Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Public sector union paradise: Ireland prepares for civil unrest

Here in the United States, the gargantuan public sector unions that control the biggest Blue States are -- by their own admission -- the vanguard of the Marxist left. Working in conjunction with the Democrat state political machines, the union bosses' interests are two-fold: (a) to harm the taxpayer; and (b) to eradicate the free market system.

Perhaps you think those statements are inflammatory. In that case, please consider the story "Ireland fears civil unrest as bank crisis deepens."

Trade union leader warns of riots if government imposes further 'draconian' cuts to public sector

One of Ireland's biggest trade unions warned today that the nation was on the brink of civil unrest as government officials negotiated a multibillion euro bailout for the country's ailing banks...

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union said further "draconian" public sector cuts of €15bn (£13bn) over four years could lead to street disorder. It urged a campaign of civil disobedience unless the [Irish prime minister], Brian Cowen, calls an immediate election...

...A first priority is to restore confidence and halt an outflow of cash – Anglo Irish Banks revealed on Friday that customers have withdrawn €13bn of deposits this year. Measures under consideration include hiving off rotten loans into a freestanding "bad bank"... ...Ireland's European allies fear that without swift action Ireland's debt crisis could become contagious, weakening confidence in Greece, Portugal, Spain and in the euro as a currency...

David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the union movement was calling for mass protests on 27 November to "allow ordinary working people to voice their opposition to a policy that could destroy 90,000 more jobs".

Consider this simply a preview of coming attractions in states like California, Illinois and New York, where the public sector unions rule the roost and have no interest in negotiating with the taxpayer.


New York State Crosses the Streams: Nation's Most Expensive Medicaid Program Is Among Bottom Five In Quality of Care

Aren't Blue States fun?

A $9 billion state budget gap in the next fiscal year, combined with few new tax revenues and the prospects for property tax relief, leaves no palatable choices for how to balance the state's budget. To no one's surprise, Medicaid, where combined state, local and federal spending of $50 billion is the equivalent of a third of the state's all funds budget, looms as a prime focus for reducing state expenditures...

...New York's program has long been called "the Cadillac" of Medicaid programs. It spends the most of any state on Medicaid and the most per Medicaid enrollee, especially on its elderly enrollees. Yet, there is little proof that the quality of care is any better than in other states' programs... A recent study by CareChex, a medical quality rating service, placed New York in the bottom five states on overall quality of care ratings.

...in fiscal year 2007 New York's Medicare program spent $8 billion more than California's on long-term care, despite California having millions more elderly enrollees in its program...

When do we get to that Utopia the liberals are always promising us?


Poll confirms: Californians are nuts--they object to both tax increases and cutting spending on bloated social programs

Gee, this news will make balancing the Golden State's vertigo-inducting budget deficit easier:

Californians simultaneously object to increasing taxes in order to pare the state’s massive budget deficit and cutting spending on programs that make up 85 percent of the state’s general fund obligations, according to a new Los Angeles Times/USC Poll.

Californian’s belief [sic] that the state deficit – estimated last week at nearly $25 billion – can be balanced through trimming waste and inefficiencies rather than cutting programs. Even though tens of billions that have been cut from the state budget in recent years, just a quarter of California voters believed that services need to be cut in order to square the budget.

Voters have “a great bias toward spending cuts” rather than tax hikes, said Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who co-directed the poll for The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences to the Los Angeles Times. “But when you get into it, they don’t want to cut the areas that matter.”

Truthfully, does this insanity come as much of a surprise from the state that reelected both the execrable Jerry Brown and Barbara "Don't call me ma'am" Boxer?


Saturday, November 20, 2010

Great News: After Number of Federal Workers Earning $150K a Year Rose 1,300%, White House Panel Proposes 3-Year Wage Freeze... For Military

The growth in salaries for federal workers during the Great Dempression is something that must be seen to be believed.

The number of federal bureaucrats earning over $150K annually grew 1,300% -- that's more than an order of magnitude -- while those making $180K or more rocketed by 2,100%.

But those Americans who serve and those in harm's way are in for quite a different salary treatment.

A presidential commission on reducing the deficit has recommended freezing basic military pay and housing allowances for three years starting in 2011, according to a draft report of the commission’s recommendations posted online Wednesday.

