Agenda 21--No

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

July 19, 2013

Senator Chuck Schumer

322 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Senator Schumer:

Agenda 21 is a mistake, and I oppose it and Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program.  The concept of sustainability is vacuous.  Like freedom and equality, it can mean anything, and it can be used to institute tyranny.  The Agenda 21 document is based on a fallacy:  rich countries are rich because they make poor countries poor.   I don't know what they taught you at Harvard, but if that belief is consistent with what you know, then Harvard made you ignorant.

People become rich for four reasons:   (1) the marginal value of their labor is high because they have skills that make them productive*,   (2) they work hard, (3) they save their money,  and (4) government provides a stable, limited support to their hard work and  saving and does not arbitrarily interfere, steal or redistribute their earnings.   In contrast, the UN claims that people become rich by stealing from the poor.

The US already has a sufficient level of government.  While coordination among governments is a worthy aim, there is no need for the UN to be involved, even if through a non-binding agreement, with economic regulation.  In fact, though, the implementation of the economic illiteracy in Agenda 21 has not been non-binding.  Through policies like Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program, one of which is Engage Mid-Hudson, government is turning Agenda 21 into law.

Andrew Cuomo's program is based on deception.  The regional leaders have lied and claimed that there was consensus at the meetings, but there was no consensus.  I was present when the leaders of the Engage Mid-Hudson meeting suppressed those who vocally opposed the ideas that the document expresses.   Opponents were not allowed to be involved in the process.   The document is based on a ridiculous aim, 80% reduction in carbon emissions, that cannot be accomplished without major technological breakthroughs and that, if implemented, will create an unsustainable economy that will make New Yorkers poor.  Who wants to live in a country that will support the Leaner and Greener Communities program, a program that establishes regional soviets to implement ignorant, socialist economic strategies?  My ancestors came here to escape tyranny, not to recreate it.  

The UN has no place in the governance of the American economy, and the US should rescind its association with the Agenda 21 document.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

*William Lewis observed that the organization of work is a critical factor to national productivity levels.  The phrase "marginal value of labor" assumes that hardworking entrepreneurs have, over a period of time, invented work processes with escalating levels of output. Such improvement cannot be accomplished through government because it depends on the ability to fail, go bankrupt, end programs, and learn--processes that no government can implement.

Jay Townsend: Chuck Schumer Sells out New York to Become Majority Leader

GOP senatorial candidate Jay Townsend visited the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party on Monday.  Due to heavy teaching responsibilities (I was grading my students' papers) I was unable to attend.  But here is an excellent video courtesy of Tom Santopietro.

Republican Nomination Process

I attended my county Republican committee's nomination meeting yesterday and was positive about the local candidates including two state senators, Bonacic and Larkin, several state assemblyman (the county is so gerrymandered that we have about five different assembly races), and our excellent candidate for election commissioner, Tom Turco.  Of most interest to me is the 101st assembly district, where Peter Rooney of Port Ewen is going to run against the Democratic incumbent, Assemblyman Kevin Cahill. George Phillips, our congressional candidate, is to run against a badly educated left-wing extremist, Maurice Hinchey.  Phillips has always been a good candidate and has matured considerably in his presentation.  His speech last night was one of the best of the evening and he is presenting an excellent package.

The surprise of the evening was Gary Berntsen,  the candidate the GOP is backing against the fiscally illiterate Democratic incumbent Chuck Schumer. Schumer failed to study elementary economics at Harvard and so continually advocates protectionism.  It is tragic that the State of New York, which quaintly considers itself a national leader among the states, has seen its stature shrink and its economy go into a tailspin as millions have fled the state due to the policies of inept crackpots like Schumer and Hinchey.

Berntsen, a former CIA agent, is familiar with foreign affairs issues because he was a station chief in Afghanistan and in Latin America.  He speaks Farsi and Spanish and has considerable diplomatic and military experience. Hence if elected he will likely be the first American in Congress to have a clue as to what he is talking about when it comes to foreign affairs.

Berntsen said that the military is inefficient, which is not a surprise but shows an ability to think logically that is absent from many conservatives, who believe that spending equates to effectiveness and efficiency.  He pointed out that the US military in Afghanistan spends one million dollars per soldier.  That is a joke, and it is one more piece of evidence that government cannot manage a thing, including the military.

