We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Who cares? They satirize themselves. I have been bullied by these would-be police officers, who could never pass a police exam - or an exam on good manners. Trust me - I do not look like a shoe bomber.
“Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’
Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors—Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP—stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.
Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House.
Crony socialism and political payoffs. It's the Chicago Way. Nice.
Mead:The administration’s goal has to be to get this story off the front page and fast.
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’ She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. She took the market things from Warren’s arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? If he left then, I said, that ended it. What good is he? Who else will harbor him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there’s no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most. He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, Enough at least to buy tobacco with, So he won’t have to beg and be beholden. “All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.” “Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.” I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself If that was what it was. You can be certain, When he begins like that, there’s someone at him Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,— In haying time, when any help is scarce. In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’
‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.
‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’
‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too— You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him— I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed. Wait till you see.’
Anyone who is familiar with the Occupy Wall Street movement knows that it has more or less 'settled' Zucotti Park. This is a very small area (roughly 33,300 square feet) down by the World Trade Center. It's a private park owned by Brookfield Partners. It has no habitable area, but the squatters are creating their own living conditions. They claim they will stay for as long as they have to.
Most of us doubt this is true. I'm willing to bet the minute the TV cameras leave, or the first large snowstorm blows through, most of them will leave. What if they don't, though? Could they stay forever?
It's possible. The potential is there. In fact, there is history supporting this kind of thing. So let's take a look at what might happen if these people never leave.
If you've ever been to Denmark, or Copenhagen specifically, you might be familiar with Freetown Christiana. Christiana is an old military barracks/base which was abandoned by 1970. In 1971, local residents broke down the fence to create a playground, and eventually many people began living in the facilities because housing in Copenhagen was hard to come by. It became a relatively autonomous commune. I found out about it as a teen, when I visited Copenhagen in 1976. At the time, I was deemed "too young" to see it. Seven years later, as a college student living abroad, I visited Copenhagen and this time I made three trips to Christiana. I will admit, it was a great party. But even then I realized it was no place to live. I was alternately impressed and repulsed. With each visit, I was less and less impressed.
Her experience, she explains, "led me to one of the most sobering insights I had as a professor-turned-student: how little intellectual life seemed to matter in college. This is not to say that no one cared about her education or that everyone cut all his classes. Rather, what I observed was that engagement in the philosophical and political issues of the day was not a significant part of college student culture."
There is a day coming. It is not on the horizon yet, but it is not far over it. Prospective employers are going to look at your children's resume, and if it refers to any sort of "public school" on it, they're going to roundfile it without hesitation, and they're going to call HR and ask them to find another homeschooled kid. Maybe they'll settle for an expensive privately schooled kid if there's no "non-socialized" kids available.
From a news point of view this is dog bites man: the usual people are doing the usual things. They are doing it in an unusual place — and over time they may be doing it in unusual numbers. But leftie protests that go nowhere are part of the background noise of modern American life. Drums and granola in the park is not news. Until OWS breaks that mold, expect public interest to remain tepid.
Rush is right, as always. Mitt is a successful businessman and talented executive turned pol, and not deeply ideological. I think lots of people are comfortable with that. Romneycare? Big error, but the people who have not fled MA yet seem to sort-of like it thus far. I would hate it, on principle, just like Medicare. Socialism never adds up because job-creators won't take risks for nothing.
Of course, people still commit innumerable bad actions, but the idea that people make conscious decisions to hurt or harm is no longer sustainable, say the new brain scientists. For one thing, there is no such thing as "free will" with which to decide to commit evil. (Like evil, free will is an antiquated concept for most.) Autonomous, conscious decision-making itself may well be an illusion. And thus intentional evil is impossible.
Many people do make conscious decisions to be hurtful or destructive. What could be more obvious? These neuroscientist folks can't see the mind for the neurons, it seems to me. As always in such cases, however, a conversation with the scientists would reveal that they do, themselves, lead lives in which good, evil, and choice are operative. Otherwise, they would deserve no recognition for their research because it was just their neurons making them do it.
Yesterday, Buffett declined the request of a Republican congressman to swap tax returns and reiterated his pledge to publish the form if other billionaires would do the same.
The Congressional Research Service report found that, on average, millionaires paid federal tax at a 30 percent rate, while moderate-income taxpayers, defined as those earning less than $100,000, were taxed at 19 percent.
The overall average, though, “obscures a great deal of variation,” including the finding that 25 percent of millionaires pay lower rates than 10 percent of moderate earners, the report found.
The findings “would be considered a violation of the Buffett Rule, but not to the extent alluded to by Mr. Buffett,”the report says.
The numbers are, of course, the effective rates (ie after deductions), not the marginal rates.
Here is the story. In 1929, we had a top marginal tax rate of 24% on all income over $100,000. And, according to Historical Statistics of the United States, the federal government took in almost $1.1 billion that year from income taxes. In 1935, after FDR successfully enacted a 79% tax on multimillionaires, the federal revenue from income taxes had been more than cut in half, down to $527 million. Granted, we were in a Great Depression in 1935, but that is in part because we were steadily adding new taxes and raising taxes on income from 1929 to 1935, and those rate hikes helped cause and perpetuate the Great Depression. Why should entrepreneurs invest and take risks when they have to turn more than half of what they might make over to the government?
