Rising Standard of Living

Don Boudreaux compares today’s Sears prices with the 1975 Sears catalog and finds that the average worker has to work fewer hours to buy many things.

Sears’ lowest-priced 10-inch table saw: 52.35 hours of work required in 1975; 7.34 hours of work required in 2006.

Sears’ lowest-priced gasoline-powered lawn mower: 13.14 hours of work required in 1975 (to buy a lawn-mower that cuts a 20-inch swathe); 8.56 hours of work required in 2006 (to buy a lawn-mower that cuts a 22-inch swathe. Sears no longer sells a power mower that cuts a swathe smaller than 22 inches.)

Sears Best freezer: 79 hours of work required in 1975 (to buy a freezer with 22.3 cubic feet of storage capacity); 39.77 hours of work required in 2006 (to buy a freezer with 24.9 cubic feet of storage capacity; this size freezer is the closest size available today to that of Sears Best in 1975.)

Sears Best side-by-side fridge-freezer: 139.62 hours of work required in 1975 (to buy a fridge with 22.1 cubic feet of storage capacity); 79.56 hours of work required in 2006 (to buy a comparable fridge with 22.0 cubic feet of storage capacity.)

Sears’ lowest-priced answering machine: 20.43 hours of work required in 1975; 1.1 hours of work required in 2006.

A ½-horsepower garbage disposer: 20.52 hours of work required in 1975; 4.59 hours of work required in 2006.

(HT: PrestoPundit)

State of the Union

I missed the President’s SOTU speech. Instead I watched the Lakers demolish the New York Knicks, 130-97. These speeches are generally two things: 1) warm, fuzzy banalities; and 2) a laundry list of how the President wants to spend other people’s money. Clinton’s SOTU speeches used to make me physically ill.

How is the state of the union? Damned shaky. Abroad, Iran has been at war with us since the hostage takeover of November 4, 1979, but the regime still exists to do us harm. At home, government power is growing a million ways. Individual rights are eroding. The American people are vulnerable to attack by our enemies and are shackled by our own government. We need radical change in the direction of laissez-faire capitalism.

That’s my assessment of the state of the union. Did I miss the President say anything like that while I was watching basketball?

UPDATE: Mike’s Eyes were on the President.

Jumping the Shark

As Tom Maguire notes, “24” will never jump the shark. Jack Bauer will kill the shark with his bare hands.

Sacrificial Lambs and Blond Beasts

Ever so often a Democrat will say something like, “We need to stop being nice guys. We need to be mean like the Republicans.” It sounds funny coming from the party that invented Borking, but they are sincere when they say it. They see themselves as moral and their opponents as immoral. They see themselves as victims of evil right-wingers. As I wrote in another post, a Democrat I know,

…used to express the fear that Jerry Falwell and the moral majority would put her in a concentration camp because she divorced her husband. Now, if you think about this for 10 seconds, you see how absurd her fear is. Concentration camps for divorcees? Those would be some mighty big camps. Among the prisoners would be Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. That 10 seconds of reason was effort she never spent analyzing her fear.

She wasn’t interested in logic; she drew greater comfort in fantasizing about being a victim of right-wingers.

They see two moral alternatives, altruists or cynical egoists -- those who sacrifice themselves to others or those who sacrifice others to themselves. Since Republicans do not support socialism, but talk about a free market (or they used to talk about it; now they mumble about it sometimes), they must be cynical egoists, willing to walk over a mountain of dead bodies to get what they want. Every Republican success just confirms their immorality to the Democrats.

Leftists believe one can either be a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered by the collective or a Nietzschean blond beast. Some on the left, such as the little Robespierre called Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Kos), have decided to stop being sacrificial lambs and to become blond beasts. They think they are imitating Republican success by doing so. Woe unto America if these people ever claw their way to power.

There is a third moral theory, one that eludes both socialists and religious conservatives, rational egoism. By this theory, one should neither sacrifice himself to others nor others to himself, but treat others with reason. Anyone interested can read about it here.

So That's the Solution!

The UN has an ambitious plan to end health pandemics, poverty and global warming. How do we do that? Get rid of nations and give all power to the UN.

Republican Spending

John Fund wrote a remarkable piece, “The Republican Soul,” that looks at why spending has skyrocketed under Republican government.

The prescription drug bill may have temporarily taken Medicare "off the table" for the 2004 election, but Republicans will be bedeviled for decades by its rising costs and complexity. At current growth rates, Medicare, its cousin Medicaid and Social Security will consume a fifth of the nation's gross national product by 2020. That number represents the current size of the entire federal government.

