Best (and Worst) of 2011

As 2011 closes, a summing up is a necessary compulsion for all commentators, just as the resolve to lose those 20 pounds. Last year, I limited my list to the best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, but this year, I thought I'd expand my list a bit beyond the literary.

• Best Nonfiction: Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne. There were several strong contenders in this category, including two great biographies of great American competitors: Endgame by Frank Brady, a masterful biography of the enigmatic Bobby Fischer and Wonder Girl by Don Van Patten, the captivating story about Babe Didrikson Zacharias, who may be America's greatest all time athlete. Empire of the Summer Moon, however, tops my list. It is about the Comanche tribe and the American West. It brings to life the difficulties of life on the frontier and the clash between the European settler and the warrior culture of the Comanche. The book dispels the mythical image of the Comanche as the "noble savage" and there are strong parallels between the Comanche and today's Islamic jihadists and the brutality of the conflict on the Plains.
  
  
• Best Fiction: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. This was the best of a weak field this year. Patchett's book was part mystery, part science fiction, part autobiography. The book centers on the journey of Marina Singh, a scientist that travels to the Amazon jungle to attempt to find the cause of the sudden death of her lab partner. She confronts an uncivilized local tribe, the hostility of the jungle and a rogue scientist along the way. Patchett is at her best describing the stifling, buggy and remoteness of the Amazon jungle.

• Best Album: 21 by Adele. Adele blows the field away. Her rich, soulful, strong voice reminds me of a refined, trained and modern version of Janice Joplin. This woman sings from the heart and her hit "Rolling in the Deep" may be the best work I've heard in years.
  
  
• Best Film: Okay, I admit that I don't go to as many films as I should. But of the films I did get to see, "Of Gods and Men" was clearly the best. The film is based on a true incident that occurred in Algeria in 1996 where Islamic militants murdered several Christian monks. In the film, the monks, leading a quiet, Christian life in which they tried to help the local Islamic community (but did not try to convert them). The movie raises important questions of what it means to lead a good Christian life, the extent of Christian courage, and the clash between jihadism and Christianity.

• Best News of the Year: In 2011, we had a trifecta. Three bad actors were removed from the world stage-- Osama bin Laden (by the U.S. Navy Seals), Mohamar Gaddafi (by his own people), and Kim Jong Il (by God). Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are still around but 2011 put a good dent in the bad guys' starting lineup.

• Worst News of the Year: Tough call. We had the Euro crisis and the bankruptcy of MF Global (led by super-Democrat Jon Corzine, who proved that he could do to shareholders what he did to the taxpayers of New Jersey. The Obama Administration served up the downgrade of the credit rating of the U.S., Solyndra and Fast and Furious along with the hasty retreat from Iraq. But my vote goes to the Penn State scandal, in which an administration, much like the Catholic Church, permitted young people to be violated in the most despicable way.

• Best of America: Steve Jobs. The announcement of his death brought a tear to my eye. Jobs was an American icon and embodies what is best about this country. A self made man. A maverick. An entrepreneur. A paradigm buster. A quirky guy that would have failed in a large company. He rewrote rules and turned industries upside down. He took products that didn't exist and made them an indispensable part of the landscape. Probably the most creative mind since Thomas Edison (whose lightbulbs the liberals are trying to ban, by the way).

• Worst of America: Occupy Wall Street. Sure, no one was happy about the fact that some people had their wealth unjustly protected in the financial collapse by the government bailouts. That was an unfortunate by-product of keeping us from bread lines. However, the OWS crowd-- that gross, unhygenic, gaggle of rabble rousers wanted more than that. Their demands basically amounted to a bunch of free stuff--- free education, free health care, free this, free that. One of America's most famous slogans, "Give me liberty or give me death," gave way to "Where's mine?" and, like their British counterparts earlier this summer, disrupted the lives and businesses of many small entrepreneurs and shop owners. On full display for all to see was the ugly reality that the term "economic justice" is code word for "government guaranteed middle class lifestyle."

For all that, the economy showed slow but steady signs of improvement, no major international crises broke out (other than the "Arab Spring" and that has yet to play itself out), and Barney Frank announced his retirement. In the end, on balance, 2011 wasn't all bad at all.

Nice Shot, Mr. President

This blog has been critical of President Obama's administration since its beginning. His wrongheaded handling of the economy has contributed to a European style high unemployment, no growth economy. His inverted approach in foreign policy has emboldened our enemies (see recent Iranian moves to put warships off our coast) and left our friends, particularly Israel, adrift. After castigating the Bush administration for its handling of the post invasion phase of Iraq, we are now left wondering where 20,000 surface to air missles went after our participation in the Libyan civil war.

But I give credit where credit is due. Despite hand wringing and caterwauling from quarters, we bagged another big one. Drones took out Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen and the person from whom the "underwear bomber" and the Fort Hood killer drew their inspiration. This blog congratulates this administration for persevering despite his putative status as an American citizen. The message now is clear, almost Bushian, "No matter what jersey you wear, no matter where you are, no matter how hardened you think your security circles are, we will find you and we will turn you into a little charred spot in the road if you plot or encourage others to kill our citizens."

Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Atiya Abd al-Rahman (al Qaeda #2 guy). No hesitation. No long legal process. No appeals. No media circus. Just a buzz in the sky and a smoking hole in the road.

Nicely done.

Musings

*The Left has been blasting Rick Perry's affinity for evangelical Christianity. But did you notice that a short time after announcing his candidacy, Washington, D.C. was hit by an earthquake, and a hurricane is now bearing down on the capital. I'd be fidgity if I saw locusts starting to gather. Fortunately, Obama has no first born sons to worry about.

*My liberal friends are gloating and giving each other high fives over the fall of Libya, which they assert is a vindication of the wisdom and judgment of President Obama. Would someone remind them of the dangers of unfurling the "Mission Accomplished" banner too soon? And, by the way, I haven't seen any kudos bestowed on George W. Bush, for paving the way by incenting Qaddafi to give up his nuclear weapons program.

*The Left has attacked Rick Perry's "treasonous" remark about Bernanke and his attendance at a public prayer revival. Fair enough. But they needed to be reminded that in addition to the downgrade of U.S. debt on his watch, job creation under Obama would have been downgraded from "miserable" to "catastrophic" without Rick Perry's Texas.

*Can someone tell me where those Green Jobs are?

*Am I the only one to see the irony in President Obama's charge that the Tea Party Congresspeople are "ideologically rigid?"

*Has anyone ever actually heard President Obama use the word "liberty" in a speech?

*The EPA has put forward new regulations that will effectively shut down 20% of the nation's electrical capacity within a couple of years. In the interest of debt reduction and fairness, maybe we could reciprocate by shutting down 20% of the EPA. That, by the way, would take us to about 2007 levels at that bureaucracy.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Happy birthday, Mr. President. Welcome to the 50 plus club.

You must be pleased. You have, in a very short period of time, made a great deal of progress toward achieving your transformational goals.

I admit that I underestimated you (and George Soros). When you first came to office, I was underwhelmed by your achievements. No legislative accomplishments. No academic accomplishments. No business accomplishments. Just the an exotic background and the ability to deliver a silky smooth speech. You made them oooh and aaaah.

But you took over the steering wheel during a crisis---the most formidable financial crisis in a couple of generations. America was arrogant, you said. You believed in American exceptionalism, you said.....just like everyone else believes in their country's exceptionalism. America couldn't go it alone anymore. It needed to "spread it around," you said. In other words, become more like Europe.

Happy birthday. You must be pleased. In 2 1/2 years, you've gotten us there. Yesterday, our financial standing was downgraded from our pristine AAA rating, largely as a result of your accelleration of spending from 20 to 25% of GDP. You waged a war (ignoring the War Powers Act) against a tin pot dictator--a war by committee with your European allies. "Leading from behind," I think your staff called it. Months later, the tin pot dictator is still in power and your committee doesn't know what to do next. How European. And you took THE signature project of America, the single crowning achievement that demonstrated that government could do something right, a source of pride of a couple generations- manned space flight--and killed it like one would step on a bug. Instead of exploring new vistas and creatively thinking of new goals for NASA, you made multiculturalism a part of NASA's mission. Celebrate the math and science achievements of Islam, you said (notwithstanding the fact that Islam hasn't given us much of note since algebra).

No, President Obama. I did not think that you were capable of accomplishing so much in such a short period of time. Destroy America's credit rating. Demostrate collective impotence in warmaking. Turn one of America's most successful projects into a bureaucratic department of multicultural excellence.

The country that put man on the moon, turned back Hitler, stood up to Communism, that beacon of freedom, rugged individualism, where if one worked hard, showed initiative and got a little lucky could get rich is disappearing on your watch.

You will, no doubt, blame the Tea Party. "Intransigent," "Unsophisticated," "Irresponsible," "Jihadist," "Hostage Takers," is what the folks in your party called them.

They had the audacity to try to stop this runaway train. Perhaps they're too late.

We're now right there with Belgium.

Hope you and George enjoyed your cake.

The Miracle of Capitalism

Five or six years ago, I remember reading an article mourning the death of letter writing. The gist of the article was that cell phones had made communication via the written word obsolete. Not only were we losing the skill of communicating through the written word, we were in danger of losing a precious historical record since most historians compile information through digging through archives of letters. This important method of connecting with the past was in danger of being lost as the spoken word replaced the written word.

The other significant change in our modern society over the past century has been our mobility. A Couple of generations ago, we would have stayed in the same town as our parents and grandparents. Today, families scatter quickly. While our willingness and ability to move enhanced our ability to make a living, it also had a serious drawback. We became disconnected from family and friends. We became more urbanized and more alienated. The fictitious town of Mayberry still pulls at our emotions because most of us feel at least somewhat nostalgic for a time and place where we lived in a community in which people were close and knew each other for a long time. In our urban, fast-paced lives, we lack the comfort, stability and support that predictable relationships bring. Moreover, many of us are disconnected from our families that are often spread out over the country and sometimes over the globe. There is a basic human need to share old stories, and follow the progression of the people that have known us our entire lives. Many a Phd thesis has been written on this trend.

