cut. Okay, said House Republicans, but we’re going to create a whole bunch of jobs with it by giving the green light to the Keystone XL pipeline.
I’ll let Andy Harris pick things up from here:
“Americans need the truly ‘shovel-ready’ jobs and economic investment that the Keystone XL Pipeline will provide,” said Rep. Andy Harris (MD-01). “The plan that the House majority has introduced is an excellent compromise that will extend tax cuts to the middle class, create tens of thousands of jobs, and will help secure America’s energy future. I am deeply disappointed that President Obama has promised to veto this bill to extend tax relief to our citizens over the Keystone pipeline provision that actually creates jobs without spending a dime of taxpayer money while lowering the price of gasoline and diesel as well.”
Yes, President Obama is threatening to veto the measure. So much for compromise.
Either one of the two points below would then be true. Come to think about it, maybe both are:
- President Obama doesn’t really want to create jobs. Well, perhaps he doesn’t unless they happen to be either government jobs or positions in an industry he favors. But I have news for the President: there aren’t any green jobs; shoot, right now there aren’t many jobs period. Or:
- President Obama really has no desire to cut taxes. To be honest, this tax cut he gave out was relatively insignificant to working families. But he certainly wants to lower the boom on more successful working families by increasing the taxes for couples that make over $200,000.
I’ll grant that the Keystone XL pipeline probably won’t do a whole lot for our local economy since it will run through several states in the Midwest. But the additional oil supply will help us in the long run by stabilizing gasoline prices, as Congressman Harris points out.
But if we do elect a new President next year, I hope Congressman Harris – assuming he’s re-elected, for which he’s an odds-on favorite at the moment – will begin to advocate solutions for our tax code which are more permanent and will begin the process of weaning the government off an income-based tax collection. Ramping up a consumption-based tax, as Herman Cain proposed with his economic plan, would serve this purpose.
Electing conservatives isn’t enough – we need to elect those who have the courage to act. Whether you like President Obama or despise his policies as much as I do, the one thing you can say is that he acted in trying to get his agenda done. We may only have four years to undo the damage he did, although I suspect that if a true conservative succeeds Obama he (or she) will have a full eight years to make a difference. But we’ll all have to roll up our sleeves and get to work – something sorely lacking with the Obama regime.
And now for something completely different:
The first of six opening round tilts in my best local blog poll is over, and the first semi-finalist will be Right Coast Conservative.
After a strong start, Julie Brewington’s site saw a rally from the Shorebirds’ blog which placed it ahead for a time. But much like their team’s performance in 2011, the Shorebirds site couldn’t hang on in the late innings as a strong push from RCC readers carried Julie’s site in the end. Right Coast Conservative received 143 votes and moves on, while the Delmarva Shorebirds Blog gathered 66. The Pocomoke Public Eye did not receive a vote.
The second round is up now, and it has an interesting draw to be sure.
Occupying the basement?
You know, there was supposed to be a protest in Salisbury yesterday. But I’m pretty convinced the Occupy movement doesn’t have much traction, or, for that matter, a fawning press, within these local confines. I had better things to do than to cover these whiners, but one local blog and one local news station delivered short new items on the protests.
Perhaps a tactic change is in order? Well, we’re not exactly a major metropolitan area but I suspect we have a few people around who are as nuts as these people photojournalist ‘El Marco’ detailed in Denver.
It’s more than that, though. One has to ask what possible grievance these committed liberals really have? I suppose it’s because they don’t have absolute control of all the levers of power? Maybe they would like to institute a dose of fascism, allowing the businesses they choose to survive while others are crushed under the bootheel of regulations written in tandem by these chosen businesses and government bureaucrats? It’s the way we are headed under this regime.
By no means am I a fan of crony capitalism, as I think the rules should be simple and fair for everyone who wants to play. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re ExxonMobil, Walmart, or the corner store – everyone should compete on as level of a playing field as possible. It’s why America was enough of a land of opportunity for ExxonMobil and Walmart to get to their level, but apparently somebody wants to close the door now that they’re safely inside.
There’s something to like about the idea of protest, as the Occupy movement is billed as the flip side of the TEA Party protests – well, TEA Party protesters tend not to get arrested, deal drugs, copulate (willingly or not) in sleeping bags, or trash their surroundings, yet the idea is sort of the same – but there’s the question of identity.
People may not have agreed with every facet of the TEA Party’s demands and their use of our Constitutional right to peaceably assemble, but the TEA Party’s theory of restoring power to the people resonated with a large number of voters. On the other hand, the narcissistic entitlement mentality of the Occupy movement abuses that right of assembly by trashing its surroundings and committing violence in the name of exerting their rights. Anyone walking by Zuccotti Park may wonder what they are getting into, although by many accounts pedestrian traffic is being driven away thanks to the garbage and smell.
