The Good, The Bad, And My Thoughts On All Of It

Why Does the Right To Choose Only Belong to the Woman

2011-05-24T01:29:00.001-04:00

If you ask the average pro-choice proponent about the right to safe abortions, they will tell you that the right to privacy guaranteed in the constitution gives a woman the right to do what she pleases with her body. If you ask a pro-life proponent, they will probably tell you that the baby has a right to live and therefore abortion should be either illegal or extremely limited.

The interesting item missing from these competing points of view seems to be the rights of the father. It could be argued that much as slaves were considered to be less than a whole person in the eyes of the law, so too are fathers.

A woman who is raped should have unfettered access to an abortion. All of her choices were made for her and it could easily be considered cruel to force her to have a rapist’s baby. Also, exceptions should be made for incest because of the known health risks inherent in inbreeding. In the case of health of the mother, each person should be allowed to protect himself or herself even if it is from a seemingly innocent being inside of them.

In cases where none of these exceptions would apply, pro-choice proponents would have you believe that somehow a woman must make a choice to terminate as if that was the only choice along the path that could have avoided the current situation. This is where the hypocrisy of choice comes in.

An 18-year-old girl has sex and gets pregnant. She chooses to abort because she doesn’t want her life to be ruined and she gets a giant do over in life. If she decides she wants to keep the baby she tells the father and thus begins his lifelong responsibility to the child, which could just as easily be construed as ruining his life.

When these two hypothetical lovebirds decided to have sex, they both made a choice. Now suddenly one person has the ability to impose her will on the other. If she chooses to abort and he wants the baby, tough. If she chooses to keep the baby and he doesn’t want a child then he has just received an eighteen-year minimum sentence of child support. This is not to say that a father shouldn’t take care of his children, he should. The father only has a one-third vote here since the woman gets two votes – the first being to have sex and the second to have a child. For all the talk of equal protection and the equality of men and women, this seems grossly unjust.

To be truly fair women would have to either share the right to choose or shoulder the burden of parenthood alone should the father decide he does not want a child. The protests from women of equality are decidedly absent in this area.

Full Disclosure
I am pro-life although as I am sure it is clear in the essay I make exceptions under reasonable cases. This essay is not an attempt to debate whether abortion is right or wrong. It simply attempts to debate what it means to be pro-choice. I think this topic is probably controversial enough without the need to wade into the typical murder vs. choice debate. This is not to say both sides aren’t without their hypocrisy. As George Carlin once said, “Did you ever notice how most pro-lifers are for the death penalty.”

It is suppose to suck to be poor

2010-04-21T12:21:00.003-04:00

This month has brought some interesting perspective to something I have been thinking about lately. When the federal government was not planning on extending unemployment benefits my unemployed sister was distraught. She did not know where she would get the money to pay her rent. Now because she is my sister I care if she gets kicked out on the streets. If I want to help her I should help her and I have in the past. Why should I be required to help everyone in the same situation though.

This may sound a bit harsh at first but for every person that thinks the rich are getting away with everything let me be the first to tell you that to someone out there you are rich.

I remember a time when I bought a bag of cookies for food because they were the most calorie dense food I could afford in bulk. Back then I envied the person that had enough money to buy food whenever they wanted but I never blamed them for what they had. I didn't want them to not have it. I simply wanted to have that as well.

As time passed I made it back to a place where I could afford food as well as electricity and life was better. It was about this time I found myself wanting a nice car and to own a house. These were all things I would eventually achieve, not because I took them from the people that had more than me but because I worked hard and got a better job.

This situation repeated itself and it continues to repeat itself today. Although today my goal is not always more money like it was back then. My point is that I got a better life by hard work, not by cursing those above me that had more.

Back to unemployment. You had a job and you lost it, it sucks I know, it has happened to me. If you want to hold out for the same type of job you had before while collecting unemployment I have no problem with that since your employer paid unemployment insurance payments for you and you are collecting on that policy. Once that runs out though you should no longer have that luxury. Clean toilets or flip burgers or whatever it is you have to do to make ends meet until you get a job resembling your old one. I should not have to pay through my federal taxes for you to sit at home hoping for your job to come through.

