This comes as no surprise to most of us that have had contact with fighter pilots. They are special breed apart. ( Is this really from a fighter pilot? Don't know and don't care. Just like Dan Rather said. 'it might not be true but it should be'.)
Enjoy the ride.
Some interesting thoughts from a retired US Navy aircraft carrier pilot; the ultimate jet jockeys.
A check ride ought to be like a skirt.
Short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover everything.
Speed is life. Altitude is life insurance.
It only takes two things to fly:
Airspeed, and money.
The three most dangerous things in aviation:
1. A Doctor or Dentist in a Cessna.
2. Two captains in a DC-9.
Aircraft Identification:
If it's ugly, it's British.
If it's weird, it's French.
If it's ugly and weird, it's Russian.
Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another very expensive flying club.
The similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots?
If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies.
If ATC screws up, the pilot dies.
The difference between flight attendants and jet engines:
The engines usually quit whining when they get to the gate.
New FAA motto:
'We're not happy, till you're not happy.'
If Air Traffic Control screws up, it's called a "System Malfunction",
If a pilot screws up it's called a "violation".
If something hasn't broken on your helicopter--it's about to.
I give that landing a 9 ................. on the Richter scale.
Basic Flying Rules:
1. Try to stay in the middle of the air.
2. Do not go near the edges of it.
3. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly in the edges.
Unknown landing signal officer (LSO) to carrier pilot after his 6th unsuccessful landing attempt:
"You've got to land here son. ..................... this is where the food is."
The three best things in life are:
A good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement.
A night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities to experience all three at the same time.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Jobs Headed Overseas : Building Competitive Market Share
What a great article - speaking turth to ignorance. Still, if you listen to the media, or any left wingnut that is screaming about greedy CEO's taking jobs over seas, it's not about what we can do to keep those jobs here, it's about the agenda of demonizing all manufacturing as not caring about the 'little guy, the worker that has to support a family by flipping burgers as all the good jobs are gone.
What is really at the heart of this screed is the unions are losing money as their number fall. And why are their numbers falling, easy, the manufacturing operations that are moving out of country are mostly union based. The manufacturers can't compete with overseas competitors due to high wages and benefits that are demanded by local and national unions. Do think Card Check or union bailouts of their pension plans by Obama will help the job market?
Want this insanity to stop? Vote on Tuesday to bring common sense back to our country. Vote Conservative!
Shipping Out Jobs
Source: Daniel Griswold, "Shipping Out Jobs," New York Post, October 27, 2010.
Politicians of both parties have seized on U.S. multinational companies as a convenient scapegoat for the economy, says Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies.
The charge sounds logical: Under the U.S. corporate tax code, U.S.-based companies aren't taxed on profits that their affiliates abroad earn until those profits are returned here.
Supposedly, this "tax break" gives firms an incentive to create jobs overseas rather than at home, so any candidate who doesn't want to impose higher taxes on those foreign operations is guilty of "shipping jobs overseas."
In fact, American companies have quite valid reasons beyond any tax advantage to establish overseas affiliates: That's how they reach foreign customers with U.S.-branded goods and services, says Griswold.
It's not about access to "cheap labor," either: More than three-quarters of outward U.S. manufacturing investment goes to other rich, developed economies like Canada and the European Union. That's where they find the wealthy customers, skilled workers, open markets, efficient infrastructure and political stability to operate profitably.
Nor do jobs created by those investments come at the expense of American workers. In fact, the more workers U.S. multinationals hire abroad, the more they tend to hire at their parent operations in America, says Grisold.
But it's the big picture that really shows how absurd these claims are. Year after year, the rest of the world invests more in their affiliates here in the United States than American companies invest in operations outside our country.
From 2005 to 2009, foreign manufacturers invested an average of $87 billion a year in U.S. factories. U.S. manufacturing companies, by contrast, were investing an average of $45 billion a year abroad.
What is really at the heart of this screed is the unions are losing money as their number fall. And why are their numbers falling, easy, the manufacturing operations that are moving out of country are mostly union based. The manufacturers can't compete with overseas competitors due to high wages and benefits that are demanded by local and national unions. Do think Card Check or union bailouts of their pension plans by Obama will help the job market?
Want this insanity to stop? Vote on Tuesday to bring common sense back to our country. Vote Conservative!
Shipping Out Jobs
Source: Daniel Griswold, "Shipping Out Jobs," New York Post, October 27, 2010.
Politicians of both parties have seized on U.S. multinational companies as a convenient scapegoat for the economy, says Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies.
The charge sounds logical: Under the U.S. corporate tax code, U.S.-based companies aren't taxed on profits that their affiliates abroad earn until those profits are returned here.
Supposedly, this "tax break" gives firms an incentive to create jobs overseas rather than at home, so any candidate who doesn't want to impose higher taxes on those foreign operations is guilty of "shipping jobs overseas."
In fact, American companies have quite valid reasons beyond any tax advantage to establish overseas affiliates: That's how they reach foreign customers with U.S.-branded goods and services, says Griswold.
It's not about access to "cheap labor," either: More than three-quarters of outward U.S. manufacturing investment goes to other rich, developed economies like Canada and the European Union. That's where they find the wealthy customers, skilled workers, open markets, efficient infrastructure and political stability to operate profitably.
Nor do jobs created by those investments come at the expense of American workers. In fact, the more workers U.S. multinationals hire abroad, the more they tend to hire at their parent operations in America, says Grisold.
But it's the big picture that really shows how absurd these claims are. Year after year, the rest of the world invests more in their affiliates here in the United States than American companies invest in operations outside our country.
From 2005 to 2009, foreign manufacturers invested an average of $87 billion a year in U.S. factories. U.S. manufacturing companies, by contrast, were investing an average of $45 billion a year abroad.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
White House Party Crashers/Illegal Immigrants Video : Different/Same?
This is a great video in that a legislator, on the floor of the house, compares the White House party crashers to illegal immigrants. What is compared is both are trespassers but one is arrested and the other gets a pass. How does that work?
What a great country we have under the rules of liberal socialists. Vote these people out on Tuesday!!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Liberal Gene Found Explains Behavior
This is something that I just knew was a fact. Liberals are different from the rest of us. They had to be as most everything they say seems to be counter-active to common sense as we, Conservatives, understand the real world.
I have written in this space in the past stating liberals are genetically different, inclined to live in a different world dominated by 'wishful think' rather than 'real world' facts. And no matter what anyone can say in a debate on issues, they refuse to acknowledge or accept any premise that will shine light on their personal view of how the world actually exist. Nothing anyone can say will change this mind set.
Now they have found that liberals ARE different genetically - they do have a gene that pushes them to be more ready to believe anything that will foster personal security through fantasy. As this article points out, it starts at an early age though associations with like minded individuals and continues to develope throuhout their lives.
The liberals find the real world unacceptable and therefore choose to live in a world of their own making supported by others that have the same tendencies towards believing in a world of fabricated ideals of superior intellect and moral integrity.
This article helps to explain the frustration that most of us, that live in the real world, have with our liberal friends. We agonize over their complete detachment form reality. At least now we can begin to understand why they think the way they do.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/28/researchers-liberal-gene-genetics-politics/
I have written in this space in the past stating liberals are genetically different, inclined to live in a different world dominated by 'wishful think' rather than 'real world' facts. And no matter what anyone can say in a debate on issues, they refuse to acknowledge or accept any premise that will shine light on their personal view of how the world actually exist. Nothing anyone can say will change this mind set.
Now they have found that liberals ARE different genetically - they do have a gene that pushes them to be more ready to believe anything that will foster personal security through fantasy. As this article points out, it starts at an early age though associations with like minded individuals and continues to develope throuhout their lives.
The liberals find the real world unacceptable and therefore choose to live in a world of their own making supported by others that have the same tendencies towards believing in a world of fabricated ideals of superior intellect and moral integrity.
This article helps to explain the frustration that most of us, that live in the real world, have with our liberal friends. We agonize over their complete detachment form reality. At least now we can begin to understand why they think the way they do.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/28/researchers-liberal-gene-genetics-politics/
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Government Motors VOLT Another Obama Fraud
Oh, wait, what we need is more government control of our lives so we all can become better people and feel better about who we are. Yikes!
The Volt is just another failure that is paid for by the tax payers. General Motors, sorry, government motors who makes the Volt, is another failure of government control paid for by taxpayers. The Post Office? Health care - dah - ObamaCare!!
Do you care what happens to this country? If you do, vote common sense next week. Vote out the spenders, the power grabbers, the socialist elites.
Volt Fraud at Government Motors
Source: "Volt Fraud at Government Motors," Investor's Business Daily, October 19, 2010.
GM's Chevy Volt, advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to grandma's house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down. It is still an electric car, we were told, and not a hybrid on steroids. But that's not quite true, says Investor's Business Daily.
The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery.
Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 miles per hour (mph), the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.
That's not charging the battery -- that's driving the car.
So it's not an all-electric car, but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it. But isn't a car that gets 230 miles per gallon of gas (as former GM CEO Fritz Henderson claims) worth it?
Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 miles per gallon in city driving.
Motor Trend reports: "Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma's house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."
Car and Driver reported that "getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80 mph flow of traffic -- basically the worst-case scenario -- yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited backroad loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s."
Then there's the issue of asking grandma to use her electricity for the three or four hours necessary to recharge your car so you can get home to charge it again. Where's the electricity going to come from considering that solar and wind don't work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow?
The Volt is just another failure that is paid for by the tax payers. General Motors, sorry, government motors who makes the Volt, is another failure of government control paid for by taxpayers. The Post Office? Health care - dah - ObamaCare!!
Do you care what happens to this country? If you do, vote common sense next week. Vote out the spenders, the power grabbers, the socialist elites.
Volt Fraud at Government Motors
Source: "Volt Fraud at Government Motors," Investor's Business Daily, October 19, 2010.
GM's Chevy Volt, advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to grandma's house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down. It is still an electric car, we were told, and not a hybrid on steroids. But that's not quite true, says Investor's Business Daily.
The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery.
Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 miles per hour (mph), the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.
That's not charging the battery -- that's driving the car.
So it's not an all-electric car, but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it. But isn't a car that gets 230 miles per gallon of gas (as former GM CEO Fritz Henderson claims) worth it?
Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 miles per gallon in city driving.
Motor Trend reports: "Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma's house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."
Car and Driver reported that "getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80 mph flow of traffic -- basically the worst-case scenario -- yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited backroad loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s."
Then there's the issue of asking grandma to use her electricity for the three or four hours necessary to recharge your car so you can get home to charge it again. Where's the electricity going to come from considering that solar and wind don't work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow?
Dogs Need to Please : More Than Human? A Video
Are dogs just dogs or are they something more? I tend to think they are just different individuals that will do anything for you because they want to. Maybe because of this need to please, they are something more then human. hmmmmm
http://www.flixxy.com/useful-dog-tricks.htm
http://www.flixxy.com/useful-dog-tricks.htm
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Washington State Battles for Free Market Insurance
Where ever the government is involved, there is chaos. No matter what they do, it is an agenda that benefits only those that seek privileges that others provide. Unions.
The free market works. The more government becomes involved the more we lose our personal freedom. Does the market need oversight, sure, but just that, oversight - not control.
Washington vs. Oregon
Source: "Washington vs. Oregon," Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2010.
In the battle to promote growth and job creation, Washington state is especially important this election year. While the Bill Gates family and government unions work together to impose a state income tax, the business community is bidding to bust the state monopoly over workers' compensation insurance, says the Wall Street Journal.
The fight is over ballot initiative I-1082, which would allow private insurers to compete in the market for insurance providing medical benefits and wage replacement to workers injured on the job. Many large Washington companies self insure, but others are required to buy this insurance from the state Department of Labor and Industries. Washington is one of four states that retains a monopoly, with predictable results.
The average worker in Washington with a time-loss claim misses 270 days of work, twice the national average.
Nearby Oregon, which privatized workers' comp long ago, averages 70 days.
