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The High Cost of Low Cost

November 28 2010 by Big Frick in Mexico |No Comments

Steak tacos and an iced tea.

They don’t even bring a menu to my table anymore at the Mexican eatery in my home town. Call me a creature of habit or call me a guy that truly enjoys having one of the best Mexican restaurants in the world located minutes from my house. Either way you’d be right.

I visit this Jalapeño haven enough to be considered a regular customer (in more ways than one). So much so that I have come to know the owner and his wife and family. On my most recent visit I spoke to the owner (nicknamed Bull) about his mother in Mexico. She had fallen several months back and broke her hip. I asked how she was doing and if he had any plans to visit her for the upcoming Christmas holiday. He said she was doing OK but was afraid to venture outside of her house for fear of all the violence plaguing the country. He also said she would not allow him to visit her in fear of his safety.

You see, most folks in the town where she lives know her son is a successful businessman in America. As such, he is a perfect target for kidnapping from the roving drug lord banditos. His mother fears she too is a target because of his success. But as is so often the case with senior (or in this case senora) citizens, she is unwilling to leave the area she has called home for her whole life. Bull also knows that he would never be able to recoup any of the investment he has made in his mom’s home. And even though they know the walls that surround her are no real protection against those intent on gaining entry they try not to think of the danger and pray for her safety.

The circumstances for this one Mexican family are indeed sad. But it leads to the bigger question that has been puzzling me for some time. Why are American companies continuing to build and invest in new, massive manufacturing facilities in a country that is far more dangerous than anything we witnessed in the old Wild West or even the gangster era of crime riddled Chicago in the 1920’s? And the bigger question that remains unasked is how much is it costing these companies to keep the drug lords and their militias from shutting down their facilities or terrorizing their workers to keep them from showing up for work?

Many of these companies have been doing business in Mexico for many years. It is not a secret that in order to do business in Mexico the proper “tribute” needed to be paid to the proper governmental authorities. Companies did what they needed to do and wrote it off as a cost of doing business. But as has been shown repeatedly of late, the Mexican government is completely powerless to control or abate the outrageous and increasing daily violence that has plagued this country for the past several years. The drug lords rule the roost. Are we to believe that a small time restaurateur has to fear the ruthlessness of these mercenary cartels but a major American corporation does not? Or is this just another cost of doing business?

These cartel militias are vicious and heartless but they are not stupid. Much like the fabled answer of John Dillinger’s “Because that’s where the money is” when asked why he robbed banks, these cartels know where the money is, and it is not in the pockets of the low paid laborers. We see the horrific images of headless corpses and blood stained streets almost daily on the news reports out of Mexico and even from the border towns of the United States. The reports are always about the billions of dollars from the lucrative drug trade being raked in by these Mexican crime kingpins. But how much of this bloodbath is being financed by “protection” payments being made by major American manufacturing companies? As scores of American manufacturing jobs continue to be relocated south of the border it’s an unasked question worth asking. Are we not asking because we are afraid of the possible retribution of these ruthless crime cartels?

Or are we afraid of the answer?

The Audacity of Stupidity

November 21 2010 by Big Frick in airlines, Barack Obama, terrorism, terrorists |No Comments

“I understand people’s frustration”

So says the leader of the free world Barack Hussein Obama.

No, he wasn’t talking about the frustration he saw in the results of the midterm election. Nor was he talking about the frustration created by the ideas proposed by his crack team of economic experts that are suggesting raising the age for Social Security to 69 and eliminating the tax deduction for the interest paid on home mortgages. He’s not talking about the frustration being shown by those of us with health insurance now that our premiums are being slammed by double digit increases to cover the cost of those that don’t pay anything or the frustration of the millions of unemployed who put their faith in the Hope and Change Express only to be run over by a freight train of debt that has done nothing but raise the country’s balance due to China by $3 trillion.

He’s not talking about the myriad of other frustrations that Americans are feeling, made evident by his approval ratings which are dropping faster than Barney Frank’s soap on rope in the Congressional Intern locker room.