“A three-year freeze at 2011 levels for these compensation categories would save the federal government $7.6 billion in compensation and tax expenditures, as well as another $1.6 billion in less retirement accrual, or $9.2 billion total discretionary savings in 2015,” it said.

Consider: the White House had no problem whatsoever in jamming through about $100 billion in payouts to the UAW auto companies.

And $860 billion in "Stimulus", tens of billions more in "Cash-for-Clunkers", "Weatherization" programs, "Green Jobs" and every other sort of boondoggle imaginable.

But when it comes to $9.2 billion -- total -- from 2011 to 2015 to pay for wage and housing increases for our men and women who serve, well that's just too damn much.

The Democrats can't afford it, you see. They've got other, higher priorities. Like amnesty and chain migration to bring in millions of new voters, the impact of which could reach the trillions of dollars.

But that's the modern Democrat Party in action. Trillions for illegals; nothing for the U.S. military.


Friday, November 19, 2010

What's Really Behind Bernanke's 'Quantitative Easing II'?

It's clear that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is out of control. His latest gaffe: blaming China for the failure of QE2 to spur anything but fear.

In speeches before a European Central Bank conference in Frankfurt, Ben Bernanke went on an unprecedented attack, accusing China of throwing a monkey wrench into the global recovery, blaming China for slow global growth and a potential "End to the Tepid U.S. Recovery".

He also said "The current international monetary has a structural flaw" calling on the "global community, over time, to devise an international monetary system that more consistently aligns the interests of individual countries with the interests of the global economy as a whole."

Finally, he put up a misguided defense of Quantitative Easing that is sure to not go over well in the global community.

If Bernanke was trying to spook the markets, provoke China, cause a currency war, and get Congress to launch an extremely foolish set of tariffs, he would have been hard pressed to deliver a more powerful speech.

Blaming China for America's out-of-control spending is a little like pinning Michael Moore's ever-expanding gut on Ronald McDonald.

Bernanke said that China’s decision to undervalue the yuan has essentially thrown a monkey wrench into the global economic recovery... The result could be slow growth ahead “for everyone,” he said.

...“On its current economic trajectory, the United States runs the risk of seeing millions of workers unemployed or underemployed for many years,” Bernanke said.

Monetizing the debt -- which simply means the United States is being forced to conjure money from thin air to fund the operation of the government -- is an ominous sign by itself. Combined with harsh rhetoric against the country's biggest creditor, the Fed's policies are well nigh suicidal.

Andy Kessler, writing in The Wall Street Journal, explains the likely rationale behind Bernanke's erratic behavior.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's $600 billion quantitative easing program has been roundly criticized in this country and around the world. So why is he doing it? Does he know something the rest of us don't?

...I have [an] explanation for the Fed's latest easing program: Without another $600 billion floating through the economy, Mr. Bernanke must believe that real estate (residential and commercial) would quickly drop, endangering banks...

...Mr. Bernanke is clearly buying time with our dollars. If real estate drops, we're back to September 2008 in a hurry. On Wednesday, the Fed announced that all 19 banks that underwent stress tests in 2009 need to pass another one. This suggests central bankers are nervous about real-estate loans and derivatives on bank balance sheets...

Rather than use his bully pulpit to harangue the President and Congress into sane spending policies, Bernanke instead is attempting a triple-reverse handspring off the high-beam. Odds are it ain't gonna work.

Only when we excise the cancerous lesions -- Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the other market-distorting entities -- can we return to a level of predictability and stability. But don't hold your breath. Facts, logic and reason have never been the Democrats' forte.


Tax Breaks for the Wealthy: National Motors Edition

Congratulating himself on the IPO of General Motors, President Barack Obama stated, "American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM, and that’s a good thing."

Obama also said that his administration's actions "helped save more than 1 million jobs across 50 states."

GM's IPO did raise about $20 billion for the American taxpayer.

But the Obama administration actually lost $9 billion on the transaction based upon its original takeover of GM. Furthermore, the company still owes $45 billion to the taxpayer. GMAC owes another $14.6 billion. And Chrysler is in hock for an additional $8.2 billion.

