Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Politics Avalanche made it to RealClearPolitics

There is good news.

My Bidding adieu to Bush article, yes, the previous one, made it to the RealClearPolitics website on Friday.

Check it out here (Bush Wasn't So Bad)

Monday, June 9, 2008

Blame Dubya First

The new mantra for liberals is "Blame Dubya First!". Combined with a low popularity of the president, it is extremely fashionable to blame the president for everything that goes wrong. Blame Bush for the dandruff and for the dog that chases you during your morning run. I just hit my thumb with a hammer and I swore : "Damn you Bush!"

However, with the pain long gone, let me inspect the rationality of blaming the President for the various problems, perceived or real, that the country is facing. I have chosen four areas: Iraq war, energy crisis, sagging economy and mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina.

I am not an ardent supporter of wars. Not even Iraq war. But to hold the President as the sole scapegoat for whatever shortcomings of the Iraq war is delusional. The Senate and the House, both Republicans and Democrats supported the war. The same people who are blaming Bush for the failures in Iraq were spineless to oppose it before it started. Now that it is fashionable to oppose war, majority of them are against it. Blaming Bush is the way they are refusing to own up their responsibility. Why were they afraid to oppose back then? Because the polls said that the majority of Americans wanted it. They did not have guts to take a moral stand when it was unpopular. Democrats were screaming for Bush to stop Saddam and his WMD. The same people would flip again if the war in Iraq suddenly becomes very popular with the American public. This morality of convenience also makes them forget about the achievements of the war. Back then there was no question about the need of liberating a country from a tyrant who was oppressing all opposition brutally. Now that Saddam is dead and gone, people are forgetting, conveniently, about the positive effects of the invasion. If there is a mess in Iraq, we have to deal with it and let the process complete itself. We cannot just cut and run.

Everybody is bashing bush for the high gas prices. They fail to recognize two things. One: the current high prices are the result of market forces that are beyond the control of the American president. The global supply of oil is almost constant and the consumption is getting higher by the day. This results in an imbalance in the supply-demand equilibrium and the market readjusts by the way of higher prices. This brings to account the second accusation. It is his energy policy that created this mess which could have been avoided. Highly unlikely. Energy policy cannot alter the way a nation consumes energy in a few years. If any flaw in the American energy policy was responsible for the crisis, then the flaw existed for decades. So the blame should be borne by the previous administrations, including Bush Sr, Clinton, Reagan and beyond. However, whether they could have predicted the changes in the global economy that results in the higher oil prices is yet another question. Blaming bush is escapism. Again, let's consider some of the short term measures that can ease the prices a bit. The White House has repeatedly asked/begged Congress to pass legislation that allow drilling in Alaska, which has more oil than Saudi Arabia; allow offshore drilling in the Gulf Coast and California and to allow more nuclear plants to be built. Answers to all of the above from the Democrats and many Republicans is a staunch NO! The technology has evolved so much in the past decade and anyone who is for protecting the environment should add limits/provisions to ensure that in the bill. A blind opposition to any of these is downright moronic.

The main factor behind the economic downturn is the mortgage crisis and the resulting credit crunch. These are the results of decades of indiscipline and over inflation of house prices. Everyone said the house prices will continue to rise perpetually. This led to widespread fiscal irresponsibility by home owners and the lenders. George W Bush did not force these folks to buy bigger houses than they could afford by lying about their income. He did not force the hordes of people to ignore the contracts while signing Adjustable Rate Mortgages and then again use any available inflated equity to buy Plasma TVs. There is only one policy that could have saved thousands from home-foreclosures. There is only one action that could have stopped the credit crunch from happening. It is called personal responsibility.

Another blame that George W Bush has borne singlehandedly is that he is behind everything evil that happened with the Hurricane Katrina. Bush did not create the hurricane. It is a natural phenomenon. He did not make it more severe. There have been far worse hurricanes in the past. He did not designed or built the levees that were broken. Again, the Office of the President of the United States of America has nothing to do with the Hurricane Contingency plans for the area. They are formulated by the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. The plan was put in action by the state effectively. It gave plenty of warnings and asked for mandatory evacuation from the area. It is not Dubya's fault that one in five people in New Orleans refused to leave. They were amply warned. It is not his fault that there were many people in New Orleans who had no cars or were sick. I've never read anywhere that the duties of the president includes making sure that every citizen is healthy, owns a car and shows common sense. Well, some of these are failings, but you cannot blame Bush alone for that. He rushed all the help that he could as fast as he can. You cannot expect him to go down there and start airlifting people out of rooftops all by himself. The convoys of food and other stuff takes time to organize and to reach a flooded area.

