Archive for January, 2010
Why Did Obama Finally Wake Up To Google?
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, National Character, Politics on January 15, 2010
Google initially ask for U.S. government help in it protest to China hacking. This was denied. Other U.S. companies who were victims of the hacking also declined to stand up. After Google’s decision to go it alone and stand up to China, the U.S. State Department declined to comment saying it would wait to see how China responded.
Lo and behold, this morning Obama and Clinton decide to issue a formal demarche expressing U.S. concern about the incident. See Bloomberg report.
Could it be that our post partisan president sees political capital in finally getting on the right side of freedom? He certainly didn’t have any great independent motivation before. Perhaps his philosophy doesn’t include First Amendment concepts, but, without a doubt, it does relish political applause!
Tom Motherway
The Moral High Ground-It’s Not All About Money!
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character on January 14, 2010
I count 7 separate articles in the first section of today’s (1-14-10) WSJ on Google’s stand for individual freedom in China. Quick summary:
- U.S. Holds Fire in Google-China Feud.
- A Heated Debate at the Top.
- Web Is New Front Among Cold War Foes.
- Levi’s Left, Too-And Came Back.
- Pullout Threat Jolts Chinese Users.
- Clash on the Great Firewall.
- Google Gets on the Right Side of History.
The last of these is rather frightening linking what is going on in China to what was going on in East Germany with the rat-on-your-neighbor system set up by the Stasi, only recently discovered with the release of Stasi files.
We all realize that freedom will one day come to China, just as modernity will one day come to Islam. The question in each case is what it takes to get there. How much pain, how much protest, how much bloodshed, and how much money sacrificed.
We see with Google that principle overcomes profit. It recognizes that our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, press, and religion are the basic rights of a democracy. Google stands up. The United States government sits by.
A follow-up in Bloomberg this evening reports that Google tried to enlist other companies to help draw attention to the cyber attacks from China without success. Since that failure of support three U.S. companies have stepped up and said they were the subject of cyber attacks, Adobe Systems, Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and Rackspace Hosting Inc.
We should be justifiably proud that Google leads and other American companies follow to exercise their voice for individual freedom in the face of loss. The Founding Fathers’ spirit lives, thank God!
It’s not all about money!
Tom Motherway
Get Serious About Serious Materials
Posted by Tom in Environment, Obama Budget & State of the Nation, Stimulus/Bailout on January 14, 2010
John Stossel’s FBN show on “crony capitalism” has a clip that’s too good not to post. Who says you can’t buy influence!
Challenge: Agree With A Liberal
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Financial Policy, Government Regulation on January 14, 2010
In the spirit of open-mindedness and good fellowship I think it is right that we look for a liberal position with which we agree. So this is my contribution for the year, so far:
In the January 13th WSJ’s “Tilting Yard” Thomas Frank pens his oped entitled, Bring Back Glass-Steagall. Recall that Glass-Steagall was the depression era act that separated investment banking from commercial banking. Commercial banking is what we’re most familiar with our checking accounts, saving accounts, auto loans, and home loans; for businesses this would include inventory loans and general working capital loans. This commercial banking is highly regulated at several levels and since the depression has federal government guarantees associated with it.
Investment banking, on the other hand, has to do with securities, underwriting, advising, and trading. Old firm names like Rothschild, Lehman, and Solomon were the traditional investment bankers. They had little regulation and no government guarantees. These firms advised companies, brought them public often taking equity positions in them, and financed their bond issues by underwriting their debt; they also developed very profitable trading operations in securities and commodities of all types. Wall Street investment banks pioneered new forms of finance involving security assembly and packaging, derivatives, and multi-jurisdictional tax and security laws. Again, there was little regulation and no taxpayer guarantees.
In 1999 with both Republicans and Democrats supporting the legislation, Glass-Steagall was repealed. President Clinton signed the legislation which became law. Combinations were off to the races. Old bank names fell by the wayside and behemoths like Citi and Bank of America handled all things financial! You don’t hear commercials for the old money center banks anymore. Chase Manhattan is now JP Morgan Chase; Mellon National is Bank of New York Mellon; Boatman’s Bank of St. Louis is now Bank of America. You get the picture.
With the repeal of Glass-Steagall we find a dangerous mixture government guarantees and significant private risk taking. This simply doesn’t mix. Fannie and Freddie are a good analogy. Shareholders get the upside, taxpayers get the downside. This is what we have today. This is to a large extent why we are in trouble.
