Thompson spoke for about 25 minutes and covered a lot of ground. In a speech of that length you can either cover one topic with some depth or you can skim the surface of a lot of topics. Since there was no overriding theme, Thompson chose the latter. What follows is my account of Thompson’s comments today.

Senator Thompson had quite a few quotable moments. The first was in his recounting of his visit with Former Prime Minister Thatcher and her relationship with Ronald Reagan. Referring to the accomplishments of the two Thompson said “strength doesn’t cause wars, strength prevents wars.” He then recounted how following the end of the cold war the US cut defense spending by more than 1/3, military development by 50% and allowed our intelligence operations to languish, particularly our human intelligence capabilities. He pointed out that through numerous attacks on our assets around the world we did little to nothing until 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Thompson showed a real grasp of the situation we face in Islamic fascism. He said that our enemy sees this conflict as having already gone on for a hundred years and they are prepared to go another hundred if necessary. He said that people just don’t understand or appreciate that fact. He went on to say that in previous conflicts the country always pulled together but now partisan politics takes precedence. A big applause moment was when Thompson talked about the sons of two friends who are serving in Iraq and have re-upped. He said they had hope and optimism and he wasn’t going to give up hope so long as they held it. Thompson said we need leadership to bring us together, implying that he can provide that leadership.

In the subject of illegal immigration Thompson agreed that it was dividing our party but he expressed optimism that the party would get past it. He emphasized that the resolution had to come from consideration of what was best for the country, not what was best for either party. He said that thousands of illegal immigrants are not Mexicans and that is a grave risk to national security. Thompson said that we could not hope to protect our country until we secure our borders and he flatly said that the current immigration reform bill is not what is best for this country. He rightly pointed out that we got the same promises in 1986 that we are getting today and there is no reason to believe them now. He also pointed out that the US grants one million green cards per year now so claims that we are taking an anti-immigration stand are unfounded. In another quotable moment Thompson said “we welcome legal immigrants and this is home to all of us but we get to decide who comes to our home.” Thompson said the government can’t handle the backlog of four million legal immigrants waiting on processing now so how can they possibly handle 12-20 million more?

On the question of taxes Thompson said that low taxes benefit everyone but the tax and spend types want to divide up a static pie instead of increasing the size of the pie so everyone gets a larger piece, precisely Reagan’s position. He did not endorse the FairTax but he did say that we are bankrupting the country, the government and the economy and that waiting to fix the problem hurts everyone.

In a great moment for religious conservatives Thompson, referring to the Declaration of Independence, said that our rights come from God and not from government. He went on to say that our founding fathers knew what they were doing when they set up our federal form of government with separation of powers. The implication seemed to be that we’ve strayed far from that ideal now. While not expressly mentioning abortion or assisted suicide, Thompson emphasized the sanctity of human life.

Thompson said we need a new coalition of people coming together for the good of the country. The clear implication was that he could build that coalition. That is exactly what Ronald Reagan did. He built a coalition of people from both parties, not in government but in the electorate. Reagan won two landslide victories by convincing democrats to vote for him.

I’ve often said this country is floundering because no leader has been able to cast a vision that the people caught hold of. Bush seems to understand the threat from Islamic fascism but he has utterly failed to articulate that to the people in a way that grabs their attention. There have been a lot of comparisons between Reagan and Thompson, not the least being they are both actors. Some have pointed out that Thompson is not like Reagan in the sense that Reagan has a long history of conservative intellectual thought and writing. Thompson clearly does not have that.

There is, however, one comparison that really works and that is the ability to communicate. Reagan could cast a vision and so can Thompson. On all the issues I’ve heard him speak on Thompson has been on the right side. He certainly was today. He may not be the conservative intellectual Reagan was but he has that long missing ability to communicate in a way that is at once understandable and compelling. He has the ability to cast a vision. I believe that he can bring in a lot of Democrats and that could easily turn the tide, not just in the election but also in terms of moving this country forward as a people with a common vision for the future. Unless this country gets behind a strong leader who is willing to do what it takes, we are in for a very difficult and painful future. As Churchill said, “sometimes it isn’t enough to do your best, sometimes you have to do what is required.” We, as a country, must be willing to do what is required if we expect our future to look anything like our past. It is my belief that of all the Republican candidates, Fred Dalton Thompson is far and away the best man to cast the vision for this country.

As an ending note let me relate my brief exchange with Thompson today. There was a large crowd of people who wanted to meet Thompson and shake his hand and I was in the middle of it. When I finally got the chance I extended my hand and Thompson took it. He has a real man’s handshake. His large hand wrapped around mine with a firm grip the way a man is supposed to shake hands, not bone crushing but you know you’re shaking hands. I told him that a lot of people were really excited at the prospect of him running and I was one of them. He smiled and thanked me. Then I told him that all those people, including myself, were going to be really disappointed if he decided against running. He grinned real big and said, “so will I.”

————–
NOTE: I recorded Thompson’s speech on my cell phone. The audio isn’t the best in the world and there is considerable background noise but it you can hear what Thompson had to say. The format is a peculiar cell phone format and I can’t find a way to convert it to mp3. I’m thinking about uploading it anyway since Real Player will play it but I’d prefer to convert it to mp3 so everyone can use it. If you know a good way to convert it, please let me know. Alternatively, if you have the ability to convert it I’ll be happy to send it to you for conversion if you’ll send the converted file back. Just let me know.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Orlando the file is now in mp3 format.  To listen to it click here.

Technorati : Fred Thompson

President Bush, along with RINOs Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Democrat Ted Kennedy, have reached a “compromise” for comprehensive immigration reform. That phrase, “comprehensive immigration reform” is code for amnesty. President Bush announced that the plan does not grant amnesty but any bill that allows aliens currently in this country illegally to pay a fine and get on a “path to citizenship” or permanent residency is an amnesty bill.

Virtually no one likes this bill. Backers are reluctant to discuss specifics beyond saying illegals will have to pay a fine and return home for a period of time. It is unlikely that the return home will be enforced or, if enforced, that illegals will have to stay for any significant period of time. How do you track more the more than 12 million people? Maybe set up another inefficient federal agency? And a $5,000 fine is a price many around the world would gladly pay for legal entrance into the united states. Yet those who have not entered this country illegally don’t get any special treatment and path toward citizenship.