Along the same lines, I heard Carl Paladino speak on Monday night at a town meeting in Columbia County. Paladino seems like a good candidate for Governor.  We need mavericks like Paladino, a self-made multi-millionaire in the Buffalo real estate market.  He is advocating cutting the budget by 20%.  His campaign is marred by the release of racist e-mails that he had sent confidentially to a group of friends and were released to the media.  This is something like Obama's long term association with Reverend Wright.  It deserves criticism.  The first thing Paladino did was apologize for the e-mails, unlike Obama who never apologized for his association with Wright.   I do not imagine that Paladino is interested in thwarting civil rights institutions in the state, so I don't believe that this matter, although offensive, ought to be decisive.

The New York State budget can be cut by 50% without any reduction in services. The fact that it has not is evidence of the utter incompetence of government and the Democratic Party.  

Rick Lazio is the designated candidate for governor, and Carl Paladino will challenge him in a primary.  Lazio is saying the right things, but he is not specific.  The Youtube video below was taken in October 2009 when Lazio received the Suffolk County endorsement. Lazio's points include a property tax cap; reduction of state pension costs and double dipping; increased local control; reducing taxes; improvement of infrastructure; and education reform.  He is not advocating a specific cut as is Paladino.  Too often the Republicans have come to office saying the kinds of things Lazio is saying and then have turned out to be as corrupt as the Democrats.  The involvement of slime like Alfonse D'Amato in the GOP state convention proceedings is sufficient for me to be skeptical of Mr. Lazio's intent.  Until he is willing to say that he will cut state government by more than twenty percent I will be supporting Mr. Paladino. 

As far as the senatorial race, I do not see any candidates who are especially good.  Despite the Sun's endorsement of David Malpass, his asssociation with Wall Street is sufficient to keep me away from his campaign, although I would vote for him over a criminal looter like Democrat Gillibrand.

Hence, the pickings at the state level seem rather slim despite the tea party movement's anger.  There is no clearly superior candidate for senate.  The only state level candidate who seems to have made a clear commitment to smaller government is so far Carl Paladino, and I support him.

Senator Schumer Demands Roads to Nowhere

Lucianne.com excerpts Jay Ambrose's Washington Times article (h/t Larwyn) about the pork-and-corruption aspects of President-elect Obama's infrastructure construction plan:

"Criticisms begin with the thought it will be the mother of all pork feasts, a politician's picnic, an extravaganza of waste, and then come other trepidations - that the program won't kick in soon enough to serve pressing needs, that it won't provide economic sustenance over the long haul, that it will entail the kind of excess that got us into trouble in the first place and that for every benefit bestowed, an equal or greater benefit will be erased from the private economy."

As well, Ambrose notes that public spending crowds out public spending. Nevertheless, not to be outdone, New York's Senator Schumer offers the burlesque proposal of an additional stimulus package.

Note that no one on the national stage, including the banking community, has identified what the crisis is, how big it is or whether there really is a crisis. The current unemployment rate of 6.7% (to be updated in five days) was considered near full employment back in the 1980s when I pounded the pavement looking for benefits director jobs.

How many skilled builders are available for hire right now, and how many will be available in six months when the trillion dollar monetary expansion starts to take hold?

Japan has squandered billions on roads to nowhere, and perhaps Mr. Schumer and his corrupt friends in the Senate aim to follow suit. On December 24, 2007, Leo Lewis of the London Times wrote:

"Japan’s most spectacular building projects, including possibly the world’s most expensive road, resulted from deception and falsified data, the former president of the state highways agency has told The Times.

"Kuniichiro Takahashi’s admission comes as the hugely indebted Government has rediscovered its addiction to public works and has earmarked nearly 70 trillion yen (£311 billion) in its budget for road and rail building projects over the next decade.

"Ridiculing these new “roads to nowhere”, Mr Takahashi said they were almost certainly unnecessary in a country whose population is ageing, shrinking and buying fewer cars every year. However, major road and rail construction continues to be the favourite tool of pork-barrel politics in Japan."

A true New Yorker, Senator Schumer views 70 trillion yen as a target to be surpassed, much like President Kennedy viewed Sputnik. Schumer's economic stimulus plan: No country will waste more money in public works than America. New York will waste more than Chicago. Washington will waste more than New York. Our economy needs it. Yeah.

