HALF-FULL REPORT 08/15/08
Could there possibly be a glass half-full of anything worth drinking during this horrific week when the Cold War has been bloodily re-ignited? Yes, actually. So let's take our bottle of Polish Vyborova vodka out of the freezer for a chilled martini (just a spray of vermouth, please), and raise a toast to the latest Czar of Russia for being such an idiot to invade Georgia. For all the grudging praise of what a "genius" Czar Vlad is, let's ask: if you were him, if you were bent on reestablishing Russia as an imperial superpower so intimidating that all your neighbors and every leader of Euroweenia would lick your boots - who would you want as President of the United States, Obama or McCain? It's a rhetorical question, isn't it?
THE THREE WORD SOLUTION
Solution to what? Defeating Russian imperialism, defeating Saudi Wahhabism and Moslem terrorism, defeating Moslem crazies in Iran making nukes, defeating Luddite environmentalists, defeating Democrats determined to hamstring our economy and national security. How's that for starters? What would do all of this? Three words: crash oil prices. Crashing oil prices to, say, below $40 a barrel, should therefore be the number one priority of American national security. Yet any attempt to lower oil prices is blocked by Democrats in Congress and lawsuits by their environmentalist allies. Exhibit A as evidence is their hysterical refusal to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska and offshore. Exhibit B is their hysterical refusal to allow the construction of new oil refineries - there hasn't been a new one built since 1976. So - is there something the President could do, is there an Executive Order he could issue, that could circumvent Congress and the enviro-lawyers to crash oil prices? Let's start answering with another question: Who is the single biggest purchaser of oil in the world?
GEORGIA AND THE MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF LIBERALS
Did you see the huge crowd outside the Russian Embassy in Washington DC protesting the war in Georgia? Neither did I. Now that we have a genuine war of aggression, the silence on the Left is deafening. "You might think, at a moment such as this, that the moral calculus would be pretty well understood," the Washington Post said in an editorial today (8/14). "Russian troops are occupying large swaths of Georgia, a tiny neighboring country, and sacking its military bases. Russian jets have roamed the Georgian skies, bombing civilian and military targets alike. Russian ships are said to be controlling Georgia's port of Poti, while militia under Russia's control reportedly massacre Georgian civilians. Yet in Washington, the foreign policy sophisticates cluck and murmur that, after all, the Georgians should have known better than to chart an independent course." It is scandalous to liberals that terrorists at Gitmo don't have easy access to lawyers, but most don't care how many Georgians the Russians kill. Vladimir Putin is counting on this.
CONGRESS AS THE CAUSE OF THE COST OF GAS
There are hundreds of years of oil supplies (at present and projected consumption levels) if oil in oil sands and shale is properly included in reserves. And it can be produced at a cost of $35-$50 a barrel. Does it seem a bit odd that the current price of oil is between two and three times the cost of producing all the oil the world presently needs and will need long into the future? The reason the price is so high is that the supply has been artificially constrained by governments. Take our Congress. Some politicians there argue that even if the U.S. government started to allow increased production, that it would be seven to 10 years or more before there would be additional output. This is nonsense. Yet the very same politicians who claim we cannot increase oil production quickly are often the same ones who tell us we need to move to alternative forms - windmills and solar, etc. - without seeming to understand these desirable technologies will take far more time to meet the goals of "energy independence" than ramping up oil production.
GEORGIA CAN BE PUTIN’S AFGHANISTAN
Time to stop the hand-wringing about Russia's re-igniting the Cold War by invading Georgia. Time to start thinking of what a golden opportunity this presents. First the reality. Russia, before, during, and after the Soviet Union was and remains a brutal imperialist dictatorship. The Soviet Union was simply the same old Czarist Russian imperialism with Marxism-Leninism as an ideological rationale. The fall of the USSR only meant the fall of the rationale. So Russia is back to where it has always been, with the Russian compulsion for brute force bullying as its way of dealing with the world. It is no accident, comrades, that Russians were the Soviets, and it is no surprise whatever that they are behaving like Soviets in Georgia today. Thus the fundamental reality of how to conduct foreign policy with Russia, however distasteful it may be to the squishes at the State Department chronically afflicted with terminal testicular atrophy: The only thing Russians in the Kremlin understand and respect is superior force and the willingness to use it against them. If you don't give them a punch in the mouth and a bloody nose the moment they start to bully you, they will keep bullying you until you start fighting back hard - or you capitulate and obey their orders. It's either-or, win-lose. Those are their rules. The golden opportunity Putin is giving us by invading Georgia is that it gives us the perfect excuse to play by his rules.