Additionally, the Z visa only requires the head of household to return to the home country. His family can stay and there is no real idea of just how long he might have to stay in his home country but one official said it could be as short as one day. Convince me that won’t encourage more illegal immigration! Only a fool could believe that tail.

While this compromise seems historic, it appears there is still an uphill battle. Both conservatives and liberals have problems with it. Conservatives, of course, oppose the amnesty aspect of the proposal. Liberals oppose the change in immigration standards away from uniting families and toward more emphasis on skills.

Still, there is great interest on both sides of the aisle for passing some kind of comprehensive immigration reform this year. With that attitude, it is all but certain that, without outside effort, this will become a reality in some form before it’s all over. Conservatives must stay in touch with their Senators and Congressmen and keep the pressure on. This must be stopped. Amnesty did not work 20 some odd years ago and it won’t work today.

For my money, the way to deal with illegals currently in this country is to make it so painful for companies to employee them that simply won’t take the risk. When illegals find they cannot find work and support their families, much less send money back home, they will go home voluntarily. If there is not reason to be here, why would the stay? The incentives to come here illegally must be removed. That, along with real border enforcement will solve our problem. Then and only then we can look at a guest worker program and at that point, those who can speak English will have an advantage, regardless of whether they were previously here illegally

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson said that the bill and the attempt to create any comprehensive immigration reform should be scrapped until the border is secured. YEAH! That’s a position I can really get behind.

The first problem was with arriving volunteers. We were supposed to be there for training at 1:00 PM. The problem was the parking at the fairgrounds didn’t open until 2:00. So leaders at the fairgrounds directed us to park across the street in a lot across the railroad tracks. We parked and walked across a very busy 4 lane highway to board the bus to the coliseum which was several miles away. Once we got to the training we were told that we could not leave our cars where they were and if they weren’t moved by 3:00 they would be locked in. So we had to board the buses, head back to the fairgrounds, cross the busy highway again, move our cars, then board the buses and go back to the coliseum. All this took more than an hour and many of us, me included, had no training or job assignments at all. I ended up taking station at a door and helping with incoming ticket taking. This was a lot of hassle that volunteers really didn’t need after driving, in some cases, hundreds of miles to do this.

Another very big problem made worse by the remote parking was some of the venue’s policies. They did not allow food, drinks or backpacks into the coliseum. Now many venues don’t allow food or drinks. But the web site for the rally indicated that you did not have to bring food because there would be food available. It left the impression that you could bring food and drinks. As a result, many people had to throw away lots of food because taking it back to their car simply wasn’t practical.

The backpack issue was far worse. I understand why the coliseum has this policy but considering what they allow in, it is simply stupid. You could bring in any kind of bag including briefcases, suitcases, you name it. The only type of bag prohibited was backpacks. Can anyone tell me how a backpack is more dangerous than a suitcase? Lots of people were forced to board buses and return to the parking lot with their backpacks. This cost them at minimum an hour and could have easily been avoided.

Numerous volunteers also brought backpacks because they were going to be there a long time. No one said anything about them coming in for the training and in many cases volunteers were fine. But in one case a volunteer who worked outside found himself unable to re-enter when it was time for the event to begin because of his backpack that he’d had all day.

What made it worse was the apparent lack of consistency in enforcement. One woman had a backpack style purse. It was clearly a purse but the fact that it had shoulder straps meant they were not going to let her in and she had to return to the parking lot with it. Yet another couple had what was clearly a backpack that they were using as a diaper bag. Officials decided to call it a diaper bag and let them in with it.

The coliseum seriously needs to revisit this policy. It makes no sense and is nothing more than rules overriding common sense. Rather than take responsibility for decisions, they prefer to set silly rules and hope it keeps everyone safe.

Here are my suggestions for the organizers. Get with the venue well ahead and make sure you know what their policies are and how they will be enforced. Once that is done, make sure those policies are spelled out in all event related materials including fliers, web site, etc. Give those who attend the opportunity to have as smooth an event as possible.

Make sure you have everything lined up for volunteers. While no one was seriously angry over having to go move cars, there was a general feeling that maybe organizers didn’t really know what they were doing.

Look at this event as a learning opportunity. Examine what went well and what did not and make appropriate adjustments. You pulled off an amazingly successful event but it could have been better still. If you take my advice it will be much better next time.

Thanks again for the opportunity to be a part of this rally. I enjoyed it and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Check back later today for debate observations and analysis.

Yesterday had so much to talk about that it’s difficult to sort it all out. Between the FairTax Rally and the GOP debate, I could write far more than most of you probably want to read. I’ve decided to break it all up into three posts. This post will deal with the FairTax Rally and its high points. The second post will deal with some of my criticisms of the FairTax rally and how they could make it better. Finally, I will write a post about the debate last night. I hope you will stick with me throughout.

As a volunteer at the FairTax rally I had to be there at 1:00 for training. That made for a long day but it was well worth it. There were about a dozen volunteers from Charleston that convoyed up together yesterday morning. We met at the rest area near mile marker 203 on I-26 and went up from there.

There were numerous speakers, some surprises. Of course Neal Boortz spoke several times along with Sean Hannity. Herman Cain was scheduled to speak but he was ill and could not make it. Predictably Boortz and Hannity were inspiring and really whipped up the crowd. If you haven’t heard Sean Hannity speak in person you’ve missed out. They guy is just good.

Neal Boortz told the audience about the new book he and John Lender are working on, The FairTax, Answering the Critics. He pointed out the the vast majority of criticism of the FairTax is actually criticism of things is doesn’t do or doesn’t involve. Boortz told the audience that the critics first lie about what the FairTax is then attack their false picture of the FairTax.

The goal of the rally was 10,000 people. I haven’t heard any official numbers but if they didn’t make it, they didn’t miss by much. There was a great crowd and everyone was excited. The general tenor was one of optimism and there was a concerted effort to convince supporters that the FairTax could become a reality this year! I don’t share that same optimism though I did come away convinced that it is at least possible. Prior to this rally I didn’t really think the FairTax was achievable at all.

The strangest part of the rally was when John Stossel spoke. I think most of the crowd was confused because Stossel didn’t really support the FairTax. Rather, he spoke about a flat tax. At one point someone in the crowd yelled out “FairTax” and there were a few hoots of supports. All in all the crowd just seemed confused. I found myself wondering if Stossel knew what rally he was at. As for the organizers, why didn’t they ensure that speakers would actually speak in support of the FairTax? Stossel didn’t, however, dampen the spirits of the crowd.

