Take a kid hunting

TAKE A KID HUNTING
By Bob Confer

Statistics show that the outdoors sports aren’t recruiting youth like they used to. For every 100 hunters lost to old age and disinterest in the hobby only 69 hunters take their place. It’s a far cry from the good old days when hunting was a family affair passed on from generation to generation and we were 100 for 100.

What accounts for this decline? For starters, it’s the ongoing exodus from tradition. America was long a nation of hunters. It was a shared experience, a way for fathers and sons to bond, commune with nature and put food on the table. Nowadays that connection seems almost quaint, even outdated.

Other catalysts for the decline are the unhealthy lifestyle choices of modern youth. These sedentary souls seem to prefer locking themselves indoors, hunting one another in the virtual world rather than hunting a beast in the real world. They also prefer processed foods to the bounty that nature has afforded us.

It’s up to adult hunters to change all that. We need to get these kids off their duffs and into the woods.

Harkening back to tradition, getting kids indoctrinated to hunting is a great way to build a rapport with them. Rarely do today’s parents get to spend true quality time with their children. Spend a weekend in the woods, though, and you have their attention and they yours. Many of my best times as a boy were spent camping and hunting in Allegany County with my folks. At an age when a lot of kids looked at their parents as foils, I looked at mine as my best friends. I still do, thanks to the healthy relationships fostered back then - and today – by putting game in the freezer.

There’s no better time to start than now: The spring turkey hunt is upon us in New York State. That season allows you to expose youth to the wiliest and most delicious of wild game. The large bird is exciting to hunt. The slightest movement is visible to turkeys, even 70 yards away, and can send the bird flying. That drama - the fear that a twitch can ruin a hunt - will send anyone’s heart racing. To bring him in, you need to be an expert caller, and there’s nothing more enjoyable in all of hunting then calling in an aggressive gobbler from hundreds of yards away. Any youngster or teen who gets to experience your hunt as an observer, maybe even as a cameraman, will find it exhilarating and will undoubtedly want to get his or her license as soon as possible (remember, unlicensed youth cannot carry a weapon or call your turkeys).

It’s the best time to be in the woods, too. May is the most beautiful month in the Empire State as the forests and fields awaken from their winter slumber and, over the course of a few weeks, the trees go from barren to lush green, with the forest floor seeing a wide variety of wildflowers and the canopy being overcome with wildlife as migrating and resident birds of all sorts sing their songs, at times making the woods almost deafening. The spring hunt ends at noon daily, so that gives you the afternoon to do any number of outdoor activities like hiking, exploring or trout fishing. It’s rare that any child - let alone any adult - is left unimpressed by the May wilds, the best that Mother Nature has to offer.

So, if you’re looking for a way to get your kids more physically active, more in tune with the natural world, and interested in sharing time with you, take them hunting this spring, just as your dad may have with you or your grandfather might have with him. It’s time well spent.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 02 May 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Obama Administration supports al-Qaeda

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUPPORTS AL-QAEDA
By Confer

Al-Qaeda left an indelible mark on modern America. By orchestrating the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 in which they - in the course of killing thousands while attempting, even succeeding, to topple some of our most iconic structures - changed the way of life in America by forcing our government’s hand in taking away the rights to freedom and privacy that we once swore were ours forever.

One on front in our ongoing global wars and occupations, the US government and its military chose to make amends for the loss of innocent civilians by fighting al-Qaeda to the death. The desire to extinguish the terror network is so strong that we’re willing to invest 500 American lives and 65 billion American dollars every year on Afghan soil.

Yet, on another front – our newest one in Libya – the Obama Administration insists on counting al-Qaeda amongst our allies. NATO commander James Stavridis recently let slip that many of the Libyan rebels are members of – or align themselves with - al-Qaeda. That jibes with a clandestine West Point study of a 700 foreigners who, under the auspices of al-Qaeda, came to Iraq in 2006 and 2007 to kill American soldiers. One-fifth of them were Libyans. They and their brethren now fight alongside (at least temporarily) American’s secret forces in Libya. One of the rebel leaders, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, openly admits the same to the foreign press. He should know; after all, he recruited and led raids against US forces in Iraq.

The cost to help al-Qaeda, in our morbid attempt to put them in power, has been phenomenal. Since initiating the No-Fly Zone a month ago by bombing Libya’s air defenses, we’ve dropped shells on Tripoli and Misrata while patrolling the air. In the first 2 weeks alone of doing so, the Pentagon had spent $608 million, far in excess of the initial price tag of $40 million per month. The Air Force’s Libyan efforts by themselves cost $4 million per day. All those costs ignore the not-so-secret activities of CIA operatives who are now leading the Libyan rebels and supplying them with arms.

