As IF Times

link Report: Too many whites, men leading military – Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq – Navy Times.

Readers of the link will notice that the report was written by an “independent” group.  Presumably, this was compiled without any bias or implication.   I’m hardly an expert on the military, but I do know that to attain the rank of officer, you generally have to go through military school to learn about warfare strategy and leadership as well has having  combat experience.   When you have the lives of so many men as your responsibility, the process of assigning leadership roles should not be based on some kind of racial quota.   Do equal numbers of minorities go to military school?  The military is one of the last places where quotas should be at play.  It has to be a meritocracy. 

We hear about the notion of over-representation in other areas of society as well.  Notably, those in prison seem to overwhelmingly be comprised of specific demographic groups.  This may be of consternation to some, but what if they actually committed most of the crimes?  Should the prison population reflect the constituency of the population at large in order to be a fair society?  Of more significance perhaps is the over-representation of progressive liberals in the education and college system. Now there’s an area which needs some diversification.

I wonder if there’s such a survey which records the eating preferences of patrons at restaurants.  Do most people disproportionately order chicken over beef?  Should people be coerced or mandated to eat some equal representation of meats or veggies?  What if one just happens to taste better.  What about goats?  They are vastly underrepresented in restaurants.  According the website www.makeicecream.com, the most popular flavour of ice cream is….vanilla, by over a 3 to 1 margin over chocolate.   So what.

What about basketball players?  Most players are well over 6 feet in height.  Do we then say that too many tall people are playing basketball?   Clearly, short people are under-represented in their ranks.   As most liberals and progressives try to frame any discussions involving race or sex issues as ones of unjust bias,  they can never be taken seriously.  It doesn’t register with them that to assign arbitrary race qoutas to any endeavour of skill or talent is in itself racist.  When you buy a package of M & M’s, they’re all basically the same, but some people will choose red over blue.  So what?   On the other hand, in a jar of mixed nuts, some will pick out the pecans over all others.  So what?  Why do people choose any particular dog breed over another? Presumably, there is some trait that’s desired in that breed.

People who push the quota nonsense on the public usually have some agenda and that usually involves inhibiting free choice and market forces.  It’s useful to invoke that famous quote by Deng Xiao Ping here.  ” It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, only that it catches mice”.

link RBC Royal Bank Rates.

For anyone who has a credit card and makes monthly payments, this schedule is a cold splash of reality.  In the interest of full disclosure, credit card companies are perhaps obliged to reveal the true cost of borrowing to their customers.  On the most recent credit card statement, there was a matter of fact line that read,

“If you make only the minimum payment each month, we estimate it will take 23 years and 1 month to fully repay the outstanding balance…”

This of course is based on the generous 19.99% interest rate charged on the outstanding balance compounded monthly.  !!!  If that one line doesn’t make you want to cut up your credit cards or at least pay off your consumer debt as fast as possible, then you have too much money.  Unfortunately, those people that make use of monthly payments to finance their purchases are the ones least able to do this.  Living in a free society means the freedom to  live without arbitrary restrictions upon one’s activities.  That means you can drink yourself into a coma every day if you  wish, or go around buying everything in sight because it’s on sale and you “need” it. 

While for most people, the monthly nut of the mortgage payment may occupy most of their financial concerns, the hidden costs of buying that flat screen TV because it’s on sale, financed over many months and perhaps years can truly be scary if only they did the math.  The $1200 bargain can easily cost double that if financed by monthly credit card payments at the bargain 19.99% annual rate.   I think I’ll just live with the old black and white. 

Apparently, credit card companies charge such interest rates to offset potential losses from delinquent card holders.  This is like charging for the bathroom while giving away free beer at a sports event.  It’s a good racket, as long as they can get away with it.  It wasn’t too long ago that there were usury laws in effect to prevent this kind of institutionalized loan sharking.  The mob should protest the incursion into their turf.

If you extrapolate this scenario to the ongoing debates regarding budget deficits,  some really scary numbers pop up.   Without having to use the generous 19.99% rates offered by the credit card companies, assume only a 5% rate on outstanding debt.  If you apply that burden to the estimated outstanding U.S. debt of 12 to 13 trillion, give or take a few billion, the annual cost of financing without regard to any reduction in the principal is about 600 to 650 billion dollars!   The reality is, it will never be paid off.

Just as in the case of those unfortunate enough to accumulate crushing debt loads with their credit cards, the size of the U.S. debt burden has grown so big, it will never be reduced in the standard way.  At some point, they will have to write down the debt to creditors or give up stuff that was bought with the money.   Hmm, wonder how much the state of California would fetch in a fire sale.  In any event, this link  An Irishman abroad tells it like it is !! -)   gives a pretty lucid view of what’s going on in the world, courtesy of an articulate Irishman.