Saturday, July 31, 2010

Tiffany! Give me the sparkle eye shadow, I want to look hot tonight. Do you think this skirt is short enough?


Ammberrr, if that skirt was any shorter you could see your...man magnet. Baby you look sooo hot.

Hey Tiff, what is a BBV? Daddy gave me a new plasma TV and I was trying to find MTV's sluts on parade but got the spelling all mixed up. There was this awful channel, MSNBC, where this chick was talking about BBV. I'm not sure if she was hot, she had sexy lips and everything, but kind of reminded me of a boy. Anyway, I thought they were talking about a new sexy underwear but then they started talking about...a tree I think...no I remember, they were talking about some Bush thing and a deficit and title mints. It made my head hurt. What is a deficit? What do title mints taste like? Do you have any gum?

Ammy beary baby, like don't you know, like who are Presidents are? Let me use that eye shadow, you DO look hot. Anyway, my boyfriend, well OK, we just met last night, but I think we are like sooo connected, is really smart, he even has to wear a tie when he works behind the counter at Radio Shack, was telling me that our government is spending way too much money, and these people who like to party with tea, boorring!, are mad and want us to quit spending soo much. Kind of like when Daddy takes away the credit card.

No way Tiff! I hate when Daddy does that, I'm not going to their party, I don't even like tea. How can anyone live without a credit card?

Chill Ammser, see my boyfriend said that everything was going great, like in 2007 the credit card balance was like way low then there was this bank thing, I don't really understand it but they had to throw a blanket...no...a TARP over it to save it...I guess it was raining, I hate it when it rains, it makes my hair frizzy. Sooo...Anywaay...even after they saved the banks, they kept just kept spending money and like, they are spending sooo much money that our kids, kids, will be broke.

Tiffer, that is like stupid, anyone knows you just can't keep spending money. Daddy showed me on the credit care bill where there is this limit thing. He got mad at me because I kept going over the limit, I was sooo mad when he cut up the card, but now I'm kind of glad you know. Tif, remember when I was trying to get that job at Hooters? Surprise I got it! Last week I made like a gob of tips and, and...I BOUGHT THIS DRESS ON MY OWN!

Amber! Hugs and kisses! Don't you just love those Hooter outfits, they a just sooo...sheik, I would work there except orange is not my color. Baby let's celebrate! Honey you just set aside enough for good old Uncle Sam and your tax bill and we will rock this town.

Tiffy...what are taxes?

$1T More Spending Please

The economy is running out of steam as the Stimulus Package winds down. The foreclosure pipeline remains full with 4mm +/-homes on the market - roughly double a stabilized inventory. We have come a long way, be we have much further to go. The Fed says it could take 5 - 6 years to return to traditional growth rates. I'd like to bring that down to two.

I'd have a new Stimulus Package spending $1T through 2011 and 2012. This one needs to be spending only - no tax cuts - heavy on infrastructure. Aid to the states to keep teachers, cops & firemen employed would be included but a lower rates than the last Stimpack. High speed rail in Florida (Miami/Orlando/Tampa) and the west (LA/Phoenix/Las Vegas triangle) would be commenced and fast-tracked with actual groundbreaking in 2012 and completion in '16. These pilot projects would bring billions of dollars to the hardest hit areas in the Great Recession and create a model for a 21st century rail network. Expanding the electrical grid to wind corridors, building wind farms and fast tracking smart grid implementation would also be priorities. The top priority, of course, would be jobs that build things that last. Projects that will leave our country richer, with something to show for the treasure expended.

Such a package can only be passed while reducing spending and the growth thereof going forward. As such, I'd have the package ready to go with the Debt Commission recommendations in November or December. If the GOP is unwilling to support a limited extension of the Bush tax cuts prior to the election, I'd let them expire altogether. We need the money and the reduced consumer spending would be more than offset by the Stimpack on Steroids. The Good Doc's goal of adding millions of modest income taxpayers to the tax roles would be accomplished.

We need to cut the available housing inventory in half - and fast. There simply are not enough owner-occupied homebuyers to go around. FHA needs to reintroduce lending for rental property with conservative underwriting standards for buyers. Individuals with solid income and FICO scores should be able to buy all the property they can get their hands on with 10% down, subject of to area FHA loan limits. Fannie & Freddie should buy such loans as well, only with a =/>25% down payments capped at the $417K loan amount. Individual limits on Fannie/Freddie loans (currently 10) would be eliminated. The policy changes would not have expiration dates and would save the system money - through an improving real estate sector - rather than pinching the public purse.

Such policies would bring back robust growth and ultimately save the US Treasury trillions, thanks to a healthy and growing tax base. A double dip recession is a circumstance that we simply cannot afford.

Friday, July 30, 2010

At what point can we declare the horse dead and quit beating the poor fellow?

A smart Phoenix guy again stating the obvious, government intervention is counterproductive and government stimulus is...well...government.

Coyote Den  Why Keynes Was Wrong

Warren Meyer, Macroeconomics from an MBA's perspective. I have given up on macroeconomics.


Certainly it is a worthy field of study. But the science is too young, the systems it studies are too complex, and its practitioners are too often politicized for me to take its prescripts seriously in most policy debates.
Last week President Obama visited a new stimulus-funded electric-vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Michigan. The factory produces a product for which there is virtually no market, where worldwide manufacturing capacity already outpaces demand by a factor of three, and whose sales will depend on the government heavily subsidizing its customers.  Makes me sleep better just knowing the "O", when not busy being viewed on The View, can confabulate such excellent use of taxpayers money.

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who is terminally stuipd,  often writes that only by authorizing much more of exactly this kind of government spending can we pull out of the current recession. Apparently, the way to economic growth is to have the operator of the Post Office, rather than private individuals, invest money. Hearing this, I can't come to any conclusion except that the field of macroeconomics is lost.

My training is not in economics, but in business and management. Perhaps I am biased by my background, which includes 15 years of strategy and planning at large corporations and 10 years running my own business. But my framework for economic growth is a simple one: For growth to occur, someone has to make an investment.

When I use the term “investment,” I am using it rather broadly. Clearly building a new steel mill is an investment. But hiring an additional employee and paying his or her salary ahead of any new revenues is an investment too. Quitting one's job and giving up a regular salary with a large company to start a new business represents an investment as well.

Here is my first law of economic growth: When we encourage more investment, and ensure this investment is being channeled to the most productive uses, growth will follow.

For all the talk about fiscal stimulus and jobs creation at the federal and state level, almost no one in government is doing anything about reducing the roadblocks to investment. Reducing?  Are you kidding?  Most of the stimulus "construction" is going into such "roadblocks".  For example, millions of people are newly unemployed, and in past recessions a large number of these folks have eschewed looking for a new corporate job and have started businesses of their own. Unfortunately, such prospective entrepreneurs will face a tangle of registration, regulatory and licensing hurdles, many of which have been backed by established businesses that want to avoid just this kind of new competition. Even steps like the extension of unemployment benefits tend to discourage such entrepreneurship by increasing the opportunity cost of working for oneself.

No one in government, that I have heard, has even suggested any sort of regulation holiday as a potential economic stimulus program. In fact, most of the legislative moves at the national level have made private investment less attractive. Business people making investments today have to plan for higher labor, energy and borrowing costs due to a series of 2,000-page pieces of legislation that few if anyone fully understand (or have even read). Capital gains tax reductions will almost certainly expire next year, and most business people who look at looming government deficits have to assume these shortfalls will be closed the same way they always have been closed: With new taxes on the backs of the most productive.

