Political Football

My whole world seems to stop on Super Bowl afternoon – so I’m catching up on a few organizational things including some blogging.  I’m watching the pre-game and may interject some comments.

Fun to watch the playoffs when I don’t care who wins.  What a finish to the season if WhO DaT NaTioN gets a super bowl championship; if the Colts win they are a blue collar team with Dallas Clark and Hawkeye History. 

I watched the Sarah Palin speech last night and am still looking for the next generation’s leaders.  President Obama can’t lead his way out of the proverbial paper sack – 13 months into his term he’s still campaigning.  I don’t see leadership in Gov. Palin either.  I like her, but people are pushing her into a leadership role for which she is not ready.

The 912 and Tea Party movements are engaging more citizens in politics, that is a good thing, and Gov. Palin’s speech was from the heart.  But those who are looking for the next Ronald Reagan in Palin, forget his “time in the wilderness” where he honed his philosophical tone by writing a-lot speaking around the nation and on TV.  Watch this TV broadcast from 1964 – 16 years before he was President.  YOU TUBE BROADCAST HERE   There is no Ronald Reagan type in either party today and I am afraid for the future.

To me it’s as simple as this.  Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  I’m not looking up the orgins of that quote – it just makes sense doesn’t it?

2008 campaign article

Study shows FDR spending policies lengthened, did not shorten the Depression.

I wish I started to buy gold when it was $400, not doing it now.  I hope the continued unravelling of the Global Warming Myth is turned into a new effort to protect the environment and an understanding that we need to learn how to help future generations survive this climate change we are seeing.  Science based on urgent collection of grant monies and financial profit - is an evil effort and must be stopped. 

Walter Payton :::tears::: gone too soon, we still love you.  Queen Latifa Rocked American the Beautiful…  No one will out do Whitney Houston’s Star Spangled Banner… what was a long time ago, I didn’t think much of this lady today…

Where I do appreciate every candidate and citizen that is newly engaged, this two party system has to come back and find a way to work together.  I hope Republicans do regain control of the 2011 congress and pass a fair and responsible reorganization of our healthcare system.  A reorganization that pays for itself by cutting waste, is portable and covers pre-existing conditions.  I am supporting Dr. Miller-Meeks for Congress in that effort.

I’m down to one bowl game yet tonight, so I thought I would blog for a while.  I’m waiting with much anticipation for the Iowa Georgia Tech game on Tuesday, and am glad Iowa plays on a night where there is only one game.  They will acquit themselves well, will have national coverage and I don’t have to worry through other games to get to the Hawkeyes…   In Kirk we Trust…

It’s also been restful that the holiday comes in front of the weekend so after the family events of the Holidays there is time to regroup for the work year…   World events aren’t as simply watched and worried about.

It’s going to get worse, not better.

I believe those who said that some predicted the upswing (I guess they are thinking about the stock market I haven’t seen any other upswing) but fewer predict it continuing.  I for one expect a miserable 2010 when it comes to world confidence and business growth.

My model will continue to find ways to be self sufficient (which is easy in rural American but tough in the upper midwest) planting, harvesting and canning the result in a cooperative effort with friends and family.  More target shooting with my gun, and helping others do the same…   Trying to get back to basics, putting some $ where my mouth is re: charities and politics…  what is important today?

As far as world events, I continue to be confused why smart people avoid the study of history.  A metaphor that has been used for economic issues today is this: Those who believe government bailouts work, must also believe that taking pails of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping it into the shallow end will increase the depth of the shallow pool.  The government has no money; but it must TAKE money from those who are creating jobs for the government to do anything.  Government can’t create jobs; well they can but only short term jobs taking money from those who could create long term jobs.  Government can’t create prosperity.

Let’s go back to look at the War on Poverty – begun in 1964.  We’ve lost that too.  We now have generations that are used to welfare.

When are we going to man up and fix things?  It may already be too late.

The Health Care Bill is Crazy and what is this about calling it the Protection and Affordable Care Act – what a joke.

As you can tell by some previous posts I don’t believe in Global Warming.  I do believe in Climate Change and do believe we must be good stewards of our environment. The myth of Global Warming and Algore’s taking amazingly irresponsible advantage of the myth for financial gain has been more damaging to the world than the War on Terror has been. 

That said, I love LIVING WITH ED, the show on GREEN TV staring Ed Begley and his wife.  If everyone was as honest and empassioned as Ed Begley we would not be where we are today.

We are at a cross road – and have no leadership in the world today.  When will the voice of reason be heard?

What IS important today, in 2010?

Here’s a start: Vote Miller-Meeks

Link to article on Obama’s proposed changes

why overhaul?  “sweeping regulatory changes” …   it wasn’t enough to try to control 17% of the national economy with a health care bill…  (and I would like someone to study how much of HR3200 is really health care… )

I have a huge problem that most if not all of the Hope and Change this President wants to push through, needs to be driven by an attempt to panic rather than lead.

I’ve read things like none of this (HR3200) even starts until 2013, so what’s the hurry.

Then another thing surprised me in the last days.  Why would the President want to piss off China?  Talk about the new “sleeping giant”. (tires… o, it’s a union thing I get it)

But now that the Health Care bill is going south he wants to do something bigger to the economy.

The billions spent for “stimulus” have done nothing except to pay employment rather than laying off various state’s employees and some short term building projects – and less than 25% of the billions have been spent.

People are  saving now, but it’s out of fear.  No one (that has a brain) wants to extend their debt or take any risks that will grow the economy and I’ve read it has to grow @ 3% just to stay even.

I can understand some tightening of SEC regulations that may have caused some of the Wall Street and banking problems, but let’s not forget, the SEC is a government agency and their lack of foresight is what got us here.  From what I’ve read, the problems did sift up (Maddoff, etc) – either people were too scared or too ignorant to pull the plug.  Governments don’t run businesses well, there is a ton of evidence to prove that.

I think I will dig up some documentation for some of the things I’ve written here and more now…  I just want what’s left of my401K to be there for me when I retire.  If I retire.  I still feel like we’re teetering on the edge of a cliff and this President’s adviser’s main advice is to “never waste a good crisis”.

—————–

stupid little hint for the day:  removing Firefox AVG toolbar

I like to use firefox when blogging because it has a spell checker that IE doesn’t.  In FF updates, they tend to add on a AVG toolbar – and I hate extra tool bars on my screen.  (now this may be only for AVG users which I am, but) if you want to remove the AVG toolbar in firefox – take this link: disable AVG toolbar in Firefox

HERE is a Link to the full text of an August Press Presidential Conference on Health Care.
[my comments]

Each and every day in this country, Americans are grappling with health care premiums that are growing three times the rate of wages and insurance company policies that limit coverage and raise out-of-pocket costs. Thousands are losing their insurance coverage each day.

[turning things over to the government isn't going to make things cheaper - and if you think it will, you may want to stop reading this post right now]

Without real reform, the burdens on America’s families and businesses will continue to multiply. We’ve had a vigorous debate about health insurance reform, and rightly so. This is an issue of vital concern to every American, and I’m glad that so many are engaged.

[real reform can come in many ways that will relieve burden on America's families - it doesn't have to come at the deconstruction of 1/6 of our economy. THAT is what is scaring people.]

But it also should be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are.

[The President of course is disavowing that misrepresentation (willful or not) is coming from him and his administration - moving on...]

So today, I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country.

Let’s start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That’s not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has never even been on the table. Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform. And as every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called “death panels” – an offensive notion to me and to the American people. These are phony claims meant to divide us.

[Illegal immigrants already get health care today. No one can legally be turned away from an ER room at a hospital. I will address this further as well as abortions in another post. Dr. Miller-Meeks covered the Death panel issue in her last blog post today.]

And we’ve all heard the charge that reform will somehow bring about a government takeover of health care. I know that sounds scary to many folks. It sounds scary to me, too. But here’s the thing: it’s not true. I no sooner want government to get between you and your doctor than I want insurance companies to make arbitrary decisions about what medical care is best for you, as they do today. As I’ve said from the beginning, under the reform we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period.

[But here's the thing: once a government sponsored health care plan is on the table, let's say 5 million uninsured (that can still get care in ERs) sign up for the Government plan. It is the Government's studied assumption that 3 million more small business owners will drop their coverage - pushing their employees into the government plan.

Not all Doctors will be IN the government plan, so guess what? you MAY lose your doctor. Your private health insurance plan today for the most part is offered by the generosity and business smarts of your employer. (who may likely be hammered by this Administration as one of the Evil Rich.

You don't know what your employer will do - and we all know how well the Government planned and estimated cost and interest of the Cash for Clunkers program right?]

Now, the source of a lot of these fears about government-run health care is confusion over what’s called the public option. This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace. This alternative would have to operate as any other insurer, on the basis of the premiums it collects. And let me repeat – it would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan.

[OK, so options are a good thing? Cool.  I have heard there are about 1300 different insurance companies in the US, but only a few in Iowa. Why not allow all 1300 to compete in all 50 states? If 400 "go away", we sill have a lot from which to choose.

The GOVERNMENT has set these conditions and boundaries on state insurance commissions. Change THAT process. INCREASE competition!  But if your employer drops carrying insurance from what I read - you will be shifted to the Government plan.]

The insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea, or any that would promote greater competition. I get that. And I expect there will be a lot of discussion about it when Congress returns.

[My suggestion would create MUCH MORE competition - so MUCH that some providers will fade away. But if the government competes in this market, they have a huge advantage. An insurance company by law must carry X% of their potential liabilities in cash reserves. I have seen the government set up no such provision for themselves. That is an unfair competitive advantage.]

But this one aspect of the health care debate shouldn’t overshadow the other important steps we can and must take to reduce the increasing burdens families and businesses face.

So let me stress them again: If you don’t have insurance, you will finally have access to quality coverage you can afford. If you do have coverage, you will benefit from more security and more stability when it comes to your insurance. If you move, lose your job, or change jobs, you will not have to worry about losing health coverage. And we will set up tough consumer protections that will hold insurance companies accountable and stop them from exploiting you with unfair practices.

[PS the Government has the ability to make insurance portable between jobs and between states today. Let's do it!]

We’ll prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. They will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We’ll place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because no one in America should go broke because they get sick.

[what's in bold and blue above is the first common sense true statement in this speech, IMO]

And we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer on the front end. That makes sense, it saves lives, and it will also save money over the long-run. Taken together, the reforms we’re seeking will help bring down skyrocketing costs, which will mean real savings for families, businesses, and government.

[No, No, no.  You cannot assume that. Anyone good at math can figure this out. When we prevent more diseases, people live longer. Where's the savings! I mean I'm all for pro-active health care, but there have been recent studies done that say it won't save money in the long run.  Think about how much more social security benefits are going out to people now that fewer people smoke!]

We know what a failure to act would bring: More of the same. More of the same exploding costs. More of the same diminished coverage. If we fail to act, the crisis will grow. More families will go without coverage. More businesses will be forced to drop or water down their plans.

[This is one of my biggest gripes. No one is saying there aren't needs to address. fail to act, fail to act - must pass the plan... what's the rush! Let's put together a good plan!]

So we can push off the day of reckoning and fail to deal with the flaws in the system, just as Washington has done, year after year, decade after decade. Or we can take steps that will provide every American family and business a measure of security and stability they lack today.

[Pass this plan OR our country will implode.

Frankly I think it's the converse: Pass this plan AND our country will implode!]

It has never been easy, moving this nation forward. There are always those who oppose it, and those who use fear to block change. But what has always distinguished America is that when all the arguments have been heard, and all the concerns have been voiced, and the time comes to do what must be done, we rise above our differences, grasp each others’ hands, and march forward as one nation and one people, some of us Democrats, some of us Republicans, all of us Americans.

[This President: "fear fear fear - pass the bill. don't read, don't think - do it fast!"]

