"Simply A Business Decision" 1.2

Right now, I'd like to write a nice post about a sheriff's deputy in Albany, New York who stood up to an airport authority PR director and protected a newsreporter/civil-liberties activist's first amendment rights.


But, instead ...

I am going through the tortured process of applying for a job with one of the big-box retailers. I am in desperate need of a job, and so I have fired a shotgun shell today, trying to hit the high-hanging fruit and the ground fruit of job possibilities. I'm tortured to know that, if I do get a big-box job, I will most likely work in an environment where most of the employees - including most likely me - will be forced into a sub-30-hour workweek, because Obamacare redefined full employment as 30 hours per week, which takes effect in 2014.

And in conclusion, thanks to Jason Bermas and Sheriff's Deputy Stan Lenic for standing up for the First Amendment. Really, watch the entire video. Though I am not a Bill of Rights scholar, it appears that Deputy Lenic went beyond protecting the First Amendment by refusing to act as an agent for the airport authority, when he was asked to collect ID from Jason Berma.

Oops. I went ahead and wrote about the nice deputy!

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SuperDuperMax USA Gets More Secure

John Stossel reports that the federal government decides that U.S. citizens cannot invest in Intrade.com prediction markets. Up until now - and I don't know when it started - banks were not allowed to transfer money out of the country on behalf of Intrade.com investors. Now our nanny-state/socialist-anti-constitutional republic has decided, through established regulation, that prediction markets are "commodity options," and that Intrade.com is doing unregulated commodity-option trading.

Government Crushes Innovative Online Prediction Market by John Stossel, on FoxBusiness

Grand Union Flag Redux

I created a flag a while ago. It was really an exercise in combining concepts: being an American with anarcho-capitalist ideals. My idea was that the freedom movement could handle being a part of the USA - at least for a start.

When the Colonies confronted the Mother Country, there was an anticipation that the Colonies would remain part of the British Empire. The Union Jack held the place where the field of stars took over. The Union Jack still holds the same place in the Australia, New Zealand, colonial, and other Commonwealth flags. Well, the plan didn't work out, so the Union Jack left our flag forever.

First National Flag of USA - Grand Union Flag

I don't think our country will break up, despite all the secession petitions, but there is something wrong with our government, and changes might be coming that might rewrite our form of government. Also, not only does the Stars & Stripes represent our government, but it represents the Declaration of Independence (retroactively), the Constitution, a break from non-representative government, and - of course - us! So, I give you a Grand Union Flag Redux. We're still Americans, but there is something greater than the USA - freedom. And more people are recognizing that.

Last National Flag of USA? - Grand Union Flag Redux

The King Is Dead. Long Live The King.

North Carolina Governor Perdue seizes defeat from defeat. Since NC Senate would not pass legislation, the Governor decides - unilaterally, with study group help and consultations with Republicans - to go with the state-federal "partnership" that keeps Obamacare health-care exchange financial responsibility with the federal government. The irony is that Governor Perdue really did not make the decision for North Carolina; she just set in motion the machinery to implement a decision. The state senate only missed a preliminary deadline to implement a state exchange by the earliest date.

Either way, what a mess. I thought refusal by a state to set up an exchange would keep heath-care exchanges out of the states. Apparently, nope!

It is interesting how the Charlotte Observer glossed over the fact that Perdue didn't actually make a decision for the state. NC's health care exchange will be state-federal partnership by Lynn Bonner. While the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald quoted Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger saying that Perdue's action was premature, and that a state-based exchange could be created at a later date. Gov. Perdue chooses state-federal partnership.

Obama Needs To Be Schoolhouse Rock[ed]!

Since Congress would not act to give more control to the government over cybersecurity, Obama once again has acted unilaterally.

I doubt that this will be adjudicated unconstitutional. Obama has acted unilaterally on too many issues, when Congress wouldn't do what he wanted. "[W]e can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will,” Obama said in October 2011.

"Obama says he’ll be taking ‘executive actions’ without Congress on ‘regular basis’ to ‘heal the economy’" by Nicholas Ballasy, The Daily Caller 


Well now a year later, it's more like, "If I don't get what I want, if Congress actually stands up and says that they won't trade more freedom for security, then I'll do what I damn well please. Enough of this 'Congress makes the laws'-grade-school crap."

NEWS FLASH (LOL): Obama Holds PBS Funding Hostage. Obama demands that PBS officials sign a contract that they will in perpetuity never show the Schoolhouse Rock! episode "Three Ring Government," and that they handover the copyright to Obama personally.

You've said you've seen it on YouTube? Use one of those streaming-video-copying doohickies quick.

"Mr. President, doesn't ABC hold the copyright for Schoolhouse Rock!?" said Brett Doormat, from The New York Times

"That is an issue we can deal with. We will come to a consensus and move forward," said President Obama

"Who's we?" whispered freshman White House reporter Greg Truth of the Washington Times."You need to keep up, or you'll never get anything out of this place. Obama started referring to himself in the third person a couple days ago," whispered William Coaster from the Washington Post. "Don't kings do that?" "Shhh. You want to keep that press card, don't cha?"

