Obama's Four Point Financial Plan

Here's is Barack Obama's four point to deal with the financial crisis:

1. Obama calls for subsidies to "working families" to beat high food and energy prices. That only drive up the price of food and energy even more because the suppliers of both will know that families are getting the subsidies, so they can raise their prices more. Also, does this include all working families? Or is there a income limit? Isn't this just wealth re-distribution? You want lower food prices then stop all subsidies to farmers. You want lower energy prices then increase the supply for energy like oil, nuclear, compressed natural gas, etc. And how about lowering the tax on gasoline.
2. Banks would subsidize bad borrowers to "protect homeowners and the economy." Why stop there. Let's have banks subsidize people borrowing money for cars, motorcycles, motor boats and other expensive items. Maybe the banks should not have gave loans to people who can't repay them. Normally, banks don't do this but in the 90's the gov't put pressure on banks to give loans to borrowers who couldn't pay off the loan because of political correctness. Think about it. Why would banks give loans to the poor? Banks like any other business are there to make a profit. The borrower has to show he can pay the loan off. It's called collateral. I suppose there are some unscrupulous bank loaners who gave loans to people just to resell their home when the borrower defaulted. If the bank had unscrupulous business practices it would not be business very long. Word would get around. A bank does not really want someones home. They have to pay someone to mow the lawn and do other upkeep on the home to sell it. There also has to be a market to sell the home. Banks really don't want to be bothered with that. Keep in mind nobody forced borrowers to borrow money. It's called free will. And along with free will comes personal responsibility. A borrower should know if he can pay back a loan or not. If you have the bank subsidize financially stupid borrowers then you are encouraging bad behavior. The borrower will not learn a lesson. It's funny banks are accused of being unscrupulous for making loans to bad borrowers but it is okay for states to have lotteries. You know who buys lottery tickets? The poor or working class. Very few rich people buy lottery tickets. They don't have to. Isn't the state taking advantage of the poor?
3. Obama seeks "new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions." More bureaucracy. Great. It is the gov't that caused the housing mess in the first place.
4. Obama seeks to empower unelected foreign entities to the same "globally coordinated (rescue) effort." Yea, right. How is Obama going to persuade other nations to help out? By sure will alone? I can see Iran, Russia, China and other dictatorships like them helping out. Friendly nations may help out but they have their own issues. The UN has been completely impotent where comes to world affairs. Iran anyone? America does not need another bureaucracy in the mix. One is enough. Then Obama wants to give billions to the UN to feed the poor countries. That's like throwing money into a black hole. Plus the leaders say that will only screw up their economies. Any corrupt regime who gets any money will take it for themselves. The starving people won't see any supplies or food.

Barack Obama Test

The Barack Obama Test which was written by Bradley S. O'Leary who is the author of The Audacity of Deceit (I have not read it) tests to see if your beliefs/positions are in align with with Obama's beliefs. I took the test and my beliefs/positions are not in align with his. According to the polls that Mr. O'Leary uses it seems that neither are America's positions are in align with Obama's either. Only one question (Defense question #2) did Obama agree with majority of Americans.

What is interesting about the test is that Obama says doctors should not give medical care to a fetus that survives an abortion. I thought universal health care means everyone. Then again he is pro-abortion and said he did not know when life begins. Er, okay. According to a Zogby poll 67.8% Americans and 68.1% of American woman think that an abortion surviving fetus should be given medical care. I do too.

