The following is a guest post from Robert Goldberg. He is Vice President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. If you are interested in guest posting at Geek Politics, check out the guidelines here.

Nearly a billion people watched as the 33 Chilean miners were rescued from their accidental prison below the earth. And millions more made their safe escape possible through innovations in medicine, telecommunications and engineering.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger observed, “If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?”

His answer: market-driven innovation.

Henninger continued: “The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That’s why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.

“This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above.

“Samsung of South Korea supplied a cellphone that has its own projector. Jeffrey Gabbay, the founder of Cupron Inc. in Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection.

“Chile’s health minister, Jaime Manalich, said, ‘I never realized that kind of thing actually existed.’”

As Henninger notes: “[W]ithout the year-over-year progress embedded in these capitalist innovations, those trapped miners would be dead.”

But there is another lesson to be learned that is woven in the fabric of this fundamental insight: Both the technologies used to save the miners and the rapid development of a rescue plan were made possible because millions of people around the world exchanged time, money, ideas and inventions to create a solution.

As Matt Ridley writes in his wonderful book The Rational Optimist, the exchange of ideas and things is essential to generating the prosperity and technology that made the rescue possible along with the tax revenues that allow governments to function. Because finding more efficient ways to improve the creation of products and delivery of services in response to human wants and needs has always been the path to improving well-being.

Ultimately, societies thrive when innovation occurs without much interference and where governments are not seeking to centralize and manage the exchange of ideas and resources according to some master plan. The $20 million spent to rescue the miners will generate greater wealth and longer life for thousands and millions of people in the years ahead. The rescue is a model of how people around the planet can solve problems and improve life if left to their own devices.

Absent government interference, the rescue was not only flawless — it took less time than expected. Compare the speed and efficiency of the Chilean operation to, say, the government’s response to the BP oil spill. The administration, abiding regulations and chain of command inured to one way of doing things, requiring a test before introducing a new technology, made matters worse before they got better. Ultimately the Gulf response was organized around the belief that resources are finite and that government must regulate human activities to protect the commons.

The belief that government must control the pace and use of innovation to avoid financial Armageddon explains why Obamacare is organized to redistribute health care spending and limit it according to government-produced rules. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine observed: “The antagonism toward cost-per-QALY comparisons also suggests a bit of magical thinking — the notion that the country can avoid the difficult trade-offs that cost-utility analysis helps to illuminate…. It represents another example of our country’s avoidance of unpleasant truths about our resource constraints.”

In fact, advances in surgical procedure, the introduction of medicines that reduce the need for hospitalization, including drugs for a host of diseases that were once fatal, have made medicine more efficient and valuable. Greater gains in efficiency and value are on the way. We will be able to predict which of us could eventually have disease, preventing them or treating them before they cascade. But such innovations are the disease, according to those in charge of Obamacare: They will drain limited resources and must be regulated.

Isaiah Berlin wrote: “Disregard for the preferences and interests of individuals today in order to pursue some distant social goal that their rules have claimed is their duty to promote has been a common cause of misery for people throughout the ages.”

The rescue of the Chilean miners was the product of leadership encouraging collective intelligence and innovation on a global scale. In America, an elite is using government to consolidate its ability to impose its grand vision about healthcare on the nation. Who will rescue us from this fate?

The following is a guest post from Maria Rainier. If you are interested in guest posting at Geek Politics, check out the guidelines here.

Recently, I made a deal with a friend of mine that if he read the highlighted sections of my copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, I would watch The Cove. For those of you who haven’t heard the cheerleader-esque rah-rahs from across the globe, The Cove is a multi-award-winning 2009 documentary by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos and Flipper’s trainer, the now deified Ric O’Barry. Michelle Orange of Movie Line said it best:

How much of this (The Cove) should we believe? As a piece of propaganda, The Cove is brilliant; as a story of ingenuity and triumph over what seems like senseless brutality, it is exceptionally well-told; but as a conscientious overview of a complex and deeply fraught, layered issue, it invokes the same phrase as even the most well-intentioned, impassioned activist docs: Buyer beware.