This is our chance to march forward. I cannot promise you that the reforms we seek will be perfect or make a difference overnight. But I can promise you this: if we pass health insurance reform, we will look back many years from now and say, this was the moment we summoned what’s best in each of us to make life better for all of us. This was the moment when we built a health care system worthy of the nation and the people we love. This was the moment we earned our place alongside the greatest generations. And that is what our generation of Americans is called to do right now.

[What's best in each of us is not being heard by this President. He speaks of a lack of bipartisanship, but that bipartisanship has been defined by "do it my way". I don't WANT to DO IT RIGHT NOW. I want to DO IT RIGHT. Now if he wants to throw a couple of trillion around (what comes after that it all seems like funny money by now) as a safety net for those he feels are in jeopardy - do it short term. DO IT RIGHT for the long term.]

I will try to document some of the statements I’ve made in my next posts. -pf

The Muscatine Town Hall was today and reports from the Louisa County Town Hall were the same as ours – it was “tame”. When I arrived at the Muscatine venue 90 minutes early I was pleased the auditorium was open, was not looking forward to standing in line.

For the first 30 minutes even as a few friends trickled in we were seriously outnumbered by opposition support. By the end of the session it sounded like it was fairly even but my sense was we were outnumbered about 60%-40%, and there were less than 200 people there.

The facts have become obscured with the passion and vitriol from each side over the last months, and I worry that our “tame” Town Halls give this Representative the opportunity to tell his leader Ms. Pelosi, that he can vote with her without concern of blow back.

With all due respect to my Democrat friends, where there is misinformation on both sides of the Health Care topic, our President takes the cake on hypocrisy.

No there is nothing formally labeled as Death anything in HR3200. But let’s look at this:

I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update “Your Life, Your Choices” between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as “Compassion and Choices”).

to read more go here.

This VA “book” was first authored in the late 1990, and tabled during the Bush years. For this to be dusted off in the first 6 months of this administration speaks to focus. Read Section 1233 of HR 3200 and you tell me if this could eventually mutate into something similar to what some of my veteran friends call “The Death Book”.

Let’s look for more
here’s CNN on Lobbyists

here is another good article – read the posts too

I will try to post one of the President’s latest speeches and point out the misinformation there – his talks are filled with certainty about things that are simply not true.

Here is what should be done – this, does not turn 1/6 of our national economy over to the people who have made a shambles of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the SEC…

1st: Create a temporary safety net re: catastrophic for uninsured.
2nd: Require Coverage for pre-existing conditions.
3rd: Redo State Insurance Commissions mandates on require specific coverage – change to a menu option/price
4th: Make insurance portable from job to job & state to state
5th: Watch the free market work
6th: offer a tax deduction for anyone who wants insurance that isn’t insured – now they can shop around and prices will be lower because of competition.

None of this requires the government to take over anything.

It has been absolutely stunning (and not in a good way) how this current administration has had their way, passing legislation that has headed this country in a very dangerous path.

- passing trillion dollar legislative bills with the majority of those voting admitting they have not read them
- the administration urges these changes using a panic mentality “do this or catastrophe!”
- 85% of Americans that have heath care are satisfied with their coverage yet this Administration uses the cost of health care as the primary fiscal “bad guy”, inferring if fixed, life will be good again
- NY and CA are talking about a tax rate as high as 58% for some citizens

This is crazy.

This administration is using scare tactics to enable passage of a universal health care bill. Apparently ANY universal health care bill. Everyone I know, agrees that people should not be bankrupted by catastrophic illness. Why not start there by protecting people from those.

I mean, we don’t want to study what was wrong or right about the MASS plan?

Creating a universal health care system that is government run can not be the solution to our financial problems. This Administration hates business (large and small), rich people, and most especially pharma and insurance companies. A cadre of Community Organizers can’t have the vision to solve this problem.

Now BHO is saying everyone must be optimistic. hello?

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

There is plenty of evidence to show tax increases do not increase tax revenue.

On one hand raising panic to pass huge state or personal entitlement bills, then later urging optimism about this country’s future with the bloat of debt – is an abomination, it’s idiotic and speaks to the dysfunction that we are seeing at all levels of this country.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/ContePnt/Public/Articles/000/000/016/677plgab.asp

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/enough_is_enough.html

Please let this be true.

why does it seem like we’re heading into trouble here with American Companies Google, FACEBOOK and Microsoft feverishly fighting for technical superiority when cyber terrorism is very much on the rise…

what’s important here folks.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/

http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=727&WT.mc_id=2008HP_News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7990997.stm

http://perens.com/works/articles/MorganHill/

Declaration of Independence

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Hedge Funds, Sub Prime Mortgage bundling, now Carbon Offsets.

We’ve been heading for the disaster we’re living in now – ever since we started the WAR on POVERTY 45 years ago – (which we’ve never made a dent in, by the way)…. http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_3_sndgs01.html

All I really need to understand is George Soros was an early supporter of Hedge Funds to understand – this can’t be good.

A fund, usually used by wealthy individuals and institutions, which is allowed to use aggressive strategies that are unavailable to mutual funds, including selling short, leverage, program trading, swaps, arbitrage, and derivatives. Hedge funds are exempt from many of the rules and regulations governing other mutual funds, which allows them to accomplish aggressive investing goals. They are restricted by law to no more than 100 investors per fund, and as a result most hedge funds set extremely high minimum investment amounts, ranging anywhere from $250,000 to over $1 million. As with traditional mutual funds, investors in hedge funds pay a management fee; however, hedge funds also collect a percentage of the profits (usually 20%).

More information here where I grabbed the paragraph.

Hedge Funds then the bundling of bad mortgages into subprime mortgages and selling them, IMO are the prime elements of this crisis. It’s not an economic down turn, it’s payback for all the stupid things that people have done to “make a buck” or “keep up with the Jones’”. Everything from salaries to houses were too inflated, as well as people’s drive for “things”. I have a sister that always parses things simply by “wants” v “needs”. More people should be like her.

Now, every day I think about my fairly substantial 401k and if it will be there tomorrow. I don’t worry about its value – I wonder if it will be there – if someone will take it – or maybe it’s not really there… Is that nuts?

The world today seems to be “about the scam” – about taking advantage of the crisis. You have been instructed that you don’t need to pay your credit card bill or house payments, but still buy your new ipod or blackberry… get a stay at home job and make 6 figures a year. Even the congress has to rush to pass 1,000 + pages bills costing Trillions of dollars, and almost all of the legislators admit to not reading the bill. what’s the rush! What are they hiding? What’s the scam?

I’ve told my friends, prepare to live without your cell phone or internet access or even your car and try to remember (or learn) how exist – it is getting just that odd out in the real world.

Carbon offsets are becoming an increasingly popular way for individuals and businesses to participate in solutions to global warming. The basic idea of a carbon offset is to figure out your personal contribution level to the global warming problem from such activities as driving, flying, or home energy use. This contribution is called a “carbon footprint.” The term refers to carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas. You can balance out your carbon footprint by buying carbon offsets. Your purchase funds reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through projects such as wind farms, which produce clean energy that displaces energy from fossil fuels. By funding these reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, you balance out, or offset, your own impact by an equivalent amount. Carbon offsets help you take personal responsibility for the environmental consequences of your activities.

Anything that is difficult to audit is ready for corruption. Bernie Maddoff? Enron? Have we learned nothing?

One of my favorite TV shows is “Living with Ed” the Greenman Ed Begley, the actor, and his wife star in a reality show. Ed is Green, very Green and his wife appreciates it but frequently thinks he goes too far. But I like him and think more people should live like him. No one needs a 50,000 sq ft mansion to live, I don’t care how rich you are. But you can’t make laws to tell people they can’t build 50,000 sq ft mansions! Anyway – Ed is always hopping on his computer to buy carbon credits. Last show I watched, it was because his wife was flying to Utah for a film festival and Ed was driving his hybrid. Guilt payments. I learn a lot from the show and it’s fun to watch. Ed doesn’t “force” his lifestyle on others but teaches. But do carbon credits work?

Then you have my candidate, Dr. Miller-Meeks. She was an alternate delegate to the AMA convention a few weeks ago when the President spoke in Chicago. She wrote about it several times in her blog – here is the link. She talks about the AMA going Green – sending out PDFs of the events, etc… hundreds of pages, but then everyone brings their laptops! Carbon Offset anyone???

Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline.

Mark Steyn’s 7/4 article

BTW here is a picture of my newest acquisition.

On another subject, some people can call this spin, but it’s so off the charts it’s hard not to call it simply – lying – at a very high government level.

Read more: “President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal – Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates – POLITICO.com” – http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22559.html Mean Street: Obama’s Big Fat Fibbing Budget

If our current debt load is unsustainable, why did we do it? Now, if a group of us banded together and we made, say $1,000,000 in total annual salary and half of us got laid off – how would we be able to borrow $4,000,000 to “do things” even if they are reasonable things like road building etc. We can’t realistically pay that debt on in a reasonable time.  If that doesn’t make sense for us, why does it make sense for the US government, an organization that CREATES no revenue to support that “bill”.  It’s insane.

We’ve been losing 600,000 jobs a month for a while now nationally but there’s a silver lining in that the government is hiring about 66,000 a month more people? But, again, the government doesn’t “make money” it takes it in from us and doles it out, keeping more than a small amount in the bargain. This is insane.

The President states what he wants to say (much of which could likely be held unconstitutional if challenged – like firing CEOs or setting CAPS on salaries) regardless of the impact or facts behind them, and people believe it. This is insane. Obama the Destroyer those of you who thing the government running things is so great need to read this.

Would you have a personal computer without free markets? This is insane.

There seems to be a debate on whether there are votes to carry Federal Tax issue in the Iowa House.  We shall see.

The US House has actually denied the President his wish to increase taxes on wealthy people who contribute to charities in a large way == read more here - it was unanimous – cool.

The failure of the newspaper business is no different that other businesses. Bailouts are wrong – bad business models should FAIL and better business models rise from the ashes. The NYT’s failures are not akin to Darfur.

When we visited David Vaudt, our State Auditor in his office yesterday he told us he is facing a 26.6% budget cut. Most of his buget is for payroll and to audit various activities, much of which is prescribed by law. He explained that in addition to the cuts, the format of having to audit larger and more complicated budgets takes more time not less. In comparison the Secretary of State’s budget will only be cut 8.1% and the State Treasurer’s budget is being cut by just 10.8%. In fact, the entire Administration and Regulation Appropriations Subcommittee budget, which includes these three offices, averages an 11% cut for all offices in their proposed budget. Vaudt, the only Republican office holder out of the three offices under the jurisdiction of this Committee, recently sent a letter to the respective chairs in the House and Senate to voice his objection to the plan. AND he was on the radio voicing his concerns yesterday.

The President is labeling himself as a bridge builder at the G20 summit.  Someone needs to tell me why we have to build the whole damn bridge though…  who else changed?  Not China.  Not Russia.  Not Nobody – we just gave a LOT.  someone needs to define Compromise and Capitulation to our new President.  That is not Leadership I want.

Capitulation
1. giving up: surrender or a giving up of resistance
2. terms of surrender: a document that sets out the agreed terms of surrender

Compromise
1. an accommodation in which people involved partially reduce their demands and settle differences;
2. a lowering of principles and weakening of morals for supposed gain.

Hmmmm… even compromise doesn’t sound that good.

Have a good night.

this wasn’t the change I was hopin’ for.

.

Some of Gitmo’s residents could be released in the US

ACORN helping with the census? oh, but not to worry. now that Gregg (R) turn down the commerce job, the new guy (D) says the census will move back from the WH to Commerce. Whew! I feel better now!

The President tried to whack the Insurance industry by having them pay for soldier’s injuries. wow.

and THIS is just plain creepy – dig the logo…  major creepy.

.

how about you?