THE PHONY, BRUTAL, SLOPPY, AND INEPT INVASION OF GEORGIA
Russia is continuing its invasion of free, democratic Georgia with overwhelming military force. Given the raw power Russia has been willing to apply, there's no question as to which side will win. But one of the many untold stories of this fateful war is how poorly Russian forces are performing - despite careful planning and extensive preparations. Putin, currently in his "Wolfschanze" in Vladikavkaz, must be especially furious with his pride and joy, the Russian air force. The inept performance of the Russian air force may have been the most striking feature of the war thus far. Again, numbers alone guarantee a Russian win. The abysmal performance of Russian pilots has been on display for all the world to see - although, once again, the media don't understand what they're witnessing.
THE RUSSIAN RAPE OF GEORGIA
As I write this in the early morning hours of August 9, Russian tanks grind into a brave and isolated democratic state. Assuming that the world's attention would focus on Beijing, Moscow stage-managed an elaborate act of aggression against Georgia. But the world has changed since Soviet tanks rolled unchallenged into Afghanistan at Christmastime 29 years ago. Global communications now spotlight aggression instantly. Yesterday, millions around the world didn't watch the Olympic opening ceremonies (the Chinese must be furious at the Russians). Instead, they saw images of Soviet - sorry, I meant Russian - aircraft pounding Georgian territory as Russian armor rolled over the Caucasus Mountains. So let's discuss the background, what just happened, and what happens next.
REPLACING INCOME TAXES WITH AN UNDER 10% NATIONAL SALES TAX
Tax increase advocates argue we must increase taxes to reduce the deficit. The problem is that tax increases slow economic growth, resulting in diminished growth in the tax base while, at the same time, increasing the pressure for more government spending. If Congress were to act responsibly (yes, an oxymoron), it would hold down the growth of spending, as was done in the late 1980s and late 1990s, and eliminate those government programs that do not meet a reasonable cost-benefit test. As has been shown before, such actions would quickly eliminate the deficit. The good news is that the actual numbers show that it is possible to responsibly develop a program to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a relatively low-rate (less than 10 percent) sales tax. Not the 23 or 30% proposed by "Fair Tax" advocates, but under 10%. Here's how.
HALF FULL REPORT 08/08/08
This week we'll be talking a lot about numbers. It's a mark of a primitive brain to be superstitious about particular ones, to believe that certain numbers are "lucky" or "unlucky." For all their vaunted rationality, most Chinese for example have a Stone Age superstition that the number 8 brings good fortune. So they quite purposefully are having their Olympics begin today, 08/08/08, precisely at 8:08pm Beijing time. People with primitive beliefs are vulnerable. If the Chicom Olympics don't live up to expectations, don't bring China the world's adoration and respect, then the Chicoms risk losing the "Mandate of Heaven" - the superstitious belief that fate favors them. Watch the Games unfold over the next two weeks with that context in mind. There's a lot more drama going on than just in the athletic contests. *** Now for fun with numbers. Magic numbers. The most magic number in America right now is 112.
THE EVIL EMPIRE OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Ronald Reagan first condemned the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida on March 8, 1983. Publicly naming the explicit nature of Soviet imperialism provided the necessary focus for those of us working on a strategy to rid the world of it - a strategy the press called the Reagan Doctrine. Less than eight years after President Reagan spoke those immortal words, the Soviet Union was no more. Ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is determined to resurrect this evil empire with oil billions, gangster capitalism, and Russian thuggery. But Russia is dying demographically and by 2015 half the Russian Army will be Moslem. By 2020 or maybe before, the eastern half of Russian Siberia will be Chinese Siberia (TTP, November 2006). Russia has no future beyond ephemerally high oil prices. Once they crash, so does Russia. So is there an heir to the title of Evil Empire in this new century? Yes. It is China. One principal reason is that the internal structure of the former Soviet Union and China are the same. One benefit of the Beijing Olympics is to make that blindingly clear.