All farmers know

that it is easy in the spring

to predict a bumper crop.

And in the summer as the fields grow

to daydream about bounty.

But in the autumn when the crops come in,

the truth will be known.

For no matter what you hope or dream

“You can’t fake the harvest.”

This might be why farmers unlike politicians have mostly learned to keep their mouths shut.

The recent Secret Service scandal was discovered when a disagreement came to light about how much a Columbian prostitute wanted for her services.

She wanted $800.00.

The Secret Service agent offered $30.00.

How ironic is it that the only person in Washington willing to cut spending gets fired?

Thanks to Joe S. for noticing this.

Headline in the  5/14/12 WSJ:

“Brown Says More Cuts Needed”

Note to Governor Brown:

“You can’t save your way to prosperity.”

Instead ask yourself:

What Would Texas Do?

Americans spend $14 surfing for every $1 they spend on presidential elections.

Of course surfing is more fun and many would say more important.

But maybe if we spent more on elections the results would get better.

Sources:

According to Jim Messina, The campaign mananger for President Obama’s re-election: “All in all, the Republicans are ready to spend $1 billion — whatever it takes to defeat President Obama” from a fund raising email received on 4/28/2012.  So extrapolating both sides will spend $2 billion plus

According to Todd Woody in Forbes Magazine on May 7, 2012 surfing is a $7 billion industry:

So presidential elections cost $2 billion every four years and surfing costs $28 billion (4 years times $7 billion)

A 14 to one ratio.

Conclusion:  When one side or the other is complaining about the cost of elections it means that they are getting outspent because their target market would rather go surfing.

I received an email yesterday from “The Consumer Watchdog Campaign.”  They apparently want the government to impose price controls on health insurance in California.  I was curious how they got my name, since I am clearly not the target market, so I followed the link and found that they had used the voter registration records.

Source Information for your Email Address

Information

Optin Status:Opted InEmail Address:s*********w@m**.comEmail Type:not specified, defaulted to MIMEDate and time signed up:January 26, 2012 at 11:50:44 AM (PST)A description of how your email address was obtained:California Voter Registration Public Records

Political advocates and candidates have used lists of addresses compiled from the voter records for a long time but this was the first time that I have seen one where they used my email address.  Does the county registrar of voters have the right to do that?  What controls are in place.

It feels to me like a divide has been crossed.

According to the 2010 census of the 15 richest counties in America, ten are in the Washington DC area.  The money is flowing toward where favors can be bought.  Ten years ago only five of the richest fifteen were in the DC area.  This data point is further evidence that we are suffering from the mercantilism that Hernando De Soto warned about in his 1989 book The Other Path.  If you have to have permission to do things, creativity will be stymied and bureaucracy will grow.   The first objective of any bureaucracy is to feed itself, well.

The Tenth Amendment was written to keep this from happening.  It was gutted, by misapplication of the commerce clause, during the depression and the federal government has been growing exponentially ever since.  It’s time to right size the federal government.  Send education, healthcare and welfare back to the states where they belong.  Stop all federal grants of money for mandates.

The second paragraph above was just a rant.  My advise to young people: move to the DC area.  It is where the money is and I can’t see it changing very fast.  Remember you don’t make the weather.  Adapt and be happy.

The text of the tenth amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

President Obama said that if he loses in 2012 it could herald

“A New Era of Painful Self-Reliance”

I say: “Bring it on!”

A bit more self-reliance is exactly what we need.

It will only be painful to the bureaucrats who have less customers.

Here’s ABC News, reporting on the speech the president gave in Fog City: “At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.”

Link to the ABC story (so you can see I’m not making this up)

Note to Hilary Rosen:

A sincere apology never has a “but”!

(Rosen is the Democrat operative who foolishly said Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life”)

Q:  What do you get if you give a mindless bureaucracy a monopoly?

A:  The Federal Government.

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) –

a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing,and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.