March 20 update – Powerlineblog wrote a great defense of the bonuses.  No one will hear the logic when all the rhetoric is so loud.

AIG, like GM, should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, it could have wound down its financial products division just as it is doing now. Bankruptcy would not have affected the company’s international insurance businesses, distinct corporate entities which are both solvent and profitable. Those businesses could have been sold, which is what AIG now plans to do.

This is truly government gone mad. When are people going to see the GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM!

This is all about the AIG craziness. Recoup the bonuses. Write special legislation to tax them 100% retroactively. RETROACTIVE LEGISLATION. Think about that. Are they Crazy?

People’s anger should have been stronger a long time ago. It’s not a problem unless it affects you. That’s not the way we were supposed to manage our lives in this republic, this is not the government we were supposed to have but this has become the government we deserve.

This is serious. We threw together a huge entitlement plan with the bail-outs, passed it out of fear and now we reap the results. AIG is not the villain. We should not have bailed them out. We had options. The bail-out should have not been passed or certainly passed so quickly.

All politicians are doing are fomenting anger across the country against a few businessmen that were doing what the law allowed. THEY DID NOTHING ILLEGAL, IF THEY HAVE – ARREST THEM.

When politicians are saying in committee hearings that the names of those with bonuses won’t be released if they give back all the money… They should be arrested on the spot for extortion. and all Obama is going to do on the Leno show is continue to build the anger and attempt to build his power base because of the outrage. Are we ready for mob rule?

There is real anger in this country today, but it’s taking us in the wrong direction. The bailout was wrong for a reason. In our legal system a company, any company, should NOT be too large to fail. But a contract is also a contract. If these people were due a bonus, they deserve it and deserve not to be bullied into giving it back.

On the other hand, this failed business should not have been propped up.

Will the President discuss the situation in the US today in those terms in the first late night comedy show ever guested by a sitting President? I bet not; he will tell everyone this is all Bush’s fault and how we need to borrow from our grandchildren’s future because we can’t trust businesses to do the right thing, we can only trust government. yikes!

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Ronald Reagan

Here is a good (low resolution but still a big file) that compare’s W’s visit with a military base and “Barry” (President Obama’s) recent visit to a military base.

bush-barry-low-res

If you have trouble playing .mp4 files download this plug in LINK

more good videos here.

To great guffaws, Abe told the gang:
“So, I says to Barack, I says, I knew me an Abe Lincoln once,
… and you ain’t him.”

Andy Thomas is the artist of this great piece titled Grand Old Gang.
His site can be found at: www.presidentart.com

+++++

and click on the poster (below) to visit one of my favorite new blogs

Last week the President gave a DVD movie set to his first foreign visitor. Sounds pretty odd and not very Presidential. If the set was one that could not run on European equipment – I know they are different – that would be embarrassing. The “excuse” given for that and various other issues is that the new President is overwhelmed. But apparently not overwhelmed enough to have parties at the WH on Wednesdays.

I got my taxes done this AM and asked my CPA to reconstruct them if Iowa lost the federal deductability on State tax reporting that currently exists.

I owed $90 more in state tax than I had paid in 2008. Under the proposed system I would owe over $800 more than I had paid in 2008. Wow. That’s more than a chunk of change – something I need to budget to pay. My sense is that bill will not pass, hopefully it won’t get through funnel week.

One of my favorite reads in the AM is Powerline Blog and this AM they were talking about the political games the Democrats were playing posting Rush Limbaugh as the “titular head” of the Republican party – knowing he was not well liked outside of conservative circles. The basic tennant was that Rush wants this President to fail, and how unAmerican that is. But… they also said:

Rush wants Obama to fail to socialize the economy and run up trillions of dollars in debt. Democrats in 2006–surely a plurality, if not a majority–wanted the United States to fail in a war in which our armed forces were then engaged. Yet, through the eight years of the Bush administration, neither the President nor his spokesmen ever accused these Democrats of being unpatriotic. I hope that someday their restraint will be appreciated.

So Rush supports America but not the President. How different is that from Liberals saying they support the troops but not the mission? which is worse? Rush want’s this President’s policies to fail. So do I; I hope voters WAKE UP SOON!!!

Then they talked about Charles Freeman who has been nominated by the President to head the National Intelligence Council when it’s obvious he has a bias against Israel. Can’t say I’m shocked.   [update 5pm today - Charles Freeman is another Obama candidate casualty.  He just asked to have his name removed from consideration.  It appears not only does he sit on a Chinese Company Board but he also has taken considerable coin from the Saudis.  Don't they vet these guys at all?  At lease we can assume he's paid his taxes.  -pf]

On a brighter note – there is more public dialog on the idiocy of Algore’s Global Warming mantra. This will be one of the worst scams of all time – costing trillions of dollars but more important, more than a decade of lost time. Where would we be if we were able to rationally discuss climate change and how to prepare for it? Climate Change will happen – Algore’s hyperbole is harmful and has spawned an industry that has not solved the problem.

Read an article written on a liberal blog HERE refuting Algore’s part in the Global Warming movement.

Maybe there is hope.

When Barack Obama and Gordon Brown see ‘opportunity’, we really do have a crisis

The Left is threatening our freedom by using the downturn to bolster the power of the state, says Janet Daley.

Link

The story so far: some capitalists behaved very badly. While this was going on, the socialists didn’t ask questions because they were too busy spending the receipts that flowed from that behaviour. Now, the socialists – who were happy to look the other way during the good times or even to delude themselves into thinking that they were responsible for them – want to use the ignominy of the capitalists to seize the kind of power they thought they had lost forever.

You may quibble at my use of the word “socialist” to describe people who generally present themselves as friends of the free market, and who have repudiated full-scale nationalisation (even of the banks at a moment when that option might have appeared irresistible). So, as someone who spent her formative years on the Left, let me make clear that I am using the word to designate those who accept the primary tenet of Marxist ideology: that the economy can and should be controlled by the state.

In the hard version of this creed, it is acceptable for government to become totalitarian in order to accomplish such control. The softer version – which prevailed in much of Western Europe and Britain – was committed to achieving this through democratic means. By the end of the 1980s, the hard version had collapsed and the soft version was discredited.

Then, suddenly – a miracle! Free-market economics, which seemed to have won the historical argument hands down, is imploding. Now the very people who had embraced it as, at the very least, a milch cow for public-spending adventurism, can see an “opportunity”. Yes, that is the word that both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have taken to using to describe the current economic apocalypse.

In Gordon Brown’s fantasy, this is an “opportunity” to exercise control over the whole world. Not just stricter regulation by national governments of their own economic institutions, but a wondrous new level of international regulation by supranational functionaries – to be appointed by whom? A World Government agency accountable to no electorate and with no democratic mandate from the populations over whom it will wield such power? Trotskyists used to say that Stalinist Russia had failed to achieve Utopia because it had embraced “socialism in one country” rather than going for “world revolution”. Now, we are being told that Labour’s market-led social justice programme failed because it opted for “regulation in one country” instead of understanding the need for “world regulation”.

Maybe being an ex-Marxist is a bit like being a lapsed Catholic: you never quite get rid of the old thought patterns.

In the more overheated renditions of the Brown theme, there is talk of a “global vision for fairness”, in which the very poverty that is being visited upon all the developed economies will somehow make it possible to redistribute wealth to the developing world.

Is he quite mad? Does he actually believe that the economic failure of rich countries will do anything but impoverish poor countries even further? Or that the moral righteousness of the intention to cure world poverty will, in itself, constitute some kind of cure for the banking collapse?

Meanwhile, Mr Obama – who gives the impression of being considerably out of his depth in the economic maelstrom – talks of an “opportunity” to “reorganise our priorities”. He gave a major speech last week in which he actually seemed to suggest that the present crisis had been caused by America’s failure to develop a universal health care system and to attend to the impending environmental disaster of global warming (”we made the wrong choices”), and that by focusing on these matters a way can be found out of the country’s economic problems.

Is he quite mad? Does he really believe that the banking crisis and the recession were some kind of divine retribution for the absence of universal health care, and excessive carbon emissions? Or is he suggesting that a practical solution lies in spending money on health care and the development of alternative energy sources?

If it is the latter, then he is making a pitch for old-fashioned Roosevelt-style government-expenditure programmes which take money out of the productive part of the economy and bring state intervention into play in new dimensions of national life. It did not work for Roosevelt and it will not work now.

But maybe sentimental mythology matters more than historical reality: what Obama and Brown are both trying to do is to put themselves on the benevolent, morally attractive side of the argument by saying: we – your government – will act, intervene, take positive steps to help you. We will not stand by and let the hurricane winds of the economy blow you down. (Mr Brown has actually used the word “hurricane” to describe the crisis, as if it were a natural disaster which no one could have prevented.)

What neither the Prime Minister nor the President can admit is what is becoming more obvious every day (and which has been admitted by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key): there is precious little that any politician can do to resolve the present economic problems. The values of assets and property are simply going to have to fall from the grossly inflated points they reached under the debt bubble to what are generally accepted to be realistic levels. Then people will start to do business again – as eventually they must – and confidence will gradually return.

So are these politicians pretending that they have answers out of wilful deceit – out of the need to keep playing the game for partisan advantage? Or are they simply attempting to maintain some degree of public optimism about the future? (After all, an “opportunity” sounds better than a “debacle”.)

Well, I grew up with the Left and what this looks like to me is a power grab: a seizing of the moment by the forces which always believed in state domination. The Left sees an opening here, first for telling a critical lie about the historical origins of this crisis, which was propelled as much by the Left-liberal determination to spread prosperity through easy credit to the poor, as by the greed of bankers. And then, out of the wreckage, to restructure the economy along the lines that it always wanted, complete with central controls over the pay levels in private financial institutions.

We are being led to believe that public debate should be all about economic mechanics when it should really be about political principle: just how many freedoms do we want to lose while governments pretend that they are the solution?

President Obama says he’s going to balance the budget based on 2 Trillion dollars in savings over the next 10 years. However, the money is NOT coming from reduction in traditional spending; he’s saying it’s coming from taking what we spend in IRAQ today – projecting it until 2019 and cutting that spending – and of course, tax increases on the wealthy.

I remember one of my favorite Tennis players in the 1970’s (Bjorn Borg) as a Swedish Citizen.  As his fame (and wealth) grew he “moved” (his citizenship at least) to Switzerland to avoid the extraordinary taxes in Sweden.  The effect of raising taxes on the rich, those most capable of moving to somewhere “less taxing”, is incredibly stupid.

Now today Sweden has its problems, but Corporate taxes is not one of them. Iowa’s Federal and State adjusted rate is 41.6% (highest in the US and the World!) and Sweden’s is 28%. Sweden has been trending down for years. What will keep our wealthy people from doing the same thing? You can’t heal a moribund economy by over taxing the rich or businesses.  All you do re-distribute wealth; but that is our current President’s intent.

See? Even Bono does it!

here is a dialog Powerlineblog posted of the press conference between BHO’s press secretary and reporters where this tax savings was discussed:

REPORTER: We were told last night that [the $2 trillion savings pledge] basically refers to two things. One is the expiration of tax cuts on the wealthy that would happen next year; and two is a reduction of what we are currently spending in Iraq.

GIBBS: No, I don’t — I — I don’t think so at all. It’s an end of — it’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money . . .

GIBBS: I think that’s — I think that’s certainly a decent part of it. I don’t know, not having seen — at least not having in front of me the formal documents to know whether that’s a hundred percent.”

REPORTER: Okay. But let me ask, is it transparent to say that tax increases are part of savings? And is it transparent to say that we’re going to be saving that much from Iraq, when nobody expects that 10 years out we would be spending what we’re spending today in Iraq? Even the previous administration agreed to get out of Iraq by 2012…

GIBBS: Well, I mean, if we’re not spending the money and the money doesn’t go out the door and the money doesn’t increase the deficit, and the deficit decreases by some amount, ultimately getting you to the president’s goal of halving a 1.2 (trillion dollar) to $1.3 trillion deficit in his first four years in office.

