My Beauty Best Teacher

Apoorva Shah asks?

The question is not whether there should be more innovators and entrepreneurs in Africa, but how? What concrete steps must be taken in order to develop the business sector?

He believes that part of the answer lies in building managerial expertise:

The importance of governance, financial institutions, and the overall "enabling environment" has already been proven by the widely referenced World Bank Doing Business Reports. By measuring the difficulty of starting and sustaining business, the report allows for governments to know where to direct and manage reforms. However, an assessment of business know-how and expertise is less frequently discussed, and some over-enthused optimists, especially those on the microfinance bandwagon, insinuate that skills like balancing a checkbook or managing organizational structure are inherent in all entrepreneurs, even budding ones in Africa and South Asia.
Yet studies show that many times it is not the availability of funding or even government reforms that hold back business development, but simply business expertise. Management skills are especially important when entrepreneurs look to scale their businesses and employ more workers

via more business schools

The Association of African Business Schools (AABS), organized by the International Finance Corporation's Global Business School Network, is a quiet but crucial voice in a sector where passions thrive on shirtsleeves and megaphones. The AABS member schools collaborate to improve the standards and increase accreditation of business schools in Africa. Right now, only one school, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, ranks within the Top 100 Business Schools on the 2007 Financial Times Global MBA Index.
But more entrepreneurial Africans in the middle and lower-middle classes should also have the opportunity to attend decent business schools close to home, preventing brain drain and catalyzing larger-scale local business development. As the AABS addresses the quality of business schools, private donors can look to increase the quantity of these schools

On an episode of the NBC show The Office, the intern Ryan betrays the boss Micheal, and in his defense, he says "It was just business, it wasn't personal." Micheal replies back "Business is personal."

Business is personal. In the United States, it means that I can make a personal decision to buy a good, and a seller can make a personal decision to sell a good. We both mutually and freely arrive at this point. We both gain something they want, and what each side wants is a personal decision that they are making. No one forces anyone to make this exchange, it is done purely based on personal reasons. It doesn't matter if you are selling paper or buying a hamburger, the exchange is a personal one. Under a capitalistic system, business thrives, and business is personal, thus personal relationship thrive.

Ryan didn't understand that, and that's why he never made any sales. He thought business was some sort of system, full of buzzwords and gimmicks, and that business could be managed and planned into success. He is antisocial and does not like people and does not like to be personal with people, and that's why he doesn't understand business and does not make any sales.

Today on the radio I heard that Stefanie Spielman, wife of NFL and Ohio State star Chris Spielman, has died after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. She was only 42.

The government wants to encourage women to delay getting breast exams until the age of 50. The reason for this is that it costs money to run these exams, and the government wants to save some money on the 'system'. To the government, business is not personal, and the government does not care if women like Stefanie Spielman live or die. She was first diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30- that is 20 years before the government 'recommends' screening. After beating cancer the first time, she had several more kids and did great things for another dozen years before finally losing the long battle.

But if the government had its way, it would not have paid for all of those costly operations, paid for all of those costs tests, not have paid for all of those costs drugs, and given up on her after her third or fourth recurrence of breast cancer. She was a 'cost on the system', and not a person. She was just a number or a statistic, like the Jews were to Hitler, and not really a person.

Business, including health insurance and medical coverage, is personal. It is a personal decision between two consenting adults who decide on a mutually agreeable price point at which to buy insurance and at which to sell insurance. Once the government gets involved, it is no longer a personal decision, but rather an impersonal decision, and will lead to personal tragedies. We must fight to keep our decisions about goods and services we buy in our hands, and not in the hands of impersonal big government.

All business is, and always should remain, personal.

Today as I was strolling down the hall during my prep hour, I happened to walk by the classroom where business was being taught and overhear some of the lecture from our business teacher. Apparently the students had just finished watching the movie Corporate, which is about how businesses are sick and twisted and try to take advantage of average people by selling them harmful products and making lots of money on them out of pure greed. This passes for an educational film in public schools.

The film was useful in that it sparked some discussion with the students, and I eagerly listened to the discussion that the students and teacher engaged in. When I pose critical thinking questions to students, or ask them for their impressions of movies and videos that we have seen, I try to find out what the students thought, and like Plato, ask question after question of them to refine their ideas, get them to think deeper, and become more learned students. But I'm different than most public education teachers, especially the liberal ones- when they engage in discussion with students, it is a chance for them to bully students into adopting their worldview and positions on issues.

This discussion was like that. Many students felt that the film was too cynical and portrayed corporations in an unfair manner- many of these students worked for corporations or had parents who worked for corporations, and felt that the one-sided portrayal of a big corporation as sick wasn't right. But the business teacher disagreed.

The liberal business teacher in public education said that people in business, especially the successful ones, were sociopaths. Wikipedia defines a sociopath as someone who has antisocial personality disorder:

The essential feature for the diagnosis is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. Deceit and manipulation are considered essential features of the disorder.

According to our business teacher, every single person in business, especially the successful ones, have a pervasive disregard for the rights of others, and rely on deceit and manipulation of others to sell their products. These impressionable youths are sitting in this classroom listening to a person of authority tell them that without a doubt, every person in business, especially those who are good at getting a product to a consumer that they want at an efficient price, are bad people.

What will these students do someday when they vote? What will these students believe about the marketplace, about capitalism, about supply/demand, and about public policies that deal with these issues? What kind of a pervasive influence will this type of teaching have on the future of our nation?

When putting together a list of the best Presidents in the history of our nation, that list would likely include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Madison, Grover Cleveland, and Ronald Reagan. To that list I would like to also include Calvin Coolidge.

