Any time the government gets involved, especially a government controlled by progressive Democrats, please don't forget Barney Franks and Chris Dodd handling of the 'Affordable Mortages' nightmare, there is sure to be chaos.
The entire agenda for a progressive liberal Democrat is based on how they can strangle individual freedom and reap financial gain from the expenditure of tax dollars while all the time expanding the dependent class and voter base.
The progressive will never say they will create 'profits' with innovative legislation so businesses can hire new workers as this is a dirty word. It's much easier for them to stomach a program that thinly decries to do this but in reality the objective is to transfer funds from one sector of the economy, the producers, to another more deserving sector of the economy, the takers, and in the transfer, skim funds to support future endeavors to restrict prosperity and individual freedom as these two functions make liberals howl with disgust like Dracula at first light.
Dodd-Frank: The Economic Case for Repeal
Source: Peter J. Wallison, "Dodd-Frank: The Economic Case for Repeal," The American, June 27, 2012.
It is rare that a single law can have a significant adverse effect on the enormous U.S. economy. But there has never been anything like the Dodd-Frank Act. Signed into law by President Obama on July 21, 2010, its extraordinary effect in slowing the economy is coming into focus as its second anniversary approaches, says Peter J. Wallison, the Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Its passage coincided with a massive slowdown in America's economic recovery, and sudden spills in housing prices and manufacturing production also seem to coincide with the implementation of the act. The reason for this adverse consequence is that much of the law is still uncertain and ill-defined, making employers wary and resistant to risk cash savings on additional payroll expenditures.
This can be seen, for example, in the implementation of the Volcker Rule in Title VI.
•This provision prohibits banks from engaging in "proprietary trading," understood to mean prohibiting banks from selling securities for their own account.
•However, this provision clearly was not thought through, as an enormous number of financial transactions involve components that may fall under this statute, such as when corporations sell commercial paper through banks.
•Mired in uncertainty as to whether this practice will be regulated away, firms must now consider new and more costly ways of financing their short-term needs.
Similarly, Title IX provisions contain equally vague language.
•Addressing housing finance reform, Title IX introduced two completely new and important concepts without clear meaning -- the "Qualified Residential Mortgage" (QRM) and the "Qualified Mortgage" (QM).
•The former was supposed to be a high quality mortgage, but what did that mean? The regulators' first try was a mortgage with a 20 percent down payment.
•This provoked a huge outcry in the housing finance industry, and even from members of Congress who had voted for the bill.
•The regulators went back to the drawing board, and now -- almost two years after the act was signed into law -- there is still no regulation that defines this key term.
Many components of this law are so important to the financial sector and far-reaching in their scope that they should have taken years to gain congressional approval. However, Dodd-Frank passed through the legislative process in a mere 18 months.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Wages Drop As Jobs Increase : Obama Agenda of Less is More
What happened? Wages dropped and unemployment still over 8% even after 5 trillion spent to strengthen the economy? I guess we are still on the path of "hope and change" - 'hope' we will have enough to eat and 'change' left in our pockets after Obama takes his cut.
Wages Drop, Only Fifth Time in 33 Years
Source: "Wages Drop, Only 5th Time in 33 Years," Washington Examiner, July 2, 2012.
In assessing the broad health of the economy, the unemployment rate (and similarly, the employment rate) receives a disproportionately large amount of attention. This occurs to the exclusion of other metrics, including average weekly wages, which can offer a more in-depth understanding of how much the economy has recovered or, conversely, how troubled the United States remains, says the Washington Examiner.
In a just-released review of employment in the nation's largest 322 counties, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wage data is far gloomier than employment data, which has shown marginal gains in recent months.
•According to the report, weekly wages dropped during 2011 by 1.7 percent to $955 from a high of $971 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
•That means the $50,000-a-year mark, busted in the fourth quarter of 2010, has dropped back to an average yearly salary of $49,660.
•This represents one of only five such declines since the category was created in 1978.
•Further, the wage depression was widespread: 282 major counties suffered wage declines; just 36 saw increases.
Interestingly, the wage drop comes as employment has increased in a majority of the counties in the last quarter of 2011. That irony makes it the only quarter in history where wages shrunk while employment grew -- a grim reminder that more Americans are taking additional jobs to make ends meet.
Wages Drop, Only Fifth Time in 33 Years
Source: "Wages Drop, Only 5th Time in 33 Years," Washington Examiner, July 2, 2012.
In assessing the broad health of the economy, the unemployment rate (and similarly, the employment rate) receives a disproportionately large amount of attention. This occurs to the exclusion of other metrics, including average weekly wages, which can offer a more in-depth understanding of how much the economy has recovered or, conversely, how troubled the United States remains, says the Washington Examiner.
In a just-released review of employment in the nation's largest 322 counties, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wage data is far gloomier than employment data, which has shown marginal gains in recent months.
•According to the report, weekly wages dropped during 2011 by 1.7 percent to $955 from a high of $971 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
•That means the $50,000-a-year mark, busted in the fourth quarter of 2010, has dropped back to an average yearly salary of $49,660.