Sure, our investment has not been a cheap one financially. But this is not just about money. No, this issue is more about the emotional and philosophical cost, one that has the potential to create incalculable damage on the confidence, trust and maybe even lives of our people and our Armed Forces.

Aiding and abetting al-Qaeda is a slap to the face to the thousands of Americans who lost loved ones on September 11th or the war that followed. How can Obama look the American people in the eye and justify helping the very people who sent nearly 3,000 to the most horrific of deaths in plane crashes and collapsed buildings?

It’s a spit into the faces of the fine men and women of our military, 1,500 of whom gave their lives while another 12,000 gave of limb and mind in Afghanistan in hopes of putting an end to the terrorists’ plans for destruction of the Western World. How can the Commander-in-Chief seriously reassure the 100,000 troops there (and their families at home) that it’s somehow worthwhile to defend the organization that killed their friends and brothers? How can Obama defend giving weapons to al-Qaeda, which will undoubtedly be used to kill American soldiers elsewhere?

This insanity speaks volumes about the problem with messing in other nation’s affairs. What do we hope to accomplish by intervening in the internal structure of Libya? Obama said we couldn’t sit by and watch people be oppressed and killed by Gaddafi and his thugs. If that was the case, we surely would have saved the day in Sudan where 500,000 people were the victims of genocide while 2.7 million more were displaced. We didn’t. Obviously, there’s some sort of strategic or economic importance in Libya (probably the latter). When that’s the case, our country is quite willing to sell out its values and morality, even to the most repugnant form of humanity, one that has killed not only thousands Americans, but tens of thousands of Middle Easterners and Europeans through ongoing acts of terrorism.

In one fell swoop our mortal enemies have “changed” into our very best friends, because, somehow, it’s convenient for the Administration and America’s goals (whatever they may be). Is that the “change” that so many Americans voted for in 2008? I certainly hope not.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 25 April 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Long term care, long term burden

Long term care, long term burden
By Bob Confer

Sometime very soon the Department of Health and Human Services will iron out details of the CLASS Act and submit information to employers in preparation for enrolling their employees into the voluntary program in 2012. CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) is similar to private long-term care insurance that helps to cover the costs of professional care when one becomes frail or disabled. It can be applied to home, respite, hospice, or nursing home functions. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the enrollees will pay an average monthly premium of $123 for a period of only 5 years. The benefits will equate to $50 to $75 per day.

Because of its remote similarity to private long-term care insurance, CLASS is identified as insurance by the federal government. It is, however, anything but. True insurance requires the building of an investment portfolio that uses the premiums collected from insured parties. Those funds are put into the markets to ensure growth, which, when combined with incoming premiums, will allow the insurance company to meet its current and future benefit outlays. True insurance also survives through underwriting, a method by which insurers analyze the risks associated with certain people and activities and adjust the premiums accordingly.

CLASS doesn’t fit the bill with either of these criteria. For starters, there is no investment portfolio. It’s eerily similar to another Ponzi scheme - Social Security — which was once identified as insurance, too. Under Social Security, current payees fully subsidize the benefits of current recipients. There is not a collective investment fund that has been watching its income grow since the program’s inception in 1935. Instead, what was taken in was put into a “trust fund”, which in turn was emptied out by government expenditures. All that remains is government bonds —IOUs issued to the government by the government.

Structured in that same way, CLASS will have its own trust fund and it won’t take long for revenues to be outstripped by expenses. The average user will put only $7,380 into the trust fund. Consider what that user will take out of it: At $75 of benefits per day, that’s $27,375 in expenses per year, nearly 4 times what the user put into it. That’s just for 1 year of use. Now, imagine if the user lingers in long-term care for 10 years ($273,750) or 20 years ($547,500). It doesn’t take a professional accountant to see that it’s a financially dangerous endeavor.

Private insurance has a few hedges against such a scenario. Beyond investing, there’s the aforementioned underwriting. Those who are high risk (having a pre-existing condition or enrolling late in life) pay a higher premium. In the private sector the annual premiums vary greatly, from just under $900 for those under 40 years of age to more than $3,000 for those over 70. Further adjustments are made for risky lifestyles and ailments. That’s not so with CLASS, where everyone is treated equally while paying equally.

Private insurers also protect themselves (and their customers) by limiting the years of benefits. Depending on the amount and duration of premium payments, benefits are typically available for 5 or 10 years, with caps set on lifetime benefits.

