As much as the liberals would like for us believe that Sarah is a loser, we, down here in the trenches, know she is a winner and will destroy the liberals and their efforts to "change" America into a third world sump hole of fear and intimidation. Why else would the media and liberal Democrats continually attack her and her family? They are scared of her because they know she represents the people of this county. Liberal Democrats care nothing for such things.
The people of this country see her as one of us witch is just the opposite of the liberal agenda. The liberals are the elites, the power brokers, masters of the universe, all powerful rulers of all things necessary for the good life.
We, the people, are here only to serve.
With her efforts to position herself now for a run in the near future brings conservatives, and all other common sense people of all strips and political ideologies, some real "hope" for our county and the American way of life. Sarah has shown herself to be the real thing.
Go to her site and keep the faith - let the liberals know that the battle is only beginning.
Sarah Palin Unveils National 'SarahPAC' Organization
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
By: David A. Patten
In a major step closer to a future run for national office, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday established SarahPAC, a political action committee expected to play a key role in financing upcoming political endeavors.
“SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of a historic renaissance that will build a better future for all,” the SarahPAC.com Web site announced Tuesday. “Health care, education, and reform of government are among our key goals.”
The site, which invites donations, calls energy independence “a cornerstone of the economic security and progress that every American family wants and deserves.”
NBC’s Norah O’Donnell characterized the creation of the fund-raising organization as “a sign Sarah Palin wants to continue to be a player on the national political stage.” O’Donnell added that the Virginia-based PAC “is modeled after HillPAC, Hillary Clinton’s former political committee. Palin’s committee allows her to raise money for other Republicans.”
The PAC Web site describes the organization as “Dedicated to building America's future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.”
The Alaska governor’s popularity remains undiminished since the election. O’Donnell reports Sen. John MCain’s running mate has over 465,300 supporters on Facebook.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Islamic Law Is Total Consumption of All Western Existence
Well, very interesting stuff on our Islamic enemy, and given how Obama is going to have a 'sit down' with these people and explain how they must "change" to join the world community, we all can expect a new and safer world. Right? Hey, the "savior of the world" has proclaimed it. How can we doubt the word of the "one".
Keep the faith - believers in freedom unite!
Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's Book: "Slavery, Terrorism, And Islam The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat"
Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In it's fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.
Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components. Islamizing begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.
When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well. Here's how it works. As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:United States -- Muslim 0.6% Australia -- Muslim 1.5% Canada -- Muslim 1.9% China -- Muslim 1.8% Italy -- Muslim 1.5% Norway -- Muslim 1.8%
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:Denmark -- Muslim 2% Germany -- Muslim 3.7% United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7% Spain -- Muslim 4% Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply.
This is occurring in:France< -- Muslim 8% Philippines -- Muslim 5% Sweden -- Muslim 5% Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3% The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5% Trinidad &Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings Any non -Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammad cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in: Guyana -- Muslim 10% India -- Muslim 13.4% Israel -- Muslim 16% Kenya-- Muslim 10% Russia -- Muslim 15%
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in: Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%
At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:Bosnia -- Muslim 40% Chad -- Muslim 53.1% Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%
From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in: Albania -- Muslim 70% Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4% Qatar -- Muslim 77.5% Sudan -- Muslim 70%
After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in: Bangladesh -- Muslim 83% Egypt -- Muslim 90% Gaza -- Muslim 98.7% Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1% Iran -- Muslim 98% Iraq -- Muslim 97% Jordan -- Muslim 92% Morocco -- Muslim 98.7% Pakistan -- Muslim 97% Syria -- Muslim 90% Tajikistan -- Muslim 90% Turkey -- Muslim 99.8% United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%
100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because every body is a Muslim, the Madrases are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in: Afghanistan -- Muslim 100% Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100% Somalia -- Muslim 100% Yemen -- Muslim 100%
Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.
'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, "The Haj"It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos.
There are no national courts nor schools nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend Madrases. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death.
Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews, and all others . Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.
Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: "Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat"
Keep the faith - believers in freedom unite!
Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's Book: "Slavery, Terrorism, And Islam The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat"
Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In it's fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.
Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components. Islamizing begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.
When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well. Here's how it works. As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:United States -- Muslim 0.6% Australia -- Muslim 1.5% Canada -- Muslim 1.9% China -- Muslim 1.8% Italy -- Muslim 1.5% Norway -- Muslim 1.8%
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:Denmark -- Muslim 2% Germany -- Muslim 3.7% United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7% Spain -- Muslim 4% Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply.
This is occurring in:France< -- Muslim 8% Philippines -- Muslim 5% Sweden -- Muslim 5% Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3% The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5% Trinidad &Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings Any non -Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammad cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in: Guyana -- Muslim 10% India -- Muslim 13.4% Israel -- Muslim 16% Kenya-- Muslim 10% Russia -- Muslim 15%
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in: Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%
At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:Bosnia -- Muslim 40% Chad -- Muslim 53.1% Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%
From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in: Albania -- Muslim 70% Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4% Qatar -- Muslim 77.5% Sudan -- Muslim 70%
After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in: Bangladesh -- Muslim 83% Egypt -- Muslim 90% Gaza -- Muslim 98.7% Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1% Iran -- Muslim 98% Iraq -- Muslim 97% Jordan -- Muslim 92% Morocco -- Muslim 98.7% Pakistan -- Muslim 97% Syria -- Muslim 90% Tajikistan -- Muslim 90% Turkey -- Muslim 99.8% United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%
100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because every body is a Muslim, the Madrases are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in: Afghanistan -- Muslim 100% Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100% Somalia -- Muslim 100% Yemen -- Muslim 100%
Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.
'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, "The Haj"It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos.
There are no national courts nor schools nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend Madrases. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death.
Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews, and all others . Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.
Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: "Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat"
Lawrence Summers, Obama's Money Man, Just Profoundly Ignorant?
Please tell me this man isn't as ignorant as he sounds - or maybe he is just being what we all know to be true - he is just another liberal Democrat that has a taste for cool aide. They just can't seem to help them selves. They are stuck in a rut of a socialist agenda and no matter what happens they use the same play book to solve all problems.
Who are these people? Why don't they seem to have any common sense, none at all? Can these liberals be so hungry for power and control that they will sell their very souls, that is if they had any to start with, to gain a few rungs on the ladder of power?
History means nothing to these people - they don't care that FDR failed to stop the depression of the 1930's. Now they are going to go ahead and use the same failed agenda that FDR used only double or triple the effort. After 8 years, unemployment under FDR was still 14%!
Maybe it isn't ignorance after all, maybe they are just mentally incapable of rational thought. Maybe they are genetically different form the rest of us. After decades, generations, of hate and lusting for power, maybe they have become a separate species. Why not? Just listen to them and you decide.
Keep the faith - rational thought will win in the end to save the battle.
Summers: Bush Tax Cuts Won't Be Extended
Sunday, January 25, 2009 9:25 PMBy: Newsmax Wires
President Obama's senior economic advisor made clear Sunday that any idea of renewing the Bush tax cuts, set to expire in 2010, is a dead issue.
Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary and head of the White House's National Economic Council, made clear to “Meet the Press” host David Gregory that Obama is committed to allowing the tax cuts to die.
Summers also left open the possibility that the administration may revoke the tax cuts early, an idea pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But he emphasized that the Obama administration is dead against extending the tax cuts, an idea favored by Republicans.
Asked if he was open to extending the cuts to 2013, Summers responded, "First, it's a bad idea because we simply can't afford it. The president's inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, and a deficit with a baseline that is terrible as far as the eye can see."
During the presidential campaign last year, Obama had pledged he would rescind the Bush tax cuts early and redirect the new revenues to tax cuts for lower and middle class wage earners. But in September, Obama indicated he might delay rescinding the tax cuts if he faced a severe recession. At the time he also insisted he would allow the tax cuts to expire no later than 2010.
The Heritage Foundation has warned that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, "taxes will rise dramatically for most taxpayers" with tax rates rising "substantially in each tax bracket, some by 450 basis points."
For example, top wage earners currently in the 35 percent tax bracket will see their tax rate increase to over 39 percent -- an increase of more than 10 percent in extra taxes they will have to pay.
Last year, the Bush White House claimed that allowing the tax cuts to expire would mean a family of four would have an additional tax burden of $1,900 annually. They also claimed 43 million families with children would see an increase of taxes over $2,000.
Summers' exchange with NBC's David Gregory follows:
MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about tax cuts. About a third of his package is made up of tax cuts. Republicans want more. Specifically there's a question about the Bush tax cuts which, of course, expire next year. Does the president want to actually repeal those tax cuts this calendar year?
DR. SUMMERS: I don't think there's any question they have to be repealed. The country can't afford them for the long run.
MR. GREGORY: So repeal them this year? Because they expire next year.
DR. SUMMERS: What the timing -- what the -- they expire, expire at the end of next year, and they have to be allowed to expire. What the timing will be, that's something that's going to have to get worked out.
MR. GREGORY: Because the House speaker says do it this year.
DR. SUMMERS: That's something that's going to have to get worked out through the legislative process.
MR. GREGORY: All right.
DR. SUMMERS: There's no question that the president's been very emphatic about this, as he was very emphatic during his campaign, that they can't be part of...
MR. GREGORY: OK, but timing is important.
DR. SUMMERS: They can't be, they can't be part of the long-run budget picture.
MR. GREGORY: Well, understood. But...
DR. SUMMERS: And it's a timing--it's something that's going to be--that's something that's going to be worked out in the course of the...
MR. GREGORY: But what's his position, repeal them this year?
DR. SUMMERS: ...in the course of the legislative, legislative process. The president has made clear they--that the question of timing is one we're going to have to reach as we see how the economy unfolds...
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
DR. SUMMERS: ...as Congress reaches its judgments. But they're not going to be with us for long.
MR. GREGORY: Why not? Why not? Conservatives make the argument, why would you want to raise taxes--if you repeal those tax cuts, taxes do go up on upper-income Americans, primarily. Why would you want to raise taxes right now? Why not put that expiration date off into, say, 2013? Why is that a bad idea?
DR. SUMMERS: Put the expiration date off into...
MR. GREGORY: 2013.
DR. SUMMERS: ...2013? First, it's a bad idea because we simply can't afford it. The president's inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, and a deficit with a baseline that is terrible as far as the eye can see. We've got to spend money now while we have a recession, while we've got this serious economic crisis, but as soon as the economy recovers we are going to have to find ways of getting the government's finances under some kind of control. Second, we have to focus on, frankly, the parts of the economy that need help. If you look at what's happened over the last 10 years, the incomes of middle-income families have barely or kept up with inflation, or in many, many cases fallen behind inflation. The people who are the beneficiaries, the small minority, a little over 1 percent of the population that are the beneficiaries of those tax cuts have actually seen their incomes rise much more, much more rapidly. And so I think it's a pretty clear question of priority as to where the, where the assistance needs to be channeled.
MR. GREGORY: But you say...
DR. SUMMERS: But understand this, the president has vowed that there will be tax cuts for more than 95 percent of Americans, for all working families with incomes below $250,000. They will see their taxes cut, they will not see tax increases.
MR. GREGORY: Well, let me just press you on this point. You say we can't afford to let those Bush tax cuts expire later, but we can afford to, to spend up to $700 billion for the tax cut that you like?
DR. SUMMERS: We can--we--it's a good question. We certainly can afford to do what is necessary now to stimulate this economy, to put money--frankly, when you put money into the hands of middle-class families, history and experience suggest that they spend a substantial part of it, pushing the economy forward. When you put money into the hands of those with very high incomes, only a much smaller fraction of it is spent and so you derive much less benefit in terms of pushing the economy, in terms of pushing the economy forward.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Who are these people? Why don't they seem to have any common sense, none at all? Can these liberals be so hungry for power and control that they will sell their very souls, that is if they had any to start with, to gain a few rungs on the ladder of power?
History means nothing to these people - they don't care that FDR failed to stop the depression of the 1930's. Now they are going to go ahead and use the same failed agenda that FDR used only double or triple the effort. After 8 years, unemployment under FDR was still 14%!
Maybe it isn't ignorance after all, maybe they are just mentally incapable of rational thought. Maybe they are genetically different form the rest of us. After decades, generations, of hate and lusting for power, maybe they have become a separate species. Why not? Just listen to them and you decide.
Keep the faith - rational thought will win in the end to save the battle.
Summers: Bush Tax Cuts Won't Be Extended
Sunday, January 25, 2009 9:25 PMBy: Newsmax Wires
President Obama's senior economic advisor made clear Sunday that any idea of renewing the Bush tax cuts, set to expire in 2010, is a dead issue.
Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary and head of the White House's National Economic Council, made clear to “Meet the Press” host David Gregory that Obama is committed to allowing the tax cuts to die.
Summers also left open the possibility that the administration may revoke the tax cuts early, an idea pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But he emphasized that the Obama administration is dead against extending the tax cuts, an idea favored by Republicans.
Asked if he was open to extending the cuts to 2013, Summers responded, "First, it's a bad idea because we simply can't afford it. The president's inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, and a deficit with a baseline that is terrible as far as the eye can see."
During the presidential campaign last year, Obama had pledged he would rescind the Bush tax cuts early and redirect the new revenues to tax cuts for lower and middle class wage earners. But in September, Obama indicated he might delay rescinding the tax cuts if he faced a severe recession. At the time he also insisted he would allow the tax cuts to expire no later than 2010.
The Heritage Foundation has warned that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, "taxes will rise dramatically for most taxpayers" with tax rates rising "substantially in each tax bracket, some by 450 basis points."
For example, top wage earners currently in the 35 percent tax bracket will see their tax rate increase to over 39 percent -- an increase of more than 10 percent in extra taxes they will have to pay.
Last year, the Bush White House claimed that allowing the tax cuts to expire would mean a family of four would have an additional tax burden of $1,900 annually. They also claimed 43 million families with children would see an increase of taxes over $2,000.
Summers' exchange with NBC's David Gregory follows:
MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about tax cuts. About a third of his package is made up of tax cuts. Republicans want more. Specifically there's a question about the Bush tax cuts which, of course, expire next year. Does the president want to actually repeal those tax cuts this calendar year?
DR. SUMMERS: I don't think there's any question they have to be repealed. The country can't afford them for the long run.
MR. GREGORY: So repeal them this year? Because they expire next year.
