Sunday, November 3, 2013

TALK ABOUT NAIL, HEAD, AND HAMMER: Cutting to the chase After all's said and done, Andrew Klavan has produced a little video here that simply leaves nothing more to be said on the subject of Barak Obama and the presidency of the United States.

MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION EVER?  Oops! One more lie It's so hard to believe so many people voted for this guy TWICE!

WANNA INVEST IN TECH?  Best read this sobering article  It always has everything to do with interest rates.  When they are artificially kept low, malinvestments occur, just like the Austrian economists have always said.

KRAUTHAMER VS. MCCARTHY:  What exactly is "conservatism"  It comes down to definitions of welfare state, conservatism,  rights, constitutionalism, etc.  In this argument framed here by McCarthy, I side with him and not Krauthamer.  It is all too apparent that power concentrated in the hands of the state will sooner or later be abused.  As an example, Social Security was sold by FDR as an insurance plan with everyone paying into a central trust fund which would be used to pay back everyone once they reached retirement age.  Over the years, as McCarthy points out, the politicians began raiding the "sacrosanct" fund for other purposes leaving the cupboard bare of any "investments" other than government IOUs.  There's nothing wrong with forcing people to save (since most probably wouldn't if not forced) but there is certainly something wrong with stealing their savings for purposes other than intended by law.  McCarthy would argue that is what happens when the government entity furtherest removed from the people has too much authority, and I agree.

THEY'RE BACK:  The gravy train is on the way  McCauliff, front for the Clintons, is about to become governor of Virginia.

Friday, November 1, 2013

CAPITALISM IS DEAD.  LONG LIVE FASCISM, NATIONAL SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM.

The Predators’ Moll

AP

BY: Matthew Continetti
November 1, 2013 4:59 am

Two recent events organized by the investment bank Goldman Sachs featured a special guest. Goldman arranged to have one of the most successful investors in the world make remarks at last week’s AIMS Alternative Investment Conference in Chicago. And at this week’s Builders and Innovators Summit in Marana, Ariz., the same guest responded to questions from Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chair and CEO. I hope the audience took notes.

Where else, after all, can “emerging and seasoned entrepreneurs from a diverse set of industries” hear the story of how a Yale law student turned an investment of time and energy into a marriage to a serial philanderer, a successful career in politics, and a fortune estimated above $100 million? For lessons in how to succeed in business by really trying, in how to manipulate the levers of government, finance, and philanthropy for massive personal gain, there is no better teacher than Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times  reports that Clinton brings in around $200,000 per speech, so in the space of a single week she made enough money to put her in the much-derided top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers. But in this case I am less interested in her earnings than in the institution that booked her. There was a time, oh about a year ago, when a political figure would not have been able to associate with a symbol of rapacious capitalism such as Goldman Sachs without paying a price. And there was a time, oh about a year ago, when Wall Street had had just about enough of the Democratic Party and the redistributive egalitarianism it represents.

But those days clearly are over. Preparations are well underway for Clinton’s inevitable presidential candidacy: George Soros, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Rahm Emanuel are all on board; David Brock is at his battle-station; a well-placed leak reveals that Senate Democratic women have pledged their allegiance to the former secretary of state. One of Clinton’s few remaining tasks is to win over Wall Street, and out-raise and intimidate potential opponents.

It won’t be much trouble. Never have the Clintons allowed their liberalism to interfere with the ability of the connected to make a buck. This is especially the case when the well-connected individual in question carries the surname “Clinton” or “Rodham.” From cow futures to land deals, the Lincoln bedroom, presidential pardons, Teneo, and Greentech automotive, the Clintons and their acolytes understand that all markets are political markets, that all business is transacted within a context of laws and regulations and networks that can be studied, designed, and altered. They don’t demean wealth. They just want to spread it around.