Without such protections, the government will be forced to do one (or all) of three things in order to keep CLASS afloat: raise tax revenues, borrow money, or work with the Federal Reserve to increase the money supply to the tune of tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars per year.

For a nation already taxed too much to support unconstitutional healthcare programs such as Medicaid (which costs $333.2 billion/year) and Medicare (with unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion), another bureaucracy is not the remedy for what ails us. The government should stay out of long-term care. It is totally incapable of doing what plenty of private-sector companies can and are doing to handle such business — meeting the needs of the people in a prudent and affordable fashion.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.


This column originally ran in the 18 April 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

The reality of domestic violence

THE REALITY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
By Bob Confer

The problem with reality TV is that it has mutated our sense of reality. That form of so-called entertainment has us finding enjoyment in other people’s misery; ratings are good if the principals have significant tension between them. This sickness started 22 years ago when “Cops” hit the airwaves. That show emphasizes the short-term causes and effects of broken relationships and, therefore, broken homes. Like train wrecks, we just can’t seem to take our eyes (and the producers can’t take their cameras) off of them and we revel in the scale of their destruction. You’d be hard pressed to find an American who hasn’t laughed at the poor souls, especially when they tell the policemen why the situation escalated to the point that it did.

Maybe we find humor in it because we think that we’re protected, that domestic violence (in either the verbal or physical form) won’t happen in our neighborhood or homes. We’re only kidding ourselves because chances are it has happened or will happen in one or both of those environments. Domestic violence is more common than you think. And, it’s never funny.

Listen to a police scanner (“reality radio”) on any given evening and the weekends. It seems that the calls for domestic situations are endless. Our officers have to be peacekeepers in homes as much as on the streets. They are called to calm altercations playing themselves out before young children, keep women from verbally abusing their men, or prevent husbands from following through on their threats to their wives. On a recent weekend one fellow threatened to put a bullet in his girlfriend’s head while another chased his around a woodlot with a baseball bat.

Those last two police calls are extreme circumstances, but the other situations are not. They’re common. According to 2009 data provided by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, all police departments within Niagara County reported 1,488 instances of domestic violence, among them 1,203 cases of simple assault and 42 sexual offenses against a family member, 27 of which were not the intimate partner. Among the cases was a fatal stabbing of a Gasport man by his girlfriend on Christmas morning. That one instance proves that domestic violence knows no sex (men can be victims, too), boundaries (it’s just not an urban issue), limitations (assault can escalate to murder) or rest (even the holiest of days is not off limits).

Now mind you, those are just the cases recorded as actual arrests. There were thousands of 911 calls and tips for domestic arguments and other forms of verbal abuse (that victims will say is just as painful as hitting). In 2009, the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office alone responded to 3,600 such calls. There were thousands more covered by the city police in Niagara Falls, North Tonawanda, and Lockport. And, remember, most victims and witnesses remain silent; there are tens of thousands of situations that go unreported.

Does any of that seem even remotely funny like it may have on the television? Absolutely not. It’s on the other end of the emotional spectrum: It’s sad. If you’re human, you can’t help but feel for those affected by such monstrosities, especially the kids raised in such unloving homes. The vitality and morality of a society can be measured by the strength of the family unit and how it treats its children. You cannot help but wonder where we as a people are going if we allow such abuses to widely occur or broken homes to fester, because, more often than not, a child raised in such misery repeats the same later in his or her adult life. It’s a never-ending cycle of hate in environments that should create and inspire love and respect.

So, the next time you find yourself laughing aloud at the conflict you see on TV, stop and think about it. Count yourself lucky that it’s not a reflection of your life or that of people close to you. Hopefully it’s not, but if it is, ponder what you, your family and friends can do to change Tomorrow.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 11 April 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

FERRARO WAS NOT THE FIRST

FERRARO WAS NOT THE FIRST
By Bob Confer

With the recent passing of Geraldine Ferraro the press, the Democratic Party, and Americans in general abused history with their remembrance of her life. People everywhere celebrated her role in the 1984 presidential campaign and most said that she was the first woman to appear on a presidential ticket.

Not to belittle her accomplishments, but she was not the first. To properly identify what Ferraro accomplished, one must say she was the first woman to appear on a presidential ticket of a major political party. In terms of being the first woman on a presidential ticket from any party (large or small), she was bested by someone who was born and raised right here in Niagara County: Belva Lockwood.

Lockwood ran for the office of the President (not just Vice-President) exactly one century before Ferraro’s feat. She repeated that task in 1888, both times under the National Equal Rights Party. In 1884 she received 4,100 votes, a fraction of those received by the winner Grover Cleveland – ironically, another candidate with a solid Western New York background – who garnered 4.87 million votes.

