The British newspaper The Independent reported today that Gulf oil producers were negotiating with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar in pricing oil with a basket of currencies.[1] According to the Wall Street Journal, Arab oil officials have denied the story, but even the possibility of such a talk weakens the dollar and renews fears about its continued viability as an international reserve currency.[2] In fact, today a United Nations official called for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar and end our “privilege” to run up huge deficits.[3] We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar.[4]
All of this is a result of our out-of-control debt. This is why we need to rein in spending, and this is also why we need energy independence. A weakened dollar means higher commodity prices. This will make it more difficult to pay our bills – including the bill to import oil.
In his book Architects of Ruin, Peter Schweizer points out that the Obama administration is focusing primarily on “green energy,” while ignoring our need to develop our domestic conventional energy resources.[5] We’re ignoring the looming crisis caused by our dependence on foreign oil. Because we’re dependent on foreign nations for our oil, we’re also at their mercy if they decide to dump the dollar as their trade currency. We can’t allow ourselves to be so vulnerable to the whims of foreign nations. That’s why we must develop our own domestic supplies of oil and gas.
Though the chant of “Drill, baby, drill” was much derided, it expressed the need to confront this issue head-on before it reaches a crisis point.
Bottom line: let’s stop digging ourselves into debt and start drilling for energy independence.
- Sarah Palin
[1] See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html
[2] See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125484066563367821.html
[3] See http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e272eaa74dccc30f21c6ff7638b0f37b.461&show_article=1
[4] See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091006/ts_afp/commoditiesgoldmetalsprice_20091006144514
The best interview you may ever see on how to help bring down health care costs and get people covered, and believe it or not it was on MSNBC. The anchor here finally asked the right questions; questions that aren’t partisan gotchas but questions that are designed to look out for the folks.
The host asks a key question in the interview; why is it that we are subject to the limits our employers, the state or the union bosses put on us when it comes to picking our own health care plan? He hit the nail on the head. The time for letting someone else have so much control over our own health care choices needs to come to an end. It is time to move away from the state, union, employer based insurance to a consortium based series of health care pools that people can buy into.
The new 219 page GOP health care bill is the first step to move in that direction by incentivizing the creation of health care pools across state lines which are now prohibited by the government. The bill also creates and provides incentives for the states to create a guaranteed high risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.
The GOP alternative removes the government barrier to buying health insurance across state lines, lets you have more choice as to the pools that you can buy into, has bogus lawsuit reform and more. The summary of the bill can be found HERE and you can examine the full text of the bill HERE.
The CBO says that this new 219 page GOP alternative bill will lower premiums by 10%, lower the deficit by 68 billion and help more people get insurance. This bill is not the “be all end all” in health insurance reform, but it is a very smart, incremental first step. Most importantly it doesn’t do any damage.
The current 2000 page Pelosi health bill has the legal mandate word “shall” in it 3,425 times. It doesn’t take a genius to see that such a bill does not expand flexibility in making your health care choices.
The elite media is euphoric, saying the Obama stimulus package worked and we had 3.5% economic growth this quarter!
Unfortunately when I explain to you how the U.S. Government comes up with that number you are going to realize why the CBO likely never has an accurate forecast and why most economists are worse than weatherman at predicting economic trends. What I am about to explain to you is a tad arcane but Poligazette and my IUSB Vision readers are some very smart people and I have confidence that you will grasp this just fine.
The first thing that must be understood is the difference between a growth in GDP (Gross Domestic Product is the total sum of production within the borders of a country in a given year adjusted for inflation) and a growth in real GDP per capita. It is possible to claim that your economy is in “recovery” even at 1% growth (Joe Biden) but since 2% of production growth in the United States is because of improvements in technology and capital goods; and another 1% is needed for population growth, an economic growth rate of over 3% is required to reliably increase the GDP per capita of the United States. The GDP per capita is the most important measure of the standard of living and wealth of the average citizen.
With a claimed GDP growth rate of 3.5% and a non farm unemployment rising past 10%, how can each citizen be producing more per person while the unemployment rate is skyrocketing with another 530,000 NEW jobless claims just in the last month? This would have to mean that American consumers went on a spending spree to drive that number up or that each worker became way more productive and must be working lots of extra hours and overtime to get that per capita GDP up….
If you are starting to think that something sounds fishy you would be right.
I had a brief chat and open lecture with noted economist Bradley Schiller today. He told me that with the new 3.5% number that per capita GDP must be up and with unemployment also up the overtime worked hours must be way up. As you can see from the graphic, Schiller was wrong.
The graphic is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from October 29th. As you can see the hours of persons worked is way down in both categories. The total output is also down so how can this be? Where did the 3.5% growth come from? Could it be that Americans went on that spending spree? Sorry consumer confidence is down 5.7 points this quarter.
How can the output per hour have increased so high on the graphic when hours worked and total output are way down? Did Americans go into overdrive and suddenly become become super workers? The answer to why that number is artificially inflated is the same reason why the GDP number has been artificially inflated.
So how does the the US Government measure GDP? They use an old and very flawed Keynesian formula.
GDP= C+I+G+(X-N)
C = consumer consumption of goods and services measured. I = capital investment like building factories, production robots, machine tools etc. (X-N) is exports minus imports and since we have a large trade deficit that is always a negative number. G= government spending and this is where the smoke and mirrors come in.
Since GDP has to equal total production of the workforce, this means that if Mr. Bernanke at the Federal Reserve prints up a bunch of money and Nancy Pelosi spends it, congratulations, each worker in the United States just became more productive on paper. This is the effect that a $1.7 trillion yearly deficit for 2009 has on an economy. For the sake of comparison the yearly deficit spending for 2007 was a “measly” $211 billion.
This is why the old, flawed Keynesian model is favored by politicians, socialists and other leftist ideologues, because on paper it means that the more you spend the better your economy is and the more productive you appear. What this amounts to is that there is no economic dip, depression, or problem that cannot be fixed by government spending. It gets worse, because of another flawed Keynesian concept called “leakage” they actually believe that government spending is MORE efficient in growing the economy than tax cuts. When Vice-President Biden said that we have to greatly increase deficit spending so we don’t go bankrupt, now you know why.
The reality is that most government spending does not create much if any wealth and much of it simply amounts to a transfer payment. Government is gargantuan and bureaucratic. Government money is spent for political reasons and not for economic reasons or efficiency.Thus the “multiplier effect” government spending has on the economy is much less than creating real wealth like creating things or investors building a factory.
There is even an argument to be made that much of the “G” variable for government spending should be counted as a negative number towards GDP because each dollar government spends eventually is a dollar taken from you or an investor to spend it. GDP exploded after 1947 when government spending dropped from 188 billion to 58 billion. It also should be mentioned that the larger government is, it engages in more arbitrary, regulative and taxing behavior that also drives down consumer and investor confidence. Deficit spending also drives up inflation.
The old Keynesian model is what a majority of economists believe because this is what they are taught in school; they simply never think for a moment to challenge it. This is a big part of the reason why government economists are so bad at cost/revenue forecasts. The economic collapse and the inability of 80% of economists to see it coming helped to convince me that most economists are great at applying flawed theory and don’t really understand economics.
It should also be noted that some economists are saying that one percentage point of the alleged 3.5% growth measure was due to the cash for clunkers program which studies have shown mostly was utilized by those who had planned to buy a car anyways this year; so the program just borrowed some spending from the future that will result in dips in auto sales for the next two quarters. In either case, the economy really isn’t improving anywhere near the degree that the elite media and some politicians say it is.
At best the current GDP formula is not a very good measure of an economy. A new formula for GDP needs to be constructed and tested.
CEI releases global warming study censored by Obama’s EPA
Natural forces as opposed to human activity are largely responsible for temperature fluctuations, according to a new study the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released today as Congress prepares to vote on global warming legislation.
Internal email messages show the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suppressed the report and silenced the author because the scientific evidence did not square with the Obama administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide, CEI claims. The EPA has become overly reliant upon outdated information from the United Nations and has ignored major new scientific developments, the censored study concludes.
“While we hoped that the EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its administrator has been talking transparency, since she took office,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.
New scientific data highlighted in the report shows that ocean cycles and solar cycles are probably the most important factors behind temperature fluctuations. Moreover, satellite information now indicates there is little chance of endangerment from greenhouse gases, according to the report.
