By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 06/28/2009

A seemingly accelerating trend with Americans is to look with skepticism and a jaundiced perspective at business, capitalism, and the profit motive. In spite of efforts by some to rewrite history, those of us who are students of history recognize the critical contribution of the profit motive in the emergence of America as an economic power. The fact is, capitalism and the profit motive created a global power out of a rag-tag collection of British colonies.

Business and the profit motive have turned us from an agrarian to a high-tech, producing and consuming nation. All of us are dependent upon business and the profit motive for everything we do every day. From the manufacturer of the bed we arise from and the alarm clock we wake up to, to the toothpaste, shampoo, and comb we use in the morning. The beverage we imbibe to give us a kick-start in the morning and the vehicle we drive to work are products of once small businesses that have grown sometimes to global proportions. If any of those products or services we depend on get too expensive, we start shopping for cheaper replacements.

Most of us even work for a small business driven by that evil profit motive; those firms across the fruited plain that market and sell products, provide advice and services, and fill the needs of people from all walks of life. They pay us to fill a specific function within the company to help them service their customers more efficiently and cost-effectively. And most of them pay another 30% of our salaries or wages in the form of benefits (which Congress also wants to tax) to help retain quality employees. And according to Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University an amazing 89 percent of us are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with our jobs with those evil profit-mongers.

As a matter of fact, according to the Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99% of all employer firms, employ half of all private sector employees, pay 45% of total U.S. private payroll, generate 80% of new jobs annually, create more than 50% of nonfarm private GDP, comprise 97% of all identified exporters, and produce 26% of the known export value to our GDP.

Yet every time new governmental regulation is written by which companies must abide, the costs increase. Whenever the government increases taxes on companies, the costs increase again. In order to stay in business, they must pass those costs on to their customers, or find other ways to reduce costs like eliminating jobs. That’s why it makes no sense to tax companies since we all end up individually paying their taxes for them via increased prices for their products and services.

And it’s not just small business that makes our quality of life what it is, but that evil big brother of small business; BIG business. What an evil concept, to sell things that people want and need at prices that most people can afford (after all, they want to sell as many of their “widgets” as possible). And they do so with a profit motive in order to share their success with those who ponied-up the capital (investors, silent partners, share-holders) facilitating their business ventures. Remember, if they over-price their widgets, they price themselves out of the market. If they under-price their widgets, they’re not going to remain viable, and will have to lay off all their employees and won’t be able to pay all those taxes the government is requiring of them. Then their employees will have to hope they can find another widget company to replace the job they lost.

The media, Hollywood, and even some of our fellow citizens bash “big pharma,” big oil, or big retailers like Wal-Mart. But in reality what do those “big” evil companies do? They provide needed products and services at reasonable prices, enabling our national economic engine, and our quality of life, to keep chugging along. They have limited control over much of their expenses, but to be able to continue doing what they do, they charge a modest profit to ensure their viability in future years, and allow us to have a job!

Right here in the Pocatello area, over 30,000 jobs are supported by these evil profit-motive-driven companies. That includes over 600 jobs at On Semiconductor, 350 at Simplot, 550 at Union Pacific Railroad, and over 400 at Wal-Mart. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates there are 2,346 employers in Pocatello. The Private Sector includes 2,233 firms, which make up 95.18% of companies hiring in Pocatello

Too many of us rely on fallacious typecasts and stereotypes of what business and the profit motive do. Rather than relying on our empirical observations of their contributions to our quality of life, we allow the media, Hollywood, or anti-business kvetching to taint our perceptions. The profit motive, capitalism, and the free-enterprise system (which frankly we haven’t truly had for nearly 70 years because of intense governmental regulation), are the backbone to our economic system, and as such, are the key to future growth and prosperity individually and collectively. Government encroachment and increased regulation stymie future potential growth, our quality of life, and our job security.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 06/21/2009

It was spring, 2007. The blossoms were budding on the plentiful cherry trees in Washington, D.C., belying the storm fomenting within the halls of Congress and in the national media newsrooms. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had just dismissed a handful of U.S. Attorney’s, and the media as well as the opposition in Congress, were calling for his head and denouncing the firings, even though the president and the Attorney General, were fully within their rights and the law to dismiss them.