No, the president is talking about the frustration felt by Americans who would rather not have their privates viewed naked, patted, grabbed or prodded just for the privilege of boarding an airplane. It is also the frustration felt by most regular travelers that these rules seem to be made up on the fly (no pun intended), changing without any real forethought or proof that any of these ideas will work.

What is most frustrating is that the TSA informed the president that the only way to keep American aero-travelers safe is to continue to subject them to x-rays that would likely be banned for medical treatment under the new ObamaCare program. To paraphrase the ineptitude of our official position: Racially profiling young Muslim men, who have in fact been responsible for every attack on an airliner to date, will not keep us safe, but getting a picture of Grandma’s vajayjay will. The whole thing is pathetic (pun definitely intended).

"One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us," said Obama, once again showing a level of cluelessness beyond that of mere mortal men, especially coming from a guy who doesn’t have to have a picture snapped of his Johnson every time he boards Air Force One.

No, Mr. President, it’s not that it’s inconvenient. It’s that it’s stupid.

With 30% to 40% of the cargo loaded onto commercial flights going uninspected the odds of a terrorist attempting to board a plane with a bomb up his ass is nil. The bad guys have moved on. They are looking for their best opportunity for success. The supposed good guys are still bringing a knife to a gunfight.

I fly a lot. And make no mistake about it; I want to be kept as safe as is humanly possible. But the measures being taken are strictly for show to deflect attention away from the fact that we are still pretty stupid when it comes to planning for what the terrorists are going to do next.

And stupid never kept anybody safe.

Over and Over It’s Almost Over

October 31 2010 by Big Frick in Barack Obama, congress, democrats, election, liberals, Obama, republicans, Washington DC |No Comments

It’s almost over.

The billboards. The TV commercials. The radio spots. The debates. The interviews. The handshakes. The photo ops. The auto-dialed phone calls. The full page ads. The political action committees. The rallies. The speeches. The political pundits along with their up to the minute opinion polls replete with graphs and charts. It’s all almost over.

With just about 24 hours left before the midterm election of 2010 it is a far different political landscape then it was just a short two years ago. Hope and Change have been replaced by the harsh reality of what those two innocuous transitive verbs really mean.

There has indeed been plenty of Change. And the Change that has transpired has begot many emotions. None of them even remotely resembling Hope.

Two years ago many of the self-proclaimed independent thinkers raced headlong into the polls to cast their vote for a fresh faced junior Senator from Illinois that said almost nothing, but said it in such an eloquent manner that almost nobody bothered to ask what any of his obfuscated rhetoric meant. But now just two short years into this Messiah’s four year term many of those same proud independents have come to the realization that talk is just about the only thing that has been cheap these first two years. The rest has been very expensive indeed.

It has been an election season rife with wild accusations of witchcraft and sexual misconduct. Of Aqua Buddha and illegal alien housekeepers. Of secret donations and not so secret strong arm tactics. The voting public has been made aware of just about every word ever written and every phrase ever uttered by both political veterans and newcomers alike. All this while most of the focus has been on the failed policies of a president that still hasn’t produced a valid copy of a birth certificate or allowed the review of even a single college paper.

The entire election process has been uglier than a Hillary Clinton pants suit and harder than Barney Frank at a Boy Scout jamboree. But what seems to have already lasted an eternity will be over very soon.

And for all the deep digging that has been done into the past actions and policies of those hopeful to make Washington DC their mailing address for the next few years the most important question is the one that has remained unasked. Lost in the circus of personal attacks and carefully phrased and spun repudiations is the only real reason to vote in this election.

Are you happier today than you were two years ago? Do you feel safer? Do you feel more confident in the country’s direction? Forget about the broken promises. Are you happy with the ones that have been fulfilled? Is your job more secure? Is your bank account in better shape? Is your future brighter?

If you can honestly answer yes to the above posed questions, or at least to most of them, then my honest suggestion is that you vote for more of the same and pull that voting booth lever for the Democrat. But if, like me, you are more scared today having seen the reality of what can happen when a neophyte community activist gains control over both Houses of Congress who are literally willing to sell the very soul of this country and those of our children and our children’s children to the economic devil of unsustainable debt and unbridled government spending then you have a chance to make it stop.

