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On the second day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the third day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Record unemployment,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the fourth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Cap and tax for Al Gore,
Record unemployment,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the fifth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the sixth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the seventh day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the eighth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Miranda rights for Taliban,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the ninth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me
Czars to share the wealth,
Miranda rights for Taliban,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the tenth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
The Nobel Prize for Nothing,
Czars to share the wealth,
Miranda rights for Taliban,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Obama gave to me,
Birth records from Kenya,
The Nobel Prize for Nothing,
Czars to share the wealth,
Miranda rights for Taliban,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woe,s
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Obama gave to me
Hope for 2010,
Birth records from Kenya,
The Nobel Prize for Nothing,
Czars to share the wealth,
Miranda rights for Taliban,
The tab for corporate welfare,
Nukes from his bud, A-med,
MORE Ber◦nan◦ke!
Cap and tax for Gore,
Record unemployed,
Bigger health care woes,
and his trillion dollar deficit spending spree!

(Contributed by Linda Sasenick, views expressed by contributors do not necessarily represent the views and opinion of Liberty on the Rocks (Red Rocks))

Technorati Tags: Obama Christmas Carol, Obama Yuletide Carol

…except it’s a true story, about a real man, (and it doesn’t have a “justice and fair play triumphs over all” ending).

Libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and history buffs will sigh wistfully getting to know colorful and quotable Ralph Carr, Colorado’s Governor from 1939 to 1943, rich with firsthand details of Colorado and the nation during this period in history. Although the time tumblers fall in a different order, the nation was just coming out of the Great Depression, the FDR administration’s power grabs and moves toward virtual totalitarianism were becoming ever more brazen, and then, the unthinkable…

…on December 7, 1941 the United States was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

Just as real bombs were slaughtering Americans and Allies in Asia and the South Pacific, political bombs were continually hurled at and exploding around this Lincoln-loving Republican, whose core principles were an unwavering belief in personal freedom, the Constitution, and the basic goodness of his fellow man.

What Mr. Schrager’s book succeeds at, most subtly and without artifice, is to force the reader to evaluate their own moral and political compass as we walk side-by-side with the Governor, opening the morning newspaper, reading the day’s mail, wondering how to manage and lead in a world gone mad. It’s a sobering and meaningful exercise, of benefit to all of us who cherish the promise in “We, the people…”

Linda Sasenick

Truth — there can never be enough money in any insurance pool to provide extraordinary care for every participant; finite resources can never yield infinite benefits, any other expectation is free money, Ponzi math.   So, anyone, on whatever side, who tries to sell a pipe dream that somehow everybody’s going to be covered and we’re going to all have all the health care benefits to which we’ve become accustomed at “affordable” insurance rates is blowing smoke.

Yes, the current system is out of control:
– “greedy” insurers have dropped their pay-out rates, some to as low as 60%,
– Big Pharma’s insidious take-over of the industry for their burgeoning financial bottom lines is unconscionable,
– trial lawyers adding $3.6 billion in direct costs (2008 malpractice insurance expenses), and who knows how many billions more for CYA tests and such, is at best, not helpful
– non-contributors to the pool receiving, gratis, the most expensive health care delivery, at emergency rooms, is ludicrous…

…and on and on.  A snip here, a patch there will help — you can grow the financial pool by siphoning more out of people’s pocketbooks (through rates OR taxes), or you can attempt to wring more “benefits” out of the cost side, but, no matter how you parse it, there will still be a limited pool, and somebody is going to have to decide who and what gets covered – the argument is only about WHO does that rationing; the insurers, which, it can be argued, do a crappy job (yes, they do ration, through denial of coverage), or the government, which, it can be argued, does little well (or the states, but Massachusetts has done such a high-profile lousy job, you don’t hear many voices for that option.)

Here’s a different question to ask – why did we ever put our physical well-being into somebody else’s hands in the first place?  Of course there’s no free market mechanism to keep costs and benefits in equilibrium – you walk into the doctor’s office or show up at the hospital, and your expectation is, it’s all going to be taken care of by your insurance company, up to millions in coverage over your lifetime.  The doctor, the hospital, the pharmaceutical companies, the labs, the insurance company – they’ll make all the decisions amongst themselves, you just pay your premiums and your copays and trust them to deliver you from your ailment.

That’s the fantasy upon which we’ve built our expectation of health care, and that’s why it can never be “fixed” to meet our expectations.  Personal health care MUST become a personal responsibility, with the consumer making his/her own market decisions based on his/her own financial state and priorities.

A good step forward has been the rising popularity of Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s and the like), which require a high deductible before coverage kicks in.  It certainly encourages the consumer to invest in taking care of themselves, and even “shop” for non-life-threatening procedures and tests.  Problem is, just ask your provider what the costs of the tests, or the procedure will be – odds on you’ll get a blank stare and ‘we don’t have that information, why would you want to know that?’  Maybe I’m reading the wrong details, but I haven’t seen anybody advancing any “upfront pricing” requirement of providers, and without it, there can never be a “free market” connection between consumers and providers.

