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

Friday, January 31, 2014

Boehner's Brainstorm

As Bryan Preston observes, "Republican Fools Are About to Throw 2014 Away."


There's dumb. And then there's RINO Establishment Dumb.


Thursday, January 30, 2014

REALITY TV: Watch as small company employees find out what Obamacare is doing to their coverage

"They call it the affordable health plan. There's nothing affordable about it. I can't afford it."

A local news station brings viewers inside one Pennsylvania company as the employees there learn about their new health care plans under Obamacare...

"Look at the numbers," says the reporter of two employees. "Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared to Brian, Kristi, and Judy who have kids. they are going to pay twice that, four grand." The reporter adds that co-pays are being increased, too.

"I don't know how President Obama thinks he's helping us because we can't afford this, we can't afford to pay these co-pays, to pay these deductibles on what we're making," says one of the workers.

Now pretend you're in the GOP Establishment.

What would you do to exploit the tidal wave of rage washing over the countryside as Americans discover what socialized medicine really means?

If you answered "Pass Amnesty for Illegal Aliens", you have a future working for Karl Rove and the Chamber of Crony Capitalism.


Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News

DEAR ABBY: I'm in an Abusive Relationship with the Republican Party

Guest post by Christine X.

Dear Republican Establishment:

So, what do you need to do to get us to stick with you and get us back into your good graces?
Good question [{I’m glad I asked it}]

1). STOP SUPPORTING AMNESTY FOR 30 MILLION NEW DEMOCRATIC VOTERS.
[Can I be any more emphatic on that point?]
Mark my words, you can either drop the insane idea of amnesty for the illegal invaders or you can destroy the party - It’s your choice.
Pushing amnesty will either create 30 Million new voters for Democratic largess or it will fractionalize the party so badly that it will no longer be the ‘Loyal opposition’ to the Socialist National left.
The GOP will be deader than a Bull Moose as a result – does that sound like a winning strategy?

Either way will mean one party Socialist Democratic national party rule for now until Armageddon.

2). Stop insanely nominating Rinocrats in the futile hope that the media will be ‘nice’ to you and not put the full weight of their propaganda machine to work shredding said candidate.

How many times do you need to repeat that insanity before you learn the lesson?

3). Stop trying to outbid the socialists with government largess – you cannot win the game, because they don’t care if they bankrupt the country in 5 years instead of 20.

You can’t outbid people willing to destroy the nation just attain some temporary power.

It should be plain that you need to stand up for Conservative values – that is the only thing that will save the country from it’s inevitable demise at the hands of the socialists.

IF you do not do those simple things to save the party and save the nation, I will bid you a quick goodbye and be on my way – along with millions of others.

You can stuff your endless appeals for my donations, and your admonitions to volunteer will fall on deaf ears.

We may be on our way to defeat with a third party – but we will do it with our head held high and our Conservative principles intact.

There is no earthly reason to stay with a sinking ship – and you people are heading straight on for an iceberg – and sadly, you don’t seem to know it.

We can and we will leave – many already have and the exits are getting pretty jammed up.

I can envision many of my Conservative colleagues yelling back at the paper – Hey, where have you been, sister? We abandoned the stupid party years ago – well, let me just say in my defense that in most abusive relationships, each has their personal breaking point – many have already reached and are beyond that point. I dare say that if the current events hold to the trends as they are now, many more will join them – as will I.


I encourage you to email this article to every Republican official you know. Time grows short to save the party -- and the country.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

LEVIN: He wants to talk about inequality; we want to talk about liberty

Via Mark Levin

Let me be clear about this. Let me help some of these Republicans here and of course tomorrow's hosts, they may want to cherry-pick some of this. This president has created more poverty, more economic inequality, more economic dislocation, more crushing debt than any president in modern American history including Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover.

This president has set back the economic progress of women more than any modern president. This president has set back the economic progress of minorities, including African-Americans, more than any modern president. This president has set back economic opportunity for our young people -- our children and our grandchildren -- more than any modern president because he has embraced the most ideological, the most radical form of economics. A system they cannot work; a system that will not work; a system that is impossible.

