A Chilling Statement

Yet the dictatorship, war, and Holocaust that we associate with the Nazi regime in retrospect was not on the ballot, or even on the horizon, of those who voted for Hitler in 1933. They were seeking a political savior in a chaotic and economically depressed time.

-- Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals

I shivered a bit when I read those words. Sowell goes on to state that because Germans were both law-abiding and relatively apathetic about politics, Hitler was readily able to seize power. It was far too late to stop his campaign of horror once most Germans realized what was going on.

Some out there might wish to argue with that and say that surely the German people knew of the Nazi's cruelty and aided its ascent. Read the book, research what it says, then come talk to me. For my part, I agree with Sowell. But that's not the point of this post.

In the United States of America, we have just elected an unknown to the office of President. We have no idea who Barack Obama is, and now the mainstream press has finally caught on to this fact. With his silver tongue and clever use of race Obama has charmed voters into electing him, all without revealing anything about himself.

Obama is not the first President elected on the promise of secular salvation. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected (four times) as such a savior from the Great Depression. He went on to recreate the War Socialism first seen under Woodrow Wilson and push our country to the brink of its own fascism.

We have an example of what happens in the United States when we elect a "savior," so for Americans interested in preserving what remains of their liberty the need to remain vigilant against excesses of power is greater than ever. We need to look at the events around us and ask what we must do. William F. Buckley once stood "athwart history yelling 'Stop!'" and now lovers of America must do the same.

I know action is needed, but I don't yet know what. And if I've learned anything from history it is often better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. Hopefully I'll remember to blog my conclusions on what action to take.

New Age Math

In a recent fit of boredom, I decided to find an answer I had been passively hoping to find for quite some time.  How long would it take to recoup the additional expense of purchasing a hybrid car vs. an all gas car?  The question has bothered me ever since a coworker mentioned that he felt he had already recovered the eventual cost to replace the battery array in his hybrid Civic in fuel savings.  I wondered, is that true?

After some research at Edmunds.com and hybridcars.com (see here, and here) I discovered that the battery replacement is likely a non-issue; Toyota has yet to actually replace one.  Other maintenance costs are not significantly different from all gas cars.

This means that the only financial benefit to owning a hybrid car is in fuel cost savings.  Comparing the purchase prices, hybrids are several thousand dollars more expensive than all gas cars.  To find my answer, I compared the MSRP (for the 2009 model year, according to Kelly Blue Book) and estimated fuel economy (according to fueleconomy.gov) of the Honda Civic and Civic Hybrid to see how long I would need to own the hybrid in order to save in fuel cost what I paid up front.  The Civic offers the easiest apples-to-apples comparison.

How Long?!?

At mid-range trim levels MSRP for the hybrid is $24,225.00 and $20,675.00 for the all gas.  The hybrid gets an estimated 45 mpg highway, whereas the all gas gets 36 mpg.  For the purposes of my calculations, I will drive 15,000 miles per year (1,250 miles per month) and will pay on average $1.70 per gallon of gas.  Since maintenance costs are a wash, they will not be considered.

We'll call these calculations "Cost of Ownership":

Those of you who remember Algebra I should be with me so far.  To figure out when the cost of my potential all gas purchase will surpass the cost of my hybrid purchase, I need to find the intersection of these two formulae.  Remember intersections?  Algebra I again:

Right?  Which means:

All we need to do is solve for n.  After that many months, I'm saving money with my hybrid purchase.  Let's simplify (and remember to show your work  ;-):

So 301 months after I purchase this hybrid, I will begin to save money on gas.  That's 25 years, or 375,882 miles.  Does anyone still keep a car that long?

How much?!?

You may object that I'm surely too optimistic in my calculations.  Gas prices will no doubt rise well above $1.70 per gallon.  Were hybrid owners saving money when gas was over $4 per gallon?  Let's find out.

Were I to purchase a hybrid, I would want to know I was saving money on gas after 5 years, or 60 months.  How much does gas need to cost for that to happen?  Again, Algebra I has our answer:

Again, always show your work:

So, when gas averages over $8.52 per gallon you will save money in 5 years by buying a hybrid.