Some of the major developments overlooked by EPA official include a continued decline in global temperatures, an emerging consensus that hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense and new studies that demonstrate water vapor will have a moderating influence on temperature.
The report was exposed by hard work from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. See the entire EPA Report HERE.
This is a key page in the report (Hat Tip Dwight Schultz):
This report has other gems like this one. The EPA and the UN have reports that they tried to hide from you that tell this simple truth. As we have said repeatedly in IUSB Vision coverage. The evidence is clear that there has been global cooling for over a decade and the WUWT Blog has published hundreds of articles and data sets demonstrating this. The bulk of global warming and cooling cycles is the result of solar activity. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and man’s contribution to that is minor. Water vapor is the chief greenhouse gas.
Most “peer reviewed” global warming studies are based on computer models. The problem is that when actual recorded data from the past is entered into such models they cannot even accurately predict climate from yesterday or last year.
The CEI unveils the evidence that the EPA ordered people to shut up about the findings and you can see the report with ALL of the emails HERE . Here are just two of the emails reveled (Via Powerline):
Here, the two scientists’ superior declines to make their report public because “the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment.” Click to enlarge:
Here, Carlin and Davidson are ordered not to communicate to the public their conclusion that the global warming alarmist theory is wrong:
Powerline sums up this scandalous behavior with a devastating analogy:
Global warming zealots are a bit like Iran’s mullahs. They are fanatically devoted to a series of false propositions. Unable to win an open scientific debate, they consistently resort to bullying and brute force to suppress their opposition. Once again, we see the Obama administration taking the lead in this regard, putting political ideology above scientific truth and demanding that all others do likewise.
UPDATE: Newsbusters notes the almost complete media blackout of this story, and contrasts it with the news media’s treatment of the Bush administration.
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is.
Not a surprise. So now it seems that when Obama gave up missile defense in Eastern Europe [1,2] with the stated goal of helping to get Russia on board he got nothing for it except his pals at GE getting some new contracts in Russia. Was it worth throwing Eastern Europe under the bus?
MOSCOW, Oct 14 (NYT): Denting President Obama’s hopes for a powerful ally in his campaign to press Iran on its nuclear programme, Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday that threatening Tehran now with harsh new sanctions would be “counterproductive.”
The minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said after meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton here that diplomacy should be given a chance to work, particularly after a meeting in Geneva this month in which the Iranian government said it would allow United Nations inspectors to visit its clandestine nuclear enrichment site near the holy city of Qum.
“At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process,” he said. “Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive.”
Mr. Lavrov’s resistance was striking given that, just three weeks before, President Dmitri A. Medvedev said that “in some cases, sanctions are inevitable.” American officials had hailed that statement as a sign that Russia was finally coming around to the Obama administration’s view that Iran is best handled with diplomacy backed by a credible threat of sanctions.
It also came after the Obama administration announced that it would retool a European missile defense system fiercely opposed by Russia. That move was thought to have paid dividends for the White House when Mr. Medvedev appeared to throw his support behind Mr. Obama on Iran, though American officials say the Russian president was also likely to have been reacting to the disclosure of the secret nuclear site near Qum.
This will influence China to resist sanctions as well at the UN who also has commercial interests in Iran.
So now it has come to this, if Israel doesn’t stop Iran, no one will. Would Obama order Americans to fire in Israeli forces should they strike? Would American pilots dare to obey such an order? I wouldn’t.
German Ship Caught in Iranian Arms Smuggling
This is not a surprise. The French, Germans, Chinese and Russians were smuggling illegal weapons to Saddam’s Iraq for years and our soldiers found the direct evidence it. And we wonder why we have to clean up so many messes in Europe’s back yard….
An “embarrassing affair,” is how one German diplomat described it. The official could also have added: potentially damaging to trans-Atlantic relations.
In an operation reported on by SPIEGEL over the weekend, US soldiers entered the freighter Hansa India in the Gulf of Suez at the beginning of October and discovered seven containers full of 7.62 millimeter ammunition suitable for Kalashnikov rifles. An eighth container was full of cartridges suitable for the manufacture of additional rounds. The incident is particularly awkward for Berlin as the Hansa India is registered to the Hamburg-based shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg.
Investigators suspect that the arms were part of an Iranian shipment bound for either the Syrian army or for Hezbollah, the militant Islamist group. US officials have pointed out that the delivery is in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747, which prohibits arms shipments either into or out of Iran.
According to Leonhardt & Blumberg, the 243-meter-long (297-foot-long) ship has for years been under charter to the state-owned shipping company Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. Two US warships halted the Hansa India after receiving a tip-off from intelligence services.
Liz Cheney Launches New Think Tank to Lead Opposition to Obama Foreign Policy
While Sarah Palin has become the main voice of GOP opposition to the far left policies of the Democratic leadership, Liz Cheney has taken the leading role in opposing administration foreign policy and national security policy.
I am an admirer of Liz Cheney, she is very smart, informed, tough, and very lovely. Palin/Cheney dream ticket?
The mission of Keep America Safe is to provide information for concerned Americans about critical national security issues. Keep America Safe seeks to influence public policy by encouraging dialogue between American citizens and their elected representatives in order to produce legislation and executive action that enhances the national security of the United States.
The United States remains a nation at war. We face a growing threat from rogue regimes that seek or have already obtained nuclear weapons. America’s interests are challenged by an authoritarian China, a resurgent Russia, and dictators in our own hemisphere who ally themselves with our adversaries. Amidst the great challenges to America’s security and prosperity, the current administration too often seems uncertain, wishful, irresolute, and unwilling to stand up for America, our allies and our interests.
Since 9/11, the United States Government, through our armed forces and our intelligence and law enforcement professionals, has succeeded in preventing any further attacks on the American homeland. This is a major achievement. By turning away from the policies that have kept us safe, by treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter, giving foreign terrorists the same rights as American citizens, launching investigations of CIA agents, cutting defense spending, breaking faith with our allies and attempting to appease our adversaries, the current administration is weakening the nation, and making it more difficult for us to defend our security and our interests.
Keep America Safe believes the United States can only defeat our adversaries and defend our interests from a position of strength. We know that America has, for 233 years, been an unparalleled force for good in the world, that our fighting forces are the best the world has ever known, and that the world is a safer place when America is trusted by our allies and feared and respected by our enemies. Keep America Safe will make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live.
Here is their introductory video:
President’s can multi-task so the complaining about the trips and golf I think was a bit cheesy, but the rest of it is spot on. Obama certainly has reneged ion his word when it comes to Afghanistan. HERE is Keep America Safe’s youtube channel.
Here is Liz Cheney talking with Sean Hannity. Sean is a little too partisan for my tastes, but Liz is in top form:
By the way the Pew Research Center polled and discovered that most Americans support the use of force to prevent Iran from getting nukes LINK.
Liz Cheney Dismantles far CNN activist/reporter Anderson Cooper:
Time Magazine has an interesting article that bucks their usual shtick. The article advocates giving nuclear weapons the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to keep several wars from happening.
UN Calls for Dropping Dollar as World Reserve Currency
The UN along with a whole host of countries is witnessing what the government and the Federal Reserve is up to. Oh wait, you don’t know what they are up to? OK quick economics lesson. There are four ways to take care of a large debt.
1. Spend less and that is out as the Democrats have increased deficit spending from the 2007 eight times.
2. You can tax the people into the ground, and while they are certainly breaking promises and raising taxes and trying to raise more the bottom line is that the debt and future entitlement obligations are so large that there just aren’t enough people to tax.
3. Grow the economy and increase GDP so there is more economy to tax. Sorry in spite of overwhelming historical evidence most leftists just don’t believe in economic growth as we know it. Besides, in order to do that you have to unleash freedom and incentivise a growth environment which means abandoning central control and that is out of the question for the far left.
4. Print money up to inflate the currency to screw those we owe money to. That is exactly what is going on now and the world is very upset with us. Obama ran on raising the standing of the Unites States in the world. Well the world is not happy at all with what is going on.
Unintended consequences. The world does all they can to get out of the dollar (happening) we lose influence in the world, our currency loses value (so you saved for retirement and what are those dollars worth? The dollar has lost 29% of its value in the last seven years. Nine percent in the last six months.) and the world drops America’s credit rating form AAA to AA. That would mean that the cost of mortgages, credit cards and government debt would skyrocket. In short it would mean economic armageddon.
The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.