Mercury vs. Everything Else We Eat

In The Cove, O’Barry demonizes the Japanese government for feeding mercury-ridden dolphin meat to schoolchildren. Let’s clarify: the government does this because the Japanese have been eating whale and dolphin meat for centuries. Why? Because Japan is an island that doesn’t have enough land to domesticate enough cows to feed a nation. So, they get food from the much more bountiful ocean: fish, mussels, shrimp, and yes, cetaceans. That’s up until very recently, however, when whales have been banned and it’s become very unfashionable to do anything with dolphins but stick them in aquariums where they get to float in their own feces. Even America was a huge fan of whaling until it became faux pas. It would be naïve to think that just because WWII is over that the Japanese government still isn’t a little butt-hurt. Being told by a bunch of white guys that something they’ve been doing for years is immoral would probably grind their nerves enough to feed their own people that forbidden meat they believe to be harmless—despite many scientific findings they choose to willfully be ignorant of. Still, willful ignorance is hardly something of which America and the rest of the world is innocent.

Dolphins vs. Cows

Dolphins and whales are animals, like cows and pigs. The only difference is that the latter two have been domesticated for slaughter, which has somehow made it okay to kill them in incalculable rapidity after a whopping two years of being force-fed corn, which as ruminants is like humans eating feathers, and chicken feces, among other waste. Michael Pollan writes at great length about the misery the animals in urban farms, otherwise known as CAFOs, for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Cows are regularly fed a diet that would kill them if they lived a day longer than their slaughter date, which is when they’re two-years old, significantly younger than most whales and dolphins are by their untimely deaths. At least cows are slaughtered somewhat humanely, but their lives can hardly be called humane. Americans lamenting the Japanese inhumanely slaughtering dolphins, therefore, are just pots calling the kettle black.

The things we find in American packaged meat are atrocious—I won’t bother naming them all here because it would take me a novel, but e. coli and cow feces (remember Mad Cow Disease?) are the more memorable items in our McDonalds burgers that we so voraciously consume on a daily basis.

Dolphins vs. Wolves

While we’re talking about immoral slaughter, let’s talk about government-sanctioned gunning down of wolves that were just taken off the endangered species in 2009. Why does this happen? Because farmers in the area are concerned about their livelihoods being at risk because the wolves eat their farm animals. Hmm, this sounds familiar. Oh, yeah, Ric O’Barry says himself that a staple Japanese argument for dolphin slaughter is that they’re considered pests that eat their crop: tuna. So, if the worldwide demand for tuna died down, then there would be no need to slaughter dolphins, right? Funny, O’Barry is too busy dehumanizing the common fishermen of Taiji who depend on fish for their livelihood to even consider the bigger picture of telling audiences to eat less non-sustainable fish species like tuna and Atlantic salmon.

Japan vs. Earth

As O’Barry says, Japan is harming the ecology by taking more than its fair share of what the ocean has to offer, but does O’Barry even once mention that cow farts amount up to more greenhouse gases harming the planet than do cars? Does he ever once tell people to stop eating as much beef so demand goes down and thus supply? Nope. Does he ever once mention the cesspools outside of CAFOs across America from which emerge two-headed toads and other accidents of nature? Does he mention that farmers won’t even use fertilizer from CAFOs because the things they feed cows make them poop toxic waste? Nope.

East vs. West

The biggest problem with The Cove is that it treats the average Japanese citizen—who is unaware of what goes on in Taiji just like most Americans were unaware of the wolf-slaughter until Sarah Palin waltzed into the media in 2008—like suppressed victims of a tyrannical society. The reality is that Ric O’Barry is not a lone force of good versus the evil, dark government of Japan. This infantile, fictional contrast hurts efforts toward the ending of whale and dolphin slaughter by reinforcing Western-supremacist values and feelings. Whaling and dolphin slaughter is an activity that’s responded to global censure and is today a diminishing endeavor conducted by a minority population—it won’t stand up to a well-reasoned and heavily backed movement unfettered by racism, but such a movement cannot be led by sensationalistic propaganda of bleeding hearts and blind-folded patriots.

Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, researching various online degree programs and blogging about student life. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Kevin from Invest It Wisely just had a wonderful guest post over at Christian Common Cents that shows why voluntary giving is so much better than “forced giving” i.e. taxes. Check it out, and sign up for the feed while you are there.

The Original

John R. Graham Parody With More Facts

The following is a guest post from Cesar Zambrano. If you are interested in guest posting at Geek Politics, check out the guidelines here.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published a discouraging jobs report before the July 4th holiday weekend. For the first time in 2010, the U.S. economy actually shed, instead of gaining, 125,000 jobs in the month of June. The primary reason given was the termination of 225,000 temporary Census Bureau jobs. The “silver lining” in the report, however, was that the unemployment rate actually dropped from 9.7 to 9.5%, driven by disappointed workers who gave up looking for jobs.

Excuses from government officials, followed by accusatory attacks from the conservative right, emphasized once more that the politics of unemployment are alive and well. Liberals point fingers at Republicans for blocking new jobs initiatives and extensions of unemployment benefits. Conservatives are crying for heads to role in the Obama Administration since over $1.5 trillion have been spent on bank bailouts and economic stimulus packages with little job growth in the balance. The Congressional Budget Office, the official arbiter of numbers that both parties have agreed to support, has found that the stimulus actually created up to 1.6 million jobs.

Why is unemployment data so contentious and difficult to understand? Job growth has not been material and permanent, as we would prefer. Pain is particularly acute at lower income levels and for minorities, as was detailed in a recent study produced by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northwestern University. The Northwestern study highlights the key political issue in our society, the growing differences between the haves and the have-nots. Battle lines are already being drawn early for this November’s campaign, still four months away and counting. Fear and obfuscation will reign down on a public that only wants results, not political infighting.

The economic fact is that unemployment rates have leveled off. However, during the recession, 8.4 million jobs have been lost. Trying to reconcile a rate with total jobs is like comparing apples with oranges, or from a purely financial perspective, like comparing a balance sheet with a revenue and expense statement. An unemployment rate is like a snapshot in time, when the public is more concerned and impacted by job gains (revenue) and job losses (expense). Net earnings, or net job gains, are what is really important. However, the rate announcements each month draw all the publicity. The relevant data is buried in the small print and left to a diligent reporter to perform his real investigative duty and let everyone know what is really happening.

In any event, job recovery of late has been painfully slow. Is this economic recession that much different than others? We have had two other recessions since 1990. In 90/91, unemployment peaked at 7.8%, versus a GDP drop from peak-to-trough of 1.4%. In 2000/2001, the relative figures were 6.3% and 0.3%. Our recent recession had unemployment peak at 10.2% versus a 3.9% GDP drop, definitely larger in magnitude on all counts. However, strong capital flows from forex trading and have helped to bolster the economy this time around. In both previous recoveries, it took well over three years in both cases for the unemployment rate to return below 5%. Employment is a lagging indicator during recovery. Material hiring returns gradually, only after confidence markedly returns.

The “elephant in the room”, however, is that many of the 8.4 million jobs lost will never return due to outsourcing trends. The IMF’s recent “World Outlook Report” highlights what is transpiring on a global stage in the following chart:

Although many may argue the finer points, the impact of outsourcing can be visibly seen following 1990 as the GDP for emerging and developing economies began to eclipse and double the respective growth rates of advanced economies. The human eye can easily craft a trend line for the blue line above, and the future direction is disconcerting as well. Jobs sent overseas were not burger-flipping jobs at McDonald’s. They were hardcore, middle class jobs that are gone forever.

Elections are less than four months away. The political rhetoric is already heating up daily. The focus will be jobs and which party do you trust to generate them. Hopefully, the economy will not be held hostage for the next four months while campaign slogans and political finger pointing dominate the airwaves pre-November. Our elections cannot come quickly enough.

The following is a guest post by Mackenzie Howard. If you are interested in guest posting at Geek Politics, check out the guidelines here.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ─Deuteronomy 6:5–9

This Fourth of July marks a significant anniversary for my family and friends. Last year on Independence Day, my best friend’s husband was deployed to Iraq. The irony of leaving for war on that day was not lost on us.

