Leadership Vacuum...Part 1

I recently thought back to the first Gulf War, of which I was proudly a part of as a Aircraft Handler on board the Amphibious Assault Ship, USS New Orleans, LPH-11. I recalled the excuse used at the time for not removing Saddam Hussein from power, that it would create a leadership vacuum in the middle east paving the way for it to be filled by the likes of the Mullah's from Iran. What began as a reminisce of good times, became a review of our own current leadership vacuum, at the highest levels of the US Government.

Leadership, especially at the level required in the Office of the President, is a very visible thing, especially when it is all but non-existent. America has a long standing history of leaders. Men, and women, who stood head and shoulders above their peers, and lead the way forward. Now, let me be clear here, this is NOT a partisan thing. However, ideology does come into play. You see, it is yet another difference between Capitalist leadership and Marxist/Socialist leadership.

A Capitalist leader understands that someone has to make the call. Someone has to be the one to make the tough decision, and willing to take the lumps that come with being wrong. A Socialist leader believes that decision making is a consensus exercise. A leader from the socialist mold is basically incapable of making a decision without consensus from the collective. These leaders have to surround themselves with like minded individuals in order to ensure that the collective consensus actually occurs. Capitalist leaders understand that a leader is sometimes the loneliest person in the room. Socialist leaders can not even stand being alone in a room.

A socialist leader has to have cover and deniability at all times for any decision made. These leaders never want to have the full responsibility of made decisions on their shoulders. Thus, they rely on the argument that it was a consensus decision and therefore shift the blame for failure to someone else. This is the problem that we currently have in Washington, DC. You see it in almost every decision made or not made, by the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We have been told that President Obama is a leader among leaders. That to question his leadership or his ideology is to be racist and insensitive. We are pounded daily by reports of his "style" of leadership and his erudition. We are treated to professorial lectures whenever We the People do not buy into his collectivist decisions. This is not leadership, on any level. Leadership is not about style and lectures. It is not about speeches and fundraising dinners. It is about standing up and standing out for your ideas and your decisions. Perhaps the questions we should have asked during the 2008 election was what had he ever been a leader of.

We have had the press try to paint Obama as a leader in the mold of Ronald Reagan. However, putting the two side by side shows just how little leadership Obama has shown in comparison. Like many great leaders in History, Reagan stood head and shoulders above those around him. He made his decisions and stood by them. He stood up to fascists and communist dictators alike with stalwart strength and resoluteness. He stood up to Qaddafi in Libya, and struck fear into the heart of the mullahs in Iran.

Now, Obama, in comparison, has failed to even engage the problems of his time. North Korea is more defiant now than two years ago. Qaddafi has defied and continues to defy America while Obama has pushed any decision making and responsibility off to some NATO collective. Iran laughs out loud of the weakness of American leadership, and China and Russia are completely unimpressed or persuaded by the President.

So, if Obama pales in comparison to Reagan, than who can he be compared to...Nero perhaps.

Enough is Enough

I was willing to give this self serving, self centered, self aggrandizing president the benefit of the doubt. That must be the compassion that my liberal friends say I don't possess. However, after today's obvious political grandstand in NYC, I have to say...ENOUGH IS ENOUGH Barack.

You see sir, We the People are wise to your political shenanigans. That is why so many want to see the picture of OBL dead. It is time for you to get your liberal heads together in DC and get your stories straight. You see Mr. President, a true leader leaves no doubt about his goals, his vision, and what the results of his actions are. We Killed bin Laden, more to the point, the US Navy Seals and CIA Operatives killed bin Laden. Yes sir you get the credit for making the call, and you also have to deal with your base about that same call.

Leadership is saying to your people, your organization that I made this call, it was the right call, and if you don't like it, get off my bus. Don't fudge around trying to find a story that is palatable to your base. If the sycophants that propel you through life don't understand what was done than apparently there is a recently vacated compound in Abbadabad Pakistan for sale....CHEAP.

