Archive for November, 2009
Smart Parasites Don’t Kill Their Hosts…Someone Tell Obama
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Economics, Stimulus/Bailout, Taxation on November 30, 2009
Obama and his apparatchiks Pelosi and Reid fail to understand that the fundamental relationship between government and the economy is that of parasite to host. Aside from essential governmental functions of adjudication of civil disputes, law enforcement and defense, the governmental social functions like Medicare, Social Security and welfare are a redistribution of wealth. They are uneconomic. They do not create wealth. The simple truth is that government cannot create wealth. It can consume wealth, as in the case of the court system or military defense, and it can redistribute it as in the case of welfare or cash for clunkers; but, it cannot create wealth! To the extent it that it engages in social functions and redistribution functions it is a parasite. It only has what it takes from the creators of wealth, the innovators, the producers and the sellers, the real economy.
Jack Kelly incisively states the case in his November 30th post in Real Clear Politics, Note to Obama: Only Private Sector Creates Wealth, Jobs. A healthy host can support a lot of parasites; a sickly host cannot, so try to keep the host healthy.
Yet Obama is hell bent for leather to milk the host dry: phony stimulus, bondholder bailout, Obamacare, cap and trade, mortgage subsidies, ad infinitum.
The unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent this month, more than two percentage points higher than Mr. Obama’s economic advisers predicted it would if his $786 billion stimulus bill were passed. The Associated Press, in reporting Tuesday on disappointing third-quarter economic numbers, noted some economists expect it to reach 11 percent by next summer. That would be the highest since the Great Depression.
The stimulus failed chiefly because it was designed more to reward the president’s political allies than to fight the recession. But the stimulus failed also because stimulus funds were used to preserve jobs state and local governments could no longer afford because of falling tax revenues. The private sector has borne more than 100 percent of the job loss because state and local governments have added 110,000 jobs, according to an August report by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
A job’s a job, right?
Not exactly. Preserving government jobs may deepen the recession because government workers are not engaged in wealth creation and their salaries must be paid by people in the private sector who are.
So we have Obama, Reid and Pelosi with the Democratic left taking the country 180 Degrees off course-expanding government. For the economy to grow, government must shrink. Will someone please tell Obama to stop killing the host!
Not Coming to a Theater Near You…Anytime Soon!
Posted by Tom in Environment on November 29, 2009
Thanks to the Canada Free Press
Will Obama Expose the Massive Climate Fraud at the Copenhagen Climate Conference?
Posted by Tom in Environment, Financial Policy, Press on November 25, 2009
Will our young president have the moral integrity to expose the massive climate fraud that has bilked billions from the taxpayers of the Western world? He has a choice-cover up the fraud which has and is being done by the MSM or expose it for what it is.
The recently exposed emails from the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia show that the mainstream world climate scientists who have lived off taxpayer research money for years have bound together in a massive conspiracy to (a) suppress peer review, (b) publish phony “hockey stick” temperature models, and (c) suppress temperature data that doesn’t fit the manufactured, fraudulent conclusion that we have man made global warming.
The leaked emails are devastating. Their content crumbles the very foundation of the global warming nonsense. Nigel Lawson, former British chancellor of the exchequer in demanding a full investigation stated: “Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.”
The MSM segment of the Fourth Estate has been and continues to be complicit in the fraud by not investigating the hacked emails. The NYT for example says it won’t deal with such purloined information! So as a public service I refer three good articles on the topic: The Skeptics Are Vindicated by David Warren in the November 25th issue of Real Clear Politics. ClimateGate: The Fix Is In by Robert Tracinski in the November 24th issue of Real Clear Politics. And, The Climate Hoax by Jack Kelly in the November 24th issue of Real Clear Politics.
Jack Kelly tells about Al Gore’s appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show where Al in touting geothermal energy states that “the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot.” As National Review’s John Derbyshire points out, “if the temperature anywhere inside the earth were ’several million degrees’ we’d be a star!” Kelly goes on to point out that Gore got a D in Natural Science at Harvard; it should have been a F! Yet, Newsweek calls Gore “the thinking man’s thinking man.”
What’s funny in all this mainstream press cover up is that while the scientists and the Gores of this world are profiting from the fraud, the press is becoming irrelevant with no lucre to show for it! My bet is that Obama will not expose the fraud in Copenhagen.
Tom Motherway
Taxpayer Tim’s Job Performance? Abysmal!
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Economics, Financial Policy on November 24, 2009
Geitner’s testimony at the Joint Economic Committee last week showed that he had learned the overly repeated Obama excuse foe everything, but not much else. Under pressure and amid suggestions that he resign, Tim lost his cool and shot back at Rep. Kevin Brady, ” you gave this president an economy falling off the cliff.”