Forget about who is right with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and focus on Asking the right question and Telling the Democrat controlled brain trust in congress your answer with your vote. Is this the direction our country should be headed? If it is than I guess the national celebration of Hope should have continued through the entirety of the past two years.

But it hasn’t.

Maybe that’s proof it’s time for the Change.

Selling Cells

October 3 2010 by Big Frick in abortion, Barack Obama, science, stem cells |1 Comment

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Unless, of course, you are able to develop a celebrity driven media campaign and bullshit your way into some government grant money. Then wrong and right no longer matter.

Such is the case with embryonic stem cell research.

After a barrage of well funded, impassioned pleas by the likes of Parkinson sufferer Michael J Fox and a host of liberal minded government politico’s joined by downtrodden victims of just about every malady from Alzheimer’s to Zoster Virus, Americans began to become immune to the fact that in order for embryonic stem cells to save a life, a life must first be destroyed.

Scientists lined up around the Capitol eager to give their testimony of how the only salvation for mankind was to drop the limitations placed on embryonic stem cell testing and to also drop some heavy government funding into their research facility’s coin box. No other cells were suitable, we were told, and any restrictions would only prove to bring life as we know it to a screeching halt under the yoke of a myriad of maladies.

As one of his first orders of presidential business Barack Obama ended the restrictions imposed by his predecessor and stood at the helm of the "SS Infanticide" shouting full steam ahead. It was a dark day indeed for anyone with even a hint of a conscience.

Those of us who opposed this revisiting to the days of Josef Mengele were called callous obstructionists and socially unregenerate by the scientific elite. The smokescreen of scientific promises became so thick that many lost sight of just how truly hideous the idea of harvesting human babies truly is. Having thrown away our moral compass, it would only have been a short time before businesses were set up for the sole purpose of employing brood mare mommies to develop these tiny humans to just the right size for picking.

You may say “Oh Big Frick! That’s an exaggeration”. But is it?

In my lifetime we have gone from not showing Elvis Presley from the waist down on television because he swayed his hips to the prime time broadcast of the VMA Awards starring a transvestite man named Lady Gaga wearing clothing made of raw meat, singing a love song while screwing a goat and having his overinflated fake tits whistling Dixie. We are a nation that has gone from watching New York’s Bishop Sheen give his weekly sermon to watching some drunken, fat New Jersey girl named Snookie puke on her shoes and fart in a hot tub.

Do you really think there are any limits to our depravity?

But because, at least at one time, we had a president that understood the important difference between what was wrong and what was trending higher in the polls, the government withheld funding for embryonic stem cell testing and forced science to come up with another way.

They said it couldn’t be done. They were either wrong or lying.

Last week scientist in Boston confirmed that they had indeed developed a way to harness all the same life saving qualities of embryonic stem cells by reprogramming simple human skin cells. These reprogrammed cells will have the same abilities to grow new nerve cells, brain cells, muscle cells, etc. Everything that was promised by the use of embryonic stem cells is now possible without having to first harvest an unborn human baby. Once again proving that sometimes the best thing government can do for the advancement of science is say no.

It also proves once again that Barak Hussein Obama has not gotten it right on any issue.

Maybe being wrong about everything was the CHANGE he was promising.

A Clean Start

September 7 2010 by Big Frick in Cordoba House, Muslim |No Comments

It’s all clean now.

The thousands of tons of debris are gone. The miles of blinding, choking smoke and ash have been blown or washed away. The blood stained streets and human remains of those who chose to leap from burning and smoke filled offices have been removed and scrubbed clean. The stench of death and molten metal has drifted off into the ozone. The cards and posters desperately seeking the lost have come down and the tears of those not directly and intimately affected have dried.

New York’s infamous “Ground Zero” is a clean, bustling place now. The grass is growing, businesses are operating and New Yorkers hustle past the eternal flame and the remains of the golden globe that once graced the plaza at the World Trade Center.

