GOP Doesn't Understand "No Free Lunch"

The most important principle taught in the graduate business economics course I took at the University of Kansas is: "There is no free lunch."

Many wealthy Republicans either don't understand that "you can't get something for nothing" or don't understand how the value of their assets depends upon the federal government providing them with a safe and financially stable environment in which to make their fortunes.

The term "free lunch" comes from the practice of some nineteenth century bars placing a "free lunch" on the bar for those who purchased drinks that might have a higher price than at other bars or be watered down. The meats were usually heavily salted to protect against spoilage which could induce patrons to purchase more overpriced drinks.

The founding fathers recognized that a federal government was necessary to their economic well being. Modern Republicans don't understand the need for a financially healthy federal government.

Americans don't get rich solely through their own efforts, but by taking advantage of opportunities and protections within the economic system managed by government.

For example, the federal government helps finance new technology such as computers. Government protects companies that invest in new inventions by preventing competitors from copying the technology without payment.

Government provides businesses with educated employees and protects against foreign and domestic sources of violence.

One of the most important purely economic actions of the federal government is maintaining the integrity of the money supply. Effective commerce requires that everyone have confidence in whatever is used as "money" particularly when the "money" is stored in computers and transferred from computer to computer.

The federal deficit poses a major threat to the integrity of America's money. Wealthy anti-tax Republicans don't understand that a federal default would reduce their wealth more than a slight tax increase would. What is important is not the amount of dollars and other assets that one owns but the value of those dollars and other assets.

Allowing a default would be the equivalent of flushing money down the toilet or burning it in the fireplace.

Wealth lost through default would be gone forever. Money invested as taxes would eventually come back to those paying increased taxes.

For higher income individuals taxes are a form of investment. Individual businesses invest in government to finance those amenities such as roads and airports that all businesses share as well as financing other activities such as national defense. Businesses get a return on the investment by taking advantage of the economic environment provided by government.

Biologists talk about the food chain and how very small plants and animals become the food for small animals which are then food for increasingly larger animals. If something happens to the small life forms the larger animals will eventually have trouble finding food.

The economy has what might be called a money chain. Those at the bottom of the chain pay their money to individuals and businesses in exchange for goods and services. These individuals and businesses then purchase from those higher up on the money chain.

Some wealthy anti-tax Republicans don't understand that cutting Social Security payments to reduce the deficit would reduce their income. Most Social Security recipients spend everything they get. If their benefits are reduced they will buy less. Some companies they purchase goods and services from may have to lay people off to cut costs. The result would be less money moving up the money chain to those on top.

Anthony Jury Reached Correct Verdict

The Casey Anthony jury reached the correct verdict. The question put to the jury wasn't did Casey Anthony kill her daughter Caylee Anthony, but did she deliberately carry out a plan to murder Caylee by suffocating her with duct tape.

The jury didn't buy the prosecutor's claim of premeditated murder and its easy to understand why they might have rejected it. When I first heard of what the prosecution was attempting to do I thought they had a difficult, if not impossible, task before them.

I could believe that Casey got frustrated because she couldn't get her daughter to shut up and covered Caylee's mouth with duct tape to keep her quiet rather than to kill her. Casey might have positioned the tape carelessly or the child might have had a stopped nose with the end result that Caylee was unable to breathe and died. I have difficulty accepting the claim that Casey is mentally capable of planning to kill her daughter by using duct tape to suffocate her.

Casey was unable to accept responsibility for her action and tried to cover it up. Perhaps she had difficulty admitting to herself what she had done.

American prosecutors suffer from a "disease" which causes them to try to present every wrongful death as premeditated murder. Perhaps prosecutors feel they get better publicity if they convict an evil killer then if they convict someone for doing something stupid.

I don't know if Casey Anthony caused her daughter's death or not, but it would be unfortunate if she will go unpunished for the death because prosecutors made the mistake of trying to turn a tragedy into something sinister.

