All votes outside of Washington, DC matter

I have done some statistical analysis on America's elections and found some interesting trends.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApuoFNoVh2fbdDNHUTZoSl9pUFRxSkhEbzgwXzA0M3c is the spreadsheet.

1. Texas is not as solid Republican as politicos believe it to be. With a voter turnout of 45% in 2008, the lowest in the nation, it would have taken only 5% of the population for it to have a majority Democratic vote. Given that Hispanics and African Americans are the groups that vote the least nation-wide, this is very possible that Texas could vote for Democrats for Congress and the Presidency in the near future if their turnout rose.
2. Washington state, a "solid Democratic state" would need only 600,000 more votes to vote Republican which would bring voter turnout up to 70%. Most states would need smaller amounts than these
3. Washington DC is the only place that has votes in the electoral college where changing affiliation is practically impossible because in order to increase the Republican votes would bring the total number of votes above the number of residents of voting age.
4. Missouri will become the most unreliable state if their voter turnout increased because it would have needed less than a tenth of a percent of eligible voters to change from Obama to McCain.
5. Arizona, the founder of the new voter discrimination laws, with only an increase of turnout of 4% of the population would vote Democrat. This is doable.
6. Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Alabama, and Louisiana are the only Republican states that would need a voter turnout increase of over 10% of their populations to vote Democrat. All others are below the 10% mark.
7. Vermont would need an increase of 25% of their population to vote Republican. Hawaii would need an increase of 20% of their eligible population. They are the most solid Democratic states (excluding DC)
8. Democratic states in general tend to be larger than Republican states and would need a higher increase in turnout to vote Republican than most states.

The lesson to take away from this is that every vote counts. Even if your state hasn't voted differently for decades you should still vote for President, Congress, your Governor, and State Legislators because many key races in this country are very close and every vote can make a difference.

A pig is a pig by any other name

Whatever you call it, laissez-faire, Reaganomics, austerity, corporatism, or something else, that model of economics supported by many politicians is inherently flawed. The solution this philosophy consistently has to unemployment is to fire public sector workers and bust unions. No incentives for hiring workers, no eliminating barriers to starting small businesses, no health care to those too sick to work, no training for tomorrow's inventors, and cutting basic math, economics, civics, and science from public schools increasing the time the unconnected intelligent youth have until they can start their own businesses successfully.

Austerity teaches that if unemployment is high you increase it, if small business are too rare you limit access to funds by eliminating banking insurance (the opposite approach saved the American financial sector and through that the whole economy in 2008). If this is right it would imply the solution to a drink being too cold is to put ice in it or if your meat is overcooked to keep cooking it, and that -1+-1=0. That adding to a problem will solve it. This is nonsense.

The bloggers of economics that have millions of followers need to start broadcasting this. Suicides are up in Southern Europe. The countries practicing austerity have seen their unemployment rates go up over the past two years and suicides are rising. Lives of real people are at stake in this experiment that is as unsuccessful as it was between 1929 and 1933 when America did the same thing. The longer it is done the longer the recovery will be. This is very not funny. Wake up world. All the data you need to prove this is free on google data.

How Europe will get out of the austerity crisis

This current austerity crisis in Europe is hurting their economy. When I look at their economies, since austerity began in 2009, unemployment has risen across the European Union, decreasing consumer spending, hurting the economy and all businesses big and small. (Source: Public Data) I am going to say what I think will drive Europe out of this crisis and back towards investment and prosperity. In the meantime decreasing debts, which I see as a minor issue at most. The debt of these countries was blown out of proportion by economic neoconservatives like Merkel, News Corportation, and Sarkozy, among others.