But that's not all: GM also received a sweetheart tax break. According to The Chicago Tribune, "The bill for taxpayers stands to keep growing [because] of special tax treatment connected to its bailout... GM can deduct its accumulated losses against future profits — avoiding at least some obligations it otherwise would have owed had it emerged from a typical bankruptcy. That tax break reportedly could be worth as much as $45 billion over time."

So despite the President's self-congratulatory rhetoric, his act of nationalizing GM and Chrysler will cost the U.S. taxpayer $100 billion or more.

Even the George Soros-funded front group known as Media Matters admits that about 750,000 businesses -- small, medium and large -- will be hit by the Obama tax increases in January.

Now let me pose a simple question: why is it that a $45 billion tax break for GM is lauded by the Democrat left, but a tiny fraction of that for the dry-cleaner on the corner, or the auto-body shop down the street, or the specialty grocer in the strip mall, is somehow evil and unnecessary?

When a small business makes more profit, it hires or invests in capital equipment. When it is abused with excessive taxation, regulations, restrictions and bureaucracies, it ceases to exist. Anyone who has ever run a small business knows this. Even Barack Obama knows this.

The Obama tax increase is designed to destroy small businesses. Small businesses are extremely difficult to unionize. And the unions own Obama, having invested hundreds of millions of dollars in his presidential run.

In the first year of his presidency, the most frequent visitor to the Obama White House was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) head Andy Stern. Obama and Stern aim to crush small businesses -- to leave the unionized mega-corporations ruling the roost along with the Democrat Statists.

You may be asking yourself, "Are they really willing to destroy small businesses to advance the cause of the unionists?"

To which I answer, "look around."


Hat tip: Mark Levin. Linked by: Weasel Zippers. Thanks!

Democrat-controlled City of Cincinnati, running a $100 million budget deficit, leaves the lights on for you [Amalaur]

Correspondent Amalaur writes:

Cincinnati, Ohio is a city not unlike many others around the country. It has a bloated pension system that is woefully underfunded. It has a city council that is either corrupt or incompetent or both, depending on who you talk to. The local chapter of the NAACP reports that the city's budget deficit is over $100 million, which is a huge amount for a city with a population of a little over 300,000.

In the midst of this budgetary crisis, the pinheads in city management, to include a dysfunctional city council, a city manager, and a mayor (heaven knows why all of these are needed, plus they are dominated by Democrats), want to build a multi-million dollar streetcar system. And check this out: it would run right through the most crime-ridden area of town. It would start just north of the crime zone in an urban area near the University of Cincinnati and... end just south of the crime zone downtown, so you could see how normal folks would just love to ride it, especially at night.

So while all this is going on, the gang that couldn't shoot straight is blowing money left and right on other projects too. The city budget is north of $1.1 billion. The city has been shrinking for years and, despite this, it has 6,000 full-time employees (or 1 for every 50 people). But only 1,800 of those are police or fire-fighters. And 2,000 additional part-timers are hired in the summer for parks and recreation.

So the past few days I've been meeting people for lunch downtown. I walked over to Rock Bottom Brewery and I've been noticing something weird. Every street light is lit up like a candle at noon. These aren't small lights and they extend block after block after block.

This is on Main Street and Fifth facing P&G. Every direction the lights are turned on. This is at noon, so it's not like they just left the lights on because of a daylight savings time change. This has to cost thousands and thousands of dollars to keep these lights on.

But that's the city government of Cincinnati for you. They can't even install a timer for the street lights, but they want to build a streetcar system through a war zone while running a $100 million plus budget deficit.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democrats would be useful only as comic relief if they weren't in power. As it is, we all suffer from their terminally inane belief that Soviet-style central planning works. It doesn't. It bankrupts everything it touches and inflicts unending misery and poverty. Which explains the urban core of so many cities.


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A Completely Unrelated Series of Events

Observe the master at work:

• September 23, 2008: Buffett's Berkshire invests $5B in Goldman

• September 28, 2008: Buffett to Congress: Bail out economy or face 'meltdown'

• September 29, 2008: Goldman, Merrill Collect Billions After Fed's AIG Bailout Loans
As much as $37 billion from federal bailout loans to American International Group Inc. has gone to investment banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the firm Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson used to run...

...Without the government money, Goldman, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and other firms could have become some of the biggest creditors in a bankruptcy filing by AIG, the world's largest insurer, because of its billions in losses on subprime bonds and corporate debt.

