By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/25/2009

There are many among us who seem to make a sport of bashing business and the free market system. They appropriately point out the egregious moral and legal failures of some firms but then ascribe culpability to all in the corporate world equally. At the national level, it’s become a “pro sport” as professional politicians exculpate or absolve themselves of all their regulatory blunders creating the business environment companies must function in and cast blame on the corporate world for all that they can’t blame on our former president.

This bashing and fear of American corporations was well articulated by a recent contributor to the Journal blogs who said, “Not only is it appropriate to keep corporate transgressions ever present in any debate concerning the state of our economy, but that unless we do, capitalism as we once knew it will continue its metamorphosis into a controlling entity that has undermined the very Democracy that enabled it to exist.”

Yet what power is wielded by any corporation that even comes close to that which is held by government? Logically, there is much more to fear about government than there ever is to fear about the business world. Businesses make things, sell things, provide service, all to generate a profit so they can grow bigger, hire more people, sell more gadgets, and acquire other companies.

The larger companies grow, the greater their potential impact on the economy and their influence with lawmakers. But they have no more power with politicians than what the politicians grant. In spite of potential influence in D.C., corporations cannot deprive us of our civil or constitutional rights. Corporate policy sometimes can affect their employees and in some cases, their customers. But corporations cannot take away our collective freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to own firearms. In short, they cannot deprive us of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. They cannot force us to give them 30% of our income. Their boards of directors cannot vote to force all of us to part with our earnings to pay for their pet projects and payback for political favors.

However, government can do all of those things. And government is actively engaged in this assault on individual freedom and liberty right before our very eyes. They can force us to pay $1600 more for our energy consumption as a tax. They can force us pay up to $6,000 per household for a public health-insurance plan. And once that is in place, they can dictate our diets and consumption habits for eligibility in the public health plan. They can force us to list all of our firearms on our tax form. They can force any reference of God out of the public sphere, if it smacks of anything Christian. They can do all these things. And they are doing them.

As governments’ appetite for spending increases, so likewise their need to expropriate more of our income increases. With a vote in Washington, we can lose more of our earnings. We can lose more of our liberties. We can be coerced into doing things we have moral, legal, and constitutional objections to. Corporations don’t have that power.

With the factual realization that government has the power to eliminate or minimize our freedoms, and corporations do not, which should we fear more? I can choose not to buy from a company because I object to their policies. But I have no such luxury to withhold my taxes for objectionable cause. I can choose to live outside of a corporations’ influence, but as an American, I cannot simply choose to live outside the parameters of government policy, regulation, and laws.

There is no inherent virtue in government or in capitalism per se, but there is inherent virtue in liberty. Both government and corporations should abide by those same constitutional precepts that were designed to assure individual liberty, and rather than abridging those rights, affirming and perpetuating them. Neither the absolutism of socialism nor unbridled capitalism morally serve the greater interests of the nation. But freedom does.

There is ample reason to be wary of corporations, but not to fear them. After all, they have little power over our fundamental liberties and freedoms. But with a legislative vote and the stroke of a pen, government can, and actively is, reshaping America from the land of the free to the land of the oppressed.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/18/2009

The administration and Congress are actively engaged in a class-envy war on the private sector, the free-market system, and corporations. Part of the process is to villainize corporations to make them objects of our disapprobation.

In this context, it’s advisable to remember that America has been built economically by companies led by men and women of vision and principle. Not only do they provide jobs to over 150 million Americans in the workforce, but they provide health insurance, retirement plans, and a host of other benefits to employees who bring their skills to the table day after day for their employer.

There are also companies who go beyond good business practices, following a higher law in contributing to communities and caring for their own. One such example is Texas Roadhouse.

Three weeks ago Texas Roadhouse opened another of their outstanding restaurants in Logan, Utah. New restaurant openings are not uncommon, but this one is. All of the profits generated by this one venue will be used to fund the company’s charity, Andy’s Outreach. Andy is the name of the company’s armadillo mascot, and the charity so named is established to help Texas Roadhouse employees and their families during times of need. As the company puts it, “Andy’s Outreach Fund is the Texas Roadhouse way of raising money to help our family members (any employee) who might be struggling while carrying on the incredible, legendary culture of our one-of-a-kind place to work.”