Way back in ancient times I delivered pizza and I guarantee that if I lost my job and unemployment ran out that would be the first thing I would do until I got another job in my chosen career. I would bet that most who complain that the feds won't take care of them fast enough would lose their minds if they had fifty percent of their money taken away in taxes like many of the actual producers in this country do.

As for the title of this post. It is supposed to suck to be poor so that you don't want to be that way. Go out and earn some money. Instead of the socialist "to each according to his need" try "to each according to his ability." Sometimes people do need a hand but it should be people that care about them lending that hand and not the federal government. If you don't have anyone that cares enough to lend that hand perhaps you should examine why that is.

2010-03-20T17:45:00.002-04:00

I must admit I am a bit sick of the health care debate(no pun intended). I want to ignore it but I feel like the fate of my country hangs in the balance this weekend. Anyone that is foolish enough to think that the elections in the fall will matter one bit once this travesty is signed into law are either foolish or disingenuous.

As I am sure President Obama would tell you, creating a massive government entitlement program is hard work. What he won't say is that dismantling one is next to impossible. Dismantling any government program seems to be a near impossible task and so who wins in November is irrelevant if the bill becomes law.

Many are upset with the so called deem and pass method of attempting to get this bill to become law. I would be less irritated about a procedural maneuver if this was something the public supported and it really was just republicans getting in the way with their 41 vote filibuster proof majority. One is hard pressed however to find a poll of the public where the majority supports it. Everyone agrees that health care is broken but still a majority disapprove of this bill.

It should come as no surprise that most Republicans hate this bill. In general republicans hate big government and this bill certainly qualifies as big government. The problem for the Dems is that the bill is so big it has lots of stuff in it that people on their side of the aisle hate as well.

I understand the difficulty of mandating changes to preexisting condition laws without near universal coverage. If there were no preexisting condition clauses why buy health insurance until you get sick. But when the President comes on tv and says that we can save 500 billion in waste from medicare I say great, let's do it. Why do we have to pass a gigantic bill to do this. If he knows where the fraud and waste is why not just go eliminate it now. Save some money and then we can talk about spending some for a change. That is how the budget works at my house and I suggest the feds do the same.

Drug Ads on TV

2010-03-05T08:55:00.004-05:00

I hate ads for prescription drugs on television. Unfortunately I also believe in freedom of speech so I have a hard time saying we should simply ban the ads. I think a workable solution to this problem could be trading a couple of years of extra patent protection in exchange for zero advertising.

Whether people like to admit it these drug companies spend enormous amounts of money to create drugs that in many cases save lives or greatly improve them. It is only natural that they want a return on their investment. I think providing the extra patent protection would provide them with the incentive to agree not to advertise on television and in magazines. I think I would make an exception for say diabetes drugs in a diabetes magazine.

I would also favor the creation(assuming it does not exist) of a central repository of information on drugs where doctors, and patients if they so choose, could go to look up information on treatments for specific conditions. To have your drug listed here all statements would have to be verified by an uninterested third party. This would be paid for by the drug companies. When a new treatment becomes available the company bringing it to market would have to specifically state the benefits over existing medications. These statements would also need to be verified by Doctor's that do not have a financial interest in the drug companies or would benefit in any other way.

Companies exist to make money and it is ridiculous to think otherwise. We should use the profit motive to properly shape desired behavior.

Idiocracy moves into our government

2009-12-29T09:24:00.005-05:00

I for one think the movie Idiocracy should be remade with none other than out Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano as the Duhhrector of Homeland Security. So according to Janet "the system worked", well in fairness that is the world according to Janet before she realized how ridiculous a statement that was and stated the following day that she was taken out of context and clearly the system did not work.

She also says the traveling public is very very safe. How can we be very safe when a man the we were aware could be a terrorist was allowed to get on a plane with a BOMB. I can't get on a plane without taking my shoes off because some fool tried to put a bomb in his shoe but this guy can bring a bomb on a plane even though he was on a watch list.