E.O. 300000: Transfers copyright for "Three Ring Government" from ABC to PBS for national security reasons.

"President Obama Unilaterally Gives Cybersecurity Powers to the Military" on Hit & Run Blog by J.D. Tuccille, Reason.com

"Simply A Business Decision" 1.11

I realized what compelled me to think about planning and calendars. I had forgotten to file my weekly claim for unemployment. How depressing, except that I still had earned too much (severance) to generate an unemployment check. WOOHOO!!!

Since I filed my claim, I've populated my Google calendar with useful job-searching tasks. LOL. Well, some useful, some probably not - time will tell.

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The State Is A Masterstroke of Social Organization 1.0

Hypothesis: Though it fails at its professed aims of improving people's lives, is unbelievably inefficient, and destroys natural incentives for individuals to organize themselves, the state is a masterstroke of social organization.

My hypothesis sounds counter to what Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalist theory claims. But my hypothesis assumes that the success of the state is not founded on its ability to provide anything to anyone that is a subject to or member (elector) of it, but success is founded on the amount and quality of the resources, people, and production that the state can command. That sounds counter to the most basic definition of success for a private enterprise - return on investment, usually calculated in monetary value. But the most important return on investment for the state is power.

"Simply A Business Decision" 1.1

I just realized that I have not utilized a calendar since being laid off. I have not planned ANYTHING using a timekeeping tool for about a week and a half.

I've applied to a bunch of jobs. I've made several new contacts through my network. But I haven't done any real planning. I haven't looked to the future. I've been held captive my the present. I don't even know what compelled me to go to my Google calendar to schedule an "event." But I'll get something on there - quick.

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The Just In Time Delivery & Inflationary Economy Kills Savings

This post was inspired by a podcast interview by Bob Mayne of 299 Days author.

Are we in a just-in-time efficiency paradox? Well, I think partially so. Our propensity NOT to save has an earlier source.

Inflationary monetary policy, that was perfected under Keynesianism, came first. Keynesianism created an incentive not to save. You would think inflation would at least give someone the incentive to invest. But the volatility of inflation makes even investing more risky. The safest place for your money is NOT in your pocket, mattress, or bank. The safest way to maintain the value of your government-controlled fiat currency is to convert it into practically anything else. And Keynes intended it that way.

Just-in-time delivery of manufacturing components and consumer goods has closed the circle on ANY type of savings, including storing things that are needed soon. It is not so surprising that the prepper community - and anyone that has their finger to the wind - has focused so heavily on storing what you will need for a short amount of time. Actually, preppers have moved beyond the three-day requirements to a month or more. You would think that was all doomsday hysteria, but it is based on a simple truth that I don't think most preppers are aware of. This is where Glen Tate and his 299 Days series comes in:

I was amazed at how quick certain store shelves have been cleared during impending storms here in Charlotte. You could chalk it up to idiots going out and buying up milk, bread, and eggs, when the weather report threatens a flurry. That's not so surprising, especially since every major intersection in this city could present you with a car wreck during a simple rainy day. Recently, I was also perplexed that I often find simple items not available on the grocery stores. The groceries stores don't look like the ones in the Soviet Union - not by a long shot - but things I expect to find aren't there. Then a day later they are.

Glen Tate explained in his interview on Bob Mayne's show that grocery stores are functioning on a Just In Time (JIT) model of receiving and stocking goods. That seemed like a great idea when I heard that a seat supplier would start making a seat at the same time that a car starts being built on BMW's assembling line and TRUCKS it over to the BMW factory just in time for it to be bolted into the car. Well, that's the reality for many goods that we depend on. Retail stores are no longer stores to a large extent, so you better have a store in your own house.

On a monetary level, I think we as a culture have drifting lazily so far from saving money, that we find it impossible to save for the long term. Maybe, many of us need intermediary steps. If you can get yourself to save something for a week, then next time save it two weeks, then a month, two months, four months, eight months, sixteen months. I think we have stigmatized ourselves in our own minds that we can't think of ourselves as savers.

If a squirrel can save, then so can you.

A Dodge Became Federal Policy

Until a few days ago, I didn't know about Obamacare redefining full employment from 35 to 30 hours/week for the purposes of socializing healthcare.

I feel for the workers. But "I pity the fools." It is very sad to see so many people make less money or lose their jobs because of a federal policy. I really empathize with their situation. On the other hand, I have pity for the politicians and bureaucrats that thought this was going to work.

The expansion of a wartime wage-control-dodging perk to a national "well being" policy is government gone amuck.  Obamacare heaps irony upon irony upon itself. A dodge (health insurance) that avoided federal compensation limits has morphed into a federal healthcare policy that has created another dodge (limiting employee hours to 30 hours/week). 

I’m just waiting for a federal work limit to come down the pike. 30 hours/week per citizen. What will we do with our time? Federal service, of course: 5 hours per citizen, to maintain citizenship. There will be plenty of need in the federalized healthcare service.

Yahoo! News: How's That Obamacare Waiver Workin' Out for Ya?