Email, Hate Mail and Comments from Readers

Email, Hate Mail and Comments from Readers
By John Ransom
5/28/2011

What a better way to start a long weekend then letting me have a say. Besides, um, the column and the blog, I never get a chance to talk about anything.

This week, Osama makes a comeback, we tackle financial planning for Congress, I prove conclusively that I am not a wind farm, and I give liberals a few nuggies along the way, all in good fun of course.

Don wrote: .55 percent per month is a tad over 6.8 percent per year. 6.6 percent is the figure you get if you neglect compounding. Not much difference in a year, but substantial after 17 years of constant monthly investments. - in response to my column How to Go to Congress and Become a Millionaire

Dear Don,

The researchers calculated the monthly rate by compounding the daily rate. So my assumption is that they would calculate the yearly rate using the same method.

But yes. A difference of .3 percent compounding is real money over time.

While it’s doubtful that Einstein called compound interest “the most powerful force in the universe,” that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. It just means Einstein didn’t say it.

The report on Congressional stock trading would only say that the annual rate is “over 6% per year.”

Don’t despair, though. I’ve provided the formula for those of you at home who’d like to spend their Memorial Day weekend recalculating the results of the study:






By way of explanation: “Where ci,t is the cumulative return of stock i from the event date to t-1. For an equalweighted portfolio, we set the initial value of transaction i at $1. To calculate the trade-weighted portfolio, we replace the weight of $1 on the purchase date with the value of the trade.”

Let me know how this works out.

I’ll be in the backyard eating barbeque. That calculation will compound at the rate of “more please.”

Jeff P. wrote: Politicians should all be limited to 2 terms; one in office, the second in prison.- in response to my column How to Go to Congress and Become a Millionaire

Dear Jeff P.-

Then why limit them to two terms only? They could serve several terms consecutively.

Osama binLeaded wrote: John Ransom deleted all of my factual allegations regarding this story, ostensibly because I was taking up too much bandwidth but more likely, because they made him look like a racist and idiot. The readers can be the judge.-in response to my column Paper Publisher, Reid Pal, Defends Integrity by Making Things Up

Dear Osama,

Buried at sea, huh?

As I said via email: I like all my readers. But when you account for more than half the comments; when there are whole threads where you are the only participant and you are the only one replying to your own posts, I have to clean that up.

I get it. You disagree with me. However, the comments section isn’t a place for a book-length work.

My columns are 500-1000 words, more or less. If you can’t refute me in about the same amount of space, you should probably do talk radio instead.

You want to rant? Send me an email. I can delete those at my leisure.

Also when you come on the site claiming to be conservative you should probably avoid posting things like: “This is a natural by-product of Reaganomics; we are reaping its foul harvest,” and “The way to fix this problem is to tax the wealthy, and hard. A 10% minimum tax on the larger of book or tax income should be imposed on any entity with income exceeding 5 million.”

Readers, what say you? Did I delete his Osama’s posts because they make me look like a racist and an idiot?

Mo wrote: The Obama Misery Index: 19.7%. - in response to my column This is What Stagflation Looks Like

Dear Mo,

You get to be inducted into the Hall-of-Fame of Readers.

You’re the first inductee.

I wanted to say something last week, but I thought your post from last week could manage on its own. Interjecting at that point would have been like stopping Gayle Sayers (look him up) on a touchdown run to pose for pictures.

Obviously by his performance in Congress, Mr. Netanyahu either reads my column or yours. You know which I’m betting on.

If I had a budget for some sort of golden jacket with a crest on it with the initials MO-HOF, I’d send it to you.

Readers, pay attention: Be like Mo.

Clash wrote: Hey, John, why doesn't the Congress repeal Medicare Part D? The legislation that the sainted fiscal hawk Little Paulie Ryan and other GOP stooges voted for? - in response to my column This is What Stagflation Looks Like

Dear Clash,

It was a tough week for you with Obama’s budget scoring a Doh!-for-97 with three Senators voting “not present.”

I don’t think I’ve seen a more stunning defeat of a president. Not one vote from his own party on a budget. Not one.

How does that happen? Even Jimmy Carter had better relations with Congress.

Obama won’t get anything done on immigration, even by executive action; he won’t get anything done on a budget deal; he can’t implement an energy policy.

Obama may be relevant in Ireland with a pint in his hands, but he stopped being president in November 2010.

The power to be president is the power of the purse; and he doesn’t have it anymore.

Mark wrote: What a patently offensive, idiotic, racist column. Ransom should be ashamed. McInnis lost because he was a proven imbecile. But for Ransom to try to pin this on "the Muslims" is beneath contempt and utterly un-American. Shame. - in response to my column Media, Muslim Family Sabotaged GOP in Colorado in 2010.

Dear Mark,

I didn’t pin this on “the Muslims.” As the headline said, I pinned it on a “Muslim Family.”

I don’t know how else one might describe the Hasan family.

They are a prominent Muslim family in Colorado. They run Muslims for America. Their son Ali has advocated for the Ground Zero mosque. Being Muslim is part of their identity.

I could have described them as “a family from Pueblo,” or a “Republican family” but neither of those descriptions describes them by their own definition of identity.

Why do liberals insist on having two standards for words?

I can’t understand why, if liberals have such great ideas, they are so afraid of the power of words. The poverty of your ideas is displayed by your limited vocabulary.

You wouldn’t dare burn books in the public square, because that would be too obvious. But you’ll burn people for using words.

Until you recognize that there is no difference between one and the other, there’s no hope for your movement.

We thank you sincerely for that.

William wrote: As often the case, the Finance Editor is removed from his usual range. But he is a good example of the use of a wind machine. - in response to my column Media, Muslim Family Sabotaged GOP in Colorado in 2010.

Dear Brother Bill,

I’m not a wind machine. You want proof?

If I were a wind machine, I’d be receiving subsidies from the Obama administration as a green energy pilot program. They’d get to brag about the one job they saved/created.

The president himself would have mentioned me in a speech at Georgetown saying “Look at Ransom. He’s an example of the type of public-private partnership I’m advocating to get 1 billion tiny cars on the road using wind energy, sails and oars.”

If I were a wind machine, some environmentalists would be hailing me as the future of energy, while others would be decrying me as a threat to a tiny snail that lives in remote desert areas.

If I were a wind machine, an army of lobbyists would be working night and day to tax me, or give me tax credits or give you tax credits to heat your pool or make your refrigerator more efficient.

None of these things are happening.

Therefore, I am not a wind machine.

Have a great Memorial Day.

Visit a cemetery and remember to salute.

JR
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