So these geniuses, the Republicans, put through the biggest entitlement program since LBJ’s Great Society just so that Medicare would not be an issue in the 2004 election?

Here’s some more of their brilliant strategery:

What accounts for the dramatic increase in the number of earmarks? Jonathan Rauch, a columnist for the National Journal, says that after Republicans saw how difficult it was to reduce the size of government during the 1990s, Mr. DeLay and White House political adviser Karl Rove adopted a new model: First, build a political machine that would win a secure majority, and then tackle entitlement spending using free-market reforms.

Let me get their plan straight. They decided to increase spending so they could have a “secure majority,” then once they were “secure” they would decrease spending? But if increased spending is necessary for these titans of leadership to feel secure, you are asking them to feel less secure with subsequent spending decreases -- and how many politicians will vote in ways that threaten their power?

This is how the vaunted Republican revolution of 1994 ended up, with timid politicians expanding the welfare state in order to buy votes. It’s further evidence, if any was needed, that politics is the last place to effect meaningful change. First a culture’s philosophy must be changed; only then will politicians feel secure enough to vote for freedom instead of power.

(HT: Right Wing News)

World Fascist Forum

The World Economic Forum met in Davos, Switzerland. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and John McCain were there, as well as many beautiful celebrities. What is the World Economic Forum? Here is a statement on their web site:

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

Leaders partnering with industry to shape their agenda? That’s socialism, specifically the form of socialism known as fascism.

The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal. (Ayn Rand, “The Fascist New Frontier”)

Here is another statement:

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world. The Forum provides a collaborative framework for the world's leaders to address global issues, engaging particularly its corporate members in global citizenship.

What does all this vague, feel-good language mean? What does it mean to engage corporate members in global citizenship? I’m sure corporations are willing to sell their product to anyone in the world without the encouragement of the world’s leaders at the WEF. But helping corporations pursue a profit is not behind such warm and fuzzy words as “collaborative framework” and “improving the state of the world.” WEF is about some degree of state control of corporations to pursue altruist-statist-collectivist ends.

Bill Clinton knew who he was talking to at the Forum. As Michelle Malkin put it,

Clinton... kindled the fires of the Euro-pointy heads with lots of gooey "global society" talk--including ranking "climate change" and global inequality ahead of terrorism as the world's most serious threats and making insipid pronouncements about how "people basically want to know that we're on their side, that we wish them well, that we want the best for them, that we're pulling for them."

Good ol’ Bill, still feeling our pain. But to people whose heads are full of mush, mush sounds profound.

Reports Newsday:

"First, I worry about climate change," Clinton said in an onstage conversation with the founder of the World Economic Forum. "It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible."

Clinton called for "a serious global effort to develop a clean energy future" to avoid the onset of another ice age.

He also said the current global system "works to aggravate rather than ameliorate inequality" between and within nations _ including in the United States, where he lamented the "growing concentration of wealth at the top," alongside stagnation for the middle classes and rising poverty.

Clinton is pushing the scientifically dubious threat of another ice age to justify expanded state control over energy production. Then he laments the “growing concentration of wealth at the top.” What could that be but the veiled threat of redistribution of wealth?

I have stated repeatedly that the trend in this country is toward a fascist system with communist slogans. But what all of today’s pressure groups are busy evading is the fact that neither business nor labor nor anyone else, except the ruling clique, gains anything under fascism or communism or any form of statism -- that all become victims of an impartial, egalitarian destruction. (Ayn Rand, “The Moratorium on Brains”)

In Davos, Switzerland, Bill Clinton spoke to those who would be the world’s ruling clique.

Two Scenes

EXT. OLD STRIP MALL – NIGHT

Andrew and Colby walk past empty store windows. A breeze blows scraps of paper by them.

COLBY
This place is spooky.

ANDREW
Are you afraid?

COLBY
No. Yes.

ANDREW
I told you, I will find her if I have to scour the universe.

COLBY
That is a stupid thing to say. Absolutely idiotic. You want to know why?

ANDREW
No.

COLBY
I’ll tell you why. The nearest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.22 light years away. Light travels six trillion miles in a year, so we're talking 25 trillion miles, give or take 100 billion. Traveling at .1c, one-tenth the speed of light, it would take you 42 years to get there, not counting time for acceleration and deceleration. .1c is 10,000 times faster than any man-made craft traveled in the 20th century. Therefore scouring the universe would take you, let’s see. [He takes a calculator from his pocket and punches the buttons.] Yes, scouring the universe would take until 10 minutes past the end of time.

