How Farmers Could Win the Drug War

Marijuana is too expensive. An acre of mellow sublimity could run you $300,000 wholesale; a reflection of inadequate production and transport difficulties. If the government was serious about reducing the profit incentive for criminal agrarians, they would do two things: 1) legalize pot production, sale, and consumption; 2) hand oversight of all marijuana production programs to the the Dept. of Agriculture.

Here's how it would play out. It would take a couple of years to ramp up production, so the farmers who get in on it early would realize terrific profits; but we soon would develop new equipment making large-scale production possible. The next thing we know, we're seeing semi-loads of 1 ton dope bales being hauled from farm to market. Within 5 years, wholesale prices would drop below the cost of production (app. $200/ton), and the next farm bill would include price floors and a govn't buyout provision for surplus production. This surplus could then be included in our foreign aid packages thereby solving our popularity problems in the third-world.

It's sad that we won't look at ways to effectively use government ineptitude for good.

Hurrah for Obama! He Finally Did Something I Can Cheer About

I've always distrusted those who 'fake-bake'. Idaho has 275 days a year of sunshine; put down the tofu crackers and walk outside. A commonly offered excuse is ,"I don't want to have a tanline from my swimsuit.". A little advice; if you're walking around in the daylight, buck-necked, a tanline is the least of your worries.

President Obama has recognized the threat these people pose to a healthy society and taken the steps necessary to protect us all. In the new health reform legislation, there is a new tax on tanning sessions (10%). Finally, fake-bakers will be paying their fair share; and we questioned how they could afford a ride for everyone on the Obama health-care train.

I wonder how long it will be before they label your favorite indulgence 'high-risk' and tax it to cover the costs associated with passing 'reform' legislation without codified cost controls. There is no free lunch and we must soon resign ourselves to significantly higher taxes and/or reductions in the quality and quantity of our health care.

Have You Hugged a Smoker Today?

"Imagine a smoke-free America." We are asked to do such by the pompous anti-smoking bunch; well, I'll describe a smoke-free America from an economic viewpoint. Bankrupt! Both state and federal governments would be broke and scrambling for new revenue streams, and in all likelihood, we would find their hand in our pocket. "No way!" you say, "but what about all the ads describing the costs of allowing smokers to exist?". They are wrong. There are two big reasons why we need to hug smokers and thank them for keeping our governments solvent:

1) They die early. Smokers go to their mansion in the sky an average of 10 years earlier than non-smokers. That is 10 years less of Social Security payments and medicare coverage. If your tired of ballooning budgets and out of control entitlement programs, kick someone over 80.

2) They pay alot of taxes. In fiscal year 2009 they payed 28.6 billion to the state and federal governments. This does not include the savings provided by the generosity of their early departures.

It is estimated that we save 800 billion annually in unpaid SS and medicare benefits. This will more than cover the inflated estimates of what smokers cost our society. Add that to the hard cash they 'cough' up every year, and it becomes very tempting for the government to encourage new smokers.

This is a model that could be used to balance the current federal deficit: find an addictive, self-destructive behavior and tax it viciously.

Today, when you pass by a smoker, don't click your tongue and act offended. Instead, you should go up to them, thank them for their service, and if they don't seem too unstable, hug them.

Run Lemmings Run

Rugged individualists; yeah right! Farmers are like a flock of sheep. We dress the same, talk the same, drive the same pickups and tractors, and all-in-all act like a bunch of disfunctional gang-bangers.

The sirens on the rocks are calling out to Southern Idaho agrarians: "beans, grow beans, there's money in them there beans.....". And like the faithful greek sailors we are, we are turning our ship and heading toward the sweet seranade.

Turn around! We will do what we always do to profitable markets; destroy them. We like to clutch them in our oversized, simple hands and say; 'pretty beans, wonderful beans...', and then we look down and we've squoze it to death. If you doubt my stunning logic, just take a gander at your neighborhood spud farmer. Potato grower meetings make funerals look like fun-filled, laugh fests. Two years ago, the potato market was enjoying it's best profit margins in ages. So what did we do, we planted too many acres and combined that with record yields to devastate prices.

Let's all take hands and go to our nearest support group/learning center/diner and resolve to develop rotations, stick to them, and become market makers not market chasers.

Health Care for Dummies

In a letter to his wife, the great Lafayette instructed her on the proper way to address critics of the American revolutionary cause: "You will reply politely, 'You are all absolute idiots...' " His pithy advice is amazingly applicable to both sides of the health care debate. I will now propose the only common-sense solution to what has become an assinine process.

First, we must stipulate a few basic assumptions:

1) We in this country will provide a basic level of care to everyone. If we don't do it through a health insurance program, we will do it through unnecessary emergency room visits paid by county indigent funds.

2) We already have a public health care option. It is called medicaid. If you would like to contact me and debate this point, I only ask that you refrain from sniffing glue for the 24 hrs preceding your call.

3) Wealthier people have better stuff than the monetarily-challenged. I can't afford a Ferrari and yet I am still able to fulfill my basic transportation needs. It's ok; I hope to someday become a rich moron who can afford completely unnecessary vehicles. Let's agree to remove our juvenile economic jealousy from this debate.

With these points in mind, I will now lay out the solution.

Expand medicaid! Duh! We already have a bureaucracy in place, it just requires 3 things:

1) Allow people to buy into the coverage based on their taxable income per their 1040.
(i.e. $30,000-40,000 $200/mo/family; $40,001-50,000 $300/mo/family)

2) Establish some reasonable co-pays for office and emergency room visits as a way to curb unnecessary usage of health-care resources. This will also help alleviate our doctor shortage.

3) The federal government's role will be to fund the difference between established premiums and the true cost of coverage.

Pre-existing conditions will be accepted at 25% above basic premium levels. I hate to break it to you, but life is not fair, and you cost more to keep alive. If you show up at the emergency room and have not signed up for coverage, you will be automatically enrolled and assessed a premium based on your previous years tax return. This will ensure coverage for everyone.

Leave private health insurance companies alone. They do offer better coverage and benefits than medicaid, but at a higher cost. Anyone choosing to pay the higher premium should be able to.

See, that wasn't so difficult. Now, if only President 'Economic Genius' and his Merry Band of Idiots would quit trying to bankrupt us, they could sort out the details of what can be a very simple solution to a migraine-inducing problem.

State Retirees and Bloated Hogs: amazing similarities

The Idaho budget-boat is riding low. While we are not yet taking on water, any movement not carefully choreographed is likely to result in a dangerous dip below the surface. At times like this, everyone needs to work together and share equally in the act of keeping the boat balanced.

Unfortunately, the state retirees consider themselves exempt. Their recent tantrum on the steps of the statehouse further solidified their reputation as entitled infants. In a period of economic uncertainty, they have a guaranteed pension which happens to be one of the last solvent state-run pension programs in the country. You would think they would be writing thank-you letters to our elected representatives especially considering the tragic decline many private retirement accounts have suffered in the last two years.

No. These bloated piglets are more than content to continue suckling at the lean teat of government while other more worthy groups are left to fight for scraps.

Apparently these noble retired educators, county commissioners, and an odd assortment of diligently ineffectual bureaucrats think it blasphemous they should be expected to give up their sacred 1% cost-of-living increase. This, at a time, when active teachers and other state employees are being presented with actual cuts in pay and/or job losses.

If the Senate can tell the parents of special-needs children that State support has to be cut during these tough budgetary times, it must gain the resolve to face down these entitlement junkies and tell them it will not be covering the obviously devastating price increases for their Viagra and Flowmax prescriptions.