•This represents one of only five such declines since the category was created in 1978.
•Further, the wage depression was widespread: 282 major counties suffered wage declines; just 36 saw increases.
Interestingly, the wage drop comes as employment has increased in a majority of the counties in the last quarter of 2011. That irony makes it the only quarter in history where wages shrunk while employment grew -- a grim reminder that more Americans are taking additional jobs to make ends meet.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Britains Health Care System Crushes Innovation
And this is what Mr Obama wants for all of us - total control of the health care system and all of our health care needs will have to depend on government officials making the life and death decisions for us.
Now how cool is this - Socialism is coming and what are we doing to stop this insanity? Vote in November to repeal ObamaCare.
Innovation Unable to Thrive in U.K.'s NHS
Source: "From Petrol to Prescriptions," The Economist, June 16, 2012.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, has enacted a truly innovative approach to patient care. Inspired by the precision and exactitude of a BMW factory, the hospital's administrators purchased and installed the Prescribing, Information and Communication System (PICS for short) in each patient's room, tracking patient care and health outcomes and looking for instances of neglect, says The Economist.
The system encourages the hospitals workers to be more precise and efficient by paying greater attention to small details. Years into the health care experiment, the implementation of PICS is being lauded as a boon to patient care.
•The system has allowed hospital workers to more quickly assess the benefits of treatment, cutting down on readmissions and wasted prescriptions.
•A report by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concluded that mortality rates had fallen, and noted that the new system had helped reduce the sort of errors that lead to poor patient care.
•Attracted by its results, some hospitals with poor outcomes in fields like esophageal cancer have contracted out their treatments to Birmingham.
It is at this point, however, that the implementation of a potentially lifesaving technology comes to a screeching halt. By removing rewards for innovation and undercutting the benefits of competition, Britain's National Health Service squelched the growth of PICS before it began.
•The NHS is preoccupied by austerity: it must find £20 billion (about $30 billion) worth of efficiency savings by 2015.
•Further, the health service is still reeling from a failed central-computer project that has ended up costing over £12 billion (almost $19 billion).
•Most importantly, innovations do not spread in Britain's health sector because the NHS has no mechanism for ensuring they do, or for rewarding the inventive.
•The service is centrally funded and emphasizes the universality of its care rather than its results.
•As a result, the system is likely to prove better at controlling costs than at encouraging good ideas to thrive.
•Additionally, because hospitals do not directly compete with one another (nor are they allowed to acquire one another unless they are in dire financial straits), PICS is not likely to be unilaterally adopted by other institutions.
It is the motivation for a competitive advantage that spurs innovation in other health systems, and it is the absence of this motivation in Britain that will harm health outcomes.
Now how cool is this - Socialism is coming and what are we doing to stop this insanity? Vote in November to repeal ObamaCare.
Innovation Unable to Thrive in U.K.'s NHS
Source: "From Petrol to Prescriptions," The Economist, June 16, 2012.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, has enacted a truly innovative approach to patient care. Inspired by the precision and exactitude of a BMW factory, the hospital's administrators purchased and installed the Prescribing, Information and Communication System (PICS for short) in each patient's room, tracking patient care and health outcomes and looking for instances of neglect, says The Economist.
The system encourages the hospitals workers to be more precise and efficient by paying greater attention to small details. Years into the health care experiment, the implementation of PICS is being lauded as a boon to patient care.
•The system has allowed hospital workers to more quickly assess the benefits of treatment, cutting down on readmissions and wasted prescriptions.
•A report by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concluded that mortality rates had fallen, and noted that the new system had helped reduce the sort of errors that lead to poor patient care.
•Attracted by its results, some hospitals with poor outcomes in fields like esophageal cancer have contracted out their treatments to Birmingham.
It is at this point, however, that the implementation of a potentially lifesaving technology comes to a screeching halt. By removing rewards for innovation and undercutting the benefits of competition, Britain's National Health Service squelched the growth of PICS before it began.
•The NHS is preoccupied by austerity: it must find £20 billion (about $30 billion) worth of efficiency savings by 2015.
•Further, the health service is still reeling from a failed central-computer project that has ended up costing over £12 billion (almost $19 billion).
•Most importantly, innovations do not spread in Britain's health sector because the NHS has no mechanism for ensuring they do, or for rewarding the inventive.
•The service is centrally funded and emphasizes the universality of its care rather than its results.
•As a result, the system is likely to prove better at controlling costs than at encouraging good ideas to thrive.
•Additionally, because hospitals do not directly compete with one another (nor are they allowed to acquire one another unless they are in dire financial straits), PICS is not likely to be unilaterally adopted by other institutions.
It is the motivation for a competitive advantage that spurs innovation in other health systems, and it is the absence of this motivation in Britain that will harm health outcomes.
Green Energy Job Creation A Fraud : CBO
Green energy was never in competition with fossil energy - everyone knew this before it ever got under way. The powers that saw this as a money maker and knew the general public would buy into it because they, for the most part, are asleep most of the time to what the feds are doing.