During World War II, FDR further expanded the federal government. He did not let that crisis go to waste. On taxes, he eventually raised marginal tax rates on the rich to 94% on all income over $200,000. In making the case for huge tax hikes on the rich, Roosevelt’s supporters argued in Congress that government had the first claim on the wealth people earned. On March 30, 1943, Rep. Emanuel Celler (D.-N.Y.) argued, “The government can at any time make income taxes as thumping big as the necessities of war require. Thus, if any plan does not raise enough money, taxes can at any time be increased. The government always has a moral if not actual lien on all our income.”
They were asked (if you can believe this) if they thought anyone on Wall Street should go to prison for the economic harm they've done.
James Taranto in yesterday's Best of the Web Today expounded on this in his usual exemplary fashion and I thought I'd bring it to your attention. He really nailed those liberal asshat moderators.
Real news report:In Florida, an 81-year oldshuttle driver went door-to-door in an apartment complex posing as a doctor offering free breast exams. Women who have come forth so far, 32 and 36, agreed to the exam. --- Maybe they were confused, waiting for the brain transplant surgeon to arrive.
So, here's some other elder vignettes close to reality:
COUPLE in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember ..
Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. 'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.
'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'
'Sure..'
'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.
'No, I can remember it..'
'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, soas not to forget it?'
He says, 'I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'
'I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down?' she asks.
Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!'
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs.. She stares at the plate for a moment.
I’ve been a big shot in several giant corporations, several smaller ones, and a consultant on finance, business operations, HR and employee benefits to many more, aside from running my own business.
I’ve never seen a situation where excessive labor demands or behavior was not the fault of poor management. Once launched on grievance and then power seeking by labor, a downward spiral ensues. Sometimes management reforms, often not. Eventually, the business fails and all suffer.
When there are more effective competitors, that process is speeded.
Surviving US companies have met that competition by becoming more efficient in their processes or by sending manufacturing abroad for cheaper labor, or both devising better processes and sending it abroad to foreign factories or outsourcers.
US labor unions used to be very effective in developing free unions in poorer countries, as a bulwark against exploitive communist unions and to defend our prosperity in a freer world. Today, they are adamant against foreign outsourcing while refusing to become partners in US efficiencies, but have lost their position in all but government unions and similar where they can exert a monopoly granted by paid-off politicians. They do fight for fairer labor standards in free trade agreements, but mostly to impede outsourcing rather than to encourage free trade.
Free trade should not be an issue, as all benefit, us from cheaper products and focusing investments where we have a comparative advantage, foreign workers from getting a leg on the ladder to better living conditions than in rural drudgery and exploitation by local thugocrats.
We are not in the early 1900s, and shouldn’t blithely feel that eventually foreign workers will be in a better position. And we are Americans and do not believe in undue exploitation of others. We are in a faster, communicative world which does not wait decades and, further, the image of the US is more important when native populations and not just their elites are our audience and affect our own economic and national security interests.
Sheesh. Ask your parents before asking me to pay it. I have my own to pay for, shmuck. Next, they will want us to buy their cars and to pay for their car insurance.
Amusingly, such people are blind to their own greed which they project onto others. Gimme, gimme. If you gave him a free tuition, he'd want something free after that. An entitlement/freebie mindset never stops, and creates permanent infants instead of self-reliant adults. Or sociopaths, which this guy sounds like with his lack of shame and humility for asking for charity.
The founder and now "Mentor" of Bridgewater Associates - probably the world's largest hedge fund - became fascinated by markets as a young caddy. This sui generis fellow, a HBS grad, has now put his company and management principles up on the internet.
During last night’s Republican debate, all agreed on repealing ObamaCare. But only Romney mentioned that we need something to replace it and mentioned he has that plan.
To be quick out of the blocks, Romney promises to exempt all states from ObamaCare on his first day in the Oval Office, then ask Congress to repeal it.
To control federal costs, he would provide block grants to states to devise their own, closer to their publics, programs. Individuals would be able to deduct premiums from taxes, as businesses can. Preexisting conditions would not affect insurability if the individual had prior continuous coverage, a spur to taking more self-responsibility. HRAs, pretax savings accounts for healthcare, would be expanded to pay for premiums, making the cost of premiums less for taxpaying consumers, and cross-state purchases would be allowed to avoid costly state mandates. Non-medical malpractice tort awards would be capped.
These are all well and good………if one just wants band aids for a hemorrhage.
It is probably politic to avoid rousing the ire of independents via Democrat MediScare charges. But as I argued yesterday the core problem is not addressed: extensive government direction of medical care driving up costs to today’s unaffordable levels for the budget and for consumers, distorting markets, reducing individual choice and overriding individual circumstances. Thus far, only the Ryan plan addresses it.