Rather than attempting to make investment easier, almost all government stimulus efforts to date have focused on trying to better optimize how and where investment capital is deployed. The core assumption behind all of these programs is that a few people in government can invest money more productively than the private entities from whom the government took the money.


This is frankly an absurd assumption, something I know from my own experience of trying to make just these sorts of capital allocation decisions, though on a much smaller scale. In various corporate strategic planning and marketing roles, I was in the position for years of helping to make investment decisions in some of America's largest and best-managed corporations.

These corporations were smart enough to know that a small corporate staff did not have the information to identify and rank investment choices in their myriad of different divisions. Instead, the corporate office acted as a sort of bank, where front-line managers who had detailed knowledge of individual markets came to the corporation via the planning process and proposed investments. Through my years in this process, I was always convinced we were sub-optimizing, that these divisions if spun off and in control of their own destiny likely would have made better decisions. If smart business people couldn't make confident capital-allocation decisions for a $20 billion business, how can a few career government staffers do better for a $16 trillion economy?

In their hubris, however, the Congress and this administration believe they can do what even the most successful corporations can't. They take money away from individuals and businesses, either in the form of taxes or borrowing that squeezes out private capital, and claim to invest that money better than would have those individuals, despite much worse information and inferior performance incentives. The stimulus bill is an obvious example, but we see this phenomenon all over the country. The bailout of GM effectively poured taxpayer money into an entity that private investors had determined was no longer worthy of investment. Here in the Phoenix area, taxpayers of various municipalities have been asked to subsidize a new shopping mall for $97.4 million, cover a years-worth of our pro hockey team's operating losses for up to $25 million, and throw money at absolutely anyone who whispers the word “solar.”

To every one of the supporters of these government projects who claim to have created some number of jobs, I encourage the reader to ask a simple question--who was using the money before the government diverted it, and how many jobs were they creating?  Why Peter Pan?  Why?  Because of the Multiplier!  That is why!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Kind of like unemployment insurance extensions and "free" health care. Sounds good, is bad.

Liberals: pseudo kind, stupid and always wrong in so many ways. 

Can't you just see a vision of the "O" giving a speech?  "We can't go back to the policies of the past resulting in full employment and economic growth.  No, we need social justice, high minimum wage, free heath care for all, green jobs and new bridges for all!  Yes we can!...have high unemployment, yes we can!...have stagnation and little economic growth.  The politics of class warfare will get us to the promised land."

Today marks the first anniversary of Congress's decision to raise the federal minimum wage by 41% to $7.25 an hour. But hold the confetti. According to a new study, more than 100,000 fewer teens are employed today due to the wage hikes.




Economic slowdowns are tough on many job-seekers, but they're especially hard on the young and inexperienced, whose job prospects have suffered tremendously from Washington's ill-advised attempts to put a floor under wages. In a new paper published by the Employment Policies Institute, labor economists William Even of Miami University in Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University in Texas find a significant drop in teen employment as a direct result of the minimum wage hikes.
The wage hikes were implemented in three stages between 2007 and 2009, and not all states were affected because some already mandated a minimum wage above the federal requirement. But for the 19 states affected by all three stages of the federal wage increase, "there was a 6.9% decline in employment for teens aged 16 to 19," write the authors. And for those who had not completed high school, "we estimmate the wage hikes reduced employment by 12.4%," which translates to about 98,000 fewer teens in the work force.

After isolating for other economic factors and broadening their analysis to include all 32 states affected by any stage of the federal wage increase, the authors conclude that "the federal minimum-wage hikes reduced teen employment by 2.5% translating to approximately 114,400 fewer employed teens."


Minimum wage proponents often claim that a higher wage floor will reduce poverty, ignoring that most minimum wage earners aren't poor. "A small fraction of minimum-wage workers are the sole breadwinner for their family," said Mr. Macpherson in an interview. "Historically, the number is one-in-six. So five-in-six are either secondary earners, or kids living with mom and dad, or kids living alone, such as college students."

The Tax Tsunami On The Horizon

Fiscal Policy: Many voters are looking forward to 2011, hoping a new Congress will put the country back on the right track. But unless something's done soon, the new year will also come with a raft of tax hikes — including a return of the death tax — that will be real killers.  Through the end of this year, the federal estate tax rate is zero — thanks to the package of broad-based tax cuts that President Bush pushed through to get the economy going earlier in the decade.
But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.
Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn't the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it's not just the rich who will pay.
The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.
But the damage doen't stop there. The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase.
Both the cap-gains and dividend taxes will go up further in 2013 as the health care reform adds a 3.8% Medicare levy for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000. Other tax hikes include: halving the child tax credit to $500 from $1,000 and fixing the standard deduction for couples at the same level as it is for single filers.
Letting the Bush cuts expire will cost taxpayers $115 billion next year alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and $2.6 trillion through 2020.

But even more tax headaches lie ahead. This "second wave" of hikes, as Americans for Tax Reform puts it, are designed to pay for ObamaCare and include:



The Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans, says ATR, "will no longer be able to use health savings account, flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)."
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. "This provision of ObamaCare," according to ATR, "increases the additional tax on nonmedical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10% to 20%, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10%."
Brand Name Drug Tax. Makers and importers of brand-name drugs will be liable for a tax of $2.5 billion in 2011. The tax goes to $3 billion a year from 2012 to 2016, then $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018. Beginning in 2019 it falls to $2.8 billion and stays there. And who pays the new drug tax? Patients, in the form of higher prices.
Economic Substance Doctrine. ATR reports that "The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks 'economic substance.'"  A third and final (for now) wave, says ATR, consists of the alternative minimum tax's widening net, tax hikes on employers and the loss of deductions for tuition:

• The Tax Policy Center, no right-wing group, says that the failure to index the AMT will subject 28.5 million families to the tax when they file next year, up from 4 million this year.

• "Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly deduct, or 'depreciate') equipment purchases up to $250,000," says ATR. "This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be 'depreciated.'"

• According to ATR, there are "literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place," plus the loss of some tax credits. The research and experimentation tax credit will be the biggest loss, "but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs."

• The deduction for tuition and fees will no longer be available and there will be limits placed on education tax credits. Teachers won't be able to deduct their classroom expenses and employer-provided educational aid will be restricted. Thousands of families will no longer be allowed to deduct student loan interest.
Then there's the tax on Americans who decline to buy health care insurance (the tax the administration initially said wasn't a tax but now argues in court that it is) plus a 3.8% Medicare tax beginning in 2013 on profits made in real estate transactions by wealthier Americans.
Not all Americans may fully realize what's in store come Jan. 1. But they should have a pretty good idea by the mid-term elections, and members of Congress might take note of our latest IBD/TIPP Poll (summarized above).
Fifty-one percent of respondents favored making the Bush cuts permanent vs. 28% who didn't. Republicans were more than 4 to 1 and Independents more than 2 to 1 in favor. Only Democrats were opposed, but only by 40%-38%.


The cuts also proved popular among all income groups — despite the Democrats' oft-heard assertion that Bush merely provided "tax breaks for the wealthy." Fact is, Bush cut taxes for everyone who paid them, and the cuts helped the nation recover from a recession and the worst stock-market crash since 1929.  Maybe, just maybe, Americans remember that — and will not forget come Nov. 2.