It wasn't until Obama decided that he would "fundamentally" change our way of life and the congress would allowed him to do it.
Energy-Related Tax Preferences and Job Creation
Source: Robert Bryce, "Energy-Related Tax Preferences and Job Creation: Which Industries Provide the Best Value for Taxpayers?" Manhattan Institute, June 2012.
Advocates of wind energy are actively lobbying Congress for a multiyear extension of the 2.2 cent-per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit. During the American Wind Energy Association's recent WindPower 2012 convention in Atlanta, Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president on energy and climate issues, argued that allowing the credit to expire would result in tens of thousands of job losses, says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
However, this same argument could be made regarding federal support for all types of energy; that is, if the government reduces its assistance, jobs will be lost. The question then becomes, just how much more effective are subsidies for wind energy at creating jobs?
•In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that energy-related tax preferences for renewable-electricity production totaled $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2011, the vast majority of which went to the wind-energy sector.
•Using the American Wind Energy Association's own figures for jobs created by this funding, the per-job cost to taxpayers amounts to between $18,700 and $46,600.
•This figure should be compared to current government support for the oil and gas sector: using the CBO's $2.5 billion tax-preference figure and the American Petroleum Institute's employment figures, the per-job cost to taxpayers amounts to between $1,190 and $2,100.
•Put another way, each wind-energy-related job costs taxpayers between nine and 39 times as much as a job created by the oil and gas sector.
At such an enormous cost on a per-job basis, it is extraordinary that the federal government continues to pump money into the sector. Further, the calculations above do not take into account the $3.25 billion in tax-free grants that were given to the wind-energy sector by the Treasury Department as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act between 2009 and 2011.
By attempting to artificially stimulate the wind energy sector, the federal government is paddling upstream against natural market forces.
•As a source of electricity, wind energy must now compete with the surging natural gas sector.
•According to various estimates, wind energy can only be viable if natural gas prices are above $6 per thousand cubic feet.
•Given that they are currently around $2.20 per thousand cubic feet, it should come as no surprise that many wind farmers cannot lock up long-term production contracts.
It wasn't until Obama decided that he would "fundamentally" change our way of life and the congress would allowed him to do it.
Energy-Related Tax Preferences and Job Creation
Source: Robert Bryce, "Energy-Related Tax Preferences and Job Creation: Which Industries Provide the Best Value for Taxpayers?" Manhattan Institute, June 2012.
Advocates of wind energy are actively lobbying Congress for a multiyear extension of the 2.2 cent-per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit. During the American Wind Energy Association's recent WindPower 2012 convention in Atlanta, Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president on energy and climate issues, argued that allowing the credit to expire would result in tens of thousands of job losses, says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
However, this same argument could be made regarding federal support for all types of energy; that is, if the government reduces its assistance, jobs will be lost. The question then becomes, just how much more effective are subsidies for wind energy at creating jobs?
•In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that energy-related tax preferences for renewable-electricity production totaled $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2011, the vast majority of which went to the wind-energy sector.
•Using the American Wind Energy Association's own figures for jobs created by this funding, the per-job cost to taxpayers amounts to between $18,700 and $46,600.
•This figure should be compared to current government support for the oil and gas sector: using the CBO's $2.5 billion tax-preference figure and the American Petroleum Institute's employment figures, the per-job cost to taxpayers amounts to between $1,190 and $2,100.
•Put another way, each wind-energy-related job costs taxpayers between nine and 39 times as much as a job created by the oil and gas sector.
At such an enormous cost on a per-job basis, it is extraordinary that the federal government continues to pump money into the sector. Further, the calculations above do not take into account the $3.25 billion in tax-free grants that were given to the wind-energy sector by the Treasury Department as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act between 2009 and 2011.
By attempting to artificially stimulate the wind energy sector, the federal government is paddling upstream against natural market forces.
•As a source of electricity, wind energy must now compete with the surging natural gas sector.
•According to various estimates, wind energy can only be viable if natural gas prices are above $6 per thousand cubic feet.
•Given that they are currently around $2.20 per thousand cubic feet, it should come as no surprise that many wind farmers cannot lock up long-term production contracts.
Global Cooling NOT Warming : Tree Ring Evidence
Why do even have a debate on this with so much evidence pointing to, the global warmers, and when climate change studies have been proven a fraud.
Global Cooling NOT Warming
Tree-rings prove climate was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times than it is now - and world has been cooling for 2,000 years
Study of semi-fossilised trees gives accurate climate reading back to 138BC
World was warmer in Roman and Medieval times than it is now
By Science Reporter
PUBLISHED: 07:22 EST, 11 July 2012
UPDATED: 17:51 EST, 11 July 2012 Comments (410) Share
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html#ixzz20VUXnzcp
Rings in fossilised pine trees have proven that the world was much warmer than previously thought - with measurements dating back to 138BC
How did the Romans grow grapes in northern England? Perhaps because it was warmer than we thought. A study suggests the Britain of 2,000 years ago experienced a lengthy period of hotter summers than today.
