More Truth About Fascism

American Thinker -- Obama's Fascist Economy

Steven McCann writes:
 

The term "fascism" has been redefined by the horrendous acts of Mussolini and Hitler, actions spurred by their megalomania and nationalism.  However, the economic philosophy that is fascism is alive and well and being pursued in the United States by those whose desire it is to control the people of the country and reinforce their domestic power base, not to conquer the world.  Yet the pursuit of the same tenets that motivated Franklin Roosevelt has prolonged and exacerbated the current economic disaster facing the United States.

However, as with FDR, chances are that it will not succeed in America, with its history of individualism and entrepreneurship -- but only if the current citizenry recognizes what is the Obama end-game.  It is time to call what is being pursued by Barack Obama what it is: fascism.

Free Markets versus Fascism

Back in the 90's, I worked for a financial services company.  I was involved mainly in supplying data to the credit card division, including marketing, accounting, and risk management.  Marketing had different criteria than the risk management group.  They looked for people who were a little lower in the FICO score range -- risky people who could just barely afford a credit card, people who would leave a balance on their cards over a period of months, perhaps run up to the limit of their cards, and pay late from time to time.  Overlimit and late fees, in addition to interest charges, are gravy for a credit card company.  As long as people try to pay, try to catch up, and try to maintain their credit scores, the company makes money.  Those who were behind would be turned over to our in-house collections department where collectors were given bonuses for being "bad guys".  Walking through the collections area, I would see Federal Express Overnight envelopes pinned to cubical walls as badges of honor.  The collector had intimidated someone into overnighting a payment to save his credit.

The collectors were all nice folks in person, at least the ones I knew.  One of them gave me a frame for my then-new granddaughter's picture because I had helped out with something or other.  They were only bad guys when collecting.  When the collectors had extracted all they could, an account would be "charged off".  The account would be closed, the amount would be zeroed, and the "loss" reported to the credit bureaus.  In truth, the losses on these low-limit accounts --  $500 to $1000 -- were often less than had been taken in by fees and interest.

The company certainly had a right to do what they did.  They were taking a risk by loaning the money at all.  The loans enabled many people to buy things they needed or thought they needed to improve their lives.  Our risk management people held the line on issuing cards to really poor risks.  They used to joke that, were it not for risk management, marketing would be mailing out cash in envelopes -- which is way too close to the truth.  In fact that is not too different from what banks were doing by making real estates loans to people who could not afford to buy or maintain a house.  By doing away with down payment minimums and/or allowing people to borrow down payment money, the banks dived into the deepest end of the risk pool, dropping below the established score limits to reach the people who would pay higher interest rates and penalties.  The difference was that the government, through its federal loan agencies, was willing make guarantees for these riskier borrowers.

Lending and borrowing is part of the free market system.  The system can seem rather cold-hearted, but it is always governed by something most of us can understand, that is, profit.  Its purpose is neither cruel nor kind; it seeks merely to make money.  People live off the profits of financial institutions just as they do off of other businesses.  Businesses that do not make money also do not have employees.  While I am not much of a supporter of so-called "consumer loans", as long as the lender is risking his own capital, it is his business.  When, however, we start throwing words like "compassion" and "fairness" into the system, it is easy to throw the market out of balance.  No longer is risk being assessed purely in terms of arithmetic but politics is tossed onto the scale.  Lenders are encouraged to increase their exposure because of government regulatory pressure.  The stick might push a donkey near the edge of the cliff but not over.  To do that, the government must offer a positive incentive -- to underwrite the risk so that the lender's exposure to loss is decreased. This gives us a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences. 

It is not the free market that has caused our current financial crisis, but this socialist, one might even say, fascist relationship between government and business, and in particular between financial institutions and the federal government.  Do you think calling the system fascist is going too far?  Take a look at Wikipedia's definition..  Consider this excerpt:

Fascist economics supports the existence of private property, the existence of a market and the use of the profit motive, however state directed, as they reject laissez-faire.