I am not claiming that George W Bush is the finest president that America has ever seen. But he is not the monster that the liberals portray him to be. To counter their claims, these facts are out there to be seen by anyone who cares to look. But as I have read in the internet, "If the sun were to explode, the Liberals would spend their last few minutes blaming it on Bush."

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Gas Prices Soaring, Politicians Warring.

Gas prices are soaring. New Jersey has one of the lowest prices in the nation and it was around $3.59 a couple of days ago. On the same day, just across the state border, it was $4.29 in Rockland County, NY and the price shown in the above Chicago Tribune picture in Downtown Chicago. Obviously, nobody is happy about it. Every congressman is trying hard to put the blame on someone else, whether it is Bush administration's foreign policy or record profits by oil companies. But what people want to know is where this ends.


Some of the solutions that are floating around are suspending federal gas tax, enforcing higher fuel efficiency standards and forcing the oil companies to let go of their profits. I can dissect one by one to show how each one of these measures will not put a dent on the current scenario.


Suspending or repealing the federal gas tax could save about 20 cents per gallon to the consumers. Sen. John McCain has been promoting this idea. This would only lead to about $10 savings per month for the consumers where as it would deny billions of dollars from the federal infrastructure programs. There is also a chance of the gas station owners and the oil companies will readjust the prices so that the savings may not go into the wallets of the public. Well, this is not a chance, we've seen it happening in Illinois before.


Enforcing higher fuel efficiency standards is an idea supported by the white house hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. At first glance, it looks like a pretty sound idea. But in reality, it would not work the way it is envisioned. A classic example would be story behind Chrysler PT Cruiser. The car is designed in such a way that it would be classified as a truck by NHTSA for CAFE fuel economy calculations. This enabled the company to lower the fuel economy of its light truck fleet into compliance with CAFE standards. If there is anyone out there who can challenge it when I say that it is a small car, come forward. This is just an example that shows a way by which companies circumvent the Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations. It is very clear that the regulations cannot improve fuel efficiency. Free market can. There is no better incentive for the manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency than a $5 per gallon gas price. We see that happening now. Look at how Chrysler is doing in terms of sales. Look at the Japanese companies with their smaller fuel efficient cars. You get the idea.


Another idea that Sen. Barack Obama has been promoting is enforcing windfall taxes on oil companies. He talks about record profits by Exxon Mobil of the order of $10 Billion. What he fails to bring into perspective is that Exxon Mobil made a profit of $10 Billion on an operating revenue of over $100 Billion. This is not a windfall. This is definitely not cut-throat profit. Earning 10% profit is the least that the investors can ask for from any company. Would Sen. Dick Durbin invest in a company that does not make at least some meagre profit? Go check out the share prices and the revenues and profits of different companies, oil companies or others and figure out by yourselves.


Now look at gas prices around the world: UK- $5.64, Hong Kong- $5.62 , Germany- $5.29, Italy- $4.86, Portugal- $4.80. Let us examine how these countries fare in terms of median household income. Well, most of them are behind the United states in this aspect. While I am at it, I should make one smaller point. In the UK, everything is more expensive, not just gas prices, than the in the United States and at the same time, people earn less. This has been the way things have been for a long time. There must be some way that the people in Europe got away with a higher cost of living.


One thing that we can be certain of is that the cheap gas prices of 90s are never coming back. These high prices would make the consumers reduce consumption voluntarily. The market will work if we let it. High prices would encourage conservation better than any environmental regulations. Entrepreneurs would race to develop viable alternate fuels if gas prices rose too much. However, the alternative sources have to be proven their viability in the free market for long term sustainability. Government subsidies won't cut it. Any source that is truly cheaper and cleaner and still viable would survive. Government does not need to support it. These high gas prices would make many of these sources more viable and this could help us in the long term by weaning us off our dependency of oil from the Middle East. We would definitely love to see us stop funding both sides of the war on terror.


