Reparan con incentivos a industria automotriz

On occasion I like to read the newspapers from our South American neighbors to find out what is happening in their countries and how they feel about the U.S. This is an article in the Mexico City newspaper of November 9, 2009. It does not take a fluency in Spanish to get the message in the article but I will help out here and there, hopefully without error:

Reparan con incentivos a industria automotriz
By Magaly Pinal

A pesar de que el mercado mexicano está diseñado para la fabricación y colocación de dos millones de autos anuales, para el cierre del 2009 sólo se habrán vendido, a lo sumo, 750,000 unidades nuevas. (Normally the Mexican auto industry builds millions of cars annually, but now they are down to 750,000 units.) Incluso, de acuerdo a la Asociación Mexicana de Distribuidores de Automotores (AMDA), en los primeros ocho meses del año apenas se habían colocado poco más de 274,283 vehículos y cerca de 195,868 camiones, entre carga y pasajeros. En total sumarían más de 470,000 unidades. En estas cifras aparecen el Distrito Federal con el 24.1%; Estado de México, 11%; Jalisco, 7.2%; y Nuevo León, con 6% de las ventas nacionales. En el 2008 la AMDA registró ventas de un 45% más durante los primeros ocho meses del año.

Para la última parte del año, José Gómez Báez, presidente de la AMDA, pronosticó un cierre caótico para la industria automotriz, ya que por un lado las empresas podrían tener problemas de inventarios por la baja en la producción mundial de automóviles, además de que los consumidores no cuentan con una oferta de crédito adecuada para la adquisición de autos nuevos (Mr. Gomez, President of the Association of Mexican Automobile Distributors says that consumers are not buying new automobiles and production is going lower).
Enfatizó también que los aumentos de impuestos aprobados recientemente afectan de una u otra forma a los clusters automotrices. (People are not buying cars due to the increase in taxation.)

Justamente, en este escenario es que el gobierno (government) de Coahuila anunció hace unos días el Programa de Reactivación de la Industria Automotriz (new government program for revitalizing the car industry) que tiene como principal objetivo el otorgamiento (grant) de apoyos económicos (economic support) a los contribuyentes del Impuesto Sobre Automóviles Nuevos (tax on new automobiles) e Impuesto sobre Tenencia o Uso de Vehículos (a tax on the ownership or usage of vehicles).

Perhaps I am not reading or translating this properly? Additional taxation is going to be used to prop up the automotive industry in Mexico? That doesn’t make sense. Why would a country spend tax dollars to prop up a failing business…..wait, that sounds familiar....

Nancy Pelosi's Version of Tort Reform

Buried in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 1,990-page health care bill is a provision that provides "incentive payments" to each state that develops an "alternative medical liability law" that encourages "fair resolution" of disputes and "maintains access to affordable liability insurance." Sounds great until we reach the caveat: The state only qualifies if its new law "does not limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages."

Are we heading to Hyperinflation?

The weakening of the dollar, the rise in oil prices, the rise of the stock market when there is still double digit unemployment, and declining economic activity would suggest that we are heading towards hyperinflation. Economists say that hyperinflation is out of control inflation, with no equilibrium (or balance) in site. Is what the Obama administration, the Federal Reserve, and the legislative branch of the government helping the situation?

Let’s take a look at Japan in the 1980’s. They had an economic bubble that sent the Nikkei to 40,000. Then the bubble burst and real estate prices dropped 80%. The Nikkei lost 80% of its value. The Japanese government tried everything to bring the economy back, and managed to do everything wrong. Interest rates went to zero in the hopes people would borrow at no cost and buy stuff. They didn’t. The government kept factories running, increasing supplies even though there was no demand. The government started public works programs building roads, fast trains and a state of the art airport built on a landfill. They increased the money supply and supported failing businesses spending trillions in yen in their attempt to support the economy. They had stimulus packages to the tune of over 100 trillion yen,. They pumped yen into the banking system and still no one wanted to borrow. Nothing worked. Japan is still in a depression, with its stock market still at one fifth of what it was at its peak. The country has a national debt of 130% of GDP because of all of the ‘fixes’ that they tried, and a debt that is not payable other than with printing more yen. The yen that is backed by nothing. And this has been going on for 29 years!

Does this sound at all familiar? Printing money, stimulus packages, and supporting companies that should go under? Spending and spending and spending and still enemployment is over 10% with no end in sight.