Unannounced speakers included Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee. Both spoke passionately about the FairTax and indicated they would work to implement it. Of the two, only Huckabee mentioned it in the debate and he went on at length when he did mention it.

The absolute highlight of the rally was the march. Everyone had a sign provided by rally organizers and we filed out of the coliseum en mass to march around the Koger Center. The looks on the faces of people outside was priceless. There was small groups of supporters of various candidates, none larger than a couple dozen people. Then here comes this massive crowd of close to 10,000 people all wearing white FairTax t-shirts and carrying FairTax signs, chanting in unison and marching all around the Koger Center. It was really an amazing sight. I’ll have some photos posted later in case your local news didn’t carry it. They certainly should have, there were TV cameras on use the whole time and at any given point in the march, it took at least 20 minutes for the whole crowd to pass.

Here are a couple of short videos of the march. The quality isn’t very good because I shot it with my cell phone but you can at least get an idea of what it was like.

I very much enjoyed the rally and I would encourage anyone who has the opportunity to attend one. Clearly support is building but that can only continue if more and more people join the movement.

Stay tuned later today for observations and analysis of the GOP debate.

Speaker Harrell goes on to promote McCain as a conservative. My question is, what is Speaker Harrell’s definition of conservative?

It seems that the term conservative, much like many other terms in our day, has undergone a redefinition. Apparently it no longer means committed to limited government. It no longer means being dedicated to the Constitution of the United States, as written. If John McCain can be considered a conservative then the very word conservative has lost its meaning altogether.

You will remember that McCain, in his misguided attempts to blame his own shortcomings on others, managed to bulldoze through McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform. That legislation represents the single biggest assault on constitutionally protected political speech in my lifetime, perhaps ever! But Senator McCain was convinced that we needed it. In fact, he is not satisfied to stop there and now wants to go after the 521s that resulted from his previous legislation.

What McCain has done is make it more difficult for anyone to challenge incumbents while severely limiting the ability of individuals to make their voices heard when it comes to politics. If the First Amendment’s free speech clause protects anything, it protects political speech in all forms but John McCain, apparently, disagrees or doesn’t care. His view of things takes precedence over the Constitution it seems.

John McCain, who has worked hard to build his reputation as a maverick, is anything but a conservative. He is an opportunist. He wants to be President and has done everything in his power to keep his face in the news to that end. His protege, Lindsey Graham, is following close in his footsteps. Neither is a conservative and neither will ever have my support.

I still subscribe to a more traditional definition of conservative. I believe in limited government and individual responsibility to go along with individual rights. I believe, as did most of our founding fathers, that a religious electorate is necessary to a republican for of government. I believe that political speech is protected by the first amendment but pornography is not. Call me old fashioned but that is how I view conservatism. John McCain has a different view. He opposed the tax cuts that he now thinks should be extended but he will not say that he was wrong in opposing them in the first place. He supports the troop surge but it that appears to be political expediency. While his position cost him support initially, he has clearly gain conservative support as a result. He is attempting to remake himself in a conservative mold. He has rightly judged what most in the Republican party have missed. That is, that conservatives have had it with Republicans who abandon conservative principles. Had John McCain stood for these things all along he would have me in his camp. But not only has he NOT stood for these things, he will not repudiate his prior positions.

John McCain does not meet my definition of a conservative. He never has and I expect he never will. I still do not believe he can get the Republican nomination but if I am proved wrong, I will have to do a lot of soul searching before I could vote for him. His motivation is his personal aspirations. He is not motivated by principles and I cannot support anyone who votes for or opposes anything based on how it will reflect on him personally.

This presents a dilemma for Christians. We certainly want to help this woman and others like her and we really want to help her children. The question is, how? How, in fact, do we define help and then deliver it? That’s not as easy to answer as some might think.

The gut reaction of some will be that we should do all we can to help her pay her bills and feed her children. On the surface this may seem to be help but is it? I submit that it is not help at all. To explain let’s look at a completely different but analogous situation.

Say you know a man with a bad drinking problem. He spends his pay checks on booze and it is costing him all he has. How do you help this man? Will paying his bills help him? Or is paying his bills simply enabling his destructive behavior and making the problem worse? I submit that the latter is true.

The same can be said for Brenda Kelly. Kelly’s first marriage ended in divorce and her ex-husband has custody of the two kids they produced. Of the other two men that Brenda had children with, one is in prison and the other also works a $6.00/ hour job and he’s already paying $75/week child support to another woman with whom he fathered a child. Do you see a pattern here? Brenda seems to have a lot of trouble making good decisions. She keeps picking losers and having children with them!

On top of that, Brenda (who is about to be evicted from her house because she refuses to pay rent any more), would qualify for public housing assistance but she’s tired of filling out paperwork so she won’t apply. She works 40 hours per week and, apparently thinks that’s plenty and won’t take on additional work. Oh, did I mention that at one point she made over $35k/year as a store manager? Yeah, she quite that job to spend more time with her kids.

The problem here is NOT that life is stacked against Brenda. The problem is that Brenda blames everyone else for her problems instead of taking any responsibility for them. In short Brenda is irresponsible. Clearly, providing direct physical assistance without any accountability is not real help. It is, as with the drunk, enabling the destructive behavior that put her in the position she is in. Providing assistance without strings only makes her situation worse, not better.

The real problem comes with her children. They are in no way responsible for the situation they are in. Their mother is responsible. What do we do about the children. Do we simply leave them in this unfortunate situation? Tough questions.

Christians and conservatives generally believe that children are better off with their mother. I presume that in this case many would say precisely that. I would disagree in this case. I think that Brenda should lose her children. They should be placed in foster care or with relatives who are capable of taking care of them. Brenda clearly is not capable of taking care of herself, much less her children. Of course, it is likely that Brenda will just have more children for others to have to take care of. But lets leave that for another post.

Brenda presents some difficult questions for Christians. How do we live up to Christ’s expectations with this woman? How do we show the love of Christ to her? I submit that tough love is called for. Brenda must live the consequences, all of them, of her bad choices. In this way, perhaps, Brenda can learn from her mistakes and work to improve her life. And at the point where Brenda has taken responsibility for her situation and is working hard to improve her life, then it would be Christian love and charity to provide financial and other assistance to her. But until she reaches that point, there is nothing anyone can do to help Brenda. She has to be willing to help herself first.