Enter social media (along with email, text messaging and Skype). In less than a decade, the information age has transformed our society and helped to assuage this longing in us. Facebook in particular has become a primary vehicle for meeting this basic human need. While Facebook has had its controvercies and its detractors, I believe that on balance, it has been a very positive force. Started as a social networking site at Harvard and then the entire Ivy League, Facebook has exploded from a site used primarily by high school and college kids to the population at large. I can attest that Facebook has enriched my life immeasurably.

I warily signed on about a year and a half ago, and pretty soon I was "friended" by family members (that has its own set of issues), old college friends, high school friends and, more recently, even grammar school friends. Some people post quite voluminously. Others are more sparing, but I enjoy quick little updates from these people. It has been fun to catch up on how my old friends have progressed in their careers, raised their kids and muddle through life. It's fun to get updates on the athletic careers of my niece and nephews, and hear about the latest setback from my friend that operates a small farm in the South.

One of the true joys of using Facebook in middle age is reconnecting with people that you hadn't thought about in years. One thing that became apparent quickly is that I really didn't appreciate some of these people as much as I do now. I don't know if it's because in my early contact their personalities were not fully formed or whether I was just not paying close enough attention. But it has become clear to me that I have come across some pretty remarkable people along the way. Facebook gives you a second shot to get to know them a little better.

About a year ago, I and several of my teammates organized a reunion of our college football team. In the 30 years since we played together, this formerly close-knit bunch had scattered into the wind. By using Facebook in addition to our own networking, we were able to track down all but a few people and organized a once in a lifetime event. We had people come in from all over the country (one even flew in from Indonesia) to eat, drink and tell old war stories with old teammates. It was pretty astonishing to see people pick up right where they left off 30 years ago. As a result, we are all in touch with each other more frequently now, get updates periodically and little groups of us occassionally get together for a lunch, a beer, or a ballgame. This all was facilitated in part by the advent of Facebook.

Recently, I reconnected with some classmates from my old Catholic grammar school, and they provided me with a stark reminder of why I remain highly ambivalent about Catholicism. Yes, all those stories about the harsh nuns with their rulers, paddles and wagging fingers were true and not exaggerated. Still, it was great fun to trade memories with people I had not seen in nearly 40 years, and hear about how they ended up. I was suprised by the number of people that connected with me that knew me when I was young and did stupid things, yet wanted to correspond with me anyway. Human beings have a great capacity for forgiveness and acceptance.

Of course membership in Facebook needs to be managed. It does have its annoyances. Some can't help but vomit their political views on a regular basis (I save that for my blog). I sometimes get requests to be "friended" by people I don't remember (or who I do not care to remember). Others use it solely as a worship wall for their children (o.k., I've been guilty of some of that, too). One woman even reminded me that I proposed to her when we were in 1st grade (she has no clue how luckey she got by turning me down). But on the whole, the influence of Facebook has been a hugely positive.

These connections have also nudged me to correspond with more people. I have several friends now that I exchange emails with on a regular basis. I have spoken with many people that do the same thing. So it seems that the art of letter writing has been reborn, albeit electronically in lieu of pen, ink, and the U.S. Postal Service. Query whether historians will be able to access these messages centuries from now so they can tell the story of what our society was like.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is said to be worth $13.5 billion (at age 27) and is in the top 100 billionaires in the world. He deserves to be. He is emblematic of the miracle of capitalism. He found a powerful human need.....the need to connect and be part of a community, and found a way to fill that need for millions of people at a reasonable price (essentially free). No government program brought this to us. No cabinet czar came up with the idea. No blue ribbon panel was involved in it. Just a kid in his dorm room. It's what capitalism is all about. It's certainly made my life richer.

He Really Did Say That

In a stunning statement in front of the House Small Business Committee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that taxes must be raised on small business so that "government would not have to shrink," and that ultimately such taxes would be good for growth. He held fast to this assertion even when confronted with the fact that small business creates most of the jobs in this country.


Any wonder why unemployment is still above 9% after two years of stimulus and Obamanomics.


I work with small businesses. I see their struggles up close and personal. In Illinois, they have been punished enough already. Over the past 4 years, small businesses have been savaged by recession, tough credit markets, and an explosion in the regulatory environment. Illinois, unlike New Jersey, chose not to ask for any sacrifice from its public sector unions that have a stranglehold on Illinois politicians, and, instead raised business and individual income taxes instead. Obamacare imposed new costs on businesses and promises even more costs and regulations. One CFO I spoke to told me, "We need a new plant, which I would expect would employ 250 people. But I'm just not going to do it yet. Not until the landscape changes."


And yet Geithner wants even more. After a 25% increase in government spending under the guise of stimulus (read "permanent growth"), he proposes to transfer yet more wealth from the private sector to the public sector, or else GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS WILL HAVE TO SHRINK.


Imagine that. Imagine a world with a smaller Department of Education, Department of Energy, or, even worse, a smaller EPA. All of these departments were granted whopping increases which set their baseline budgets even higher. Can anyone tell me succinctly what any of those departments will accomplish with any of those increases?