The origins of the program are found in tragedy for one of their “family members.” Company CEO G.J. Hart was attending a seminar at the company headquarters in Louisville a few years ago where he met a veteran dishwasher named James Bryan. Bryan was a deaf man and was the father to five children. A few weeks later, Hart learned that Bryan had died from a heart attack, and he mobilized his resources and organized an effort to pay for his funeral and help his surviving family members. They succeeded in doing much more than that, as the organizing group eventually put all five children through college.

In just the few years that Texas Roadhouse has been in Pocatello, Andy’s Outreach has assisted over half-a-dozen local employees. Most recently, three have been helped with medical expenses, including one who is out of work for six months due to a car accident. Dave Alexander, the Managing Partner for the Pocatello restaurant says employees can contribute to the fund as well, and that Pocatello has the highest percentage of employee contributions of any in the chain.

To further illustrate how important Andy’s Outreach is to the 320 Managing Partners in the company, they contributed the necessary funds to build the Logan restaurant.

Another superb example is provided by Sears. By law, companies who have reservist employees who are called to active duty are required to hold their jobs open until their tour of duty is complete. With over 500 reservist employees called to active duty over the past few years, Sears did much more than what the law required. They not only held the reservists jobs for them, but the company paid the difference in salaries and maintained all benefits including medical insurance and bonus programs for their reservist employees. They extended these benefits for up to 60 months.

When I first learned of this policy a few years ago I was impressed at their commitment to their employees and their families and the support of our troops, and resolved that I owed them my loyalty. I’ve had to replace three major appliances during that time, and intentionally used Sears products to replace them for that very reason.

I’ve also been gratified to learn that IDACORP, the parent company of Idaho Power did the same for their reservist employees.

Corporations are nothing more than people coalesced around specific products and services to serve other people. Although there may be exceptions, it is disingenuous to ascribe nefarious motives to corporations carte blanche and the private sector in general. And many, many companies, like Texas Roadhouse, Sears, and IDACORP see the bigger picture and deserve our respect and admiration, not our scorn.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/11/2009

The appellation “Neo-con” has been so unscrupulously bandied about the last few years, and so incorrectly used as a pejorative that the actual meaning of “neo-conservative” has become lost in the din of ignorant debate. With the passing of Irving Kristol, who graduated from mortality two weeks ago at the age of 89, a review of the contributions and analysis of the father of neo-conservatism is a venture into what made America great.

As a young socialist, Kristol was critical of the primary tenet which he found animating the socialist movement; the idyllic perfectibility of man and his milieu. As early as 1944 he wrote of his preference for “moral realism” which “foresees no new virtues and is interested in human beings as it finds them, content with the possibilities and limitations that are always with us.” Such an expression would lead him over the ensuing decades to a realization that ideals have value in reality, if they work, but not if they don’t.

His ideas and analysis truly took hold in the 1960s when he and other liberals like him, were castigated for being “neo-conservatives.” He was driven to do something that made many liberals uncomfortable, to monitor whether their theories worked in the real world, or if they created more problems than they solved. Kristol himself described neoconservatives as “liberals mugged by reality.”

Through his column in the Wall Street Journal and his quarterly journal, he analyzed the issues founded in the “Great Society” programs. Did urban redevelopment improve conditions for the poor? Did welfare programs create more problems, especially sociological issues, than they solved economically? Did they solve any economical issues for the impoverished? As a liberal who based efficacy on what worked rather than good intent, he came to the conclusion over 20 years ago, “The problem with our current welfare programs is not that they are costly – which they are – but that they have such perverse consequences for the people they are supposed to benefit.”

Time after time, and issue after issue, Kristol brilliantly exposed the principles of the Great Society (major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, poverty, and transportation) as worthy ideas, yet wholly inadequate or destructive in application. As he aptly pointed out, after over a trillion dollars of wealth redistribution based on Great Society programs, we still have roughly 12% of the population living at poverty level. As one “mugged by reality,” he concluded that principles of socialism, even when partially executed, empirically fail.

Through his honest assessment of the failures of contemporary liberalism, Kristol emerged as one of capitalism’s greatest apologists. As he frequently reminded us, “Capitalism has eased more misery and engendered more comfort than any other economic system in world history.” And this man knew his history. So to Kristol, it only made sense that what the world needed more of was capitalism, not more of any of the other “isms” that ingratiate a few at the expense of the many.

