OldFox.info is a personal Knowledge Management blog for comment, criticism, parody, research, reference, text-searchable, personal clipboard. Comments, suggestions, contributions are invited.
email: oldfox-at-gmail.com
All content is copyright protected and permitted under the Fair Use Doctrine.
"Tennessee is one of nine states that does not tax wage income. Research has consistently shown that the nine states without an income tax outperformed the United States average in the categories of population growth, economic growth, and employment. In addition, the research has also shown that states without an income tax had much higher personal income growth rates than their higher taxed counterparts.
State income taxes lead to higher government spending, and depressed economic growth. Since 1967, states that tax income have seen a 42 percent increase in government spending and a 64 percent decline in personal income. Amendment 3 would ensure that TN remains fiscally and economically competitive by ensuring that no state or local income tax is ever imposed and that the incomes of hard-working Tennesseans are protected.
Is it just my imagination or is there a global oil war underway pitting the United States and Saudi Arabia on one side against Russia and Iran on the other? One can’t say for sure whether the American-Saudi oil alliance is deliberate or a coincidence of interests, but, if it is explicit, then clearly we’re trying to do to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exactly what the Americans and Saudis did to the last leaders of the Soviet Union: pump them to death — bankrupt them by bringing down the price of oil to levels below what both Moscow and Tehran need to finance their budgets.
Think about this: four oil producers — Libya, Iraq, Nigeria and Syria — are in turmoil today, and Iran is hobbled by sanctions. Ten years ago, such news would have sent oil prices soaring. But today, the opposite is happening. Global crude oil prices have been falling for weeks, now resting around $88 — after a long stretch at $105 to $110 a barrel.
The price drop is the result of economic slowdowns in Europe and China, combined with the United States becoming one of the world’s biggest oil producers — thanks to new technologies enabling the extraction of large amounts of “tight oil” from shale — combined with America starting to make exceptions and allowing some of its newfound oil products to be exported, combined with Saudi Arabia refusing to cut back its production to keep prices higher, but choosing instead to maintain its market share against other OPEC producers. The net result has been to make life difficult for Russia and Iran, at a time when Saudi Arabia and America are confronting both of them in a proxy war in Syria. This is business, but it also has the feel of war by other means: oil.
The Russians have noticed. How could they not? They’ve seen this play before. The Russian newspaper Pravda published an article on April 3 with the headline, “Obama Wants Saudi Arabia to Destroy Russian Economy.” It said: “There is a precedent [for] such joint action that caused the collapse of the U.S.S.R. In 1985, the Kingdom dramatically increased oil production from 2 million to 10 million barrels per day, dropping the price from $32 to $10 per barrel. [The] U.S.S.R. began selling some batches at an even lower price, about $6 per barrel. Saudi Arabia [did not lose] anything, because when prices fell by 3.5 times [Saudi] production increased fivefold. The planned economy of the Soviet Union was not able to cope with falling export revenues, and this was one of the reasons for the collapse of the U.S.S.R.”
Indeed, the late Yegor Gaidar, who between 1991 and 1994 was Russia’s acting prime minister, observed in a Nov. 13, 2006, speech that: “The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to Sept. 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices. ... During the next six months, oil production in Saudi Arabia increased fourfold, while oil prices collapsed. ... The Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per year, money without which the country simply could not survive.”
Neither Moscow nor Tehran will collapse tomorrow. And if oil prices fall below $70 you will see a drop in U.S. production, as some exploration won’t be cost effective, and prices could firm up. But have no doubt, this price falloff serves U.S. and Saudi strategic interests and it harms Russia and Iran. Oil export revenues account for about 60 percent of Iran’s government revenues and more than half of Russia’s.