1. Germany will vote in a left-wing government next year in September 2013 which will change the course of history. Merkel's push for divestment has hurt the economy of Europe and she will not be ranked highly in the future. Peter Steinbruck will be the next Chancellor of Germany. Most of the CDU's wins were by small margins: http:/s/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundestagswahl2009_Zweitstimmen.svg so seeing a big flip with Merkel's misleadership over the past two years is possible. This will end a lot of pressure on Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece.
2. Europeans will vote for a liberal government in European Parliament in 2014 following their dissatisfaction with austerity and losing their jobs which will move the EPP (right-wing) to a minority and S&D (left-wing) to become the largest party in Parliament.
3. The European Parliament will propose an amendment to their constitution which will do the following to resolve the apparent issues of the European Union:
1. Banking regulations and insurance will be union-wide to avoid future bank runs from nations like Greece. (Source: Planet Money from NPR)
2. The regulations on debt will remain, but they will be required to cut social services last and raise taxes first. Looking at America's history this is clearly the most economical viable way. The fastest growing economies in American history were during the 1950s when our highest tax rate was above 70% and the 1990s when Clinton and Congress ran a balanced budget and taxes were higher than they are now on the rich.
3. There will be an investigation into bribery in the government participating most in this fiasco (Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece) which will come out with a lot of evidence to prosecute big companies, banks, and important politicians. Elections will happen across Europe. People will vote in better governments. Companies will be liable for bribery across the European Union.
4. The ability to form small businesses will be easier in the nations in Europe where it is lowest (which funny enough are Greece and Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starting_a_Business_Index) which will stimulate their economies. After decreasing barriers of entry in Belarus, their rank went from 98 in 2009 to 7 in 2010 and their GDP growth rate from 0.2% in 2009 to 7.6% in 2010. This is a crucial part of having a competitive economy. There is a clear correlation between the two. This will also help the distribution of wealth become more equitable, which will allow more people to enter into the middle class in Europe which will drive consumer spending higher and make a stronger economy. But it has to start with people having the ability to create their own businesses and make enough money to be comfortable. I just started a small Private Investigating Agency, so I am a small business owner, and like millions of other people I know exactly the level of benefits this brings to individuals, and to the economies that are driven by trade.
4. The EU will still exist, corruption will be less, and their economy will recover. With less bribery through enforcement of already existing laws, their copyright laws (which are the worst in the world) will liberalize, their banking regulations will strengthen the economy to prevent the outflow of cash that came from Greece to Germany and France, and it will happen in the next five years.

The Innocence of Muslims and murder

There is a lot of talk about blocking the inflammatory innocence of Muslims in response to the assassination of the American ambassador in response to that short video. That is the wrong approach. If we block all videos that incite violence, what is there to stop us in blocking hate speech, and who defines hate speech? Hate speech is hard to define and has many different levels. What one person finds offensive to their religion another person may agree with and use for educational purposes (creationists vs scientists). If we block anything that might offend anyone we will be left with a very small Internet. We will give power to the radicals that if they want something to be blocked all they have to do is try to kill the American ambassador in there country and be clear on what they are protesting. That is not an option. We would literally be giving the keys to the Internet to al Qaeda. A better option is to incarcerate the murderers with life in prison without parole (killing members of a group that uses car bombs in response to murder doesn't make sense) which isolates their members from society and forces them to live their lives out slowly contemplating their heinous crimes. Maybe they'll start to read the whole Quran not just their selective misguided selections. That is my opinion. I support free speech, a major difference between democracy and tyranny. There is a very slippery slope between the two.

A Tale of Two Companies

One day, there was a company that decided to run a strictly Keynesian approach to its business model. The Keynesian company was founded and ran a business model which took the money that it invested and saved it for future investment, payed their employees good wages, and kept their net revenue for future investment. Over ten to twenty years the company had reasonable prices, a good product, well paid employees that worked hard and several locations and the owners were very comfortable. They were known for the best service, best products, and good prices. During times when their revenue decreased, this company had cash saved to protect their existence and continue their employees wages and needed no assistance.

At another time, another company decided to run a strictly laissez-faire approach to its business. This company took a gigantic loan in the beginning to start a large company, paid its employees as little as possible and worked them as much as possible in a 40 hour work week. When they had positive net revenue, they cut their prices for as long as possible and had very little cash to sit back on. What cash was saved up was immediately given to the owners and the company ran by a shoestring. During the recession, they found that the demand for their product decreased, so they closed stores and fired employees (being their largest expenditure). The net loss in revenue from those locations was greater than the costs to hire employees but only in the long term. So, they closed more stores, and eventually were a tenth the size and were able to maintain their large salaries and have low prices. After the doldrums were over, they were a tenth the size they once were, by firing their employees and closing storefronts. They were not known for their products anymore because they had been surpassed.

I do want my government's finances to be run like a business, that is why I hate austerity and support Keynesian policies.

Obama 2012.

Obama v. Romney

Here is my attempt to compare the policies and records of President Obama and former Governor Romney.

Part 1, their record.
Obama, his successes and failures in comparison to his claims

• Fulfilled the following promises, and successes:
• The United States left Iraq
• The United States has an exit plan for Afghanistan's war.
• We have not invaded Iran.
• Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
• Repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell
• Rescued the American car industry, instead of paying unemployment insurance to Detroit.
• Rescued the American banking industry, instead of paying several trillion dollars in FDIC insurance to the four major banks.
• Osama bin Laden was killed under his administration.
• Unemployment has decreased since the Stimulus package kicked in.  It is functioning like a normal economy, despite being higher than is preferable. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
• Reformed health care, so that college students can stay on their parent's health care insurance and people cannot be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. For me, a college student with cerebral palsy these are two main reasons to vote for Obama, and why my Dad can enter the private sector to get paid more money.
• Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.
• Missed the following promises, and failures:
• Closing Guantanamo Bay
• Signing the NDAA of 2010, instead of vetoing it and sending it back to Congress, remember the cost of which would have been deadlock and probably more pork.
• Has advocated for the Buffett Tax, which Congress has blocked.
• Dissapointed a lot of Democrats and should have overjoyed a lot of Republicans on the following:
• Signing Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea (a note I wish to make is these are bilateral and our exports to these countries, yes, the United States has exports, now have no tariff from these countries)
• We are giving more money to Israel than under any previous administration.  http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