That is the bottom line. No one can be helped who is unwilling to help themselves. All the attempts to help end up doing more harm than good. Any parent knows this from experience. The child who is constantly bailed out of every situation never learns to take responsibility. Instead they learn the opposite. They learn that they never have to take responsibility so they can do whatever they want. Is that the lesson we really want to teach people?

The state approach to public assistance is completely flawed precisely because it typically comes without strings. It ends up encouraging that behavior the caused the need in the first place. It is self perpetuating and contributes to a dependent class rather than helping people get on their feet so they no longer need assistance. That, to me, is anything but a Christian approach in spite of what social gospel advocates may think.

My heart goes out to Brenda and her children. I genuinely feel sorry for them. But I do not believe that more public assistance will help them. The only thing that can help Brenda is suffering the consequences of her decisions.

In his blog Wallis claims that God Hates Inequality. Referring to the Senate vote to increase the minimum wage, Wallis says, “this is a good vote.” He goes on to make quite a claim. “It’s a political fact now that faith communities across the board, very widely, are in favor of increasing the minimum wage. Why is that? What’s the theological foundation behind that? We don’t just do politics; we do politics because of our faith.”

Interesting. The last part of that statement sounds very much like my own claim. I’ve often said that my political views flow directly from my religious beliefs. I’m not in a position to determine whether Wallis’ claim is as justified as I believe mine is. What I will claim is that Wallis has no problem taking scripture out of context and twisting it to fit his view of social justice. In support of his view on the minimum wage Wallis quotes from Isaiah:

What does the Bible have to say about the minimum wage?

The prophet Isaiah said: “my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain…” (65:22-23).

Does this passage support Wallis’ position? The broader passage is Isaiah 65: 17-25. The subject of the passage is the new heaven and new earth that God will one day create. Here is the full text of that passage.

17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create;for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,”says the LORD.
ESV

Clearly this passage has nothing at all to do with minimum wage or economics in this world. Or should Congress pass legislation requiring lions and lambs to lie down together and requiring lions to eat hay?

Wallis’ next attempt to justify his views on biblical grounds comes from the book of James.

James, who was the sibling of Jesus, and probably knew what his brother thought about things pretty well, said: “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord.”

The passage is James 5:4. Here the brother of Jesus is addressing the church, not the Roman government. James is chastising Christians for not paying their laborers what they agreed to pay. One might make a case from this passage that Christian employers should pay more than minimum wage but that’s about it. Certainly this has nothing to do with the law. Indeed, Jesus himself had something to say about wages. In Mathew 20 Jesus said:

Matt 20:1-15

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’
ESV

Clearly this parable does not support Wallis’ view of inequity. Jesus presents a picture of one employer paying different people the same wage for different amounts of work. The question is not whether it seems fair, the question is did each person agree to do certain work for certain wages? The answer is yes and, apparently, Jesus did not see inequity in it. This flies in the face of Wallis’ view and his use of scripture.

I oppose ANY minimum wage and I do so, at least in part, on my religious convictions. Because I know something about economics I understand that any increase in the minimum wage will inevitably result in higher unemployment precisely among those who can least afford it. That’s just simple economics and it has played out over and over. But more than that, I object to Wallis and others who are willing to do violence to the facts to persuade others to their position.

Time after time we hear claims about people trying to support families on the minimum wage. This simply isn’t the case. The overwhelming majority of minimum wage workers are entry level employees who are supporting no one. They have no work skills and so have little value in the market place. They are “paying their dues” by accepting low wages for the personal benefit of learning a work ethic. They are learning how to work and hold a job and be a good employee.

Yes, there are some few people who are trying to make a living at minimum wage. Usually they are they because of their own choices. But even those people do not remain at minimum wage if they are motivated to be good employees and work hard. Anyone who is stuck in a minimum wage job for any length of time has no one but himself to blame. The Apostle Paul had a few things to say about work.

Eph 4:28
8 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
ESV

1 Thess 4:10-12
But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
ESV

2 Thess 3:10-12
10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work , let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work , but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
ESV

Paul said the man who would not work should not eat. I submit that the employee who will not give a days work to his employer for a days wages is a thief! And Wallis wants to increase the minimum wage and justifies that position with scripture. He may be entirely sincere but he is sincerely wrong.

‘08 is a long way off. I don’t know about you but I’m not prepared to spend two years in campaign mode. While the ‘08 elections are important, there is little any of us can do today to impact them. But there are many other issues to be looked at and dealt with in the mean time.

For one thing, with dems in control of the Senate we know right off that judicial appointments will be far more difficult for President Bush. It is likely that there will be one more vacancy on the Supreme Court in the next two years and I expect the President to avoid judicial activists and appoint someone who will strictly interpret the Constitution rather than superimpose his/her own ideology on it. That will, of course, mean a battle. It will be difficult to even get such a nominee through the Senate Judiciary Committee. We need to be prepared for that fight because it is likely to be coming. Even for normal appointments to the federal bench there will be much difficulty.

Comprehensive immigration reform now seems much more likely. Conservatives oppose reforms so far offered and those are just the kinds of reforms that will be offered again. Amnesty, by what ever name, will sail through both Houses of Congress and the President is likely to sign such legislation. Unless we are prepared with strong grassroots efforts to stop it, it will be a slam dunk.

Future Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated the raising the minimum wage will be a top priority. Few issues have been subject to such demagoguery than the minimum wage. And few issues are so poorly understood by the electorate. We know that any significant increase in the minimum wage will have two effects. First, it will increase unemployment for those at the bottom of the wage scale. Second, it will further slow the economy when it has already been slowed too much by aggressive fed interest rate policy. If Democrats are not checked, we will likely be headed into a new recession. That might be good for Republican prospects in ‘08 but it isn’t good for the American people and only strong grassroots efforts can stop it.

The biggest and by far most important issue is the war with Islamic fascism. To date, Democrats have appeared not to take it seriously, preferring to handle terrorist events through law enforcement. If dems truly believe what they’ve preached, they will work diligently to get us out of this war and hunkered down back home. If that should happen, we will see many more 9/11 style attacks on the US. Again, this may be good for Republican prospects in ‘08 but it is decidedly bad for American and we have to do whatever we can to prevent such an eventuality.

