Free Trade Brings Creative Destruction

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a brainchild of Barack Obama. Consider this posting I made on February 22, 2014.

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Creative destruction occurs when something new kills something older. A great example of this is personal computers. Free Trade is another example.

NAFTA was President Bill Clinton’s naive plan to increase American trade while helping our neighbors. It has not worked out as promised.

Mexico becoming a driving force in auto production

Honda Fit rolls off the assembly line at a new $800 million factory near Celaya, Mexico

Mexico, with its low labor costs, has been the beneficiary of the free trade agreement. More products have entered the United States from Mexico than ever before. In 2013, according to our census bureau, $226 Million in products were exported and $280 Million were imported. That number is on a path to increase dramatically over the next few years. The reason is that Mexico has become the assembly floor for many products made in other countries. The Los Angeles Times article titled “Mexico becoming a driving force in auto production” tells of the average hourly labor cost in their assembly plants of $8 versus an average hourly rate in the United States of $37. These are the kinds of pay rates that drove American manufacturers to southern states in the USA.

What is the United States doing about this financial advantage? Nothing! Rather, the president of the United States, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the President of Mexico have just had meetings in Mexico at a town named Toluca (home of the Fiat 500 assembly plant), near Mexico City, discussing ways to further the NAFTA agreement.

Barack Obama claims to be concerned about the poorest in our nation and enhancing middle class opportunities. How are more free trade agreements bringing jobs to the non-tech workers that assemble cars, refrigerators, and televisions? They are not. It’s creative destruction at work.

OK.. So why did the chicken cross the road?

SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he’s a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: Let me be clear, the chicken crossed the road because it was time for change! The chicken wanted change! Real change! Change he could believe in!

JOHN McCAIN: My friends; that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure, right from Day One, that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal > the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, That chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side.’ That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as > plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish it’s lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2013, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2013. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

The Fear of illegal Immirants

Do you remember the biblical story of the Jews who traveled from Cannan to Egypt? The Egyptians enslaved the Jews. There is a similarity in that story to the large numbers of Mexicans who have entered the United States. Americans believe that slavery is immoral. However, many Americans have no problem treating the illegal aliens as second class citizens even if they are given legal residency. Thus there has been little progress in resolving the illegal alien issue over the past decade.

I started writing about illegal (undocumented) aliens in the USA in November 2007. Since then no new legislation has been enacted. It was a hot topic then and still is today. When Hillary Clinton was running for president she opposed even the issuance of driver’s licenses to those here illegally.

Say what you want but we really want those people in the United States. They do so many of the jobs we prefer not to do. From cleaning toilets to making beds to working in food processing facilities, we simply do not want to perform those functions and hope to send our children to college so they too can avoid those menial tasks.

The GOP is standing in the way of creating even a path to second class residency. The Los Angeles Times had an on line article about licensing illegal alien drivers that included the fact that “The applicants may include people from rural villages who never obtained birth certificates as well as day laborers with no fixed address to prove California residency.”

I understand the feelings and fears of those who oppose any legal documentation for those entering the country illegally. They are here. They do the jobs we don’t want to do. As I asked in November 2007, How many of us are prepared for an uprising of the down trodden?

Gay Marriage and who cares?

I now say it again, I Don’t Like Gay People. Apparently it needs repeating. My reason remains the same. Many of them feel the need to announce their sexual preferences openly and repeatedly. The most obvious display is their participation in gay or LGBT parades.

On an individual basis these people are mostly nice and well behaved. I have no reason to ask any one their sexual preference. I really don’t care. Their marriage will not effect my marriage one iota.

The question is why should anyone care? The answer is religious belief. Most religions frown on homosexuality. At least the orthodox do.

That view has provided the religious right with another campaign issue. Thus Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has another opportunity to campaign against Democrats and moderate Republicans. Perhaps because he realizes a legal challenge could soon strike down his state’s ban on marriage equality and that Republicans are generally losing the battle over equal marriage, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has introduced a bill “defending” states’ right to regulate marriage.

Is this a case of “state’s rights” or does he have a real opposition to gay marriage? Rawstory.com “Citing states’ rights, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has introduced an anti-gay marriage bill.” Tea Party basic view is reduce the power of the federal government. That leads to opposing all federal legislation. That would include far a field topics from gay marriage to drought aid.