Limited numbers notwithstanding, Lockwood’s performance far rivals that of Ferraro. When Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate women had a long history of holding federal office dating back to 1917 in the House (when Jeanette Rankin was elected) and 1932 in the Senate (when Hattie Caraway was elected). But, when Lockwood ran, women were looked at as second-class citizens; they couldn’t even vote. Back then the common sentiment was that they belonged in the home and shouldn’t participate in more manly pursuits like governance and law. The majority of the “gentlemanly” press painted her as a joke when she campaigned, just as they did any other woman who counted herself as a suffragist, one who fought for women’s voting rights.

Lockwood was incredibly instrumental in changing those disgusting ways in which we viewed and treated women in the public arena. She overcame the negative coverage and showed that she was up to the task of debating and developing a platform, a 15-position masterpiece that was arguably more substantial than that of Cleveland or his Republican foe, James Blaine. Had women possessed the right to vote, she would have been a formidable opponent and definitely a game changer (The 1884 election was close: Cleveland had 48.5% of the vote while Blaine had 48.2%).

Outside of politics, she was just as impressive. As a teacher, she developed new curriculum in her schools and expanded the knowledge base afforded young women, exposing them to studies that only men once took. She also became one of the first female lawyers to practice in the US and ultimately the first one allowed to practice before the US Supreme Court. She was a successful lawyer at that; she fought the case of the Eastern Cherokee Indians against the government, winning them a settlement of $5 million (which in today’s dollars is $97 million). Somehow, she managed all this while running a boarding house and tirelessly fighting for women’s rights.

It’s high time Lockwood got her due. She was an entirely self-made woman; her achievements were not the result of privilege. Lockwood empowered herself and she gave women the hope that they could do the same. In her time she ranked with Susan B. Anthony (who was immortalized on a dollar coin) as the most powerful and well-known women in the country. Despite that, we seem to have forgotten who she was and what she did, as made evident by the accolades thrown upon Ferraro. Nationally, primary schools look at her as nothing more than a footnote, if she’s even mentioned at all.

It’s really disappointing to find that some of the local school districts are guilty of the same. You would certainly think that someone of her historical importance who was born in Royalton and lived and worked in the Lockport area until her early 30s would get great coverage in local history classes. That begs the question: If she’s not an honest-to-goodness local – and national - hero(ine), then just who is?

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 04 April 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Controlling the internet

CONTROLLING THE INTERNET
By Bob Confer

The nuclear crisis in Japan has stoked fears about the energy source throughout the world. Worries persist about deadly fallout brought on by disasters of the natural and manmade sort. When it comes to the latter, many government officials and their propagandists in mainstream media claim that our power plants are ripe for the picking by hackers and cyber-based terrorists who will tap into their networks and either shut them down or set them on the path to destruction. Such fear mongering came to the fore again last week when Fox News – always one to aid Homeland Security and find ratings in fear – interviewed a technology expert who reiterated that belief.

Before you go on thinking that the internet will be the death of us, just think of how stupid they think we are. The powers-that-be expect us to believe that our reactors are all tied into the internet and any brainy kid with a computer can do as he sees fit, like a real-life “War Games”, just without the happy Hollywood ending. Sure, some parts of their systems may be connected to the internet, mainly status monitors allowing managers to keep tabs while off-site, but the main dials are offline, maintained in the complexes’ own internal networks. Only a fool would connect a nuclear reactor’s controls to the world wide web. Only a fool would believe they actually do that.

The political class has tried their best, with some success, to fool the masses about this issue. Japan’s radiation fears certainly have and will help advance their efforts. But, where are their efforts grounded? Are they really as interested in cybersecurity as they say? It’s doubtful. It comes down to a matter of control. If the government can have direct control over the internet they can assume the same over the people.

That may seem like a far-fetched conspiracy, but look at how easily Egypt upended the net during the January uprisings. Fearing for its safety – the safety of the government, not the people – Egypt cut off 90% of the traffic into and out of the country. That’s not unprecedented in practice. A few years back Myanmar and Nepal shut off internet access entirely. Then there’s China, who takes censorship to great heights, allowing its 1.3 billion citizens to access only select content that conforms to the government’s belief system. Hundreds of thousands of websites in the Western World are kept inaccessible and the sites of domestic dissenters are immediately shutdown.