It is incumbent on all of us to communicate with our members of Congress and let them know that we will not sit back and allow them to make America vulnerable. Most conservatives I know have a pretty good understanding of the enemy we face. It is an enemy that only understands strength and weakness. It is an enemy that will interpret any move by the US to withdraw as a sign that our will is failing us and that will embolden them. Indeed, they are already taking credit for the Republican defeat and for Rumsfeld’s resignation. In the coming days look for the Islamic fascists to move aggressively to increase and consolidate the power this election has given them.

We face dark and dangerous days ahead. We must face them with resolve and determination. I believe that all of civilization is threatened and we must face that threat head on and unified. To this point we have been anything but unified. I desperately hope that it will not take a few more 9/11 style attacks to convince the electorate that we cannot win unless we are united.

We will face these and other issues over the next two years. All of us must work to educate ourselves. No one is going to come to us and teach us what the truth is on any of these issues. The one thing you can count on politicians to do is demagogue the issues. Even the best of them is driven by elections and they are motivated to do and say what they think is necessary to be reelected. If we want to know the truth we have to do the work to discover it. We have to research the issues. We have to educate ourselves so we understand what is at stake and so we can, in turn, work to educate others. I’ve always believed that truth ultimately prevails over lies and deceit but that can only be true when people know the truth.

Throughout all this I have had a nagging feeling that so called “values voters” contrary to conventional wisdom, will not stay home on election day. I have tended to believe that, like me, they understand what is at stake and they will “do the right thing” so to speak and go vote for Republicans. But I’ve also wondered if that isn’t just the typical tendency to believe that others think like I do.

If there is one thing I’ve endeavored to do, both personally and in this blog, it is to be as honest as I can be. I recall a political science project I had to do for a class on campaigns and public opinion during the 2004 elections. My assignment was to follow all 34 Senate races. I had to know who the candidates were, what the issues in each race were, what the polls were showing and, in the end, I had to make predictions. Another student in the class was doing the same project I was. When it came time for our predictions I predicted that Republicans would pick up seats in the Senate. The other student predicted a Democrat take over of the Senate. My question for him at the time was, “do you really believe that or is your prediction just wishful thinking?”

Of course my predictions turned out to be accurate and his were wildly off base. Both he and I had looked at the same races, the same polling data and the same issues and we had reach wildly different conclusions. I ended up missing only one prediction in all 34 races and that was Colorado, which ended up surprising me. But my goal throughout the project was to try to be as objective as I could manage. Of course I am not objective in terms of desired outcome but if my opinions are to be worth anything to others, my analysis of the races needed to be objective.

My goal in this blog is no different. While I am distinctly partisan and unashamedly so, I have to be able to look at the facts and reach conclusions that are, not simply justifiable, but ultimately accurate, if I am to be taken seriously.

In light of all I’ve just said, I hope my readers will pay attention to what I am about to say. It may appear to some to be wishful thinking. In the end, I suppose it may turn out to be just that but I don’t think so. I think I’ve stumbled on some very good news for conservatives.

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I’ve been a Rush fan for years but I’ve found myself listening to him very little of late. There are a number of reasons for that, none of which have much to do with him. But yesterday I found myself tuned in to his show. He was talking about a podcast from Advertising Age entitled Opinion Fatigue: Inside The Marketing-Research Crisis, in which the author, Jack Neff, was lamenting the declining ability of companies to do effective product research. The author was concerned because it was becoming increasingly difficult to reach enough households to get a sufficient polling sample so the results can be considered reliable. There are, apparently, several reasons for this. Among them are people who use caller ID to screen phone calls, those who simply won’t talk to polling companies and those who have moved exclusively to cell phones so they are not reachable by pollster at all. This makes it almost impossible for pollsters to get accurate samples. And then there are those who, for what ever reason, simply lie to pollsters.

While the article dealt specifically will product research, the pollsters refereed to are no different from political pollsters. Both face the same difficulties. So if product research firms can’t get accurate samples, there is no reason to believe the political pollsters fare any better. And who are the people least likely to answer the phone or to be off the grid entirely by virtue of having gone totally cellular? I submit that they are, by and large, conservatives. Of course we never hear any talk that pollsters can’t get accurate samples. But according to the Ad Age article, the base for an accurate sample is at least 30% call acceptance rate and what they are typically getting is closer to 20%.

If I am right, that means that the current crop of polls are from inaccurate samples and they will be strongly biased to the left. There can be little doubt that, if this is correct, the pollsters are aware of it. And since many of the pollsters are in the media, they are also aware of it, yet they continue to report the polls as if they are accurate. I think that is by design.

There are two reasons for conducting a poll. The first is to find out where the public stands on an issue or issues. The second is to attempt to influence public opinion. We are all familiar with push polls, polls designed to illicit a particular response. This is similar except the poll itself is designed to influence wider public opinion. So if the public at large can be convinced that most of their neighbors have given up on the Republican party, perhaps they’ll give up to! We saw this in the 2004 presidential election where the Democrats managed to slant exit polls, knowing full well that the results would be leaked before the polls closed. The desired result was to suppress Republican turnout by implying that Kerry had already won so there was no reason to waste time going to vote. Thankfully, it didn’t work.

The second piece of information I gleaned from Rush was from an op-ed in the Boston Globe entitled Cleaning up the Mess by Robert Kuttner. The premise of the article is that for Democrats, winning the mid-term elections might not be such a good thing! Kuttner goes on a totally partisan rant about budget deficits, the war in Iraq and his view that Bush has so screwed up everything that it will be a tough road for Democrats to clean up the mess. Kuttner opens with this paragraph:

I’ve heard smart people argue that George W. Bush has left such a mess that maybe the Democrats would be better off just letting the mess fall on the Republicans in 2008.

After all, there seems to be no good way out of Iraq. The administration dithered for nearly six years on Korea, and now we have Pyongyang with nukes, not to mention Iran’s nuclear challenge. And the budget and trade deficits continue to be time bombs. Why should the opposition party want to share responsibility for these serial disasters?

He goes on to list all the failures he perceives in the Bush administration and why they would be difficult at best for a Democrat controlled Congress to deal with before the 2008 presidential election. Beginning with budget deficits, Kuttner claims Republicans have caused the country to bleed red ink.

Begin with the budget deficit. As recent elections have shown, there is little political profit in being the fiscally responsible party. Democrats, once known as the Keynesian party of deficits, have led two thankless rounds of fiscal stewardship, cleaning up after Ronald Reagan’s tax-cutting orgy in 1982-83, and then mopping up the red ink of Reagan’s second term and that of Bush I with the heroic Budget Act of 1993, passed in both houses by a single vote.