Fast forward to 2009. A new President has rolled out a massive “stimulus” bill purportedly to stimulate the economy, although a closer reading reveals the primary beneficiary will be expanded government growth. An Inspector General, who does not serve at the leisure of the president, as the U.S. Attorneys do, discovers fraud in the disposition of government funds by one of the new President’s ardent supporters. The supporter, who is also Mayor of Sacramento, likely will not get any of the stimulus money because of his misuse of AmeriCorps funds. The White House promptly fires the Inspector General for doing his job.

While we wouldn’t expect Congressional leaders to question the firing or call for hearings as they did of Gonzales, certainly the media will be all over such obvious cronyism and duplicity. Right? Wrong! It seems the mainstream media is so enamored with Obama that they refuse to report anything that may reflect poorly on him. Perhaps they’re also trying to avoid being taken over like the auto industry, like Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. Hardly a word of suspicion has been uttered by the media that now will broadcast from the White House, and whose anchors participate on a strategy and propaganda call orchestrated by the White House daily.

Inspectors General are hired by the government to investigate waste and fraud. Obviously, Gerald Walpin, the IG for AmeriCorps, a government program which pays volunteers for community service, was doing his job. He filed two reports exposing gross misappropriation by Kevin Johnson, former NBA star, who is also the Mayor of Sacramento and an Obama supporter. Walpin found Johnson had failed to use their federal grant money for the purposes specified, and had used the funds for, among other things, “driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands.” Walpin reported that as much as $850,000 had been misappropriated. That’s a lot of car washes!

What makes this firing of Walpin even more egregious is the fact that Senator Barack Obama, in 2008, cosponsored legislation that was designed to assure the political independence of Inspectors General. According to that law (do you get the uneasy feeling that laws don’t seem to matter to our chief executive who is constitutionally the top law-enforcer?), the president must first send a letter to Congress declaring his intention to fire an Inspector General and provide the specific reasons why. It can’t be done as an afterthought as was attempted the next day by Obama. That letter is also designed to serve as a statutory 30 day notice to Congress of a dismissal. And yes, that 30 day statutory notice was required by the legislation that Obama cosponsored a mere two years ago. But that’s history, and one thing we’ve learned is that this president seems to have a hard time with history.

The law and constitutional limitations don’t seem to have much weight with this administration. Hillary Clinton was ineligible according to the Constitution, to be Secretary of State, having voted for a pay raise for that post. At last count, eight Obama appointees have a problem with paying taxes. Appointment of numerous “Tsars” within the administration is unconstitutional, even by Sen. Robert Byrd’s reckoning. The manner and details of the auto industry bailout and forced bankruptcy are illegal. The administration forced AIG to renege on contractual retention bonuses. President Obama failed to consult Congress, as promised, before carving out exceptions to the omnibus spending bill he signed into law, breaking his own signing-statement rules two days after issuing them.

I don’t think any of us who think about our politics, versus “feel” about them, are surprised by this duplicity. You remember all that talk about a new openness and transparency in Washington with the new administration? It obviously was just a ruse. With each passing day it becomes increasingly obvious that while our President can give a good talk and say some good things, his words are illusory and mask what’s really being done behind closed doors. What was Chicago-style politics has now gone big-time. Welcome to Washington-style politics!

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 06/14/2009

It has been alarming to me how the landscape of the American economy has become so dramatically altered over the past few months. The lines have become increasingly blurred between government ownership and corporate control with what’s happened in the auto and banking industries, and it appears the administration is not going to stop there. Next stop is healthcare. Even more alarming, is the fact that so many of our fellow citizens fail to recognize in that blurring of the lines, the transition to a more socialist system where the government controls the means of production in the economy, even though that tenet is fundamental to socialistic dogma.

Sometimes it takes an outsider who has been there and done that, to point out how far we have slid down that slippery slope. Last month Pravda, the Russian news agency, ran a column by Stanislav Mishin that served that very purpose. But since not too many of us frequent the pages or the online postings of Pravda, I’m sure most of us missed his astute observations.