Friday, July 23, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383490332411012.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

I don't know if the link will work, but the Jim G. look alike discusses the plans for the "O" administration to "solve" our economic crisis. 

Their solution...bridges!   And cash for caulkers!  Really!  They think this terrible recession can be fixed and thousands of jobs created just by building infrastructure and weatherizing our homes.

We remain in big trouble.  I'm selling Eric, I'm selling.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

told you so...

There's nothing like the prospect of an electoral rout to concentrate the incumbent mind, and so all of a sudden rank-and-file Democrats in Congress are saying maybe they shouldn't let the 2003 tax rates expire after all. Now if they can only persuade their Speaker of the House, the Treasury Secretary and President Obama.


The revelation that tax increases could hurt the economy has recently been heard from Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and, most surprising, even from Kent Conrad of North Dakota. On a scale of unlikely events, this is like the Pope coming out against celibacy. As Senate Budget Chairman, Mr. Conrad has rarely seen a tax increase he didn't like, but this week he averred that "As a general rule, you don't want to be cutting spending or raising taxes in the midst of a downturn."

worth repeating, little harsh but...necessary.

The Judge is an idiot.


First of all:

"I do not pretend to have any expertise in affairs of state, foreign or domestic."

No, you don't, in fact you do not have a clue. It takes but a small clue to determine that we were attacked resulting in mass causalities and continue to be attacked. You are stupid (sorry for the meanness, but enough is enough) because you cannot comprehend that a small band of lunatics can, in a lawless country ruled by religious fanatics, cause irreparable harm and must be addressed and solved or conquered. Even your stupid messiah has learned that lesion. Judge, I am sure you were part of the Bush lied, thousands died crowd. Do the thousands who died on 9-11 ever give you pause? Do the thousands who will die if we do not protect our self even matter?

So you, like Crazy Rich and Bleeding Terry, want butter for guns, like they are transferable. Really? (I use really a lot because I really cannot fathom that even idiots can be this stupid)

We are not broke and those people cannot get jobs because we spend too much in the defense of our country. We are broke because your Liberal brethren have sucked all the oxygen out of the economy with a stimulus to (and here is the important part) support the vast entitlement system of our country.

To be plain Judge: The WORST thing our country could do to help that man and his daughter would be to take the money we use on national defense and transfer it to make work, short term jobs.

Your Honor, The medicine we need to take is harsh and I ask for your support.



We need to:

End prolonged unemployment insurance (yes I too quiver as I write this).

Continue the Bush tax cuts

Stop the anti business bias of the Obama administration

Cut the size and scope of government

Judge, let's help that little girl, let's release the hounds of Capitalism and Entrepreneurship and a tidal wave of prosperity will wash over this country. We don't need Krugman, or Baxter or Obama to manage our success, we can get there on our own.

Our friend Terry asked my to post this article on his behalf, he is without computer.

Several weeks ago an American general stated that the United States is in Afghanistan not to nation-build but to protect our national security.


The Taliban are a bunch of goofy guys who beat, bully and butcher anyone who disagrees with their idiosyncratic view of the almighty. The overwhelming majority of Muslims scorn them. But are the Taliban a threat to our national security?

I do not pretend to have any expertise in affairs of state, foreign or domestic. But I fear the real threat to our security lies not outside, but inside our borders. I am simply a judge hearing domestic violence and divorce cases in Chicago's southwest suburbs. Those who appear before me are working people — carpenters, electricians, pipe fitters, dockworkers, laborers and midlevel white-collar personnel.

I hear the same refrain on a daily basis: "I haven't had a job in a year, two years" or "Judge, I've only worked periodically." Sometimes it's the wife but usually it's the husband who's jobless. Sometimes neither one has a job.

These are hard-working men and women who labored long hours and sacrificed greatly to put together nickels and dimes and dollars to buy homes that are now frequently in foreclosure or worth less than the mortgage on them. And too often these men and women become depressed, question their commitments, their love for their partners, even their children. They sometimes turn to drugs, alcohol, gambling or seek solace in the arms of someone else. Arguments escalate, children cower in corners, husbands become estranged from wives, wives from husbands. Decent relationships, marriages, crumble.

An 11-year-old girl handed me a note. Her father, a college graduate, had lost his midlevel white-collar job a year ago. He tried to find work but after a while gave up. His daughter wrote:

"I am scared, worried and sad because when I come home from school dad is always sleeping and drinking beer. I am scared of dad because some days he's loud and obnoxious and other days he's quiet and out of the way. … He fell apart when he lost his job. … I freeze up and want to kill myself because sometimes I think it's just a dream and I'll wake up soon. … I usually cry myself to sleep at night because we don't have money to pay for all the food we need and clothes and so on. … I hate my life, I can't even have birthday treats at school or a birthday party. I'm scared, that's why I get bad grades. I just freeze in the middle and just lose all my thoughts. … so yeah my life sucks. (Sorry about the language)."

We have poured hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the financiers who got us into our current financial mess by creating pretend wealth. Now, according to news accounts, they are again making gobs of money while the men and women I see who created real wealth — albeit usually for others — are left twisting in the wind.

I recently reread the 11-year-old's note, shortly after reading about several of our fine young men and women being killed in Afghanistan, which led me to think of the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending "for our security." I cannot help but wonder what would happen if these billions of dollars were redirected into rebuilding our disastrous economy and infrastructure.

Putting men and women to work to build better highways, better railroads, a better urban transportation system would do a great deal for our national security — like reducing the misery I see in my courtroom on a daily basis and ensuring that children are raised in a contented, familial atmosphere.

Patrick Murphy is a Cook County Circuit Court judge.

Ethnic/racial humor, helps or hurts?

A Polish immigrant went to the DMV to apply for a driver's license. First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test The optician showed him a card with the letters C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.' 'Can you read this?' the optician asked. 'Read it?' the Polish guy replied, 'I know the guy.'

Hoping all our bloggers are having a wonderful summer!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Barack Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.
Hopefully, he may also leave the voters wiser, though sadder, after they learn from painful experience that you can't judge politicians by their rhetoric, or ignore their past because of your hopes for the future. Voters may even wise up to race card fraud.

Timeless

As Rand put it: "Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."



In the years leading up to 2008—09's financial meltdown, government control over mortgages, interest rates and America's banking system was at an all-time high.
And yet when crisis struck, free enterprise took the blame.
The cure, therefore, was to give government even wider powers. Washington can now bail out any company, fire CEOs, override contracts and print billions of dollars to "stimulate" the economy — all in the name of the public interest. The result? Our deficits and debt continue to mount, and there's a real possibility of a future like Greece's.
This is the state of our world today. It's remarkably similar to the state of the world in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," a mystery story about a future America whose economy is disintegrating and whose government is accumulating power faster than anyone thought possible. This parallel is a big reason a record 500,000 people bought "Atlas Shrugged" last year.
So what can we learn from a book that foresaw in 1957 what few believed possible in 2007? We can learn a lesson the heroes of the novel learn: the cause of the government's greater, destructive control of business. And we can learn how to oppose it.
Many of the heroes in "Atlas Shrugged" are the kind of men and women who built, and continue to build, America into the economic power that it is — inventors such as Edison, industrialists in the mold of Rockefeller and Carnegie, business visionaries reminiscent of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
In logic and justice, the heroes of "Atlas Shrugged" should be admired and appreciated for their efforts; instead, they're demonized and shackled.
Man Of Steel
Take the case of Hank Rearden, the leading industrialist in "Atlas Shrugged" and inventor of Rearden Metal, an alloy superior to steel. Rearden is denounced and forced to surrender his iron and coal businesses because an "Equalization of Opportunity Bill" demands he create business "opportunities" for struggling competitors.
His production of Rearden Metal is capped by a "Preservation of Livelihood Law" designed to keep other steel makers afloat. Key businesses can't buy enough Rearden Metal because Rearden's forced to give every customer an equal portion under the "Fair Share Law."
Each new government scheme to control Rearden's industry brings a new crisis, and each new crisis brings a new scheme.
The result is the accelerating collapse of Rearden's business empire — and of all the other productive enterprises that depend on Rearden's enormous productivity. The only beneficiaries of this orgy of government authority are power-lusting politicians and the pseudo-businessmen who lobby for and profiteer from these laws.