ANDREW
I just hope I don’t have to drive to Orange County.

They stop in front of a club painted all black. Throbbing bass comes from the club.

COLBY
(reading the sign)
‘Hellfire. Abandon all hope.’ All right!


INT. HELLFIRE – NIGHT

Andrew and Colby look at the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. A crowd of DANCERS move in the gloom against dim red lighting.

A WOMAN IN BLACK LEATHER lounges in the corner flicking her cat o’ nine tails.

YVONNE, face powder white with black lips, falls into Andrew’s arms.

YVONNE
Would you stalk me in the black night, chasing me into an alley, where you threw my worthless body onto a pile of trash and raped me as rats scurried about us?

ANDREW
No.

YVONNE
Why not?

ANDREW
Because that would be evil?

Yvonne breaks away from him.

YVONNE
You pussy.

She disappears in the crowd.

ANDREW
What is this place?

COLBY
This is an S and M club. Your mysterious woman gets more interesting all the time.

Andrew sees Elise carrying a tray of drinks.

ANDREW
Elise! Elise!

Elise startles when she sees him. She flees into the crowd.

ANDREW
ELISE!

$250 Billion Doesn't Buy What It Used To

Here’s a chart of the cost of American wars as percentage of GDP. As Hard Starboard puts it,

Turns out the cost to date of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as a percentage of GDP, is on a par with the Mexican War, Spanish-American War, and the 1991 Gulf War - a cumulative total of about 2% of a single year's GDP, or about $250 billion in today's dollars. This is in contrast to the War of 1812, Korea, and Vietnam (~10% of GDP), World War I (~25%), the Revolutionary War (~65%), the Civil War (~105%), or World War II (~130%).

(No future war will ever compare to WWII in dollar cost and lives lost. 1,020 Marines died taking some piece of crap atoll in the Pacific called Tarawa. Today we’d drop a fuel-air bomb, suffocate all the Japs and take the island with no casualties.)

(HT: Hard Starboard)

Kossacks On the March

The Kossacks have had it with Democrats pretending to be centrist in order to win elections. They’s going all out to push the party left. First, this piece in the Washington Post had this wisdom from a Dem lobbyist that outraged the Kossacks:

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

About which Kos wrote:

Here's notice, any Democrat associated with Elmendorf will be outed. The netroots can then decide for itself whether it wants to provide some of that energy and money to that candidate.

There's nothing "extreme left" with demanding Democrats act like Democrats, no matter how much these out-of-touch and self-important beltway insiders think it is.

A poll at Daily Kos asked, “Will you give money to an organization connected with Steve Elmendorf now?” 7% voted Yes, 93% voted “Not until Karl Rove marches in a peace protest.”

It will be interesting to see how much Kos’s threat hurts Elmendorf’s career.

Second, the Kossacks are pushing Democrat Senators to filibuster the vote on Judge Alito.

Politics, like economics is about gaining or losing at the margins. One of the fascinating things to be watching in the ’06 and ’08 elections is how the leftward push from internet activists affects swing voters. That’s if there is no economic or national security crisis. Such a crisis is the Democrats’ best hope for radically shifting opinion against the Republicans.

Pork Barrel Spending

Still laboring under the illusion that Republicans care about smaller government? Check out these graphs of pork barrel spending.

Big Things With Tentacles

It’s Gus Van Horn’s worst nightmare: giant octopus attacks submarine! There’s a scene in Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea, which I have not yet read, involving a fight with a giant octopus. I thought the things were strictly fiction.

And then there is the giant squid.

(HT: Instapundit)

An Old Joke

Q: What's the worst thing about being an atheist?

A: There's no one to talk to when you have an orgasm.

Psychobabble

NewsBusters has a transcript of Keith Olbermann interviewing Maureen Dowd, a conversation between two paragons of liberal vacuity. Dowd reduces political-philosophical ideas to new age psychobabble. Here she is on Cheney and Rumsfeld:

What this is about, Dick Cheney wants to throw off all of these rules. He wants to go to war without permission, he wants to torture without permission, he wants to snoop without permission because he and Rummy were Ford officials at a time when presidential power shrank. They felt emasculated. They did not like it. They stewed about it for 30 years. Now they are trying to do everything they can to expand presidential power. So they're doing exactly what they want to.

