June 13, 2013
How Much Was That Sequester Thingy Again?
President Obama will travel to sub-Saharan Africa and the price tag for the trip clocks in between $60 million to $100 million. The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig got access to classified documents outlining the trip.
Just askin'...
Lois Lerner
The scowly surly face of government abuse has quite a past. George Will discusses the testimony of Al Salvi, should he be invited to speak to Congress. Will suggests that Salvi would not take the Fifth, but would tell the story of his run for the House in 1986 against now Senator Dick Durbin (Fiend - IL).
In the fall of 1996, at the campaign's climax, Democrats filed with the Federal Elections Commission charges alleging campaign finance violations by Salvi's campaign. These charges dominated the campaign's closing days. Salvi spoke by phone with the head of the FEC's Enforcement Division, who he remembers saying: "Promise me you will never run for office again, and we'll drop this case." He was speaking to Lois Lerner.After losing to Durbin, Salvi spent four years and $100,000 fighting the FEC, on whose behalf FBI agents visited his elderly mother demanding to know, concerning her $2,000 contribution to her son's campaign, where she got "that kind of money." When the second of two federal courts held that the charges against Salvi were spurious, the lawyer arguing for the FEC was Lois Lerner.
More recently, she has been head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, which has used its powers of delay, harassment and extortion to suppress political participation. For example, it has told an Iowa right-to-life group that it would get tax exempt status if it would promise not to picket Planned Parenthood clinics.
As government gets larger, we're asked to trust more and more power to Lois Lerners.
The case against the NSA is: Lois Lerner and others of her ilk.Government requires trust. Government by progressives, however, demands such inordinate amounts of trust that the demand itself should provoke distrust. Progressivism can be distilled into two words: "Trust us." The antecedent of the pronoun is: The wise, disinterested experts through whom the vast powers of the regulatory state's executive branch will deliver progress for our own good, as the executive branch understands this, whether or not we understand it. Lois Lerner is the scowling face of this state, which has earned Americans' distrust.
Even though I have excerpted half, read the whole thing. (Hat-tip: Insty)
This is not our Fathers' NSA.
Posted by: johngalt at June 13, 2013 11:34 AMJune 7, 2013
Can You Hear Me Now????
My friends are fighting. The WSJ, and the default Larry Kudlow position is to defend those that defend us from a mean world. I am sympathetic -- to a point -- to that view. Yes, there is a mean ol' world out there. (You may not be interested in War, but it is interested in You -- Trotsky?). And, I understand Big Data concepts: searching for patterns in metadata or Google-sized video samples does not compromise privacy. I get that.
Yet, I have been having more fun than a camel on hump day on Facebook over this. I likely would defend President Bush's committing the same infraction. Partly because I am a partisan hack, but mostly because that is what he stood for. He was going to push the line to keep all of y'alls safe. Privacy groups and an adversarial press would push back. Broncos vs. Raiders, everybody can tell who's playing for whom.
President Obama campaigned on "the fierce moral urgency" of dismantling things like this. Senator Obama introduced legislation to preclude it. Quis custodet? Privacy groups are muted and the press is quiescent.
And, whichever party has their collective ear to the other end of my call, it is time to wind down the extraordinary response to terror. Vigilance abroad, yes. Not naming complete incompetent liars to head the NSA, sure. But let us return domestically to an aggressive reading of the Fourth Amendment.
Jim Geraghty has an important philosophical point against it:
We in the general public have no idea if the algorithms work, if they're fair, if they're putting a lot of innocent Americans under suspicion or on watch lists, etc. This is simply not the way criminal investigation or even counterintelligence has ever worked in this country under our Constitution; it's working backwards. Those we have entrusted with the duty of our protection always previously started from the wrongdoing (or a tip of wrongdoing) and work their way out from there; it has never been "collect every bit of information they can on absolutely everyone, and then sift through it until they find what they're looking for."
That makes much sense to me. Sorry, WSJ, y'all lose this one.
Blog brother jg provides a superb example of the Prosperitarian position. The liberties surrendered are abstract while the threat to civilization and future earnings is corporeal.
And yet I find other arguments more compelling. It is well documented that war suborns liberty. As we look ahead to a still-lengthy conflict, we have to be able to execute effective offense and defense while retaining normalcy at home.
I enjoyed the Rand Paul piece and will also recommend Mark Steyn's No Cop / Bad Cop. President Bush, bless his pea picking little heart, at least provided a coherent, obvert and consistent full court press against terrorism. President Obama detaches abroad and steps up the effort at home. Are we fighting extremist Muslim terrorists or Tea Partiers?
Jonah Goldberg is still deciding but he provides a data point for the "let's be scared" crowd:
In their book Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein claim to "show that by knowing how people think, we [a.k.a. the Good Guys] can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society." You know what? How creepy you find that sentence reveals an enormous amount about you. Whether the NSA stuff blows over or not, the simple fact is that the array of tools available to the Nudgers is growing exponentially. And the really creepy part is that the whole point of nudging is that you don't necessarily know you're being nudged.Posted by: jk at June 8, 2013 9:32 AM
Points of order: 1) I'm a tepid Jack Bauer fan. 2) Glad you're still here on your amazing Summer Vacation, Terri. 3) The probability is certainly less than 0.5%, tg, that strikes me as high. But considering the numerator, it could still be concerning. (CO2 is .04 of atmospheric molality in Hawaii and our panties are severely wadded.)
Posted by: jk at June 8, 2013 9:48 AMI second all three of jk's points of order. It was easy to be a fan of Jack because we knew he could be trusted. Cass Sunstein, not so much.
Thanks for the Rand Paul editorial. I fulsomely agree with the Glenn Greenwald quote - Leviathan must be restrained.
And Terri highlights what I believe is currently the greatest accomplishment of the Obama Administration - thanks to them, a majority of Americans now overtly distrust their federal government. Perhaps more importantly, they may no longer be dismissed as "paranoid."
And, TG presciently asks, "How many other [programs] of this type are out there?" Even the craziest conspiracy theorist now has ground to stand upon.
But this gets to the base of my original point - The issue is not the surveillance, but the secrecy. Not the security, but the abuse of power. I submit that AndyN's not-so-hypothetical scenario illustrates the point. Is the correct answer to bureaucrats using state power for partisan purposes to eliminate all state power? Or convert the Freedom of Information Act from a "pull" to a "push" system?
In summary, whether the case of a successful WMD attack is 0.5% (1 in 200) or 0.04% (1 in 2500) the consequences are so vast as to justify government effort to detect and prevent it. Or does anyone here believe we should not have a "watch list" and that people on the list, like the Boston bombers, should actually be watched?
Posted by: johngalt at June 9, 2013 11:02 AMNow that the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has stepped forward I'm prepared to call him a national hero, on a par with Rosa Parks and Tank Man, for acting in accordance with his conscience. (Sadly, other names do not come to mind.) Whether or not I agree with him about the surveillance programs, which he knows far more about than I do, I do agree that said surveillance must not be conducted in secret. That we may now debate the policy is his great accomplishment.
I'm also reevaluating my opinion of Bradley Manning.
Posted by: johngalt at June 10, 2013 2:46 PMI'm reminded that Manning revealed the identity of covert international agents, risking harm to their lives. May he rot in prison.
Posted by: johngalt at June 11, 2013 5:42 PMJune 5, 2013
What the IRS Scandal is About
Co-founder of the Watumpka, Alabama Tea Party -- and face of the IRS scandal, Becky Gerritson.
I had heard people talking about this and saw a clip. But if you have not watched it coast-to-coast yet, do yourself a favor and spend 7:53 with a great American. (Can't you just imagine a roomful of NYTimes writers hearing the phrase "Watumpka, Alabama Tea Party?" Makes one weep.)
Hat-tip: Robert Tracinski [Subscribe]
Land of the who, and home of the what? Maybe we should have a national song or something to remind us all, every time we see a sporting event, that we are citizens, not subjects.
Posted by: johngalt at June 5, 2013 5:11 PMNot as good a perfomance as last night's, but: Pia Toscano at the LA Kings game...
Mercy!
Posted by: jk at June 5, 2013 5:57 PMJune 3, 2013
Quote of the Day
Then, according to Daniel Klaidman of The Daily Beast, Holder read the details of this operation in The Washington Post over breakfast and the reality began to "fully sink in." "Holder knew that Justice would be besieged by the twin leak probes," says Klaidman, "but, according to aides, he was also beginning to feel a creeping sense of personal remorse."Some men find their moral bearings in the quiet of reflection; others in the crucible of suffering; still others on the front page of a newspaper -- Michael Gerson
May 30, 2013
Viva la Gibson!
Rep Marsha Blackburn (R - TN) wants some answers
"The recent scandals surrounding this administration raise a number of questions about who they choose to target and why," Blackburn said. "The arrogance and lack of transparency displayed by this President and his cabinet officials in events such as the raids on Gibson Guitar and the IRS targeting of conservative groups show a complete disregard for the rule of law....
"President Obama owes the American people a full explanation as to why these decisions were made, and anyone responsible for plotting these politically motivated attacks should be punished to the fullest extent of the law," she added.
(Best read in Rep. Blackburn's adorable Tennessee drawl...) I hope she and the IBD Ed Page can rekindle the controversy around this. It was always a great example of overreach; a credible foundation of political retribution raises its seriousness.
Hat-tip Brother Keith on FB
May 27, 2013
Not Feeling the Love
A. Barton Hinkle is not feeling the love for President Obama.
A physicians expertise makes him capable of inflicting great harm, noted Plato a couple thousand years ago, and no one is better positioned to steal than a guard. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the most conspicuous foe of liberty and the Bill of Rights turns out to be a former professor of constitutional law.As a general rule, politicians tend to whipsaw between two poles. Conservatives try to increase economic liberty but show less regard for civil liberties. Liberals care deeply about civil liberties while trying to restrict the economic kind.
But the Obama administration is remarkable for its degree of disdain for both.
II was going to do a quote of the day for the closing sentence, which David Boaz (inline, implicit hat-tip) pulled out in his Facebook link: "When he retires from public life, perhaps he will return to teaching the Constitution. That should be much easier work -- given how little of it there will be left."
But the whole thing is pretty good...
May 22, 2013
jk Sticks it to The Man!
"The Man" being, curiously, a very nice guy named Rob Taylor. Mister Taylor started a guitar factory with a genius-level blend of ancient craftsmanship and modern design and production. If you find yourself in San Diego and are tired of Filipino food in National City, be sure to tour the factory in El Cajon.
I have bought me a bucketload of Taylors over the years, including another great innovation of theirs: nylon string guitars with regular, narrow, radiused necks instead of the flat, wide classical guitar necks. That got sold or traded or given away to some brother-in-law, and I found myself reconnecting with blog friend Sugarchuck's. Time to buy. Birthday's coming up! Johnny's been a very good boy this year...
BUT WAIT! Taylor Guitars not only failed to stand up for Gibson in their contretemps with the US Fish & Game SWAT Team -- they actually released a statement leaning heavily towards gub'mint. I'm not a boycottin' man, but Taylor Guitars are not cheap and it chaps me to send a lot of money to an opponent of liberty.
This little jewel from Cordoba Guitars (nah, I never heard of them either) showed up yesterday:
It's a fine piece: made of Indian Rosewood -- unusual for a top, a lighter wood would be louder, but it has a pickup and a mic built in. I got amps, she'll be plenty loud. It's less bright but very well defined. All in all, very pleasing for half of what I would have spent on the brand that shall not be named any more.
Feeling even better when sc sends this link: Ed Markey cheered govt witch hunt against Gibson Guitar. It includes a nice summary of the still unbelievable actions against Gibson, details of the final settlement, and some crowing by Rep (soon to be Senator, Oh boy!) Ed Markey.
Ed Markey was the leading politician pushing to punish Gibson Guitar for what at worst was a paperwork error. Markey didnt appear to understand that this was about protecting jobs overseas, not at home. Markey was all on board with the demonization of a U.S. company for no good reason other than that the government could.
In this time of IRS overreach, there is a lesson here.
SC assures me that I have bought an "entrapment guitar:" Indian Rosewood and an Ebony fretboard. Heh wait a minute, theres somebody at the door
May 17, 2013
Scandalpaloozagate!
I open with a QOTD, from Ben Domenech (h/t Jim Geraghty):
When this period of scandal draws to a close, if the idea still survives that a more competent and ethical president would be able to effectively govern a $4 trillion bureaucracy, it will be a sign Republicans have failed. They can succeed by ignoring the tempting bait of making this about the president they despise, and focusing instead on the false philosophy of expansive government which represents the true danger to the American experiment. Doing so will require them to go against their own short-term viewpoint, so prevalent in recent years, and look instead to the long game.
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Using these to bring down President Obama might be quite satisfying in a "vengeance is mine sayeth the RNC" kind of way. But it leaves us with: a) President Joe Biden, the scrappy kid from Scranton Pee-Ayy; and, b) a $4T bureaucracy full of tenured bureaucrats (it is a bureaucracy after all) who will seek to expand the size and scope of government whether Rand Paul or Hillary Clinton sits in the Oval Office.
It's Friday and I have not linked to Kim Strassel in what seems like weeks. Read her coast-to-coast today in spite of my lengthy excerpt:
In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."This was the Obama version of the phone call--put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.
Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.
The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn't account for what the president's vilification has done to his business and reputation.
The Obama call for scrutiny wasn't a mistake; it was the president's strategy--one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. Donate, and the president would at best tie you to Big Oil or Wall Street, at worst put your name in bold, and flag you as 'less than reputable' to everyone who worked for him: the IRS, the SEC, the Justice Department. The president didn't need a telephone; he had a megaphone.
Another light-haired woman who writes for the WSJ Ed Page on Friday has a good piece as well. But I liked Professor Reynolds's take on Ms. Noonan:
Peggy's right, but I was saying the same thing -- right there in the Wall Street Journal -- way back in 2009, when she was still going on about Obamas transformational energy. So welcome to the party. Wish youd gotten here before the re-election.
May 16, 2013
Tyranny
Or: All Hail IBD! A good friend of this blog emails a link, with the suggestion "Nothing in here you haven't seen but it's nice to have it put so concisely."
Tyranny: Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the president's parade of scandals is that just days before they broke, he mocked as paranoid those concerned about government excesses.
On May 5, while giving the commencement address at Ohio State University, President Obama advised graduates to put all their trust in government and reject those shrill "voices" that say it's the source of our problems.Ignore these limited-government types, he told the class of 2013, who warn "tyranny lurks just around the corner."
Only, Obama himself has proved our fears are well-founded. Government, particularly governance by this rogue regime, needs more checks, not fewer; more skepticism, not less. Tyranny isn't lurking around the corner. It's now upon us, manifest in the pattern of misuse and abuse of government power by this presidency[...]
Followed by a handy enumeration of abuses current as of this morning (it's early yet...)
President strawman strikes again.
Tyranny correctly applies to the unrestrained, oppresive rule of a single ruler. President Obama's election caused the Progressivism accelerator to be floorboarded but he is certainly not the only person wielding unrestrained power in the federal government. But it benefits him to perpetuate the meme that he, personally, is a "tyrant" because the strength of his personality is so strong as to be an absolute rebuttal with so many people.
Yes, the TEA Party "voices" created the meme, and did so in analog to the nation's founding, where colonials told the central government, in that case a monarchy, "Don't Tread on Me." This sentiment lives on today but its cause is better served by precisely labeling the Obama government an ochlocracy, and President Obama himself and ochlocrat.
So, just what is ochlocracy? An ancient Greek term for a democracy spoiled by demagoguery, "tyranny of the majority" and the rule of passion over reason.
Posted by: johngalt at May 16, 2013 2:38 PM(Yes, I did repost that comment on the IBD article page.)
Posted by: johngalt at May 16, 2013 2:42 PMMay 9, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
The common denominator of most of these examples is that they are failures of diplomacy, which is precisely what this administration had promised to be better at.Barack Obama came into office partly on the basis of criticism of George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the claims he and his supporters made was that diplomacy and "smart power" would be more effective than military force. But having championed diplomacy over war, Obama doesn't really seem to be all that interested in diplomacy, either.
That is the big picture that the Benghazi scandal reveals. -- Robert Tracinski in The Daily Debate
May 8, 2013
President Obama's Commencement Speech
Roger Pilon is less than impressed. In a WSJ Editorial (here free on Cato), Pilon dissects the President's misreading of the Constitution
Civic education in America took a hit on Sunday when President Obama, giving the commencement address at The Ohio State University, chose citizenship as his theme. The country's Founders trusted citizens with "awesome authority," he told the assembled graduates. Really?Actually, the Founders distrusted us, at least in our collective capacity. That's why they wrote a Constitution that set clear limits on what we, as citizens, could do through government.
Mr. Obama seems never to appreciate that essential point about the American political order. As with his countless speeches that lead ultimately to an expression of the president's belief in the unbounded power of government to do good, he began in Columbus[...]
ThreeSourcers -- you know who you are -- will dig the whole thing.
Colorado is the Centennial State; Florida, the Sunshine State; I propose history could benefit from one word descriptions of American presidents. President Obama - the Strawman President.
"...as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities - to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations."
No Barry, you are incorrect. Notwithstanding your attempt to "package deal" responsibilities with our rights, the only responsibilities we have vis-a-vis our individual rights is to not infringe on the rights of others.
Posted by: johngalt at May 8, 2013 2:43 PMOther than that I love the whole article. But as usual, the biggest error usually comes in the beginning, of a speech or book or theory. This is why Rand repeatedly admonished us to "check your premises."
Posted by: johngalt at May 8, 2013 3:02 PMMay 7, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"[United States Attorney General Eric] Holder's understanding of the United States Constitution is incorrect."
-- Kansas Secretary of state Kris W. Kobach
If you don't mind it in an intemperate wrapper, ChicksOnTheRight.com has both letters in their post: Kansas To Eric Holder: "Jump Up And Bite Us, And Then Try Reading The Constitution, Whydontcha?"
Posted by: jk at May 7, 2013 3:36 PM....and, um, that would be the same link my blog brother provided... carry on, itchy typing fingers...
Posted by: jk at May 7, 2013 3:51 PMMay 6, 2013
Don't Worry -- they take care of YOUR money!
Financial Planning Magazine is agape at the First Family's Poor financial stewardship:
Digging deeper into their finances, the Obamas seem to have an immense amount of what advisors often call low-hanging fruit -- the ability to earn much more with less risk.Take their mortgage: The Obamas paid $45,046 in mortgage interest in 2012, which appears from the disclosure statement to be at a 5.625% interest rate with Northern Trust. That suggests an outstanding principal balance of about $800,000.
On the other hand, the bulk of their investments are in Treasury notes. Based on the disclosures, I estimate they hold about $3 million in Treasury notes (also held by Northern Trust), yielding 0.71% if averaging a five-year maturity.
By selling some of those Treasuries and paying off the mortgage, they would effectively be getting five more percentage points on the amount; they would also be about $40,000 better off each year before taxes, not to mention being less exposed to notes that could take a hit from possible rising rates.
Whatever, they're swell people. Hat-tip: Prof. Mankiw.
Paying down or paying off the mortgage would make sense, if they had any intention to ever live there.
Posted by: johngalt at May 7, 2013 11:39 AMMay 3, 2013
Campaigning for US Gun Control - Foreign Edition
Do guns in "the hands of criminals and dangerous people" in the United States lead to gun violence in Mexico? President Obama seems to think so:
"Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," President Obama said during a speech at Mexico's Anthropology Museum. "I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.""But at the same time, as Ive said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. Its the right thing to do," Obama added.
But the single greatest source of American guns in Mexico appears to be the U.S. Government. No, not via Fast and Furious, but via legal "direct commercial sales" authorized by the State Department.
Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve.And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011.
But the real outrage is Obama suggesting that the US Constitution has anything to do with Mexican gun "incompetence and corruption." The reason for this strawman is patently obvious.
May 2, 2013
Why now?
News today that the FBI has placed Joanne Chesimard on its Most Wanted Terrorists list. The closest the FBI comes to an explanation why this fugitive, who was broken out of prison by armed confidantes 34 years ago and was put on the US government terrorism watch list in 2005, is now a "most wanted terrorist" is ... the 40th anniversary of her crime.
"Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style," said Aaron Ford, special agent in charge of our Newark Division. "Today, on the anniversary of Trooper Werner Foerster's death, we want the public to know that we will not rest until this fugitive is brought to justice."
Well, they've known she's been under sanctuary in Cuba for almost 30 years. Why not do this on a prior anniversary? Not knowing any better, I'll speculate it is related to her movement to the terrorism watch list 8 years ago. No other information is given by the FBI, except that Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur (Tupac's aunt) "is only the second domestic terrorist to be added to the list." The first appears to be Daniel Andreas San Diego, a vegan eco-terrorist accused of bombing a San Francisco biotech company in 2003, for whom the "information leading to arrest" reward is $250,000. Chesimard's reward - $2,000,000.
And why did I include this in the Obama Administration category? For this, from the ABC News story: The rapper Common told her story in "A Song for Assata," which caused a stir after Michelle Obama invited him to a White House poetry slam two years ago. Rashid "Lonnie" Lynn a.k.a. 'Common', who traveled to Cuba to meet with Shakur prior to recording the song, has been associated with Progressive Hip-Hop as early as 2000.
April 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
In fact, CNN's Candy Crowley confronted LaHood two months ago on this very point. "Budgets go up and down," was LaHood's weak response, but he's only half right. In Washington, they only go up. -- Edward Morrissey LaHood and Obama to America: Go Fly A Kite
April 15, 2013
Uncle!
In "The President's Latest Bad Idea," Professor Mankiw correctly understands and describes the retirement savings grab in the President's new budget. Between the sheer numbers of my heroes in the opposition phalanx, and N-Greg (that's his hip-hop name) N-Greg's wise words, I must change sides.
A sizable body of work in public finance suggests that consumption taxes are preferable to income taxes. Completely replacing our tax system with a better one is, however, hard. Retirement accounts, such as IRAs and 401k plans, are one way our tax code has gradually evolved from an income tax toward a consumption tax. The use of these accounts should be encouraged, not discouraged.
As for my previous ambivalence: I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now...
In that case, we are Teaching our children well.
Posted by: johngalt at April 15, 2013 7:25 PMApril 9, 2013
Obama IRA Proposal Redux
I am nothing if not fair. Were I to withhold this inculpatory evidence, I could no longer claim that mantle.
My hero, Larry Kudlow, and his entire brilliant panel -- save for a weasely Democrat apparatchik take Brother jg's side on the IRA contretemps. I have not seen Mister K this animated in some time:
I'll rethink things, but still think weasely apparatchik guy (just at the end) and I have a point.
It sounded like Kudlow rebutted weasely apparatchik guy (WAG) quite effectively by pointing out that there's nothing tax-free about an IRA. It is merely tax deferred.
It is more and more clear that the goal is to eliminate the inheritance of wealth from one's ancestors. It is the ultimate in class warfare - the nuclear class-bomb, as it were.
Posted by: johngalt at April 9, 2013 4:29 PMApril 6, 2013
Obama Administration: 15 years of life after retirement "reasonable"
From Bernie Becker in "On the Money" THE HILL'S Finance and Economy Blog:
President Obama's budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals - like Mitt Romney - can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.[For those of us who don't know what a "wealthy individual" is, Becker gives us a helpful example.]
The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code.
["Fairness" is the most offensive F-word I've ever heard.]
The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently "accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving."
Under the plan, a taxpayer's tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement - or right around $3 million this year.
There's the American dream, boys and girls: Work hard (or get a plum "Obamacare Navigator" position) and invest wisely (or get a public defined-benefit pension) so that you can have a "reasonable" retirement of NO MORE than $205,000 per year for "right around" 14.63 years. THIS year.
And don't forget boys and girls that should you want better care than you might buy with your medicare checks, you will nicely be SOL after that 3 mil is spent.
Posted by: Terri at April 6, 2013 3:56 PMPeople are going to think I take contrary positions just because I love to argue (NO I DON'T!) but...
I think this is a good "loophole" to give away as part of a move to a fairer, flatter, more transparent tax system.
If I may correct the record, you can save as much as you want. You can plan a lengthy and extravagant retirement full of caviar, expensive wines and fast women. What you cannot do is use your 401K to defer income in amounts outside the range of a typical taxpayer.
Friends still?
Ok, by me. But I disagree with you on other things too. :-)
Posted by: Terri at April 7, 2013 12:00 PMI don't object to the change in policy as much as the rhetoric that justifies it. A "reasonable" retirement is $200k per year, for 15 years. The unvarnished way to say it would be "the government will forego taxation on a modest retirement." Instead, they used "reasonable" to give the impression that anyone who keeps more of his earnings than this is UN-reasonable.
And before you accuse me of being pedantic, do you for one second believe that this administration has any intention of agreeing to a "fairer, flatter more transparent tax system?" Or even any ONE of those three? No, this is one more layer of unfair tax treatment of "Mitt Romney and his pals." You know, those bastards who Dr. Carson reminded us "don't need to be punished?"
Posted by: johngalt at April 8, 2013 11:28 AMIt happens I know the exact odds for a "fairer, flatter more transparent tax system" from this administration: six per cent.
That number is in my head because it is also the odds of surviving small cell lung cancer or getting a good job with a literature PhD. This is in that realm.
No, Pedant-O-man, I don't object to your objection of their rhetoric. You are dead-on. I am exploring relaxing the reflexive impulse you and I share to protect tax breaks. Yes, it lowers the net amount applied to Fed largesse -- and, no, it should not be discarded merely to grab revenue from those who produce.
But those intransigent 'baggers' needs would be well served to always offer loophole closure for reduced rates -- that is always a pro-liberty move. Retirement and home ownership may be "good" loopholes, but they are loopholes and should be on the table.
March 20, 2013
Why Did CO Governor About-Face on Guns?
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has artfully crafted an image as a reasonable, moderate, modern western politician - until now. Today he signed "landmark new gun laws" in the "traditionally firearm-friendly state" of Colorado. Why?
Colorado blogger Joshua Sharf explains that it is part of a national political strategy on the part of the Obama Administration:
It has been clear from the beginning that Obama plans to use gun control, not merely as a diversion from governing, but as a battering-ram issue to achieve his major 2nd-term objective: regaining the House of Representatives for the Democrats. To do that, he believes he must isolate the Republican House as being an obstruction to common-sense, practical gun control measures that most of the country agrees on. To do that, he must persuade enough Senate Democrats - especially Western Democrats - to back proposals that they really, really don't want to even vote on, much less support.Colorado becomes the key to providing them cover. The proposals - poorly-written, full of absurd outcomes - will have to be portrayed as practical compromises. The debate on the national level will mirror the deceptive line taken here: confusing sales with temporary transfers, or even loans to friends; outlawing magazines of more than 15 rounds, but forgetting to mention that inheriting such a magazine from a deceased parent is a criminal act, a felony, even. Colorado's reputation as a western, freedom-loving state works in their favor.
So when Hickenlooper said, after the Aurora shooting, "Well, I mean I'm not sure there's any way in a free society, to be able to do that ..." it was a ploy to keep the gun debate out of the pending election.
This suited Hick just fine, since any suggestion that he was seriously looking at the sort of laws passed last week might have complicated the Dems' narrative about te Republican "War on Women" and civil unions.
But there is hope:
Ultimately, it makes the recalls of Sen. Hudak and Rep. McLachlan - along with whatever other vulnerable Dems can be included - even more important. Those recalls, like the recalls in Wisconsin, take on a national significance and urgency, not merely because of the issues involved, but because of the political implications at the national level. The promise of protection, of resources and money, to vulnerable Dems who backed him on this legislation, is the application of national resources to state races, just as the Blueprint was the application of state resources to local races. It is the Blueprint raised to a national scale. If Obama is able to implement that, then he will indeed have locked in substantial political changes that can change the society for the worse, for the long run.On the other hand, if those promises can be shown to be empty - before the House of Representatives comes up for election, or has to vote on the national bills - then the entire narrative is turned on its head. Not only does Obama look like an unreliable friend, but the power of the issue dissipates. (That's one reason why an initiative is more useful in the event that we fail to take back both the legislature and the governor's mansion: only fiscal issues can be on the ballot in odd-numbered years.)
Hickenlooper, in 2012, specifically avoided charging voters up over this issue. Even in 2010, he didn't really mention it at all. Colorado has not had a vigorous debate on these bills or these issues. This was not something done by us. It was something done to us.
It's our move, Colorado.
UPDATE: This Denver Post story contemplates the Governor's political future:
Only a few months ago, Hickenlooper was mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate. In poll after poll, his favorability ratings were higher than President Obama's and most governors.But now Hickenlooper is attracting national attention as the Western governor backing gun control.
Asked whether the debate had hurt his image as a "quirky, lovable governor." Hickenlooper smiled.
"I'm still quirky," he said. "I'm not sure I was that lovable. And I am still relentlessly pro business."
Dear Governor - Magpul Industries, Alfred Manufacturing, other suppliers - they are BUSINESSES. With friends like you...
It's also going to be interesting in a state where many sheriffs and their deputies seem to be prepared to tell their governor, in no uncertain terms, to hike to hell on this issue.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at March 20, 2013 3:38 PMMarch 11, 2013
Obama XIV
They can't find the money to let schoolchildren tour the White House, but Beyonce and Adele will perform at a "a huge celebrity-packed party for [Michelle Obama's] birthday at the White House next year." Via Jim Geraghty who hopes "they'll invite any of those furloughed federal workers"
Having picked up an Oscar, Adele might have thought her incredible US adventure couldn't get much better.But now I can reveal the Skyfall singer has landed the biggest gig of next year -- singing for Michelle Obama during her 50th birthday party at the White House.
The 24-year-old star will join Beyonce at the bash on January 17 -- proof she has been given the ultimate seal of approval in the US.
"America's First Lady will be holding a huge celebrity-packed party for her birthday at the White House next year and, as she adores Adele and Beyonce, she has asked them both to sing," says a source.
Isn't that special.
March 1, 2013
Sequester Update
Thanks to Jim Geraghty's Morning Jolt:
Stephen Gutowski: "Just tried driving but since sequestration went into effect the roads have all crumbled into dust."Brendan Loy: "OH MY GOD THERE ARE GOVERNMENT WORKERS SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTING ALL OVER THE PLACE, THIS IS HORRIBLE, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP" He added, "BREAKING: CALIFORNIA DECLARES WAR ON OREGON; KENTUCKY LAUNCHES SNEAK ATTACK ON TENNESSEE. MASS CHAOS."
Jonah: "It wasn't until I ate my neighbor's pancreas that I realized president Obama was right about the sequester."
Iowahawk: "The corpses are piling up outside my window like cordwood, oh my God the humanity."
Sebastian: "Nothing to worry about! I grabbed my double barrel shotgun & blasted #sequester through the door, just like the VP said."
Ari Fleischer: "President Obama is right. Undo the sequester! I can't stand it already."
Becket Adams: "I don't think my neighbors are taking sequestration seriously. They're giving me weird looks and making fun of my war paint and loincloth."
Exurban Jon: "So this is what anarchy feels like . . . From now on, I shall be known as ;ExJon, Warlord of the Western Deserts.'"
Buck Sexton: "Did America lose 170,000,000 jobs in the last 10 minutes? Keep me informed, everyone."
Brandon Morse: "The #sequester may now join the Mayan Calendar and the Y2K bug in the "[Stuff] Everyone Survived" Hall of Fame."
I just found a leaky water pipe valve on the building where I work. #Sequester effects already happening!!
Posted by: johngalt at March 1, 2013 5:02 PMYou still have water?????
Posted by: jk at March 1, 2013 5:13 PMI'm chalking that up to Boulder's political pull.
Posted by: johngalt at March 1, 2013 5:52 PMFebruary 28, 2013
Sequestergeddon Quote of the Day
But if Obama can't even convince his cheerleaders in the press that modest spending restraint will doom the country, why should anyone believe he's having more success with the public at large?
Today's IBD Editorial: Is Obama Losing His Media Allies Over The Sequester?
Let us hope. Trusting our Fourth Estate to choose the side of less government seems too much to ask. L'affaire Woodward is interesting -- might they discover some of the integrity that drove them into J-School? Loved this:
The AP, for example, found no evidence to back up administration claims about teacher layoffs. It also pointed out that the airline industry thinks the sequester will have "no major impact on air travel," and that various numbers bandied about by Obama were "thrown out into thin air with no anchor."
Posted by: jk at February 28, 2013 12:13 PM
I have long believed that the shame threshold of most journalists is lower than that of the President. Jake Tapper is the first big name I remember having shown skepticism. Watergate Woodward is by far a more significant crack in the media's inverse-reality force field.
Posted by: johngalt at February 28, 2013 2:08 PMFebruary 27, 2013
Quote of the Day + a Rant
And when the Republicans opened the seventh seal of the sequester, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black and the stars fell unto the Earth; and our nation's ability to forecast severe weather, such as drought events, hurricanes and tornados, was seriously undermined. Lo, and the children were not vaccinated, and all the beasts starved in the zoos, and the planes were grounded. -- WSJ Ed PageSadly, the President is positioned to reify his dystopian dreams. When it passes -- and Larry Kudlow could not find a guest in a week to predict that it will not -- the President can make it painful and sit back and collect his "I told you so"s.
I enjoy ThreeSources, because the good folks 'round here discuss ideas. Facebook friends of all stripes always seem to be looking into hearts, motives and intentions. I really don't care if the President promotes bad policy because he harbors secret resentment of the West's Kenyan colonialism or --- as I suspect -- he's just a creature of the faculty lounge. As a great Stateswoman once said "What difference does it make?"
Well, now, it does. The President will soon have his hand on the knob that delivers the electric shock. He can crank it up, Simpsons style, for perceived political gain. Or, he could display statesmanship and compassion which would add to the economy and concomitantly enhance his legacy. I suspect he will split the difference -- maybe set it on four.
But we will learn something about the President's heart. Soon.
The president promotes "bad policy" because he truly believes it is "good policy." Whether he resents colonialism in Kenya or is a creature of the faculty lounge (which means he resents colonialism everywhere) the worldview will be the same: The "well off and well connected" have some pennance to do, and he is the instrument of salvation for history's slighted classes.
Rand said that on every issue there are two sides. One is right and the other is wrong but the middle, i.e. compromising between them or avoiding taking sides, is evil. One thing that can be said about this president is that he isn't afraid to take sides. Consistently so. I expect he will do everything in his power to make the pain a 10. But since government does far less than it claims to do, most districts won't even notice.
Posted by: johngalt at February 27, 2013 11:22 AMThis is a group that successfully blames every storm on global warming. The pro-government media will join expansive government pols in trumpeting every government failure as "lack of funds: caused by GOP sequester."
cf, Education.
February 26, 2013
Sequestermania!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama brushed off a Republican plan Tuesday to give him flexibility to allocate $85 billion in looming spending cuts, wanting no part of a deal that would force him to choose between the bad and the terrible.
Put me in mind of this Reason 'toon:
But it ISN'T a diet. It's a reduction in the amount of EXTRA desert from what Wuggums had already been promised.
"These cuts are wrong. They're not smart, they're not fair. They're a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen," Obama said.
What could be more fair than equal cuts, across the board? The very inability of bureaucrats to make "smart" or specific cuts is what led to the sequester concept in the first place. My only beef is it's too small. No matter. Once it happens and "somehow, the earth keeps turnin'" voters will be less fearful of the next installment.