Monday, July 19, 2010

From the gospel of Baxter according to Paul

Paul remains an idiot, denying reality as it stares him in the face.  Let's look at another of his stupid articles, written because he is stupid and will likely forever remain so.

Republicans are feeling good about the midterms — so good that they’ve started saying what they really think.  OK Paul, tell us, what do Republicans think?   This week the party’s Senate leadership stopped pretending that it cares about deficits, stating explicitly that while we can’t afford to aid the unemployed or prevent mass layoffs of schoolteachers, cost is literally no object when it comes to tax cuts for the affluent.  Really Paul, you stupid dumb ass?  Couldn't it be that...the unemployed have been on unemployment insurance too long and are behaving normally, as people do, and not looking for jobs while on insurance, and Paul, you dumb ass, isn't the point of the Republicans that new spending needs to be offset by savings elsewhere?  Isn't that what your buddy Baxter says?  And Teachers, isn't that a local issue?  And mass layoffs?  Really, because why?  Perhaps the states following the very same reasoning you, you dumb ass, follow, are BROKE!  And tax breaks, so Paul, who is going to create more jobs?  A rich person with a tax break or the Government?  And, just for clarity sake, the "rich" pay most of the taxes, like almost all, who exactly is going to get a tax break when they cut taxes.  Oh, I remember, you want those not paying taxes to get a tax cut...that will help out the recession.
For a while, leading Republicans posed as stern foes of federal red ink. Two weeks ago, in the official G.O.P. response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Senator Saxby Chambliss devoted his entire time to the evils of government debt, “one of the most dangerous threats confronting America today.” He went on, “At some point we have to say ‘enough is enough.’ ”
But this past Monday Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, was asked the obvious question: if deficits are so worrisome, what about the budgetary cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which the Obama administration wants to let expire but Republicans want to make permanent? What should replace $650 billion or more in lost revenue over the next decade?
His answer was breathtaking: “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So $30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count.  No, you dumb ass, tax cuts leave more money in the system (It really does not just drop from the sky Paul) for enterprise and yes will create more economic activity and cure our recession.
The next day, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, confirmed that Mr. Kyl was giving the official party line: “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.” YES!
Now there are many things one could call the Bush economy, an economy that, even before recession struck, was characterized by sluggish job growth really Paul, you lying sack of dung, really?  So the full employment of the Conservative years was not good enough for you, you wanted something special, like green jobs and the grand recession?  and stagnant family incomes; “vibrant” isn’t one of them. But the real news here is the confirmation that Republicans remain committed to deep voodoo, the claim that cutting taxes actually increases revenues.
It’s not true, of course. Ronald Reagan said that his tax cuts would reduce deficits, then presided over a near-tripling of federal debt. When Bill Clinton raised taxes on top incomes, conservatives predicted economic disaster; and the country threw out the Democrats in 94 and we had years of prosperity what actually followed was an economic boom and a remarkable swing from budget deficit to surplus. Then the Bush tax cuts came along, helping turn that surplus into a persistent deficit,  Mostly after 2006 when candidates like the "O" trashed the war effort and the Democrats came back in power. even before the crash.  the Crash being real estate related, not due to the war or the tax cuts or abortion or global warming, you dolt!
Why should this scare you? On paper, solving America’s long-run fiscal problems is eminently doable: stronger cost control for Medicare plus a moderate rise in taxes would get us most of the way there. And the perception that the deficit is manageable has helped keep U.S. borrowing costs low.
But if politicians who insist that the way to reduce deficits is to cut taxes, not raise them, start winning elections again, how much faith can anyone have that we’ll do what needs to be done? Yes, we can have a fiscal crisis. But if we do, it won’t be because we’ve spent too much trying to create jobs and help the unemployed. It will be because investors have looked at our politics and concluded, with justification, that we’ve turned into a banana republic.  Your an idiot

Perspective

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Ben Stein's Diary

The End of Wishful Thinking

I am sixty-five now. I have lived through many recessions. The first one I remember clearly was in 1958 and the worst one, by far, until now, was the one in the late 1970s stretching into the early 1980s, when we had double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment simultaneously. That should have been impossible, but thanks to union Cost of Living Adjustment contracts and skyrocketing oil prices, it was indeed possible.
But the current recession, which really started with some very tense days in late 2007 and began in deadly earnest when Hank Paulson, possibly the most incompetent Treasury Secretary of all time, allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, has been the most upsetting for several reasons.
For one, it has hit the people closest to me the hardest. Until now, I never had a friend who was truly in financial extremis from a recession. When recessions happened, they happened to people in Ohio or Illinois or Michigan. Now, they have hit hard in California and in the law field where so many of my friends work and in Washington, D.C. (yes, even in D.C.) where I am from. I never had a friend lose his house until this recession and now I am sad to say I have many pals who have either lost their homes or are in process of losing their homes.
Next, because this recession hit employment so hard, but also hit home values so hard, many of my friends, who thought they were rolling in real estate equity, find themselves without work and also upside down on their homes, with lofty mortgages to pay, and no ability to sell their homes.
This is not happening to people in faraway places. This is happening to people very near me. Extremely near me.
Because the correction has hit hiring, real estate, and also stock prices so desperately hard, formerly upper middle class people find themselves very short of assets for retirement, owing more on their homes than the homes can fetch, and either jobless or underemployed. They are truly afraid on a scale I never expected to see.
In a word, I am seeing real desperation, which I have never seen before up close and personal. This is especially true of those facing retirement.
I see it even in the very tony neighborhoods where I hang out, like Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage and Malibu. Older people and even younger people are scared.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Ouch on the experience side










Two resumes


General McChrystal
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/
Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan
United States Army



SOURCE OF COMMISSIONED SERVICE: USMA EDUCATIONAL DEGREES
United States Military Academy - BS - No Major
United States Naval War College - MA - National Security and Strategic Studies
Salve Regina University - MS - International Relations

MILITARY SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses
United States Naval Command and Staff College
Senior Service College Fellowship Harvard University

FOREIGN LANGUAGES:
Spanish

PROMOTIONS DATE OF APPOINTMENT:
2LT 2 Jun 76
1LT 2 Jun 78
CPT 1 Aug 80
MAJ 1 Jul 87
LTC 1 Sep 92
COL 1 Sep 96
BG 1 Jan 01
MG 1 May 04
LTG 16 Feb 06
GEN 11 Jun 09

_________________________________________________________________

President Obama:
Birthplace: Location remains questionable. Proof of United States Citizenship hasn't been provided.
Education: Columbia University, Harvard Law School. Records never produced, attendance remains questionable.
Military Career: None
Business Career: None
Political Career: Community organizer, Chicago, 1983-86; civil rights attorney, Chicago, 1991-96;
University of Chicago, lecturer, early 1990s-2004; Illinois State Senator, 1996-2005; U.S. Senator, 2005-2008; President 2008-.