Taxpayer money and government debt has been used to bolster the economy since the mid-1980's.  The federal government pumped money into the real estate market through these unwise loan programs and created an unnatural bubble in housing prices by creating an unsustainable demand.  We are not going to solve a problem created by too much government intervention with more government intervention.  The same is true with health care and insurance.  Government intervention via Medicare and Medicaid has fueled the rise in health care costs.  The system is going broke.  The solution is not to make it still bigger.

The time has come to take the hit, go into a deflationary depression, and get the government entirely out of the market aside from minimal referee/regulatory role to make sure that everyone plays openly and with the same set of rules.  Unfortunately, that medicine is too bitter for the politicians and the parasite class to swallow.

A Meditation on Hunting

Nimrod, posted over on the Jungle.  For those who might be interested, I riff a little on what might be called the spiritual aspects of the chase.

Stopping Power and the .25 ACP

I have been thinking about the Ellifritz stopping power study already mentioned and linked here.

I thought it might be interesting to consider each caliber or category individually and do some basic rambling.  First, though, we recall that Ellifritz differentiated between the “one-shot stop” percentage and the “actually incapacitated by one shot” to the head or torso.  Let’s figure out what that means.  Quoting Ellifritz:

One shot stop percentage - number of incapacitations divided by the number of hits the person took. Like Marshall's number, I only included hits to the torso or head in this number. 

VERSUS

Percentage of people who were immediately stopped with one hit to the head or torso.

In the second case we are talking about one shot fired, one attacker stopped.  While in the first case we are talking about aggregate numbers for those who were taken down and/or out. 

To make it easy to think about, let’s use round numbers.  Say you have 10 individuals who are shot with weapon X and all of whom are incapacitated.  Six of the baddies go down immediately after one hit to the torso/head.  Weapon X has a 60% “actually incapacitated by one shot”.  But say that of the other 4, one is hit twice, two more take three hits to go down, and one big baddie takes five hits.  The formula for the “one-stop shot %” would be:

10/((6*1)+(1*2)+(2*3)+(1*5), or, 10/25 = 0.4, or 40%. 

That is assuming, again, that all ten are eventually incapacitated.  But we see that, by category, anywhere from 40% (.32 caliber) to 9% (rifle) are never incapacitated at all.  The fight ends for whatever reason, and the attacker, though not down and out, ceases to be a threat -- or, perhaps, worst case, the defender loses the fight because the attacker was not incapacitated.   The non-incapacitation percentages are important to consider.  In the case of the .32, that caliber fails to incapacitate at all 40% of the time, but it had a very impressive 72% stopped by one stop to the head or torso, and a respectable 40% one-shot stop percentage.   The sample size is smaller for the .32 than for any studied caliber other than the .44 magnum, but one tends to think .32’s are the caliber of choice in domestic disputes and situations where the range is very short. 

This brings up an interesting point in that we do not know the circumstances for any given situation.  A gunfight between military personnel and enemy combatants has a completely different dynamic than a man who decides to slap his old lady around because the Bears lost to the Packers.  An unarmed attacker is, in many cases, going to be easier to dissuade than someone armed equivalently.  A home invasion shooting is different than an attack motivated by revenge or jealousy.  And, of course, the classic example is that the actions of meth head high on his drug of choice are going to be very different from those of a sober, somewhat rational person.  It is even true in the field when hunting.  An animal with no adrenaline pumping from flight or fear is much easier to take down than spooked game. 

With all of that in mind, let’s look at one of the lesser choices, the .25 ACP.  Here we have, unlike the .32, a fair sample size of 68 people, with 150 shots fired.  Of the people shot with the pathetically lame .25 caliber – and these are always chambered in very small autoloaders, 25% died as a result of their wounds.  The .25 killed seventeen people.  It did not kill fifty-one.  Still, seventeen corpses from a mouse gun should make people stop and realize that any firearm is capable of dealing death and is not to be handled careless or deployed lightly.  All shootings are serious business. 