“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,” UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.
Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: “It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity.”
He said: “Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes,” he said.
The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and pound — which is calculated daily.
China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.
Countries Moving to Ditch Using the Dollar for Oil Trading
The dollar’s position as the world’s leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said.
A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency’s future.
The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily’s controversial report.
“The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world,” said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group.
“Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. “Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies.
“And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar’s underlying downtrend will remain in place,” added Juckes.
The Independent, under the front-page headline “The Demise of the Dollar”, reported last Tuesday that Gulf states, together with China, Russia, Japan and France, were considering replacing the dollar as the currency for oil deals.
Beck: US Newspapers Print More About ‘Jon and Kate’ Than Demise of the Dollar – VIDEO.
Some pinheads at politico.com are blaming Matt Drudge for the dollar woes for reporting what the American press will not. We cant blame what the government is doing….. nope they are blameless….
Durable goods orders, housing sales plunged in August
Ed Morrissey at Hotair.com has a great post showing that the economy is still tanking while the administration and some elite media outfits claims that it is a great recovery:
While Joe Biden tells Americans that the stimulus has worked “better than we hoped,” the numbers tell a different story. Seven months after passing a whopping $787 billion stimulus package, unemployment and mass layoffs both jumped in August. What didn’t go up? Orders of durable goods, which took a significant plunge instead:
New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell unexpectedly in August, dropping by their biggest margin in seven months, following a plunge in commercial aircraft orders, the government reported Friday.
The Commerce Department said durable goods orders tumbled 2.4 percent, the largest decline since January, after rising by a revised 4.8 percent in July. New orders for July were previously reported to have increased 5.1 percent.
Analysts polled by Reuters forecast orders rising 0.5 percent in August. Compared with the same period last year, new orders were down 24.9 percent.
Durable goods orders are a leading indicator of manufacturing activity, which in turn provides a good measure for overall business health.
Resales of U.S. homes dropped 2.7% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million, the first decline in five months, prompting the National Association of Realtors to again plead for more taxpayer subsidies for their business. …
“It is perfectly clear that realtors are scared to death of the tax credit’s expiration,” wrote Dan Greeenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co., noting the phrase “tax credit” appears six times in the group’s press release.
First-time buyers accounted for about 30% of sales in July and August, Yun said.
Without an extension of the taxpayer subsidy, the housing market could fall into a “double-dip” downturn, Yun said, which would stall the overall economic recovery.
The housing market is also being propped up by the Federal Reserve’s purchases of nearly $1.5 trillion in mortgage-related securities, accounting for about 80% of the market. The Fed said Wednesday it would slow its purchases and end them by next March.
Why will we hit a double dip in the recession without government subsidies? In part, it will come from the fact that the $787 billion stimulus and other government-subsidy programs don’t address the real problems of the recession.
[Morissey really hits the nail on the head and shows his understanding of economics]
The problem with the economy now is the drain of capital from the private markets, both now and especially in the future. The Obama administration has expansive dreams of big-government control of health care and energy production which will suck capital out of the private markets, where it gets used efficiently, into government bureaucracies that waste it. These massive programs are running up massive deficits, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that taxes will get hiked in huge proportions to pay for it eventually. The result: investors put their money into savings rather than risk, jobs don’t get created, and recessions continue.
More McCain Fiengold Campaign Finance Regulations Struck Down
It seems that every time the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) also known as McCain/Fiengold gets parts of it struck down every time it goes to court and it should. BCRA is so unconstitutional that makes me ill and the courts are finally catching up with what was so painfully obvious when it was passed.
The other problem with the BCRA is that it has had exactly the opposite effect of its stated intent (Quinn’s Law # 1). BCRA exponentially increased the power of 527 groups, who are often the most ideological and the elite media.
Many 527 groups are controlled by a few key players like George Soros who end up wielding way too much influence over the DNC and elected politicians. Now these 527’s can have unlimited fund raising and run unlimited ads while political parties are still castrated by the law. This puts people like Soros in a much more powerful position than even the head of the DNC. This is why the average citizen loses. The money has been taken away from the parties and given to the hard left. Hard left moneydemands hard left policy. The average Joe can effect the party at the local level and get involved in the state and national parties and its easier to get involved than one might think. Not everyone involved in the parties is as extreme as the 527’s. There are still plenty of moderate elements even in the official Democrat machine.
This also means that every special interest will have its own 527 group to wield and threaten ads to gain more influence. Parties are under pressure to at least be directionally accurate, most 527’s don’t care about such pressure and will say anything and everything. Another problem is groups such as the Tides Foundation who take funds and route then to far left organizations so tracking the money can become more difficult.
It gives me a shudder to say this, but the old way of doing campaign finance was better.
A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections.
The three-judge panel struck down regulations intended to blunt the power of such organizations, including the controversial Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org, which drew heavy criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars on aggressive advertisements during the 2004 presidential campaign.
The ruling, if it stands, could provide a boost to Republicans and their allies as they try to win back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. Outside conservative groups could become particularly important in countering the fundraising juggernaut of President Obama, who shattered past records by raising more than $750 million during his 2008 campaign.
Experts suggested that the court’s decision could provide a boon to groups tapping into the fervor of anti-Obama activity and “tea party” events. It will certainly allow groups across the political spectrum to raise and spend money without pause, potentially leading to a more acerbic campaign environment.
[Of course the WashPost has to make the editorial comment swipe at conservatives. They know full well that leftist 527's are much more organized and wealthy than conservative ones. Of course after that they admit that it was a left wing 527 that sued to get this done - Editor]
The groups “are now free to accept unlimited contributions, to spend unlimited funds independently supporting or opposing federal candidates,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an election law expert.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit came in a lawsuit brought by Emily’s List, a nonprofit political organization that backs female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights.
This is the portion of the ruling that will be important in the near future:
The rules required the political committees to use hard money for at least 50 percent of their generic get-out-the-vote efforts and voter registration drives. It also compelled the organizations to use hard-money accounts to pay all costs of advertisements that referred to a federal candidate. If a group’s solicitations mentioned a specific candidate, the regulations required them to treat the donation as hard money.
Kavanaugh wrote that such rules were unconstitutional because they limited speech by political groups. The rules “do not pass muster,” he wrote, adding that they did not serve an anti-corruption purpose and had been enacted to “better equalize the voices of citizens and groups who participate in the political process.”
The BCRA rules were unconstitutional because they tried to “equalize” or dare I say redistribute political speech. This does not bode well for the Obama Administration and his FCC which are trying to come up with new rules to do the same thing to talk radio and the internet with policies such as “localism”, “net neutrality” or other policies designed to have a similar impact as the tossed out “fairness doctrine” which was selectively used to shut people up that organized groups didn’t like.
Overpaid Celebrities PSA Mocked
Don’t you hate it when celebrities who are as ignorant as they day is long try to lecture you about politics and policy? You will love this.
Government Shuts Down Neighborhood “Haunted House” That Operated Safely for 15 Years
Hey who needs tyranny from Washington when we can have it three miles away? Is this what you wanted your city officials to do?
Its no trick – the Town of Tonawanda is shutting down a haunted house and that’s no treat for Halloween lovers this October.
For 15 years, the Deck family has been scaring neighbors and trick-or-treaters at their annual haunted house. But this year, the boogey man turned out to be code enforcement. “When I came home from work, they posted a No Entry sign over my sign, that no one’s allowed to use it,” said homeowner Paul Deck.
The town posted a “Unsafe Structure” notice, which states that no one is allowed to go inside. “They want me change all my displays to the outside so people could just walk around it,” said Deck.
Deck designed this house of ghouls and ghosts with his three boys. They spent over 40 hours constructing it to be like a maze inside and he says its too late to rebuild the whole thing.
“Its approximately 1200 square feet. Its built with over 300 2×4s, 400 feet of plastic. Its got between 12-15 displays. Its got everything from Freddy, to Jason, to Hannibal Lector,” he said.
Deck’s neighbors are disappointed. This haunted house is something they look forward to every Halloween. “I think it’s a shame. The kids are really disappointed. Every year he does a great thing for the kids, they love to come, they love it, come in twice sometimes if they can,” said neighbor Scott Hummel.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: George Soros isn’t left wing …
Andrea Mitchell shows just how in the tank she is and that she is totally wrapped up in the beltway mentality. Any thinking person who takes a look at who Soros funds, his statements opposing freedom and capitalism, and the activities of his Orwellian named “Open Society Institute” could come to any other conclusion that Soros is at very best a super rich neo-marxist.