Most polls rank Coolidge somewhere in the middle, but this is because most people rank greatness by the number of actions that Presidents make and the number of policies that they as executives force on the nation that are usually contrary to our Constitution. For example, most lists put FDR at the top of the list, but he pushed through unconstitutional policies, dropped our nation into another Great Depression, didn't respond early enough to the rising fascism in the world, and then did the only thing I'll give him great credit for and won WWII. Oh, some great Presidents had to respond to crisis forced on them by others (like Lincoln), but most other so-called 'great' Presidents simply used the office of the President to jam policies on people that moved power and freedom away from them to the government and supervised a nation in crisis.

The best Presidents are those who did very little, ran the executive office smoothly and without problems or corruption, and conformed to the Constitution as closely as possible. Jefferson was President for two terms, and other then the Louisiana Purchase, his administration happily has little to note other than peace and prosperity. James Madison had to respond to the War of 1812, yes- but other than that, peace and prosperity. Calvin Coolidge was like this too- nothing to note during his time in office other than nothing to note- peoples lives were protected, the nation was prosperous, and property was well protected.

Here are some of the reasons that Calvin Coolidge should make the list of one of our greatest Presidents:

1. Coolidge was (for the most part) an opponent of government regulations. “I am in favor of reducing, rather than expanding, government bureaus which seek to regulate and control the business activities of the people,” he explained in the same State of the Union address. During his time in office, he attempted to allow private development of Muscle Shoals, made conservative appointments to federal offices over the objections of liberal Democrats and Progressive Republicans, was opposed to a veterans' bonus, and blocked and to the proposed McNary-Haugen farm legislation.
2. Coolidge criticized the left for its money-spending habits, stating, “Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It doesn’t appear to belong to anyone.” His policies led to a booming economy and increased tax revenues, but Coolidge knew that these additional 'revenues' wasn't the government's money- it was the peoples. So instead of bowing to progressives and liberals and using the surplus funds to create new programs, he put in place tax cuts. His tax cuts targeted largely the wealthy (he believed that the rich would invest their extra funds in ways that would increase production and therefore jobs and wealth at home, and also that American trade would expand abroad which would benefit the domestic economy and help stabilize the world economically and politically), but taxes were also cut on all taxpayers as well, the gift tax was repealed, and the death tax cut in half. These tax cuts led to increasing economic growth in America (and more tax revenues).
3. Coolidge believed that the role of the government was to step out of the way and allow the market and business to prosper. “The business of America is business,” Coolidge famously declared. But unlike many Republicans and almost all liberals, he did not believe the business of government was to control and direct and subsidize business- he believed in the free market and that removing regulations would encourage business more so than subsidies and targeted tax code help.

Coolidge’s tax cuts and deregulations resulted in a budget surplus and the economically booming “Roaring Twenties,” which came to an end during the progressive regulatory administration of his successor President Herbert Hoover. Coolidge said after leaving the White House, "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business"- but this is the very thing that I love about Coolidge, that as President he minded his own business, operated the machinery of the White House with cool and competent handling, and minded his own business as President. No crisis, no television appearances, no major policy changes, no crazy plans, no wild new ideas- simply doing his job, doing it well, and leaving when he was done with the nation in a better place than it was before.

President Calvin Coolidge may be the first U.S. president appeared to also appear in a "talkie" -- a movie with sound.In this four-minute clip (viewable on YouTube), Coolidge says that he wants to

"cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can re-establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty."

Before we go to the polls in 2012 to pick nominees for political parties and for President, I just want everyone to re-examine Calvin Coolidge and his Presidency and decide for themselves what exactly makes a President great.

UPDATE: The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation contacted and reminded me of another reason why Coolidge is possibly one of the better Presidents that we've ever had- his views on education. Coolidge believed strongly in education and he often commented on the subject throughout the course of his political career, believing in the importance of having an educated citizenry and impressing on young people the importance of lifelong learning. Here is one of his quotes from a newspaper column in 1930:

"While it is easy to waste money on education, it is the one thing which we cannot afford to curtail. The true ideal would seem to be a system that supplies those in the lower grades with certain basic information and those in the upper grades with the power to think… The school is not the end but only the beginning of an education. Yet its place cannot be filled in any other way. The best thing the millions of our youth can do to assure their future success is to work faithfully at their studies. That opportunity for improvement and discipline will never return.”

For your next vacation, take a trip to Plymouth Notch, VT to see the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site for yourself and experience the world in which President Coolidge was born and raised.

For good books about President Calvin Coolidge, check out Silent Cal's Almanack: The Homespun Wit and Wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, or Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, The.

Via Americans for Tax Reform:

Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate Cost of Government Day. This is the day on which the average American has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state, and local levels.

In 2010, Cost of Government Day falls on August 19. Working people must toil 231 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - 8 days later than last year and a full 32 days longer than 2008.In other words, in 2010 the cost of government consumes 63.41 percent of national income.

Whenever you get into any argument with any liberal or Democrat about tax rates and the size of government and government finances, you need to ask that liberal or Democrat how much of a person's work and labor and investments in time and money and effort (referred to in the future as income) should the government take from them and give to someone else (government bureaucrats, connected interest groups, politically favorable charities, etc)? How much is too much?

