Socializing Home Ownership

The current stock market crash is yet another demonstration that socialism doesn't work. It is rooted in the long building and recently accelerated attempts by Democrats in Congress to socialize home ownership. They did this by forcing banks to provide subprime mortgages (ACORN, community reinvestment act, anti-redlining), and by transferring the resulting risk onto the taxpayer using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's implied government backing (Barney Frank, Dodd, Johnson, Raines, Gorelick, Obama). Banks discovered that Fan/Fred would buy subprimes thus burying the risk and "laundering" the securitized mortgages. The govt. licensed credit rating agencies (S&P, Moody's) cooperated with AAA ratings! Wall street was thus protected from the risk and went on a feeding frenzy of MBS, and derivatives trading. As always happens with socialism, somebody eventually has to pay the piper. That somebody is the taxpayer. This is short term compassion causing long term pain, sort of like feeding the seed corn to a hungry child, thus dooming the entire village, or paying tribute to pirates.

Now, of course, the Obama Democrats try to blame Bush despite the fact that he tried for his entire administration to rein in the excesses of Fan/Fred but was blocked by the Obama Democrats.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080919-15.html
A long list of people saw this coming.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121599777668249845.html?mod=article-outset-box

The quickest way to turn this mess into a severe depression would be to raise taxes, restrict free trade, suppress competition, and socialize home ownership and health care. Obama's policies are exactly the way to cause this perfect storm.

Palin-Jindal, 2009

Let's see. How could this happen?

Refundable Tax Credits

If a person has a $1000 tax liability but qualifies for a $1000 tax credit, we could probably agree that the net tax take by government is zero. But if person A has a $1000 tax liability and person B, who owes no tax, qualifies for a refundable tax credit of $1000, what is the net tax take by government? In other words, can a politician credibly claim that wealth redistribution is possible without taxation? Obama claims that his economic proposals would result in a total net tax take of 18.2% of GDP. This is a very reasonable number and is close to the average since WWII. How does he get this number? He gets it by considering refundable tax credits to be subtractions from the tax! Taking $1000 from person A and giving it to person B as a refundable tax credit results in a net tax of zero! It should be accounted for as $1000 in tax receipts and $1000 in welfare spending. With this brilliant accounting tool at his disposal, Obama wants to fund all sorts of social welfare with the magic of refundable tax credits. College tuition, mortgage assistance, health insurance premiums, saving incentives, child care, earned income, are all on his list for refundable tax credits. When he increases these credits which he subtracts from the net tax take, he declares it a tax cut! He ignores the negative effect that the tax on person A has on the unemployment rate, because, after subtracting the refund, it didn't happen! Are the American voters stupid enough to go to the polls without getting this?

Sustainable Yada

The only thing sustainable is adaptation.
Transparency is the best regulation.
If you overtax the most productive, they will fire the less productive.

Carbon Dioxide & Temperature

Here is a graph covering the last 600 million years that I find interesting. If the climate reacts to CO2 with positive feedback, why didn't it superheat when CO2 was as much as 20 times current levels back in the Cambrian or 6 times current levels during the Jurassic? Current CO2 (350ppm) is lower than for most of earth's history. And we are in a general ice age climate unlike most of earth's history. How can one look at this graph and believe the current global climate computer models? Is this graph wrong, or are the computer simulations wrong? I question the global climate models that can't explain the temperature decline from the 1930s to 1970s.

Ash-throated Flycatchers

Our birdhouses were very successful this year. Western Bluebirds and Ash-throated Flycatchers are currently raising their young in our birdhouses. Here an Ash-throated Flycatcher brings home the bacon.

Bluebirds and Kingsnakes

I like birds so I build houses hoping to attract Western Bluebirds. This year we succeeded in attracting a nesting pair to a birdhouse mounted on a large oak. Hearing distressful chirping, I noticed this California King Snake that had somehow climbed the huge oak. It apparently could smell the eggs or young as it circled and then snaked up the face toward the hole. I went into action, knocked it down, and chased it away, thus interfering with the Darwinian fitness test. Next time I will kill it.