WASHINGTON – Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.
That could add up to a “new normal” of higher joblessness and lower standards of livingfor many Americans, some economists are suggesting.
The words “it’s different this time” are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can’t be counted on now.
Here’s why:
• The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions. But the carnage among Detroit’s automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.
• The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.
• Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtain bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.
• Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments. Lower-income households are cutting back because they can’t borrow like they once did.
That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.
Retrenching businesses will be slow in hiring back or replacing workers they laid off. Many of the 7.2 million jobs the economy has shed since the recession began in December 2007 may never come back.
“This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects. I think theunemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi,chief economistand co-founder of Moody’sEconomy.com.
“The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we’ve been through. And we’re going to be different as a result,” said Zandi, who formerly advisedSen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress,
Even before the recession, many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing. The severest downturn since theGreat Depressionhas accelerated the process.
Many economists believe the recession reversed course in the recently ended third quarter and they predict modest growth in the nation’s gross domestic product over the next few years. Yet the unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — and likely to top 10 percent soon and stay there a while.
Why are people not investing in the United States? Why is manufacturing going over seas? The answer is simple, this government and some state governments have policies that punish the creation of wealth and are barriers to doing business. We have the second highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world, we have high capital gains taxes we have excessive regulation that is often designed to aid some competitors and punish others so that politicians to get kick backs. China has no capital gains tax.
The simple truth is that wealth goes where it is treated well. If I were to declare a war on wealth and prosperity I would do exactly what this government has been doing.
Government Wants a VAT tax. How Does This Hurt You?
Speaking of barriers to production and sending production jobs overseas. This tax is targeted to do exactly just that. Watch this video, its 6 minutes and you will learn a ton.
Propose Cap & Trade Tax Will Help Coastal States (Democrat strongholds) & Screw the Mid West
Speaking of sending more jobs overseas. This policy will do exactly just that.
While Congress debates the overhaul of one-sixth of the American economy with ObamaCare, another sixth of the economy looks as though it will get allocated on a political basis. The New York Times reports on an EPA analysis of emissions credits that favor mostly coastal states — mainly Democratic strongholds — at the expense of Midwestern and coal-belt states. Energy producers are up in arms, but everyone should be objecting to this rather corrupt allocation of emissions licenses.
Follow the link for the details, but Indiana will be hit especially hard.
HERE is a terrific analysis of New York Times economist/columnist Paul Krugman’s recent piece “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?”. Krugman’s regular analysis have shown to be almost consistently wrong for years. Economics is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. The simple truth is that while economists can quote you terms and fancy sounding numbers, 80% of them lack the ability to connect patterns of dots and indicators to apply the knowledge with even rudimentary directional accuracy. Only 20% of economists saw recent the bubble and collapse coming in spite of the fact that Dr. Friederich Hayak won the Nobel for Economics in part for his work on economic bubbles.
Even as an undergrad (albeit told a gifted one) I have debated PhD.’s in economics and defeated them with relative ease. The simple truth is that economists, especially Marxist economists, are not even held to a weatherman’s standard for accuracy and accountability. The government told us that without the special interest written (see Apollo Alliance) stimulus bill we would see unemployment in the country reach 8%. The predictable result is that with the stimulus bill we are skyrocketing towards the 10.5% unemployment rate which would even still be understated by the vast number of discouraged workers that have stopped looking for gainful employment. Where is the accountability for these Harvard and Berkeley trained pinheads?
Most government economists routinely understate the value of classic neo-liberal economic policy such as the increases in revenue often generated by tax cuts (Laffer Curve), they also greatly underestimate the damage of tax increases to the economy (game theory) and also greatly underestimate the cost of government programs (in the case of Medicare the government underestimated the cost of the program in the first 20 years by a factor of 10).
The reason that real economists such as Dr. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Laffer and John Lott have been ignored by the elite media is precisely because their economic analysis is proved right more often than it is proved wrong. They just don’t happen to be leftists.
Our friend Michael van der Galien at Poligazette posted a link to a study that explains the degree in which bad government can destroy wealth, kill jobs and raise the prices of everything you buy.
Poligazette explains that the total cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion per year. That is ‘almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third of the State’s gross product.’ 3.8 million jobs are lost because of overregulation which is a tenth of the State’s population. Furthermore:
Since small business constitute 99.2% of all employer businesses in California, and all of non-employer business, the regulatory cost is borne almost completely by small business. The total cost of regulation was $134,122.48 per small business in California in 2007, labor income not created or lost was $4,359.55 per small business, indirect business taxes not generated or lost were $57,260.15 per small business, and finally roughly one job lost per small business.
Some people feel better “when that rich guy” or “that business owner” gets taxed. Democrats play the class warfare game and tell us how they are going to “make them pay” etc… How does $500 Billion in lost wealth every year make you feel now? How many jobs could that money create? How many movie tickets bought, homes built, computers made, policeman trained, schools improved, cars repaired, and the list goes on?
It is important to keep in mind, every regulation is an arbitrary barrier to creating products, wealth and jobs. Getting rid of regulation does NOT mean getting rid of good policing. While rhetorically there may not be much difference between regulation and policing, in practice the difference is massive. We all want an active but limited government to protect us from fraud, abuse and crooks.
As I commented on Poligazette:
I hate to throw soot on a gloomy picture, but it is even worse.
Why does California, a state that has more ability to create wealth than most countries, have this level of regulation that is causing the state to fall apart and its population vote with their feet and leave?
For each of these regulations, someone benefits either monetarily or ideologically. Many of these regulations simply serve to pick winners and losers by tilting the scale to help some business while harming their competition; with the winners kicking money back to interest groups and legislators.
The California Legislature is so strapped with the corruption otherwise known as “political market economics” (aka corporatism light) that it is a wonder the state went this long before starting to fall apart economically. But until the people who vote there learn a lesson I do not expect things to change in any meaningful way.
These regulations keep coming and the latest proposals are to have the state ban certain colors from cars, mandate the color of the roof of buildings and even have your home thermostat connected to the internet so the state can control the temperature of your home.
If the new ObamaCare bill passes it will generate two generations of Republican voters.
The shall issue mandate in current proposed legislation will cause premiums to skyrocket (details why below). Young people will not be able to afford it and as a result will be forced to opt for paying the mandated tax penalty. The penalty will still be much less than the premiums. The result, since the public option is gone, will be even more people who cannot afford health insurance, more employers who cannot afford health insurance for their employees, with both the poor, young and small employers paying higher taxes to subsidize the baby boomers.
It’s a rip off and there is a smarter way to do this.
Let’s have an honest debate before we transfer more money from young to old.
By Leavitt, Hubbard & Hennessey
Let’s start with basics: Insurance protects against the risk of something bad happening. When your house is on fire you no longer need protection against risk. You need a fireman and cash to rebuild your home. But suppose the government requires insurers to sell you fire “insurance” while your house is on fire and says you can pay the same premium as people whose houses are not on fire. The result would be that few homeowners would buy insurance until their houses were on fire.
The same could happen under health insurance reform. Here’s how: President Obama proposes to require insurers to sell policies to everyone no matter what their health status. By itself this requirement, called “guaranteed issue,” would just mean that insurers would charge predictably sick people the extremely high insurance premiums that reflect their future expected costs. But if Congress adds another requirement, called “community rating,” insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums for higher risks will be sharply limited.
Thus a healthy 25-year-old and a 55-year-old with cancer would pay nearly the same premium for a health policy. Mr. Obama and his allies emphasize the benefits for the 55-year old. But the 25-year-old, who may also have a lower income, would pay significantly more than needed to cover his expected costs.
Like the homeowner who waits until his house is on fire to buy insurance, younger, poorer, healthier workers will rationally choose to avoid paying high premiums now to subsidize insurance for someone else. After all, they can always get a policy if they get sick.
To avoid this outcome, most congressional Democrats and some Republicans would combine guaranteed issue and community rating with the requirement that all workers buy health insurance—that is, an “individual mandate.” This solves the incentive problem, and guarantees that both the healthy poor 25-year-old and the sick higher-income 55-year-old have heath insurance.
