May 19, 2006
Catallarchy Celebrates John Stuart Mill
In celebration of Mill’s birthday, as one of the influential figures in classical liberalism, Catallarchy is hosting a bicentennial celebration. Check it out.
May 18, 2006
ATL Libertarian Blog Meetup
Looks like it’s going to happen at the Vortex in Midtown, on Saturday May 20, 7:00 PM.
We’ve already got a good crew of 5-6 people, and if anyone else is going to be in the area, feel free to join us. Let me know via email if you’re thinking about heading over, or just show up and look for the big funny-looking white guy. That would be me…
The Unrepentant Individual linked with Last Night’s Blogger Meetup…
May 16, 2006
Follow The Money
As I mentioned previously, I’ve been attending a new church. The theme recently has been the things within ourselves which grow to burden us, and how to avoid them. This week, perfect to be picked apart by someone like me, was greed (link points to the sermon streamed from the church web site).
Some of it was good, some of it was bad. One part that resonates, of course, is that where your treasure (i.e. money) goes, there your heart will go also. The point was made about stocks. When you invest in a stock, that stock doesn’t remain an impersonal company that you really don’t care about. It’s your baby. You’re researching constantly online to make sure the company is comporting itself the way you expect, worrying about their business practices, etc. All of a sudden, you’re not giving just your money to the company you’ve bought a part of, you’re giving them a piece of yourself.
In the sermon, there was a big message about how giving is good, and all that. I’m not too concerned about that at the moment. That’s not to say that I disagree, of course, as I feel very good when I give help and assistance, whether monetary or not, to people I care about. But the morality angle is simply an extension of the idea that where your money goes, goes everything.
Why, of course, do our money and our hearts follow each other so closely? To understand, we need to understand what money is. Money is the physical representation of our time. Time, not money, is the most precious resource in the world. Short of major life-lengthening medical breakthroughs (which will probably happen within 20-50 years), we’ve only got a century or so to get it all done. So what is money? Money is the value of our time when we’re working. Why do we want raises? Because we think our time should be more valuable than it is.
Ben Franklin said that “Time is Money“. But money is also time. Money is what we earn for spending our time, and money is normally required to be spent to enjoy our time. Money is freedom: an unlimited supply of money ensures that we have complete control over our time. When we give our money to another fellow human being, we feel like we are investing in that person, and have a vested interest in seeing them succeed. When we have our money taken by our government, we have a feeling not that we’re working for ourselves (or even for our fellow man, most of the time), but that we’re working for our government. And when our government forcibly takes part of our money, it makes us feel like they’re forcibly taking a part of our freedom.
This, of course, tends to be the most crippling aspect of debt. Once you figure out what debt is doing to you, it creates a pit in your stomach. You look not at the money you earn as paying for the things you want or need, you see it paying for the privilege of borrowing money for what you wanted or needed months or years ago. For every dollar you borrow, you pay interest. Each dollar of that interest is the quantifiable punishment for a bad mistake you’ve made with your money in the past.
On the flip side, of course, is what happens when you have savings. When you have savings, you’re paying yourself for your time, and you’re earning interest on those payments. You feel a great sense of self-worth when your actual monetary worth is in the black. You have the feeling that you have built something, and what you have built is an investment in yourself.
I find myself in a strange conundrum between these two situations. I’m a poor handler of monetary affairs, and tend not to have much self-control when it comes to spending. So I’ve got a fair amount of credit card debt, when hangs over my head like a dagger. Yet at the same time, I’ve been contributing to 401k for a few years, and have built a nice little start to a nest egg. At the moment, if I liquidated the 401k, I could pay off most (if not all) of the debt, and since the debt carries higher interest than I earn on the savings, it might even make some economic sense.
Yet I can’t bring myself to do something like that. The savings I’ve built are an accomplishment. And given the emotional state of money, they are an accomplishment in building myself. Would there be some sense in starting over at square one, clearing the debt? Maybe, but I can’t bear the thought of seeing those savings disappear, even if there was a tangible benefit in another area. That is money I’ve paid to myself. That is my “fit hits the shan” fund. That is the reminder to me that I’m doing at least something right financially.