REPORTER: But if nobody expects to spend 10 years from now what we’re spending today in Iraq, and we use that as our baseline, saying, “Oh, we’re saving because we’re not spending what we did 10 years ago,” I mean, isn’t that sort of setting up a funny money comparison?

so much for transparency.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think much of the plan either…

and how about this

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) – In giving the republican response to President Obama’s speech Tuesday night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal pointed out fundamental differences in how republicans and democrats see the economy.

Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show, Vice President Joe Biden asked, “But what I don’t understand from Governor Jindal is what would he do? In Louisiana, there’s 400 people a day losing their jobs. What’s he doing?”

But that claim is wrong if you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

“In December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation besides the District of Columbia, according to the national press release, that added employment over the month,” said Patty Granier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

Rest of the article here

You MUST get past the water torture of MSM babble Barry is Great, Barry is Great… and get down to facts you can substantiate. One of my favorite sayings is “those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it”. Not enough people study history these sorry days…

your first reading assignment is THIS and please note the date – September 1999 – 15 months before W took office. read some below, the full article in the link above.

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

But it all started well before 1999.

Now read some old posts HERE and HERE and take the links and read them.

I will check the links soon, hope they are all still active.

back soon to finish. now read. I’m going to bed.

but one more thing.

dig this
http://www.theiowarepublican.com/
Launch 7am March 4

I know I promised my next post to be about the economy and W, but I can’t stand this.

Dig this.

An Iowa Senate Committee just passed a bill to the Senate that is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen in politics. They calmly 8-7 (2 Dems voted no) passed a bill out of committee that will require the Iowa electoral votes to go to the Presidential Candidate that wins the popular vote – effectively killing the beautiful symmetry that is the electoral college.

This vote would make Iowa irrelevant to national politics. It makes no sense, unless you want urban areas (that have more Democrat votes – hmmm trending to a conclusion here) to have control over who’s President.

You did know that Presidents are not elected by popular vote, right? Iowa has 7 electoral votes (soon to be reduced to 6 after this census results go into affect – because of population shifts). That’s why I find it odd that this President feels the need to move control of the census under the White House. After all, what ARE community organizers without lists?

ANYWAY (I keep getting side tracked – twitter keeps reporting what he’s saying…) This is where I believe our Founding Fathers were so brilliant in their construction of this Republic. Watch this 10 minute YOU TUBE video that explains further.

Also read HERE where our Governor (aka “the Big Lug”) is telling us the tax code is confusing so we should remove a provision to deduct our federal tax payment before computing our state taxes! HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS.

So, now while President Obama is telling you all (and you’re all watching Him on TV right? I’m not.) what a mess he was left to clean up, I will write the note about why this President cannot blame His immediate past President for this pretty pickle.

The rest of the world seems to have gone mad – why not Iowa?

Wait. more thing. Grant Young’s Rant on the Electoral College is funny. If we can’t shoot ‘em – we need to laugh, right?

When is the Iowa Spring Game? Will we have one with the turf change?
ok back to politics.

This is certainly not the way I expected 2009 to roll out, but I cannot say I’m surprised. I mean, who of you thought the price of housing would continue to rise forever and 0% down made sense.

About 10 things have struck me to say, “I need to go post that” but I haven’t, because I have so much to say I don’t know where to start. There are times when I feel like Alice gone through the Looking Glass.

The last thing that struck me to think of posting hit me at a time where I had a moment to post. Since Saturday Night Live doesn’t have a republican president to make fun of any more, they are making fun of the republican (minority) in congress. I continue to question the ability of the comedy writers of the world; they are cracking each other up. whatever… even though this skit was kept from being shown during the election, making fun of democrats.

There is some good news. The Iowa House refused to vote a Union sponsored bill into law by one vote. Now usually bills don’t go up for a vote unless the group submitting it believes they have the votes. They ended up one short as 5 democrats voted with 100% of the republican House to kill the bill, at least for now. It will probably come back later in the session but this was a big victory for Iowa. There are three more such bills this session – Democrats will approach those with much more care moving forward.

We’ve got some incredibly dedicated legislators, (Jeff Kaufmann, Tom Sands, Dawn Pettengill to name a few of my favorites) and it’s inspiring to watch their dedication to the task at hand.
http://iowahouserepublicans.com/

Iowa is not in bad shape as compared to other states; but with the devastation of the flooding in the Cedar and Iowa River valleys not cleaned up, we are short of ready cash. In the last 2,3 years we’ve spent more than we should. Good thing Iowa mandates operating with a balanced budget, although there’s some robbing peter to pay paul (but that’s a post for another day).

Iowa is already listed as 2nd to last (read this) best place to have a business (12% corporate TAX rate) but now we need to add a bunch of Union issues to the mix? I don’t think so. We’ll be reporting on those labor bills as they move forward.

One of the reasons I haven’t been active on the blog is that the new State Republican Chair (Matt Strawn) has brought the state party into the 21st century asking everyone to build a presence on FaceBook and is setting some other communication links that will help us in the next election cycle. So free time has been spent there. But nothing stirs up the base like Union issues at the statehouse. And our College Republican Group @ Iowa State has been getting some publicity this weekend too – you can read here and here if you don’t already follow this Iowa news.

Financially, I’m so sorry, but these are the things my parents taught me that apparently was not conventional wisdom of the majority of Americans:
1) if it’s too good to be true, it probably is
2) if you work for something (earn it) you’ll take better care of it
3) hard work will pay off
4) the housing you buy should represent no more than 3X your annual NET salary
5) keep enough in the bank to last you a year without a job

Worse, our current government is making my parents out to be liars.
1) you should expect the government to provide for you
2) you don’t need to work
3) doing nothing pays off
4) you can buy housing for 0% down and NOT TO WORRY, we’ll GIVE you 10-20% of the purchase price in free money (just tack it on to that loan) – because the value of your house will go up X% in the next years.
5) who me? save?

There are problems on Wall Street too – so why should we watch or care about price of stocks? All this
“too big to fail” and funny stuff going on… But I did get a kick of out Rick Santelli’s rant, and who could blame him?

Mayor Bloomberg was interviewed last week about the financial situation of NYC and he was very clear about the “cost of raising taxes”. Actually he sounded like Rudy in this interview.

“One percent of the households that file in this city pay something like 50% of the taxes,” explained the Mayor. “In the city, that’s something like 40,000 people. If a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral. The question is what’s fair. If 1% are paying 50% of the taxes, you want to make it even more?”

ok enough for one post… I need to get to bed, make sure I get to work early to contribute to the success of the corporation I work for so I will keep my …. oh wait, maybe I don’t.

when is the Iowa Spring Game?
Combines are this weekend – check out Shonn’s stats

Next Post – why you can’t blame W.

Amazing…. simply amazing.

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-att0123.artjan25,0,5747793,print.story

The State of Connecticut has discovered a method of preventing job layoffs.

Blumenthal Wants Connecticut Regulators To Block AT&T Job Cuts – The Hartford Courant

“AT&T (T) said last month that it would pare its Connecticut workforce, which totals about 6,800, by 400 jobs and transfer another 60 jobs to Michigan. A day after the news broke, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by union leaders, implored state regulators to block the cuts with the force of law while the state investigates the impact on customer service.”

“This is not about AT&T. This is not about Blumenthal. This is about the kind of message Connecticut is sending to business — a state that has no positive job growth and [has] people who are falling over themselves to prove that they’re pro-consumer by showing they’re anti-business,” AT&T spokesman Dave Mancuso said.

State regulators have so far denied Blumenthal’s requests, without listing specific reasons.

Blumenthal’s call for a stay on layoffs has only intensified AT&T’s growing frustration with operating in Connecticut. During an economic conference in September, AT&T’s eastern regional manager urged government officials to scale back regulation and let the company do its job. “We don’t need policy-makers stepping in and telling us how to do it or where to do it,” Chad Townes said at the conference.

Though parts of AT&T are regulated, the company is increasingly operating in a competitive marketplace that demands lower costs and lower prices.

“In order for them to be competitive with other carriers, this is what they have to do,” Kagan, the telecom analyst, said. “If they have to start worrying about how many jobs they have to leave in how many states … the company would be doomed.”

Layoff Bans Are Counter Productive

Under the guise of preserving customer service the Attorney General’s attempt to block job cuts will only further destroy Connecticut’s ability to draw new businesses to the State. The Attorney General should know better and his actions seem more directed to pandering for votes rather than improving the business climate in Connecticut.

If prohibiting job layoffs is a great idea, why not extend the theory of a centrally planned economy even further? Prohibit all layoffs by every business operating in Connecticut. Extend this logic further and pass a law forcing AT&T and every other business in the State to hire new employees until the unemployment rate reaches zero? Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Blumenthal, but this tactic has failed in every socialist state on the planet.

Attempting to prohibit layoffs is total lunacy and it will not work. My advice to the Attorney General: Instead of creating a hostile business environment, Connecticut should be focusing on sensible issues that will foster economic and job growth.

If the Attorney General really wants to help Connecticut’s economy, here’s something sensible that he can work on.

Tax Foundation – Connecticut 3rd Highest Tax Burden in Nation

Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. In 2008, Connecticut taxpayers had to work until May 8 (the latest in the nation) to pay their total tax bill, 15 days later than the national Tax Freedom Day (April 23).

* Connecticut’s State/Local Tax Burden Third-Highest in Nation

* Connecticut, currently ranked 3rd highest, has risen 21 places over the last three decades and now holds a place among the nation’s highest-tax states.

* Connecticut’s 2008 Business Tax Climate Ranks 38th

* Connecticut ranks 38th in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index. The Index compares the states in five areas of taxation that impact business: corporate taxes; individual income taxes; sales taxes; unemployment insurance taxes; and taxes on property.

* Connecticut Levies Sales Tax above National Median; Gasoline and Cigarette Taxes among Nation’s Highest

Connecticut Residents Are Voting With Their Feet

The Connecticut State Data Center says figures from last year show the population growth in the state is very small.

The University of Connecticut-based center says Connecticut’s population grew by less than two-tenths of 1 percent last year.

There is a connection between high taxes, job losses and zero population growth. Connecticut has become a very high cost state for both residents and employers. If Connecticut really wants to increase jobs in the state, attention should be focused on lowering taxes. Foolish, politically motivated schemes such as prohibiting layoffs will only lead to further job losses.

Let’s be honest.  Most of the additional growth we have seen now and for an extended period of time come from Boss’s like the one noted in this fictional letter attributed to Neal Boortz.  So what is the government doing?  Helping huge companies stay a float with bad business practices and screwing those who are really the engine of this economy…  read “his story” below. -pf

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To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed,

Your boss

Well, certainly one can not miss all the coverage and hoopla about the upcoming Presidential Inauguration on Tuesday, Jan. 20th, 2009.

I’ve barely responded to PF’s topics nor have I written a new one myself since the election because I been so upset about how wrong I figured people’s thinking and how wrong I was about people’s perceptions and thought processes.

I haven’t been a slave to the news coverage in the past few weeks but I can not get away from it either although I have tried to fast forward or change the channel during more egregious Bush bashing and Obama worship.

I attended Church this morning; I grew up in the Methodist faith and believe in worshiping the one true God – although in 3 forms – The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  I state here that I adamantly do not believe that Barack Obama is the Son.  While I adore my minister and usually agree with her sermons I was saddened to know that on this Human Relations Sunday I did not 100% agree with her assessment that she believed that BO’s election was the dream coming true of Martin Luther King, Jr.  MLK, Jr. (who was a registered Republican) believed that people should be judged by the content of their character and not by their skin.  While I agree with that hope … I disagree that BO was not judged by his skin…he was voted by many because he calls himself an African American == the first Black President.