The price decline is no accident. In an Oct. 3 article in The Times, Stanley Reed noted that the sharp drop in oil prices “was seen as a response to Saudi Arabia’s signaling ... to the markets that it was more interested in maintaining market share than in defending prices. Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, stunned markets by announcing that it was cutting prices by about $1 a barrel to Asia, the crucial growth market for the Persian Gulf producers, as well as by 40 cents a barrel to the United States.” The Times also noted that with America now producing so much more oil and gas, “net oil imports to the United States have fallen since 2007 by 8.7 million barrels a day, ‘roughly equivalent to total Saudi and Nigerian exports,’ according to a recent Citigroup report.”
This resource abundance comes at a time when we’ve also hit a “gusher” of energy technology in Silicon Valley, which is supplying us with unprecedented gains in energy efficiency and productivity, savings that may become as impactful as shale in determining our energy security and global strength. Google, through Nest, and Apple through coding in the iPhone software, are making it easier for average Americans to manage and save energy at home or work.
Bottom line: The trend line for petro-dictators is not so good. America today has a growing advantage in what the former Assistant Energy Secretary Andy Karsner calls “the three big C’s: code, crude and capital.” If only we could do tax reform, and replace payroll and corporate taxes with a carbon tax, we’d have a formula for resiliency and success far better than any of our adversaries.
By Dick Morris, former political adviser to President Bill Clinton
If you happen to see the Bill Clinton five minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary's background,
beware as I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone. I offer a few corrections:
Bill says: "In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor."
The facts are: Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent.
She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.
Bill says:
"Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children's rights project for poor kids."
The facts are: Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party.
She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.
Bill says:
"Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."
The facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam, yes, flunked, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar.
She had no job offers in Arkansas , none, and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there.
She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only afterhe was elected Arkansas Governor.
Bill says:
"President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman."
The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy.
Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.
Bill says:
"She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."
The facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart board of directors, for a substantial fee.
She was silent about their labor and health care practices.
Bill says:
"Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."
The facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott.
I know; I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.
Bill says:
"Hillary was the face of America all over the world."
The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House.
Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
Bill says:
"Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for children's and women's issues."
The facts are: Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation.
One set up a national park in Puerto Rico.
A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer's or other conditions.
And two were routine bills to aid 911 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire NY delegation.
Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize the Woodstock fiasco of 40 years ago.
Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton.
She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our country (that's you and me!) when it comes to the war on terror.
1. She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA.
3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA.
5. She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the military & CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though
More than sixty years after Whittaker Chamber's devastating review of Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged,' it's time to reconsider writing her out of conservatism.
Now, if that’s what Rand says, then line her up with Adolf Hitler for history’s all-star firing squad. But is that what she said or intended? Does she deserve the condemnation heaped upon villains with vile philosophies? Perhaps there is a more charitable way to read the tales of Roark, Taggart, Rearden, and Galt.
Christians, in particular, have a deep ambivalence about Ayn Rand that probably draws as deeply from the facts of her biography as from her famous novels. When the refugee from the old Soviet Union met the Catholic William F. Buckley, she said, “You are much too intelligent to believe in God.” Her atheism was militant. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe in God as she was actively against the whole idea. If God existed, she felt, man suffered a degradation. Her heroic man, who tamed fire at his fingertips with a stylish and pleasure-giving cigarette, stood on top of creation and didn’t kneel for anyone. Rather than venerating the cross, Rand took the dollar sign as her holy symbol. Why? Because the dollar was a proxy for economic value. And for her, economic value was the primary pursuit of a life properly lived.
Critiquing the Whittaker Chambers Takedown
One of Buckley’s missions in politics was to police the boundaries of the conservative movement. He has been credited with delegitimizing the John Birch Society as a representative organization of the Right. In the case of Rand, he gave Whittaker Chambers the job of reviewing “Atlas Shrugged”for National Review. Chambers was a phenomenally gifted writer. We remember him for “Witness,” which may be one of the greatest memoirs ever written and certainly one of the best of the twentieth century. So great was his talent that he had earlier reached the elite ranks of Time where he had been paid like a star at a magazine that awarded no bylines. He was one of publisher Henry Luce’s favorites. Chambers hated Rand’s book. He thought her philosophy logically led to the extinction of the less fit. The piece characterized Rand’s message as, “To a gas chamber, go!” Chambers wasn’t impressed with her prose style, either. His take-down of “Atlas Shrugged” effectively read Rand and the Objectivists out of the conservative movement.