• October 2, 2008: Buffett: $700 billion bailout may be too low

• October 2009: It's 12 months later and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is $3 billion richer.
One year ago today, on September 23, 2008, with the financial world still reeling from the collapse of Lehman Brothers just days before, Buffett stunned Wall Street with a massive vote of confidence for Goldman Sachs..

Goldman agreed to pay Berkshire a 10 percent annual dividend on [Buffet's] preferred stock. That's $500 million a year, and the payout didn't depend at all on what happened to Goldman's common stock price... But there was more. In what Buffett later described as a "bonus," Goldman also gave Berkshire the right to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 a share...

The bonus has turned into big bucks.

• November 2010: Warren Buffett Pens NYT Op-Ed Praising Administration During Economic Crisis

• November 2010: Report: Warren Buffett to Receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom from White House

* * * * * * * * *

Mmmm, yes, Democrats are for the little people. The working man. Right.

Kids, can you say "Crony Capitalism"?


Monday, November 15, 2010

What do the Ukraine and Pakistan have in common?

Their debt is rated the same as Ireland's.

Mary Ellen Synon, writing in The Daily Mail, offers an exceptional summary of Ireland's debt crisis which, you may have heard, is at a boiling point.

First the potato, now the euro: how Ireland has been destroyed again


...Today [once] swaggering Ireland has gone bust. Spectacularly, dramatically, perhaps irretrievably bankrupt, suffering the deepest recession in the world.

...So what went wrong? No one in Brussels will ever admit it, but it's the euro that ruined Ireland.

Ireland joined the single currency in 1999. At the time it was enjoying healthy growth, fuelled by investment from high-tech multinationals such as Dell, Intel and Pfizer, attracted by Ireland’s low 12.5 percent rate of corporation tax.

But after the Irish turned over their currency and their interest rates to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, things began to change.

The ECB insisted upon low interest rates for the eurozone to help the sluggish German economy. But what suited Germany was all wrong for Ireland, turning healthy growth into a debt-fuelled property mania.

First the Euro-enthusiasts across the EU fostered the idea that, since all the members of eurozone shared a single currency and had promised to adhere to strict limits on debt and inflation, they were all equal in risk... This fiction led investors to imagine lending to Greece or Ireland was no more risky than lending to Germany or the Netherlands.

So Irish banks were free to suck in billions from Asia and Europe... These billions - many of which came from the City of London - were what fuelled Ireland’s asset bubble. ECB policy made sure the money was lent on to Irish property speculators at real interest rates that were actually negative... [and] eager to cash in on ever-soaring property prices, the Irish began a credit binge that drove up levels of personal debt to the highest in Europe.

Meanwhile the Irish Government enjoyed a tax revenue bonanza - and responded by letting public sector pay and spending rip so that today Ireland has the highest paid public sector in Europe... In short, joining the euro has meant almost everything that could go wrong in one country has gone wrong in Ireland.

Then in 2007, the inevitable happened and the property bubble burst. Tracts of land bought for hundreds of millions of euros for commercial development became worthless overnight. House prices crashed to half their value and are still falling...

...Irish banks have been destroyed by their bad loans and are insolvent. The bond markets will not lend money to the Dublin government, which is itself insolvent, driven to the edge of bankruptcy by trying to save the banks.

One economist pointed out last week the markets now put Irish sovereign debt in the same risk group as Ukraine and Pakistan.

And all this could have serious repercussions for Britain... Worse, Irish bankruptcy could lead to a contagion of default on debt among the other weak members of the eurozone. Such a contagion could put the banking system here under serious threat, especially if the Spanish were forced into default.

...While Britain’s national deficit – the amount by which Government spending exceeds annual revenue -- is about 10 percent of national output (called GDP), Ireland’s is 32 percent, possibly the highest in the world outside Zimbabwe.

Here, like California, is the idiocy of Paul Krugman's policy prescriptions writ large. Everything Krugman advocates, limitless Keynesian spending and untold amounts of debt, has already occurred in California, Illinois and Ireland.

And they're all about to topple in a vertigo-inducing onslaught of defaults and debasements. Which is why Krugman won't ever talk about them.


Bonus Quantitative Easing Chart o' the Day

I like to call it "money-printing", but the Fed calls it "QE2". That is, the recently announced second round of quantitative easing. Also known as monetizing the debt.