At some point Mr. Obama, people will begin to tire of the facade. People will begin to see through the veneer that you have so carefully applied in order to be president. In fact, a large portion of the people that helped get you elected have seen through the lies and deception and are leaving you in droves, and no amount of terrorist killings or military success will change that. Sir your lack of real leadership has this country smoldering in a prolonged recession with housing prices lower now than in 2008, wages are stagnate while prices for food and gas are at all time highs, and unemployment once again headed in the wrong direction. These are direct results of your leftist social justice policies and inability to understand even basic economics.

Lastly sir, your foreign policy, wherever you have applied your own brand, is an absolute shambles. You have provided no clear message or leadership in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. America is supposed to be the beacon of freedom and liberty, and your policies have shown her to be a weak and flickering flame of despair. The only real successes you have had in the foreign policy arena are when you applied the tried and true method of peace through strength, as with the surge in Afghanistan and the death of Osama bin Laden.

Sir, We the People are wise to you. We know all to well the road your policies are taking us, and we do not like the direction. I look forward to the fields of debate in this next election cycle and truly hope that a candidate arises who will not fail to challenge you on the basis of your ideology and lack of leadership.

The King is Dead...Long live the King

That king of course, is the king of Al Qaeda. Thanks to the bravery and consummate professionalism of our elite operators, Usama bin Laden has reportedly been eliminated from the terrorist equation, at least as a living entity. Kudos to the President and his advisers on selecting a course of action that would reduce the opportunity for questions and conspiracies about bin Laden's death.

Today is a day for tempered celebration and retrospection. I myself was not jumping up and down for joy at the news. I was pleased, and extremely proud of the operators who took this action and rid us of this mass murderer. I don't subscribe to the partisan rhetoric from some in both ideological spectrum's for any reason. The President was presented with options for taking action based on creditable and actionable intelligence on the ground. This was something that needed to be done, and the President chose the appropriate response to the intelligence available.

In keeping with the professionalism of our special forces operators, OBL was provided with the opportunity to submit to arrest/capture and he refused. Exactly what followed will likely remain classified for a number of years, but OBL was removed from this earth by a bullet in the malignant brain bore responsibility for the deaths of so many people around the world.

In keeping with the highest traditions of the United States and the Navy, every precaution was taking to make sure that the disposal of OBL's body was done in accordance with Islamic law and precepts. We had no obligation to do this, we could have just dumped his body overboard in a standard at sea burial procedure. However, as Americans so often do, we respected his right to burial at sea based on his own religious beliefs. America once again, by acting in this manner, shows to the world that unlike those who are constantly trying to kill us, we respect their religious beliefs.

Make no mistake, Al Qaeda is not dead with OBL. In fact, we may see a dramatic surge in terrorist activity against America and its allies. The charismatic figure that was bin Laden, however, is gone. In the long run this will likely lead to division and disarray within the organization as it tries to replace a leader.

To Al Qaeda, the message has been delivered. You can run, you can try to hide, you can attempt to carry out your plans to kill innocent people, including your own. However, we will nor rest, we will not become complacent, we will not stop searching and removing those who seek to harm America and her interests. It took us almost 10 years, but your leader is dead, killed by an American Soldier with an American bullet. Should you choose to continue your course of action, should you decide to continue to make war against America and her interests around the world, we will hunt you, we will find you, and we will remove you from this planet.

God bless America, Semper Fi, Fair Winds and Following Seas. HooRah to our CIA and Special Operators on their success in this mission. Praise be to god that we suffered no loss of American lives in the process.

The Federal Budget Battle

          The hottest debate in town is over how best to encourage growth and economic prosperity through the vehicle of the Federal Budget. There are two sides to this debate, the pseudo Keynesians on the left and the more Free Market oriented ones on the right. The real debate is over which direction our country should take to restore full employment (approximately 5%) keep inflation in check, and create the opportunity for a greater creation of wealth. The Free Market has the answers to this problem, and it is diametrically opposed to the vision from the White House and the Democrats in the US Senate, which tend to take a more Keynesian view of economic issues.