Things can’t stay the same – the question is, is socialism and rationing or the sometimes harsh personal responsibilities of a free market system your choice?

Technorati Tags: health care, Healthcare, Liberty on the Rocks

Our recent guest speaker, former Congressman Bob Beauprez, unabashedly carries the Republican banner, but it certainly doesn’t diminish his experience, views and perspective on those principles of individual liberty and adherence to the Constitution, we, as a group, proclaim.

In his recent book, A Return to Values, Beauprez, does what he does best – he calls it as he sees it.  He was there, part of the “do-nothing Congress” that is seen as having frittered away the opportunity to turn the ship around and head government back to the Founding Fathers’ brilliant vision.  There is always high value in learning the game from those who have played, and that insight on issues and politics makes the book a worthwhile read.

The first part is a short and touching autobiography, including war stories from the trials, tribulations and triumphs of being a freshman in Congress and a novice politician during “interesting times,” (Congressman Beauprez served as representative from Colorado’s then newly- formed 7th district from 2002-2006, and lost to Governor Bill Ritter in the 2006 Colorado gubernatorial election).  The second part is a well-researched, facts-driven overview of many of the challenges facing Colorado and our country, structured as a challenge to his party’s leadership to champion fiscal conservatism, the Constitution, and American traditions.

Throughout, you’ll find Beauprez writes as he speaks, from his heart, with honesty and clarity.  He names names, and freely takes and spreads criticism where he believes it’s due.

What comes through most though, in retrospect, is that politics was never supposed to be one’s business, it was supposed to be citizen service; a return to that value, politics serving its citizens, should be a commonality across all brands of politicians.

Bob Beauprez continues to write about policy issues in his blog, A Line of Sight.   His book, A Return to Values, is available through the link, at Amazon.com.

Technorati Tags: A Return to Values, Add new tag, Bob Beauprez, free markets, Liberty on the Rocks, limited government

Warning: Rolling Stone articles use “colorful” language (read: curse words abound, including one “f” bomb). However, the analysis is a “must read” — the subject matter is too important for true free market advocates who suspect the financial industry has undue influence over policy makers.

And we promise, if you stick with it, through all twelve pages, the payoff is the ending missive on the real story behind the push to get “cap and trade” rammed through Congress (not to spoil the ending, but, follow the money…)

Hat tip to The Daily Crux, which provided the link.

Technorati Tags: cap and trade, Goldman Sachs, Rolling Stones

Curtis L. Harris’ new book, It’s the Congress, Stupid!, is an admirable comprehensive, yet succinct overview of the real state of the nation, and the reality is, “YOU ARE GETTING SCREWED!”

The course our government leadership has set is demonstrated as being financially ruinous (assuming one believes $2,000,000 in government obligations for a family of four by the year 2019 qualifies as “ruinous”).  How and why we got here is the excellence in this quick read, the most important takeaway being: the constitutional notion of minimal governance by citizen-statesmen has devolved into a virtual aristocracy, devoted primarily to self-perpetuating its self-interests, i.e. “IT’S THE CONGRESS, STUPID!”

There are 545 people (President, 9 Supreme Court Justices, 535 in the senate and house) eager to propel you forward toward financial serfdom, to keep you lulled into complacency by entitlements and easy consumerism, the modern day equivalents to the Romans’ bread and circuses populism.

Harris’ answer is Libertarianism, and the latter part of his book is that platform and plan.  Whether or not you agree with his banner and call to arms, arm yourself with self-education and a clear understanding of your individual principles compass.  What’s at stake is nothing less than your rights to economic and personal liberty, and your right to pursue your unique call to happiness.

Harris’ book is available at www.defeatcongress.org for $8.95 plus S&H.

Technorati Tags: bread and circuses, defeat congress, It's the Congress Stupid, Libertarian

(link here for the full USA Today article)

As the USA Today article notes, the monstrous number for Social Security, Medicare and pensions, are a projection of the “gap” between what’s currently collected for the programs and what’s needed to fund future liabilities.  The “official” US debt is $11,374,265,930,605.76 as of June 3, 2009, or about $38,000 per person.

…and, are our civil servants in Washington working feverishly to bring sanity to the situation?   To the contrary, the numbers indicate Congress and the Obama administration are apparently of the “spend like a drunken sailor” school of economics.  The federal government projects it will spend another $3.9 trillion this fiscal year, and will be borrowing $2.5 trillion, to make ends meet (from the US Treasury Monthly Treasury Statement for April 2009)

Our debt is approaching 100% of GDP (the total US estimated GDP for 2008 was about $14 trillion) and our leadership’s intentions are to continue to increase social spending, develop a new layer of government intervention and cost with “cap and trade” nonsense, and fund Wall Street/Big Bank losses.  For them, the “solutions” include:

– “soak the rich” for more taxes (even though the top 10% already pay over 70% of income tax collections, bottom 50% represented less than 3% of tax collections, per taxfoundation.org)

– Value-added taxes.  Yes the VAT is being explored, which will add to the cost of virtually everything, as reported by the Washington Post.