On Clinton:

…when Bill Clinton would deceive, he would throw in a semantic clue that let you know he was deceiving. 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.' We knew what he meant by that. You know, 'I did not,' about dope, 'I didn't break the laws of this country.' So it was sort of poignant and endearing. He would let you know he was lying, and then the right wing would come down so hard on him and overpunish him.

I guess she is saying the Republicans should have ignored Clinton because he is a pomo liar who shows a self-awareness of his lying as he lies. Instead, those thick-headed right-wingers were too obtuse to pick up his semantic clues, so they just treated his lies as lies.

And on Bush:

…he's just in a completely different reality. You know, they call us the 'reality-based community,' and they create their own reality, and so Bush is just in a bubble. And when you're in the bubble, you don't know you're in the bubble.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were emasculated, Bush is in a bubble -- it’s so much easier than thinking about the issues.

(HT: Michelle Malkin and Pajamas Media)

Initial Sexual Attraction

Here is a post I put up on the Forum for Ayn Rand Fans some time ago:

Initial sexual attraction is probably necessary for a romantic relationship to work, but it's not sufficient.

I once lived with a liberal woman. She was the only actor I had acted with onstage who was clearly better than I. I fell desperately in love with her talent and beauty. There was heavy sexual attraction in the beginning and we had good times together.

One day she said, "I feel sorry for the whales." I laughed. I thought she was joking! She was hurt.

The relationship was doomed, but I didn't know it. She would complain that I didn't respect her mind. I scoffed then, but now I see that she was right. I focused on her good qualities, hoping to ignore her lack of interest in anything deeper than the TV Guide. Doomed, doomed...

I was surprised when she left me. How could I be so blind?

It's Better Now

Looking through my old issues of The Intellectual Activist, in the June 9, 1983 issue I found a little piece on liberal bias in the media. The FBI released a report that supported President Reagan’s claim that Soviet agents had infiltrated the nuclear freeze movement. The FBI wrote, “The Soviets have initiated an ‘active measures’ campaign designed to penetrate, influence and mobilize the U.S. peace movement…. KGB officers have also collected personal and biographical information… to identify those peace activists who are likely to cooperate with the Soviet government….”

But that’s not how the media reported it.

“The FBI, contradicting assertions by President Reagan, has concluded that the Soviet Union does not ‘directly control or manipulate’ the U.S. nuclear freeze movement,” begand the Associated Press story. The FBI report “runs counter to President Reagan’s claim that the nuclear freeze movement is being manipulated by the Soviet Union,” said NBC News. The Times’ reporting was representative. Instead of stressing the findings about Soviet influence, it focused on another aspect of the study. It highlighted those quotes from the FBI refuting the straw-man allegation that the freeze movement is under absolute command of the Kremlin: “…we do not believe the Soviets have achieved a dominant role in the U.S. peace and nuclear freeze movements, or that they directly control or manipulate the movement…. The overwhelming majority of the nearly one million people that attended the June 12 rally were members of independent peace and civic organizations, and they attended the rally as an expression of legitimate concerns about nuclear weapons.” In the Times’ view, apparently, the important question is not whether Moscow has enough influence in the movement to suppress any mention of the Soviet military arsenal at a rally protesting the threat of nuclear arms; rather, it is only whether or not the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Central Park on June 12 were KGB agents.

The liberal media bias has not changed in 23 years. Unfortunately for the media, everything else has changed. In 1983 this kind of bias was noticed in a newsletter read by thousands; now it would be all over the internet and read by millions.

Two People Who Did Not Like Mozart's Music

Noel Coward
Ayn Rand

(I like the Requiem and some of the symphonies, but most Mozart gets boring fast. What I heard on the radio today as I drove to and from periodontal surgery had moments of interest surrounded by what sounded to me like filler. But you have to listen to music more than once to really appreciate it.

Happy 250th birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.)

Another Blog Game

Here’s another, er, game (I refuse to use the M word) I stumbled across at this blog.

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life
Theatrical Carpenter (I was maybe the worst ever)
Bookstore clerk
Chinese Linguist
Radio Programming Analyst

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have
Ninotchka
M
Casablanca
Grand Hotel (first hour, anyway)

Four Places I Have Lived
New York City
Los Angeles
Okinawa
Lawrence, Kansas

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
Lakers Game
Lakers Pre-Game Show
Lakers Post-Game Show
Lakers Halftime Show?

