Obama, FDR, and the Great Depression

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr

There are a number of reasons why I am against the unprecedented expansion of the federal government and the massive debt we are accumulating.  First and foremost, there is so much that the government has no business being involved in.  As if I needed another reason, here it is.

The Institute of Economic Affairs has released a pamphlet stating that Barack Obama is repeating the same mistakes that FDR made in handling the Great Depression.  The study has been endorsed by economist James Buchanan who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1986.  The paper was written by economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute.

The authors argue that FDR's interventionist policies and tax increases delayed the recovery by several years.  They see "troubling similarities" between FDR's policies and Obama's.  They believe that the large deficit spending and government involvement will hamper long term economic growth and may delay full economic recovery by several years. Furthermore, they fear that the US could face the same fate as Argentina which slid from First to a Third World status.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Barack Obama accused of making 'Depression' mistakes (telegraph.co.uk)
• More fun juxtapositions (economist.com)
• Is Unemployment the Worst Since the Great Depression? (usnews.com)

Adgitize

I have been blogging here for a little more than a year now. In my efforts to build traffic to this blog I have tried a few different methods. The first blogging community that I joined to build traffic was Entrecard. I also signed up for BlogExplosion. I was able to build some additional traffic using these communities, but nothing consistent.

After seeing their ad groups on several blogs, along with some reviews, I decided to sign up for Adgitize in July. When I first signed up, I started out by just displaying ads on my blog. After a week and took the plunge and decided to advertise with Adgitize. My traffic has improved dramatically. August was my first full month of advertising on Adgitize, and my traffic was 3-4 times my monthly average prior to advertising. So far, in the first week of September, I have had as much traffic as I had been averaging for an entire month.

The best thing about Adgitize, is that you build points for different blogging activities in their network, such as writing posts, advertising, and visiting other sites in the network. Each day those points are calculated and you earn money depending on how many points you earn. I received notice this morning for my first payment in the amount of $23.77 through paypal. Part of that payment included July when I first joined, but my earnings for August was $16.22, more than enough to pay for another month of advertising with a little leftover.

So, if you are looking for a relatively inexpensive method of building traffic that can pay for itself, I highly recommend giving Adgitize a shot. It has worked well for me so far. The other good thing about Adgitize is that you do not have to advertise to reap some of the benefits. You can still earn points, and money, by displaying ads, writing posts, and visiting other blogs.

Music Monday-Johnny Paycheck "Take This Job and Shove It"

In honor of Labor Day and all of us working stiffs, my Music Monday choice is Johnny Paycheck and "Take This Job and Shove It."

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.




PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

Beer & Jesus

Image via Wikipedia

Since Bowie Living posted about Al Franken & Health Care Reform, I have decided to post about something I saw today while driving through Bowie.

This morning, I was driving around Bowie running a few errands before we head off to the Bowie Baysox game this afternoon. I was driving past the Sacred Heart Catholic Church where they had two signs out on the side of the road promoting their Labor Day Festival tomorrow. Nothing unusual there. Most churches have signs outside announcing events that are taking place.

The thing about the signs that I thought was unusual, and bothered me, is that one sign had a Budweiser logo and the other a Bud Light logo. Now I like a cold Bud as much as the next guy, maybe more, and I realize that not all religious denominations believe that drinking alcohol is a sin. I am definitely not a prude, but it seemed an odd and inappropriate juxtaposition of a church activity essentially being sponsored by a brand of beer.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama, Beer, and Health Care Reform (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Budweiser, Miller to raise prices (msnbc.msn.com)

Obama's Planned Speech to Students

Image by cena carioca via Flickr

I think it is safe to say that I am not a fan of President Barack Obama. From a policy standpoint, there has been very little, if anything, that I have agreed with. However, I am not one to find fault with everything he does. For instance, I thought it refreshing that Obama wore jeans for his first pitch at the baseball all star game, though some criticized his "mom jeans." I also gave him props for his quick reflexes in disposing of a fly during an interview.

I am all for criticizing the president on substantive issues like health care, cap and trade, and the ever increasing budget deficit. The recent broohaha over the president's decision to address students next week to encourage them to study hard and do well in school is a bit too much for me. This type of hyper partisanship is one reason I can not identify myself as a Republican. (As a matter of full disclosure, I consider myself a Libertarian, though I am still officially registered as a Republican.)

Other presidents have addressed America's students in the past. In reality, this should be a rather benign opportunity for the president to encourage our youth. The fact that it has become a subject of intense national debate is ludicrous to me. Don't get me wrong, I do understand why conservatives have this distrust of Obama. He is far from the moderate he portrayed himself to be during the election.

In my opinion, this really does distract from the truly important issues at hand. The constant harping over everything the president does really lessens the impact of the arguments against things like health care or cap & trade. This hyper partisanship on both sides of the aisle is one of the reason the majority of Americans would like to throw all of the son of a bitches out on their asses and start over again. And to the parents out there that fear that the president is trying to "indoctrinate" their kids, if you think your kids are that susceptible to indoctrination you must not be doing a very good job with them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Barack Obama accused of trying to indoctrinate children with socialism (telegraph.co.uk)
• President Obama Defends His Mom Jeans (shoppingblog.com)

Obama To Address Joint Session of Congress

President Obama has decided to address a joint session of Congress next week to lay out what he wants to see in a health care bill. I can hardly wait. During the State of the Union Speech in January during the last address to both houses of Congress, we were treated to this display from Speaker Pelosi.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Whatever, Obama (horsesass.org)
• 'New season' for Obama on health care (cnn.com)
• Obama to Begin New Health Care Push as Approval Ratings Slide (abcnews.go.com)

Honolulu Looks To Ban B.O.

Image via Wikipedia

The city council of Honolulu is considering passing a law that would make it illegal to board city buses if the person in bringing on the bus any "odor" that would unreasonably disturb other or interfere with their use of the transit system. It does not matter whether the odor comes from the person, their clothes, or anything they may have in their possession.

Councilman Rod Tam, one of the co-sponsors of the bill is quoted in the USA Today with the reason the bill is necessary. "As we become more inundated with people from all over the world, their way of taking care of their health is different. Some people, quite frankly, do not take a bath every day and therefore they may be offensive in terms of their odor."

The question becomes, how do you determine what the standard is before someone's earthy aroma is offensive enough to be declared "illegal?" Likewise, what odors shall be deemed offensive? Aside from body odor, there are other odors that could be offensive inside the close quarters of a bus. Things like foods, cologne, or a baby with a full diaper.

Some people, myself included, are more sensitive to some odors than others. For instance, I used to work with a couple people who would put on some much cologne/perfume that you could walk down an empty hallway and smell their perfume. Or worse yet, they would leave their scent in the elevator. That always made my eyes water. One time, a supervisor who wore excessive amounts of cologne, slapped me on the back and I smelled like him for hours.

I know that I would not want to be sitting next to somebody who stunk to high heaven. I can understand how people would complain about the bad smell on public transit. What I don't get is how you could realistically enforce such legislation. I could see it opening the door for all sorts of litigation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What's That Smell? (jackofallblogs.com)
• How To Smell Good Without Perfume (slideshare.net)
• Scents & the City (thestar.com)