So when the liberal Thomas Frank calls for the return of Glass-Steagall, I agree with him. He is in good company with nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. The simple principle is that we don’t need private enterprises gambling with taxpayer money ever, no way!
Now, at the risk of being too long in this post, I have a challenge for you: Try to find the separation of commercial banking and investment banking in any of the financial regulation bills being proposed in the House or Senate. Try to find Obama advocating any such thing. Try to find any proposals to liquidate Fannie and Freddie being sponsored by Reid, Pelosi, Baucus, Dodd, Frank, or Durbin. You won’t. Hint: Wall Street funds the Democrats and the Democrats are the party of Wall Street. Fannie and Freddie are some of the drugs that help keep Democrats in power with taxpayer financing for non-qualified home buyers.
Tom Motherway
Hooray For Google
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character, Statism on January 13, 2010
Today’s WSJ front-page, six-column, lead headline: “Google Warns of China Exit Over Hacking.” No, it’s not a slow news day but the Journal gives this story its appropriate position to all those who champion individual rights and freedom. The story: Google was hacked last month apparently by government sources seeking to break into the email accounts of civil rights activists and 20 foreign firms. Google has notified the government that it is prepared to leave this gigantic market rather than to continue to submit to its censorship and hacking. No other major company has taken this step. Google has made the decision to forego revenue, market share, and profit and stand up for individual rights and freedom.
What’s interesting to note is that an American company is taking this hard stand. The leftist Democratic government in control of the United States did not take this stand. Hillary Clinton has made it clear that human rights would be on the back burner. Barack Hussein Obama’s uber-liberal golf buddy, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote: “One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages…(by imposing) the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.” This from the brilliant editorial in NRO today, “Google Stands Up to Beijing.”
Again, this just shows the lack of foundation, lack of principle of these leftist Democrats. The one principle they seem to share is perpetuation of control. And this is mainly fostered by entitlement addiction and regulatory excess. The perfect examples of this today are Obamacare and cap and trade where they have manufactured crises to initiate addiction and control.
So while Google plays hard ball in business and is sometimes a rent-seeker of the first order, it should be loudly applauded for today’s stand. Would that our government had such values.
Tom Motherway
Are Some in the MSM Starting to Act Like Journalists?
This seems too good to be true Jack Cafferty sounds off on CNN using a CBS report as his source! We report–you decide!!!
Bending Cost Curves–In the Wrong Direction!
Posted by Tom in Nationalized Health Care on January 13, 2010
I listened to Dean Heller’s tele-town-hall Tuesday during which he came up with a good analogy for Obamacare accounting: the 10-year advertised costs are like buying a house where you pay the mortgage for four years before you can move in for the next six years. In other words, the 10-year $800 Billion costs advertised is only for this particular 10-year period. Subsequent 10-year periods will cost at least 160% of the 10-year cost. Ya’ pay for 10, ya’ get 6, 10/6=1.67.
On top of this the advertised costs assume that there will be some $480 Billion in Medicare cuts. Get real, will Congress cut health care for the only group of voters that consistently vote? Already we have the Mayo Clinic in Arizona starting a pilot program that eliminates Medicare patients–this because it loses $840 Million a year on Medicare. Of course, this loss is before the $480 Billion in Obama “cuts.” Then there is the $30 Billion in Senate bribes that doesn’t show up in the Obamacare accounting.
The January 12th WSJ points out something the main stream media won’t: last Friday “Richard Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that health care spending will rise under the current bills by $222 Billion over the next 10 years. In other words, Obamacare really does “bend the cost curve”–up.” The agency that runs Medicare is sounding the alarm! This editorial is worth reading.
What’s imponderable is with studies like this, why the Democrats continue to force this Obamacare monstrosity on America? Is control that important? Is power that permanent?
Tom Motherway
If At First You Don’t Succeed….Change the Damn Rules!
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Stimulus/Bailout on January 13, 2010
Old Barack Hussein and his socialists minions Reid and Pelosi don’t like people asking them to account for the stimulus fiasco. It was pure and simple a payoff to leftist causes the Democrats had long championed. To assure that they could never be held accountable for the $787 Billion budget buster, Obama said that it would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs. Any one with an ounce of sense knew that the “save or create” obfuscation would put them beyond accounting. Problem is that they advertised that the unemployment rate would not go beyond 8% and then they set up a website to account for the “save or create” menagerie.
