A squirrel of controversy...

The "Invisible Hand"

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."

-- John Maynard Keynes

Comrade Bob blogs with his friends ontheborderline...

Comrade Bob sez:

I am very happy that New Richmond school board keep Hudson blogtroopers out of school board forum. I tolerate reasonable people from ACLU and politicians on the take from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, but not you anti-educrats from Hudson.

N. Onimous Says:
February 7th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
"So Bob, let’s get this straight so I can understand your “logic”. As long as your restriction of the 1st amendment includes stray politicians and the ACLU then it’s okay. And you had every right to fight the referendum that just squeaked by in Hudson. Where were you? You’re not only conflicted, you need to join up with the communist from New Richmond who’s watching out for the government pensions and health care benefits 'common good'."

taxinthevaseline Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Comrade Bob you are absolutely wrong. First, you even state above that 5% will not come from New Richmond. If that is true, where does it come from? Second, who is going to pay for the operating expenses of your new schools? Approx 50% will come from shared revenue at the state level. Last I checked, we all pay that. Third, Who pays for the health care and pensions as noted above by spiritpickshisass?

You seem to be misguided Comrade Bob. If you don't quit using math that makes sense, we are going to have to kick you off our blog. Then you try to shut out anyone who is actually using the other half of your brain as a peanut bowl as illustrated in your letter to the editor. I don’t get it! Of course, most people don't get me...

Comrade Bob sez:

February 30, 2007 at 6:66 PM

Why don't you guys take a flying leap at a rolling donut. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out the door. You mother wears combat boots. If your wishes were fishes, there'd be no room to swim in the ocean. Oh dear, bread and beer, if I were you I wouldn't be here. You didn't get that round mouth from eating three square meals a day. If a six turned out to be nine, I wouldn't mine. Did you get you haircut at a barber shop on Mars?

Tune in tomorrow for another slice of ontheborderline.nut baloney...

Dr. Spirit's Southern Tradition

Less Government/More Freedom (for who?)
In 1959 Shirley turned 6 years old. Her excitement grew as fall approached because she would be going to school for the first time. What she didn't understand was that 1959 was to be different. The US Federal Court had ordered Prince Edward County, Virginia, where Shirley lived, to desegregate its schools. And the county school board, rather than integrate their system as ordered, closed all the public schools.










Shirley's story is a true one, as related by Don Baker in a Washington Post article published in 2001. By the time the schools reopened in 1964, Shirley was 11 years old and should have been in the 5th grade. As disturbing as this was, for the teenagers of Prince Edward County the situation was far more serious. Not being able to attend school from 1959 to 1964 meant missing high school completely. Job opportunities would be severely limited without a high school diploma, and college plans were out of the question. Many families sent their children to live with family members in neighboring counties or states so they could be educated. Those who did not have family to turn to were left without formal schooling.

Further reading:
Prince Edward County Virginia School Closing Issue:
Photos:

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

-- Elizabeth Taylor

"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."
-- Paul Valery

Less laissez-faire / more democracy

"The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is built on a contradictory view of liberty. Right-wing libertarians understand that state control of all economic activity is tyrannical: that the power to determine if and how people make a living is the power to enforce conformity. But they don't see that the huge transnational corporations that own and control most of the world's wealth exercise a parallel tyranny: not only do these behemoths unilaterally determine qualifications, wages, hours, and working conditions for millions of workers, who (if they're lucky) may "choose" from a highly restricted menu of jobs or "choose" to stop eating; they make production, investment and lending decisions that profoundly affect the economic, social, and political landscape of communities and indeed entire countries -- decisions in which the great majority of people affected have little or no voice. Murray defines economic freedom as "the right to engage in voluntary and informed exchanges of goods and services without restriction."

Fine -- but if an economic transaction is to be truly voluntary and informed, all parties must have equal power to accept, reject, or influence its terms, as well as equal access to information. Can anyone claim that corporate employers and employees have equal power to negotiate their exchange? Or that consumers have full access to information about the products they buy? And if we're really interested in freedom, the right to voluntary and informed engagement in economic transactions has to be extended beyond their principals to others affected -- whether by plants that reduce air quality or rent increases that chase out shoe repair shops in favor of coffee bars.

The inconsistency of the belief that economic domination by the state destroys freedom, while economic domination by capital somehow enhances it, is often rationalized by attributing the self-interested decisions of the corporate elite to objective, immutable principles like "the invisible hand" or "supply and demand" -- just as state tyranny has claimed to embody the laws of God or History. But the real animating principle of a free society is democracy -- which should include a democratic economy based on enterprises owned and controlled by their workers."

Ellen Willis

Children it's Wednesday afternoon. Do you know why your dad is swearing at the newspaper?

Underpaid teachers?

"The basic facts are that, on the whole, public school teachers are not underpaid, says Greene. They're paid about 11% better per hour than other professional and technical specialty workers - that's the cluster of occupations, from clergy to physicians, that the Department of Labor says teachers are part of. They're paid about 16% more in metro Milwaukee."


