Summer’s over. Back to school…and blogging.

We’ve had a nice, long summer here in Seoul.  We took a short vacation to Hong Kong in July and loved it.  If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it.  We stayed at the Renaissance and our hotel overlooked Victoria Bay towards Kowloon, and the views of the harbor and city skyline were simply amazing.

At The Peak

Also at The Peak

Night view of Kowloon

Hong Kong

The kiddos begin school shortly, and it’s time for me (and Prof J, hopefully) to start posting again.  My goal is to post one quality blog per week.  And since we try to write about matters that pertain to liberty, or lack thereof, we’ll have no shortage of topics, (which is also unfortunate.)

So, put away the sunscreen and hang up your beach towel.  There’s still a little liberty left to defend!

On Obamacare

We were repeatedly told that approximately 45 million Americans lacked access to health insurance.

We were then led to believe that given the choice (and a subsidy), these uninsured Americans would certainly choose to be covered by insurance. 

So my question is this: if, come January 1, 2014, an overwhelming majority hasn’t signed up for coverage – especially when coverage is federally mandated, can we conclude that we were misled?  I mean if folks were itching to get health insurance, surely the overwhelming majority of those uninsured will rush to sign up for health insurance, right?

I bet less than 50% sign up during the first 12 months.  Am I way off?

Wanna lose some weight?

Government’s obsessive behavior towards our access to insurance has resulted in many an unpleasant intervention.  Think Obamacare.  How about a free-market approach using incentives.

Should airlines be allowed to charge customers based on weight?  (let’s assume that they are given immunity from lawsuits)  If not weight, then BMI or some other proxy for size.

Delivery costs for packages delivered by UPS, FedEx, and USPS are determined by weight, so why not allow airlines to reward skinny folks.  If the airline wants to charge me $50 extra because my bag tips in at 51 lbs. why can’t that same airline reward me for weighing less (often much less!) than the average passenger.

I’d wager that the result of this change of business practice would not be insignificant.   

Government: A proper view

Speaking to a group of recent college graduates, President Obama made this plea for Leviathan:

“Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”

My, how things can suddenly change.

Today, we learned that this same benevolent overseer Obama implores us to embrace acted in ways that cast his view in serious doubt.

·         The Internal Revenue Service, over a yet unknown period of time, intimidated and bullied – behavior that bordered on criminal, several conservative and Tea Party activists groups.

·         The Justice Department secretly sought and collected two months’ worth of phone records for several Associated Press reporters for a yet to be disclosed investigation. 

Any rightful and informed view of big brother ought to dissuade just about everyone that power, even in the hands of angels, can be trusted.

Talk-the-talk but not walk-the-walk

I fail to understand hypocritical politicians.  (Not really)

Ever since water was wet, some politicians have engaged in the class warfare battle.  And President Obama has been the 4-star general of this perennial campaign.  He has publicly lamented the fact that Warren Buffet paid a lower effective tax rate than did Buffet’s secretary.  Well guess what: so did Obama.  See NY Times story here.

 And to rectify this great travesty the talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk Obama voluntarily paid more in federal income tax than required.  These actions by President Obama prove he truly believes that folks like him should pay more.

The only problem with this story is it didn’t happen.  Like any normal, rationally-behaving human, Obama did not voluntarily offer more of his (taxpayer funded) income to Uncle Sam.  In doing so, Obama spurned a perfect opportunity to back up his true belief that the ‘rich’ should pay more in taxes. 

 

Why?  Imagine the favorable press he would have received had he written a $25,000 check to the US Treasury.  He squandered a chance to pay a higher effective tax rate than his secretary and, more importantly, start a movement – a voluntary movement for all those like Obama who are ‘rich’ to contribute more to taxes than they’re required.  But this isn’t what the class warfare types desire.

 

Instead of leading the troops and persuading the ‘rich’ to volunteer more fruits of their labor to the State, he instead prefers to coerce them to do so using the American legal system.  You see, the sole purpose of government is to force folks to do what they ordinarily wouldn’t do.  Folks like Obama (and I use Obama because he’s the most visible and vocal) prefer state coercion over voluntary arrangements.  And this preference is antithetical to the notion of liberty and freedom.

I hope and pray that more people will realize that government power is a thing to be used sparingly less we all become nothing more than wards of the all-powerful state.