And a "huge list of investors and economists" are decrying the policy, going so far as to publish an open letter in today's WSJ.

We believe the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called “quantitative easing”) should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment...

We subscribe to your statement in the Washington Post on November 4 that “the Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy’s problems on its own.” In this case, we think improvements in tax, spending and regulatory policies must take precedence in a national growth program, not further monetary stimulus...

...We disagree with the view that inflation needs to be pushed higher, and worry that another round of asset purchases, with interest rates still near zero over a year into the recovery, will distort financial markets and greatly complicate future Fed efforts to normalize monetary policy...

In other words: Stop using monetary policy to dictate fiscal policy! Use your bully pulpit and tell the President and his minions to slash the five trillion they've added since Pelosi took over the budget!

At least that's how I read it.

Your bonus hyperinflation chart o' the day is below. It depicts the price of gold in Reichsmarks during Germany's fateful five-year run ending in hyperinflation and economic destruction.

The red marks a linear scale ($400 to $1500) for the last five years, illustrating the price of an ounce of gold in U.S. dollars.

If the dollar does indeed melt down, I propose we call the new currency the quatloo (as in "I bid 50 quatloos on the newcomer"). Or the bernanke.


Federal Workers Making Over $180,000 Jumped 2,000% In Just the Past Five Years

Tyler Durden points us to a USA Today study of federal wages and benefits. Yes, we knew these people were completely out of control. But we didn't have a good picture of just how out of control they were and are -- until today (emphases mine).

For all those wondering how to cut down on government expenditures, here's a thought: cut the skyrocketing salaries! A study by USA Today, using US Office of Personnel Management data, confirms what has been widely known: that the biggest beneficiaries of government largesse over the past 5 years as a worker cohort, are none other than Federal workers themselves...

...The numbers are stunning: those earning over $150,000 in the past five years have grown from 7,420 to 82,034, a 1,006% increase. More shockingly, those earning over $180,000 has surged from just 805 in 2005, to 16,912 in 2010: a 2,001% increase... And it is on the background of this that Congress is planning on giving 2.1 million federal workers another 1.4% across the board pay raise!

...Additionally, it appears that the bulk of the gains have taken place since Obama took office.

...The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate... And just to make sure you get really angry, here is how one Federal Union views the fact that government workers as a whole are now the second best paid group after Wall Street:

National Treasury Employees Union  President Colleen Kelley counters that the proposed raise "is a modest amount and should be implemented" to help make salaries more comparable with those in the private sector.
Once again, we get confirmation that Americans always get nothing more or less than the thieves in control they deserve, and elect.

President Obama keeps talking about "paying for" the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. By that, he means keeping the same amount of your money flowing to the bloated federal bureaucracy to pay for these outrageous salary increases.

I've got an alternative: let's return the entire federal government discretionary -- non-defense -- spending back to 1999 levels. You know, when Clinton ran that budget surplus Democrats like to crow about (yes, I know, it was really the GOP House -- led by now Ohio Governor John Kasich -- who balanced the budget, but ***shhh*** humor them).

And let's outlaw public sector unions while we're at it. They are the enemy of a Democratic society -- one need only look at the riots in the streets of Europe for a preview of our future if these anti-taxpayers continue to feast at the public trough.


HHS Buries 111 Waivers Issued For Its Disastrous One-Size-Fits-All Health Care Reform Bill, Affecting Nearly 1.2 Million 'Workers'

If you hadn't heard, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already been forced to issue 111 one-year waivers to the ObamaCare socialized medicine program.

In early September, ...Obamacare promoter and Democrat Rep. Ron Wyden [pushed] for a special state waiver from the very federal mandate he advocated for everyone else... A few weeks later, McDonald’s finagled its own Obamacare waiver after warning federal regulators that it could be forced to drop its affordable health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 restaurant workers unless it got a pass.

In early October, the Obama administration announced it had granted waivers not only to McDonald’s, but also to several other firms and labor unions.

Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people.

In total, Sebelius' waivers granted thus far affect nearly 1.2 million workers.

Let's not beat around the bush here: by issuing all of these waivers before the full effects of the law are even felt, the administrative state has admitted that its one-size-fits-all health care reform is a failure. Which any thinking person knew and predicted ahead of time (by definition, excluding all liberals who supported the bill).