__________________________________________________________

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Raul Hector Castro

Is Raul Hector Castro still alive and living in Tucson? Wouldn't he be about 95 by now? And why isn't he still active in Arizona politics?

Sorry for the cut and paste, but it is just sooo right.

OBAMA DIGS A DEEPER HOLE  By DICK MORRIS

Jim G's note:  the Socialist solutions proposed by our President and his politburo have zero chance of success. Unless he admits that his policies are wrong (a la Bill Clinton; "the era of big government is over") he has no chance. He won't, one can give him "props" for being stubborn in the face of economic devastation, if one admires adherence to conviction, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Of course his "props" are a consequence of his lack of experience (honestly, in retrospect, how did anyone ever think he was qualified to be President) which have caused him hold onto flawed and failed academic beliefs, pontificated by pipe smoking academicians, but which hold no water in the real world.

Any president facing a recession has a basic conundrum to resolve: If he doesn't try to make people believe that a recovery is in progress, nobody will. But if he tries to make them believe that all is getting better, he risks being seen as out of touch at best or insensitive at worst.
It was just such a predicament that landed George H.W. Bush in trouble in 1991 when he preached that the economy was emerging from the recession, only to be seen as rich and elitist for his efforts. Things got so bad that this verbally challenged president once blurted out his staff's strategy memo by saying, "Message: I care." That was about as well-received as Nixon's statement that "I am not a crook."
Now Obama is trying to sell the unsellable -- that the economy is getting better. In Nevada, he said: "But the question is, No. 1: Are we on the right track? And the answer is, yes." Presumably those who are gullible enough to think they can beat the casino odds in Vegas are ripe for this form of self-delusion, but it leaves the rest of us cold. The fact is that, when asked directly in polls whether the U.S. is on the right or the wrong track, by more than two to one, Americans feel the nation is on the wrong track.
Fifteen million are unemployed and, adding in underemployed, part-time workers and those who have given up looking, the total is 26 million. So Obama's statements of confidence are a bit like Herbert Hoover's ritual incantation that "Prosperity is just around the corner."
Polls show that 70 percent of Americans do not believe that the stimulus program has worked and a similar percentage feel the best thing we could do to create jobs is to cut taxes.
But Obama's conundrum is that if he is not the font of optimism, who will be? Economists are increasingly coming to see that the so-called recovery was, in fact, a false dawn and that we are entering a double-dip recession (if, indeed, we ever left the initial downturn). In our book 2010: Take Back America -- A Battle Plan, we predict a false dawn followed by a double dip -- and now it is upon us.
It is now time for the Republicans to counterattack against Obama by calling him out of touch with the realities of the economy and to take advantage of the commonly held idea that the president doesn't know what is going on in the streets. In Obama's case, the GOP cannot then turn "out of touch" into an accusation of insensitivity (as the Democrats did to Bush-41). But they can push the idea that Obama is so wrapped up in his liberal ideology that he cannot see the reality in front of him -- that big spending stimulus hasn't worked and won't work.
The Fox News poll now shows that 55 percent of all likely voters feel that it is appropriate to call Obama a socialist. This epithet, which most Americans did not see fit to use even a few months ago, fits him well. Republicans should make the point that he is willing to sacrifice all for his ideology and that he is blind to the reality of the damage his spending and borrowing are causing.
When a president runs around the country saying things that two-thirds of America does not believe, it is time to counterattack vigorously and show how out of touch he really is.
Then, with every invocation of optimism, Obama will be digging himself deeper and deeper into the hole.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

How radical is the mood out there, and do Republicans have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. Senate?  And here's a simple way to track the answer to both: Simply keep an eye on four tea-party amigos chasing Senate seats in the key states of Nevada, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado.
In those four states, candidates with tea-party inclinations and the support of tea-party activists have either won the Republican nomination or, in Colorado and Florida, are making serious runs for it. A couple of those candidates are people who would have been given little chance six months ago of winning a nomination, much less a general election.
In each case, Democrats and some outside analysts think Republicans may be shooting themselves in the foot by nominating candidates who can be painted as extremists with conservative views outside the mainstream, in a year when simply nominating safe, garden-variety Republicans would be good enough to win.


But are these candidates really going to be a drag for Republicans? Or are they canaries in the national coal mine, telling us that the disenchantment, fear and anger that have developed in the wake of the worst economic recession in 75 years are driving voters to seek out-of-the-box candidates and ideas they wouldn't have embraced before?

Those questions are being tested in Kentucky by Rand Paul, ophthalmologist, political novice and son of libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. In Nevada, it's former state representative Sharron Angle who has won the nomination by pushing a brash populist message.
In a Colorado race that's gotten less attention nationally than it deserves, Ken Buck, a little-known former county prosecutor who made a mark by targeting illegal aliens for prosecution, is challenging Republican establishment favorite and former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. And in Florida, conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio marshaled enough energy from tea-party supporters to drive Gov. Charlie Crist out of the GOP nomination fight and into a candidacy as an independent.
So far this election cycle, most attention has been focused on Republicans' chances of taking back control of the House, which appears a much easier feat than winning the Senate. But increasingly Republicans think winds are blowing so strongly in their direction that they have at least a shot at taking the Senate as well.

If Republicans are to pull off that trick, though, they may well have to win all four states where the tea-party amigos are running strong.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Baxter, Baxter, Baxter

Doc - how come the "anti-business president" is creating jobs every month while your "pro-business president" was shedding 700,000+ every month when he left office? How does that work?

The wing nuts used to call Clinton anti-business, especially when he raised taxes in 1993 (you remember - the bill that balanced the budget). 20,000,000+ jobs were created under the Clinton Administration.

How many jobs created under Bush? Uh, roughly ZERO.


Let's talk about this "deficit" thing and "jobs".



You keep citing the Bush deficit and while yes the Conservatives lost their way and spent too much money, the vast...vast majority of the last Bush deficit was from TARP and as a consequence of the financial meltdown. Let's argue about how the Liberal entitlement policies caused the meltdown another time.


The point is that to argue, as you do, that the Conservatives left a legacy of deficits causing the PRESENT deficits are just ridiculous, even for a Liberal to argue. The grand stimulus and the refusal to return TARP money, both decisions of this administration, are a large source of our current deficit as are decreased business activity and reduced tax receipts (in part a residual of the financial crisis). My point, and Crammers point is that the reduced economic activity of the financial crisis should have run its course, except the hostile environment created by this no nothing administration has prolonged our misery.   Look at the previous deficits, not the last Bush deficit.   Look at the present deficit and the deficits as far as the eye can see.


Lastly, one needs to be a fool not to drive around and see vacant signs and reduced traffic and not realize that our country is at standstill. The only jobs being created are in the government. You are being disingenuous to argue otherwise.


Capitalism light, the Bush administration, provided FULL EMPLOYMENT, or are you going to argue about the 5% (in general) unemployment rate during the last several years verses our current 10%?   No wonder you don't question global warming.

Let's remember why the Liberals so hate Conservatives..."Bush lied, thousands died", "War for Oil"!