But the combination of a guaranteed issue, community rating and an individual mandate means that younger, healthier, lower-income earners would be forced to subsidize older, sicker, higher-income earners. And because these subsidies are buried within health-insurance premiums, the massive income redistribution is hidden from public view and not debated.
Mr. Leavitt, former secretary of Health and Human Services (2005-2009), has served as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a governor of Utah (1993-2003). Mr. Hubbard (2005-2007) and Mr. Hennessey (2008) served as directors of the White House National Economic Council.
Former U.S. vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, emerged in Asia on Wednesday to share her views from “Main Street U.S.A” with a group of high-flying global investors.
In her first trip to the region, the former Alaska governor addressed an annual conference of investors in Hong Kong in what was billed as a wide-ranging talk about governance, economics and U.S and Asian affairs.
“I’m going to call it like I see it and I will share with you candidly a view right from Main Street, Main Street U.S.A.,” Palin told a room full of asset managers and other finance professionals, according to a video of part of the speech obtained by The Associated Press. “And how perhaps my view of Main Street … how that affects you and your business.”
Palin started off her keynote — which was closed to reporters — with a light talk about the links between her state and the southern Chinese territory, then touched later on economic issues and China.
One attendee said she called on China to be a more responsible global citizen, allow greater freedoms and take a more active role in solving pressing world issues.
She also criticized the U.S. Federal Reserve’s massive intervention in the economy over the last year, arguing its actions only exacerbated the crisis, according to another attendee. She also praised the conservative economic policies of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Earlier, she talked of Alaska’s salmon exports and complimented Hong Kong as a “beautiful city,” according to a third attendee. All three people spoke on condition of anonymity, because they did not want to be seen as speaking on behalf of their companies.
Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used her first trip to Asia to attack the Federal Reserve for creating asset bubbles and encouraging excessive risk-taking that hurt working-class Americans.
In a wide-ranging, 80-minute speech to fund managers in Hong Kong today, Palin spoke about issues ranging from Alaskan fishing to energy independence to U.S.-Sino ties. She repeated calls for “market-oriented” health-care reform and said governments shouldn’t regulate executive compensation.
The Fed and the government sent a message to companies that “the bigger that you are, the more problems that you get yourself into, the more likely the government is to bail you out,” Palin said in the closed door speech, according to a tape of the event given to Bloomberg News. “Of course the little guys are left out then. We’re left holding the bag, all the moms and pops all over America.”
The speech was Palin’s first major public appearance since quitting as Alaska governor on July 26, less than a year after she ran with John McCain in an unsuccessful campaign against now-President Barack Obama. People at the event said she focused on a wide range of global and domestic issues rather than her own political future.
“She was brilliant,” said a European delegate, on condition of anonymity.
“She said America was spending a lot of money and it was a temporary solution. Normal people are having to pay more and more but things don’t get better. The rich will leave the country and the poor will get poorer.”
Two US delegates left early, with one saying “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer”. He declined to be identified.
This was a foreign policy and economics speech so it is the foreign reaction that counts, but it should be no surprise that the only people who had something bad to say were from the United States. One can just feel the vitriol from the American quote. Many people have such an emotional connection with Barack Obama that they cannot stand to hear any critique of him. This is something I have seen first hand. One should NEVER make an emotional attachment to a candidate or a politician ever. The emotional connection will blind you. The polls make it crystal clear that the independent/cross pressured voters have turned against Obama’s policies, but for those partisans with such a strong emotional investment it is going to take a lot more damage to get them to open their eyes fully. Even the NY Times gave her presentation a good review.
Americans are broadly satisfied with the quality of their own medical care and healthcare costs, but of the two, satisfaction with costs lags. Overall, 80% are satisfied with the quality of medical care available to them, including 39% who are very satisfied. Sixty-one percent are satisfied with the cost of their medical care, including 20% who are very satisfied.
The 15% who are uninsured are far less satisfied with the quality of their medical care (50% are satisfied), and only 27% are satisfied with their healthcare costs. (Sixty-nine percent are dissatisfied with their costs.)
So let that last statement sink in. Even the majority of uninsured are satisfied with the level of care they receive. They are far more worried about the costs and that is understandable because their out-of-pocket expense is much higher than someone with insurance which brings us to another problem. If people have the attitude of “heck with it the insurance or the government will pay for it” that is exactly a primary reason why medical inflation is too high.
People without insurance are more likely to shop for the best deal, if we had medical savings accounts the opening expenses of those with health insurance would be controlled directly by the customer and they would want a good deal too which would help drive down medical costs, fraud, waste and abuse.
Dr. Sowell is perhaps the greatest living economist.
Often times when presidents surround themselves with highly intelligent people, they end up with brilliant rationalizations for failure. – Dr. Thomas Sowell
Dr. Sowell has a new column on this very subject and Michael van der Galien has a nice commentary on it at PoliGazette:
Although that’s certainly true (and dangerous), Sowell explains that the real problem runs even deeper: “Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.”
You see, Sowell explains, not all things can be understood by ‘intelligence’ alone. Experience is just as and often even more important. As Sowell puts it: “Many crucial things in life are learned from experience, rather than from clever thoughts or clever words.”
The main weakness of those who consider themselves to be extremely intelligent if not brilliant is that they overrate intelligence and reason and undervalue traditions, culture and experience. For them only intelligence matters. There is no limit to what government can do as long as they are in charge of it.
History has taught us that there are limits and that brilliant men often end up destroying the good in a vain pursuit of the perfect.
It’s progressivism’s main weakness; it is inherently unrealistic – no matter how ‘brilliant’ its adherents may believe themselves to be.
Bravo Michael! Well said. Michael and I are of one mind on this issue and I feel that my experience with leftist academia allows me the opportunity to expand on this a little more.
The Virtue of the Collectivist vs. the Wisdom of the Individualist
The left believes that society needs to be liberated from the mysticism and ancient thinking of the past. They believe that their virtue and their normative values combined with their new thinking is what is needed to lead the rest of society to a utopia, or at least to something close to perfection. All society has to do in exchange is cooperate with their ideas.
For the traditionalist or individualist, they realize that man is flawed and cannot be perfected, so they look at the wisdom, philosophy and experiences of the past to see what worked. They seek to conserve such knowledge and good practices and implement the best of them, while accepting that it will not be perfect and “very good” is the best that can ever be hoped for.
To the leftist or collectivist the wisdom of the past IS the problem, especially the philosophy that is included with Western religion. They see it as nothing but backwards mysticism that is utterly useless. Any argument against the leftist point of view often generates a vitriolic reaction, as they see it as an attack on virtue itself. In such an argument from the traditionalist, the reality is that it is not an attack on virtue, but rather an attack on the leftist’s normative ideas. It is narcissism at its core (after all we all want equality of result, DON’T YOU? Aren’t you down with the struggle?).
Since the left sees arguments from traditionalists as an attack on virtue itself, they see traditionalists as evil and feel perfectly justified in attacking them, trying to silence them, and engage in double standards in dealing with them.
In more cases than one might suspect the leftist will engage in various forms and degrees of brutality which is totally justified in their minds as virtuous. One just needs to explore the case files of theFoundation for Individual rights in Education and the Alliance Defense Fund (2) to see countless examples where leftist academics and administrators brazenly violated the rights of traditionalist students and teachers.
Have you ever wondered why leftist academics so often gloss over or play apologetics for human catastrophes that have resulted from collectivist or centrally controlled regimes? Well now you know. To them, Castro and Hugo Chavez are just trying to live up to their virtue.
How Academia Went Wrong
With the academic left, it starts with a liberal arts education that is a pop culture based education that is very heavy on Marxist theory, rather than a classic liberal arts education that is based on Aristotle, Socrates, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cicero, Plato, Locke, Bacon, Scholasticism etc. For many, if not most American universities the premises of the far left are often presented as the academic truth.
These academics pat each other on the back and tell each other how brilliant they are….and after all it MUST be true because all of these PhD. types tell you so. Invariably this environment brings you to a point where you start to believe it. You internalize it and eventually you stop challenging your own assumptions. The end result is an atrophied thinking process.
I am a non-traditional student at a state university finishing my first degree. I have debated professors on topics within their own field of study and defeated them. This should not happen and the simple truth is that in most cases out thinking them was not difficult. It is not that I am so brilliant, rather it is that a classic liberal arts based general education teaches you how to think ethically, logically and with a sense of introspective. Without it even the most educated among us will use their education and intellect to satisfy positions that are often a result of emotional attachments. They simply are not trained thinkers and as a result they often do not apply their knowledge well.