Ignore, for the moment, Kuttner’s completely ignorant view of tax cuts and deficits (Bush has cut the deficit in half three years sooner than projected. The Bush tax cuts, just like the Reagan tax cuts, dramatically increased revenue to the federal government). What is the point of Kuttner’s op-ed? Why, just three weeks before the mid-term election, does Kuttner come out with this piece? Rush opines, and I tend to agree, that he is setting the stage for a Democrat loss. Remember, Democrats are infamous for taking defeat and calling it victory.

The fact is, Democrat pollsters and those in the know in the Democrat party are well aware of what the polls show. They know what the shortcoming of the polls are, even if they are unwilling to share those shortcomings with the public.

Then, also from Rush, there is the Republican irritation with Bush for not having a plan for the eventuality that the Democrats may take control of Congress. Bush seems strangely optimistic. In his interview last night on O’Reilly, Bush stated flat out that he is convinced Republicans will prevail come November.

Now, the left has attempted to paint Bush as a moron for more than six years but honest pundits admit that Bush is no moron. He has repeatedly painted Democrats into a corner and he’s pulled off some amazing feats in foreign policy and in his legislative efforts. No, Bush is no moron. He is a Harvard MBA who had better grades that did John Kerry! So it is fair to ask whether Bush knows something the rest of us don’t know.

Liberal pundits will think what Bush knows is some sort of late October surprise but I think it is more about the polling data. Bush knows just what the Liberal pollsters know, that their polls are wildly skewed to the left. And I suspect that the object of liberal hatred, Karl Rove, has polling units that are more effective than the liberal pollsters. Who really knows? The bottom line is, Bush is planning for victory, not failure.

Admittedly, there is a lot of conjecture in my analysis. I may be guilty of what I am striving to avoid, wishful thinking. But I don’t think so. Each of these items, taken individually, doesn’t add up to much. But collectively they seem to me to form a trend. Combined with outstanding economic performance, a dramatically shrinking budget deficit and the fact that, despite the best efforts of Democrats, most people are still fearful that this country will be less safe if Democrats are in control, I find it difficult to accept the idea that Democrats will win in November.

I could be wrong but I’m going out on a limb. I predict that Republicans will hold on to both houses of Congress.

Stephen Woodin is a small business owner in the Tampa Bay area of south Florida. In this little story Stephen is David. Goliath is the 800 pound gorilla Wachovia Bank. Stephen had his business checking account with Wachovia Bank for the last seven years. He had a regular routine where his deposits were concerned and he had a regular routine where his pay outs were concerned.

According to Stephen, he made all his deposits at the ATM, typically on Saturday morning, followed by payments to vendors and making his payroll. Stephen has always had his funds from deposits available on the next business day without fail. However, Stephen had a small check for $23 from one of his customers returned for insufficient funds. He didn’t think it was a big deal. He contacted his customer who made the check good and Stephen thought all was well.

All was not well. Wachovia, apparently as a result of that single bad check, decided to put a 10 day hold on all funds deposited to Stephen’s business account. While you might understand Wachovia’s decision, there are at least two problems with it. First, 10 days is a long time for a small business. Talk about a serious crimp in cash flow! I am a small business owner and if my bank suddenly decided to keep my deposits for 10 days I’d have a serious problem. But the worst problem was that Wachovia did not notify Stephen they had placed this hold on his account.

Stephen proceeded as he always does, making payments to others based on his deposits. That’s when the real problems began. Immediately Wachovia began charging Stephen $35 NSF fees for every payment he made to others. That rapidly added up to hundreds of dollars. Then Wachovia proceed to not pay the checks written so Stephens checks began to bounce with his vendors and some payroll checks bounced as well.

At this point Wachovia could have taken charge and provided real customer support to a long time customer. I’ve said for years that you learn much more from someone’s mistakes than from their successes. I expect people will make mistakes. How they deal with those mistakes determines for me whether I can really place faith in them. Had Wachovia simply explained what happened, taken the hold off Stephen’s account and refunded the fees, all would have been well and Stephen would have been a happy customer who likely would have sang the praises of the bank.

Wachovia chose another course. They circled the wagons and refused to budge on the account hold or the fees. The result was a spiral of more NSFs, more fees and more bounced checks. All told Stephen racked up $1298.75 in bank fees and bad check fees to others between September 5th and September 18th. Once the spiral had begin there was nothing Stephen could do to stop it.

Stephen made numerous attempts to deal with the situation through the bank. He talked to many bank employees who had previously helped him with other matters. But now he was hitting a wall. No one was able to help him and many, apparently got pretty snotty with him. Ultimately Stephen was forced to close his accounts with Wachovia and take his business elsewhere.

For most people the story would end there. Most people would lick their wounds and move on. Stephen is not most people. He decided he was not going to let Wachovia get away with their treatment of him. As far as he was concerned they had stolen his money and done so with impunity and he wasn’t going to let it go. So Stephen decided to fight back the only way he knew how. He started a web site called Wachovia Sucks and chronicled his story there. Then Stephen started printing flyers by the thousands and passed then out everywhere he went. The flyers directed people to his new web site. To date Stephen’s site has racked up 52,000 unique visitors, 1573 of which came from wachovia.com. His site is a month and a half old and he left me in the dust when it comes to traffic.

I’ve never done business with Wachovia so I have no personal experience with them. At this point I am unlikely to ever do business with them because I see how they treated a long term customer in good standing. All of us have been dumped on by the big guys at one time or another. I post this piece on Stephen’s story because I support his acetones. He’s put signs on his truck directing people to his web site. He’s passed out thousands of flyers. He’s taken on Goliath. I don’t know if Stephen will ever get what he wants out of them, which is a refund of the fees they charged him. But I know I am hearted when someone, anyone, is willing to stand up to those who would trample on people simply because they can. So I encourage my readers to visit Stephen’s site and if you have a bank horror story, particularly if it involves Wachovia, pass it along to Stephen. He’ll include it on his site along with other stories from other people who have squashed by the Goliaths of this world. I support what Stephen is doing and I hope you will too.

Not long ago I blogged about Republican legislation in Congress to require voters to show government issued photo ID in order to vote. But as important as voting is and as important as it is to ensure that the ballot box is inviolate, the Democrats howled about how requiring a photo ID would disenfranchise the poor in this country by adding an insurmountable obstacle to voting.

