The first batch of production Chevy Volts are ready to ship, they’re just waiting on the EPA to issue an official mileage label.

In a capitalist system there is no need for waiting on mileage labels.

The Federal Reserve Wednesday unveiled a controversial new plan to buy U.S. Treasurys, hoping to spur growth in a disappointingly slow U.S. economy.

After two days of discussions, Fed officials decided to go ahead with a much anticipated program, saying they will buy $600 billion of U.S. government debt over the next eight months.

The Fed is now pumping more printed money into the economy.   There hope is that as the dollar decreases in value, those savers will want to spend there money before it becomes worth less.  This goes to show how the federal government manipulates the economy and creates bubbles.

Most likely the extra money which is not backed by real value such as gold, but printed out of nowhere, will end up in either the stock market or real estate.  Does anyone remember the dot com boom  / bust and the real estate boom / bust?  The government is creating another one.

I don’t feel sympathy for big businesses that go groveling to the government for money.  See the link above if you need to know why it is a problem relying on the government to “invest” in your company.  Now we see that the Obama administration is calling the shots over GM and Chrysler.  The CEO of GM has been pushed out so that the administration can put its lackey in place.  Look here for what a government run car company could produce.

Dick Morris stated there would be two drips of support that Obama would be fighting over time.  The first is scandals.  This administration is ripe with scandal.  Look at the tax cheating, back door dealing and outright math problems.  Even so, Obama’s approval rating has been somewhat flat for a few weeks now.  The second drip was the economy.

The quickest way to get an idea of what is going on in the economy on a daily basis is to look at the stock market.  If you look at Rasmussen Reports Presidential daily approval index you can see Obama was at double digits until March 7.  At that point some of the honeymoon was over and investors were seeing their investments disappear.  On March 9 the DJIA hit bottom and Rasmussen reported a +6 rating at that time.  Since then the stock market is slowing increasing (albeit some bad days here and there).  Whereas the lowest rating was +4 as of today it is +8.  With the goings on today the market is spooked.  It will be interesting to see what the market does from here and what it will do to the Presidential approval rating.

Of course the next scandal is probably just around the corner, then all bets are off.

Speaking about the Obama administration stimulus package, Robert Reich, the secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, says, “And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most — women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed — will be shut out.”  Here is the link to his blog post.

Speaking about adding Rep. Zoe Lofgren to chair the House Ethics Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this, “I want more women around that table, and minorities.”

Collectivism raises the group rights above individual rights.  In this case you are seeing that whomever has the elected authority (ie coercive power) can decide which groups are the chosen groups and get benefits at the expense of the non chosen groups. This is not to say that minorities or women are not productive, vast majorities are working hard to make their lives better.  However, government takes from the productive citizens and gives money to the non productive. There is a reason why certain people are not skilled and not employed.  It is up to them to figure out what kinds of skills they need.  It is up to them to do what it takes to get a job.

As a corollary to this,  Ayn Rand stated, “In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.” It certainly is not the case that people have to be masters or slaves, but the larger the govenment gets, the more you will see who the chosen groups are.

Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening. – President Elect Barack Obama

Whereas it is commendable to push Iran away from nuclear weapons it must be stated that countries such as China and Russia will not support our efforts in this.  Iran has significant problems economically (along with much of the other nations) and it could be time to step up the political solutions.  But it must be pointed out that the Bush administration has been pushing for political solutions for years with little success.  Why an Obama administration thinks it will have any better luck is beyond me.  One thing is clear, any military action now would be easier and have less casualties then when we wait too long and Iran starts to threaten Israel and the United States.

A particularly urgent priority is a further extension of unemployment insurance benefits for workers who cannot find work in the increasingly weak economy.  – President Elect Barack Obama

Maybe I missed something but I thought that we tried this economic stimulus before and it didn’t work.  There is an old expression, “You get what you pay for.”  In this case you are taking away from productive workers and giving to non-productive workers.  More payments to non-productive workers will encourage the kind of behaviour that gets you unemployed.

Here is one solution.  Eliminate minimum wage laws.  This would allow those that are not worth minimum wages to find a job and learn skills necessary to increase their value.  Because of this credit bubble pushed by the Fed we are going through a severe deflation.  Wages should also deflate as unemployment goes up.  During the Hoover/FDR depression, government intervention trying to push business to keep wages high led to huge unemployment.  If you hear about government trying to “prop up wages” you know we are in for the same thing again.

If nothing else this will be cathartic to me to help in any way I can.