The Hollywood screenwriter and author Andrew Klavan wrote two very entertaining short video’s explaining this very concept of leftist virtue and ‘moral authority’.
Why are Conservatives So Mean?
Night of the Living Government
The Brainy Bunch By Dr. Thomas Sowell
September 29, 2009
Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.
It was, after all, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brilliant “brains trust” advisers whose policies are now increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s, while claiming credit for ending it. The Great Depression ended only when the Second World War put an end to many New Deal policies.
FDR himself said that “Dr. New Deal” had been replaced by “Dr. Win-the-War.” But those today who are for big spending like to credit wartime big spending for bringing the Great Depression to an end. They never ask the question as to why previous depressions had always ended on their own, much faster than the one under FDR, and without government intervention or massive government spending.
Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson’s administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s brilliant “whiz kids” tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.
There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.
Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.
Many crucial things in life are learned from experience, rather than from clever thoughts or clever words. Indeed, a gift for the clever phrasing so much admired by the media can be a fatal talent, especially for someone chosen to lead a government.
Make no mistake about it, Adolf Hitler was brilliant. His underlying beliefs may have been half-baked and his hatreds overwhelming, but he was a genius when it came to carrying out his plans politically, based on those beliefs and hatreds.
Starting from a position of Germany’s military weakness in the early 1930s, Hitler not only built up Germany’s war-making potential, he did so in ways that minimized the danger that his potential victims would match his military build-up with their own. He said whatever soothing words they wanted to hear that would spare them the cost of military deterrence and the pain of contemplating another war.
He played some of the most highly educated people of his time for fools– not only foreign political leaders but also members of the intelligentsia. The editor of the Times of London filtered out reports that his own foreign correspondents in Germany sent him about the evils and dangers of the Nazis. In the United States, W.E.B. Du Bois – with a Ph.D. from Harvard – said that dictatorship in Germany was “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.”
In an age when facts seem to carry less weight than the visions of brilliant and charismatic leaders, it is more important than ever to look at the actual track records of those brilliant and charismatic leaders. After all, Hitler led Germany into military catastrophe and left much of the country in ruins.
Even in a country which suffered none of the wartime destruction that others suffered in the 20th century, Argentina began that century as one of the 10 richest nations in the world – ahead of France and Germany – and ended it as such an economic disaster that no one would even compare it to France or Germany.
Politically brilliant and charismatic leaders, promoting reckless government spending – of whom Juan Peron was the most prominent, but by no means alone – managed to create an economic disaster in a country with an abundance of natural resources and a country that was spared the stresses that wars inflicted on other nations in the 20th century.
Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama’s style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots– the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. But do we want to become the world’s largest banana republic?
The sun is setting on the US dollar as the ultra-loose monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve forces China and the vibrant economies of the emerging world to forge a new global currency order, according to a new report by HSBC.
“The dollar looks awfully like sterling after the First World War,” said David Bloom, the bank’s currency chief.
“The whole picture of risk-reward for emerging market currencies has changed. It is not so much that they have risen to our standards, it is that we have fallen to theirs. It used to be that sovereign risk was mainly an emerging market issue but the events of the last year have shown that this is no longer the case. Look at the UK – debt is racing up to 100pc of GDP,” he said
Crucially, China and rising Asia have reached the point where they can no longer keep holding down their currencies to boost exports because this is causing mayhem to their own economies, stoking asset bubbles. Asia’s “mercantilist mindset” of recent decades is about to be broken by the spectre of an inflation spiral.
The policy headache was already becoming clear in the final phase of the global credit boom but the financial crisis temporarily masked the effect. The pressures will return with a vengeance as these countries roar back to life, leaving the US and other laggards of the old world far behind.
A monetary policy of near zero rates – further juiced by quantitative easing – is completely incompatible with circumstances in most of Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Divorce is inevitable. The US is expected to hold rates near zero through 2010 to tackle its own crisis.
What is occurring is an epochal loss in the relative wealth and economic power of the old G10 bloc of rich countries compared to rising regions of the world. The euro, yen, sterling, Swiss franc and other mature currencies will be relegated along with the dollar in this great process of rebalancing, but the Greenback will bear the brunt.
The Fed’s super-loose policy is turning the dollar into the key funding currency for the next phase of the global “carry trade”, taking over the role of Japan during its period of emergency stimulus.
Mr Bloom said regional currencies would emerge as the anchor for their smaller trading partners, with China, Brazil, or South Africa substituting the role of the US. Australia is already linking its fortunes to China through commodity ties.
By the way, this is exactly what this very blog said would happen when the plan was first proposed. Anyone with a genuine understanding of the history of economics would……but if you have an emotional tie to an ideologically driven position that prosperity comes from government and only your brilliant central planning can be a success, that is how this type of flawed policy comes to be.
Fourteen of the top federal agencies responsible for spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act say they’ve hired about 3,000 workers with stimulus money. That’s helped fuel the continued growth of the federal government, which increased by more than 25,000 employees, or 1.3%, since December 2008, according to the latest quarterly report. During that time, the ranks of the nation’s unemployed increased by nearly 4 million, Labor Department statistics show.
Overall, there are about 2 million federal workers, the data show.
Thirteen agencies that report stimulus-related administrative expenses separately on their weekly spending reports say they’ve spent $186.8 million so far on salaries and other overhead. Those agencies have reported spending $46.1 billion in stimulus funds overall.
The new workers are tackling such tasks as managing stimulus-funded contracts, processing Social Security benefit claims and investigating possible cases of fraud and waste. They’re overseeing about $288 billion in tax cuts and nearly $500 billion in federal spending, much of it in the form of transfers to state governments for education, health care and jobless benefits.
The Social Security Administration, for example, has hired 2,115 workers, spokeswoman Kia Green said. The Energy Department has hired about 240 workers, including engineers, contract managers and accountants, spokeswoman Tiffany Edwards said in an e-mail.
Stimulus critics such as Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House oversight committee, say the package has enlarged the federal bureaucracy without making a dent in the nation’s unemployment rate, which was 9.7% in August. “The only thing we have seen stimulated by this package has been the size of the federal government,”Issa said in an e-mailed statement.
They are calling it the Community Reinvestment Modernization Act (CMRA). The Old Community Reinvestment Act played an important role in lowering mortgage standards and creating so many of these high risk loans that broke the system. While the CRA was just one layer of a multi layered problem created by government that culminated in the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression, it was still an important layer, so naturally the far left wants to do it AGAIN.
As we have reported before and have taken a lead in reporting on, the original CRA was intended to make it illegal to stop “redlining”; the practice of not giving loans to people based on race. But CRA was used by the Clinton Justice Department to make it an affirmative action program for loans, forcing banks to give mortgages to people who had no business getting a home loan simply because it was very unlikely that they could pay the loan back. They say it was about giving loans to poor minorities, when it fact it was about getting loans to Democrat constituent groups.
The rub is, that giving out high risk loans did not do them any favors. Many thousands of people in high risk loans defaulted, they lost their homes, their credit was destroyed and mortgage securities based on those loans brought down AIG, Lehman Brothers and dozens of banks.
Of course ACORN was at the heart of this problems as they filed CRA lawsuits to force banks to make high risk loans, under the faux guise of “fighting racism”.
We reported on this activity extensively HERE and HERE.
ACORN and SEIU have already created an atroturf support group to help get it passed – LINK.
The CRMA takes the old CRA one step further and mandates that loans be given to minorities regardless of income. Is giving a home loan to anyone regardless of income a wise move?
Dems push expanded Community Reinvestment Act; deny Act’s role in mortgage meltdown; GOP cites ACORN connection
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
09/16/09 4:13 PM EDT
A number of experts believe that aggressive enforcement of the 1970s-era Community Reinvestment Act contributed to the mortgage meltdown, and thus to the greater financial crisis, by requiring financial institutions to lend to unqualified borrowers. Now, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is responding to that situation by proposing to expand the scope and power of the Community Reinvestment Act.
This morning House Financial Services Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank held a hearing on H.R. 1479, the “Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009.” The bill’s purpose is “to close the wealth gap in the United States” by increasing “home ownership and small business ownership for low- and moderate-income borrowers and persons of color.” It would extend CRA’s strict lending requirements to non-bank institutions like credit unions, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders. It would also make CRA more explicitly race-based by requiring CRA standards to be applied to minorities, regardless of income, going beyond earlier requirements that applied solely to low- and moderate-income areas.