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation
Bajamar, Mexico
Las Vegas
Ashland, Oregon
Death Valley, California

Four Websites I Visit Daily
Gus Van Horn
Literatrix
Noodle Food
Instapundit

Four Favorite Foods
Cheeseburgers
Chinese food
Steak and Shrimp
Macaroni and Cheese
(Okay, I’m not a gourmet. I’m a middle class American.)

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
Fiji
Hawaii
Australia
Between a woman’s legs
(I’ve only been to one place on that list.)

Four People I Am Tagging With This M---
I’d rather not bother people. Anyone who wants to play is free to.

About Kobe's 81 Points...

Kobe Bryant recently shot 81 points in a game, the second highest in NBA history, behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point night. Forum Blue and Gold puts that performance in historical perspective:

On Wilt’s big night [100 points], it is rumored that the promoter for the game in Hershey wanted Wilt, with the collusion/cooperation of his teammates, to try to get as many points as possible.

His 78 point game was a triple overtime affair.

David Thompson’s 73 came as he was locked in a last night of the season scoring battle with George Gervin.

David Robinson had 9 guys (your Los Angeles Clippers) helping him eclipse 70, so he could overtake a young Shaquille O’Neal on the final night of the season for the scoring crown.

None of these things can be said about Kobe’s Herculian feat. No premeditation. No help from the other team. No scoring title on the line. No sideshow atmosphere of a game played in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Just willing his listless team to a W.

Considering that there was no special circumstance, as in those other high scoring performances, one could argue that Kobe’s 81-point night was the single greatest offensive performance by one man in a game ever.

(Also, just for fun, check out this picture of Wilt Chamberlain. The referee behind him looks like a hobbit.)

Rayblogging

A summary of Ray Taliaferro’s opening monologue this morning:

Interesting morning. The Hamas victory in Palestine is the big story and will be for some time. There is a lot of concern from all around the world. Bush says we’re not going to recognize that democratic election unless Hamas renounces violence. Tony Blair said the same. Israel also says they have to renounce violence. Ray doesn’t know what they mean.

When did the United States of America ever renounce violence? Why have we spent trillions of dollars developing the biggest violence machine the world has ever seen? America is the only nation to drop atomic bombs. Total hypocrisy. Bush is the most hypocritical idiot we have ever had in the White House. His comments are not supported by his actions.

We committed violence to establish a democracy in Iraq. The only way that Bush and his gang of thugs and thugresses, that would be Condi, would talk to democratically elected people is if they are the ones he wants. Bush is about to be impeached in our democracy.

Think about the amount of violence Bush has used. We have become the biggest terrorist nation the world has known. He is such a bungling fool that he can’t even pronounce “renounce” correctly.

It is rhetorical excrement. He will only talk to the people that HE wants elected. Violence makes no difference. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela won his election. President Chavez has not once advocated pre-emptive strikes in Iraq, but Bush won’t talk to him.

They have to renounce violence. In other words, he wants Hamas to be better than the United States of America. He wants Hamas to have some form of democracy that is foreign to the neofascists who run the government of America. Bush tried to overthrow Chavez, even though he was duly elected.

Ray is opposed to violence. He’s opposed to Bush’s violence. Bush crushed hundreds of thousands of people on a pack of lies. Bush admitted he was wrong to invade Iraq.

So, what if democracy sweeps the middle east? And the Arab populations begin voting en masse for people and parties that the US doesn’t like? What do you think? What would the US do? Recognize those government or ask of them what they’re asking Hamas to do?

Why do you suppose George Bush is asking Hamas to renounce something that he will not renounce? He wants to use violence any time he wants to. The Palestinians threw out Fatah because they were corrupt. And Bush says he won’t recognize them unless they do what Bush won’t do? And what does it mean to renounce violence? Think about it.

Later:

Bush wants Hamas to get rid of its armed wing? Does that mean that Bush will get rid of the Pentagon? Does America not have an armed wing? Does not Bush kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people just because he wants to take over some country?

How did that bungling fool ever grab the reins of control of the US government, which has the biggest, deadliest, most destructive armed wing of any government in the world? So what does it mean to renounce?

Bush assaulted the democratic process in the US to gain control. That is so sad.

Something untold is going to happen. This is not a good time. This is not a happy time.

The renouncing of violence. The US does not renounce violence. Why should Bush expect other people to do so?

How can we demand of a duly elected government that it have better principles than we do?

(That was pretty much all of what Ray said in the first half hour of his show. A news reports, ads and four or five plays of a clip of Bush stumbling over his words filled the rest of the time.)