Well, with the lapse of time, the unemployment above 10%, and several funny-paper headlines about jobs created or saved, we saw the administration touting 1 million jobs in October and www.recovery.gov suggesting only 528,916 as of the same month. Silliness aside, the job numbers are terrible. What’s worse is that 2010 is an election year!
What to do, what to do? MSNBC reports January 12th: “White House changes stimulus job accounting” ”New method will make it impossible to track ones saved or created” Henceforth it will only be a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus. “Recipients of recovery money no longer have to show that a job would have been lost without stimulus help, and they no longer are require to keep an ongoing tally of jobs saved or created. The new rules allow stimulus recipients to limit the job tally to quarterly reports, making it impossible to avoid double-counting a job that was created in one quarter and continued into the next.” These new rules were quietly published last month in a memorandum to the federal agencies.
The sad part of this is already being seen on the state side of the stimulus. The beggar states like California are in hock up to their eyeballs with nowhere to turn just when the stimulus money is about to run out! More deficit and more debt is becoming unpopular with the voters, especially in an election year when memories are not all that short, so it’s a hot potato for Obama. What may happen is the second part of a double dip recession. And this dip will be caused or greatly exacerbated by the Obama-Reid-Pelosi team.
Bottom line: the quiet change of the stimulus jobs accounting rules really shows these leftists to be the despicable charlatans that they are.
Tom Motherway
Democrats’ Government Employment Explosion
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Statism on January 12, 2010
While 15.4 million Americans are out of work the Federal bureaucracy has added 13,000 jobs according to an article in the current issue of National Review. Here are some other tidbits:
- The number of bureaucrats making over $100,000 has doubled since the recession started.
- Transportation Department workers making over $170,000 up by 1690 in 18 months.
- Defense Department workers making over $150,000 up by 1868 in 18 months.
- Average federal worker gets $71,206 while the average private sector worker gets $40,331.
Keep in mind, these civilian bureaucrats make nothing of value, no goods, no services. Yet they live off of the livelihood of other productive people who do create things of value. The government cannot create wealth it can only consume wealth or redistribute wealth. Certain legitimate roles of government such as the court system and national security rightly and necessarily consume wealth. Other leftist roles of government like welfare and cash for clunkers redistribute wealth with no value creation whatsoever.
Barack Hussein Obama is so far into this leftist philosophy that he was critical of the Warren Court, one of the most liberal, for not going far enough to redistribute wealth. He is destine to out redistribute Roosevelt and Johnson.
What makes matters worse is that we are adding to our deficits and debt to grow this welfare state. Our children and grandchildren will pay the price.
Tom Motherway
Cloward-Piven Strategy: Is It Obama’s?
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Constitution, Deficit, Government Regulation, Politics, Statism on January 12, 2010
My friend Ron Tomsic emailed an interesting take on what’s behind our Democratic rulers rush to control every element of our lives. Hint: “Never let a crisis go to waste.”…Rahm Emmanuel.
Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, lifelong members of the Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University in New York, published an article in May of 1966 in The Nation entitled “The Weight of the Poor.” That outlined their plan for using grassroots organizations to stress the system making excessive demands on government to correct the lack of welfare distribution and indeed the redistribution of wealth.”They argued that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare “would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments” that would “deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the white working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas.”[2] They wrote “the ultimate objective of this strategy (is) to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income… (via) the outright redistribution of income.” (Source: Wikipedia) In other words, where no crisis exists, create one, cause disruption, get redistribution–AND VOTES, AND THEREFORE CONTROL, IN THE PROCESS!
They were the genesis or organizations like ACORN. You know “community organizations” staffed by “community organizers.” (Anything sound familiar?) They are the local groups, funded by your tax dollars and duped-umbrella charities, that you can go to for advice on tax fraud, human trafficking for prostitution, or voter fraud.
The goal is not “health care” or “environmental protection” or “stimulus” or “financial reform” it is CONTROL. Control means power and power means money. They are not concerned with Constitutional limits. They have “czars” who will establish rules and regulations. (Sound a bit Russian or maybe Communist?)
The American Thinker published an article by Nancy Copock, Cloward/Pliven Strategy of Economic Recovery in February of 2009 which gives a take on Obama’s philosophical upbringing and associations. This follows up on the James Simpson article in American Thinker of September 2008, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis, which notes that many of the politicians who caused, or help cause, the crisis, will do so again. Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd fit this bill exactly with their “rolling the dice” for more subprime loans from Fannie and Freddie. History indeed repeats itself!
Beware of the ruling classes, who seek only to rule!
Tom Motherway