Washington's rate of awarding lifetime pensions for workers it deems permanently disabled is also the highest in the nation.
In 2007 and 2008, Washington pensioned 3,600 workers; Oregon pensioned 24.
There's more, says the Journal. Despite a 52 percent decrease in job injuries since 1990, Washington's insurance taxes have climbed 53 percent in 10 years. These premiums are borne by employers and employees, as Washington is the only state in which workers must still pay a portion of workers' comp premiums.
Last year the Labor and Industries department hit the business community with a 7.6 percent premium increase, essentially a $117 million tax hike. Oregon hasn't raised its premiums in two decades and this year it returned $100 million to employers.
The Building Industry Association of Washington, one of the state's few free-market groups, was moved to push this initiative after the legislature again punted on reform. If it passes, everyone wins save public unions and the plaintiffs bar.
The free market works. The more government becomes involved the more we lose our personal freedom. Does the market need oversight, sure, but just that, oversight - not control.
Washington vs. Oregon
Source: "Washington vs. Oregon," Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2010.
In the battle to promote growth and job creation, Washington state is especially important this election year. While the Bill Gates family and government unions work together to impose a state income tax, the business community is bidding to bust the state monopoly over workers' compensation insurance, says the Wall Street Journal.
The fight is over ballot initiative I-1082, which would allow private insurers to compete in the market for insurance providing medical benefits and wage replacement to workers injured on the job. Many large Washington companies self insure, but others are required to buy this insurance from the state Department of Labor and Industries. Washington is one of four states that retains a monopoly, with predictable results.
The average worker in Washington with a time-loss claim misses 270 days of work, twice the national average.
Nearby Oregon, which privatized workers' comp long ago, averages 70 days.
Washington's rate of awarding lifetime pensions for workers it deems permanently disabled is also the highest in the nation.
In 2007 and 2008, Washington pensioned 3,600 workers; Oregon pensioned 24.
There's more, says the Journal. Despite a 52 percent decrease in job injuries since 1990, Washington's insurance taxes have climbed 53 percent in 10 years. These premiums are borne by employers and employees, as Washington is the only state in which workers must still pay a portion of workers' comp premiums.
Last year the Labor and Industries department hit the business community with a 7.6 percent premium increase, essentially a $117 million tax hike. Oregon hasn't raised its premiums in two decades and this year it returned $100 million to employers.
The Building Industry Association of Washington, one of the state's few free-market groups, was moved to push this initiative after the legislature again punted on reform. If it passes, everyone wins save public unions and the plaintiffs bar.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Progressive's/Liberal's Income Redistribution Agenda : A Power Grab
Income redistribution, taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive, for political gain and self enrichment. This is the description of the modern liberal and some Republicans, that is Republicans in name only, Rinos.
If you think this is impossible, then you haven't been listens to the right radio stations or the right TV channel. The main stream media will not discuss this unless the have disclaimer to introduce the agenda saying it's all about fairness. What is the really? Income redistribution is all about power and the taking of the fruits of production for personal gain.
The progressives, liberal Democrats, know that if they can force the productive among us to give up their earnings and like it, they can control the population by buying the votes of those that are rewarded with unearned income, that is, the unproductive that vote for more unearned income.
It's not rocket science as the saying goes to understand the productive will not accept the agenda of the liberal left's gift giving. They will do what ever they can, or have to, to remove this burden from their collective backs. The result will be the destruction of the American dream, and or, the destruction of America it self.
You decide what is the right thing to do this November. Vote common sense. Vote to save the country, if not for yourself, then for your children. It is that important!
The Shibboleth of "Fixing" Income Inequality
By Bill Frezza
In a recent New York Times Op Ed entitled "Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore" Professor Robert Frank castigates economists that are reluctant to condemn the gap between rich and poor. He blames our current woes on the distortion of community norms that drive the rich to overspend elusively seeking happiness, which encourages people of lesser means to bankrupt themselves trying to ape the rich. Q.E.D.: income inequality is bad and if we don't do something about it our roads and bridges will crumble.
Got that?
The real reason rational economists hesitate to make value judgments about income inequality is that unlike measures such as longevity, infant mortality, and rates of literacy, income inequality is not a primary indicator of a society's health and well being. Some pretty awful places have no income inequality.
The nature, causes, and consequences of unequal income production are what ought to interest economists, not to mention any young person making education and career choices. Note that I call it income production and not income distribution. Calling it the latter presupposes a fixed pie of income that descends from the heavens, the greedy rich grabbing the lion's share leaving crumbs for the poor. Arguments about the fairness of "income distribution" are not really arguments at all. They are tautologies that embed preconceived answers in the question, allowing no rebuttal.
A few simple examples show why some increases in income inequality are desirable, some are a matter of indifference, and some are a cause for outrage. The same is not true about infant mortality, longevity, and rates of literacy.
Imagine a hypothetical society with a bell shaped income curve with a median annual income of $25,000. Imagine that over time this society doubles its productivity and, consequently, everyone's income doubles while the shape of the overall distribution remains the same.
Income inequality has doubled. Has this society become worse off? Of course not. Is any member of that society worse off? Nope, the poor can buy more stuff. Will envy go up when the rich spend on luxuries? Sure.
As prosperity spreads will people start considering those luxuries to be necessities? They always have. Could a healthy bit of envy spur everyone to work harder, longer, or smarter? Only if someone doesn't hand out these newfound "necessities" for nothing.
Will the accumulation of unspent income by those at the top help finance new technologies and industries, making those at the bottom more productive? This is how Capitalism works. Has this approach for allocating capital lifted more people out of poverty than any other, or should it be condemned by economists and Op-ed columnists because it is fueled by income inequality?
Imagine a society in which a young person starts life with a low income which rises through his career then declines in retirement. A mixed distribution of such people would show significant income inequality even if every person experienced identical life trajectories. A prudent balance between saving, borrowing, and spending allows any individual to redistribute consumption across his own life as he chooses. Is it better to take away these choices and "fix" inequality by redistributing income between generations using a coercive Ponzi scheme? This is how Social Security works. How will that "fix" be sustained now that Congress has looted the Social Security trust fund?
Imagine a society in which some genius invents a cure for cancer and he and his stock option empowered employees become fabulously wealthy, making income inequality go up. Anyone arguing that this makes society worse off would have to admit to preferring widespread cancer over the occasional Ferrari. Would opinion leaders berate our inventor for being greedy? Would his company be investigated for anti-trust violations at the urging of competitors? Would our inventor have to earn his way back into the good graces of professors and Op-ed columnists by setting up a charitable foundation to care for the sick in Africa? Am I making this example up or have we seen this show before?
Imagine a society in which celebrities amass wealth by voluntarily separating fans from their money. Does this contribution to income inequality need to be fixed? Imagine said rich celebrities calling for higher taxes on entrepreneurs and small businesses while seeking government subsidies to film their movies. This is how Hollywood works.
Imagine an advanced technological society in which real incomes of the uneducated stagnate, incomes of the middle class grow modestly, and incomes at the top soar. How has this society become materially worse off? Does the existence of some rich guy's ski chalet in Vail reduce the housing stock in Detroit? If the poor get obese eating hamburgers is it the fault of the rich dining on filet mignon? Will envy go through the roof if the media fixates on the lifestyle of the rich and famous? This is how contemporary culture works.
Will demagogues fan the flames of envy to achieve political power, using this power to confiscate money from the rich to buy votes from the poor? Will they hobble successful companies with higher taxes and restrictive labor laws, demonizing the very businessmen that are supposed to create jobs? This is how Progressivism works. Will progressivism drive both capital and productive industries out of the country, making it more difficult for people to find work? Look around you.
Imagine a society in which politically connected individuals enrich themselves by giving money to politicians in return for earmarked dollars extracted from taxpayers. Imagine political entrepreneurs displacing market entrepreneurs by weaving fantastic tales of energy independence and a green tomorrow, sucking down billions in taxpayer loan guarantees for businesses that cannot possibly achieve economic sustainability. This is how crony Capitalism works.
Imagine a handful of executives earning hundreds of millions of dollars selling toxic mortgage bonds pyramided on low cost government-guaranteed capital made available by key Congressional committee chairmen who got special mortgage deals. Imagine a revolving door between reckless Wall Street derivative gamblers selling fraudulent unbacked insurance products and the regulatory agencies that bail them out using unlimited quantities of fiat currency printed up by unelected bureaucrats. This is how Washington works.
Are these the people Robert Frank wants to call on to "fix" the income inequality problem?
Imagine a workers' paradise in which income inequality is eliminated by government command. Wait, we don't have to imagine. Go visit Cuba.
checkTextResizerCookie('article_body');
Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm. He can be reached at bill@vereverus.com. If you would like to subscribe to his weekly column, drop a note to publisher@vereverus.com.Page Printed from: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/10/25/the_shibboleth_of_fixing_income_inequality_98724.html at October 25, 2010 - 07:01:29 PM CDT
If you think this is impossible, then you haven't been listens to the right radio stations or the right TV channel. The main stream media will not discuss this unless the have disclaimer to introduce the agenda saying it's all about fairness. What is the really? Income redistribution is all about power and the taking of the fruits of production for personal gain.
The progressives, liberal Democrats, know that if they can force the productive among us to give up their earnings and like it, they can control the population by buying the votes of those that are rewarded with unearned income, that is, the unproductive that vote for more unearned income.
It's not rocket science as the saying goes to understand the productive will not accept the agenda of the liberal left's gift giving. They will do what ever they can, or have to, to remove this burden from their collective backs. The result will be the destruction of the American dream, and or, the destruction of America it self.
You decide what is the right thing to do this November. Vote common sense. Vote to save the country, if not for yourself, then for your children. It is that important!
The Shibboleth of "Fixing" Income Inequality
By Bill Frezza
In a recent New York Times Op Ed entitled "Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore" Professor Robert Frank castigates economists that are reluctant to condemn the gap between rich and poor. He blames our current woes on the distortion of community norms that drive the rich to overspend elusively seeking happiness, which encourages people of lesser means to bankrupt themselves trying to ape the rich. Q.E.D.: income inequality is bad and if we don't do something about it our roads and bridges will crumble.
Got that?
The real reason rational economists hesitate to make value judgments about income inequality is that unlike measures such as longevity, infant mortality, and rates of literacy, income inequality is not a primary indicator of a society's health and well being. Some pretty awful places have no income inequality.
The nature, causes, and consequences of unequal income production are what ought to interest economists, not to mention any young person making education and career choices. Note that I call it income production and not income distribution. Calling it the latter presupposes a fixed pie of income that descends from the heavens, the greedy rich grabbing the lion's share leaving crumbs for the poor. Arguments about the fairness of "income distribution" are not really arguments at all. They are tautologies that embed preconceived answers in the question, allowing no rebuttal.
A few simple examples show why some increases in income inequality are desirable, some are a matter of indifference, and some are a cause for outrage. The same is not true about infant mortality, longevity, and rates of literacy.
Imagine a hypothetical society with a bell shaped income curve with a median annual income of $25,000. Imagine that over time this society doubles its productivity and, consequently, everyone's income doubles while the shape of the overall distribution remains the same.
Income inequality has doubled. Has this society become worse off? Of course not. Is any member of that society worse off? Nope, the poor can buy more stuff. Will envy go up when the rich spend on luxuries? Sure.
As prosperity spreads will people start considering those luxuries to be necessities? They always have. Could a healthy bit of envy spur everyone to work harder, longer, or smarter? Only if someone doesn't hand out these newfound "necessities" for nothing.
Will the accumulation of unspent income by those at the top help finance new technologies and industries, making those at the bottom more productive? This is how Capitalism works. Has this approach for allocating capital lifted more people out of poverty than any other, or should it be condemned by economists and Op-ed columnists because it is fueled by income inequality?