German researchers used data from tree rings – a key indicator of past climate – to claim the world has been on a ‘long-term cooling trend’ for two millennia until the global warming of the twentieth century. This cooling was punctuated by a couple of warm spells.
These are the Medieval Warm Period, which is well known, but also a period during the toga-wearing Roman times when temperatures were apparently 1 deg C warmer than now. They say the very warm period during the years 21 to 50AD has been underestimated by climate scientists.
Lead author Professor Dr Jan Esper of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz said: ‘We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low.
‘This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant, however it is not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1 deg C.’
In general the scientists found a slow cooling of 0.6C over 2,000 years, which they attributed to changes in the Earth’s orbit which took it further away from the Sun.
The study is published in Nature Climate Change. It is based on measurements stretching back to 138BC. The finding may force scientists to rethink current theories of the impact of global warming
Professor Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
XL Pipeline Bad for Fairness : Too Much Prosperity
Stopping the XL pipeline was never about safety, it's about the agenda of stopping prosperity that isn't fair to the rest of the world. America has to much energy resources that will propel this country ahead of all other countries.
Pipelines Are Safest for Transportation of Oil and Gas
Source: Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "Pipelines Are Safest for Transportation of Oil and Gas," Manhattan Institute, June 2012.
The Obama administration's decision to delay approval for the construction of TransCanada Inc.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline was based, in part, on concerns over the safety and reliability of oil and natural gas pipelines. For this reason, the president called for a comprehensive assessment of the pipeline's likely environmental impact before the project could gain approval, says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
However, the president's decision ignores a time-proven truth: pipelines are by far the safest and most responsible means for transporting resources like oil, petroleum and natural gas. Compared to the primary alternatives (road and rail), pipelines have dramatically fewer incidents that involve environmental damage, injuries or fatalities.
•America has 175,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipeline and 321,000 miles of natural gas transmission and gathering pipeline.
•In addition, over 2 million miles of natural gas distribution pipeline send natural gas to businesses and consumers.
•Approximately 71 percent of crude oil and petroleum products are shipped by pipeline on a ton-mile basis.
•Tanker and barge traffic accounts for 22 percent, road accounts for 4 percent, and rail constitutes the remaining 3 percent.
•As for dry natural gas, virtually that entire energy source is shipped via pipeline.
Despite its responsibility for a heavy majority of shipping, pipeline is responsible for a disproportionately low fraction of environmental incidents.
•Rail had the highest rate of incidents, with 651 per billion ton miles per year between 2005 and 2009.
•This was followed by road, with 20 incidents per billion ton miles per year.
•By comparison, pipeline incidents were almost negligible: natural gas had only 0.89 incidents per billion ton miles per year and had only 0.61 incidents per billion ton miles per year.
The relative safeness of pipelines also carries through to their lack of fatalities, compared to rail and road.
•Between 2005 and 2009, road transportation average 10.2 fatalities and 21.8 injuries per year.
•In that same period, rail averaged 2.4 fatalities and 25.6 injuries per year.
•Oil pipelines had only 2.4 fatalities and 4.0 injuries per year, and natural gas lines had 1.0 fatality and 6.2 injuries per year.
Pipelines Are Safest for Transportation of Oil and Gas
Source: Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "Pipelines Are Safest for Transportation of Oil and Gas," Manhattan Institute, June 2012.
The Obama administration's decision to delay approval for the construction of TransCanada Inc.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline was based, in part, on concerns over the safety and reliability of oil and natural gas pipelines. For this reason, the president called for a comprehensive assessment of the pipeline's likely environmental impact before the project could gain approval, says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
However, the president's decision ignores a time-proven truth: pipelines are by far the safest and most responsible means for transporting resources like oil, petroleum and natural gas. Compared to the primary alternatives (road and rail), pipelines have dramatically fewer incidents that involve environmental damage, injuries or fatalities.
•America has 175,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipeline and 321,000 miles of natural gas transmission and gathering pipeline.
•In addition, over 2 million miles of natural gas distribution pipeline send natural gas to businesses and consumers.
•Approximately 71 percent of crude oil and petroleum products are shipped by pipeline on a ton-mile basis.
•Tanker and barge traffic accounts for 22 percent, road accounts for 4 percent, and rail constitutes the remaining 3 percent.
•As for dry natural gas, virtually that entire energy source is shipped via pipeline.
Despite its responsibility for a heavy majority of shipping, pipeline is responsible for a disproportionately low fraction of environmental incidents.
•Rail had the highest rate of incidents, with 651 per billion ton miles per year between 2005 and 2009.
•This was followed by road, with 20 incidents per billion ton miles per year.
•By comparison, pipeline incidents were almost negligible: natural gas had only 0.89 incidents per billion ton miles per year and had only 0.61 incidents per billion ton miles per year.
The relative safeness of pipelines also carries through to their lack of fatalities, compared to rail and road.
•Between 2005 and 2009, road transportation average 10.2 fatalities and 21.8 injuries per year.