Posted by: johngalt at February 26, 2013 7:11 PMEHRMIGAHD!!
They're going to shut down all the control towers!!! It's either that, or ask the wealthiest among us to pay a little bit more.
Bonus Jon Caldera interview!
No worries. President Whittle will be happy to take over operations wherever President Obama decides he can't "afford" to run things.
Posted by: johngalt at February 26, 2013 6:45 PMFebruary 16, 2013
Wait! I Know this one!
Professor Mankiw asks Why $9?
There is one question I would like to see some reporter ask Alan Krueger, the president's chief economist: How did they decide that $9 per hour is the right level? Why not $10 or $12 or $15 or $20? Presumably, the president's economic team must believe that the adverse employment effects become sufficiently large at some point that further increases are undesirable. But what calculations led them to decide that $9 strikes the right balance?
Wasn't nine dollars the cost for birth control? See, there's symmetry and reason behind the Administration's policies, you just have to look really hard.
February 14, 2013
Brain Trust
Everybody talkin' 'bout Sen. Chuck Hagel's (Opportunist - NE) terrible confirmation hearing. Clearly it was a cleverly laid trap from Davids Plouffe and Axelrod to divert attention from Treasury nominee Jack Lew -- or, as the WSJ Ed Page calls him, "The Rookie:"
And when Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) ticked off the problems that afflicted the two Citi divisions that Mr. Lew oversaw as chief operating officer, the nominee seemed to know less about them than Mr. Hatch. "I don't recall specific conversations" about any of several Citi-run hedge funds that were imploding at the time, said Mr. Lew. "I was aware there were funds that were in trouble."Citigroup funds with high leverage crashed and burned, requiring a taxpayer bailout while sparking fierce debates at Citi over whether customers had been adequately informed. But the COO who oversaw legal affairs for some of these units says he formed no opinion.
[...]
Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown tried to draw out Mr. Lew on one of the Senator's favorite subjects: The fact that too-big-to-fail banks can borrow at lower rates than small banks because of the implied government backing. Mr. Lew rambled before saying that he was "not familiar with the specific issue."
These next four years are just going to be swell, are they not?
Headline of the Day
First President in US History to Have Voted to Filibuster a Supreme Court Nominee Now Hopes for Clean Process -- ABC NewsHat-tip: Jim Geraghty
February 13, 2013
SOTU
I'm busy. To enjoy full productivity gains from the Internet, I am going to crib my SOTU review.
Kirsten Powers -- I know she's a FOX News Democrat, but she's a Democrat all the same -- did not really enjoy the speech more than I did. I would not change a word of her USA Today column: Same Old Same Old from Obama.
Contrary to the claims of both sides, Obama is not a liberal visionary with deep desires to institute a progressive agenda. If he is, he's a miserable failure. You need look no further than his own record (starting with foreign policy) and then Tuesday night's speech for evidence. Banalities and tropes are not a governing philosophy or a plan. The immigration piece was good, but hardly a profile in courage. After all, even the GOP wants immigration reform now. There is also the small fact that Obama promised to deal with immigration in his first term.
Rub a little dirt in it, Mr. President. It doesn't get much kinder:
That this underwhelming State of the Union -- substantively and stylistically -- will be treated as a serious effort reveals the bad shape our country is really in.
Chuck Hagel mailed it in on his SecDef nomination, why shouldn't his boss mail it in for his official duties as well?
We get the kind of POTUS that The New York Times decides we deserve at any given point in history, at least whenever the sitting office holder is a Democrat.
Posted by: johngalt at February 13, 2013 3:31 PMJanuary 31, 2013
The right stuff
During Senate confirmation hearings, Chuck Hagel demonstrated that he is both clueless and incompetent. Unfortunately, those are probably the two most important qualifications that President Obama seeks In someone to run the U.S. military.
Headline of the Year: Fluster Chuck
Posted by: jk at February 1, 2013 10:29 AMJanuary 28, 2013
That's "Secretary One Percenter" to you, boy!
We share a large percent of our genetic structure with dogs. Therefore, don't be surprised if you look at the monitor with your head cocked and a slightly puzzled look when reading this.
The greatest irony is that given Mr. Lew's crisis-era resumé, he bears a remarkable resemblance to the bankers who President Obama says created the financial crisis and deserve federal investigation. But apparently there's an exception as long as your liberal intentions are noble and you're a loyal Democrat. Then you can get rich at one of Wall Street's biggest failures and end up running the entire financial system.
That's the elite WSJ decorum at work. They manage to describe Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's brief and magnanimously unsuccessful Wall Street career without appending -ass to any of the words. I couldn't do it.
Lew's a gub'mint guy through and through, but he takes a brief tenure at Citi that best represents a Matt Damon caricature of a Wall Street guy in the panic: bad guy comes in, total devastation ensues, gets a Federal bailout, leaves with a seven figure bonus. I just don't think Damon's screenwriters have the balls (see, I did not say ass) to have the villain nominated to be SecTreas.
Maybe Joss Whedon could pull it off..
January 24, 2013
Our 68th Secretary of State
Reporting for duty!
Photo credit: Reason
"Hello, I am the international face of the greatest nation in the history of the world."
Posted by: johngalt at January 25, 2013 1:26 AMJanuary 21, 2013
Quote of the Day
We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other -- through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security -- these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great. -- President Barack ObamaUPDATE: Thw WSJ Ed Page highlights this same line.
The "takers" line was a clear shot at Mitt Romney's most famous campaign gaffe. This should have been beneath a Presidential inaugural, but then again it fits Mr. Obama's post- re-election pattern of continuing to demean and stigmatize those who disagree with him as if the election campaign is still on.
Taking does not make us takers; weakness is strength; ignorance is knowledge; and we have always been at war with Eastasia.
MiniTrue thanks you for your attention to Mr. Obama's speech.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at January 21, 2013 8:13 PMAnd just because I'm feeling particularly snarky today: the First Klingon's new hairstyle makes me expect to hear her shout "I'm Rick James, B***!"
Posted by: Keith Arnold at January 21, 2013 8:33 PMHuh, I kind of like the First Bangs Of The United States -- not that that precludes your Rick James reference.
Funny that this line was selected for AEI disapprobation but was also selected by the TeeVee news last night for a representative clip.
Posted by: jk at January 22, 2013 10:26 AMA prescient observation, JK, for there is still a campaign going on: The campaign to convince Americans that European style social safety net systems are desirable, are moral, are right. His goal is to split the GOP House members along the line between individualist versus collectivist. House Republicans who hold to altruism as part of their moral code are susceptible, and must be turned away from the bright light.
Posted by: johngalt at January 22, 2013 2:44 PMHappy Inauguration Day
Some serious words from Juan Williams, in a serious piece: The Clouds Over Obama's Second Term."
But when it comes to judging his place in American history, it is impossible not to address his minority status. The first blacks in any field, much like the first women, are always held to strict standards.Major League Baseball could not allow just any Negro ballplayer to break the color line in 1947. It had to be Jackie Robinson, who was both an exceptionally dignified man and a great baseball player.
President Lyndon Johnson could not appoint just any great lawyer to be the first African-American on the Supreme Court. Before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall held the record for winning cases before the high court, including Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which struck down segregation in public schools. He served with distinction as solicitor general and as a federal judge.
When President George H.W. Bush selected the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he selected Colin Powell: a four-star general and decorated American war hero whose qualifications were unquestionable.
As president, Mr. Obama is dealing with scrutiny of his performance on the level of Robinson, Marshall and Mr. Powell--a scrutiny that is magnified by political passion. One theme of GOP campaign ads in the recent election was to appeal to voters who supported Mr. Obama in 2008 by essentially telling them not to feel bad about firing the first black president--he was just in over his head.
"The first blacks in any field... are always held to strict standards..."
And precisely what standards does he believe the SCOAMF has met? Certainly not the "dignified" and "great" adjectives he used to describe Cooper, the "great lawyer" or the "served with distinction" he used for Marshall, or the "four-star general and decorated American war hero whose qualifications were unquestionable" he used to describe Powell.
We're talking about a man who excelled at voting present as a legislator, one who barely served one term in the Federal legislature, who was a failure as lawyer and turned in his bar card under questionable circumstances, who coasted through school, who failed to publish a single article as editor of his law review. What are the "strict standards" this assclown refers to?
"... scrutiny of his performance on the level of Robinson, Marshall and Mr. Powell..." With a mainstream media flacking for him at every turn and failing to rise to the level of yellow journalism in its obvious bias, I consider that the SCOAMF escapes scrutiny on a wholesale basis.
Juan Williams proves himself to be nothing more than a knobgobbling lapdog who ought to be receiving a paycheck for the transparent PR service he renders to King Putt.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at January 21, 2013 4:17 PMI read it that he found the President's standards wanting and felt President Obama needs to accomplish more in a second term to keep up. Watching Williams punditize on the evil FOX, he never seems that tough.
If the knives are out, Marshall was indeed a distinguished attorney in front of the bench, but he is rarely considered a top jurist.
Posted by: jk at January 21, 2013 4:29 PMJanuary 8, 2013
The Worst Senator Ever?
Not counting the president, that would be impolite.
Bret Stephens demolishes Senator Chuck Hagel (Jew-Hatin' Homophobe NE) on the WSJ Ed Page. You have to read every word (holler for an email version), but here is the summation:
In each case, Mr. Hagel was articulating a view that was exactly in keeping with received Beltway wisdom. In each case, he was subsequently disproved by events. In no case was Mr. Hagel ever held to any kind of account for being wrong. In no case did he hold himself to account for being wrong.Oh, by the way, in 1995 Mr. Hagel told the Omaha World Herald that his opposition to abortion was total and made no exception for cases of rape or incest--a view that helped get him elected to the Senate the following year. He later voted repeatedly against allowing servicewomen to pay for abortions out of their own pocket, according to the left-wing magazine Mother Jones. Now that Congress has authorized the Defense Department to pay for abortions in cases of rape, it would be worth asking Mr. Hagel if he has evolved on this one, too.
The rest of the column chronicles decades of saying whatever is popular at the time and changing positions when they fall out of disfavor. It makes one appreciate a Rep. Xavier Becerra (D CA) or Senator Bernie Sanders (I VT). My respect for their consistency precludes my providing a silly party - state identifier.
January 7, 2013
How Do You Deal With?
What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: "At one point several weeks ago," Mr. Boehner says, "the president said to me, 'We don't have a spending problem.'"This is from a Stephen Moore interview with Speaker Boehner. Also well excerpted outside the paywall by Matt Welch. The President thinks we have a health care problem and that once that is fixed (by the addition of large quantities of government, natch) all of our other priorities will be seen to be very affordable.
I don't know where I got the job "President of the Speaker Boehner Fan Club" (my card just arrived in the mail). But how do you negotiate with a man who a) believes that; b) is not a compromise politician; c) has a Senate majority; and, d)can expect sympathetic press? "I need this job like a hole in my head" is the other takeaway quote.
One can find fault with the Speaker but I think it requires context. All in all, another grim reminder of IowaHawk's wisdom:
The attitude of President Obama is reminiscent of another dismissive attitude: Drinking problem? I do not have a drinking problem. I drink, I fall down, no problem.
Posted by: johngalt at January 9, 2013 3:24 PMDecember 20, 2012
Quote of the Day
The Financial Times reported Wednesday that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner knew about Libor manipulation in May 2008, even earlier than previously believed. (See our editorial, "Tim Geithner and Libor," July 21, 2012.) And yet he soft-pedaled his criticism of Libor while at the New York Federal Reserve. The New York Fed even used Libor as a benchmark throughout the worst of the crisis, in major contracts to which the U.S. government was party.When regulators mess up, they don't get indicted. They get promoted. -- WSJ Ed Page
December 7, 2012
JK Agrees with Kim Strassel!
I know, hold the presses!
But my favorite opinion writer nails it today. I have said it, she said it better: give the President his stupid tax increase, vote "Present" and let it be the Democrats' gift to a gleeful nation.
And?
[...]
The president will also finally have to show his math. He has argued his entire presidency that America's debt hole could be filled by soaking the rich. He'll now get his way, in a bill that likely provides $800 billion in revenue over 10 years, or $80 billion a year. To repeat: $80 billion a year. That is 7% of the $1.1 trillion deficit Mr. Obama ran in fiscal year 2012 alone. His tax hikes in hand, he can now explain why the hole keeps getting bigger.Especially as no further tax revenue will be forthcoming. The president's grand plan was to pocket the top tax rates and commit the GOP to later tax "reform" worth an additional $800 billion in closed tax deductions. His leverage has been holding hostage the middle-class rates. That hostage will now be dead. The GOP will have no reason to give him more.
Nor will Mr. Obama get any of the spending wish list he sent to House Speaker John Boehner last week, since a deal was his only real shot at slipping in some of that money. No $50 billion in stimulus. No extension of unemployment insurance or payroll tax holiday. No money for his mortgage program.
We're not going to win this one. Strassel suggests a managed retreat, and I think she is right.
No question, the Republicans would suffer a bitter defeat if top marginal income-tax rates rise. Then again, if those rates are going up anyway--either because we go off the cliff or because Mr. Obama maneuvers them into a panicked, last-minute deal--the rational GOP response is to instead choose a deliberate course that mitigates its own political damage, and lands some blows. This is the corner our intransigent president has backed Republicans into.So, that Obama "victory": On Jan. 1, the president gets to give a news conference gloating over his tax win. He then faces four years and 20 days of a presidency marked by his ownership of a faltering economy, a spiraling debt problem, automatic sequester cuts, no prospect of further spending or tax revenue, and a debt-ceiling time bomb. If that's this president's idea of "victory," maybe it's what he deserves.
I think it was Kudlow last night showing a clip of Howard Dean admitting that we can't close the gap on the rich alone - taxes will have to go up for everyone. Don't expect such honesty to be widely covered.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at December 7, 2012 12:33 PMNovember 30, 2012
Costco Dividend
I was very proud to not be a Costco member, when CEO Jim Sinegal took the stage at the Democratic Convention to do his part to elect the guy who was going to raise his taxes. It's a free country, and I certainly do not boycott Costco. It just doesn't appeal to the two of us in our humble condo. But I was glad to be off the list that night.
The WSJ Ed Page has a bit of sport as his expense today.
When President Obama needed a business executive to come to his campaign defense, Jim Sinegal was there. The Costco co-founder, director and former CEO even made a prime-time speech at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte. So what a surprise this week to see that Mr. Sinegal and the rest of the Costco board voted to give themselves a special dividend to avoid Mr. Obama's looming tax increase. Is this what the President means by "tax fairness"?
Costco is one of more than 130 companies who are -- smartly -- increasing dividends or rolling them into 2012 to avoid President Obama's new rates. But I don't recall many of the other 129 being on stage primetime at the DNC. And, something else makes this special dividend all the more special:
More striking is that Costco also announced that it will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the special payout. Dividends are typically paid out of earnings, either current or accumulated. But so eager are the Costco executives to get out ahead of the tax man that they're taking on debt to do so.
I guess they're Democrats after all!
We think companies can do what they want with their cash, but it's certainly rare to see a public corporation weaken its balance sheet not for investment in the future but to make a one-time equity payout. It's a good illustration of the way that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's near-zero interest rates are combining with federal tax policy to distort business decisions.One of the biggest dividend winners will be none other than Mr. Sinegal, who owns about two million shares, while his wife owns another 84,669. At $7 a share, the former CEO will take home roughly $14 million. At a 15% tax rate he'll get to keep nearly $12 million of that windfall, while at next year's rate of 43.4% he'd take home only about $8 million. That's a lot of extra cannoli.
But, next year will be so much more fair!
UPDATE: Larry Kudlow updates my number to 170 -- and throws in Major League Baseball's, notorious for deferring revenue, finishing free agent contracts with front loaded 2012 bonuses.
Yet still won't avert the painful cuts Romney was talking about. But what's national economic collapse in the face of "fairness?"
Posted by: johngalt at November 30, 2012 3:54 PMAlso notice what this does to the status notion that tax receipts versus tax rates can be statically calculated - blows it right off the page of the New York Times! (Well, an objective newspaper at any rate.) The idea that tax rate increases won't result in avoidance behavior, even by tax fairness "patriots" like Costco's CEO, must henceforth be null and void.
Posted by: johngalt at November 30, 2012 5:57 PMNovember 29, 2012
Pop the Champagne corks! 2.7% GDP growth!
Or, as I suggested to a FB friend (our own LatteSipper) maybe the sound is 2Liter bottles of BigK® Store brand soda.
Tyler Durden has a dim assessment of the data. And James Pethokoukis suggests "Well, I think we have a final verdict on the Obama stimulus"
OK, I think we've seen enough here. It looks like 2012 will end on a weak note with most economists viewing 2013 as probably more of the same -- and that assumes we don't plunge over the fiscal cliff and suffer another recession. For comparison purposes, let's first review Obama White House economic forecasts since 2009:
1. In August of 2009, Team Obama predicted GDP would rise 4.3% in 2011, followed by 4.3% growth in 2012 (and 4.3% in 2013, too).
2. In its 2010 forecast, Team Obama predicted GDP would rise 3.5% in 2012, followed by 4.4% growth in 2013, 4.3% in 2014.
3. In its 2011 forecast, Team Obama predicted GDP would rise 3.1% in 2011, 4.0% in 2012, 4.5% in 2013, and 4.2% in 2014.
4. In its most recent forecast, Team Obama predicted GDP would rise 3.0% this year and next, and then 4.0% after that.
Instead, GDP grew 2.4% in 2010, and 1.8% last year. So far this year, quarterly growth has been 2.0%, 1.3%, and 2.7% -- with maybe 1.5% in the current quarter. Instead of quarter after quarter of 4% growth, we've had just two: The final quarters of 2009 and 2011. Other than those, weve haven't had a single quarter with growth higher than this quarter's 2.7%. It's why we still have massive employment and output gaps.
We lost to this guy...
... because, like capitalism, Chicago politics works every time it's tried.
Posted by: johngalt at November 29, 2012 3:17 PMNovember 26, 2012
The Most Disingenuous Beghazi Story Yet
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House could finally have its chance to close the books on its Benghazi public relations disaster, as key Republicans signal they might not stand in the way of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to become the next secretary of state.Public relations disaster? Yeah, that's the trouble with four murdered Americans in a terrorist attack on 9/11 and weeks of subsequent lying: bad PR.
And, is it "over" (was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?) if they can cobble 60 votes from pusillanimous Senate Republicans? The story goes away?
I'm game to join Bill Kristol that Ambassador Rice is no worse than anybody else he might nominate and likely better than some. But this story sadly shows that the mendacity of the press continues post-election.
UPDATE: Taranto Chimes in (scroll to "Hacks and Flacks.")
One can be forgiven for thinking a mendacious press might also make the 22nd Amendment go away between now and 2016.
Posted by: johngalt at November 26, 2012 3:12 PMNovember 21, 2012
Nixon to China, Obama to Moynihania
I don't know that President Obama reads Jonah Goldberg's column regularly, but we all know he loves ThreeSources, so I'll put this forward.
Goldberg thinks that the President might be in a unique position to address the racial imbalance in marriage and illegitimacy.
But there is one area where Obama could be transformative and bipartisan while helping both the middle class and the poor. He could show some leadership on the state of the black family, and the American family in general.The thought came to me when a friend pointed me to a column by the Washington Post's Courtland Milloy about how blacks are fleeing baseball at an alarming rate. Today, only 8 percent of the baseball players are black. In 1959, black participation was more than twice as high at 17 percent. In 1975, the high-water mark, the rate was 27 percent.
The reasons for the decline are many and controversial, but one cited by Milloy is that baseball is a game taught by fathers, while basketball and football are more often taught by peers in pickup games.
Interesting article.
November 19, 2012
For the record.
"[...] they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy," -- a dozen Democratic female House members.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is unqualified. Interior Secretary Ken Salazaar in not bright. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is not trustworthy.
Joe Biden gets a hat-trick.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at November 20, 2012 11:57 AMOdd, I seem to recall any number of Republicans being called racist for labeling the President with various combinations of those traits.
Posted by: AndyN at November 20, 2012 12:35 PMAndy: Obama, unqualified, unbright, untrustworthy? But we've been categorically told he's "... articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy..."
On the other hand, my moniker-of-choice for the current occupier of 1600 Pennsylvania, "SCOAMF," contains at least two of those three descriptors...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at November 20, 2012 1:16 PMOn second thought, maybe those dozen Democratic female House members just don't think of President Mom Jeans as male.
Posted by: AndyN at November 20, 2012 2:40 PMThank you ThreeSourcers! A long day at the doc's for my drug trial was cheered up considerably by your bonhomie.
Posted by: Jk at November 20, 2012 4:53 PMAlways and often, best of wishes to you Subject No. 0073CO!
Posted by: johngalt at November 20, 2012 6:21 PMNovember 5, 2012
Even the Children Learn
I respect the sobreity of brother Ellis' prior post but I do believe caution is in order. There's another equally possible outcome. After all, none of the republics which failed throughout history had the internet... or YouTube.
This episode has been on my mind since the summer of 2008. Now, on the eve of the referendum vote, it finally seems fully appropriate.
Thanks for that. Amazing how a little Star Trek can brighten up our notions of the future!
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at November 5, 2012 7:34 PMOctober 31, 2012
Obama's Solar Panel Cronyism: Move On, Nothing to See Here
"You better let him know that the WH wants to move Abound forward."
- Executive Director DOE Loan Programs, June 25, 2010
Composite video below from RevealingPolitics. Story based on DOE emails obtained by CompleteColorado.
Nice -- and further supported:
The new emails contradict claims by Obama and others in his administration that all decisions on the $20 billion DOE clean energy loans were made by career executives in the department.Posted by: jk at October 31, 2012 5:35 PM
Most recently, Obama told a Denver television news interviewer on Oct. 26, 2012, that the loan decisions are "decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics."
October 30, 2012
The Wages of Libya
One more excellent article about the Benghazi 9/11 terrorist attack and the growing evidence of an administration cover-up. Victor Davis Hanson, in inimitable prose, lists those whose careers will be ended by the affair:
Secretary Clinton
Ambassador Rice
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey
And of course, without being mentioned, President Barack Obama.
Benghazigate Boiling Over
A Washington Times column by James S. Robbins, dated October 28 (Sunday) shortly after midnight EDT, describes the October 18 announcement by SECDEF Panetta: "Today I am very pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General David Rodriguez to succeed General Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command."
After remarking on the unusual timing of the leadership change, the column then reports an October 26 blog post by someone who cites an anonymous "inside the military [source] that I trust entirely."
The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
The story continues that now General Rodiguez would take General Ham's place as the head of Africom.
Later the same day, October 28, a pentagon spokesman wrote Mr. Robbins and said, "The insinuations in your story are flat wrong."
Monday, October 29, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, released a statement:
"The speculation that General Carter Ham is departing Africa Command (AFRICOM) due to events in Benghazi, Libya on 11 September 2012 is absolutely false. General Ham's departure is part of routine succession planning that has been on going since July. He continues to serve in AFRICOM with my complete confidence."
And yet, at 3:30 pm EDT that same day James Robbins reported General at center of Benghazi-gate controversy retiring
The questions concerning General Ham's role in the September 11 events continue to percolate. Congressman Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, said that General Ham told him during a visit to Libya that he had never been asked to provide military support for the Americans under attack in Benghazi. Former United States Ambassador to the U.N. John R, Bolton also mentioned Mr. Chaffetz's account, and contrasted it with Mr. Panetta's statement that General Ham had been part of the team that made the decision not to send in forces. "General Ham has now been characterized in two obviously conflicting ways," Mr. Bolton concluded. "Somebody ought to find out what he actually was saying on September the eleventh."
More here in a 5-hour old Hot-Air post:
A blistering critique of the administration by retired Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet that ends, "for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only incomprehensible, it is un-American."
And the following conclusion about General Carter Ham's "retirement."
James Robbins notes that the White House insisted that Ham took part in the decision not to supply assistance to the consulate, but Ham told Rep. Jason Chaffetz that no one had asked him about it. Hams retirement could mean that the Pentagon had some sort of disciplinary action pending against him over the incident (also the subject of much speculation, but little in the way of direct sourcing), or it could have a different meaning altogether. It would be inappropriate for Ham to criticize his Commander in Chief while still in uniform, although he could go to Congress to report any perceived malfeasance at any time.
Emphasis mine.
Your favorite blog optimist imagines a worst case scenario. That's what optimists do, right?
Benghazigate is boiling over on ThreeSources, Fox News, Instapundit, and probably Michelle Malkin. It got zero minutes on any non-Fox Sunday show. And any mentions in MSM (I hate to use that term but must here) refer to how the Romney camp is politicizing the deaths of four Americans.
In short, the media firewall will hold through the election. If President Obama wins, however, this will erupt, Watergate-like prosecuted in a GOP House.
But instead of Gerald Rudolph Ford, we get...
Yeah, but before GRF we had Spiro Theodore Agnew.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at October 30, 2012 3:37 PMFair analysis. Let me offer a flicker of hope:
9News Questions President Obama on Libya Attack
Posted by: johngalt at October 30, 2012 3:42 PMOctober 29, 2012
Benghazigate Update
The Washington DC CBS affiliate reported today this statement by Senator John McCain on Face the Nation yesterday:
"Nobody died in Watergate. But this [handling of Ambassador Stevens' murder by terrorists] is either a massive cover-up or incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people," McCain told "Face the Nation." "The American people may take that into consideration a week from Tuesday."
In Why did Obama choose to stand down in Benghazi? a Powerline blogger expounds on the General Petraeus revelation that "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need" as was posted here in a comment on Friday.
Voters, then, must assess the administrations handling of Benghazi with limited information. But we do know this: (1) the administration erred grievously by leaving open our mission in Benghazi while turning down requests for more security, (2) the administration made the wrong decision on the day of the attack by not bringing our military to bear, a decision consistent with Obamas instincts, and (3) the administration has not been forthcoming or honest in its discussion of Benghazi after the fact.These facts, without more, present a serious indictment of Obama.
October 22, 2012
Hate to see the low ground
Jake Tapper -- likely the least "in the bag" journalist for the Obama Administration -- claims that the President will have the high ground when the subject of the Benghazi attacks comes up tonight (between Big Bird and Contraception).
"The Romney campaign had the high ground on this issue for weeks. They lost that high ground at the second debate by alleging, suggesting the Obama administration had misled the American public on Benghazi," says Josh Rogin, of Foreign Policy's The Cable."It took the president 14 days before he called the attack on the embassy an act of terror," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said at that debate. Obama had in fact called it an act of terror the day after the attack, though the administration spent the next two weeks avoiding the term terror, blaming the attack on an anti-Muslim video and claiming some of it was spontaneous.
Still, "there's no real evidence that they misled, it's possible they were just wrong. And President Obama seized on that and called that offensive and...now the president has regained the moral high authority on this issue."
We're not necessarily lying -- we could be simply stoopid!
What was it supporters were saying about a potential Obama presidency? Worldly, intelligent and nuanced - things like that?
It is one thing for government officials to miss warnings that the consulate attack was imminent - like the reported explosion that blew a hole in the consulate wall in August - or for the Administration to misread and disregard those warnings. But why were security forces so few and so poorly armed? Why were repeated requests for help summarily dismissed? An internet rumor suggests it was part of a planned "October Surprise" and that Ambassador Stevens was to be kidnapped, not murdered.
The original report surmised that the coup de grace would be a daring rescue operation to free the American ambassador, but more recent speculation suggests a trade of Ambassador Stevens for the Blind Sheik.
At least as plausible as the "angry movie reviewers" meme. No evidence though.
Posted by: johngalt at October 22, 2012 3:09 PMThe liberal press seems to have a story line today that Romney should lay off of Benghazi for his own good. That makes The Refugee think that the plea is for Obama's good.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at October 22, 2012 3:20 PMOctober 10, 2012
Benghazi Bird III
All Hail Jake Tapper -- an actual non-stooge in the Washington Press Corps. "Security Officer on State Department Blocking Requests: 'For Me the Taliban Is Inside the Building'"
"I have been a career foreign service officer for 39 years," [Patrick] Kennedy said when asked if political considerations trumped protocol. "I have served every president since Richard Nixon, I have directly served six secretaries of State, Democratic and Republican. On my honor: no. None."
[Lt. Col Andrew] Wood said that when he heard of the attack on the Benghazi post on September 11, it was "instantly recognizable" that it had been a terrorist attack.
Why?
"Mainly because of my prior knowledge there," Wood said. "I almost expected the attack to come. We were the last flag flying. It was a matter of time."
Last flag flying...
Hat-tip: @verumserum
Benghazi Bird II
As with most things in life, I certainly hope my blog brother jg is correct:
Benghazi Bird?
Never have a blogger stay at your house. They eat too much and hog your Wi-Fi. More importantly, they share private family details on the Internet.
But I stayed with some people last week who had an interesting procedure. There's a jar in the bedroom, and you have to put in a dollar when you say . . . wait for it . . . "If George W. Bush were President..." At le condo d'Amor, I'd have a 1958 Les Paul and a '59 Corvette to drive it around in.
But the world is not ThreeSources. And I am becoming convinced that the Obama Administration is not going to face any ramifications for the Libyan embassy Attacks. Yes, right wingers like Jennifer Rubin will whine:
Moreover, the State Department now confesses there was no protest at all outside the Libyan installation before the attack.That's awfully problematic, given that Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went on five talk shows suggesting in fact that the movie did provoke the attack. Mitt Romney's top foreign policy adviser, Richard Williamson, told Right Turn, "Last time I checked, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was part of the U.S. State Department."
But I think the President will be able to run out the clock talking about Big Bird. I wish I were wrong.
Naah, don't think so. You're too cynical, but rightfully so. A CBS correspondent has criticized the administration, with support of her superiors. Allegiances within the administration are crumbling. The next Presidential Debate is a Town Hall on foreign policy. Think this won't dominate? Then the next question is which is worse: an administration that can't prevent terrorists from murdering American diplomats on a 9/11 anniversary or one that will flat-out lie to prevent it from derailing re-election?
The buzzards are beginning at least to gather, if not circle. As we saw in Venezuela, Obama's lieutenants will stop campaigning for him and various supporters will (already are) begin to abandon him.
You may be right. I'll give you that. But if this isn't the beginning of the end, it's at least what it usually looks like.
Posted by: johngalt at October 10, 2012 2:54 PMThis is a scandal that would embarrass Richard Nixon and the press is playing the role of the Three Wise Monkeys.
The Refugee is willing to pay a dollar to say, "If George W. Bush was president..."
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at October 10, 2012 3:56 PMAmen, brother br. Wonder if they take PayPal®?
Posted by: jk at October 10, 2012 6:03 PMOn the other hand, I watched the intro for ABC's 'Nightline' program last night. Old geezers will remember that show was born from the special late-night news updates on the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter Administration. Ted Koppel made a respectable news show of it for decades. No longer. Last night's three stories:
"Michelle Obama on Role in Campaign"
"Female Fighter Pilot"
"Expensive Burger"
Hey Ms. McFadden, the State Department is under investigation for an election season cover-up that rivals Watergate. Anyone notice? I heard some people died or something.
Posted by: johngalt at October 11, 2012 11:34 AMOctober 5, 2012
Hope, Change, Character Assassination
First I should caution that this report comes from a person who claims to be a "veteran White House reporter." Aren't those guys all bought and paid for?
In a vicious and personal assault rarely conducted at the highest level of U.S. politics, White House senior adviser David Plouffe repeatedly told reporters aboard Air Force One that Romney was "dishonest." With the president of the United States in a cabin just a few steps away, his top adviser pushed out the new campaign theme that the man who had bested him in the debate Wednesday night is an untrustworthy scoundrel.
October 4, 2012
America: Frack Yeah!
How many times have we heard the left make baseless claims that Big Oil uses its money and influence to stamp out competition wherever it can, and thereby maximize their own profits? Investors Business Daily printed an editorial yesterday that now, finally, substantiates that claim. But it's not what you might think. In this case "Big Oil" equals Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia's state-owned oil monopolies.
Venezuela's state Foundation National Cinematheque has been financially linked to "Gasland," a 2011 anti-fracking documentary whose aim was to paint fracking in the U.S. as dangerous.(...)
This week, the Heritage Foundation's Lachlan Markey found that United Arab Emirates-owned "Image Media Abu Dhabi" financed "Promised Land," a Matt Damon film that shows U.S. oil and gas companies as greedy behemoths out to poison America's small towns.
(...)
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been accused of financing radical environmentalist groups through foundations to undercut oil sands production in Canada, which is America's top supplier.
If you have to ask why they oppose American energy production, here is the answer:
All this signals something big is at stake in global power politics: fracking, which threatens petrotyrants as no nuclear weapon ever has. The Gulf states, Venezuela and Russia derive their power solely from their dominance in energy production, not by their economies.If fracking and the combination of investment, high tech, expertise and geography enable the U.S. to produce natural gas at $3 a unit, while Russia can only do it at $10, the threat is obvious.
Yes, yes, YES. American inexpensive energy explosion coming even if Obama gets reelected...he'll try to stop it, of course, but I don't think he can. Private land still exists!
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at October 4, 2012 3:21 PMAh, the idealism of private property. Don't bet that he can't stop it. Private property owners don't own the air, don't own the underground water, don't own the snail darters and wooley amoebas.
Good NED man, have you not read the book? (He asks, knowingly.)
Posted by: johngalt at October 4, 2012 3:36 PMI will revise and expand my remarks...I don't think Obama in his second term will have the political capital to kill the American energy revolution. Congress won't let him and a lot of union folks are counting on it. His theoretical Gaiaean Marxism will clash too much with reality. Objective reality!
Thankfully, I think we have a good chance of a different President who will be pushing the car DOWN the track instead of putting on the brakes as hard as possible. But as in "the book," there is the possibility that Wesley Mouch will be appointed "Czar" with the power to screw things up. I don't totally discount that.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at October 4, 2012 3:51 PMSeptember 27, 2012
What caused the end of Obamanomics?
My wise and dear father caught me at a loss this morning when he asked if I know what ended the Great Depression? "WWII production?" I knew it was wrong as soon as I said it, but I must confess his answer was more correct and succinct than any I've ever heard: "FDR died."
Investors: Weak Economy Dims Americans Hope In Obamanomics
Some may argue that Obama took office in the midst of an epochal financial crisis, with an economy hurtling downhill. Fair enough -- as far as it goes.But after four years, that excuse rings hollow. Obama's record suggests he won't put into place policies that foster economic growth and job creation.
Even worse, Obama gives us scant hope for better times on his watch. He's the godfather of big government policies that burden the economy -- a new health care system that will add punishing costs to hiring and small business and financial regulations that will stifle lending.
Obama promised change. And indeed the economy has changed.
But President Obama is young and healthy, so America is fortunate that he is Constitutionally limited to two terms of office. Better yet, we can elect a businessman with a proven track record of rescuing failed enterprises to replace him.
UPDATE: Jay Leno agrees.
I like it! But FDR was replaced with Truman...
Here's a backup piece for your link. 55% of business owners would not start a business today.
Posted by: jk at September 27, 2012 4:41 PMAnd if Obama died he'd be replaced with Biden. Again, we're more fortunate now. Keep Barack on Michele's diet for the next 40 days (or, worse case, 4 years, 40 days.)