The global investment banks and multinational corporations do not mind. They are comfortable with such an arrangement not only because they can afford the lobbyists and political donations to protect them from harm, but also because their key executives are steeped in the bourgeois liberalism of the postmodern Democratic Party—not the lunch-pail unionism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), and Ed Schultz, but the rights-based moralism of Wendy Davis, Michael Bloomberg, and Rachel Maddow. What unifies the liberal elite is no longer a critical analysis of capitalism but a cultural disdain for whomever they place on “the wrong side of history.” The list is long.

The equanimity with which liberals reconcile wealth and politics is illustrated twice a week in the style section of the New York Times. Recently the “Thursday Styles” section published an excellent profile of Jonathan Levy, a 33-year-old digital marketer who lives in Manhattan “in the five-bedroom apartment where he grew up.” Twice a month Levy holds dinner parties “in which he gathers a dozen or so influential strangers to cook together and mingle.” Guests include MTV personalities, the Winkelvoss twins, a CBS executive, “publicists and managers of people like the model and actress Brooklyn Decker,” hedge funders, comics, and Fern Mallis, “a key figure in New York Fashion Week.” At one recent dinner “Kristin White, the former Princess Khaliya Aga Khan and now an angel investor, posed for photographs.” Say cheese.

The article is a wonderful read, so well does it immerse you in the world of rich New Yorkers, the sort of people, let us not forget, who attend Goldman Sachs events, obsess over Nate Silver, and who are without a doubt “Ready for Hillary.” To the extent that these affluent and successful people discuss politics over dinner at all, just imagine their opinions on, say, abortion, the Tea Party, and the Koch Brothers. Three guesses.

Such is the audience to which Clinton must appeal if she is to win her party’s nomination in 2016. She may have played to the appetites of the “beer track” during the 2008 Democratic primary, but as 2016 approaches she has rediscovered her taste for wine. And her shift to the left has coincided with a similar move on the part of financiers and industrialists, who seem to fear Ted Cruz more than they fear Bill de Blasio. The prospect of conservative populism has engendered class solidarity among the political, financial, and cultural elite.

How does the coalition stick together? In recent years liberals have developed a fantastic conceit by which accumulation is good so long as it is done in moral ways—with morality assessed by one’s degree of allegiance to the program of the Democratic Party. Clinton’s burgeoning alliance with Goldman Sachs is a perfect example. “Friends say [Goldman CEO] Blankfein’s telling them privately that he’s a big supporter of Hillary Clinton for president,” reports Charles Gasparino in the New York Post. Of course he is.

Lloyd Blankfein is no dummy. He knows that the quickest way to silence criticism from the media and activist community, the easiest way to absolution for the sins of Goldman Sachs, the most effective way to permeate the government with protégées and allies and supporters of favors and bailouts, is to play footsy with the Democrats. And invite Hillary to the party.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

THE REGRETTABLE TRUTH:  A rant with the ring of truth  Sometimes commenters just have to let go and rid themselves of frustration.  I understand!

THE FACE OF FASCISM. This is how Fascism works.  It's intimidation, subtle threats and warnings, and eventually knocks on the door in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately there aren't any adults around to warn the gullible of how Mussolini and Hitler made  it work for them.  Until it didn't.

THE FACE OF INCOMPETENCE:  "

Report: Contractor warned administration about Obamacare site problems

CMS spokesman Brian Cook brushed the report aside, saying the document was “not a dire warning,” but a “list of things to do.”

The CGI update was simply a list of “what’s been done, what needs to be done, what needs to be resolved,” Cook told CNN. “It is misleading to cherry pick a few lines. … we worked to address those issues and all issues identified.”

The documents may indicate that administration officials were aware of HealthCare.gov’s extensive problems before the launch despite CMS statements to the contrary — a problem which may be forming somewhat of a pattern.

This report comes on the heels of revelations that the administration was aware that Obamacare regulations would result in anywhere from 7 to 12 million Americans losing their health care plans, despite President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated line that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”

Does anyone believe that anyone will be held accountable in a Democrat administration ?  Not going to happen!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

HOW A DESPOT GOVERNS: Oh so bad!