•In that same period, rail averaged 2.4 fatalities and 25.6 injuries per year.
•Oil pipelines had only 2.4 fatalities and 4.0 injuries per year, and natural gas lines had 1.0 fatality and 6.2 injuries per year.
"Civil Defense Corp" to Control Disobedience?
If you have been paying attention at all, you know about Obama's "Civil Defense Corp" that he wants to install to control civil disobedience. It will have the same military equipment that the regular army has and be responsible to the president directly to use at his disposal.
Interesting how the pieces are coming together. Will giving Mr Obama another term be enough to bring the country to the brink? You decide.
The new terrorists – they’re all of us
By Wesley Pruden
July 10, 2012
Barack Obama, the Chicago messiah who promised to unite a fragmented nation, is succeeding beyond his dreams, and maybe even the dreams of his father, which he wrote about so eloquently in his campaign autobiography.
We’re all terrorists now.
The Department of Homeland Security, ever on the scout for opportunities to blow taxpayer money, commissioned one of those “studies” so popular among college professors, to find clues that would identify prospective terrorists before they blow up airplanes, bring down skyscrapers and otherwise wreak havoc.
The “new studies" show that just about everybody must be dreaming of terrorism, plotting mayhem and chaos and teaching others how to do it.
Something called the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (learned professors dream of being paid by the word) went to work at the University of Maryland and produced a $12 million magnum opus called “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008.” And not a moment too soon.
Islamic terrorism, the scourge of the civilized world, like bubonic plague in an earlier time, largely gets a pass; the study does not even mention the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993 in the name of Allah. But the professors have got the number of the rest of us.
The NCSTRT, to use the popular acronym for the consortium, took definitions from a study it did last year called “Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism.” (Professors never tire of quoting themselves.) You might never guess who the perps who populate professorial dreams might be. These are some of the characteristics the feds at the Department of Homeland Security can use to identify terrorists: anyone who thinks his “way of life” is under attack, anyone “fiercely nationalistic,” “anti-global” or “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” or “reverent of individual liberty.”
These categories include, at one time or another, nearly all of us – liberals who continue to rail at how George W. Bush intended to do wicked things to dissenters, and conservatives who are saying similar things now about Barack Obama. Railing, some of it on target and some of it not, is what Americans do. Robust speech frightens the Department of Homeland Security and its minions, who are not, after all, necessarily steeped in the history, traditions and habits of the republic.
Some of this has made it into the mainstream press, so called, but much of it hasn’t, and the task of reporting it has often been left to Internet sites like prisonplanet.com and infowars.com that monitor the fine print of government regulations and handouts. “The most flagrant example,” reports prisonplanet.com, “was the infamous 2009 report published by the Missouri Information Analysis Center and first revealed by Infowars, which framed Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumperstickers, people who own gold or even people who fly a U.S. flag, as potential terrorists.
"The rush to denounce legitimate political beliefs as thought crimes, or even mundane behaviors, by insinuating they are shared by terrorists, has accelerated in recent months. Under the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism program, the bulk purchase of food is labeled a potential indication of terrorist activity.”
Who could have guessed that Costco or Sam’s Club, where everybody loads up hot dogs, pizza, sides of beef, fruit, vegetables and toilet paper by the ton and fruit juice and root beer in 60-gallon drums, are hotbeds of terrorist scheming. One program, under the aegis of the FBI, even calls using cash to pay for a cup of coffee suspicious, even though most coffee-shop cashiers frown on a customer paying for a $1.50 cup of coffee with a credit card.
Junk like this is of a piece with the continuing campaign to cast conservatives as nuts. It’s nothing new, there’s just more of it. A decade ago, a study by professors at California at Berkeley, Stanford and the University of Maryland, done for the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, concluded that “social conservatives” suffer from “mental rigidity,” “dogmatism,” and “uncertainty avoidance,” together with “associated indicators of mental illness.” President Obama only said it more succinctly and more colorfully, that some Americans won’t vote for him because “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion.”
We’re all tempted sometimes to think those who disagree with us are crazy, but now comes the federal government to classify dissenters not merely nuts, but terrorists. Such is the new civility the president and his liberal friends commend to us.
Interesting how the pieces are coming together. Will giving Mr Obama another term be enough to bring the country to the brink? You decide.
The new terrorists – they’re all of us
By Wesley Pruden
July 10, 2012
Barack Obama, the Chicago messiah who promised to unite a fragmented nation, is succeeding beyond his dreams, and maybe even the dreams of his father, which he wrote about so eloquently in his campaign autobiography.
We’re all terrorists now.
The Department of Homeland Security, ever on the scout for opportunities to blow taxpayer money, commissioned one of those “studies” so popular among college professors, to find clues that would identify prospective terrorists before they blow up airplanes, bring down skyscrapers and otherwise wreak havoc.
The “new studies" show that just about everybody must be dreaming of terrorism, plotting mayhem and chaos and teaching others how to do it.
