Is President Obama a Lame Duck?

I noticed a change of attitude in the mainstream media. It seems that Obama is being set up to be a one-term President. People who were formerly giving him ****jobs are now criticizing him.

It depends on who is chosen for the Republican nomination. If it's an old guy (McCain or Bob Dole), then Obama is being set up to win. If it's a charismatic young guy, then Obama is being set up to lose.

The President is a replaceable figurehead. The evil fnord is "If only we pick a different President, then things will get better!" The real problem is that government is one huge extortion racket. Even under a new President, existing bad laws are not repealed.

The Republicans are saying "Elect us and we'll repeal the lousy healthcare reform law." The fallacy is that the Democrats in the Senate will filibuster any repeal attempt. The Republicans don't need a simple majority. They need 60 votes in the Senate, plus a President who won't veto the repeal law.

A new President will always promise change and reform, especially when things are going badly. The President is forced to work under the constraint of a completely corrupt system. This guarantees failure, even if the President has good intentions.

It seems that Obama is being set up as a one-term President. A new President means that the State is forgiven for all past abuses. However the laws passed under his predecessor remain intact. All the bad laws passed under Bush are mostly still intact. Bush didn't touch the bad laws passed by Clinton. The new President won't repeal bad laws passed under Obama.

For example, while Bill Clinton was President, there was a law passed that decreased the number of spots in State-licensed medical schools. Instead of fixing the State licensing cartel, President Obama passed another healthcare "reform" law that makes the problem even worse. Under the new law, insiders have even greater State-guaranteed profits. State violence is forcing people to buy health insurance. Under the old system, a healthy young person might make the reasonable choice to not buy insurance.

A bad law has inertia. The people who profit from the bad law can always lobby to prevent reform. A new law is proposed to fix the problems caused by current law. The new law makes things even worse.

The Illusion of Choice

I thought of an amusing joke, regarding the US political system compared to China.

In China, State insiders pick one candidate, and you get to decide who you want to vote for.

In the USA, State insiders pick two candidates, and you get to decide who you want to vote for.

Viewed this way, there's no substantial difference between the US political system and China. In both systems, insiders have firm control.

The "advantage" of the US-style system is that there's an illusion of choice. In effect, voters are asked "Do you prefer lie A or lie B?" This gives insiders some feedback on how to tune their propaganda.

Who Cares About Facebook?

I noticed a lot of anti-Facebook sentiment recently. Some politicians are considering prosecuting Facebook for various ethical violations.

If you're offended by Facebook, there's a very simple solution. DON'T USE FACEBOOK! Lobbying the State to prosecute Facebook is silly.

This post on lewrockwell.com (by Lew Rockwell) was very offensive. He denounced "Quit Facebook Day" as anti-capitalist. WTF? I thought Lew Rockwell was supposed to be supporting free markets?

In a free market, if you think a business owner is misbehaving, then you should boycott it. If you think Facebook abuses its customers, then you should shut down your Facebook account and stop updating it.

That's really ironic, after Lew Rockwell was defending Rand Paul for saying "A free market should take care of business owners who racially discriminate, when customers boycott that business. It is immoral to prevent a privately-owned business from refusing to serve a customer."

If the vast majority of customers oppose racial discrimination, and there's no barrier to forming new businesses, then a business owner who racially discriminates will lose customers. If a majority of people don't like Facebook's privacy policy, then they should stop using Facebook. Facebook doesn't have a State-backed monopoly, but they do receive State subsidies like most large corporations. Still, for an Internet-based business, there are low barriers to entry.

Usually, when a business abuses a customer, they quietly leave without complaining. If a business owner is abusive, a polite explanation probably won't get them to change their ways. This fnord is repeatedly mentioned in "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares". The owner says "The customers don't complain about the food. Therefore, the food is awesome!" Chef Ramsay says "But you have no customers!"

As another example, I noticed abusive censorship on Wikipedia and mises.org and Joel on Software and other forums. I don't complain loudly on those websites. I left, and no longer contribute there. One nice thing about a blog is that I don't have to get into arguments with censoring moderators.

That probably explains why "Quit Facebook Day" was a flop. Any sensible person who is offended by Facebook's privacy policy has already stopped using Facebook.

Anti-capitalist would be to say "State violence should be used against Facebook for abusing its customers." The free market solution is "If Facebook abuses customers, then customers should stop using it."

MySpace was the #1 social networking website for awhile. They got complacent and lost their market share to Facebook. In another few years, something else will probably come along and displace Facebook. Facebook has a strong market position, but not an explicit State-backed monopoly.