Posted by: johngalt at September 27, 2012 5:12 PMA Cell Phone is a Civil Right?
Get yours today. Supplies are not limited. "The Obama Phone" from the Free Government Cell Phone Program.
The free Obama phone is a program that is meant to help the financially unstable who cannot afford access to a cell phone. Communication should not be limited to people in relation to what they are able to afford.
And like everything else in the Obama presidency, this too is Bush's fault.
During the Bush administration, there was the introduction of a project that gave subsidies to those who could not afford a phone. The basic principle of the program is that everyone should have access to emergency services like 911.
But if the phone could only be used for 911 who would carry it? Who would charge it? How could it "help the financially unstable?" Fear not.
There are different plans to choose from. Some plans offer fewer minutes and more texting and some even include rollover minutes. Make sure you check out all the plans before choosing the one that is right for you.
If one were able to look up "moral hazard" in a videonet dictionary, this clip would be definition number 1 or 2.
Viva Democracy! Did you see the Howard Stern interviews? A "reporter" interviewed random Harlemites: Do you like Obama? Yeah. Do you like his VP Pick, Paul Ryan? Yeah. Do you like Paul Ryan because he is black? Oh no, that doesn't matter. Do You think they'll beat Sarah Palin this year? &c. &c.
Like this, it is extremely difficult to watch. And I feel compelled to add as Howard Stern did "You know there are a ton of white people who don't know what the hell is going on either!"
ThreeSources was poorly represented at the last Liberty on the Rocks. I'd like to discuss it but don't know that I can be David Mamet's Rabbi and provide a glowing and comprehensive version of the other side. But I will try.
The speaker wants a Constitutional Amendment, first in Colorado and some other states, then hopefully Federal, that would allow citizens to challenge laws and have a jury -- not the Supreme Court -- rule it unconstitutional. He sees this as a fix for Kelo and it might be.
I see my Facebook friends and this woman hearing a challenge that the Paul Ryan budget contravenes the General Welfare clause. I suggested that almost every loss of liberty from the founding to present occurred when we chose "more democracy."
This video and the South Carolina lady who was happy in 2008 because now that Obama was President she didn't have to worry about paying her mortgage or putting gas in the car -- AND a selection of very stupid white people should be kept on file for when people think our problems best fixed by We The People.
September 25, 2012
Tweet of the Day
Hat-tip: Ed Morrissey (who does not quite agree with jk...)
I've had enough of this replacement president! America needs to do whatever it takes to get a pro-caliber president back in office. This guy is completely destroying the integrity of the United States of America.
Posted by: johngalt at September 25, 2012 10:30 PMSeptember 22, 2012
Self-Evident
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday, "It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." The only literate response to this definitive Administration judgement is, "Duh."
Some other self-evident judgements come to mind:
It is self-evident that the national news media, once respected for at least trying to appear objective, is as fully invested in President Obama's reelection as a diverse group of human beings can ever be.
It is self-evident that a Republican president who governed in the way President Obama has done would be excoriated by journalists to a degree that would have made the late President Nixon feel like a media darling.
It is self-evident that the only way government can lower health care costs is to ration patient care.
It is self-evident that when medical providers and insurers are allowed to compete for business they will find ways to lower their costs, and therefore their prices.
It is self-evident that when President Obama says something, he really means the opposite.
September 21, 2012
All Hail Harsanyi!
A short visual history of the creepy Obama cult
"I pledge allegiance to the flag,
Of the Obama Administration,
And to the regime for which it stands,
One nation, under Obama, with tyranny and redistribution for all."
-FBN's Eric Bolling
Posted by: johngalt at September 21, 2012 3:22 PM"And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven."
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at September 27, 2012 11:38 AMSeptember 19, 2012
Barack Obama- American Exceptionalist
There are several points to be made about President Obama's appearance on David Letterman last night and most of them are being made elsewhere. The one I haven't heard anyone mention is the point where the president says that America is the "greatest country on earth."
"Right now interest rates are low because people still consider the United States the safest and greatest country on earth. Rightfully so."
It's at 7:10 in the following clip of his entire appearance:
This comes dangerously close to "elevating one nation or group of people over another," and it clearly proves that the president understands nations are not equal. What is the word which describes the popular, yet ineffective, strategy for making nations or groups of people equal? Redistribution.
"Stay the course America" is the president's re-election strategy. "Pay no attention to that iceberg approaching our bow. That's just a little bump we're gonna have to roll over before we can all have the same opportunities as everyone else."
Of all the examples he could pick to demonstrate that the US is the greatest country on earth, he picked interest rates? Seriously? And besides, I was under the impression that interest rates were low because treasury kept printing more money to buy bonds from the treasury, or something.
Posted by: AndyN at September 19, 2012 7:31 PMNo doubt jg & dagny's kids will soon be bringing home coloring sheets of FOMC Chairman Ben Bernanke: "Defender of the Faith and Crown!"
Posted by: jk at September 19, 2012 7:35 PMJk makes fun of the stuff brought home from school but I will be spending many hours I would rather spend blogging writing carefully crafted philosophical (not political) responses to mush-headed 20-somethings brainwashed by education degrees and associated administrators.
How's that for a run-on sentence?
My only hope is that we have chosen a small enough school that my eloquence regarding the Main Points of the Constitution and second grade socialism of crayons will not fall on deaf ears.
Posted by: dagny at September 20, 2012 1:46 PMKnow that I applaud you for it! Once a response has been carefully crafted -- I would point out -- it would not take much marginal effort to share it where it might be used on mushy headed educators outside your immediate sphere.
Brother jg would set up a new category for these, and could likely be talked into posting them.
Think about it...
September 18, 2012
Two tickets to Normal World, Please
Very small Internet value in underscoring Professor Reynolds's links, but if you ever think you are not living in Bizzaro World, read Joel Engel's description of the artist President Obama hung with after putting that cheesy filmmaker behind bars.
If Barack Obama consciously intended to demonstrate his contempt for this constitutional republic and its citizens--and who knows, maybe he does--he couldn't do it any more dramatically than tomorrow night's event.
Think about it. Just a few days after trying to deprive a man no one had ever heard of from enjoying his free-speech rights because some foreigners claim they were offended, the President of the United States flies off to party with another man whos earned a pasha's fortune exercising his own free-speech rights with language that offends many more Americans than not.
Click through for some language that even I will not excerpt.
Well what do you know, I was thinking about posting this too, and wondering how much of the lyrics to include...which was none. Here's an old song from before the Era of (C)Rap that explains the situation quite well if you're Obama and will do anything for votes and money:
"Well now we're respected in society
We don't worry about the things that we used to be"
(You may remember the rest. Even mentions the President and White House, how fitting).
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at September 18, 2012 2:31 PMSeptember 17, 2012
Kudlow: QE3 - Evidence Obamanomics Dismal Failure
Or, "What if they threw a big economic recovery and nobody came?"
Lawrence Kudlow points out in an IBD editorial that Bernanke's "desperate money-pumping plan" is a complete reversal of the "supply side" policy that his predecessor Paul Volker used to great effect in the 80's, with an unsurprising result.
A falling dollar (1970s) generates higher inflation, a rising dollar (1980s and beyond) generates lower inflation.This is the supply-side model as advanced by Nobelist Robert Mundell and his colleague Arthur Laffer. In summary, easier taxes and tighter money are the optimal growth solution. But what we have now are higher taxes and easier money. A bad combination.
The Fed has created all this money in the last couple of years. But it hasn't worked: $1.6 trillion of excess bank reserves are still sitting idle at the Fed. No use. No risk. Virtually no loans. And the Fed is enabling massive deficit spending by the White House and Treasury.
The obvious implication being that if it worked then and its opposite is failing now, let's try it again. *Homer Simpson voice*"Hey, why didn't I think of that?"*/Homer Simpson voice* Kudlow explains that when policies don't encourage higher after-tax income for producers or greater return on investment for lenders, well, we'll see less of both.
On page 2 Kudlow explains how QE3, like QE2 before it, is murder on the middle-class that the president loudly and repeatedly boasts he cares most about. As my three year-old likes to say these days, "Nonsense."
Larry's point is politically devastating: "if the Administration's policies are so swell, how come the Fed has to keep a liquidity fire hose on full in perpetuity?"
A wonkier look at QE3, suggesting Nominal Income Targeting (somewhere blog friend EE cheers!) is available on the Free Banking blog today.
Among the alternatives to NGDP one in particular, the Dept. of Commerce's measure of (nominal) "final sales to domestic consumers" deserves particular attention. It is the measure that was favored by the late Bill Niskanen--yet another largely unrecognized but long-standing proponent of nominal income targeting--who offered several good reasons for preferring it to NGDP targeting, the most fundamental of which was that "demand for money in the United States appears to be more closely related to final purchases by Americans than to the dollar level of total output by Americans."
Posted by: jk at September 17, 2012 4:09 PM
September 12, 2012
Islamists Wag the Dog?
The catalyst for riots and embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya yesterday, resulting in the deaths of four American diplomats, reportedly was a low-budget film that "appeared on the internet" and "insulted Islam." Demands by Egyptian citizens that the Egyptian president "take action" have apparently borne fruit as he asked the Egyptian Embassy in the U.S. to take "all legal measures" against the makers of the film.
But first there is the problem of determining who the makers of the film really are.
A high-ranking Israeli official in Los Angeles on Wednesday said that after numerous inquiries, it appeared no one in the Hollywood film industry or in the local Israeli community knew of a Sam Bacile, the supposed director-writer of the incendiary film Innocence of Muslims.The official expressed some doubt that a person by that name actually existed.
DOESN'T MATTER. The American government, like the government of any free nation, isn't in the business of allowing or disallowing the published free speech of any of its citizens. The savage goatherds of Egypt and Libya don't seem to understand how that works.
Several lefties I know responded to my statement "this is an act of war" with "the attack on our embassies wasn't done by their governments, but by individuals who are not part of government; you can't hold their whole countries and their governments responsible for the actions of a few."
Why not? The purported reason for the attacks and murders was a film produced not by the American government, but by a handful of individuals in America not affiliated with the US government. If the film justifies an attack on our sovereign soil, how does the attack not justify the reverse?
OBAMA OWNS THIS WHOLE SCREW-UP, PART AND PARCEL. He and his administration fostered and encouraged the whole "Arab Spring" mess, putting Islamists in charge. We supported the Brotherhood in Egypt; we sponsored the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and enabled the new regime ("We came, we saw, he's dead." Anyone remember that?). Syria is now in slow-motion freefall; Turkey has moved from moderation to the Islamists; Afghanistan is a fly's eyelash from becoming a proxy state of Iran, which has made it clear they intend war on Israel. This administration has turned the Middle East into a powderkeg, and the SCOAMF is sitting on it to light up a joint.
The SCOAMF no-showed the entire last week of his daily intelligence briefings. But that's okay, say his mouthpieces, because even if he doesn't attend in person, he reads the written reports daily. REALLY? Then how is it he and his administration got caught flat-footed? Why was the Benghazi compound unprotected, and the nearby safegouse compromised.
"Foreign Policy President," my muscular buttocks...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 12, 2012 4:27 PMYou make a rational point KA. However, American public opinion would never support military action against Libya in response to this act of war on the part of al Qaeda. Nor should it. We should, however, "hold their whole country and their government responsible" in every civil means possible. One of these is to not post an ambassador without a metric buttload of marines. Hell, we don't post an ambassador in Great Britain without a detachment of marines. THAT, among many many other failures, is on the president.
Yes, Obama "owns" this, as I wrote in the previous post. And not only because of his policy failures but also because he "spiked the football" at least 21 times at the Democrat convention last week alone, capped by his vice-president's suggestion that Obama's killing of their leader should be on a bumper sticker: "Osama's Dead. GM's Alive."
If al Qaeda sought revenge it was generally against the United States, but specifically against a president who told them one thing but did quite another.
Posted by: johngalt at September 12, 2012 5:46 PMIf Obama has not attended a single briefing in the week leading up to 9/11 (especially following the killing of OBL), then THAT is a scandal!
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at September 12, 2012 6:53 PMDemands by Egyptian citizens that the Egyptian president "take action" have apparently borne fruit as he asked the Egyptian Embassy in the U.S. to take "all legal measures" against the makers of the film.
Wow, I wish all demands by foreign governments were that easy to resolve. All legal measures against an American accused of apostasy have already been taken.
Posted by: AndyN at September 12, 2012 7:08 PMYup. So long as the Egyptian president didn't mean sharia-legal.
Posted by: johngalt at September 12, 2012 7:31 PMThere's Still a War Going On
Mideast popular opinion, we were told by candidate Obama, is anti-American because they see us as meddlers in their local affairs. We based our troops in the land of Mecca, which was supposedly the final motivation for Osama bin Laden to found al Qaeda and target America, Americans and the World Trade Center on 9/11. President Obama promised to change all of this by bringing home the troops and extending an olive branch to Islamic states and shadow groups alike.
As long ago as 2010, when General Stanley McChrystal was recalled from the effort to "liberate" Afghanistan, the president sought to apply his strategy to the mideast conflict:
Barack Obama, apparently frustrated at the way the war is going, has reminded his national security advisers that while he was on the election campaign trail in 2008, he had advocated talking to America's enemies.(...)
Some Afghan policy specialists are sceptical about whether negotiations would succeed. Peter Bergen, a specialist on Afghanistan and al-Qaida, told a US Institute of Peace seminar in Washington last week that there were a host of problems with such a strategy, not least why the Taliban should enter negotiations "when they think they are winning".
At the same time he offers to "talk to America's enemies" he has intensified efforts to eliminate terrorist leaders, including a top al Qaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi. Killed by a U.S. missile in June, Senator Ben Nelson today suggested that Ambassador Christopher Stevens' killing yesterday in Libya may have been meant as revenge.
Did the president really believe he could conduct covert operations throughout the middle east without incurring the same kind of backlash his mentor Jeremiah Wright claimed to be the cause of 9/11? Whether it is better to fight terrorists or talk to them is less at issue with this administration than the schizophrenia that leads them to attempt both at the same time.
September 7, 2012
Obama Reelect Stragegy
All week at DNC2012 we heard "shared prosperity" from "shared responsibility" (since "shared sacrifice" doesn't poll as well.) Ayn Rand wrote about this when it used to be known as The Common Good.
And what is meant by "shared responsibility?" If you can bear the burden of your tax liability then your share of the burden isn't high enough.
More bold stances from Ryan that will pique the interests of small-l libertarians, new Federalists, States-Rights and Tenth Amendment supporters:
That ought to engender some interesting talk here...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 9, 2012 2:16 AMYeah, but.
Yeah, but it reminds me that Gov. Romney, on the head of the ticket, is dismissive. And that even Sen. Obama's promise to back the Feds off did not come to fruition.
I can't see this being productive politically or advancing the cause of liberty. Romney will be quizzed again now that professional unbiased journalists sense dissention in the GOP ranks. It makes me like Chairman Ryan a little more. Yeah, but. That really wasn't the problem.
I openly admit that my attitude is much more "Dagny Taggart" than "John Galt" but in 2012 I am a single-issue voter: National Debt.
That one issue also entails,
- Structural reform of government spending and budgeting.
- Tax rate reductions to move every individual and business to the left slope of the Laffer curve. Note that this implies different rate changes at different income categories.
My goal is to preserve the corrupt system of American governance and reform it to the open, transparent, pro-liberty nation it was originally intended.
Posted by: johngalt at September 10, 2012 3:39 PMSeptember 6, 2012
George F. Will - TEA Party "Radical"
I think it's fair to say that respected political columnist George F. Will was not in the vanguard of Obama criticism that found its first popular voice with the TEA Parties of February 17, 2009. I could be off base but I remember him being critical and dismissive of our dire warnings about the ideas, goals and dangers of the newly elected president. Nonetheless, yesterday Mr. Will became one of us.
In 1912, Wilson said, The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of governmental power. But as Kesler notes, Wilson never said the future of liberty consisted of such limitation.Instead, he said, every means . . . by which society may be perfected through the instrumentality of government should be used so that individual rights can be fitly adjusted and harmonized with public duties. Rights adjusted and harmonized by government necessarily are defined and apportioned by it. Wilson, the first transformative progressive, called this the New Freedom. The old kind was the Founders kind government existing to secure natural rights (see the Declaration) that preexist government. Wilson thought this had become an impediment to progress. The pedigree of Obamas thought runs straight to Wilson.
All we are say-ing, is hear what he says.*
* Yes, that is what he means, literally.
Welcome to the Party George. Have some BBQ and a Bud with us.
September 4, 2012
Idiot Quote of the Day
"The reason the economics fail in the US is not a failure of Wind, its a failure of greedy corporations to allocate costs in a manner that is for the common good. Energy is like air - it comes from God and should not be for-profit. COOPs are the most cost efficient way to deliver electricity. Remove the corporate overhead with multi-million dollar salaries for CEO's and the economics of wind are obvious."
Posted 3 hours ago as a comment on a blog post at one of my engineering trade magazines. The post itself is noteworthy, for it represents the first I can remember where the realities of alternative energy sources are given as much weight as the pollyanna political correctness.
And then there is the cost of wind per MW hr with the subsidy included. Without the subsidy - fuggedaboutit. And it looks like the forgetting will be happening soon. The tax credits for "alternative" (read unreliable) energy have not been renewed. What was that again? Renewables have not been renewed? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? There is a simple explanation.Wind power does not succeed by capturing wind. It succeeds by capturing government.
"... the economics of wind are obvious..."
I've got your "obvious" right here...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 4, 2012 3:43 PMAugust 28, 2012
Jon Voight: "Obama Turns JFK Mantra Upside Down"
Washington Examiner - Jon Voight: Obama turns JFK 'ask not' theme 'upside down'
Worse, he suggested that JFK wouldn't recognize his party. Voight said that the Democrats have turned upside down Kennedy's famous line, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."Obama, he charged, "is saying, 'Ask what your country can do for you. Your government will give you everything. We'll take care of you."
August 26, 2012
2016 Movie - Food for Thought
I watched the Dinesh D'Souza film 2016-Obama's America yesterday with family and friends. My brother and father were the driving force and dad thought it so important we all see it that he paid for all of us. Having been cautioned by JK's distaste for D'Souza's conspiratism I was eager to see and hear for myself what evidence Dinesh presents, and what hypothesis he has formed.
As a starting point I read this critical review by Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan. His instinct is to dismiss it as a rehash of prior Obama hatred, but some of his dissmissals ring hollow.
As readers of the Forbes article know, the central thesis of "2016" is that Obama's worldview -- his "compass," as D'Souza calls it -- was largely shaped by the anti-colonialist, anti-white and anti-Christian politics of Obama's supposedly radical Kenyan father. Never mind that Obama, growing up, spent precious little time with the man, who for most of his son's early life was estranged from Obama's mother. D'Souza trots out a professional psychologist to speculate on how the senior Obama's absence reinforced his influence, rather than weakened it.D'Souza makes it all sound almost plausible, but only if you're predisposed to believe that Obama hates America. It's bashing, all right, but with a velvet-gloved fist.
What is glossed over here is how he makes it sound plausible. That explanation is omitted and replaced with a cautionary "almost" to convince readers they need not bother to evaluate the plausability on their own. D'Souza explains that Obama's worldview was constructed not in the image of his absentee father, rather in the idealized image of him portrayed by his mother. Ann Dunham, an almost completely overlooked component of Barack's formative years, was as anti-American, or at least anti-capitalist and anti-"colonialist" as they come. So says D'Souza. He supports this claim with multiple facts. He concludes that diminishing America's influence in the world, in effect punishing America for its colonial heritage, is fully consistent with many of the previously inexplicable acts of President Obama: To repair America's "plunder" of foreign resources he gave billions of American taxpayer's dollars to Brazil and others to build up those nations' oil industries; to push back present-day colonialism he has sided with Argentina over Great Britain in the Falklands conflict; his mideast policy arguably reflects a prejudice against western influence in favor of native rule, whatever that may happen to become. Actions as seemingly unimportant as returning a bust of Winston Churchill and presenting gag gifts to the Queen of England also betray a lifelong hatred for that country, the once great colonial power which had colonized and "exploited" his father's native land - Kenya.
In the film D'Souza also shows how then candidate Obama diverted attention from these beliefs and tendencies by suggesting his goal was a racial reconciliation within America. When longtime mentor Reverend Jeremiah Wright's anti-Americanism threatened to derail his campaign, Barack gave a nationally televised speech on race relations and distanced himself from the anti-colonialist values. And when other formative influences were called into question his campaign skillfully portrayed them as good-ol American leftists rather than the world socialists they would likely call themselves. When the President lectures America about the unfairness of the "one percenters" Americans think of wealthy corporate titans standing unapologetically on the shoulders of the working or "middle" class. But to a world socialist, EVERY American is a one-percenter, right down to the homeless shelter or overpass dweller who may freely beg for change and sleep opon the paved streets of American cities, free from scourges like disease, garbage dumps and open sewage running through the streets of a typical third-world village, always with ready access to medical treatment-on-demand in the shiny hospitals of the most prosperous nation on earth.
My opinion of the validity of D'Souza's original conclusions is buttressed by Elizabeth Reynolds' 'D'Souza's "Rage" a Middling Psychoanalysis' in The Dartmouth Review. After labeling Dinesh as an "ultra-conservative member of the Dartmouth Class of 1983" and praising Obama's book 'Dreams From My Father' she presents a fair, perhaps more fair than she intended, interpretation of the facts in D'Souza's book. Her conclusion:
Perhaps D'Souza's anti-colonial theory does help explain, as the Weekly Standard put it, Obama's omnipotence at home and impotence abroad. It is a matter of the reader's opinion. Regardless, D'Souza brings something new to the table with his latest book. It seems clear to me that D'Souza has done his research, with his extensive history of colonial Africa and insightful background information on Obama's early life. His concept of investigating the impact of Barack Obama's father had potential, but I'm afraid that D'Souza's conclusion, that Obama is trying to essentially destroy America, ultimately takes it too far.
Ironically, it is Reynolds who takes it too far for "essentially destroying America" is not D'Souza's claimed goal for Barack Obama. He merely wants to diminish our nation, not destroy it. The call to action at the end of the film? Every American must decide for himself if America should be diminished - and vote accordingly.
On entertainment value - 2 stars.
The music was good and the cinematography of exotic locales almost made one feel he was there. But really, how long can one enjoy listening to strange people speaking with strange accents?
On "must-see-ness" - 5 stars.
(Out of 5.) If he is right, don't you want to know?
In reply to "did not" I might ask an Obama supporter why he asked a non-partisan commission (Simpson-Bowles) to develop a workable debt reduction strategy and then completely ignored their advice. "Can you tell me one reason why you believe the president seriously wants to lower the national debt?"
Big enough? Non-partisan enough?
(He [Obama] wants to raise taxes on the rich. "Okay, that's eighty billion dollars of debt reduction per year, assuming the rich agree to keep doing what they're doing. How many eighty billions are there in sixteen trillion?")
Posted by: johngalt at August 27, 2012 2:35 PMDo I want to know? I don't know. Whether he is wedded to failed policies because of his academic background and ignorance (likely) or willfully wants to damage America -- does it matter?
My Dad used to correct me "you can't look into a man's heart." I think that advice may be handy here.
Then he'd suggest I get a haircut...
Posted by: jk at August 27, 2012 7:32 PMGreat review! The Refugee will likely save his money, as he does not need to be convinced of something he already believes. However, it does start a very worthwhile conversation in the broader electorate.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at August 27, 2012 8:21 PMBarack Obama's academic background, such as we know of it, started at home and was reinforced by every leftist who crossed his path, either academically or socially. Barack Obama may indeed be ignorant to the efficacy of Austrian economics but not because he is an ignorant man.
I never claimed to be looking into his heart. Supposedly he showed us that himself in 'Dreams.' But there exists a tidy triangle connecting the points of the "Global Fairness" Movement, young Barack's friends and family, and President Obama's actual policies and actions.
Posted by: johngalt at August 28, 2012 11:59 AMAugust 23, 2012
Telegenic President
August 20, 2012
JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
Obama brought to the White House its first ever official videographer, Arun Chaudhary.
That should put those rumors of narcissism to rest.
August 17, 2012
Quote of the Day
No, no, no, he didn't.
Please tell me White House spokesman Jay Carney didn't attack Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity budget today for not balancing the budget fast enough, as White House reporter for Roll Call Steven Dennis tweeted. -- James Pethokoukis
August 13, 2012
Another Election-Year Movie Trailer
This one a documentary, not a fiction. Based on the book by Dinesh D'Souza.
Y'know, I expect my friends on the other side to admit when one of theirs, say a Chris Matthews for example, goes off the rails. I'll reciprocate with D'Souza.
He is a smart guy and I have enjoyed two of his books and many of his columns over the years. But he has descended into a conspiratorial darkness that I don't appreciate and have no desire to defend.
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you."
Posted by: johngalt at August 13, 2012 6:39 PMFrustrating because he is certainly right on many many things but I feel I have to discard all. Sad.
Posted by: jk at August 13, 2012 6:46 PMSometimes I can be pretty dense. This feels like one of those times.
D'Souza is a smart guy with a solid track record but this one movie, billed as a documentary that "shows how Obama's goal to downsize America is in plain sight but ignored by everyone" causes you to disavow him?
You have seen or read enough to classify this as "conspiratorial darkness?" The author was a fellow at AEI and Stanford's Hoover Institution. The book has five customer reviews, none negative. Hmmm.
It might be easier for me to understand your summary dismissal if I didn't know there is a prominent political movement that endorses global fairness.
Posted by: johngalt at August 14, 2012 2:18 PMNo. I have discarded D'Souza long ago, and as soon as I saw his name and heard the portentous music, I moved along.
You may try to rehabilitate him in my eye -- I cannot remember all of the missteps that distanced us. It's funny to have you step up because he is a very orthodox Christian, and famous Creationist. I'm glad to see your branching out.
I owe you a better enumeration of nuttiness. Looking at his Wikipedia I see:
With regard to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, D'Souza asserted that the abuse to the prisoners was due to the "sexual immodesty of liberal America" and that Abu Ghraib reflected "the values of a debauched liberalism run amok."
I liked his "What's So Great About America" and "Letters to a Young Conservative" even though the latter was a swipe at my man Christopher Hitchens.
I've just heard a few too many bombastic, outré statements from him over the years and have tuned him out.
A perfect parallel with Ann Coulter. I enjoyed a few of her books too but I don't enjoy what I see as rhetorical overreach.
August 1, 2012
You can fix this Mr. President!
Unless of course he believes that American Olympic athletes are "those at the very top" and therefore deserve to have one-third of their Olympic honoraria confiscated by their government.
Americans who win bronze will pay a $2 tax on the medal itself. But the bronze comes with a modest prize--$10,000 as an honorarium for devoting your entire life to being the third best athlete on the planet in your chosen discipline. And the IRS will take $3,500 of that, thank you very much.Silver medalists will owe $5,385. You win a gold? Timothy Geithner will be standing there with his hand out for $8,986.
So as of this writing, swimmer Missy Franklin--who's a high school student--is already on the hook for almost $14,000. By the time she's done in the pool, her tab could be much higher. (That is, unless she has to decline the prize money to placate the NCAA--the only organization in America whose nuttiness rivals the IRS.)
July 30, 2012
Change that Works
I don't remember everything from 1985 - Ronald Reagan was president and I was graduating from college - but another vivid memory is the US Defense Department's decision to replace the venerable John Browning designed Colt 1911 pistol as the standard duty issue firearm for all armed forces. It was the height of a nascent competitive bid movement in government procurement and not enough attention was paid to quality or to a host of other issues. The Pentagon seemed to hope that making a change to a cheaper, foreign-made, smaller caliber pistol would deliver the same excellent service as its predecessor while also showing that they were a modern, non-discriminatory, progressive organization willing to take the "smarter" path. They selected the Beretta M9, a 9mm pistol made in Italy, to replace the seventy-four year old Colt. Now, some twenty seven years later, at least one branch of the U.S. armed forces is willing to admit a mistake. Fox News: Sticking to their guns: Marines place $22.5M order for the Colt .45 M1911
Some reports suggest Marines are not happy with their main Beretta M9s for their lack of accuracy and stopping power. With M1911's now supplying Special Ops, growing interest may lead to a better solution."To have the 1911 selected again for U. S. Forces 101 years after its initial introduction is just an incredible testament to the timeless design and effectiveness of the Colt 1911," Dinkel said. "This is truly a gratifying contract award."
Now, more than any time I can remember, it is reassuring to know that some Americans are willing to admit when they make a mistake - and act quickly to fix the problem the best way they know how.
I am delighted to see the Marines returning to the venerable .45. My father, who was in the USMC for two and a half decades, once told me the reason that the 1911 was the sidearm of choice of the Corps was because even after you'd expended all your ammunition, you still had a weapon; you could beat the enemy to death with an empty .45.
Sort of just to make the point, and have fun while I'm at it: http://is.gd/NtyeEy
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 31, 2012 12:35 AMJuly 18, 2012
You Didn't Write That!
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmmmmm!
Posted by: johngalt at July 18, 2012 7:05 PMAyn Rand just called. She said to tell Obama's TelePrompTer technician the same thing - and she's waiting for a royalty check for everything he plagiarized from her.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 18, 2012 7:36 PMWell played, JG. I think you just won the Internet Snappy Rejoinder of the Year Award for that. When I plariarized that comeback, trust me, you will get full credit.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 19, 2012 5:10 PMAnd it only took me the better part of 21 hours to come up with it! In our family we call that "L'esprit de l'escalier."
Posted by: johngalt at July 19, 2012 6:00 PMJuly 17, 2012
More Cowbell!
It's not that "more cowbell" is overused, it's that it's wrongly used. Gene Healy correctly ties it to the President:
There you have it. Contemplating the policy wreckage that surrounds him, the president has concluded that what this country needs is a fresh injection of presidential hope. Like "more cowbell" in the old "Saturday Night Live" skit, it's the magic ingredient that makes everything better.
Obama considers himself a sophisticated and nuanced guy, so you wouldn't think his descent into self-parody would be quite so unsubtle.
Anyone else out there for the explanation that a lack of storytelling, explaining and inspirational speeches was the great sin of the Obama presidency? According to CBS's Mark Knoller, in his first two years in office, the president clocked 902 speeches and statements and gave 265 interviews. Anybody who talks that much runs the risk of saying too much. Case in point, this gem from the president's speech Friday in Roanoke: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Inspiring
Saw a bumper sticker today pushing some woman's car from Longmont to Boulder. It read: OBAMA CARES.
Posted by: johngalt at July 17, 2012 10:24 PMPrius, Volvo, or Volt?
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 18, 2012 7:40 PMHeh. You obviously don't know Boulder since you didn't ask if it was a Subaru. Every morning I'm escorted by at least three of them on my drive in from Longmont. But no, it was a run-of-the-mill Chevy - white four-door something or other.
Posted by: johngalt at July 19, 2012 12:44 PMJuly 13, 2012
One for Brother HB...
All Instapundit, all the time today. But this book was a fave, and at $1.99 I am looking forward to recapturing my youth.
July 2, 2012
Forest Fire Analysis Paralysis
Given the utter devastation that can result from forest fires near urban areas, and the near unanimity about why their frequency and magnitude is peaking, one may wonder why no efforts to reduce the threat seem to be under way. The good news is that 11 years ago, five federal government agencies joined efforts to create an integrated wildland fire managment system called Fire Program Analysis or FPA. A comprehensive computer modeling system, FPA would "help them weigh the benefits of fire suppression versus forest thinning, evaluate where to station people and equipment and decide how many planes to buy." The bad news is that the effort was undertaken by federal government agencies. Denver Post:
The idea was to figure out how much money to devote to fire suppression, and to reducing fuels to improve overall forest health, and where to do it.But when the tool was used for a preliminary analysis in 2006, not everyone liked what it found, Botti said. The results showed which areas needed more resources and which needed less, throwing into uncertainty budgets used for staff programs and some administrative overhead, he said.
For instance, one recommendation was to move resources from coastal Alaska, where wildfires are relatively rare, to California, where they regularly wreak havoc in populated areas, Botti said.
"We're talking about a couple of billion dollars in federal wildland-fire funds here," he said. "Any time you tinker with that, it becomes political in a hurry. There was pushback from the bureaus that the answer was not acceptable.
Part of the problem turned out to be the presumption that a computer model could provide a sort of holy grail of fire management planning.
"Quite honestly, I don't think there was any plot" to scuttle the original system, he said.But he agreed that people in Forest Service field offices feared -- and still fear -- a computer model that could deprive them of people and equipment.
Naaaah, nobody ever invests too much confidence in the pure and objective conclusions of comprehensive computer models!
But the failure of the computer modeling solution seems to me merely a scapegoat.
Asked how this year's fire outbreak might be different if the original FPA were in place as planned, Rideout said: "I think the responses to fire would be more cost-effective. I'm not sure whether we would have gotten to these fires any faster or later or better, or with less expense."
"More cost-effective" but not sure there would be "less expense?" How's that again?
Most officials seem to agree on the basic problem:
In 2008, the GAO reported to Congress that federal wildland-fire costs had tripled since the mid-1990s to more than $3 billion a year, citing three factors: "uncharacteristic accumulations of vegetation" from fire suppression; increasing human development in wildlands; and severe drought "in part due to climate change."
Setting aside the suggested causes for accumulations of vegetation and severe drought, both are clearly evident conditions. So why has the firefighting aircraft fleet been cut from 40 planes to 9? And why, during this period when the air fleet was dismantled, have federal wildland-fire costs tripled? Unfortunately, sometimes technology prevents the application of common sense: More potential for fire - expand fire mitigation and suppression resources. QED.
June 28, 2012
Constitution 1 - Taxpayers 0
Fellow freedom advocates, do not panic. Step back from the ledge. By a single vote the Supreme Court has avoided a catastrophic expansion of the Commerce Clause. The rest, as they say, is politics. Including Chief Justice Roberts' ruling:
"If an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes," Roberts writes. He adds that this means "the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance. Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning an income."
Hmmm, that's pretty thin Jim. The minority counters:
Justice Anthony Kennedy, usually the court's swing vote, dissented, reading from the bench that he and three conservative justices believe "the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety." In a 65-page dissent, he and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dismissed Roberts' arguments, writing that there is a "mountain of evidence" that the mandate is not a tax. "To say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it," they write.
Very persuasive. So my conclusion is that Roberts just didn't want to be villified as an "unelected emperor" who "took away America's free [unearned] health care." I agree with Yahoo News' Oliver Knox who writes-
But while Obama initially kept quiet, the early response from the law's main supporters and detractors showed that the court's ruling had essentially offered the Affordable Care Act only a reprieve, and that the law's fate was entwined with the results of the presidential election.
Finally, does anyone suppose that news outlets are falling all over themselves to get the "Obamacare Constitutional" message out as quickly as possible?
No mention of the name of that tenth justice.
UPDATE: As of 11:57 am EDT that headline has been changed to: Individual mandate survives a 5-4 vote with Roberts voting to keep it
Even better! Salon dude suddenly realizes that the crafty Roberts has lost a battle to win the war: Link.
Posted by: Robert at June 28, 2012 2:57 PMI admit the motive I attribute to Roberts is pure speculation but I stand by it. I think he did it not for vanity but for what he perceives to be best for the national polity. The matter can only be justly resolved, he may believe, through democratic election. This is a fair opinion to hold, for any individual NOT a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America as Constituted.