Who gets hurt the most? Small- and mid-sized businesses who don't have the corporate attorneys and lobbyists to beg Washington for relief. Consider the amount of power that this fourth branch of government possesses: who gets health care, when, how and what treatments. This unelected body of masterminds -- who believe that they can control hundreds of millions of individual, rational decisions and one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy -- have already proven themselves a disaster.

And this is only the beginning.

Furthermore, when you put the power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats to decide who must obey the law and who is above it, you've eviscerated the entire rationale for the law.

This disastrous pile of manure disguised as "health care reform" must be repealed.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Photos of the Quantitative Easing Krugman, Weimar Edition

On PBS' Inside Washington, Charles Krauthammer delivered a vicious smack-down to the malevolent partisan hack named Paul Krugman.



That would be the same Krugman who recommended that the Fed inflate a housing bubble back in 2002. Seriously.


Update: So how bad is quantitative easing?

Update II: Paul Krugman Recommends 'Death Panels' to Help Balance Budget

Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Mark Levin: "A Society Has To Be Insane..."

This is Cub Reporter Biff Spackle's transcription of the opening segment of The Mark Levin Show, 12 November 2010, click for MP3 download):

Something is happened in the last few days that's gone largely unnoticed. It's right in front of us, and everyone is talking around it, but no one is talking about it in a direct way.

Every single commentator, left, right and in between, is saying that our government does not work. I haven't heard anyone say that government is efficient; that government is doing what it's supposed to do; that government is terrific; no one.

Now this government, in so many ways, is not the government of our Constitution, is it? It is a massive, centralized vacuum that is sucking up pieces of our liberty, large and small, in a thousand different ways.

Unlimited Power

There's little this government does not do, and cannot do, if those in power want to do it. Given that the government is many times larger and more powerful than the Framers ever imagined... given that the Statists, with a short respite here and there, have had their way for the last 75 years... isn't it clear that the government they've created is defective?

The Statists themselves complain that despite the New Deal, the Square Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society and Obama Marxism... despite trillions and trillions of dollars... despite massive bureaucratic agencies... despite telephone books full of regulations... it doesn't work.

Despite Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid... despite government schools, government houses, government meals... despite the progressive income tax, the death tax, business taxes... it's not working.

And yet they demand more of the same. More government. More programs. More spending. More taxes. More debt.

75 Years

Even though the Statist model has failed over the course of three-fourths of a century in this country -- by their own admission! -- they insist that we ignore the evidence, reason, experience, and history... and continue on their path. Except, rather than moving gradually, that we continue on this path at breakneck speed.

Now, it is the Statist that has bankrupted the nation. It is the Statist who has destroyed the very entitlements they created, just as Ponzi and Madoff created "investments" and destroyed them too. It is the Statist that controls government-run education and has driven down the quality of education.

Even the Decifit Commission's report is at least a recognition that Statism has failed, although the report largely leaves the Statists in charge and their bureaucratic monuments in place.

The Statist argues against cuts... and for more of the same... while admitting that they failed.

A society has to be insane to continue to follow them and their course. Where does the Statist approach ultimately take us? When we will know that this Utopia they promise us exists? When will we know that it has been realized?

What Constrains Them?

What are the limits on the power that this government -- that we're creating every single day -- has over us? Since the Constitution, we're told, really doesn't apply any more. Pretty scary, isn't it?

You see, we conservatives seek to work within a Constitutional system that they abuse, and even reject. So it's not really a fair fight, is it? No, it's not. They use unconstitutional and extra-Constitutional methods against us. And we continue to abide by the Constitution to defend ourselves.

Now, what is a "moderate" or a "centrist" under these circumstances? That is, politicians or professors or writers or even political activists who choose not to take sides, but claim to be "moderates" or "centrists". What are they, really? Well, they're appeasers.

When you face a soft tyranny that uses extra-Constitutional and unconstitutional means to continue to drive a stake through the heart of this country, and you claim to be a "moderate" or a "centrist", then you're an appeaser. You're a quisling.

They reject the Constitution or evade it. They seek to institutionalize their models, their viewpoints, in lieu of the Constitution. And that's the difference.