Something called the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (learned professors dream of being paid by the word) went to work at the University of Maryland and produced a $12 million magnum opus called “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008.” And not a moment too soon.
Islamic terrorism, the scourge of the civilized world, like bubonic plague in an earlier time, largely gets a pass; the study does not even mention the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993 in the name of Allah. But the professors have got the number of the rest of us.
The NCSTRT, to use the popular acronym for the consortium, took definitions from a study it did last year called “Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism.” (Professors never tire of quoting themselves.) You might never guess who the perps who populate professorial dreams might be. These are some of the characteristics the feds at the Department of Homeland Security can use to identify terrorists: anyone who thinks his “way of life” is under attack, anyone “fiercely nationalistic,” “anti-global” or “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” or “reverent of individual liberty.”
These categories include, at one time or another, nearly all of us – liberals who continue to rail at how George W. Bush intended to do wicked things to dissenters, and conservatives who are saying similar things now about Barack Obama. Railing, some of it on target and some of it not, is what Americans do. Robust speech frightens the Department of Homeland Security and its minions, who are not, after all, necessarily steeped in the history, traditions and habits of the republic.
Some of this has made it into the mainstream press, so called, but much of it hasn’t, and the task of reporting it has often been left to Internet sites like prisonplanet.com and infowars.com that monitor the fine print of government regulations and handouts. “The most flagrant example,” reports prisonplanet.com, “was the infamous 2009 report published by the Missouri Information Analysis Center and first revealed by Infowars, which framed Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumperstickers, people who own gold or even people who fly a U.S. flag, as potential terrorists.
"The rush to denounce legitimate political beliefs as thought crimes, or even mundane behaviors, by insinuating they are shared by terrorists, has accelerated in recent months. Under the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism program, the bulk purchase of food is labeled a potential indication of terrorist activity.”
Who could have guessed that Costco or Sam’s Club, where everybody loads up hot dogs, pizza, sides of beef, fruit, vegetables and toilet paper by the ton and fruit juice and root beer in 60-gallon drums, are hotbeds of terrorist scheming. One program, under the aegis of the FBI, even calls using cash to pay for a cup of coffee suspicious, even though most coffee-shop cashiers frown on a customer paying for a $1.50 cup of coffee with a credit card.
Junk like this is of a piece with the continuing campaign to cast conservatives as nuts. It’s nothing new, there’s just more of it. A decade ago, a study by professors at California at Berkeley, Stanford and the University of Maryland, done for the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, concluded that “social conservatives” suffer from “mental rigidity,” “dogmatism,” and “uncertainty avoidance,” together with “associated indicators of mental illness.” President Obama only said it more succinctly and more colorfully, that some Americans won’t vote for him because “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion.”
We’re all tempted sometimes to think those who disagree with us are crazy, but now comes the federal government to classify dissenters not merely nuts, but terrorists. Such is the new civility the president and his liberal friends commend to us.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Minimum Wage Increases Forced Cuts in Employment
The negative results of 'feel good' agendas is seen in the unemployment numbers. This where the 'drive by media' mantra came from.
The screaming head lines on how the poor can't get ahead because minimum wages are too low to support a family were instrumental in getting the wages increased, but when the results were less hiring or worse, laying off workers as the small business couldn't support the increased wage rate, the media moves on to the next 'feel good' story leaving total destruction in their wake.
The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws
Source: Mark Wilson, "The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws," Cato Institute, June 21, 2012.
While the aim of minimum wage laws is to help workers, decades of economic research show that minimum wages usually end up harming workers and the broader economy. In particular, minimum wages stifle job opportunities for low-skill workers, youth and minorities, which are the groups that policymakers are often trying to help, says Mark Wilson, a former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.
If the government requires that certain workers be paid higher wages, then businesses make adjustments to pay for the added costs, such as reducing hiring, cutting employee work hours, reducing benefits and charging higher prices. Some policymakers may believe that companies simply absorb the costs of minimum wage increases through reduced profits, but that's rarely the case.
•The main finding of economic theory and empirical research over the past 70 years is that minimum wage increases tend to reduce employment.
•Evidence of employment loss has been found since the earliest implementation of the minimum wage.
•The U.S. Department of Labor's own assessment of the first 25-cent minimum wage in 1938 found that it resulted in job losses for 30,000 to 50,000 workers.
•This figure amounts to between 10 and 13 percent of the 300,000 covered workers who previously earned below the new wage floor.
Since this first implementation of the minimum wage, an incredible number of researchers have attempted to assess its impacts, especially because the minimum wage is much larger now than it was then.
•In 2006 David Neumark and William Wascher published a comprehensive review of more than 100 minimum wage studies published since the 1990s.
•Nearly two-thirds of the studies reviewed by Neumark and Wascher found a relatively consistent indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages, while only eight gave a relatively consistent indication of positive employment effects.
•Moreover, the studies that focused on the least-skilled groups (those most likely to be adversely affected by minimum wages) found especially strong evidence for unemployment effects.
Based on his studies, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman observed: "The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken."