Further thought has me spoiling for a fight over the notion that Roberts' position is defensible under the law- Prior to the inequity of the Sixteenth Amendment the Constitution prohibited unequal taxation, and even after that amendment it allows inequity only in taxation on incomes. The Obamacare "tax" applies only to the class of persons who are uninsured and is therefore not a uniform tax, but punishment for a personal act contravening the wishes of the Legislature. It summarily declares such persons guilty of some crime and punishes them without benefit of a judicial trial. It is effectively a bill of attainder, expressly prohibited under Article I. Section 9.
I submit that this line of reasoning is, at the very least, as defensible as Chief Justice Roberts'.
Posted by: johngalt at June 28, 2012 3:07 PM@Robert: YES! I was just going to post that -- must read!
And most closely resembles my personal early opinion. Getting rid of Wickard would be even better for liberty than getting rid of the ACA.
@jg: Book me passage for two to your world, bro -- it would be a great place to live.
Seriously, while you are correct, 'round these parts, Congress's taxing authority is limitless. Much better examples of bills of attainder have passed with little scrutiny. Let me say "defensible" in the context of Solum's gestalt.
Slate guy: "Roberts' genius was in pushing this health care decision through without attaching it to the coattails of an ugly, narrow partisan victory. Obama wins on policy, this time. And Roberts rewrites Congress' power to regulate, opening the door for countless future challenges. In the long term, supporters of curtailing the federal government should be glad to have made that trade."
i.e. To benefit the "national polity." I still think interpreting it as a tax was incorrect but can now forgive Roberts for the error. Especially given Sarah Palin's latest Tweet: "Thank you, SCOTUS. This Obamacare ruling fires up the troops as America's eyes are opened!"
Posted by: johngalt at June 28, 2012 3:24 PMThe Solum piece is very instructive brother. Thank you. Mine was certainly "a pre-New-Deal vision of real and substantial limits on Congress's enumerated powers" along with Justice Thomas. But as an agreeable sort I can be persuaded to join forces with the "alternative gestalt." [Fourth from last paragraph.]
Posted by: johngalt at June 28, 2012 3:42 PMJune 26, 2012
All Hail Taranto!
June 18, 2012
Obama cuts Fire Fighting Aircraft
According to blogger Sean Paige at the Monkey Wrenching America blog, a contract with Aero Union, a fire fighting company with seven 4-engine slurry bombers, was canceled during renewal negotiations in August, 2011. No reason was given, just "We dont want the airplanes, have a nice life." This brought the US Forest Service air tanker fleet down to 11 heavy aircraft, and today it's only 9. The report cites Rep. Dan Lundgren(R-CA) saying the fleet was 40 planes a decade ago.
This reminds me of that old lefty bumper sticker, "Wouldn't it be great if the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?" Apparently, now they do.
June 14, 2012
Damned Lies!
I'd suggest pronouncing the title as three syllables, but it is of course up to the individual.
What is not up to the individual is accepting a falsehood just because it is repeated. Case in point is "the auto bailout was necessary and successful because there was no private capital available." Ergo, the government bailouts were a huge success. Administration flacks mean "there was no private capital stupid enough to overpay and preserve overpriced UAW labor rates and work rules." Now we get closer to the truth.
When people ask for a specific example of the President acting outside the Constitution, I go first to the auto bailout. The preferred debt holders were deprived of their Fifth Amendment right to property without due process as their value was transferred to a preferred political constituency that would not have enjoyed a preference in court.
James Sherk and Todd Zywicki have a superb guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal today: Obama's United Auto Workers Bailout. It details many things that went wrong: unequal treatment for debt holders, preservation of unsustainable labor costs -- but also the cost to the treasury. The entire piece is awesome on stilts, but this comparison at the end really hit home:
Instead, President Obama gave over $26 billion to the UAW--more money than the U.S spent on foreign aid last year and 50% more than NASA's budget. None of that money kept factories running. Instead it sustained the above-average compensation of members of an influential union, sparing them from most of the sacrifices typically made in bankruptcy. Such spending does not serve the common good. President Obama did not bail out the auto industry. He bailed out the United Auto Workers.
June 11, 2012
No Reasonable Democrats?
The problem is that many voters (myself included) don't think government jobs are just another sector. We want the number of housing and manufacturing jobs to keep growing--the more the merrier, all things being equal. We don't want the number government jobs to keep growing, in part because we pay for them without the assurances, offered in a competitive private economy, that we're getting our moneys worth or that the jobs are necessary at all. It's one thing to boost government jobs as a temporary stimulus measure. It's another thing to never let federal, state and local governments shrink to a more sustainable size. -- Mickey Kaus
June 10, 2012
Quote of the Day
This is all he does now. But hey, unlike those inbred monarchies with their dukes and marquesses and whatnot, at least he gets out among the masses. Why, in a typical week, youll find him at a fundraiser at George Clooney's home in Los Angeles with Barbra Streisand and Salma Hayek. These are people who are in touch with the needs of ordinary Americans because they have played ordinary Americans in several of their movies. And then only four days later the president was in New York for a fundraiser hosted by Ricky Martin, the only man on the planet whose evolution on gayness took longer than Obama's. It's true that moneyed celebrities in, say, Pocatello or Tuscaloosa have not been able to tempt the president to hold a lavish fundraiser in Idaho or Alabama, but he does fly over them once in a while. Why, only a week ago, he was on Air Force One accompanied by Jon Bon Jovi en route to a fundraiser called Barack on Broadway. -- Mark SteynThe whole piece is hilarious. HT: Insty
June 8, 2012
Doing Fine!
I read 100 tweets on this and just assumed it was a gotcha moment. James Pethokoukis brings the embed and it is cut so abruptly I assumed some Koch-Brothers-funded hack had removed the entire context.
Indeed he or she did. The whole quote is 1000 times worse!
The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Often times cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.
That is not out of context -- the private sector is "fine" thanks to the Administration's bold and thoughtful policies! It's GOVERNMENT that is being starved!
The humanity!
His rear end is not particularly large - so precisely where is he pulling these enormous numbers from?
4.3 million jobs? 800,000 just this year? So all these unemployed people are just a figment of our imagination?
I won't be the first to call BS on this, nor the last, but it's BS all the same. Or as someone else once said to him more eloquently: "YOU LIE!"
Posted by: Keith Arnold at June 8, 2012 5:05 PM"We" created 4.3 million jobs? WE? Aside from the sheer political stupidity of the "private sector" remark, that really bugs me. "We" probably killed a million potential jobs through ObamaCare/Keystone/EPA etc. I second Keith: "YOU LIE!"
Posted by: Robert at June 8, 2012 8:35 PM@Robert: thanks for the comment. I know every ThreeSourcer will enjoy clicking through your url Robert A. Heinlein: Commentary on His Life and Work.
Fun to watch the Democratic surrogates on Kudlow & Company and the "walk back" yesterday. As I said, John Hinderaker at PowerLine said, and Stephen Moore said on Kudlow: he did not "misspeak." The entire sentence conveys a single idea that the real problem is a lock of growth of government.
Yes, he could have phrased the first part better, I'll let him walk back "doing fine." But he said -- explicitly -- that sub 2% GDP growth can be tolerated but that local government cuts are the problem.
I think we have a choice in November.
I often put things in perspective, and this is a good one to do it for.
Obama, as he's wont to do, is cherry-picking start and end dates. He's included the first couple of months of this year that historically see more jobs created. But the facts of the matter are that job growth is slowing down again, and even the "good" job growth is nothing like what we expected in a genuine recovery.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
When taxes are going up in half a year, who the hell wants to risk hiring anybody?
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at June 10, 2012 12:46 PMJune 4, 2012
President Obama's War on Heat and Light
Last week I wrote about the Denver Post's utter bewilderment that presidential candidate Mitt Romney would give a stump speech in rural Craig, Colorado (after all, there haven't been any layoffs there ... yet) and countered with the news coverage of the event by Routt County's Steamboat Today.
Today that much more objective publication runs an editorial by Rob Douglas that delves deeper into the contrast that Governor Romney is offering.
Agree or disagree with Obamas goal, one fact is undeniable. When Obamas intent became public, every man and woman working in coal-related jobs realized that Obama had placed a bulls-eye on their livelihood. Many of those men and women call the Yampa Valley home.So when Romney sought the perfect venue to confront Obamas claim of an all-of-the-above energy policy, Northwest Colorado was a natural choice. Romney is calculating that he can increase his odds in November by siding with folks employed in fossil fuel industries in states like Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania all battleground states this year.
After all, Romney has a point when he argues that Obama has continued his war against coal.
This spring, having watched his cap-and-trade legislation die in the U.S. Senate when Democrats abandoned the bill in 2010, Obama bypassed Congress and used the Environmental Protection Agency to start implementing mercury emission, cross-state pollution and greenhouse gas regulations that will kill the coal industry.
But Douglas articulates a much more important message - one I have recognized but as yet not really written about: Coal is not the target. Pragmatic politicians cannot merely "sacrifice" the coal industry conifident in the fact that lost jobs will be replaced by growth in the natural gas industry. If coal is ever defeated the next environmental villain will be natural gas.
Coincidentally, on the same day Romney was speaking to the crowd gathered at Alice Pleasant Park in Craig, the Wall Street Journal reported that, according to the International Energy Agency, global exploitation of shale gas reserves could transform the worlds energy supply by lowering prices, improving security and curbing carbon dioxide emissions, but the industry might be stopped in its tracks if it doesnt work harder to resolve environmental concerns.Of course, everything after the but in that last sentence is where the battle lies. Because as can be witnessed even here in the Yampa Valley, there are some who will never accept fossil fuels as part of Americas energy policy. And just as coal is under attack, these individuals and organizations are mounting battles to prohibit the use of fracking to extract oil and gas the same oil and gas that Americans have been led to believe could replace coal as an energy source.
And hydraulic fracturing is only the first battlefront in the coming War on Natural Gas. That little "feature" of natural gas called "curbing carbon dioxide emissions" will be its undoing for natural gas is not without CO2 emissions, and once its use has been predicated on reducing that "pollutant" it can hardly remain a viable energy source since it can also be shown to be a "dirty" fuel.
"First they came for the coal, and I said nothing."
Not me. I *heart* coal.
June 2, 2012
Our Tough-guy President
Blog friend Terri is reading the NYTimes so you don't have to.
I remember being concerned in 2008 that President-elect Obama would not be suitably tough with our nation's enemies. Like Terri, I don't now know what to make of our droneslayer emperor.
On the plus side, it does help to know that when a President becomes a president he/she will (usually) make the decisions that are needed to be made to keep us safe.
On the down side....what the hell? Do words exist only to twist in the wind while the President does whatever the hell he wants to do no matter what he said previously?
Was that one of them rhetorical questions?
May 31, 2012
2012 Social Security Stimulus Package
From a good friend, via email:
WATCH YOUR MAILBOX!!!! Just wanted to let you know - today I received my 2012 Social Security Stimulus Package. It contained two tomato seeds, cornbread mix, a prayer rug, a machine to blow smoke up my butt, 2 discount coupons to KFC, an "Obama Hope & Change" bumper sticker, and a "Blame it on Bush" poster for the front yard.The directions were in Spanish.
Watch for yours soon!
May 26, 2012
A new -ocracy
It must be a real word, I read it on the internet.
Think of it as "Kleptocracy for Dummies."
Posted by: johngalt at May 26, 2012 3:16 PMReality of the word notwithstanding, it sadly reeks of verisimilitude.
Posted by: jk at May 26, 2012 3:58 PMKleptocracy is a real word. According to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kleptocracy) it dates to 1819.
Their definition is "government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed; also : a particular government of this kind."
Posted by: Harold D. Thomas at July 24, 2012 9:27 AMMay 25, 2012
All Hail Strassel!
It seems a long time since I have linked to Kim Strassel. I will remedy that today.
Administration surrogates are actively touting the President's "job creation" in the auto bailouts, ramping up "investments in green energy" and questioning Governor Romney's claims from Bain. It seems that he is not responsible for jobs at Staples after he left, yet he is vilified for the steelworkers who got laid off after he left. Whatever.
Strassel steps back to compare the President as Venture-Capitalist-in-Chief:
So, take your pick. Mr. Obama's knock on free enterprise is that it is driven by "profit," and that this experience makes Mr. Romney too heartless to be president. The alternative is an Obama capitalism that is driven by political favoritism, government subsidies, mandates, and billions in taxpayer underwriting--and that really is a path to bankruptcies and layoffs. If the president wants to put all 3,545 green stimulus jobs he's created up against Bain's record, he should feel free.
Thing you'll read to want whole, certainly the.
May 24, 2012
Cool Econ Graphs
Reagan famously asked, "Are you better off than you were four years ago" to defeat incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Mitt is using a similar strategy against today's incumbent president. This graph shows why it might be a winning play. Substantially more people are at a diminished income than there were at any time in the last 50 years, and there's a long way to go back to the baseline.
There are many more excellent graphs in the graph gallery of the Calculated Risk Blog.
May 22, 2012
Why don't more people get it?
That's the question dagny asked me at the conclusion of last night's inaugural Liberty on the Rocks, Flatirons Chapter meeting. I could do no better than my universal explanation for why so many people make so many bad choices, Ayn Rand's admonishment that, "Reason is not automatic. Those who deny its existence cannot be swayed by it."
Today I was given a much more precise answer to the same question by a guest of 850 KOA's Mike Rosen. Michael Prell is on a promo tour for his 2011 book, "Underdogma: How America's Enemies Use Our Love for the Underdog to Trash American Power." Prell's premise is that our country's electoral preference for collectivist policies stems not from ignorance, but from a healthy American proclivity to root for the underdog. From the Amazon book review:
David versus Goliath, the American Revolutionaries, "The Little Engine That Could," Team USAs "Miracle on Ice," the Star Wars Rebel Alliance, Rocky Balboa, the Jamaican bobsled team and the meek inheriting the Earth.Everyone, it seems, loves an underdog. Why is that?
We begin life tiny and helpless, at the mercy of those who are bigger and more powerful than us: parents and guardians who tell us what to eat, what to wear, how to behave (even when to sleep and wake up). From childhood into adulthood, were told what to do by those who wield more powerour parents, teachers, bosses government. So naturally, we have a predisposition to resent the overdogs and root for the little guy.
But this tendency, which international political consultant and human rights activist Michael Prell calls underdogma, can be very dangerous both to America and to the world at large.
In Underdogma, Prell, who has worked world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Australian and Canadian prime ministers and the Dalai Lama, explores our love/hate relationship with power within our culture and our politics. Underdogma explains seeming mysteries such as why:
Almost half of Americans blamed President Bush for the attacks of 9/11, even while the American media described the architect of these attacks as thoughtful about his cause and craft and folksy.
Gays and lesbians protest those who protect gay rights (America, Israel), while championing those who outlaw and execute homosexuals (Palestine).
Environmentalists focus their rage on America, even though China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The United Nations elevates countries such as Sudan to full membership on the UNs Commission on Human Rights, even as the ethnic cleansing of Darfur proceeds.Tracing the evolution of this belief system through human historyancient Greece to Marxism to the dawn of political correctnessPrell shows what continuing with this collective mindset means for our future. While America and its president increasingly exalt the meek and apologize for their power, Americas competitors and enemies are moving in a different direction. China is projected to overtake the U.S. economically by 2027 and is ready to move into the position of hegemon, and radical Islamists are looking to extend their global territory, taking any sign of weakness as a chance to attack.
America must return to its founding spirit, and underdogma must stop nowour nation depends on it.
This is a fascinating explanation that I'm inclined to take at face value until proven otherwise. However, I don't think I'm on board with the conclusion that underdogma "must stop now." I called this tendency healthy and will stand on that position. What must stop is allowing the Progressive left to continue casting the collective as underdog to the individual - any individual. Underdogma is a force that can and should be used for good. The notion that a gang, or state or interest group is less powerful than individual citizens is so preposterous that all can see it, if only some light is given.
It looks like a great book and could be an excellent topic at a future Liberty on the Rocks.
I have a much more declassee way I phrase a similar thought: The left loves people who crap in the dirt.
It's the only way to explain their love of Palestinian Refugees who kill gays and are, can we say, less than 100% committed to women's equality -- compared with pluralist, übertolearnt Israel.
So while I am all for appreciating the underdog, I suggest that the impulse must be subordinated to reason.
Book sounds interesting -- I'll risk one more mention of "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt as the best answer I've encountered to dagny's question.
May 20, 2012
Quote of the Day
After all, if your first book is an exploration of racial identity and has the working title "Journeys In Black And White," being born in Hawaii doesn't really help. It's entirely irrelevant to the twin pillars of contemporary black grievance -- American slavery and European imperialism. To 99.99 percent of people, Hawaii is a luxury vacation destination and nothing else.
Whereas Kenya puts you at the heart of what, in an otherwise notably orderly decolonization process by the British, was a bitter and violent struggle against the white man's rule. Cool! The composite chicks dig it, and the literary agents. . . . In a post-modern America, the things that Gatsby attempted to fake -- an elite schooling -- Obama actually had; the things that Gatsby attempted to obscure -- the impoverished roots -- merely add to Obama's luster. Gatsby claimed to have gone to Oxford, but nobody knew him there because he never went; Obama had a million bucks' worth of elite education at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law, and still nobody knew him ("Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him"). In that sense, Obama out-Gatsbys Gatsby. -- Mark Steyn
May 17, 2012
Get You Inner Birther On
Promo material for Barack Obama's (later abandoned) book, circa 1991:
Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicagos South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.
Born where?
Keanae, brother. Keanae, HI. It's just a typo.
In 1991 they didn't have the internet to make sure they got all of these details right.
Kidding aside, here's the salient point of the Breitbart story:
The errant Obama biography in the Acton & Dystel booklet does not contradict the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate. Moreover, several contemporaneous accounts of Obama's background describe Obama as having been born in Hawaii.The biography does, however, fit a pattern in which Obama--or the people representing and supporting him--manipulate his public persona.
And...
Regardless of the reason for Obama's odd biography, the Acton & Dystel booklet raises new questions as part of ongoing efforts to understand Barack Obama--who, despite four years in office remains a mystery to many Americans, thanks to the mainstream media.Posted by: johngalt at May 17, 2012 3:03 PM
May 16, 2012
"Forward"
I just discovered Svetlana Kunin, a Russian emmigrant who has apparently been writing for Investor's Editorial Page for some time now. Playing off of President Obama's official re-election campaign slogan, Forward, today's offering is entitled, "Obama's Slogan 'Forward' Is Used By Socialists Too."
"Too?"
After introducing the motto "Forward!" -- identical to slogans of Socialists of the past and present-- Obama rolled out an imaginary vision of Julia, in which the government is involved in all aspects of a person's life.No need for virtual reality. There is a real-life timeline for an average person in a society where the government plans, regulates and provides free services for its citizens in countries past and present the USSR, Cuba, etc.
(...)
I personally lived that life in the former USSR until age 30. When my young family of three immigrated to the USA, my parents stayed behind. After botched medical procedures in a free hospital, my father screamed from pain for three days before he died at age 70.
Like President Obama, Russians also evolved on the gay rights issue. Homosexuality used to be outlawed in the Socialist Soviet Union. Today it is not a crime in Russia. Even so, facing an alarming decline in number of newborns and an eventual demographic disaster, they do not play with the redefinition of marriage.
Otherwise there's a lot in common among an Obama administration striving for total government involvement in people's lives, the communists of the former Soviet Union and modern Socialists in Russia.
May 10, 2012
Quote of the Day
On hearing of the death of the great French diplomat Talleyrand, his Austrian rival Metternich is reputed to have said: "What did he mean by that?" Perhaps we can be too cynical in assessing politicians' motives. And so maybe we should just give President Obama credit for doing the right thing in endorsing marriage equality, and leave it at that. -- David BoazNakedly political, but my Facebook friends are in rapture. What do I do -- pick a fight?
In completely unrelated news, the President has a $15 Million (40K/plate) fundraiser planned tonight with George Clooney and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Like I said, completely off-topic. Don't know why I even brought it up at all...
Posted by: jk at May 10, 2012 12:08 PMI'm going to temper that "net benefit for liberty" thought for a moment. That might have some validity if anyone believed him, but it's JK's words that frame this: "nakedly political."
In 2008, the SCOAMF campaigned saying he was against homosexual marriage; four years later, his stance has now "evolved." The truth of the matter is that, whatever he actually believes about the issue (if in fact he does actually have a belief about the issue), what he's done is given the most authoritative voices on both sides of the homosexual marriage debate the right to presume it's the pandering of political theater. Neither side believes that either of his pronouncements represent a closely-held belief; both sides recognize that he says what he says, when he says it, for political reasons.
In 2008, he stated he was against homosexual marriage to placate mainstream America's fears that he was too left, too radical, and he was casting himself as a moderate centrist; history is now the proof of theory, and all but the blindest among us now admit that was a sham. Now in 2012, he knows the evangelicals aren't going to vote for him, so that's a lost cause. Moderate America has abandoned him. It costs him nothing to offend those groups, because he's not getting them back no matter what he does. What he's facing is a very motivated right wanting him out, and a disillusioned left that he needs to get into a voting booth. There aren't enough dead voters in America to get him to 52% this year without the left, and the left is complaining that the SCOAMF isn't left enough.
In 2008, the McCain candidacy persuaded a lot of conservatives to stay home on election day; a pumped-up Obama voting bloc gave us the result we have now. This year, those roles are reversed; desperate to give the left a reason to pull the handle for him, we get stuff like this. "Romney won't back homosexual marriage! That's why you've got to vote for me!"
This might be the "net benefit for liberty" you're looking for if someone were saying this on the basis of principle. The SCOAMF is not that person. He's given everyone on both sides the right to read this as cynical pandering,
Posted by: Keith Arnold at May 10, 2012 12:33 PMAs Ed Morrissey says:
"And for all of those who cheered this flip-flop, here's a question: wouldn't it have been more effective in North Carolina had Obama made this announcement before Amendment One went to the polls? According to Obama himself, he'd already changed position on same-sex marriage. An announcement last week or the week before that, with a personal plea to African-American voters, might have made a difference. Instead, Obama hid, the White House fibbed, and Amendment One won easily in a state that Obama carried in 2008. Regardless of whatever else this might be called, leadership isn't among the terms that come to mind."
I'm really enjoying the discussion on these pages - and staying out of it.
As for your Facebook friends, they claim that gay marriage is a civil right because, among other things, gay individuals were born into their circumstance. Is this any different than wealthy individuals being born into a prosperous family? Don't they have a civil right to equal taxation? To equal earned income tax credits? To food stamps?
Sure, some wealthy people choose to be rich but the vast majority of them are just following their nature. Right?
Posted by: johngalt at May 10, 2012 3:04 PMAnd you were doing a superlative job of staying out of it, jg...
I'm clearly not too good at cheerleading for this Administration. I do find his Wednesday position more appealing than his Monday position. And I agree with Mister Morrissey that it's too bad he was a closed-minded, irrational homophobe for the election on Tuesday.
I suggested to one FB-friend that it is also too bad that he let that whole his-party-runs-Congress-and-has-a-Senatorial-supermajority thing go to waste when he was in his troglodyte, knuckle-dragging redneck phase.
So I'm not cheerleading, but as I once advised a blog brother: when you train a dog, and he finally does what you want is a bad time to get out the rolled up newspaper. "Good President!"
Posted by: jk at May 10, 2012 4:04 PMYes I was, and I maintain I am still staying out of it. I do not seek, as do social conservatives, to infringe on the individual's right to live and marry as he or she sees fit. And I do not seek, as do the so-called Progressives, to infringe on the individual's right to produce and trade as he or she sees fit.
Unlike both of the constituencies mentioned, I do not want to make anyone eat an excrement sandwich. Instead, I seek to eradicate everyone's ability to infringe anyone else's liberty. (And that is a fate worse than death for the second-handers who now control our two-party government.)
Posted by: johngalt at May 14, 2012 2:32 PMMay 9, 2012
Quote of the Day
Is this the administration line? Blame Bush for everything? Or is it Biden being Biden? (Come the zombie apocalypse, a zombie locked in with this man would starve.) -- Sarah Hoyt
April 29, 2012
We're Laughing With You, Not At You
Two minutes from Jimmy Kimmel that made me laugh. I also liked this line that isn't in the vid: "There's a term for President Obama. Not two terms."
April 28, 2012
A New Down
After promising not to "spike the football" by "trot[ting] out this stuff [bin Laden's killing] as trophies" President Obama's re-election campaign is now spiking the football. Fair enough, I say. But the "game" of leader-of-the-free-world isn't over. China's fear-society now offers "quarterback" Obama a chance to score another touchdown.
"You must see to the bottom of this," the activist said. "Even though I am free, my family ... are still in their grasp. While I was there, they were repeatedly harmed. Now that I'm gone, I can only imagine how it has blown up."Chen's rescue appears to have been timed to coincide with U.S.-China discussions on human rights this week. His case has attracted global attention.
It was easy enough for the President to say "yes" when his defense secretary told him, "We have found Osama bin Laden and planned an operation to capture or kill him. May we proceed?" Let's see if he has the loins to tell China, "Protect your citizens from their government."
Big topic.
I am of course appalled at the human rights abuses of China. But I do not wish for the United States -- certainly under this Commander-in-Chief to play world police here.
Perhaps the President could welcome the Dalai Lama against China's objections or refuse to visit certain places there. I could appreciate a statement of sorts.
Yet, I believe ultimately in the liberating power of trade and economic freedom. We're not going to do regime change on our bankers and best customers. Let's let trade work its magic.
Regime change is not called for, just an "I disagree" from the President of the United States. A "Tear down this wall" sort of statement, in the spirit of the "power of the solidarity of the free world." Think we'll see it from President Obama? Me neither.
Thanks for weighing in. The topic is discussion worthy.
Posted by: johngalt at April 29, 2012 2:12 PMAnd it can't just be ignored - the dissident, Chen Guangcheng, is a refugee on U.S. soil ... our embassy in Beijing.
Assuming it has Chen, it is inconceivable that the United States would turn him over to the Chinese authorities against his wishes, said current and former U.S. officials.Posted by: johngalt at April 29, 2012 7:47 PM
And a dozen years ago, I had thought it inconceivable that the United States would turn Elian Gonzalez over to Cuba - much less take possession of him at gunpoint. If those "current and former U.S. officials" mentioned include either Janet Reno or the current Secretary of State (who, not to rub it in or anything, happens to be married to the former President who oversaw that fiasco), it's very conceivable, and not even Vizzini would call it otherwise.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at April 30, 2012 12:46 AMTwo things.
One: All hail Brother Keith, the undisputed King of the allusion! I am unfit to handle your backup tapes, my friend.
Two: jk will be travelling for fun this week and needs to rethink his position; I clearly underestimated where we are. I meant every word I typed but need to contextualize this is in the Walter Russel Mead view.
Last fall, the Obama administration pulled off a diplomatic revolution in maritime Asia -- the coastal and trading states on and around the Asian mainland that stretch in an arc from Korea and Japan, down to Australia and Indonesia, and sweep around through southeast Asia to India and Sri Lanka. Via Meadia has been following this story closely; it is the biggest geopolitical event since 9/11 and, while it builds on a set of US policies that go back at least as far as the Clinton administration and were further developed in the Bush years, the administration's mix of policies represent a decisive turning point in 21st century Asian history.
Posted by: jk at April 30, 2012 10:01 AM
Following the Golden State down the rat hole
Joel Kotkin has some harsh words for the governance of California -- and a warning to the Obama Administration for attempting to apply the model nationally.
From his first days in office, the president has held up California as a model state. In 2009, he praised its green-tinged energy policies as a blueprint for the nation. He staffed his administration with Californians like Energy Secretary Steve Chu--an open advocate of high energy prices whos lavished government funding on "green" dodos like solar-panel maker Solyndra, and luxury electric carmaker Fisker--and Commerce Secretary John Bryson, who thrived as CEO of a regulated utility which raised energy costs for millions of consumers, sometimes to finance "green" ideals.Obama regularly asserts that green jobs will play a crucial role in the future of the American economy, but California, a trend-setter in the field, has yet to reap such benefits. Green jobs, broadly defined, make up only about 2 percent of jobs in the state--about the same proportion as in Texas. In Silicon Valley, the number of green jobs actually declined between 2003 and 2010. Meanwhile, California's unemployment rate of 10.9 percent is the nation's third highest, behind only Nevada and Rhode Island.
Kotkin is a treasure for his keen observations on urban life and modern migration patterns. Am I wrong in thinking this column unusually harsh in its criticism of the President?
Of course, when you get out of Brother Keith's house, they love him out there.
The IPO-lottery, Hollywood, and inherited-wealth crowds can afford the state's sky-high costs, especially along the coast, but most California businesses can't. Under Brown and his even less well-informed predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the official mantra has been that the states "creative" entrepreneurs would trigger a state revival. This is very much the hope of the administration, which trots out companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google as exemplars of the American future. "No part of America better represents America than here," the president told a crowd at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View last fall.
Great article -- HT: Insty
April 26, 2012
Life Imitates ThreeSources
Quick follow-up on our great guest post on the 16th. A good friend of this blog, who works in the financial sector, disputed Secretary Geithner's claim of "profit" from TARP.
Now I see the claim has also been disputed by some right wing hack somewhere -- no, wait! It has been disputed by Christy Romero, the newly installed special inspector general for TARP.
Similar to her predecessor Neil Barofsky, Romero seems to be saying (indirectly, of course!) the Treasury Department -- and Geithner -- have been misleading the American public about the costs of TARP. While that's impossible to prove, there has been a concerted effort by Treasury to paint the program in the best possible light. (Reason.com has compiled a timeline of such statements, for those who want to check the record.)
My feeling all along is that Treasury has been cherry-picking the TARP data, focusing on the repayments vs. the loans still outstanding, much less the "soft" cost of the bailouts. It's like an investor who only talks about the stocks that have produced profits, ignoring the ones with losses.
Romero also touched on a big reason why JK once suspected that someone had stolen my password and posted this.
Concentration of bank assets is but one of the "profound long-term consequences" of TARP cited by Romero. Others include "the impact on consumers and homeowners from the large banks' failure to lend TARP funds," which in turn spurned a huge backlash against corporations generally and got millions of ordinary Americans riled up about the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington D.C. (There's also the cost of the Fed's zero interest rate policy and the government's unlimited pledge to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among other bailouts.)Posted by: johngalt at April 26, 2012 6:45 PMArguably, TARP helped animate both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements and generally reaffirmed Americans' loss of faith in our institutions and elected officials. These developments have long-term societal implications that go far beyond any quantitative analysis of the "cost" of the bailouts.
BTW, let me, the anonymous good friend of this blog, add that I don't work at SIGTARP and had no knowledge whatsoever of their report.
Note Treasury's rebuttal: "the government's emergency response was essential to preventing a meltdown of the entire global economy. And now we're winding down those programs faster and at a much lower cost than virtually anyone had anticipated during the dark days of the crisis."
Then why are they trying to talk up the program by talking about profits!
Posted by: The Invisible Handler at April 26, 2012 9:37 PMApril 25, 2012
The 110,000 Million-Dollar Plan
A favorite TV show growing up was Lee Majors starring as the "Six-Million Dollar Man." After crashing the test flight of an experimental aircraft, Steve Austin was fitted with "bionics" that made him "better, stronger, faster." President Obama has been trying the same thing in America's energy market, with less success. Investors Ed Page says Obama Fought Oil and Lost; Now it's Back to Reality.
In other words, even a fast-forward to 23 years from now doesn't reveal an energy economy substantially different from today's. Obama has run up quite a price tag trying to deny this reality.By one recent estimate from analysts sympathetic to the green-economy agenda, the government spent $110.3 billion in tax credits, loans and grants to promote the green economy from 2009 to 2011.
The Obama administration also has leaned against oil and toward the environmental lobby whenever the two were in conflict -- most notably in his decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline. What do we have as a result? High gasoline prices, a bigger federal deficit and not-ready-for-prime-time electric cars.
Energy is bound to be one of the key issues in this year's presidential election, and for once the question won't be about managing scarcity. It will be about how to take advantage of the abundant resources under our feet. Barack Obama fought oil and lost, and the next president can learn from his mistake.
"So I'm supposed to be more upset by what Romney does with his own money than with what Obama is doing with mine."
That comment was one of two shared with me this morning in the aftermath of the GOP primary results from last night. It's a comment that probably ought to resonate with all of us here...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at April 25, 2012 5:03 PMApril 20, 2012
And Now, Some Nasty Words about the President
I think I have been pretty subdued for three years. President Obama's politics are orthogonal to mine and we have substantive philosophical differences. Yet, I worked especially hard to avoid "Obama Derangement Syndrome" that so consumed -- mutatis mutandis -- my lefty friends during the last administration.
I kept out of the birther pool and tried to extend the benefit of the doubt on all but his most egregious oversteps. But if he is going to be all-campaign, all the time, I will express my views forthrightly. All in?
First, I want to point out a major league "get" for PJ Media. David P. Goldman is a frequent Kudlow guest where he shares his views on business, broad economics and markets. I was unaware of his book How Civilizations Die (and Islam is dying too), columns, or really any of his other fields of expertise. He now has a regular PJ Media blog called Spengler to which I look forward.
Yesterday's post rekindled an unease I felt reading the President's first autobiography. (Jeeberz, I am over 50 and haven't even written one -- what the hell is the matter with me?) I put it down to partisan hackery on my part, but Goldman's column brings it back in the context of the hilarious dog-eating contretemps. Goldman points out that he identifies with the dog eaters. The Third World is his world and the nation he leads is the villain.
Obama is the son of a Kenyan Muslim father, the stepson of an Indonesian Muslim, and the child, most of all, of an American anthropologist who devoted her career to protecting Indonesian traditional life against the depredations of the global marketplace. Her doctoral dissertation, "Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds," celebrated traditional cultures hanging on desperately in the face of the global economic marketplace.
Ms. Dunham was not only a Communist fellow-traveler, but the sort of 1960s woman who (as we used to say) "put her body on the line," first by marrying two Third World men, and then by spending her career in the Third World. It is no surprise that Obama considers the Third World morally superior to the United States.
Strong stuff and he does not lighten up much after that. Had I not seen his sobriety many nights on Kudlow, I might dismiss him as some "talk show" host grabbing notice.
OR: had I not read "Dreams From my Father." I got a different vibe of Mom than Goldman, but was consumed with young Barry's constant rejection of people and institutions that were good to him, in favor of those that were not. I thought him actually manufacturing grievance for authenticity.
He makes fun of Romney now saying that, unlike the Governor, he did not grow up with a silver spoon. But the DFMF tale is not one of poverty and deprivation. He grows up in Hawaii, attending private schools. His mother, grandparents, and teachers are completely kind, He is in Indonesia, not as a penniless beggar, but as the stepson of a successful businessman who is affectionate and caring, and the child of a college professor. On to Harvard where every avenue is open to ensure his success. A plum Law Career assignment. Et freaking cetera. Yet, boo hoo, Barry has to find the disaffected black youth in Hawaii, run to Africa to chase a vacant and generally corrupt father, leave the corporate world to stir up trouble for the established order in Chicago.