Secondly, drill more in Alaska and Gulf Coast. This the only country in the world that denies its citizens access to known recoverable oil resources in the country. A blind opposition on more drilling is a terrible mistake that the democrats are making. Allowing offshore drilling, eliminating regulations that restrict refining, and suspending harmful tax rules that discourage domestic oil production would go a long way in helping reduce the gas prices. If you are concerned about the environment, you can create some basic guidelines to protect it. I am sure the drilling techniques have evolved in a long way in the last two decades so as to minimize the effect on the environment. People who blindly oppose any drilling are acting like they are oblivious of this fact.


In essence, if we hope to have a stable, affordable supply of gas, we must allow the free market to operate. The government can do certain things. But mainly, it should let the free market operate itself out of this situation. From a national security point of view, this is the time for America to innovate, conserve and adjust itself in many ways so that we do not have to vent all of our money to the states like the Venezuela and the ones in Middle East that definitely do not have America's prosperity and security as their first priority. The blame game must cease.


Check out the claims.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/price.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income


Thursday, May 15, 2008

Keep the immigrants. Deport the Columbia faculty.

I'm referring to a story by Jason L Riley on Wall Street Journal. Check out the article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121080967841993539.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Mr. Riley has explored into some serious stuff here. It rings true to the beliefs of most of America. And it points to the extremism that is being promoted by the hard core liberals who are against the concept of assimilation. This absolutely shows how they are out of touch with the reality.

Let me talk about assimilation, the supposedly dirty word. If I may, assimilation is the whole essence of being American. Right from the beginning, with each wave of immigration, the newcomers have tried their best to being a part of the mainstream. This may take a decade, or a couple of generations. But the whole idea is that the immigrants adjust their ways and become one to the melting pot that is America. The first generation may have their own difficulties, but the subsequent generations have always found it natural becoming American in all senses.

The key to this transformation is that there were always opportunities to do so in the past. Or at least, assimilation was always expected. Nobody talked about having Italian language education. There were no German sign boards in the public. Sure enough, the children of Catholic immigrants needed Notre Dame to come up against the odds that were stacked up in the universities then. But fast forward to the twenty first century and none of them is away from main stream America. Nobody bats an eye when a Catholic is running for president.

Again, this is not to say that assimilation is a one way street. No. It works both ways. As much as the immigrants become a part of America, they contribute to the culture, the cuisine and the folk lore: be it Pizza, Mafia or Drinking habits.

So, the pundits are wrong when they say assimilation is a bad thing. We do not need some parallel societies where a lower quality citizens exist segregated by the walls of education in a different language. There is no reason for English not becoming the official language of America. Earlier in history, there was no need for it. But now a days multiculturalists fail to realize that lack of assimilation linguistically and culturally is only enslaving the immigrants against an opportunity to self improvement : Financially and Culturally.

Good traditions never die. It never did in the past two centuries. So there is no reason to think that the sole identity of an immigrant is lost with assimilation. It only strengthens the person in a new environment. It only strengthens the country.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Canadian news with some spine

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=f6848b98-417b-4db9-ba63-0ebb7f4228a7&k=30619&p=1

I usually find the Canadian commentaries displaying a blatant deficiency of a backbone. But that is not the case with National Post and Lorne Gunter. I have found his opinion on the importance of Israel pretty insightful. He says that if [the Western World] gives up on Israel, [the jihadists] will simply take that as a sign they might be able to pressure us next to give up on Quebec, Mississauga, Michigan, Birmingham and the Paris suburbs.


Whatever maybe one's political belief, there is no question that Israel has managed to perfect certain techniques in dealing with terrorism. Whereas America has been under severe attack from the Jihadists only for the past one decade or so, Israel, throughout its existence of sixty years has been getting bombarded by all kinds of onslaughts imaginable. It has dealt with hostage situations and airline hijacking for ages and have been considered as the best in the world in counter-terrorism.


A big aspect of Israel is that it thrives under extreme threats. The Egyptian aerial assaults with its massive assembly of Soviet made aircraft had forced them to produce one of the best air force legions in combat scenarios. It is not a secret that the Israel had given American Soldiers training on the urban guerrilla warfare for the Baghdad streets.