It seems as though the only thing that is keeping us safe is the incompetence of the bombers. If this bomb had worked we would have 300 dead people on our hands. This woman has no clue about anything. How in the world is she in charge of our homeland security. Hopefully Obama is asking for her resignation as we speak. We can not afford to have this level of incompetence at the highest levels of our government.

It is time we institute some basic set of qualifications for our top Government posts. The President(and I don't just mean the current one) must make selections based on experience and the ability to do the job. The Senate must uphold its responsibility and approve people worthy of being approved for positions not based on their political background but based on their ability to do the job they are being asked to do. We the people must also respond by demanding qualified people in these jobs and hold the President and Senate accountable when basic standards are not met.

I have had it with North Korea

2009-06-26T01:37:00.005-04:00

I am not a person that wants war but I have had about enough of this clown. He keeps talking smack and I for one would like to lob a missle or two at his presidential palaces and see what he does. My guess is that he would do absolutely nothing and while I am sure his friends in China and Russia might "condemn" our actions, I seriously doubt they would care enough to do anything more than that. The best would be if we could simultaneously bomb all his palaces and drop thousands of tons of food into the country.

Of course I suppose we could also wait for his son to take over and see if he is any more reasonable but considering half of his genetic material coms from Kim I would guess it is highly unlikely.At the very least I hope his son has better taste in sunglasses.

The priorities in this country are screwed....

2009-06-26T01:10:00.004-04:00

Michael Jackson is dead and apparently it is a national event. Lets assume that the stuff about kid touching is not true and just focus on the good things. He gave us some good music, sure, but the reactions of people shock me. Presidents get this kind of news coverage, singers really shouldn't. These people call themselves reporters but what exactly are they reporting. A guy died, probably of natural causes, although some were speculating otherwise. In all honesty, who really cares?

The woman pictured was allegedly shot by Iranian government forces. Unfortunately for her she didn't win 13 Grammies or invent the Moonwalk. All she did was protest an evil government that guns people down when they don't accept the results of a fixed election. The balance in coverage between these two events is sickening. The way she stares into the camera as she dies is an image I doubt very much that I will soon forget.

Let's try this again

2008-10-27T20:21:00.002-04:00

I am such a slacker I keep posting a day or two and then walking away. THis time I am going to try to be better about posting daily. Right now I think the best place for money is in the UltraShort etfs from proshares. My personal favorite is SDS. I have been in and out of that a few times over the last month. If I had a 401k that I needed money from soon I think I would go into all cash. I think we need to get to at least dow 7700 before things have a hope of turning around. Unfortunately I think we will go much lower. Here is how I see it playing out from here.

Stocks will continue to trend lower. As more people feel(or actually are) wiped out by this they will sharply reduce spending. Look for spending to plummet in the next few months. As this happens corporate earnings will go down putting further downward pressure on the stock market. Credit card defaults will go up causing further losses to the banking system.

Right now I am assuming Obama will be elected (not my personal preference, I don't really like either of our choices). It is inevitable that he will raise taxes. With all the current handing out of money that the government is doing the next president will have no choice but to increase taxes. This will hurt the economy further. At some point soon inflation from this wild printing of money will catch up with us and I think we could have hyper inflation.

I suppose the good news for this is that it will finally solve two problems. People's home loans will become more affordable to them and the National Debt should be much easier to pay off. The bad news is all of our ATMs will have to be retrofitted to handle million dollar bills as the new twenty.

Is Lehman next

2008-03-17T21:56:00.002-04:00

Personally I have no idea what company will be next but I know one thing in my gut and that is that Bear certainly won't be the last to go. It never ceases to amaze me that every time something bad happens everyone is running around and talking about a bottom.

Apparently I must have missed something because from what I can see the dollar is still falling, my gas has gone through the roof, my food is crazy expensive and yet "we have moderate inflation". I don't know about you but My income certainly hasn't doubled the last few years to keep pace with housing, food, and fuel.