Some have said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Perhaps the love of money itself might be, as the love of money itself leads one to do anything to achieve it. But the love of what money represents— personal accomplishment and personal freedom— can lead one to pursue greatness. I don’t desire to be rich to throw my success in the face of others, I desire to be rich to increase my own ability to live freely.
Carnival of Liberty XLV
It’s up over at Below the Beltway.
Check it out. I’ll be traveling visiting customers all day, so you’ll have to get your fix of liberty goodness over there…
May 14, 2006
Run, Newt, Run!
Gingrich Says Hillary Clinton Is Beatable
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich agrees that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the Democratic front-runner should she make a bid for president in 2008. But winning, he says, is another matter.
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“But I think, you know, she has a lot of challenges, and there’s a question whether or not there’s a ceiling, that when you got down to the Hillary/anti-Hillary, whether or not she can break 50 percent in primaries,” Gingrich said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Calling Clinton “formidable” as a presidential candidate, Gingrich said: “If we beat her we’re going to beat her with better ideas. We’re not going to beat her with some kind of negative campaign.”
That might be tough. The Republicans haven’t been espousing any real ideas lately, so there will need to be a strong figure out there who can articulate positive ideas. And with George W. Bush in office, the Republicans haven’t had someone who can articulate, either.
Hillary can win in 2008. Going negative against Hillary won’t really work, because the people who hate her aren’t going to be persuaded, and the people who don’t hate her may even feel sorry for her. Nope, to beat her, we need a strong candidate. I don’t think the Republican party is ready to get behind Giuliani, so that leaves McCain & Gingrich.
Gingrich downplayed suggestions that he might be plotting his own run for president.
“I doubt it at this point,” he said. “I’m not ruling out running, but I’m also saying we have real things to do in ‘06. We have real things to do in ‘07. And it’ll be nice to have a couple of years of talking about solutions, not just talking about ambitions.”
That makes things difficult. Much like Doug, I can’t see myself voting McCain. We need Newt in this race. He’s a Republican that can salvage the Republican/Libertarian coalition that Bush has nearly destroyed. He has enough credibility amongst real conservatives (something McCain doesn’t have), is a very inspirational speaker, and has been out of office during the most recent stint where the Republicans have imploded— thus he is not tainted by their failures.
If Newt runs in 2008, I will do everything I can to see him get elected. I can’t say that about every Republican on the short list, and wouldn’t even vote for a couple of them. While most politicians are quick to demagogue, Newt offers solutions. And that’s what we need these days.
May 13, 2006
Not Full of Himself Yet
Yesterday, I was driving around, and in front of me I saw a car with a “US Representative” license plate. The Plate said “FR6″, which made me think it might be for the 6th district, and it had a “Tom Price” bumper sticker. A bit intrigued, at a light I happened to see the driver lean down to grab something, and yep, it was Tom Price.
And he drives a Mercury Sable station wagon. I don’t know that my feeling of “awe” at the “majesty” of government could have dropped any lower, but it did yesterday. I guess that’s how first-termers live, huh? It will probably take another 3 terms before he can justify the upgrade to a Town Car or a Caddy, with windows tinted enough that us plebes can’t recognize him…
May 11, 2006
Atlas May Shrug
I might be getting ahead of myself to declare Warren of Coyote Blog to be Atlas, holding the world up. But he may find himself giving up a portion of his business, becuase operating under proposed government regulation is just too risky (italicized portion from this story):
Last week the House of Representatives expressed its collective outrage over high gas prices by voting as a herd, 389-34, to make gasoline “price gouging” a federal felony.
Really. This command and control legislation reads like the kind of law passed by the old Soviet Politburo. If an oil company is found guilty of charging a “grossly excessive” price for gasoline, it could face a $250 million fine and its executives face imprisonment. Even neighborhood service station owners could be sentenced to two years in jail and a $2 million fine for the high crime of charging too much at the pump.