DR. SUMMERS: What the timing -- what the -- they expire, expire at the end of next year, and they have to be allowed to expire. What the timing will be, that's something that's going to have to get worked out.
MR. GREGORY: Because the House speaker says do it this year.
DR. SUMMERS: That's something that's going to have to get worked out through the legislative process.
MR. GREGORY: All right.
DR. SUMMERS: There's no question that the president's been very emphatic about this, as he was very emphatic during his campaign, that they can't be part of...
MR. GREGORY: OK, but timing is important.
DR. SUMMERS: They can't be, they can't be part of the long-run budget picture.
MR. GREGORY: Well, understood. But...
DR. SUMMERS: And it's a timing--it's something that's going to be--that's something that's going to be worked out in the course of the...
MR. GREGORY: But what's his position, repeal them this year?
DR. SUMMERS: ...in the course of the legislative, legislative process. The president has made clear they--that the question of timing is one we're going to have to reach as we see how the economy unfolds...
MR. GREGORY: Yeah.
DR. SUMMERS: ...as Congress reaches its judgments. But they're not going to be with us for long.
MR. GREGORY: Why not? Why not? Conservatives make the argument, why would you want to raise taxes--if you repeal those tax cuts, taxes do go up on upper-income Americans, primarily. Why would you want to raise taxes right now? Why not put that expiration date off into, say, 2013? Why is that a bad idea?
DR. SUMMERS: Put the expiration date off into...
MR. GREGORY: 2013.
DR. SUMMERS: ...2013? First, it's a bad idea because we simply can't afford it. The president's inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, and a deficit with a baseline that is terrible as far as the eye can see. We've got to spend money now while we have a recession, while we've got this serious economic crisis, but as soon as the economy recovers we are going to have to find ways of getting the government's finances under some kind of control. Second, we have to focus on, frankly, the parts of the economy that need help. If you look at what's happened over the last 10 years, the incomes of middle-income families have barely or kept up with inflation, or in many, many cases fallen behind inflation. The people who are the beneficiaries, the small minority, a little over 1 percent of the population that are the beneficiaries of those tax cuts have actually seen their incomes rise much more, much more rapidly. And so I think it's a pretty clear question of priority as to where the, where the assistance needs to be channeled.
MR. GREGORY: But you say...
DR. SUMMERS: But understand this, the president has vowed that there will be tax cuts for more than 95 percent of Americans, for all working families with incomes below $250,000. They will see their taxes cut, they will not see tax increases.
MR. GREGORY: Well, let me just press you on this point. You say we can't afford to let those Bush tax cuts expire later, but we can afford to, to spend up to $700 billion for the tax cut that you like?
DR. SUMMERS: We can--we--it's a good question. We certainly can afford to do what is necessary now to stimulate this economy, to put money--frankly, when you put money into the hands of middle-class families, history and experience suggest that they spend a substantial part of it, pushing the economy forward. When you put money into the hands of those with very high incomes, only a much smaller fraction of it is spent and so you derive much less benefit in terms of pushing the economy, in terms of pushing the economy forward.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Laws and Lawyers Dictate/Suffocat Freedom of Choice
What a great article on just what it means to have a "free choice" and how we are loosing it through suffocating laws and lawyers. We have a tendency to find this a little simplistic but given some thought, it describes most of how we live our lives. Just imagine how it would be without freedom of choice.
Think of how the DNR and the EPA alone have taken over so many choices that use to be ours - We have to wonder just how far this will go and how fast will this happen. Our new president seems to have plans for us that don't include freedom of choice - he feels government is all we need to make the "right" choices for everyone - It's not about Us, it's about Them. Is this the 'change' he was talking about? hmmmm
Keep the faith - and always remember "freedom means having nothing else to lose".
JANUARY 26, 2009 WSJ
By PHILIP K. HOWARD
Calling for a "new era of responsibility" in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama reminded us that there are no limits to "what free men and women can achieve." Indeed. America achieved greatness as the can-do society. This is, after all, the country of Thomas Paine and barn raisings, of Grange halls and Google. Other countries shared, at least in part, our political freedoms, but America had something different -- a belief in the power of each individual.
President Obama's clarion call of self-determination -- "Yes We Can" -- hearkens back to the core of our culture.[Commentary] David Klein But there's a threshold problem for our new president. Americans don't feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. All around us are warnings and legal risks. The modern credo is not "Yes We Can" but "No You Can't."
Our sense of powerlessness is pervasive. Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors say they wouldn't advise their children to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can't even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.
The idea of freedom as personal power got pushed aside in recent decades by a new idea of freedom -- where the focus is on the rights of whoever might disagree. Daily life in America has been transformed. Ordinary choices -- by teachers, doctors, officials, managers, even volunteers -- are paralyzed by legal self-consciousness. Did you check the rules? Who will be responsible if there's an accident? A pediatrician in North Carolina noted that "I don't deal with patients the same way any more. You wouldn't want to say something off the cuff that might be used against you."
Here we stand, facing the worst economy since the Great Depression, and Americans no longer feel free to do anything about it. We have lost the idea, at every level of social life, that people can grab hold of a problem and fix it. Defensiveness has swept across the country like a cold wave. We have become a culture of rule followers, trained to frame every solution in terms of existing law or possible legal risk. The person of responsibility is replaced by the person of caution. When in doubt, don't.
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All this law, we're told, is just the price of making sure society is in working order. But society is not working. Disorder disrupts learning all day long in many public schools -- the result in part, studies by NYU Professor Richard Arum found, of the rise of student rights.
Health care is like a nervous breakdown in slow motion. Costs are out of control, yet the incentive for doctors is to order whatever tests the insurance will pay for. Taking risks is no longer the badge of courage, but reason enough to get sued. There's an epidemic of child obesity, but kids aren't allowed to take the normal risks of childhood. Broward County, Fla., has even banned running at recess.The flaw, and the cure, lie in our conception of freedom.
We think of freedom as political freedom. We're certainly free to live and work where we want, and to pull the lever in the ballot box. But freedom should also include the power of personal conviction and the authority to use your common sense. Analyzing the American character, Alexis de Tocqueville, considered "freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones. . . . Subjection in minor affairs does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to sacrifice their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated."
This is not an ideological point. Freedom in daily choices is essential for practical reasons -- necessary for government officials and judges as well as for teachers, doctors and entrepreneurs. The new legal order doesn't honor the individuality of human accomplishment. People accomplish things by focusing on the goal, and letting their instincts, mainly subconscious, try to get them there.
"Amazingly few people," management guru Peter Drucker observed, "know how they get things done." Most things happen, the philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote, through "the usual process of trial and error by which we feel our way to success." Thomas Edison put it this way: "Nothing that's any good works by itself. You got to make the damn thing work." Modern law pulls the rug out from under all those human powers and substitutes instead a debilitating self-consciousness.
Teachers lose their authority, Prof. Arum found, because the overhang of law causes "hesitation, doubt and weakening of conviction." Skyrocketing health-care costs are impossible to contain as long as doctors go through the day thinking about how they will defend themselves if a sick person sues.
The overlay of law on daily choices destroys the human instinct needed to get things done. Bureaucracy can't teach. Rules don't make things happen. Accomplishment is personal. Anyone who has felt the pride of a job well done knows this.
How do we restore Americans' freedom in daily choices? Freedom is notoriously malleable towards self-interest. "We all declare for liberty," Abraham Lincoln observed, "but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing."Freedom, however, is not just a shoving match.
Freedom has a formal structure. It has two components:1) Law sets boundaries that proscribe what we must do or can't do -- you must not steal, you must pay taxes.2) Those same legal boundaries protect an open field of free choice in all other matters.The forgotten idea is the second component -- that law must affirmatively define an area free from legal interference.
Law must provide "frontiers, not artificially drawn," as philosopher Isaiah Berlin put it, "within which men should be inviolable."This idea has been lost to our age. When advancing the cause of freedom, law today is all proscription and no protection. There are no boundaries, just a moving mudbank comprised of accumulating bureaucracy and whatever claims people unilaterally choose to assert.
People wade through law all day long. Any disagreement in the workplace, any accident, any incidental touching of a child, any sick person who gets sicker, any bad grade in school -- you name it. Law has poured into daily life.The solution is not just to start paring back all the law -- that would take 10 lifetimes, like trying to prune the jungle. We need to abandon the idea that freedom is a legal maze, where each daily choice is like picking the right answer on a multiple-choice test. We need to set a new goal for law -- to define an open area of free choice. This requires judges and legislatures to affirmatively assert social norms of what's reasonable and what's not.
"The first requirement of a sound body of law," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote, "is that it should correspond with the actual feelings and demands of the community."The profile of authority structures needed to defend daily freedoms is not hard to imagine. Judges would aspire to keep lawsuits reasonable, understanding that what people sue for ends up defining the boundaries of free interaction. Schools would be run by the instincts and values of the humans in charge -- not by bureaucratic micromanagement -- and be held accountable for how they do.
Government officials would have flexibility to meet public goals, also with accountability. Public choices would aspire to balance for the common good, not, generally, to appease someone's rights.
Reviving the can-do spirit that made America great requires a legal overhaul of historic dimension. We must scrape away decades of accumulated legal sediment and replace it with coherent legal goals and authority mechanisms, designed to affirmatively protect individual freedom in daily choices.
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing," Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison, "and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical . . . ." The goal is not to change our public goals. The goal is make it possible for free citizens to achieve them.
Mr. Howard, a lawyer, is chair of Common Good (www.commongood.org), and author of the new book "Life Without Lawyers," published this month by W.W. Norton & Co.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Will Jimmy Carter Haunt Obama's Foreign Policy?
Will Obama listen to the warnings of Bush concerning the global trotting nemesis Jimmy Carter? No, of course not. Obama agrees with the agenda of Jimmy Carter. I believe Obama is a brother to Carter in that they both are in favor of creating a world wide socialist network to control all populations.
If Obama can gain control of all aspects of our lives in this country through government regulation and intimidating, it will go a long way in convincing other nations, that are Democracies, to do the say and all in the name of piece, prosperity and world wide harmony.
Of course the down side is if you, as an individual, don't agree with this philosophy, you will become an enemy of the state and need to be rehabilitate.
Again, " that can't happen in America". Really? Wake up America - it's happening right now!! As I have stated on many other occasions, millions of American citizens will be in chains, mentally and or physically, and not know it or care because it has to be "someone else's fault". That is the cry of the modern liberal to answer all questions regarding difficult situations that liberals find them selves in. It's who they are. They are being controlled by a "quick fix" lotto mentality.
Remember, it's our job, as conservatives and all others with common sense as their guide, to fight this insanity where ever we run across it. 56 million voted against the "savior of the world".
Keep the faith.
Bush Warns Obama on Jimmy Carter (Newsmax)
Outgoing President George W. Bush had a warning for President-elect Barack Obama when they gathered with three former presidents at the White House — be wary of “meddlesome” Jimmy Carter.
Bush, Obama, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Carter met for a photo op and lunch on Jan. 7, and W. told Obama the guy he has to watch out for is “James Earl Carter,” a source disclosed to Newsmax.
According to a source close to the Bush White House, Bush called Carter “extremely meddlesome” and “a real pain in the neck.” Interestingly, Bush also told Obama that Bill Clinton had been helpful and supportive dealing with foreign leaders.
Carter has irked Bush with his globe-trotting efforts over the years.
In April 2008, Carter reportedly met in Syria with a leader of Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, and laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat.
Carter met with Hamas leadership again last December.
The former president has created controversy by equating Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories with apartheid.
In May 2002, Carter visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro. He has called for an end to the U.S. economic embargo of the island nation.
Carter criticized the Iraq war as “unnecessary.”
In June 2005, Carter urged the Bush administration to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
In 1994, Carter had traveled to North Korea and brokered an agreement on that nation’s nuclear program. But the agreement collapsed in 2002 after Bush included North Korea in the “axis of evil.”
If Obama can gain control of all aspects of our lives in this country through government regulation and intimidating, it will go a long way in convincing other nations, that are Democracies, to do the say and all in the name of piece, prosperity and world wide harmony.
Of course the down side is if you, as an individual, don't agree with this philosophy, you will become an enemy of the state and need to be rehabilitate.
Again, " that can't happen in America". Really? Wake up America - it's happening right now!! As I have stated on many other occasions, millions of American citizens will be in chains, mentally and or physically, and not know it or care because it has to be "someone else's fault". That is the cry of the modern liberal to answer all questions regarding difficult situations that liberals find them selves in. It's who they are. They are being controlled by a "quick fix" lotto mentality.
Remember, it's our job, as conservatives and all others with common sense as their guide, to fight this insanity where ever we run across it. 56 million voted against the "savior of the world".
Keep the faith.
Bush Warns Obama on Jimmy Carter (Newsmax)
Outgoing President George W. Bush had a warning for President-elect Barack Obama when they gathered with three former presidents at the White House — be wary of “meddlesome” Jimmy Carter.
Bush, Obama, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Carter met for a photo op and lunch on Jan. 7, and W. told Obama the guy he has to watch out for is “James Earl Carter,” a source disclosed to Newsmax.
According to a source close to the Bush White House, Bush called Carter “extremely meddlesome” and “a real pain in the neck.” Interestingly, Bush also told Obama that Bill Clinton had been helpful and supportive dealing with foreign leaders.
Carter has irked Bush with his globe-trotting efforts over the years.
In April 2008, Carter reportedly met in Syria with a leader of Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, and laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat.
Carter met with Hamas leadership again last December.
The former president has created controversy by equating Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories with apartheid.
In May 2002, Carter visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro. He has called for an end to the U.S. economic embargo of the island nation.
Carter criticized the Iraq war as “unnecessary.”
In June 2005, Carter urged the Bush administration to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
In 1994, Carter had traveled to North Korea and brokered an agreement on that nation’s nuclear program. But the agreement collapsed in 2002 after Bush included North Korea in the “axis of evil.”
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
John Hopkins Cancer Research Continues : Good Nutrition and Positive Demeanor
This research goes a long way in helping us all to take an interest in how we live - we must be responsible for our own actions and if we aren't then we must suffer the consequences
Remember the saying - "there is no free lunch", we have to live with intention. As there is also the saying that effects us all directly. " elections have consequences". The responsibility for who we are is the same person that we see in the mirror every morning.
Keep the faith and I repeat - 'live with intention'.
AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .
Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins
Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the testsare unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached thedetectable size.
Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.
When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will bedestroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.
When a person has cancer20it indicates the person has multiplenutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet andincluding supplements will strengthen the immune system.
Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.
Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb20to various kinds of infections and complications.
Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.
WHAT CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off oneimportant food supply to the cancer cells . Sugar substitutes likeNutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it isharmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg'saminos or sea salt.
Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milkand substituting with unsweetened soy milk, cancer cells are beingstarved .
Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet isacidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed attemperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.
Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refrainingfrom or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the proteinwalls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-essence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactiveand positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor..Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily , and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
Remember the saying - "there is no free lunch", we have to live with intention. As there is also the saying that effects us all directly. " elections have consequences". The responsibility for who we are is the same person that we see in the mirror every morning.
Keep the faith and I repeat - 'live with intention'.
AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .
Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins
Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the testsare unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached thedetectable size.
Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.
When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will bedestroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.
When a person has cancer20it indicates the person has multiplenutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet andincluding supplements will strengthen the immune system.
Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.
Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb20to various kinds of infections and complications.
Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.
WHAT CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off oneimportant food supply to the cancer cells . Sugar substitutes likeNutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it isharmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg'saminos or sea salt.
Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milkand substituting with unsweetened soy milk, cancer cells are beingstarved .
Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet isacidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed attemperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.
Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refrainingfrom or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the proteinwalls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-essence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactiveand positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor..Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily , and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Hugo Chavez Threatens All North and South America
We can thank Jimmy Carter for this mess in Latin America and, of course in part, for the financial mess that we are in now. Remember how Jimmy help Hugo by declaring the election lawful when it wasn't at all, and also how Jimmy looked the other way with the peoples efforts to reject Chavez with the second vote count and Jimmy declared that recount valid?
Jimmy and the liberal Democrats have a real opportunity now to bring down the United States as Obama, like Carter, believes this country is over reaching in it's attempts to stabilize the terrorists community. Never forget, liberals love tyrants - Castro and now Chavez.
How does this apply to our current leadership? After all, look were Obama came from, Chicago. Do we have a more corrupt political system in this country, other than Washington DC? Hugo Chavez is an admitted communist and Obama is practicing socialist - it's just a matter of degree that separates the two - for now.
This is an interview from NewsMax with the author of a new book on Chavez and what a threat he is to us. Very good and frightening.
Keep the faith
Chavez Poses Real Danger, Authors Say
Doug Schoen and Michael Rowan, both long-time observers of Venezuelan politics, have written a blockbuster expose of the anti-American agenda of that nation’s President Hugo Chavez and warn that his nation should be added to the list of terrorist sponsors .
In their book, “The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America” (Free Press), the authors make it clear that Chavez poses a real threat to the United States through his country's sponsorship of terrorists.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Schoen explains why this clear and present threat to this nation’s interests and security has largely gone unnoticed.
“Arguments that should have been made a long time ago, and for a variety of reasons — Chavez is a clown, he’s been anti-Bush, is currying favor with a massive PR campaign in the West, particularly among liberals — he's managed to operate under the radar with a lot of his nefarious activities,” Schoen tells Newsmax.
Schoen ominously adds, “He is an avowed supporter of Hamas. He says what Israel is doing is a Holocaust. He says that Hamas is welcome anytime in Caracas. He is training Hezbollah's fighters in Venezuela.
"Just this week, the Turks interdicted a shipment of what they believe were explosives, but were called tractor parts, that were heading from Tehran to Caracas. This is just a random week in the life of Hugo Chavez and look what's going on.”
Newsmax: In the book you stress how Chavez has been able to use huge oil revenues to promote his anti-American agenda. Now that the price of oil has plummeted, won’t this somewhat cripple his efforts?
Schoen: This is a man who first and foremost puts his militaristic and expansionist and aggressive tendencies first. While it's certainly going to hurt him, I think it is only going to make him more authoritarian and aggressive.
He is still buying Russian arms and he is still supporting anti-American interests around the world.
Newsmax: Won't the loss of revenues have an effect on his relationships with his bought-and-paid-for allies?
Schoen: There will be less money available to do that for sure. But I don't think he's going to cut back doing it in any way. For example, this week Chavez was going to cut off low-cost oil to Kennedy's Citizen Energy program in Massachusetts. But he got a little bad press, so he's going to keep doing it because it gives him political cover — and that gets him the Kennedy family supporting his activities.
It's been completely cynical, because it's not as if he had any commitment to poor people in the United States. It is just his way of saying, Look, I can do good things.
Newsmax: Talking about his commitment to poor people, a lot of his own people's loyalty has been bought with his oil revenues. Will not that be affected?
Schoen: I think it will when he substitutes intimidation for blandishments. There have been more than a few opponents of the state who have been either economically hurt or imprisoned. I think that what this means is he is going to just clamp down harder and be more aggressive.
Newsmax: Isn't there a growing opposition to Chavez in Venezuela?
Schoen: There is, and I've worked with it over the years. The problem is that it is not organized. It is not cohesive, and he buys it off, he threatens it, he intimidates it, and he will cheat in counting the votes. A combination of those factors makes it very difficult for an organized coherent opposition to exist.
In the case of the Philippines with Marcos, or Serbia with Milosevic, we worked directly with the opposition . . . We haven’t engaged directly with the opposition in Venezuela, and we should. It's just not an organized and disciplined counterforce to Chavez.
Newsmax: Does he now have complete control over the military, which in the beginning was very much opposed to him?
Schoen: Absolutely. [After Chavez instituted] the referendum on extending term limits two Decembers ago, the military came to him and said, "Hugo, you're not going to steal this one, too." And so they let him say that it was a 51-49 defeat and that he had just narrowly missed. But he didn't narrowly miss. The vote was like 60-40 or 65-35 against him. But the deal he made with the military was, We'll let you appear to have a close vote as long as you back off being president for life.
Newsmax: In short, you don’t think there is any chance he’s going to be overthrown?
Schoen: No. He is going to have another referendum next month on extending term limits. I think he's going to try to cheat if he can get away with it.
Newsmax: How should the United States deal with the Chavez threat?
Schoen: First, I think that Venezuela must be declared a state sponsor of terrorism . . . [Chavez] supports terror, supports Hezbollah, Hamas, has said nice things about al-Qaida, and is in alliance with Iran . . .
We should also break our dependence on foreign oil generally, and particularly, on his oil. And we need to have a Marshall plan for Latin America, where we engaged economically and democratically, with opposition groups who support our values.
Newsmax: What are his connections with Iran?
Schoen: Chavez has made seven trips to Tehran, and [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has made five or six trips to Caracas. There's no reason for those countries to be engaging, other than to oppose the United States.
Newsmax: Given our current economic situation, do you see any possibility he will attempt to further cripple our economy?
Schoen: He's made it very clear he wants to hurt the United States, and one of the practical things he's done is try to get OPEC to cut production so that oil prices could rise. He's also tried to get OPEC off the dollar standard onto a euro standard to undermine the American dollar.
The facts in this case paint a picture of a man who is chillingly and dangerously threatening our interests in many ways. This is a problem of very, very serious proportions that has not been seriously addressed.
[Editor's Note: Get Doug Schoen’s new book, “The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America” — Go Here Now.]
Jimmy and the liberal Democrats have a real opportunity now to bring down the United States as Obama, like Carter, believes this country is over reaching in it's attempts to stabilize the terrorists community. Never forget, liberals love tyrants - Castro and now Chavez.
How does this apply to our current leadership? After all, look were Obama came from, Chicago. Do we have a more corrupt political system in this country, other than Washington DC? Hugo Chavez is an admitted communist and Obama is practicing socialist - it's just a matter of degree that separates the two - for now.
This is an interview from NewsMax with the author of a new book on Chavez and what a threat he is to us. Very good and frightening.
Keep the faith
Chavez Poses Real Danger, Authors Say
Doug Schoen and Michael Rowan, both long-time observers of Venezuelan politics, have written a blockbuster expose of the anti-American agenda of that nation’s President Hugo Chavez and warn that his nation should be added to the list of terrorist sponsors .
In their book, “The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America” (Free Press), the authors make it clear that Chavez poses a real threat to the United States through his country's sponsorship of terrorists.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Schoen explains why this clear and present threat to this nation’s interests and security has largely gone unnoticed.
“Arguments that should have been made a long time ago, and for a variety of reasons — Chavez is a clown, he’s been anti-Bush, is currying favor with a massive PR campaign in the West, particularly among liberals — he's managed to operate under the radar with a lot of his nefarious activities,” Schoen tells Newsmax.
Schoen ominously adds, “He is an avowed supporter of Hamas. He says what Israel is doing is a Holocaust. He says that Hamas is welcome anytime in Caracas. He is training Hezbollah's fighters in Venezuela.
"Just this week, the Turks interdicted a shipment of what they believe were explosives, but were called tractor parts, that were heading from Tehran to Caracas. This is just a random week in the life of Hugo Chavez and look what's going on.”
Newsmax: In the book you stress how Chavez has been able to use huge oil revenues to promote his anti-American agenda. Now that the price of oil has plummeted, won’t this somewhat cripple his efforts?
Schoen: This is a man who first and foremost puts his militaristic and expansionist and aggressive tendencies first. While it's certainly going to hurt him, I think it is only going to make him more authoritarian and aggressive.
He is still buying Russian arms and he is still supporting anti-American interests around the world.
Newsmax: Won't the loss of revenues have an effect on his relationships with his bought-and-paid-for allies?
Schoen: There will be less money available to do that for sure. But I don't think he's going to cut back doing it in any way. For example, this week Chavez was going to cut off low-cost oil to Kennedy's Citizen Energy program in Massachusetts. But he got a little bad press, so he's going to keep doing it because it gives him political cover — and that gets him the Kennedy family supporting his activities.
It's been completely cynical, because it's not as if he had any commitment to poor people in the United States. It is just his way of saying, Look, I can do good things.
Newsmax: Talking about his commitment to poor people, a lot of his own people's loyalty has been bought with his oil revenues. Will not that be affected?
Schoen: I think it will when he substitutes intimidation for blandishments. There have been more than a few opponents of the state who have been either economically hurt or imprisoned. I think that what this means is he is going to just clamp down harder and be more aggressive.
Newsmax: Isn't there a growing opposition to Chavez in Venezuela?
Schoen: There is, and I've worked with it over the years. The problem is that it is not organized. It is not cohesive, and he buys it off, he threatens it, he intimidates it, and he will cheat in counting the votes. A combination of those factors makes it very difficult for an organized coherent opposition to exist.
In the case of the Philippines with Marcos, or Serbia with Milosevic, we worked directly with the opposition . . . We haven’t engaged directly with the opposition in Venezuela, and we should. It's just not an organized and disciplined counterforce to Chavez.
Newsmax: Does he now have complete control over the military, which in the beginning was very much opposed to him?
Schoen: Absolutely. [After Chavez instituted] the referendum on extending term limits two Decembers ago, the military came to him and said, "Hugo, you're not going to steal this one, too." And so they let him say that it was a 51-49 defeat and that he had just narrowly missed. But he didn't narrowly miss. The vote was like 60-40 or 65-35 against him. But the deal he made with the military was, We'll let you appear to have a close vote as long as you back off being president for life.
Newsmax: In short, you don’t think there is any chance he’s going to be overthrown?
Schoen: No. He is going to have another referendum next month on extending term limits. I think he's going to try to cheat if he can get away with it.
Newsmax: How should the United States deal with the Chavez threat?
Schoen: First, I think that Venezuela must be declared a state sponsor of terrorism . . . [Chavez] supports terror, supports Hezbollah, Hamas, has said nice things about al-Qaida, and is in alliance with Iran . . .
We should also break our dependence on foreign oil generally, and particularly, on his oil. And we need to have a Marshall plan for Latin America, where we engaged economically and democratically, with opposition groups who support our values.
Newsmax: What are his connections with Iran?
Schoen: Chavez has made seven trips to Tehran, and [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has made five or six trips to Caracas. There's no reason for those countries to be engaging, other than to oppose the United States.
Newsmax: Given our current economic situation, do you see any possibility he will attempt to further cripple our economy?
Schoen: He's made it very clear he wants to hurt the United States, and one of the practical things he's done is try to get OPEC to cut production so that oil prices could rise. He's also tried to get OPEC off the dollar standard onto a euro standard to undermine the American dollar.
The facts in this case paint a picture of a man who is chillingly and dangerously threatening our interests in many ways. This is a problem of very, very serious proportions that has not been seriously addressed.
[Editor's Note: Get Doug Schoen’s new book, “The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America” — Go Here Now.]
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Could Harry Reid Steal Horses or Rob Trains? Sure! It's in The Blood Line
This won't will surprise you on how the politicians spin everything they touch! A politican can not tell the truth.Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher here in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the galws in Montana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research�is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle. Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the �railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'
NOW THAT is how it's done folks! That's real SPIN.
Do you think this guy could rob a bank or steal horses? Sure, why not - he steals billions of dollars from all of us every day - I guess it's in the blood.
US Senator Harry Reid
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Friday, January 23, 2009
Cass Sunstein Worst Appointment Yet?
How can the appointments get worst than Treasury Secretary Geithner? Well, here we are - Sunstein is an urban terrorist in the trenches with PETA -
Licensed socialists, tax cheats, Marxist and urban terrorists - how low can the others go after this? Sorry, my mistake - these are liberal Democrats, there is no limits to how far down liberals will go to find people with absolutely no morals to lead us!
Keep the faith -
Why the Obama White House May Go to the Dogs
(and the Cows, and the Deer, and the Lab Rats)*
Friday, January 16, 2009
Townhall.com
Forget about Barack Obama's income tax-challenged Treasury Secretary or the conflict of interest controversy at the State Department. The most outrageous Obama appointee just might be Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who's flying under everyone's radar and into a job that hardly anyone has ever heard of.
Cass Sunstein is slated to run the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He's going to be America's chief "regulatory czar." And shocking new research from the Center for Consumer Freedom shows that he's a dedicated animal-rights zealot.
The 8 Biggest Celebrity Financial Mistakes Hold on to your sirloin.The anti-meat nuts at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the anti-hunting lobbyists at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) used to think that putting Dennis Kucinich in the White House would be their best hope of wielding real power in Washington . But even they didn't see Cass Sunstein coming.
