Merry...

Christmas is Thursday; and every year my wife and I have both sides of the family in for a big Christmas dinner and gift exchange. Each year, I cook up a standing rib roast for the family - about an 8 1/2 pounder does the job.
According to Alton Brown, 3 to 4 days of dry aging makes it better, so I went out this morning to buy the roast. Because the thermometer read 5 degrees, I bundled up as I headed out to my butcher. I rebundled against the now 4 degree temperature as I left my butcher with 70 dollars worth of roast. A $70 roast that cost me $59 last year.
From my reading, one reason for the extra cost of the roast would be the fact that feeding beef is more expensive now. Why would that be? That would be because they're growing less feed in favor of growing corn, switchgrass, etc. for biofuels.
You know biofuels. That's the fuel made from what used to be our food so that we can be environmentally friendly and not use foreign oil. You know foreign oil. That's the stuff we burn because we have to be environmentally friendly and can't harvest the energy sources we have here in the US - but digress. You know biofuels, those fuels made from what used to be our food that are only even remotely cost effective because of government subsidies. You know government subsidies. Those would be part of the cause of that growing number at the top of the page.
Of course, the upside is that we're fighting global warming. You know global warming. That would be the phenomenon that folks like Al Gore are telling us we cause. The phenomenon that folks like Al Gore are telling us is proven by the world's temperatures falling over the last ten years and the fact that 2008 is on its way to being one of the coldest on record.
Which brings us full-circle back to me braving the exceptionally frigid temperatures to buy my more expensive roast. It just makes me want to wish the global warming fanatics a Merry Christmas. Oh wait... they could be offended by the word Christmas. So, in order to be politically correct, I'll just say merry frickin' winter.

Jennifer Granholm

According to an article in the Detroit Free Press Jennifer Granholm wants to stay in Michigan and will not pursue a position in the Obama Administration. This is yet another good sign for Obama and the US.
The fact that she was in the running was quite disconcerting, and still is, because she obviously has a voice within the Obama Administration. However, if she stays in Michigan, maybe she won't be able to inflict the same damage on the entire US as easily as she did on her state.
Gov. Granholm's state has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country and the fifth-highest taxes, and she somehow thinks that if they raise the taxes, more jobs will be created. Michigan has the fifth-highest rate of foreclosure starts and the lowest rate of attracting new residents. Over the past decade, while the rest of the US economy was growing, Michigan's was declining with high rates of layoffs and taxes, and the state economy has lost about 300,000 jobs on Granholm's watch.
During a recent debate with Mit Romney on Meet the Press, Granholm tried to make the point that the reason the Big 3 can't compete is because foreign countries pay for healthcare and the US puts that on business. An interesting point, but moot being that the Big 3 can't compete with the cars being made by foreign companies inside the United States. I may not know everything about how the car industry works, but I'm pretty sure that Japan isn't subsidizing healthcare for workers in the United States, even if they do work for a Japanese company.
Then, on the radio this week, I heard her saying that she doesn't understand why the banks got a huge bailout with no strings and the car makers "have to come on bended knee." Again, Granholm proved that she just doesn't get it. How can she not look and see what happened with the banking bailout? She didn't see that the money was not used as intended? Did she not see the AIG execs taking spa weekends, etc.? How is it that she can't learn the what the rest of us did from the first round of bailouts? We don't want to give out another pile of money without a good plan in place.
No, Granholm staying in Michigan (or better yet, going back to Canada) is what's best for the country -- unless Obama is going to appoint a Secretary of What Not to Do.

Political Idiots

It never ceases to amaze me how people can let their political view cloud their judgement.

Let's begin with the Indianapolis police officer who put an "Impeach Obama" sticker on his squad car. You can check out the story here. How is this wrong? Let me count the ways. How about starting with this guy's ignorance of how our government system works. At this point, Obama isn't even eligible for impeachment, and for there to be an impeachment, he has to have done something illegal. To date, I can't figure out how he could have had the time. Then, come on, there's a time and place for everything, and on the job on a police cruiser is neither the time nor the place.

Now to the more severe. Arson to the Wasilla church where Sarah Palin attends. So far, nobody has said that it was politically motivated, but it does look pretty suspicious. I hope that it winds up not being a political statement. Assuming that it is, I have to file this with the those guys who were plotting to assassinate Obama -- under "What have we become?" Come on folks, we're better than this. Can't we have political disagreement and debate without it coming to this?