It’s no wonder that the Muslim group planning their new mosque would pick this place. It’s a beautiful place.

Now.

But even though the site has been disinfected and bathed clean, the memory of what transpired there cannot be eradicated with some water and a little (or in this case a massive amount) of elbow grease.

As the anniversary for the life altering date of September 11, 2001 approaches TV programming is filled with news reels and personal retrospectives of that fateful day. It’s not comfortable to watch. The pain and fear re-grip you as you put yourself back in time and remember what it felt like on that day to have our country attacked and not knowing where the next plane would strike. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday the pain, the sorrow, the fear, the outrage and knowing that life as we knew it was changed forever that day.

I watched the National Geographic special that focused on New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the trials he faced during that day of unthinkable terror. New York was truly gifted to have such a man at the helm during this immeasurable tragedy.

But as I watched again as the flames grew to the point of bringing down the two iconic World Trade Towers in Manhattan I began to wonder, where were the Muslim groups then? As the dust settled and the flames died out there were huge groups of volunteers ready, willing and able to put their own lives on the line to attempt to save anybody that might have survived. Brave firefighters and police who had lost hundreds of their own frantically searched through the dangerous and toxic wreckage in the hopes of finding a glimmer of life. Church groups, aid workers, civic clubs, businesses all pitched in and sent manpower to do whatever was needed. Even of that only meant a shoulder to cry on or a hot cup of coffee. But where were the Muslim groups? And more importantly, where was this Muslim group that now is petitioning to build a 13 story mosque and Muslim learning center in the shadow of ground zero?

I am not suggesting that no Muslims were there lending a hand. I have no idea if there were or how many there were or what sect or mosque they belonged to. But as a group, the only activity I recall any Muslim organization engaging in was a constant media barrage of how unfairly they were being treated in the aftermath.

But it’s clean now.

I do not question the constitutional right of any group to build any place of worship anywhere they chose. But building the planned Cordoba House mosque in what was once yards deep in the debris of a Muslim terrorist act is more than just building a place of religious significance. It is an act of building a place of historic and political significance.

Even the name Cordoba House is an intentional insult directed straight at the city and its people that this Muslim group now asks to be understanding of their religious freedom.

I suggest that rather than allowing the news media or inept brain trust in Washington DC to make this decision it be left up to those that survived the vicious attack and toiled to wash away the blood and debris. A simple vote with a simple ballot.

Do you agree that a Muslim mosque should be built on the grounds of the World Trade Center attack?

a. YES

b. NO

c. FUCK YOU

I know which one gets my vote.

Clueless Joe

July 18 2010 by Big Frick in Barack Obama, congress, economy, government spending, jobs, Joe Biden, liberals, Obama, ObamaCare, Obamanomics |No Comments

Well, that makes it pretty simple.

Pundits are debating a litany of causes for the deep angst and anger being displayed in the current voter polling data. Voters are mad as hell and while even the most liberal minded of the so called experts accept the anger, they differ on their opinions of the root-cause for it.

The list of possibilities is pretty long. From ObamaCare to the economy. From jobs (or the lack thereof) to the mishandling of the gushing oil well in the Gulf. From casualties in Afghanistan to gays in the military. From outrageous and unsustainable government spending to pending cap and trade legislation. And on and on and on.

Suffice it to say that voters are livid and there are plenty of possible reasons for it.

But Barack Obama’s right hand man, the man who’s breath has the ever-present scent of shoe polish, has it all figured out. The reason Americans are furious, according VP Joe “Foot-In-Mouth” Biden, is that we just don’t understand. Plain and simple, America you just don’t get it.

Biden is just coming off his latest round of contemptibly attempted damage control where he not only stated emphatically that the trillion dollar non-stimulating stimulus spending has created several million jobs (or was it ten million, or was it a gazillion), but he did it with a straight face. Like most Americans after hearing his prevarication regarding the number of jobs supposedly created by this mistake to the trillionth power, in an economy that is shedding jobs faster than Nancy Pelosi molting in the spring, I kept waiting for the punch line. But when he was done it dawned on all of us that, Holy Crap!!! He seriously believes we are going to buy this.

