Wednesday morning links

NBA's Russell Westbrook Gives Car He Won as All-Star Game MVP to Single Mom

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/04/nbas-russell-westbrook-gives-car-he-won.html

#1 Steve on 2015-04-08 07:00 (Reply)

Not to take anything away from his generous gift, but "we" the taxpayers probably contributed 40% or more to this charitable gift. If he had kept the car it would have been taxed at it's value and that tax would have been paid for at his highest tax rate. It's likely that the recipient of this gift will pay no taxes on it. So all the other tax payers will make up the lost tax revenue.

#1.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-04-08 22:22 (Reply)

>You filthy american peasants.

Well, someone is eating meat/beef. And paying a very high premium for it. Was offered $2.60/lb for our 300-400-weights.

To put this into context, 300 weights need to be fed for another 12-16 months to reach butcher-weight. And we've never gotten more than $2.20/lb finished weight.

A friend of ours sent 5 1-week old calves to the auction, he got a check for $7500.

For people who purchase beef calves (and don't run cow-calf operations) this amounts to putting yourself at huge risk of overextending yourself, because the price might drop by the time those animals are at slaughterweight. Not the intention I'm sure. Never mind, why bother the work and expense of feeding animals when you are paid less/lb than the purchase price.
**all markets are manipulated and false at this time. The inevitable crash and burn is going to be unprecedented.

>>Safe spaces:

Just read Matt Walsh's piece on the nation of whiners.
Yup. Fully agree.
" They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

Unfortunately, it's not just their liberty, they are giving up. It's all of us.

#2 fjord on 2015-04-08 07:18 (Reply)

The Russians won't give us the Hillary emails because they'll be used for blackmail. They're probably already doing it with Obama. That would explain a lot.

#3 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-04-08 07:26 (Reply)

The Angelou stamp is perfect.

#4 bob sykes on 2015-04-08 08:27 (Reply)

Single letter commercial possibilities

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a sony."

#5 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-04-08 09:00 (Reply)

Re: Greece and the EU

The fact that Greece was allowed into the EU says as much about how deeply flawed the EU is as Greece's current situation says about Greece. Economist/market commentator/analyst John Mauldin recently had this to say about Greece vis a vis its "austerity" and how the EU shares some of the same problems:

QUOTE:

Austerity didn’t work in Greece not because they didn’t spend enough money but because the country itself is riddled with impediments to competition. Government has locked in numerous duopolies and erects all kinds of impediments in the way of launching new businesses. Greece is the ultimate in crony capitalism. Further, government direct participation is a huge drag on the economy. Greece has one of the most inefficient governments in the developed world. When I was there a few years ago, literally half of the country’s workers simply did no work; they just took checks as cogs in a system where politicians procured jobs for friends and relatives as favors for their votes and financial support. Taxes aren’t collected, books aren’t balanced – I could go on and on, but the incompetence of Greek government is legendary. Borrowing more money to spend on such inefficiency does nothing to increase GDP.

There will be no economic renaissance in Greece (or in any part of peripheral Europe for that matter) unless there are true labor reforms, a radical reorganization of the government, a complete overhaul of the regulatory environment, and an end to allowing government to favor certain businesses. Growth comes in very great part from innovative, competitive private production, but government can inhibit the environment for the growing of new businesses, which are the wellspring of growth. Eurozone rules and regulations stifle growth at every turn.

#6 mudbug on 2015-04-08 09:57 (Reply)

On the gay cake thing:

Many of the members of Maggie's Farm and the commenters have had their own businesses or have been managers in a business owned by others. We've all turned down customers for a wide variety of reasons (the number one reason: something about the individual/company tells you that the deal isn't going to be worth the trouble). You never tell the individual you don't like them. You just quietly go about slow walking the deal, making mistakes and raising prices. Eventually the customer will get irritated and go elsewhere.

You don't have to betray your principals to keep the gaze of the Eye of Sauron from falling on you and your business.