Republicans on the committee strongly oppose the plan. “Instead of looking to expand the number of institutions that must abide by Community Investment Act regulations,” California Rep. Ed Royce said in prepared opening remarks at today’s hearing, “I think we should reassess the role this and other government mandates played in the financial collapse and consider scaling it back.”
In private conversation, other Republicans were more emphatic. “There is clearly arguable evidence that the CRA is at the root of this financial meltdown,” says one GOP committee member. “So what do they do? They try to expand CRA.”
But Democrats, led by H.R. 1479 sponsor Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, claimed that expansion of CRA is much-needed. “Congress has passed a number of laws designed to combat redlining and eliminate housing discrimination,” Johnson said at the hearing. “Unfortunately, we all know that redlining still occurs.”
Then there is the ACORN angle. Republican critics point out that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has used the CRA to pressure banks to pour money into ACORN and its affiliates, allowing ACORN to facilitate loans to clearly unqualified borrowers. Now, with ACORN under fire after a series of undercover videos showing ACORN workers in Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, and California openly encouraging prostitution, tax evasion, and other crimes, Republicans on the committee are citing the CRA-ACORN connection as yet another reason the Act should not be expanded.
Johnson’s bill has 51 co-sponsors, including some of the most liberal members of the House, like Reps. Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers, Bobby Rush, Steve Cohen, and Barbara Lee. Given the Democrats’ tremendous numerical superiority in the House, if the majority wants to expand CRA, Republicans will be unable to stop it.
UPDATE – Byrom York gives an analysis of the CRA that is spot on and tells the same story we told when the collapse took place. Well done Byron.
Democrats on path to repeat housing disaster
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
September 22, 2009
With all the attention paid to the health care battle, ACORN, and the president’s “Full Ginsburg” appearances on five Sunday talk shows, few people noticed a hearing with an exceedingly boring title — “Proposals to Enhance the Community Reinvestment Act” — held last week in the House Financial Services Committee. But the session marked a key moment in the ongoing battle between Republicans and Democrats over what caused our current financial woes — and how we might best avoid getting into the same trouble again.
At the hearing, and in others across Capitol Hill, Democratic majorities are pressing hard to expand some of the very policies that led to the reckless home lending that in turn helped lead to the great financial meltdown. If Chairman Barney Frank and his fellow Democrats have their way, we’ll do it all again — and more.
At issue last week was H.R. 1479, the Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. It would expand and strengthen the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which required banks to make loans in low-income areas that many lenders had traditionally shunned.
After the meltdown, some conservatives blamed the CRA for almost solely causing the crisis by requiring banks to make risky loans to unqualified borrowers. It was an unfair charge. “CRA had at best an incremental role in the U.S. housing debacle,” says J.D. Foster, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. But CRA did help create the conditions in which disaster could occur.
The problems began in the 1990s, when Congress made it harder for lenders to do business if they had not passed the CRA “exam” — that is, if they had not met the government-imposed standards for loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers.
“From 1995 on, there was an incredible push by the Clinton and Bush administrations in every way they could — CRA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other ways — to increase the homeownership rate,” says Russell Roberts, a professor of economics at George Mason University. “What that did was to push up the price of housing, and that made it imaginable to lend money to people you never would have lent money to, on terms you wouldn’t have done before.”
In particular, Fannie Mae began to aggressively promote homeownership using the Community Reinvestment Act to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Fannie went to bankers and said, make as many CRA loans as you can; we’ll buy them and take them off your hands. “Our approach to our lenders is ‘CRA Your Way,’ ” top Fannie executive Jamie Gorelick told the Mortgage Bankers Association in 2001. “Fannie Mae will buy CRA loans from lenders’ portfolios; we’ll package them into securities; we’ll purchase CRA mortgages at the point of origination. …”
Fannie promised to buy billions and billions of dollars worth of CRA loans because it was under pressure to do so from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which in turn was under pressure from Congress, which set ambitious quotas for low- and moderate-income loans.
The policy ended in a lot of people losing their homes. Now, Johnson’s bill would ensure more of that by applying CRA’s lending requirements not just to banks but to non-bank institutions like credit unions, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders. It would also make CRA explicitly race-based by, in Johnson’s words, “requiring CRA exams to explicitly consider lending and services to minorities in addition to low- and moderate-income communities.”
Republicans on the Financial Services Committee strongly oppose the plan. “Instead of looking to expand the number of institutions that must abide by CRA regulations, I think we should reassess the role this and other government mandates played in the financial collapse and consider scaling it back,” California Rep. Ed Royce said at the hearing.
In private conversation, other Republicans were more emphatic. “There is clearly arguable evidence that the CRA is at the root of this financial meltdown,” said one GOP committee member. “So what do they do? They try to expand CRA.”
That’s an overstatement of CRA’s role in the housing mess, but it’s right about the Democratic plan. Denying that CRA, Fannie and other institutions played any role in setting the stage for disaster, they’re proposing more of what helped get us into trouble in the first place. It’s no way to fix the problem.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Cernobbio, Italy
Published: 9:06PM BST 06 Sep 2009
The US Federal Reserve’s policy of printing money to buy Treasury debt threatens to set off a serious decline of the dollar and compel China to redesign its foreign reserve policy, according to a top member of the Communist hierarchy.
Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.
“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.
“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.
China’s reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world’s largest.
“Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets,” he added.
The president’s chief economic adviser warned Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay “unacceptably high” for years to come — a situation that would seriously complicate Barack Obama’s ability to convince Americans that he’s beating back the recession.
“The level of unemployment is unacceptably high,” National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said Friday. “And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years.”
Summers’ comments came in a briefing with reporters ahead of Obama’s speech in New York City on Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event widely regarded as having created a panic that caused the global economic meltdown.
Sarah Palin’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed is in the previous post HERE.
Politico gets the talking points sent out by the White House:
A source sends on the talking points the White House is circulating to allies in advance of President Obama’s speech, most of them reiterating familiar themes of momentum and security.
But the White House has also chosen specifically to focus on former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and evidently to make her the face of the opposition, or to respond to her ability to project herself into the debate. She is the only Republican named in the talking points.
Here’s that section:
On Gov. Palin’s Attacks
Every non-partisan organization that has looked at her claims say they are false. And the ideas in her op-ed are both scary and risky. Eliminating Medicare and giving our seniors vouchers instead is a bad idea that we shouldn’t adopt.
Here is the problem. Changing the way Medicare works with vouchers isn’t getting rid of Medicare at all, it just changes its internal structure so its less bureaucratic and likely more efficient. The White House is spinning hard here. Medicare was 10 times over budget in its first 20 years because it was implemented so poorly and here comes Obama with a Oregon like state health plan for the nation that has been tried and demonstrated to be a disaster. Vouchers on the other hand have worked very will with schools and other programs. In fact in Washington DC the program worked so well and saved so much money that the employee and teachers union got the politicians to kill it because it showed just how bad they were performing.
I’m pleased that the White House is finally responding to Republican health care ideas instead of pretending they don’t exist.[1] But in doing so President Obama should follow his own sound advice and avoid making “wild misrepresentations”.[2] Medicare vouchers would give everyone on Medicare the chance to decide for themselves which health plan to use, rather than leave that decision to government bureaucrats. Such proposals are the kind of health care reform that Republicans stand for: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven.
The White House talking points leave the rest of my arguments unanswered. They don’t respond to the idea that all individuals should get the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; that we must reform our tort laws; and that we should allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines. The White House also fails to respond to the Nyce/Schieber study indicating that wages will fall if the government expands coverage without reducing health care inflation rates.
One last thing: after President Obama’s speech tonight, listen for which pundits use the words “false”, “scary”, and “risky” in describing the proposals I put forward. That’s how you’ll be able to tell who the White House counted as “allies” worthy of receiving its talking points. [emphasis ours - Editor]
Our Take- test a voucher program on the uninsured/under-insured first to work any bugs out and then try to fix Medicare so it doesn’t go broke and our seniors can still have a safety net. Doing nothing means certain doom for Medicare and raising enough taxes to fix it as it is now is certain doom for the economy. Does anyone find it amusing that “hope& change” is now arguing for just a whole lot more of the status quo and it is Sarah Palin who is offering up substantive ideas for change?