Now you can hear today, Nancy Pelosi saying no deal on taxes, no deal on cutting. Why is that she, and they, are never required to lay out exactly what they stand for? Now, we know what they stand for, but shouldn't they be required to tell us their beliefs... the extent to which our private property will be taken from us, the extent to which our liberty will be taken from us, and what this new government -- that they are pushing for relentlessly -- is going to look like?

Why aren't they required to lay out their pledge and their plan, rather than go out each day and try to undermine this society as they do? And the answer is really quite simple: they can't.

They are driving this society over the cliff, some of them because they really want to drive it over the cliff, some because are rote, some of them because they put politics ahead of country, but they're driving us in the same direction nonetheless. Over the cliff.

The House Is Not Nearly Enough

This is why all their talk about "oh, we'll push off the age increase on Social Security to 2075", while they mean to pocket all of the resources now, is disastrous. If we do not change the unconstitutional and extra-Constitutional aspects of this society, how is anything going to change? They're not going to change. I'm also practical enough to realize that -- hopefully -- we conservatives control the House, but we do not control the Senate, the White House, and we do not control the fourth branch of government.

The White House controls the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, entities like the EPA or the other monstrosities. And they can use them against us. And they will.

The House, hopefully, will pass legislation that advances the cause of Constitutionalism and liberty. So what do we need to do, you and me? We're not elected officials. Well, in addition to keeping the pressure on, we need to continue our role -- informing our fellow citizens -- because there are future elections and we must win them... with conservatives in primaries.

We must continue to spread the word about where we stand. We are for a society that nurtures the individual, we are for a society that accepts the limits on government, we are for a society that promotes and rewards success, we are for a society that creates opportunities for everybody.

Versus a bleak, iron-fisted, defective, bloated, centralized model that fails everywhere's it's tried. We must continue to spread the word. It is our only hope.

Our Mission Must Continue, Relentlessly and Tirelessly

Liberty is never safe from tyranny. Let me repeat that. Liberty is never safe from tyranny. We have masterminds all over our government, who pay others outside in government-like organizations, to promote Utopian schemes that have -- at their core -- having control over you.

I don't care what sort of Utopian societies you've read about or heard about, they all have a similar thread. That common thread is: control over the individual. We hear these phrases like "shared sacrifice" -- the individual is required to surrender his heart and his mind and his soul for "the greater good". One way or another. That's what they preach, one way or another.

So we have no choice, if we want to live as free people. And if we want our children and grandchildren to live as free people. We continue to spread the word. And people who want to negotiate with this Statist forces or ignoring 75 years of American history. Negotiatie for what? With what? Listen to them: they just got their asses kicked in a historic election -- and they're trying to control the agenda!

We Must Defeat Them

Then we must defeat them. We have only one part of an elected branch of government. And we're going to hold their feet to the fire. But we need more. We need to take over the entire government. And, unlike the Left, we'll do so in a Constitutional and legal way. Not by dumbing down the voting system, not by changing citizenship in order to import liberal Democrats, no. We'll do it the right way.

But ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it: this is a battle between liberty and tyranny. All the phony moderates and centrists who tell you to just relax, to pace yourselves, I say -- be more resolute than ever before.

Transcribed from: The Mark Levin Show, 12 November 2010, click for MP3 download.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Rare Bipartisan Agreement

Dan from New York:

Obama's economic view is rejected on world stage


--New York Times, 11/12/2010

Embarrassment in Seoul


Has there ever been a major economic summit where a U.S. President and his Treasury Secretary were as thoroughly rebuffed as they were at this week's G-20 meeting in Seoul? We can't think of one.

--WSJ, November 13, 2010

Some expected a liberal savior and others a crypto-Socialist ogre. The good news is Obama is disappointing all of us. He's proving too clumsy and inept to justify either our greatest hope or our greatest fear. The anti-Obama Rebellion that swept our country on November 2nd was a national cathartic; it blessed our country with a chance to reverse Obama's worst errors and prevent the commission of others.

Although it will surely be a cliffhanger, even the oncoming calamity of a nuclear Iran - a "game changer" if ever there was one - could be turned back, provided we elect a new president in 2012. By that time, the Iranians may have a nuclear weapon but it would likely be primitive, and its means of manufacture would still be fragile and vulnerable to a determined attack. By then, Israel too could be much better prepared mentally and militarily to take on the job alone, or better still, cooperate with the new White House occupant to rid the world of Ahmadinejad's atomic suicide bombs.