We know how it all ends. But Goldman is dead right, if a bit impolitic:
It really isn't unfair at all to bring Obama's canine consumption to public attention. The president isn't really one of us. He's a dog-eater. He tells the story in his memoir to emphasize that viscerally, Obama identifies with the Third World of his upbringing more than with the America of his adulthood. It is our great misfortune to have a president who dislikes our country at this juncture in our history.
Thankfully Goldman did not say Obama "hates" our country for that would have disqualified every salient point he previously made - the politically-correct analogue to Godwin's Law.
Also, thank NED that dog-eating is not a tenet of Islam, else we'd all be forbidden from talking about it, much less laughing our arses off.
Posted by: johngalt at April 20, 2012 3:42 PMApril 17, 2012
Quote of the Day
About the President's tax return:
When we donate money to a charity, church or some other worthy cause, we are allowed a tax deduction, which means the government gets less of our money. The president and many in his party keep telling us that the government needs more money, but if they believe this, why are they taking charitable deductions? I expect the reason is that most of us implicitly believe (for good empirical reasons) that private charities and other tax-exempt groups spend our money more wisely and carefully than the government. -- Richard Rahn
LOL!
It took me a second to catch on, but I saw this last night and laughed myself into physical pain. The good fans of Washington DC created this special welcome for Boston Goaltender Tim Thomas:
For those keeping score: I love Thomas as a goaltender, except that he might be better than my hero, Ken Dryden. I fulsomely respect his Tea Party views but think he was wrong to decline a White House invitation.
I respectfully disagree. If he doesn't have the right to decline, then it's not an invitation, it's a summons. Free men are not subject to commands in this instance. And I cannot believe that I'm having to defend a free man's individual right to freely associate or not associate here on these hallowed pages.
My recollection may be off on this point - and correct me if I'm wrong, please - but I seem to recollect that Mr. Thomas politely declined and made no public statement on it until he was put on the spot and an explanation demanded of him. He was more gentlemanly about it that I would have been; I would have been more along the lines of Tony Stark schooling Senator Stern on private property rights.
Of course, I will also admit that were I in his skates, twelve feet of glass would be taking an awful lot of accidental stray slap shots.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at April 17, 2012 4:51 PMAnd since I am a NASCAR retard: I recollect Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick, and Kurt Busch having schedule conflicts when they were summoned last September. Precedent.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at April 17, 2012 4:55 PMHe certainly has the right to demur -- I was not suggesting he be thrown in the Tower or anything. And I agree was gentlemanly and bipartisan which softened my initial distaste.
I merely wanted to clarify that I was not posting this in support of his decision. When I win the Stanley Cup, I am going to the White House irrespective of the occupant.
Going to an extreme only to make a point: Would you go to the White House if Hitler Barry Manilow were the sitting President of the United States?
Posted by: johngalt at April 19, 2012 4:25 PM("Hitler" was supposed to be struck out in prior comment.)
Posted by: johngalt at April 19, 2012 4:31 PMToo late! Godwin's Law has been violated. Hahahaha, no, the comment processor removes a lot of HTML, including <strike>
I'll have you know I have attended a Barry Manilow concert. So yeah, I am there. On the mustachioed gentleman from the Fatherland, my point is that President Obama is not in that camp. (A muslim-socialist-kenyan-anticolonialist-dog-eater maybe, but he's not a monster!)
I'd reserve refusal to leaders of that stature. But, yes, I respect his right.
A Rare Rhetorical Answer
I ask the eternal internal question: "What if President George W Bush had said that?"
Yesterday Barack Obama addressed the Summit of the Americas in Colombia and spoke about the conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands. Obama seemed to tilt toward Argentina by calling the islands the "Malvinas" rather than the Falklands, which Argentina insists is their proper name.
Only Obama didn't say Malvinas, he said Maldives--an entirely different group of islands located thousands of miles from the Falklands in the Indian Ocean:
I always ask, but I never got an answer -- until today. John Hinderaker finds a Telegraph article that uses the malapropism to take a whack at . . . President Bush:
Barack Obama made an uncharacteristic error, more akin to those of his predecessor George W Bush, by referring to the Falkland Islands as the Maldives.
That stupid George Bush -- I can't believe he made President Obama say that!
April 16, 2012
Headline of the Day
Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation
S**t! That's all we had! There is no plan B! Stall 'em...
Tweet of the Day
UPDATE: Trading some fun emails with a friend of the blog who sends a link to Obama, like Buffett, pays lower tax rate than his secretary.
Obama himself would not qualify for the Buffett Rule, which would apply only to people who make more than $1 million in a particular year.
I suggested a new T-Shirt "Think of how rich Buffett would be if his secretary weren't so stupid!"
UPDATE II: Of course, Kennedy's friend makes a common error. That is the ten year projection; only 100,000,000 Cartagena Hookers per year could be procured by the Buffett Rule.
April 12, 2012
Quote of the Day
"Borrowing" WSJ's Notable & Quotable today:
Roosevelt, after whom Obama fashions himself, read the Constitution as empowering government in ways that had been largely rejected for 150 years. That's why those on Obama's side invariably begin their arguments with "Since the New Deal," as if that were a source of legitimacy. It isn't. The Constitution was written in 1787, not 1937. As amended, it is the sole source of whatever legitimacy the government has, and it is the duty of the courts to determine what that law is, in the execution of which they must be actively engaged. -- Roger Pilon
FDR threatened to "stack the court" to encourage rulings in his favor. That strategy worked for him, to a limited extent and for a limited time, and lost all effect upon his death. President Obama could renew the threat himself but thusfar has not. Whaddaya say, Barack? Bring it on!
Posted by: johngalt at April 12, 2012 3:14 PMToo late, bro: The Packers Can't Beat the Lions.
Posted by: jk at April 12, 2012 3:28 PMApril 11, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
"So these investments -- in things like education and research and health care -- they haven't been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another," the president said today at Florida Atlantic University. "This is not some socialist dream," Obama added, as he called for tax increases on millionaires today to pay for those investments.
From the Washington Examiner - Obama: I'm not trying to 'redistribute wealth'
April 9, 2012
"The president is dangerously close to totalitarianism,"
So says libertarian ex-jurist Andrew Napolitano. And the IBD Editorial Page is inclined to agree.
The whole thrust has been the acquisition of power by the federal government centered on the White House. That is the theme of ObamaCare, which is not about health care but about making people as dependent on government benevolence, if we can use that word, as possible.Those who stand in the way, whether it be the Supreme Court, Congress or institutions such as the Catholic Church, are to be either ignored when possible, or intimidated and bullied into silence and acquiescence in the proud tradition of President Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky.
What is at stake here is freedom and whether we shall be governed by a document that begins with "we the people" or whether we shall be ruled, in totalitarian fashion, by a bill that says "the secretary shall determine" what our rights and freedoms are.
I recall my apolitical Texas cousin being bewildered by my warnings of Barack Obama's principles and ambitions prior to the 2008 election. "You're crazy" she said, when I told her he intended to become Robin Hood in the White House, and worse. Last month we had occasion to meet again. She now seems to have accepted that I wasn't just whistling Dixie. Neither is Judge Napolitano.
Quote of the Day
There has been a lot of talk about women and women's issues lately -- President Obama
Yes, all of the talk has been orchestrated by . . . the White House. It's sort of like a mobster walking into a shop and deliberately knocking over all the glassware and crystal. "Say, there's been a lot of talk about crime in this neighborhood . . ." -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
April 5, 2012
'Stealthflation' we barely knew ye
The I-word is about to come out of the shadows, and into the full light of day. Investors:
Minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting show the central bank has all but abandoned plans for another round of quantitative easing.It's now clear the Fed is more worried about inflation than recession.
Other notable nuggets-
Net interest expense will triple to an all-time high of $554 billion from $185 billion, Treasury says, meaning we'll pay more to service our debt than to protect our nation. The defense budget stands at $525 billion.(...)
The reversal in interest rates makes defusing the Obama debt bomb through real budget cuts even more urgent than it already is.
(...)
The federal debt so far has not been the political liability that it could be for Obama in his bid for re-election.
But if interest rates rise at an even faster clip as he heads into November, the issue could blow up in his face. As his South Side reverend once famously said, the chickens are coming home to roost.
I've a huge deliverable next Monday and have shirked my blogging duties. Sorry if I miss somebody's point more than usual.
It seems we complain that they see no inflation and promise to expand the balance sheet with QEn or rearrange maturates through twist (and I join you).
Now, they are -- sensibly -- telegraphing some tightening or at least no further expansion. I think that was a good move. Equities never like the threat of less punch in the bowl, but the Dollar improved and Larry Kudlow's blood pressure dropped 25 basis points.
Don't know I got to be the blog fiat money guy, but again facing the exigencies of our system, the Bernanke Fed is actually doing okay. Not as good as free market competing currencies, not as good as I would do. But compared to fiscal policy (which gets 78.653% of the real estate in the linked IBD article), The Bernank is doing okay.
I hate when earning a living interferes with blogging.
My point with Stealthflation has been that monetary policy was and is creating price inflation despite the denials and assurances we heard from professional economists. The Bernank was seemingly so fearless of inflation that he virtually guaranteed the present low interest rate into 2014. Now he reverses course, two years early. I read this as evidence that I was right all along and the Fed was either wrong or duplicitous.
Posted by: johngalt at April 5, 2012 11:16 PMA gross oversimplification, I know.
Posted by: johngalt at April 6, 2012 1:56 AMThat is exactly what I inferred. I find/found the two-year zero interest rate guarantee irresponsible, no defense there. And I would have tightened a little, or at least jawboned the dollar up, a quarter or two ago.
My point was that you are training a dog. He has just asked to go outside and done just what you wanted. And you're whacking him with a newspaper yelling "Bad dog! You messed up the carpet last week!"
Posted by: jk at April 6, 2012 10:23 AMI was trying to whack him with that newspaper last week.
Posted by: johngalt at April 6, 2012 1:52 PMI have to add that FNC's Neil Cavuto backed me up this morning.
Contributor: "The only thing that I disagree with is that there's some sort of conspiracy here. I mean, the government doesn't want to deny that there's inflation. A lot of prices are cheaper. The overall numbers...[interrupted]"Cavuto: "If you acknowledge inflation, the genie's out of the bottle. You have to start lifting interest rates, you have to start doing a lot of stuff you don't want to do. You most certainly want to hide it."
This was the meaning of my title - there was a stealth cloak, and it is dissipating.
Posted by: johngalt at April 7, 2012 1:28 PMAnti-Obama Union Boss!
It was only a matter of time...
While the United Mine Workers of America likely wont actively oppose President Obamas reelection bid, Roberts said the new EPA regulation could prevent the union from endorsing the president.Thats something that we have not done yet and may not do because of this very reason. Our peoples jobs are on the line, Roberts said, adding that Obama has done a lot of great things for the country.
Roberts's [sic] comments underscore the vehement opposition to the new EPA regulations in coal states whose economies rely heavily on the fossil fuel.
I also really enjoyed this quote:
Roberts, in Tuesdays interview with host Hoppy Kercheval, took aim at the Sierra Club, arguing the environmental groups campaign to shut down coal plants is killing jobs.This is a broader problem for me than it is for the Sierra Club or the EPA, Roberts said. And Im convinced, Hoppy, that if you give the Sierra Club enough money, they could shut your job down. I dont know how theyd do it, but theyd figure out a way.
Yet they will line up to reelect him. The rank and file might wander behind the closed curtain (Taranto Metaphor Alert!) but the leadership will do all they can to give him another term.
Posted by: jk at April 5, 2012 4:38 PMMarch 29, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
There are lies, damned lies, and then there are Obama's charts. -- Investors Business Daily editorial
Like squared.
Posted by: jk at March 29, 2012 3:04 PMMarch 25, 2012
Isolation? I'd Hate to See That...
I'm ready to give the President something of a pass on this, as there is probably no great alternative. I don't think a fiery, Sharansky-esque, appeal to universal freedom is in his repertoire. And I'm jaded enough these days to wonder if that would do any good.
And yet: "Obama: N. Korean rocket test would isolate regime"
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Warning North Korea from its doorstep, President Barack Obama said Pyongyang risks deepening its isolation in the international community if it proceeds with a planned long-range rocket launch.
March 24, 2012
Quote of the Day
Anyway, when Joe Biden says with all of that earnest, canned seriousness, that the bin Laden raid was the most audacious military operation in 500 years, he does himself and his cause enormous damage.
[...]
In other words Biden's claims so outstrip reality, we're lucky he doesn't tear a hole in the space-time continuum. If he was just a bit more humble, a bit more reasonable, a bit more sane, he could actually use the bin Laden success to his advantage. Instead, by making claims about it no sane or honest person can support he sounds desperate and fritters away the actual political value of the operation's success. -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
March 22, 2012
I knew President Hayes, Rutherford B was a friend of mine...
And Obama is no Rutherford B. Hayes...
My Buffy Sire, Jonathan V. Last, wraps up Rutherford-gate and ties it with a pretty bow. Our 19th President deserved better.
Think about that for a moment: The most important speechwriters in the world are doing their research not by calling experts, but by picking off the first Google results page. Now think about what that says about the man for whom they write.Second, there's Obamas dismissal of Hayes' presidency because "he's not on Mount Rushmore." You know who else wasn't included on Mount Rushmore? John Adams. James Madison. James Monroe. Andrew Jackson. They were great men who nourished the tree of liberty with their lives. Perhaps Obama has heard of some of them.
UPDATE: 19th! Not 18th (since corrected). Damn, I pride myself on knowing those but I counted sloppily.
March 20, 2012
Even the Cronies are Dismayed
Charlie Gasparino has had something of an epiphany himself. He used to appear on "Kudlow & Cramer" as a guest and WSJ writer. And I always felt he tilted distinctly left. Now he's got a gig at evil Rupert's NYPost and I see constant reminders that he is coming around to the forces of goodness and light.
He reports -- though GE spokespersons deny -- that soi disant Republican and current Obama advisor Jeffrey Immelt is a bit disenchanted,
Friends describe Immelt as privately dismayed that, even after three years on the job, President Obama hasnt moved to the center, but instead further left. The GE CEO, I'm told, is appalled by everything from the president's class-warfare rhetoric to his continued belief that big government is the key to economic salvation.
Or, as one friend recently put it to me, "Jeff thought he could make a difference, and now realizes he couldn't."
Immelt's conversion from public Obama supporter to a private detractor is important: It shows how even businessmen who feast off his subsidies worry about his overall economic agenda and its long-term impact on the economy.
Dude. If you can't even keep the cronies happy...
UPDATE: Gasparino is at the NYPost, not the Washington Examiner (since corrected) ThreeSources apologizes for the error.
Dagny Taggart, call your office.
UPDATE, via Tweet from James Taranto, Immelt to vote for Romney.
Posted by: johngalt at March 20, 2012 2:32 PMMarch 18, 2012
Quote of the Day
But obviously Rutherford B. Hayes isnt as "forward-looking" as a 21st-century president who believes in Jimmy Carter malaise, 1970s Eurostatist industrial policy, 1940s British health-care reforms, 1930s New Deal-sized entitlements premised on mid-20th-century birth rates and life expectancy, and all paid for by a budget with more zeroes than anybody's seen since the Weimar Republic. If that's not a shoo-in for Mount Rushmore, I don't know what is. -- Mark Steyn
A more suitable mountain for this president's visage: Bandini Mountain, right here in blue-state California.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bandini%20Mountain
Posted by: Keith Arnold at March 19, 2012 12:01 PMMarch 17, 2012
"Accomplishment"
Discussions such as this make it clear that none of us are quick to use the word "accomplishment" in any retrospective of the Obama Administration. But there is another opinion, perhaps best represented by the Davis Guggenheim swoon-fest named 'The Road We've Traveled.' To wit:
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim told CNN last week his only regret was he had only 17 minutes to discuss Obama's accomplishments. He cited health care, the stimulus and other economic initiatives in the face of a tough "political climate" facing near-united Republican opposition."The challenge for me is I wanted to put more in there, I really did," Guggenheim said. "I'm really quite in awe of him as a leader."
Another example is currently on display in the halls of a Colorado charter school. I will take great pains here to preserve the anonymity of the 5th grade author but I am compelled to publicize the content, verbatim. [Original text was computer printer output, on three pages.] President Obama's "accomplishments" are enumerated on page 2. I will editorialize in advance: Are there no parents? Are there no teachers? Will this receive a grade or just a gold-star for "participation?" As I said, verbatim.
Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961. Obama went to many different schools but his first school was Francisus Asissi Primaryschool. Barack Obama now is our president. He has been our president for four years. He became our president on August 5, 2008.
Obama loves playing basketball and he is very good at it. I really like him as a president and hope he comes back for four more years.
Obama has lots of family. Barack Obama's parents both died but his dad died in 1982 in a car accident. His mother died in 1995 by
breast cancer. Barack was raised by a non-African American mom and since his mom died he had to be raised by his non-African
American grandparents. Obama is now raising a wonderful family a wife Michelle,a 13 year old daughter named Malia,and a 10 year olddaughter named Natasha (Sasha).
[page]
While Obama was in his office he accomplished a lot of things. He had doubled the national debt. Barack joined the country of Mexico
and sued a state in the United States. Barack Obama gave the Queen of england an iPod and it had all of Obamas speechs on it.
Barack has bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. These are some of the things Barack Obama accomplished. Obama is a great president. I wish he could be president every single year.
Obama has done many good and important things to the United States. He is making our country safe from danger. Barck obama has
made the U.S. feel safe and happy. He changed our health care system so everyone will be happy. ["happy" crossed out by hand and replaced with "healthy."] Barack has been a very good
president. Obama has been a very good person to our country.
[page]
Barack Obama's nickname in basketball is "O-Bomber." His first name means "one who is blessed." Obama's favorite meal is his wife
Michelle's shrimp linguine. He has read every single word in the Harry Potter series. Barack owns a pair of red boxing gloves autographed
by Muhammad Ali.
Obama's favorite snack is chocolate, peanut protein bars. While he was living in Indonesia he ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted
grasshoppers. Although he has since quit, Obama used to smoke cigarettes. When he lived in Indonesia his pet was an ape named Tata.
As a teenager obama took drugs including marijuana and cocaine.
No, I am not making this up. Not a single word.
A young Ezra Klein in the making...
Posted by: jk at March 17, 2012 11:33 AMWas there a prior post on the Guggenheim film? I thought so but could not find it.
Posted by: johngalt at March 17, 2012 12:51 PMI can't find this on Snopes; what's the verification? (I know.... always a skeptic)
Posted by: nanobrewer at March 17, 2012 5:03 PMSkepticism is good. Do you question the movie & quotes? It was discussed on Kudlow Friday and it sounds on track. If you question, the fifth grader's expository skills, then -- Jeff Foxworthy's friends aside -- I have sadly encountered much like it.
Posted by: jk at March 17, 2012 6:04 PMThe verification for the fifth grader prose is the three pictures on my Windows phone which, while tempting material to post, I'll keep private for purposes of the author's anonymity. I hope you'll understand when I explain that it was at my child's school and I don't want to prompt any ill will on the part of the student, parents or school staff.
I'm still contemplating whether to discuss it with the principal or teacher involved. Advice is invited.
Posted by: johngalt at March 17, 2012 6:32 PM"A young Ezra Klein in the making..."
You misspelled "Riefenstahl".
Posted by: Keith Arnold at March 17, 2012 10:38 PMMarch 16, 2012
Quote of the Day
The quote cited by Obama does exist on the Internet, but we would expect the White House staff to do better research than that. -- WaPo Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, actually and oddly enough, checking a fact.
March 14, 2012
JG agrees with Boulder DA
Like myself, Boulder's [Democrat] District Attorney Stan Garnett doesn't understand why the Obama Justice Department is so tough on the medical marijuana business. After all, aren't Democrats and weed activists fellow travelers? And, perhaps because I had dinner with the man 12 days ago (well, actually, different tables in the same Boulder burger joint) I agree verbatim with General Garnett on this sentence from his letter to United States Attorney John Walsh:
"The people of Boulder County do not need Washington, D.C., or the federal government dictating ..." WAIT! Stop right there.But he continued, "how far dispensaries should be from schools or other fine points of local land use law," Garnett wrote.
I don't think Garnett helped his effort by suggesting what the US Attorney's priorities should be, but that probably won't be what makes or breaks the G-Men's "prosecutorial discretion."
In the "things that make you say, hmmm" department: The article also says that Boulder has an estimated 12 dispensaries within 1000 feet of a school.
I think it is part of the First Lady's initiative to make schoolchildren walk more.
Flippancy aside, yaay DA Garnett for asserting our rights -- maybe he'll join The Filburn Society. (Do follow that link if you have not seen it!)
Posted by: jk at March 14, 2012 4:23 PMIt’s wonderful to see the Boulder DA standing up to the Feds on what really is a 10th Amendment issue.
It’s too bad that he and other Democrats (and some Republicans), don't apply this principal consistently on all of the issues that the Federal Government should not be meddling in.
March 13, 2012
Where's President Clinton when you Need Him?
You'll be surprised to hear that I did not buy into "Hope & Change" in 2008. It was clear to me who Senator Obama was. The question was whether he would govern pragmatically to help his reelection and legacy prospects, or whether he would follow ideology.
The Keystone Pipeline demurral and green energy initiatives answer the question. Clinton's pragmatic compromises and cooption of GOP ideas cemented his popularity and legacy. I don't think he would have dropped the ball on domestic production as President Obama has.
Either could make a symbolic stand against offshore or ANWR to buy off the base, but allow production to ramp up everywhere else. Beyond gas prices, energy production would provide jobs, stimulate capital investment, pour cash into the Treasury, and help outside the sector with support services and cheaper energy. Is the President not "cutting off his nose to spite his face" as it were?
James Pethokoukis sums up: The entire Obama presidency, in one anecdote. He starts quoting Noam Scheiber:
Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. "I dont get it," he'd say. "We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?" But the numbers rarely budged.
Click through for a lesson on the powerful economic gains our country could make with a pro-production strategy.
It's the price of gas, stupid
Keep it up Mister President. IBD's Andrew Malcolm:
Showing his keen grasp of free market forces, Obama has ordered Justice officials to investigate oil speculation. Of course, there's oil speculation. It's called the futures market. And watching Obama's policies instead of his words, those experts see higher prices coming ahead, as do most Americans in the poll.When taking office, Energy Secy. Stephen Chu expressed a desire to drive U.S. gas prices to the European levels of $8-$9 a gallon, much like taxation on cigarettes to discourage their use. This administration has achieved more than half that European goal already.
And voters are taking note:
A new Washington Post-ABC News Poll this week finds about two-out-of-three Americans now disapprove of the Chicago Democrat's job on gas prices, whatever that's been.
Maybe if he started reminding them he "killed bin Laden..."
The official Democratic talking point on this is "No Silver Bullet." The President said it in his speech and I heard two DNC representatives echo it.
Perhaps there's no single thing that would easily and immediately bring fuel prices down, but I can't help but feel if the administration stopped shooting them at every person or company that tries to produce energy, it would be a start.
And never underestimate the timeless electoral appeal of "The Republicans are coming for your ladyparts!"
Posted by: jk at March 13, 2012 4:25 PMMarch 10, 2012
Quote of the Day
Even the liberal Washington Post writer Dana Milbank says White House hiring practices make "a joke of the spirit of reform he promised." -- Matthew Continetti
February 27, 2012
Quote of the Day
And what, if someone doesn't agree with Obama's plan, they're not earning their place as an American? If someone doesn't agree to send more tax money to a free-spending, inefficient central government running record deficits as far as the eye can see, they're somehow leeching off Uncle Sam? Being Treasury secretary is a privilege, one earned by pushing policies that keep America prosperous and solvent--even in an election year. -- James Pethokoukis, The Economic illiteracy of Tim Geithner(Jeopardy champion should know that "someone" is singular, but the rest of the post rocks.)
Sheer Partisan Hackery
Worthy of no place on a serious political website.
You're welcome.
Hat-tip: Autoblog via Insty.
In a new TV commercial GM says, "This isn't just the car we wanted to build, it's the car America had to build."
The remaining question is where GM has to go to make America have to buy it.
Posted by: johngalt at February 27, 2012 2:16 PMFebruary 24, 2012
Quote of the Day
This does not mean, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said earlier this week, that Buffett "should just write a check and shut up." It's a free country, and Buffett's recommendations should ultimately be weighed on their own merits.
But on that score, it's worth noting that Buffett has profited one hell of a lot more than the country that was supposed to benefit from all these Buffett-approved bailouts and stimuli. He gets billions; we get a big coulda-been-worse! Meanwhile, even the sitting treasury secretary acknowledges that the country's fiscal trajectory is "unsustainable," with no solution in sight to the bailout-exacerbated problems of debt and entitlement-commitments. -- Matt Welch
Berkshire Hathaway is renowned for purchasing companies who will yield great returns, usually in the long-term. GM at its bottom market capitalization was a mere $2 billion, and was no problem for Buffett to have bought personally.
As I've said, if these bailed-out companies were such great deals, there would have been no need for taxpayers to rescue them. The private sector would have been fighting themselves for the opportunities.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at February 28, 2012 8:38 PMFebruary 14, 2012
A Flight Manual for PIGS
A companion post.
Investors' Ed Page today.
All Hail Ramirez!
Posted by: jk at February 14, 2012 8:25 PMTwo Things to Like in the Obama 2013 Budget
One. He has one. <BenSteinVoice>Reid? Reid?</BenSteinVoice>
Two. Cheapening the currency. Not to be confused with monetizing the debt, he saves money by using cheaper materials to make nickles and pennies. I'd nuke them and round everything to a dime -- but it's a start.
Obama wants to change the composition of nickels and pennies to save money. The president's budget would give the Treasury Department the ability to "change the composition of coins to more cost-effective materials," pointing out the current cost of making the penny is 2.4 cents and the nickel is 11.2 cents. Of course, the value of the U.S. dollar isn't pegged to the materials that it's composed of, but it's still a compelling argument on its face. The composition of U.S. coins hasn't changed since 1981, the Wall Street Journal notes, while major components like zinc have become more expensive. Industry lobbyists stalled the proposal when Obama brought it up in 2010, but it may have new appeal to the frugally-minded..
And if pennies were still made of copper, as they were prior to 1983, they'd cost even more than nickels to produce.
I s'pose nobody is now willing to accede to my notice of Stealthflation (TM)?"
Posted by: johngalt at February 14, 2012 2:53 PMNot me, man, sorry. "Doctor" Copper is a proxy for world economic growth. I s'pect Zinc is similar.
I'm downright Bernankian on Core PCE, making me a wierdo among the wierdos who support Rep. Ron Paul. It's a wonder anybody will drink coffee with me anymore.
Posted by: jk at February 14, 2012 3:14 PMHeard a news report this morning about gas prices going up already, and $4 regular/$5 premium by summertime. Also mentioned was "health care and food prices rising" with the word "inflation" bandied about in there somewhere.
But as I understand it, you're saying the price of everything can go up without being indicative of currency devaluation. Instead it represents only a higher demand for, everything. Right? We 'mericans just have to get used to greater competition for the trading of our dollars for goods from the dollars of other nations?
Please correct my oversimplification as required.
Posted by: johngalt at February 16, 2012 6:04 PMTrue for certain values of "everything." If everything = food + fuel + health care, then everything can cost more without inflation. (Not coincidental that you picked three heavily regulated commodities. Toss in tuition "inflation" while you are at it.)
Food and fuel are excluded from core CPI and the core PCE deflator for their volatility and you are in great company calling "shenanigans" on that. I'd say all "price basket" measures of inflation are flawed, but valuable enough that you pick one with the least flaws and make use of it.
My many economic betters are going to wince at this, but I still hold that the inflation missed by core PCE is offset by hidden disinflationary effects of technology and trade. Like leap year, it is not perfect, accurate, or fair but it holds the system in balance.
Posted by: jk at February 16, 2012 6:46 PMFebruary 13, 2012
The Immaculate Contraception
"Immaculate Contraception" is Dan Henninger's line at the WSJ. I give him the full ten points for that bon mot.
I assume we have not discussed this much because it is perhaps too stupid. I just can't get my head around "the compromise." Neither, it seems, can Prof Greg Mankiw:
A. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance that covers birth control.B. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance. The health insurance company is required to cover birth control.
I can understand someone endorsing both A and B, and I can understand someone rejecting both A and B. But I cannot understand someone rejecting A and embracing B, because they are effectively the same policy.
Too stupid indeed, but I am going to throw in my 2 cents anyway. The word that gets me is, "access." Seems like everytime I hear a liberal defending the Obama policy on this, it is because women have a, "right," to, "access," contraceptive health care. I have not heard of anyone denying them access to birth control. Go to the Dr., pay your bill, get a prescription. Go to the pharmacy, pay your bill, receive your pills.
Women are not being denied access to health care. What they are being denied, "access," to is other people's money (aka FREE contraception). On this point I am 100% with the church. Whew, never thought I'd say that again, being a recovered Catholic myself.
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."
Robert A. Heinlein (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966)
Yesterday I also thought it was "too stupid" to comment on. Today, I know better: "Republican war on women.
The DSCC said it was "hard to believe" that such a controversy could erupt, urging supporters to give money in support of the mandate."It's hard to believe that in the 21st century we have to fight for access to birth control, but that is the fact -- and there will be many more fights in the weeks ahead."
Does anyone remember the curious non-sequitur debate question from George Stephanopoulos "Do states have the right to ban the use of contraception?"
Posted by: johngalt at February 14, 2012 6:02 PMFebruary 7, 2012
Quote of the Day
Dirty Harry says if you didn't support the taxpayer bailout of General Motors and Chrysler back in 2008 and 2009, you quit on America ... punk! -- James Pethokoukis
I know what you're thinking. Did he spend six billion dollars, or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is America, the most powerful economy in the world, you've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?
Well, do you - punk?
(Yeah, I've already fired my answering shot to Clint in the Santorum Hate post. But I'm feeling lucky.)
Posted by: Keith Arnold at February 7, 2012 1:47 PMThey're both good, man, both good.
I was despondent upon viewing the ad. I took "halftime" as halftime of the game (that they spent $14 million of my money buying) and not the interstice betwixt Obama terms. But the celebration of the bailout is unambiguous.
The boys at WSJ beat it up pretty well today.
February 4, 2012
Brother's Keeper, Huh!
"Oh give me a break," Steyn said on Hugh Hewitt's radio show on Thursday night. "For a start, when he says, 'I am my brother's keeper,' his brother is back in Kenya living on $12 a year. That's what he was living on at the time of the 2008 election. So all the president has to do in terms of shared responsibility is put a $10 bill in an envelope and mail it to Nairobi or Mombasa or wherever and he will double his brother's salary.""This version of shared responsibility means the state should be your 'brother's keeper.' And this is the point for the Catholic Church. Separation of church and state is one thing, but big government means the state as church, the sole legitimate source of moral authority whether it's on contraception or gay marriage or abortion or any of the rest. And that's what you see in Europe. Big government drives out other sources of moral authority."
Hat-tip: Insty
February 3, 2012
Headline of the Day
Picking up where Brother jg left off
Obama Insists His Tax Hikes Are Simply Divine! -- Jim Geraghty
February 1, 2012
Internet Segue Alert!
President Obama's Devils, c/o Theodore Olsen (HOSS Alert!):
How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president's re-election campaign as an enemy of the people?
Me? Great, but I get your point, Ted.
What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president's surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president's party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly--and accurately--stated that you have no involvement?Consider that all this is happening because you have been selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team. This is precisely what has happened to Charles and David Koch, even though they are private citizens, and neither is a candidate for the presidents or anyone else's office.
The President's Angel, c/o Charlie Gasparino (whom I always considered a lefty in his WSJ days)
Now, Buffett's hypocrisy on taxes is well known to readers of these pages: He decries the fact that rich investors like him get taxed mainly at the lower capital-gains rate of 15 percent. Yet he made his vast fortune enjoying that favorable treatment, and largely kept his mouth shut until now, as he nears the end of his long career. Plus, he plans to use a charitable trust to further shield much of his income from taxes.
Much less has been said about Buffett's unsaintly investment record. I won't bore you with every gory detail of his questionable associations, which include no-lose investments in Goldman Sachs and General Electric just before the companies received massive federal aid during the financial crisis.But other items really take the shine off St. Warren's halo -- like his insistence that the ratings agencies didn't play a key role in setting up the 2008 financial meltdown.
I love how he advocates higher estate taxes and sells Insurance to avoid them. If they don't buy it, then Berkshire-Hathaway buys the family business from distraught heirs who can't afford the tax at fire sale prices.
Saint Warren, indeed.
So glad to see "Change" come to Washington...
Posted by: nanobrewer at February 2, 2012 12:09 AMJanuary 31, 2012
The gig is up
The historical accounts of the 2012 Presidential election are already being written. From Steve McCann's 'The Republican Establishment's Strategic Blunder' in the American Thinker:
The one major accomplishment of Barack Obama has been to bring a sudden and abrupt end the people's ability to tolerate this tacitly understood game between the two major Parties.(...)
All the other challengers were easily eliminated or made irrelevant, as they did not have the money or experience of knowing how the game is played, but Newt refused to just slink away. Never has the Republican Establishment trained its guns on any one candidate in such an unbridled and unrestrained way.
Perhaps Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Ron Paul are not the right candidates to face Barack Obama, but that decision should be up to the voters. While it maybe the role of the conservative pundit class to proffer their opinions of the various candidates, it is not the role of the overall Establishment to so marginalize candidates that there appears to be only one viable alternative.
The Establishment could not have made a more strategic blunder. They will, in all likelihood, succeed in securing the nomination for Mitt Romney, but the damage they have inflicted upon themselves is approaching irreversible. The public now sees the length to which the Establishment will go to make certain their hand-picked candidate is chosen regardless of the dire circumstances facing the nation.
I dunno. This really smacks of conspiracy theory. My assessment of conspiracies is that the theorists give way to much credit for intelligence to the conspirators.
It reminds me of when Gore and RFK Jr. blamed Bush for Katrina. Sure - a guy they claim to be to stupid to read a book somehow has God-like control over the weather.
Similarly here, the "GOP establishment" is too incompetant to organize a campaign, but somehow as the skills to do a Jedi mind-trick on the electorate.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at February 1, 2012 11:58 AMI'm confused. What's the "conspiracy theory?" That negative campaign ads work or that "an amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: control of the government purse-strings" dominates national party politics?
Posted by: johngalt at February 1, 2012 2:52 PMJG, you're a friend, so I'm happy to un-confuse you. :-)
First of all, the definition of "The Establishment": "an amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: control of the government purse-strings." Who in the polical debate does that NOT describe?!? We at Three Sources would love to control the government purse strings, if for no other reason than to tie a knot in them. Indeed, it is the disagreement over government gathering and use of funds that animates most of us.
Second, the idea that dozens or hundreds of prominant politicians - who can rarely agree on lunch - got together and derived a consensus and a grand strategy for electing a particular candidate seems highly implausible. The fact that a number of prominant politicians support a particular candidate does not mean that they got together and decided to do so, though no doubt many of the talk regularly.
Finally, "...it appears that those who are nominally identified as the "Republican Establishment" are doing all they can to alienate the vast majority of the current base of the Party." Seriously?? The party appartchik is sitting around dreaming up ways to piss off the "vast majority" of its base? Again, implausible. Moreover, how can they alienate the "vast majority" of the base and simultaneous convince them to vote for their chosen candidate?