News Websites - Advertising Goldmine

Many newspapers have decided to start charging for access to their websites because they apparently cannot figure out how to sell enough advertising to pay for news gathering. The web should be an advertising goldmine for newspaper companies because readers may visit a site multiple times during the day to see if some stories have been updated or significant local events have occurred.

Broadcast television manages to pay its stars millions just from advertising money. Google and many other sites are doing very well without charging users. These sites have figured out how to finance their operations using advertising. Arianna Huffington did very well financing her online news site using advertising revenue. Local newspapers can do the same thing.

Online advertising provider Groupon recently turned down a $6 billion buy out offer from Google.

American newspapers have been selling advertising for over 200 years. President Thomas Jefferson once suggested to Nathaniel Macon that "Advertisements...contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."

Many people will buy Sunday newspapers and Thanksgiving and Christmas newspapers because of the ads in those papers.

News websites should be more attractive to advertisers than news-papers. Advertisers may know how many newspapers are sold, but they have no idea if anyone actually sees the pages containing their ads. The greatest ad ever designed cannot sell anything if the ad is on the back of the page used to line the bottom of a bird cage.

The ability to identify individual readers can allow news websites to customize ads for individual readers so that the ads they see will be for products they are interested in rather than ads for products they cannot use. Advertisers cannot benefit from paying to advertise feminine hygiene products to 70 year old men or lawnmowers to residents of high rise apartments.
Ratings services can estimate how many viewers have specific television programs on, but not how many viewers go into the kitchen or the bathroom during the commercials.

Computers record how many people access each web page and thus see the ads on the page.

Advertisers have long posted ads in any location where people might see them. Advertisers once placed so many billboards along major highways that government decided to limit such ads so people could see the scenery. If you watch basketball games you know that the tables used by the officials, broadcasters, etc. usually have ads in front of them.

Today potential customers spend much of their time looking at things on the Internet. Advertisers who want to reach customers need to place ads on popular Internet sites much like they place ads on popular tv shows.

Some companies seem to think all they need to do is set up a company website. Some potential customers will visit websites without prompting. Some people will even watch infomercials on television.

Visiting websites takes time and requires bookmarking the site. Potential customers can get too busy to take time to visit a website, particularly for everyday items. For major purchases such as vehicles or appliances customers might take the time to visit websites, but most won't go from site to site trying to save a few pennies on inexpensive products.

Potential customers may visit a retailer's website once or twice during a week to find out which items are on sale, but may forget some sale items before the sale is over. Ads on news or other popular websites can remind some customers of sale items and notify those who haven't visited the retailer's website.

Email ads can easily get lost among other email. Website ads are more likely to be noticed.

The success of the Groupon company demonstrates that website ads work. News web sites should be able to finance their operations with ads so they don't have to chase off readers by charging them.

The web could have been set up so that all websites received some compensation from visitors, but it wasn't. The web is free and those sites that make money on ads don't need to charge.

Obama's Silly Conspiracy Theory

President Barack Obama suffers from the delusion that there must have been some massive conspiracy to hide Osama bin Laden from the U.S.

President Barack Obama apparently thinks that the fact that he needed an army of attorneys to keep his stupid birth certificate secret means that bin Laden must have had a large group helping him stay hidden. Or, maybe Obama doesn't believe that an Arab could be smart enough to hide from the U.S. without help, even an Arab smart enough to be responsible for the 9/11 attack. .

Obama should know better because the CIA has already said that the most any of the al Qaeda members they captured knew was that there was some mysterious courier who might have direct access to bin Laden. If bin Laden didn't trust members of his own organization with his hiding place, why would he trust Pakistani government agencies which he certainly was aware could have been infiltrated by agents working for the CIA or other intelligence agencies particularly Mossad (Israel) and MI6 (Britain) .

There is a claim that India's RAW and Mossad have combined efforts to infiltrate Pakistan government agencies. Even if a foreign agent didn't learn where he was hiding, someone in the government might have found the $25 million reward too tempting to pass up.