Milton Friedman once said, “Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

What is it that our Government Employees Don't Understand about the Constitution?

Judge Andrew Napolitano recently had an interview with James Clyburn D-SC the third ranking member of the House of Representatives of the US.

Judge Napolitano: “Where in the Constitution is the federal government charged with maintaining people’s health?”

Clyburn: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.”

Judge: “You took an oath to uphold the Constitution. You can’t go outside the Constitution because you think it is a good thing to do without violating that oath!”

Clyburn: “How about show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?”

The Judge then, of course, cites the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.

Article [X]

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Lesson to be learned is that our Senators and Congressmen have not read the Constitution which is one page long how can we expect them to read the health care bill?

Just How Important are Consumers Anyway?

Between Nancy Pelosi and National Public Radio and what they talk about I could have ideas for this blog on a continuing basis, daily, forever. On Wednesday Ms. Pelosi discussed the off-year elections that took place on Tuesday, elections where Republicans won the Governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Democrat, said that the democrats won the Congressional seat in upstate New York and were therefore victorious overall with a mandate for a government run health care system. In the upstate New York race 100,000 people voted. In Virginia and New Jersey more than 70 million people voted.

On National Public Radio this morning, a station that is supported by tax dollars (I like to remind people of that at every opportunity), their expert on how to fix the current economy didn’t talk about lowering taxes, or easing rules and restrictions that are preventing companies in this country from competing in the global marketplace, it was to “move away from an economy that counts on consumer spending.” Really. I am not kidding. The ‘expert’s’ advice – “count on exports.” Aren’t the people that you are exporting to consumers?

So I have two really good topics to write opinion on: Nancy and the limited powers of the federal government (the tenth amendment to the Bill of Rights) or the basic economic idea of supply and demand. Actually let’s merge them both into one blog: The power of the government versus the power of the people.

Nancy, are you listening? Pay attention because we are going to talk health care, freedom of choice, and supply and demand. Supply and demand are basic economic terms for how people behave VOLUNTARILY in free markets, whether at the grocery store, traveling on an airplane, purchasing a home or PURCHASING HEALTH CARE. Those who believe big government can cure all ills (sorry I couldn’t resist) by dictating what they believe is best for all of us is wrong thinking. There are no examples where government run health care has worked. Give me an example, Nancy. Individual states have gone bankrupt and individual countries that attempted to provide universal health care find they are faced with the need for rationing and the service that they do provide is sub-standard. Thousands of people travel to these United States for the best health care in the world, and fill prescriptions for drugs created by companies that are working directly off the theory that if there is a demand they will find a way to supply the product.

Nancy and the rest of our government want to dismantle our current system giving more than 20% of our economy over to the same government that tries to deliver mail, run Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, create Ponzi schemes in the form os Social Security and Medicare, and run the Veterans Administration, where they are only 400,000 cases behind. The farm program? Almost left out Amtrak! In every instance when the government in this country attempts to prohibit basic liberties of the people the consequences are often surprising, always costly, and sometimes tragic.

Washington, D.C. is always touting the Canadian health care system. As of 2003 the average wait to see an eye doctor is 22 weeks, a gynecologist 13 weeks, a general surgeon 9 weeks, a doctor specializing in cardiovascular issues 18 weeks, an orthopedic specialist 25 weeks, and a neurosurgeon 17 weeks. No wonder so many Canadians are coming to this country for health care. Conditions have become so bad in Canada that some provincial governments have begun shipping heart bypass patients and cancer patients needing radiation treatments over the Canadian border to the U.S. to receive treatment. 65% of Canadians now purchase private health insurance, turning away from what the government is giving away for free.

Nancy, you need to start thinking outside the box. First you might want to take a look at the tenth amendment to the Constitution about the limited powers of the Federal government, and then you might want to look at your own polling numbers within your own district within your own state. We the people, Democrat, Republican and Independent, are single minded in one thing; together we know we are all Americans, and we want the liberty and freedom that goes along with living in such a glorious country. The election in New Jersey proves one thing, the desire for political freedom and absence of interference from the government in our lives crosses party lines.

Presiden't Obama's Reputation in the World

This is more of a footnote than a complete article since I heard something this morning on National Public Radio but cannot find anything else on the subject. Until I do this footnote will suffice as a reminder of what is beginning to happen around the world and their perception of President Obama. On the heels of the announcement that Palistinian President Abbas will not seek re-election the comment was made by the reporter in Jerusalem: "It is recognized in the Arab communities that President Obama is a weak President and will not be able to move the peace talks between Israel and the Palistinian people forward."