Whittaker Chambers hated Ayn Rand’s book. He thought her philosophy logically led to the extinction of the less fit.
In truth, the great Chambers probably treated Rand’s work unfairly in terms of the content if not with regard to writerly craft. Rand did have disdain for some people, but her lack of respect was not based on physical weakness, class, or color so much as it was aimed at those she thought lacked virtue. Contempt may have its place if it aims at a form of evil. The author certainly saw herself as wielding scorn in exactly that fashion.
One of the worst villains in the novel is Dagny Taggart’s brother, James. He is a rich man who refuses to run his (inherited) company on legitimate competitive terms. Instead, he prefers crony capitalism married to vague notions of social responsibility. Instead of out-competing his rivals, Jim Taggart hopes to have them outlawed. He courts politicians rather than excellence. By Rand’s reckoning, Taggart’s outlook and actions rank him with the lowest of the low. He is a powerful leech.
Productivity: The Great Life-Affirming Activity
The good society for an Objectivist is one in which a man stands or falls on his productivity. As Rand explained in her lectures on ethics, she saw production as the one great life-affirming activity. Man does not automatically or instinctively derive his sustenance from the earth or the sun. He must labor and produce. This was Rand’s bedrock and explains why she had such disdain for those who try to gain wealth through political arrangements. She saw this parasitism on multiple points of the economic spectrum from the beggar to the bureaucrat to the purveyor of incestuous corporatism. In the Randian view, a person with integrity creates value and exchanges it with others in an open and honest way. One does not cleverly reserve either a wage or a market. One earns them.
In Rand’s economy, a shiftless man of wealth would rank well below a blue-collar welder who performs his craft with excellence.
At this point it makes sense to return to the famous scene from “Dirty Dancing” in which Rand’s accusers put words in her mouth and leave no room for response. “Some people count and some don’t.” The implication, given the class dynamics in the film, is that the rich have worth and the poor do not. But Rand would have been outraged at the thought. In her economy, a shiftless man of wealth would rank well below a blue-collar welder who performs his craft with excellence (and probably also a talented dancer at a resort).
Her point of view is far more defensible if properly understood. Rand extols the captains of industry, the men and women who have a drive to change the world for the better and to get rich in the bargain. That much is certain. But the novels also make clear her love for any man or woman who performs a job well. She sees dignity, joy, and love in work rather than in wealth per se.
Ayn Rand Versus Christianity
The critical tension between Rand and Christian theology is on human worth. Christians affirm the inherent and very high value of individuals because of their creation in the image of God. Rand values human beings primarily for their achievements. A person who does not offer value (specifically, economic value) gets dubbed a “moocher” and “looter.” The language is inflammatory to most people, but rankles Christians even more so due to their devotion to the idea of the human being as a bearer of God’s image.
Rand was an atheist and clearly had an insufficient appreciation for (and accounting of) human solidarity, but she loved freedom and she understood the importance of work for human flourishing.
Rand’s atheism, materialism, and reduction of the human being’s value to economic productivity are all reasonable targets of critique for a variety of good reasons. Let those arguments continue to be made, though perhaps with less rancor. But it is important to be clear about the charges for which Rand should not have to answer. She was an atheist and clearly had an insufficient appreciation for (and accounting of) human solidarity, but she loved freedom and she understood the importance of work for human flourishing. And finally, although some accused her of fascism, she ardently opposed the cut-rate philosophy that makes an idol of the state.
Ayn Rand deserves some of the opposition she has received from Christians and many others. But she also deserves better.