Personally I would have been ready for our first Black president to have been Colin Powell way back when.

I have always been suspect of BO’s experience not his skin color. 

AND I have said from the get – go about BO — that I was torn — that I was indeed happy that people were excited about the election and could rally around an exciting candidate.  BUT — I was horribly disappointed by the lack of credible and unbiased journalism that ushered Obama into the Presidency at such a critical time.  It could be Obama is the right man to be President — only time will tell.  And though it may be tough …I will certainly admit “I was wrong” if/when the time comes.

So on Tuesday — when normally I am the Yankee Doodle Dork and love all American Pageantry … I am feeling a little lost, a little detached and little like I am holding myself back from letting myself from getting all misty eyed and euphoric.  Again, I repeat that this feelign does not stem from perhaps my guy not winning…but because I feel like this election was pre-determined.

Chuck Todd of NBC News just released a book about how BO won.  How possibly could he have written this book in less than 2 months unless he had written it all along?  So obviously he wanted BO to win so his book would be publishable!

So yes, I want our Country to do better and I want Americans to be proud of our country and not be ashamed and our want our Media to do its part to be fair and unbiased…I want our country to do better economically, socially and personally…

If BO can inspire people then so be it…I want to be inspired and normally I am easily so…yet I still have a heavy heart…

 Libra Girl

I got this from a friend of mine and it’s worth sharing.   -pf

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I am not happy about the outcome of this recent election. My wife wisely tells me that I need to get over it – and that if I don’t like it, to do something about it.  I’m exercising my right to free speech (while I still can) to tell you how I plan to “redistribute” my hard earned dollars.

We live in a small town and do a lot of shopping either by mail order catalogs or by internet. Today I emptied a stack of catalogs out of the mailbox and happened to be looking at Fox News website at Noon. There is an interactive map here (http://elections.foxnews.com/states_map/index.html ) that shows how the election turned out in the United States.

All the states are either blue for Democrat or red for Republican. By clicking on a state you can see how the counties in each state voted. By entering a zip code you can see how that area voted. Out of curiosity I entered a zip code off the back of a catalog. Blue state, blue county – into the trash it went. Hmmm…I may be onto something here.

I’m choosing to spend my money in the areas of the country that didn’t vote for socialism, redistribution of wealth, erosion of civil rights and tossing out the Constitution of the United States of America.

I need a new coat: LL Bean – Freeport, ME (blue county in a blue state – trash) Cabelas – Sidney, NE (red county in a red state) My favorite microbrewery is New Belgium in Ft Collins, CO (blue county in a blue state) but I also like Shiner in Shiner, TX (red county in a red state).

My daughter is having a birthday and Christmas is coming up: I have toy catalogs from VA (blue), MO (mostly red but still counting), MA (blue), VA (blue) & TX (Red) Howdy y’all!

Vacations: Colorado and New Mexico are out for weekend trips. Maybe we’ll check out Oklahoma this next year. I was planning on taking my family to Disney World in Dec 2009. (Orlando, FL – blue county in a blue state) I’ll have to weigh my values against the promise I’ve made my daughter here… maybe I can talk her into Six Flags Over Texas.

Movies and the liberal media? Don’t get me started.

Obama had the largest political donations EVER. He has not published his donor list (or birth certificate, resume, college transcripts, bar exam…) but, Liberals gave him that money. I found a searchable website that gives names, amounts and to which party the donation was made. www.newsmeat.com

And another site is www.followthemoney.org – be informed.

If I buy something from a liberal, some of that money may go to Obama 2012, the DNC, the PLO, ACORN, the Karl Marx Appreciation Society or any other bunch of left wing boneheads. If I buy from conservatives maybe the GOP or the NRA get some money.

My guess is that conservatives have more disposable income than the college kids and the unemployed that elected him. But probably not as much as Oprah.

I’m just one guy and my small amount of cash doesn’t mean much. Together we can make a difference.

Be sure to let those blue companies know why they aren’t getting your business or they’ll blame their economic down turn on President Bush.

I’m still buying from Americans; I’m just choosing which Americans to buy from now.

If you agree with me, tell your friends.    God bless America!

Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record

By Ed Gillespie
As the year draws to an end and President Bush enters his final month in office, there is much commentary about the Administration’s record over the past eight years. Unsurprisingly, many of these stories assail and distort the President’s record and recycle myths and unfounded allegations that have been leveled for the better part of his two terms. Historical accuracy requires a response to the litany of attacks leveled against President Bush, and while there’s not enough space to respond to all of them, here are five of the most egregious:

Myth 1: The last eight years were awful for most Americans economically and President Bush’s deregulatory policies caused the current financial crisis.

Reality: President Bush’s time in office is ending as it began, with our economy under stress. The recession President Bush inherited as he entered office ran through the attacks of September 11, 2001, but during the recovery that followed, and due in no small part to the tax relief President Bush worked with Congress to provide, this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth – 52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created.

This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007, real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion dollars. This growth was driven in part by increased labor productivity gains that have averaged 2.5 percent annually since 2001, a rate that exceeds the averages of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. In the same period, real after-tax income per capita increased by more than 11 percent, and there was a 4.7 percent increase in the number of new businesses formed. The current economic challenges, which the President and his Administration have responded to aggressively, threaten to reverse some of these gains – but the gains cannot be denied.

As for the current crisis, the President and his economic team have taken unprecedented actions to stabilize the financial sector and avert a collapse. While there are a number of causes of the housing and credit crises that are at the root of our current economic troubles, deregulation by the Bush Administration is simply not one of them. In fact, one of the circumstances that contributed to the crisis was the failure of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which President Bush long tried to subject to greater regulation. In April 2001, three months after taking office, the President warned in his first budget that the size of the two GSEs were a “potential problem” that “could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.” In 2003, the Administration began calling for a new GSE regulator, and over the next five years, the Administration continued to call for GSE reform only to be accused by Democrats in Congress of creating artificial fears and advocating for ill-advised proposals. By the time Congress finally acted in 2008 to provide the oversight the President requested, it was too late to prevent systemic consequences. Had the Administration’s initial reform proposals been adopted, some of today’s turmoil in our financial markets may have been averted.

Myth 2: President Bush’s tax cuts only benefitted the wealthy and were paid for by sacrificing investments in health care and education.

Reality: There are not 116 million “wealthy Americans,” but that’s how many taxpayers benefited from the President’s tax relief. The across-the-board tax cuts provided tax relief to every American who pays income taxes, created a new bottom 10 percent bracket rate, doubled the child tax credit to $1,000, and actually increased the share of the Federal income tax burden paid by the top 10 percent of individual earners from 67 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2005. Furthermore, this Administration removed 13 million low-income earners from the income tax rolls completely.The economic growth spurred by tax relief also spurred growth in Federal tax receipts. In fact, the Federal Treasury realized the largest three-year increase of revenue in 26 years, and tax receipts grew more than $542 billion between 2000 and 2007. And yes, much of that money went to investments in health care and education.

President Bush provided more than 40 million Americans with better access to prescription drugs by creating the market-based Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. And it is one of the rare government programs that actually costs less than expected. Projected overall program spending between 2004 and 2013 is approximately $240 billion lower, nearly 38 percent, than originally estimated, thanks to the market-oriented principles included at President Bush’s insistence.

Despite the heated rhetoric over children’s health insurance (S-CHIP) legislation last year, estimates from a 2007 Federal survey show that the number of uninsured children under the age of 18 actually declined by 800,000 from 2001 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008, the number of people covered by affordable and portable Health Savings Account-eligible plans increased 35 percent. Additionally, since President Bush took office, more than 1,200 community health centers have opened or expanded nationwide, which has helped provide treatment to nearly 17 million people.

Federal spending on education has increased nearly 40 percent under President Bush. Additionally, Pell Grant funding nearly doubled during the Administration, which is expected to help more than 5.5 million students attend college in the 2008-09 school year, 1.2 million more students than were assisted by Pell Grants in the 2001-02 school year. This financial aid assistance also helps account for the fact that 66 percent of high school graduates from the class of 2006 enrolled in colleges, compared to 63 percent in 2000.

Perhaps more importantly, the President’s No Child Left Behind Act has delivered tangible results to students. Since the law was enacted, fourth-grade students have achieved their highest reading and math scores on record, eighth-grade students have achieved their highest math scores on record, and African-American and Hispanic students have posted all-time high scores in a number of categories, narrowing the gap between minority students and white students.

Myth 3: The President’s “go it alone” foreign policy ruined America’s standing in the world.

Reality: Rarely can one see revisionist history occurring in the present, but this charge is nothing short of that. The United States acted with a multilateral coalition of partner nations to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq after he failed to comply with the will of the international community, including numerous United Nations Security Council Resolutions. To ignore this fact is not only a distortion of history, but it is also an insult to the service members of our coalition partners who sacrificed their lives to contribute to the success we are now witnessing in Iraq. And in Afghanistan, approximately forty countries are currently deployed with American forces, including every one of our NATO allies.The President also created a worldwide coalition of more than 90 nations to combat terrorist networks by sharing information, drying up their financing, and bringing their leaders to justice. To date, we have captured or killed hundreds of al-Qaeda leaders and operatives with the help of partner nations. Furthermore, the Administration established the Proliferation Security Initiative, which now includes more than 90 nations, and other multilateral coalitions to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The President successfully pushed for expanding NATO membership, generated international pressure on Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, and organized the Six-Party Talks, which have resulted in North Korea committing to give up its nuclear weapons and abandon its nuclear programs. Verifying North Korea’s commitment will be a challenge, but at the most recent Six-Party Talks meeting, there was strong consensus among the five parties that North Korea must submit to a comprehensive verification regime that accords with international standards.

U.S. ties in Asia have been strengthened over the past eight years, and the Administration has built strong relationships with China, Japan, and South Korea, among others. We have signed an historic civilian nuclear power agreement with India, reflecting a fundamental change in our relationship. Pro-American leaders have been elected in Germany, France, and Italy. Eastern European countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, and Kosovo treasure their relationships with the United States, and no president has done more to improve health and security in the nations of Africa. We have also strengthened cooperation with Latin America, including initiatives with Brazil on biofuels and with Mexico and Central America on fighting organized crime. Finally, when the President took office, America had trade agreements in force with only three countries, versus 14 today – with three additional agreements approved by Congress but not yet in force and agreements with three countries that are awaiting Congressional approval.

Myth 4: The war in Iraq caused us to “take our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan and with al Qaeda.

Reality: Iraq and Afghanistan are two fronts in the same war, and while the success of the surge in Iraq has been visible, we have also had a quiet surge in Afghanistan. The U.S. has continuously and aggressively fought side-by-side with Afghans and our allies to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The United States has provided nearly $32 billion for security, political, and economic development assistance and the international community has provided more than $55 billion to Afghanistan since 2001.An additional U.S. Marine battalion deployed to Afghanistan in November and they will be followed by an Army combat brigade of about 3,400 troops in early 2009. U.S. forces now total approximately 31,000, and are joined by nearly as many coalition troops. The United States and our allies are working with Afghanistan to help it nearly double the size of the Afghan National Army over the next five years, from 79,000 now trained to 134,000 in 2014.

We have also deployed Provincial Reconstruction Teams to ensure security gains are followed by real improvements in daily life, and we have helped local communities strengthen their economies and create jobs, deliver basic services, improve governance and fight corruption, and build or repair key infrastructure such as roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools. More than six million children, approximately two million of them girls, are now in Afghan schools, compared to fewer than one million in 2001.

In this Global War on Terror, we do not have the luxury to fight on one battlefront at a time. To defeat the terrorists, we must fight them overseas so we don’t have to fight them here at home. Since 9/11, we have successfully captured or killed dozens of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership and hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives in two dozen countries, removed al-Qaeda’s safe-haven in Afghanistan and crippled al-Qaeda in Iraq, and disrupted numerous al Qaeda terrorist plots against the U.S., including a 2006 plot to blow up passenger planes traveling from London.

