Some Data on the Current State of the Panic

Surplus City Guns in Feasterville, PA is the shop that I've bought most of my guns over the past 10 - 15 years. Yesterday afternoon, they put this on their Facebook timeline:

This is got to be a record for our store for one caliber ( 5.56/.223 )
13,360 rds in bulk in under an hour today
50,000 rds in bulk in under 3 hours Wednesday
21,000 rds in bulk in under 2 1/2hrs Tuesday
and another 2000rds sold by the 20 rd box sprinkled thru-out the week
THAT'S EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ROUNDS IN UNDER 7 HOURS .....GEEZ LOUISE GUYS !!!!
The crazy part is we could have easily sold 2 to 3 times that amount if we had it......Thank you for your patronage and we will do our best to keep you supplied at a reasonable price . Keep an eye on Facebook for any upcoming announcements .

Surplus City isn't some huge store. It's your average sized gun shop. Now imagine this going on at every gun shop in the country. This points out a few things, IMO:

1. DHS contracts are not solely to blame for the ammo shortage.
2. This is just 5.56/.223. Other calibers like 9mm, .45 ACP, and .22 LR are flying off the shelves as fast or faster. Ditto for reloading components and magazines.
3. A large part of the American people are arming themselves to the teeth. They are stocking up on guns and ammunition. Kind of like 1775 or 1860.

Anyone with two neurons to rub together knows that the current crop of politicians in Washington -- whether Republican or Democrat -- is incapable of or unwilling to address the problems rending this country in two. In fact, they and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media are doing everything in their power to feed the divisions.

This will not end well.

Income Inequality, Job Creation, and OWS

One of the memes being pushed by the socialist left and their current lackeys in the Occupy Wall Street/Philadelphia/Oakland/etc. movement is income inequality, or more specifically, that income inequality in and of itself is bad. This is simply wrong.

Like it or not, certain professions are worth more in a monetary sense to society than others. For example, engineering generally pays more than social work, because society places more value on the engineer's product than that of the social worker. Likewise, someone working in finance may earn more than an engineer. And generally, those who create jobs for others are also compensated more than someone who does not create any jobs.

If someone earns more than me, that's no skin off my back. Good for him. If he makes $1,000,000 per year while I make $100,000, dragging his income down because "$ARBITRARY AMOUNT is enough" does not improve my lot. Even it it did, that would not make it right. Just because somebody has something I want doesn't make it right to appropriate it for my ends. The best word to describe such conduct is theft.

One thing the collectivists have either forgotten, or more likely never learned, is that a rising tide lifts all boats. Despite a vast gulf in wealth between the richest and poorest in this country, even the poor are much better off than they were even a couple decades ago. "Poor" people in the US generally have running water, TV (often with a cable or satellite hookup), plenty of clothes, and cars. Hell, a lot of them are fat because they sit on their asses and eat junk food.

Only if someone makes his money dishonestly or at the expense of others, e.g., Bernie Madoff, should we be concerned with how he made it, how much he made, and whether he needs to return it. Unless that's the case, we should encourage entrepreneurship, which results in more jobs, which in turn results for more prosperity for more people.

Now, one thing which does need to be stopped is crony capitalism, in which politicians rewards their donors with lucrative contracts, tax laws, or loans made to credit-unworthy borrowers. E.g., General Electric not paying any income tax, or the ill-advised loans to Solyndra. However, crony capitalism isn't the result of income inequality, it's the result of corrupt politicians implementing big city machine politics on a national scale.

Another thing which the OWS-types fail to understand when they complain that "rich S.O.B.s" haven't started any companies to give people jobs is that starting such a company nowadays subjects you to a regulatory nightmare, pretty much regardless of what industry you're in. When starting a company not only do you need to come up with working capital you also need to retain the services of accountants and lawyers so that you can ensure that you abide by a mountain of laws because the Federal government is involved in all aspects of your business. And this is of course on top of the regulatory B.S. you need to deal with on a state and local level. More than a few entrepreneurs with good ideas have basically said, "fuck it, why bother?"

Men's Warehouse Sides with OWS

I just verified this personally. Men's Warehouse posted this on their Facebook page on Wednesday:

We closed our store near Oakland City Hall today, for one day, to express the company's concern for the issue of wealth disparity in our country. The issue affects our employees and customers across the political spectrum.