I can tell you what some of the businesses I work with will be able to do with those dollars if government doesn't confiscate them...... hire people, invest in new projects and new technologies, make promising acquisitions. In short, engage in those activities that create real wealth. Or simply retain an additional capital cushion so they won't have to go hat in hand to the bank.

The small businesses owners that have survived this tsunami have done so by making hard and sometimes painful decisions. And Mr. Geithner has determined that big government has better plans for those resources than they do.

Explain to me how that will be good for growth again, Mr. Geithner.

Bag Police

Evanston ("the city that cares too much") is in the middle of a burning controversy. The Eco-fascists are all in a tizzy over whether to tax or ban disposable grocery bags.

Now, you may remember that Evanston's unofficial motto came from a Chicago Tribune article about Evanston's treatment of the homeless. It appears that no other city in America was so welcoming to the homeless. The town of Evanston had more shelters and soup kitchens per capita and offered more generous benefits to the homeless than any other city in America. Pretty soon, word filtered out nationwide and within a fairly short period of time, indigents from all over the country were flocking to Evanston in defiance of Milton Friedman's admonition that there was no such thing as a free lunch. It seems that Evanston had created its own demand for goods and services for the homelessness, and it has become quite a little cottage industry in that town.

Well, the good, responsible folks in Evanston are at it again. I assumed that if we dutifully put our plastic and paper bags, glass bottles and used newspapers in the recycling bin, and wheeled it out to the curbside and paid the special fee for the recycling guy to pick it up, we would satisfied our responsible green duty. Apparently, this is not good enough for Evanstonians. Evanstonians want to ban disposable bag entirely or, at minimum, punish users by taxing them.

No one has really put forward an estimate of the magnitude of the problem. No data has been put forward to demonstrate that we are gagging on disposable bags. Nor has anyone quantified how many people are actually likely to comply and stuff dozens of little canvas bag in their trunks in the event of a spontaneous grocery trip. I suspect that there are a vast quantity of males in Evanston that are just like me, and, rather than displacing their golf bags in their trunks with eco-friendly canvas shopping bags, they will trundle up the road to Wilmette to do their shopping, thus increasing their carbon emissions, negating all the eco-benefits of this measure. In addition, if even 10% of Evanstonians pick up and shop elsewhere, this will represent a material decline in sales for most merchants, and that doesn't even take into account folks like me that don't live there but stop to pick up groceries when I pass through. And this says nothing about the job loss to the companies that supply paper and plastic bags, and the companies that supply things to the companies that supply things to companies that make paper and plastic bags.

But none of this matters to the liberal mind. They know what is good for all of us. Inconvenience, cost, job loss, and unintended consequences matter not to them (see, e.g. our policy on Ethanol). If disposable bags are banned, we don't even know what the real benefit will be, other than the liberals in Evanston will have satisfied themselves that they are being ecologically responsible, at least in their own minds.

None of this is to suggest that all environmental regulation is nonsense. But it needs to be sensible, and be supported by real cost/benefit analysis, with a real eye on unitended consequences. Moreover, regulations need to be reviewed periodically to determine whether the premises underlying the original analysis still holds. The eco-facsists conveniently overlook all of this and simply want to impose their will and take lifestyle choices away from us. Lightbulbs, toilet tanks, microwaves, grocery bags... no product choice is too small for them to demand a say over, and no measure of impracticality can dissuade them.

And, by the way, what in the world will liberal Cub fans be placing over their heads at Wrigley Field by the end of the season?

Lunch Police

Coming on the heels of the friendly folks at the EPA abolishing the old Thomas Edison invented lighbulb and foisting the retrofitting costs on small business, we now face the lunch police. It turns out that many Chicago Public Schools have banned the old brown bag lunch from their schools. Parents no longer can be trusted to plan meals for their kids. Worse, we are told, some kids even use some of their allowance to surreptitiously purchase junk food like chips and candy bars and slip them in their lunches. Government has determined that parents are just too dumb or uninformed to make decisions for their children, and are largely ineffective at policing the nutrition of their kids, so parents now have no choice in the matter. At many public schools, children are required to eat meals provided by the school cafeteria. No matter that the children often complain that those meals are tasteless (and provided by a major contributor to the Democratic Party). Nope. Big brother has taken yet another decision away from the family. Lightbulbs, toilet tanks, microwaves, cars, and now school lunches. Day by day, bit by bit, decisions are taken out of our hands and placed in the hands of some administrator at the EPA, school board or Department of Energy.

I often eat at my desk, and sometimes I brown bag. Tomorrow, I plan to tuck two Twinkies in my lunch as my own quiet act of defiance.