Myth 5: This Administration has been bad for the environment and ignored the problem of global warming.

Reality: Given the liberal media’s failure to acknowledge this Administration’s true record on alternative energy, conservation, and climate change, it’s not surprising this charge has stuck. But here are some irrefutable data points: From 2001 to 2007, air pollution decreased by 12 percent, and fine particulate matter pollution is down 17 percent since 2001. Ethanol production quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to 6.5 billion gallons in 2007, wind energy production has increased by more than 400 percent, and solar energy capacity has doubled. In 2007, solar installations increased more than 32 percent and the U.S. produced 96 percent more biodiesel (490 million gallons) than in 2006. The Administration also provided nearly $18 billion to research, develop, and promote alternative and more efficient energy technologies such as biofuels, solar, wind, clean coal, nuclear, and hydrogen.This Administration has improved and protected the health of more than 27 million acres of Federal forest and grasslands, protected, restored, and improved more than three million acres of wetlands, and established the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the world’s largest fully protected marine conservation area (nearly 140,000 square miles).

Much of the misperception about the President’s environmental record is born out of the President’s withdrawing the United States from the Kyoto Protocol, which did not include the effective participation of major developing countries such as India and China. Instead, the President worked to address climate change by launching the Major Economies Process, which convened the leaders of the world’s major economies, both developed and developing, to work on ways to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy security without harming our economies or giving any nation a free ride. Finally, the President set the country on course to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions below projected levels by 2025 and invested more than $44 billion in climate change-related programs.

Some other items that are infrequently mentioned about the real record of the Bush Administration but are worth noting: Teenage drug use has declined 25 percent; in 2007, the violent crime rate was 43 percent lower than the rate in 1998; between 2005 and 2007, the chronically homeless population decreased approximately 30 percent; funding for veterans’ medical care has increased more than 115 percent; and as of 2005, the most recent abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974.

And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.

Ed Gillespie is the Counselor to President George W. Bush.

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/myths_and_facts_about_the_real.html at December 22, 2008 – 06:45:33 AM PST

Link to video

There’s enough blame to share, but these bad policies started in the Carter Administration in the 70’s and were made worse in the Clinton Administration in the 90’s.

A methodical breakdown of a financial crisis is contained in the video link above.  If you have 15 minutes to spare, you’ll book mark this and recommend this to others.

And when it comes to pushing us out of this problem – we need to remember this.  The government doesn’t HAVE any money.  What money it HAS is from taxes paid by us.  So all these new jobs programs?  The money has to come from somewhere.

The next President has promised a lot already but has yet to say where he’ll get the money to pay for it.

We need to think more about pretty simple things too, moving forward – Like where credit card companies get all their money for fancy buildings and salaries…  they certainly have never made a penny on me. I should have paid more attention in ECON classes in school, I guess.  But my Parents advice of “if it looks too go to be true, it probably is” or “live within your means”…  always worked for me.  Although I did break a mold and bought my first “foreign” car this year.  But that can be another post later…

Just watched Sen. Corker, (R-Tenn) on CSPAN with Brian Lamb this evening.  I like his sense….

BTW – I’m old enough and remember Dinah singing that song in Black and White on an American Made TV.   But holy crap, I did not know some of this stuff.  96000 workers and provides health benefits to 1 million?  what the HECK business sense does THAT make!

BTW II  – relating to or having sclerosis; hardened (“A sclerotic patient”) I had to look it up.  -pf

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LINK

Can You Still See the USA in Your Chevrolet?
Route 66 is looking ever more like a one-way dead-end street to Bailoutistan.

By Mark Steyn

‘See the USA in your Chevrolet!” trilled Dinah Shore week after week on TV.

Can you still see the USA in your Chevrolet? Through a windscreen darkly.

General Motors now has a market valuation about a third of Bed, Bath And Beyond, and no one says your Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet is too big to fail. GM has a market capitalization of just over two billion dollars. For purposes of comparison, Toyota’s market cap is one hundred billion and change (the change being bigger than the whole of GM). General Motors, like the other two geezers of the Old Three, is a vast retirement home with a small loss-making auto subsidiary. The UAW is the AARP in an Edsel: It has three times as many retirees and widows as “workers” (I use the term loosely). GM has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to a million people.

How do you make that math add up? Not by selling cars: Honda and Nissan make a pre-tax operating profit per vehicle of around 1600 bucks; Ford, Chrysler and GM make a loss of between $500 and $1,500. That’s to say, they lose money on every vehicle they sell. Like Henry Ford said, you can get it in any color as long as it’s red.

In the 20th century, most advanced nations made automobiles but only America made them mythic: “Drive the USA in your Chevrolet!” sang Dinah. “America’s the greatest land of all!” America had road movies. With car chases. Thelma and Louise drove their vehicle off the cliff and, unlike the Old Three, they didn’t demand American taxpayers come along for the ride. But, if you didn’t want to hit the open road, you could just hang around being cool. In Chuck Berry’s immortal quatrain:

Riding along in my automobile

My baby beside me at the wheel

Cruising and playing the radio

With No Particular Place To Go…

Not if you were a European teen. Cruising was an American activity. A Saturday night out for a Brit meant hanging around at a rain-streaked bus shelter hoping the night service would show up. Even if you had a particular place to go, you had no means of getting there.

So many areas of endeavor that once embodied the youth and energy of this great land are now old and sclerotic. I include, naturally, my own industry. I loved the American newsrooms you saw in movies like The Front Page, full of hardboiled, hard-livin’ newspapermen. By the time I got there myself, there were no hardboiled newspapermen, just bland anemic newspaperpersons turning out politically correct snooze sheets of torpid portentousness. The owners of The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune recently filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times is mortgaging its office to fund debt repayment. The Detroit Free Press is cutting out home delivery except on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, thereby further depressing sales of delivery trucks in the Motor City.

The newspapers blame the Internet, just as Detroit blames Japan. But the Japanese have problems of their own. One day they’ll get theirs. That’s the beauty of capitalism. Nothing is forever. The big railroad barons smoking cigars and enjoying pheasant under glass in the dining car on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe thought Henry Ford was a schmuck. Who’d want to ride around in that thing? Next thing you know everyone’s getting their kicks on Route 66:

You’ll see Amarillo

Gallup, New Mexico

Flagstaff, Arizona

Don’t forget Winona

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino…

Ah, California. The Golden State! To a penniless immigrant called Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was a land of plenty. Now Arnold is an immigrant of plenty in a penniless land. What’s the motto on the license plates? “Ah’ll be back …for more of your money!” In California you don’t have to be an orange to have your pips squeezed. The Terminator makes Gray Davis look like Calvin Coolidge. Care to terminate a government program, Governor? Hey, great idea! We’ll hire 200 people to do an impact study on terminating the Department of Impact Study Regulation and get back to you in a decade. And when Governor Girlyman has run out of state taxpayers to fleece for his ever more bloated bureaucracy, he’ll go to Washington to plead for a federal bailout of Cantaffordya.

California! The state that symbolizes the American Dream! If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere! No, wait, that’s New York. “This is the worst fiscal downturn since the Great Depression,” announced Governor Paterson. So what’s he doing? Why, he’s bringing in the biggest tax hike in New York history. If you can make it there, you’ll be paying state tax on it, sales tax, municipal tax, a doubled beer tax, a tax on clothing, a tax on cab rides, an “iTunes tax” on downloads from the Internet, a tax on haircuts, 137 new tax hikes in all. Call Albany today and order your new package of tax forms, for just $199.99, plus 12% tax on tax forms and 4% tax-form application fee partially refundable upon payment of the 7.5% tax-filing tax. If you can make it there, you’ll certainly have no difficulty making it in Tajikistan.

Hey, and who needs to make it there when you can just get appointed there? Governor Paterson is said to be considering appointing Princess Caroline of Kennedy to Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat. After two and a third centuries of republican experiment, America has finally worked its way back to the House of Lords. “Friends Say Kennedy Has Long Wanted Public Role”, Anne Kornblut assured readers in an in-depth Washington Post tongue-bath. She hasn’t “long wanted” it to the extent of, you know, running for dog catcher in Lackawanna and getting — what’s the word? — “elected”, but, if you have a spare Senate seat, she’s graciously indicated that she’d be prepared to consider accepting it. As lady-in-waiting Anne Kornblut pointed out, she is highly qualified, being “the author of several books”. It’s true! She’s an experienced poetry editor. She edited The Best-Loved Poems Of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie Kennedy wrote poems? Of course! She wrote so many poems that some are better loved than others.

See the USA from your Chevrolet: An hereditary legislature, a media fawning its way into bankruptcy, its iconic coastal states driving out innovators and entrepreneurs, the arrival of the new Messiah heralded only by the leaden dirge of “We Three Kings Of Ol’ Detroit Are/Seeking checks we traverse afar”, and Route 66 looking ever more like a one-way dead-end street to Bailoutistan. Boy, I sure could use a poem by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis right now, even one of the lesser-loved ones.

“I feel like I lost my country,” said the Hudson Institute’s Herbert London the other day, wondering whatever happened to the land of opportunity and dynamism. But I’m more of an optimist. Maybe Princess Caroline will be appointed CEO of GM and all will be well. Or maybe Bed, Bath And Beyond will put wheels on the Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet.

And on that cheery note let me wish you a very Hopey Changemas.

This is a piece of James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” 12/17/08 produced by the Wall Street Journal online – a particularly good day – and good read…

Foot in Mouth
In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush gave Iraqis a final opportunity to thank him for liberating their country. But as Agence France-Presse reports, one Iraqi “journalist,” Muntazer al-Zaidi, seems to have preferred the old regime:

Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted “It is the farewell kiss, you dog” and threw two shoes at the US leader.

The shoes missed after Bush ducked and Zaidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the room.

Zaidi seems to have borrowed the idea from some hippie in Oregon, who in February 2005, as the Associated Press reported at the time, tossed a shoe at Richard Perle, a former assistant defense secretary. Perle was debating Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a proponent of the Iraqi status quo ante, at Portland’s Pacific University. The unidentified footwear-flinging freak shouted “Liar! Liar!” at Perle.

As for Zaidi’s heel-hurling, AFP reports it was “hailed by many in the Arab world as an ideal parting gift to the unpopular US president,” and it actually quotes Arabs praising this silly action:

“Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever . . . it expresses how Iraqis and other Arabs hate Bush,” wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan’s independent Al-Gahd Arabic newspaper. . . .

“All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush,” said Ali Qeisi, head of a Jordan-based Iraqi rights group, calling for Zaidi’s release.

“The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East,” said Asad Abu Khalil, a popular Lebanese-American blogger and professor at Stanislaus University in California at angryarab.blogspot.com.

If these comments are representative, they tell you something about the intellectual impoverishment of Arab culture (and of the culture of American higher education, habitat of both Asad Abu Khalil and, one presumes, the Portland Perle projectile perpetrator). Zaidi is a hero in the view of these men for his childish, impotent and potentially (though not actually) harmful expression of unreasoning rage.

Meanwhile, AFP reports that “Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free.” Of course Dulaimi did not end up doing all that well by his last high-profile client, who as far as we know is still dead. If Zaidi is smart, he’ll hold out for a white-shoe firm.

Uday and the Lions
Don’t get Thomas Schaller wrong. He misses Saddam Hussein as much as the next Salon writer does:

Look: Bush has wreaked havoc on Iraq. Death, dismemberment, disfiguring, displacement and political disarray are all part of his tragic legacy. Al-Zaidi has many legitimate reasons to be angry.

Yet there is this caveat:

But his actions and the subsequent lionizing of him are not helpful.

Somehow this reminded us of a July 2003 report in the Times of London:

A chief executioner to one of Saddam’s sons has revealed how he helped drag two victims into a cage to be devoured by lions.