Do a crime, get jail time

The NRA is the vocal defender of the second amendment. That is OK with me. Their reticence to insist on prosecution of those who commit murder with guns is their undoing.

The latest is the retired policeman in Florida who killed another person in a theater because that man was texting on his smartphone. The former Tampa police captain has been jailed since he fatally shot the man and was denied bond on Friday.

America’s problem with guns is really an issue of crime. What we really need is swift justice!

There should be no delays in conducting trials. That too is in the constitution. The Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy that right. The Clause protects the defendant from delay between the presentation of the indictment or similar charging instrument and the beginning of trial. It also ensures speedy justice to those who are injured.

Do a crime, get jail time. If we all really want justice for everyone, including the NRA, we should be pursuing criminals to mete out swift justice.

Sadly we have a slow moving court system that delays verdicts and the guilty are mildly punished. It’s a system that has sympathy for the criminals.

A man went to the movies with his wife. He sent a text message to the baby sitter. Now he is dead. Will the retired policeman be punished for murder? Like George Zimmerman will he be found innocent? This is not a Black and White confrontation. In a country where life is cheap and “stand your ground” laws are prominent I won’t be surprised if the killer is found innocent.

50 years of Beatlemania

Today marks five decades since the Fab Four appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and made America swoon.

A Real Replay of “Inherit the Wind”

How did the United States become so backward?

Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a story that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial. The trial resulted in John T. Scopes‘s conviction for teaching Charles Darwin‘s theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law. The movie version starred Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, and Dick York.

Today the Associated Press reports that TV’s “Science Guy” , Bill Nye and the leader of a Kentucky museum who believes in creationism are debating a question that has nagged humankind: “How did we get here?”

Ken Ham is the head of the Creation Museum. He believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by God and is told strictly through the Bible.

Perhaps the world is flat. Most intellectuals of the Roman Empire took for granted that the Earth was flat. Many of the great thinkers and philosophers of the 16^th century accepted that Earth was flat, since most of them couldn’t conceive of any other shape. Are the people in Kentucky and Tennessee living on another planet?

All the television networks will have great fun with this nonsense. It is sad!

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death calls for attention to Heroin Use

Has the War on Drugs been successful?

February 5, 2104 update: AP sources: Hoffman probe tip leads to 4 arrests/ This is society’s answer to drug addiction. http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20140205/fde03f04-8509-4445-854d-892b43efc84a

Federal: On Dec. 31, 2012, there were 196,574 sentenced prisoners under federal jurisdiction. Of these, 99,426 were serving time for drug offenses

State: On Dec. 31, 2011, there were 1,341,797 sentenced prisoners under state jurisdiction. Of these, 222,738 were serving time for drug offenses, of whom 55,013 were merely convicted for possession.

See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.Ru4trv9a.dpuf

Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51 Billion

Number of people arrested in 2012 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges: 1.55 million

Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2012: 749,825

Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 658,231 (88 percent)

Number of Americans incarcerated in 2011 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 2,266,800 or 1 in every 99.1 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world

See more at: http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics

The Los Angeles Times reports that more than 660,000 people used heroin in 2012. That is an increase of almost 100% since 2007. Usage has spread to the suburbs and is no longer an inner city problem.

Americans have not learned from history. The 18^th amndment to the constitution banned manufacture and sale of alcohol in 1920. It was rescinded by the 21^st amendment on December 5, 1933. During that period gangs prevailed in the big cities. The name Al Capone is still well-known.

The War on Drugs is a failure!

The magnetism of pooping

From The Week magazine

Why do dogs tend to circle around before getting down to business? Because they like to be aligned with the earth’s magnetic field before they poop. Researchers finally figured out this great mystery after watching 70 dogs engage in 1,893 defections and 5,582 urinations over a two-year period, and recording the time, place, and body orientation for each one. They found that dogs’ preference for the north-south axis was most pronounced during the roughly 20 percent of the day when the magnetic field was calm and steady. When the field was in flux-due to solar flares, solar wind, and sunspot activity-the canines had real trouble finding a suitable place to go. “We found that dogs are magnetosensitive, and they are predictably disturbed by even small changes of the magnetic field,” zoologist Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Esser in Germany tells HuffingtonPost.com. Previous studies have shown that cattle and deer graze in a north-south direction, and that birds and fish use the magnetic field to guide their seasonal migrations.