So let me get this straight. I can’t get a stinking post office box without not one, but two forms of ID, yet I can go vote for the President of the United States and I don’t have to prove a thing! There is something dramatically wrong when both of those statements are true simultaneously.

As for the US Postal Service, the requirement for two forms of ID is simply stupid. Think about it. I don’t need any ID whatsoever to mail something but I need two forms to receive something. That means that a terrorist can put anything in the mail and send it anywhere with no fear that his identity will be found out. But the recipient of a letter bomb or anthrax or whatever the terrorist wants to send can’t get that package without TWO FORMS OF ID! I’m sorry, that’s beyond stupid.

This sorry state of affairs exists because the post office is a government supported monopoly. Everyone knows the post office could never survive with its current state of no service (as Clark Howard likes to say) if they had to compete in the marker place. Their survival depends entirely on their monopoly status. Were they to be privatized and lose their monopoly and be forced to compete, the level of service would increase dramatically and the prices they charge would come down instead of being raised every year or two.

The moral of the story is never trust the government to do ANY job that COULD be done by private business. And if there is truly a need to have two forms of ID to obtain a post office box, surely asking for one is legitimate when attempting to vote!

Technorati : Liberals Democrats Energy

So what events have worked to change the dynamics of the election outlook? First let me say that Republicans are not out of the woods but their prospect for holding both houses has improved dramatically.

First, President Bush has finally starting doing what I was calling for him to do several weeks ago in my post A Critical Lack of Decisive Leadership. In that post I pointed out that Bush needed to “cast the vision” for the so called War on Terror. Bush has been doing that consistently for a couple of weeks now and it is making a difference. The polls show that the American people are moving more to his side on Iraq and the overall war. The public is not completely persuade mind you, but they are moving and Bush needs to keep it up.

Next, the price of gas has been falling for a couple of weeks and it appears that the priced will continue down for a little while yet. That is good news for Bush and the Republicans and bad news for Democrats who have been quite successful for some time now at convincing the American public that the economy is bad when in fact it is not. Unemployment is below 5%, wages are up, the economy is strong but the Dems have talked it down for so long that the public was buying it even though it wasn’t true. That’s a harder lie to sell with gas prices falling, that being the main economic issue affecting most people.

Third is the Democrat obstruction to Bush’s proposed legislation spelling our what the CIA can and cannot do to high value prisoners to gain information. The public has been solidly behind Bush on this issue and the Dems have hurt themselves by opposing it. They falsely believed that McCain, Graham, et.al. would provide them political cover but it isn’t working out quite like they hoped. Instead the issue is hurting McCain, Graham, et. al. That’s a win in the R column.

Additionally, the Dems and the talking heads have ignored vulnerable Democrat seats in the House and Senate while emphasizing vulnerable Republicans. The fact is, Dems need to pick up a net 15 seats to take control of the House and a net six in the Senate. The Senate was always a long shot and all Democrat plans include picking up Rhode Island which is less likely since Chafee beat back challenger Laffey.

To be sure, seven weeks is a long time in election politics. Still, things are looking up for Republicans and there is every indication that the outlook will continue to improve.

Next week we’ll begin to look at individual competitive races and attempt to size up the competition, the issues in those races and the likely outcomes. Stay tuned!

Technorati : Elections Politics

While there cetainly are people working minimum wage jobs and raising family, they are rarely in minimum wage positions for very long.  Minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs.  They are primarily reserved for those with little work experience or little experience within a particular industry.  Invaribly, workers hired at minimum wage gain experience and move up the pay scale.  Exceptions are those who aren’t really interested in work or those who simply cannot keep a job because of a lack of work ethic and/or poor attitude.

And the fact is, most minimum wage jobs are filled by younger workers who are not yet raising a family.  Often times they don’t have any financial responsibilities at all.  They are learning to work and take on responsibility and the money they earn is almost entirely discretionary.  It is simply a myth that the current minimum wage keeps poor people poor.

So how should wages be set?  With a few exceptions in the U.S., companies have to compete for employees as much as workers compete for jobs.  Again, there are exceptions, primarily in union towns or small communities where a single industry was the center of the economy and it left.  But for the most part, companies have to compete for quality employees.  And the quality employees have little trouble finding jobs that pay them considerably more than a “living wage,” whatever that is.

So how does one become a quality employee?  Most of them started somewhere at minimum wage.  They work hard, move up the ladder, improve their skills and work ethic and get ahead.  Usually they move beyind the original minimum wage employer and are replaced by other new entrants into the job market.  The minimum wage jobs are the training ground for future quality employees.

In a market economy, wages are determined primarily by value unless other factors prevail, such as union contracts or minimum wage laws.  The market determines the value of labor which creates a strong incentive for workers to work hard in order to excel in their jobs.  This makes them more valuable and they move up the earnings scale while being replace downstream by new entrants.

When a minimum wage is implemented or increased it has an impact on employment.  Because value has not changed, something else has to change instead.  And that something else usually means fewer employees.  After all, companies do not have vast reserves of money to throw at employees.  If the cost of hiring a single employee goes up the only option available to employeers is to hirer fewer employees and ask more of them to get the same general output.  This means few people get jobs and more of those who do lose them because they are not productive enough to provide the value required for the price.

The result of all this is increased unemployment.  And the increase is precisely in the group of people the minimum wage was intended to help.

This is an example of what Thomas Sowell calls “stage one thinking.”  Stage one is the initial impact of a plan, in this case, low wage employees earn more money.  But at stage two there are fewer low wage employees and more unemployed.  This hardly seems a fair trade, either for companies seeking employees or for low wage workers.

There was a time in our history where people worked without pay for the opportunity to learn a skill.  In fact, they were not working for free, they were getting paid in the form of skill development and future employability.  That is just what minimum wage jobs do, provide for future employability.

The minimum wage is an example of unintended consequenses.  The intention is to help the less fortunate among us.  The reality is they are harmed more than they are helped.  And along with them, our teenage children are also harmed because they will not be hire for jobs when they cannot provide the value necessary to make them worth hiring.  So they lose the opportunity, while they can afford to work for less than a “living wage,” to learn how to work.  This, in turn, harms their future employability and makes them more likely to join the ranks of the under employeed or unemployeed.

The general lack of understanding in our country when it comes to basic economics never ceases to amaze me. People can, of course, be excused for not understanding the specifics of a particular industry, although it isn’t too difficult to find the truth if you are motivated to look for it. So allow me to present a short course in pharmaceuticals.