Mishin states at the outset, “It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless ‘sheeple,’ excuse me dear reader, I meant people.” Who better to recognize the symptoms of an economic and political system in transition, than one who has lived under it!

He continues, “The initial testing ground was our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists. Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.” Harsh words, no doubt, but stated with alarming clarity and perspicacity.

Describing how this descent has been made possible, he explains, “First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their ‘right’ to choke down a McDonalds burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our ‘democracy.’ Pride blind the foolish.

“Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different ‘branches and denominations’ were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses.

“The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.” No wonder Hugo Chavez declared that he and Fidel Castro are ideologically to the right of Obama!

Referring to the financial advisors of the administration, and their role in this transformation, he says of these financial “oligarchs,” that they “…are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress. Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.”

He reminds us, “Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our ‘wise’ Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.  

“Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper.” Remember the “Tea Parties” from April? At least a few of us are whimpering. And we should do much more!

Forcefully, and insightfully, he concludes, “The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.”

Five decades ago, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson spoke of a visit he had with then Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. “He [Khrushchev] indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism…He arrogantly declared, ‘You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright. But we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.’”

Prophetic? It appears to be. But the Russians learned. Apparently we will learn the hard way as well.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 06/07/2009

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor affirmed the important of a Supreme Court Justice being free from bias and committed to equal justice by declaring that “a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.” Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has taken exception to this multiple times over the past fifteen years with this unambiguous statement: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” If Samuel Alito or John Roberts had made such a statement before their Supreme Court appointment hearings, you can be sure that they would never have been confirmed. And rightly so.

Even if we give Ms. Sotomayor the benefit of the doubt and allow her premise legitimacy, we might well consider whether life experience is the determinant of wise constitutional interpretation. If anything, it seems her predisposition would preclude the proper execution of her role on the Supreme Court. As one enters the Supreme Court Building in D.C., the words “Equal Justice Under Law,” emblazoned above the door, reaffirm the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which promises equal protection for all citizens under the law. Enacted on the heels of the Civil War during Reconstruction, this amendment was designed to ensure that all citizens, regardless of race or gender, would receive equal protection under the law, in ensuring constitutional rights of “life, liberty, and property.”

Consequently, when a Supreme Court nominee presupposes that her judgment would be superior to a “white man” without her life experiences, the logical conclusion is that she has no intention of upholding the Constitution and especially the 14th Amendment since they require equal treatment. She maintains that her decisions would be better. What, then, is her definition of better? More predisposed toward someone of her race? More predisposed toward someone of her sex? However her definition of “better” is construed, it becomes incongruous with the role of any judge applying equal treatment under law.

And just in case you had lingering questions about her disposition regarding race, perhaps this one will dispel them. “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” Have a white male judge say anything remotely similar, and he’ll be removed from the Bench quicker than Trent Lott lost his Senate Majority Leader role for a much less objectionable statement.

Based on her statements, she would unlikely be able to survive the Voir Dire process to even become a juror because of her obvious biases. She has proven that she is desperately incapable of serving as a jurist, as her decisions have been overruled 60% of the time on appeal. And yet for some reason we suppose that she is somehow able to divest herself of her prejudices and serve as a judge in the highest court in the land? I think she was nominated by Obama because of her biases and the identity politics associated with her nomination, not in spite of them.

Consider this quote from CBS news last week. “The White House scrambled yesterday to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure.” In all honesty, what would have happened to Alito or Roberts if President Bush had acted that way to assure pro-life groups that they agree with the President on the abortion issue? Bush would have been excoriated, and their nominations would have been thrown out quicker than you could say “Harriet Miers.” Apparently it’s okay to have some biases, just as long as they aren’t based on strict constitutional constructionism, or pro life principles.

Just one final consideration. The role of a Supreme Court jurist is to interpret the law fairly and equitably. Laws and policy are made by the legislative branch, while the judicial ascertains constitutional and legal legitimacy. What are we to feel about a judge who says, “The Court of Appeals is where policy is made.”