Really? This from the party who's members voted for the resolution authorizing the war. Even John Edward, who was banging his mistress while his wife was receiving chemo for breast cancer but was building "her" a $26 million house as he railed against the two Americas, voted for the war, then later admitted it was a mistake. No sh-t.  The first serious female presidential candidate also voted for the war. Al Gore did not, being too busy with massages and then we have the "O", who did not cast a vote, but had an opinion, prior to having to vote and then voting "present".
Then we have the Liberal member who accused our military of committing terrible acts due to the duress of war, yet none were found.

And so it goes on and on, down to the foot soldiers...like Crazy Rich and Baxter who know, just darn know, that the "O" would do a better job.

But...facing reality, big boy stuff, the "O" administration (having as much of an idea how to run a war as they do to run a economy) have...how do we say this nicely...done the same damn thing as the previous administration, except no one will take them seriously, because they are leftist doves who hate the military and their country.

No, no, no the Liberal wacko's say, we are doing it different, with "Drones", really? Gitmo is open, Iraq and Afghanistan are, to say the least, engaged, N. Korea is still Nuclear as is Iran.

I'm just saying that the man's pedestal on which he built his candidacy is pretty much crumbling and the left is mad and the right will NEVER trust him.

Good job "O". I'm sure Crazy Rich is proud.

Another reason the Obama administration is the worst ever.

Cramer: Is Washington’s War Against Business Over?
“Could we be seeing a cease-fire, or even a truce, in Washington’s war against business?” Cramer asked viewers on Monday. “That would be about the most bullish thing that could happen right now.”
The Mad Money host thinks the Obama administration’s anti-business agenda has been a huge obstacle to job creation in this country. So if a truce is on the table, that’s big news. (A truce, not a pro growth agenda, not tax cuts, not reduced legislation, not a removal of the tidal wave of upcoming taxes such as health, income, death, capital gains, VAT, cap and trade...no...a truce...and somehow Baxter and the "Liberals" thinks is is...good?)

Now, Cramer’s not sure this is what’s happening, but he’s seeing some encouraging signs. The Journal ran a story today entitled, “Revisiting the Regulations Affecting Business,” which highlighted the administration’s attempts to reach out to the business community in order to find out which regulations were hampering job growth. Cramer doubted the story would have run if the White House weren’t serious about the effort.

Then there’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, where he said the administration plans to keep low the taxes on dividends and capital gains. Kudlow is adamant that the government do just that, so Cramer sees it as no surprise that Geithner would make such a statement on that show of all shows. Of course, Congress will decide what those tax rates are, but Cramer thinks the legislators will fall in line behind President Obama.

What these signs point to, though – and this is more important than even the truce – is that the administration acknowledges that it has hurt business in this country. No company seems willing to hire in the face of Obama’s agenda, whether it be health care, “card check” or cap-and-trade. Certainly the Nucors, JPMorgans and International Papers of this country aren’t going to hire until they know exactly how much it will cost them. And the initiatives coming out of the White House seem to have constantly put those costs into question.

There’s a good chance this letup will last only until after the midterm elections, Cramer said, but still, this is more than just a political play. The administration now sees the world recovering from the slowdown – everyone from Mexico to South Korea to Australia, even those ailing European countries, and not just China and India – while we’re getting left behind.

“The disparity is so great that Washington and the pro-Washington media,” Cramer said, “may be forced to acknowledge it.”

This shift in policy was a big part of last week’s rally, Cramer said. But whether or not the truce holds is irrelevant. The simple acknowledgement alone is bullish enough on its own, as job creation finally becomes the White House’s primary focus.  (But Jimmy, the problem is, me lad, they have no fricking idea how to create a job, Jimmy Boy, the taxes are going to start in 2011, the regulations are unending, we Jimmy are SCREWED!  Eric, you may argue about Ms. Obama's thesis, however, your predictions about the stock market are not predicated on a thriving business environment baby.)

“I think a more pro-business, pro-stock-market attitude will go a very long way to creating real jobs, not public-sector jobs,” Cramer said, “by the fourth quarter of 2010.”

Pay Attention Bloggers

Obama's debt commission warns of fiscal 'cancer'
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 12, 2010; A02

BOSTON -- The co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future here Sunday, calling current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington.

The two leaders -- former Republican senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton -- sought to build support for the work of the commission, whose recommendations due later this year are likely to spark a fierce debate in Congress.

"There are many who hope we fail," Simpson said at the closing session of the National Governors Association annual meeting. He called the 18-member commission "good people with deep, deep differences" who know the odds of success "are rather harrowing."

Bowles said that unlike the current economic crisis, which was largely unforeseen before it hit in fall 2008, the coming fiscal calamity is staring the country in the face. "This one is as clear as a bell," he said. "This debt is like a cancer."

The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," Simpson said.

"We can't grow our way out of this," Bowles said. "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out. . . . The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

Bowles pointed to steps taken recently by the new coalition government in Britain, which also faces an acute budgetary problem, as a guide to what the commission might use in its recommendations. That would mean about three-quarters of the deficit reduction would be accomplished through spending cuts, and the remainder with additional revenue.

Most Republicans in Congress are opposed to any tax increases, which has made the work of the commission far more difficult. Bowles and Simpson appealed for support to the governors, who have been forced by their states' constitutions to balance their budgets with deep spending cuts and, in many cases, tax increases.

Bowles and Simpson said the commission would have had a stronger hand politically had it been created by Congress, rather than through an executive order. Simpson was pointed in his criticism of seven Republicans who once co-sponsored such a measure but who helped block it in the Senate.

"As far as I can discern, it was to stick it to the president," Simpson said. "That's where we are in Washington." He later added that all seven "have now come to us to say, 'We're ready to help.' "

The presentation by Simpson and Bowles, which included repeated statements of determination to produce a bipartisan set of recommendations, drew praise from the governors.

"I don't know that I've every heard a gloomier picture painted that created more hope for me," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D).

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) said that many governors fear that the commission's recommendations will result in more demands on the states.

Bowles, who noted that the 1997 balanced-budget agreement between the Clinton White House and the Republican-controlled Congress included many provisions that put more burdens on the states, said that wasn't likely.

"I don't think you're going to see a lot of devolution coming from us because the states are all broke," he said.

Simpson also warned that the November elections could add another wild card to the work of the commission. "I have no idea what's going to happen on Election Day but it's going to be disruptive . . .," he said. "It's going to be a big wake-up call around the whole United States. I have no idea where it's going, but thank heaven we have a month then to work through the wreckage."

REIGELS

If you Google "Michelle Obama's Princeton Thesis Text" you will be reading her thesis in about 10 seconds. It seems to be a Sociology paper. I recently toured Princeton and noticed that they are proud of their affiliation with her. I think you can get a copy of her thesis at the book store.

Yeah, it was real hard to find.

Maybe Glenn Beck is an idiot.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Very Interesting Pres. O

I THINK IT IS REMARKABLE THAT WITHIN A WEEK OF TIGER WOODS CRASHING HIS ESCALADE, THE PRESS FOUND EVERY WOMAN WITH WHOM TIGER HAS HAD AN AFFAIR IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, WITH PHOTOS, TEXT MESSAGES, RECORDED PHONE CALLS, ETC. AND, THEY NOT ONLY KNOW THE CAUSE OF THE FAMILY FIGHT, BUT THEY EVEN KNOW IT WAS A WEDGE FROM HIS GOLF BAG THAT HIS WIFE USED TO BREAK OUT THE WINDOWS IN THE ESCALADE. NOT ONLY THAT, THEY KNOW WHICH WEDGE!



