Tennessee is No. 1.

What's interesting about the chart provided  here is the color of the top 15 to 20 states of all 50 shown.  This chart rates, in order, the cost-of-living affordability of each of the 50 states in the US.  Hmm.....wonder why the most cost-of-living friendly states are all red??? Could have something to do with state governments that live within their means and have the lowest tax rates in the country, and are most business friendly.  Note Hawaii and California's rating.

Mark Steyn strikes again

Occasionally a reporter/commenter produces a piece that exactly mirrors our own opinion or thoughts.  For me such is the case here with this piece written by Mark Steyn.  Steyn, a Canadian born citizen of the US, is extremely insightful perhaps in part as a result of his foreign birth and experience living for some time under the democratic socialistic state just north of us.  Steyn also lived through and won a counter suit against the Canadian government over their ridiculous hate speech case brought against him and a collegue by the Canadian Hate Speech Commission.  He knows from first hand experience the value of our First Amendment here in the US.  He also knows BS when he hears it which is why he's been on Obama's case since he was a candidate.

Professor Paul Rahe comments

Paul Rahe,  a conservative history professor at the Hillsdale College in the midwest, comments frequently on current events on the Powerline blog, my personal favorite blog.  In the comments here, he notes Obama's proclivity to demean his opponents and those who disagree with him, and in subsequent comments here, Professor Rahe notes how this "attitude" is reflected in his recent dealings with our traditional western allies.  There is much to be concerned about in Obama's narcism, especially as his followers begin to see him for who he is.  At the point in time when Obama himself realizes he has lost the majority of his "adoring" followers, according to the professor, we are apt to see extremely erratic behavior on his part.  As Rahe observes the next few years could be a "rocky ride".

More Evidence of Political Chicanery at Work among Liberals

Investor's Daily tells us in this article just how ineptly the current administration is dealing with the two main institutional culprits involved in the crash of our financial system in 2008.  This article refers to the knowledgeable Peter Wallison of the AEI who provides here the missing link (at least in my mind) to the disastrous financial meltdown, the cause of our economic distress now and probably for the next decade.  Bottom line of both articles: the disastrous outcome whenever politics and the financial system collude.  In this case Barney Frank and his idiot liberal political allies (Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama (as Senator), Bill Clinton, Bob Rubin, et al) were able to get control of the major financial GSEs (Fred and Fan) by appointing their political soulmates (Frank Raines, Johnson) to key executive positions where they successfully thwarted attempts by Republicans to regulate and control their activities.  Not only did these worthies block attempts to regulate the GSEs, they cooked the books and lied about the classification of the mortgages they were taking on and thus hid from rating agencies and the public the enormity of the risks they were incurring on behalf of taxpayers.  All in the name of "affordable housing" for the poor.  Social engineering run amok, is what it should be called and all those responsible should be run out of the public square and made to live in one of the communities they wrecked with their liberal ideology.  Disgraceful!

Healthcare via the free market

Many solutions have been offered by way of solving the problem presented by our current healthcare system but none are better stated and argued than this one here

The Liberal way of thought -- PTS

The liberal mindset, logic and willingness to rewrite and manipulate history to fit a narrative is on display here, with Frank Rich's latest column in the NYT.  Leaving aside Mr. Rich's main theme that Tiger Woods's "deception" is but one in a decade long series deceptions produced by many business and a few political leaders, we are presented with Rich's Mother of all deceptions, those (guess who) who engineered the "predetermined march" into the unnecessary Iraq War.   What's wonderful about Mr. Rich's world is that he never has to make a life or death decision affecting the safety of others.  His decisions are what story to write today, and what facts to use and leave out of the story in order to fit the narrative he's pushing.  Incredibly, in today.s column during the discussion of the run up to the "fiasco" of the Iraq war there is no mention of:  the 9/11 attack by radical muslims and the death of 3,000 souls on American soil,  the 17 resolutions of the UN Security Council ignored by Sadam Hussein,  the ejection by Sadam of the UN inspectors looking for WMD (especially atomic weapons),  the prior use of WMD by Sadam on his own people (Kurds),  the use of WMD on the Iranians, Sadam's aggression against both the Iranians and the Kuwatis, and finally the use of torture and terrorism by his sons and his private police to keep the Iraqis subjugated.  Instead we are told that there were those (Obama among them) who made arguments (not provided) in opposition to the war from the get go but who were not heeded.  So?  Those people are right in their own eyes and in the eyes of those who then and now may believe as they do.  That's all.  The rest of us continue to believe, for those reasons given and others, that the Iraq War rid the world of one very evil regime that sooner or later would wreak major havoc on the world, havoc that could make 9/11 pale by comparison.  But again, in Mr. Rich's world, no one has to worry about anyone else's safety, just what the narrative of the day is.  Nice work.  Just not real work.

Meltdown financial crises revisited -- PTS

The Claremont Institute carefully analyzes many subjects, now turns its sights on the financial crises or meltdown, as sometimes called.  The article here, "Is Deregulation to Blame?", focuses on the history of CDSs (credit default swaps), and the so-called lack of regulation (actually overregulation in the eyes of the author), and other systemic failures as the cause of the collapse of the financial markets and institutions.  I found this article particularly interesting having just read two recent books on the housing meltdown causes, "Architects of Ruin", by Peter Scheitzer, and "The Housing Boom and Bust", by Thomas Sowell.  The former focuses on the politicization of the housing market and its players as the root cause, and the latter Sowell book more on the underlying economic fundamentals as the primary cause.  Both books make fascinating reading and their basic premises are underscored by the Claremont Institute piece linked to above.  Bottom line of all three sources:  Overregulation and over meddling by politicians in the dynamics of the free market economy, caused major distortions which led directly to the collapse of the housing market and the financial institutions involved in this market.  We are now witnessing the repeat of the regulatory mistakes made going back to the New Deal as the current administration sets about layering on more regulations the net effect of which will be to create more moral hazards and lead to another bust, sooner or later.  All three sources here argue for less regulation and more competition, especially in the area of free market rating agencies where excessive risks can and should be identified for investors.  The duopoly of Moody's and S&P's rating companies failed miserably in identifying risky behavior on the part of large banks and insurance companies largely because they were selectively endorsed by the SEC thus freezing out competitors.  This issue was not covered in the two books but supports their call for more competition and less regulation, certainly no more which we are about to get.

Additionally this blog pinpoints those responsible for the huge explosion in the mortgages promoted by the policies of the Clinton administration.  Specifically it was Andrew Cuomo when he became the head of HUD during the second four years of the failed Clinton administration who opened the floodgates for the bad paper that eventually sank the financial system.  Cuomo, whose father was a flaming liberal governor of NY, has social engineering in the blood.  What a joke.