Peering out of the box - 26/2/2013

 Captain Capitalism - Surgeons going Galt.

Freedom-oriented people need to understand that a crisis of care is coming... Not now, but soon enough.  I can rattle off in a flash the names of friends and aquaintances who have either gotten out of the pipeline (dropping out during training to get MBAs or to take jobs in consulting.. One friend is selling real estate in NYC!) or very capable fifty-somethings who retired or are planning on retiring very soon.  In the case of the retiring docs these are people who really enjoy what they do.  These are very capable surgeons, not easily replaced by a nurse.  Think of the loss to a community of a single 50-something surgeon. That type of experience takes decades to acquire.  This is what liberals fail to understand because much of the work they do requires no skill per se.  They just assume that someone who knows how to "fix it" will always be around. 

Things are going to get worse before they get better, folks. In related news, privatisation is good for hospitals.

Vox Day - The Suicide Party.

Seriously.  We all know the Republican Party sold out whatever republican principles it had long ago, so they should just stop pretending and go about nakedly pursuing power in an honest and straightforward manner.

Excavating Eden, Koanic Soul and Anonymous Conservative - A very interesting and politically incorrect read, which sucked me in for the whole of the afternoon. While I have to fully make up my mind on Eden Theory and Phrenology (I mean, even after staring at my face in the mirror for a good ten minutes and poking at the back of my head, I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to be to compare it with my life experiences. Hah!) and need to do more reading on it, the discussion of R/K-selection theory is quite fascinating and has some theories as to why prior to discovering the Androsphere, I was a complete effeminate schlobb, such as growing up constantly in fear of my alpha thug elder brother.

Understanding oneself and where one stands is essential to moving forward as a person. I can only face my fears if I admit they exist in the first place.

My View - The perfect economic storm.

I won't blame gasoline prices on President Obama. I won't do to him what the other side did to President Bush. Nevertheless, I spent $35 to fill my Ford Focus last week and $40 last night. That $ 5 that I won't be able to spend on something else.
I do blame President Obama for the health care premiums. He gave us exactly the wrong medicine for our health care crisis. We needed to fine tune the engine rather than replace it with one that no one can afford.
Last, but not least, the employment situation is still uncertain, specially for smaller companies who can't make any sense of all of this uncertainty about Obama-Care.
Yes, Obama-Care is the law of the land but the rules are still unwritten. This is like changing the speed limit but not posting the new number.
Yes, 2013 will be the year of the "3-part perfect economic storm" and there is nothing pretty about it.

SGthinker - PAP showing a lack of faith in the Singaporean consumer to spend prudently.

"These 2 measures, along with the earlier announced property cooling measure that limits the size of home loans according to the buyer’s income, show that the state is increasingly taking an interventionist stance in managing spending on the big ticket items of housing, cars and retirement. This is a major change in the PAP’s mindset, because the PAP had traditionally advoacated a political philosophy of personal responsibility. Citizens were expected to work hard, spend prudently, and save up a nest’s egg to take care of their parents and children.  But now it appears the MIW have decided that Singaporeans cannot be trusted to spend money prudently.

Sadly, I believe that some of these new rules are justified. Singaporeans are not exactly a poor lot. Not when we command one of the highest smartphone ownership rates in the world. Our ability to splurge on gadgets signifies that Singaporeans are vulnerable to consumerism mindsets. There are too many youngsters today who are complaining that they have no money to start a family, but are instead spending most of their money on gadgets, holidays and cars. So maybe the PAP is doing the right thing with these new rules, especially when income levels are expected to rise with the Wage Credit Scheme."

 Hyper Report - Nullification is spreading.

States, using the 10th amendment, have been dealing crippling blows to imperial Washington.    At last count there were more than seventy proposed bills that would nullify everything from the TSA and The Drug War.    Let’s keep it up folks.