THE ECONOMY EXPLAINED

Listening to liberals try to explain our current economic situation is alot like listening to a four year old trying to explain how airplanes fly. The irony to that is that flight is much more complicated and harder to explain than economics. But for the sake of the liberal readers that occasionally frequent my humble blog, I will explain the basics of free market economics.

The free market is actually less of a "system" and more of an expression of humanity and it's aversion to oppression. To put it simply, it's a matter of buying and selling the things we want/need, for reasons and priorities of our own choosing.
Like the fly in the ointment of all liberal concepts, it is the human condition that drives our economic system. If we were robots, we would require only the most basic of needs and no wants. If we required a car for transportation, the simplest of automobile would be all that we'd ever need. And being robots of coarse...we would never complain. Enter humanity.

As humans, our requirements are different, and so are our tastes. In fact, the idea that we even have tastes and/or opinions at all is what separates us from the robot world. A robot could care less what kind of car he drives to work, or what kind of power drill he uses when he gets there. But a human has a whole set of priorities unique to his individual needs. Maybe he is tall and needs a certain amount of leg room. Maybe he has three kids and needs a four door. Maybe he has small hands that require a drill with a particular style of grip. Maybe he likes to fish on the weekends and needs a truck to pull his bass boat.

It is this individuality that spawns our free market system. For all of our differences, there must be a way to cater to those needs and wants...hence, the entrepeneur. For every Tom, Dick, or Harry with a personal preference, there is someone out there with a way to provide for their needs. Tom likes hoagies? Enter, Subway and Quiznos. Dick likes Burgers? Enter, McDonald's and Burger King. Harry likes trucks, but his wife likes station wagons? Enter, the SUV.

In America, the common denominators between the buyer of goods and the seller of goods is both freedom and liberty. The buyer has the ability to make decisions based on the things important to him/her alone. Be it quality, convenience, or symbol of status, your reasons for purchasing something are as personal as any other part of your life.
The seller has the ability to make the decisions that result in the production of the things the buyer wants/needs. The seller makes decisions based on quality, cost, and competition.

Oh yeah, competition. Another part of the human condition. Again, since the robot could care less about quality, competition would really not be a factor in meeting it's needs. But humans need and want more than just a slab of meat between two buns. We need the Big Mac. We need the five dollar foot long. We need the stuffed crust pan pizza and the Chevy Tahoe with 33" tires for blasting through snow drifts.
It is competition that demands higher quality. After all, there would be no need to improve on the cheeseburger, if there were no other companies to compete with. The Mustang would not be nearly as cool of a car if there were no Camaro forcing Ford to innovate in order to stay ahead of the curve.
How does any of this relate to jobs? Well, unfortunately, cars and burgers do not grow on trees in some magical mystical forest. They are produced...by people. For those people to produce their good or service, they need to hire other people. This is what's known as "job creation". Now, if you were to create an environment that is hostile to this system, you might experience something known as "job destruction".
You might be wondering what could cause a hostile environment for employment. Glad you asked. Imagine you are the owner of a company that makes buggy bumpers. You've just heard your President tell the nation that he plans to raise your taxes in order to implement some pet project that nobody wants. He follows that by promising to create new regulations and standards that will increase the expense of running your business. Are you supposed to ignore him or assume he's bluffing? Or will you more likely take his word for it and take the appropriate measures to prepare for increased overhead? Knowing that the cost of your buggy bumpers will go up resulting in fewer sales, do you think it would be a good idea to throw caution to the wind and hire ten more people, or trim the cost of running your business by laying-off five people.
In addition to you, your customers heard the same message from the President and have decided to cut their spending in all areas in preparation for higher prices at the register. This results in fewer orders for all goods and services as well as their related transportation, warehousing, and retailing. You see, just because your President promised to not raise your tax rate which happens to be below his arbitrary $250,000 line, that doesn't mean he won't be raising the taxes of the people who produce the products you use. A nickle more for a tube of Chapstick here, or a dime more for a box of Pop Tarts there tends to add up after a while. Both costs passed onto you (the consumer) to make up for the cost of someone's brilliant tax increases or job creation stimulus bill.
And let's not forget your boss (if you're lucky enough to have one). Since he falls on the wrong side of the President's fiscal "line in the sand", what do you suppose he's going to do? He's looking at your up-coming Christmas bonus on one hand, and a promise of whopping new taxes on the other. You do the math.
He's looking at your request for a new company vehicle on one hand, and a rising cost of doing business due to up-coming "cap and trade" regulations on the other. Again...you do the math.

I'm not trying to say that Harvard didn't have an excellent business program when President Obama was studying there, but I am saying that business wasn't his major.

RANDOM ROADHOUSE

Cruising around the blogoshpere has lead me to some interesting writing concepts over the years. Not the least of which is the chronicling of random thoughts by the author. One such blogger over at My Voice on the Wings of Change recently inspired me to try this myself. I'm sure I won't be adopting it as a regular format, but I thought it might be cool to try something different for a change...so here we go.

Thought #1: The movie industry relies way too much on CGI today. Yes, flicks like "Cars" and "Toy Story" are fun to watch and are impressive in their detailed animation, but these movies are not trying to mesh with reality. They are just a better quality cartoon and little more than that. Hollywood oversteps their use of computer generated imagery when they rely on it alone, as opposed to simply using it to enhance a scene. Gone are the days of stuntmen and special effects artists. Now, we have CGI cars being chased by CGI monsters. The art of film and cinematography is being shoved aside for the sake of speed and commercial efficiency.
Between that and the guy who will inevitably talk during the movie, I have fewer and fewer reasons to buy an increasingly expensive movie ticket.

Thought #2: Al Gore needs to be strapped to a chair in my front yard, wearing Bermuda shorts and a "wife beater" for a duration of time to last no less than one hour. After he experiences the two feet (and counting) of snow and mid-teen temperatures that encompass my reality for that hour, I will be willing to listen to his views on global warming.

Thought #3: Abortion has been making the news lately, so I would like to clarify some mis-understandings about "pro-lifers" and our position on the topic. There actually is a clear distinction between our views on abortion vs. our views on capital punishment. An unborn baby has not yet had the ability or opportunity to abuse their right to live, unlike a murderer. An aborted baby has not been afforded their right to due process or a trial by a jury of their peers, unlike a murderer. We see no line in the Constitution that decrees your rights do not exist until the severing of an umbilical cord.

Thought #4: The only way I could give President Obama the benefit of the doubt is by considering the following theory. He is actually a double agent of sorts, and mearly posing as a radical socialist, anti-American, naive, narcissist. In realty, he saw the folly of liberalism at an early age, and devised a complex scheme to infiltrate, and eventually lead liberals and Democrats to their own political demise. His plan to expose liberals in Congress and show in living color the horrors of socialism to an America that was previously happy to remain un-informed, is nothing short of brilliant. And as of yet, his execution of it has been masterfull.
Just a theory.

Thought #5: Snow is no longer "fun".

Thought #6: Pop Tarts - still the perfect food.

Thought #7: To call liberals "retarded", is to give the retarded a bad name. I'd be insulted too if someone compared me to a liberal.