Fortunately, the Salisbury protest was of much shorter duration and peaceful – perhaps thanks to the watchful eye of the law. But for how much longer?
In print: Don’t put politics above security
This is a column I submitted to the Daily Times. A slightly longer version was submitted to another Maryland outlet.
In the 2011 session of the Maryland General Assembly, members of the House of Delegates tried and failed to get the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Act of 2011 through the legislature. Undaunted by that legislative defeat, in early June Gov. Martin O’Malley signed an executive order to study an oil and natural gas-field process called hydraulic fracturing, with a final report not required until August 2014. It’s a demand to study a process used in more than one million U.S. wells during the past 60 years.
In layman’s terms, “fracking,” as the procedure is better known, uses a solution forced into hard underground rock formations to create tiny fissures. The fissures allow energy resources — in Maryland’s case, natural gas — to be released and extracted.
(Continued at delmarvanow.com…)
Pumpin’ and dumpin’: the return
Even after all these years, capitalism still fascinates me.
This is the long-awaited sequel to a post I did nearly five years ago that was among my most well-received at the time. But instead of junk faxes at my former place of employment – for all I know he may still be getting them – a number of hucksters have moved on to slick e-mail marketing campaigns, sent out with the imprimatur of reputable websites like Townhall, Human Events, or the Washington Times. Of the ten penny stocks I’ll feature today, seven were featured in a Human Events e-mail blast, six in missives from the Times, and five from Townhall. These were all sent out to me back in March; I gave the stocks six months to see how they’d perform on a longer term.
Back on the day I received the last e-mail I saved on behalf of each company, this is how they were doing:
- Allezoe Medical Holdings, Inc. (ALZM) – $1.78 per share
- 5BARz International, Inc. (BARZ) – $1.50 per share
- Davi Luxury Brand Group, Inc. (DAVI) – $1.00 per share
- First American Silver Corp. (FASV) – $1.12 per share
- Liberty Energy Corp. (LBYE) – $0.50 per share
- Vendum Batteries, Inc. (VNDB) – $0.23 per share
- China Botanic Pharmaceutical (CBP) – $1.76 per share
- Mercer Gold Corporation (MRGP) – $0.0975 per share
- Coyote Resources, Inc. (COYR) – $2.40 per share
- Uranerz Energy Corporation (URZ) – $4.57 per share
Would an investment strategy of placing a $10,000 order based on $1,000 for each investment have paid off? Well, here is how they closed yesterday, with the number in parentheses the new stock value. You be the judge.
- ALZM – $0.39 ($219.10)
- BARZ – $0.25 ($166.67)
- MDAV – $0.02 ($20.00)
- FASV – $0.20 ($178.57)
- LBYE – $0.08 ($160.00)
- VNDB – $0.09 ($391.30)
- CBP – $1.00 ($568.18)
- MRGP – $0.09 ($923.08)
- COYR – $0.51 ($212.50)
- URZ – $1.49 ((326.04)
Wow – and I thought the federal government ran up a deficit. That $10,000 stake melted down to $3165.44 – a stunning 68% loss in value! (There’s more after the jump.)
New advertiser
If you’ll notice in the right-hand sidebar, there’s a new advertiser here at monoblogue.
But it’s much more than an ad. I was asked by the publisher of Salisbury4Rent to contribute content, and the first issue is my print magazine debut. Each quarter you’ll be able to read an editorial piece I’ll write on “anything from politics to sports to music to whatever else strikes me as the publishing deadline approaches.” I share billing in this issue with Salisbury City Council member Laura Mitchell (the subject of the magazine’s first interview) and national political observer Lew Rockwell.
While the magazine is advertiser-supported (thus, free for the taking at a number of local distribution points) its success depends on patronizing these advertisers and spreading the word. It’s not a coffee-table glossy full of fluff pieces about the advertisers like Metropolitan, but reading one can sink their teeth into. Once you get your hands on the issue, you’ll wish it came out more than once a quarter.
Running a magazine is a tough business, but Salisbury4Rent has some solid backers and well-written commentary. I encourage you to give it a try. As a special treat for those outside Salisbury, I’ll link to my article once the content portion of the magazine goes online in the next few days.
‘Buffett Rule’ = unintended consequences
Really – how dumb does President Obama think we are? He’s playing that old tired class envy card again.
His latest scheme goes like this:
Middle-class families shouldn’t have to pay a higher tax rate than millionaires and billionaires.
So President Obama has proposed the “Buffett Rule,” which would require the wealthiest Americans to pay a tax rate at least as high as the middle class. Republicans are already calling this “class warfare,” and they will fight this plan with everything they have.
