When times are tough, you look for expenses in your household budget that maybe you can do without: “this is nice to have, but we don’t need it right now”; or, “we need this, but maybe we can be paying less for it.” Shouldn’t our State government be doing the same thing??

Instead, what does Beacon Hill do in difficult economic times? They go back, time and time and time again, to their own bottomless ATM (the Acquiescent Taxpayers of Massachusetts). They’re like some kind of rabid monster – “must get more revenue, need more revenue, can’t lose any revenue!!” As if raising revenue is the only option for dealing with budget shortfalls.

This morning we learn that *at the same time Beacon Hill is already getting $11 Billion from the Porkosaurus Rex stimulus bill* Governor Patrick is going to jack-up the gas tax by 19 cents per gallon (nearly doubling the state’s gas tax). God forbid the Governor actually trim some of the grotesque fat that oozes from every door jamb in the State House. Why don’t we just hand them our entire paycheck, and then they can give us a weekly allowance? Oh, and now we know why the Governor proposed a 50 cent gas tax last week – it’s the oldest political trick in the book: threaten a 50 cent tax, and then when everyone gets outraged, drop it to 19 cents…suddenly the ignorant masses think they’re getting a bargain. All this from a Governor who ran on promises of property tax relief – what an absolute joke!

And you know the saddest part? We aren’t going to do anything about it. The majority of voters in this state are spineless lemmings. Every November they go into the voting booth and check D-D-D-D-D-D, all the way down the page. Here’s the bottom line: if you voted for this Governor, if you voted ‘No’ on Question 1, if you continue to vote for all these incumbent Democrats, then you have no leg to stand on and ought to keep your mouth shut about this gas tax. Your votes already sent a clear message to Beacon Hill: “Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s fine with me.”

I can’t pinpoint when it happened, and I certainly can’t tell you why. Elicia must have caught me in a moment of total preoccupation, because no sooner did I answer “yes” to her womanly ramblings than did I find myself saddling up on a staionary bike at the Spynergy studio in Newton.

I will say, it is a really good workout, and I definitely need the exercise. With the way I’ve been going lately, my boobs are probably gettin’ to be bigger than half the chicks in there. I don’t know…I guess I’d go back for another class – the music was pretty good.

Assorted news from my musical world:

1. Honky Tonk Heroes – A great story by Jimmy Patterson about the life of Waylon Jennings, and the “outlaw” movement forged by Waylon and Willie that “changed the course of country music and redefined everything about it from how it was made to where it was played.”

2. The Local Scene – The newest House of Blues is set to open in Boston next weekend at the Landsdowne street address formerly occupied by the Avalon & Axis nightclubs. The new HoB will include a 2,400 capacity music hall, a restaurant, and a VIP lounge. The opening will mark a return to New England for the music chain, which first opened doors in Boston’s Harvard Square in 1992 and remained there until it closed in 2003. They plan to do about 300 shows a year.

3. Best New Album this Year (so far) – Speaking of the House of Blues, The Derek Trucks Band is set to play there on April 2. Derek Trucks released their latest album, Already Free, in January and I can’t say enough good things about it. There isn’t a note too many, nor one you could do without. From top to bottom, it’s a wholesome blend of soulful, bluesy, southern-rock infused good music. For the uninitiated, Derek Trucks is Allman Brothers progeny and one of the best guitarists alive today. For the initiated, don’t expect something similar to their last album, Songlines- this album is a departure from the jazz and world music influences on that album.

4. Sadness – Billy Powell, the only keyboardist Lynyrd Skynyrd ever had, passed away on January 28^th. “He was one of the best piano keyboardists, rock ‘n’ roll keyboardists, of our lifetime,” said Ross Schilling, the band’s manager. Hank Williams Jr. said: “I will truly miss Billy. We have all lost one of our best rowdy friends.” I like to think Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph all greeted him with “We’ve been waiting on you, welcome to the band.” R.I.P

5. Awesomeness – Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash

The stimulus, if it is going to actually do anything productive, needs to be temporary, targeted, and timely. This bill is none of those things. Instead, it’s a disappointing, unfortunate product of fiercely partisan politics and the epitome of business-as-usual. And I’m sorry – honestly, because I wish it wasn’t true – but you can’t even make the argument that this is “change.”  It’s a massive permanent increase in government discretionary spending (pork) mascarading as economic stimulus. Ninety percent of the alleged stimulus is for special-interests and social programs that, however well intended, will not and cannot create economic growth. This thing is an albatross.