Then again, given the Prop 8 demonstrations we saw in California just recently, maybe we can't.

There goes our dough

Round and round they go, here come the bailouts, there goes our dough. It appears that a $15 billion dollar loan will go to the Big 3 Automakers. As Congress acts to spend money we don't have, I have to wonder how much that National Debt number at the top of the page will accelerate, and I worry for the country that we will leave behind for my daughter.

On the upside, the money will be a loan. On the downside, I've looked over what has been released of the plans so far and I'm concerned that they won't be able to pay it back. Quite simply, I'm not seeing a lot of change in how things are done in Detroit.

The UAW claims to be making concessions, but are they really? Read what has been reported of those "concessions" very carefully. They aren't giving anything up. They're only offering deferments. So, the money will still be owed, it just won't be owed right now. The legacy costs will still be there.

This has less to do with Detroit than Washington, but the cafe standards that helped drive the automakers into this mess will still be there and from what I can gather, Washington will be adding onto them.

Then, there's the appointment of the new Car-Czar to oversee the recovery of Detroit. This certainly seems like a good idea, given the performance of the Big 3, they could use some oversight. Unfortunately, if one is appointed, Washington won't appoint someone who can do the job well, such as Mitt Romney, instead it will go to some political hack who will try to make things work within the parameters of the Washington elite. These would be the same folks that brought us things like the the new Capitol Visitors Center which only ran a scant $550 million over budget. For those of you keeping score that's a scant 7.74 times the original budget of $71 million.

Then, of course, there's the oversight from the likes of Chris Dodd who is asking for GM's CEO to step down. I would be willing to see him step down for his incompetence if Dodd would step down for his role in forcing the whole subprime mortgage mess (if he could take the other folks involved like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, etc. with him, that would be great too.)

Don't get me wrong, I would like to see Detroit be successful. I live in Toledo, home of one of Chrysler's crown jewel plants. If the Big 3 rebound, it will certainly help me, but I fear that Washington will run this with the same rousing success that they've run everything else and at best, the ensuing crash and economic destruction will be put off until my daughter and/or grandkids will get stuck with the bill.

Pearl Harbor Day

It's Sunday, December 7, the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and I always take a moment today to remember the folks who went through that, and one in particular.

His name is Russell McCurdy, he's from Huntington, IN and he was a Marine on the USS Arizona, docked in Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning. I had the privilege of meeting him several years ago at a Veterans' Day parade, and I will never forget him.

He told a great story about being in the crow's nest on the ship during the attack and how he saw the planes coming in and subsequently saw a bomb fall into one of the smoke stacks on the ship. When the order was given to abandon ship, he jumped into the water and swam ashore on a private beach behind some houses. Because of the design of the houses, the only way to get from the beach to the street was to go through the back door of one of the houses and out the front. As he went into one of the houses, he passed through the kitchen. The occupants of the house were gone, having left due to the attack. In their haste to leave, the homeowners had left a pot of water boiling on the stove. He noticed that it was boiling over, and stopped to shut off the stove and removed the pot from the heat. He said it was the strangest thing and he didn't know why in the midst of a military attack he thought to do that, but he did.

Sadly, Russell died last year. As we lose more and more members of that greatest generation, we lose more and more of those great stories and memories of the World Wars. It is heartening, however, to see that we have finally gotten a monument to those veterans in Washington. I'm also going to use this space to applaud the Honor Flight effort to get as many of those special people to see their monument before they leave us. Please honor these brave veterans by going to their site and donating if you can.

So, today in particular, but whenever possible, we should take a moment to remember and if possible, thank those who fought and are fighting to protect the freedoms that we enjoy.

Running in circles

There was a Burma Shave saying that went, "If you're worried, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." That seems to be what is going on this week as the Big Three Automakers and the UAW head to Washington in search of cash. Lots of running in circles, screaming and shouting.

Any time that anyone goes running around, telling me the sky is falling and telling me there is no time to wait, they need my money now, I get suspicious. It seems that every time I watch a news report, I hear someone telling me that without cash from Washington right now, this minute, no time to waste, the Big 3 will go bankrupt and the sky will fall. The sky will fall argument was a falacy when the conservatives said it about Obama becoming President and it doesn't work now.