Letter to Chuck Schumer Re Death Tax

PO Box 130
West Shokan, New York 12494
August 4, 2008

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
313 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Schumer:

I oppose the inheritance or death tax and urge you to vote to repeal it. There are many New Yorkers, to include the Ochs Sulzbergers, the Rockefellers and the Goulds, who are wealthy but have never paid any inheritance tax because they put their money in trusts. Congress has never seen fit to tax trusts, leaving the big fish to eat the remains of small.

There is one estate tax I do favor: an estate tax on trusts that hold family-owned newspapers. Your patrons at the New York Times ought to practice what they preach, and I am sure that you will see to it that they never will.


Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert

Letter to Senator Chuck Schumer Concerning Commodities Regulation

I oppose your recent proposal to regulate commodities speculation. The reason for the recent run up in oil prices is ultimately due to Federal Reserve Bank monetary policy, which since 1932 has been inflationary. The US Senate has oversight authority over the Fed, and you have chosen to do nothing. Hence, you are part of the problem, Senator Schumer. Now, rather than tell the truth, specifically, that the sub-prime crisis, oil and food price run ups and the stock market bubbles of the past 10 years are all due to policies about which the Senate, including yourself, has remained silent, you posture with an incompetently conceived, joke solution.

Common sense suggests that commodities speculation can have only a temporary effect on prices because futures contracts have 3 or 6 month terms, and if the speculators are bidding up prices excessively there will be reductions in end-user demand upon delivery, causing a fall in prices.

On the other hand, stupidly conceived regulation (and I do not believe that the Senate is capable of any other kind) can have crippling effects by misleading economic actors, causing waste and favoring specific economic interests, such as Wall Street, to which I have no doubt you are especially beholden.

As a result of these considerations, I assure you that I consider you to be bad at representing the public and I do not hope for your reelection.

Trade, Wal-Mart and New York Democrats’ Attack on the Poor

The Economist 's lead story this week on globalization ("Tired of Globalization: But in Need of Much More of it"—Nov. 5) mentions Senator Schumer’s proposal to impose a 39% tariff on Chinese imports. As well, the New York City Council, the politburo of the People’s Republic of New York City, has imposed a law imposing health insurance costs on large supermarkets in order to capriciously discriminate against Wal Mart. At the same time, there were anti-trade demonstrations in Argentina concerning the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and by implication the latest round of tariff-reduction talks that especially affect agriculture.

Schumer is a Harvard grad and, hopefully was exposed to David Ricardo’s concept of comparative advantage in college (although along with the Harvard faculty’s belief that there are no differences between men and women, who knows what laws of economics they have concocted).

These latest assaults on economic freedom do what all restraints on economic freedom ultimately do—assault the poor. Schumer’s bill would forestall economic progress in China, in the long term reducing wage gains and diminishing learning of Chinese workers and future entrepreneurs. The ban on Wal-Mart means that those New Yorkers with low incomes must pay inflated prices for their groceries. The Doha round of trade talks would directly help the farmers of Brazil, Africa and other third world countries and low-wage people in America, while the agricultural tariffs that the demonstators seem to support help domestic producers such as Del Monte at consumers' expense.

I brought these issues up in my class at Brooklyn College, and was interested in how few students (a) had heard of the theory of comparative advantage, (b) had thought about the impact of trade on economic outcomes and freedom and (c) had heard of or were critical of the ban on Wal Mart and protectionism. One student argued that Asians who work in factories would be better off starving to death than working in American factories overseas because of poor factory conditions. This student did not say whether she wished her ancestors had so starved to death in the 19th century. Another student said that it is good that poor people in New York pay higher prices to supermarkets because they would just fritter away the money anyway. I questioned the student whether this wasn't the same economic philosophy that governs North Korea, and why wouldn't he want to live there.

It seems to me that the left’s use of universities and schools to ideologically brainwash students to believe in their failed and erroneous economic theories has worked. It will be a long path to counteract the economic ignorance that the schools and universities have wrought on the American public, and that shows itself in the illiterate discussions of trade among elected officials like New York's Senator Schumer and New York City's politburo, and among left wing demonstrators.