If a country of China’s size -- they have more internet users than America has citizens -- can do it, so can the US. And, that’s what they want. Last year Senator Joe Lieberman introduced the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act that would institute the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), a new federal bureaucracy that would monitor and regulate the security status of all private websites and internet service providers. Any company connected to the United States’ information infrastructure (internet and/or phone), which basically means all businesses, would be subject to command by the NCCC. Any website or network perceived to be a threat could be shut down without warning. It’s unknown exactly who and what comprises a threat. It may be a malicious virus, but then again it may be the website of those labeled as subversives.

The bill got little support in 2010 so Lieberman came back with nearly the same thing this year, just with a kinder and gentler name, the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act. He’s taking a marketing approach with this endeavor, because who wouldn’t want internet freedom (though you’d be hard pressed to find any freedom within the bill)? This time around he may get some support. Not only are there the reenergized nuclear fears, but there’s the issue of WikiLeaks, too. The National Security Agency (NSA), among others, have openly labeled that site and others like it as threats, threats that should be taken down for the sake of national security.

It’s bound to happen, not only with WikiLeaks, but with any website, as harmless as it may be. For its relatively short life the internet has remained virtually unregulated and self-policed, but now that it’s mainstream it can be threatening to the balance of power in a given nation. Thus, as with all technologies (threatening or otherwise), it will someday face all-intrusive nanny state supervision.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 28 March 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Obama and Nobel Prize remorse

OBAMA AND NOBEL PRIZE REMORSE
By Bob Confer

When someone is sold a bad bill of goods he may suffer from “buyer’s remorse,” a feeling of regret maybe even disgust — accompanied by a healthy dose of second-guessing of the buyer’s own intelligence — over the purchase. That feeling can be applied to all aspects of life. For instance, there is no doubt that the five-person committee behind the Nobel Peace Prize has been experiencing “voter’s remorse” for their selection of Barack Obama as the 2009 recipient of the award.

Alfred Nobel’s will said that the Peace Prize should be awarded to the individual who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Despite the clearly defined criteria focusing on the past tense, the committee oddly saw it fit to anticipate what Obama might do to advance peace while in office. In its press release upon conferring the prize, the committee noted that Obama had, “created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”

That climate he created was the calm before the storm. At the time, Obama was less than a year removed from being elected to the Presidency of the United States and was still just getting his feet wet in global relations. His bright, peaceful outlook was in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, a man who pulled our nation into conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and was as reviled abroad as he was at home. Through its thinly veiled message the Nobel Prize committee said as much.

But, as time went on, Obama slowly but surely transformed into the hated Bush, overcome with the very warmongering that he was supposed to be the antidote to. This was made perfectly clear yet again late last week when Obama blatantly defied Alfred Nobel’s message when he threatened military action against Libyan forces and within 24 hours of the proclamation was ordering the bombing of Libya’s air defenses. The American-led bombardments of Tripoli and Misrata continue to this day under the guise of a broader international coalition, definitely not the international fraternity Nobel was looking for. Obama has put countless innocent Libyan civilians in harm’s way and this will only serve to further sully the opinion of America — maybe even the whole Western World — amongst the Arab peoples. It’s a war that Obama has said is necessary to put an end to Col. Gadaffi’s oppression of his people. As peace-promoting as that may seem, those who can look through such propaganda know that it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with behind-the-scenes machinations of the globalists and an immoral breed of capitalists who prize Libya only for its strategic and economic importance.

This is nothing new to Obama. Take Iraq for an example. In his August 31 Oval Office address he said, “I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” Despite such comments, the Commander-in-Chief has ensured that the United States maintain a presence of 50,000 troops in Iraq to offer so-called “support” for the seeds we’ve planted. Alas, a military presence is still a military presence and a war by any other name is still a war. We represent a threat to some of the people of Iraq who in turn represent a threat to some of our soldiers. Both sides still routinely engage one another in gunfire — and Americans are still exposed to improvised explosives, to this day. Peace between the two nations — and within Iraq — has not been created. The ongoing occupation has, instead, spawned animosity and death.