Imagine a society in which a young person starts life with a low income which rises through his career then declines in retirement. A mixed distribution of such people would show significant income inequality even if every person experienced identical life trajectories. A prudent balance between saving, borrowing, and spending allows any individual to redistribute consumption across his own life as he chooses. Is it better to take away these choices and "fix" inequality by redistributing income between generations using a coercive Ponzi scheme? This is how Social Security works. How will that "fix" be sustained now that Congress has looted the Social Security trust fund?
Imagine a society in which some genius invents a cure for cancer and he and his stock option empowered employees become fabulously wealthy, making income inequality go up. Anyone arguing that this makes society worse off would have to admit to preferring widespread cancer over the occasional Ferrari. Would opinion leaders berate our inventor for being greedy? Would his company be investigated for anti-trust violations at the urging of competitors? Would our inventor have to earn his way back into the good graces of professors and Op-ed columnists by setting up a charitable foundation to care for the sick in Africa? Am I making this example up or have we seen this show before?
Imagine a society in which celebrities amass wealth by voluntarily separating fans from their money. Does this contribution to income inequality need to be fixed? Imagine said rich celebrities calling for higher taxes on entrepreneurs and small businesses while seeking government subsidies to film their movies. This is how Hollywood works.
Imagine an advanced technological society in which real incomes of the uneducated stagnate, incomes of the middle class grow modestly, and incomes at the top soar. How has this society become materially worse off? Does the existence of some rich guy's ski chalet in Vail reduce the housing stock in Detroit? If the poor get obese eating hamburgers is it the fault of the rich dining on filet mignon? Will envy go through the roof if the media fixates on the lifestyle of the rich and famous? This is how contemporary culture works.
Will demagogues fan the flames of envy to achieve political power, using this power to confiscate money from the rich to buy votes from the poor? Will they hobble successful companies with higher taxes and restrictive labor laws, demonizing the very businessmen that are supposed to create jobs? This is how Progressivism works. Will progressivism drive both capital and productive industries out of the country, making it more difficult for people to find work? Look around you.
Imagine a society in which politically connected individuals enrich themselves by giving money to politicians in return for earmarked dollars extracted from taxpayers. Imagine political entrepreneurs displacing market entrepreneurs by weaving fantastic tales of energy independence and a green tomorrow, sucking down billions in taxpayer loan guarantees for businesses that cannot possibly achieve economic sustainability. This is how crony Capitalism works.
Imagine a handful of executives earning hundreds of millions of dollars selling toxic mortgage bonds pyramided on low cost government-guaranteed capital made available by key Congressional committee chairmen who got special mortgage deals. Imagine a revolving door between reckless Wall Street derivative gamblers selling fraudulent unbacked insurance products and the regulatory agencies that bail them out using unlimited quantities of fiat currency printed up by unelected bureaucrats. This is how Washington works.
Are these the people Robert Frank wants to call on to "fix" the income inequality problem?
Imagine a workers' paradise in which income inequality is eliminated by government command. Wait, we don't have to imagine. Go visit Cuba.
checkTextResizerCookie('article_body');
Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm. He can be reached at bill@vereverus.com. If you would like to subscribe to his weekly column, drop a note to publisher@vereverus.com.Page Printed from: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/10/25/the_shibboleth_of_fixing_income_inequality_98724.html at October 25, 2010 - 07:01:29 PM CDT
Monday, October 25, 2010
Democrats Urge Bush in 2004 : Stop Opposing GSE's Housing
This letter was sent to President Bush from the Democrats in 2004 just when the Republicans were starting to draw attention to the housing nightmare.
Please see the highlighted section, my highlight, of this letter from congressional Democrats to President Bush as it sums up the housing disaster brought on by Democrats. Remember, Barney Frank said all was well in the housing situation and all the Democrats backed him.
I couldn't copy the original letter as it appeared, but this is the letter but the signers signatures would not copy. This letter was signed by all Democrats at that time.
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC 20050
Dear Mr. President: June 28, 2004
We urge you to reconsider your Administration's criticisms of the housing-related government
sponsored enterprises (the "GSEs'') and instead work with Congress to strengthen the mission
and oversight of the GSEs.
We write as members of the House of Representatives who continually press the GSEs to do
more in affordable housing. Until recently, we have been disappointed that the Administration
has not been more supportive of our efforts to press the GSEs to do more.
We have been concerned that the Administration's legislative proposal regarding the GSEs would weaken affordable housing perfonnance by the GSEs, by emphasizing only safety and soundness. While the GSEs' affordable housing mission is not in any way incompatible with their safety andsoundness, an exclusive focus on safety and soundness is likely to come, in practice, at theexpense of affordable housing.
We have been led to conclude that the Administration does not appreciate the importance of the
GSE's affordable housing mission, as. evidenced by its refusal to work with the House and Senate
on this important legislation. It now appears that, because Congress has not been willing to
jeopardize the GSE's mission, the Administration has turned to attacking the GSEs publicly. We
are very concerned that the Administration would work to foster negative opinions in the
financial markets regarding the GSEs, raising their cost of financing. If the intent is to get prohousing members of Congress to weaken their support of the GSEs' mission, it is a mistaken
strategy.
Our position is not based on institutional loyalty, but on concern for the GSE's affordable
housing function. We appeal to you to agree to work on legislative proposals that foster sound
oversight and vigorous affordable housing efforts instead of mounting assaults in the press. We
also ask you to support our efforts to push the GSEs to do more affordable housing. Specifically,
join us in advocating for more innovative loan products and programs for people who desire to
buy manufactured housing, similar products to preserve as affordable and rehabilitate aging
affordable housing, and more meaningful GSE affordable housing goals from HUD.
PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
The President Page Two
For example, as a President that has a sincere appreciation for rural America, we urge you to
direct the Rural Housing Service to place a high priority on wolking with the GSEs to close as
many loans as possible this year to preserve the Section SIS rural housing stock, which is home
to some of this country's poorest citizens.
In closing, we reiterate that an exclusive emphasis on safety and soundness, without an
appropriate balance in focus on the affordable housing mission of the GSEs, is misplaced.
Strong safety and soundness regulation and a vigorous affordable housing mission are not only
compatible, but will reinforce each other. We ask you to work with us to craft legislation that
achieves the proper balance in both areas.
Sincerely,
Please see the highlighted section, my highlight, of this letter from congressional Democrats to President Bush as it sums up the housing disaster brought on by Democrats. Remember, Barney Frank said all was well in the housing situation and all the Democrats backed him.
I couldn't copy the original letter as it appeared, but this is the letter but the signers signatures would not copy. This letter was signed by all Democrats at that time.
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC 20050
Dear Mr. President: June 28, 2004
We urge you to reconsider your Administration's criticisms of the housing-related government
sponsored enterprises (the "GSEs'') and instead work with Congress to strengthen the mission
and oversight of the GSEs.
We write as members of the House of Representatives who continually press the GSEs to do
more in affordable housing. Until recently, we have been disappointed that the Administration
has not been more supportive of our efforts to press the GSEs to do more.
We have been concerned that the Administration's legislative proposal regarding the GSEs would weaken affordable housing perfonnance by the GSEs, by emphasizing only safety and soundness. While the GSEs' affordable housing mission is not in any way incompatible with their safety andsoundness, an exclusive focus on safety and soundness is likely to come, in practice, at theexpense of affordable housing.
We have been led to conclude that the Administration does not appreciate the importance of the
GSE's affordable housing mission, as. evidenced by its refusal to work with the House and Senate
on this important legislation. It now appears that, because Congress has not been willing to
jeopardize the GSE's mission, the Administration has turned to attacking the GSEs publicly. We
are very concerned that the Administration would work to foster negative opinions in the
financial markets regarding the GSEs, raising their cost of financing. If the intent is to get prohousing members of Congress to weaken their support of the GSEs' mission, it is a mistaken
strategy.
Our position is not based on institutional loyalty, but on concern for the GSE's affordable
housing function. We appeal to you to agree to work on legislative proposals that foster sound
oversight and vigorous affordable housing efforts instead of mounting assaults in the press. We
also ask you to support our efforts to push the GSEs to do more affordable housing. Specifically,
join us in advocating for more innovative loan products and programs for people who desire to
buy manufactured housing, similar products to preserve as affordable and rehabilitate aging
affordable housing, and more meaningful GSE affordable housing goals from HUD.
PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
The President Page Two
For example, as a President that has a sincere appreciation for rural America, we urge you to
direct the Rural Housing Service to place a high priority on wolking with the GSEs to close as
many loans as possible this year to preserve the Section SIS rural housing stock, which is home
to some of this country's poorest citizens.
In closing, we reiterate that an exclusive emphasis on safety and soundness, without an
appropriate balance in focus on the affordable housing mission of the GSEs, is misplaced.
Strong safety and soundness regulation and a vigorous affordable housing mission are not only
compatible, but will reinforce each other. We ask you to work with us to craft legislation that
achieves the proper balance in both areas.
Sincerely,
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Progressives/Socialists/Communists : Different? Walter Williams
Walter Williams on big government goals - this doesn't need too much of an introduction as it is a telling testament to Walter's history of truth telling. Walter's reputation, nation wide, is based on, and believed to be, honest and reliable. What politician can make that claim?
When Walter Williams makes a claim that socialism, communism, fascism and progressism are all the same, I believe it. The important part here is what will we do with this information in making future decisions about the direction of our country?
Today I hand over the Shot to Walter E. Williams who in a recent article on Lew Rockwell’s site explained that leftists, progressives, socialists and fascists really are all just different breeds of the same species...
One of the greatest sources of confusion and deception is the difference between leftists, progressives, socialists, communists and fascists. I thought about this as I caught a glimpse of the Oct. 2 “One Nation” march on Washington. The participants proudly marched with banners, signs and placards reading “Socialists,” “Ohio U Democratic Socialists,” “International Socialists Organization,” “Socialist Party USA,” “Build A Socialist Alternative” and other signs expressing support for socialism and communism.
They had stands where they sold booklets under the titles of Marxism and the State, Communist Manifesto, Four Marxist Classics, The Road to Socialism and similar titles.What goes unappreciated is that socialists and communists have produced the greatest evil in mankind’s history. You say, “Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and their fellow travelers care about the little guy in his struggle for a fair shake! They’re trying to promote social justice.” Let’s look at some of the history of socialism and communism.
Nazism is a form of socialism. In fact, Nazi stands for National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Nazis murdered 20 million of their own people and in nations they captured. The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler’s Socialist Workers’ Party pale in comparison to the horrors committed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and their successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people.
Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tse-tung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of history’s most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii’s Professor Rudolph J. Rummel, “Death by Government.”
You say, “Williams, isn’t it a bit unfair to lump the “One Nation” communists, socialists and their supporters with mass murderers such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung? After all, they expressed no such murderous goal.” When Hitler, Stalin and Mao were campaigning for political power, you can bet they didn’t campaign on the promise to murder millions of their own people, and probably the thought of doing so never crossed their minds. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.”
It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, Russians and Chinese, like many of today’s Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for a Hitler, a Stalin or Mao to take over. But as Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocit ies.”
While America’s leftists, socialists and communists condemn Hitler, they give the world’s most horrible murderers a pass. First, they make a false distinction between fascism, communism and socialism but more importantly, they sympathize with the socioeconomic goals of communism and socialism.
The primary goal of communism and socialism is government ownership or control over the means of production. In the U.S., only a few people call for outright government ownership of the means of production. They might have learned that government ownership would mess things up. Instead, they’ve increasingly called for quasi-ownership through various forms of government regulation, oversight, taxation and subsidies.
After all, if someone has the power to tell you how you may use your property, it’s tantamount to his owing it.
I believe most Americans find the ideals and principles of socialism, communism and progressivism repugnant, but by our sanctioning greater government centralization and its control over our lives, we become their dupes or, as Lenin said, “useful idiots.”
Testify, Walter!
When Walter Williams makes a claim that socialism, communism, fascism and progressism are all the same, I believe it. The important part here is what will we do with this information in making future decisions about the direction of our country?