You'll get two answers- that we are at the perfect rate right now (as if 63% is some sort of magical number), or that the rate is too high on the liberals and Democrats but not high enough of the conservatives and Republicans (or as they'll call it, the 'government-subsidized poor' pay too much, but the 'working private rich' don't pay enough). The magic number for liberals and Democrats is that they want 100% of your hard work to go to what they want to spend it on- they want to turn you into a slave of their interests and their desires. That shouldn't shock you- out of the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have been around, slavery has existed and thrived all but 150 of them (although slavery continues even today for women in Muslim nations and there is sex slavery in Africa and Southeast Asia). The real goal for Democrats and liberals is to make you a slave once more to the state, and have you work longer than 231 days out of the year for the state's interests.

Myself, I'm increasingly resenting the fact that I work 231 days out of the year for someone else- I consider that a violation of my life, liberty, and protection of property on which this nation was founded. Even if the Republicans can retake the House and the Senate and the state governments and the Presidency, at best they can only hold the line at this point, which is not good enough for me. The Revolution is brewing.

UPDATE: Just to educate some of your liberal rubes who read my blog, the solution to these high taxes on individuals for being productive is not to tax businesses instead. A business has costs to run and sells goods and services, and if they sell those goods for more than they cost to produce, they make a profit. If taxes are increased on businesses, several things could happen; one, the business owner will pay for those increased taxes out of profits that he earned, which will give him less money to buy goods and services from others, will give him less money to reinvest in his business, and will lessen his desire to make profits by being efficient; two, the business owner will pay for the tax by raising the cost of the goods or services, which will cause overall inflation on everyone as goods and services become more expensive to consumers, lowering economic activity and inflicting harm on everyone; three, the business owner will raise his prices to pay for the tax but be unable to have customers buy the goods at the increased prices and therefore will go out of business; or four, the business owner will keep his prices the same, no longer make money on the business, and eventually be unable to pay his bills and his business will go under.

Those of you who see 'increase taxes on businesses' as a solution to tax woes are indeed idiots, or fools with radio shows named Tomm Hartman.

In an earlier post, I was very critical of the education establishment because of it's anti-business stance. In this post, I leaned toward the idea that the reason for this was the lack of purpose and vision of the educational establishment. But, maybe schools do such a poor job of educating our students on purpose.

Teachers can not effectively educated students and provide the citizens and businessmen of tomorrow because generally speaking, most teachers are anti-business, anti-capitalism, and have no business experience themselves. Our schools are run and staffed by those who have no clue about business and who don’t even respect it, and yet one of the things they are supposed to be training and teaching the business leaders of tomorrow. When teachers are asked about their opinions about business, businessman, business in education, etc, they typically will respond in some of the most leftist drivel you've ever heard. Teachers are anti-business, and that mentality can't be good for the future of our nation.

In this compact disc edition of the totally revised underground bestseller -- The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business -- from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed -- and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have listened to The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

 

Click here to buy from Amazon

When discussing interest groups in my government classes, I always try to bring up the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement as an example of how interest groups and government can work together to create laws that benefit both of them. The tobacco settlement is a good example of a way that the government can try to regulate things in our society that are viewed as harmful, and many people think government should try to use this sort of an agreement as a basis for similar agreements between the government and any industry that supposedly does something harmful.

That's not my view of this agreement. I view the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement as the tobacco industry trading liability for protection, and paying money to make the government force competitors out of business. I view the TMSA as government-endorsed thuggery, the collusion between the four biggest tobacco companies and the government, setting up a marketplace much the way the mob does where the government only allows certain people to compete, and only then at a price, and in return for that price they are not responsible for the harm their products produce and do not have to worry about competition.

Go back a couple years ago and read this article from Reason Magazine called Puff, the Magic Settlement.

This just isn't old history. Today Jonah Goldberg in an article called 'Big Business' Democrats reminded me of this agreement. The TMSA is viewed as a model of success by many to emulate. They think that if you sit Big Business and Big Government down at the table together, magically Big Business will pay millions of dollars in damages and no longer cause problems. They don't realize that there was a deal made, and the deal was to screw over the American public so that both Business and Government would win.

Cap-and-trade is a similar agreement to the one the tobacco industry struck. The winners are big energy businesses, the losers are the people. In this agreement GE and other major energy companies stand to make billions from carbon pricing, thanks largely to investments in technologies that cannot survive in a free market without massive subsidies from Uncle Sam. GE chief Jeffrey Immelt cheerleads big government as "an industry policy champion, a financier and a key partner."

Healthcare is a similar agreement to the one the tobacco industry struck. The winners are big healthcare businesses, the losers are the people. The healthcare industry has mostly been trying to cut insider deals with the government, not fighting to defend the status quo, and if the healthcare bill goes forward, Big Pharma and Big Hospital will have figured out a way to transfer billions of dollars to them and keep them safe from competition, while politicians will cheer what they call 'reforms.'

The backbone of America is freedom to enter the marketplace and protection of property from unjust takings. But when Big Business and Big Government work together, the Big Loser is America.

U.S. investors overwhelmingly see Democrat US President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a recent Bloomberg survey. It is not a surprise then to this humble blogger that the Great Recession continues- the unemployment rate 'only' stayed at 10% in December because 661,000 people gave up looking for a job and quit applying for unemployment benefits.

The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and only one-out-of-five are confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency. Since the Great Recession began in 2007, some 8.6 million jobs have been lost and small businesses, the normal source for new jobs, are still shedding workers. Fewer than 10% added employees, while more than 20% cut back— and the cuts averaged nearly twice as many per firm as the hires at the expanding companies (source here).

Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 the recession started, although Republican lame-duck President Bush can be tagged with 2 years of the recession, and President Obama has now overseen an additional year of recession, with no end in sight. We've had recessions before, but most have only lasted 2 years before we recovered- this one is different because it has gotten worse in the last year and now looks to go on several years longer.