Then there is the matter of Afghanistan. In 2009 the Obama Administration, while touting decreased manning of Iraq efforts, increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 36,000 to 60,000. Deployment grew at staggering rate once more in 2010, reaching its current level of 97,000 personnel. Under Obama’s watch, 499 Americans died in that country last year, joined by more than 2,400 Afghan civilians. This death and destruction was supposedly brought about for the sake of finding a dangerous sect of terrorists (who number only in the hundreds) and to help make prosperous and free the Afghanis (only 32 percent of whom, by the way, view the U.S. presence as a good thing). All of those numbers and the incalculable and unfathomable human misery don’t befit a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and who knows what troubled nation next, Obama certainly hasn’t lived up to the expectations of the Nobel selection committee. More importantly, he hasn’t lived up to the expectations of the American people. They, too, gambled on the relatively unknown man. They, too, are suffering from their own brand of “voter’s remorse.” They had hoped for the anti-Bush but they got more of the same. We now find ourselves led not by a statesman who believes in peace and a constitutional approach to the justification and continuation of war. Rather, we are saddled with a snake oil salesman who, like his predecessor, cares not for the Constitution and peace in general and chooses to follow lock step with the plans of the military-industrial complex that has long eroded our nation and those with which we wrongly choose to interfere.

Bob Confer is a regular contributor to The New American. He also writes a weekly column for the Greater Niagara Newspapers and is the vice-president of Confer Plastics, Inc.

This column originally appeared in the 22 March 2011 The New American at:

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/opinion/950-bob-confer/6790-obama-and-nobel-prize-remorse

The importance of the Japanese economy

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE JAPANESE ECONOMY
By Bob Confer

Japan is not an island – or collection of islands – unto itself. As small as that archipelago may be, it’s undeniably powerful, one of the most important participants of the global markets. In 2010 its 42-year reign as the world’s second largest economy came to end, giving way to China and its explosive growth in export-based manufacturing and domestic consumerism. Regardless, its gross domestic product in 2010 was estimated to be $4.34 trillion dollars. That’s a far cry from our economic output of $14.72 trillion but it far rivals that of other nations that are assumed to be economic powerhouses like Germany, England, and Russia, all of which linger in the 2 to 3 trillion dollar range. It’s an impressive feat to nearly double the likes of those super powers.

The world would look like an entirely different place without Japan. We’re going to experience exactly that for the short-term. Think of how our nation recessed economically following the September 11 attacks. We retreated into a shell; we were unable to travel or do business as we did in the days prior and we were quite unwilling to as well, our pride replaced with hesitancy, if not fear. As horrible as the events of that day were, they pale in comparison to what has happened – and will happen - to Japan. Not only is the death toll higher, but the damage is almost incalculable. Whole cities have been forever wiped out. Infrastructure was torn asunder. The electrical grid lost a huge chunk of its capacity. The nuclear crisis will serve to dampen future development.

With every movement of the Earth, every larger-than-normal wave, the Japanese people will worry about their lives and those of their loved ones. They are a stoic, well-prepared people, but they’re human, too. Fear can be the strongest – and most-stifling - of emotions and no amount of preparedness can ready you for Mother Nature’s full fury. Not only do they have to rebuild vast swaths of their nation, they have to rebuild their confidence, too. In both cases, it’s going to take some time and a serious investment of blood, sweat and tears. The process will take years. The re-invention of Japan could take decades.

This isn’t just Japan’s economic crisis. It’s all of ours. The world has been teetering on the edge of a double-dip global recession for some time due to a wide variety of factors which include financial that caused the Great Recession and remains unaddressed since, unrelenting unemployment, nearly-contagious national debt, skyrocketing food and oil prices, and sociopolitical unrest throughout North Africa and the Middle East with a sampling of the same in Europe. With all of that already in play, Japan’s imminent collapse will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Such is to be expected when one considers that Japan is the both the fifth largest exporter and fifth largest importer. It puts $765 billion into the global economy, while bringing in $637 billion. It’s a net-exporter, something Americans now aspire to be.

Speaking of America, we import 16% of Japan’s total international output while accounting for 11% of their imports. Given they have the capital, we might see an upswing in exports to Japan as they’ll have an insatiable appetite for resources, building supplies and heavy equipment as they rebuild. But, that will mask the most alarming aspect of Japan’s demise which is the shot in the arm it gives China. Lacking the infrastructure and investment power needed for salvaging the factories and generators that were lost, Japan’s manufacturing exports will be replaced by Chinese output. We certainly don’t have the ability – or drive - to mass produce electronics and luxury items as the Japanese do. China does. This will only accelerate their ascent to the Number One spot in the world. Prior to the quake, China was destined to assume that role in 2030. What are we looking at now, the end of this decade?

It’s a mess. You certainly can’t place a cost on human suffering, but you can make an educated guess about what that misery might do to the marketplace. Because of its value to its trade partners, Japan’s earthquake-related disaster will send aftershocks well beyond its borders. The global economy will see its own version of a tsunami, a flood of economic malaise that will tear apart its very foundation. A global recession was almost certain before the earthquake. Now it’s guaranteed.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

This column originally ran in the 21 March 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Here comes the recession

HERE COMES THE RECESSION
By Bob Confer

I pride myself on my understanding of the economy. It’s based upon an objectivist approach, one facilitated by my being in the trenches as a manufacturer, grinding it out day to day in the private sector and observing the nuances which affect our customers in their efforts to sell industrial or consumer products.