Now, granted, these calculations are based on averages.  You may have a long commute, and we all know gas prices fluctuate.  But change the numbers and run them.  Do they add up yet?

Please check my work; I may have missed something.  But I'm confident enough in these calculations to put them on the Internet (FWIW).

To sum up: if you bought a hybrid car because you expected to save money on gas you are bad at math.  You should have paid much better attention in Algebra I, and you get an 'F' on this assignment.

If you bought a hybrid car to save the planet, well, you're a fool but I'm sure you made Al Gore proud.

Postscript

Now that you've made it through the math, I'll tell you this...

When Honda first came out with the Honda Insight I was very excited.  I drove approximately 500 miles per week commuting to and from college.  That's 26,000 miles a year, and gas prices were climbing.  The Honda Insight achieved 70 mpg.  70!!  That was nearly double my mileage.  Unfortunately, the car was too small to haul my guitar gear and I didn't have enough money to buy a brand new car anyhow.  But it gave me hope that early adopters would buy the car, it would make money, automakers would continue to improve the technology, and the price would come down to levels comparable to all gas engines.

That hasn't happened yet.  Instead, smug douche bags started buying them to feel "green."  Now whether its smug douche bags or early adopting gear heads buying the cars doesn't really matter (either way the investment is rewarded), but all this "green" nonsense irks me deeply.  The accompanying hubris is troubling, and eventually real people are going to pay a very high price for the arrogance of these douche bags.

*cough* *cough*

Digital dust... blech.

I must apologize for the long silence; I have no good excuse. In the mean time I've been making my peace with John McCain as the Republican nominee over the much preferred (by me) Fred Thompson. In spite of Senator McCain's manifold weakness, I think a positive case can be made for his election. I hope to post on that in the future, as I think it is important to point out that there is much in this election to vote FOR rather than AGAINST. Senator Obama provides much to vote AGAINST, but a mantra of "Anyone but..." is a losing slogan.

I have not forgotten my proposed list of blog topics, and it is a topic related to these about which I now post. Tonight I watched the movie Khartoum. It was months (perhaps even more than a year) ago when I first learned of the Siege of Khartoum, wherein a British general manned the defenses against an Islamist uprising. I found the narrative both fascinating and informative, and I wish I remembered my original source. Alas, I do not and must merely pay homage to some forgotten author.

In any case the move is one which is very relevant to the current waning conflict against radical practitioners of Islam. In 1881, a man named Muhammad Ahmad rose to power declaring himself to be the Mahdi (some sort of Muslim Messiah figure). He led a revolt and eventually conquered most of modern day Sudan, and in doing so established a Sharia state. The protagonist of Khartoum, General Charles Gordon, believed it was necessary to defeat the Mahdi and his army. To this end, he made a stand at the city of Khartoum.

The facts of the case are laid out in many sources, so I see no reason to reiterate them. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to gather them. My purpose here is first to recommend the movie. Khartoum is a reminder that what we fight is a radical ideology that is (1) barbaric and (2) merciless. While the United States was not involved in this specific conflict, it is another example of the West's continuing conflict with radical Islam.

My secondary purpose it to draw a conclusion from the presentation of events in the movie. While much is fictionalized, to be sure, the character of General Gordon appears to be consistent with the actual man as recorded by History (from my brief reading of other sources). In the movie, General Gordon seems convinced that he will achieve victory whether he lives and defeats the Mahdi's army or dies defending Khartoum. I believe that for General Gordon victory was not found in arms (though he certainly used them) but in staying true to his principals and fighting to defend them.

This lesson can also be drawn from our current battle in Iraq. We are victorious when we live up to the principals we profess. Conversely we lose when we abandon those principals. Michael Yon identifies those times when we have resorted to vengeance and torture as those times when we brought defeat upon ourselves (specifically he mentions Fallujah and Abu Grahb). It is his assessment (which can be found in his phenomenal book Moment of Truth in Iraq) that these incidents cost us precious credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi people because we abandoned our honor.