Sunstein has the legal mind of Chief Justice John Roberts and the animal-rights agenda of PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. We're not talking about animal welfare---the idea of making sure we don't cause animals unnecessary suffering when we use them for food, clothing, entertainment, or lifesaving medical research. Sunstein believes in animal rights---the notion that people shouldn't "own" or "use" animals at all, for any purpose, no matter what the stakes are for mankind.
Cancer research? Not if lab rats are used against their will.
Hunting? Absolutely forbidden, especially if it's for sport.
Leather jackets? The cows need their skin more that you do.
Seeing-eye dogs? They're nothing more than slaves.
And that T-bone steak? Fuhgeddaboudit! If animals have any "rights" at all, the right to not be your dinner is at the top of the list. All of this makes perfect sense to Cass Sunstein, who organized the "Chicago Project on Animal Treatment Principles" at the University of Chicago. He will soon have the political authority to push for a radical overhaul of the way the federal government regulates everything Americans do with animals.
How radical? Sunstein supports making sport hunting illegal, and completely phasing out the consumption of meat. And if that's not nutty enough, he's actually in favor of giving animals the legal right to sue people. Think we're joking? Think again. Here's what Sunstein wrote in his 2004 book, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions:"[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives ... Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients' behalf."
Conservative commentators have been openly fretting that Barack Obama may try to turn welfare entitlements and single-payer healthcare into a new Bill of Rights. But Cass Sunstein threatens to expand the whole concept of "rights" to include the rest of the animal kingdom.
That fish wriggling at the end of your hook could soon be a federal offense (if the fish doesn't file a lawsuit first). Don't say we didn't warn you. Find out more at ConsumerFreedom.com
Licensed socialists, tax cheats, Marxist and urban terrorists - how low can the others go after this? Sorry, my mistake - these are liberal Democrats, there is no limits to how far down liberals will go to find people with absolutely no morals to lead us!
Keep the faith -
Why the Obama White House May Go to the Dogs
(and the Cows, and the Deer, and the Lab Rats)*
Friday, January 16, 2009
Townhall.com
Forget about Barack Obama's income tax-challenged Treasury Secretary or the conflict of interest controversy at the State Department. The most outrageous Obama appointee just might be Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who's flying under everyone's radar and into a job that hardly anyone has ever heard of.
Cass Sunstein is slated to run the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He's going to be America's chief "regulatory czar." And shocking new research from the Center for Consumer Freedom shows that he's a dedicated animal-rights zealot.
The 8 Biggest Celebrity Financial Mistakes Hold on to your sirloin.The anti-meat nuts at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the anti-hunting lobbyists at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) used to think that putting Dennis Kucinich in the White House would be their best hope of wielding real power in Washington . But even they didn't see Cass Sunstein coming.
Sunstein has the legal mind of Chief Justice John Roberts and the animal-rights agenda of PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. We're not talking about animal welfare---the idea of making sure we don't cause animals unnecessary suffering when we use them for food, clothing, entertainment, or lifesaving medical research. Sunstein believes in animal rights---the notion that people shouldn't "own" or "use" animals at all, for any purpose, no matter what the stakes are for mankind.
Cancer research? Not if lab rats are used against their will.
Hunting? Absolutely forbidden, especially if it's for sport.
Leather jackets? The cows need their skin more that you do.
Seeing-eye dogs? They're nothing more than slaves.
And that T-bone steak? Fuhgeddaboudit! If animals have any "rights" at all, the right to not be your dinner is at the top of the list. All of this makes perfect sense to Cass Sunstein, who organized the "Chicago Project on Animal Treatment Principles" at the University of Chicago. He will soon have the political authority to push for a radical overhaul of the way the federal government regulates everything Americans do with animals.
How radical? Sunstein supports making sport hunting illegal, and completely phasing out the consumption of meat. And if that's not nutty enough, he's actually in favor of giving animals the legal right to sue people. Think we're joking? Think again. Here's what Sunstein wrote in his 2004 book, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions:"[A]nimals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives ... Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients' behalf."
Conservative commentators have been openly fretting that Barack Obama may try to turn welfare entitlements and single-payer healthcare into a new Bill of Rights. But Cass Sunstein threatens to expand the whole concept of "rights" to include the rest of the animal kingdom.
That fish wriggling at the end of your hook could soon be a federal offense (if the fish doesn't file a lawsuit first). Don't say we didn't warn you. Find out more at ConsumerFreedom.com
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Financial Crash A Liberal Democrat Crisis : Fannie, Freddie and Now Hannie
As we all knew the liberal Democrats are responsible for the financial mess we are in now and that they want to make it worse with the "buyouts". That is, they want to control, dictate, all aspects of our lives from how and where we live to what we think and do. Bush has a hand in this financial mess as well by not stopping some of the Congressional spending that came across his desk for the last eight years.
But with the federal government taking over the banks and other financial institution now, along with the environmental departments, EPA and the DNR, it isn't lost on me that we are looking at a huge loss in personal freedoms.
But I have to come back to a point that I have pounded on from other posts, and that is, a majority of those that voted for the liberal, socialist agenda won't know when the are without personal freedom as they never knew they had in the first place. They were always looking for the easy way out of everything in life - it's the lotto mentality - the quick fix for every situation. "If only I could win the big one, I will be on easy street". Blind to reality and deaf to reason.
Many will point the accusing finger at Bush when the worst happens and it will if we stay on this path of "something for nothing" course, but the real culprits are the voters that put these socialists into office and are keeping them there. Will these people recognize their own personal failure? Fat chance!
Keep the faith, the battle goes on!
Fannie, Freddie And Now, Hannie
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Thursday, January 15, 2009
Subprime Crisis:* The media have pounded President Bush for a wave of Hispanic home foreclosures. But it was Democrats who launched a drive to loosen credit for Hispanics — many of them illegals.
Read More: *Economy http://www.ibdeditorials.com/FeaturedCategories.aspx?sid=1805
Democrats and their advocacy groups also prodded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy the high-risk NINJA (no income, no job, no assets) loans they'd pressured banks to make to Hispanic immigrants. Now immigrants are defaulting on subprime mortgages in droves, adding to the toxic debt that is poisoning the financial industry.
Yes, Bush was "eager," as the Washington Post described it, to put more Hispanic families into their own homes, even setting a goal of higher minority homeownership soon after taking office. But Bush didn't pressure lenders to adopt sloppy underwriting standards. Nor did he encourage Fannie and Freddie to underwrite subprime loans to meet quotas for minority lending.That was done under the previous administration.
The groundwork for disaster was laid by Clinton and his social engineers — in this case, former HUD chief Henry Cisneros, now a major lobbyist for Latino homeownership. During the Bush years, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus fanned the flames of the crisis. Led by Democratic Rep. Joe Baca, whose California district is 60% Hispanic, the caucus teamed up with a lobbyist group that Cisneros advises — as well as La Raza and other inner-city agitators — to pressure Fannie and Freddie into making risky subprime loans to Hispanic immigrants that required neither income nor asset documentation.
By 2006, before the bubble burst, Hispanics had taken out 40% of all subprime loans. Now these chickens are coming home to roost. The mortgage giants, internal memos show, warned that although the loans were popular with Hispanic borrowers, they had much higher delinquency rates of 8% to 13%.The loans were aggressively pushed by a Hispanic lobbying group advised by Cisneros, who originally set the minority lending quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
Even as foreclosures mounted, the Washington-based National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, known as NAHREP, lobbied lenders, as well as Freddie and Fannie, to ease down-payment and credit standards for immigrants."NAHREP maintains that California, Texas and other states with large numbers of immigrants could see a dramatic jump in homeownership if a greater number of major lenders adopted alternative credit-scoring systems," the group said in a 2007 report that included a foreword written by Cisneros, urging the closing of the homeownership gap between Latinos and whites.
Giving new meaning to chutzpah, NAHREP and the caucus now blame subprime lenders for the flood of Hispanic foreclosures, claiming Hispanics fell prey to their "predatory lending practices.
"Not so fast. According to a recent Federal Reserve report, the problem centers on bad credit. Hispanics and African-Americans, on average, "have lower credit scores than non-Hispanic whites and Asians," it found. They also have higher default rates on mortgages — and not just higher-cost subprime mortgages, but all types of loans, the Fed noted.
Hispanics defaulted for the simple reason that they were less likely to qualify to own a home in the first place. Least-qualified were illegal immigrants, but that didn't faze NAHREP and the Hispanic caucus on Capitol Hill. They actually encouraged lending to aliens.
No Social Security? No problem. NAHREP pushed the use of ITINs — individual tax information numbers — along with the Mexican-issued Matricula Consular cards in lieu of Social Security numbers.By law, banks don't have to check immigration status, and after heavy lobbying by Hispanic housing advocates, they made loans to illegals — lots of them. By some estimates, millions of undocumented workers became undocumented borrowers almost overnight.
Until recently, ITIN mortgages couldn't be sold on the secondary market, as Fannie and Freddie wouldn't touch them as a matter of policy. So with the support of NAHREP and the Hispanic caucus, "Hannie Mae" was created — the Hispanic National Mortgage Association, based in San Diego. And it began buying ITIN mortgages from lenders, helping them spread the risk.
Now Hannie Mae itself risks defaulting on more than $200 million in loans it has acquired. These politically correct casas were built on sinking sand, and now we're all having to foot the bill.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
New Study : Mexico Could Collapse Under Drug Violence
More bad news from south of the boarder - this is just one more case where all we have to do is sit on our collective thumbs and let the hordes stream across the boarder to bring our national security status to critical -
What will we do, why, of course, nothing - just think of all the new Democrat voters.
U.S. Military: Mexico Could Collapse Under Drug Violence
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 2:56 PM
By: Jim Meyers
Mexico is in danger of a “rapid and sudden collapse” due to criminal gangs and drug cartels, according to a troubling new report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.
The report also cites Pakistan as a nation facing possible collapse.
“In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Forces and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico,” the report states.
“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels.”
The outcome of that internal conflict in America’s southern neighbor will have a “major impact on the stability of the Mexican state” over the next several years, according to the Joint Forces Command, a Defense Department combat command that includes different military service branches, active and reserves, according to the El Paso Times.
The report warns that “any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
As Newsmax reported last week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the U.S. has developed plans for a “surge” in crime fighters if the drug wars in Mexico should spread across the border.
The plans call for aircraft, armored vehicles and special teams to converge on trouble spots along the border. Military forces would be used if civilian agencies like the Border Patrol and local law enforcement were unable to control the violence.
In the Joint Forces report, Marine Gen. J.N. Mattis said: “If we do not try to forecast the future, there is no doubt that we will be caught off guard as we strive to protect this experiment in democracy that we call America.”
Criminal activity in Mexico has killed more than 5,300 people in the past year, including members of warring drug cartels, law enforcement officials and bystanders, many of them slain close to the U.S. border.
[Editor’s Note: To read the report by U.S. Joint Forces Command on Mexico and other global hotspots - Go Here Now]
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
What will we do, why, of course, nothing - just think of all the new Democrat voters.
U.S. Military: Mexico Could Collapse Under Drug Violence
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 2:56 PM
By: Jim Meyers
Mexico is in danger of a “rapid and sudden collapse” due to criminal gangs and drug cartels, according to a troubling new report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.
The report also cites Pakistan as a nation facing possible collapse.
“In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Forces and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico,” the report states.
“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels.”
The outcome of that internal conflict in America’s southern neighbor will have a “major impact on the stability of the Mexican state” over the next several years, according to the Joint Forces Command, a Defense Department combat command that includes different military service branches, active and reserves, according to the El Paso Times.
The report warns that “any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
As Newsmax reported last week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the U.S. has developed plans for a “surge” in crime fighters if the drug wars in Mexico should spread across the border.
The plans call for aircraft, armored vehicles and special teams to converge on trouble spots along the border. Military forces would be used if civilian agencies like the Border Patrol and local law enforcement were unable to control the violence.
In the Joint Forces report, Marine Gen. J.N. Mattis said: “If we do not try to forecast the future, there is no doubt that we will be caught off guard as we strive to protect this experiment in democracy that we call America.”
Criminal activity in Mexico has killed more than 5,300 people in the past year, including members of warring drug cartels, law enforcement officials and bystanders, many of them slain close to the U.S. border.
[Editor’s Note: To read the report by U.S. Joint Forces Command on Mexico and other global hotspots - Go Here Now]
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
New Muslim Disciples Return to Blood Cults
Ralph Peters has an interesting take on what the new Muslim disciples have in mind for all of the middle east and the world. We saw the beginnings of this before and after 9/11. The problem we face now is there are too many people that don't believe Islamics terrorists are a force to be challenged and stopped.
Again, the Western world hasn't been hit for seven years and since we have a notoriously short memory for things that get in our way of success, we are turning our backs on the problem by thinking all it will take is good feelings and honest dialogue to change their behavior. This philosophy will get all killed or worse, enslaved.
Keep the faith and stay alert for changing conditions on the battle field.
BLOOD SACRIFICE
By RALPH PETERS
January 13, 2009
WELL-MEANING Western commentators make a grave error when they insist that Islamist terrorists want to drag the Muslim world back to the seventh century. It's much worse than that.
Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and related fanatics really want to take their homelands (and the rest of the world) back beyond the era of Mohammed - to the grisly ancient days of human sacrifice. The Prophet sought to purify the idolatrous devotions of his people, to do away with heartless desert cults. He felt the fervor of one living god and shared his illumination. The faith that arose in his wake had epochs of glory and eras of infamy, but it endured.
Now Islam is under assault from within, under attack from nominal Muslims who believe their vision supersedes that of Mohammed. They invoke the name of Allah but behave in the manner of ancient priests whose robes were drenched in blood. What's the meaning of those beheading videos and suicide bombings, the slaughter of fellow Muslims and the exploitation by pagan cults, such as Hamas, of masses of the faithful as human shields? Why stone 13-year-old girls to death? What's this celebration of blood lust all about?
It's about the threatened collapse of the Middle East back into an age of human sacrifice - the precise sort of gruesome travesty the Prophet inveighed against. Today's "Muslim" terrorists have /nothing/ to do with Islam's golden ages. They belong to the days of winged devil-gods and stone altars stinking of clotted human blood.
The true enemies of Islam aren't Americans or Europeans or even Israelis, all of whom could not care less what backwater Middle Easterners call their god. The worst enemies of the Muslim faith are the butchers convinced that Allah demands that rivers of blood be shed to praise his name.