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My company operates several retail gasoline outlets. We at best break even and probably lose money on the gas, but we continue to sell it to bring people into our stores and because there are so few other local retailers (we are in very rural areas). If this law passes, I am just not going to risk going to jail because some economically ignorant jury in the future can’t figure out that gas is more expensive in rural areas or because some tragic and sympathetic figure decides to sue me. I’m out. And if someone observes that in the rural areas in which we operate, consumers will probably be worse off if we exit, then Congress should have thought of that before they passed this Marxist-populist legislation.
You know what? Good for him. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to risk 2 years and $2 million for a couple of cents of profit on gasoline, and I don’t expect somebody else to do so.
If this passes, of course, it’s just going to hurt consumers. The same consumers that will then scream for more government intervention, further screwing the whole thing up. They don’t understand the implications of voting based on their own economic ignorance, and can’t see that politicians are willing to sell them up the river just to increase their own power.
This legislation, in fact, is a boon to the major gasoline chains. They’re the ones that know that if they get investigated, their armies of lawyers will keep them clean. It’s the little guys, like Warren, who would rather hang up their spurs than face the risk. Increased regulation helps big corporations improve market share, and will only end up creating higher prices and harder-to-find gas for consumers. I said before that this problem will only improve when individuals start to see government as the problem, not the solution.
The Headline Says it All…
Normally, I try to post the story that goes along with a headline. But we don’t even need that here…
“Paralyzed” woman gets up, runs from police
Yep… You know the rest. It’s a miracle!
Burn the Witch!
Hearing officer: ‘Potter’ should stay on shelves
In the fight to stay on the shelves of Gwinnett County schools, it looks like Harry Potter has won another battle.
The hearing officer in the case has strongly recommended that the best-selling book series stay in school libraries. The decision came after Laura Mallory, a Loganville mother with three children at J.C. Magill Elementary School, filed formal complaints requesting all the Harry Potter books be removed.
Mallory said the books’ descriptions of witchcraft, spells, “demonic activity, murder and evil blood sacrifice” may inspire young readers to pursue occult activities.
Ooh, let’s see where they can take this… They’ll need to remove the Chronicles of Narnia series, because that might inspire young readers towards Christianity, and with the separation of Church and State, we can’t expose youngsters to religion. And they’ll have to stop having children read The Diary of Anne Frank, because those kids might just be inspired to commit a holocaust or two. Let’s definitely stop them from reading The Great Gatsby, because we don’t want to inspire kids to live the “flapper lifestyle”, do we? I’m not even going to get into the filth-laden Catcher in the Rye…
And for the full coup de grace, let’s make sure we pull out “The Cat in the Hat”. Young minds simply aren’t capable of handling the idea of a talking, upright-walking cat. Their fragile little minds might be inspired to put a hat on their cat and mess up the house!
Give me a break… Thankfully, it’s possible cooler heads might prevail:
Hearing officer Su Ellen Bray wrote in her recommendation 10 reasons why she thought the books should remain in school libraries.
She argued that they encouraged children to read for pleasure, and that most students who read them would know they were fantasy, not fact. She also said the books promoted positive themes, such as good prevailing over evil.
Her last reason summarized many of Bray’s earlier points: “To remove this series of critically acclaimed and highly popular books from the school media centers because of a challenge of one parent who has not read any one of the books in its entirety, who has mistakenly identified the themes of the books, and whose main argument is that the books teach the readers to be evil, would open this very fine school system to ridicule by many of its citizens as well as citizens of this nation.
Let me shorten down this recommendation for you: “The lady is a nutjob, and we shouldn’t let our educational system be hijacked by this nutjob. Even if it IS Georgia…”
I think it’s about time to find Ms. Mallory’s address, and start sending her kids some of the favorite books I read growing up… I’ll start with The Great Brain series, I absolutely *loved* those when I was younger…
May 10, 2006
Lipstick on a Pig
Beer Makers Target More Affluent Drinkers
Proclaiming Miller Genuine Draft as “Beer. Grown Up,” Miller Brewing is repositioning the brand to woo sophisticated 20-somethings — a segment that’s straying from domestic brews in favor of light beer, imports, spirits and wine.
From helping launch a fashion designer on the Sundance Channel to partnering with GQ magazine, Miller’s second-largest premium brand is being targeted to drinkers who are in their mid-to-late 20s who have grown out of the party scene, might be making more money and now want the better things in life.