He's spreading misery, he's spreading destitution and he's spreading poverty. This is not the America that the Framers established. This is not the America that we were born into, each and every one of us. And because he's increasingly frustrated by his own incompetence and failure. What is he doing?

He's dividing this nation, he's Balkanizing this nation along every conceivable route that he can find -- whether it's religious, whether it's economic, whether it's race, whether it's age, whether it's income, whether it's religion. And he's seizing more and more power as he panics, as he becomes desperate, as imperial minds do. Yes, he's an imperial president. And just as I said, this president has been conducting a certain, a sure gradual coup which is now being picked up.

He's also an imperial president, which is also now being understood. He's changing our system of government; he's destroying our economic system. He's nationalizing businesses and industries through the front door and through the back door. Did you know they have over 6,000 regulations and rules that they're preparing to unleash on us?

Do you know that he's put out the word to his cabinet, to his agency heads and to everybody in the federal government that this is their time? Now come hell or high water by 2016 when he leaves office he wants thousands and thousands of regulations pouring out at the EPA, the [Agriculture] Department, the Education department, the Energy department, Interior and all the rest.

This man is a one-man wrecking ball, that's exactly what he is. He wants to talk about inequality; we want to talk about liberty. And it is liberty that we need to talk about.


Via Mark Levin

Illegal Border Crossings Explode as Ruling Elites Plot Amnesty for Millions of Law-Breakers

Guest post by David Inserra

In case anyone needed more proof that amnesty only encourages more illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released its 2013 apprehension numbers that show that southern border apprehensions rose 16 percent last year. While this might seem like the DHS is doing a great job, it actually indicates that more unlawful immigrants are trying to cross the border.

Critically, it means that more unlawful immigrants are crossing successfully, since for every one who is caught another gets through or turns back to Mexico in order to try to cross somewhere else. Of course, some sneak through without the U.S. ever knowing, making it difficult to accurately estimate how many thousands make it across every year.

As more try to cross the border illegally, more will succeed. Regrettably, Congress’s discussion of amnesty has played a role in this increase. Stories from the Mexican side of the border indicate that the word is out among would-be-unlawful immigrants—the U.S. is considering amnesty, so cross now and maybe you can get some kind of legalization. Congress’s very discussion of amnesty, whether it is a special pathway to citizenship or just a pathway to legalization, is encouraging illegal immigration and making it more difficult for the Border Patrol to secure the border.

To try to make it seem like their irresponsible discussion of amnesty isn’t so bad, some in Congress are proposing various security and enforcement bills to crack down on illegal immigration in exchange for amnesty. Most of these policies, however, are incredibly flawed and do little more than create misguided metrics and extra reports for DHS, while providing no real security.

More importantly, why should we assume that these bills would be treated differently than current laws? The DHS is supposed to have already secured the border and be enforcing our immigration laws, but it isn’t doing either.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

DEMOCRAT LOGIC COMIX: The Persuader

He's got a pen and a phone. And he's not afraid to use them.


Issuing sweeping Executive Orders, one after the other, is a tacit admission that you're a failure.


25 Things President Obama is Guaranteed NOT to Mention During his State of the Union Speech

Kirk:

I bet he won't mention any of these:

• Fast and Furious – gun-running to Mexican drug lords; investigation shut down by executive privilege.

• Benghazi – we don’t know: why the ambassador was there, who ordered military to stand down, what Obama did for 8 hours, who gave Susan Rice the video talking points, or why Hillary Clinton and Obama tried to perpetuate the lies

• IRS – used to target perceived enemies of the Obama agenda

• AP – no one held accountable for spying on the media

• James Rosen and his parents- Holder not held accountable for lying to Congress about his role in spying on a journalist and lying to a federal judge to obtain the secret warrant

• NSA data collection – massive, warrantless data collection... just in case they need it

• Clinton State Department shuts down investigation of criminal activity by employees

• James Clapper lies to congress about collecting data on American citizens

• EPA releases personal information on 80,000 farmers to environmental groups

Monday, January 27, 2014

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Calls for Government Persecution of Tea Party Groups and Pro-Israel Jews

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Free Speech: The IRS scandal is not only not over but is getting worse, with a call by New York's senior senator for the already-politicized agency to use its power to tax to destroy the conservative grass-roots movement.