Bloomberg reports:

“Investors no longer feel they can trust their instincts to take risks,” said poll respondent David Young, a managing director for a broker dealer in New York. Young cited Obama’s efforts to trim bonuses and earnings, make health care his top priority over jobs and plans to tax “the rich or advantaged.”

To recover from this recession could take as many as five years or even more to recover all of the eight-plus million jobs lost since March 2007. That's because we would have to create an additional 1.7 million jobs annually beyond those for the 1.3 million new people who enter the work force every year. And jobs will not be created in a high regulation and high tax environment overseen by an anti-big-business President who's most stirring rhetoric can be summed up as 'business is bad.'

According to the Washington Post, the top 20% of the nation's households account for 40% of all spending, and now are facing a President who is determined to 'spread the wealth' and 'soak the rich'. These households, in the face of the threat of government, are now hoarding their resources and cutting back on spending, leading to a dramatic drop in economic activity in our nation.

The issues might come and go, the personal politics might come and go, and politicians will come and go, but in the end, the most important factor to consider when voting is whether to elect a President or Congressman or Governor or Commissioner who is going to encourage job creation, encourage business, and make people feel good about making money (and spending and saving and investing money). And usually, these people are not Democrats.

Jack McHugh put together a stunning list. Maybe you are old enough to remember back when every aspect of your life or business wasn't taxed. Or maybe you remember starting your own business, without getting a license from the government. Maybe, but I don't remember those days. I have grown up in tyranny and seen it only increase as I have gotten older. This is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our Founding Fathers fought and died for less than this.

Here is a list of 55 Taxes On You and 116 Licensure Mandates for those who want to start a business in Michigan. First, here are all the taxes that government has slapped on us to steal our money: Accounts Receivable Tax, Business income tax, Business Gross Receipts Tax, Business Tool and Equipment Property Tax, Building Permit Tax, CDL license Tax. Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Taxes, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges, IRS Penalties, Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax, Service Charge Tax....

Seriously, are you still reading this list of taxes? Do you think the government taxes all these for the money, or is it just to control us and do a little social engineering? You know, pick winners and losers like government is God or something?

Here are more taxes: Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal/State/Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Use Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, and Workers Compensation Tax...

As if those aren't enough taxes, the Democrats and Obama are proposing two new giant taxes- Cap and Trade and taxing employer provided health care benefits.

I'm not going to go through all the license requirements here- you get the picture. Check them all out though if you want, and email me and let me know which license requirement you think is the most insulting. Personally, I'm a little surprised that you can't clean out a sewage tank without paying the government money for a license (Sewer Pipe Cleaners License). Oh well.

Kind of makes you look longingly at the days of a Stamp Tax, doesn't it?

One of my biggest fears about the Obama administration is not that it is liberal and not that it is communist, but rather that it is the beginning of a renaissance of National Socialism. One of the common misconceptions that people have about National Socialism is that it was against big business, or that big business opposed it. Free markets oppose national socialism, and individuals oppose national socialism, but Big Business, threatened by government, does the logical thing, and joins in. National socialism leads to an alliance of Big Business, which enjoys government protection against challenges to its market share and in exchange transforms itself into a tool of government control over the economy. Top executives and lobbyists do very well under a National Socialist regime, while the people suffer.

Via Powerlineblog's post Crony Capitalism, 2010 comes this post from Michael Barone called: "Under Obama, crony capitalism again rules the day:"

Last week, amid Washington's blizzards, Obama was asked about the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein."I know both these guys; they are very savvy businessmen," he said. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth." So much for campaign-trail denunciations of "fat cat" bankers and bloated bonuses.

But the savviness that Obama handsomely acknowledged has been evident not only in their business judgment but in their politics. Goldman employee contributions to Democrats in 2008 ranked second only to those employed by the University of California. JPMorgan Chase's employees ranked No. 7. The stereotype of Wall Street being Republican is decades out of date.

Crony capitalism is now the order of the day in the United States. The government and the United Auto Workers own General Motors and Chrysler, which aren't likely to pay back their billions in TARP money any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile the government tells Americans to stop driving Toyotas.

The government was going to remake the health care sector, and so Billy Tauzin and other health care industry lobbyists were busy in the White House cutting deals to keep their clients above water. The government was going to remake the energy sector, and utility CEOs and lobbyists have been busy flaunting their green credentials.

As my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy Carney has been documenting, Big Business has been busy lobbying Big Government for "reforms" that serve big companies' interests. Wal-Mart backs a health care mandate, Philip Morris shapes tobacco regulation, General Electric is setting up a joint venture to trade carbon offsets (wasn't that Enron's line of work back in the day?).

The picture is not pretty. Government's pets or, in the president's words, "savvy businessmen," use government to get policies that will give them competitive advantages and stifle smaller competitors. Pleasing their masters in government is now absorbing the psychic energy of CEOs who used to concentrate on meeting consumers' needs in order to make profits.
This is a scary picture that is being painted- but it is a picture that is getting closer to reality the longer the Obama administration and the Democrats are in office. Republicans aren't perfect, and the GOP made a lot of mistakes in office, but people need to wake up and realize that the 'Third Way' that Obama is forging has already been done before, and its called National Socialism, or Fascism as its variant called in Italy, or Nazism as its variant called in Germany.

I've written about this before, for a while. Please check out my posts A Conservative Teacher: The Third Way: Obama and Fascism or wikipedia description of fascist sounds like someone i know or calling a fascist a fascist or book review: the man who was thursday or barack obama was a member of the new party. My dad might want me to tone down the "Obama is a fascist" rhetoric, but I'm just calling a spade a spade.