By Patrick McIlheran JS Online

There was something in National Geographic a while back about a man in India whose job was to descend into sewers and unclog them. Afterward, encrusted, he went door to door until he found someone willing to lend him a hose to clean off.

Whatever he was being paid, it wasn't enough.

People have some of that "you couldn't pay me enough" sentiment about difficult jobs that do pay enough to attract workers in America. Teaching is one of them. That's probably because we recall how we treated the substitute teacher back in junior high.

Jay P. Greene, who teaches in the education school at the University of Arkansas, suggests that "we want to say we appreciate teachers and that we value them," and so we say teachers are underpaid. It shows we care.

"But that shouldn't blind us to basic facts," he says. That's doubly so in Wisconsin, now that teachers unions have put higher pay on Gov. Jim Doyle's shopping list.

Read more!

Dr. Strangelove 2007

Challenge Free-Market Fundamentalism

"Market fundamentalism has become like the air we breathe; we hardly notice it. Every time George W. Bush argues for more tax cuts, he relies on the unquestioned assumption that we all embrace market fundamentalism. Like religious fundamentalism, it is based more on faith than on reason. Through constant repetition, however, the American public has been bullied into believing that private spending is rational and efficient, while public spending is always wasteful and unproductive. (Tell that to people in New Orleans.)"

Read more at Tom Paine!

02/05/1981: Reagan cut taxes and starts spending like a drunken sailor plan

President Reagan, in a nationwide address, said the United States was in ``the worst economic mess since the Great Depression'' and called for sweeping spending and tax cuts. Trinkle-down economics is born, under the slogan that a rising tide floats all yachts.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

- Carl Sagan

There are many reasons for a dike bathroom in Hudson

and none of them have to do with global warming.

Hello Dali! Is that a Richard Potato or are you just glad to see me?

Agitator: a political troublemaker

“Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon).”

Harold Rosenberg



“Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?”

Henry Miller

Ziller Completes OTBL Refresher Course

New Richmond Reconsiders Policy on Outside Agitators

Outside agitators spoil things for everyone.

New Richmonds Flip Flop Policy Challenged by ACLU.
Ontheborderline Freedom Fighters Charge "Banner not Big Enough"-
violates their First Amendment Free ( to say the stupidest stuff ) Speech Rights.

2/3/1870: 15th Amendment of the Constitution Ratified

Ratified during the post-Civil War, Reconstruction period, the main purpose of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was to enfranchise former slaves. It states: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Though the amendment empowered Congress to enforce the article, its purpose was not really achieved until the Voting Rights Act.

After the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, southern blacks voted in numbers that on a per capita basis would probably exceed black political participation today. On both a per capita and absolute basis, more blacks were elected to political office during the period from 1865 to 1880 than at any other time in American history. Although no state elected a black governor during Reconstruction, a number of state legislatures were effectively under the control of a substantial African American caucus. These legislatures brought in programs that are considered part of government's duty now, but at the time were radical, such as universal public education. They also set aside all racially biased laws, even those prohibiting interracial marriage.

Despite the efforts of groups like the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate black voters and white Republicans, assurance of federal support for democratically elected southern governments meant that most Republican voters could both vote and rule in confidence. For example, when an all-white mob attempted to take over the interracial government of New Orleans, President Ulysses S. Grant sent in federal troops to restore the elected mayor.

Read more!

Ask a Librarian

Or ask Here.
"Ayn Rand heartily alienated most intellectuals of her era- left, right and center. Even today, the mere mention of her name brings a vicious snarl to the lips of many people."

In New Richmond - Outside Aggitators Unwelcome

Borderline Ad Hominizer Says:

"Mr. Ziller has to be one of the most conflicted individuals residing in the St. Croix Valley. It is obvious that this rule applies to certain individuals from Hudson who have taken the opportunity to speak at some of the New Richmond meetings. What harm does Mr. Ziller see in this? Why is he so concerned about people actually being able to speak at the meetings? .......

Get a grip Bob. If you’d spend a little less time going to lunch with the superintendents and a little more time being concerned about freedom and liberty you’d be a lot better off. "

Time for a little reflection...

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush went to a fitness spa for some fun. After a stimulating, healthy lunch, all three decided to visit the men's room and they found a strange-looking gent sitting at the entrance.

He said, "Welcome to the gentlemen's room. Be sure to check out our newest feature, a mirror that, if you look into it and say something truthful, you will be rewarded with your wish.

But, be warned: if you say something FALSE, you will be sucked into the mirror to live in a void of nothingness for all eternity!"

The three men quickly entered and upon finding the mirror, Bill Clinton stepped up and said, "I think I'm the most intelligent of us three," and he suddenly found the keys to a brand new Bentley in his hands.

Al Gore stepped up and said, "I think I'm the most aware of the environmental problems of us three," and in an instant, he was surrounded by a pile of money to fund his next Presidential Campaign.

Excited over the possibility of finally having a wish come true, George W. Bush looked into the mirror and said, "I think...," and was promptly sucked into the mirror.