This a sour-grapes theory to explain why Newt is losing to Romney. The truth is that while Romney may be deeply flawed, Newt is deeply, deeply flawed. Finally, just because a bunch of party insiders don't believe that Newt is electable doesn't mean it's not true.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at February 1, 2012 4:26 PMWhat he said. BR, that is...
Posted by: nanobrewer at February 1, 2012 11:43 PM"Republican Establishment trained its guns"
in non-partisan, unelectioneering, bomb-catching plainspeak, people established (aka, whose opinions are sometimes sought) within the republican party exercised their right to free speech and called a Newt... well, whatever they thought he was.
The idea of Ann Coulter colluding with anyone behind a closed door is silly... until ... it becomes oddly disturbing >:-0
I caught a bit of the ads and speech from the FL campaign. I didn't find the selected Romney ad objectionable (and you'd think they'd picked a nasty one). A bit harsh perhaps, but way less harsh than Newt calling anyone else a Washington insider: that takes gall and a forked tongue well-used to the taste of bile.
Gall don't necessarily impress independent voters. I already can't stand listening to His Whineyness anymore.
P.S.: the prohibition on posting comments still afflicts NB; but only with FireFox.
Posted by: nanobrewer at February 1, 2012 11:56 PMJanuary 26, 2012
Jon!
No, not the Governor of Utah. Jon Stewart, on the SOTU, in the funniest clip of him I have ever seen. I'm starting to understand the fascination:
Corporations are not people!
After watching a large part of this David Stockman interview with Bill Moyers I'm about ready to adopt the dirty hippies #Occupy meme. When they villified "Wall Street" and "Greedy Corporations" I always had a mental image of Fidelity Investments and WalMart. But if I replace that with Goldman Sachs and General Electric I think we would agree on more than we differ.
This also magnifies my distrust of the GOP establishment and, by association, the Romney candidacy.
David Stockman on Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Made it through. Clearly I'm going to have to change brother jg's password. It's one thing to hack somebody's account for personal gain, but this character assassination borders on libel.
Okay, he doesn't like Jeff Immelt -- thus 50% as reliable as a broken clock.
What what what did you like? A constitutional amendment to keep corporate money out of politics -- a $100 limit on contributions? Government dictating the size, structure, and allowed transactions of banks (my largest disagreement with Gov Huntsman)? Or did you just dig the repudiation of Reagan's economic vision?
If I may quote In Living Color's "Men on Film" segement: "hated it!"
Posted by: jk at January 26, 2012 6:04 PMIf memory serves, I came in at about 21:30 when I switched on PBS last night. Anything before that I'll defer to a future debate.
I liked the expose of GE's bailout and how it should have been done through a dilution of shareholder value and not by a FED bailout.
I liked the assertion, "Free markets are not free. They've been bought and paid for by large financial institutions."
I liked the identification of the "entitled class" of "Wall Street financiers and corporate CEOs" who "believe the government is there to do whatever is necessary ... whatever it takes to keep the game going and their stock price moving upward."
And most of all, I appreciated Stockman's correction that "it is important to put the word crony capitalism on there, because free-market capitalism is a different thing. True free-market capitalists never go to Washington with their hand out. True free-market capitalists running a bank do not expect that whenever they make a mistake or whenever they get themselves too leveraged, or they end up with too many risky assets that don't work out, they don't expect to be able to go to the Federal Reserve and get some cheap or free money and go on as before. They expect consequences, maybe even failure of their firm. Certainly loss of their bonuses, maybe loss of their jobs. So we don't have free-market capitalism left in this country anymore, we have everyone believing that if they can hire the right lobbyists, raise enough political action committee money, spend enough time prowling the halls of the Senate and the House and the office buildings arguing for the benefit of their narrow parochial interests then that is the way things will work out. That's crony capitalism and it's very dangerous. It seems to be becoming more embedded in our system."
What's not to like with any of this? We can argue about causes and solutions, but can we agree on this particular problem?
Posted by: johngalt at January 26, 2012 7:40 PMThe Refugee listened to all 34 scintillating minutes and can't quite see what sent JK 'round the bend. Yes, Moyers is an insufferable nincompoop, but we knew that going in. The irony, of course, is that the far left and the fiscal right have finally found common ground in deploring crony capitalism.
The most objectionable part of Stockman's comments was his assertion that we need to change the First Amendment to deny corporations the right to lobby and give political contributions. (Why corporations should be muzzled but not unions or enviros remains a mystery.) Nevertheless, his comments against crony capitalism and in support of pure capitalism seemed to make a lot of sense.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at January 26, 2012 9:55 PMWell, at least our ratings are up. I got an email from a good friend of the blog who is enjoying this argument very much.
You know, brothers, Governor Howard Dean doesn't like bailouts and crony capitalism either. I'm sure I can find a clip of his discussing it with Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Rachel Maddow. I'll post it and we'll all agree how very swell it is.
I do not trust either of these men. Both have done extreme damage to this great nation and our concept of liberty and personal achievement. Just because we all agree Jeff Immelt is a dickhead, I am not going to embrace them.
When Stockman longs for the Republican Party of his youth, he is longing for Eisenhower and Ford. Moyers, of course, never came to grips with the idea of a Democrat Party without LBJ.
"Free markets aren't really free" does sound like ThreeSources and I'm sure he'd like to sell us each a copy of his book. But when it comes from a guy who wants to dictate banks' size and business practice, propose extreme campaign finance rules, and has an, ahem, history of government expansion -- I do not accept that he is now calling for lasseiz faire.
I must say my first reaction to this recording was one of excitement over the fact that it could lead to a bridge between left and right so wide and so strong as to absolutely overpower the entrenched crony establishment with a popular laissez-faire revolution. After a second viewing I remain hopeful, and as long as my password continues to function I will strive to advance the topic. (Yes, I know yer just joking about yanking it.)
Let me ask that we seek a point of agreement before we debate whether Stockman is the GOP antichrist or Phil Gramm precipitated TARP. I'm sure we're all on board with "crony capitalism is very dangerous" so how about, this:
When the net worth of a collection of six financial services conglomerations and their six boards of directors approaches the annual GDP of the entire United States private sector, and the members of those boards of directors have unprecedented influence throughout the depth and breadth of the federal government, our principled free-speech rules may no longer be sufficient for preventing this "entitled class" from manipulating the government for their own narrow interests to the detriment of individual liberty and property, particularly in a mixed economic system with fiat currency.
In my youth, "Ma Bell" was deemed "too big" and was broken up. Today, "Wall Street" is deemed "too big to fail" and is instead propped up - by devaluing the net worth of every dollar-denominated individual. Cui bono?
While The Bad Guys and Three Sourcers can agree that crony capitalism is bad, our reasons for believing so are very different. The Bad Guys view capitalism, in toto, as undesireable. Thus, anything that props it up in any form is a bad thing. Three Sourcers, on the other hand, view crony capitalism as a misuse of taxpayer funds, misallocation of resources and questionable ethics. Because The Bad Guys believe that all things good emanate from the government, when crony capitalism falls capitalism will fall with it. Three Sourcers believe the opposite, and that a lack of crony capitalism will lead to better allocation of resources and therefore economic expansion. Thus, we are willing to accept this deal with The Bad Guys (all other things being equal).
We don't have to embrace them, we just have to outmaneuver them.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at January 27, 2012 12:46 PMJanuary 25, 2012
Jobs vs. Environment
Thousands of loggers lost their jobs in the American Northwest because of dubious claims about wiping out the last of the spotted owls. This is just one example of environmental extremists' non-linear cost benefit analysis doing irreparable harm to the livelihoods of American workers.
The latest glaring example of this is TransCanada Corporation's Keystone XL Pipeline project. Despite the safety record showing pipelines to be the "safest, most efficient and economical way" to move the natural resource called crude oil, environmental activists have chosen spill hazards as the primary reason to oppose private construction of the new pipeline. But America is already criss-crossed by 55,000 miles of oil pipelines, many of which are small, old and in disrepair. And the spill rate [pg. 9] for those lines is 0.00109 incidents (spill of 50 bbl or more) per mile per year. That calculates to 60 spills every year. The estimated spill rate for the modern new Keystone XL [pg. 10] is 0.186 spills per year, anywhere over its entire 1371 mile length. (.000136 incidents per mile per year)
So the question every American voter should ask himself is, would I quit my job and ask 19,999 of my neighbors to quit theirs in order to avoid increasing the pipeline spill incident rate by 0.3 percent? (And have you even noticed any of the sixty-odd spills that already happen each year?)
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief. - Frantz Fanon
Three Sources should consider re-branding to "Three Sources of Cognitive Dissonance" ;-) Rationalize, ignore and deny anything that does not fit within your core beliefs. Spotted owls, fracking, deforestation, pollution, environmental degradation and job loss included. Cheers! ;-)
Posted by: J at August 8, 2012 5:22 PMDoin' our job for us!
Keep at your work, ThreeSourcers, CATO has you covered:
January 24, 2012
SOTUPlatitudes
That's the working name for my new drinking game and boy, am I hammered.
Thanks to the boys at Real Clear Politics here are the transcripts:
Daniels: State of Union Is Grave
No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro- growth economic policy, there'll never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.
As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.
The speech itself was excellent, and the delivery by Indiana's Governor Daniels had the added benefit of making Mitt Romney sound, by comparison, like a dynamo.
One word
The Refugee challenges all Three Sourcers to offer one word - you only get one - to describe the State of the Union speech. He will go first.
Vapid.
Platitudinous.
Posted by: johngalt at January 24, 2012 11:38 PMSmug
Posted by: Terri at January 25, 2012 7:51 AMUnconscionable!
Posted by: jk at January 25, 2012 8:06 AMAvoided.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at January 25, 2012 3:00 PMhypocritical
Posted by: dagny at January 25, 2012 4:17 PMBut What About His Opponent?
The establishment GOP punditry has been dutifully besmirching Newt Gingrich as "radical" and "erratic." Too much so, they say, to be elected president much less hold the office. But what about the other guy? IBD's editorial page appreciates the way that Newt goes about reminding the media, and the voters, who that guy in the Oval Office really is.
Alinsky's radicalism despises capitalism, entrepreneurship, individualism and, most of all, American exceptionalism. It is the genesis of Obama's demonization of the successful and his passion for the redistribution but not the creation of wealth. It's at the heart of his ongoing apology tour where he tells the world we are sorry for acting like we are mankind's last best hope for mankind, a belief Newt Gingrich shares with President Ronald Reagan.
Obama's is the belief system that Newt Gingrich told NBC's David Gregory, "is fundamentally different from probably 80% of this country." That would be a comfortable electoral majority, would it not? Does Mitt Romney even know how to pronounce "Alinsky?"
Exhibit 1: The latest Romney tweet-
Mitt Romney @MittRomney This President's agenda made these troubled times last longer. He made it harder for the economy to recover http://obamaisntworking.com
Memorable, eh? I can smell the formaldehyde from here.
Posted by: johngalt at January 24, 2012 4:15 PMThe former governor can certainly turn a phrase.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at January 24, 2012 10:11 PMIt reads like he took a normal sentence and ran it through a software algorithm designed to lower the grade level of the speech. Maybe he's trying to "connect with the folks."
Posted by: johngalt at January 24, 2012 11:40 PMJanuary 23, 2012
One Man Makes a Difference - Again
Heh. Makes me think of Tiananmen Square! The Boston Bruins were honored with a White House reception today marking the occasion of their Stanley Cup victory last season. The team's players were in attendance, except one.
Nearly every other member of the Bruins was at the ceremony, where President Obama congratulated the team on its victory. Thomas is a staunch conservative and is expected to explain his snub of the president on his Facebook page this evening.
I'm a big Tim Thomas fan but cannot approve of this. It's an honor and was outside the political realm and I think the great netminder makes himself look small.
I go to my moonbat friends' houses and would be happy to accept an invitation to the White House.
Posted by: jk at January 23, 2012 7:32 PMI dunno, it seems to be going around.
I would accept an invitation to your moonbat friends' houses, but I've already been to the White House.
Posted by: johngalt at January 24, 2012 12:41 AMI saw that too. Maybe I am very old fashioned, but this is not going to play well. Feeds right into the "Democrats are trying to fix things and Republicans are petulant babies who won't play nice" meme.
I am, however, softening on Thomas:
I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.
This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.
Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.
Yeah, that's pretty good stuff.
Posted by: jk at January 24, 2012 10:40 AM
That was my sinister plan - Make sports star Thomas look better by spotlighting a man whose JOB is to listen to the other side's best arguments, and REFUTE them.
Operation Sport TEA, successful!
Posted by: johngalt at January 24, 2012 2:11 PMJanuary 21, 2012
Thosand Words
Hahahaha! Thanks Legal Insurrection!
Obama at Disney
January 6, 2012
Racist?
I like to stay out of this game, but this is insane. Thou shalt not say anything bad about FLOTUS.
A baldly racist depiction of First Lady Michelle Obama that appeared Tuesday on a right-wing website is based on a 1775 portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty (1740-1786). The full-length painting hangs outside Paris in the Palace of Versailles.
And who you calling baldy? Seriously, to suggest this parody is badly or baldy racist is off the deep end.
As Mike Rosen is fond of saying: behind every double-standard there lies a single standard. Thou shan't bring up BHO's record.
Posted by: nanobrewer at January 8, 2012 10:49 PMAnother clue to the secret identity of nanobrewer - he's in Rosen country. Hmmmm. ;)
Posted by: johngalt at January 11, 2012 1:41 AMQuote of the Day
Mr. Obama is claiming an open-ended authority to determine that the Senate is in recess, despite that body's own judgment and the factual realities. That is an astonishing and, so far as we can tell, unprecedented power grab. -- David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Investors Editorial: "Constitutional Crisis" "Impeachment"
"Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler's subjective whim."
I agree. Like a spoiled child trying to find out just how far his parents will allow his liberty, the President has crossed a bright red Constitutional line. Congress must, at minimum, put him in time-out.
Posted by: johngalt at January 6, 2012 1:52 PMDecember 24, 2011
Quote of the Day
[Instapundit] Reader Marian Booker writes: "A group of people organized by True The Vote in Houston went to Austin to shine light on the need for photo ID in voting, on the day of Eric Holder's speech. One speaker noted the irony of declaring photo ID to be too onerous a burden in the voting booth, but that photo ID was required to get into the building where Eric Holder was speaking against requiring photo ID. I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue!"
December 23, 2011
Michelle Obama - Randian
Whoops, I hope moveon-dot-org doesn't find out about this.
Barbara Walters, ABC News: "Mrs. Obama, you've recently said something that I thought was very interesting for other women to hear. You said 'you put your own self highest on your priority list.' That sounds selfish?"
Michelle Obama: "No, no, it's practical. It's something that I found I needed to do for quite some time, even before the presidency. And I found it other women, in similar situated balancing career family, trying to do it all and a lot of times we just slip pretty low on our own priority list because we're so busy caring for everyone else. And one of the things that I want to model for my girls is investing in themselves as much as they invest in others."
Yes, Michelle, it is selfish. What it is not is a shameful act. The next thing you know you'll be saying people should pay their own way. Baby steps.
Point of order, Mr. Chairman:
Mrs. Obama may in fact may in fact be - obliquely - getting in touch with her inner Randian, but only as regards herself. She puts herself first, which is one important aspect, and one for which none of us here would fault her, if that aspect were taken on its own. However:
(1) That philosophy also requires that she respect that same right of others to put themselves first and manage their own lives. Trying to dictate how we live, what we eat, and what we think violates that.
(2) Putting herself first in her own life is fine, but someone genuinely true to our philosophy would do so on the strength of their own resources and abilities. She should, as you write, "pay her own way." Her vacations are not being paid for by the family resources and the Obama paycheck; they are underwritten from the public coffers, funded by confiscatory taxation, and extravagantly so. The product of our labors is redistributed to her to finance her lifestyle. Ergo, there's a lot more looter and moocher than Randian in this recipe.
I realize that the post has the tongue firmly planted in the cheek, but if I can play Counterpoint to your Point, I'd brand her not so much a Randian as a self-involved, self-indulgent, extravagant, elitist beyotch. It seems to me that her Marie Antoinette street cred is secure.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 23, 2011 12:56 PMYes, yes, yes and yes - minus the satisfying but counterproductive ad hominem. ;)
What I liked about this story is that even a doctrinaire statist like Mrs. Hussein Obama has to admit that she is the best person to decide what is good for her self. I don't really expect her to disavow her statist ways because of this contradiction but it is a good example to others that no amount of government will replace one's own self-interested effort. (Stop demanding, start producing.)
It's also another rare opportunity to explain that selfishness isn't immoral, it's survival.
Posted by: johngalt at December 23, 2011 1:25 PMSatisfying? Most assuredly. Counter-productive? Perhaps, perhaps not; definitely not as counter-productive as most of the economic policies of the current Administration (and I mean "productive" in the economic sense, I suppose). You have no idea how much restraint it took to spell "beyotch" with seven letters. Ad hominem? The truth is an absolute defense, though I will defer to my gracious hosts who allow me to participate here: your house, your rules, and if I have been too off-color, please accept my apologies.
Today, I choose to celebrate the high degree of agreement you and I share on all the points we do. And, it being December 23, Happy Festivus to one and all. Should I not have the opportunity to post again in the next couple of days, a joyous Christmas to everyone at ThreeSources, friends and family included.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 23, 2011 3:11 PMYou are the picture of decorum brother. It's just that I make every effort to keep my posts as objective and defensible as possible in a probably misguided effort to be persuasive to Kool-Aid drinkers. It's a personal thing. (And if that's the only part I choose not to agree with you on it was a damned good comment!)
Posted by: johngalt at December 23, 2011 5:13 PMDecember 17, 2011
Churlish!
Jim Treacher institutes a caption contest for the Obama's Christmas Photo. (And starts it off with the humorous "But I do think, at a certain point, you've got enough presents.")
But I think it is a charming picture and will set aside my fulsome disagreement with all of the President's economic policies to salute his darling children and revel that my life has seen the progress from segregated drinking fountains to an African American President. Yes, I wish it had been Secretary Rice, but Merry Christmas.
"A politics of class-warfare is so inhumane - the ultra-wealthy are human beings too, you know?"
Posted by: johngalt at December 17, 2011 7:48 PM"Happy Holidays from the White House. Well, actually, we'll be in Hawaii for Christmas this year, and probably in Spain or Greece next Christmas. But you know what we mean. And of course, the next Christmas after that, we'll be back in Chicago, permanently."
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 17, 2011 8:25 PMDecember 8, 2011
BATFE So Eager to Exploit Illegal Gun Sales, It Arranged Them
CBS News has some commendable investigative reporting that includes emails between gun dealers and ATF agents:
ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.
"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."
"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."
For his part, Attorney General Holder says, "We do not know who the particular person was" who decided that "this flawed operation should be conducted."
Here in my office building in Glendale, CA, I have the opportunity on a regular basis to share an elevator ride with BATFE members whose office is several floors below mine. And yes, I plead guilty to regularly baiting them.
About two weeks ago, one decided to strike up a conversation with a smartmouthed comment. So I responded with "so, how's that whole Gunwalker thing working out for you people?" Mr. BATFE got visibly angry and came back with "you don't know what the f**k you're talking about."
Based on the last week's worth of unraveling stories and today's hearings, I'm pretty sure I won that exchange.
Good times...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 8, 2011 6:17 PMAt least we agree we are in a ditch
Well brothers and sisters, I have just read the president's Osawatomie speech, almost in its entireity. Those of us who wondered how he thought he could win re-election can see the answer in this speech. It is a brilliantly deceptive blueprint for a bait-and-switch shell game on the American people.
I actually agreed with most of what he said in the opening, right up until "I am here to say they are wrong" which I would replace with "I am here to say that I am wrong." This comes right after the following passage:
But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what's at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement. [Agreed.]Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.
Yes, Mister President, you are advocating a return to exactly the same practices that got us into this mess: Ever higher taxation, goverment spending more and more of our GDP, greater burdens on private businesses, further layers of coverage mandates for health insurers, interference with supply and demand in higher education which drives costs through the roof and causes shortages of trained blue-collar workers - in short, making life and business more expensive in America and driving jobs overseas. There really is a grave threat to the existence of the American middle class: You, and the repackaged, recycled, and retreaded egalitarian values you seek to "reclaim" demand.
An honest review of history shows us that such wealth-sharing demands - not, as you claim, free market capitalism - have failed to produce economic prosperity. Every, single, time. Free market capitalism has never been allowed more than enough rope with which to hang itself.
UPDATE: IBD Ed Page refutes the top five lies from Obama's Osawatomie speech.
You are perhaps being kinder to the President than was the WaPo Fact Checker (three pinocchios). I blame this on rampant left-wing bias at ThreeSources.
Posted by: jk at December 8, 2011 12:00 PMThe folks at IBD are somewhat less than impressed...
Posted by: jk at December 8, 2011 2:44 PMHa! If I were awarding "Pinocchios" I'd have given him four. The highest ranking, it means the statement consists of "whoppers."
Posted by: johngalt at December 8, 2011 3:00 PMI thought "Pants on Fire" exceeded the dreaded four-Ps. So hard to keep up with politics -- I guess that's a different site.
Posted by: jk at December 8, 2011 3:52 PMDecember 7, 2011
Bull Moose Bull ****
Since hearing soundbites of President Obama's "I'm channeling Theodore Roosevelt" speech yesterday I've wanted to deconstruct one or more of his specious points in a blog post. Before I could do so, Wichita Wordsmith Bud Norman beat me to it. And unlike his evaluation of candidate Newt Gingrich, he has a definitive conclusion this time.
Obamas favorite straw men were once again eviscerated with all the gusto of John Brown swinging a saber at some pro-slavers. He accused his Republican opposition of wanting to return to the same practices that got us into this mess, as if they were all clamoring for the government-enforced subprime lending and exorbitant deficit spending. He characterized the Republican philosophy as We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules, which strikes us as an unfairly simplified description, although we must admit it is still a more attractive option that relying on Obama to care for us and playing by his rules.
Just one of many delightful paragraphs, and I'll leave the ending for you as a surprise.
Is it too early to nominate Bud's Central Standard Times for promotion to the blogroll? I'm not sure I could have given the subject such sublime treatment. Indeed, I'd be tempted merely to stoop to a lowly video example of Obama's America.
November 22, 2011
Word of the Day
IBD has a $10 world, trading at about 10.125 as I type...
To hear Barack Obama describe the latest fiscal impasse in Washington, the poor guy is totally helpless dealing with this congressional crowd of hebetudinous laggards.He gave them his plan to cut the budget while spending more. He's rigidly sticking with it, which is principled. And both sides in Congress are rigidly sticking with their plans, which is stubborn. Except, come to think of it, there wasn't a real Democratic plan. All they did was not like the Republican ones.
For the hebetudinous who need a definition...
Insufficient sleep for first graders results in a hebetudinous approach to homework.
Posted by: dagny at November 22, 2011 2:29 PMNovember 18, 2011
Quote of the Day
Congratulations, Average American! says Jonah Goldberg:
Being the root cause of our dire national predicament puts you in some very august company indeed. You are joining the ranks of George W. Bush, the Japanese tsunami, the Arab Spring, Wall Street fat cats, and other luminaries, both living and merely anthropomorphized.
November 15, 2011
In the Real World, this Would be a Big Deal
The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show. -- WaPoMy friends assure me they are tired of hearing "If President Bush had done this..."
But too bad.
Lonely boy, commenting on his own posts, but it just hit me. "So that's why they did so well in the midterms!"
Posted by: jk at November 15, 2011 4:27 PMOctober 27, 2011
Quote of the Day
Which brings us to this week's campaign appearances. The topic was infrastructure. In Las Vegas on Monday, Mr. Obama called for "funding to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our airports." At a Los Angeles fund-raiser on Tuesday, the president was more expansive, saying "Let's get construction workers . . . and let's put them back on the job rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our hospitals and our schools." By week's end, Mr. Obama could be promising to rebuild corner gas stations and ugly backyard storage sheds in swing states. -- Evil genius architect Karl Rove
The President's Exciting New Program
As it was unleashed in my hometown, it would be churlish of me to not comment on President Obama's new program to help energize his moribund youth base students racked with crippling debt.
But I am a partisan hack and nobody would expect me to give the program an objective review. So, lets go to The Atlantic -- yeah, they'll be fair, they all voted for him. Well, maybe not Fat Cat Big City Banker David Indiviglio.
Of the many long-term problems the U.S. economy faces, student loans are a big one. Education costs are rising very quickly and incomes aren't. As a result, students will have to borrow more and more money to obtain university degrees and will have a tougher time paying their loans. President Obama seeks to respond to this question with an executive order in the next part of his "We Can't Wait" unilateral stimulus effort. While the president's heart may be in the right place, his effort isn't like to have much impact.
[Spoiler alert] Indiviglio says it will be $4 to $8 for most. Hey, I can have a McRib!
Now that I have been fair The news showed many clips of the President's visit and speech, which I'd expect, and approbation from his supporters which also seems fair.
One student, in a clip that runs twice, said he's happy that the new program will help him "pay off his loans faster." Umm, by reducing your minimum payment. Let me guess, buddy, you did not major in Math or Finance. I hope.
But he's done in 20 years instead of forever or 25 years, so yep.
Prices will go up.
Loans will go up.
Taxpayers will pay the remainers.
Mea Maxima Culpa. Young knowitallcollegehippieguy was right and I wrong. I did not see that part of the plan where we stick the taxpayers of 2031 with a liability that is politically popular today.
Would it be disrespectful of me to call the President a complete bastard for even thinking of this? Spending the money of those not yet born, by executive order, completely outside the Constitution -- this is about as bad as screwing the GM and Chrysler preferred debt holders.
Oh no, it's not as bad as you're painting it for the president. CONGRESS made this change. President Gumdrop is only accelerating the implementation date by two years (so it'll be before the election.) I still don't know WHICH congress did it - I suspect the 110th.
Posted by: johngalt at October 27, 2011 3:06 PMI can be so unfair sometimes.
Posted by: jk at October 27, 2011 3:25 PMOctober 24, 2011
Intransigent Congesspersons!
Mean old Republicans!
There has been a complete failure on the part of the Obama administration to address the catastrophic wave of home foreclosures across the country, leaving families in despair and wreaking havoc in countless communities...In order for our economy to expand, an effective policy must be put into place to turn this devastation of housing around. The administration's weak responses have barely touched "the tip of the iceberg". -- Rep. Anna Eshoo
With regards to the president's housing proposal, I'm very concerned that it's more of the same -- Rep.Dennis Cardoza
The lack of urgency being shown by various agencies and the White House is hurting our economic recovery and unnecessarily putting families at risk to lose their home. -- Rep. John Tierney
In my opinion, this is a national economic crisis that has been inadequately addressed for too long, and strong, bipartisan efforts are urgently needed. -- Rep. Elijah Cummings
You smart kids in the back are way ahead of me. Of course, these are all Democrats..
October 19, 2011
Mondo Heh!
This makes up for Bad Lip Reading Video's being funnier with GOP targets:
Hat-tip: Insty
October 7, 2011
Going to Great Lengths...
...to avoid a vote on President Obama's jobs Son-Of-Stimulus bill.
Philip Klein in The Washington Examiner:
In a stunning turn of events this evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used an arcane legislative maneuver to effectively rewrite Senate rules to make it harder for the minority party to force uncomfortable votes on the majority.The buildup to this point started on Tuesday, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tried to force a vote on President Obama's jobs bill as well as other Republican priorities by offering them as amendments to the China currency bill. Reid blocked the move.
Wait a minute. Hasn't the President been flying all over the country imploring Americans to call their Senators and tell them, "Pass this bill?" Other reports, notably Politico, downplayed this cause. Instead they pushed Reid's story-line that it was necessary to limit dilatory tactics.
Does anyone else get the sense that Senate Democrats are increasingly nervous about the looming election? The sweat on their collective brow is palpable.
Oops. I was supposed to strike through Son-of-Stimulus, wasn't I? Not "jobs." Mea culpa.
Posted by: johngalt at October 7, 2011 5:29 PMI assumed this was in order to comply with some new Internet "Truth-In-Advertising" law or something.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at October 7, 2011 6:01 PMOctober 6, 2011
Worth 1027 words
The president visits a Texas school and reads them a book about...um...himself.
Hat-tip: @KatMcKinley
Given the job he's done on the economy, the justice system, and everything else that comes to mind, it's a wonder that the people at the kennel think he's responsible enough to be trusted with a puppy.
Do you suppose that Bill Ayers ghostwrote this book for him, too?
Posted by: Keith Arnold at October 6, 2011 4:23 PMBy the way - whoever drew the picture of the SCOAMF-in-Chief standing at a podium left out the TelePrompTer - but sure remembered the shining, glowy aura.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at October 6, 2011 7:42 PMI love that picture. Much as I love to engage on policy and reason, that picture sums up his presidency. Some seek the office to do something and some seek it to be something.
And I think this Pulitzer-worthy provides the answer.
Posted by: jk at October 7, 2011 10:13 AMOctober 4, 2011
Be Right Back after this Brief Message
Ford isn't running this anymore, but I'll happily give it some play:
September 28, 2011
Stole My Idea
But Philip Levy probably does it better in Obama's Great Buffett Confusion
I really like bananas. Great way to start the day. Tasty and nutritious.
Wegman's sells them for 49 a pound, but I would pay more than that. At 99 a pound, I'd still get them. I'm happier paying less, but I could afford the higher price.
So why doesn't my grocery store take advantage of this? It could double the price of bananas and still keep my business
I was going to suggest that Starbucks® could add a quarter or half-dollar to every item on their menu and I would not go one fewer time or buy one fewer item. Egads! That would be billions of dollars in increased revenue -- every day! Why don't those fools on the board see it?
And Warren Buffett wouldn't mind paying higher taxes. Something about a contiguous supply-demand curve...
September 27, 2011
In which jk Agrees with David Axelrod
A perfect metaphor for the 44th:
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- President Barack Obama's chief political adviser on Tuesday conceded that a dark cloud looms over the American economy and Obama's political future, describing the president's road to a second term in the White House as "a titanic struggle."
Dark clouds and sinking ships. Strike up the orchestra: "Nearer my God to Thee" in Bb.
Might Become a Caps Fan...
I like the cut of owner Ted Leonsis's gib:
The real rift in philosophy though is do you want the Government to create jobs and stimulate the economy or do you want Americas small business to be the engine of growth?
Economic Success has somehow become the new boogie man; some in the Democratic party are now casting about for enemies and business leaders and anyone who has achieved success in terms of rank or fiscal success is being cast as a bad guy in a black hat. This is counter to the American Dream and is really turning off so many people that love American and basically carry our country on their back by paying taxes and by employing people and creating GDP.
[...]
I voted for our President. I have maxed out on personal donations to his re-election campaign. I forgot his campaign wants to raise $1 billion. THAT is a lot of money-money-money-money! Money still talks. It blows my mind when I am asked for money as a donation at the same time I am getting blasted as being a bad guy!
Rube.
Awesome link! Awesome debate in the public square!
A pretty remarkable collection of comments (35 as of my reading) follow the linked post. The pro-class warfare contingent has a recognizable theme: Income growth for the highest earners grows faster than "the middle class;" wealthy and corporations are "given" tax breaks "while the middle class pays income and payroll taxes at a higher rate than guys like you;" Republicans say "the middle class needs to pay" to fix America's indebtedness. All are evidence of a marginal way of thinking - every change viewed by who it benefits compared to someone else. This, boys and girls, is the very definition of class warfare.
But another commenter attempts an analogy: You [wealthy] happen to be "good at making money, but many of us aren't." If what really mattered in life was something else, say "the ability to fight hostile space monsters" wouldn't you want those who excel in that skill to "pitch in a little extra and help YOU out?"
Here's another idea: Suppose that those "not very good at making money" took steps to change that about themselves? Education, hard work, lifestyle choices all have predictable effects. But more importantly, "making money" is not a skill. Making desirable products is a skill. Delivering desirable services is a skill (like, for example, the ability to fight hostile space monsters.) Want to be happy? Want to be successful? Match your vocation to your ambition and your consumption to your income, and stop comparing your income to your neighbor's. Instead, compare it to what it was before you graduated college, or completed that last job training class, or earned your high school diploma. Climb the mountain at your own pace. "Stop complainin', stop grumblin', stop cryin'" and put on your climbing shoes. But climb the mountain under your own strength, don't climb on the back of the nearest guy who happens to be climbing faster than you (and then complain again when he decides to stop because you are too heavy.) We can all make it up the hill. Most of us are willing to help others along the way. Just don't ask us to do it with a gun to our head, "or else."
Posted by: johngalt at September 27, 2011 3:08 PMSeptember 22, 2011
Quote of the Day
As major Solyndra investor and Barack Obama donor George Kaiser told a crowd of his fellow Oklahomans not long after Obama's stimulus was announced in 2009, "There's never been more money shoved out of the government's door in world history and probably never will be again than in the last few months and the next 18 months. And our selfish, parochial goal is to get as much of it for Tulsa and Oklahoma as we possibly can." -- Matt Welch (a Reason guy, writing for CNN, is the space-time continuum safe?)
The linked article is "Why the $16 muffin matters." I must disagree a bit with my big-L Libertarian friend. Every word he says is true, but it propagates the lie that we can have all the government we want if we just elect candidate x who will clean things up. No need to stop developing programs for the poor and new middle class entitlements, we'll take it all out of pastry savings.
September 20, 2011
Right Wing Hate Site Attacks President's Plan
Yawn. Must be Thursday. Oh wait, it's the WaPo Business Section:
The latest Obama plan "doesnt produce any more in realistic savings than the plan they offered in April," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Theyve filled in details, repackaged it and replaced one gimmick with another. They don't even stabilize the debt. This is just not enough."The most disheartening development, MacGuineas and others said, is Obama's decision to count $1.1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan toward his debt-reduction total. Because Obama has no intention of continuing war spending at last year's elevated levels, that $1.1 trillion would never have been spent.
The President's plan, however, has been extremely well received by my moonbat Facebook friends.
And there we have the true audience for the latest Obama plan. Governing to the middle hasn't worked so well for him so he's returning to the moonbat briar patch.
Posted by: johngalt at September 20, 2011 3:48 PMSeptember 19, 2011
Chavez-Obama and International Law
Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez, having looted all the private wealth in his country, moves to protect his wealth.
ExxonMobils shareholders can join Chryslers bondholders on Obamas enemies list. If that seems a tad harsh, consider this: When made to choose between millions of American shareholders and one South American dictator, the Obama Administration chose Chavez.Why is the Obama Administration sitting in paralyzed silence while Chavez removes himself from international accountability? Is it perceived ideological comradeship, a loathing of investors, simple dereliction of duty or some other reason? Now that is a mystery.
September 16, 2011
What Motivates President Obama?
Hint: World Socialism.
Much of what Dick Morris says is interesting. Some of it, like this, is also important.
Posted in June, but played live on Mike Rosen's radio show today.
Thanks for the segue. Morris is a bright guy but he always goes one step too far up the black helicopter ladder. I think ascribing motives is dicey business. My father warned me that "you can't look into a man's heart." (Followed by "get a haircut" as I recall, but it's kinda fuzzy...)