I am so disgusted with our economy and the market at the moment that it is hard to even write a posting tonight. My opinion is that tomorrow the fed will cut and stocks will spike. Then, just as I have every other time this has happened I will short the market, probably QQQQ as that is one of my favorite thing to buy puts on. Who knows how far down this thing will go but I am pretty sure that we can't really even see the bottom yet.

MLM seems profitable by comparison

2008-03-16T21:17:00.007-04:00

The chart shown here is that of the fall of Enron. Bear Stearns stock- holders could only wish for such a gentle slope. It had traded as high as $159.36 in the last year, it opened last monday at $70.28 and today JP Morgan is buying them for just $2 a share. The steepness of the fall is almost incomprehensible from a company whose CEO earlier this week stated that there was "absolutely no truth" to the rumors that they had a liquidity problem. Apparently there just might have been a hint of truth.

I find it unbelievable that there are reports saying that this is somehow good news. I assume those that hold this view are not referring to Bear Stearns stockholders. I was thinking it might be worth it to simply purchase far out of the money puts on all of the major financials since apparently when you hit it is like winning the lottery.

Some talking head on CNBC just last week was talking about the book value of BSC being $80 a share. I am sure that little tidbit will console the shareholders.

Meanwhile gold and oil are still on a tear and the dollar took a bit of a tumble tonight and as of the time I am writing this the dollar yen is around 97. Our economy is being driven into the ground and the likes of Bush and Paulson either don't know it is happening, or more likely, don't want you to know.

I ask you google, what does my site have to do with pregnancy.

2008-03-02T21:20:00.003-05:00

I have noticed a large number of pregnancy ads being displayed by google on my site. Maybe they no something I don't. Maybe somehow a plummeting dollar and housing market have something to do with a woman's cycle. Who knows.

When Warren Buffett agrees with you...

2008-02-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

Not that I think I am a genius for figuring out that the Dollar was on its way to becoming worthless but it is nice to see someone like Warren agrees with me.

Still sitting all in QQQQ puts right now. I have exited and entered a few times in an effort to maximize profits. I am out of Feb puts and only have March puts right now. I am considering buying some Jan 09 puts that are way out of the money because this thing just doesn't seem to have a bottom.

I think the stimulus package is a joke. Unless they plan on sending out rebates large enough for someone to buy a house then I don't really see how they can fix the housing market and that is one of the big things dragging us down. How is someone buying a new toaster at walmart that was made in China supposed to help our economy avoid a recession.

Be careful what you wish for

2008-01-09T00:42:00.000-05:00

All while I have been making other moves I have been eyeing a really bad recession on the horizon. I lost a little here and there on some QQQQ puts but I have more than made up for that in the last few weeks.

I don't own a single stock other than a few in my 401k which I have a time horizon of at least 20 years so I don't really pay much attention to that. All I own at the moment are puts. Here is the problem, now that the sky really is falling I find myself a bit sad even though I am making huge returns. My problem is that I think the economy is going to make a stop at a recession on its way to a depression. I have lved through recessions so I know what to expect. A depression scares the hell out of me. Who knows if I will be able to make enough on the way down to support my family through a depression.

So I find myself in the interesting position of worrying the more money I make. I just don't see how we avoid one here. Housing is a mess, credit markets are a mess, the dollar becomes more worthless every day, and the market is in freefall. If anyone actually reads this and has any thoughts on how much money one would need to survive a depression please point me in the right direction.

The shoe has fallen

2007-08-15T21:01:00.000-04:00

So I sat by for the past number of months simply bewildered by the action in the market. The last few weeks make sense to me. It still amazes me to see people on tv that don't get how bad it is. Personally I think we will easily see another ten percent drop in the dow and nasdaq. If it it stops there I think we will be lucky although in all honesty I think we could tumble into something far worse.

I have no words for the incompetence.

2007-03-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

Where to begin. The stock markets in my opinion officially turned insane today. Many commentators have said that the comments from the Fed today were dovish. I really fail to see how that is so. They essentially said that the housing "adjustment", a word I am sure is comforting to those whose house has "adjusted" in price by thousands of dollars to the downside, is ongoing. They said inflation is not where they want it to be and that their are pressures that could push it higher. Finally they said the economy is slowing. FOr those of you keeping score this last part is the "good news."