Arguing that the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision allowed Tea Party groups to "funnel millions of undisclosed dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government," Charles Schumer wants the IRS and other government agencies to take on the Tea Party through their administrative powers.

"It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies," Schumer said in a speech before the leftist think tank Center for American Progress.

Calling for the IRS to use its powers to resume war on the First Amendment and free speech he doesn't like in the hopes of electing more Democrats, Schumer said: "We must redouble those efforts immediately."

Schumer was the author of the 2010 Disclose Act that failed to make it through Congress but would have required the disclosure of corporate donors to tax-exempt organizations, and membership and donor lists of the groups running "issue" ads.

"The bill was designed to embarrass companies," Schumer admitted, and its "deterrent effect should not be underestimated."

Advocating the use of government power to harass and intimidate political opponents is nothing new to Schumer. Along with Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Al Franken of Minnesota, he sent a similar letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in February 2012 asking the IRS to investigate 12 conservative groups he accused of violating their tax-exempt status and engaging in coordinated political activity.

This effort to use government power to fundamentally transform our political system more along the lines of the Venezuelan model includes new IRS rules for 501(c)(4) organizations that would redefine "candidate-related political activity" and make virtually everything such tax-exempt political groups do a taxable activity.

Lost your health plan? Doctor won't see you? No problem, Michelle's got a plan: give her money to save Obamacare

Guest post by Lily Dane

Aw.

First Lady Michelle Obama, in an act of solidarity and support for her man, has sent out a fundraising email to ask for donations to help save her husband’s failing signature program.

Here’s what she sent out today:

Friend –

Earlier this month, because of what you did, it became illegal for insurance companies to discriminate against the up to 129 million Americans living with pre-existing conditions. Young Americans are able to stay on their parents’ health care plans as they get on their feet, and we can now know that our insurance companies won’t put lifetime caps on our coverage.

You should be so proud of that. That happened because you organized, you talked to your friends and neighbors, and you chipped in what you could, when you could, to elect Barack and a Congress who supported his agenda.

Today, I’m asking you to do it again.

So before Barack gives his State of the Union address tomorrow, chip in $10 or more and help protect Obamacare:

(link removed)

Thank you so much,

Michelle

I guess that’s the least she could do, since her husband took her on a lavish 4 million dollar vacation to Hawaii just recently.

Oh, wait – WE, the taxpayers, covered that.

Well, then, maybe it’s because Barack sent Michelle to Maui AFTER the Obama family’s holiday vacation, so she could celebrate her 50th birthday with her gal pal Oprah.

Oh, wait – yeah, WE the taxpayers covered a huge chunk of Michelle’s second vacation in as many months, too.

Jay Carney admitted that taxpayers picked up some of the cost of Michelle Obama’s trip to Maui and her travel back to Washington D.C.

I fixed the New York Times Magazine's "Planet Hillary" Cover. For the Third and Final Time.

I kinda think this one nails it. Pretty much a "Dadaist masterpiece", eh, Juli Weiner? Lotsa "gravitational pull", right, Amy Chozick?


Click here for my first attempt to fix "Planet Hillary":


And here for my second attempt:


Yes, I have a gift.


Sunday, January 26, 2014

HSBC Cash Withdrawal Limits Spark Fears of Banking Crisis

Guest post by Mac Slavo

In early 2013 the country of Cyprus locked down private banking accounts and restricted access to depositor funds. It was the first widely documented instance of a “bail-in,” as bank officials and European regulators determined that bad loans taken on by the banks were now the responsibility of the banks’ customers. This led to a country-wide confiscation of 10% or more of all customer funds. In the heat of the Cyprian financial panic banks limited cash withdrawals to around $300 and ramped up security to prevent angry Cypriots from breaking down the doors.