Lightbulb Police

The lightbulb police came to visit my wife's office last week. She was informed that the EPA had banned the manufacture of certain lightbulbs and that she would be required not only to purchase new "Al Gore" approved lightbulbs, but that all the fixtures in her office would have to be retrofitted to accommodate the new bulbs. Total cost to her business of several thousand dollars. In addition to the city and state grabbing for more, the Obama administration pushing for more, now the lightbulb police get into the act. Light bulbs, microwaves, toilet tanks used to be designed by industrial designers. Not any more. Today, the specifications for those and other items are written by some "green" bureaucrat in Washington, who then turns around and hands the bill to us. We used to have choices in many products, weighing price, functionality, and design. Today, the bureaucrats have decided that those features must take a back seat to "green" conformity. You see, she had other ideas about how to spend that money--raises for her loyal, hardworking employees, a new computer, maybe stash some more away for retirement. But no, some pointy headed bureaucrat had other ideas. This is exactly the kind of thing that continues to weigh on our economy. At a time when small businesses continue to strain and struggle, the bureaucracy continues to pile more bricks on the load, without any thought whatsover as to the costs they are imposing. Germany's unemployment rate is 7.1%. Did you ever think you'd see the day when we would envy Germany's unemployment rate? Are you beginning to see how that happened?

Just a Couple Questions, Mr. President

Now that the Nobel Peace Prize winning president has started his first pre-emptive strike or "kinetic military action," I'd like to pose a few questions. What is the goal in this rush to war? Is it regime change? But regime change is not within the scope of the UN resolution. If it is humanitarian, then why here and not Sudan or Yemen? Will you do the same if unrest erupts in Saudi Arabia and the royal family cracks down? Why was congress not consulted or congressional authorization sought? Is that not necessary because the French OK'd the operation? If Gadaffi is taken down, is there a post-Gadaffi plan or have we not learned anything from Iraq? Don't we risk creating chaos and a vacuum that will be a magnet for Al Qaeda? If Gadaffi stays, aren't we risking more retributive terrorist attacks? So aren't we making America less safe no matter what- if he stays (attacks from Gadaffi who has done it before) or if he goes (safe stays (safe haven for Al Qaeda). When Saddam brutalized his own people, Mr. Obama said that wasn't sufficient cause to use military power because there was no imminent threat. Where is the imminent threat from Libya? Aren't you diverting precious and stretched military resources from two fronts that are already tired? Are you worried that your Muslim outreach program will be upset now that you have pre-emptively attacked another Muslim country that posed no imminent threat to the U.S.? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Finally, did you get around to sending a thank you note to cowboy President Bush for inducing Libya to give up its nuclear program? Bet you're glad that happened.

Teen Rage

Sometimes your kids say things that astonish you. Last week, when my 17 year old daughter came downstairs raging, "I don't need a nanny," I automatically assumed that my wife was trying to put some order to her room. But it was none of the sort. It turns out that there someone had introduced legislation to ban anyone under 18 from tanning salons, even with parental consent. My daughter was just furious. She has mild acne on her shoulders that is helped a great deal by a 10 minute visit once or twice a week to the local tanning salon. "This is a decision that should be made by me and my parents," she asserted.

Without any coaching from me whatsoever, she looked up our state senator and representative and sent them both emails. In her correspondence, she explained her condition and explained how helpful tanning was to her and how it helped her feel good about herself. She further explained that Obamacare had leveled a 10% tax on salons already and that 15-20% of tanning salon patrons are under 18. Banning them from salons on top of the tax would put many of these small business out of business and kill jobs. Further, she said that there would be a ripple effect because other companies sell them lotions, towels, tanning beds and other supplies.

She argued that in Illinois, with parental consent, is legally entitled to get a tattoo, a piercing, and, under current law, she can even have an abortion. Why should she be denied the ability to get a tan. Finally, she said she had looked on line and for $300 or $400, she could buy a tanning bed, so she could put herself out of reach of the regulation. She finished by stating that she felt that legislators had more important work to do than insert themselves in a decision that rightfully belonged to her and her parents.

She did this all without any prodding or coaching for me. I was pleased that she advocated for herself, and that she was able to understand and explain (without a single course in economics) the harmful effects of wrongheaded regulation. She understood that the consequences of overreaching regulation include job losses and unnecessary destruction to entire industries.

The bill never made it to the floor.

There is hope for the future.

Goin' Euro

I'm not sure that the Republicans should do too much gloating just yet after the resounding victory in November. President Obama promised that he would drag us to a more European model of society, and so far the evidence suggests that he has been remarkably successful. The Euromodel is marked by permanent high unemployment, slow growth, a pusillanimous foreign policy (especially in the face of ruthless dictators), a lack of initiative and a permanent entitlement class consisting of both government workers being paid above market wages and people that don't work at all. But the most salient symptom of goin' Euro is that you develop a penchant for making economic and foreign policy decisions by committee.

We're there.

Government spending is now 25% of GDP, up from about 18% in the Reagan years (and streaking toward 27%). Unemployment is still above 9%, making this the most anemic recovery in terms of job growth in history. Despite the 900 billion dollar stimulus, private sector employment has barely budged. Almost half of our taxpayers don't pay income taxes at all. Despite Bill Clinton's assertion that "the era of big government is over," what we hear from Washington is the old Carpenters' tune, "We've only just begun."