I will, however call it a half-truth. It's probably true that without Washington's money, the Big 3 are headed for Chapter 11. That's the half that's true. The untrue part is when they portray Chapter 11 as the plants will immediately shut down, nobody will make cars, all those workers will be without jobs and the suppliers will have to shut down, and the total will be 3 or 4 million people out of work. That is just not true.

First of all, reports say that Ford is only asking for a line of credit that they hope not to use. If they are even able to consider not using the bailout money as an option, they will probably survive a bankruptcy if necessary.

Here in Toledo, one of the stations had a UAW rep on who said that if there isn't a factory, there can't be concessions. True enough, but again, even if they go to Chapter 11, there will still be a plant. Again, two examples from right here in Toledo are DANA Corporation and Owens Corning Insulation. Both declared bankruptcy in recent years, both continued to produce their products and both eventually emerged from bankruptcy. I'm not saying people didn't lose their jobs and there weren't hard times, but the fact was that they didn't go to liquidation, they went to reorganization and that's exactly what the Big 3 would do if they didn't get this government money.

Even if they go to full liquidation (which they won't) someone would buy up the assets and produce cars. Why? Because people still need cars. The auto industry is still a viable industry. It's just suffering from legacy costs from some bad deals made with the UAW, as well as mismanagement by overpaid executives.

Ford's CEO says he'll work 2009 for a dollar. Good start, but that puts him at a $7.5 million average for 08 and 09. I'd like to see some more. I'd like to see that out of the other execs.

The UAW is talking about givebacks on contributions to VEBA and that working man's golden parachute called the JOBS Bank, which allows workers who are laid off and not working at all to collect 95% of their salary. Again, a good start, if it happens (which I'll believe when I see). I'd also like to see a few more concessions to bring the legacy costs down.

The problems that the Big 3 are experiencing stem from a combination of poor planning by management, a management that was willing to give away the store to the unions, and a union that was willing to bleed them dry.

Bankruptcy, not a loan or bailout money, is the way that these businesses will shed their problems and become viable, competitive businesses.

My Dream Team

I've been watching over the last few days as Obama names more of his cabinet. I'm still processing some of it, but my initial reaction is that given the pool of people a Democrat is likely to draw from, I think he could have done worse. With that in mind, I've been coming up with my own dream team for 2012. Here's what I have so far....

2012
Jindal - Palin

I thought Palin was a great choice for VP, and I still do. Maybe she'll do some things between now and 2012 to bolster her Presidential resume, but for now I'd have to go with Jindal. He's done so much to clean up the screwed up mess that Louisiana has become, I think he'd be great.

Now to fill in the cabinet positions. They aren't all there yet, but here's what I have so far...

The Cabinet

State ..... ????
Treasury ...... Steve Forbes (I like the flat tax, and if you team him up with Romney on Budet, you'll have growth like we've never seen)
Defense ...... General David Petraeus (Look at what he did in Iraq)
Attorney General ..... Rudy Giuliani (He cleaned up crime in New York. Need we say more?)
Interior ..... Ted Nugent (Land and wildlife management? Right up this guy's alley)
Agriculture..... Nugent (As part of my streamlined government plan, this is getting rolled into interior)
Labor ..... ????
Health and Human Services ..... ????
HUD ...... ????
Transportation ..... ????
Energy .... T. Boone Pickens (An oilman who wants to pursue wind farms. He's got that all of the above attitude we need)
Education ..... ?????
Veterans Affairs ..... Oliver North. (He's already doing tv shows honoring vets. He's make a good advocate)
Homeland Security ..... Sheriff Joe Arpaio (There would be a fence, and our side would have a catapult to send illegal aliens back over it - in pink jumpsuits stamped return to sender)

Cabinet-level administrative offices

Chief of Staff .... Newt Gingrich (He did a lot to organize people and keep them on track during the Contract with America era)
EPA ....Ted Nugent (This one's going into the Interior Dept. as part of my government streamlining idea. Hey, a hunter's going to want to protect the environment.)
Management and Budget .... Mitt Romney (If anyone can straighten things out, he can)
Drug Control Policy ..... ????
Trade Represntative ..... Walter Williams (Like the others in the economic posts, he just gets it.)

And just to throw a curve ball at the media, Ann Coulter will be the White House Press Secretary. She'll let them know how stupid they really are.

That's it so far. Updates will follow.