What happened in Cyprus was big news all over the world, but within a few news cycles, once European and American officials assured the people it was a limited-scope event, the general population swept potential fears under the rug. No one really reported on the fact that the European Union quickly instituted new regulatory policies that would force bail-ins across the entire continent should such a crisis take hold again. Likewise, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured Americans that the crisis in Cyprus and Europe posed no risk to the US financial system, citing FDIC insurance for U.S. bank depositors as the safety net that would prevent a similar situation in the United States.

The United States, Europe, China and all of the world’s developed economies are, if officials are to be believed, completely immune to what happened in Cyprus. The current belief by the best and brightest is that these countries are simply too big to ever be faced with a total collapse of their banking systems.

But what if they were wrong? What if private debt reached such obscene levels that the loans taken on by lenders could never be repaid? What if a country like China, which holds trillions of dollars in cash reserves and has modern central banking regulations, did face such a problem?

Couldn’t happen, right?

20 Warning Signs That a Global Economic Meltdown is Near

Guest post by Michael Snyder

Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China? If you are like most Americans, you have not been. Most Americans don't seem to really care too much about what is happening in the rest of the world, but they should. In major cities all over the globe right now, there is looting, violence, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks. We are not at a "global crisis" stage yet, but things are getting worse with each passing day. For a while, I have felt that 2014 would turn out to be a major "turning point" for the global economy, and so far that is exactly what it is turning out to be. The following are 20 early warning signs that we are rapidly approaching a global economic meltdown...

#1 The looting, violence and economic chaos that is happening in Argentina right now is a perfect example of what can happen when you print too much money...

For Dominga Kanaza, it wasn’t just the soaring inflation or the weeklong blackouts or even the looting that frayed her nerves.

It was all of them combined.

At one point last month, the 37-year-old shop owner refused to open the metal shutters protecting her corner grocery in downtown Buenos Aires more than a few inches -- just enough to sell soda to passersby on a sweltering summer day.

#2 The value of the Argentine Peso is absolutely collapsing.

#3 Widespread shortages, looting and accelerating inflation are also causing huge problems in Venezuela...

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Obamacare: A welcome mat for IRS horrors

Guest post by Tori Richards

So you’ve maneuvered the Obamacare website, plugged in your top-secret information and found out how much you are paying.

And for some of you, it turns out you qualify for a government subsidy — making the premium sound like a bargain. But signing on that line to accept the government’s cash also means you’re making a deal with the devil.

The government hasn’t told you this subsidy comes with a price — even more intrusion into your everyday life, said Joshua Archambault, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Government Accountability.

“What people don’t know is that their potential for being audited goes up dramatically,” Archambault said. “You have to release twice as much personal information than an applicant for private insurance and, depending on your income, you could actually end up owing upwards of $10,000 or more.”

Archambault has studied Obamacare extensively and his findings can be found on website his foundation created, UncoverObamaCare.org. In a report co-written with a tax attorney, ObamaCare Tax Credits and the IRS, Archambault said President Obama has asked for $440 million and 2,000 more agents for the Internal Revenue Service, ostensibly to stem an increase in tax-credit fraud.

BOEHNER ON LENO: An embarrassing, wheezy, boozy debacle that proves he's unfit to be Speaker

Guest post by Ken McIntyre

House Speaker John Boehner didn’t show leadership in his late-night chat with Jay Leno by blaming fellow Republicans for a government “shutdown” over Obamacare, the CEO of The Heritage Foundation’s political action arm said today.

“By now, everyone should understand President Obama was the driving force behind the partial government shutdown because his first and only priority is protecting his failing health care law,” Michael A. Needham, chief executive officer of Heritage Action for America, told The Foundry.

The ever-shakier implementation of Obamacare proves that conservatives who tried to stop it were correct, Needham said.

Boehner, making his debut last night on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” said some in the Republican conference created “a very predictable disaster” in October by disagreeing “tactically” over how to delay Obamacare.