We are in a situation very different from that which General Gordon faced. We have overwhelming military force, yet we can still nearly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by abandoning our honor. Fortunately we were given another chance, and we have taken it. It is my great hope that we will do the same in Afghanistan that we have done in Iraq. Perhaps our soldiers will actually get some real support for that battle from those whose name is followed with a "D."

Michael Yon's book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, can be purchased from the publisher here. Read it.
Khartoum can be rented at your local video store (hopefully) or purchased here.

Updated: Stimulus

Update: In my haste to post before I went off to sleep I overlooked two parts of my plan. Now they're present.

Also, any one who wants to turn this into a bill for submission to Congress has my blessing. In case you were wondering...

Update 2: Why did Reuters think the stimulus package would only cost $2 billion when I checked? Now its up to $150 billion. Inflation already...

The proposed economic stimulus package is projected to cost $150 billion. That's a lot more money that the government doesn't actually have. There are three ways to finance government:

1. Taxes
2. Debt
3. Inflation

Presidential candidates whose names are followed with a "D" are recommending option #1. Not that they aren't into #2 and #3 also, they just want to stick #1 to the "rich" so that they "pay their fair share." Or something, I digress...

The theory behind this "stimulus" bill is Keynesian economics. In Keynesian economics, economic growth is driven by consumer spending. Since everyone wants the economy to grow, the solution is to give people more money to spend. Insert money: grow.
There are two problems with this. First, there is no guarantee that the money people are given will be spent on new stuff. People could save or invest the money, they could spend it on new stuff, or they could pay down some of the substantial consumer debt we have.
Second, Keynesian economics is wrong. It confuses cause with effect. When an economy is growing, people spend.
An alternative way to encourage growth (that is more sound than this spending theory) is capital investment. If only the government were sitting on a large sum of capital. Oh wait! It is!

The so-called Social Security Trust fund had a surplus of $2 trillion at the end of 2006. That surplus was still growing through 2007 and is expected to continue growing for several more years. Here we have $2 trillion sitting on its butt and the President (R) and Congressional leaders (D) want to borrow or inflate to "stimulate" the economy?

I have a better idea: invest one third of the Social Security surplus. That's well over $600 billion, which is 4x greater than the "stimulus" bill. No additional borrowing will be necessary nor will "free" money need to be printed (that would be inflation). As a side benefit, there will be a sizable return on that $600 billion to be reinvested and shore up Social Security.

To expand on this idea, I'm going to present to the world (for the first time ever) the Mitch Oliver Plan to Save America's Economy. It is amazingly uncomplicated.

• Eliminate entitlement programs
• Anyone currently receiving benefits will continue to receive them. Any budgetary shortfall will be recovered from the General fund.
• Anyone not yet receiving benefits but aged 50 and over can opt out of Social Security and Medicare. They forfeit any prior withholdings but no further withholdings will be taken.
• No one under the age of 50 will be eligible for Social Security. All prior withholdings are forfeited.
• Raise the "retirement age" to 75. Anyone currently receiving benefits will not lose theirs.
  
• No additional Welfare or Medicaid applicants will be accepted. Current recipients will be phased off the program.
• Enact the Fair Tax
• This gives consumers direct control over how much tax they pay.
• This also gives consumers incentives to enhance their own wealth and to enhance the economy. Spending is taxed, while saving and investing is not.
• Cut non-defense spending
• We need neither a Department of Education nor a Department of Energy, not to mention Agriculture, Housing, and a myriad of other departments.
• Budget a surplus
• We have trillions of dollars in debts to pay off.
• Even after the national debt is paid in full it is always wise to have a rainy day fund, even for governments.
• Cut "foreign aid"
• Drastically reduce the amount of aid we give to foreign governments and causes.

Time and again history has shown that government just gets in the way of prosperity and growth. It simply cannot keep up with the pace of change in the economy. New technologies replace old one; firms become redundant. Entire industries become obsolete. The government is designed to prevent change, yet change is the very thing that yields growth.

The answer is simple: less government yields a better economy.