And that dear readers, is going to be the focus of the upcoming election season. If the facts don’t match the hype, ignore the facts and switch the blame.

It’s not that the Democrats have lost all sense of reason and responsibility. It’s not that the tried and true standards by which the economy is rated are indicating complete and total failure on a plan that never had a chance in hell of working. It’s not that the Democrat leadership in the House, the Senate and the White House have no clue as to what they are doing. No. That’s not the problem. The problem is that all of us left holding the unpayable bills racked up by this inept community organizer and his band of economic neophytes just don’t understand how truly smart these guys really are.

"These are gigantic packages to deal with a gigantic problem we inherited," Biden said "I don’t think they (the American people) know the detail of what’s going on…"

They presented the country with a 647 page supposed stimulus bill that spent $1 trillion. With the accompanying legislation, pork barrel amendments and earmarks the bill was over 2000 pages. They presented the country with the ObamaCare package. Another $1 trillion in spending buried amongst the 1990 pages of lost healthcare choices, tax increases and union giveaways. While the taxes for this debacle start now the supposed coverage starts to kick in sometime in 2014.

But you’re wrong Joe. Even with the 4000 plus pages you have created to misdirect us, Americans understand what you’ve done. We may not understand how the healthcare bill that couldn’t pass on its own merits became law anyway through the reprehensible use of cloture, but we do understand the damage you’ve done. And we also understand how to put a stop to it.

November is trundling down the road. As November 2^nd, the day of the midterm election, draws near we will hear more and more of how clueless the voters are. It’s up to us to prove Big Joe wrong or to prove him right.

For me, the prospect of Change has never inspired more Hope.

The Soul of Audacity

July 11 2010 by Big Frick in Barack Obama, democrats, election, Obama |No Comments

“Where does a self-made man go on Mother’s Day?”

Such were the rhetorical tidbits an old friend of mine’s father would come up with. He had a ton of them. The best I was ever able to retort in this battle of clever witticisms was a lame response like “Yea, well, you can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think”. Not quite on the same deep thought provoking level, but you go with what you got.

Old Mr. Atkinson’s quote has stuck with me through the years and it recently got me thinking about a different destination quandary. I know about Heaven and Hell, and thanks to my years of nun-enforced Roman Catholic tutelage I even know about the heavenly suburbs of Purgatory and Limbo. But what I don’t know is; where does a man go who has no soul?

I may not know the answer but I am fairly certain that wherever it is that the soulless unregenerate dwell to infinity and beyond, the dissembled demagogue of Hope and Change will one day be an eternal resident. And he won’t be alone. His close political minions, who for a myriad of self-serving reasons have chosen to abandon their own eternal souls as well, will join him in the perpetual chanting of “Yes We Can”.

We are all big boys and girls and even though we know the political winds of change are constantly howling down Pennsylvania Avenue there are some acts that are so brazen in their blatant and shallow attempt to gain favor that it is almost enough to cause one to lose his or her Quarter Pounder with cheese. Such are the recent desperate acts of this presidential purveyor of jackleg hyperbole.

While this campaigning commander never really stopped stumping, it will be important for all of America to remember that every single action, every utterance, every well scripted and tele-prompted ad lib is in fact being carried out for the sole purpose of gaining votes for the November midterm election.

After shunning the Israeli Prime Minister and refusing to even have his picture taken with him just months ago, this Gucci clad chameleon is now walking arm in arm with the leader of the Jewish state and pausing to wave goodbye at the end of the White House driveway like the closing credits from “The Beverly Hillbillies”, all in an effort to bolster the Jewish vote in November.