The reluctance of many Muslims to speak out against this travesty - this perversion - of their faith has various causes. In North America, it's largely the age-old fear of the new arrival, unsure of his place in a foreign society and wary of alienating members of his immigrant community. In the greater Middle East, however, the compulsion to remain silent in the face of faith-fueled atrocities is a product of fatalism, of centuries of self-wrought failure and humiliation, and of self-loathing.
In its desert heartlands, Islam became a religion in which outward conformity was more important than inner faith. The obsession with behavioral norms has threatened all major religions from time to time, but Islam (the faith of "submission") became so prescriptive that it blocked the Middle East from joining the modern world. Westerners care about how things work. Middle Easterners care about how things /look/.
One profound contrast has to do with dishonor. The archetypal Westerner feels dishonored when he shames his conscience, even if no one else learns of his misdeed. In the Middle East, shame is all about the public space - if no one knows what you did, there's no dishonor. Western literature is rich with figures torn by a crisis of conscience, but there is no Muslim Hamlet or Lord Jim.
Apologists for Islam Gone Wild love to cite the moral and intellectual grandeur of Muslim Cordoba and Granada. But the lasting legacy of Islam on the Mediterranean's shores was an obsession with public honor, with female chastity and macho pride. The /inner/ spiritual life thrived north of the Alps. In the south, you just had to look good.
The outward forms prescribed by centuries of Islamic judges and scholars have become a paralyzing burden. Unable to adapt to the modern world, Middle Eastern Islam's a museum-piece faith. Muslims feel trapped, and they dare not explore why. This feeling of being cornered, of being humiliated by competitor faiths that evolve and triumph, has led frustrated Muslims into an impulsive rejection of Mohammed's humane principles and purposes.
The blood-cult terrorists piling up corpses in tribute to their darkness-shrouded god have nothing - /nothing/ - to do with the Prophet Mohammed. Their roots go far, far deeper, reaching down into a hellish past of priests with knives and serpent-infested temples.
Track down the terrorist video that made the rounds a few years back in which an executioner licks the blood of his victim from his knife.That's not piety but cannibalism.
Ralph Peters keeps the Koran beside his reading chair, along with seven Bibles.
Again, the Western world hasn't been hit for seven years and since we have a notoriously short memory for things that get in our way of success, we are turning our backs on the problem by thinking all it will take is good feelings and honest dialogue to change their behavior. This philosophy will get all killed or worse, enslaved.
Keep the faith and stay alert for changing conditions on the battle field.
BLOOD SACRIFICE
By RALPH PETERS
WELL-MEANING Western commentators make a grave error when they insist that Islamist terrorists want to drag the Muslim world back to the seventh century. It's much worse than that.
Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and related fanatics really want to take their homelands (and the rest of the world) back beyond the era of Mohammed - to the grisly ancient days of human sacrifice. The Prophet sought to purify the idolatrous devotions of his people, to do away with heartless desert cults. He felt the fervor of one living god and shared his illumination. The faith that arose in his wake had epochs of glory and eras of infamy, but it endured.
Now Islam is under assault from within, under attack from nominal Muslims who believe their vision supersedes that of Mohammed. They invoke the name of Allah but behave in the manner of ancient priests whose robes were drenched in blood. What's the meaning of those beheading videos and suicide bombings, the slaughter of fellow Muslims and the exploitation by pagan cults, such as Hamas, of masses of the faithful as human shields? Why stone 13-year-old girls to death? What's this celebration of blood lust all about?
It's about the threatened collapse of the Middle East back into an age of human sacrifice - the precise sort of gruesome travesty the Prophet inveighed against. Today's "Muslim" terrorists have /nothing/ to do with Islam's golden ages. They belong to the days of winged devil-gods and stone altars stinking of clotted human blood.
The true enemies of Islam aren't Americans or Europeans or even Israelis, all of whom could not care less what backwater Middle Easterners call their god. The worst enemies of the Muslim faith are the butchers convinced that Allah demands that rivers of blood be shed to praise his name.
The reluctance of many Muslims to speak out against this travesty - this perversion - of their faith has various causes. In North America, it's largely the age-old fear of the new arrival, unsure of his place in a foreign society and wary of alienating members of his immigrant community. In the greater Middle East, however, the compulsion to remain silent in the face of faith-fueled atrocities is a product of fatalism, of centuries of self-wrought failure and humiliation, and of self-loathing.
In its desert heartlands, Islam became a religion in which outward conformity was more important than inner faith. The obsession with behavioral norms has threatened all major religions from time to time, but Islam (the faith of "submission") became so prescriptive that it blocked the Middle East from joining the modern world. Westerners care about how things work. Middle Easterners care about how things /look/.
One profound contrast has to do with dishonor. The archetypal Westerner feels dishonored when he shames his conscience, even if no one else learns of his misdeed. In the Middle East, shame is all about the public space - if no one knows what you did, there's no dishonor. Western literature is rich with figures torn by a crisis of conscience, but there is no Muslim Hamlet or Lord Jim.
Apologists for Islam Gone Wild love to cite the moral and intellectual grandeur of Muslim Cordoba and Granada. But the lasting legacy of Islam on the Mediterranean's shores was an obsession with public honor, with female chastity and macho pride. The /inner/ spiritual life thrived north of the Alps. In the south, you just had to look good.
The outward forms prescribed by centuries of Islamic judges and scholars have become a paralyzing burden. Unable to adapt to the modern world, Middle Eastern Islam's a museum-piece faith. Muslims feel trapped, and they dare not explore why. This feeling of being cornered, of being humiliated by competitor faiths that evolve and triumph, has led frustrated Muslims into an impulsive rejection of Mohammed's humane principles and purposes.
The blood-cult terrorists piling up corpses in tribute to their darkness-shrouded god have nothing - /nothing/ - to do with the Prophet Mohammed. Their roots go far, far deeper, reaching down into a hellish past of priests with knives and serpent-infested temples.
Track down the terrorist video that made the rounds a few years back in which an executioner licks the blood of his victim from his knife.That's not piety but cannibalism.
Ralph Peters keeps the Koran beside his reading chair, along with seven Bibles.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Irish Golfer Gets Three Wishs - Good Humor
Irish Golfer
A golfer playing in Ireland hooked his drive into the woods. Looking for his ball, he found a little Leprechaun flat on his back,a big bump on his head and the golfer's ball beside him.Horrified, the golfer got his water bottle from the cart and poured it over the little guy, reviving him.
'Arrgh! What happened?' the Leprechaun asked.'I'm afraid I hit you with my golf ball,' the golfer says.'Oh, I see. Well, ye got me fair and square. Ye get three wishes, so whaddya want? ''Thank God, you're all right!' the golfer answers in relief. 'I don't want anything, I'm just glad you're OK, and I apologize.'And the golfer walks off.'What a nice guy,'the Leprechaun says to himself.I have to do something for him. I'll give him the three things I would want... a great golf game, all the money he ever needs,and a fantastic sex life.'
A year goes by and the golfer is back.
On the same hole, he again hits a bad drive into the woods and the Leprechaun is there waiting for him.'Twas me that made ye hit the ball here,' the little guy says.'I just want to ask ye,how's yer golf game?''My game is fantastic!' the golfer answers. I'm an internationally famous golfer now.' He adds, 'By the way, it's good to see you're all right.''Oh, I'm fine now, thank ye. I did that fer yer golf game, you know.
And tell me, how's yer money situation?''Why, it's just wonderful!' the golfer states. 'When I need cash,I just reach in my pocket and pull out $100 bills. I didn't even know were there!''I did that fer ye also.'
And tell me, how's yer sex life?'The golfer blushes, turns his head away in embarrassment, and says shyly, 'It's OK.'C'mon, c'mon now,' urged the Leprechaun, 'I'm wanting to know if I did a good job.
How many times a week?' Blushing even more, the golfer looks around then whispers, 'Once, sometimes twice a week.''What??' responds the Leprechaun in shock. 'That's all? Only once or twice a week?''
Well,' says the golfer, 'I figure that's not bad for a Catholic priest in a small parish.'
A golfer playing in Ireland hooked his drive into the woods. Looking for his ball, he found a little Leprechaun flat on his back,a big bump on his head and the golfer's ball beside him.Horrified, the golfer got his water bottle from the cart and poured it over the little guy, reviving him.
'Arrgh! What happened?' the Leprechaun asked.'I'm afraid I hit you with my golf ball,' the golfer says.'Oh, I see. Well, ye got me fair and square. Ye get three wishes, so whaddya want? ''Thank God, you're all right!' the golfer answers in relief. 'I don't want anything, I'm just glad you're OK, and I apologize.'And the golfer walks off.'What a nice guy,'the Leprechaun says to himself.I have to do something for him. I'll give him the three things I would want... a great golf game, all the money he ever needs,and a fantastic sex life.'
A year goes by and the golfer is back.
On the same hole, he again hits a bad drive into the woods and the Leprechaun is there waiting for him.'Twas me that made ye hit the ball here,' the little guy says.'I just want to ask ye,how's yer golf game?''My game is fantastic!' the golfer answers. I'm an internationally famous golfer now.' He adds, 'By the way, it's good to see you're all right.''Oh, I'm fine now, thank ye. I did that fer yer golf game, you know.
And tell me, how's yer money situation?''Why, it's just wonderful!' the golfer states. 'When I need cash,I just reach in my pocket and pull out $100 bills. I didn't even know were there!''I did that fer ye also.'
And tell me, how's yer sex life?'The golfer blushes, turns his head away in embarrassment, and says shyly, 'It's OK.'C'mon, c'mon now,' urged the Leprechaun, 'I'm wanting to know if I did a good job.
How many times a week?' Blushing even more, the golfer looks around then whispers, 'Once, sometimes twice a week.''What??' responds the Leprechaun in shock. 'That's all? Only once or twice a week?''
Well,' says the golfer, 'I figure that's not bad for a Catholic priest in a small parish.'
FDR's New Deal : Mistake - Obama "Change" Bigger Mistake
This is a good article that I found most revealing about FDR failure to solve our finanical crisis, and how Obama is headed in the same direction. The difference is FDR probably didn't know what was happening where as Obama knows exactly what he is doing and what the consequences will be.
History, always a necessity for future decision making, is the best teacher we can have to guide us though this financial crisis. The problem that exist now, though, is apparently our new leaders don't care about what went on in the past. What they care about is what they can get from the present to solidify their personal power positions in the near future.
That the country will suffer the same problems that it did all through the 1930's isn't important. What is important is establishing the "change" from freedom of choice to big government making all of our personal decisions. And to do this, our new leaders intend to destroy the current system of self achievement and personal goal attainment and implement a new system forcing all citizens to become like all others under one set of laws enforced by an all powerful elite.
If this sounds like something we have seen in the resent past world history, you are correct. Never in the history of this country have so many people, willing, decided to allow others to dictate their personal future. How can these people be so willing to totally give up everything that this country was founded on, that hundreds of thousands died for, on the chance they will get something for nothing?
Are they ignorant or just plain stupid or, maybe worse yet, just mentally lazy from living the good life provided by all those that have come before them.
I believe it's mass hypnosis - like the global warming mind set - Why else would so many people suspend common sense? Some say it's "pop culture", that is, you have to be like everyone else least you are thought to be different, out of the loop or thought to be uninformed. Some might even have questions about your sanity if you have doubts concerning "change" or "the one". Worse, the crowd might even think you are a conservative. If that happens, you will experience total and complete denial of access to your pier group. Truly a certain social death.
Keep the faith - new recruits are joning the battle every day!
Leave the New Deal in the History Books
Cut corporate taxes to zero and create real jobs.
By MARK LEVEY
http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=MARK+LEVEY&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND
When Barack Obama takes office on Tuesday, his first order of business will be a stimulus package estimated to be close to $1 trillion, including $300 million in tax cuts and the largest new government spending program for infrastructure since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sages nod that replicating aspects of FDR's New Deal will help pull the country out of a recession. But the experience under FDR largely provides a cautionary tale.
Mr. Obama's policy plans are driven by the conventional economic wisdom that the New Deal economic programs ended the Great Depression. Not so. In fact, thanks to New Deal policies and programs, the U.S. economy faltered for years longer than it might otherwise have done.
President Roosevelt came to office much as Barack Obama will, shouldering an economic crisis that began under his predecessor. In 1933, Roosevelt's first year, unemployment hit nearly 25%, as people lost jobs and homes in towns across the country. Believing that government played a key role in restarting growth, FDR, within his first 100 days as president, created an alphabet soup of new agencies that mandated actions or controlled public spending and impacted private capital flow within the U.S. economy.
At first, it seemed to be working. After four years of FDR's policies, joblessness declined to 14.3% -- still very high but heading in the right direction. Then things turned for worse again:
By the fall of 1937, the U.S. entered a secondary depression and unemployment began to rise, reaching 19% in 1938. By 1939 Roosevelt's own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed.
"We have tried spending money," Morgenthau wrote in his diary. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
The problem was that neither Roosevelt nor President Herbert Hoover before him grasped the essential nature of the crisis, which was not the stock-market crash, but global deflation. At the end of the roaring '20s, an overhang of intergovernmental war debt from World War I, coupled with falling commodity prices and a currency crisis, had started the decline. Weak credit structures and European banks hurt by wartime inflation worsened it. When the Austrian Creditanstalt Bank failed, it ignited a global banking crisis that slashed across the international financial system cutting down everything in its path.
Deflation went into full howl.The same perils are now confronting President-elect Barack Obama, as the risk of deflation casts a long shadow over the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been correctly focused on shoring up financial institutions to prevent a collapse of the financial system, and stave off a severe decline in the general price level. If that were to occur, the unspoken fear has been that the U.S. and global economy could go into a deflationary death spiral that would cause the collapse of the international financial system.
As a short-term matter, the moves of the Fed and other central banks have been correct, but in the long term a return to growth will depend on dynamic job creation by American business -- not the U.S. government. Under a two-year plan designed to create three million to four million jobs, Mr. Obama's plan would have the federal government begin distributing funds for public-works projects carried out by the states. With government already spending 20% of GDP, federal government, not private enterprise, will become the growth industry.
The effect of these policies, like FDR's, will be to lengthen the pain.Early on, Roosevelt's economic thinking was that laissez-faire competition drove prices and wages down, resulting in unemployment, which in turn collapsed demand for goods and services. To remedy this, his administration passed laws such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) that encouraged business to collude and raise prices without fear of antitrust prosecution. The hope was that this would allow business to raise wages.