That approach is in stark contrast to the science of economics — one, like all sciences, based on theory done in a vacuum with a truly limited number of circumstances being analyzed at any given time. It’s those same limitations that left economists in academia and government reeling when the Great Recession hit critical mass in the closing weeks of August of 2008. It caught them off guard, when in reality the recession had actually begun in December of 2007. I knew it at the time and by the end of January of 2008, despite nearly universal economic commentary that everything was great, was convinced that we’d all have to make some tough decisions and sacrifices in the second half of 2008. We did, and the rest is history.

So far 2011 is feeling like 2008 all over again. Economists everywhere are touting ongoing, albeit limited, growth in the U.S. economy since June of 2009 as proof that the worst is behind us and we’re recovering nicely. To cement their claims, they throw around statistics showing increases in consumer confidence and manufacturing along with decreases in unemployment. On the other hand, I am reading entirely different tea leaves, which lead me to believe another painful recession is in the works (the fabled “double dip”), starting as soon as May.

Numerous factors have led me to that conclusion, but for the sake of brevity, here are the top three:

Rising prices: Even without the Wall Street collapse, 2008 would have been saddled with a recession because of out of control prices for oil (hence gasoline) and food, an outcome of both increased global demand and the Federal Reserve’s nonchalant approach to printing fiat money. That’s the main reason why I saw the 2008 recession developing when it did and why I foresee a 2011 repeat. It’s not rocket science: As people spend lots more at the gas pumps and grocery stores for the necessities of life, they have much less to spend on discretionary items and durable goods.

When an economy is 70 percent consumer spending, any decrease in the ability of its participants to consume will send out shockwaves. Right now, the sky is the limit for gasoline ($4.00 by summer?), food (the USDA says we’re looking at 4 percent price inflation this year, compared to 0.8 percent in 2010), and even clothing (the Strategic Resource Group is predicting a 10 percent rise in prices due to higher cotton and labor costs). Where will we find money to spend on toys, vacations, appliances, and cars? As consumption drops, so does resource acquisition, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and selling. The devaluation of the dollar creates a devastating domino effect.

Global unrest: Related to the above, oil prices were rising before the sociopolitical chaos in North Africa and the Middle East. Now, with those factors in play, it’s a crap shoot. But beyond that, you don’t (re)build a nation in one day. Egypt, Libya, or any other country in a state of flux will have to redevelop its economy along with its structure of government, altering global trade. With so much uncertainty in the world, the global markets are walking on eggshells. So are world leaders (including our own), who daily ponder intervening in the affairs of those nations, through unjust (at least in America) development and funding of the military-industrial complex and the act of nation-building — which rob the wealth of more productive (and legal) sectors of the economy.

On top of all that, there’s the Japan disaster to contend with. The archipelago was, until late last year when it was overtaken by China, the number two economy in the world. A force that powerful can ill afford to have its infrastructure and utilities torn apart by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded, and the subsequent tsunami. They must now focus on repairing the damage instead of advancing their economy. The free markets will miss their hearty presence as they struggle to rise from ruin. Japan's disaster will unfortunately give even more power to China — strengthening its iron-fisted oppression of its people — as well as other countries, robbing America and other more just countries of economic opportunity.

Relentless unemployment: Government economists, and the news outlets that regurgitate their tripe, would have us believe that all is well in the economy because unemployment is dropping on a monthly basis. By government standards, it’s at 8.9 percent. That’s still incredibly high. Even then, it’s grossly underreported. Over the years, state-sponsored economists have changed the way they tabulate unemployment, ignoring among other factors the discouraged workers who have completely dropped out of the workforce due to the lack of prospects. Over the past three years millions of such potential workers have fallen into that category. All of them could still stand to have the jobs and income they desire. If you added them back into the calculations, as should be done, the unemployment rate would be 22.1 percent. With so many families now having lower incomes (because one of the two wage-earners lost a job, or because there are fewer jobs to choose from), they feel it — we all feel it — when prices rise. These people lack either the money or the will to buy, a circumstance of fear over more job losses. And it’s that rightful uncertainty which begets double-dip recessions.