With beer sales falling flat across the industry, brewers are diversifying their reach, especially those in the domestic premium market. Light beer now takes about 49 percent of the market and is considered the standard beer, according to the trade newsletter Beer Marketer’s Insights. So domestic premium brands like Miller Genuine Draft, Budweiser and Coors Banquet are trying to grow their roughly 16 percent stake in a stagnant market, according to a study in a recent issue of the newsletter.
What do you do when you’ve saturated your target market to the point that the only way to expand is to get people to drink more, not more people to drink? Marketing!
Growth in the beer market is in craft beer, the long tail of the beer industry. That’s not to say that the big brewers are suddenly in danger of going belly-up, they make a product that is desirable to a large number of people. Myself included, because when I get done working in the yard on a hot summer day, I don’t want a hopped-up double IPA or a malty Russian Imperial Stout, I want a cold, crisp, Miller Lite. It’s lemonade for adults…
“What we are finding in a category like domestic premium beer, is it’s important to differentiate yourself from the other beers so that when a consumer sits down at a bar he or she understands why he wants to order your beer compared to other ones,” Hatland said.
Domestic premium sales have dropped 22 percent since 2000 and 7 percent from 2004 to last year, said Benj Steinman, publisher of Beer Marketer’s Insights. Imports have a 12 percent share and craft beer is at 3.5 percent, so domestic premium is still larger than those. But it’s been losing ground, he said.
Differentiating your beer from others is a matter of brewing better beer, not putting hotter chicks in your commercials. The craft beer market, in fact, is growing more and more to resemble the wine industry, to the point where I just recently saw a cooking show all about beer/food pairings. What beer do you drink with some nice brie and bread? Or with a steak? Seafood? There are wildly different flavors, aromas, and characters to different styles of beer, and each one has its place.
Unfortunately, brewers like Miller and Budweiser don’t quite get it. While you might get some boost by trying to attract people to your “premium” brands, there’s always the chance you’ll become the beer equivalent of wine sold in boxes. While that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon in the US beer market, making real strides at brewing more “craft” styles would go a lot farther to improving their sales than trying to grow incrementally with their current products.
But until they wise up, it’s free reign for a lot of little makers of beer. One of my favorites, Stone Brewing Company, is having trouble growing fast enough to keep up with their rapid growth in demand, and many of the other craft breweries are in the same situation. And who knows, someday I might want to turn my little homebrewing hobby into a commercial operation, and do my best to join them!
May 9, 2006
Selling Off Government Land
My wife was telling me tonight about a news story in Boulder City, NV. She said something about selling land to the government, and everyone in town was going to get rich. Well, obviously, my interest was piqued. If they’re getting rich selling land to the government, they’re probably getting rich on my dime. Knowing our government, I know it’s not a good investment with my tax dollars. Thankfully, though, it wasn’t what she said…
Initiative could make millionaires of everyone in Nevada city
Some local activists think Boulder City, where gambling has been banned for all its 75 years, is sitting on a jackpot: 167 square miles of undeveloped open land in one of the nation’s hottest real-estate markets.
Their proposal could make millionaires of every man, woman and child in the town of about 15,000 — that is, as long as city officials are wrong when they say the plan would never stand court scrutiny.
Incidentally, don’t pack your bags. Only people living in Boulder City as of March 31 would be eligible.
Eldorado Valley, an expanse of dry lake bed dotted by creosote bushes and flanked by red-rock mountains, is worth $15 billion to $50 billion, the activists estimate. That, they say, is too much dough and too much responsibility for its City Council to handle.
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One proposal would require the land to remain untouched, set aside for the preservation of the endangered desert tortoise, public recreation and possible solar-power development.
The other would force the City Council to sell the property to the highest bidder. Ten percent of the money would pay off the city debt, build a bypass highway around town and fund education. Ninety percent would be distributed to city residents.
“The highest bidder”. Those are the words I like to hear. Since I’m not a big fan of huge tracts of land owned by governments, opening that land up to private development is a big plus. If the people of the town who owns it (instead of the city council) get rich, I’ll accept that. Considering how much real estate in this country is owned by government, it’s high time we start selling it off.