Ludwig the OTBL groundhog sees conspiracies everywhere but no shadow...

...therefore, winter will last untill March 21, 1776. Details at 6:66 PM.

Climate Change - A Scientific Source

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

Atlas Shrugged: Book Review

Excerpt from piece by Whittaker Chambers which appeared in the December 28, 1957, issue of the convervative
Nationl Review

"Excruciatingly awful." I find it a remarkably silly book. It is certainly a bumptious one. Its story is preposterous. It reports the final stages of a final conflict (locale: chiefly the United States, some indefinite years hence) between the harried ranks of free enterprise and the "looters." These are proponents of proscriptive taxes, government ownership, labor, etc., etc. The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality. This," she is saying in effect, "is how things really are. These are the real issues, the real sides. Only your blindness keeps you from seeing it, which, happily, I have come to rescue you from."

"Looters" loot because they believe in Robin Hood, and have got a lot of other people believing in him, too. Robin Hood is the author's image of absolute evil — robbing the strong (and hence good) to give to the weak (and hence no good). All "looters" are base, envious, twisted, malignant minds, motivated wholly by greed for power, combined with the lust of the weak to tear down the strong, out of a deepseated hatred of life and secret longing for destruction and death."

Justify your salaries, Bush tells US executives

"America's corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities. You need to pay attention to the executive compensation packages that you approve. You need to show the world that American businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance."

President George W. Bush
In a speech to Wall Streeters, President Bush gave the above warning to our nation's business executives. He said those executives are under scrutiny for reaping massive salaries, and backdating share options to make them more valuable. Evidently President Bush is not a regular reader of the www.ontheborderline.net (OTLB) blog site. If he were, he would understand this is a free-market and there should be no ceiling on executive pay and, conversely, there should be floor on how little those executives can pay their employees.

Over at OTBL, they've never seen a profit that was obscene. In an OTBL post on 6/21/2006 titled "Minimum Wage Revisited," Mark Pribonic wrote the following:

"But why can’t businesses just pass on the extra cost to consumers? They possibly could; but if every business did that, then the rise in the minimum wage would be offset by the higher prices of goods and services. Thus, negating the effect of any wage gains; real income, the amount a dollar would purchase, remains the same. The rising costs logic also ignores the fact that consumers over time will discover alternatives or substitute goods. For example, the restaurant business employs a good number of minimum wage employees. Passing on the cost of a higher minimum wage to customers will more than likely result in decreasing the number of times an individual will go out to eat. Less business results in less need for employees. By not passing on the additional cost, the restaurant will experience declining profits which again will cause some employees to be laid off. In fact according to the National Restaurant Association, during the last minimum wage hike nearly 146,000 restaurant workers lost their jobs. The consumer is the ultimate driver of employment and wage rates; a fact too often ignored by economic pundits."

Evidently, it is easier to past on the costs to excessive executive pay packages to the consumers. Likewise for the back dating of stock that has been popular in the news of late.

"Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives. But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders."

President George W. Bush
From the above quote, it is clear that our President has turned completely into a socialist scum. Perhaps he did get a chance to read this article in the 9/23/2003 issue of Capitalism Magazine by Larry Benson titled: New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso vs. Karl Marx .

Concerning executive compensation payouts, Benson points out that "another mistaken Marxist notion is that property is a zero-sum commodity, i.e., if Grasso gets $188 million it comes out of everybody's pocket. But those millions come out of the private pockets of the NYSE owners, not anybody else's."

Evidently, unlike rising the minimum wage, the huge costs of executive compensation packages like Grasso's $188 million or Home Depot Ceo Bob Nardelli's $210 million don't get passed on to the consumer. The fact that executive pay has skyrocketed from 40 times that of the average wager earner to over 400 times the average wage earner isn't what bothers people like Larry Benson. Rather, Benson is disturbed by the fact that these CEOs can't stand up and take their money like a man. Writes Benson:

"The most disturbing aspect of this public lynching of private property is that Grasso, like Jack Welch a year ago, has now caved in to the mob and agreed to forgo millions 'to quell the controversy.'"

"The reprehensible thing about this whole issue is not the amount of money Grasso will get, but the lack of moral courage exhibited by people like Grasso and Welch. Such cowardice hastens the day when we will all be forced to live by the Marxist mantra: 'all property is theft.'"

Looks like President Bush has dumped his dance partners at OTBL. How long will it be before we are reading an OTBL post using the words "RINO, Kitty, Shelia and President Bush" in the same sentence?

United we...

Exxon Mobil posts U.S. record annual profit despite decline in 4Q results

<- At Left: Exxon-Mobil VP Mary Schwartz was almost forced to change careers due to impending layoffs. She rides her moped to work and hopes one day to save enough money to buy a car.

Al Gore Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Former Vice President Al Gore was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world's attention to the dangers of global warming, a Norwegian lawmaker said Thursday.

"A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference," Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.

Ben Franklin: Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.