Here’s a round-up of some of the better pieces I’ve seen on this (click links to read full articles):

- Wall Street Journal. “By our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.”

“This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living — or dead — Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” So they did.”

- Centrist columnist David Brooks. ”In a fateful decision, Democratic leaders merged the temporary stimulus measure with their permanent domestic agenda – including big increases for Pell Grants, alternative energy subsidies and health and entitlement spending. The resulting package is part temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part targeted and part untargeted.”

- Here’s a full page ad that ran in the NY Times wherein hundreds of economists, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars, have signed a statement disagreeing with the concept that massive government spending is needed to stimulate the economy.

- Thomas Sowell (among the most respected economists in the world).- “Using long, drawn-out processes to put money into circulation to meet an emergency is like mailing a letter to the fire department to tell them that your house is on fire.”

“In the name of protecting the taxpayers’ investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.”

- Jim Pethokoukis from U.S. News and World Report points to 10 demonstrable reasons why these ideas won’t work.

- For something a bit more fun, see my post from a couple weeks ago.

- Dan Mitchell from the Cato Institute explains it in this video:

These guys are insane! My palms were sweating about 30 seconds into this thing. And how the hell did they manage to get some of this footage??

Howard Beale (Network, 1976) shows us that sometimes anger – not laughter – is the best medicine. This is a great rant – articulate, cogent, and crazed all at once. It’s also remarkably applicable to now.

I used to love reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books, and was inspired by two very different stimulus ideas I saw today…here it goes:

Economic drought has stifled the flow of goods and services all across the land. Something must be done to revive it. You – the wise journeyman – have set out find the way to Prosperity, the great land of economic goodness. You’ve journeyed for many moons and many miles, and now, you’ve reached a treacherous, tantalizing fork in the road.

A sign at the fork seems to offer a clue: “Both roads add $800 billion to the deficit, but only one leads to Prosperity. If you want to find the way, remember that for every promise, there is a price to pay.”

Choose your adventure…if you dare…

The Imperial Road

No Promises

Apple just announced some significant changes for iTunes’ pricing and DRM protection policy. Here are the highlights:

• The majority of songs will drop to 69 cents beginning in April, while the biggest hits and newest songs will go for $1.29. Others that are moderately popular will remain at 99 cents.
• Beginning this week, Sony, Universal and Warner will join EMI in selling music through iTunes without digital rights management software, or D.R.M., which controls the copying and use of digital files.
• With the copying restrictions removed, people will be able to freely shift the songs they buy on iTunes among computers, phones and other digital devices.
• And, customers will be able to pay a one-time fee to strip copying restrictions from music they have already bought on iTunes, at 30 cents a song or 30 percent of the album price.

Finally – in the music industry’s latest attempt prevent further slowing of digital music sales - we will get to own the music we buy free and clear.

A skier at Colorado’s ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday.

The poor guy was stuck for 15 minutes before they backed up the lift so they could dislodge him. It appears that the chairlift’s fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding.

Continuing the Seinfeld reference…It’s salacious, outrageous, hilarious, litigious.

More photos taken by fellow skiers (it’s a miracle they could hold their cameras steady while laughing their asses off) and the full report are at The Smoking Gun. Definitely an early favorite for picture of the year.

Economies and markets around the world really sucked this year, and a lot of hard-working people got screwed in the process. There was no place to run, no place to hide…and now – maybe, hopefully - no where to go except up (click the thumbnail to enlarge).

 I don’t like dwelling on the negative, and there’s little use in it anyway. President Truman said, “an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” The same way a forest fire gives way to and fertilizes new growth, this year’s swath of economic destruction will fertilize new opportunities, and in some cases, for entirely new groups of people. Case in point, right now mortgage rates are at all-time lows. First-time buyers…all aboard! Happy New Year, everyone, and here’s to a healthy and happy 2009!

A silver lining on the otherwise gloomy economic cloud – As of December 22, gas prices in Massachusetts (adjusted for inflation) are at their lowest level since April 2002.