In 2008, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Democrats passed this law in response to the 2007 lead-toy scare, and its intended aim was to scrub the lead from toys, bikes, and clothes that little children played with, and that is a good intention. But like most legislation the Democrats advocate full of good intention, the devil in the details creates unwelcome side effects- in this case, the Democrats effort to make toys safer has led to many toymakers laying off employees, cutting back on investments, lowering quality of their toys, and even being driven out of business.

That's the problem with Democrats legislation- the unintended consequences of it. In this case, the law bans products that contain led concentrations of 300 parts per million or more in places or areas that can be touched or accessed easily by children. In order to prove that a toy is lead-free, toymakers must spend anywhere from $300 to $4000 per produce in tests. This cost is not a big hurdle for the big toy companies, but is a big problem for small-batch, independent toymakers. Once again we see the effect of higher fees and regulations- small businesses, the engine of economic growth in our nation, are driven out of business, while the big business, donating large amounts of funding to the Democrats, gain in market share, all in the name of 'the children'.

Oh, I care about about the kids- that's why I trust good old-fashioned small businesses that are local and use quality methods- just the kind that are driven out of business by laws such as the one that the Democrats passed in Congress last year.

The law could also cause makers of essentially harmless products to move overseas to avoid the regulations. Let's say you make a bike, and the brake levers contain higher concentrations of lead in them- a company may decide to move their operations to another country rather than deal with the prohibitive regulations that Congress passes in the name of safety.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission gave small toymakers an extension until 2010 before complying with these safety regulations, but that's now, and so expect over the coming year for a lot of domestic small toymakers to be driven out of business by government regulations, and their market share to go to Chinese companies that were the ones that were caught putting the lead in the toys in the first place.

Legislation has consequences, and although good intentions matter, those consequences matter more. Elections have consequences too- in the future, vote Republican.

The title of this post isn't mine- Ralph R. Reiland came up with it in his post which I will talk about. But it's a great title- in my mind, I see the American economy hitting an iceberg around 2007 and start taking on some water, enough that it badly listed by 2008 and went into a recession. The iceberg was too much federal spending that soaked up savings and investments, too many federal government policies that encouraged bubbles in investing and housing, and increasing regulations that choked off economic growth, especially in small businesses, and signaled to business owners that now was the time to play it safe and not take risks and create jobs. The tip of this iceberg of federal policy ripped a large hole in the Titanic of the US economy, and soon the boat started to dangerously take on water.

Although I'm no expert of this, I imagine that once your boat hits an iceberg and takes on water, you have two options. Option one is to continue moving forward and patch the hole- in other words, keep America's booming private economy and remove the harmful regulations and policies that caused the damage. Option two is to stop moving and widen the hole, by which I mean to attack private business and those who are successful in it and put in place more harmful policies. Oh, I guess there was a double-secret third option too, and that is to turn the boat around and try to ram the boat on the iceberg again, this time with the intent on sinking the whole thing. For a while, I thought that Obama and the Democrats were just intent on going with option 2, but it looks like they are honestly considering circling back on that iceberg with the goal of sinking the economy of the United States for good.

President Barack Obama was once named by me as Captain of the US Titanic Spending (see my complete list of Obama nicknames)- and now he's going after that iceberg again!

Here are some parts of the article by Reiland called Obama: Circling back to the iceberg:

Only 26 percent of the public approve of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy in the latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 11-14, while a whopping 71 percent disapprove. That's down from Obama's previous low point of 35 percent approval on this top issue.

The public's growing dissatisfaction shouldn't be surprising. Going back to 1890, reports the National Bureau of Economic Research, the only U.S. president with a worse record than Obama in job creation in his first two-and-a-half years in office, measured in terms of percentage change, was Herbert Hoover, presiding over the emergence of the Great Depression.

"Official unemployment is 9.1 percent," stated a New York Times editorial on Aug. 15, decrying the nation's jobs picture, "but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work." "Keeping the economy going and making sure jobs are available is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning," Obama said back in March. "It's the last thing I think about when I go to bed each night."

Now, nearly six months later, the White House reports that Obama is working on a new strategy for job creation that will be unveiled after he returns from vacation. The task of coming up with a jobs plan that works shouldn't be all that terribly difficult. All Mr. Obama has to do is reverse what he's done and change what he thinks.

First, by the government's own numbers, small businesses have created 64 percent of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years.

In fact, that understates the role of small business, since the vast majority of America's medium-sized and large businesses began as small businesses. The Heinz corporation began when 16-year-old Henry Heinz grated piles of horseradish at home, using his mother's recipe, and sold the bottled product door-to-door in Sharpsburg out of a wheelbarrow.

Yet since Obama took office, employment at federal regulatory agencies has jumped 13 percent while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6 percent. Second, 39 percent of small-business owners said in a Chamber of Commerce survey in July that ObamaCare was either their greatest or second-greatest obstacle to new hiring....

...Additionally, 84 percent of small business owners in the survey said the economy is on the wrong track, 79 percent view the current regulatory environment as unreasonable, and 79 percent believe Washington should get out of the way of small business, rather than offering a helping hand (14 percent).

In its first 26 months, reports The Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration imposed new regulatory rules that will cost the private sector $40 billion. In July alone, reports Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., federal regulators imposed a total of 379 new rules that will add some $9.5 billion in new costs.

Bottom line: What's required from Obama is a complete about-face, the shelving of his flawed economic philosophy and a reversal of his counterproductive policy prescriptions.