I have heard a lot of Republicans claim that Obama has been blaming the Republicans for blocking him and that he should own up to his own mistakes... but they are making fun of the intelligence of every single American because they are leaving out that in the United States of America there is a Separation of Powers and the President is not our monarch and cannot do anything large without Congressional support. The only exception is declaring war because in 2002 Congress (which was controlled by Republicans) retroactively gave the President the power to declare war without Congressional approval which was practically retroactively giving support to every military action the President declares. This is basically calling Americans stupid. Why do we put up with this?

Mitt Romney's plan is more or less the following: (From his website)

• Decrease tax rates for the wealthy.
• Reduce government spending on Social Security and privatize Social Security.
• Outlaw abortion
• Outlaw same-sex marriage
• Invade Iran
• Increase aid to Israel beyond Obama levels.
• Decrease regulations on guns
• Make it so people like me, college students and people with pre-existing conditions, will lose our health insurance.
• Opposes unions
• Increase oil drilling, increasing Exxon Mobil's profits.
• Smaller government.

Who will benefit from Obama's plan (if implemented fully)? The middle class will directly benefit through lower taxes and lower costs to health care and education, along the lower economic class. Equal rights for gays and lesbians and legal recourse if employers are ripping off female employees.

Who will benefit from Romney's plan (again, if implemented fully)? Loan sharks through fewer regulations, oil companies through less stringent regulation and drilling in America's most pristine places, and owners of factories that employee unioned workers. The middle class will not benefit, and the poor will slide backward faster than ever before through increased costs to education and health care. Who will benefit from invading Iran? Oil companies because Iran has 5.1% of the world's oil production. Romney does not serve regular Americans, he serves the oil companies.

Why the US Government needs to change course on Wikileaks

Over the past few years Wikileaks has received what seems like almost constant criticism over the publication of secret documents. I just read an article on Al Jazeera on this topic: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/20128149956867756.html and the Obama administration is making a major mistake.

Here's why. A transparent government should not have to hide anything from their people. Speaking out on wikileaks should only give the opponents more firepower. The most stable governments in the long-term are the ones that are the most open to investigation, look at Nazi Germany, where speech was heavily censored and it lasted only 12 years, compared to the United States which has lasted over 200 years with the same Constitution and without a major revolution in-between, the civil war doesn't count.

The difference between the free nations of the world and the tyrannical nations of the world are their freedoms. Free nations have freedom of speech, tyrannies don't. Over the past 12 years the United States has been moving further from the status as a free nation and closer towards the policies of tyrannical nations. As soon as the United States Congress passed the PATRIOT ACT (which I think of as the UnPATRIOTic Act) the status as a free nation has been in question. There has been very little debate about the PATRIOT ACT over the past four years, and President Obama has been foolish to not address this issue. President Obama needs to reverse course on his comments on Assange and pressure our allies to rethink our policies regarding free speech. It is critical to our survival.

I think the European Union is a marvelous institution, but with flaws. While the free travel, lack of customs, and easy dialogue between nations has worked well over the past 57 years to keep relations cool between its member states, I have growing concerns that their economic policies are not in the best interests of the people of Europe. Starting with their copyright policies which I think are often extreme, and then their issuing of an arrest warrant on Julian Assange makes me question whether the benefits outweigh the costs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19289649

The European Union, United States, and the rest of the free world needs to do some major thinking about what being a free nation really entails. You cannot have free speech if everytime someone publishes something about your government that was a secret because that is an enfringement on the freedom of the press, a right sacred to all free peoples, or at least the founding fathers of America thought so.

The policies against Julian Assange are unwarranted, illegal, and the governments of the world need to realize that as soon as the American government released the internet it was just a matter of time before someone founded a website to publish these sorts of important secrets we have a right to know. Julian Assange has done more to make the inequities of our systems more apparent, and for this he is a great man. I also cannot find, except perhaps for "computer-related crime" a crime that warrants a European Arrest Warrant. Espionage is not a crime for which a European Arrest Warrant can be issued. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant

This has implications far beyond Wikileaks to every freedom loving person in the world, and everyone who has ever written anything that is not in agreement with our government, without which Democracy can not function. I urge President Obama and the Heads of State of Europe to remember this.

Let freedom ring.