AND EACH AND EVERY DAY, THEY GIVE AMERICA MORE UPDATES ON HIS SEX-REHAB STAY, HIS WIFE'S PLANS FOR DIVORCE, AND THE DATES AND TOURNAMENTS HE WILL PLAY IN

OBAMA HAS BEEN IN OFFICE FOR OVER A YEAR NOW, AND THIS SAME PRESS STILL CANNOT FIND ANY OF HIS CHILDHOOD FRIENDS OR NEIGHBORS
OR LOCATE ANY OF OBAMA'S COLLEGE PAPERS OR GRADES
OR HOW HE PAID FOR A HARVARD EDUCATION OR WHICH COUNTRY ISSUED HIS VISA TO TRAVEL TO PAKISTAN IN THE 1980'S OR BARRY SORETORO OR EVEN MICHELLE OBAMA'S PRINCETON THESIS ON RACIST, THEY JUST CAN'T SEEM TO FIND THEM.
YET THE PUBLIC STILL TRUSTS THAT SAME PRESS TO GIVE THEM THE WHOLE TRUTH !
TRULY REMARKABLE !!!

I am sure the liberals on this blog will have some bullshit excuse on this one, just like they do on everything else



I want me one of them $350,000 made up jobs, oh, that's right, I don't qualify.

Perhaps, just perhaps, could one of our Liberal bloggers become so enlightened as to realize that Obama has no idea what he is talking about? Remember Grandma being sick? Let's just give her some meds, not a new hip said our President. NOW I REMEMBER, HE IS SOO SMART, THAT IS HOW HE KNOWS HOW TO PRACTICE MEDICINE WITHOUT EVER PRACTICING MEDI...never mind.


Now it seems our President is also an "energy engineer" able to see the future and "know" where and how to invest. 100% accurate, just like the stimulus.

Weekly Standard:
Is there anything wrong with spending large amounts of public money on “green” jobs that may or may not pay off in the long run? As a matter of fact, there is. As one prominent government economist who has studied alternative energy explains, “The opportunity cost of creating these jobs is important. If the government takes a million dollars to create one job, that’s a million dollars that could have gone to more efficient and productive use in the private sector—in creating stronger and better jobs for more people.”


The same point may be made about everything the government does with the purported goal of boosting the economy and creating jobs. In making the case last year for the $787 billion stimulus bill, Obama and the Democrats claimed it would stop unemployment from going above 8 percent. Instead unemployment climbed to 10 percent and has remained at or near that level ever since. Rather than admit error, the administration is now claiming that the stimulus has kept unemployment from going up to about 12 percent.

But the stimulus hasn’t worked. The principal effect of an alarming rise in government spending and deficits has been to undermine a normal cyclical recovery. Part of the blame for continued high unemployment (especially long-term unemployment) surely rests on the crazy growth of new entitlements and federal spending, combined with the likelihood of a raft of new taxes—some hidden (e.g., rising health premiums resulting from Obamacare) and some not (e.g., the value-added tax now being discussed)—to pay for more government and government-directed redistribution of income.

The really big news from Ohio

The latest campaign finance reports show Democrat Lee Fisher is in big trouble in Ohio's nationally watched Senate race. As of June 30, the lieutenant governor had $1 million in the bank; Republican Rob Portman had almost $9 million. Polls still put the two in a virtual tie, but Portman -- in his first statewide run -- has the resources to raise his profile, while Fisher has to sweat every nickel.


Portman just spent the long holiday weekend campaigning in Northeast Ohio, a strategy that has worked well for other center-right Ohio Republicans: If he can hold down Democratic margins here and turn out fired-up Republicans in southwest Ohio -- where the former Cincinnati area congressman is very well known -- Portman could be in very good shape on Election Day. As for Fisher, the more time he has to spend raising money, the less time he has to campaign. And with Democrats forced to defend seats they once viewed as safe -- even blue-state veterans like California's Barbara Boxer and Wisconsin's Russ Feingold are struggling -- dialing for dollars is only going to get harder.

Grim diagnosis: Senate's doctors pan Obamacare

ONE hundred days has done little to improve the look of the new federal health care program in the eyes of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, the doctor from Muskogee. Need a second opinion? The Senate's other physician, John Barrasso of Wyoming, agrees with Coburn's diagnosis.
There are few surprises in a new Coburn-Barrasso analysis of Obamacare. Unfortunately for President Obama and Democrats in Congress who voted for the nearly $1 trillion program, the passage of 100 days hasn't improved the plan's cost or favorability, as the senator-doctors point out.

Americans remain dubious about what the program will do to existing health care insurance and about what it won't do: rein in underlying costs. Coburn and Barrasso supply reasons.

These include a familiar litany: a structure that pushes insurance premiums higher instead of lower, higher costs to consumers as medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies pass along governmental fees, restrictions that will cause Americans to lose their current insurance, 16 million herded into Medicaid, cuts to Medicare and more.

Most Americans didn't like Obamacare when it struggled through Congress, mainly because they feared promises made on its behalf wouldn't materialize. Their instincts were correct. Obamacare surely will cost more and be less effective than advertised.

Meanwhile, the health care news only gets worse, Obama announcing this week he'll use a special temporary appointment -- bypassing the Senate -- to name as Obamacare's administrator a doctor who has admired Great Britain's government-run health care system. How's that for hope and change?

Friday, July 9, 2010

Who gets "credit" for this fool?

SHABAZZ: I hate white people. All of them! Every last iota of a cracker, I hate him! You want freedom? You're going to have to kill some crackers! You're going to have kill some of their babies.

What would cause this person to be so filled with hate?  Who gets the credit?

This country has gone through a distant war, a past recognition of rights to arrive at a mostly a color blind society.  The young of this county, the vast majority, no longer see race; you can see it by looking at their friends and their values.  Prejudice is a badge of shame in our society.

Conservative only want a equal society, equal opportunity, we do not believe in "social justice" which is just another way to say redistribution.

So how was this fool created?  Where?  Under what system of belief?

Entitlement?  Class warfare?  Race baiting?  Those are not the signatures of my, conservative, belief system.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

WSJ

The Democrats in Washington are beginning to look like a tribe of volcano worshipers, living in the ever-present shadow of Mount Obama, which has been spewing federal spending into the American atmosphere nonstop for nearly two years. Its ash covers everything.


This ancient Democratic tribe, whose number is 255, live in a rambling, run-down temple called the House of Representatives. They share the House with a sporadically hostile tribe called the Republicans, whose population has dwindled to 178. Every few years the tribes engage in an arcane martial-arts contest known as "the elections." Some of the members do not survive.

The Democrats have long believed that Mount Obama's lava field of inert dollars is the staff of life and will save them from extinction. But recent field work by independent ethnographic analysts suggests that the Democrats' years of living off the land of the spending volcano is probably toxic, and could result in at least 50 of them dying in the forthcoming elections.

Still, there exists inside the Democratic tribe a powerful group of priests who practice an abstruse discipline known as Keynesian volcanism. Their belief, in sum, comes down to: The bigger the better. For them, the eruption of Mount Obama was the opportunity of a lifetime.