After failing miserably to serve and protect the citizens of Arizona from the raging drug warlords carrying out mass assassinations just blocks from the Arizona/Mexico border this fallacious fraud sends in the ominous power of the Justice Department and his “Nation of Cowards” henchman to sue the state, all in an effort to persuade Hispanic voters back into his corner. Never mind the cost. Never mind the damage. And then, in what can only be described as the ballsiest statement ever, this misguided megalomaniac tried to convince the country that this porous border is safer now than at any time in the last 20 years.

As the American economy continues to purge jobs at about the same rate as the yet uncapped BP oil gusher this sciolistic socialist and his foot-in-mouth fool VP take to the road to pronounce the trillion plus dollars spent on gangbanger tattoo removal machines and the Spotted California Teat Mouse is actually a grand success. All in an effort to convince…..Hell, even I don’t know who they think they can sway with that load of crap.

It is a dangerous time to be a Democrat. And it is even more dangerous to be the figurehead of the Democrat Party. Having risen so high so fast only to fall to the depths of political despair dragging an entire midterm ticket with him.

And it is even more dangerous for the country when the maligned Messiah has no soul or conscience. For at the depths he is at there is nothing that is beneath him.

The Audacity of Being Hillary

June 20 2010 by Big Frick in Arizona, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, illegal immigrantion, immigration |No Comments

“…President Obama has spoken out against the law, because he thinks the federal government should determine immigration policy, and the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act…”

That is how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton answered the opening question about the new Arizona immigration law in her interview with an Ecuadorian television news reporter.

Many are baffled by why the Secretary of State would “spill the beans” on this president’s intent to sue Arizona before the president or his flunky in the Justice Department, Eric “Nation of Cowards” Holder made the announcement.

“It’s not even her department” some have said. “This is a huge gaffe for such an experienced politician” others have added.

To those who have been fretting about how Hillary could pull back the curtain prematurely on such a sensitive subject I can only say, you haven’t been paying attention. This was no accident. This was no slip of the tongue. This was in fact an opening salvo. I keep waiting in vain for the political pundits to identify this for what it actually is.

Welcome to campaign 2012.

The words used by wannabe president Clinton are not those of someone unprepared to answer a question she absolutely knew was coming. They are carefully chosen and more importantly directed with pinpoint laser accuracy.

Hillary Clinton is a member of an administration that is seen as a dismal failure. She is on a losing team and it is apparent, at least to me, that she is looking to separate herself from a president whose approval ratings are dropping faster than Barney Frank’s swim trunks at a Fire Island beach party.

Read carefully exactly what Hillary had to say. This team player, this member of Obama’s inner circle, not once did she use the word we or us or even this administration. No, her comments were clear and precise. President Obama has spoken out against the law. President Obama thinks the federal government should be in charge of states immigration policy. And President Obama is directing the Justice Department to file suit.

There may be no “I” in TEAM, but Hillary is making it pretty clear that “I had nothing to do with it”.

Hillary has left the reservation. She knows that a majority of Americans support Arizona’s efforts to make illegal immigration illegal. She knows that the vast majority of Americans support the constitutional right of states to protect themselves as they see fit. She knows that the vast majority of Americans are tired, frustrated and downright angry by this administration’s complete ineptness in every major challenge facing our country from illegal immigration to national security, from out of control deficit spending to stupid and ineffective cap and trade policy, from nationalized healthcare to the BP oil spill. She knows these things because she learned it from the most adept poll watching tap dancer to ever grace the oval office, the love of her life, and countless other lives throughout both global hemispheres, Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton never met a poll he didn’t like, or at least one he couldn’t adapt to his political advantage. Hillary sees the numbers and knows what would have seemed impossible just 12 months ago now seems like it is not only possible but probable; there will be a challenge within the Democratic Party for the presidential nomination.

Hillary is making it clear that she is not looking for another term as Secretary of State should Barack Hussein Obama be foolish enough to run in 2012. She is looking for a way out and she just might have found it. Obama has to know that if Hillary is willing to screw up his political timing on the Arizona lawsuit she will be willing to let an entire herd of cats out of the bag. And unlike 12 short months ago, she may actually have some national support to do just that.