Are we just "useful idiots" as Lenin said or will we prove to the world that we are not in lock step to be thrown on the ash heap of history as losers? Vote common sense this November to show we won't be enslaved to big brother government elites or anyone else.
Socialists, Communists and Other Useful idiotsToday I hand over the Shot to Walter E. Williams who in a recent article on Lew Rockwell’s site explained that leftists, progressives, socialists and fascists really are all just different breeds of the same species...
One of the greatest sources of confusion and deception is the difference between leftists, progressives, socialists, communists and fascists. I thought about this as I caught a glimpse of the Oct. 2 “One Nation” march on Washington. The participants proudly marched with banners, signs and placards reading “Socialists,” “Ohio U Democratic Socialists,” “International Socialists Organization,” “Socialist Party USA,” “Build A Socialist Alternative” and other signs expressing support for socialism and communism.
They had stands where they sold booklets under the titles of Marxism and the State, Communist Manifesto, Four Marxist Classics, The Road to Socialism and similar titles.What goes unappreciated is that socialists and communists have produced the greatest evil in mankind’s history. You say, “Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and their fellow travelers care about the little guy in his struggle for a fair shake! They’re trying to promote social justice.” Let’s look at some of the history of socialism and communism.
Nazism is a form of socialism. In fact, Nazi stands for National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Nazis murdered 20 million of their own people and in nations they captured. The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler’s Socialist Workers’ Party pale in comparison to the horrors committed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and their successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people.
Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tse-tung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of history’s most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii’s Professor Rudolph J. Rummel, “Death by Government.”
You say, “Williams, isn’t it a bit unfair to lump the “One Nation” communists, socialists and their supporters with mass murderers such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung? After all, they expressed no such murderous goal.” When Hitler, Stalin and Mao were campaigning for political power, you can bet they didn’t campaign on the promise to murder millions of their own people, and probably the thought of doing so never crossed their minds. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.”
It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, Russians and Chinese, like many of today’s Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for a Hitler, a Stalin or Mao to take over. But as Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocit ies.”
While America’s leftists, socialists and communists condemn Hitler, they give the world’s most horrible murderers a pass. First, they make a false distinction between fascism, communism and socialism but more importantly, they sympathize with the socioeconomic goals of communism and socialism.
The primary goal of communism and socialism is government ownership or control over the means of production. In the U.S., only a few people call for outright government ownership of the means of production. They might have learned that government ownership would mess things up. Instead, they’ve increasingly called for quasi-ownership through various forms of government regulation, oversight, taxation and subsidies.
After all, if someone has the power to tell you how you may use your property, it’s tantamount to his owing it.
I believe most Americans find the ideals and principles of socialism, communism and progressivism repugnant, but by our sanctioning greater government centralization and its control over our lives, we become their dupes or, as Lenin said, “useful idiots.”
Testify, Walter!
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Barbara Boxer : "Call Me Senator" - A Video
Goodness this is a good one on Barbara Boxer's ego problems and it would be really funny if it wasn't such a waste of tax payers money for the last twenty eight years in the Senate.
In any event, laugh anyway - it's the weekend so let lose. heh
http://vimeo.com/16072732
In any event, laugh anyway - it's the weekend so let lose. heh
http://vimeo.com/16072732
Dogs Thinking About Tactics? : A Video
You can make up your own mind about this but it sure seems a reach that a dog would have this much ability to make rational decisions to solves a problem. I think it's training or just maybe Photoshop.
You decide - still, this is fun to watch - enjoy
Dragnet Boys Grill Obama Again : A Video
This is better than the first one and I didn't think that would be possible. Sgt. Friday has a handle on this guy and he isn't about to let go without first telling him about reality.
Really, I think it was a waste of time given the guys past history.
Congressional Reform Act : A Joke?
This looks simple enough, right? Can you imagine the congress actually, seriously debate such a thing? What a laugh. Just think about this for a few minutes.
What would the congress do if they didn't have time to steal from the public treasury, take bribes from big donors, cheat on their taxes and demean the voting public by lying about what they are actually doing for the folks back home? Going to congress is to get rich. Going to congress has nothing to do with the business of the country.
But hope springs eternal for a lot of us this year - maybe this November, if we have the courage to vote out the bums and elect common sense, things will change for the better. Time will tell.
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!
Congressional Reform Act of 2010.
1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below..
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms
2. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress must be an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
What would the congress do if they didn't have time to steal from the public treasury, take bribes from big donors, cheat on their taxes and demean the voting public by lying about what they are actually doing for the folks back home? Going to congress is to get rich. Going to congress has nothing to do with the business of the country.
But hope springs eternal for a lot of us this year - maybe this November, if we have the courage to vote out the bums and elect common sense, things will change for the better. Time will tell.
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!
Congressional Reform Act of 2010.
1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below..
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms
2. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress must be an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
Friday, October 22, 2010
States Fight for Survival : Califorina is Doombed
This article compares California and Texas on the basis of taxes, regulation and attitude toward surviving in a bad economy. The question is will they survive or are they doomed?
There is no rocket science here as all we have to do is look at any large state that is controlled by liberal Democrats and see that they are all in trouble. California and Michigan are perhaps the shining stars for us all to see the success of Democrat control and a good reason not to vote form more Democrats.
Read this and then think about this November 2nd election - what makes more sense? Voting for more failure or voting for common sense. The reality is, voting for more failure means there might not be another chance to vote for common sense in the future. The country its self hangs in the balance.
You decide.
A Trenchant Tale of Two States
Source: "A Trenchant Tale of Two States," Investor's Business Daily, October 14, 2010.
In Texas, the payroll count is back to prerecession levels. California is nearly 1.5 million jobs in the hole. Why such a difference? Chalk it up to taxes, regulation and attitude, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).
California's business climate is notoriously bad. CEOs polled by the magazine Chief Executive have ranked it dead last for the past five years, with Texas, naturally, ranked first.
To anyone seeking to start an enterprise and hire workers, moving to Texas is a lot less trouble than trying to change California's high taxes, overregulation and not-so-subtle bias against the profit motive.
The difference in tax systems reflects a difference in attitudes toward business and the wealth that business generates.Capital gains are tax-free in Texas; in California, they are taxed up to 10.55 percent. To an entrepreneur choosing where to set up shop, the message is clear: Texas wants to reward success; California wants to tax it. California also has developed a web of regulations that raises labor costs, spurs litigation and ties up building projects indefinitely.
Just how pervasive is the state's antibusiness attitude? Consider a recent story about how some governments in the San Francisco Bay Area are gouging the solar power business, says IBD.
If California officialdom stands for anything, it stands for renewable energy, against Big Oil and for "green jobs." Yet an informal survey by the Sierra Club found that some cities were charging sky-high fees for solar installations on schools, churches, retail stores and other buildings.
That just about says it all -- we're all for solar, but we can't have people making money off it, now can we? As long as California officials can say something like that with a straight face, the state faces a very long slog back to prosperity, says IBD.
There is no rocket science here as all we have to do is look at any large state that is controlled by liberal Democrats and see that they are all in trouble. California and Michigan are perhaps the shining stars for us all to see the success of Democrat control and a good reason not to vote form more Democrats.
Read this and then think about this November 2nd election - what makes more sense? Voting for more failure or voting for common sense. The reality is, voting for more failure means there might not be another chance to vote for common sense in the future. The country its self hangs in the balance.
You decide.
A Trenchant Tale of Two States
Source: "A Trenchant Tale of Two States," Investor's Business Daily, October 14, 2010.
In Texas, the payroll count is back to prerecession levels. California is nearly 1.5 million jobs in the hole. Why such a difference? Chalk it up to taxes, regulation and attitude, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).
California's business climate is notoriously bad. CEOs polled by the magazine Chief Executive have ranked it dead last for the past five years, with Texas, naturally, ranked first.
To anyone seeking to start an enterprise and hire workers, moving to Texas is a lot less trouble than trying to change California's high taxes, overregulation and not-so-subtle bias against the profit motive.
The difference in tax systems reflects a difference in attitudes toward business and the wealth that business generates.Capital gains are tax-free in Texas; in California, they are taxed up to 10.55 percent. To an entrepreneur choosing where to set up shop, the message is clear: Texas wants to reward success; California wants to tax it. California also has developed a web of regulations that raises labor costs, spurs litigation and ties up building projects indefinitely.
Just how pervasive is the state's antibusiness attitude? Consider a recent story about how some governments in the San Francisco Bay Area are gouging the solar power business, says IBD.
If California officialdom stands for anything, it stands for renewable energy, against Big Oil and for "green jobs." Yet an informal survey by the Sierra Club found that some cities were charging sky-high fees for solar installations on schools, churches, retail stores and other buildings.
That just about says it all -- we're all for solar, but we can't have people making money off it, now can we? As long as California officials can say something like that with a straight face, the state faces a very long slog back to prosperity, says IBD.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
ObamaCare for Millions More : Taxpayers Foot the Bill
ObamaCare destroying the health care system was predicted during the run-up to it's passing in congress. This study is not new indicating the health care system will be flooded with people that do not know how to take care of themselves.
The truth be known, why should they take care of their own health care when all they have to do is let some else do that and, of course, pay for the care as well. Free health care, or not.
Who will pay for all of this free medical care? Vote in November for common sense!
ObamaCare Will Clog System
Source: Marc Siegel, "ObamaCare Will Clog System," USA Today, October 19, 2010.
The new health care law mandates and extends the kind of insurance that breeds overuse, thereby driving up costs and premiums.
The medical system is about to be overwhelmed because there are no disincentives for overuse, says Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Where will patients with new Medicaid cards who can't find a doctor go? Emergency rooms.
The escalating costs of these ER visits (necessary and unnecessary) will be transferred directly to the American public, both in the form of taxes as well as escalating insurance premiums.
The new Independent Payment Advisory Board -- established by the health reform law to "recommend proposals to limit Medicare spending growth" -- will advise Medicare that some treatments are more essential and more cost-effective than others; value judgments inevitably will have to be made, reducing options for physicians. More expensive chemotherapies and cardiac stents or transplants, for instance, will have a tougher time being approved, as is already the case in Canada.
None of this is terribly surprising. Imagine if your car insurance covered every scratch or dent. Wouldn't you expect your premiums to rise to meet the expanded coverage? And wouldn't you expect your auto repair shops to become clogged with cars that didn't really need to be repaired, competing for time and space with other cars with broken transmissions or burnt-out motors?
If we want lower insurance premiums, we will need to return to a system that favors high deductible, high copay, catastrophic-type insurance with a built-in disincentive for overuse. Patients could pay for office visits from health savings accounts or other flexible spending tax shelters, says Siegel.
The truth be known, why should they take care of their own health care when all they have to do is let some else do that and, of course, pay for the care as well. Free health care, or not.
Who will pay for all of this free medical care? Vote in November for common sense!
ObamaCare Will Clog System
Source: Marc Siegel, "ObamaCare Will Clog System," USA Today, October 19, 2010.
The new health care law mandates and extends the kind of insurance that breeds overuse, thereby driving up costs and premiums.
The medical system is about to be overwhelmed because there are no disincentives for overuse, says Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Where will patients with new Medicaid cards who can't find a doctor go? Emergency rooms.
The escalating costs of these ER visits (necessary and unnecessary) will be transferred directly to the American public, both in the form of taxes as well as escalating insurance premiums.
The new Independent Payment Advisory Board -- established by the health reform law to "recommend proposals to limit Medicare spending growth" -- will advise Medicare that some treatments are more essential and more cost-effective than others; value judgments inevitably will have to be made, reducing options for physicians. More expensive chemotherapies and cardiac stents or transplants, for instance, will have a tougher time being approved, as is already the case in Canada.
None of this is terribly surprising. Imagine if your car insurance covered every scratch or dent. Wouldn't you expect your premiums to rise to meet the expanded coverage? And wouldn't you expect your auto repair shops to become clogged with cars that didn't really need to be repaired, competing for time and space with other cars with broken transmissions or burnt-out motors?