Regardless of whom is elected president in 2012, it will be up to Congress to choose whether we continue on a government-lighter or ObamaCare model, or face up to the real drivers of healthcare costs in excessive government direction of healthcare.
Even if one forgives Romney for RomneyCare being a mistake of the past, he does not adequately learn from nor atone for it. For that matter, the other Republican presidential potentials have not even been as specific as he in what they’d do after being elected. Inadequate from all.
Romney may have strengthened his case for “inevitability”in last night’s debate by his smoothness and command of details. And something is better than nothing. However, that something is still nothing compared to the unresolved challenges we must face to retain healthcare quality and access at affordable costs, enhanced freedoms, and the resources needed to face the US other needs.
"Wall Street's Gullible Occupiers. The protesters have been sold a bill of goods. Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis." One quote:
Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.
Read the whole thing. The government essentially forced lenders into the subprime markets and to violate their own lending standards. Naturally, they didn't want these crappy loans on their books, so they packaged them as derivatives and sold them to eager buyers worldwide (unaccountably rated triple A when any fool could see that they were below investment-grade). With that, combined with low interest rates and people using their suddenly-valuable homes as ATMs, the housing and construction debt-bubble was created and inevitably burst.
Why the world's financial geniuses didn't see it coming is beyond me. Everybody on the internet saw it coming. All bubbles burst, but this was a biggie-sized one just like the internet bubble. Based on my reading, I had shorted housing-related equities, did not buy my living quarters which I could not have afforded anyway, and made out like a bandit. It was just too easy, even for an amateur. Call me greedy.
Of course, the rest of my quite modest portfolio did horribly. Equity baskets have been a bad bet for many years now. Munis stink too. Sorry I didn't buy gold, but I always thought gold was for end-of-the-world nutjobs.
I am no economist nor do I play one on the internet, but my take on things today is that fear of government is part of what is holding back investment in the US. That, plus people freaking out about their debt - and their lower-to-zero incomes.
It is not particularly mature to blame banks who were willing to lend you money, though, even when they perhaps doubted your ability to repay it. An adult who takes on debt is supposed to be an honorable citizen who will repay that debt, or have their credit and reputation ruined for ten years or more. Employers check your credit rating.
My only debts are my student loans which were such a good deal that I am in no hurry to pay them all off, as long as my career proceeds on course. However, periodically I borrow money from my local bank or my credit cards. Small amounts - $5000-10,000 - then pay it back after a couple of months. I use that trick to keep my credit rating up to date and in good shape (I rent). One of these days, I will really use my credit card to take a good girlfriend or future spouse on a bike tour around Sicily.
Our struggle is not with Obama or Reid or Pelosi, it is with the system that they advance. A system of unrestricted power that mandates absolute dominance over all human affairs backed by an ideology that treats all human activity as political and in need of control in the name of the greater good. Getting them all out is a plus, but it's a battle, not the war.
First off, the (literal) round table format was great. As I mentioned yesterday, it gave the whole debate a 'businesslike' atmosphere, yet it was also much more 'casual' than normal, simply because they were sitting so close together. It was also cheerier, in that when someone cracked a joke, you could hear everyone laugh. Cozy, might be the word. For the record, Michele Bachmann has a delightful laugh.
And while I was wondering how they'd handle the numerous cameras required to keep everyone in front of the lens, they solved that little problem by not shooting anyone from the front. Most of the shots were offset a good angle, and then there were the you-are-there shots like this:
I thought it was terrific, and the next 'standard' debate is going to seem almost stilted in comparison. Notes are below the fold.
Today, Slovakia has the lowest average salaries in the euro zone. How am I supposed to explain to people that they are going to have to pay a higher value-added tax (VAT) so that Greeks can get pensions three times as high as the ones in Slovakia?
Hmmmmm. In the US, shrinking unions have retreated to the bastions of monopoly - schools and givernment (sp), where they wield great power to plunder the people:
Bob Samuels, the president of the union, says this effectively gives the union veto power over any online initiative that might endangers the jobs or work lives of its members. “We feel that we could stop almost any online program through this contract,” Samuels told Inside Higher Ed.
"... Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations ... The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for ... officials ... to bind the employer ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives ...
"Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people ... This obligation is paramount ... A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent ... to prevent or obstruct ... Government ... Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government ... is unthinkable and intolerable."
There have been plenty of tributes to Steve Jobs' life. The man was a visionary and radically altered the world of computing several times. He also completely changed the world of animation.
What many people miss, however, is that he was not only a great inventor and leader, but an inspirational force that could help pull us out of the current mess we are in. Rather than whining and crying and asking for more from others, Jobs set a standard which all of us should follow.
I can't tell what these stoners think because it is difficult to decipher their logic. However, their demeanor is what probably turns people off. These are not good poster children for the Democratic party (below from Gateway):
Image via 
Anyone who is familiar with the Occupy Wall Street movement knows that it has more or less 'settled' Zucotti Park. This is a very small area (
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