Link. (You'll need a FB account to view.)

Really!?!? Screw them. In the past year I bought two suits, two dress shirts, and two ties, plus rented a tux from MW.

They won't see another cent from me now.

Open Sourcing the Climate Change Debate

ESR posts regarding the data leak from the Hadley CRU:

In the open-source software community, we understand about human error and sloppiness and the tendency to get too caught up in a pet theory. We know that the most effective way way to combat these tendencies is transparency of process — letting the code speak for itself, and opening the sources to skeptical peer review by anyone.

There is only one way to cut through all of the conflicting claims and agendas about the CRU’s research: open-source it all. Publish the primary data sets, publish the programs used to interpret them and create graphs like the well-known global-temperature “hockey stick”, publish everything. Let the code and the data speak for itself; let the facts trump speculation and interpretation.

If the AGW advocates are confident in their position they will disclose their data.  When you consider the ramifcations of global warming, including drastic new taxation schemes, there really is no alternative for informed debate and consideration.  If they refuse we can reasonably presume they are being less than forthright with their data, analysis, and agenda.

Survivor of Socialism Has Warning for America

{H/T Alphecca}

The South Dakota Family Policy Council sponsored a speech tonight at First Assembly of God in Rapid City by Kitty Werthmann of Eagle Forum in South Dakota.

The presentation was entitled “Socialism vs Freedom” and was a part of the SDFPC “Heritage Under Attack” series.

Werthmann is the head of the South Dakota chapter of Eagle Forum, and was born in Austria. Werthmann lived for seven years under the Nazi rule of Austria, eventually coming to the United States in 1950 to become a naturalized citizen in 1962.

...

Austria had private health care prior to the Nazis, and the quality was good. But the government took over the health care system, and when health care became “free” the doctors quickly became overloaded by frivolous use of the system.  Surgeries of a more important nature, however, had waiting lists of about 18 months because of all the “hypochondriacs” abusing the system.

...

Welfare became a “huge apparatus,” said Werthmann. Everyone had access to subsidized housing, food stamps, heating subsidies and many other benefits until everyone–regardless of salary–reached the prescribed standard of living.

...

Austria also received gun control. Many people in Austria hunted, but the government said there were too many hunting and other types of gun-related accidents, and too much crime. So the people were forced to register their guns. The government then said the accident and crime problem didn’t improve, so the people would have to give up their guns.

“Keep your guns,” said Werthmann. “And buy more guns. And make sure you have plenty of ammunition.”

Now please go read the whole article.

Why Socialism Does Not Work

Received via email.  Yes, I'm sure it's apocryphal.  Yet it accurately describes real human behavior.

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student, but had once failed an entire class.

The class (students) insisted that socialism worked since no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism."

"All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A."

After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who had studied hard were upset while the students who had studied very little were happy.

But, as the second test rolled around, the students who had studied littlestudied even less and the ones who had studied hard decided that since they couldn't make an A, they also studied less. The second Test average was a D.

No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average grade was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling, all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else.

To their great surprise all failed. The professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder people try to succeed the greater their reward (capitalism) but when a government takes all the reward away (socialism)  no one will try or succeed.

....Ok that's enough, stop thinking again...

Its very clear that Socialism is designed to remove the remaining value of property from a country and its citizens. And put a burden on all of its citizens to do with less .  And give it to the poor for their votes.  By force.  When the value is gone and and the burden is still required. The people won't cooperate. The US government won't stop spending money it doesnt have.  Like France. Then totalitarianism is required. To maintain tax revenue.  And it will be implemented.  Once that happens all the Socialist instigators like College professors who realize the errors of their ways. Will be arrested and killed. because they know too much.

Anyone who states Socialism helps those who cant help themselves is full of it.  It helps those who dont want to help themselves.

Or as Margaret Thatcher once observed:

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Californication Spreading

Having fouled up California with their failed socialist policies, the locusts are abandoning ship.

...

Since the days of the Gold Rush, California has represented the Promised Land, an image celebrated in the songs of the Beach Boys and embodied by Silicon Valley's instant millionaires and the young men and women who achieve stardom in Hollywood.

But for many California families last year, tomorrow started somewhere else.

The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.

...

Unfortunately, they tend to bring their voting patterns with them.