Kevin Hassett analyses Geithner’s Congressional song and dance in a hard hitting November 23 rd post for the American Enterprise Institute. In it he correctly points out that Geithner was in charge of the NY Fed for five years leading up to the financial crisis. He was the top Fed cop patrolling Wall Street. Was he worried that the Greenspan-Frank-GSE subprime bubble was getting out of control in Wall Street hands? Here’s what Taxpayer Tim said in 2007: “The larger global financial institutions are generally stronger in terms of capital relative to risk. Technology and innovation in financial instruments have made it easier for institutions to manage risk.” Yeah, right!
Now as the nation’s chief financial officer, Tim has stood by and watched while Obama and Congress have piled on Billions in phony stimuli and bailouts. We still have Obamacare and cap and trade to come, all while Tim stays mum. As a result of his “watch” our children and grandchildren will face continuing debilitating deficits and a gigantic unsustainable mountain of debt, along with a falling dollar. As Hassett says, “Geithner used to be asleep at the wheel in New York. Now he is asleep at the wheel in Washington.” Are calls for his resignation perhaps justified?
“Render Unto Caesar..But Render Unto God, The Things That Are God’s”
Posted by Tom in Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Nationalized Health Care on November 23, 2009
One of my heros is Richard John Neuhaus who died in January of this year. He with Chuck Colson founded a group which united Evangelicals and Catholics and sought to have religion occupy its rightful place in the public square. That effort and others like it have become a prelude to the recently released, Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience published on November 20th, 2009. It is drafted by an ecumenical group and signed by over 150 people of conscience. In detail it explains reasonable conscientious objections to laws that dispose of life either embryonic, mature or aged, to laws that redefine traditional marriage, and to laws that deny religious liberty and rights of conscience. While lengthly it is historically accurate, logical and traditional for people of courage and faith. I highly commend it, if only to see the names of the signers at the end!
While I’m at it, there was an interesting item in foxnews.com today, Tensions Flare Between Religious Leaders and Lawmakers Over Abortion. It relates, inter alia, RI Bishop Tobin taking one of the little Kennedy squirts, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., down a notch; Kennedy, like Pelosi, Biden, Sebelius, and others call themselves Catholic–lies like so many others they’ve told. In Secretary of Health Sebelius’ case Archbishop Naumann likewise clipped her Catholic wings for her hyper-pro abortion stance. As a Catholic, I say kudos to Bishops Tobin and Naumann; there should be more like them!
Tom Motherway
SNL Recalls Its Mission-Better Late Than Never
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Foreign Trade, Humor on November 23, 2009
Mark Toomey alerted me to this very funny Saturday Night Live opening skit. Funny, unless of course you name is Barack Obama. (Parental Discretion Advised)
Obama’s Control Freaks Are Competing For Headlines!
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Government Regulation, Statism on November 22, 2009
Heard about the internet access riots an Blue Diamond, NV; how about the broadband protests in Hurdland, MO; then surely, the download speed pickets in Oglesby, TX? Neither have I! And with good reason, they did not occur!
Then why do we see a headline in Thursday’s WSJ shouting: “Bigger U.S. Broadband Role Likely?” Seems FCC Chairman Genachowski says the government should address several broadband issues because the U.S. is lagging behind: 1. The high cost of laying new broadband lines in rural areas. 2. The lack of airwaves for wireless access, and. 3. Ill-informed consumers! Oh, and the agency also wants to increase the use of broadband among lower -income people and minorities, who subscribe at lower rates than the general population.
The story goes on to note that cable and telecommunication companies are concerned that the imposition of new rules could impact strategies and profitability. Bet on it. If it were profitable to lay cable in rural areas it would have been done long ago. After all, the cost of a trench and the cable in it is fairly fixed and the population density isn’t all that great in rural areas–that’s why they call them rural! Further, ill-informed consumers are in great part the product of teachers unions like the NEA.
Genachowski is Obama’s basketball buddy and was a major fund raiser in Obama’s campaign handling the internet strategy; the both went to Columbia and were at Harvard Law together. He obviously subscribes to the philosophy of bigger government. Government should have a bigger role in everything. If there is not a problem calling for a government solution, we will invent the problem then come to the fore with the solution which will increase the size of government.
These people are spend and tax control freaks. Whether in the FCC, the EPA, or the NLRB they promote Obama’s statist agenda and compete for the limelight. Well, old Julius Genachowski got his headline Thursday which wasn’t the least bit necessary, urgent or persuasive.
Stay tuned, more will surely come!
Tom Motherway
Left Coast Portends Catastrophe-Right Coast Follows
It’s rare that we have a snapshot of our national future but California has provided it. News this week included a $21 Billion deficit projection by California’s budget director. This is what the Democratic welfare state looks like and it is what America will look like under Obama and the Democrats.