Now you may end up with a bad Yelp review... But that nonsense is a comment for another day.

#7 Mike (Link) on 2015-04-08 09:59 (Reply)

speaking professionally, if someone makes a habit of doing that to, say, a black guy because he's black, one of my clients will eventually own the business.

there are a wide variety of reasons to discriminate, and not all are unlawful or bad, but when they are, don't invoke Sauron to justify it.

and I hope you mean "principles".

#7.1 The Poetry of Violence on 2015-04-08 11:33 (Reply)

Well now, if I'm an agent for ownership, it would be my principals that I would be concerned about betraying, right?

But I will concede that I did mean principles. Proof reading a blog comment is not a huge deal for me. I think the message was conveyed.

#7.1.1 Mike (Link) on 2015-04-08 17:23 (Reply)

Why in the world would anyone want to eat a cake that the maker was coerced to prepare?

#7.2 Lazarus Long on 2015-04-08 13:53 (Reply)

nobody cares about the cake. the gays are angle shooting.

#7.2.1 The Poetry of Violence on 2015-04-08 14:51 (Reply)

Now why hasn't that quite obvious thought occurred to the gay consumer?

Good point.

#7.2.2 John the River (Link) on 2015-04-08 16:37 (Reply)

Re: Hillary!'s emails

Is Hillary! really as stupid and conniving as she appears? It's not a surprise at all that she would go to such lengths to keep total control of her communication since the only reason for that is so she can thwart any investigation into unethical deeds and nobody should be surprised that she'd have a lot of unethical deeds to investigate. But to do it in a way that encouraged hacks by unfriendly countries (even those whose relationships were 'reset'), really boggles the mind.

There was no security officer, staffer, or bureaucrat who would have warned her or others of the potential danger? Certainly, there would be periodic security audits and certainly someone would notice that Hillary! wasn't using State Department email.

Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") encourages us to believe she's just stupid, but then "Hanlon" never met Hilary!. It defies common sense that her use of a private email server was kept secret from the cyber security bureaucracy within the State Department which begs the question who knew and what mechanism was used to allow it to continue.

#8 mudbug on 2015-04-08 11:03 (Reply)

While RHIP is most likely, imagine any security type was told to mind his place by a member of the Clinton Outer Circle and reminded a posting in peaceful Iraq was open.

#8.1 walt moffett on 2015-04-08 11:34 (Reply)

That's certainly the expected scenario. One would expect that at certain points critical SOPs would normally trump RHIP - if not immediately then possibly through another channel up another chain of command. My point is that it seems likely that more than security underlings knew about this potential security leak which implies that her boss: Obummer hisself, knew and that warning was intentionally ignored.

#8.1.1 mudbug on 2015-04-08 11:58 (Reply)

Has to be malice! Hillary! is well known to be the "The Smartest Woman In The World (TM)".

#8.2 Sam L. on 2015-04-08 13:00 (Reply)

Re filthy American peasants.

QUOTE:

The committee’s report says people should eat less red and processed meat because it contains saturated fats,..., and instead recommends Americans eat more vegetables and nuts.

cannibalizing congress is not sustainable.

#9 The Poetry of Violence on 2015-04-08 11:37 (Reply)

Maya's "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings": I read it was all the marijuana seeds in the bird seed.

Spending money: We're all different, with different interests and different expenses. Nooooooo; really?

Greece and Brussels: Made for each other.

Harvard: Those students better not leave the campus. Lord knows, towns are NOT safe places--they'll get dirty looks, bums will swear at them or panhandle them, someone's going to spit on the sidewalk as they go by--it's a jungle out there!

#10 Sam L. on 2015-04-08 13:14 (Reply)

Those Brussels bureaucrats really irritate me. I would give them a piece of my mind, but I don't speak Belgian very well.

#11 Wally on 2015-04-08 21:21 (Reply)

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Wednesday, April 8. 2015

Wednesday morning links