WHAT'S HAPPENING TO CALIFORNIA?:  There' a video connected to this sad story

LET THE FREE MARKET WORK:  They never get it  Obama and his staff are so busy piling lie upon lie to cover for the failure of the website rollout that they don't seem to have time to check on whether they are consistent.  In the end this monstrous program, designed to micromanage  1/6th of the US economy, simply cannot succeed.  The tragedy of all this is that had anybody in the administration bothered to read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" written in 1944, they would know this experiment cannot work.  Watching Juan Williams defend the program and Obama on the Fox News Channel is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Monday, October 28, 2013

TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON OUR BEHALF:  How much do any of us know or understand about where our tax dollars go?  Of course the answer is not much.  And there's the rub to the growth of big government, runaway spending, corrupt politicians and huge, unmanageable and ultimately destructive deficits.  How many of us know about the Pigford case brought against the Agriculture Department by a black farmer who claimed discrimination when his loan application was turned down by the government agency?  How many know how Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and their political appointees from the Democrat Party caused the financial crises of '07-'08 with the greatest wealth destruction ever experienced in our history? "We are poor little sheep who have lost our way" is a verse from the famous Whiffenpoof Song and it accurately describes our dilemma as citizens.  We simply have no control over how and how much is spent in our name and on our behalf by representatives sent to Washington in our behalf.  We are pawns, putty, used to justify whatever the spending machine chooses to spend on projects designed in one way or another, to elect these very representatives chosen to look after our interests.  They are not looking after our interests, they are looking out for the interests of their special interests clients and the voters those interests represent. We need very big change.

ANOTHER CORRUPT OFFICIAL ON THE WAY:  If you're not corrupt, no need apply for key jobs in the Obama administration.  One more example of how the system works these days.

ONE MORE PIECE TO THE PUZZLE:  Nothing really new here except the extent of government corruption involved  This story defies understanding.  The only answer to it all is to get the friggin government out of the economy because every -- every - time they get involved nothing turns out well.

BRITISH COMEDIAN AND HARRY REID AGREE:  Watching a video of the very weird "comedian" from GB who has decided the rich, and the corporations should pay much more in taxes, a position Harry Reid agrees suggesting everyone, including the rich, agree with him.  I am willing to raise taxes on those companies that have contracts with the Federal Gov (and their executives) so long as taxes are offset among the rest.  Truth is the only way to shrink the size of government is to starve the beast.  Take away tax revenues and force them to downsize.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

ONE MORE TIME: George Will on "Reckless Endangerment".  Everyone, without exception, should read this book by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.  It is a case study on why the government's role in the economy, in our lives, should be kept to an absolute minimum.  It is an apolitical book that sets the record straight on why the financial meltdown occurred and who was to blame.  Since all the perpetrators of this shame (Frank, Dodd, et. al.) are always rewriting history it's helpful to have the facts available to refute their efforts to blame everyone but themselves.i

CREEPING STATISM:  This brief description of a clause in the Dodd-Frank bill that has the effect on further nationalizing the financial industry by decree, is one more example of how we lose our freedom to the state, decree by decree, regulation by regulation.

Today a number of Obama administration agencies with financial-sector regulatory responsibilities have jointly published in the Federal Register a proposed “Policy Statement Establishing Joint Standards for Assessing the Diversity Policies and Practices of Entities Regulated by the Agencies.”  The statement comes as a result of Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which requires these agencies each to “establish an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion” that, in turn, is to develop diversity and inclusion standards for workplaces and contracting.
The proposed statement is even worse than the bill itself, since it aggressively applies not only to the agencies themselves but also to all those regulated by it, and repeatedly insists on the use of “metrics” and “percentage[s]“ (i.e., numerical quotas) to ensure compliance. And while the statute at least cautions that diversity efforts are to be undertaken “in a manner consistent with the applicable law” (like the Constitution and, presumably, federal civil-rights statutes that are colorblind in their protection against discrimination), there is no such nod in the proposed statement, nor is there any mention of stopping or preventing discrimination – the only possible justification for consideration of race, ethnicity, and sex in hiring, promotion, and contracting.
This provision of the statute was championed most prominently by Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) and has been criticized by the Wall Street Journal, four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hans Bader, and myself, among others (I also wrote a short summary of Section 342 here, and Christopher Byrnes wrote a much more comprehensive analysis of the statute, here). Comments on the proposed statement are due by Christmas Eve.