Source: Energy Information Administration, weekly retail gasoline prices. Inflation adjustment based on Northeast regional Consumer Price Index time series from BLS.

‘Twas three days before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except for a crafty mouse.

Our premises have been breached by a stealthy intruder. The casualties thus far include some peanut M&Ms and a brand-new bag of delicious Cape Cod potato chips (sea salt and cracked pepper). No one has yet been witness to its crimes, but the suspect is thought to resemble a dirty cotton ball with a tenacious appetite for the sweet and salty.

I don’t know how this little bastard is getting into the cupboard but, much like my bat-wrangling father before me, I’m prepared to sit in the dark all night long armed with a broom, hockey mask, and brown paper bag – ready to pounce at a moments notice. Yes indeed, I may hurt myself and break several dishes in what will surely be a futile attempt to catch Fivel’s evil twin, but dammit, I’m a man. And as any good man would, I fully intend to take this way too far. You’ve been warned, critter. You’re next bite of candy-coated chocolate just might be your last!

Test your American civics knowledge. The test contains 33 questions about America’s founding principles, political history, international relations, and market economy - the basics about the systems all Americans participate in every day.

For the last three years, the ISI (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) has conducted their American Civic Literacy Program study to see whether people have a grasp of basic knowledge required to be an informed citizen (the 2008 study is finished, you can take the quiz for fun by clicking the link above).

For three straight years the results have shown that Americans are alarmingly uninformed about our Constitution, the basic functions of our government, the key texts of our national history, and economic principles. Seventy-one percent of Americans fail this test (score 59% or less), which is really, really sad. Fewer than half of all Americans can name all three branches of government. The study has also consistently shown that college educated participants and elected officials fail the majority of the time.

Most Americans would probably agree that it’s pretty damn important for high schools and colleges to be teaching our future leaders about America’s history, key documents and institutions, but evidently this isn’t happening in an effective way. This is a sad commentary on our education system, including colleges and universities.

The findings and survey methods are described on the website.

It’s like their pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it, and then shoving the bucket up the ass of the taxpayer to hide the leak.

Sorry for the crude analogy but, man, between yesterday’s ramblings by Barney Frank about a homeowner bailout, and today’s revelation about Cerebus (the true beneficiaries in the Chrysler bailout), this is getting ridiculous. There is going to be a theme here: these costly bailouts only delay the inevitable.

1. The auto bailout. GM, Ford, and Chrysler essentially don’t make cars people want to buy and can’t compete with foreign car companies operating in America because their labor and health care costs are too high. They simply can’t compete, and giving them $15 billion really accomplishes nothing - it only delays the inevitable. Inevitably, what is needed is a total restructuring of these companies and their labor contracts. And wouldn’t you know it, we already have a process for such restructuring called, bankruptcy.

Let them dismantle and reorganize these companies and restructure their debt to make them more profitable – that is what bankruptcy is for. Both the airlines and the steel industry did it for similar reasons and we were all better off in the end. If there is a void, let the market fill that void with car companies that know how to make money (e.g., Toyota, Honda, and Nissan), and are already expanding many profitable operations in this country and creating jobs in the process.

2. The homeowner bailout. Yesterday, Barney Frank went babbling on and on about wanting another $15 billion for loan modifications to bailout homeowners who are in foreclosure. This is an approach already proven to only delay the inevitable foreclosure. More than half of delinquent borrowers who had their mortgages reworked earlier this year to avoid foreclosure were behind on their new loan payments after just six months. Why? Because, many of the people in the foreclosure process are in deep, deep trouble. They are not a modified loan away from financial happiness.

But rest assured, we’ll spend yet another $15 billion to delay the inevitable foreclosures. Barney Frank and his cronies will be able to say they tried and will get re-elected, again. Others will say it didn’t work because there wasn’t enough government intervention. One day my kids will wonder why they’re stuck paying off a couple trillion dollar deficit…And you know what they say about deficits:

Christmas is when kids tell Santa what they want, and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want, and their kids pay for it. 

3.The big bank bailout. Also troubling (partly because it opened the door for everyone else to go to Capital Hill hat-in-hand), but by far the most justifiable of the bunch. Why? Because, as a practical matter, these huge banks are more like utilities than traditional companies - every single thing in our economy depends on financing and access to credit. It’s a ”lesser of three evils” situation.