I'm a strange choice for the President's defender but I am as good as he's going to get around here. I looked at this headline today from the superb demographer Joel Kotkin:
Declining Birthrates, Expanded Bureaucracy: Is U.S. Going European?
I think that a lot of my lefty and moderate friends see that as feature, and that we see it as a bug. David Mamet's Rabbi asks that we be able to articulate our opponent's argument. Here goes: "I was just in <insert European country here> and it's fine. Lovely scenery, happy folks, <insert one or two items in which they're superior>. What is so bad about being Europe?"
Now I have some answers, but the Disneyland vacation destination that Americans see does not frighten them about Socialism. As Democratic politicians improve, that is the argument we'll be having. Just another European nation is fine for the Obamas and a big step up for a Thomas Friedman or Paul Krugman. No hidden agenda, just a lack of American Exceptionalism.
To summarize: It's dicey to conclude (at present) that Obama wants America to join the One World Socialist Government, but when Democrat politicians improve their messaging that is precisely what they'll advocate.
Posted by: johngalt at September 16, 2011 7:17 PMAnother "mixed" economy -- I think the suggestion that Ireland and Canada are in collusion for a world Marxist order is overwrought.
Posted by: jk at September 16, 2011 9:45 PMI think Morris' point is that, like a lot of your lefty and moderate friends, President Obama sees Euro-socialism as something to aspire to as well. After all, "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." When the World Socialists saw capital flight from socialist France it's doubtful their conclusion was, "Gosh, if we could only establish a socialist system in Ireland and Canada the entire world would follow." Having a man like Barack Obama in the White House must have been beyond their wildest dreams thirty years ago.
But particularly in the wake of NY9 it appears that America is inherently different. The socialists may call it "selfish" or "greedy" when individuals protect their wealth from a socialist government, but those who dare make a claim on the productive gain of others are the truly selfish ones.
Posted by: johngalt at September 17, 2011 11:26 AMFriday!
Don't leave hope without it.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 16, 2011 5:11 PM"Like." Yesterday's comment-of-the-day.
Posted by: johngalt at September 17, 2011 12:48 PMSeptember 14, 2011
Dear AttackWatch
TerriG has linked to a list of LIES in the Wall Street Journal about the Administration's JOBS ACT:
Mr. Obama said last week that he wants $240 billion in new tax incentives for workers and small business, but the catch is that all of these tax breaks would expire at the end of next year. To pay for all this, White House budget director Jack Lew also proposed $467 billion in new taxes that would begin a mere 16 months from now. The tax list includes limiting deductions for those earning more than $200,000 ($250,000 for couples), limiting tax breaks for oil and gas companies, and a tax increase on carried interest earned by private equity firms. These tax increases would not be temporary.What this means is that millions of small-business owners had better enjoy the next 16 months, because come January 2013 they are going to get hit with a giant tax bill. Let's call the expensive roll:
Followed by a lot of LIES about how taxes will go up.
A commenter even refers to the President as OhBummer (I guess that's supposed to be a clever play on the President's name or something) and makes light of Attack Watch as if it is some kind of joke. Shut down her bastion of hatefulness!
Just doing my patriotic duty...
Tweet of the Day
On a serious note, the attackwatch may be a laughingstock to conservatives but it is antithetical to a free society.
View from the White House
And every other 'rat in Washington D.C.
Revenge of the Jews; Dem Seat Turns in NYC
AP: GOP wins in NY House race, seen as Obama rebuke
Retired media executive and political novice Bob Turner defeated Democratic state Assemblyman David Weprin in a special election Tuesday to succeed Rep. Anthony Weiner, a seven-term Democrat who resigned in June after a sexting scandal.The heavily Democratic district, which spans parts of Queens and Brooklyn, had never sent a Republican to the House. But frustration with the continued weak national economy gave Republicans the edge.
Turner has vowed to bring business practicality to Washington and push back on spending and taxes.
The race was supposed to be an easy win for Democrats, who have a 3-1 ratio registration advantage in the district.
(...)
Turner, a 70-year-old Catholic, vowed to push back on Obama's policies if elected.
Hat Tip to Drudge for the title.
September 9, 2011
You and Me, Greg!
Harvard Professor N. Gregory Mankiw and I have a few things in common.
Warren Buffett's Taxes, againI was disappointed to hear the President tonight raise the canard about Warren Buffett's allegedly low tax rate. The story is, at the very least, deeply misleading. I addressed the issue several years ago in this column.
No Doubt AG Holder will Get Right on it!
As Richard Trumke sat in the President's box at a joint session:
It turns out a union can go so far that even the current National Labor Relations Board can't turn a blind eye. A grain operator at the Port of Longview in Washington state was hit with a violent strike yesterday by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Longshoreman walked out at nearby ports in Tacoma and Seattle.According to police reports, some 500 longshoreman broke in at about 4:30 a.m. Thursday morning and held six security guards hostage for two hours while the protesters rampaged through the facility. They cut brake lines on railroad cars and spilled grain from boxcars.
Take these SOBs out!
September 7, 2011
Gibson CEO invited to joint session
Rep Marsha Blackburn, (HOSS - TN)! Mark Perry's Carpe Diem blog:
Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn issued the following statement today announcing that Gibson Guitar CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, will be her special guest for President Barack Obama's address to the Joint Session of Congress on Thursday night:"Gibson Guitar is at the heart of this jobs debate, and is an example of exactly why President Obama has it wrong when it comes to getting our economy back on track. Maybe if the President spent more time finding real solutions to empowering small business owners and less time hindering businesses like Gibson, we'd see more new jobs being created."
UPDATE: Maybe They'll All Break Out in Song during Obama's Speech on a Gibson Guitar!
Marsha Blackburn Voted FOR:
Omnibus Appropriations, Special Education, Global AIDS Initiative, Job Training, Unemployment Benefits, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, Agriculture Appropriations, FY2004 Foreign Operations Appropriations, U.S.-Singapore Trade, U.S.-Chile Trade, Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan, Flood Insurance Reauthorization , Prescription Drug Benefit, Child Nutrition Programs, Surface Transportation, Job Training and Worker Services, Agriculture Appropriations, Foreign Aid, Debt Limit Increase, Fiscal 2005 Omnibus Appropriations, Vocational/Technical Training, Supplemental Appropriations, UN “Reforms.” Patriot Act Reauthorization, CAFTA, Katrina Hurricane-relief Appropriations, Head Start Funding, Line-item Rescission, Oman Trade Agreement, Military Tribunals, Electronic Surveillance, Head Start Funding, COPS Funding, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Peru Free Trade Agreement, Economic Stimulus, Farm Bill (Veto Override), Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening, Patriot Act extension., Supplemental Appropriations, Patriot Act Extension.
Marsha Blackburn Voted AGAINST:
Ban on UN Contributions, eliminate Millennium Challenge Account, WTO Withdrawal, UN Dues Decrease, Defunding the NAIS, Iran Military Operations defunding Iraq Troop Withdrawal, congress authorization of Iran Military Operations, Withdrawing U.S. Soldiers from Afghanistan, Libya Troop Withdrawal.
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her “blatantly unconstitutional” votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn-congressman-marsha-blackburn-votes.html
Mickey
Thank you very much for your comment and link.
I promise I will take the time to carefully review the comprehensive list you provided. I have always liked Rep. Blackburn but confess I have not followed her voting record closely.
Having said that, a cursory glance at your list shows support for free trade agreements which I support. I understand a principled Ron Paul-esque opposition to individual bilateral and small zone trade agreements, but I am from the more trade the merrier school. I am fine with the trade agreements and the WTO votes.
Many of the others are lopsided, party-line votes that do not appeal to me but are the currency of a Congressional career of her tenure.
My approbation is for inviting the Gibson CEO as a guest to the speech. If Rep. Barney Frank had done that, I would be applauding him.
But I will read your list and reconsider whether she of the winsome smile and soft Dixie voice is deserving of the HOSS label. I will give that serious thought.
Rep. Blackburn is guilty of being a Republican in the George W. Bush - Denny Hastert era. I don't get very excited reading about:
H.R. 1298 would authorize $15 billion ($3 billion annually) for fiscal years 2004 through 2008 to provide assistance to foreign countries for the stated purpose of combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Much of this funding will be funneled through the Global AIDS Fund and other UN agencies[...]
And yet, "The House passed H.R. 1298 on May 1, 2003 by a vote of 375 to 41." I worked pretty hard to elect some of those 375 and the President who signed it. I will roll my eyes today, but not pull the rug out from under them for not being Ron Paul.
Posted by: jk at September 7, 2011 6:25 PM
September 2, 2011
That's a Number I Did Not Hear
Kudlow's guests last night were speculating that the jobs number might be as low as 50,000 or 30,000. Nobody mentioned "zero:"
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession.The government also reported that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.
Speaking as a small business owner in California - http://www.masterescrow.com - I would dearly love add four positions (two officers and two assistants), but in the current economic climate, I can't. I know a lot of people in the trade who are unemployed, and I'd be ready to put some of them to work, but for the actions of the Federal and State government. I guess King Putt and Moonbeam Jerry would rather these good people continue to draw unemployment and be dependent than to be productive and prosperous.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 2, 2011 11:41 AMOne of the guests was Jared Bernstein, VP Biden's Economic advisor (stop laughing in the back!) He's a bright and decent cat but he reflexively provides the leftist line. In the evidence of complete failure, he goes right into "the stimulus wasn't big enough" and "we have to provide demand."
All this against the ex-Verizon chief who is telling the same story you are.
Posted by: jk at September 2, 2011 12:16 PMHey, nb is bored in Bulgaria (more like avoiding work) and would like a TS summary on this position so's to better talk at large with my liberal Boulder friends.
Succinctly, KA, why do you avoid hiring? Are there concrete regs coming down the pike which you see as dangerous for an employer, or is it just the overall anti-business "climate" that exudes from the Obamanites & allies like Guv Moonbeam?
Posted by: nanobrewer at September 3, 2011 4:29 AMProf VDH has some thoughts as well. He laments the death of a thousand cuts from the business hostile Administration:
Here is the lament I heard: the near $5 trillion in borrowing in just three years, the radical growth in the size of the federal government and its regulatory zeal, ObamaCare, the Boeing plant closure threat, the green jobs sweet-heart deals and Van Jones-like "Millions of Green Jobs" nonsense, the vast expansion in food stamps and unemployment pay-outs, the reversal of the Chrysler creditors, politically driven interference in the car industry, the failed efforts to get card check and cap and trade, the moratoria on new drilling in the Gulf, the general antipathy to new fossil fuel exploitation coupled with new finds of vast new reserves, the new financial regulations, an aggressive EPA oblivious to the effects of its advocacy on jobs, the threatened close-down of energy plants, the support for idling thousands of acres of irrigated farmland due to environmental regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, the needlessly provocative rhetoric of "fat cat", "millionaires and billionaires," "corporate jet owners," etc. juxtaposed, in hypocritical fashion, to Martha's Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail First Family getaways -- all of these isolated strains finally are becoming a harrowing opera to business people.
Well yes, Professor, but other than that... Posted by: jk at September 3, 2011 10:59 AM
Silver Lining department: As the Obama Administration and its army of enviro-fascists gets to run wild with every regulatory wet-dream they've ever concocted, all at once and without adult supervision, the free-market economy renders its verdict on environmentalism writ large: GUILTY.
Guilty of driving away both producers and customers. In the Bill Gates interview I linked here he also said:
"Rich countries can afford to overpay for things. We can afford to overpay for medicine, we can overpay for energy, we can rig our food prices and overpay for cotton. But in the world where 80 percent of Earth's population lives, energy is going to be bought where it's economical."
What do you mean "we" Kemosabe?
Posted by: johngalt at September 3, 2011 11:31 AMBrother jg is unsurprisingly right. It would have been damned unpatriotic to cheer for such misery in 2k8. But we might look at this millenarian moment as a sliver lining at the very least.
Posted by: jk at September 3, 2011 11:39 AMAugust 31, 2011
Headline of the Day
Donald Lambro in the Washington Times: Obama jobs plan: Plan on being unemployed
"Jobs creation remains weak, because temporary tax cuts, stimulus spending, large federal deficits, price-raising health-care mandates, and tighter but ineffective business regulations do not address, and indeed exacerbate, the permanent structural problems holding back dynamic growth and jobs creation," writes University of Maryland business economist Peter Morici."Until this policy direction is altered, the economy will continue to grow slowly or slip into recession, unemployment will rise, living standards will fall, and American standing in the global economy will decline," Mr. Morici says.
What were seeing, he adds, is "an American policy of decline by design."
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Alternative headline: George Santayana, call your office!
It is bad enough when the historical errors of the 18th and 19th Century are dusted off to destroy a fresh generation, but the first two WSJ Editorials today show that the lessons of the last two decades are forgotten -- even as the ashes of their destruction still smolder (pretty lyrical, huh?)
Editorial #1 hints at a vague sense of deja vu when one discusses the new "Infrastructure Bank."
This is the Fannie Mae model applied to public works. The new bank would be a government-sponsored enterprise, or GSE, whether or not anyone admits it. The bank would have an implicit subsidy for its debt because it is backed by the government. And the debt it issued would be "off-budget," which means it wouldn't show up in annual outlays. When she first proposed the concept in 2008, Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro explicitly described the bank as a "public private partnership like Fannie Mae."
Heh. "Off Budget." Try that on your next IRS Audit. And if Fannie and Freddie are back, we're certainly going to need a new Community Reinvestment Act. Editorial #2 by Mary Kissel shows that the Holder DOJ is not just about giving weapons to drug lords and shutting down guitar manufacturers. There's racism to be fought!
The 1990s may have brought us supercharged politicized lending, but Eric Holder's Department of Justice is taking the game to an entirely new level, and then some. The weapon is a "fair lending" unit created in early 2010, led by special counsel Eric Halperin and overseen by Civil Rights Division head Thomas Perez.A sampling of Mr. Perez's thinking, from April 2010 congressional testimony: "The foreclosure crisis has touched virtually every community in this country, but it disproportionately touches communities of color, in particular African-Americans and Latinos." And: "[C]ross burnings are the most overt form of discrimination and bigotry. Lending discrimination is some of the most subtle. It's what I call discrimination with a smile."
But nobody is going to be smiling when Perez is finished, you can bet your Spin Doctors CDs on that!
At least this time, we won't have zero interest rates...oh, wait...
Posted by: jk at August 31, 2011 12:24 PMAugust 29, 2011
Quote of the Day
So far, he has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, Slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the Tea Party, Republicans, Japan's earthquake, the Arab Spring, the Arab Summer, George Bush, and "fat-cat" Wall Street something-or-others. The kitchen sink may be next.-- Salena Zito
August 27, 2011
Quote of the Day
Cheap Shot? Yeah, but I like it:
The president's retreat appeared doomed from the start as the stock market dove just before his arrival a week ago at the sprawling, $20 million Blue Heron Farm in the swish Chilmark section of the island paradise. The vacation only got worse as the Congressional Budget Office reported anemic economic growth, fighting erupted in Libya's capital and a rare earthquake centered just south of the White House rocked the East Coast and cracked the Washington Monument -- all while Obama hit the links, the beach and the bike paths. -- Dave Wedge & Chris Cassidy
August 26, 2011
Quote of the Day
Via @JazzShaw:
Krauthammer: "Earthquake, hurricane, Obamacare. When does it stop? Seven more and I vote we let the Israelites go."
August 22, 2011
Hank Reardon, Call Your Office
Ken Salazar's Interior Department moves to prevent Exxon from developing a billion-barrel oil field it discovered in deep water Gulf of Mexico in 2007. Because of feared oil spills? No. Because it might impair the mating habits of the Gorite-dwelling shoestring eel? No.
Employing an extreme technicality, these regulators claimed that Exxon's request in 2008 for a short suspension of activity to upgrade and make safer its drilling operation amounted to an abandonment of three of its five permits, simply because Exxon hadn't signed a contract with another partner, Chevron, by the time the suspension was completed.In the past, such glitches were no problem after all, it's obvious Exxon, which spent $300 million on exploratory wells, hasn't abandoned the operation.
But in the Obama era, which demonizes oil production in American waters by American companies, the bureaucrats came up with this permit technicality to effectively expropriate the entire operation.
I would say "unbelievable!!" but sadly nothing is anymore when it comes to this bullpucky.
Posted by: Terri at August 22, 2011 3:47 PMThis was a day in the WSJ Ed Page's Week in the life of the Obama Recovery
Consider the headlines only from last week, a slow week by Washington standards, with Congress out of session and President Obama campaigning for three days before going on vacation. Even in the dog days of August, your government was hard at work undermining economic confidence.
Holler if you would like it mailed over the pay wall, it is devastating. Posted by: jk at August 22, 2011 3:54 PM
Nope, I got it, and had read it first thinking you missed a ht to the WSJ, but then compared the quotes. Same song. Same, sad, sad, song.
Posted by: Terri at August 22, 2011 7:21 PMAugust 20, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
A first draft of the history of the Obama Administration?
Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement while America's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.
From Nero in the White House by Mychal Massie. The remainder of the piece is far less delicate.
August 17, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," President Obama fantasized on the campaign stump in Iowa. "But over the last six months, we've had a run of bad luck."Bad luck?
No, not that... this. Robert A. Heinlein via Dr. Milton Wolf, cousin of President Obama:
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded - here and there, now and then - are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as 'bad luck.' "
It's short. Read it all.
With this President in the White House, the Heinlien quote is "Quote of the Quadrennial."
Posted by: jk at August 17, 2011 12:49 PMAugust 16, 2011
The Obama Bus Tour in 24 Seconds
Stolen from an Instapundit reader. But this is too good:
August 12, 2011
Ayn Rand, Call Your Office
Not the Onion, the Wall Street Journal, brings news that Department of Labor Assistant Secretary Phyllis Borzi, who runs the Employee Benefits Security Administration is pushing a rule -- on zero evidence of malfeasance -- to restrict investment advice to investors.
The rule would have huge consequences for the retirement savings industry. Brokers would have to weigh the cost of higher regulatory compliance against staying in the business. Investors would pay more for trades and advice and have fewer investment choices. Investment educational seminars would likely halt in many cases, lest organizers think they'll be held liable as a fiduciary for giving general investment advice.Many firms would raise minimum investment amounts to cover their higher costs, cutting off access to lower-income savers. Consultancy Oliver Wyman surveyed about 40% of the investment retirement account market and estimated the proposed rule could "eliminate access to meaningful investment services for over seven million IRAs." Investors could see "direct costs" rise between 75% and 195%.
Clearly, my Schwab guy might try to advise me to buy a Schwab ETF someday, so it is best that I have no access to advice ever.
We're from the Government and we're here to help!
August 9, 2011
2000 Words
'Cause, it's really two pictures that grace Bill McGurn's editorial today.
August 8, 2011
Quote of the Day II
(I get one for every 300 points the DJIA drops.)
The trouble is that because he is an ineffective leader--inexperienced, inflexible, committed to rotten ideas--his Good side does not inspire confidence and his Bad side does not inspire fear. (That's not to say Obama doesn't scare the hell out of people. But one fears him the way one would fear an 8-year-old behind the wheel of a large automobile.) -- James Taranto
Quote of the Day
3. The left in America, as exemplified by Obama's vapid press statement, has no serious intention of addressing this problem. The President has failed to present any sort of plan. His budget early in the year was a business-as-usual document with no reforms and even the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected it 97-0. But while Senate Democrats joined Republicans in deep-sixing Obama's joke budget, they have failed to produce a budget of their own for more than two years. -- Dan Mitchell ay CATO
Thank You S&P
A not-entirely-different-for-ThreeSourcers look at the downgrade. Maybe I've been watching Kudlow too long, but I find some of the best commentary comes from the investment community. They have much to lose and none of the good reasons to suck up when compared to traditional media punditry. Let 'er rip, Gary Kaltbaum:
Thank you S&P. I gather that surprises many of you as I have railed against the rating's services for years. That hasn't changed. There should have been criminal indictments against these companies for what they did with mortgage securities, but right now, they did us a big favor. At least, S&P did.So excuse me, Mr. Buffett, for disagreeing with you. I know that is not a smart play. But it is my contention that if the con game went on for too much longer, what you saw in the market last week would end up being a walk in the park. I could not be happier that the debt bomb is now front-and-center. I have been writing about this for quite a while. This will hopefully shut up the deficit spenders, but somehow I doubt it. I do want you to keep in mind, these ratings services are nothing more than publishers of opinions.
Tim Geithner doesn't matter. What's the deal with trying to get rid of him? He is nothing more than Charlie McCarthy to Edgar Bergen. In my world, he is not even to be paid attention to. I know -- sounds disrespectful. Sorry, just telling it like it is.
Amens all around. I have to agree with his colorful characterization of our SecTreas. Yes, he's a disappointing weasel of a political hack. Do you suspect for a moment that he'd be replaced by someone better were he to step down?
August 5, 2011
Headline of the Day
Dow Jones plunges 512 points; but don't worry, President Obama's birthday parties unaffected -- Top of the Ticket, LA Times
August 3, 2011
"Stealthflation"
During the Ford-Carter-Reagan era, before I was of voting age, the economic situation gave rise to the term "stagflation" which referred to high inflation and low economic growth as a percentage of GDP. We might say that the same conditions exist now except that in the 70's and 80's inflation was measured by interest rates. Today interest rates are near record lows, with T-bills around 2.7 percent leading to 30 year mortgages on the order of 4 percent. Yet inflation fears are alive and well given QE1 and 2 and the record price of $1660 US for gold. In other words, we have real inflation, as the costs of energy, food, health care, and other durable goods go up, but it isn't reflected in Fed policy. It is a hidden or "stealth" inflation. But like Oz's wizard it can't go unnoticed forever.
Back to stagflation:
The concept is notable because, in Keynesian macroeconomic theory which was dominant between the end of WWII and the late-1970's, inflation and recession were regarded as mutually exclusive, the relationship between the two being described by the Phillips curve. In addition because stagflation has generally proven to be difficult and, in human terms as well as budget deficits, very costly to eradicate once it starts.In the political arena one measure of stagflation termed the Misery Index (derived by the simple addition of the inflation rate to the unemployment rate) was used to swing presidential elections in the United States in 1976 and 1980.
So let's see, unemployment rate plus the price of gold...
Yikes! I'm goin' camping. Please save civilization while I'm gone.
Concerned but still not sold on inflation fears. I'm pretty happy using core CPI as a deflator and see Gold as global growth + "risk-on" trade + a wise inflation hedge with a loose Fed. As even the core pushes comfort levels, I hope Helicopter Ben will keep QE3 in his pants as it were.
But your Oz reference was well timed. I thought of you as I watched "Tin Man" again and remembered our agreeing on its virtues. It is available on the Netflix Instant Queue, and comes with substantive endorsements from jg and jk.
JK, you're very trusting on either version of the CPI. It's so massaged, with the government economists overweighting and underweighting whatever they can to meet the agenda. Check shadowstats.com, which doesn't do any tricks. It merely uses the methodology in place in 1980, rather than the trickery employed today.
Bill Dudley can point to iPads. I point to commodity prices whose rise cannot be explained by supply and demand. I point to standard groceries, and container sizes continually shrinking so we can pay the same for less. Things are worse than we care to admit.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at August 3, 2011 11:48 PMThe government CPI is pretty close to worthless for Austrians (it is intentionally manipulated to favor Keynesianism). When it comes to real inflation risk, keep a close eye on gold, oil, and food prices.
Posted by: gd at August 4, 2011 11:23 AMjg starts a monetary policy debate and then heads out camping -- gonna have to have a talk with that lad...
Guess I am a Chicagoan then, gd. Inflation as always a monetary phenomenon. Core CPI has its flaws (I think it underestimates inflation – burn the heretic!) but its flaws normalize over long-term historical comparisons. Gold is subject to speculation and varies with world risk appetite, oil is a cartelized and highly regulated commodity. Yes, it is denominated in dollars, but I wouldn't use it as an accurate measurement. Food is a global growth play and is manipulated by biofuel mandates.
JK, I think you are correct about gold, oil, and food being subject to price manipulation and speculation, but I look at these price movements as more of a short term phenomenon. Over the long run more money in supply means higher prices unless there is a change in supply or demand for products/resources. That is why I do not put too much emphasis on short term calculations; I am more concerned with how the long term prices of gold, oil, and food are trending relative to wages, employment, and the overall supply of money.
Ludwig von Mises postulated that Keynesianism will always fail in the long run for one of two reasons: 1. The crack-up boom (the destruction of both monetary order and economic productivity in a wave of mass inflation) or 2. A deflationary contraction in which men, business, and banks go bankrupt when the expected increase of fiat money does not occur.
There is some divergence going on in the Austrian camp right now about whether hyperinflation or deflation will come first, but I think the stagflation risk is worthy of consideration.
Stealthflation, gd, Stealthflation. A proper noun, coined by this blog brother. Help me promote this trademarked economic malady and I'll cut you in on the rake!
I'm not backing down on the validity of commodity prices as inflation indices. Yes, food prices are manipulated by government regulation, as are oil and gold prices. But the prices are ontic. [A word I learned when double-checking the definition of 'noumenal.'] For each commodity the price Is what it Is. No matter the cause of inflation, higher prices equal monetary inflation.
(They're from the government, and they're here to "help.")
And if gold is "subject to speculation and varies with world risk appetite" is that not a crowd-sourced, market-driven "inflation future?"
Posted by: johngalt at August 7, 2011 7:06 PMAugust 1, 2011
What NOT to Worry About in Debt-Limit Battle
Investors' Ed Page gives us Five Big Debt Debate Lies:
- Aug. 2 is the drop-dead deadline
- We risk defaulting on the debt
- Social Security payments are at risk
- A long-term debt ceiling hike is a must
- Obama wants a deal
Falsehoods all, say the editors at Investors. This last is the reason IBD urges the TEA Party Caucus to "declare an imperfect battlefield victory in 2011 and regroup for the more important struggle of defeating President Obama in 2012." But if the limit isn't raised there is no real danger for the government cutters, only a prospective demagogic one.
What time is it kids? It's tortured ThreeSources Analogy Time!!! Woohooo!
The odds are pretty good in Russian Roulette as well. There is probably not a shell in the chamber. Eighty three percent chance you're gonna be fine. Pull the trigger, Republicans! C'mon!
Posted by: jk at August 1, 2011 3:12 PMI dunno, this doesn't really seem like political suicide for debt hard-liners to me.
Obama: down
Boehner: down
Dems on Obama: down
Reps on Boehner: up
Beside the fact that Obama won't be running against Boehner or anyone else in congress. Where is the evidence that the electorate is or may have second thoughts about restraining government? If anything this shows that effort needs a boost.
Posted by: johngalt at August 1, 2011 5:25 PMThe Refugee is not crazy about this deal. Both John McCain and John Kerry strongly support it - 'nuff said.
However, getting a $900 billion reduction while controlling just 1/2 of 1/3 of government is not bad (although we are still going further into debt). The future result will largely depend on the make-up of future Congresses and the White House. We have to win 2012 and taking this deal gets that process started.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at August 1, 2011 6:28 PMOn the Other Hand, "The Hobbits Won"
I commented earlier today that the Progressives in congress and the White House are lamenting the current debt-limit "compromise" bill as a ruse to make conservatives believe it is good for taxpayers (by cutting spending and not raising tax rates.) Then I read Marc Thiessen explain how "the 'hobbits' won."
The fight for a balanced budget amendment must go on. But Tea Partyers should recognize just how much Obama and the Democrats caved: $2 trillion in spending cuts. No tax increases. A new precedent that debt-limit hikes must be accompanied by equal or greater cuts in spending. And the potential for a balanced budget in 10 years. That the Tea Party accomplished all this in just six months at a time when the GOP controls one-half of one-third of the federal government is remarkable.
Now, this conclusion is rooted in the assumption that "the package sets an important new precedent that debt-limit increases must be paid for with commensurate cuts in spending." And that "according to Sen. Rob Portman, a former White House budget director, if we cut a dollar of spending for every dollar we raise the debt limit, we will balance the budget in 10 years something that even the Paul Ryan budget would not achieve" is also correct.
Taking those on faith I too would back the compromise. (But y'all know my opinion of faith.) Being both an optimist and a cautious conservative I s'pose I'll have to put away my matches and focus on 2012.
QOTD2
By that Reagan standard, Mr. Obama has been a singular failure. The crippling truth of the Obama presidency is the pessimism of the man, the low expectations he has for this republic. He had not come forth to awaken this country to its stirring first principles, but to manage its decline at home and abroad. So odd an outcome, a man with an inspiring biography who provides no inspiration, a personal story of "The Audacity of Hope" yielding a leader who deep down believes that America's best days are behind it. -- Fouad Ajami
"The Audacity of Atrophy."
Posted by: johngalt at August 1, 2011 3:25 PMJuly 28, 2011
Quote of the Day
4. When it was Chrysler secured bondholders objecting to getting defaulted on by the president's auto task force, Mr. Obama denounced them as "a small group of speculators" who were "hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none." Where was Mr. Obamas newfound respect for bondholders back during the Chrysler deal? Or, conversely, if Chrysler bondholders should have had to bear some sacrifice then, why shouldnt Treasury bondholders now? -- Ira Stoll
TEA Party Hobbits
While we're waiting for the House to pass the Boehner Bill this evening, thus forcing the Senate and White House to make good on their threats to risk "default" by killing the House compromise, let's have some more fun. Did anyone hear Sen. John McCain read this into the record yesterday?
The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell into GOP Senate nominees.
I'm sure that Senator nicey nice was attracted to the passage by the shots it took at the TEA Party ladies but the Hobbit line is the one that, as dagny suggested, "might stick" to the TEA Partiers. And why not? The Hobbits were the good guys! And defeating Mordor is a life or death matter. We just need to remind ourselves that it took the Hobbits three books and at least as many movies to get the job done. It ain't gonna happen with one debt-limit vote.
It's been a while since I was so disappointed in the WSJ Ed Page. Having it read into the Congressional record by the Senior Senator from Arizona is, perhaps, punishment enough.
I didn't mind the Hobbit reference. It goes well with the whole paragraph, which criticizes plan opponents for having nothing else.
I was angry with the slap at O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. Do they really wish Mike Castle was in the Senate to smooth things over? I do not know the establishment candidate in Nevada, but I think some Tea Partiers can be proud of standing on principle.
Brer's JK, JG and Rep. Allen West
Boehner backers all.
"In seven months, I think the expectation for Allen West and the rest of us to correct something that has been a disease going on for 30 years Let's be realistic in our expectations. It takes 5 miles to turn an aircraft carrier around. I can tell you this: We have started that motion," West said.
Those TEA Party Republicans are so extreme and unreasonable.
My eyes tear up just thinking about it...
Posted by: jk at July 28, 2011 10:09 AMTerri suggests that if even the grouchy old guys at ThreeSources are in, it must be okay...
And she also found this gem from @McCormackJohn:
Underpants Gnome debt plan:Posted by: jk at July 28, 2011 4:05 PM
Phase 1: Defeat Boehner;
Phase 2: ???;
Phase 3: Cut, Cap, Balance!
July 27, 2011
Dear [Congressman] Cory [Gardner]
Dear Cory,Yesterday I called your office in Fort Collins and asked them to register my support for a "no compromise, no surrender" position on the debt limit issue. Today I am urging you and the rest of the house freshmen to support the Boehner Bill.
Your principled stand over the past week has resulted in: Elimination of all tax hikes, substantive and actual cuts in government spending, and a limited debt cap increase. President Obama and the Democrats have lost on virtually all of their demands.
While I personally have little fear of government default I believe most Americans do, and would view inaction on the debt limit as irresponsible and a "failure to compromise" as unreasonable. Putting the Boehner bill on the president's desk will put him in a no-win position. Failure to do so will give him his only chance to score political points.
I believe the accomplishments of you and your peers are remarkable. You will have my support and that of those like me whether or not you back the Boehner bill. I think you'll earn the respect and support of less principled voters if you show the reasoned maturity to take what you can get and send it, with bipartisan support, to the president.
As my blog brother and I recently wrote, "It is time to take what we can get, move on, and make the 2012 elections a serious referendum on the size of government." http://www.threesources.com/archives/009511.html
Respectfully yours.
I sent this despite being emailed by Grassfire Nation that "Rep. Gardner to vote on 'Debt Ceiling' bill TOMORROW"
According to Politico, this morning, Speaker Boehner bluntly told wavering GOP lawmakers this morning to "get your a-- in line" behind his debt ceiling bill as he scrambles for votes.Your Congressman is being strong-armed and intimidated to accept and support a bill that doesn't do what was promised!
Now we are being told that Boehner will bring spending legislation to the House floor for a vote tomorrow (Thursday, July 28).
Thanks for the tip. I have my own message for my congressman, thank you.
Debt Ceiling Chicken
OK, now I'm ready to join my blog brother in saying, "It is time to take what we can get, move on, and make the 2012 elections a serious referendum on the size of government." Much has changed in the week since jk suggested grabbing the Gang-of-Six plan and counting ourselves fortunate. The payoff from the overdue standoff versus the White House and its media minions is the chance to deliver a debt increase bill with actual spending cuts and no tax hikes, either in rates or deduction phase-outs, that the President will have no choice but to sign. Mister "can they say yes to anything" wouldn't say yes to $800 billion in new taxes but insisted on $1.2 trillion. Instead he'll get zero.
But now, despite the success enjoyed through standing firm, it is time to compromise and let our other objectives wait for the next battle. Jennifer Rubin puts it bluntly:
There are very few times when Republicans have a vote that so clearly defines who is a constructive force for conservative governance and who is not. There could be no better device for separating the two than the Boehner vote. If you'd rather burn down the building, you are in one camp. If you want to pocket gains and keep advancing your principles (and setting the agenda for 2012), you are in the other.
Why is it destructive to keep holding out for more?
The Republican hard-liners insist there is still a cut, cap and balance option out there. No. That was some conservatives preference. An aspiration is not a guide to governance. It's not getting through now or until there are a dozen or so fewer Democrats in the Senate. Right now we are nowhere close to 60 votes for cloture or the two-thirds of the Senate needed to approve a constitutional amendment.
Yup. Can't argue.
UPDATE: The title for this post was borrowed from the excellent Thomas Sowell column by the same name (and was in no way meant to imply that jk and I are barnyard fowl.)
Welcome aboard! You can sit in the back there, next to the creepy guy in the raincoat...
Posted by: jk at July 27, 2011 4:26 PMDon't let the helmsman hear you call him "creepy looking."
Posted by: johngalt at July 27, 2011 5:01 PMYou called me a debt ceiling chicken.
Posted by: jk at July 27, 2011 5:06 PMFair 'nuff.
Posted by: johngalt at July 27, 2011 5:21 PMMs. Rubin's Ten things that will happen is very good as well.
Posted by: jk at July 27, 2011 6:13 PMAgreed. I'm thinking of sending it to my congressman. That link (bill) was quite subtle. Thanks for highlighting.
Posted by: johngalt at July 27, 2011 7:06 PMJuly 26, 2011
Quote of the Day
Obama, meanwhile, seemed to be going out of his way to isolate Boehner from his more militant caucus members--praising Boehner's willingness to cut a deal, if only it weren't for the crazies on the far right. Perhaps this makes Obama look like a nice guy to people who don't understand the GOP intra-party dynamics, but of course, it poisons an already poisonous relationship between Boehner and the tea-partiers. If I were feeling uncharitable, I might argue that Obama seems to be willing to lower the chances of getting a deal, as long as he raises the chances that the other guys get the blame. And frankly, I'm not feeling very charitable right now. -- Megan McArdle, "We're All Doomed!"