By the time NIRA was found unconstitutional a few years later, the damage had already been done. For example, the Department of the Interior complained that over two years it had received 260 bids from different steel companies that were identical to the penny and 50% higher than foreign bids. The policy had put chains on every normal free-market instinct and price feedback mechanism needed to restore economic growth. Roosevelt himself rued the decision in the late 1930s as a secondary depression was gripping the economy.
"The disappearance of price competition," he said, "is one of the primary causes of the difficulties."In addition to New Deal spending programs, a series of new taxes were introduced that crushed the innovation, risk taking, and growth plans of entrepreneurs, corporations and investors.
From 1930 to 1940, the top marginal income-tax rate rose to 79% from 25% while the corporate income-tax rate doubled to 24% from 12%. In addition, Roosevelt tacked on an excess profits tax and undistributed profits tax. He imposed an excise tax on dividends. Even the new Social Security payroll tax added 2%.As a result, the New Deal forced the allocation of money away from the private sector. As economist Henry Hazlitt wrote back in 1946, New Deal programs prevented the creation of the types of jobs which have the multiplier effect of successful businesses.
Creating "work" prevented innovation and new jobs that would create other jobs.The quickest way to strengthen the credit system and begin the end of this crisis is to get money into the economy for true job creation, and not into government work programs. The way to do this is to slash taxes.
The U.S. corporate tax rate, currently the highest in the world, should be cut to 0% (corporate income would still be taxed, of course, when distributed to shareholders as dividends). The capital-gains tax should be cut further.
The positive impact on corporate-credit markets, the stock market, the attractiveness of the U.S. to foreign investors, and the willingness to take business risk and create new jobs would be immediate. Capital-gains tax collections would rise. Capital flows would be in the hands of those who are driven to build businesses and permanent jobs efficiently instead of pushing that capital through a government pipeline with endless amounts of friction. If the U.S. is to lead the international economic community out of this crisis, this is the place to start.
Mr. Obama will come to office next week with plenty of political capital and the faith of a majority of Americans that he can help pull the country out of its economic woes. As he takes over the reins, his success will be judged not on rhetoric but on the numbers his policies can generate. The best thing he can do is leave the New Deal in the history books.
*Mr. Levey is senior managing director at Lotsoff Capital Management in Chicago.*
History, always a necessity for future decision making, is the best teacher we can have to guide us though this financial crisis. The problem that exist now, though, is apparently our new leaders don't care about what went on in the past. What they care about is what they can get from the present to solidify their personal power positions in the near future.
That the country will suffer the same problems that it did all through the 1930's isn't important. What is important is establishing the "change" from freedom of choice to big government making all of our personal decisions. And to do this, our new leaders intend to destroy the current system of self achievement and personal goal attainment and implement a new system forcing all citizens to become like all others under one set of laws enforced by an all powerful elite.
If this sounds like something we have seen in the resent past world history, you are correct. Never in the history of this country have so many people, willing, decided to allow others to dictate their personal future. How can these people be so willing to totally give up everything that this country was founded on, that hundreds of thousands died for, on the chance they will get something for nothing?
Are they ignorant or just plain stupid or, maybe worse yet, just mentally lazy from living the good life provided by all those that have come before them.
I believe it's mass hypnosis - like the global warming mind set - Why else would so many people suspend common sense? Some say it's "pop culture", that is, you have to be like everyone else least you are thought to be different, out of the loop or thought to be uninformed. Some might even have questions about your sanity if you have doubts concerning "change" or "the one". Worse, the crowd might even think you are a conservative. If that happens, you will experience total and complete denial of access to your pier group. Truly a certain social death.
Keep the faith - new recruits are joning the battle every day!
Leave the New Deal in the History Books
Cut corporate taxes to zero and create real jobs.
By MARK LEVEY
http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=MARK+LEVEY&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND
When Barack Obama takes office on Tuesday, his first order of business will be a stimulus package estimated to be close to $1 trillion, including $300 million in tax cuts and the largest new government spending program for infrastructure since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sages nod that replicating aspects of FDR's New Deal will help pull the country out of a recession. But the experience under FDR largely provides a cautionary tale.
Mr. Obama's policy plans are driven by the conventional economic wisdom that the New Deal economic programs ended the Great Depression. Not so. In fact, thanks to New Deal policies and programs, the U.S. economy faltered for years longer than it might otherwise have done.
President Roosevelt came to office much as Barack Obama will, shouldering an economic crisis that began under his predecessor. In 1933, Roosevelt's first year, unemployment hit nearly 25%, as people lost jobs and homes in towns across the country. Believing that government played a key role in restarting growth, FDR, within his first 100 days as president, created an alphabet soup of new agencies that mandated actions or controlled public spending and impacted private capital flow within the U.S. economy.
At first, it seemed to be working. After four years of FDR's policies, joblessness declined to 14.3% -- still very high but heading in the right direction. Then things turned for worse again:
By the fall of 1937, the U.S. entered a secondary depression and unemployment began to rise, reaching 19% in 1938. By 1939 Roosevelt's own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed.
"We have tried spending money," Morgenthau wrote in his diary. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
The problem was that neither Roosevelt nor President Herbert Hoover before him grasped the essential nature of the crisis, which was not the stock-market crash, but global deflation. At the end of the roaring '20s, an overhang of intergovernmental war debt from World War I, coupled with falling commodity prices and a currency crisis, had started the decline. Weak credit structures and European banks hurt by wartime inflation worsened it. When the Austrian Creditanstalt Bank failed, it ignited a global banking crisis that slashed across the international financial system cutting down everything in its path.
Deflation went into full howl.The same perils are now confronting President-elect Barack Obama, as the risk of deflation casts a long shadow over the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been correctly focused on shoring up financial institutions to prevent a collapse of the financial system, and stave off a severe decline in the general price level. If that were to occur, the unspoken fear has been that the U.S. and global economy could go into a deflationary death spiral that would cause the collapse of the international financial system.
As a short-term matter, the moves of the Fed and other central banks have been correct, but in the long term a return to growth will depend on dynamic job creation by American business -- not the U.S. government. Under a two-year plan designed to create three million to four million jobs, Mr. Obama's plan would have the federal government begin distributing funds for public-works projects carried out by the states. With government already spending 20% of GDP, federal government, not private enterprise, will become the growth industry.
The effect of these policies, like FDR's, will be to lengthen the pain.Early on, Roosevelt's economic thinking was that laissez-faire competition drove prices and wages down, resulting in unemployment, which in turn collapsed demand for goods and services. To remedy this, his administration passed laws such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) that encouraged business to collude and raise prices without fear of antitrust prosecution. The hope was that this would allow business to raise wages.
By the time NIRA was found unconstitutional a few years later, the damage had already been done. For example, the Department of the Interior complained that over two years it had received 260 bids from different steel companies that were identical to the penny and 50% higher than foreign bids. The policy had put chains on every normal free-market instinct and price feedback mechanism needed to restore economic growth. Roosevelt himself rued the decision in the late 1930s as a secondary depression was gripping the economy.
"The disappearance of price competition," he said, "is one of the primary causes of the difficulties."In addition to New Deal spending programs, a series of new taxes were introduced that crushed the innovation, risk taking, and growth plans of entrepreneurs, corporations and investors.
From 1930 to 1940, the top marginal income-tax rate rose to 79% from 25% while the corporate income-tax rate doubled to 24% from 12%. In addition, Roosevelt tacked on an excess profits tax and undistributed profits tax. He imposed an excise tax on dividends. Even the new Social Security payroll tax added 2%.As a result, the New Deal forced the allocation of money away from the private sector. As economist Henry Hazlitt wrote back in 1946, New Deal programs prevented the creation of the types of jobs which have the multiplier effect of successful businesses.
Creating "work" prevented innovation and new jobs that would create other jobs.The quickest way to strengthen the credit system and begin the end of this crisis is to get money into the economy for true job creation, and not into government work programs. The way to do this is to slash taxes.
The U.S. corporate tax rate, currently the highest in the world, should be cut to 0% (corporate income would still be taxed, of course, when distributed to shareholders as dividends). The capital-gains tax should be cut further.
The positive impact on corporate-credit markets, the stock market, the attractiveness of the U.S. to foreign investors, and the willingness to take business risk and create new jobs would be immediate. Capital-gains tax collections would rise. Capital flows would be in the hands of those who are driven to build businesses and permanent jobs efficiently instead of pushing that capital through a government pipeline with endless amounts of friction. If the U.S. is to lead the international economic community out of this crisis, this is the place to start.
Mr. Obama will come to office next week with plenty of political capital and the faith of a majority of Americans that he can help pull the country out of its economic woes. As he takes over the reins, his success will be judged not on rhetoric but on the numbers his policies can generate. The best thing he can do is leave the New Deal in the history books.
*Mr. Levey is senior managing director at Lotsoff Capital Management in Chicago.*
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Economic Freedom is Key to Capital Formation
The Heritage Foundation is providing good leadership to this country with honest and common sensed based ideas that will work to free us from government domination. Even the most deranged among us on left, and some in the center and on the right politically, will notice the change in our country when we are completely under the thumb of a totalitarian government.
What this means is no matter what we do, or want to do, we can't without permission from some bureaucrat. If you think this isn't happening right now, take a close look at the EPA, the DNR and how they control just about everything in our lives. Energy generation - no new coal fired plants or nuclear powered plants. Wind and solar is better but won't provide enough electricity - Too bad! Land use - what we can and can not do with our own property - what's next - no private property - it's too important to be left in the hands of private citizens - others know better what's best for the planet.
Believe it - now with the threat of new taxes on corporations for carbon emissions, "cap and trade", arbitrary taxes on fuel for our cars and t0 heat and cool our homes, denial of common and plentiful energy resources because others have decided it is more important to use alternative sources of energy rather than keeping our homes heated or driving our cars.
Whats next? What is the future of big government run by ideologues. Permits will be required to travel from state to state - licenses issued for travel to only certain areas of the state - cars that must not weigh more than a certain amount, period - ration cards for fuel - present prices on all fuel based on how much money you make or are allowed to make. (The more you make the more you pay.)
There is more but what's the use - it can't happen here - this is America. Think so? Maybe not, but with so may people ready and willing to accept any form of control from others so they don't have to make any decision on their own - it doesn't bode well for us or future generaions.
It's the lotto/victim mantality - people want the quick fix to everything, and when it doesn't happen they become victims -
I fear for our county. But keep the faith and fight on - the battle rages.
America Less Free Than in 2008
By Nathaniel Ward January 15, 2009
The United States economy is less free than it was a year ago, according to the latest edition of the Index of Economic Freedom.
On Heritage's blog, The Foundry, Heritage expert and Index co-editor Terry Miller warns that America is in trouble. "The U.S. slipped one spot to sixth place this year because of increases in both tax revenue and government spending as a percentage of GDP."
"Hong Kong and Singapore are once again the freest economies in the world," he continues, "followed in the rankings by Australia, Ireland and New Zealand."
The Index, a joint project of The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, ranks 183 countries on a set of empirical criteria and confirms the link between freedom and prosperity.
America's latest economic policies are likely to worsen its score in the next Index, Heritage President Ed Feulner says. "Some of the policies undertaken or planned by governments to respond to the worldwide recession are likely to threaten long-term economic freedom, and thus endanger future economic growth. Certainly if the U.S. continues on its present course, all things being equal, its economic freedom score will decline next year."
Miller explains the core findings of the new Index in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal:
The positive correlation between economic freedom and national income is confirmed yet again by this year's data. The freest countries enjoy per capita incomes over 10 times higher than those in countries ranked as "repressed." This year, for the first time, the Index also correlates economic freedom with important societal values like poverty reduction, human development, political freedom and environmental protection. The linkages are robust, with economically freer countries performing significantly better on every indicator of well-being.
The 2009 Index has several key improvements, including a significant expansion of country coverage, new regional coverage and a fine-tuned labor freedom component.
This is the 15th edition of the Index, which is meant "to advance individual freedom, civil society, and prosperity around the world."
—David Talbot
What this means is no matter what we do, or want to do, we can't without permission from some bureaucrat. If you think this isn't happening right now, take a close look at the EPA, the DNR and how they control just about everything in our lives. Energy generation - no new coal fired plants or nuclear powered plants. Wind and solar is better but won't provide enough electricity - Too bad! Land use - what we can and can not do with our own property - what's next - no private property - it's too important to be left in the hands of private citizens - others know better what's best for the planet.
Believe it - now with the threat of new taxes on corporations for carbon emissions, "cap and trade", arbitrary taxes on fuel for our cars and t0 heat and cool our homes, denial of common and plentiful energy resources because others have decided it is more important to use alternative sources of energy rather than keeping our homes heated or driving our cars.
Whats next? What is the future of big government run by ideologues. Permits will be required to travel from state to state - licenses issued for travel to only certain areas of the state - cars that must not weigh more than a certain amount, period - ration cards for fuel - present prices on all fuel based on how much money you make or are allowed to make. (The more you make the more you pay.)
There is more but what's the use - it can't happen here - this is America. Think so? Maybe not, but with so may people ready and willing to accept any form of control from others so they don't have to make any decision on their own - it doesn't bode well for us or future generaions.
It's the lotto/victim mantality - people want the quick fix to everything, and when it doesn't happen they become victims -
I fear for our county. But keep the faith and fight on - the battle rages.
America Less Free Than in 2008
By Nathaniel Ward January 15, 2009
The United States economy is less free than it was a year ago, according to the latest edition of the Index of Economic Freedom.
On Heritage's blog, The Foundry, Heritage expert and Index co-editor Terry Miller warns that America is in trouble. "The U.S. slipped one spot to sixth place this year because of increases in both tax revenue and government spending as a percentage of GDP."
"Hong Kong and Singapore are once again the freest economies in the world," he continues, "followed in the rankings by Australia, Ireland and New Zealand."
The Index, a joint project of The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, ranks 183 countries on a set of empirical criteria and confirms the link between freedom and prosperity.
America's latest economic policies are likely to worsen its score in the next Index, Heritage President Ed Feulner says. "Some of the policies undertaken or planned by governments to respond to the worldwide recession are likely to threaten long-term economic freedom, and thus endanger future economic growth. Certainly if the U.S. continues on its present course, all things being equal, its economic freedom score will decline next year."