If we want lower insurance premiums, we will need to return to a system that favors high deductible, high copay, catastrophic-type insurance with a built-in disincentive for overuse. Patients could pay for office visits from health savings accounts or other flexible spending tax shelters, says Siegel.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Unions Use Legislation to Eradicate 'Right to Work' Laws
When unions come under attack for their "Marxist" style of control over the worker, they lash out against anything that might divide the work force from the company and the population in general. If unions can't convince the workers on their own they naturally turn to government.
With this new legislation that is proposed by Sherman from California, it's clear that the unions have to get the government involved to solve their collective problem of declining membership. This is plan to see where individual freedom to chose one's own future is a threat, the unions counter attack with legislation that will ensure that individual freedom of choose be eradicated from the workers and the American way of life.
Who backs the unions in this grab for illegitimate power? Easy enough to understand that the Democrats want to maintain control of every person that they can even if it means destroying our way of life to do it.
Stop this nonsense now by voting out the socialists this November.
Right to Work = Economic Growth
Source: Greg Schneider, "Right to Work = Economic Growth," Daily Caller, October 13, 2010.
California Congressman Brad Sherman (D) has introduced legislation to repeal right-to-work laws in the 22 states that have them. "Right-to-work" refers to the right of states to prohibit closed shops, a workplace that requires a worker to be a member of a labor union and to pay dues to that union, says Greg Schneider, a senior fellow with the Kansas Policy Institute and an associate professor of history at Emporia State University.
Private sector union membership has declined since the mid-1950s, especially as companies shifted production to lower-cost states in the Sun Belt. Private sector union membership was once as high as 45 percent of the workforce but today it's around 15 percent.
Unions blame right-to-work laws for their plight. But increasingly the number of union jobs declined because the companies where unions were dominant -- the Big Three automakers for instance -- could not remain competitive under the old economic model, says Schneider.
Let's look at some facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
From 1999 to 2009, right-to-work states have added 1.5 million private sector jobs for a 3.7 percent increase; states which are not right-to-work lost 1.8 million jobs over the same decade, for a decline of 2.3 percent. Some states, like Michigan and Ohio, home of the powerful United Auto Workers Union, have hemorrhaged private sector jobs, declining 17 percent and 10 percent respectively over that time period.
The question here is simply about individual liberty, says Schneider. Should the individual worker have the right to decide whether to pay dues to a union, or should that decision be forced on him by others?
With this new legislation that is proposed by Sherman from California, it's clear that the unions have to get the government involved to solve their collective problem of declining membership. This is plan to see where individual freedom to chose one's own future is a threat, the unions counter attack with legislation that will ensure that individual freedom of choose be eradicated from the workers and the American way of life.
Who backs the unions in this grab for illegitimate power? Easy enough to understand that the Democrats want to maintain control of every person that they can even if it means destroying our way of life to do it.
Stop this nonsense now by voting out the socialists this November.
Right to Work = Economic Growth
Source: Greg Schneider, "Right to Work = Economic Growth," Daily Caller, October 13, 2010.
California Congressman Brad Sherman (D) has introduced legislation to repeal right-to-work laws in the 22 states that have them. "Right-to-work" refers to the right of states to prohibit closed shops, a workplace that requires a worker to be a member of a labor union and to pay dues to that union, says Greg Schneider, a senior fellow with the Kansas Policy Institute and an associate professor of history at Emporia State University.
Private sector union membership has declined since the mid-1950s, especially as companies shifted production to lower-cost states in the Sun Belt. Private sector union membership was once as high as 45 percent of the workforce but today it's around 15 percent.
Unions blame right-to-work laws for their plight. But increasingly the number of union jobs declined because the companies where unions were dominant -- the Big Three automakers for instance -- could not remain competitive under the old economic model, says Schneider.
Let's look at some facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
From 1999 to 2009, right-to-work states have added 1.5 million private sector jobs for a 3.7 percent increase; states which are not right-to-work lost 1.8 million jobs over the same decade, for a decline of 2.3 percent. Some states, like Michigan and Ohio, home of the powerful United Auto Workers Union, have hemorrhaged private sector jobs, declining 17 percent and 10 percent respectively over that time period.
The question here is simply about individual liberty, says Schneider. Should the individual worker have the right to decide whether to pay dues to a union, or should that decision be forced on him by others?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
America Falls Lower on Economic FREE Scale
Interesting! According to this finding from Heritage, we are on a down-ward slide into mediocrity. Isn't this what we all want for our country? We really don't want to have pride in our country, after all this would only cause stress in those other countries that don't fare as well as we do. They won't love us if we are better then they are?
I guess the best way to handle this so everyone will love us, that is, before they try and kill us all, is to become enslaved to this brain dead mentality of socialism. Just do what others tell you to do and like it. Hey, that's easy enough, right? No more thinking, no more worries of what to do next, you can rely on others that are far smarter then you are to do the thinking for you.
If this isn't what you want then vote on November 2nd to take our country back. It's not too late to do what's right.
Freer Is Better
Source: John Stossel, "Freer is Better," Reason.com, October 14, 2010.
The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom lowers the ranking of the United States to eighth out of 179 nations -- behind Canada! A year ago, it ranked sixth, ahead of Canada, says John Stossel.
For the past 16 years, the index has ranked the world's countries on the basis of their economic freedom -- or lack thereof on 10 criteria. The top 10 countries are: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Denmark and Chile.
For first time in 16 years, the United States fell from the "totally free" to "mostly free" group, says Bill Beach, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.
Beach attributes to the slip in rankings to:
Excessive spending.
The highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Government takeovers of industries.
Subsidizing industries.
Stossel questions how the United States can be behind Canada, a country noted for its social welfare. "Canada might do health care the wrong way," Beach says, "but by and large they do things the right way." In fact, Canada has recently lowered tax rates and reduced spending.
If we want to reverse America's decline, we'd better get to work. There's a lot of government to cut, says Stossel.
I guess the best way to handle this so everyone will love us, that is, before they try and kill us all, is to become enslaved to this brain dead mentality of socialism. Just do what others tell you to do and like it. Hey, that's easy enough, right? No more thinking, no more worries of what to do next, you can rely on others that are far smarter then you are to do the thinking for you.
If this isn't what you want then vote on November 2nd to take our country back. It's not too late to do what's right.
Freer Is Better
Source: John Stossel, "Freer is Better," Reason.com, October 14, 2010.
The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom lowers the ranking of the United States to eighth out of 179 nations -- behind Canada! A year ago, it ranked sixth, ahead of Canada, says John Stossel.
For the past 16 years, the index has ranked the world's countries on the basis of their economic freedom -- or lack thereof on 10 criteria. The top 10 countries are: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Denmark and Chile.
For first time in 16 years, the United States fell from the "totally free" to "mostly free" group, says Bill Beach, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.
Beach attributes to the slip in rankings to:
Excessive spending.
The highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Government takeovers of industries.
Subsidizing industries.
Stossel questions how the United States can be behind Canada, a country noted for its social welfare. "Canada might do health care the wrong way," Beach says, "but by and large they do things the right way." In fact, Canada has recently lowered tax rates and reduced spending.
If we want to reverse America's decline, we'd better get to work. There's a lot of government to cut, says Stossel.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Americans Know We ARE Broke : Congress Blinks
This article points in the right direction of what is driving the American public to elect Conservatives this November - it's fear. Apparently the public, that is many among the ignorant and unwashed, have come to realize the government is not on their side, but is self-serving monster and getting bigger more out of control.
Never before in the history of this country have such a ground swell happened, not even with the founding fathers. They, so it seems, were in the minority and suffered the greatest for it as well. True, the public back then was self serving like now, they had to be to survive, but the communication was lacking which had a tendency to force people to move much slower in making decisions. Still, they rose to the challenge as we must now.
But with PC's and the Internet, we have the information that we need at our finger tips to make informed decisions which can and will change history this November.
Vote with informed knowledge of the candidates. Our future depends on it!
Deficits and Depression
Source: Victor Davis Hanson, "Deficits and Depression," National Review Online, October 14, 2010
The popular uproar over higher taxes and massive unemployment pales in comparison with the sense of humiliation over the fact that we Americans are quite broke.
In 2008, the public was furious at George W. Bush, not because he was too much of a right-wing tightwad, but because he ran up a series of what were then thought to be gargantuan deficits.
The result was that under a supposedly conservative administration, and despite six years of an allegedly small-government Republican Congress, the national debt nearly doubled, from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion, in just eight years.
Barack Obama apparently never figured out that he had been elected in part because massive Republican borrowing had sickened the American people. He took Bush's last scheduled budget deficit of more than $500 billion and nearly tripled it by 2010.
Obama's new red ink will add more than $2.5 trillion to the national debt -- with near-trillion-dollar yearly deficits scheduled for the next decade. All of that will result in a U.S. debt of more than $20 trillion.
What exactly is it about big deficits and our accumulated debt that is starting to enrage voters?
First, the public is tired of the nonchalant way that smarmy public officials take credit for dishing out someone else's cash without a thought of paying it back, now euphemistically called
"stimulus."
Second, there is a growing sense of despair that even vastly increased income taxes cannot cover the colossal shortfalls.
Third, it does no good for Beltway technocrats to explain how deficits are good at "stimulating" the economy, or why they do not really have to be paid back; voters know that such gibberish does not apply to their own mortgages and credit card bills.
Fourth, there is real fear that something terrible will soon come from this unsustainable level of spending.
.
Never before in the history of this country have such a ground swell happened, not even with the founding fathers. They, so it seems, were in the minority and suffered the greatest for it as well. True, the public back then was self serving like now, they had to be to survive, but the communication was lacking which had a tendency to force people to move much slower in making decisions. Still, they rose to the challenge as we must now.
But with PC's and the Internet, we have the information that we need at our finger tips to make informed decisions which can and will change history this November.
Vote with informed knowledge of the candidates. Our future depends on it!
Deficits and Depression
Source: Victor Davis Hanson, "Deficits and Depression," National Review Online, October 14, 2010
The popular uproar over higher taxes and massive unemployment pales in comparison with the sense of humiliation over the fact that we Americans are quite broke.
In 2008, the public was furious at George W. Bush, not because he was too much of a right-wing tightwad, but because he ran up a series of what were then thought to be gargantuan deficits.
The result was that under a supposedly conservative administration, and despite six years of an allegedly small-government Republican Congress, the national debt nearly doubled, from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion, in just eight years.
Barack Obama apparently never figured out that he had been elected in part because massive Republican borrowing had sickened the American people. He took Bush's last scheduled budget deficit of more than $500 billion and nearly tripled it by 2010.
Obama's new red ink will add more than $2.5 trillion to the national debt -- with near-trillion-dollar yearly deficits scheduled for the next decade. All of that will result in a U.S. debt of more than $20 trillion.
What exactly is it about big deficits and our accumulated debt that is starting to enrage voters?
First, the public is tired of the nonchalant way that smarmy public officials take credit for dishing out someone else's cash without a thought of paying it back, now euphemistically called
"stimulus."
Second, there is a growing sense of despair that even vastly increased income taxes cannot cover the colossal shortfalls.
Third, it does no good for Beltway technocrats to explain how deficits are good at "stimulating" the economy, or why they do not really have to be paid back; voters know that such gibberish does not apply to their own mortgages and credit card bills.
Fourth, there is real fear that something terrible will soon come from this unsustainable level of spending.
.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
ObamaCare Reformed at State Level : No Veto
Here is a great idea for the Conservatives come this November third, when the hopefully take control of congress, to get control of the ObamaCare nightmare.
The problem, of course, is do the Republicans/Conservatives have the back bone to actually stand up for what they believe? Will they reach across the isle for the Democrats or will they do what needs to be done by actually legislating good sound policy at the federal level and, as stated in the article, at the state level.
Unfortunately the Republicans have a less then stellar record of doing what will get them reelected or what the Democrats want them to for camera time on the evening news. As everyone is well aware, the Democrats control the main stream media which means the politicians that what to get noticed have to do the biding of the liberal Democrats. Republicans love camera time.