            First, let us look at the Federal Budget from the Free Market side. Currently, Representative Paul Ryan, R WI has introduced a budget, the “Path to Prosperity” as a roadmap for strong economic growth (Rep. Paul Ryan). What makes this such an important issue? The simple answer is that the path to prosperity attempts to reign in a Federal Government that is expanding at an exponential rate, and spending money far in excess of what it receives in revenues. To quote Speaker of the House John Boehner, R OH, “Washington does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem”. This out of control deficit spending is having a deleterious effect on economic growth, unemployment, and even inflation. Rep. Ryan argues that if we do not begin to get a handle on this deficit spending now, its long-term effect on growth and prosperity will be economically devastating.

The key components in the path to prosperity include as follows: massive restructuring to Medicare and Medicaid in an attempt to provide care for those currently in the system, reduce the costs to the taxpayer, and providing a path for future generations to have better care and lower costs in the future. Next, Solving the Social Security problem, that threatens to default on its obligation to seniors in the very near future. The plan also calls for eliminating duplications and overlap in government agencies and programs, reducing both personal and corporate tax rates, and eliminating the loopholes that equate to little more than corporate welfare. The potential cost savings in the plan are in the neighborhood of 6 Trillion dollars (that is a six followed by 12 zeroes) over a 10-year span.

            This is an important aspect of Rep. Ryan’s plan as the current budget deficit stands at over one trillion dollars, and the countries debt stands in excess of 14.2 Trillion dollars (Clock). Now for any household or business, this level of debt would be crushing, and, in fact, it is crushing on the federal level as well, forcing the government to borrow $700 million weekly just to meet the debt service. It should not be too difficult see how this debt can stifle economic growth and prosperity. The vision of the “Path to Prosperity is to bring that burden more in line with what the country needs to rise from the ashes of this recession and begin again to be the economic powerhouse that our founders envisioned.

Additional parts of the “Path to Prosperity” are the tax provisions included therein. Rep. Ryan has called for an overall reduction in both personal and corporate tax rates and a removal of many of the loopholes allow individuals and companies to avoid paying taxes on profit and income. Currently, the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rates among 20 industrialized nations of 40% (Edwards). The “Path to Prosperity” posits that by reducing those tax rates to levels more representative of the rest of the industrialized world, and removing many of the loopholes corporations use to avoid paying those taxes, revenues to the federal treasury would increase, causing the budget deficit to close at a greater rate.

Rep. Ryan’s vision is in direct contravention to the plan proposed by the White House and latched on to by the Congressional Democrat Caucus (Obama). This plan calls for no real reduction in spending, and in fact, by some accounts, once you remove the accounting gimmicks, actually increases the deficit spending over ten years to levels that are even more unsustainable. In an attempt to offset that level of spending, this opposition plan calls for massive tax increases on the so called “wealthy”. This includes rate increases on individuals earning more than $250,000 as well as an additional increase in the corporate tax rates.

Of course, the argument from the President is that in order to bring debt as a percentage of GDP in line, the wealthy need to suffer a little more. However, as we have learned throughout this class, and as history has shown, raising tax rates, even on the so-called “wealthy”, actually reduces net revenue as those same “wealthy” reduce either their own income, or find ways to shield that wealth from ever-increasing tax rates. This is where the Keynesians in the White House diverge from traditional Keynesian economics, which call for a reduction in taxes while increasing spending to bring about full employment and lower inflation.

The crux of this argument will shape America for the next 10 years. The policy outcome of this budget debate will determine if America returns, at least in part, to the principles espoused by our founders, or, we will become a socialist democracy such as those which are failing economically throughout the world. The Free Market principles promoted by Rep. Ryan could in fact bring us back to a path of Prosperity.

Works Cited

Clock, US Debt. US National Debt CLock: Real Time. April 2011. April 2011 .