And then there's this question: Do you agree or disagree that it should it be illegal for convicts on probation or on bail to have contact with a street gang? Obama agreed with 12.4% of Americans polled that said it is okay if a convict on probation or on bail to have contact with a street gang. Is this just common sense? Why would anyone want a convict on probation to associate with fellow gang members? They might hide him out somewhere. Actually, if the person is a threat to society or a flight risk he should not be given bail period. I think I get it though. Obama (and probably most liberals) say they have a constitutional right to do so. I don't know about that. If a convict does this and he is on bail he is stupid to do this illegal or not. Because doing it shows his guilt right away.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Money to Legislators

It's no wonder why Congress won't have investigative hearings on Freddie and Fannie like they do the oil companies. They are taking money from the two. OpenSecrets.org reports that Freddie and Fannie have given the total of $4,844,572 to the 354 legislators. 57% of that sum goes to Democrats. Like one of the comments noted on OpenSecrets.org this should be a conflict of interest since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a gov't created organization. Here are some notable legislators:

Dodd, Christopher J.	$165,400
Obama, Barack	$126,349
Kerry, John	$111,000
Reid, Harry	$77,000
Clinton, Hillary	$76,050
Pelosi, Nancy	$56,250
McCain, John	$21,550
Hatch, Orrin G	$18,250

Congress won't investigate because they would have to investigate themselves.

Why Government Can't Create Private-Sector Jobs

To run a business is not an easy job to do. You have to have business know-how, a viable vision of what your business is going to produce, and certain traits to succeed. These traits include (among other): individuality, problem-solving, self-confidence, realistic outlook, conceptual ability, drive, determination, patience and a positive attitude. Also, as part of the business know-how a successful entrepreneur has to hire good management, find sufficient capital, find a good location, don't over expand the business too fast, and have a realistic business plan. Sorry, I don't see how government can create entrepreneurial jobs with what I described above. What does gov't know about realistic business plans? No fast over-expanding?, Good management? Individuality? Very little. It's not in its vocabulary especially the over-expanding part.

Even if gov't somehow created a business with the right management are they going to insist management pick certain employees? And how is gov't going to guarantee the business survives if the business does not have customers? Give it loans or grants? That's just burning tax-payers money. The Soviet Union tried testing people for certain jobs. It did not work. Mainly, because even if you find someone who has know-how to run a business, (s)he might not have the drive or passion to be an entrepreneur.

Not everyone can be an entrepreneur. It takes a very special individual to be one. Honestly, I don't think I could be one. I admire anyone who uses his own money to start a business and tries to fulfill his dream even he fails.

The best thing gov't can do for the private sector is to just get out of the way. Let the free market decide. It may not be perfect, but gov't is even less perfect.

'Sexist' witch burning banned

From Ananova.com:

Government busybodies have ordered a medieval village to drop a witch burning drama from its birthday pageant - because it's too sexist.

The spectacular blaze - featuring dummy witches - was to have been the highlight of the fair to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the ancient Polish village, Zielona Gora.[more]

Monika Platek, head of Poland's Association for Legal Education said this about the witch burning drama: "The stakes where women were burned were the result of profound misogyny [hatred of women], discrimination against women and ignorance." First, these gov't busybodies are just plain cowards. Then again they are bureaucrats after all. Second, how do you get profound misogyny and discrimination against women from witch burning? I can see ignorance. This was the middle ages after all. But misogyny and discrimination? Come on! If women were burned at the stake because of the two above reasons then there would have been more woman burned that there was. Also, there would have been no "warlocks" killed (the male version of a witch) if the reason was because of sexism. And there were "warlocks" killed. The generally accepted reason people were burned at the steak was because the Puritans thought they were devil worshipers. I think Miss Platek is being way too sensitive.

Interestingly enough, Donald Tyson in his article "The Truth About Witches" said that "a charge of witchcraft was an easy way for a rural woman [my italics], who usually possessed little or no power, to destroy another woman she hated." Hmmm. Let's see, maybe the accuser pointed at the accuse and yelled out in front of a group of people: That witch stole my boyfriend! The group of people heard the word "witch" then the imaginations of the crowd got going. And if the accuse was strange looking and had hardly any status in the community... You can see what happened next.

By the way, it was not only Christians that had witch hunts. Fundamentalist Muslims do it to this day. Look up Fawzi Falih on the Internet.