For the .25 ACP, there was a one-shot stop rate of 30%.  When one looks at the rest of the chart, it is sobering to see that the measuring stick for handguns, the .357 magnum, has a one-shot stop percentage only fourteen points higher (still under one-half), and the .25 is only nine points lower than the mighty .45 ACP.  We will say it again:  handguns are not good stoppers.  When it comes to handguns, the rule is that if it is worth shooting once, it is worth shooting three times.  That may not always be possible but remember it.

It is not surprising to find that the tiny firearms chambered for the .25 ACP do not lend themselves to accuracy.  Also, I suspect that those who carry a .25 probably do not get a lot of range time with it.  Hence, we see that the head/torso hit percentage of the .25 is low – 62%.  Every other handgun is around 75%, that is, until we get to the rounds typically chambered in larger weapons – the .357, .45, and .44 magnum which are all above 80%.  It is easier to get on target and get off a good shot with a larger weapon.  Also, these are weapons employed more by experts, if not professionals.  I am surprised that the 9mm and the .40 S&W do not have 80%+.  The 9mm is chambered in smaller weapons, so that might be part of the issue.  Also, I wonder if military use of the Nine results in it being used at longer ranges?  I have no explanation for the .40, which is my carry weapon.  My XD will group around 2 inches at 25 yards, offhand, if I’m doing my part.

But back to the .25, the final statistic to look at for this round is the percent actually incapacitated by one shot which is only 49% -- amazingly the 9mm is lower at 47%.  This has got to be a function of military ball ammo in the 9mm. 

All things considered, I would be reluctant to carry a .25 ACP even as a backup.  It will work, most likely, at very close ranges especially if fired into an attacker’s head.  It is far better than nothing, and a hit with a .25 can easily prove fatal.  Cheap .25’s maybe the only weapons available to and affordable by some folks.  I would hardly be willing to deny a person the right to defend himself or herself because of dearth of funds.  If using a .25 out of necessity or because it is convenient to carry (and it is), one should look for good, expanding ammunition and test it for reliable functioning and accuracy if at all possible.  These little guns should be kept clean and be properly lubricated.  If a person needs one, it absolutely needs to go bang.  As we noted, this is not a toy and not something to left where children or other irresponsible people could access it.          

Follow-up on My Earlier CRKT Crawford Kasper Review

I reviewed this knife back in April. Since then I have had a chance to use it quite a bit and get the edge more to my liking.  While it serves as a respectable general use knife, if I did not make it clear in the earlier post, this is primarily a fighter.  I have used it trim limbs, cut cordage, slice meat, clean up radishes, cut trimmer line, and about everything else except field dressing game.  It has done everything well enough.  But the blade geometry is, shall we say, aggressive.

The Kasper has stood up well to my abuse.  It holds an edge reasonably well.  All I have had to do since getting it sharp is touch it up occasionally with the ceramic stone.

The knife is slightly deceptive.  I was with my granddaughter at the mall a couple of weekends ago.  She bought a new pair of flip-flops.  The shoes were connected to one another with plastic ties.  I offered to cut them for her, and when she couldn't break them, she allowed me to do that.  I flipped out the Kasper and sliced the plastic.  My granddaughter warned me in hushed tones that I should not flash a knife like that.  I assured her that it was legal.  And it is.  But remember that the blade is deeper than most pocketknives.  Also, the guard that is integral to the grip pushes the wielder's hand back half an inch or more beyond the ricasso.  Though the cutting edge of the blade is a non-threatening 3.5 inches, the reach is closer to four and a half.  with that deep blade and a chunk of the butt protruding, it does carry the look of a big knife.

I am gaining confidence in this blade to the point that I believe it would serve well if I were pressed to use it in a self-defense situation.