The more nefarious use of the term was used throughout the Bush presidency, where the neoconservative concept of using American economic and military strength for purposes of expanding democracy, human rights, and capitalism. Conceptually I find it difficult to comprehend that any moral person would object to such a notion, but in the case of Bush, it had more to do with how the principle was implemented in Iraq, not a rejection of the philosophy behind it.

Even more disconcerting to Kristol’s former liberal colleagues, was his evolution as a social conservative. In his missive “My Cold War,” a recapitulation of his intellectual migration from left to right, he wrote, “What began to concern me more and more were the clear signs of rot and decadence germinating within American society -- a rot and decadence that was no longer the consequence of liberalism but was the actual agenda of contemporary liberalism. And the more contemporary, the more candid and radical was this agenda.” He warned, “Combating the cultural decay -- a war on spiritual poverty -- was even more important than winning the other Cold War.”

Much of neo-conservatism is based in common sense and application of principles with proven empirical efficacy, both of which are scarcities in Washington. Seems to me we need a lot more Irving Kristols. At the very least, we need a lot more neoconservatives.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/04/2009

I actually had misgivings about the Van Jones resignation as the administrations’ “Green Jobs Csar.” He was the most high-level “green” advocate who was actually honest about what the green movement was all about. As he said, “The green economy will start off as a small subset of a complete revolution away from gray capitalism and toward redistribution of all the wealth…And we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.” He was also the most honest of the administration appointees about being a self-avowed communist. I’m sorry we’ve lost his openness, for he made the case very clearly that capping carbon emissions, and taxing everyone who creates a “carbon footprint” was not about saving the earth, but about governmental control over our energy consumption and redistribution of wealth.

About the same time Jones was resigning, Richard Lindzen of MIT published a paper that proves the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conclusions were wrong about carbon emissions. The IPCC conclusions were based on computer models, including the famed Michael Mann “hockey-stick” graph which has been discredited, whereas Lindzen relies on raw data and provides a breakthrough explanation for why global warming does not rise with carbon emissions.

Lindzen reports, “The global surface temperature record, which we update and publish every month, has shown no statistically-significant ‘global warming’ for almost 15 years. Statistically-significant global cooling has now persisted for very nearly eight years. Even a strong el Nino – expected in the coming months – will be unlikely to reverse the cooling trend.”

“More significantly, the ARGO bathythermographs deployed throughout the world’s oceans since 2003 show that the top 400 fathoms of the oceans, where it is agreed between all parties that at least 80% of all heat caused by manmade ‘global warming’ must accumulate, have been cooling over the past six years. That now prolonged ocean cooling is fatal to the ‘official’ theory that ‘global warming’ will happen on anything other than a minute scale.”

Lindzen’s peer reviewed work states “we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.”

Data and graphical display of that data illustrate how carbon emissions have been steadily increasing over the past 15 years, while global mean temperatures have been declining. If carbon emissions were causal to warming global temperatures, there would be some concomitant harmony between the two charts. Namely, as carbon emissions increase, temperatures increase. Yet even when taken back over the past 100 years, there is no such correlation between the two. Critics argue that as complex as the climate is, there will always be a lag time between increase in CO2 and global mean temperatures. Yet even allowing for such a lag time, there is no observable correlation.

But what is most decimating to the global warming alarmist theory is the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data, according to Lindzen. The data prove that CO2, which is a much less prevalent and effective “greenhouse gas” than water vapor, is incapable of capturing the amount of heat in our atmosphere as the IPCC claims. The ERBE results, which are factual data from real measurements made by satellite, prove the exact opposite of the IPCC projections based on computer models. In science, when hard data is juxtaposed with computer models, the data win. To see the full study, select the July CO2 report on the Science and Public Policy website.

The results of Lindzen’s report led one reviewer to comment, “All of this data leads to the conclusion that the UN/IPCC models are not only wrong, they are so far off the mark as to be laughable. The satellite and bathythermograph data clearly do not match the IPCC theory, which means that the theory is incorrect.”

Those of us who have questioned the pseudo-science behind the man-made global warming alarmists have known the motives were not about saving the planet. As more and more evidence provides justification for our skepticism, we will find ourselves in the dubious position of missing the honest proponents of controlling and taxing carbon emissions, like Van Jones.