Not only is Sotomayor unsuitable to be a Supreme Court justice, I don’t think she’s qualified to be a judge. Her biases and her commitment to judicial activism and creating “policy” from the bench are wholly unacceptable for a Supreme Court justice.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 05/31/2009

I remember several years ago standing on the banks of the Snake River watching helplessly as the heavy spring thaw threatened flooding near Blackfoot. At the time I remember how humorous it would be to see a bunch of us scooping water out with five-gallon cans to try to lower the water level and reduce the flood threat.

Our efforts to control the environment by reducing CO2 emissions are just as impotent. A new “cap and trade” bill is being sold to us as an environmental measure, and some aspects of the bill do make sense in promoting alternative energy development. But the heart of it is a sham.

HR 2454 cleared the House Energy and Commerce committee this week. Its primary purpose is to place a limit (cap) on companies that emit that horrible gas that we all exhale, CO2, and tax those companies that emit more than whatever arbitrary number they come up with. Those companies that fall under those new arbitrary limits will have the option to sell (trade) their credits to the others. The costs to buying companies will be levied as taxes in order to try to pay for everything congress is spending that they don’t have the cash for. While the avowed intention is to reduce carbon emissions in the name of saving the planet from global warming, the net result will be devastating to all of us.

If the bill passes congress in its current form, it would require that CO2 (what we exhale, and plants thrive on) emissions be reduced 20% from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 2050 they would have to be 83% lower.

Let’s put this in perspective. Of all the gases and elements composing our atmosphere, CO2 comprises .038%. Yes, you read that right. Less than one-half of one percent. Now get this. Of that .038% of CO2 in the atmosphere, man contributes less than 4%. Man’s carbon contributions amount to .00152% of the gases that comprise the atmosphere. Hence, my metaphoric reflection on the banks of the Snake River. Even if we were to revert to stone-age type subsistence, the effect on the environment would be negligible.

Amazingly, more and more people are starting to question global-warming alarmists like Al Gore (who not coincidently, earned a “D” in natural sciences in college) who would have us believe we’re facing Armageddon if we don’t monitor and check our “carbon footprints.” The pollsters at Rasmussen earlier this month released their latest findings, and the gullible Al Gore disciples believing in man-made global warming are at a record low 34%, a reverse “hockey stick” chart from just two years ago.

Pew Research released results in January of top issues of concern to Americans. Of the 18 issues that showed up in responses, man-made global warming came in dead last at number 18. I have to admit, it gives me hope that people really can think for themselves on such issues, since the mainstream media and anti-capitalists have been shoving the concept down our throats for so long.

Since the science is clearly on the skeptical side of man’s impotence in controlling global temperatures by driving golf carts with doors instead of real cars, there must be another reason congress and the Obama administration is ramming this through the legislative docket. And here’s your reason: $$$$$!

Obama administration officials originally projected that they could raise over $600 billion in taxes levied against carbon emitters. Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, recently revised that estimate to $1.2 to $1.9 trillion from 2012 to 2019. According to the Investor’s Business Daily, the impact on the economy would be devastating, and put us in a perpetual state of recession by reducing our GDP by $7.4 to $9.6 trillion. Remember, companies don’t pay taxes, people do. Anything that uses energy, or is produced with energy, will have costs skyrocket. IBD says, “As energy prices rise, income and employment will fall, and families will spend larger portions of their incomes on energy.” Projections are that net job losses will exceed 2.5 million, even accounting for new “green jobs.” The bottom line to each of us would be an additional $1,600 to $2,200 in lost yearly income to energy costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

I know a lot of people like to think they’re “saving the planet” by driving a hybrid or driving a dangerous go-cart with doors instead of an SUV. If that makes you feel important or worthwhile, by all means, believe what you want. However, the science just doesn’t support your cause. And while Washington may try to sell cap-and-trade with the same feel-good rationale, it’s imperative that we know it’s all about money and control, not the environment. I’m just grateful that we aren’t as dependent upon coal as West Virginia, since Obama promised he was going to “bankrupt the coal industry” last year. This is how he’s going to do it.