But unlike the federal government, state governments can't just hand the bill to the next generation or print money. They actually have to balance their budgets. To do that on a permanent basis will require a restructuring of the cozy little relationship between the unions and their Democratic benefactors that has existed for decades. Unlike the private sector, there is no incentive to reduce costs or need to show a profit, so all that needed to occur was to keep feeding the unions and the only brake was a bond default or taxpayer revolt. Well, the taxpayers have revolted and Wisconsin is beginning to look like France and Greece when those governments tried to impose a little fiscal discipline.

The other indicia of going Euro is the drive toward decision by committee. And under Democratic rule, governing by committee is blossoming. Dodd-Frank and Obamacare has established scores of these things--- little cabals of pointy headed Ivy League graduates deciding how much banks may charge for overdrafts, what kind of rules there will be for buying and selling derivatives, what my health insurance must cover, and on and on. We now have new rules for the energy output of microwave ovens and the old toy, the Easy Bake Oven will soon be illegal.

Our foreign policy is even out Euroing the Europeans. You know it's pretty bad when France shows a stiff spine than we do. The fall of Mubaruk elicited tepid and guarded comments from the administration, carefully crafted in bureaucratese. And as Ghaddafi strafes and murders his own people, we implore him to "show restraint," write harshly worded letters through the U.N. and impose sactions. That'll show him. I'm sure Ghaddafi is trembling now. We are faced with the most momentus change since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with an opportunity (albeit with some risks) to advance the cause of liberty, and Mr. Obama is more or less M.I.A. I suppose he's used his quota of tough talk on Governer Walker. Last I checked, Libya was still on the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

So, before Republicans get too big for their britches, the evidence is that we're still being pushed into the European model--permanent high unemployment, slow growth, entitled classes, lots of committtees telling us how to live, and a timid foreign policy. Oh, and GDP came in at 2.8% last quarter, remarkably low for a post-recession recovery. How do I fill out the application for the EU?

Cheeseheads!

It was bad enough that we had to suffer through a Packer win in the Super Bowl. But now, the Cheeseheads are acting like, well, Europeans. Did you expect less from those Socialist Swedes across the boarder from us in Illinois? So far, at least, they've left the Molotov Cocktails at home, unlike their brothers-in-arms in Athens. But just weeks after conservatives got a finger wagging lecture about vitriol and civil discourse, Wisconsin workers stormed their capitol over the outrageous prospect of having to chip in a little for their health care and pension benefits. What oppression!

Private sector workers have been ravaged by this most brutal recession, while the public sector has, for the most part, been relatively insulated. Companies I work with have struggled to make payroll, trimmed certain benefits to keep the doors open, and strained to make their budgets, for if they fail, their lenders will shut them down or force them to be sold. Their public sector counterparts until now faced no such pressure.

In Illinois, of course, we dealt with the collapse of tax revenues by raising taxes, cutting programs for the poor, slashing higher education, and borrowing money. You notice that there were no protests here. Who cares if the elderly do without and young kids get their tuition jacked up at U of I? We have union benefits to protect.

This is not a simple management/worker dispute. This is conflict of interest problem. In the private sector, the tension is between ownership and labor. Every dollar not spent on labor can either be a dollar reinvested in the business or returned to the shareholders. It's a classic tug-of-war. It is management's goal to constantly reduce costs to remain competitive, and labor is merely an input cost. Unfortunately for workers, labor does not get a say in who owns the enterprise.

The public sector presents a much different picture. In the public sector, both both sides are on the same side of this devil's bargain. Labor bargains for ever fatter bundles of pay and benefits and full employment, and in exchange, they promise their bosses their votes. There is no pressure to reduce costs. Their managers, the politicians, are more than happy to cave in to labor's demands. Unlike private sector bargaining where management and the shareholders feel the pain of a bad bargain, in the public sector, politicians don't get stuck with the bill. The taxpayers do.

That symbiotically parasitic relationship worked for decades. But now, the states and the federal government are broke and we are pushing back. The tea party protests of last summer were just the beginning. Workers in the private sector will not stand for a society where their home equity has vanished, their 401(k)'s have been decimated, and higher and higher taxes are being demanded of them so their public sector brethren can retire at age 55 with little or no out- of -pocket costs for their benefits. That is just slavery.

The petulant children that now occupy the Wisconsin capitol and their silly Democratic benefactors that fled the state need a healthy dose of reality. All in, these workers are generally paid above market wages and benefits for the skill level that they bring. Almost every company I have worked with over the past 3 years has had to do more with less.

Unions served a useful function in many industries. In coal and transportation, they ensured vital safety standards. They have provided a measure of protection against capricious treatment. But in the public sector, they have bankrupted us. They have manipulated a wealth transfer of monumental proportion and feathered their own nests by promising to deliver the vote to politicians.

Game's up. It's time to get you acquainted with reality. Elections do indeed have consequences.

Happy Birthday, Gipper!

