Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Incredible Bulk


The irreplaceable Mark Steyn:

...the President in his address to Congress finally spilled the beans and unveiled our new hero in his final form: the Incredible Bulk, Statezilla, Governmentuan, a colossus bestriding the land like a, er, colossus. What superpowers does he have? All of them! He can save the economy, he can reform health care, he can prevent foreclosures, he can federalize daycare, he can cap the salary of his archenemies the sinister Fat Cats who “pad their pay checks and buy fancy drapes.”


No longer will the citizenry cower in fear of fancy drapes: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! With one solar panel on the roof of his underground headquarters, Governmentuan can transform the American energy sector and power his amazing Governmentmobile, the new environmentally friendly supercar that soon we’ll all be driving because we’ll be given government car loans to buy the government cars! He’ll have hundreds of thousands of boy sidekicks, none of whom will ever be allowed to drop out of high school because (in the words of his famous catchphrase) “that’s no longer an option!” “Gee, thanks, Governmentuan!” says Diplomaboy the Boy Wonder, as he goes off to college to study Gender As A Social Construct until he’s 34...

And our hero can do this all without raising taxes on any family earning under $250,000!

...Noting the president’s assurance that the 250-grand-and-under crowd won’t pay “a single dime” more in taxes, the Wall Street Journal calculated that if you took every single dime — that’s 100 per cent — of the over-250K crowd, it barely begins to pay for this program, even before half of them flee the the country. The $4 trillion Congress is planning on spending next year (2010) could just about be covered if you took every single dime of the taxable income of every American earning over $75,000.

Hat tip: Larwyn.

What's the over-under on the number of empty Obama promises during a typical pre-election speech?


In the midst of the financial crisis -- shortly before election day, 2008 -- Barack Obama delivered a speech on the economy in Lake Worth, Florida.

Can you guess how many tall tales Obama told during the course of his short speech?

The over-under is 8. Enter your guess here:

As for the policy presciptions that Obama promised?

The economic crisis we face is the worst since the Great Depression.

Lie. By any measure, that's a pile of fecal matter. The disastrous Jimmy Carter administration of the seventies presided over a much, much worse economy. Of course, Obama's catastrophic spending programs -- devoting billions to ACORN, trial lawyers and unions -- will further devastate an already fragile environment.

Nine months ago - back in January - I called for a stimulus plan to provide immediate relief for states, along with tax rebates to get money directly to middle class families and a foreclosure prevention fund to help them keep their homes. Senator McCain, on the other hand, insisted that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. And his advisors openly mocked the stimulus plan before Congress - one referred to it, and I quote, as "borrowing money from the Chinese and dropping it from helicopters."

Tax rebates? Lie.

I called for $25 billion to help states and local governments pay for services and avoid raising property taxes, because tax increases are the last thing our families need in an economy like this.

$25 billion? Lie. The first Stimulus bill sends $200 billion to the states, a handout to failed Democratic utopias like California, Michigan and New York.

I heard Senator McCain say that I'm more concerned with who gets your piece of the pie than with growing the pie.

Can't argue with that one.

I'll start by creating a new American Jobs tax credit for each new employee that companies hire here in the United States over the next two years.

Lie.

I'll stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and invest in companies that create good jobs right here in Florida.

Stupid idea and a lie to boot.

...I'll help small businesses get back on their feet by eliminating capital gains taxes...

Lie.

...and giving them emergency loans to keep their doors open and hire workers.

Lie.

...I've proposed $15 billion a year to create five million new green jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel-efficient cars; jobs that will help us end our dependence on oil from Middle East dictators.

Lie.

That's why I'm running for President - to give them that chance and rebuild our economy and ensure that our children and grandchildren have the same opportunities that we had.

Lie. There's not a single instance -- in all of recorded history -- where a massive expansion of welfare, regulation and government bureaucracies helped an economy grow.

In fact, a more jaded individual would believe that Obama and his cohorts are intentionally destroying our currency, massively increasing the size of government and undermining our national security posture for nefarious purposes.

Postscript: If you guessed Over, you've won our little game. But, in truth, either answer means we've all lost.

Linked by: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical. Thanks!


David returns to Italy


A bit of culture for a change, sent in by Ann.

After a two-year loan to the Smithsonian Museum in the United States, Michelangelo's David has returned to Italy.

The visit was generously funded by:



...

...

...



Linked by: Margo's Maid. Thanks!


Change: How you like me now?


Seems like a lot of folks have already peeled the Obama bumper-stickers off their cars.


For good reason.

The markets continue to weigh in on the disastrous policies of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid Depressocrats.

Update: Thanks Dems... Stock Market Has Worst January Since 1896 Followed By Worst February Since 1933.

Linked by: Parkway Rest Stop. Thanks!


Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: "The Anti-Reagan"

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Freeman: beyond the pale: Power Line
Gingrich vs. Holder: who's the coward now?: WS
Tea Party by the Arch: Ronin

The Obamaist Manifesto: Krauthammer
The Obama steamroller: is resistance futile?: AT (Baehr)
What are they thinking now?: AT (Fuller)

Too tough on crime?: Crittenden
Exploding debt load for freeloaders: Post (Hurt)
George Mitchell and the Useful Idiots: Social Sense

Anti-lead law devastates small businesses: SF Examiner
I voted for this guy!!: Ashes
Photo o' the day: McClatchy Watch

The Government (a must-watch video): Wimp
Lawyers: ACORN Destroying American Elections: Pedraza
Highlight of Federal Budget for FY2010: USGS

Obama's Saudi-Funded Spy Chief: "The Lobby" Controls US Publishing, caused 9/11: Mere Rhetoric
Jewish leaders blast Clinton: CBS
The Hamas Stimulus Plan: Crittenden

Chevron exec warns of gas lines and civil unrest: BMW
Miami banker gives $60M of his own money to workers: Guardian
Snowiest Winter Ever Recorded in North Dakota: Watts Up

The Kwon Family is P***ed Off: CNN
Superstar: Cornbread (Music Video)
The irony of it all: Hoosier Boy

CIA following Bin Laden on Twitter: Borowitz
Screen-cleaner: Rain City
Are you hungry tonight?: JWF

Bill O'Reilly: You're not on board with the Obama vision, are you?
Neal Cavuto: This is hopeless.
Corner: In terms of the Obama budget, the most frightening words imaginable come from Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "this budget looks very, very good."

We should all be afraid, very, very afraid.

Ramirez knocks the cover off the ball -- again


Is it just me or is Michael Ramirez the most talented political cartoonist since... well, the birth of the Republic?

If you can afford it, get a subscription to Investors Business Daily to show your support.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Three questions for the Obamatons


So the banks are going to get "stress tests", which will gauge their fitness for receiving money from taxpayers.

Question: When is the FBI going to stress-test members of Congress for their fitness to serve, like the odious Dodd, Frank, Rangel, Mollohan, Reid, Feinstein and the like?


President Obama has proposed a $634 billion universal health care program that many experts believe will cost more than a trillion dollars over the next ten years.

Question: Can even a single member of our beloved mainstream media ask President Obama how we can afford this program, when Medicare and Medicaid are already at least $36 trillion in the hole?


President Obama has pledged to cut a variety of needed weapons systems, claiming they are outdated. On the chopping block: the partially deployed Future Combat Systems (FCS) and the F-22, among other programs.

Question: How can anyone justify defense cuts while proposing a trillion dollar "Stimulus" and an additional 9,000 earmarks in a discretionary spending bill, which include the study of tattoo removal, protection of field mice, and mag-lev trains to nowhere? In fact, the New York Post posits that the budget will mean "about $70 billion less for defense next year".


* * *

Any moonbats   liberals   progressives out there who want to try and answer one or more of these questions have an open forum here.


Europe's new Audi TT RS


4 Ring Blog has photos of the new Audi TT RS.

Tight.

Hat tip: Autospies.

Cats and Dogs


Jan sent this one in.
















The Wisdom of Crowds and Obamanomics


In the early twentieth century Francis Galton witnessed a contest at a county fair. Asked to estimate the weight of a prize ox, spectators and cattle experts alike submitted their guesses on slips of paper.

After the contest was finished, Galton collected the hundreds of submissions. He painstakingly added them up to determine the average of the crowd's estimates.

He was astounded to discover that the crowd's average was closer to the true weight of the ox than any single guess, including those of the "experts".

This anecdote is one of many related in James Surowiecki's bestselling book The Wisdom of Crowds.

The book's central assertion is that a diverse collection of individuals, each operating independently, is likely to offer better predictions and decisions than individuals, even so-called "experts".

Intrade.com, the well-known prediction market, selected the winner of every single U.S. Senate race in 2006. No "talking head" pundit was able to match this record.

The largest and best known prediction market is the stock market.

A 2007 study by Arnerich & Messina illustrated the stock market's efficiency in stark terms. Since 1994 there have been only two years in which more than 50% of professional money managers were able to beat the S&P 500 index. In 1997 only 11% of managers beat the index.

Over the last year most investors in the equity markets have taken horrific losses. In September -- just a couple of months ago -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered near 12,000. Today it closed at 7,182.

What happened in September? Let's look at the Intrade presidential futures market. The blue line represents the Obama futures while red represents McCain.

If we zoom into the September-to-November timeframe, we'll see something very enlightening. By late September it was increasingly clear to Intrade.com bettors that Obama was going to win the election. From 9/28 to 9/29 Obama's Intrade price went from 57 to 61, which represented a huge jump.

Note what happened to the stock market at nearly the exact same time. Around September 29th the market began its collapse. Mapping the political events to the market's reactions make the effects crystal clear.


Click to zoom

09-29-2008 (Dow: 10365) - Obama takes final lead of race.
11-04-2008 (Dow: 9625) - Obama elected President of United States.
11-24-2008 (Dow: 8443) - Obama announces his economic team.
01-20-2009 (Dow: 7949) - Obama inaugurated.
02-09-2009 (Dow: 8270) - Word of TARP II released by the administration.
02-18-2009 (Dow: 7555) - Obama announces housing bailout plan.
02-24-2009 (Dow: 7351) - Obama announces FY09 budget (with 9,000 earmarks).
02-26-2009 (Dow: 7182) - Today

Put simply, the markets have reacted with expected fury to Obama's promises of economic "fairness", "spreading the wealth" and raising taxes on the job creators of society.

This thinly disguised form of class warfare, the policies of which many have termed socialism (fairly or unfairly), has had an indelible impact on the markets.

The markets represent the ultimate collective intelligence engine on the planet.


The markets continue to predict the outcome of Barack Obama's failed economic policies. That's why many now call him "The Depression President".

Sorry, drones. There are no do-overs.

Update: Denny says the future is dire. I'm not quite so pessimistic, but any recovery will be delayed and muted by the Marxist policies of today's MoveOn-dominated Democrats.