For those who want to see which way the United States is going under President Obama and his progressive policies supported by the new progressive Democratic Party, watch this movie- Titanic (10th Anniversary Edition).

In my post Crony Capitalism Booming Under Obama Rule in February of 2010, I wrote:

One of my biggest fears about the Obama administration is not that it is liberal and not that it is communist, but rather that it is the beginning of a renaissance of National Socialism. One of the common misconceptions that people have about National Socialism is that it was against big business, or that big business opposed it. Free markets oppose national socialism, and individuals oppose national socialism, but Big Business, threatened by government, does the logical thing, and joins in. National socialism leads to an alliance of Big Business, which enjoys government protection against challenges to its market share and in exchange transforms itself into a tool of government control over the economy. Top executives and lobbyists do very well under a National Socialist regime, while the people suffer.

At the time, I was responding to a post that I found on powerlineblog called Crony Capitalism, which itself was a response to the article from Michael Barone called: "Under Obama, crony capitalism again rules the day."

That was several months ago now, and with the passage of time, we can re-evaluate my thesis- that the Obama administration is putting place a version of fascism that you can nicely called Crony Capitalism or State Capitalism, whereby the government subverts the free market for the good of the 'state' and makes alliances with Big Business to crush smaller companies through regulation and taxation.

Gregory Scoblete updates the situation with his article Will Free Markets Give Way to State Capitalism:

State capitalism, Bremmer writes, "is a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain." From state-owned corporations operating in strategic industries like natural resources or defense, to enormous sovereign wealth funds in the hands of autocrats with opaque operating principles, state capitalism has enabled the world's autocratic states to reap the benefits of capitalist enterprise while maintaining a vice-grip on political freedom.

In Bremmer's telling, the world's autocratic states learned a valuable lesson from the implosion of the Soviet Union: command economies do not work and when they fail, they can bring down the over-arching political system with them. They also watched the post Soviet experiment in crash liberalization with horror. To protect their hides and preserve their privilege, autocratic rulers in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have created a "hybrid" system that leverages many of the tools of capitalism to generate wealth while the heavy hand of the state ensures that wealth is put to the service of the elites and rulers of each country.

Here in America, we have a ruler who wants us to emulate China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia- he wants to create a 'hybrid system' here where the fascist state can leverage capitalism for the good of the all-powerful state through the heavy hand of a tyrannical government. I'd love to sugar coat this, but the evidence is piling up that this is his intention.

Just read this interview that Investors Business Daily had with Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, one of the largest home improvement stores in the nation and employer of lots of people. The interview is stunning because Marcus says what we're all seeing- that the biggest barrier to wealth creation is now the government, that Obama and the Democrats are contributing to the problem, that the White House doesn't even know how to talk to wealth creators, and that the reason why no one is speaking out is that they are all afraid of the powerful wealth destroying government targeting them if they don't toe the line in this now tin-pot banana-republic. Well said Mr. Marcus, and great interview IBD!

IBD: What's the single biggest impediment to job growth today?

Marcus: The U.S. government. Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if we'd tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. It's become stifling.

If you're a small businessman, the only way to deal with it is to work harder, put in more hours, and let people go. When you consider that something like 70% of the American people work for small businesses, you are talking about a big economic impact.

IBD: President Obama has promised to streamline and eliminate regulations. What's your take?

Marcus: His speeches are wonderful. His output is absolutely, incredibly bad. As he speaks about cutting out regulations, they are now producing thousands of pages of new ones. With just ObamaCare by itself, you have a 2,000 page bill that's probably going end up being 150,000 pages of regulations.

IBD: Washington has been consumed with debt talks. Is this the right focus now?

Marcus: They are all tied together. If we don't lower spending and if we don't deal with paying down the debt, we are going to have to raise taxes. Even brain-dead economists understand that when you raise taxes, you cost jobs.

IBD: If you could sit down with Obama and talk to him about job creation, what would you say?

Marcus: I'm not sure Obama would understand anything that I'd say, because he's never really worked a day outside the political or legal area. He doesn't know how to make a payroll, he doesn't understand the problems businesses face. I would try to explain that the plight of the businessman is very reactive to Washington. As Washington piles on regulations and mandates, the impact is tremendous. I don't think he's a bad guy. I just think he has no knowledge of this.

IBD: Why don't more businesses speak out?

Marcus: They are frightened to death — frightened that they will have the IRS or SEC on them. In my 50 years in business, I have never seen executives of major companies who were more intimidated by an administration.

IBD: What's your message to the business community?

Marcus: It's time to stand up and fight. These people in Washington are out there making your life difficult, and many of you won't survive. Why aren't you doing something about it? The free enterprise system made this country what it is today, and we've got to keep it alive. We are on the edge of the abyss.

We are the edge of the abyss, or perhaps already falling into it, but that only means that we have to fight even harder to return our nation to its founding principles which unleashed humanity in freedom and wealth.

The British PM Gordon Brown, seems to have changed his position on Aid.In a speech on international development he stated that:

Some argue that it is the presence of big international corporations that is the cause of the problems in developing countries, but I disagree. Indeed, I believe it is the absence of business - and not the presence of business - that blights the lives of poor people, leaving them dependent on aid and denying them the opportunity to work, denying them the chance to support their families and denying them the means to ensure their children get the chance to succeed.
Economic growth alone has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty over the last 25 years, accounting for over 80 per cent of poverty reduction.
And the countries whose economies are growing fastest, like Rwanda and Ghana represented here today, are those that are making progress on the Millennium Development Goals - with countries whose economies are growing more slowly falling behind.
So we need to fully acknowledge the critical importance of the private sector in driving development - focusing our attention not on an old one-dimensional welfarist approach but on enterprise, on free and fair trade and open markets, and on harnessing the power of innovation -- the building blocks of growth.
Developing countries - including Ghana and Rwanda - are already working hard to put in place the macroeconomic stability, supportive regulatory environment and measures to tackle corruption that are necessary for business and trade to thrive.