It may come as a surprise that the overwhelming majority of new drug therapies developed every year in the entire world are developed in the United States. It is reasonable to enquire as to why that might be so. After all, the US doesn’t have a monopoly over intelligence. The answer is pretty simple.  It does take some background knowledge but the short answer is prices.

Much of the world has price controls on drugs. The US has fairly recently been engaged in debate over the prospect of importing drugs from Canada, where prices are kept low by government fiat. Not surprisingly the Canadian government made it clear early on in the debate that they would not allow the US to re-import large quantities of drugs back into the United States. On some level even they understand that everyone will suffer if pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to make a profit.

So American pharmaceutical companies supply most of the western world with drugs at much lower costs that they do here in the US. They don’t, of course, do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it because governments in those countries mandate it. The drug companies could simply refuse to sell at the reduced prices but the effect of that would be for companies in those countries to manufacture them as generics and the American drug companies would lose much needed revenue.

A typical new drug therapy requires over fifteen years to develop. During that time there is a lot of money going on in the development process and no money coming in from the prospective drug. Additionally, there is no guarantee that any line of research will ultimately lead to a new drug. In fact, most do not. For every successful new drug therapy there are at least 20 lines of research that were dead ends. But the dead ends still cost as much to follow as the successes did.

On top of all that, and adding significantly to the cost, are FDA requirements to gain approval for a new drug. Years of clinical trials are required because we here in America are risk averse. There are some good arguments about the cost to millions of people for having to wait so long but that will have to wait for another column. Suffice it to say, the US government itself adds significantly to the cost of developing a new drug therapy. Every new drug that makes it to the market costs billions of dollars to develop along with far more prospective drugs that never made it. Pharmaceutical companies incur extremely high costs in developing new drugs. They also incur exception risk with every new drug. Everyone will recall recent law suits over prescription drugs that were vastly popular and very helpful to millions of Americans. Yet some of those drugs are no longer on the market because a tiny few suffered adverse reactions of complications to those drugs. The pharmaceutical companies have to defend against these law suits and that is a costly proposition.

Imagine that you have a business. You make widgets and it costs you X dollars to develop new varieties of widgets. If you want to remain profitable and stay in business you must charge a price greater than X dollars for those widgets. Otherwise, your costs will exceed your income and you will go bankrupt. Pharmaceutical companies are no different. Every new drug that goes to market must generate enough revenue to the company that developed it to cover the cost of developing that drug, as well as the costs of the dead ends and the costs of defending against law suits. If new drugs do not cover those costs, the pharmaceutical companies will not remain in business very long.

Back to our original question regarding drug companies in other countries. Why don’t they develop new drugs like US companies do? The answer is, they have no economic incentive to do so. In almost all other western countries price controls exist that prevent drug companies there from being able to recover the costs associated with research and development as well as litigation. As long as that is true the drug companies in those countries will not engage in those activities. Instead they will concentrate on manufacturing whatever generic drugs they are allowed to make.

It is easy to point to a particular drug and say it costs a certain amount to make it and drug companies should not be charging more than a certain percentage above that. It is easy but it is also lazy because it does not require looking at all the facts involved. When those facts are examined one is hard pressed to conclude anything except that American drug companies are a pretty good job. And they are doing that job under less than ideal circumstances.

So to the talk show host this morning I say, do a little research before you go shooting from the hip. While you may have plenty of people saying “yeah” when you point the finger, you are not helping the situation at all. Rather, you are making it worse by disseminating disinformation and flat out falsehoods.

For the reader interested in a nice treatment of this subject I highly recommend Thomas Sowell’s book, Applied Economics. You can find it on the reading page along with a number of other excellent books.

At its base level gas prices are the simple result of supply and demand.  World demand continues to rise, especially as China grows its economy, and the world supply of oil is not growing as fast.  Here in the US we have done virtually nothing to increase domestic production, preferring instead to place most new oil reserves out of reach.  From the Gulf of Mexico to ANWR the fed has said “hands off” to new drilling.

Then there’s refining capacity.  Because of excessive regulation we have added no new refining capacity in decades.  Even so, several times per year the fed forces even the capacity we have to shut down and change gasoline formulas, further impacting available gasoline supplies.  Typically this occurs at the beginning of peak driving seasons, just when demand increases.

The price we all pay for a gallon of gas is nothing more than the logical result of thirty plus years of US energy policy, or lack thereof.  It was entirely predictable and, in fact, has been predicted many times.  And yet demagogues act surprised and promise to find the culprits and make them pay.

On the demand side there is no end in site.  More cars hit the road every year.  Industry adds additional capacity demanding energy every year.  But in the end, it’s not US demand that is driving up world prices, it’s China and India.  Their economies are finally growing at double digit rates, thereby increasing their demand for energy at an astronomical rate.  World supply is not keeping up.

So now democrats promise lower prices.  How can they hope to do so?

In the long run there are things we can do.  Open ANWR, open offshore drilling and exploration.  Relax regulations.  Fast track new refinery applications.  All these will help in the long run.  The short run, however, is a different story.

Democrats have tried short term answers before.  The only real power government has is over the price of gas, not the cost of gas.  The cost is what it is and no legislation can change that.  It costs a certain amount to bring oil out of the ground, refine it into gasoline and other products, and transport that gas to the pumps.  While government can regulate what the oil companies can charge for a gallon of gas, they cannot regulate what it costs to produce.  So what happens when the cost to produce a gallon of gas exceeds the price the oil companies can charge?  The short answer is shortages.

Does anyone remember the late 70s?  Some parts of the country had excesses of gas while others had shortages.  The northeast saw rationing while the south did not.  Any short term policy the Democrats may come up with will result in the same things.  Prices create the incentive to bring product to the market that demands it.  Without the controlling influence of market prices, products simply do not flow to where they are needed.  This is true for housing, food, gas, even employees.  If it cannot be moved to where the demand exists at a profit, it will not be moved, regardless of how high the demand is.

So watch out for Democrat promises.  They will indeed take action should they regain control of Congress.  They will institute price controls and windfall profit taxes.  In the very short term that will lower prices in local markets.  But once local supplies diminish, there will be little incentive for oil companies to move product around.  Get ready for long gas lines, stations our of gas, and rationing.  2007 could be a very long year if Democrats gain control of Congress.