Barack Hussein Obama is no longer the black gold he once was to the Democrat National Committee and if ever there was the need for proof of that, the November midterm elections will supply it. The Democrats are looking at an election disaster that will make the tragic BP spill look like a driveway oil spot. Maybe that Mayan calendar was actually for the Democrats.

Hillary is looking to run. She’s looking to run away from this president.

But not his office.

Is He Smarter Than a Fifth Grader

June 13 2010 by Big Frick in Barack Obama, economy, liberalism, liberals |No Comments

The beauty of math is that there is no gray area.

In this day and age of the Great Barack Obfuscation where nothing adds up and numbers don’t matter, an economic scholar named Daniel B. Kline conducted a survey regarding economic fact versus opinion. The results were printed in the Wall Street Journal on June 8^th under the title “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”

Rather than trying to interpret the results I will simply share this most revealing article with you.

By DANIEL B. KLEIN

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents’ (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.

Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

Adam Smith described political economy as "a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator." Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.

Mr. Klein is a professor of economics at George Mason University. This op-ed is based on an article published in the May 2010 Econ Journal Watch, which he edits.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A17

To Honor And Remember

May 30 2010 by Big Frick in Memorial Day, military |No Comments

It is no accident that Barack Hussein Obama is the President of the United States of America.

Take a moment to think about it. I my lifetime we have gone from a country where a black guy could be arrested, or worse, for drinking from the “Whites Only” water fountain to a nation that elected one of the few true African Americans into its highest office.

In that same span of years we have gone from a country where many areas did not have even the most basic modern conveniences to a country where a technophobe like me can walk around with not only a telephone strapped to my hip but a mini-computer that has 10 times the capability of the NASA computer that landed men on the moon.

In far less than our 234 years of existence we have gone from a nation where barter was the main exchange in a business transaction to a nation that, like it or not, controls the entire world’s economy. The recent US economic downturn proved beyond a doubt that if the US economy gets a cold the rest of the world gets pneumonia.

We are a nation that has developed at light speed when compared to other countries. One doesn’t need to travel very far from our boarders to find people living in conditions that were thought unbearable 200 years ago. And in some cases even longer than that.

We are a nation that sadly takes for granted all that we have. And we have so much of it that illegal immigrants from around the world are willing to risk their very life just to enjoy a small part of it.

To what do we owe our remarkable freedom and unparalleled rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Do we owe it to our Founding Fathers who put it all on paper and gave us a guideline for national development? In part. Do we owe it to American ingenuity and our dedicated, unstoppable spirit? Of course we do, but how does that spirit thrive and continue to grow unabated? Do we owe it to God and His divine providence? Certainly we do, for without Him there would be no us. But as has been shown time and again in the development and protection of this great nation, while in biblical times God used a burning bush or His own hand to further His plan, in the United States sometimes he uses an 18 year old kid from Dubuque Iowa. Or a 23 year old college grad from Kearney Nebraska. Or a 38 year old father of 4 from Huntsville Mississippi.

Barack Obama is president today because thousands upon thousands of America’s finest paid the ultimate price to keep our nation and its people free to choose their own destiny. Every modern convenience we have is thanks to the blood spilled by an American military member who gave their all so that we could enjoy the fruits of a free nation. When was the last time you heard of a great innovation coming from Communist, Fascist or Islamic Extremist nation that did not involve killing more people more efficiently? Iran is not looking to use their fledgling nuclear program to develop a cure for cancer or to power the i pod chargers of its beleaguered citizenry. Everything we Americans have is thanks to those who gave all they had so we could have all we do.

At Casa Big Frick every day is Memorial Day. My flag flies 365 days a year to honor our country and those brave men and women who have fought and died to protect her. Unfortunately come Tuesday morning our neighborhoods will be lined with far more recycle bins overflowing with empty beer bottles than it was with American flags honoring those the holiday was meant for.

This is a holiday of honor, not remorse. It is a holiday of remembrance, not regret. It is a holiday of pride and gratitude for those who gave and of unwavering resolve that their sacrifice will never be forgotten or taken for granted.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." – General George S. Patton, Jr