Any ability al Qaeda might have to obtain inside information from Pakistani agencies would not be the same as those agencies helping al Qaeda anymore than an ability to obtain inside information from American agencies would indicate those agencies were helping al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda likely has agents planted in governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as on some NATO bases in Afghanistan, much like the Viet Cong had agents planted in the South Vietnamese government and on American bases during the Vietnam War. If al Queda/Taliban can plant potential suicide bombers on American base they can plant spies. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong often had radios capable of eavesdropping on American radio traffic.

The Wikileaks situation demonstrates that the Obama administration has poor information security. The administration has alleged that an army PFC in Iraq was able to place documents on the web he should not have been able to access. The leaking of the fact that the U.S. was attempting to track bin Laden's cell phone in 2001 came from Americans rather than Pakistanis.

If Pakistani agencies were supposedly helping bin Laden stay hidden what were they doing while the SEALS were at his compound. Military or intelligence officials would have been aware of the possibility of Americans coming in by helicopter.

Why wasn't the compound surrounded by command detonated mines in case that happened? Why wasn't someone in a protected position with a weapon capable of disabling a helicopter? Why, in a military area well inside Pakistan, didn't his "protectors" call for a force to keep the Americans from leaving?

The ease with which the SEALS got in and out indicates that bin Laden had no support from individuals in the Pakistan government. If Pakistan's forces were involved their role was to allow the Americans to leave without interference while pretending to be unaware of what was happening.

Obama cannot understand the obvious fact that the best way to keep something secret is to limit the number of people who know the secret. If you had a $25 million buried treasure that you didn't want someone else to dig up, you wouldn't tell anyone you had any doubts about, particularly strangers in a government agency.

Many fiction writers recognize that keeping locations secret involves limiting who knows the location. On the old "Batman" tv series even Batgirl and the police commissioner didn't know the location of the bat cave. Limiting who knows a secret hideout reduces the chances of someone inadvertently revealing the location or revealing the location under torture. One way to get someone to reveal a hideout is to trick him into going to the hideout while he's being followed.

Bin Laden's choice of a hiding place was brilliant. The last place anyone would expect to find him would be in an area away from his supporters. Living in a mansion sized compound would create the impression that the occupant was wealthy, possibly with a fear of being robbed or kidnapped, or someone involved with drugs or smuggling.

The presence of cannabis plants in the area would be consistent with a drug dealer as the resident of the compound. The media have referred to the plants as marijuana, but they were more likely being grown for production of hashish which has been used in the Middle East for centuries. Marco Polo and others suggested it was used by members of the Medieval Order of Assassins from which al Qaeda is descended.

Osama bin Laden probably wasn't familiar with American masked avengers but his choice of accommodations is similar to Batman and Zorro. When Batman wasn't running around catching criminals he was the liberal wealthy philanthropist Bruce Wayne. When Zorro wasn't riding around carving a "Z" with his sword he was wealthy foppish Don Diego de la Vega.

Is bin Laden's Death Good or Bad?

I grew up watching old Hollywood westerns in which the Indians always stopped fighting if their chief was killed, or at least they stopped until they selected a new chief. The killing of Osama bin Laden may provide a great deal of emotional satisfaction for Americans, but it won't necessarily improve the chances of defeating al Qaeda. The killing might even invigorate al Qaeda.

I was serving in Vietnam when North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died. His death didn't change what was happening in the war.

Bin Laden's presence in an area far removed from the action indicates he might have become little more than a spiritual adviser to al Qaeda with operations controlled by others. If so his death at the hands of the Americans wouldn't affect operations, but his conversion to a martyr could provide a new rallying point.

(Incidentally, criticism of Pakistanis for not realizing he was at that compound ignores the fact that Pakistan has far more drug dealers / smugglers than terrorist leaders and drug dealers might also prefer to live in a fortress.)