Edwards, Chris. "U.S. Corporate Tax Rates the Highest." 15 December 2010. Cato @ Liberty. 16 April 2011 .

Obama, Barack. The Presidents Budget for 2012. April 2011. April 2011 .

Rep. Paul Ryan, R, WI. The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise. March 2011. April 2011 .

The Fallacy of Minimum Wage

While it sounds good on the surface, an artificial floor, established by government, at the point of a gun, flies directly in the face of the free market and the intent of our founders.
The argument used by our politicians to justify their meddling is that wages paid are too low for the working poor. The intellectual dishonesty arrives when those same individuals are the ones who establish economically what "Working Poor" actually means. Therein lies the fallacy alluded to in my subject title. Economically, over the long term, the net effect of our ever rising minimum wage is a staggering unemployment rate among our youth and an even more incomprehensible rate among our young racial minorities.

If the net economic effect of a political policy was to reduce poverty and provide more jobs at higher wages, on all counts it has failed and failed spectacularly. The federal minimum wage is a gleaming example of what Dr. Thomas Sowell calls a failure to "Think Beyond Stage One." Simply wishing that government meddling will make improvements, even in the short term, does not necessarily make it so. With unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds
eclipsing 24% and that of African American minorities in the same age group above 30%, perhaps it's time to ask if this policy has had its intended effect.

The economic fallout of minimum wage increases is significant. Some employers simply stop hiring entry level capital because it is no longer cost effective. Some have decided that the opportunity cost of adding automation is now less than the opportunity cost of hiring entry level workers and so they automate rather than hire. Some, especially small businesses, find
themselves in positions that make it virtually impossible to continue or expand operations, due to the increased wage burden placed on their marginally profitable businesses by government edict.

In short, increasing minimum wage, especially in an already volatile and unstable labor market, would likely prove devastating to entry level jobs. If we think beyond stage one and look at the long term negative effects provided by Minimum Wage laws, it should not be much of a step to argue for their abolishment altogether.

To quote one of my favorite economists, "Whatever reduces opportunities for gainful employment for people with little or no experience, has the effect of costing both them and the society far more than the lost jobs which have been dismissed as "meial" or as paying only "chump change." Thomas Sowell, Applied Economics, pp 40

A True American Patriot

On this day, we pause and pay homage to a great American. A man who had the vision, and the foresight to understand the meaning of the Constitution and its true application to all citizens. The Dr. saw that the most effective way of effecting change was to use the right to peaceably assemble. This great American saw that the petty things that were strangling us could be easily fixed. Hi speeches showed the way to freedom and liberty for EVERY American.

And yet, he was unable to foresee the generations of hangers on, of poor imitations, of charlatans and con men, and downright crooks who would move forward to claim his mantle. Dr. King was beset daily by threats to his family and his life by those for whom the system at the time was beneficial. Yet, he never wavered in his idea that ALL Americans should be free to live the life of their choice. Ultimately, Dr. King gave his life for this fundamental principle. What happened...

Money happened. Now don't get me wrong. Dr. King did not become a wealthy man from his speeches. His marches did not surround his family in opulence and luxury. The long term effects of his ideas however, should have been great for the disadvantaged in our country, it was not. It is a sad legacy for Dr. King that his message, of political, economic, and personal freedom has been hijacked by a bunch of opportunistic crooks, many of whom claim to be ministers, all of whom claim a moral right to speak for Dr. King.

Dr. King was a great American, a Patriot, and a believer that freedom of all is the ideal regardless of something as trivial as nationality, skin color, age...For Dr. King it was never about the money. Heck, he just wanted to be a minister, he was a public figure reluctantly. Perhaps it was that very reluctance that created the persona that We celebrate today, his birthday.

Tea Party Shooter...Really

Yesterday, in Tucson, Arizona, a very disturbed and apparently dangerous individual took it upon himself to take the lives of several people, and severely wound an injure several more including Democrat Congresswoman Gifford's. Within moments, the leftists in the media and in the halls of government were out spinning this senseless tragedy as a byproduct of the conservative movement and the Tea Party. Seriously, this was an old argument a year ago.