Politically, Sarah Palin is obviously running for president as she is running against him right now for all intensive purposes. Expect Palin to take Obama and the Democrats on point by point with substantive plans and ideas like this one.
Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another, and not over one another” as our health-care debate moves forward.
I couldn’t agree more. Let’s engage the other side’s arguments, and let’s allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats’ health-care proposals should become governing law.
Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that “no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds.” Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.
We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.
How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.
Common sense tells us that the government’s attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats’ proposals “will provide more stability and security to every American.”
With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it’s a promise Washington can’t keep.
Let’s talk about specifics. In his Times op-ed, the president argues that the Democrats’ proposals “will finally bring skyrocketing health-care costs under control” by “cutting . . . waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies . . . .”
First, ask yourself whether the government that brought us such “waste and inefficiency” and “unwarranted subsidies” in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t think so: Its director, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee in July that “in the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”
Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”
Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.
Speaking of government overreaching, how will the Democrats’ proposals affect the deficit? The CBO estimates that the current House proposal not only won’t reduce the deficit but will actually increase it by $239 billion over 10 years. Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.
The economic effects won’t be limited to abstract deficit numbers; they’ll reach the wallets of everyday Americans. Should the Democrats’ proposals expand health-care coverage while failing to curb health-care inflation rates, smaller paychecks will result. A new study for Watson Wyatt Worldwide by Steven Nyce and Syl Schieber concludes that if the government expands health-care coverage while health-care inflation continues to rise “the higher costs would drive disposable wages downward across most of the earnings spectrum, although the declines would be steepest for lower-earning workers.” Lower wages are the last thing Americans need in these difficult economic times.
Finally, President Obama argues in his op-ed that Democrats’ proposals “will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable.” Of course consumer protection sounds like a good idea. And it’s true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats’ proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.
Instead of poll-driven “solutions,” let’s talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let’s give Americans control over their own health care.
Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don’t need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats’ proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not “provide more stability and security to every American.”
We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we’re not buying it.
Again, this video does go a little bit too far but makes an excellent point. The left likes to pick and choose the parts of Darwinism that it likes and the other parts just vanish….
China has threatened to stop buying US debt before and keeps moving closer and closer to making good on that threat. Hillary was sent to China to beg them to keep buying our debt.
Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.
“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.
“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.
China’s reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world’s largest.
~snip
“He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing,” said Mr Cheng. It was a quote from US founding father Benjamin Franklin.
If our credit rating goes from AAA down to AA it will mean economic armageddon. World creditors have already threatened this against the US because of our bad borrowing and monetary policy. If you don’t understand why that would be armageddon feel free to ask in comments.
The Obama Administration shouted from the rooftops that their stimulus plan was the only thing that would keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Of course that figure was blown away months ago.
Yesterday the Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their August unemployment data. The Wall Street Journal summarized the data in their article:
Job Losses Weigh on Recovery
Layoffs Slow but Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7%, Highest Since 1983
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 216,000 jobs in the month, fewer than the 276,000 lost in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has shed 6.9 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The data reinforced expectations that employers will begin adding jobs by early next year, though the pace of job creation remains uncertain.
The latest figures are consistent with an economy pulling out of the deepest downturn since the Great Depression. But rising unemployment portends persistent weakness in consumer confidence, income and spending, even as manufacturers start bouncing back and stocks revive. The construction and manufacturing sectors together accounted for more than half of August’s job losses. Losses in retail and business services narrowed. The biggest gains came in health care.
The rise in unemployment, after dipping to 9.4% in July, came as more Americans returned to the work force. Teenage unemployment hit 25.5%, the highest since the government began keeping records in 1948. Most economists expect the rate to top 10% in coming months and stay over 9% through 2010.
This one is pretty rich… Film maker Michael Moore says that capitalism is evil. The same system that has made him a multi-millionaire. Tom Tancredo says fine, if you love Marxism so much than spread the wealth, starting with your own.
The federal government has made it illegal to buy insurance across state lines. This is a huge part of the health insurance accessibility problem. Her name is Catherine Bragg and she owns a bakery.
Catherine goes “On The Record” at Fox News
Thanks to Hotairpundit for the vid link.
UPDATE II – OUT. Keep in mind that before the resignation, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT and WashPost did ZERO coverage of this story before the resignation. Fox News was the only one that covered it. – Byron York on the elite media giving no coverage of the mounting story.
UPDATE: Bob Beckel says that Jones should be filing for unemployment.
The past of Van Jones has been coming out for a while and as David Horowitz said, “One does not declare himself to be a communist three years after the wall came down without knowing and approving of what went on behind that wall.”
Gateway Pundit, a prominent blogger, did the background checks that the White House and/or FBI failed to do and found Van Jones as signatory number 46 on 911truth.org. The 9/11 Truther’s believe that the Bush Administration engineered the attack to murder 3000 Americans.
Jones was 47 on the list and now he is 46 (LINK to view), I wonder whose name got scrubbed.
Jones also helped to found a group called STORM, a self proclaimed revolutionary Marxist group. On September 12, 2001 STORM held an event to bring attention to the victims of evil AMERICAN imperialism. So much for our 300 victims of radical islamists.
Jones also led a protest to free a convicted cop killer LINK.
Charles Krauthammer, Mara Liasson and Stephen Hayes comment on Van Jones
In this video Van Jones Compares President Bush to a “Crack head” for wanting to increase the US supply of domestic energy. The problem with Van Jones point of view here is that it is typical of someone who is an avowed communist in that they are in complete denial of basic laws of economics. If I were thrown out a broken window I would hope that the laws of gravity would not apply to me, it is just as foolish to claim that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to energy as Van Jones does. perhaps Jones forgot that there is this oil cartel called OPEC that manipulates the market to suck as many dollars out of us as possible. The more domestic energy we produce the more energy prices fall and the more the influence of the cartel is lessened.
Van Jones says that white people and white environmentalists are putting poluution in minority communities. Ok talk about your goofball conspiracy theories.
Van Jones says and advocates that the “green movement” is being used to incrementally transfer the capitalist system to a socialist system. No shock we have been saying that for years, but at least now they admit it. Via Hotair.com and Naked Emporer News. This interview was from 17 months ago.
Ed Morrissey comments: Jones, the green jobs czar, explains how his allies want to conduct a revolution on the sly. Call it radical incrementalism, call it an offshoot of the Alinksy method, but it certainly seems that Jones is easily the most radical White House aide in many, many years.
By the way, the networks, the NYT and Washington Post have not covered this story at all. If Bush were president and a joker like this was in the administration they would be all over it, wall to wall. Fox is covering it.
Glenn Beck dedicated a show to Van Jones:
Ann Coulter: The elite media has become the guard dog for the administration instead of the guard dog for the people –
Michelle Malkin – On Jones and the other Marxist Czar’s that got lucky and were propped up bt far left foundation money from Tides Foundation, Ford Foundation and George Soros. –
One of the problems with any proposed law that’s over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats’ proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as “Obamacare.”
Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”
Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”
Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.
Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: “How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee…. So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years.”
Wow. For those of you who don’t know Fidel Castro murders and or jails journalists and librarians and others who get in his way. Health care is not so bad in Cuba…IF your a VIP or a foreigner. If anyone would like to challenge us on the treatment and standard of living that the average local in Cuba gets please consider this your personal invitation to try.
Oh by the way, if you disagree with Obama your a racist…
The Democratic Party has been co-opted by these hard leftists that are MUCH further to the left than most people who tend to vote Democrat. Democrats, YOU need to do something about this.
There is no disagreement, however, about the net directional effect of the two. CBO and OMB project a weaker economy in the remainder of 2009 and in 2010 than they projected at the beginning of this year before enactment of the stimulus.
How much weaker?
Based on CBO’s forecast for the average unemployment rate in calendar year 2010, 2.3 million fewer people will be employed on average next year than they projected in January.
For comparison, in July there were about 140 million people employed in the U.S.
Next year’s reality will depend heavily on when the economy turns up and how quickly growth returns. A new projection of fewer people employed next year should not surprise anyone. But 2.3 million is a big bad number.
Allahpundit asks:
Exit question: CBO’s projected average unemployment rate next year is 10.2 percent. How many jobs would we be talking about if they used the “real” unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those who are working less than they’d like? According to the chairman of the Atlanta Federal Reserve, that one currently stands at … 16 percent and counting.