The screaming head lines on how the poor can't get ahead because minimum wages are too low to support a family were instrumental in getting the wages increased, but when the results were less hiring or worse, laying off workers as the small business couldn't support the increased wage rate, the media moves on to the next 'feel good' story leaving total destruction in their wake.
The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws
Source: Mark Wilson, "The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws," Cato Institute, June 21, 2012.
While the aim of minimum wage laws is to help workers, decades of economic research show that minimum wages usually end up harming workers and the broader economy. In particular, minimum wages stifle job opportunities for low-skill workers, youth and minorities, which are the groups that policymakers are often trying to help, says Mark Wilson, a former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.
If the government requires that certain workers be paid higher wages, then businesses make adjustments to pay for the added costs, such as reducing hiring, cutting employee work hours, reducing benefits and charging higher prices. Some policymakers may believe that companies simply absorb the costs of minimum wage increases through reduced profits, but that's rarely the case.
•The main finding of economic theory and empirical research over the past 70 years is that minimum wage increases tend to reduce employment.
•Evidence of employment loss has been found since the earliest implementation of the minimum wage.
•The U.S. Department of Labor's own assessment of the first 25-cent minimum wage in 1938 found that it resulted in job losses for 30,000 to 50,000 workers.
•This figure amounts to between 10 and 13 percent of the 300,000 covered workers who previously earned below the new wage floor.
Since this first implementation of the minimum wage, an incredible number of researchers have attempted to assess its impacts, especially because the minimum wage is much larger now than it was then.
•In 2006 David Neumark and William Wascher published a comprehensive review of more than 100 minimum wage studies published since the 1990s.
•Nearly two-thirds of the studies reviewed by Neumark and Wascher found a relatively consistent indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages, while only eight gave a relatively consistent indication of positive employment effects.
•Moreover, the studies that focused on the least-skilled groups (those most likely to be adversely affected by minimum wages) found especially strong evidence for unemployment effects.
Based on his studies, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman observed: "The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken."
Pensions Liabilities Crush Future Budgets
This is the new norm - no matter how bad the decision making of the local and state legislators they always know someone will pay the bills if they can't. But now with the all the money gone that the politicians thought they had, even the taxpayers are broke.
How do the bills get paid now?
Paving over Pension Liabilities
Source: Jason Fichtner and Eileen Norcross, "Paving over Pension Liabilities," Real Clear Policy, June 15, 2012.
Private corporations are asking Congress to change how they calculate their annual pension contributions, which could create a huge unfunded liability for taxpayers, say Jason J. Fichtner and Eileen Norcross, senior research fellows with the Mercatus Center.
The law requires corporate plans to measure their liabilities, and determine annual contributions to fund them, using the rate of return on corporate bonds -- the discount rate. Now, corporations are lobbying for Congress to allow them to increase the discount rate. This allows accountants to assume better investment performance, setting aside fewer dollars for future pension obligations.
•The provision in the Senate-passed version of the transportation bill currently under consideration in the House would allow corporations to use a 25 year average rate as opposed to the current 2 year average.
•This would increase the current discount rate from the 4 percent range to roughly 6 percent.
•Since liabilities are sensitive to discount rate assumptions, the plan's liability will change roughly 15 percent for every one percentage point change in the discount rate.
•For example, Boeing reports that a mere quarter of a point increase in the discount rate could cut its pension liability by $1.7 billion.
An arbitrary increase in the permitted discount rate essentially amounts to the government granting corporations permission to underfund their pension savings. The current position of the nation's state and local governments, which have been underfunding for years, demonstrates why this is a bad idea.
•States across the country are facing the consequences of inaccurately accounting for their retirees' pension benefits by keeping their discount rates unrealistically high.
•State and local pension plans face $4.5 trillion in unfunded employee retirement payments.
•Stockton, California; Central Falls, Rhode Island; Pritchard, Alabama; and Vallejo, California, are just a few municipalities driven to bankruptcy by resultant spikes in pension payments.
Furthermore, allowing corporations to underfund would leave taxpayers on the line. Pension payments are guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a federal agency that is paid for by tax dollars. When (not if) corporation's set-aside savings prove insufficient to meet obligations, it is the PBGC (and consequently, the taxpayer) who will be left with the bill.
How do the bills get paid now?
Paving over Pension Liabilities
Source: Jason Fichtner and Eileen Norcross, "Paving over Pension Liabilities," Real Clear Policy, June 15, 2012.
Private corporations are asking Congress to change how they calculate their annual pension contributions, which could create a huge unfunded liability for taxpayers, say Jason J. Fichtner and Eileen Norcross, senior research fellows with the Mercatus Center.
The law requires corporate plans to measure their liabilities, and determine annual contributions to fund them, using the rate of return on corporate bonds -- the discount rate. Now, corporations are lobbying for Congress to allow them to increase the discount rate. This allows accountants to assume better investment performance, setting aside fewer dollars for future pension obligations.
