The case Against Public Employee Unions

Michael Barone, as usual, cogently presents the case for reigning in the pubic employee unions here.  It is beyond comprehension how any reasonable person fails to see the threat to our economy and our freedoms posed by these out-of-control, runaway unions.  That these unions were allowed to organize public employees in the first place was an egregious mistake on the part of JFK who did so in the usual manner of democrats trolling for more votes.  At least FDR saw the threat to America of allowing these workers to organize and stated so unequivocally.  As Barone points out there are so many conflicts of interests, so many opportunities for corruption by allowing public employees to unionize, that one has to be either a democrat or a union member in order not to see them.   It is beyond disgraceful to allow this charade to continue. Not only should public employee unions not be allowed to collective bargain under any circumstances, they should not be allowed to organize in the first place.  When do we wake up?

California's tax code dilemma

This WSJ article demonstrates the problem with a progressive tax code and a recession.  Taxing the wealthy disproportionately results in lots of income in the flush times, but because the wealthy derive much of their income from the fortunes of the stock market, a decline in the value of stocks results in a huge decline in the tax coffers of the state.

Education nightmare

Here is one and here is a second article from the WSJ that speak to the public school education problem in the US and in the EU's poorest country, Portugal.  It is clear from both of these articles that unions are at the root of underperforming schools in both countries.  The interview with Ms Weingarten, head of the NEA union, puts on full display the intransigence and self serving nature of US teachers unions. It also points out the willingness of union leaders to obfuscate, distort facts, stonewall evidence, and do what liberals and union leaders do best, lie to further their own interests. MS Weingarten's answers to legitimate questions are unhelpful and nothing short of disgraceful.  In the case of Portugal one sees the result of generations of official indifference to education and the stultifying effect of unions on the need for reform.  After reading these two articles one is left with a sense of frustration and near despair.  How is it possible in a socialized/unionized environment, where union leaders and state bureaucrats are resistant to any reform, to effect the necessary changes to improve and even save a failing system?  In the case of the US the solution is educating the public about the causes of failing schools and thereby provoking outrage and change.  But how likely is that to occur given the pro union, liberal media?  In the case of Portugal it's a matter of survival.  Portugal will either reform and educate its populace or it will sink to the status of one of its African colonies.

US Taxes

If the following chart is accurate, taxes are way too high for the wealthiest in the US.

March 25, 2011

The World's Most Unfair Tax System

Posted by Van Helsing at 10:22 AM | Comments (12)

Which country has the most progressive — i.e., parasitical, socialistic, and grotesquely unfair — tax system in the industrialized world? None other than the erstwhile Land of Liberty:

OECD = Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Obama the Socialist -- revisited through Stanley Kurtz

Stanley Kurtz has written the book "Radical-in chief: The Untold Story of American Socialism" that should be required reading for anyone who voted for Obama in the last election and who was unaware of his involvement in the cabal of mid-western socialists responsible for Acorn, the sub-prime mortgage debacle and a whole host of other socialist schemes now coursing through the politics of the country.  The book might also be read by anyone who finds it hard to believe that this country elected a hard core Marxist-socialist as President and that he was probably just another garden variety liberal who, while misguided, is not out to reorganize and restructure our entire economic and social system.  This video of Kurtz discussing how he came to research and write this book is the definitive answer to questions raised by conservatives about Obama in the last election, questions that went unexamined by the media in its monolithic desire to see Obama elected.  Too bad because had all the connections Kurtz unearthed been known before the election the general public would have at least had a more accurate picture of the background of this unknown candidate, and a more informed basis for their vote.  Meanwhile the evidence is conclusive,  welcome to the first out and out socialist president of the United States.

Progressives and the future

This essay, by a young conservative student at the U. of Chicago, Jay Lerner, does a pretty good job of getting at the essence of Progressivism and Liberalism, the underlying shared beliefs, the minor differences, and where they want to take our democracy in the future.  A friend likes to say that liberals think they know what is best for everyone, and want to dictate that thinking to the rest of us.  William Buckley once described a liberal as one who reaches into your shower and controls the temperature and water flow.  These are both accurate descriptions of this peculiar, particular breed of democrat. It's clear that as a country we are in the middle of a big debate about who is right:  the liberal/progressives who want more government and in the hands of experts (them), or conservatives who want less government and more individual freedom.