I’ve always had a huge appreciation for America, but when my friend entered the war zone, that appreciation became very personal. While politicians and political hosts bickered about bailouts and health care, he was flying over foreign soil defending the cause of freedom.

Oddly enough, I’ve always loved politics. There were times in my life when I thought maybe I should even consider a career in it, but as of late, I can’t say that I’m that interested. I look at the world around me, and I become very disillusioned with a government who continues to climb deeper into debt and people who expect someone else to take care of them.

Don’t get me wrong, America has made a lot of progress over the past couple centuries, but in many ways, it would seem we’re regressing. When greed wins out over common sense and when apathy rules over ambition, we’re in trouble. When God is tossed out of our lives and our culture, we’re in big trouble.

I sat, rather disheartened, the other evening at a political dinner, where I wondered what I could do about this. What can any one person do to fix this mess? But then this thought came to me:

We can teach the children.

We can teach them about the values of forefathers. We can teach them about the principles our country was founded on. We can teach them about heroes who were larger than life, instruments of God, and warriors for millions unborn. We can teach them to work hard, tell the truth, and not spend more money than they have.
My parents taught my brother and I to love God, love people, and love America. Because of them, I have a huge appreciation for the country of my birth. They took us on road trips all over this country so we could charge the hills of Gettysburg, walk down Freedom Trail, and stand in the rooms where some of the greatest men and women in history lived and died and changed the world.

And you know what? It really means something to me. It’s personal. I can’t see a soldier’s grave or read about George Washington without being overcome with gratitude.

If we really want to change America, we need to make it personal for our kids. We need to make God personal; we need to make our heritage personal. And when they are older, they will not depart from it.

The great thing is, if you can’t travel all over this great nation to walk where these folks walked, you and your family can learn about them and experience them from your home. When I was little, my mother bought flash cards and taught my brother and I all of the presidents. To this day, we can recite them forward and backward. And they’re more than names on a list. They’re distinct personalities who all played a role, good or bad, in shaping the nation we call home.

You can do the same for your kids. Read books together, visit interesting places, talk about the colorful people who crafted our nation. Pray for our leaders . . . when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

This Fourth of July, I hope between the hot dogs and the fireworks, you’ll stop for a moment with your family and give thanks. I hope you’ll salute a soldier when you see one. I hope you’ll take a moment to learn something new about America, and I hope you’ll stop to share it with your children. We have a fascinating history—I hope you’ll make it personal.

This weekend, I’ll fly my flag on my porch, probably eat way more than I should, and give my friend a big hug—as long as there are men and women like him, making it personal and defending our freedom, we’ll be okay.

Teach your kids!
On July 4, 1826, two of our nation’s greatest leaders breathed their last. Fifty years to the day of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams whispered “Thomas Jefferson survives” shortly before he slipped into eternity. What he didn’t know was that Jefferson had already passed away just a few hours earlier. These two men dedicated the whole of their lives to America.

How do people like this get put into decision making positions?

Obama and Biden had some interesting things with their 2009 tax returns. A couple things, first their charitable contributions, second their mortgages.

Charitable Contributions

Obama made $5.5 million, mostly from book sales. Biden made $333,182. Of that, Obama gave $329,100 to charities and Biden gave $4,820. So Obama gave 5.9% and Biden a whopping 1.4%.

Obama’s isn’t too bad, over 300k is a pretty good chunk of change, but as a percentage it still isn’t that high. Biden on the other hand, is pretty pathetic.

For people who campaign on “helping people” you’d think they’d give a little more of their vast resources to actually help them. Apparently they’d prefer to take your money through taxes than give some of their own.

Mortgages

Obama paid $52,195 in home mortgage interest payments and Biden paid $30,349. This is pretty unbelievable to me. How in the world do you make over 5 million dollars in a year and still have a mortgage? What could possibly be the point? Maybe he needed to take out a HELOC on the White House to buy some votes for ObamaCare.

Apparently they haven’t read my article on how to payoff their mortgage early. It’s no wonder they can’t figure how to balance the federal budget.