Miller explains the core findings of the new Index in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal:
The positive correlation between economic freedom and national income is confirmed yet again by this year's data. The freest countries enjoy per capita incomes over 10 times higher than those in countries ranked as "repressed." This year, for the first time, the Index also correlates economic freedom with important societal values like poverty reduction, human development, political freedom and environmental protection. The linkages are robust, with economically freer countries performing significantly better on every indicator of well-being.
The 2009 Index has several key improvements, including a significant expansion of country coverage, new regional coverage and a fine-tuned labor freedom component.
This is the 15th edition of the Index, which is meant "to advance individual freedom, civil society, and prosperity around the world."
—David Talbot
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Treasury Secretary Nominee Geithner Must Leave Town
Geithner should step aside? What for!! Being a criminal looks good on any liberal Democrats resume. They all have some sort of under-handed activity that they want to hide, but to say just be cause the nominee for United States Treasury Secretary is being pursued by authorities for tax evasion is no reason congress can't or won't confirm him. Come On!!! We're talking about Democrats here.
If Geithner were a Republican, then yeah, throw him under the bus, but not a Democrat. Were would you find another Democrat to take the job that doesn't have a criminal record?
Hold Chicago thugs, Batman - keep the Faith while we tug on Superman's cape.
Tax Experts: Geithner Should Withdraw
Thursday, January 15, 2009 7:15 PMBy: Kenneth R. Timmerman
President-elect Obama should withdraw the nomination of his Treasury secretary-designate, former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer tells Newsmax.
The nomination of a man who has cheated on his taxes to become Treasury secretary “doesn’t pass the straight-face test,” Bauer said. “If this were a Republican Cabinet nominee, he would be in deep trouble, even in a Republican-controlled Senate.”
Time magazine and others have said that New York Federal Reserve President Timothy F. Geithner must be confirmed because he’s “the only one who understands the TARP,” the Troubled Asset Rescue Program the Bush administration crafted to bail out the financial services industry.
“It seems odd to me that he understands the TARP but doesn’t understand that you have to pay self-employment tax on self-employment income,” Bauer said.
The Treasury secretary oversees the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies. This means that Geithner, whose tax cheating is described in detail in a 30-page memorandum released this week by the Senate Finance Committee, will become the nation’s top tax collector if confirmed.
“Geithner’s errors and/or misjudgments” on tax returns since 2001 “make him unfit to serve as secretary of the Treasury,” says John Berlau, a tax and financial affairs analyst at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“His nomination should be withdrawn, and, if this does not happen, he should be voted down by the Senate.” Berlau called Geithner’s nomination “a slap in the face” to millions of law-abiding taxpayers.”
The Senate Finance Committee investigation of Geithner’s tax returns found that he owed $42,702 in back taxes and interest for the years 2001 through 2004.
At the time Geithner worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC.
Because the IMF does not pay payroll taxes, it allows American employees to request a special “tax allowance” in addition to their salary to cover their U.S. tax obligations. The IMF sends instructions to its American employees on how to handle these payments, detailing what they owe the U.S. Treasury in quarterly and annual wage statements.
“Mr. Geithner acknowledged receiving all of these documents,” the Senate Finance Committee memorandum states.
He also filled out, signed, and submitted to the IMF a request for additional funds to pay his U.S. taxes that states, “I wish to apply for tax allowance of U.S. Federal and State income taxes and the difference between the 'self-employed' and 'employed' obligation of the U.S. Social Security tax which I will pay on my Fund income,” the form states.
And yet, despite receiving the extra payments from the IMF, Geithner never paid the self-employment taxes, apparently just pocketing the extra money.
“Obviously, he thought he could get away with it,” said Dee Hodges, president of the Maryland Taxpayers Association. “He didn’t even pay fines. You and I would be paying fines if we had done the same thing.”
Senators should “not give him a free pass” by saying he made an honest mistake, said Brian Darling, director of U.S. Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“How can you be head of the Department of Treasury, which oversees the IRS, when you have tax problems? It just calls into question his qualifications,” Darling told Newsmax.
“Putting him in charge of the Treasury and the IRS sends a message to the American people that they really don’t need to be all that careful about filing their taxes. It sets a dangerous precedent.”
The Senate Finance Committee memo notes that Geithner “has experience with Social Security tax issues,” and so the likelihood of an honest mistake was low.
Furthermore, he prepared his own tax returns for four of the years where tax delinquencies were found, using commercial tax-preparation software.
“It's bad enough we have a Ways and Means chairman with a selective memory about his own tax returns — now we may have a Treasury secretary who either needs to upgrade his tax preparation software or listen a little more carefully to his accountant,” Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, told Newsmax on Thursday.
“If he is confirmed, we can only hope his public tax ordeal will convince him that the system needs simplification — not just for his sake, but for about 130 million taxpayers,” Sepp said.
Vincent R. Reinhart, a former monetary affairs director at the Federal Reserve who is now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said he believes that Geithner probably will win confirmation regardless of his tax problems because Democrats hold majorities in Congress.
Geithner’s problems “would be damaging if he were a Republican in a Democratic Senate, but it’s not going to derail his candidacy,” he told Newsmax.
If the Senators’ willingness to gloss over Geithner’s repeated failure to pay taxes sets a precedent that will “make it easier to join the government from here on out, then that’s good.
But I suspect the confirmation process will remain partisan,” Reinhart said.
After an IRS audit in 2006, Geithner paid $17,000 in back taxes and interest for 2003 and 2004, the Senate Finance Committee memorandum noted.
But Geithner didn’t pay an additional $26,000 in back taxes and interest he owed on IMF income for 2001 and 2002 until he was nominated for the Treasury job by Obama in December.
“He only fixed it after discovering he was going to be the nominee, so the timing is troubling,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
Brian Darling and other conservatives also worry about Geithner’s role in the federal bailout of the financial markets, known as TARP.
Darling called TARP “a pork barrel project for Wall Street,” that was “chipping away at the free market,” and called Geithner “a government interventionist.”
[Editor's Note: Watch U.S. Sen. James Inhofe discuss TARP - Go Here Now]
“Our government needs to get out of the business of managing industries,” he added. “We don’t reward failure in this country.”
Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst John Berlau agrees.
Geithner’s “only significant policy accomplishment has been his role in the Bush-Paulson bailouts,” he said.
Citing a Bloomberg wire service report, Berlau noted “Geithner pushed for Citigroup to take over the operations of Wachovia Corp. at taxpayer expense, even after Wells Fargo’s offer to purchase the firm without taxpayer backing.
“Had Geithner prevailed, who knows how much more trouble the financial system would be in given Citigroup’s current financial troubles,” Berlau said.
Peter J. Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury Department who is now a financial markets analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that once the U.S. public learns the details about Geithner’s tax situation, “there could be a backlash from the country.”
Nominating someone who failed to pay his taxes as the nation’s tax collector is “very worrisome, and demoralizing to all the people at Treasury,” he added.
“I don’t think this is a small mistake. It’s a serious thing and hard to square with a person who takes his tax obligations seriously, because it seems to involve deliberately ignoring the things he was required to do.”
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
If Geithner were a Republican, then yeah, throw him under the bus, but not a Democrat. Were would you find another Democrat to take the job that doesn't have a criminal record?
Hold Chicago thugs, Batman - keep the Faith while we tug on Superman's cape.
Tax Experts: Geithner Should Withdraw
Thursday, January 15, 2009 7:15 PMBy: Kenneth R. Timmerman
President-elect Obama should withdraw the nomination of his Treasury secretary-designate, former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer tells Newsmax.
The nomination of a man who has cheated on his taxes to become Treasury secretary “doesn’t pass the straight-face test,” Bauer said. “If this were a Republican Cabinet nominee, he would be in deep trouble, even in a Republican-controlled Senate.”
Time magazine and others have said that New York Federal Reserve President Timothy F. Geithner must be confirmed because he’s “the only one who understands the TARP,” the Troubled Asset Rescue Program the Bush administration crafted to bail out the financial services industry.
“It seems odd to me that he understands the TARP but doesn’t understand that you have to pay self-employment tax on self-employment income,” Bauer said.
The Treasury secretary oversees the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies. This means that Geithner, whose tax cheating is described in detail in a 30-page memorandum released this week by the Senate Finance Committee, will become the nation’s top tax collector if confirmed.
“Geithner’s errors and/or misjudgments” on tax returns since 2001 “make him unfit to serve as secretary of the Treasury,” says John Berlau, a tax and financial affairs analyst at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“His nomination should be withdrawn, and, if this does not happen, he should be voted down by the Senate.” Berlau called Geithner’s nomination “a slap in the face” to millions of law-abiding taxpayers.”
The Senate Finance Committee investigation of Geithner’s tax returns found that he owed $42,702 in back taxes and interest for the years 2001 through 2004.
At the time Geithner worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC.
Because the IMF does not pay payroll taxes, it allows American employees to request a special “tax allowance” in addition to their salary to cover their U.S. tax obligations. The IMF sends instructions to its American employees on how to handle these payments, detailing what they owe the U.S. Treasury in quarterly and annual wage statements.
“Mr. Geithner acknowledged receiving all of these documents,” the Senate Finance Committee memorandum states.
He also filled out, signed, and submitted to the IMF a request for additional funds to pay his U.S. taxes that states, “I wish to apply for tax allowance of U.S. Federal and State income taxes and the difference between the 'self-employed' and 'employed' obligation of the U.S. Social Security tax which I will pay on my Fund income,” the form states.
And yet, despite receiving the extra payments from the IMF, Geithner never paid the self-employment taxes, apparently just pocketing the extra money.
“Obviously, he thought he could get away with it,” said Dee Hodges, president of the Maryland Taxpayers Association. “He didn’t even pay fines. You and I would be paying fines if we had done the same thing.”
Senators should “not give him a free pass” by saying he made an honest mistake, said Brian Darling, director of U.S. Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“How can you be head of the Department of Treasury, which oversees the IRS, when you have tax problems? It just calls into question his qualifications,” Darling told Newsmax.
“Putting him in charge of the Treasury and the IRS sends a message to the American people that they really don’t need to be all that careful about filing their taxes. It sets a dangerous precedent.”
The Senate Finance Committee memo notes that Geithner “has experience with Social Security tax issues,” and so the likelihood of an honest mistake was low.
Furthermore, he prepared his own tax returns for four of the years where tax delinquencies were found, using commercial tax-preparation software.
“It's bad enough we have a Ways and Means chairman with a selective memory about his own tax returns — now we may have a Treasury secretary who either needs to upgrade his tax preparation software or listen a little more carefully to his accountant,” Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, told Newsmax on Thursday.
“If he is confirmed, we can only hope his public tax ordeal will convince him that the system needs simplification — not just for his sake, but for about 130 million taxpayers,” Sepp said.
Vincent R. Reinhart, a former monetary affairs director at the Federal Reserve who is now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said he believes that Geithner probably will win confirmation regardless of his tax problems because Democrats hold majorities in Congress.
Geithner’s problems “would be damaging if he were a Republican in a Democratic Senate, but it’s not going to derail his candidacy,” he told Newsmax.
If the Senators’ willingness to gloss over Geithner’s repeated failure to pay taxes sets a precedent that will “make it easier to join the government from here on out, then that’s good.
But I suspect the confirmation process will remain partisan,” Reinhart said.
After an IRS audit in 2006, Geithner paid $17,000 in back taxes and interest for 2003 and 2004, the Senate Finance Committee memorandum noted.
But Geithner didn’t pay an additional $26,000 in back taxes and interest he owed on IMF income for 2001 and 2002 until he was nominated for the Treasury job by Obama in December.
“He only fixed it after discovering he was going to be the nominee, so the timing is troubling,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
Brian Darling and other conservatives also worry about Geithner’s role in the federal bailout of the financial markets, known as TARP.
Darling called TARP “a pork barrel project for Wall Street,” that was “chipping away at the free market,” and called Geithner “a government interventionist.”
[Editor's Note: Watch U.S. Sen. James Inhofe discuss TARP - Go Here Now]
“Our government needs to get out of the business of managing industries,” he added. “We don’t reward failure in this country.”
Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst John Berlau agrees.
Geithner’s “only significant policy accomplishment has been his role in the Bush-Paulson bailouts,” he said.
Citing a Bloomberg wire service report, Berlau noted “Geithner pushed for Citigroup to take over the operations of Wachovia Corp. at taxpayer expense, even after Wells Fargo’s offer to purchase the firm without taxpayer backing.
“Had Geithner prevailed, who knows how much more trouble the financial system would be in given Citigroup’s current financial troubles,” Berlau said.
Peter J. Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury Department who is now a financial markets analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that once the U.S. public learns the details about Geithner’s tax situation, “there could be a backlash from the country.”
Nominating someone who failed to pay his taxes as the nation’s tax collector is “very worrisome, and demoralizing to all the people at Treasury,” he added.
“I don’t think this is a small mistake. It’s a serious thing and hard to square with a person who takes his tax obligations seriously, because it seems to involve deliberately ignoring the things he was required to do.”
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Can Detroit Auto Manufactures Survive the UAW
This article is a little long but gives good insight into the UAW and how they have to change the way they do things or go extinct.
Keep the faith -
Can the United Auto Workers Survive?
Richard Posner
One of the reasons for the insolvency of the Detroit automakers (General
Motors, Chrysler--and Ford, which appears to be insolvent too, despite
its denials) is that their workers are paid higher wages, and receive
much more generous benefits paid for by their employer, than the workers
employed at the automobile plants, mainly in the South, owned by Toyota,
Honda, and other foreign manufacturers. The total wage and benefit bill
for the Detroit automakers is about $55 per hour, compared to $45 for
workers in the foreign-owned plants, and the difference is plausibly
ascribed to the fact that the Detroit automakers are unionized and the
"foreign transplants" not. (The comparison excludes retiree benefits, a
very large cost of the Detroit companies, but not an hourly labor cost.)
This difference may seem small, considering that labor is only about 10
percent of the cost of making a car, but many of the workers at the
companies that supply parts to the automakers (and the parts represent
about 60 percent of the total cost of manufacturing the vehicle) are
also represented by the United Auto Workers. Anyway, since the foreign
transplants have other competitive advantages over the Detroit
automakers, the latter can hardly afford to have even slightly higher
labor costs.