The executioner said that he was ordered to seize two 19-year-old students and take them to a farm of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s oldest son who was killed by American forces last week.

As soon as they arrived the students were dragged to a cage containing the lions and forced inside. “I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite,” he said. He then had to stand and watch the animals devour the two young men: “By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh.”

He was told later that the two young men “had competed with Uday where some young ladies were concerned.”

“Lionizing” meant something quite different back when Saddam was in power.

The Neediest Cases
It’s easy to think of the economic downturn in abstract terms: the rising unemployment rate, the falling Dow Jones Industrial Average. But behind these numbers is a great deal of human suffering, and reporters at the New York Times have been laboring heroically to tell the stories of the people who are hurting. Here is one such story:

Jodi Hamilton began her senior year of high school in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., this fall on the usual prosperous footing. Her parents were providing a weekly allowance of $100 and paying for private Pilates classes, as well as a physics tutor who reported once a week to their 4,000-square-foot home.

But in October, Jodi’s mother lost her job managing a huge dental practice in the Bronx, then landed one closer to home that requires more hours for less money. Pilates was dropped, along with takeout sushi dinners, and Jodi’s allowance, which covers lunch during the week, slipped to $60. Instead of having a tutor, Jodi has become a tutor, earning $150 a week through that and baby-sitting.

“I just thought it would be responsible to get a job and have my own money so my parents didn’t have to pay for everything,” said Jodi, who is 17. “I always like to be saving up for something that I have my eye on–a ring, a necklace, a handbag.”

We cried because we had no Kobe beef until we met a girl who had no sushi.

Accountability Journalism
This is what now passes for “news” at the Associated Press:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can’t avoid.

Since Clinton’s inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton’s second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it. . . .

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government’s machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it’s thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

USA Today has a smart op-ed piece today noting the similarity between global warmism and religious myths of apocalypse. There seems to be a basic human need to believe the end is nigh. Perhaps it somehow diverts us from contemplating our own inevitable demise.

Biden Brings Back the Bucket
If the idea of having Joe Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency worries you, this report from Politico will offer some reassurance–at least as long as Barack Obama’s heart continues to beat:

Joe Biden is laying plans to significantly shrink the role of the vice presidency in Barack Obama’s White House, according to an official familiar with his thinking. . . .

Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president’s. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision.

He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a “shadow government” within an Obama administration. . . .

Biden’s goal of restoring the office to its “traditional role” is something he and Obama agreed on before the Delaware senator was named to the Democratic ticket, the transition official said.

As part of that understanding, Biden is unlikely to have a specific docket of issues.

The traditional role of the vice presidency was best described by John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, vice president during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two terms, who said the position was “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Actually, rather than “spit,” FDR’s No. 2 used a vulgar term for No. 1.)

Although it may be that Obama is looking to uphold another tradition, from his hometown of Chicago: no-show jobs.

LINK to source

not too far away, you know

did you hear there was going to be a train?

Philly to WASH D.C. so the common folk could see him.

States in trouble

WAIT!!! the Dems said in the elections in NOVEMBER that we in IOWA were fine – flush – balanced!!!

Why are we bbblllluuueee

The Other American Auto Industry
Plenty of car makers make a go of it in this country–they’re just non-union and not headquartered in Detroit.
by Fred Barnes
12/22/2008, Volume 014, Issue 14
West Point, Georgia

Drew Ferguson IV is a 42-year-old dentist whose family has lived in this town, population 3,300, “since God put us here.” To be precise, the family arrived eight generations ago. Ferguson went off to the University of Georgia, then on to dental school, after which he came back to West Point. He and his wife, whom he met in college, have four kids. A year ago, Ferguson was elected mayor. “There’s a reason I live in West Point,” he says. “I love it. There’s a sense of place here.” No doubt, but West Point is located in what might also be considered the middle of nowhere. It’s pinched between I-85 and the Alabama border. Atlanta is a good hour’s drive away.

West Point today isn’t the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. “We survived without a federal bailout,” Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there’s great joy in West Point. “West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country,” Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.

KIA has come to town. The Korean automobile manufacturer is building a huge assembly plant, which will employ 2,900 workers when it begins turning out cars a year from now. KIA suppliers will employ thousands more nearby. When KIA accepted applications last winter–only online, not in person–43,000 people applied. Just last week, a 2.5-mile, four-lane road that runs along the 2,200-acre plant site was completed. Naturally it’s called KIA Parkway. A Korean barbecue restaurant opened a year ago, as Koreans began moving into West Point. It was formerly a Pizza Hut.

KIA donated one of its cars to Georgia governor Sonny Perdue, who is said to drive it occasionally. Ferguson drives a KIA Sorento. “I had to buy mine,” he says. In the election last year, Ferguson ousted Billy Head, who is 30 years older and was a two-term incumbent. Ferguson says the voters in West Point “were ready to take a new direction. We have a chance to completely reinvent this town. For an old textile town, we’ve really done pretty well.” Ferguson recently hired a second dentist to join his practice.West Point has entered the auto industry’s alternative universe. Foreign car manufacturers, the so-called transplants, have been setting up shop in the South for a quarter century now, starting with the plant that Nissan opened in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1983. It’s still operating. Nissan added a second plant in Canton, Mississippi, in 2003. Two years ago, Nissan moved its American headquarters from southern California to Cool Springs, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.

The auto production numbers in the South are staggering. A dozen years ago, Alabama produced zero cars. Now it turns out 750,000 annually at Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai plants. Three years after Mercedes opened its SUV factory near Tuscaloosa in 1996, it doubled the size and output. A Honda plant halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta went on line in 2001, and the next year the company spent $450 million to expand it, adding 2,000 more workers.

The southern auto industry mocks Detroit. The transplants make money and aren’t asking for help from Washington. The recession has curtailed car sales temporarily, causing the transplants to slow production. But they are expected to expand again once the economy recovers. Volkswagen is currently building a plant outside of Chattanooga, which will produce 150,000 cars a year. But VW, with ambitious plans to increase its American sales, obtained an environmental permit that allows it to make 512,000 autos at the site. Volkswagen, by the way, has moved its main American office from Auburn Hills, Michigan, to Herndon, Virginia.

Embarrassed by the success of the foreigners, the Big 3 car makers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) claim the tax and other “incentives” the transplants get from state and local governments in the South are no different from the subsidies they’re seeking in Washington. But that’s not quite true. “There’s a big difference between a subsidy and an incentive,” says Michael Randle, president of Southern Business and Development and an expert on the southern auto industry. “A subsidy pays to keep jobs. An incentive pays to bring them. If you’re paying to keep them, it means somebody wants to leave.”

Southern officials don’t apologize for luring foreign companies, nor should they. “The distinction between foreign and domestic cars is totally gone now,” Democratic governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee told me. “Most Volkswagens are just as American as a Chevy. They’re built here. They’re built by Americans. The management at the [Chattanooga] plant is largely American. They’re not bringing in parts from Germany.” The plant manager happens to be a Texan named Don Johnson.

It’s no longer politically risky for a governor to offer transplants costly incentives. Alabama’s Democratic governor Jim Folsom Jr. was criticized for the $250 million package the state gave Mercedes, and the issue contributed to his defeat in the 1994 election. But when Bredesen and other Tennessee officials, including Republican senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, attracted VW with $577 million in tax breaks and other enticements, they drew cheers.

Government payouts aren’t the only inducement to automakers or even the most important one. There’s also the attraction of a pro-business political community, relatively cheap labor, inexpensive or free land, lower cost of living and of doing business, warm climate, and the big one that the auto companies are wary of talking about–no UAW.

The southern auto belt from South Carolina to Texas, home to eight German, Japanese, or Korean plants (plus three more under construction), is right-to-work country. In these states, workers can’t be compelled to join a union or pay dues, and not many are inclined to sign a union card anyway. The result: The UAW has failed miserably to organize workers. No Mercedes, VW, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai (KIA’s parent), BMW, or Nissan plant in the South is unionized.

There’s a simple explanation. It’s what I call the progressive anti-unionism of the transplants. It consists of one factor: They pay well. Workers not only make far more than the prevailing wage in the rural areas where most plants are located but also considerably more than every state’s average wage. With overtime, they can earn $70,000 or more a year at some plants. Average pay and benefits: roughly $45 an hour.

Unlike the timid auto executives, politicians in the right-to-work states are quite candid in crediting the enormous appeal of their non-union status. “If you don’t have right-to-work laws, you end up like those guys [the Big 3] are today” in Detroit, Corker says. “Right to work,” says another top state official, “is a huge issue.”

“We don’t have a culture that values union organizing,” says Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi who persuaded Toyota to locate a Prius plant in Blue Springs in northern Mississippi. “Our workers like overtime and pay for performance. They feel like they get a better deal without the union.”

The UAW, of course, is partly responsible for lofty non-union wages, though the threat of a successful UAW organizing drive is remote. A union workforce doesn’t fit the business model pursued by the transplants. They dislike inflexible union work rules, grievances, an adversarial relationship between management and labor, indeed any intermediary between plant managers and workers at all. And they especially hate strikes.

Michigan, though a union state, made an aggressive bid for the Volkswagen plant that wound up in Tennessee. It was one of three finalists. But when a VW site selection team made its final visit in May, a UAW local in Michigan was striking against a Big 3 supplier. “Fear of the UAW probably drove the final decision,” a local business leader told the Detroit Free Press.

In truth, the transplants don’t have much to worry about from organized labor. The UAW has been able to force only three elections at the foreign-owned plants. The union lost overwhelmingly at Nissan’s Tennessee plant in 1989, failed in another election there, and lost at the Mercedes plant in Alabama. The UAW might fare better if “card check” is approved by Congress next year, allowing organizers to succeed without the need to win a secret ballot election. But the transplants should still have little trouble thwarting UAW organizers.

The UAW’s problem is that it has little to offer. High pay? The workers have that. “If you’re making $50 an hour, what do you need a union for?” says Randle. Job security? Workers tend to rate a successful company as a better security bet than a union whose members are losing jobs by the tens of thousands. A voice on the assembly line? Transplant workers have that, just not through a third-party like the UAW.

So the UAW is left with a handful of weak arguments about on-the-job accidents, overworked employees, and sweatshop conditions. “Why would a worker in Alabama or Texas making far and away the best wages he ever could want to join the UAW?” says Washington attorney Richard Wyatt, who specializes in labor issues. “The UAW has no story to tell these people that makes any sense.”

In courting transplants, southern states have another great advantage besides right-to-work laws and lucrative incentive packages. They try harder because their need–especially to raise the South’s standard of living–has been greater. They are better at beckoning business because they’ve been doing it for decades, first to attract textiles and furniture, now autos. They treat campaigns to capture transplants like military exercises. Georgia’s plan to win over KIA was dubbed Project Pine Tree. Also, nearly all elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, are favorable to business. The efforts are bipartisan.

And they put far more time and ingenuity into charming foreign auto chiefs. When Tennessee officials negotiated with Nissan over shifting its headquarters to Nashville, they learned the wife of the top Nissan executive in the United States was a fancier of African violets. So they arranged to have a new type of the flower named after her. To meet with KIA’s chief executive in West Point, Georgia officials replaced their Fords with a fleet of rented KIAs to drive around the proposed plant site.

Since Tennessee’s Nissan breakthrough in 1983, states in the southern auto corridor have been willing to up the ante to attract the transplants. Nissan got $66 million in incentives. Two years later, Toyota accepted $125 million to put a plant near Lexington, Kentucky. That included $35 million for buying and preparing the site. The latest was Tennessee’s $577 million package for VW this year.

So far, these investments have paid off handsomely. Michael Randle points to the case of Alabama, which has delivered $1.2 billion in incentives to four automakers. The companies, in turn, have spent $20 billion in salaries alone to their employees. “If Warren Buffett took $1.2 billion and turned it into $20 billion in 10 years, he’d be called a genius.”