•The provision in the Senate-passed version of the transportation bill currently under consideration in the House would allow corporations to use a 25 year average rate as opposed to the current 2 year average.
•This would increase the current discount rate from the 4 percent range to roughly 6 percent.
•Since liabilities are sensitive to discount rate assumptions, the plan's liability will change roughly 15 percent for every one percentage point change in the discount rate.
•For example, Boeing reports that a mere quarter of a point increase in the discount rate could cut its pension liability by $1.7 billion.
An arbitrary increase in the permitted discount rate essentially amounts to the government granting corporations permission to underfund their pension savings. The current position of the nation's state and local governments, which have been underfunding for years, demonstrates why this is a bad idea.
•States across the country are facing the consequences of inaccurately accounting for their retirees' pension benefits by keeping their discount rates unrealistically high.
•State and local pension plans face $4.5 trillion in unfunded employee retirement payments.
•Stockton, California; Central Falls, Rhode Island; Pritchard, Alabama; and Vallejo, California, are just a few municipalities driven to bankruptcy by resultant spikes in pension payments.
Furthermore, allowing corporations to underfund would leave taxpayers on the line. Pension payments are guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a federal agency that is paid for by tax dollars. When (not if) corporation's set-aside savings prove insufficient to meet obligations, it is the PBGC (and consequently, the taxpayer) who will be left with the bill.
Monday, July 09, 2012
Obama Promises Made : "Only Words"
Promises, promises - that was the very foundation of the Obama campaign in 2008 but what has happen bears no resemblance to this nonsense. What's worse, the lies have not stopped since that time and the general public still believe. How can this be?
Obama's Green Jobs Fraud Exposed
Source: "Obama's Green-Jobs Fraud Exposed," Investor's Business Daily, June 21, 2012.
Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("the stimulus") granted billions of dollars to the Department of Energy for the purpose of funding projects in renewable energy. This funding, President Obama then claimed, would result in hundreds of thousands of "green-collar" jobs that would serve as the foundation for economic recovery, says Investor's Business Daily.
Three years later, it seems that this money has been altogether wasted, and that the renewable energy revolution has failed to materialize. This is evidenced first by the shoddy performance of these billion-dollar grants in creating jobs.
•Through the broad stimulus package, the Obama administration awarded $9 billion to the Department of Energy for the creation of these green jobs.
•According to a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy, that funding created only 910 direct jobs between 2009 and 2011.
•Using this figure, American taxpayers paid approximately $9.8 million per job.
•If we allow for the broad classification of "indirect jobs," the figure increases to 5,510 jobs created at a cost of $1.63 million per job.
Near the end of this administration's first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised 722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus. The results, it seems, have fallen far short of this promise.
Meanwhile, the current administration has done all it can to strangle job growth in the oil sector of the economy. By killing the Keystone XL pipeline to deliver oil to American refineries from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, President Obama demonstrated a severe bias against proven job growth, favoring instead the ineffective vehicles employed by his stimulus package.
•Mark Ayers, past head of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, told the Huffington Post last November that "the Keystone Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs."
•Further, these positions would be complemented by approximately 500,000 indirect jobs, made available by the economic multiplier effect of the project.
•Importantly, the Keystone pipeline required no government support (that is, no tax dollars lost).
While campaigning four years ago, then-Senator Obama promised that $150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. This seems altogether untrue.
Obama's Green Jobs Fraud Exposed
Source: "Obama's Green-Jobs Fraud Exposed," Investor's Business Daily, June 21, 2012.
Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("the stimulus") granted billions of dollars to the Department of Energy for the purpose of funding projects in renewable energy. This funding, President Obama then claimed, would result in hundreds of thousands of "green-collar" jobs that would serve as the foundation for economic recovery, says Investor's Business Daily.
Three years later, it seems that this money has been altogether wasted, and that the renewable energy revolution has failed to materialize. This is evidenced first by the shoddy performance of these billion-dollar grants in creating jobs.
•Through the broad stimulus package, the Obama administration awarded $9 billion to the Department of Energy for the creation of these green jobs.
•According to a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy, that funding created only 910 direct jobs between 2009 and 2011.
•Using this figure, American taxpayers paid approximately $9.8 million per job.
•If we allow for the broad classification of "indirect jobs," the figure increases to 5,510 jobs created at a cost of $1.63 million per job.
Near the end of this administration's first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised 722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus. The results, it seems, have fallen far short of this promise.
Meanwhile, the current administration has done all it can to strangle job growth in the oil sector of the economy. By killing the Keystone XL pipeline to deliver oil to American refineries from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, President Obama demonstrated a severe bias against proven job growth, favoring instead the ineffective vehicles employed by his stimulus package.
•Mark Ayers, past head of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, told the Huffington Post last November that "the Keystone Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs."
•Further, these positions would be complemented by approximately 500,000 indirect jobs, made available by the economic multiplier effect of the project.
•Importantly, the Keystone pipeline required no government support (that is, no tax dollars lost).
While campaigning four years ago, then-Senator Obama promised that $150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. This seems altogether untrue.
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