He expands on this and urges the strengthening of successful methodologies:

Today we need a new approach --- moving beyond minimum standards, beyond philanthropy and beyond traditional corporate social responsibility - important though they are - to develop long-term business initiatives that mobilise the resources and talents that are the central strengths of global business...From delivering financial services via mobile phones so that millions of people have access to basic bank accounts for the first time; to providing rural farmers with electronic price and weather information so they can decide when best to harvest and sell their crops; to sourcing ingredients from local supply chains to develop the base of the local economy --- each one of these initiatives is providing innovative solutions to the problems we face and spreading enterprise and opportunity across the developing world.

Frequently on my blog I talk about how the policies of Democrats like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Peters, or your Democratic Congressman threaten 'life, liberty, and property.' I don't do this just to evoke our founding fathers and our Declaration of Independence- I do it because in reality, these principles are increasingly under attack when your friends and family put Democrats into office.

On Thursday and Friday, several major American companies- including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. These major job providers and major providers of important goods and services in our nation stated that they think that this new health care law will hurt their companies in many ways. In a free nation, companies should be allowed to state how government policies will adversely affect their bottom lines without fear of the government attacking them. But America is not a free country when Democrats are in charge.

Via the Washington Examiner article Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill by Byron York:

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has summoned some of the nation's top executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment that the new national health care reform law will cost their companies hundreds of millions of dollars in health insurance expenses. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances.

Waxman has ordered the executives (of those companies) to (fly to Washington DC and) explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee.

Waxman's request (for internal company documents relating to finances) could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

If you own and operate a business, or work for a business that is owned and operated by someone, you are under attack by the government of the United States of America. If your business speaks out against a law, they will be dragged off to far away locations (Washington DC) to answer to the lords and masters of our empire, where in front of cameras and the howling masses, they will be subjected to ridicule and threats and intimidation. If your business does not show up, then the government that the Democrats are running will pass laws targeting your company for punishment or will not distribute government funds to you in 'stimulus' bills or other corrupt government give-aways.

This is no longer a free nation of a free people. Democrats like Waxman are turning it into a tyranny.

Over considerable Democratic objections, a Republican Congress dramatically lowered taxes for everyone in our entire country almost ten years ago. Republicans lowered taxes for low-income earners who go to work everyday making goods or providing services that we all need. Republicans lowered taxes for middle-class earners who do what they do to make our economy strong and vibrant. And Republicans lowered taxes for high earners, those who invest in industry, run their own businesses, or are very successful in their enterprises. Everyone in our country got a tax break when Republicans were in charge of Congress and everyone in our nation got to keep more of their income.

Not so when Democrats are in charge of Congress. Under four years of Democratic control, there were no major tax cuts enacted (most of us never even noticed that little baby Obama cut that was targeted towards politically favored groups). And now, as Democrats are being thrown out of office, they have decided to at the very last moment engage in class warfare and not extend the tax cuts for high earners in our nation, thereby putting in place the largest tax increase ever in the history our nation on small businesses, successful entrepreneurs, and top investors. The effect of that massive tax increase by Democrats will predictably be to lower investment, lower incentives to produce, and increase business for tax layers who will shield greater amounts of income from the state's lustful reach.

So, on a local note, where did Congressman Gary Peters vote?

Congressman Peters, as some of you might know, is a 'blue-dog' Democrat from Michigan who managed to cling to office in spite of the Republican wave of 2010 by convincing the voters of his district that he was a tax-cutting, small-government, moderate, friend-of-business conservative, and not in fact what his votes in Congress say that he is, which is a tax-raising, large-government, liberal, enemy-of-business leftist. He says he's one thing- I say his votes say he is another. So, let's take a look at where he voted this time around. Did he vote to play class-warfare and raise taxes on the rich or did he vote against his party in support of Republican proposals to make permanent the tax cuts for everyone? Oh, he'll run next election claiming that he voted 'to cut taxes', but we all know that the vote on HR 4853 was not about cutting taxes for the middle class, but was about whether or not to let the Republican tax cuts for everyone continue or not.

Let's go to the record, courtesy of the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. On Roll Call vote number 604, on a motion that the House agrees with an amendment to the Senate amendment of HR 4853 (which extends the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund) (Democrats couldn't openly vote on this issue, they had to sneak attack on it in a totally ungermane bill), Gary Peters, Democrat from Michigan's 9th District, voted 'Yea'. Just look for 'Pelosi' on the Roll Call list, and you'll see Peters' name there, as always, voting with Nancy Pelosi 95% of the time.

And with that, Peters and other Blue Dog Democrats have once more showed that when it comes down to it, they want to just play games with tax rates, picking and choosing who they like, and would rather attack the rich in a down economy then let those people keep the money they earn to invest or buy as they see fit. Peters and other 'moderates' showed that class warfare and shady games are more important to them then just doing the right thing, which is extending the Republican tax cuts. If Democrats love the middle class and poor so much, after extending tax cuts for everyone, they should then propose deeper tax cuts for those groups, and I am sure Republicans would be okay with it. It's within their power to do so. But no, they just want credit for not raising taxes that they supported earlier on selected groups within society. And if you vote Democrat, that's all you are supporting. Myself, I usually vote Republicans, because they want credit for lowering taxes that they have always supported lowering for everyone in society, and that sounds a little bit more like it should be.