There are numerous others factors that lead one to believe that a recession is well on its way, ranging from almost-bankrupt states to unconscionable federal deficits to out-of-control entitlement programs. But, all of these are only the symptoms; they are not the cause. An unconstitutional federal government is the reason. Our markets are much less free than they once were — the invisible hand of government disabling our purchasing power, transferring our wealth, stunting our growth, and building nations that aren't our own, all for the sake of control and the quashing of true liberty.

If only the economists who — willingly or unknowingly – support ongoing government abuses of our economy knew what we who work in the economy know, our nation would be a great deal better off. We’d all be able to ascertain what is actually happening in the economy and what can be done to right the ship.

So, unless the government gets out of the way, we’re looking at a prolonged period of economic malaise. Recessions will be followed by recessions, or we may be overcome by the long-term stagnancy similar to that which befell Japan in the 1990s. The year 2011 is guaranteed to be rough, and the future is uncertain, even unsettling.


Bob Confer is a regular contributor to The New American. He also writes a weekly column for the Greater Niagara Newspapers and is the vice-president of Confer Plastics, Inc.

This column originally appeared in the 14 March 2011 The New American at:

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/opinion/950-bob-confer/6674-here-comes-the-recession

Parties are meaningless

From the 14 March 2011 Greater Niagara Newspapers

PARTIES ARE MEANINGLESS
By Bob Confer

Obama can do no wrong. Just ask a Democrat. Chance are, millions of them from across the US sighed a collective “my hero” last week when it was announced that he was reversing his stance on Gitmo and going back to military tribunals for suspected terrorists. I’ll bet they also pumped their fists in triumph when he alluded to possible military intervention in Libya’s internal affairs.

Whoa, wait a minute! Aren’t these the same folks who railed against the Bush Administration for forever holding and abusing detainees while not offering them the decency of a fair trial? Yes, and they’re the same once dove-like individuals who harassed the Republicans for being hawkish about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…that same Afghan conflict they don’t mind sending our troops to now that their Chosen One is at the helm.

The hypocrisy of the Left is stunning. It ranks right up there with that of the GOP, the party that touts itself as having the best interests of small government in mind yet thinks nothing of doling out corporate welfare, taking away our freedoms with the USA PATRIOT Act, redefining the Founding Fathers’ version of national defense, subsidizing farms and oil companies, bailing out Wall Street, and developing Constitutional amendments to say who should or shouldn’t be married.

I can find dark humor in all of this, but when I look at the big picture of things there’s nothing even remotely funny about it. Americans are being played by their respective parties for the gain of those in power. Most people may think one way (or they think they think one way) about social, economic and legal issues but are more than happy to cast aside that belief system, as ingrained as it may be in their psyche, to support the actions of the respective party. Just a few months ago, who would have imagined Democrats being so quick to call for a no-fly zone in Libya or the newly-empowered Republicans being so unwilling to even mention entitlement reform as the federal budget is developed?

The two parties are closer than we think, closer than we’ll ever know. They are both for big government and, therefore, bad government. They just have their own versions of it. When you add up all their bright ideas and the programs and systems they develop to benefit their specific constituencies, you’ll find that both parties are equally responsible for the financial mess the country and the states face in the short-term (out of control deficits) and long-term (unfunded obligations to the tune of trillions). It’s not a Left versus Right issue. It’s a Right versus Wrong issue. They all behave in a disappointing and completely unconstitutional manner, one that has harmed our nation, past, present and future.

That’s why we need to get serious and abandon this concept of the two-party system. It’s getting really old. Stop supporting your party, both vocally and financially. Why would you want to throw your heart into something you don’t actually believe in? Why would you donate your hard-earned dollars to a political mob complicit in the theft of the same through taxation?

Most of us are free thinkers, we just happen to pigeon-hole ourselves into assumedly-rigid political systems because that’s the way it’s been done by our families, our peers, and ourselves from that very first day we registered to vote. Let’s abandon that and think freely and be freely without the restraints that society imposes upon us.

I’ll join you. Long-time readers know that I had registered Libertarian some years ago. I’ve grown to despise even that title because it assumes that I cannot think independently about government and the issues that affect me. It also opens the door to my fellow Americans to make assumptions about me, just like each of you do when someone announces they’re Republican or Democrat and you quickly - and subconsciously - paint them as friend or foe, intelligent or ignorant. I plan to drop the LP label because I’m my own special interest group, my own think tank, a free man -- just like you can be. My challenge to you is this: This spring, before the next election cycle comes around, contact the Board of Elections and identify yourself as an independent (just be careful not to fill out the Independence Party line). You probably are an independent philosophically, so let’s make it “legal”. Let’s make it a way of life.