I would paraphrase their comments by saying "Housing sucks, the economy is starting to suck and yet somehow we have inflation, what is the Fed to do?"

If they lower rates they will increase those very inflationary pressures they are concerned about. If on the other hand they raise rates well then you might as well just start detonating suitcase bombs in some neighborhoods because housing would go into such a slump. So they did the only thing they could do, "I'll pass." I guess the theory is if you do nothing then you can't be blamed for messing things up. I don't really think it matters what they do because I think the die has been cast and all that is left is for the number to come up.

So that brings me back to the markets. Was nothing learned in 2000 when stocks were just soaring out of control. Stocks don't go up for ever and two weeks does not a correction make. The other shoe will drop and when it does it will fall on alot of people.

The China Syndrome Continued??

2007-03-18T00:57:00.000-04:00

China is raising it's interest rates .27% which leads me to wonder what impact could this have on our economy. Two weeks ago when the Chinese market dropped 9% it clearly demonstrated that the worlds markets are quite tightly coupled. So I asked myself what effect could them raising their rates have in their own market and then on ours.

Upon further inspection of past rate increases in August and April of 2006 I noticed that this didn't have any negative effect on the Chinese stock market. Who knows what if any effect it will have on their market this time but if it does have a big impact I would expect even more downward pressure on the US stocks.

So where do we go in this time of uncertainty. Personally I am in QID and I have puts on LEND. As you can see from prior posts I think the sub prime markets are in more trouble than people probably realize and I also think that these stocks being up as much as 100% on Friday is absolutely rediculous.

Finally, I want to ad some commentary about people that thing short sellers are evil. While short sellers can have a small impact on stock prices they can't hold things down forever and most downturns in a stock that is blames on short selling is much more likely due to delusional longs not understanding why it is a bad investment. When I buy a stock I am buying it because I expect it to go up. If on the other hand I think that a stock is going to go down why shouldn't I short sell and make some money on the deal. It was going to go down anyway and the poor person I borrowed the shares from would have lost exactly the same amount of money. The only difference is the money went to me instead of disappearing into the ether.

I have gone short before and lost money and I have never had a long feel sorry for me. Why should I feel sorry for someone else when I make money and they lose it. That is after all the entire point of investing, making money.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

2007-03-14T23:57:00.000-04:00

Today I want to talk some more about the sub-prime lending crisis and about how government is going to save us all. In fact I would like to talk a little about personal responsibility in general when it comes to debt. The chorus of lawmakers that want to do something about tightening credit standards has been getting louder and louder over the last two weeks. The problem with this is it is a bit like wanting to treat a dead man for his bullet wound. Where were these people two years ago when they could have made a difference.

I happen to think that forcing lenders to make sure someone can pay before they make the loan is not an entirely bad idea. It does of course have its down side. If the law becomes too strict than people who could otherwise get a loan and actually pay it off will most likely wind up getting denied. Now that would be bad but I think it is probably better to make someone save to buy a house for an extra year or two then let the whole economy fall apart so some mortgage companies can make a few extra bucks.

Here is where the ideas floating around get scary. Some people think the government should bail these people out. If the government wants to help out people that were defrauded by predatory lenders that is one thing but many of these people new exactly what they were getting themselves into. There is no way my tax money should be going to pay for someone elses home because they signed a bad deal or because they refinanced their home to get more money out of it to either invest or to live the good life with. To those people I say you made your bed now lie in it.

I have also heard people say that bankruptcy is harder to file now and that it is wrong to put people in that position. In my opinion it should be hard to file bankruptcy. If you have a child that gets sick and you wind up with a one million dollar bill and you make 40,000 dollars a year than I think bankruptcy protection shouild be available. If you just spent lots of money you didn;t earn because you felt like it then you should have to work to pay off what you can.