Al Qaeda has been relatively ineffective for years, possibly because bin Laden has not provided effective leadership. Subordinates might have been afraid to challenge him because of his past role with the organization. His death could allow a more dynamic, imaginative, aggressive leader to take over. When a shrub stops growing, pruning off the old wood can give it new life.

Existing al Qaeda leaders might compete for the top position by conducting terrorist missions. Other organizations such as Hamas might seek a role in the new al Qaeda.

Perhaps members would be more willing to seek an alliance with an existing nation, particularly Libya which is fighting European "crusaders". An alliance wasn't practical before bin Laden's death because Qaddafi would both have wanted to be the leader. Qaddafi previously supported international terrorism.

The killing of Qaddafi's son and grandchildren shortly before the killing of bin Laden gives Libya and al Qaeda a common desire for revenge. Qaddafi can offer financing to al Qaeda in exchange for assistance fighting the NATO backed contras, or whatever the rebels are calling themselves.

Libyan rebel leader Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi is an al Qaeda veteran and potentially take over if he came to power in Libya and was able to divert part of its oil revenue to al Qaeda.

Some in the Pakistan military may be so upset at the embarrassment caused by conduct of such an attack near their capital that they will give advanced weapons to al Qaeda and the Taliban. We can only hope that the Pakistan government adds extra security for its nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is not a tiny banana republic like Venezuela. It has half the population of the U.S. and the world's 7th largest military, including nuclear armed missiles.

Pakistan is a democracy which means the government must consider popular sentiment which could become more anti-U.S. as a result of the raid. If Obama's critics are correct about him visiting Pakistan in 1981 as a student using an Indonesian passport (possibly under the name of Barry Soetoro or Barry Durham) and Pakistan had a record of that visit, Pakistan could embarrass him by releasing the information. I don't know if embarrassing Obama after he embarrassed Pakistan by violating its sovereignty would be enough to quiet any public outcry against the U.S.

Obama's decision to secretly bury bin Laden at sea could be a blunder. The action sounds like a coverup because when criminals "bury" a body in the water it's to prevent discovery of the crime.

Al Qaeda could have tried to find someone who looked like bin Laden and could imitate his voice to make a video claiming the U.S. killed the wrong man. Fortunately for Obama, al Qaeda has decided it would rather have bin Laden be a martyr.

Steve Landman's blog is claiming that the man killed in the raid cannot be bin Laden because he died of natural causes years ago. Al Qaeda would have had an incentive to keep the death a secret because it needed him alive as a rallying point. A death by natural causes would have tarnished his image, but "murder" by the U.S. provides a better rallying point. This theory could explain the lack of adequate security around the compound, including an apparent lack of antiaircraft weapons. If the man wasn't really bin Laden, his death would only benefit al Qaeda.

It would have been better to have had someone other than bin Laden's wife and U.S. experts provide identification for the body. His wife might have identified the body as his so the U.S. would stop looking for him or to prevent discovery of a false identity. It appears the U.S. won't be hurt by the failure to get better idenfication of the body, but an intelligent president wouldn't have taken unnecessary chances.

Burying him at sea won't prevent someone from establishing a shrine to him, but instead would allow a shrine to be build any place, including the place where he was killed, or in their view where he became a martyr..

The U.S. could have avoided the possibility of a shrine at his grave site by turning the body over to family members who had disowned him for burial at an secret site in Saudi Arabia which had revoked his citizenship.. Acceptance of the body by family members, who would not have been identified, would have provided more reliable identification of it.

Releasing of photos of the shooting won't provide proof he was killed. Hollywood routinely simulates the killing of actors in movies. Jay Leno has occasionally shown doctored videos showing bin Laden at various locations, including the White House. Release of the photos would be more likely to inflame his supporters than to prove he was killed.

Fortunately, Obama's release of his long form birth certificate prior to the death of bin Laden gives Obama more credibility than he would have had. Without that release, al Qaeda members might have compared the "missing" body to his missing birth certificate.