Yeah, that will do wonders for investment and job creation. So I don’t call it ‘class warfare’, I call it ‘sheer stupidity.’
Harris sets me to thinking
They’re a little longer than a radio commercial, yet not long enough to allow attention to wander.
The latest “update” from Andy Harris concerns President Obama’s Stimulus II. Clocking in at 1:38, it essentially goes over once again many of the points I’ve previously discussed, but in an audio format. So I don’t need to beat a dead horse on the specifics.
I would like to take a few moments and talk about the comparison Andy makes to Reagan-era policies, though.
Indeed, most of the country was awash in prosperity once the Reagan economic formula kicked in. It was a little slower to come to my native area because at the time the auto industry was trying to deal with the influx of Japanese imports; cars which were better designed with higher quality than the rustbuckets Detroit was putting out at that time. So our auto-industry dependent city was not the economic dynamo other portions of the country were.
Harris: Obama job plan ‘stimulus II’
After Congressman Andy Harris heard President Obama’s new proposal for that “one thing – jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs,” as Teamster head James Hoffa would say, his reaction was short, sweet, and direct:
Over Labor Day weekend I met with many small business owners on the Ocean City Boardwalk – a common theme I heard from those potential job creators was their desire to get government out of the way so that they could do what they do best: grow their businesses and create American jobs. President Obama’s newest spending plan is nothing more than a second Stimulus bill. Just like the first Stimulus passed by the previous Congress, it will not create jobs, but instead delay recovery, increase the debt and grow the size of government. I believe that common sense ideas like a balanced budget amendment, elimination of job-destroying regulations and making America energy independent will create American jobs and get us out of this recession.
Well, he’s right, isn’t he? More after the jump.
Labor Day, once again
Well, I suppose those of us who like summer can heave our collective sighs and recall the time it was.
Of all the holidays which dot the calendar, Labor Day is probably my least favorite. Sure, I appreciate the day off work but look at all the other things going on:
- For many children (including my significant other’s), it’s literally the last day of summer vacation.
- As a Shorebirds fan, after today I have seven months without baseball to dread.
- Those in the local tourism industry see their window of opportunity beginning to close down, although the push to establish a “second season” in recent years has cushioned that blow to an extent.
But today is the day which Big Labor calls its own, allocating the celebration of the American working person despite the fact that the vast majority of workers don’t belong to a union. An area which is a union stronghold (like the city of my birth) is quite likely to have a Labor Day parade, and it irked me to no end that the Labor Day parade was much better attended and had greater participation than the Memorial Day parade which was often moved to the Saturday before. Something is amiss with those priorities.
This generation’s ‘New Coke’
Rarely has a product fallen so far, so fast, as the HP TouchPad. Last Thursday the company said they were discontinuing the product barely a month after pulling out all the stops to introduce it.
This was interesting to me not because I own a TouchPad, but because the company I work for as my outside job was responsible for setting up TouchPad displays in a number of stores, including Staples, Office Max, and Office Depot among others. So HP’s decision cut a few hours from my schedule as I would audit the displays to verify if units were working properly as part of my regular chores. (Fortunately, I still get to check all the other HP products there.)
Yet what may have been most stunning is the speed in which HP pulled the plug. Apparently the units weren’t exactly flying off the shelves at Best Buy and the retailer’s desire to return unsold units to HP prompted the decision.
I will cheerfully admit I am not a technical sort of person when it comes to electronics. As long as I could get the units to run a demo loop in my rounds I was a happy guy, and that was the extent I played with the TouchPads. (One of my stores did have a balky unit, though. Maybe they weren’t the only one.) I leave computer repair to the experts, which is why I’m typing this post on my PC keyboard – my laptop is in capable hands as it gets the failing hard drive replaced and memory added.
For those of you who aren’t a certain age as I am, the reference at the top was to the drink Coca-Cola introduced in the mid-1980′s as a replacement for the original formula of Coca-Cola. In the annals of corporate decisions, that was the epic fail of my generation, much as the Edsel was the punchline of my parents’ peers.
But look at the timelines involved. The Edsel lasted about three years before Ford decided enough was enough, while New Coke went about three months before Coca-Cola realized they made a horrible marketing mistake and brought back the original formula. This episode lasted barely a month – heck, a poorly received television series sometimes gets a longer run than that.
Yet TouchPads aren’t unpopular when sold at $99. That was a way to eliminate the backstock to be sure, although one can be sure that HP was losing a ton on each unit. (Apparently they’re refunding the price difference to certain buyers as well so more money lost.)
It’s not unusual for new businesses to fail, but when an established company makes a blunder this large there are lessons to be learned for another generation. The question is whether HP can recover from this gaffe, as rumors are swirling that they may leave the PC business or otherwise downsize operations. The HP TouchPad tagline “Everybody On” apparently was a pipe dream, but how much long-term prospects are injured by the failure remains to be seen.