I never understood the attraction of Facebook, compared to having a blog. I'm looking to move to my own domain.

I once set up a Facebook account, when I went on a job interview to write a Facebook application. I just entered my name and otherwise don't update it. Some old friends have contacted me via Facebook, but that's it. I tell them I prefer to communicate via E-Mail or via my blog.

Using State violence against Facebook is silly. If Facebook is alienating their customers, then they'll switch to other services. On the Internet, there's very little barrier to entry for starting a new business, compared to other parts of the State economy.

Federal Reserve Announces New Bailout Trick

This story was very funny. Banks may now make term deposits at the Federal Reserve, earning interest. The maximum interest rate is 0.75%, the current Discount Rate. Do you see the bailout?

Large banks may borrow at the Fed Funds Rate, currently 0.25%. Therefore, large banks can borrow at the Fed Funds Rate and lend that money right back to the Federal Reserve. This is a guaranteed riskless profit for the banksters.

The interest rate on these "term deposits" will necessarily be greater than corresponding Treasury Notes. Otherwise, banks would buy Treasury Notes instead of making a term deposit at the Federal Reserve.

This program is a pure bailout for banks. They are borrowing at the Fed Funds Rate and lending at the "term deposit Rate". Only the largest banks may borrow from the Federal Reserve directly at the Fed Funds Rate. Other banks pay higher rates.

The Federal Reserve insiders keep coming up with new tricks. The reason is that an old program is too closely associated with evil. New names for "print money and give it away" must be continually invented.

I like the way the Federal Reserve spokesman says "We're removing excess liquidity." The reality is that the Federal Reserve is literally printing money and giving it away to the banksters.

Heart Disease and Brushing Your Teeth

This story had an obvious logical fallacy. Brushing your teeth regularly prevents heart disease! Do you see the error?

This is "correlation confused with causation". It's believable that people who brush their teeth regularly have good health habits overall, and are therefore less likely to develop heart disease.

This is a common mistake by the State media/science engine. Correlation is not the same as causation.

Police With Assault Rifles

I saw something amusing/offensive. In downtown Manhattan during rush hour, two policemen with assault rifles were standing in the subway, by the turnstiles.

Under what circumstances would they actually use the assault rifles? Are they really going to fire them into a crowded subway?

Even if there were terrorists, it would be one or two guys with a bomb. I can't imagine any scenario where an assault rifle would be useful.

The police were probably there for intimidation purposes. They're providing the illusion of security, while accomplishing nothing.

I thought about saying "Hey stupid! What do you think you're doing?" I didn't feel like provoking a confrontation. I don't fit their target profile. They didn't notice me.

The policemen seemed to sort of know that they were doing something ridiculous. They were standing there trying to look tough.

Someone told me that the police with assault rifles are deployed only when a VIP visits. When the President visits, there's an announcement. When other VIPs visit, there's no public announcement. Most/all people probably wouldn't even recognize them. Many high-ranking State insiders are never publicly mentioned. There may have been some VIPs visiting downtown Manhattan, on the day those police were deployed. It is interesting that State insiders are so scared that they deployed those police, even though there was no public announcement of anything important.

The police with assault rifles are an example of State waste and intimidation. I can't imagine any scenario where an assault rifle would be useful on the subway. The police were probably ordered to just stand there and look tough. They probably would not have stopped a turnstile-jumper or pickpocket, even if they noticed it.

Nobody at the SEC Knows Perl

This story was funny.

The Securities and Exchange Commission took a step Wednesday toward making that job (investigating the sudden market crash) a bit easier by proposing to unify the collection of trading data across all stock and options markets.

The SEC is requiring all exchanges to keep their logfiles in a common format. Allegedly, this will facilitate future investigations.

It would take a competent Perl programmer a couple of hours to convert an exchange's logfiles into a common format. It would be a simple Perl script to parse out the logfile and figure out who was selling during that 15 minute period. The exchanges have to keep track of the buyer and seller for each order/trade.

A FIX message literally is symbol=XYZ, price=XX.XX, quantity=X, accountID=XXXXX, buy/sell=X, time=HH:MM:SS:MMM. It's a very simple Perl script to parse that out. (There are some other minor details.) Almost every exchange keeps its records in FIX format. The other common formats are similarly parseable.

If the SEC can't figure out how to hire a competent Perl programmer, they could hire any CS grad student to assist with their investigation.

The vast majority of financial programming is "convert data from one format to another format".

The SEC seems to be covering up the true cause of the sudden market crash on May 6. This is being presented as a fake excuse for their lousy investigation. I can't believe that zero competent programmers are working for the SEC.