Randle argues that the “sum of the southern auto industry is so much greater than its parts.” The auto plants have a multiplier effect on local economies. They usually hire younger workers who might not be able to buy a home until their 40s if they worked at WalMart. “With these [auto] jobs, they buy a house at 28 or 29.” At least that’s Randle’s theory.

Drew Ferguson is a believer. He initially got an inkling that KIA was coming from his father, Drew Ferguson III, a banker in West Point who heads the town’s economic development commission. “Son, I’ve got some good news,” he said several years ago. “But I can’t tell you.” The news was KIA’s interest in West Point. Georgia officials, it turned out, had tried in vain to sell KIA on a fully developed site outside Savannah. But a member of KIA’s site selection team had picked out the West Point site as he drove between Atlanta and Montgomery, Alabama, home of a Hyundai plant.

Once KIA announced its decision, excitement in West Point bubbled over. But there was a problem with the site. It was divided among 35 separate landowners. The elder Ferguson had the job of buying out all of them. It took him just 35 days. The town itself has put $80 million into the KIA project.

The mayor talked optimistically last week about West Point’s future as he drove me around the town and down the new four-lane parkway past the half-built plant. “This community was able to survive when the textile industry went away,” he told me. “At the height of the tech boom, we had 2,000 jobs, but we lost a lot of those. Now we have a remarkable opportunity to turn this old textile town into the largest economic development in Georgia’s history.”

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Pilgrims’ Short Lived Experiment in Communism

Many have credited Karl Marx with inventing what we now know as communism in the middle of the 19th century. The concept of communal living and dependence, however, came long before The Communist Manifesto. Over the centuries, the concept has been applied by different people in different places. While the reasons for applying the communal approach varied as widely as the people who attempted it, one thing did remain constant: failure. From Roman latifundiae to the Soviet Union, communism time and again proved the failure inherent in its concept. Americans do not need to look to distant lands and little known peoples for evidence of the failure of communism. They simply need to look back at one of the most celebrated groups of people in their history: the Pilgrims.

As most educated Americans know, Puritan Separatists, or Pilgrims, landed in Massachusetts in 1620. What many don’t realize is that the original economic system of their colony, Plymouth Plantation, was a form of communism. There was neither private property nor division of labor. Food was grown for the town and distributed equally amongst all. The women who washed clothes and dressed meat did so for everyone and not just for their own families. This sounds like the perfect agrarian utopia envisioned by Marx and Lenin. What happened to it? To find the answer to that question, one must turn to Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. Bradford served as Governor of Plymouth Colony from 1620 to 1647 and chronicled in great detail everything that happened in the colony.

By 1623, it was obvious the colony was barely producing enough corn to keep everyone alive. Fresh supplies from England were few and far between. Without some major change, the colony would face famine again. In his chronicle, Bradford described what was going wrong and how it was solved (pardon the King James English):

All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advise of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of the number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

With weak crops and little hope of supply, the Pilgrims divided the parcels among the families and told them to grow their own food. They found that those who would pretend they couldn’t work due to infirmity, weakness or inability (sound familiar?) gladly went to work in the fields. Corn production increased dramatically and famine was averted because communism was eliminated. Bradford’s account doesn’t end here; he goes on to describe why he believed the communal system failed. Understanding the reasons for the failure is just as important, if not more important, than learning about the failure itself. Governor Bradford wrote:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter than the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labours, victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.

The communal system failed because it treated the older and wiser the same way as the young and brash. It failed because it rewarded the less productive as much as the more productive. It failed because members of the community found that they could do less and still get the same benefit. All of these problems arose in a very religious community in which gluttony and laziness were considered sins and drunkenness was rare. How much more would communism fail in a larger society where such problems are rampant! By returning to a system in which the older and wiser are respected, and by reorganizing so that one’s benefit was directly tied to his production, the Pilgrims ensured the survival of their colony. Governor Bradford, however, ultimately attributes the failure of the “common cause” to something much deeper:

Upon the point all being to have alike and to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

Governor Bradford is saying that communism failed because of the corrupt nature of humans. People are imperfect and sinful. The utopia Marx and Lenin dreamed of could only work if it were filled with perfect people- and no such infallible people can be found in this world. Furthermore, the communal system undermines the relations God instituted among men- marriage and family. With husbands growing food for other people’s children, wives washing other men’s clothes, and children doing chores for other families, the basic foundational social unit of society is undermined. Without that, no society can hope to survive.

Fox News anchor Brit Hume reported today:

The president-elect isn’t shy about his penchant for exercise. He begins most mornings with a visit to a gym and frequently discusses his love for sports. Associated Press reporter Deanna Bellandi describes the incoming first couple as “fabulously fit.” Back in June, Men’s Fitness magazine ranked Obama the candidate as one of the 25 fittest guys in America.

So if this virtue of exercise is praised, how, you ask, have reporters referred to President Bush’s workout routine? They have used words such as “obsession,” “indulgence” and even “creepy” to describe the President’s exercise habit.

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It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing.  The people who count the votes decide everything.….Joseph Stalin

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Interesting article here (clip below)
Did Democrats Have Something to Do with the Economic Troubles?
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
By Mike Baker

…..

Citigroup deftly showed other big companies how to play bailout bingo earlier this week. They got theirs in record time even though most of the nation didn’t know they were in trouble until a few minutes before the check was written. By the way, lost in the back pages of the Citi story is an interesting sidebar about former Citi director and senior advisor Robert Rubin.

In case you’re not familiar with Robert Rubin, he was treasury secretary during the Clinton Administration and joined Citi in 1999 as a trusted smart guy. How smart? Reporting shows he made somewhere in the region of $100 million while working with the organization. Rubin claims that he studiously avoided any daily management issues, in part because Citi over the past few years has had some bad management issues. So that $100 million wasn’t for management, it was for things like schmoozing, making big picture pronouncements, pondering and muttering smart things in the CEO’s ear while glancing furtively side to side.

He left in August of this year after helping to fill the bucket of poo but before it was thrown at the fan. Rubin’s also been working as an economic advisor to Obama’s transition team. It appears that several Rubin protégés, proponents of Rubinomics, are being positioned within the new Obama administration.

So here’s what I find amusing, in a curl-up-in-a-fetal-position-and-scream-loudly kind of way.

Remember during the campaign how this whole economic mess, according to the Obama camp, was the fault of the Bush administration and the past 8 years? They had all those excellent slogans… we can’t afford four more years of the same… remember? I don’t want to say that a lot of people bought that crap, but anytime you tried to talk about actual economic history and how this mess evolved, most people glazed over and muttered “past 8 years… more of same… must change.”

Well, just this Sunday while enjoying a piping hot cup of joe and a danish, I was reading through the Sunday papers. Being desirous of news from all sides, I always start with the New York Times. Eventually I finish up with Guns & Ammo. The Times had a story on the front page entitled Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk.

The story continued on the inside pages and on page 34, paragraph 15 of the story I came dangerously close to throwing myself off my deck. Here’s paragraph 15:

“When he (Robert Rubin) was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent.”

Is the New York Times now suggesting that the Democrats might have had something to do with our current economic troubles?

Worst Year Ever for Stocks: ‘Irrational Exuberance’ of 1990s Being Unwound

Any way you slice it, the 2008 is shaping up to annus horribilis for the U.S. stock market. Heading into Friday’s session, in which an early rally effort quickly faded, the S&P was down 49% year-to-date and on track for its worst year ever. Down 43% year to date, the Dow is heading for its second worst year in history, the WSJ reports, trailing only the 53% decline in 1931.

While the major averages tell a grim tale, the action in components of the S&P 500 speak to the extent of the devastation. Heading into Friday’s session:

• 115 S&P stocks were trading under $10
• 41 were trading under $5
• 204 were trading with a market cap of less than $4 billion

These are not the only criteria used for inclusion in the index, but S&P 500 companies typically have market caps above $4 billion and stock prices above $5. Furthermore, many institutional fund managers are prohibited from owning stocks that trade below $10 or $5, depending on the firm.

In other words, a lot of companies currently in the S&P 500 may not be eligible for membership or, more importantly, ownership by major institutions. That, in turns, may mean more selling ahead, even though stocks are “cheap” based on a variety of metrics. For example, 163 stocks in the S&P 500 are trading below book value, or assets minus liabilities, including non-financials like Alcoa and Duke Energy.

One way to look at what’s happened this year is the stock market is going back to what used to constitute “normal” valuations before the go-go 1990s.

Of course, “cheap” stocks can get cheaper and if we’re really going to wiped out that age of excess, I’ll point out the Dow was around 6400 in December 1996, when Alan Greenspan made his infamous “irrational exuberance” comment.

The real tragedy is that’s about the only thing Greenspan ever got right. Unfortunately, “the Maestro” not only didn’t do anything to prevent future “exuberance” after that speech, but quite a lot to encourage it.

there was a recount in the 2nd district primary for my candidate this year, and after the counts were certified by the auditors there was very little movement.  These events bother me a lot – is this one of the changes we expect to see in future elections?  -pf

Link to Wall Street Journal article 

Minnesota this week began its official statewide recount, and Mr. Franken isn’t hanging on the outcome. Instead, he’s trying to conjure up enough other, previously disqualified, ballots to overturn Mr. Coleman’s 215-vote lead. The Democrat needs to invent votes because he knows it will be tough to win a normal recount. Minnesota uses optical scanning machines, which are far more accurate than the punchcard paper ballots of the 2000 Florida recount. Prior recounts in Minnesota have resulted in few vote changes.

So off to court he goes, with Mr. Franken demanding that the state canvassing board delay certifying the initial election results. His campaign claims that absentee votes may have been wrongly rejected by election judges. Team Franken filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County (the state’s second largest, and an area Mr. Franken won decisively) demanding a list of these absentee voters, so that the Democrat can contact them, get them to declare their ex post facto preference, and, presto, he wins.

The state attorney general’s office ruled against a canvassing board delay, finding that certification was purely an administrative function and that any question of absentee ballots ought to be left to the courts. The problem is that at least one court has entertained this Franken ploy. Ramsey County Judge Dale Lindman this week ordered county officials to give Mr. Franken a list of voters who had cast rejected absentee ballots.

Put aside that these ballots have already been ruled on by trained election judges. Put aside, too, the invasion of voter privacy. The real problem of allowing Mr. Franken to conduct his own voter discovery operation is that this is changing the rules after the election has been held. The gambit introduces subjective judgment and political pressure into a voting process that is supposed to be immune to both.

Opening up the rejected-ballot question is also a recipe for potential fraud. When the Franken campaign filed its initial lawsuit demanding access to the voter lists, it used as an example an 84-year-old woman in Beltrami County whose vote was supposedly rejected because she’d had a stroke, and therefore her signature on her absentee ballot did not match the one on file. After some outside investigation, the Franken campaign admitted that the story was not true, and that her ballot had been rejected for entirely different (and legitimate) reasons.

Mr. Franken is also trying to raise public doubt about an “undervote” — suggesting that only machine error can explain why he received 12.2 percentage points fewer votes than did Barack Obama. But the Senate race had three serious candidates, not two. Maybe fewer Minnesotans liked a left-wing candidate who ran a nasty campaign. In any case, the same Democrats who claimed Florida was “stolen” by faulty ballot machines are now trying to discredit the optical-scanners that they have demanded — all in order to sway the human judges who’ll rule on Mr. Franken’s legal challenges.

The joker’s goal is to sow enough doubt about the vote so that if he loses the recount he can attract public support to challenge the final result in court. This is a slap at Minnesota, which, so far at least, appears to be doing all it can to make the recount open and transparent. Minnesota should respond by telling Mr. Franken that even a celebrity has to play by the rules.