The reality of this young man is far different from what those in the left leaning media would have you believe. Mr. Loughner has apparently been linked to documents such as Mien Kampf, and the Communist Manifesto. It has been reported that he names some of his heroes to be people such as Hugo Chavez, newly minted Dictator in Venezuela, Che Guevara, Terrorist and mass murderer, Saul Alinsky, the Weather Underground Bomber and author of the lefts bible, "Rules for Radicals", and even President Barack Obama. Now, I know a lot of conservatives and tea party members. One thing we all have in common is that those are not people we would ever consider as heroes or even relevant. So it begs the question, what was Mr. Loughner's point?

If one follows the logic of his action, from his rants to his peers testimonies as to his character, one has to believe that in reality, Mr. Loughner was NOT a person pressured by so called "right wing" hate, but was in fact a believer in the very principles that the left biased media espouses. As is so often the case with these types, when push comes to shove...they begin eating their own.

As a Conservative, a capitalist, and a believer in the sanctity and validity of the US Constitution, it would never even enter my mind to act is such a manner as did Mr. Loughner. Regardless of my deep and abiding disagreement with Liberal Socialist Policies, I want to have the debate and let the people make up their minds. Violence, towards anyone, is unacceptable and reprehensible. Mr. Loughner had no right to take away the lives of those who fell yesterday. There is and should never be an out for people such as Loughner. At the end of the day, it will serve us well to remember a couple of things. The firearm was not responsible for this tragedy. The Tea Party and it's new found idea of people discourse is not responsible for this young mans idiocy. The left is not responsible for what this man did. Jared Loughner bears the full responsibility for his actions on that fateful day. He must be held accountable for the injuries and death and destruction that he caused. At no time, should we be trying to pin his actions on political rivals or use his actions to further stifle dissent in our political speech. And yet, this is exactly what the left means to do...more to follow.

New Years Resolutions for America

It seems only fitting that, as we begin a new year, we should look forward the those things that can be done to restore America to it's former greatness. Yes I did say restore and former in the same breath as America. There is no question that this great country is but a shadow of it's former self economically. To be fair, the process has taken some time and not all the blame can be laid at the feet of the Democrat Party or President Obama. However, contrary to popular opinion, the pace of decline accelerated when the Democrats took control of congress in 2006, and then again in 2008 after the Obama administration took office and started implementing their Eurocentric agenda. To reverse this trend, Americans need to insist at least these three resolutions from our new congress.

1.) Re-Value our Currency:  The argument commonly used by Liberals and Conservatives alike is that a weak dollar reduces the cost of exports. The hole in that argument, however, is an admission that the American labor force has become to costly to openly compete in the global marketplace. If the cost of production in the US is so high, it should not be hidden by reducing the value and strength of our currency.

2.) STOP THE SPENDING:  I can hear some of you now, saying, "this should be our number one resolution!". In most cases I would actually agree with you. However, strengtheing the Dollar would alleviate some of the pressure that our mounting debt is causing. Having said that, the reality is that our Federal Government can not continue to spend money like they have it. The bottom line is that the coming presure from our debt service could and likely will put too much pressure on an already fragile economy.

3.) Reduce Regulatory Excess: American Business is some of the most heavily regulated in the free world. Compliance with these repressive regulations cost American businesses and taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year. The cost of administering these regulations puts a sever drag on our federal budget. These dollars could be better spent on growing companies, which in turn create employment and greater personal wealth.

Holding true to these resolutions would go a long way towards recuving the crushing pressure on our economy, allowing it to catch it's breath and flex it's muscles. Sure, there are other issues, tac reform, repealment of Obamacare, reducing entitlement spending, and eliminating or reducing unfunded mandates. However, if we can perform these three resolutions, we will find the rest of these things will come much easier, and we will see the most dynamic economy in earths history come roaring back.