I guess all we can do now is hope the Republicans will do what they say they will do, and if they don't, we have to get rid of them in 2012.
How to Reform ObamaCare Starting Now
Soruce: Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller, "How to Reform ObamaCare Starting Now," Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2010.
Until at least 2012, President Obama will veto any law repealing his signature health care legislation. What, then, can be done in the next two years? Look to the states, say Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller, resident fellows at the American Enterprise Institute.
The most promising option is for governors to offer their own market-friendly versions of exchanges, establishing an alternative to ObamaCare and its one-size-fits-all health plans.
State-designed exchanges should allow any willing insurers already licensed in the state to offer plans. Once inside the exchange, consumers would be guaranteed the ability to renew their coverage without regard to changes in their health status, so long as they remain continuously insured. If individuals want to switch plans, they couldn't be hit with higher costs due to changes in health status.
Under this arrangement, there wouldn't be the incentive for gaming the system that exists under ObamaCare. Of course, not everyone will be able to afford to purchase insurance in these exchanges, say Gottlieb and Miller.
Taxpayers can provide targeted subsidies through expanded high-risk pools to cap out-of-pocket, risk-based premium costs for the most vulnerable. In the longer term, states could get waivers to "monetize" Medicaid medical benefits and allow these recipients to shop in the same exchanges. Subsidies should flow directly to consumers, rather than to the health plans as ObamaCare requires.
Replacing the command-and-control features of ObamaCare with a plan offering consumers a real marketplace is a change many people can start to believe in, say Gottlieb and Miller.
The problem, of course, is do the Republicans/Conservatives have the back bone to actually stand up for what they believe? Will they reach across the isle for the Democrats or will they do what needs to be done by actually legislating good sound policy at the federal level and, as stated in the article, at the state level.
Unfortunately the Republicans have a less then stellar record of doing what will get them reelected or what the Democrats want them to for camera time on the evening news. As everyone is well aware, the Democrats control the main stream media which means the politicians that what to get noticed have to do the biding of the liberal Democrats. Republicans love camera time.
I guess all we can do now is hope the Republicans will do what they say they will do, and if they don't, we have to get rid of them in 2012.
How to Reform ObamaCare Starting Now
Soruce: Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller, "How to Reform ObamaCare Starting Now," Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2010.
Until at least 2012, President Obama will veto any law repealing his signature health care legislation. What, then, can be done in the next two years? Look to the states, say Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller, resident fellows at the American Enterprise Institute.
The most promising option is for governors to offer their own market-friendly versions of exchanges, establishing an alternative to ObamaCare and its one-size-fits-all health plans.
State-designed exchanges should allow any willing insurers already licensed in the state to offer plans. Once inside the exchange, consumers would be guaranteed the ability to renew their coverage without regard to changes in their health status, so long as they remain continuously insured. If individuals want to switch plans, they couldn't be hit with higher costs due to changes in health status.
Under this arrangement, there wouldn't be the incentive for gaming the system that exists under ObamaCare. Of course, not everyone will be able to afford to purchase insurance in these exchanges, say Gottlieb and Miller.
Taxpayers can provide targeted subsidies through expanded high-risk pools to cap out-of-pocket, risk-based premium costs for the most vulnerable. In the longer term, states could get waivers to "monetize" Medicaid medical benefits and allow these recipients to shop in the same exchanges. Subsidies should flow directly to consumers, rather than to the health plans as ObamaCare requires.
Replacing the command-and-control features of ObamaCare with a plan offering consumers a real marketplace is a change many people can start to believe in, say Gottlieb and Miller.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Liberals Stream North to Canada Fearing Consevative Take-Over
Okay - take a minute and chill out with this ditty from our neighbors to the north - and, I know, did they really write this? The liberals will be wringing their collective hands worry if this has been fact checked, seeing that it's coming from a Conservative, it has to be fact checked.
I don't care if they did or did not write this - it's funny, so laugh a little bit - it will help with the pain we have endure from the 'lame stream media' and all of the other misinformed.
Now, enjoy this, even if you're a liberal.
The Manitoba Herald
as Reported by Clive Runnels
August 1, 2010
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The recent actions of the Tea Party are prompting an exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and to agree with Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night."I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?" In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through and Rush annoyed the cows so much that they wouldn"t give any milk."
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons and drive them across the border where they are simply left to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of imported drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."
When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.
In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in powdered wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age," an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and are renting all the Michael Moore movies. "I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?" In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Biden met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals. A source close to President Obama said, "We're going to have some Paul McCartney and Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might even put some endangered species on postage stamps. The President is determined to reach out," he said.
I don't care if they did or did not write this - it's funny, so laugh a little bit - it will help with the pain we have endure from the 'lame stream media' and all of the other misinformed.
Now, enjoy this, even if you're a liberal.
The Manitoba Herald
as Reported by Clive Runnels
August 1, 2010
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The recent actions of the Tea Party are prompting an exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and to agree with Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night."I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?" In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through and Rush annoyed the cows so much that they wouldn"t give any milk."
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons and drive them across the border where they are simply left to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of imported drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."
When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.
In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in powdered wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age," an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and are renting all the Michael Moore movies. "I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?" In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Biden met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals. A source close to President Obama said, "We're going to have some Paul McCartney and Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might even put some endangered species on postage stamps. The President is determined to reach out," he said.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Public Sector Union Beating Dead Horse : The Postal Service
The public sector unions are showing themselves to be too rigid in a sinking economy. This old attitude will be their collective down fall. The union bosses have always used the old adage that if they don't get what they want in the way of new entiltlements, all they have to do is fire up the base and strike.
Whether it would be for more money or better fringe benefits, and no matter how paralyzing the situation of the company they are striking, it doesn't matter. What is important is that the base employees believe that they will get what ever they want, anyway they can. If they begin to lose this idea, the union is dead.
This article points this fact out to a tee. Public sector unions believe there is a bottomless pit of tax dollars even though our economy is in decline.
The Postal Service is on the rocks, the bottemless pit is empty, but the union still believes that it can get more if they push harder, especially from the tax payers. The end result will be a total rejection of the unions by taxpayers when they vote to shut down the engine of waste. The Postal Service will be one of the first federal supported agencies to dumped in favor of private companies.
Time will tell just how much patience the taxpayers have supporting losing federal agencies.
The Postal Service Can't Afford Union Jobs
Source: Tad DeHaven, "The Postal Service Can't Afford Union Jobs," Daily Caller, October 12, 2010.
Although the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been able to shave billions in expenses, it hasn't been enough to stop the bleeding. The USPS, which is close to maxing out its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury, faces the prospect of running out of operating cash by year's end, says Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute.
A big drag on the USPS's bottom line is the pesky postal unions.
Even though postal operations have become more automated, labor still accounts for 80 percent of the USPS's costs. The USPS has been able to eliminate thousands of positions through attrition, but it still possesses the second-largest civilian workforce in the country, behind only Wal-Mart.
With 85 percent of that workforce protected by collective bargaining agreement, the unions have become a giant anchor on an already sinking ship.
In 2009, the average postal employee received about $79,000 in total compensation, compared to $61,000 in wages and benefits received by the average private sector worker.
Collective bargaining agreements also make it difficult for the USPS to hire part-time workers, which could generate substantial savings, says DeHaven.
The USPS inspector general recently pointed out that the USPS's utilization of part-time workers is below UPS, FedEx, and its international counterparts. While only 13 percent of the USPS's workforce is part-time, the figures for UPS and FedEx are a respective 53 percent and 40 percent. Germany's Deutsche Post, which is privatized, employs a workforce that is 40 percent part-time.
Unfortunately, the game is rigged in favor of the postal unions, says DeHaven.
Whether it would be for more money or better fringe benefits, and no matter how paralyzing the situation of the company they are striking, it doesn't matter. What is important is that the base employees believe that they will get what ever they want, anyway they can. If they begin to lose this idea, the union is dead.
This article points this fact out to a tee. Public sector unions believe there is a bottomless pit of tax dollars even though our economy is in decline.
The Postal Service is on the rocks, the bottemless pit is empty, but the union still believes that it can get more if they push harder, especially from the tax payers. The end result will be a total rejection of the unions by taxpayers when they vote to shut down the engine of waste. The Postal Service will be one of the first federal supported agencies to dumped in favor of private companies.
Time will tell just how much patience the taxpayers have supporting losing federal agencies.
The Postal Service Can't Afford Union Jobs
Source: Tad DeHaven, "The Postal Service Can't Afford Union Jobs," Daily Caller, October 12, 2010.
Although the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been able to shave billions in expenses, it hasn't been enough to stop the bleeding. The USPS, which is close to maxing out its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury, faces the prospect of running out of operating cash by year's end, says Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute.
A big drag on the USPS's bottom line is the pesky postal unions.
Even though postal operations have become more automated, labor still accounts for 80 percent of the USPS's costs. The USPS has been able to eliminate thousands of positions through attrition, but it still possesses the second-largest civilian workforce in the country, behind only Wal-Mart.
With 85 percent of that workforce protected by collective bargaining agreement, the unions have become a giant anchor on an already sinking ship.
In 2009, the average postal employee received about $79,000 in total compensation, compared to $61,000 in wages and benefits received by the average private sector worker.
Collective bargaining agreements also make it difficult for the USPS to hire part-time workers, which could generate substantial savings, says DeHaven.
The USPS inspector general recently pointed out that the USPS's utilization of part-time workers is below UPS, FedEx, and its international counterparts. While only 13 percent of the USPS's workforce is part-time, the figures for UPS and FedEx are a respective 53 percent and 40 percent. Germany's Deutsche Post, which is privatized, employs a workforce that is 40 percent part-time.
Unfortunately, the game is rigged in favor of the postal unions, says DeHaven.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Unions Opposed by Majority of Americans
The tide is changing. The public sees, for the first time, just how out of touch so many unions are to the problem of to much debt. When unions threaten to strike, in the face of huge mandated pensions deficits, when local or state authorities look for ways to stem the out- flow of monies, the population becomes outraged.
Why now are the tax payers becoming so demanding for common sense? They are finally paying attention to the disaster that is at our door step. The union leaders, and many of the rank and file, don't seem to see the problem the same way as the rest of the country. We can not continue to spend. Everyone has to lend a helping hand to bring our country back from the brink. Unions don't seem to understand this.
Is it all the unions fault, no - management did not bargain or fight to get good contracts - it was easier to just give the unions what they wanted and move on. Times were good and management felt they could deal with the problems later. This obviously was not good management. A good example is the car companies.
Well 'later' is here, and now we have to deal with the problem at hand. The unions have to understand this and make adjustments or be swiped up the public outrage.
Unions
October 13, 2010
Public Employees vs. the Public Will
Source: Tim Cavanaugh, "Public Employees vs. the Public Will," Reason Magazine, October 2010.
In 2009, the Gallup research group reported that for the first time in 70 years of polling, a majority of Americans opposed labor unions. An April Pew study showed that favorable ratings for unions had plummeted from 58 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2010. In the same month, the Republican research group Resurgent Republic found more than two-thirds opposition to current levels of compensation for government employees, says Tim Cavanaugh, a senior editor at Reason Magazine.
This discontent is not the sort of generalized outrage that stops short of a willingness to shed blood.
Rasmussen Reports in July noted that 69 percent of its respondents would not be willing to pay more taxes in order to avoid layoffs of state workers. A mere 19 percent were willing.
This is particularly surprising because just three months earlier, Rasmussen had found higher support for public-sector unions, at 53 percent, than for private-sector unions, at 49 percent.
Yet none of the hullabaloo has amounted to a hill of beans against the taxpayer-funded power and advantages public workers have amassed. Those remain in place, and it is getting harder than ever to challenge them, says Cavanaugh. In those places where reforms to taxpayer pension commitments have been succeeding, it is usually because the stakes are so small.
Michigan is trying to encourage education burnouts to retire by allowing teachers to increase the multiplier that determines the size of their pension, while requiring teachers to contribute more toward their retiree medical benefits.