Forward, Into the Past

Want to know what liberal/progressives want for our future? Watch this scary video and reflect on what they have done in the past few years and what they want to do in the future.  It just might be wise to keep these folks out of power in the future.

Hypocrisy thy name is Biden

This is truly one of the more amazing video clips one will ever find on the internet.  Blowhard Joe Biden, cocksure and full of his usual bombast, lays out the case for impeaching George Bush if he ever attacks a country militarily in the absence of an imminent threat to the US.  Good ole Joe lays out his credentials for making this assertion (17 years on Judiciary Committee, teaches Constitutional Law, etc) in 2007.  Wonder how he feels about this b.s. now?  Click here to see.

Family photograph

This picture was rescued from among many found in a box after my father died in 1999.  The people in the car are my father (the little guy with the bonnet-like hat on), his two sisters Priscilla (in the drivers seat) and Helen, my grandmother Claire, and grandfather Eaton.  The other man standing on the far side of the car remains unidentified for certain but could be my grandmothers' brother Edward Gage.  The car remains unidentified as well.  Since my father was born in1906 and appears to be about 4 years old, I make the car to be a 1910 model of whatever it is.  From the looks of it it is brand new.  My brother Dudley recalls this home to be in Winchendon, Massachussetts, where the family lived before moving to Nashua, N.H.  My grandfather owned a business in Nashua called the White Mountain Freezer Company.  The company made ice cream making machines sold throughout the United States principally through hardware stores.

Can anyone identify the car?

Naples -- a non touristy treasure city

Ah... Naples.  Helen and I visited Naples for one day in 2009 and agree wholeheartedly with what is said about this unusual city here. It has a very real old world feeling.  How about the incredible buildings surrounding the endless square in one of the pictures? What's more we lucked out in finding the Reggia di Capodimonte Museum which was full of incredible Medieval paintings from the Farnese family collection one would expect to find in Le Louvre, El Prado or St Peter's.  Here are a few shots from that museum and a few from around Naples while on our very informal taxicab tour. A city build amongst hills and on the water as well.

Our secret find of a museum with many different galleries all beautifully organized.

 The museum viewed from an inside courtyard.  It dates from the early 17th century.

 A landmark palm tree just in front of the museum.

 A shot of the endless square and the architecturally classic Medieval buildings surrounding it.

 Naples is a city one should not miss on any visit to Italy and yet most people do.  Our driver "proudfully" poses

Blacks and socialism

Here's a particularly interesting "take" on the subject of why blacks have underperformed over the years.  The author of this piece, John Rossomando, makes the case that it is the fault of the victim mongers who have sold many blacks on the idea they are owed everything because they were denied everything under slavery.  Most interesting is the thread of comments where a black lawyer takes on those who agree with the author, and almost supports the argument for socialism.  Not quite, but almost.  In the thread are some interesting links to articles and studies that shed some light, or at least provide a point of view, on the cause of the financial meltdown.

Financial system fixed...or not?

Having just finished reading "Too Big To Fail", it seemed to this layman that the various powers to be staved off a crises but didn't bother to address the underlying problems.  The single major underlying problem seems to be the leveraging of the big banks assets that allows and encourages them to engage in risky loans to whomever and to make these big bets on whatever through their trading desks.  It's obvious that banks are willing to make risky loans and take huge risks because they are "playing" with someone else's money.  And they have a lot of it to play with.  Competition being what it is if bank A takes gets involved in some profitable but risky venture, bank B is not going to be far behind because it doesn't want to be left out.  And so on with banks C, D, etc.  Next thing you know and there's a lot of credit being exposed that in the final analysis the taxpayers are guaranteeing insofar as regulators think these banks are too big to fail and they present a systemic risk.  Hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who saw the sub-prime problem in advance, comments here on things as they presently stand after the bailouts, consolidations and so forth of the past few years, all in turn chronicled in "Too Big to Fail".  Singer is not sanguine about the reforms that have been put in place to address the underlying issues.  He thinks nothing has changed and that the next crisis is baked into the cake.