So as it turns out, Obama is not a prince nor is he an ogre. He's a plain-vanilla loser, a sad sack who keeps spilling hot soup in his own lap. Let's be thankful for little things, but not take anything for granted either. We need to make certain our pathetic president is sent home to the Second City the first chance we get.


What does the market know about California's finances that the rest of us don't?

The bond markets are depicting some very ugly goings-on in California

Over at The Big Picture, Barry Ritholz focuses our attention on the meltdown of California's municipal debt obligations. Translated for progressives: the market believes that something very bad -- Greece-like, in fact -- is happening in the Blue State Utopia of windmills, unicorns and Jerry Brown.

California Muni Bond Fund Shellacking


Since so many of you have asked: These funds are getting mangled on expectations of — All Aboard! Munis and California joining Ireland on the default train... Even the general Muni funds have lots of California Exposure...




Sure, the Governor declared a "fiscal emergency" a few months ago. True, the state wants to sell $14 billion in new debt instruments to any suckers interested parties it can find.

But we already knew all of this. Everyone in America already was aware that Cali is an economic train wreck.

Everyone, that is, except for Paul Krugman who has yet to compare his insane national policy prescriptions with what is already unfolding in the Democrat Utopia of California.

So what's really going on? Your guess is as good as mine, though if you believe in "The Wisdom of Crowds", you may want to batten down the hatches.


Hat tip: Mish.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Democrats doing awesome job with Stimulus oversight: spot-check in New Jersey shows only about 10% being lost to scams and waste

The two-word phrase starting with 'cluster' comes to mind.

Contractors billed New Jersey $27 for light bulbs, and ran up tens of thousands of dollars in other “unreasonable costs” on a $119 million weatherization program funded with U.S. stimulus money, the state auditor said...

Out of $613,600 in charges reviewed, $54,000, or 8.8 percent, was deemed unreasonable by [the] Auditor...

...About $5 billion in stimulus funds were provided to the weatherization program, according to the Energy Department’s website...

Yes, it's true: the Democrats can't even run a weatherization program without rampant fraud.

Say, wasn't Joe "The Genius" Biden supposed to be watching over this program with his hawk-like attention to detail?

Really, don't fret, folks: I'm sure nothing can go wrong with the Democrats' plans to nationalize one-sixth of the economy. Really -- it's only your health care, after all.


Thursday, November 11, 2010

World's dumbest blogger not sure why deficit reduction is needed

Matthew Yglesis is one of the country's top progressive bloggers and is also highly confused by all of the talk about deficit reduction. Which actually says quite a lot about the progressive movement. But I digress.

All the hot bloggers and think tanks are working on their long-term deficit reduction plans, but I have to say I’m a bit confused as to why. It’s definitely true that in principle a country should always have a specific plan for returning to long-term balance. But does that ever actually happen?

...Today we have serious economic problems, but none of them are caused by the deficit. Inflation is below the Fed’s target....

Oh, geez. Flatline isn't just a character from The Transformers, it also describes Yglesias' neural activity.

Here's a news flash for the world's dumbest blogger: inflation is a problem and it is being exacerbated by the out-of-control fiscal policy of the Federal Reserve. You've heard the term "monetizing the debt", genius? Do you know what that means?

It means we're intentionally devaluing the dollar in an ill-fated attempt to kick-start the economy because the government is flat broke.

So inflation isn't a problem?





This is what passes for informed commentary on the left. Inflation isn't a problem, yet the price of oil, gas, food, commodities and every other tangible necessity is skyrocketing.

Gold is quickly becoming the world's reserve currency as the dollar's value becomes closer and closer to that of the Zimbabwean dollar.

We're about to open the door on the Weimar Republic and the leftists don't have a freaking clue. But that really shouldn't surprise me, given their exceptional track record of fiscal destruction.


Hat tips: Memeorandum and GoldPrice.org.

Warning Labels for Voting Machines

Given their love of warning labels and the current state of the hard left Democrat Party, I would propose placing at least one of the following warning stickers on every voting machine in America.








Hat tips: Left Coast Rebel and Mark Levin.