LIES AND DAMN LIES; Joe Wilson was absolutely right. It is almost impossible to catalogue all the lies perpetrated by this administration, but here are a few.  These lies, and all the others, will come as a shock to all those millions of Americans who get their news from MSM, since they bury them or never report them in the first place, or what's even worse, don't really care.

CRONY CAPITALISM:  This is what you get with big government and corrupt politicians.  Add to this example all the other ones involving green energy  and the like and you have the formula for why we don't have "capitalism" in this country.  What we do have is a lot closer to fascism or national socialism as practiced by the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler in the 1930s.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

TURKEY'S PROBLEM:  Maybe the only hope for peace in the Mideast.  Providing leadership in the Middle East is difficult at best.  The mix of theocracies, regional and tribal conflicts, economic backwardness is a difficult brew for any  moderate country to deal with, let alone try to provide reasonable leadership.  On top of those difficulties, Turkey has an Islamist leader who while modern in his approach to economic affairs, is none-the-less an autocrat when it comes to social issues, witness the recent riots in Takamin Square in Istanbul.  There is underlying unrest that impedes progress and leadership.

EVIL KOCH BROTHERS:  Actually Democrat functionaries are the evil ones.  If you are a successful business and businessman and are a Conservative, you are always and evil person in the eyes of Democrats like this one.  There's no way to put a stop to this foolishness as long as the media is in the pocket of the Democrat Party.  The foolish foolish people who won and operate many media outlets in this country are hell bent on destroying the individuals whose success hires millions of people and provides the underpinning for the productivity of our economy.  Will the likes of Obama and his followers never learn?

OBAMACARE'S FATAL FLAW: This is a reasonable speculation on Obamacare's objectives.  There's much in this analysis to agree with, especially the point that Progressives have always been keen on socializing healthcare because they understand that it is the key to controlling all aspects of our lives.  After all, if you control healthcare delivery, you can then demand obedience to all aspects of life that affect healthcare.  That would include diet, lifestyle activities, home environment, workplace activities, all in the cause of the costs to the government to provide healthcare.  Government run healthcare is the Trojan Horse of the Progressive's plan to better manage and control the lives of citizens.

UNTRUSTWORTHY MEDIA: "Chad Henderson of Georgia, who became the media’s poster boy as one of the few to actually sign up for Obamacare, lied about his success, according to a Reason Magazine investigation. On LinkedIn, Henderson lists himself as a volunteer for Organizing for Action."  This quote from Breitbarts' is critical to understanding how the media fails in its reportage role.  Organizing for Action is an Obama administration organization designed to expedite the roll out of Obamacare (and other administration initiatives).  Here we have an example of the government providing a propagandistic  success example of someone signing up for Obamacare to the media who then incorporates this propaganda  into its reporting to the public.  All the while the "example" in fact is a volunteer in the Organizing for Action organization designed to promote and facilitate the roll out of the program.  This example of media manipulation by the administration is an indictment of the independence and skepticism of the media.  It goes on all the time.

PLANTATION THEORY: Talk about a major tragedy.  Black so-called elites deserve all the blame for the human tragedy of the black race since the Civil Rights Act and the Johnson War on Poverty of the 1960's.  Stand up and take a bow NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, all the members of the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus), all the black mayors in one party cities all over the country, and let's not forget to acknowledge the important role of the MSM in fanning the flames of racial discord, resentment and discontent.  Nice work!