How have we gotten here?  Let’s consider what we’ve done — 76% of our representatives and 84% of our senators are lawyers and politicians/public service employees, (plus one “community activist” President).  On average, we leave them in place for over a decade!  (11 years for representatives, 12.9 years for senators, from Profile of 111th Congress.)

“Out of touch” is perhaps too kind a term — our representation needs a dramatic overhaul, and we need to wake up to the fact that pretty speech makers appparently don’t know “poop” about fiscal sanity!

…off the topic, if you have 4 minutes you’ll enjoy this video created by an Alabama teen for his Mom’s Tea Party. It sends a powerful message, about the real power of the “silent majority.”

Technorati Tags: An American Anthem, congressional profile, national debt, national deficit, Tea Party

Bloomberg.com reported $9.7 trillion has been lent, spent or pledged by the Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC to “solve” the financial crisis — $9.7 trillion is $33,000 for every man, woman and child in the US, it’s 70% of our total GDP! And only the $700 billion TARP program for bank bailouts was ever voted on (we’re not including the stimulus moneys here…).

If this sounds too outrageous, listen to this five minute clip of Rep. Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando) asking the Federal Reserve Inspector General, Elizabeth Coleman, what is happening with the money. Are you satisfied with her responses: we haven’t gathered that information, we don’t have the authority to audit (”bull” meter jumps to 100%)? It’s frightening and incredible at the same time…

Where is the money going?  To the world’s secret casino, where the financial industry is both the house and the gambling addict, and the taxpayer is the ATM.   The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s 4th quarter report shows banks have placed $200 trillion in bets on “derivatives,” the “side bet” at the craps tables, almost all of it unregulated in “over the counter” (OTC) transactions, and almost all of it, 94% held by FOUR banks — JP Morgan/Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and ante-ing up to the table, investment firm now with bank status, Goldman Sachs. From Reuters FACTBOX:

BANK             TOTAL DERIVATIVES     PCT OF DERIVATIVES
                 OUTSTANDING ($ MLN)   THAT ARE OTC
JPMorgan         $87,362,672           97.0
Bank of America  $38,304,564           94.3
Citi             $31,887,869           98.0
Goldman Sachs    $30,229,614           98.4
All banks total $200,381,607           96.6 ($193,597,433 mln)

$200 trillion is 3.3 times the GDP of the entire world! The graph below, from the Comptroller’s report, just shows how popular this game has become.

(And by the way, the bulk of AIG’s business is selling insurance to back these bets).  If you have the financial inclination, please read the full Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report — apparently the “pit bosses” at Secretary Geithner’s Treasury Department are confident that everything is balanced and under control, but what they gloss over is that the basic assumption to all the models they use to value and project says that the value of the “things” underlying the derivatives never goes down in the long run…

…unless, of course, they do, but then you just run to the taxpayer ATM for the bailout.

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Alan Grayson, credit swaps, derivatives, Elizabeth Coleman, Federal Reserve, freedom, liberty, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, TARP

This short piece starts by recounting Colonel Crockett’s speech on the House floor in response to a proposed bill to appropriate money for the widow of a distinguished naval officer. He challenges his colleagues with the following constitutional principals: “ Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity…We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much money as we please in charity; but as member of Congress, we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

Colonel Crockett goes on to give background to this somewhat astounding assertion, that it’s ‘not yours to give.’ It seems in his prior term, Representative Crockett had followed the crowd and voted to appropriate $20,000 to townspeople in Georgetown who had lost homes and all belongings in a fire, the popular sentiment being, surely as compassionate and wealthy a nation as was America, it was only right and humane for the government to provide relief.

While campaigning for a second term, Colonel Crockett happened upon a constituent plowing his fields, and was prepared to deliver his folksy stump speech, when he was stopped short by the farmer, who properly but politely gave him a dressing for the very same vote which Crockett considered a fine act of empathy and generosity. This man, Horatio Bunce, powerfully lectured the taken aback candidate about the constitution and the inherent dangers of collecting revenue from thousands of people to relieve some, no matter how well-meaning the intent. “The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man…” warned Mr. Bunce.

He went on, “The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.”

Well, Mr. Bunce had a convert in the humbled Colonel Crockett, who pledged he would both publicly renounce his prior vote in his campaigning and oppose any such actions in the future if re-elected, in exchange for Mr. Bunce’s support. True to his word on both counts, Crockett was re-elected and his speech against government charity which starts this writing turned a tidal wave of support for the charitable appropriation to an overwhelming defeat.

In closing the vignette, Colonel Crockett returns to his speech, to a part where he had suggested that, rather than appropriate money which was not theirs to give, each congressperson should donate individually a week’s wages, providing the widow even more than the amount under consideration. His final thoughts:

“There are in that House many very wealthy men–men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased–a debt which could not be paid by money–and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighted against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

Have we heard those words before – it’s the humane, moral thing to do? Have we had the courage to challenge those who feel entitled to collect our money and re-distribute is as they see fit, even in the name of compassion and humanity, that, it’s not theirs to give? Imagine a country where free individuals make their own decisions on how best to help neighbors in need, and politicians put their money, not ours, where their mouth is…

Technorati Tags: davy crockett, free markets, limited government