All of us in Wonderland

Have you ever felt that you have fallen down the rabbit hole along with Alice? What is going on today? Important elections are being held around the country and especially in New Jersey, Virginia and New York. The White House and the liberal press are saying that when the Conservatives win in the important races it doesn’t mean that President Obama is losing support, it just means there is a rift forming in the Republican Party between the conservative and moderate Republicans. The same people that are saying this were saying a just year ago that the Conservative movement was dead. They are also the same people that are saying that most Americans want a health care reform bill no matter the cost, the stimulus money is working, and it is not important that the only U.S. car manufacturer not to take bail out money - Ford - is the only manufacturer that is showing a profit. President Obama is indecisive on what to do in Afghanistan, believes Iran and North Korea can be reasoned with, and that Ex-Honduran President Zelaya should be put back in office.

But I don’t want to talk about the elections today. I don’t want to talk about the health care bills that may just cost Nancy Pelosi her re-election next year or at the very least her job as Speaker of the House. I won’t talk today about Ford or GM or Chrysler, and I also won’t talk about Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran.

I want to talk about Honduras because it is a very good example of President Obama’s practicing his version of foreign policy, and what he thinks his place in the world actually is.

Here is the sequence of events as President Zelaya of Honduras was Constitutionally removed from office by the Honduran government:

Since 1981 Honduras has considered itself a friend of the United States. In the '80s, it allowed the Nicaraguan Resistance or "Contras" to operate from base camps there. It lent troops for Operation Iraqi Freedom and continues to support a small U.S. military presence on Honduran soil. Economic ties are strong.

On June 28, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was expelled from the country for multiple constitutional violations. The U.S. quickly joined an international chorus deploring the expulsion, denouncing as a military coup what the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress called for a defense of their constitution and rule of law.

The new Honduran government says it wants to end polarization, restore order, and move to elections in November, but the international community demands Zelaya's restoration to power.
The U.S. under the leadership of President Obama, finds itself running with a dangerous crowd -- one whose agenda is not necessarily dedicated to defending democracy.

Begin with ex-President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya – who won election in 2005. Formerly a centrist, this morphed into a disciple of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. His popularity plunged over the next three years, with rising crime, poverty and recession. Honduran presidents are limited to one four-year term. Nonetheless, Zelaya launched an unconstitutional re-election bid that caused his removal by the government.

In backing Zelaya to the hilt, Venezuela's elective-dictator Hugo Chavez has pitched the crisis to its current level. Chavez is no champion of democracy -- at home or abroad. Since pushing through a referendum that removed Venezuela's presidential term limits, Chavez has unleashed a ferocious campaign against the domestic opposition, elected officials, and political and economic liberty.

Two weeks ago when the Iranian people rose in protest against electoral fraud, Chavez unswervingly aligned with the repressive Ayatollahs, dismissing the massive outpouring of protest as a CIA plot.

Then there's Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, arguably the least democratic president in Latin America. Thanks to a pact with another corrupt Nicaraguan president, a constitutional change that allowed him to win office with 37% of the vote, and stolen municipal elections in November 2008, Ortega still claims a seat at the ‘democracy’ table. Ortega undoubtedly harbors a festering vendetta against pro-American Honduras. A relic of the '80s Sandinista regime, Ortega sees this crisis as pay-back time for Honduras' sins of supporting the Contras.

Another dutiful friend of Zelaya is United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockman. Formerly Ortega's foreign minister during the Sandinista era. Excellency Mr. D'Escoto has duly denounced the coup and volunteered to accompany Zelaya when he returns to Honduras.

Also flying democratic colors is Cuban dictator Raul Castro, leader of a country without a free election since 1949. On June 29 Fidel's younger brother lashed out at the "the fascists" in Honduras who had the audacity to "trample on the political rights of Hondurans." Castro's Cuba holds over 200 political prisoners, denies freedom of speech, and preserves a state security system to defend its totalitarian regime.

Finally, another senior hemispheric leader dead set against the "illegal" Honduran regime is Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Miguel Insulza. Propping up Zelaya in Honduras can only advance his efforts to bring Communist Cuba into the OAS.These ‘friends’ of Zelaya have one goal – to dismantle political opposition, dismantle free media, and dismantle civil society.

These are the people that President Obama has aligned himself with. What could possibly be the attraction?