Trump Stood Firm, Obama Blinked

Donald Trump in recent weeks had been advising President Barack Obama to produce his Hawaiian birth certificate to prove he had one. Truimp refused to let journalists force him into dropping the subject. Obama had been refusing to give in until April 27th when Obama blinked.

Trump recognized that a president cannot have the confidence of the people if he withholds information for no apparent reason. The document Obama released on the 27th doesn't contain any information that needed to be kept secret.

Trump's willingness to stand firm to force Obama to do what he should have done long ago demonstrates Trump's leadership ability. Trump is more likely to stand firm against foreign leaders than Obama who let European leaders con him into a foolish Libyan adventure that has raised gas prices.

Obama is an attorney and shouldn't have needed to be reminded that an attorney is most likely to win if he presents the best possible evidence to the court, or (as an elected official) to the voters.

During the last two years the failure to provide the long form birth certificate has been a major distraction which has created doubts about whether Obama was even qualified to be president. Obama has been oblivious to the fact that his unwillingness to release the document was hampering his presidency.

If Trump wants to continue an offensive against Obama, he should focus on Libya and ask what the real reason for American involvement is. Trump might also ask Obama how NATO plans to stabilize the situation if Qaddafi is forced out of office. Al Qaeda attempted take to advantage of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to take over Iraq and can be expected to attempt to take over Libya is Qaddafi is forced out. Has Obama secretly promised U.S. troops to keep al Qaeda out of Libya?

Homosexual Marriage Is Absurd

Regardless of how government may artificially define marriage in legal terms, marriage is really the union of the two different types of human beings -- males and females. Two members of the same sex cannot have a marriage relationship regardless of what some politicians might say.

Marriage unites members of the different sexes to form a unit that has all the human characteristics. Two men or two women cannot form such a unit. They are like two left shoes or two right shoes. A man and a woman fit together like two puzzle pieces. Two people of the same sex are just mirror images.

Males and females not only have anatomical differences, they have different biochemistries, including different skin PH, and their brains function differently.

Males produce chemicals called pheromones that are beneficial to females. The research on how males benefit from pheromones women might produce is less clear because most research on female pheromones deals with how they attract men. Research does indicate that men benefit from marriage and the benefits may involve biochemistry.

The fact that men's and women's brains function differently complicates relationships, but provides the couple with the benefit of viewing the problems faced from two different perspectives. This difference stimulates the relationship and makes the opposite sex more intriguing. A member of the opposite sex is more likely to respond "unexpectedly" to a situation than a member of one's own sex.

Having sex with a member of the opposite sex allows an individual to experience the physical sexuality of the opposite sex. Having sex with a member of one's own sex provides no such benefit.

To women, men are strength. To men, women are energy.

CBers have long referred to a man's wife as his "better half" and a woman's husband as her "other half". A husband or a wife is half of a unit. Both together are a complete unit.

Homosexuals who want to have a marriage relationship like heterosexuals, possibly including having children, are implying they really want to be heterosexuals.

When a man calls his partner a wife he is indicating she is his female half. For a woman, a husband is her male half.

A woman who calls her partner a "wife" is implying the partner, rather than her, is the female part of the unit making her the "male". A woman who calls her partner a "wife" and expects her partner to have any children is acting like a man and may really subconsciously be a transsexual rather than a homosexual. She may call herself a lesbian because she misunderstands the reason for her behavior.

Some male homosexuals claim that they look at other men the same way men look at women. However, scientific research indicates that in their brains, homosexual men "look at" other men the way women look at men. This tendency could indicate that at least some homosexual men might actually be transsexuals. They call their partners "husbands" because subconsciously they really want to be women.

Heterosexuals desire a marriage relationship to gain a feeling of completeness by being part of a unit that contains a member of each sex. Homosexuals cannot become complete by having a relationship with a member of their own sex, even though they may think that calling a relationship a marriage gives them what heterosexuals have in a marriage.