But under pressure from the Michigan Education Association, the state has also placed charter school teachers into its troubled defined benefit plan, and it failed to make a permanent reduction in benefits for new hires. The result is that costs may actually increase under the reform.
Perhaps these small struggles are part of a glass-half-full story, though none of the reforms come close to plugging even half of the gaping commitments states have made to public workers.
Why now are the tax payers becoming so demanding for common sense? They are finally paying attention to the disaster that is at our door step. The union leaders, and many of the rank and file, don't seem to see the problem the same way as the rest of the country. We can not continue to spend. Everyone has to lend a helping hand to bring our country back from the brink. Unions don't seem to understand this.
Is it all the unions fault, no - management did not bargain or fight to get good contracts - it was easier to just give the unions what they wanted and move on. Times were good and management felt they could deal with the problems later. This obviously was not good management. A good example is the car companies.
Well 'later' is here, and now we have to deal with the problem at hand. The unions have to understand this and make adjustments or be swiped up the public outrage.
Unions
October 13, 2010
Public Employees vs. the Public Will
Source: Tim Cavanaugh, "Public Employees vs. the Public Will," Reason Magazine, October 2010.
In 2009, the Gallup research group reported that for the first time in 70 years of polling, a majority of Americans opposed labor unions. An April Pew study showed that favorable ratings for unions had plummeted from 58 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2010. In the same month, the Republican research group Resurgent Republic found more than two-thirds opposition to current levels of compensation for government employees, says Tim Cavanaugh, a senior editor at Reason Magazine.
This discontent is not the sort of generalized outrage that stops short of a willingness to shed blood.
Rasmussen Reports in July noted that 69 percent of its respondents would not be willing to pay more taxes in order to avoid layoffs of state workers. A mere 19 percent were willing.
This is particularly surprising because just three months earlier, Rasmussen had found higher support for public-sector unions, at 53 percent, than for private-sector unions, at 49 percent.
Yet none of the hullabaloo has amounted to a hill of beans against the taxpayer-funded power and advantages public workers have amassed. Those remain in place, and it is getting harder than ever to challenge them, says Cavanaugh. In those places where reforms to taxpayer pension commitments have been succeeding, it is usually because the stakes are so small.
Michigan is trying to encourage education burnouts to retire by allowing teachers to increase the multiplier that determines the size of their pension, while requiring teachers to contribute more toward their retiree medical benefits.
But under pressure from the Michigan Education Association, the state has also placed charter school teachers into its troubled defined benefit plan, and it failed to make a permanent reduction in benefits for new hires. The result is that costs may actually increase under the reform.
Perhaps these small struggles are part of a glass-half-full story, though none of the reforms come close to plugging even half of the gaping commitments states have made to public workers.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
ObamaCare Waivers New Health Care Policy Tactic
This is just one more item in the ObamaCare bill that points to the real fraud that has been perpetrated on the American taxpayers. I am mystified as how so many can continue to believe that this health care bill is in our best interests?
The McDonald waivers are only the tip of the ice berg of problems that is lurking down the road for establishing this monster as our cure for health care problems. I still can't get a grip on why so many can be so blind or so severally uninformed to support such a fraud?
Again, November is going to be part of the cure - vote out those that believe they know what best for all of us. Believe it or not, we still have the vote that will change the country for the better - but maybe if we fail now, our vote won't mean anything in the future. You decide.
McDonald's Offers Taste of Obama Sausage-Making
Source: Caroline Baum, "McDonald's Offers Taste of Obama Sausage-Making," BusinessWeek, October 8, 2010.
Nancy Pelosi wasn't kidding when she said, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." The public got to peek last week when the Wall Street Journal reported that McDonald's Corp. wanted out of a requirement in the new health care law that compels employers to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of premiums on medical benefits, says BusinessWeek.
For McDonald's mini-med health care plan, a low-cost, limited plan covering about 30,000 hourly fast-food workers, the minimum medical loss ratio was economically unfeasible.
The company asked for a waiver, according to memos provided to the Journal.
It turns out lots of other companies are seeking waivers for limited benefit plans -- along with some states, like Maine, with a small number of insurers, according to Joseph Antos, a health-care scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
The gist of the purpose, background and process for filing a waiver is this:
The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) is authorized to determine the minimum coverage limits.
The Secretary of HHS is authorized to waive those limits if compliance with them "would result in a significant decrease in access to benefits or a significant increase in premiums."
"The law they passed is a shell of a law," says Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. "Most of the rules have yet to be written."
The McDonald's kerfuffle shined a light on the health care legislation. With many of the rules to be written and many of the provisions to be phased in between now and 2014, the public got to see how the sausage was made and who gets to make it.
The McDonald waivers are only the tip of the ice berg of problems that is lurking down the road for establishing this monster as our cure for health care problems. I still can't get a grip on why so many can be so blind or so severally uninformed to support such a fraud?
Again, November is going to be part of the cure - vote out those that believe they know what best for all of us. Believe it or not, we still have the vote that will change the country for the better - but maybe if we fail now, our vote won't mean anything in the future. You decide.
McDonald's Offers Taste of Obama Sausage-Making
Source: Caroline Baum, "McDonald's Offers Taste of Obama Sausage-Making," BusinessWeek, October 8, 2010.
Nancy Pelosi wasn't kidding when she said, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." The public got to peek last week when the Wall Street Journal reported that McDonald's Corp. wanted out of a requirement in the new health care law that compels employers to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of premiums on medical benefits, says BusinessWeek.
For McDonald's mini-med health care plan, a low-cost, limited plan covering about 30,000 hourly fast-food workers, the minimum medical loss ratio was economically unfeasible.
The company asked for a waiver, according to memos provided to the Journal.
It turns out lots of other companies are seeking waivers for limited benefit plans -- along with some states, like Maine, with a small number of insurers, according to Joseph Antos, a health-care scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
The gist of the purpose, background and process for filing a waiver is this:
The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) is authorized to determine the minimum coverage limits.
The Secretary of HHS is authorized to waive those limits if compliance with them "would result in a significant decrease in access to benefits or a significant increase in premiums."
"The law they passed is a shell of a law," says Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. "Most of the rules have yet to be written."
The McDonald's kerfuffle shined a light on the health care legislation. With many of the rules to be written and many of the provisions to be phased in between now and 2014, the public got to see how the sausage was made and who gets to make it.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
ObamaCare Defined : Maxine Nails It!
I believe that this lady has brought all of the elements of ObamaCare into focus. Now we need to understand just what we have to do to correct the problem and very soon.
Vote these people out of office in November so we can begin the healing. If you decide to just keep voting the party line, then we all will suffer the consequences as will our children and their children.
But history will record that it was this generation that had the chance to solve the problem but shrank from the responsibility. Will they say it was ignorance or just plain stupidity? Maybe they will say the majority wanted to be enslaved to the powers of an elite few in Washington? They will ponder this question and then decide it must have been the task was too difficult.
It's up to us this November! Chose with no regret.
On Obamacare by Maxine
Let me get this straight.
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president who also smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.
What the hell could possibly go wrong?
Vote these people out of office in November so we can begin the healing. If you decide to just keep voting the party line, then we all will suffer the consequences as will our children and their children.
But history will record that it was this generation that had the chance to solve the problem but shrank from the responsibility. Will they say it was ignorance or just plain stupidity? Maybe they will say the majority wanted to be enslaved to the powers of an elite few in Washington? They will ponder this question and then decide it must have been the task was too difficult.
It's up to us this November! Chose with no regret.
On Obamacare by Maxine
Let me get this straight.
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president who also smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.
What the hell could possibly go wrong?
Monday, October 11, 2010
Financial 1% Fee On ALL Transactions?
This seems to be on the level, author unknown, and, well, this seems about right given what we know from the dim past two years. Obama is about taking from all of us and then giving to those that will support his programs of redistribution of wealth.
Anyway way you want to read this, it comes out the same, our president intends to destroy the American dream of free enterprise and personal freedom. Is this what we want? I don't believe it is.
But you decide, and then vote in November on that decision - and if things go bad, remember what you voted for and don't blame those of us that voted for freedom.
They are------INSANE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Subject: 1% tax on all deposits & withdrawals...MUST READ !!!
This from the man who promised Transparency, and no tax increases on the middle class.
1% tax on all deposits & withdrawals...A MUST READ!!
I checked this out on Snopes and it is true. An act called Dept Free America Act (HR4646) has been proposed by Chaka Fattah (D-Pa) in the House.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/debtfree.asp
Just count the number of transactions!!
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE IN NOVEMBER
Barack Obama's finance team & Nancy Pelosi are recommending a 1% transaction tax on all financial transactions. His plan is to sneak it in after the November election to keep it under the radar. See what Nancy has to say (click on the link at the end) about this wonderful idea! And it's only 1%!!!! -This is a 1% tax on all transactions to or from any financial institution i.e.. Banks, Credit Unions, Mutual funds, Brokers, etc.
-Any DEPOSIT you make will have a 1% tax charged.
-Any WITHDRAWAL you make, 1% tax.
-Any transfer within your account, a transfer to or from savings and checking, will have a 1% tax charged.
-Any ATM transaction, withdrawal or deposit, 1% tax.
-If your pay check or your Social Security is direct deposited, 1% tax.
-If you carry a check to your bank to deposit, 1% tax.
-If you take cash in to deposit, 1% tax.
-If you receive any income from a bond or a dividend from stock, 1% tax.
-Any Real Estate Transaction, 1% tax. (This is on top of the 3.8% they just slid in on you) total nearly 5%, commission + tax 11%, some states "Excise Tax is an additional 1+% 12% OR MORE)
-Pay for your insurance (health)... 1%
-Consider 1% coming IN, and 1% going OUT, 2% of all transactions... unreal.
Some areas in California are over 9%, add two more 11%, who are they kidding??? -This administration is about YOUR MONEY, and they will take it from you how ever they can. -This is from the man who promised that if you make under $250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax!
-Is he really completely honest and trustworthy? -They should do something about the out of control Spending & Entitlements!!!
See what Nancy Pelosi says--SHE LOVES IT
http://tinyurl.com/24dn5ud
Anyway way you want to read this, it comes out the same, our president intends to destroy the American dream of free enterprise and personal freedom. Is this what we want? I don't believe it is.
But you decide, and then vote in November on that decision - and if things go bad, remember what you voted for and don't blame those of us that voted for freedom.
They are------INSANE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Subject: 1% tax on all deposits & withdrawals...MUST READ !!!
This from the man who promised Transparency, and no tax increases on the middle class.
1% tax on all deposits & withdrawals...A MUST READ!!
I checked this out on Snopes and it is true. An act called Dept Free America Act (HR4646) has been proposed by Chaka Fattah (D-Pa) in the House.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/debtfree.asp
Just count the number of transactions!!
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE IN NOVEMBER
Barack Obama's finance team & Nancy Pelosi are recommending a 1% transaction tax on all financial transactions. His plan is to sneak it in after the November election to keep it under the radar. See what Nancy has to say (click on the link at the end) about this wonderful idea! And it's only 1%!!!! -This is a 1% tax on all transactions to or from any financial institution i.e.. Banks, Credit Unions, Mutual funds, Brokers, etc.
-Any DEPOSIT you make will have a 1% tax charged.
-Any WITHDRAWAL you make, 1% tax.
-Any transfer within your account, a transfer to or from savings and checking, will have a 1% tax charged.
-Any ATM transaction, withdrawal or deposit, 1% tax.
-If your pay check or your Social Security is direct deposited, 1% tax.
-If you carry a check to your bank to deposit, 1% tax.
-If you take cash in to deposit, 1% tax.
-If you receive any income from a bond or a dividend from stock, 1% tax.
-Any Real Estate Transaction, 1% tax. (This is on top of the 3.8% they just slid in on you) total nearly 5%, commission + tax 11%, some states "Excise Tax is an additional 1+% 12% OR MORE)
-Pay for your insurance (health)... 1%
-Consider 1% coming IN, and 1% going OUT, 2% of all transactions... unreal.