Dennis Prager hails it a blessing! What? Yes, he argues that CA illustrates the outcome of tax and spend statist policies. It will be hard for the country not to see the left’s policies for what they are: Abandonment of individual responsibility for the welfare state. Naivete toward evil because of their morally relativistic fog. Obsession with redistribution of wealth as opposed to its creation. Thirst for power through statist expansion and welfare dependency. And the perverted desire to be liked rather than right. Recognition of all of this has caused a dramatic voter shift with the CA electorate rejecting tax increases and independents dramatically shifting toward the Republicans in a recent Pew poll.
If California is over taxing, over spending, and over regulating to impoverish its residents and drive out its businesses, New York is only a few steps behind. The projected deficit there is $16 Billion. As John Stossel says in a recent post, the spending level is worse than the taxes. That’s kinda like Bernadette Peters’ line in The Jerk, lamenting her new impoverishment, “it’s not the money…it’s the stuff!”
The sad thing is that neither state is taking serious action to restore fiscal health. Neither is the federal government with a projected deficit between $1.2 and $1.8 Trillion this year. Evidently Obama told Fox News that if we keep adding to the debt, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy. Mark Steyn called this ” a great line from a guy who plans to “keep adding to the debt” as a conscious strategy!”
Our children, grandchildren and succeeding generations will pay for this immoral profligacy.
Tom Motherway
Kudos to NPR–Really?
Posted by Tom in Nationalized Health Care, Press on November 20, 2009
“Fair and balanced” is not exactly what comes to mind when you think of National Public Radio. But give credit where credit is due. And Stephen Spruiell of National Review does in today’s NRO post. He applauds the two part, Giant Pool of Money produced by NPR and Chicago Public Radio. The conclusions are not the typical leftist NPR bill of fare: 1. Medical malpractice lawsuits drive up health care costs. 2. Insurance companies are not evil. 3. Our reliance on third-party payers is at the heart of the problem. 4. Obamacare won’t fix the problem! Bravo to NPR for honest analysis and reporting. Hope to see more of it.
Guns and Butter–We’ll Have Neither
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Defense, Financial Policy, Foreign Policy, Welfare on November 19, 2009
When Jerry O’Driscoll the other evening cited President Eisenhower’s belief that a strong economy was the basis for military strength, I questioned whether this was a chicken-egg issue. Jerry held his ground that economic strength was the foundation–it came first. On later reflection, I agree that this was logical at least since late medieval history. The reason is that it costs money and plenty of it to maintain a strong military which per se is uneconomic. The military produces nothing, save security.
In ancient times one could argue that armies would fight, kill and conquer for booty and spoils. That started to change in Roman times. The change continued in medieval times. But by Napoleon’s time, “an army travel(ed) on its stomach,” as Russia learned to its advantage.
What the military does produce though is critical to economic strength. Without security the economy cannot be maintained; without security innovation will not flower; without security economic risk will not be undertaken. There’s a symbioses here. QED, military strength is a good investment!
Since WWI American military might has been the protector of the free world. Our blood, lives, and treasure have pulled Western Europe out of two world wars and maintained the power balance needed to drive the Soviet Union into bankruptcy. They have also kept the Pacific Basin free from Japan in WWII and with the Truman Doctrine maintained the line in East Asia against the Chinese Communists until in recent times capitalism is beginning to take roots in China.
In essence we have paid with blood, lives and treasure for the free world’s economic protection. We have paid for its luxury to produce enough to institute welfare states–to become socialists! Yes, our blood, our lives, our money have given France the ability to look down its nose on us as money-grubbing capitalists with no appreciation of culture and no concept of leisure. While France takes the month of August off, has a 35 hour work week, and is guaranteed 30 annual holidays, we–at least those with real jobs–have settled for two weeks vacation and worked overtime, paying taxes all the while.
Where are we going from here? Obama is traveling the world bowing and apologizing for our past. He is abandoning our military commitments and our allies. He is ruining our economy for generations to come. And, he is logically disarming our nuclear capability and dithering on whether we should try to win–in his words–the “war of necessity” in Afghanistan. He wants to make us European. He’s a multi-nationalists. He would cede sovereignty to the UN. In short, he would rather be liked than right. In his morally-relativistic world, “being liked” is the measure of success!
Victor Davis Hanson penned an excellent litany November 19th on National Review Online, appropriately titled: Circling Sharks Smell American Blood. One paragraph worth note: “France, of all nations, is now warning us to get a backbone with the Iranians. So far the theocracy has snubbed our new outreach efforts aimed at stopping its nuclear proliferation. Iran’s Russian patrons now talk more nicely to us — but mostly because we caved on land-based missile defense in Eastern Europe, and got nothing really in return.” Yep, you heard that right, France is telling us to get a backbone!
Back to “guns and butter.” Past history shows that it is difficult to have a welfare state (butter), a strong military, and a vibrant economy. The strong economy can support the military but not the welfare state at the same time. Obama is bent on wrecking the economy by borrowing against our grandchildren’s future to create a more encompassing, more invasive welfare state. So in the end we will have neither guns nor butter. Come to think of it, we won’t have much of a country either.
Tom Motherway