Thus, we can see that Israel is useful in two ways, one as a strategic, unwavering partner in one of the most volatile regions in the world. Secondly, keeping in mind of the continuing war on terror, they could be extremely useful as a training partner or a real world lab to test the next-gen combat techniques in the long term.


Additionally, in an area of thriving dictatorships and blooming fanaticism, it could act as the beacon of freedom and democracy. Add to that the resilience and courage of Israeli people, it proves to the Western world and America that, even when the going gets tough, democracy and freedom is tough enough to get going. The unflinching strength that the country has shown in the past sixty years braving enemies from all around that have the sole agenda of erasing it from the world map is a sign of optimism and hope for the believers of liberty and democracy worldwide.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Democrats to entrust Coyotes with national security!

America is the only country where anybody can just walk in to the country and the local law enforcement authorities doesn't have any right to check anyone's legality to remain in the country. Go to any country in the world and one service that the governments do to the citizens is to make sure that it does not allow anyone to arrive without permission and cause harm to the citizens physically or economically.

For the record, Politics Avalanche is not against immigration. PA believes in creating provisions for temporary workers to be allowed into the country through special visas. There are around 13 million illegal immigrants in this country who are earning money and yet paying no taxes. The only way to end this free-ride is to get them ways to become legal and force employers to hire only legal workers by strong enforcement tactics.

Coming back to the main issue in question. Have anyone of you thought about how good is the border security in Mexico? Well, other than from certain neighboring countries, the border security measures in Mexico is pretty slack and anybody can get into Mexico pretty easily. So are we trusting Mexican authorities with our national security? They have other things to worry about.

Think about this: Once in Mexico, anyone can pay the coyotes to get themselves easily into the United States. Do you seriously think that the Coyotes are going to check the people against the US Terror Watch List before letting them cross the border? You must be kidding me! So in essence, we are trusting the coyotes with the National Security of the United States of America.

One argument I see against the strengthening of the borders is that no terrorist has come that way yet. OK, let us wait till a bunch of them arrive and blow up half of America before we can start doing something about it.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Problem with big government

This is exactly what happens when government tries to do something that we, the people can do better.

I could not have used a better person to show the point.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Gingrich: Wright May Be Deliberately Trying to Hurt Obama

Saying that Wright "went out of his way to weaken Obama" during Monday's address at the National Press Club, Gingrich told Barbara Walters "I think Reverend Wright has a greater interest in his self-importance."

Or, let us say, does it mean that he is trying to distance himself from Obama and THEREBY HELPING HIM?

Now Obama will further denounce his words and may even disavow him. Is anybody seeing this ulterior motive?

Hillary to appear on FOX NEWS

Hillary Clinton to appear for first time ever on FOX NEWS 'The O'Reilly Factor' Wednesday night.


Hey Hill, it is wise to follow Obama at every step. But is O'Reilly a wise choice?

He could get some TRUTH out of you. Unlike the senile Chris Wallace who read a script given by Obama Campaign.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Obama wrong about fuel efficiency standards.

Obama says : "This country didn't raise fuel efficiency standards for over 30 years." The result, the Illinois senator said, is that consumers are suffering.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4722480

Well, I think the market takes care of itself. PA (Politics Avalanche) believes that there is no need for such harsh measures. Who stuck with gas guzzling SUV's? The names that come to mind are GM, Ford, Chrysler. Who came out with smaller, more efficient cars? The Japs did that.


The primary proof that free market works to regulate itself is evident by the good fortunes of the Japs lately and the mad scrambling by which the Big Three are going for smaller cars.

So Obama, the system works just fine, what you have seen in Detroit is Capitalism regulating the industry. No one who even walks by a gas station would argue that the companies are going to ignore the case for more fuel efficient vehicles. If they do, it will be at their own peril.

DO NOT BRING THE GOVERNMENT TO DO WHAT WE CAN DO OURSELVES IN A BETTER WAY!

Choosing family members.

Clinton said: Unlike family members, we can choose our pastors.

PA's (Political Avalanche) response: Well, we get to choose some of our family members. Like, let's say... when we say : "I do".