“You learn that a leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk,” Boehner told Leno. “So I said, ‘Do you want to fight this fight? I’ll go fight the fight with you.’ But it was a very predictable disaster.”

The Ohio Republican also took a veiled swipe at Heritage Action [Ed: and other groups], which had argued in favor of efforts by conservatives to defund Obamacare. “My problem was with some Washington organizations who purport to represent the Tea Party, who I think mislead them,” he said. “There’s nothing I could do that was ever conservative enough for them.”

Friday, January 24, 2014

Bad (Blue) News for Mitch McConnell

BadBlue.com is a real-time news portal that promotes stories based upon social media discussion. The more discussion, the higher on the page the headlines rise.

Which means the top story earlier today was getting a boatload of social media buzz.


Listen to the interview.

Matt Bevin is the real deal.

If you have the wherewithal, consider helping him out and hand Mitch McConnell a nice fat pink slip.


Thursday, January 23, 2014

BEND OVER, AMERICA: Paul Ryan Introduces GOP Plan For Amnesty

Preamble:

Let this seep in for a few minutes. The entire force of the GOP establishment is being applied towards Obama’s most cherished agenda item for his second term, not towards fighting Obamacare and the debt ceiling. While Americans are concerned about out-of-control government, Obamacare, debt, and jobs, these clowns are concerned about illegal immigrants, foreign lobbies, and special interests. --Daniel Horowitz

I'd encourage you to read the comments at Yahoo! Finance, which are running -- oh -- about 100-to-1 against.

Rep. Paul Ryan on Thursday told Texas business leaders eager for changes to immigration laws that House Republicans will tackle reform in pieces and ruled out negotiations with the Senate on its comprehensive measure.

The Wisconsin Republican didn't offer a timetable ahead of next week's GOP House caucus annual retreat, where Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said immigration will top the agenda.

Supporters of an immigration overhaul are renewing hopes that 2014 could bring the first sweeping changes in decades. Ryan expressed optimism at a luncheon hosted by the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce but reiterated an insistence among GOP lawmakers that reforms happen piecemeal.

"Let's just say it's eight bills — I don't know. These will represent a smart approach ... We don't want to get into a situation where we end up with some big 1,000-page bill. But we do realize there are things that have to be sequenced."

...President Barack Obama has signaled he's open to a piecemeal approach but has said all the components must be done in the end. Ryan said Boehner will lay out principles that will include border security and enforcement of immigration laws — an area where Ryan says Republicans "have a hard time trusting" Obama.

Ryan, who heads the House Budget Committee, favors a way for immigrants living in the country illegally to "come out of the shadows" without granting amnesty. He told the audience that immigration "is good for America" and the economy but said the government must keep track of who's coming and going.

So the establishment GOP, thanks to tens of millions of dollars slathered around by the Chamber of Crony Capitalism, intends to drop Obamacare as an issue and jam Amnesty down America's throat.

Oh, and it's not just Ryan saying it. Number three doofus Kevin McCarthy, the political equivalent of a ventriloquist's dummy, is on the same page:

The third-ranking House Republican, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), said he backs granting legal status, but not a new pathway to citizenship, to millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally... “The principles aren’t written yet, but in my personal belief, I think it’ll go with legal status that will allow you to work and pay taxes,” McCarthy said.

Couple this with the news that the Chamber has already spent close to $50 million lobbying for amnesty, and you will realize that the fix is in. All of the top House Republicans – Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, and Ryan – along with the largest establishment lobbying empire, plan to push amnesty even with Obama in the White House.

Let this seep in for a few minutes. The entire force of the GOP establishment is being applied towards Obama’s most cherished agenda item for his second term, not towards fighting Obamacare and the debt ceiling. While Americans are concerned about out-of-control government, Obamacare, debt, and jobs, these clowns are concerned about illegal immigrants, foreign lobbies, and special interests.

So they're in favor of legalization, but not citizenship? That's as much of an oxymoron as "Congressional Ethics".