Some areas in California are over 9%, add two more 11%, who are they kidding??? -This administration is about YOUR MONEY, and they will take it from you how ever they can. -This is from the man who promised that if you make under $250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax!
-Is he really completely honest and trustworthy? -They should do something about the out of control Spending & Entitlements!!!
See what Nancy Pelosi says--SHE LOVES IT
http://tinyurl.com/24dn5ud
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Green Jobs Moneys Fund Jobs IN China!
Why would anyone believe anything that comes out of Washington today? The 'Green Jobs' fraud does not work and Europe has proof that it doesn't. They started this nonsense years before us and now find that the 'green jobs' push actually looses more jobs than it creates. But do we care? Gosh no - let's forge ahead with our own programs so we can destroy our economy like the Europeans did. What?
Obama and the other liberal Democrats what a new world order where they are in control and the rest of us live in card board boxes and gnaw bark off trees for nourishment. This was called "Fundamental Change" by the president. He believes this is what we deserve and is best for us.
Think about this when you vote this November. What kind of country do you want? Who do you want in control of your life - you or someone in Washington.
Green Jobs Promises Dwindle As Policies Backfire
Source: Bonner R. Cohen, "Green Jobs Promises Dwindle As Policies Backfire," Heartland Institute, October 4, 2010.
Once touted by the Obama administration as the wave of the future, green stimulus programs are rapidly falling out of favor with the administration as jobs fail to materialize, says the Heartland Institute.
About $92 billion in taxpayer funds -- more than 11 percent -- of President Obama's original $814 billion stimulus package, enacted in early 2009, went to an assortment of renewable energy projects. But the jobs that were supposed to be created never materialized -- at least not in the United States.
According to the White House, last year's stimulus created 190,700 green jobs, but the administration's own Department of Energy puts the figure at only 82,000.
Additionally, as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion in tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in China, South Korea and Spain.
Other problems have arisen.
In 2007 the newly elected Democratic Congress and the Bush administration enacted an energy bill which, among other things, provided for the phase-out of traditional incandescent light bulbs.
However, their replacement, the compact fluorescent light, can be manufactured much more cheaply in China. As a result, 200 workers at a GE light bulb factory in Winchester, Virginia, recently lost their jobs.
"The public has caught on to the Obama administration's ruse concerning green jobs," says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Multiple analyses from Europe and the United States show that the expensive, taxpayer-subsidized push for green jobs... costs more jobs than it creates."
"In addition," Burnett explains, "many of the jobs created by the big green bailout are in China and not the United States."
Obama and the other liberal Democrats what a new world order where they are in control and the rest of us live in card board boxes and gnaw bark off trees for nourishment. This was called "Fundamental Change" by the president. He believes this is what we deserve and is best for us.
Think about this when you vote this November. What kind of country do you want? Who do you want in control of your life - you or someone in Washington.
Green Jobs Promises Dwindle As Policies Backfire
Source: Bonner R. Cohen, "Green Jobs Promises Dwindle As Policies Backfire," Heartland Institute, October 4, 2010.
Once touted by the Obama administration as the wave of the future, green stimulus programs are rapidly falling out of favor with the administration as jobs fail to materialize, says the Heartland Institute.
About $92 billion in taxpayer funds -- more than 11 percent -- of President Obama's original $814 billion stimulus package, enacted in early 2009, went to an assortment of renewable energy projects. But the jobs that were supposed to be created never materialized -- at least not in the United States.
According to the White House, last year's stimulus created 190,700 green jobs, but the administration's own Department of Energy puts the figure at only 82,000.
Additionally, as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion in tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in China, South Korea and Spain.
Other problems have arisen.
In 2007 the newly elected Democratic Congress and the Bush administration enacted an energy bill which, among other things, provided for the phase-out of traditional incandescent light bulbs.
However, their replacement, the compact fluorescent light, can be manufactured much more cheaply in China. As a result, 200 workers at a GE light bulb factory in Winchester, Virginia, recently lost their jobs.
"The public has caught on to the Obama administration's ruse concerning green jobs," says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Multiple analyses from Europe and the United States show that the expensive, taxpayer-subsidized push for green jobs... costs more jobs than it creates."
"In addition," Burnett explains, "many of the jobs created by the big green bailout are in China and not the United States."
Gobal Warming Pseudoscientific APS Fraud : Shameful Corruption
Global warming has fallen off the front pages but it is still lurking just off stage ready to make a come back as there are billions to be made off the taxpayers, think 'Cap and Tax'.
This letter is just another, but very important note us all, sign that more real scientists are taking up the clarion call to stop the theft of our common sense. The question that most scientists are making is in the light of all the information we have showing global warming to be a complete fraud, why do so many still cling to the band wagon?
Easy question to answer. Money! Integrity or reputation mean nothing when it comes to taking the money and running to a better place. Whores of science will do anything for another trick.
October 9th, 2010 4:54
Professor Emiritus Hal Lewis Resigns from American Physical Society
The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa BarbaraTo: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach.
I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be? How different it is now.
The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one.
In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.)
In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is.
This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list.
We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.)
There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club.
Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
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Tags: American Physical Society, climate change, ClimateGate, global warming scam, greenhouse gases, Hal Lewis, letter, physics, professor emiritus, resignation, USCB
9 Comments
This letter is just another, but very important note us all, sign that more real scientists are taking up the clarion call to stop the theft of our common sense. The question that most scientists are making is in the light of all the information we have showing global warming to be a complete fraud, why do so many still cling to the band wagon?
Easy question to answer. Money! Integrity or reputation mean nothing when it comes to taking the money and running to a better place. Whores of science will do anything for another trick.
October 9th, 2010 4:54
Professor Emiritus Hal Lewis Resigns from American Physical Society
The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa BarbaraTo: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach.
I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be? How different it is now.
The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one.
In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.)
In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is.
This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list.
We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.)
There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club.
Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
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Tags: American Physical Society, climate change, ClimateGate, global warming scam, greenhouse gases, Hal Lewis, letter, physics, professor emiritus, resignation, USCB
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
Lee Iaccocca : Where Are The Leaders?
Just because he is old, or maybe just more mature, you can't say he is of base or just plain crazy. I believe he is on the mark and has had enough hand wring. It's time to take action.
As he states in the last sentence of this great article, we can make a difference in our country and that is by voting out the bums that brought on this mess, no matter what party they belong to.
All of the old tactics that we used in most of the past election are by the board now. We have to decide what is most important for our country. Is it more spending, more regulation, more control of all aspect of our lives, or telling the government to get the hell out of our lives.
I see a lot of good things coming from the Tea Party people, of which I am a participant, but I was watching a Democrat strategist speak about how Russ Feingold was losing in Wisconsin and that the Democrats really had no issues to run on other than just more of the same.
The worst part of the interview was when the strategist said given all of this was bad news from Feingold, he would still vote for him. What? Really? I hope I'm wrong but this does not bode well for November.
Get out and vote the bums out no matter what party they belong to! We have to get back our country now!!
LEEEEEE'S BACK!!!!!Would you believe that Lee Iacocca is 82 years old and is still kickin' butt? Check out his latest rant. Just as true today as it was when his book first came out. He was, and still is, a brilliant businessman! Often we need to be reminded of Iacocca's words. Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He has a new book,
'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.
Lee Iacocca Says:' Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers' money, much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'trust me the economy is getting better ...'Better? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!'You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up.
I hardly recognize this country anymore ...The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs ... While we're fiddling in Afghanistan , Iran is completing their nuclear bombs and missiles and nobody seems to know what to do. And the liberal press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with thumb up your butt and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.
On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war now with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving ... But our soldiers are dying daily. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the world, and it's getting worse every day! We've lost the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are going to skyrocket again, and nobody in power has a lucid plan to open drilling to solve the problem. This country has the largest oil reserves in the WORLD, and we cannot drill for it because the politicians have been bought by the flea-hugging environmentalists.
Our schools are in a complete disaster because of the teachers union. Our borders are like sieves and they want to give all illegal's amnesty and free health care. The middle class is being squeezed to death every day. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point..Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.
Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping the government will make it better for them. Now, that's just crazy ... Deal with life. Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, look what Obama did about it! Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening.
But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.I have news for the Chicago gangsters in Congress. We didn't elect you to turn this country into a losing European Socialist state. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough?
Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America .. In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.
Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!! Remember to vote in November ... --
As he states in the last sentence of this great article, we can make a difference in our country and that is by voting out the bums that brought on this mess, no matter what party they belong to.
All of the old tactics that we used in most of the past election are by the board now. We have to decide what is most important for our country. Is it more spending, more regulation, more control of all aspect of our lives, or telling the government to get the hell out of our lives.
I see a lot of good things coming from the Tea Party people, of which I am a participant, but I was watching a Democrat strategist speak about how Russ Feingold was losing in Wisconsin and that the Democrats really had no issues to run on other than just more of the same.
The worst part of the interview was when the strategist said given all of this was bad news from Feingold, he would still vote for him. What? Really? I hope I'm wrong but this does not bode well for November.
Get out and vote the bums out no matter what party they belong to! We have to get back our country now!!
LEEEEEE'S BACK!!!!!Would you believe that Lee Iacocca is 82 years old and is still kickin' butt? Check out his latest rant. Just as true today as it was when his book first came out. He was, and still is, a brilliant businessman! Often we need to be reminded of Iacocca's words. Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He has a new book,
'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.
Lee Iacocca Says:' Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers' money, much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'trust me the economy is getting better ...'Better? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!'You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up.
I hardly recognize this country anymore ...The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs ... While we're fiddling in Afghanistan , Iran is completing their nuclear bombs and missiles and nobody seems to know what to do. And the liberal press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with thumb up your butt and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.
On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war now with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving ... But our soldiers are dying daily. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the world, and it's getting worse every day! We've lost the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are going to skyrocket again, and nobody in power has a lucid plan to open drilling to solve the problem. This country has the largest oil reserves in the WORLD, and we cannot drill for it because the politicians have been bought by the flea-hugging environmentalists.
Our schools are in a complete disaster because of the teachers union. Our borders are like sieves and they want to give all illegal's amnesty and free health care. The middle class is being squeezed to death every day. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point..Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.
Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping the government will make it better for them. Now, that's just crazy ... Deal with life. Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, look what Obama did about it! Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening.
But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.I have news for the Chicago gangsters in Congress. We didn't elect you to turn this country into a losing European Socialist state. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough?
Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America .. In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.
Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!! Remember to vote in November ... --
Friday, October 08, 2010
Fanatic Minorities Enslave Majorities
After reading this short history on the fanatic minorities that have killed millions while the 'silent majority' didn't say or do anything to stop them. The biggest problem here is most of us can not comprehend how this kind of thing can happen to us or our country. But it did happen and the people that just stood by with their collective mouths hanging open found they were enslaved or dead.
Looking at what is happen here with the liberal majority and Obama's proclamation to "fundamentally change America", we can see parallels from the past and this should scare the hell out of us.
Luckily, millions can see the hand writing on the wall and are making their demands for common sense and a return to Constitutional basics heard above the shouts of Marxists demands for a new way forward.
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history; it is the fanatics who march...it is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers..
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Looking at what is happen here with the liberal majority and Obama's proclamation to "fundamentally change America", we can see parallels from the past and this should scare the hell out of us.
Luckily, millions can see the hand writing on the wall and are making their demands for common sense and a return to Constitutional basics heard above the shouts of Marxists demands for a new way forward.
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history; it is the fanatics who march...it is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers..
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Americans Don't Volunteer to Fight for Socialism
I don't know the author but it's not important here - what is important is our country and we might lose it if we fail to take a stand for what is right.
All these stones represent those that did take a stand and now it is our turn, our responsibility. We must not let them down that gave their full measure.
Isn't life funny? I never met one Veteran who enlisted to fight for Socialism.
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG,
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ,
AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD,
INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
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