My wife and I attended a 100th birthday party for Ronald Reagan last weekend. Our neighbor's living room was appropriately decorated with a life size cutout of the Gipper, the coffee tables had bowls of jellybeans on them, the big screen TV played Reagan's greatest hits, such as the "tear down this wall" speech, the "evil empire" speech and the comfort he gave to a mourning nation after the Challenger accident when he poetically spoke about the astronauts that "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

We debated about his greatest accomplishments. Was it the steady pressure put on the Soviet Union and the leadership with reluctant European partners that caused the U.S.S.R. to buckle? Was it the political air cover given to Paul Volker, breaking the insidious back of inflation? Was it lowering confiscatory tax rates setting off a multiyear economic boom and twenty year bull market? Was it putting the brakes on suffocating government growth and regulation? It was all of those things and more.

But what made Reagan truly great was his humility and his desire to push power away from himself and Washington to individuals and the states. He understood that government that governs best governs least and governs locally. It wasn't simply his communication skills that made him so popular; it was that what he communicated was in synch with the American psyche.

So it was almost obscene that liberal pundits recently referred to President Obama's State of the Union speech as "Reaganesque." Please. Obama is the anti-Reagan.

He has effectively undone welfare reform with extended unemployment benefits.

He has slashed funding for missile defense that Reagan refused to conced to Gorbachev and handed the Russians veto power over its deployment.

In contrast the the "Shining City on a Hill" narrative of Reagan, Obama has spent much of his first two years trotting around the world apologizing for the U.S.

He engineered a government takeover of 1/6 of the U.S. economy, while Reagan championed the private sector.

He has attacked state sovereignty by suing Arizona over immigration and Texas over environmental regulation. Reagan fought to devolve power to the states.

Reagan took a stand against public sector unions by firing the air traffic controllers. The Obama administration has coddled, fed and growth them.

Reagan had close, personal relationships with the leaders of our Western partners, especially with Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher. Obama has no such close relationships and has overtly given Great Britain and Israel the back of the hand. And at the same time, he has attempted to reach out to our greatest enemy, radical Islam. His attorney general cannot even utter the term.

Reagan understood that government isn't the solution to our problems; it IS the problem. For Obama, there isn't an area of life that is off limits to the government.

Reagan courageously stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and, even in defiance of this own state department implored Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Two summers ago when Iranian citizens took to the streets in defiance of the Islamic thugocracy, Obama stood in silence.

No wonder that a group of us gathered together last weekend and felt nostalgic. Obama is as far away from being Reaganesque as I am from playing in the NBA.

The Death of the Bookstore

On nice summer days, I sometimes like to drive by Wagner Farm in Glenview, an operating farm run by the Glenview Park District. Amidst the stress and frenzy of adult life in a suburb of a modern American metropolitan center, I love having an opportunity to take a short break and retreat into another time and another place. There is something about seeing cows lazily chewing their cud, hearing the birds chatter, and seeing the red barn and white fence that brings me a measure of serenity. Farm life has mostly been relegated to the margin of our society. Our modern economy has developed so that agriculture is removed from most of our lives. We've gotten very efficient at it, few of us are employed in it, and the loss of that experience is part of the "creative destruction" inherent in the march of capitalism. Still, it's hard not to feel wistful for the sights and sounds and smells of a farm. There's something about it that is good for the soul.

Recently, there has been commentary on the decline and eventual demise of the bookstore (see becker-posner-blog.com post of 1/9/11). I tend to agree with Messrs. Becker and Posner that the days of the bookstore are most likely numbered. Amazon, the Kindle and other e-readers will eventually make this distribution channel of reading material obsolete. Bookstores, particularly the large chains like Borders, are simply a too expensive and inefficient delivery system that is being overtaken by technology. In my view, it is only a matter of time before Borders has a date in bankruptcy court, and it will eventually liquidate.

For a bibliophile like me, this represents an abrupt and dramatic change of life. One of my most prized possessions is my library and I have it stacked almost to capacity with volumes and volumes, from Winston Churchill's multivolume History of the Second World War to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to my collection of roughly 70 boxed editions from the Library of America. I love my books. I love the way they look on the shelves. I love cracking the binding of a new volume. I even love the smell of musty old volumes. And now the "creative destruction" of capitalism is threatening to take that away.

I have jumped on the bandwagon, though. I have been a regular customer of Amazon.com. I have a Kindle and I like it fine. The books are cheaper and it is convenient to download books instantly. I do find it antiseptic, though, and it is just not the same experience starting a new book on my Kindle as it is opening a new volume. Still, even an old traditionalist like me has embraced new literary technologies.

I will miss Borders and other bookstores when they. Browsing around a bookstore is one of my favorite ways to kill time. While bookstores cannot compete with the search engines on a Kindle or Amazon.com, I have often found great reads just because something caught my eye on a shelf. I hope some of the independent bookstores will survive, at least for awhile. Stores like The Book Stall in Winnetka have a chance to survive for awhile, I think. They bring authors in for book signings and their staff is excellent. They have a loyal customer base and have woven themselves into the community. Still, for all their advantages, the economics are not with them and they are also realistically on the endangered species list.

My best guess is that bookstores will soon be like the family farm. There won't be many left, and, just like the Wagner Farm, when you stumble across one, you will stop for a bit, sigh, and feel wave of nostalgia wash over you.