Here's a hint, boys. No amount of money from the Chamber of Commerce will be enough to save Ryan, Boehner and McCarthy from the political wrath of the American people.

No amount.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

15 Startling Photos: the Bloody, Anti-Russian Riots in the Ukraine

Two protesters died in Kiev today as anti-government protests intensified.

The crisis began in November when President Yanukovich decided to shun a trade pact with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.

Events became more violent on Sunday after the opposition called for a mass rally to protest against new legislation coming into force on Wednesday which will ban anti-government protests.

Photos from the last several days:



The 3 Types of "Income Inequality" Religious Extremists

Guest post by Biff Spackle

With disturbing regularity, pundits great and meager decry a familiar and reviled foe of progress known as "income inequality."

Under the rubric that income inequality is inherently evil, unfair, or overly capitalistic, three distinct sub-sects of this odd religion have emerged.

The "Wall Street Needs More Regulation" Tribe: Tyler Cowan of George Mason University is emblematic of this group. Cowan is concerned with the growing disparity of wealth between the top one percent and the remainder of society. He believes it is linked to structural problems with our society -- especially Wall Street's ne'er-do-well financial engineers -- that can only be solved by big government.

In 2011, for instance, Cowan wrote that he was unsure whether "the new financial regulation bill [Dodd-Frank] will help" and offered several endorsements of its key features. Cowan seems to have missed the century-long tidal wave of regulation already levied upon the financial industry with government inevitably destroying that which it claims to protect (housing, student loans, etc.).

The thousand-page Dodd-Frank bill -- which was never read by lawmakers -- confers immense and unconstitutional powers on an unelected bureaucrat (Richard Cordray, the head of the CPFB). The law, in fact, nationalizes even greater swaths of the financial industry, hamstrings the free market, and creates yet another massive, authoritarian, Politburo-like policy-maker.

It is but one more complex spiderweb of regulatory edict that is certain to fail just as surely as Fannie Mae imploded in 2008.

Never does Cowan publicly list America's richest people. Of the top 10 wealthiest individuals in America, three are self-made (Gates, Ellison, and Bloomberg). Of the next 10, four are self-made (Bezos, Page, Brin and Zuckerberg, who is 29 years old). In fact, if you descend down the Forbes 400 list, you will find self-made billionaire after self-made billionaire and few of the Wall Street hedge fund operators and bankers Cowan so decries.

In fact, Cowan's vaunted income inequality metric has been driven not by Wall Street but by technological innovation and the network effect.

It has given a bright 23-year old the opportunity to turn down an offer of $3 billion for a company he founded just two years ago.

It has given a bright 17-year old the opportunity to sell a mobile app he developed in high school for $30 million.

In fact, a vast, interconnected, and vibrant fabric of computing machines has and will continue to revolutionize value creation in the United States. And somehow Cowan missed it.

The "Robots Will Steal All Our Jobs" Tribe: Mike Shedlock is the archetype of the robophobes, publishing one fear-mongering article after another, seemingly on a weekly basis. A sampling of his headlines may help offer some perspective into the mindset of this particular brand of Luddite:

Meet "Baxter" the Robot Out to Get Your Minimum-Wage, No Benefits, Part-Time Job, Because He's Still Much Cheaper; Fed Cannot Win a Fight Against Robots
Carl the Robot Bartender Mixes Drinks and Chats With Customers
Future of Medicine: Meet Sedasys - Your New Robot Anesthesiologist
Robotic Outsourcing; Food Preparation Robots Invade China, Japan, US; Who is to Blame, and What Can be Done About It?
$210,000 Cow Milking Robot; Presenting the "Astronaut A4 - A Natural Way of Milking"; How Far Off is the Completely Robotic Farm?

There are more. But the last one is particularly striking: since the dawn of human history, increased automation has marked the cultivation of food. From men tilling fields and picking crops to massive farm machinery and crop-dusters, mechanization of farming has improved the lives of billions of people.

And somehow "robots" will disrupt that trend?