There is only one thing worse than vigilante justice

Nazareth covers Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man".

Now I hate Woody Guthrie, but I love this song.  I used to have it on vinyl and an 8-track and cassette.  Now I have an MP3.  My favorite line is, "Why does that vigilante man carry that sawed-off shotgun in his hand?  Would he shoot his brother and his sister down?"

In a word, yes.

Because the only thing worse than vigilante justice is no justice at all.

In the Midst of the Storm

New unemployment claims continue to run over 400,000 per week.  Inflation continues to grind away at our incomes and savings.  Good old Folgers coffee at the local Sam’s Club has risen from $9.xx to $14.xx  (+50% increase) for a 48-ounce container in the last eighteen months – mostly since Bernanke’s disastrous QE2.  Meat, cheese, beans, and even peanut butter continue to climb in price as a weakened dollar and advancing fuel costs cut into profits.  Corporations have cut all the fat trying to improve profits while dealing with stagnant or decreasing revenues.  Uncertainty and instability are hampering growth.  More people are trying to save more money even as the rates for “safe” Certificates of Deposit pay less than 1% and are negative relative to inflation.

The stock markets have taken a hit, and they are going to recover a little.  I would not be at all surprised to see Obama’s speech tonight lead to a modest rally tomorrow just on the basis of the fact that several corporate bureaucrats will be in attendance at the teleprompter reading. (UPDATE:  Oops -- looks like I was dead wrong about this -- no one was impressed with the Pass-it-now President.) Markets and economies operate on Chaos Theory.  I offer no investment advice.  I currently have no individual stocks, but I have about 15% of my investments still in equity mutual funds – a couple of value funds, a mid-cap, a foreign fund, and a very small amount in a couple of growth funds.  Otherwise I am 85% in bonds and cash – not counting tangibles.  I am trying to stay flexible enough to go either way.  A big market correction would probably see me dumping some money from bonds to equities. 

Gold was either vastly underpriced three or four years ago or is somewhat over priced now.  My read of inflation would have it somewhere around $1000/ounce, and I would buy it anywhere near that now.  Silver is the same way.  I would start buying again around $30/ounce.  I suspect that speculation and FUD is driving the rise over the last year.  I may well be wrong, and gold will hit $2500 and silver $100 before next year’s election.  It’s quite possible, especially if the Fed unleashed QE3. 

Obama is going to be talking a couple of hours from now.  He will offer nothing new.  More government spending with tax increases down the road – after November 2012.  He will offer tax credits to employers to hire new workers.  He will demonize Congress, the Republicans, and the Tea Party.  The speech will mainly be an attempt to create a wedge issue on which he can campaign.  I think he will get a small bounce in approval among his core supporters – the unions, welfare queens, teachers, and other government workers.  Everybody else will be getting home from work, eating dinner and getting ready for some football.  The bounce won’t last.  Nothing in the way of tax increases or increases in the deficit is going to get through the House.  The Senate is already sitting on House-passed jobs bills.  In other words, the teleprompter is programmed strictly for politics tonight. 

I am not going to watch to see if I am right. 

Herbert Hoover may have been a Republican, but he was, like Obama, a progressive.  Also like Obama, he responded badly to the Crash of ’29.  His policies of government intervention in the private sector drove America into a depression.  The election of Roosevelt continued and double-down on Hoover’s policies resulting in the Great Depression – soon to be called the Great Depression of the 20^th Century so as to distinguish it from the one into which we are headed.  I have little hope that even the best conservatives in the House, the Senate, and the Presidency can turn the ship around in time to keep us from running aground. 

You might think of it like this:

Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss.  Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. … So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.  But we must run aground on some island.”

Now when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, on which they planned if possible to run the ship ashore.  So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders. Then hoisting the foresail to the wind they made for the beach.  But striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf.  The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any should swim away and escape.  But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land.   --Acts 27:21-26, 39-44  (Emphasis mine)