The Real Issue

It took my 17 year old daughter to clarify the issue, "This wasn't a political issue, it was a mental health issue." Spot on, kid. She went on to tell me how terrible she felt that there were those in the media that were referring to Jared Loughner as a "monster," and a "psychopath,"and there were some pundits that actually went as far as blaming his parents. "How do you think his parents feel?" she asked. "What he did was horrible, but it's clear that he was mentally ill."

The left has gotten the issue precisely wrong. They are busy blaming political rhetoric for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and wounding 12 others and killing 6. My email inbox is already full of messages advocating stricter gun laws and toning down political rhetoric (of course, mostly aimed at Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and folks of that ilk. The truth is that no amount of partisan restraint had anything to do with this. While pointing fingers at Sarah Palin, liberals missed a huge opportunity to raise a relevant and important social issue--- the treatment and care of the mentally ill. Since Ronald Reagan took office, government funding for research and treatment has been slashed. While they are busy protecting the wages and benefits of their constituents in the SEIU, those that truly need assistance aren't getting it. Prisons release inmates with inadequate treatment and follow up programs, virtually ensuring a return trip. Once an individual reaches adulthood and is out of the care of his or her parents, a mentally ill person has a very thin safety net. With state budgets in the shape that they are in, financing the care for the mentally ill will likely not increase anytime soon.

Fortunately, there are advocacy groups and one of the best is the National Alliance on Mental Illness (http://www.nami.org/). I urge you to donate to this fine organization. It does great work and has done much to assist families and remove the stigma from mental illness, along with advocating for the mentally ill with government on the state and federal levels.

As a conservative, I generally advocate limiting government's involvement in our lives. But the battleground (can I use this word in our new era of civil discourse?) between conservatives and liberals is often discerning between the "can'ts" and the "won'ts" and holding accountable individuals that are appropriately to be held accountable. I do accept the notion that government does have a role in caring for some that cannot care for themselves. There is no group that has been so overlooked as the mentally ill. And it is very unfortunate that liberals were so quick to push their partisan views. They missed the real issue entirely.

Please make a donation to NAMI. This group is on the right track and it is worthy of your support.

Finger Pointing

The tragic shooting this weekend of Gabrielle Giffords and several other people this weekend reminds us of how vulnerable we are. It's just not that difficult for a psychopath to do a tremendous amount of damage, and it wasn't lost on me that we just commemorated the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in a similar fashion. The shooting was heinous and deplorable. Fortunately, as open as our society is, and as protective of 2nd Amendment rights as we are, these events are relatively rare, and assaults on political figures are rarer still. We had the shooting of George Moscone and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan some years back, but there have been no noteworthy assassinations or attempts in the last 20 years.

Yet, on the front page of Sunday's New York Times, without one whit of evidence that this act was anything other than a rogue sociopath, the left has started the blame game, fingering the vitriol of American politics, Sarah Palin (mostly for her imagery of "targeted" districts), and some of the excesses of a handful of Tea Party members. The town meetings last summer were heated, they argue. The rhetoric was inflamed. The politics was bitter and partisan, and overboard and it leads to incited incidents like this, claims the left.

Nonsense, I say. The opposite is true. True, American politics is a rough and tumble business at times. We argue constantly. We do it in town meetings at every level. We spout our views in newspapers. We do it on TV. We do it on the radio. We podcast it. We do it on Youtube. We email dissenting views. And then we vote on people that most closely represent our views. That is what we do, and have done for a couple of centuries. Does our rhetoric get heated? You bet. But check your history books and look at political cartoons from 150-200 years ago. We have more media outlets today, but the politics was pretty rough then, too.

Since Obama came to office, this administration has expanded the reach and scope of the Federal government beyond anything that we have every experienced. It has expanded its spending as a percentage of GDP beyond its historical norms. It is using the power of government to force people to enter into contracts with private parties approved by the government. It is telling us what kind of cars we can drive and what kind of light bulbs that can light our homes. It is now writing regulations for how large our microwaves can be and scheming of ways to limit our "carbon footprint." The White House website urged people to report "fishy" activities in opposing Obamacare and his director of Health and Human Services warned that "disinformation would not be tolerated." Obama publicly lectured the Supreme Court for its ruling upholding 1st Amendment rights for corporations in the Citizens United case and openly threatened to pass legislation to overturn this ruling. This is an administration that has worked overtime to quell opposition.

Yet, the opposition showed up at town hall meeting and showed up at the ballot box in a big way in November. The energy of the Tea Party movement was an important ingredient of the turnover in Congress last November. At its core, we will be in a heated debate for the forseeable future about how much government is appropriate and necessary and there is a large contingent, likely a majority that believe that what Obama and his crowd have in mind for us is much too much. And we will continue to say it and say it loudly.

I am truly sorry for Gifford's family and the families of the other victims. The perpetrator should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and it is after incidents like this that I call into question my opposition to the death penalty.

But we should not bend to the left's argument that this incident means that we should shut up, and go quietly into the night while government continues its relentless path toward expanding its scope and reach and abrogation of individual and state sovereignty. I firmly believe that it is precisely because we have these free and open exchanges that political violence is so rare here.