Each new innovation -- a robot is but one example -- creates entire new ecosystems to plan, design, build, and service.

The 1730 invention of the flying shuttle dramatically accelerated the process of weaving and production of cloth. This innovation in turn led to incredible new opportunities for entrepreneurs to supply raw materials, service machinery, create new families of finished products, and the like.

You may know it as the Industrial Revolution.

And always the Luddites like Shedlock predict the demise of good-paying jobs, whether on the farm or at the loom. Never do they seem to contemplate that the process of creative destruction renders obsolete certain roles while simultaneously creating vast and unpredictable opportunities.

Whereas the blacksmith and the elevator operator no longer appear in our society, tens of thousands of new types of jobs have more than supplanted them.

Even the lowly pencil defies the ability of any human to fully comprehend -- let along perform -- its construction.

Automation in the form of ubiquitous robotics is absolutely no different than any other revolutionary improvement in speed, quality and delivery of products and services.

It would seem that Shedlock and his ilk somehow missed the Industrial Revolution and every other transformative period of human history.

The "Statist" Tribe: Paul Krugman, on the other hand, belongs to the dogmatic school of progressive thought. In this case, you can read progressive as Doctrinaire Marxist.

Krugman, whose inane posturing and reflexive hypocrisy have been thorougly exposed as pure, unvarnished idiocy by historian Niall Ferguson, pretends to belong to the Cowan tribe.

But his cheerleading of Communists like Bill DeBlasio gives away the game. Krugman is a Statist; his religion is government; and any of his bleatings -- income inequality or otherwise -- are designed to lobby for increasingly centralized and authoritarian government.

As the French painfully discovered with their one year flirtation with Marxism, collectivism can't work, won't work, and has never worked in all of human history.

And somehow Paul Krugman and his fellow ideologues missed that part of history class.

What's 1,000 times worse than income inequality? Income equality.

In truth, North Korea represents the ideal for those who fight for income equality with its one man at the top worth tens of billions of dollars while the entire civilian population starves, largely impoverished.

In spite of the Democrats' efforts, there is no better society on the planet to simultaneously improve society and to enrich oneself than the United States.

Income inequality -- in fact, wild inequality -- is healthy and desirable.

Perhaps one day the would-be regulators, the Luddites, and the Marxists will pick up some history books and discover the wonders of the free market. But, then again, I'm a dreamer.


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Thomas Jefferson, Radical Extremist

Guest post by Michael Snyder

Thomas Jefferson was radically anti-tax, pro-gun and anti-central bank. He loved precious metals, he openly acknowledged a “Creator” and he wanted to add an amendment to the Constitution which would ban the federal government from going into debt. If he was around today, he would be considered a “nutjob”, an “extremist”, a “fascist” and even a “potential terrorist“. But of course Jefferson was none of those things. Rather, Jefferson was a great thinker, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and our third President. Below, I have shared a list of 13 famous Jefferson quotes (13 for the 13 colonies that originally founded America) that show just how far America has fallen away from our founding principles. I think that most of you will be very shocked when you read this list…

#1 “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”

#2 “If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”

#3 “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

#4 “I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”

#5 “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”

CHANGE: U.S. Admiral Warns that Red China is Poised to Become Dominant Superpower in Pacific

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Power Shift: Despite the White House's much-lauded pivot to the Pacific, the Navy's Pacific commander warns that an increasingly hostile and assertive China threatens U.S. air and sea superiority in the region.

If jaws didn't drop, they should have last week when Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, chief of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), said: "Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question."

U.S. naval and air superiority, particularly in the Pacific, has been taken for granted. But as Obama administration budget cuts and the effects of sequestration take their toll, our position is being severely challenged by a Chinese military benefiting from years of double-digit spending increases and a commitment from Beijing to push the U.S. out of the area.

Locklear noted the regional power shift at the annual Surface Navy Association conference in Virginia.

"We need to think about all scenarios, not just the ones we've been dealing with over the last several years, where we've enjoyed basic air superiority and basic sea superiority," he said. "There are places in the world where in this century we won't have them."