Why The Economy is in Big Trouble

2007-03-10T22:08:00.000-05:00

I have said time and again(although not here because I have been lazy) that interest only loans were going to doom our economy at some point and now it appears as that time has finally arrived. While currently this only affects the subprime market it is my opinion that this could quickly spread to the rest of the mortgage industry and from there take out the economy sending us into a recession.

Some arguments I have heard are that "this won't happen because employment is at historic lows" and "the current mortgage crunch only impacts the people with poor credit and low income." I find these arguments very short sighted. Here is how I see things going down.

We are already in the first phase where interest rates have started to climb and are now pushing the homebuyer that could barely afford their home in the first place into default. This has resulted in higher foreclosure rates which in my estimation will get even higher. As more borrowers default two things will happen, some banks will not be able to repurchase these homes at auction so they will not likely get the full amount they are owed. Because there will be so many home available and less people to buy them it will push the prices down. This will mean that people that were not subprime but were banking on appreciation to be able to refinance their homes will not only not be able to refinance but could now be upside down in their loan(owing more than it is worth). This cycle will continue until housing has dropped a substantial amount. Exactly what amount it will have to drop is anyone's guess.

Now with all of this property there will be little need for new construction putting many people out of work. Those people who are lucky enough to be able to afford their houses as the rates increase will have less and less money to spend elsewhere. The consumer makes up the bulk of spending and will therefore drag the economy down as they dramatically decrease their spending.

I think the people who say that the current problems in the housing market couldn't drag us into a recession are one of three types. They are either overly optimistic, under informed or paid to be overly optimistic.

The Supreme Court Nomination Process

2006-01-15T18:35:00.000-05:00

So I was watching the hearings for Samuel Alito and after about two hours I felt my brain was ready to explode. Alito knows he isn't going to answer any questions and, the republicans know it, and the democrats know it and yet for some reason we still need to go through this misery. Having recently switched jobs and having therefore gone through the interview process I wondered what my interview would have gone like had the following exchange occurred.

Interviewer: So could you tell me how you would handle this
situation.
Me: I am terribly sorry sir but as you know I can't answer any questions
relating to decisions that might come before me if I am hired.

While I can't say for sure because I actually wanted the job I am pretty sure I would have quickly been shown the door had I responded to questions as above.

Now when this happens in a hearing for a republican nominee the Democrats get angry because they say he won't answer any of their questions and the Republicans will quickly list off Democratic nominees that have responded in a similar matter but the truth is Senators from both parties are equally to blame for this mess.

Senator Feinstein has stated that she intends to vote against Alito but that she does not think his nomination should be filibustered. I respect her for at least going that far. My problem is that she will vote no, not because Sam Alito isn't qualified but because she doesn't like his interpretation of the constitution. I think that is a bad attitude to have no matter what side of the aisle you are on. Do not misinterpret the fact that I have called her logic into question as an attack on her or Democrats in general. This is how the majority of politics seems to work on presedential appointments. The Republicans are just as guilty.

I think abortion is wrong and I think to say the constitution protects the right to an abortion is rediculous. That having been said I don't think the constitution protects an unborn child either. Because of that I think Rowe v Wade should be overturned but I think it should then be up to states(which is exactly what would happen) to write laws on the matter. Before anyone loses their minds on this one there have been many legal scholars who are pro-choice that also happen to have the view that Rowe was wrongly decided.

Well, I think it is time to wrap up my first real post on this blog and hopefully someone will comment but if not it felt good to get this off my chest.

-D-

A bit of an introduction

2006-01-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take this opportunity to go through the list of what qualifies me to write commentary on our world and why you should care what I think. That having been said here are all of my qualifications as I see them:

1. Fingers
2. Opinions on most issues
3. The willingness to share those opinions whether right or wrong with anyone that wants to listen
4. I consider myself fairly well informed on many of today's important issues

Why I am not qualified(even though I plan to opine anyway):
1. Writing isn't exactly my strong suit
2. I am sure there are many more reasons but I really don't have time to think on unimportant subjects such as what disqualifies me.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy reading this and if noone ever reads this I am sure I will reread it myself at some point.