Roughly a half-century ago, the "office of the future" looked something like this.















Hat tip: IZI.
Is ObamaCare a done deal?: RSMI have been called a dynamic figure because I am often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention.I translate sign language while weaving in and out of heavy traffic. I write award-winning operas.
I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I mesmerize people with my amazing trombone playing. I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook 30-minute brownies in 20 minutes.
I am an active member of the following Mafias: Italian, Russian, American, Canadian, French, British, Spanish, German, Scandinavian, Czechoslovakian, Yugoslavian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Antarctican.
I am an expert in stucco, a veteran of the Foreign Legion, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon basin from a horde of ferocious army ants.
I play bluegrass cello. I was scouted by the Mets. I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding.
In my youth, on Wednesdays after school, I used to repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookkeeper.
Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening-wear.
I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read The Holy Bible, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening.
I know the exact location of every food item in every supermarket in New York City.
I have performed several covert operations for United States intelligence organizations. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair.
While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery.
The laws of physics do not apply to me. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.
On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life, but forgot to write it down.
I have made extraordinary four-course meals using only a blender and a toaster oven. I breed prize-winning clams.
I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.
I have played Hamlet, I have broken into and inhabited the Biosphere, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
There is more --- but much of it is too extreme to believe.
In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain's maritime power and its far-flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world's industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world's second-most powerful economy.
It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace.
In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party called The Radicals under the banner of "fundamental change" with an appeal to the middle class.
Among Irigoyen's changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country's operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts.
With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government's payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers' contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like the United States' Social Security and Medicare programs.
The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Perón. Perón had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation's rich.
This targeted group "swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated."
Under Perón, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions.
High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Perón had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and "contempt for economic realities" lived on. Argentina's federal government continued to spend far beyond its means.
Hyperinflation exploded in 1989, the final stage of a process characterized by "industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy..."
The Argentinian government's practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos.
And by 1994, Argentina's public pensions -- the equivalent of Social Security -- had imploded. The payroll tax had increased from 5% to 26%, but it wasn't enough. In addition, Argentina had implemented a value-added tax (VAT), new income taxes, a personal tax on wealth, and additional revenues based upon the sale of public enterprises. These crushed the private sector, further damaging the economy.
A government-controlled "privatization" effort to rescue seniors' pensions was attempted. But, by 2001, those funds had also been raided by the government, the monies replaced by Argentina's defaulted government bonds.
By 2002, "...government fiscal irresponsibility... induced a national economic crisis as severe as America's Great Depression."
In 1902 Argentina was one of the world's richest countries. Little more than a hundred years later, it is poverty-stricken, struggling to meet its debt obligations amidst a drought.
We've seen this movie before. The Democrats' populist plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches. History teaches us that ObamaCare and unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters.
The Demcare Bribe List: MalkinComment o' the day:
"Only in government do you get to bribe a politician with someone else's money." -- Conservative Generation
Fashion-forward Yanks who can be coaxed into a test-spin of this too-tall car/too-short SUV will be impressed with its Swiss-Army-knife versatility and after a few miles at the helm of the 550i GT, they may think they've stumbled across a Filene's Basement bargain on a slightly irregular 7 Series ($82,280 if perfect, now $65,000!)...
Power flows from the 7's formidable 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 through a new eight-speed automatic to the rear wheels (AWD and the six-cylinder 535i variant follow mid-year)...
1. $493 Billion In Tax Increases On Health Insurance, Medical Innovation, Payroll And Small Businesses Would Pay For The Bill. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

2. Americans Won’t See Benefits Of This Health Care Experiment Until 2014, But They Start Paying For It In 2010. (Page 13, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
3. Reid’s Bill Allegedly Reduces The Deficit By $130 Billion In Ten Years, But The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Spending Agenda Produced Deficit Of $176 Billion Last Month Alone. (Table 3, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
4. $465 Billion In Medicare And Medicaid Cuts Would Pay For Two New Unsustainable Entitlements. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
5. Health Care Costs For The Federal Government – And Your Family – Would Increase, Not Decrease. (Page 16, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
6. A New Medicare Commission Of Unelected Bureaucrats Would Ration Care. (Sec. 3403, H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)
7. The “Doc Fix” Provision That Would Add $250 Billion To The Deficit Is Not Included In The Democrats’ List Price For Their Health Care Experiment. (Page 17, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
8. Taxpayer Dollars Would Fund Abortions. (Sec. 1303(a), H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)
9. A New Entitlement Program For Long-Term Care That One Democrat Senator Called “A Ponzi Scheme” Would Be Created. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09; Shailagh Murray & Lori Montgomery, “Centrists Unsure About Reid's Public Option,” The Washington Post, 10/28/09)
10. States Burdened With $25 Billion In Unfunded Mandates From Medicaid That Would Force Them To Increase Taxes. (Page 7, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)
"You know, if - if I feel like I've made the very best decisions for the American people and three years from now I look at it and, you know, my poll numbers are in the tank and because we've gone through these wrenching changes, you know, politically, I'm in a tough spot, I'll - I'll feel all right about myself," Obama told CNN's Ed Henry.
"I said to myself very early on, even when I started running for office, I don't want to be making decisions based on getting re-elected, because I think the challenges that America faces right now are so significant," the president also said.
"Obviously, if I make those decisions and I think that I'm moving the country on the right direction economically, in terms of our security interests, our foreign policy, I'd like to think that those policies are continued because they're not going to bear fruit just in four years."