When the auto bailout bill was being debated in Congress in November
(ultimately it was voted down), Senator Corker said that he would
support the bill if it conditioned the bailout on the Detroit
automakers' reducing their workers' wages and benefits (to which the
union would have to agree) to the level at the foreign-owned plants, as
well as conform work rules to the work rules in those plants. The
significance of the work rules must not be underestimated.
As is common
in unionized firms, the United Auto Workers has successfully negotiated
not only for wages and benefits for the workers they represent but also
for rules governing what tasks the workers can and cannot perform, how
many workers must be assigned to a particular task, the order in which
workers are to be laid off (usually it is in reverse order of seniority,
because older workers tend to be stronger supporters of unionization
than younger ones because the latter have better alternative employment
prospects and so don't worry as much about job security) in the event of
a reduction in demand for the firm's products, methods of discipline,
and so forth.
These work rules, collectively "featherbedding," make it
difficult for a firm to optimize its use of labor, and, like the higher
wages and benefits that unions obtain, add to the firm's labor costs
relative to those of its nonunion competitors. A December 16 blog by
Rand Simberg,
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/detroits-downturn-its-the-productivity-stupid/,
presents a shocking picture of how work rules impair productivity at
automobile plants at which the workers are represented by the United
Auto Workers.
The goal of unions is to redistribute wealth from the owners and
managers of firms, and from workers willing to work for very low wages,
to the unionized workers and the union's officers. Unions do this by
organizing (or threatening) strikes that impose costs on employers. For
employers are rationally willing to avoid those costs at a cost
(provided it is smaller) of higher wages and benefits and restrictive
work rules.
Because the added cost to the employer of a unionized work
force is a marginal cost (a cost that varies with the output of the
firm), unionization results in reduced output by the unionized firm and,
in consequence, benefits nonunionized competitors. Unless those
competitors are too few or too small to be able to expand output at a
cost no higher than the cost to the unionized firms, unionization will
gradually drive the unionized firms out of business.
Unions, in other words, are worker cartels. Workers threaten to withhold
their labor unless paid more than a competitive wage (including benefits
and work rules), but unless their union is able to organize all the
major competitors in a market, the cartel will be eroded by the entry of
nonunionized firms, which by virtue of not being unionized will have
lower labor costs. The parallel to producer cartels is exact--workers
/are /producers.
We are seeing this process of erosion of labor monopolies at work in the
automobile industry. The market share of the Detroit automakers has
shrunk steadily relative to that of the foreign "transplants" and with
it the number of unionized auto workers--they are fewer by a third or
more than they were in 1970. If the Detroit automakers will be forced to
liquidate unless they can bring their labor costs down to the level of
the foreign transplants, the UAW will be out of business either because
the Detroit automakers liquidate or because, as a result of union
concessions, the workers will no longer be getting anything in exchange
for the dues they pay the union.
I don't think there's much to be said on behalf of unions, at least
under current economic conditions. The redistribution of wealth that
they bring about is not only fragile, for the reason just suggested, but
also capricious, as it is an accident whether conditions in a particular
industry are favorable or unfavorable to unionization.
By driving up
employers' costs, unions cause prices to increase, which harms
consumers, who are not on average any better off than unionized workers
are. Unions push hard for minimum wage laws and for tariffs, both being
devices for reducing competition from workers, here or abroad, willing
to work for lower wages. Current union hostility to immigrant workers is
of a piece with the unions' former hostility to blacks and women--which
is to say, to workers willing to work for a wage below the union wage.
And by raising labor costs, unions accelerate the substitution of
capital for labor, further depressing the demand for labor and hence
average wages. Union workers, in effect, exploit nonunion workers, as
well as reducing the overall efficiency of the economy. The United Auto
Workers has done its part to place the Detroit auto industry on the road
to ruin.
There is also a long history of union corruption (though not in the
UAW). And some union activity (though again not that of the UAW) is
extortionate: the union and the employer tacitly agree that as long as
the employer gives the workers a wage increase slightly above the union
dues, the union will leave the employer alone.
There may be, I grant, cases in which unionization reduces an employer's
labor costs. If there is deep mutual antipathy between workers and
employers, perhaps breaking out in violence--with strikebreakers beating
up strikers and strikers beating up scabs and sit-down strikers
destroying company property--there may be benefits from interposing an
organization independent of the employer between employer and workers,
and from creating (as the National Labor Relations Act has done) a
civilized mode of resolving labor disputes.
But in cases in which union
organization is mutually beneficial, the employer will /invite /the
union to organize its workers. I am sure the Detroit automakers would
very much like to disinvite the United Auto Workers.
Unions do provide some services that are valuable to employers, such as
grievance procedures that check arbitrary actions by supervisory
employees; and union-negotiated protection of senior workers can benefit
their employer by encouraging them to share their know-how with new
workers, without having to fear that by doing so they will be sharing
themselves out of a job. But these are measures that an employer who
thinks they will reduce his labor costs can take without the presence of
a union.
Micky Kaus, another blogger who is an expert on the automobile industry,
attributes much of the problem with the UAW to the procedures that
govern labor relations in unionized plants. "The problem...is the
American adversarial labor-management negotiating system, in which
reasonable people doing what the system tells them they should do wind
up producing undesirable results.
Just as negotiating over work
assignments means factories adjust too slowly to generate continuous
efficiency improvements (which often involve constantly changing work
assignments) negotiating ponderous 3 year contracts (in which
Gettelfinger [the UAW's president] must extract every possible
concession to please the members who elected him) means contracts adjust
too slowly to save the companies from failure if market conditions
change...[T[he $14 wage scale for new hires [to which the UAW agreed
several years ago] hasn't had an impact because nobody new is being
hired by the UAW's employers, who are shrinking, not growing. The
obvious alternative to cutting the pay of nonexistent future workers
would be to cut the pay of existing current workers--but they are the
people the system tells Gettelfinger he needs to please."
www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/ (Dec. 26, 2008).
The unions strongly supported the Democrats in the last election and are
looking for payback. I do think that there are good economic reasons for
keeping the Detroit automakers out of bankruptcy until the current
depression hits bottom and a recovery begins--until then the shock to
the economy would be too great (see my post of November 16)--and that
will keep the UAW alive for a while. But if it resists making
substantial concessions to the automakers, hoping that the President and
Congress will force the automakers' bondholders to make the necessary
concessions or that the taxpayer will be forced to subsidize the
automakers indefinitely, the union will be playing a game of chicken
that may end in its destruction rather than merely in its continued
shrinkage as the industry shrinks.
The auto bailout is deeply unpopular
with the public and the UAW's stubbornness may reinforce the impression
that unions are dinosaurs slouching toward extinction.
Posted by Richard Posner at 4:26 PM
Keep the faith -
Can the United Auto Workers Survive?
Richard Posner
One of the reasons for the insolvency of the Detroit automakers (General
Motors, Chrysler--and Ford, which appears to be insolvent too, despite
its denials) is that their workers are paid higher wages, and receive
much more generous benefits paid for by their employer, than the workers
employed at the automobile plants, mainly in the South, owned by Toyota,
Honda, and other foreign manufacturers. The total wage and benefit bill
for the Detroit automakers is about $55 per hour, compared to $45 for
workers in the foreign-owned plants, and the difference is plausibly
ascribed to the fact that the Detroit automakers are unionized and the
"foreign transplants" not. (The comparison excludes retiree benefits, a
very large cost of the Detroit companies, but not an hourly labor cost.)
This difference may seem small, considering that labor is only about 10
percent of the cost of making a car, but many of the workers at the
companies that supply parts to the automakers (and the parts represent
about 60 percent of the total cost of manufacturing the vehicle) are
also represented by the United Auto Workers. Anyway, since the foreign
transplants have other competitive advantages over the Detroit
automakers, the latter can hardly afford to have even slightly higher
labor costs.
When the auto bailout bill was being debated in Congress in November
(ultimately it was voted down), Senator Corker said that he would
support the bill if it conditioned the bailout on the Detroit
automakers' reducing their workers' wages and benefits (to which the
union would have to agree) to the level at the foreign-owned plants, as
well as conform work rules to the work rules in those plants. The
significance of the work rules must not be underestimated.
As is common
in unionized firms, the United Auto Workers has successfully negotiated
not only for wages and benefits for the workers they represent but also
for rules governing what tasks the workers can and cannot perform, how
many workers must be assigned to a particular task, the order in which
workers are to be laid off (usually it is in reverse order of seniority,
because older workers tend to be stronger supporters of unionization
than younger ones because the latter have better alternative employment
prospects and so don't worry as much about job security) in the event of
a reduction in demand for the firm's products, methods of discipline,
and so forth.
These work rules, collectively "featherbedding," make it
difficult for a firm to optimize its use of labor, and, like the higher
wages and benefits that unions obtain, add to the firm's labor costs
relative to those of its nonunion competitors. A December 16 blog by
Rand Simberg,
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/detroits-downturn-its-the-productivity-stupid/,
presents a shocking picture of how work rules impair productivity at
automobile plants at which the workers are represented by the United
Auto Workers.
The goal of unions is to redistribute wealth from the owners and
managers of firms, and from workers willing to work for very low wages,
to the unionized workers and the union's officers. Unions do this by
organizing (or threatening) strikes that impose costs on employers. For
employers are rationally willing to avoid those costs at a cost
(provided it is smaller) of higher wages and benefits and restrictive
work rules.
Because the added cost to the employer of a unionized work
force is a marginal cost (a cost that varies with the output of the
firm), unionization results in reduced output by the unionized firm and,
in consequence, benefits nonunionized competitors. Unless those
competitors are too few or too small to be able to expand output at a
cost no higher than the cost to the unionized firms, unionization will
gradually drive the unionized firms out of business.
Unions, in other words, are worker cartels. Workers threaten to withhold
their labor unless paid more than a competitive wage (including benefits
and work rules), but unless their union is able to organize all the
major competitors in a market, the cartel will be eroded by the entry of
nonunionized firms, which by virtue of not being unionized will have
lower labor costs. The parallel to producer cartels is exact--workers
/are /producers.
We are seeing this process of erosion of labor monopolies at work in the
automobile industry. The market share of the Detroit automakers has
shrunk steadily relative to that of the foreign "transplants" and with
it the number of unionized auto workers--they are fewer by a third or
more than they were in 1970. If the Detroit automakers will be forced to
liquidate unless they can bring their labor costs down to the level of
the foreign transplants, the UAW will be out of business either because
the Detroit automakers liquidate or because, as a result of union
concessions, the workers will no longer be getting anything in exchange
for the dues they pay the union.
I don't think there's much to be said on behalf of unions, at least
under current economic conditions. The redistribution of wealth that
they bring about is not only fragile, for the reason just suggested, but
also capricious, as it is an accident whether conditions in a particular
industry are favorable or unfavorable to unionization.
By driving up
employers' costs, unions cause prices to increase, which harms
consumers, who are not on average any better off than unionized workers
are. Unions push hard for minimum wage laws and for tariffs, both being
devices for reducing competition from workers, here or abroad, willing
to work for lower wages. Current union hostility to immigrant workers is
of a piece with the unions' former hostility to blacks and women--which
is to say, to workers willing to work for a wage below the union wage.
And by raising labor costs, unions accelerate the substitution of
capital for labor, further depressing the demand for labor and hence
average wages. Union workers, in effect, exploit nonunion workers, as
well as reducing the overall efficiency of the economy. The United Auto
Workers has done its part to place the Detroit auto industry on the road
to ruin.
There is also a long history of union corruption (though not in the
UAW). And some union activity (though again not that of the UAW) is
extortionate: the union and the employer tacitly agree that as long as
the employer gives the workers a wage increase slightly above the union
dues, the union will leave the employer alone.
There may be, I grant, cases in which unionization reduces an employer's
labor costs. If there is deep mutual antipathy between workers and
employers, perhaps breaking out in violence--with strikebreakers beating
up strikers and strikers beating up scabs and sit-down strikers
destroying company property--there may be benefits from interposing an
organization independent of the employer between employer and workers,
and from creating (as the National Labor Relations Act has done) a
civilized mode of resolving labor disputes.
But in cases in which union
organization is mutually beneficial, the employer will /invite /the
union to organize its workers. I am sure the Detroit automakers would
very much like to disinvite the United Auto Workers.
Unions do provide some services that are valuable to employers, such as
grievance procedures that check arbitrary actions by supervisory
employees; and union-negotiated protection of senior workers can benefit
their employer by encouraging them to share their know-how with new
workers, without having to fear that by doing so they will be sharing
themselves out of a job. But these are measures that an employer who
thinks they will reduce his labor costs can take without the presence of
a union.
Micky Kaus, another blogger who is an expert on the automobile industry,
attributes much of the problem with the UAW to the procedures that
govern labor relations in unionized plants. "The problem...is the
American adversarial labor-management negotiating system, in which
reasonable people doing what the system tells them they should do wind
up producing undesirable results.
Just as negotiating over work
assignments means factories adjust too slowly to generate continuous
efficiency improvements (which often involve constantly changing work
assignments) negotiating ponderous 3 year contracts (in which
Gettelfinger [the UAW's president] must extract every possible
concession to please the members who elected him) means contracts adjust
too slowly to save the companies from failure if market conditions
change...[T[he $14 wage scale for new hires [to which the UAW agreed
several years ago] hasn't had an impact because nobody new is being
hired by the UAW's employers, who are shrinking, not growing. The
obvious alternative to cutting the pay of nonexistent future workers
would be to cut the pay of existing current workers--but they are the
people the system tells Gettelfinger he needs to please."
www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/ (Dec. 26, 2008).
The unions strongly supported the Democrats in the last election and are
looking for payback. I do think that there are good economic reasons for
keeping the Detroit automakers out of bankruptcy until the current
depression hits bottom and a recovery begins--until then the shock to
the economy would be too great (see my post of November 16)--and that
will keep the UAW alive for a while. But if it resists making
substantial concessions to the automakers, hoping that the President and
Congress will force the automakers' bondholders to make the necessary
concessions or that the taxpayer will be forced to subsidize the
automakers indefinitely, the union will be playing a game of chicken
that may end in its destruction rather than merely in its continued
shrinkage as the industry shrinks.
The auto bailout is deeply unpopular
with the public and the UAW's stubbornness may reinforce the impression
that unions are dinosaurs slouching toward extinction.
Posted by Richard Posner at 4:26 PM
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