The February 2009 eruption of Mount Obama, called "The Stimulus" by the Keynesian volcanists, sent some $862 billion cascading across the American landmass. Then came a $1 trillion eruption, which an ecstatic Democratic tribe chanted would provide "health care for all." The volcano's eruptions spread far and eventually covered the fertile fields of the entire nation.
But contrary to what the Democrats had been led to believe by the parchments of the spending priests, very little grew out of Mount Obama's lava field of public dollars. Instead, it produced a virus known as "long-term unemployment."

The volcanic Keynesians screamed and scribbled that the spending eruptions and the 9.5% unemployment rate were a coincidence, and that what the barren and struggling fields needed was another, thicker layer of dollar lava.

As our fable ends, the Democratic tribespeople were heading out of their Beltway enclave to visit long-abandoned ancestral lands. But the most progressive volcano worshipers stayed behind, shrieking at the now-dormant Mount Obama to produce a spending plume with greater volume and mass, and begging the great mountain's god to bring forth one more "multi-trillion-dollar" eruption.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The hits just keep coming.

Mort Zuckerman: Obama Is Barely Treading Water

Monday, July 5, 2010

Hope

Can anyone name one thing going well?

Our President was elected with great enthusiasm and the support of our young.  Post Partisan!

He brings inflammatory race issues into the equation in a routine altercation requiring a beer summit. I sense no change in the "relations" of the races in this country.

Immigration was ignored until 1070 and remains unsolved. Local governments, even before Mr. Obama's economy, struggled to accommodate services for illegal immigrants, now the new fiscal reality of empty coffers and reduced tax revenue allows them no option of providing those services, yet the Federal mandate remains.

States are going bankrupt, they can no longer provide needed services, let alone to illegal immigrants. They are going to need to Federal government to bail them out, but the Federal government is out of bullets. The Federal government has wasted our treasure on a failed stimulus and health care paralysis.

Unemployment remains astoundingly high, few jobs have been created in the private sector for many months. A huge tax increase is just months away as are the multiple others (health care, financial) passed by our Democratic controlled congress at the direction of our President.

Our military remains mired in the Afghan and Iraq war. Iran, N. Korea, are as threatening as ever. Muslim terrorists continue to periodically attack us. The One's speech at the Brandenburg gate seems a lifetime ago.

The health care industry is in a deep depression as is the auto industry. There are no "green" jobs being created.

A deeply flawed health care bill was passed over the objections of a majority of the country, insisted on as a "castor oil" cure for what ails us by the Democrats and our President. No one's health care has significantly improved, taxes are about to start, and a model of the system, abet on a smaller, less complicated scale is failing spectacularly in Mass.

We have an ongoing environmental disaster, our CEO won't talk to their CEO, won't help the states and mainly wants to litigate a solution as oil continues to spill. The damage of this disaster to the areas economy will be long lasting as will the damage to tax receipts. A company employing thousands of Americans will likely not survive.

Several European countries have grown their government too large and promised too much to too many, leaving few to work and bills too large to pay. Our President and his supporters argue that could never happen to us, because we are too big and too sound, ignoring that at one time, so were they!

Equity markets, not ignoring such flawed economic reasoning, continue to dwindle.

The deficit grows and grows eating up more and more of what we produce without any serious proposals of reigning in the spending and scope of government. An ever growing group of citizens is protesting our impending bankruptcy and for caring about our country, they are ridiculed, BY OUR PRESIDENT.

 And most importantly, the successful, the leaders, those who would normally pull us out of such an economic malaise sensing the hostility and understanding the flawed logic are sitting on their hands!

Is this the CHANGE you asked for? Is this why you voted for B. Obama?


Really?

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Mosque at Ground Zero

Take the time to watch this video and make up your own mind.

Please watch this video ...(Could it be true?)
Check out Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?" - Jihad Watch
Pat Condell is a British stand-up comedian, but this video isn't comic, it's pure truth, and utterly brilliant. Forward it to everyone you can.

CBO and Obama

Hey all you liberals out there...did you read where the CBO has NOW come out and says that our debt is unsustainable, and that Obama care will cost more that the 980 billion they said it would cost...GEEE once again how do you spend 980 Billion to save 110 billion, OH well...or maybe Obama went behind those golden closed doors of his with the head of the CBO before Obama care and told him...hey dude we need a good number, make it happen baby, and we will give you a Cadillac and a great parking spot. OH by the way looks like a double dip recession on the way...but of course that is Bush's fault.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Will

Americans usually exempt their particular representative from their normal disparagement of Congress. Today, however, with 62 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows 57 percent want to elect a new representative, the highest total in 18 years. Peter Hart, a Democrat who helps conduct this poll, says voters “are just looking for change.” Change they can believe in?


A “wave” election is defined as one in which a party gains at least 20 House seats. The 2006 and 2008 elections were the first two consecutive waves since 1980–82. (There have not been three in a row since 1948, 1950, 1952.) Waves wash legislators into seats that, when normality is restored, are inhospitable to their occupants. Liberal waves give moderate Democrats tenuous holds on essentially Republican districts. Because most Democratic losses will be among the least liberal Democrats, next year Speaker Pelosi’s caucus will be even more at odds with an increasingly center-right country.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Rove

There was more bad news Tuesday for Democrats from recent focus groups conducted in battleground congressional districts in Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Arkansas and Florida.
A report on these focus groups issued this week by Resurgent Republic (a group I helped found) showed that both political independents and tea party participants passionately denounced federal spending and deficits, using words like "reckless," "out of control," "unnecessary" and "unhelpful." The evidence suggests that both groups remain deeply skeptical of Mr. Obama's stimulus package and are unpersuaded by the administration's arguments in its favor.
The authors of the Resurgent Republic study concluded that both independents and tea party voters believe "nearly unanimously" that reckless government spending, not lack of tax revenues, is responsible for the deficits. This goes to the very heart of the modern Democratic agenda with its guiding philosophy of bigger government and higher taxes.
All of this negative news is wearing on the president. At the G-20's concluding news conference, Mr. Obama—brittle and petulant—attacked GOP critics "who are hollering about deficits," saying he would be "calling their bluff" next year by "presenting some very difficult choices." Then "we'll see how much of . . . the political arguments they're making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics."
The president's problem is largely a mess of his own making. Deficit spending did not begin when Mr. Obama took office. But he and his Democratic allies have supported, proposed, passed or signed and then spent every dime that's gone out the door since Jan. 20, 2009.
Voters know it is Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders who approved a $410 billion supplemental (complete with 8,500 earmarks) in the middle of the last fiscal year, and then passed a record-spending budget for this one. Mr. Obama and Democrats approved an $862 billion stimulus and a $1 trillion health-care overhaul, and they now are trying to add $266 billion in "temporary" stimulus spending to permanently raise the budget baseline.

G-20 Agrees to Cut Debt By 2013 Obama's Growth Goals Face Hurdles It is the president and Congressional allies who refuse to return the $447 billion unspent stimulus dollars and want to use repayments of TARP loans for more spending rather than reducing the deficit. It is the president who gave Fannie and Freddie carte blanche to draw hundreds of billions from the Treasury. It is the Democrats' profligacy that raised the share of the GDP taken by the federal government to 24% this fiscal year.


This is indeed the road to fiscal hell, and it's been paved by the president and his party. Voters will have their chance this November to render their verdict on the Obama years. No wonder Republicans feel confident these days.