And get ready, because within a week of the inauguration there will be another $700+ billion package passed by Congress. Merry Christmas!

“When we review the calamities which afflict so many other nations, the present condition of the United States affords much matter of consolation and satisfaction.”
                         George Washington, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1795

I believe this is as true today as it was in 1795. But what would it mean if we couldn’t honestly conclude that this still rings true? It’s a scary thought. It might mean that our country and our lives as we know them would be very different, and we might not be blessed with all of the fortunate opportunities and circumstances that provide us with so many things to be thankful for.

I guess I’m trying to say that I have lots of things to be thankful for – yes, material things like a home, car, and an unstoppable fantasy football team, but more importantly, immaterial things like my family, my health, and my freedom - lots of things that I otherwise might not have if Washington’s statement were no longer true.

And this Thanksgiving I’m especially thankful for the staying power of Washington’s statement because it’s a reassuring thought to consider as we work through some uncertain and tough times.

OK, that’s more than enough “food for thought.” Now let us commence with the “food for belly” part of Thanksgiving!!

Incredible pictures of Viper Company of the 1-26 Infantry in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Click the picture to see all 31 images.

A strategic passage wanted by the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley is among the deadliest pieces of terrain in the world for U.S. forces. The Korengal Valley is a lonely outpost of regress: most of the valley’s people practice Wahhabism, a more rigid variety of Islam than that followed by most Afghans, and about half of the fighters confronting the U.S. there are homegrown. The rest are Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks; the area is close to Pakistan’s frontier regions where Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda figures are often said to be hiding out. The Korengal fighters are fierce, know the terrain and watch the Americans’ every move. On their hand-held radios, the old jihadiscall the Americans “monkeys,” “infidels,” ‘’bastards” and “the kids.” It’s psychological warfare; they know the Americans monitor their radio chatter.

Is it time for the government to stop printing money to throw in the Money Hole? You decide.

Ha Ha! Ha. Huh. Hmm. I’d be laughing harder if this wasn’t effectively true.

Oh, and to go along with this tongue-in-cheek video on bailouts, how about a tongue-in-cheek sentence of the day on the same subject: “The seepage of government into everywhere is, we are assured, to be temporary and nonpolitical.”  Well, now wouldn’t that be somethin’?

Bow to the Emerald Isle King!

Quick story about how an awesome dip, once lost, was found again: My friend and I tried this dip a few months back at a party and we agreed that it must at least be in the conversation about best dip ever. Unfortunately we never did find out what brand of dip it was, and as the weeks passed by I totally forgot about it.

Then, a couple weeks ago, that same friend left me a message saying “he had a present for me.” My first thought was, “that’s weird, why the hell is he giving me a present.” Normally, man-to-man, non-obligatory gift giving is highly discouraged among peers. It’s one of those unwritten rules. But, so long as the gift is delivered in a standard-issue brown paper bag and involves alcohol, horseradish, or iron works, it is acceptable. It turns out he had spotted the distinctive hexagonal shaped jar in a storefront window in Salem, MA and knew right away it was the dip. Per protocol, the dip was delivered to me in a plain brown paper bag – sans ribbon or a tag – and as such, was graciously accepted without awkwardness.

Anyway, it has great flavor and a darn good kick from the horseradish – I like it with pita chips and vegetables.

Robert Rothschild Farm

4-Block World

Here are excerpts from a real American businessman’s letter to Obama. He is Corey Miller, a 54 year old high school graduate who started a water well drilling company when he was 29. There are millions of other entrepreneurs out there who can identify with Corey; two of them are in my family.

Entrepreneurship is the heartbeat of our economy. Liberal, conservative, or whatever - Obama’s policies amount to just plain bad economics.

You see, Mr. Obama, I’m the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I’m the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I’m the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn’t want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I’m the guy you characterize as “the Americans who can afford it the most” that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution “to spread the wealth” to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything.

You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What’s worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states.

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.

The whole letter is here. In it, he talks about how his business creates jobs. And, he gets at simple economic concepts that many people have lost site of in their yearning to be emotionally gratified by “getting the fat cats”. For instance, the simple fact that when you increase taxes on a buisness, it is paid by some combination of fewer jobs, lower wages, and higher prices. Econ 101: When you tax something, you get less of it.