When
you were a kid did you make the little parachute out
of a plastic army-man tied to
the four corners of a red handkerchief with kitchen
string? It works amazingly well. I
would spend hours experimenting with different
folding patterns and then heave the thing
high in the air and watch it gently float to the
ground. After several hundred launches I
thought to myself, “If I tied myself to a bed sheet
I could jump off the barn roof and float
to the ground just like the plastic army-man, but I
probably should test my idea first.”
It was a quiet summer afternoon as I gathered the
supplies for my magnificent parachute.
Since the linen closet was full of sheets I figured
Mom wouldn’t miss just one so I
grabbed a yellow one and sprinted out behind the
barn. Kitchen string would be too
weak so using my pocket knife I slashed through the
haystack and collected enough
baling-twine for the harness. (I don’t know how city
kids survive without pocket knives
and baling-twine.)
Finding the proper weight to represent me was more
challenging than I anticipated.
Eventually, down in the creek I located a fifty
pound boulder with enough cracks to
secure a homemade bailing-twine parachute harness so
I lugged it out behind the barn
with the rest of my supplies.
The manufacturing portion of my experiment
progressed much faster than did the
gathering of the raw materials. Within a dangerously
short period of time my apparatus
was ready for a test flight. I studied the barn; it
was about thirty feet to its apex and I had
no way to safely get up there. (Coming down would be
no problem as I had my yellow
parachute.) “How am I going to test this?” I thought
to myself.
That is when I spotted the apple tree growing
against the old shop. I could simply climb
the tree, crawl to the edge of the roof and give the
rock a shove. It was only about a
twenty foot drop but it would simulate a drop from
the barn.
A skinny kid climbing an apple tree while cradling a
fifty pound boulder wrapped in a
bed sheet is not as simple as it sounds. Numerous
premature launches from the lower
branches were discouraging but I kept trying.
Sweating and red faced, I finally made it
up the tree to the roof and scooted along the
ridgeline to the edge. I eagerly untangled the
bailing-twine and carefully laid out my yellow
parachute. I paused for a moment and
looked to the sky and imagined how Orville and
Wilbur felt as they readied the Wright
Flyer for her maiden voyage. I gave the boulder a
shove and it…plunged straight to the
ground like a fifty pound boulder tied to a yellow
bed sheet with bailing-twine.
I was disappointed, but I was alive. You see there
are no successes or failures when you
are a ten year-old aviator; there are only results.
Learn from them. Yes, I wasted one
entire afternoon, exhausted myself and tore some
noticeable holes in what I later
discovered were my mother’s favorite sheets. At
least it didn’t cost the taxpayers $895 to
find the answer to a stupid question. This brings me
to my point: Have you heard about
the $895 dollar experiment (www.roaduserstudy.com)
so the government can find yetanother
way to pry money out of your wallet? (This is like
Hitler paying Jews $895 dollars to test
shower-head gas valves.)
Just like always, you citizens are just not paying
enough tax money for politicians to give
you free services so they can be re-elected. Since
the high cost of fuel is forcing people
to select fuel-efficient vehicles and car pool, the
amount of fuel tax revenue to the
government has been plunging. Currently the federal
government pockets 18.74 cents
and Montana 27 cents tax from every gallon of
gasoline you buy. (The oil company who
drills, refines, and then delivers the fuel to the
pump nets about 9 cents of every gallon,
and yet they are portrayed as the greedy villain.)
Politicians are advocating attaching GPS computers
to your car so they can track and tax
the actual miles driven. Weekly, monthly, or
annually (whatever is deemed best for the
government) you will receive a tax bill for every
mile. Residents of sparsely populated
states will suffer most but city folk served by mass
transit won’t feel a thing, so this tax
change will easily pass.
Also, since this tax will be entirely computer based
it will be possible for bureaucrats to
adjust tax policy to whatever fits their paradigm of
societal fairness. Expect companies
like Ford, who refused to accept TARP bailout funds
and therefore government control,
to be assessed higher taxes under the guise they are
less green than GM or Chrysler.
Government continues to grow. Only the taxpayer is
expected to get by with less.
iny new cars to the marketplace.
Americans, always wanting what is best, flocked past
the mini-cars to the safe and
reliable SUVs. These big bad boys became the
profit-drivers for the Big-Three so they
sold what the consumer wanted and paid the fine. The
fossil evidence for that is
screaming down the interstate talking on a cell
phone.
Unhappy with consumers driving SUVs, government
officials choked off domestic oil
exploration with environmental regulation and drove
the price of crude oil over $120 a
barrel. (European socialists had done this earlier
through fuel taxes, but Americans tend
to revolt at punitive levels of taxation.) Gasoline
prices shot above $5 dollars per gallon;
the evidence in on your gas receipt.
Undaunted, drivers of SUVs and pickups turned to
fuel-efficient diesel engines. The
Powerstroke, Duramax and Cummins engines utilized a
fuel that was cheaper at the pump
and yet delivered the power to carry an American
payload in a manly fashion. Regulators
responded with new eco-friendly ultra-low sulfur
requirements forcing yet another
retooling of both auto assembly lines and
refineries. No longer cheaper, ultra-low sulfur
diesel sold at a premium to gasoline. That evidence
is also listed on the pump.
Most recently the pyramid scheme of government-owned
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
led to a mortgage collapse and secondarily
restricted money supplies; auto sales plunged.
Two of the Big Three hopelessly accepted TARP
bailout money and were bankrupt in six
months. Suddenly, the federal government controlled
two of the largest auto companies
in the world. The fossil record for that became
apparent on July 9th, 2009 when
government-controlled GM announced they will void
their contract to purchase platinum
and palladium for catalytic converters from the only
US supplier, Stillwater Mining
Company of Columbus Montana. Now GM will only
purchase these minerals from
Russia and South Africa, and they will use your tax
dollars (or debt against your
grandchildren) to buy it.
Go ahead, slam your hood in disgust. The automobile
fossil record clearly shows free-
market capitalism is extinct. Montana stands to lose
yet another natural resource industry
and several hundred high-paying jobs. Isn’t
socialism great? Is this why President Ford
warned “government big enough to give you everything
you want is big enough to take
from you everything you have”? |