Verizon on strike: is the middle class really in peril?
With no end in sight, the varying group of red-clad picketers at the Verizon location just around the corner from me promises to be a sight I’ll see for awhile – at least until the economic reality of making no money from working begins to rear its ugly head. According to reports like this, the union and company have been far apart in negotiations.
The Communications Workers of America union calls the strike “standing up for middle class jobs.” Their complaint is that an immensely profitable Verizon has “regressive demands” which “would roll back 50 years of bargaining gains.” Too, the union condemns the “Wisconsin-style tactics” employed by the company.
And the union is getting support in its efforts – for example, the Teamsters who represent UPS workers have ordered drivers not to make deliveries to Verizon facilities where they would cross a picket line. (Sounds like an opportunity for FedEx.) The CWA also claims that over 100,000 have signed a petition decrying Verizon’s “corporate greed.”
Yet Verizon states a case that the workers represent a division of the company that’s not profitable and all they are asking is for well-compensated union employees to chip in a little bit on their benefit packages. The company is also accusing the union of misrepresenting the company’s bargaining demands and also several incidents of vandalism and sabotage. (That seems to be par for the Big Labor course, as I’ll explain later.)
In essence, the conflict boils down to this: Verizon is trying to cut costs in a division that’s on its way to obsolescence. No longer are Americans tied to a phone line as more and more households have eschewed a landline phone for cellular service. Nor does Verizon even have the monopoly on landline service as they used to because cable providers and others have made these services available. Unfortunately for the Verizon employees affected by the strike, their business will eventually go the route of the horse and buggy just as that of the telephone operator went away years ago when direct-dial phones became available.
The other irksome item within the union’s argument is playing that old class envy card. Their claim that the “very profitable company has paid its top five executives more than $258 million over the past four years” doesn’t address how these corporate leaders were paid. Most likely much of the compensation came in the form of stock options granted because the company was “very profitable” – would they prefer these executives lost millions of dollars instead? (By the way, that $258 million number works out to $1433.33 per striking employee per year. Would the strikers accept such a measly pay raise on even a $60,000 salary, let alone upwards of $90,000?)
Certainly that sounds like a huge amount of compensation for these executives – after all, who wouldn’t want a gig where they made an average of $12 million per year? But then again, would you like the hard work and long hours these people put in on their way up the corporate ladder? I doubt these positions were handed to them, and they certainly require more thought and skill in a number of areas than the average line worker would be able to exhibit. A failure on a line worker’s part may mean a few hundred customers are inconvenienced until someone can fix the issue. A CEO’s screwup could drive the entire company to bankruptcy and cost thousands of workers their jobs – so let’s get a sense of proportion here.
It seems to me the unions are becoming more and more desperate as they realize their hold on power is slipping away. Thus far Verizon has managed to keep their service going – albeit at a somewhat slower pace – and as the strike drags on Verizon’s management may find that they can do without some of these striking employees on a more permanent basis. Surely above all that’s what the CWA is afraid of, and the sabotage now may lead to more violent attacks later.
While it’s not related to the Verizon strike, consider an event which happened near my old hometown where a non-union electrical contractor was wounded in an attack – presumably by a union electrician or supporter. (Having “SCAB” spraypainted on the business owner’s vehicle would be my first clue.) There’s no question Toledo is a rough-and-tumble union town and has been for decades; why do you think I’ve called them “union thugs” before? I know how they operate so as soon as I saw the “Ohio business owner” blurb for the story I figured it was from Toledo.
Still, the idea that someone would actually attempt to gun down a business owner who was protecting his property appears to me to mean the stakes are deadly high in Big Labor’s case. After all, consider the unions had the federal government’s apparatus lock, stock, and barrel for a two-year period but couldn’t get everything they wanted because a number of people said “no, you cannot have card check” and “yes, corporations have the same right to political speech as unions do.” That had to hurt, even if they picked up an automaker or two in the process.
Now does this mean the Verizon strike will turn deadly? I pray not, as cooler heads on both sides need to prevail.
But those walking the picket line around the corner from me have to know they’re whistling past an economic graveyard because in this day and age workers need to be flexible and the ball is usually in the company’s court. In all honesty, they’re only being asked to work under the same rules most of the rest of us already do and as such be thankful they have a good job.
Bear in mind profits are by no means permanent, nor are corporations. Too often a union has won the small battles of getting workers raises and better benefits only to lose the war when the company closes shop because it can’t compete anymore. There’s always the likelihood that in ten years Verizon may be a distant memory, another casualty of an ever-changing world. No work stoppage can ignore that fact.
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