George Will Goes Off on Emperor Obama
For "imperiously" summoning congressional leaders to his presence last weekend.
There are 87 reasons for Obamas temporary conversion of convenience to the cause of spending restraint the 87 House Republican freshmen. Their inflexibility astonishes and scandalizes Washington because it reflects the rarity of serene fidelity to campaign promises.Obama a demagogue for an age of smooth surfaces; Huey Long with a better tailor pretended Friday to wonder whether Republicans can say yes to anything. Well.
Thank you TEA Party. One can be forgiven for wondering if this power struggle between Congress and the White House will be the point history records as Barack Obama's Waterloo.
Damn those Corporate Jets!
I yelled at the TV when the President dropped the Corporate Jet line into his speech.
But Rich Lowry at NRO finds YouTube gold. I never watched "The West Wing," but Lowry points out the jet line wasn't good enough for them.
And the rest of it is purdy good as well.
Contact you Congressperson
I was going to tell Rep. Polis that I enjoyed his WSJ Editorial, but -- other than the revenues he advocated -- that a cuts only, unbalanced, evil Republican was fine with me. But:
Heh. I fear those on the receiving end of mine would not enjoy the humor.
Posted by: jk at July 26, 2011 12:36 PMSo much the better. They need to hear from all of Jared's constituents! The number for his Boulder office (4770 Baseline Road, #220) is 303.484.9596.
Posted by: johngalt at July 26, 2011 2:28 PMI'll keep on it. Where did you get that ###? It answers as a carrier tone. Busy at the House line.
Searched Bing for "Jared Polis Boulder Office"
In the second and sixth hits, in the summary text. A clickthrough only takes you to his DC page that is "Site Unavailable."
Posted by: johngalt at July 26, 2011 3:14 PMGot through (at your number thanks) and spoke to a very nice young lady who took my message, read it back to make certain I was understood, and said she'd pass it along.
Posted by: jk at July 27, 2011 12:30 PMAnd you didn't detect any hint of a snicker? Man, she's a pro!
Posted by: johngalt at July 28, 2011 11:42 AMJuly 25, 2011
What you need to know about the Reid Debt Ceiling Plan
This is the part that isn't included in today's news coverage of Majority Leader Reid's debt proposal that "gives Republicans what they demand."
Rubin: Reid's Debt-Limit Proposal is a Sham
A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: "It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings."
Predictably, Obama likes it.
Latest Strategy on the Debt Ceiling
Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin reports:
Boehner: "The White House has never gotten serious about tackling the serious issues our nation faces -- not without tax hikes -- and I don't think they ever will. The path forward, I believe, is that we pull together as a team behind a new measure that has a shot at getting to the president's desk. It's won't be Cut, Cap & Balance as we passed it, but it should be a package that reflects the principles of Cut, Cap & Balance. We're committed to working with you -- and with our Republican colleagues in the Senate -- to get it done. No one is willing to default on the full faith and credit of the United States."Rubin: That suggests to me that the House Republicans will pass a bill, send it to the Senate and let the Democrats decide if they want to send the country into default.
Lede of the Day
Politico: Congress is eating its peas without Barack Obama.
He says this like it's a good thing
Video at link: Geithner: "We Write 80 Million Checks A Month"
That's nearly 1 billion checks per year!
"Void after 90 days, Check number: 2,400,000,001" (of the Obama Administration)
I was flabbergasted that in the same interview Geithner said, twice, that the debt limit must be raised enough to get the government beyond next year's elections. They no longer even try to pretend their priority is the good of the country, but rather their own political survival.
You've got a bug in the Condo of Love!
I was screaming about this yesterday and used the "like it's a good thing" line on multiple occasions. Eighty million checks a month -- we can't possibly interfere with that! They's all real important!
And, I believe in the same interview, 40% of families get food stamps. Is that possibly correct?
To be fair, these stats did not happen under President Obama. These reflect the nation's long time embrace of collectivism.
I think the food stamp gift card figure was 46 million not 40 percent.
And no, I have no surreptitious listening devices - I think that is just a universal reaction, at least among those who are net tax payers.
Posted by: johngalt at July 25, 2011 5:31 PMWhew! For a moment there, I thought we had a serious problem...
Posted by: jk at July 25, 2011 5:38 PMJuly 22, 2011
Calling Bluff?
Late on a Friday it appears the Speaker of the House is ready to compare his poker hand to the President's. After being admonished by Obama to not "call my bluff" Speaker Boehner said today,
"In the end, we couldn't connect," Boehner wrote Republican rank-and-file lawmakers, accusing the president of wanting to raise taxes and being reluctant to cut benefit programs.
"Within minutes, an obviously peeved Obama virtually ordered congressional leaders to the White House for a Saturday meeting on raising the nation's debt limit." That doesn't sound like a man who is ready to lay down his hand.
Sounds more like Phil Hellmuth on a short stack, to make the best use of your metaphor. And Mr. Obama doesn't sound like a man who's holding pocket aces.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 22, 2011 7:28 PMIBD's Words for GOP to Live By
IBD Ed Page says in the debt ceiling debate, the numbers are not as important as the principles.
As the clock ticks down on their phony deadline for concluding deficit talks, the Democrats have lost all the public debates over more spending and higher taxes.So their only hope is to manufacture a fake crisis, such as the supposed "default" date of Aug. 2, and with the media's help, force Republicans to agree to a bad deal.
It wouldn't be the first time.
In 1990, President Bush engaged in "crisis" talks over deficits. He broke his "no-new taxes" pledge, agreeing to a "deal" that included $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. Bush lost his job, and it took three years and a new Congress to undo the economic damage.
Today, in the meat grinder that is Washington politics, pressure will inevitably grow for a "fair and balanced" deal that is, for the GOP to capitulate. Republicans should stay true to these conservative principles:
The three key principles are,
No new taxes.
Government must get smaller.
The debt must shrink.
GOP negotiators should keep these basic budget principles in mind If not, they'll find, as Bush did, that American voters have long, unforgiving memories.
Great post JG. Let me add a sign of support from when I caught a bit of Rush (all I can usually stand) last week in fine form. (citing from memory and cropping out the megalomania) My friends were very alarmed, saying "The Republicans are about to cave, what shall we do?" My response was: I've been gone 3 whole days and republicans have not caved yet? That's way ahead of where we've been in the past!
So, whom to TS'ers think we can best reinforce with a Vox Populi chant to drown out that which is being bullhorned by the dinosaur media? Seriously: who do we call and/or post?
I thought the reminder that George HW Bush made a deal against his stated principle was very appropriate at this juncture.
The spine I see in this game of D.C. Chicken is owned by about 70 freshman congressmen. They don't seem to have forgotten the 2010 mandate and why they are there. If yours is one of this elite corps, call him. If not, call yours and tell him you want him to get on the same end of the rope as those guys.
As for vox populi, I think we're seeing the debate finally become focused on "yeah, but where does the government get all that money they keep spending more of. A majority still believes that theft is wrong, and is learning that taxation is theft. This happened not because of a small number of loud voices saying it, but a chorus of everyday folk from all walks of life. It is evolutionary, if not revolutionary.
Posted by: johngalt at July 24, 2011 11:52 AMKrauthammer - Kick the can, but only for 6 months
Investors- Best Debt Plan Would Shave a Half-Trillion
What to do now? The House should immediately pass the Half-Trillion plan, thereby putting something eminently reasonable on the table that the president will have to address with a serious counterproposal using actual numbers.If the counterproposal is the G6, Republicans should accept Part One with its half-trillion dollars in cuts, CPI change and repeal of the CLASS Act, i.e., the part of the G6 that is enacted immediately and that is real.
Accompany this with a dollar-for-dollar hike in the debt ceiling, yielding almost exactly the time envisioned in the G6 to work out grander spending and revenue changes and defer any action on Part Two until precisely that time.
The Half-Trillion with or without the G6 Part One: ceiling raised, crisis deferred, cuts enacted and time granted to work out any Grand Compromise. You can't get more reasonable than that.
Do it. And dare the president to veto it.
July 21, 2011
Chart of the Day
From the IBD Editorial: Gang of Six Plan: A $3.1 Tril Tax Hike linked below.
Gangster Government
Shall we play, duelling pretty-smart folk? While the WSJ Ed page can find some nuggets to praise in the Gang-of-Six plan outline, the pretty-smart people at Investors Business Daily's Ed page see worse and worser.
And what details it does contain show that the gang has employed some of the most egregious budget tricks available to make the spending cuts look bigger and tax hikes smaller than they actually are.The best example of this is the plan's tax proposal, which alternately boasts that it cuts taxes by $1.5 trillion and raises them by $1 trillion, but which more likely will result in taxes going up by more than $3 trillion.
And then there are the spending "cuts."
Plus, most plans take current spending levels as a given, and make "cuts" off this hugely inflated base, ignoring the fact that federal spending has rocketed upward by an astonishing 24% in just the past three years.A credible plan would bring spending as a share of the economy back to prerecession levels. That would mean a spending cut in the neighborhood of $450 billion next year.
And the close:
The fact that more and more lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are willing to sign onto the phony Gang of Six plan, and that Obama would lend it his effusive praise, is a testament to why the country is in such deep fiscal trouble.
UPDATE: Washington Examiner Ed page - Gang of Six Plan is More Smoke and Mirrors
Quote of the Day
Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if we'd tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. It's become stifling. -- Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus
July 19, 2011
Epic Anti-Obama Rant
...and it's not even the pea eaters at ThreeSources. It's Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, on his company's quarterly conference call. Business Insider quotes the Democratic Casino Chief:
And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems, that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money.
All that money on the sidelines? Wynn suggests some reasons that companies may be sitting on cash.
Hat-tip: Jim Geraghty's excellent (and free) Morning Jolt newsletter.
July 16, 2011
The Negotiator
"If you have a problem, if nobody else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire... The Negotiator."
From The Daily Caller.
July 14, 2011
Quote of the Day
But even if one still believes that the bailouts were necessary to save the American auto industry (or to promote the Italian auto industry, as the case may be) that still doesn't excuse the egregious lawlessness and corruption of the bankruptcy process that took place in these cases. Even if was necessary for the government to intervene to prop-up Chrysler, does that justify plundering Chrysler's secured bondholders (including, among others, the Indiana Firefighters and Teachers Retirement Plans) simply to line the pockets of the United Autoworkers? In fact, finance scholars Deniz Anginer and Joseph Warburton have found that the government's intervention in the GM and Chrysler cases destabilized bond markets as investors adjusted to the new reality of the potential for government bailouts of unionized and politically-connected firms. -- Todd ZwickiThe whole piece is awesome on stilts.
Social Security's Magical Unicorn Guarantee
I must admit that my darling baby sister recognized this one before I did. Now I've found a nice writeup on it in IBD Editorials:
Wait! What happened to Social Security's "guarantee"? You know, the iron-clad assurance of Social Security benefits in exchange for paying into the program your whole working life? It's something Democrats constantly talk about, particularly when attacking Republicans who propose privatizing the program.As Nancy Pelosi once put it: "Social Security has never failed to pay promised benefits, and Democrats will fight to make sure that Republicans do not turn a guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble."
The AFL-CIO warned in 2005 about "President Bush's plan to replace Social Security's guaranteed benefits with risky private accounts." The AARP describes Social Security as "the guaranteed part of your retirement plan." Etc., etc.
Turns out, this "guarantee" is a lie.
And the close...
Whatever happens, the fact remains that Obama has accidentally made a pretty good case for Social Security reform by revealing the program for what it really is.
Debt deal or not, they can always just pull some money out of the lockbox, right?
Posted by: jk at July 14, 2011 3:55 PMCarnak says:
(1) Your check is in the mail.
(2) The cake.
(3) Social Security Trust Fund.
"Name three things that are a lie..."
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 14, 2011 6:01 PMMay a thousand unfunded liabilities infect your camel...
Posted by: jk at July 14, 2011 6:17 PMJuly 12, 2011
President Obama as Sheriff of Nottingham
President Obama and the Democrats love to frame the debate over redistribution of wealth as "millionaires" versus "working folk." In their fantasy scenarios they are brave and virtuous Robin Hoods, "taking from the rich and giving to the poor."
Iain Murray's new book Stealing You Blind - How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You explains that a curious thing happens to much of that money on the way from one pocket to the other.
Remember when we used to call government employees public servants? Theyre servants no morenow theyre bureaucratic masters of the universe, claiming inflated salaries (up to two times as much as private sector employees) and early retirement with unparalleled pensions and benefits. And how do they spend their time? When theyre actually working, they spin red tape and regulations that make your life harder (and their lives easier), your taxes higher, and your share of the nations debt unsustainable.In Stealing You Blind, youll discover:
- Why the wealthiest congressional district in America is in a recession-proof suburb of Washington, D.C.
- How the Department of Transportation went from having one employee making $170,000 or more to having nearly 1,700 making that muchduring the peak of the recession
- Why even FDR thought federal workers shouldnt be allowed to unionize
- How state, local, and federal bankruptcy could be coming your way thanks to public employee union greed
- Why bureaucrats regard taxpayers as sheep to be shornand how they do it
Robin Hood did not "take from the rich and give to the poor" but rather stood up to the rulers of a tyrannical government bent on ever greater taxation, calling them out on it in the public square. "Brave, brave sir Robin!"
Now it's getting interesting
On the decorus floor of the United States Senate, the minority leader says the President of the United States wants Americans to have "smoke and mirrors, tax increases, or default."
Even more devastating was "I have little question that as long as this President is in the Oval Office a real solution is probably unattainable."
This "titanium spine" business seems to be contagious.
(Follow the link to a HuffPo piece wherein a South Carolina GOP official says, "I do think they think there's a winnability factor here, based on her dynamism and her passion, that they maybe don't see in Mitt Romney.")
Posted by: johngalt at July 12, 2011 3:28 PMShe lit the world on fire in her appearance on Kudlow Monday night. Media figures always want to pull up some old social conservative quote, but left to her devices, she talks spending and taxes and liberty in a way none of the others does.
Your linked piece in the comment closes with "She's 50 times smarter than the people who think she's stupid" and I must say that she is easily shaping up to be the pride of the primaries. I find myself drifting into her camp.
The American Public are Stupid
Obama: 69% of Americans are against raising the debt ceiling because they haven't thought about it like and his fellow technocrats have:
Professional politicians know they must EatOurPeas.com.
Americans "have a lot on their plate" but an Althouse commenter "hopes they have room for peas!"
Posted by: jk at July 12, 2011 12:06 PMAs bad as the jaw-dropping answer was the leading question: "Isn't the problem that you and others have failed to convince the American people that we have a crisis here, and how are you going to change that?" Clearly Chip Reid is convinced "we have a crisis." Therefore, I guess it must be so.
How about this Chip: "In my version of reality the only crisis is that government's credit limit might get raised."
Posted by: johngalt at July 12, 2011 2:50 PMJuly 11, 2011
Diet Coke.
Pity the Washington Post, they don't get the best part in a story about FLOTUS's 1700 calorie lunch:
A Washington Post journalist on the scene confirmed the first lady, who's made a cause out of child nutrition, ordered a ShackBurger, fries, chocolate shake and a Diet Coke while the street and sidewalk in front of the usually-packed Shake Shack were closed by security during her visit.
According to nutritional information on Shake Shack's Web site, the meal amounted to 1,700 calories.Obama, who launched the "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity last year, has previously admitted to having an "obsession with french fries," which she says are fine to indulge in occasionally. "It's all about moderation," Obama told reporters.
Diet Coke.
Whoa - ShackBurger: $4.75 for a single. Fries: $2.65. Shake: $5.00 (as long as I'm the literate one around here, there's a scene from Pulp Fiction revolving around the price of a shake...). Diet Coke, $1.90.
Fourteen dollars and thirty cents - assuming she bought just the single burger?
I'm all about comparison shopping. I'm going straight to the best burger in America, In-N-Out:
Double-double (two patties, two slices of cheese with all the trimmings, onions grilled or raw, free for the asking): $3.05. Fries, $1.35. Shake, $1.95. Diet Coke, EXTRA LARGE: $1.75. Grand total: $8.10.
I've just upgraded her burger to a double, and made her soda the jumbo - and saved America 43%. THAT'S why you put someone in the White House who at least passed Econ for Non-Majors.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 11, 2011 6:22 PMShake Shack should make a new Michelle Obama Special: a triple burger sauced heavily with hypocrisy. It would give you a heart attack except that you're so used to it by now.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at July 11, 2011 9:20 PMJuly 7, 2011
What if We Used Honest Math?
Larry Kudlow did a commentary last night so close to Dan Mitchell's, I was waiting for him to credit CATO. I think either Mitchell or Kudlow would be happy to see the other's spreading their message, but it seemed funny to have them both voice this on the same day.
Dan Mitchell asks for "honest math:"
What I mean by this is that I don't want politicians to approve a budget that results in more spending, but then claim that they "cut spending" because the budget didn't grow even faster. I want a spending cut to mean less spending (gee, what a novel idea).
And when they talk about new revenue, I want to see how much revenue the IRS is collecting this year, and measure revenue increases against that number. After all, the crowd in Washington should be happy to get more money, even if it is the result of benign factors such as more jobs being created, companies earning higher profits, and people getting more pay.
Instead, as we all painfully know, all government numbers are rated against projections and baselines. Both Kudlow and Mitchell showed that our nation's insurmountable debt problem is trivial, if you apply GAAP accounting. Here's Mitchell's "Balanced approach:" cut spending 5% and grow revenue 5%:
Flat, or even a more realistic 2% growth in spending brings the budget into balance soon. More importantly, honesty, transparency, and clarity would allow the electorate to better understand decisions and would make it harder for statists to obfuscate.
You're correct, the 2% growth factor would be sufficient to eventually balance our budget. You know what else would help balance the budget? Taking a chainsaw to a lot of agencies that shouldn't even exist, doing some serious entitlement reform to the great redistributionary Ponzi schemes called Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and getting the federales' collective noses out of places they don't belong. Those are some of the additional benign consequences that would result for my plan.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 7, 2011 1:52 PMI think we're on the same page, bra. As entitlement spending creeps up, keeping to a -5, 0, or 2% growth rate would require your chainsaw.
"Starving the beast" while allowing unlimited borrowing has been an epic GOP failure. Real numbers might work.
Posted by: jk at July 7, 2011 2:11 PMJuly 6, 2011
Tweet of the Day
I'm stealing this one from Ben Smith:
Hat-tip: Insty, who points out a comment: "Even the Union Goons are unhappy."
July 5, 2011
"Troubling"
The Headline Editors at the WSJ Ed Page today name David Malpass And Stephen Moore's piece on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) "America's Troubling Investment Gap."
In June, President Obama celebrated a rare sliver of good economic news: Foreign investment was up 49% last year over 2009. The president says that this boost in capital shipped to the U.S. by international companies or foreign investors leads to more businesses and higher-paying jobs here at home. He's right.But this isn't the economic success story that the White House is spinning. The real truth of the recession and limping recovery is that for the first time in decades America is, on net, losing, not attracting, growth capital. That may be the single most important explanation for persistently high unemployment and stagnant wages.
Put me down with the folks who find it "Troubling."
My Famous Facebook Friends love to point out the amount of cash on corporate balance sheets. Curiously, they are not celebrating multinationals' participation in global growth. Nor are they suggesting tax breaks for repatriation of foreign earnings. Actually, this is somehow proof of both corporate greed and dispositive proof of the need for tax reform.
One friend-of-a-friend put it in so many words. Corporations bla bla bla...record profits bla bla bla...cash on the balance sheet... "So don't" this woman says "use the argument that businesses will not hire because of tax rates or tax unpredictability. I won't hear it. Any other thing you'd like to discuss [the infield fly rule perhaps?] go right ahead."
As there's no such Gag Rule at ThreeSources, I consider the cash in stasis AND the now negative FDI flow as proof that taxes are indeed the problem. Yes, they do have money. But to maximize growth of asset value, they must choose when and where that money can be best invested. A new plant in Illinois, perhaps? A joint venture in Singapore? Capital expenditures that delay hiring? Or sit on it, declare dividends, buy back equity and keep your powder dry while tax and health care policy clarifies?
Malpass and Moore document the troubling truth that the best choice is now to invest that money somewhere else but here.
But, other than that, there's really nothing to worry about. Maybe we could do something to encourage high speed rail or ethanol or something...
Posit a thought experiment to your friend's friend: Suppose she has $50,000 in the bank for a down payment on a house. The house is $250,000. Currently, she would get a full mortgage interest deduction on her taxes. However, she knows that Congress is considering elimination of the mortgage interest deduction. Would she a) buy the house now knowing it's her "civic duty" to help reverse the housing crisis, or b) hoard her money in the bank until Congress makes a decision so that she better understands the affordability of the house payment and it resulting value.
Yeah, yeah, I know - the real answer is c) stand up in a town hall meeting with the President and demand that the government buy her a new kitchen. But I'm speaking to rational people.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at July 5, 2011 11:18 PM'Fraid she's opted for:
d) Shut up with that winning argument I cannot counter!
Posted by: jk at July 6, 2011 10:44 AMJune 30, 2011
Two Pinocchios for the President
I'm kept from a great joke with a Buffy twist for fear of its being racially misconstrued. But it is a good one, call me if you cannot guess.
The WaPo fact checker -- whose existence drives me crazy, because the column's "facts" reliably lean left -- awards two pinocchios for missing facts in the President's angry, vitriolic tirade press conference yesterday.
In a bit of class jujitsu, the president six times mentioned eliminating a tax loophole for corporate jets, frequently pitting it against student loans or food safety. It's a potent image, but in the context of a $4 trillion goal, it is essentially meaningless. The item is so small the White House could not even provide an estimate of the revenue that would be raised, but other estimates suggest it would amount to $3 billion over 10 years.
Meanwhile, student financial assistance, just for 2011, is about $42 billion. So the corporate jet loophole -- which involves the fact that such assets can be depreciated over five years, rather than the seven for commercial jets -- just is not going to raise a lot of money. It certainly wouldn't save many student loans.Going after hedge fund managers might raise about $15 billion over 10 years, but in a different life The Fact Checker covered Wall Street and is pretty certain those financial wizards would figure out a way to avoid this tax shift.
A Facebook friend -- wait, I do not have to be anonymous, it's our very own LatteSipper -- posts this jewel about how our economy is "held hostage" for a loophole to protect 25 Hedge Fund Managers (boo, hiss, hedge fund managers...). I assume he refers to the differential in gains to income, but whatever. Closing this would produce <doctor_evil_voice>$44 Billion</doctor_evil_voice> over ten years. Wow. That's almost a half percent of the President's budget's new debt over the same time period. Throw in the quarter percent for those corporate jet guys and you have almost 3/4 of a percent! Problem solved!
When the loanshark comes to collect the 10 grand you owe him, smile and say you have $75.
Sins of magnitude. This is all we are going to hear until the election.
If you did not read it, JimiP destroys the corporate jet meme.
June 27, 2011
A "balanced approach" to the deficit problem
Senator Jon Kyl went on Fox News Sunday yesterday to explain why he withdrew from deficit reduction negotiations over the President's conditional requirement that government revenues be raised as part of a "balanced" solution. "But isn't one dollar of new taxes for every three dollars of spending cuts a fair deal" asked Chris Wallace?
But you don't want to pile taxes on at a time when companies don't have the ability to invest and hire people. That's the primary reason we are opposed to raising taxes right now.
Treasury Secretary Geithner explains the real reason for insisting on tax hikes.
"If you don't touch revenues," Geithner said, "you have to shrink the overall size of government programs, things like education, to levels that we could not accept as a country."
What do you mean "we" Kemosabe? Investor's Business Daily opines:
Some factions just won't accept shrinking the size of government. Most in them run in the same tight circles as Geithner. Never hearing anything other than support for increasing the size of government, they assume that's what Americans want.But quite a few Americans have been wanting to cut government for decades, and that number is growing as the almost intractable problems created by overspending have become more obvious.
From Social Security and Medicare to housing assistance and farm subsidies to, yes, even education, federal programs need to shrink or be eliminated. There's not a single item in the budget, including defense, that can't use some judicious trimming.
No Tim, America's economy has shrunk. Americans' net worth has shrunk. It's well past time for America's government to shrink.
June 24, 2011
Quote of the Day
Face it, guys, Obama just wants your money, like the cute boy who sweet talks you at the bar while ordering a $20 cocktail, then reaches for his wallet, only to feign shock when he just can't find it. "Maybe you can help me look for it," he says as he puts his hand on your knee and looks into your eyes, but once he's taken a few sips from the pricey drink you've bought him, he manages to slip away. And you don't see him again, until having run up a $100-dollar bar bill (somehow he managed to slip another drink on your tab), you stumble out of the night spot and discover him talking with some hunky fitness model. He tries to avoid making eye contact, but when you do, he promises he'll get back to you just as soon as he catches up with his "old friend" whom he just "happened"to run into. -- Gay PatriotAnd I thought being a Republican was hard sometimes...
Hat-tip: Instapundit
June 14, 2011
Economic Fallacy of the Century
President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren't hiring is not because of his policies, it's because the economy is so automated. ... "There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."
My employer will surely be shut down. Tape Freaking Libraries, nine-point-one percent unemployment. You catchin' my drift?
Lawn mowers, dish washers, clothes dryers...
Hat-tip: Taranto
UPDATE: ATM Industry pushback:
Aimee Leeper, a spokeswoman for ATM manufacturer Triton Systems, which makes its machines in America and employees 200 people here, told me over the phone, "We're not in the business of taking American jobs. What I wish President Obama had thought of is that people want convenient access to their money. How crazy is that?"
*sarcasm* Nice try, Aimee. Your newfangled gadgets eliminate three employment shifts at every convenience store, amusement park, golf course, airport... the list is endless. And imagine if those real tellers were not shared by multiple banks in some sort of profits-over-people "network" arrangement. We could get this country back to work in record time! */sarcasm*
Posted by: johngalt at June 15, 2011 2:48 PMIf I catch one of those guys that make automated tape libraries...
Posted by: jk at June 15, 2011 3:16 PMYou guys have already put the tape-mounters union out of business.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at June 15, 2011 4:19 PMThinking back on the days of carry a box of 10 2400 foot 6250 bpi reels... well, let's just say, that's when men were men! The Golden Age of tape. Then somebody came up with those prissy little cartridges (Juan Rodriguez please call your office).
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at June 15, 2011 4:23 PMEPA: "Employee salary is our highest budget priority"
On his radio show today Mike Rosen read a copy [2:00 to 4:55] of an internal memo from EPA Regional Administrator James Martin to all Region 8 EPA employees. Subject: Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Decisions.
I want to update you on the status of Region eight's budget. The most important thing to tell you is that we continue to protect salary for our on-board EPA employees. It is our highest budget priority and that has not and will not change.Our OCFO has been able to provide us with some relief for our payroll shortfall. This will allow us to maintain our support services at the current levels as we work to meet our agency's mission. We are continuing to work with headquarters for additional relief. In the meantime, to meet the remaining payroll needs we'll be reducing our programmatic funds by 30 percent, as well as some regional support funds.
A distinct difference, to be sure, from EPA's stated policy on private sector jobs.
EPA: Jobs Aren't a factor when making new regs
Plagiarism.
This seemed so familiar that I wondered whether Tim [Carney] was guilty of plagiarism. But he's one of the best journalists in DC, so I knew that couldn't be the case.Then I realized that there was plagiarism, but the politicians in Washington were the guilty parties. As can be seen in this passage from Atlas Shrugged, the Obama Administration is copying from what Ayn Rand wrote -- as dystopian parody -- in the 1950s -- Dan Mitchell.
Heh.
Posted by: johngalt at June 14, 2011 12:25 PMJune 12, 2011
Quote of the Day
We're not on the road to recovery. You can't get there from here, as they say. Obama was in Toledo to "celebrate" the sale of the government's remaining stake in Chrysler to Fiat. That's "Fiat" as in the Italian car manufacturer rather than "an authoritative or arbitrary decree (from the Latin 'let it be done')," which would be almost too perfect a name for an Obamafied automobile. -- Maven of the Bon Mot, Mark SteynHat-tip: Instapundit, who features a longer excerpt than mine. Whazzupwitdat?
June 2, 2011
From the Bridge - Report of the Watch
On this day after the S&P 500 and NASDAQ both took 2.3% hits let's review the "Latest News" story links on Investors.com.
10-Year Real Wage Gains Worse Than During Depression
For-Profit School Stocks Soar On Less-Harsh Rule
Hiring, Factory Growth Stalling -- Just Temporary?
White House Touts Auto Bailout Losses as Big Success
(Skip a couple, and then)
Editorial: U.S. Is Already In a Growth Recession
Ya think?
Recent data show a shocking turn south. While some worry we might soon experience a double-dip recession, we're already in a kind of recession a growth recession. That's where the economy is barely eking out enough growth to create jobs. And the number of jobs being created isn't enough to sop up the unemployed and new entrants to the workforce.Consider these data, all from one day:
You'll have to click through for the full, grisly accounting. Meanwhile, try to find a dry, secure place to hunker down on the U.S.S. Titanic.
I Need that Book Back!
Dear Nanobrewer:
This is soooo embarrassing, but I need to ask that you return my copy of "Lochner Revisited" or forward it to the White House. There's a fellow there that really needs it:
One could cite Supreme Court opinions for this proposition, but I instead call as a witness a former Senator from Illinois and constitutional law professor, an obscure fellow named Barack Obama. Here's Obama in June 2005, opposing the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit. Dubious or inaccurate historical statements reflecting common misuses of Lochner as a historical symbol are highlighted in bold, and are annotated below:[Two paragraph statement and nine corrections...]
When the President is finished, you may of course have it back...
I wouldn't know half as much without reading this blog. Thank you JK.
So, the Constitional Law Professor-in Chief rejected the prospect of the United States Supreme Court being "elevated to the point where they were in charge as opposed to democracy being in charge."
But I thought the ultimate controlling legal authority in the US of A was the Constitution. Didn't you, Mr. President?
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."Posted by: johngalt at June 2, 2011 2:40 PM
June 1, 2011
And Why Would Anybody Ever Need More Than 640K?
"There's absolutely no reason for any person to download their Facebook into the car," U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in an interview. "It's not necessary."Mr. LaHood is pushing to open new fronts in his long-running campaign against the proliferation of technology-driven diversions. In conversations with industry chief executives, Mr. LaHood says he is making it plain he isn't pleased with the trend toward putting more media feeds and gadgetry into the cockpits of new vehicles.
Mr. LaHood and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reports to him, have the power to curb the info-tainment technology built into cars if they can demonstrate a threat to safety. He is also urging auto executives to free up advertising money to create public-service announcements that remind motorists to stay focused on the road, and not to text and drive.
Blog rules dictate that I have to say something. I can't just excerpt and link, that's really not adding any value at all. And yet, I am uncharacteristically speechless.
The obvious solution is to use social networking to the NHTSA's advantage. They can tweet safety messages to the cockpits of said vehicles.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at June 1, 2011 1:46 PMHeh. Yeah, "Stop paying attention to this and other messages and keep your eyes on the road, dumbass!"
A correction: LaHood has the power to keep features he disapproves of out of cars even if he can't "demonstrate a threat to safety." So he doesn't like driver distractions. I wonder what Mr. LaHood's opinion is on drug legalization. Or on Rand Paul's favorite synonym for personal responsibility, reproductive choice.
Posted by: johngalt at June 1, 2011 2:22 PMMay 26, 2011
Republicans Really ARE Mean
Putting up the President's budget for a vote. That's just mean.
They'll probably try to score political points off its 0 - 97 loss.
Not a single Democrat voted for the Democrat president's budget despite their ability to pass it on a party-line vote. Ouch!
The president need not feel singled out, however. It is only fair to point out that not a single Democrat voted for ANY of the four separate budget proposals brought to the Senate floor this week. So it isn't really the president that they don't like, it's budgets.
Posted by: johngalt at May 27, 2011 2:02 AMHeh.
Posted by: jk at May 27, 2011 10:29 AMMay 25, 2011
Keeping Score at the Animal Farm
IBD's editorial page has been hitting it out of the park this week, considering the prior Rick Perry piece and the not-newsworthy-enough-for-its-own-post Bibi Schools Obama on Mideast Reality. Then this from Big Surprise: AARP Joins Waiver-gate:
Although not specifically mentioned by name in the rate review rules finalized last Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the rule that exempts Medigap insurance providers is clearly designed to benefit the largest seller of such policies and the biggest lobbyist for ObamaCare -- the American Association of Retired Persons.So you can add AARP to the list of favored unions, corporations, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's constituents and even entire states such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Nevada that have received exemptions or waivers from various requirements of ObamaCare.
(...)
The amount AARP will gain from ObamaCare, with cost-effectiveness mandates that will lead to rationed care, less medical innovation and health care decisions made by bureaucrats rather than doctors and patients, is staggering.
Equally staggering is the brazenness exhibited by the Obama administration and the beneficiaries of what can only be called crony health care.
Waiver-gate, that's awesome. I think this might be underappreciated as a good theme for GOP Candidates in 2012.
-- If it is so swell, why do we have to exempt thousands of organizations?
-- Why are all those organizations friends of the Administration?
-- Is it fair to the smaller and less connected organizations that they cannot compete for a waiver?
Watch out for the converse: "Vote at one of our special "Democrat Ballot Only" polling places and get an automatic PPAA waiver!"
Posted by: johngalt at May 25, 2011 9:03 PMMay 22, 2011
Remember the Sudetenland
President Obama addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference this morning, days after giving away Israel's most valuable bargaining chip in a negotiation that Israel's "peace partner" has no interest in negotiating over. As is usually the case, his error lies in his premise.
Now, I have said repeatedly that core issues can only be negotiated in direct talks between the parties. (Applause.) And I indicated on Thursday that the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace. (Applause.) No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction. (Applause.) And we will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace, including recognizing Israels right to exist and rejecting violence and adhering to all existing agreements. (Applause.)
I suppose this has never been tried before. Nobody ever thought to "demand" that Israel's enemies not attack her. It does seem so simple doesn't it? Perhaps a written agreement not to invade, signed by the recognized leader of the portending aggressor would be of more value if it included such a "demand." What a different world it might be if only Neville Chamberlain had thought of this.
Instead, Chamberlain presided over an agreement that handed over the The Sudetenland to the Germans. "The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans" and "was of immense strategic importance to Czechoslovakia, as most of its border defenses were situated there, and many of its banks were located there as well."
History repeats.
May 19, 2011
He Said, He Said
But he urged Muslims to seize the moment. A delay may cause the opportunity to be lost, and carrying it out before the right time will increase the number of casualties, he said. I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, with permission from Allah.
The world looks at a conflict that has grinded on and on and on, and sees nothing but stalemate. Indeed, there are those who argue that with all the change and uncertainty in the region, it is simply not possible to move forward now. I disagree. At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever.
Government by Whim
I wanted to write here today that "I hereby call out Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to apply for an Obamacare waiver for the entire state of Colorado." After all, another path to repeal, thought I, is for the entire country to be waived from the law's requirements. Needing a foundational article upon which to rest my "great idea" I found