The Obama administration. What are ya gonna do?

I’ve been quiet for a good while but I think I’m at a place where I can start updating this little corner of the interwebs again on a somewhat regular basis, so let’s give this a shot…

I ran across a story on the web tonight that kinda hit a chord with me. Seems The Brilliant One is once again showing his lack of understanding of the free market. He basically told the automakers they had to double their CAFE standards by 2025 or, of course, they would run afoul of the laws set in this land of the free, home of the brave and junk.

Basically, the Obama Administration had already announced they wanted the Average MPG for vehicles to go from what they are today – 2011 (30.2 for cars and 24.1 for light trucks) to 39 MPG for cars and 30 MPG for trucks by 2016. Now they want 56.2 MPG in 2025. How that number is derived is a complicated mess of bureaucratic clusterfuckation.

He wants to pass down an edict that would not only determine what vehicles are MADE, but what vehicles us “free” citizens choose to buy. You see, when the All Powerful Protector Of Our Liberty says the average miles per gallon of vehicles sold in a year have to be “X”, it doesn’t matter what the great unwashed masses WANT to buy, it only matters what they DO buy. In theory, a car maker could offer 10 models that get 100 miles to the gallon and only one that gets 20 miles to the gallon, and if they sell 10 low mileage cars (@ 20 MPG), they would have to sell nine high mileage cars to make 56 MPG average. So, in essence, you would have to have half your market want a ridiculous little tin can, and the other half want a substantial vehicle.

I just had a kid turn 16. When we were looking for a vehicle for her, the main thing we were looking for was safety and efficiency. I don’t give a damn if she burns a lot of gas, I want her to live through an accident. We bought her a used midsize SUV that gets pretty good mileage but that has traction control and enough heft to get her through most accidents if the traction control isn’t enough. One thing we DIDN’T look at was the over all mileage the vehicle got. Of course, we didn’t put her in a Sherman tank, but we damn sure didn’t put her in a cute little rice-burner, either. I’m guessing her vehicle gets over 20 MPG but if it doesn’t, I really don’t care. Her safety and ability to move about is my primary concern – not the overall mileage of the vehicles sold by a particular car company in a particular year. See where this is going? The national government has put the incentive of the producer at odds with the incentive of the buyer. The buyer wants X, the producer wants HAS to supply Y. Damn what you want to buy, and damn what they want to sell. This is what the government wants to happen. In the land of the free, home of the brave.

“If you look at the ‘56-by-2025’ standard, you can save about $6,000 per vehicle because of the dramatic reduction in the cost of fuel for that vehicle,” (Jack Gillis of the Consumer Federation of America) said. “If you force the market to implement certain technologies, they will figure out a way how to do it. And they’ll figure out a way how to do it efficiently and effectively.” (Emphasis mine)

Note the use of the word “force”. This is what government is – force. Note the words “choose”, “choice”, or anything else of the sort is not used. This is not free market stuff – this is centralized planning. A little bit, sure, but every little bit helps the centralized planners.

Also notice the faith in “…the market” to “…figure out a way to do it.” Oh! So the Market can figure out HOW to do something, as long as the All Powerful Elite tells it WHAT to figure out! What would we do without them?

So they FORCE us to do something and we FIGURE OUT how to do it. Kinda like you do with slaves – You give them some unreasonable demand and it is up to them to figure out how to fulfill it. If they can do it and survive, that’s good. You can just put more demands on them. If they can’t do it and die, Oh, well, maybe somebody else will come in and do what you want.

This, folks, is why I always put the word “federal” in quotation marks when talking about our present national government (look up the difference between “federal” and “national” if you need to) and I mock the phrase, as it’s used today, “The home of the free, land of the brave”. We are told what to do, when and how to do it, and if we don’t WANT to do it, they pass laws that tell us we HAVE to do it. But hey! If we don’t have the money to do what they want, they give it to us to do it with and point to that as proof that we want to do it.

Proof of what I say above? You want proof? OK, how about this?

  • Healthcare – We’ll tell you what kind of “insurance” you have to buy. You’ll buy it or pay a fine (or tax, whatever we need to call it to get it through the courts). If you cannot afford that insurance, it will be provided for you (by your fellow taxpayer through force , if necessary). The “insurance” will cover what we determine you need, not what you determine you need. You are free to vote for WHO determines your needs, but have no say in WHAT determines your needs – leave that up to us; we’re the government and we know best.
  • Cash For Clunkers – Even though you can’t afford a new car, we want you to buy one. We won’t force you to buy one but if you do, we will pay you up to $4500 dollars (taken from your fellow taxpayers with force, if necessary)to buy one off the list we think you should have. We require you give us your previous vehicle and we will destroy it and any value it once had. See, we are government – We don’t create wealth or value, we either transfer it or destroy it. No skin off our backs, it ain’t coming out of our pockets.
  • Bank bailout (This was a Bush administration dealio, but still a big government liberal. Obama was ALL for it, BTW)- We told the banks to give you money whether you could pay it back or not. Told them we would come down hard on them if they didn’t but then we told them if they did, we’d take the risks off their hands through some NGO’s like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This started a market for sub-prime loans and some greedy bastards tried to cut in on our action. So our executives took 8 and 9 figure bonuses and then ran our NGO’s into the dirt. It’s OK, we’ll blame the greedy bastards that were making 4,5 and 6 figure deals. Meanwhile, we’ll let the big evil corporations get to the breaking point and then come in with your fellow taxpayers’ money (get it by force, if necessary – you know the drill) and decide which ones we like, and which ones we don’t.  We’ll save the guys we like with “loans” and let the others go away. (C ya, hate ta B ya!!) Then we’ll tell those we made the “loans” to when and how to pay the “loans” back. Of course, even after they give us the money we used (but didn’t earn) to prop up the ones most guilty of riding the government gravy train, we’ll still lambast them for NOT doing EXACTLY what they did to get themselves into this mess in the first place – make loans to people who can’t pay them back. But, the people will hate them for ‘taking” all the money we forced on them and not blame us so no biggie! 🙂

It goes on and on. They fund “studies” we can absolutely live without. Medicare fraud is rampant. Food stamp fraud is rampant. Yet they can’t find anywhere to cut entitlements of social programs. If you think they’re doing this to help you, you’re wrong. They’re doing it to exercise power over you. They are convinced they know best and you just need to do what they say and if it works out, whoopie. If not, they’ll always have someone else to blame it on.