UPDATE: Via Conservative Summer:

On December 2nd, Rep. Gary Peters voted along with his party again, to extend the 'Bush Tax Cuts' to those making under $250k a year. This is not what the Congressman promised back in September. In fact, in a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Peters along with three other Congressmen wrote:

"We urge you to consider legislation to extend all of the income tax cuts," the letter to Pelosi reads. "In recent weeks, we have heard from a diverse spectrum of economists, small business owners, and families who have voiced concerns that raising any taxes right now could negatively impact economic growth. Given the continued fragility of our economy and slow pace of recovery, we share their concerns."

Today we find the unemployment numbers have climbed from 9.6% to 9.8% and these numbers will certainly rise with the additional tax burdens that Congressman Peters has imposed on our small business owners. And he calls himself a 'moderate.'

UPDATE II: The Freep says this about Peters recently:

U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, a Bloomfield Township Democrat, was one of President Barack Obama's best friends last week because he was one of the few Democrats openly supporting extending the Bush-era tax cuts for everybody, not just people who make less than $250,000 a year...the New York Times described Peters as an "obscure" freshman representative from Michigan.

This is Peters' game- openly support tax cuts for everyone, and then when the vote comes up in Congress on the issue, vote the other way. Then when it comes time to explain why you voted the way you did, you use your legal background to explain that your vote was to cut taxes for the poor and middle class, while we all know that that vote was to purposefully extend tax cuts for everyone but the 'rich'. This guy might be 'obscure', but I think a better word to describe Congressman Gary Peters is 'slimy.'

2011, regardless of what happens in the 2010 elections, will be a bad year for America due to the avalanche of tax increases that will hit everyone, specifically dead people, married people, rich people, investors, poor people, those with kids, those who save, those who buy medications, and small businesses. New tax increases of varying amounts will be levied on these groups starting in 2011, and the result of these tax increases will be lower spending, lower saving, lower investment, lower business activity, and increasing hiding of taxable income by those that can, with the end result being falling revenues to the government and less economic activity. That will mean less jobs, less income, and a lower quality of life for you. The blame for this can be laid 100% on politicians, namely anyone who voted for Obamacare and anyone who refused to vote to make permanent the 2001 tax cuts, both of whom are almost all Democrats and who are all liberals.

There are so many new taxes and taxes that are going to come back from the dead that it is tough to know where to begin, so let's start at the end- on midnight of December 31, the death tax returns. If you die before than, there is no tax on your beneficiaries property simply because you died, but if you die in 2011, the government will swoop in after you die and take more of your already-taxed before property simply because you are dead. They will take 55% of the property of those who have left behind $1 million or more in savings and redistribute that property to favored political groups in society. Of course this is immoral and unethical, but that's what you get when you vote Democrat. If you are a small business owner or farmer, you may very well have an estate that is valued in excess of $1 million, especially if you have worked hard your whole life and been successful, and after you are dead government agents will come in and figure out how to destroy your life's work and break it up and redistribute it to those who didn't work hard and earn it. This will obviously hurt our economy.

The Bush tax cuts are also set to expire in 2011. These tax cuts are not just 'for the rich'- the lowest bracket for the personal income tax, or the tax cuts 'for the poor', will jump 50% from 10% today to to 15% under Obama and the Democrats. You read that correctly- Obama and the Democrats will have worked to raise taxes on the most poor in our society by 50%.

The next lowest income bracket, we'll call that 'taxes on the lower-middle class' or 'taxes on the working class', will be increased from 25% to 28%, and 'taxes on the upper-middle class' or 'taxes on the hard-working class' will be increased from 28% to 31%. Again, these tax increases will strike the middle class as well, meaning that more of your money that you work hard for every day will be taken to you and transferred to the government who will then transfer that money to various politically connected groups. You will have less money to spend on goods and services, which will mean lower demand for those products, which will mean someone will lose a job who provides or makes those, which will mean someone else on welfare sucking down tax money. Unemployment will raise, consumer demand will fall, and our society will be more poor because of these tax increases.

Oh, I guess 'the rich' also will be taxed at higher levels too, although once you become rich, you are able to hire good tax attorneys who figure out how to hide your wealth from the government anyways. And I imagine with a more confiscatory government swooping in to take more of your wealth just because you are more successful will encourage more people to seek to hide their income and assets behind politically-engineering loopholes and accounting tricks, leading to the tax increases 'on the rich' not taking as much of their wealth as liberals and Democrats hope. The details are that those currently in the 33% taxable income bracket will have their taxes increased to 36% and the 'taxes on the super-rich' will be increased from 35% to 39.6%. I predict that the results of these massive tax increases on the rich will not provide the revenue that the government hopes it can steal from these people, and so they will demand higher and higher taxes on 'the rich' out of envy and greed. This immoral theft will result in more money and effort spent in hiding assets from an unethical government rather than in doing anything good for society, less money at the top for goods and services resulting in less demand for products resulting in unemployment and a falling economy, considerably less 'play money' for the 'rich' to put in the bank where it can be used for mortgages or small business loans, or less 'play money' for the 'rich' to invest in the stock market leading leading to depreciating assets and less business investment.

Democrats, liberals, and anyone who votes for them, are bringing this falling economy on us in 2011 by letting the Bush tax cuts expire and the death tax revive. But that isn't all- those who voted for Democrats in 2008 also share the blame for the massive amounts of taxes that come with the new Obamacare bill. That will be my next post.

Source: Investors Business Daily.