Carnival of Liberty XLIV
Yep, #44 is up at Robot Guy. Currently Blogger, that wonderful free web host, is down, so I can’t give any tips on what’s good and bad in the Carnival, but it should be back up in the near future.
May 8, 2006
FairTax and Enforcement
I threw up a post over at The FairTax Blog about how it will be enforced… Check it out. I think it answers some questions that aren’t addressed elsewhere.
Atlanta-area happenings
Catallarchy ATL Libertarian Blogger Meetup – May 20th. The wife will be out of town that weekend, so I don’t have to worry about dragging her someplace she’ll be bored to tears meeting freaks like me. So I’m going to make it down to this… For any of the regular readers in the Atlanta area, swing on by.
Atlanta FairTax Rally – May 24. I’m 90% sure I’m going to be there, if I can muster up the ability to deal with traffic long enough to head up to Gwinnett. If anyone else is planning on heading over, let me know.
Slogan Trouble
I’ve got one: “We don’t waste your tax dollars coming up with silly slogans!” It certainly won’t ever be seen in Massachusetts…
N.J. Scraps 2nd Slogan in Less Than Year
The state has jettisoned “Come See For Yourself,” its second attempt at a tagline in less than a year. It was the product of a statewide contest set up by then-acting Gov. Richard J. Codey last fall, after he rejected a consultant’s offering: “We’ll Win You Over.”
State tourism officials said legal issues led them to scrap the latest slogan, explaining that West Virginia and other states previously used “Come See For Yourself.”
“We are proceeding without the slogan. We will revisit the next steps at the end of the year,” Karen Wolfe, a spokeswoman for the state Commerce, Economic Growth and Tourism Commission, told The Press of Atlantic City for Saturday editions.
Codey, now state Senate president, dismissed “We’ll Win You Over” because he said it reminded him too much of when he was single and asked girls out on a date.
“We’ll win you over”?! How bad of a reputation does a state need to have that your state slogan is apologizing for it? And “Come see for yourself” only really attracts those in the “Show Me” state…
Lots of N.H. folks hate state’s new welcome sign: ‘You’re going to love it here’
New Hampshire seems to be suffering from a bit of an identity crisis.
First, the Old Man of the Mountain — the stern, granite profile that graces license plates and quarters — fell off its cliff, crumbling to bits. Then, in an effort to bring some consistency to a jumble of highway welcome signs, the state moved to install new ones reading, “You’re going to love it here.”
But lots of people — including the governor — hate them.
A proposal to replace “love it” with the state’s official motto, “Live Free or Die,” which has been on New Hampshire’s license plates for decades, has widespread support in the Legislature. But some people would rather see something a little less, well, belligerent.
“I think that’s an in-your-face motto. It’s misinterpreted. It’s out of context. That’s not who we are,” said state Rep. Tim Robertson, a Democrat.
Chalk up my vote for belligerence. None of this namby-pamby complaining about being “in-your-face”. I realize a slogan like “Live Free or Die” might offend the easily offendable, but these days, what won’t?
And when you really look at this, how much additional tax dollars were spent over and above simple signs that say “Welcome to New Jersey” or “Welcome to New Hampshire”? The only state slogan I ever remember is Indiana, “The Crossroads of America”. And I only remember that one because I would joke that Indiana has to advertise itself as a place you drive through on the way to somewhere nicer. That’s what these slogans are: a jumping-off point for jokes.
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I’ll be there in spirit…y’all have fun!
Comment by Robert — May 19, 2006 @ 8:16 pm
[...] Posts Last Night’s Blogger Meetup… I Can See My House From Here! Treating Believers like Children What a Relief! CatallarchyCelebrates John Stuart Mill ATL Libertarian Blog Meetup Follow The Money Carnival of Liberty XLV Run, Newt, Run! Not Full of Himself Yet Atlas May Shrug The Headline Says it All… Burn the Witch! Lipstick on a Pig Selling Off Government Land [...]
Pingback by The Unrepentant Individual » Last Night’s Blogger Meetup… — May 21, 2006 @ 6:28 pm