Land of the sooty, home of the knave

 In those countries that pretend to freedom, princes are subject to those laws which their people have chosen.

-- Jonathan Swift

The next war's cannon fodder: Students at Wyoming commencement boo Senator Lummis for saying there are only two sexes

 They will be blown to smithereens in the next war by America's future conqueror, or publicly tortured to death by the victors in a gruesome spectacle of mockery.

During the commencement address on Sunday, Lummis said constitutional rights were under attack in the U.S. and “even fundamental scientific truths such as the existence of two sexes, male and female, are subject to challenge these days.”

More. 

The ruin of a state is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners, and contempt of religion, which is entirely our case at present.

-- Jonathan Swift 

 

The Casino is minting millionaires as we speak

When stock is high, they come between, 

Making by second hand their offers;

Then cunningly retire unseen,

With each a million in his coffers.

-- Jonathan Swift

Russell Kirk's "shop and till conservatives", a bunch of cheats

"But all these are trifles, if we consider the fraud and cozenage of trading men and shopkeepers."

-- Jonathan Swift

Why no one can get a fair trial in increasingly libertarian America

If justice stood on the side of the single person, it ought to give good men pleasure to see that right should take place; but when, on the contrary, the commonweal of a whole nation is overborn by private interest, what good man but must lament?

-- Jonathan Swift

Funny how Enlightened England became hostile to American Presbyterianism, and so ruined itself

The ruin of a state is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners, and contempt of religion, which is entirely our case at present.

-- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Mighty Dullness Crowned

"In a dull stream, which moving slow,

You hardly see the current flow;

When a small breeze obstructs the course,

It whirls about for want of force,

And in its narrow circle gathers

Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:

The current of a female mind stops thus,

and turns with ev'ry wind;

Thus whirling round, together draws

Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws."

-- Swift

Romney Likens Bain to Obama Bail Out of Auto Cos.: Rush Livid Romney Makes Newt's Point!

So Rush is left today simply trying to change the subject to what Romney SHOULD have said, because Newt not only can't be right, he MUSTN'T be right, now that he's guilty of "anti-capitalism" according to Rush.

The story and video of Romney on CBS this morning are here:

“In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business." ...

“We also had the occasion to do things that are tough to try and save a business." ...

Where is Sarah Palin and that crony capitalism talk from Sept. 3, 2011 when you need it? Is she going to leave Newt to hang out to dry and defend Ron Paul who now defends Romney, or ante up and call Romney (and Obama) nuts and Newt right?




"In a dull stream, which moving slow,
You hardly see the current flow;
When a small breeze obstructs the course,
It whirls about for want of force,
And in its narrow circle gathers
Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:
The current of a female mind stops thus,
and turns with ev'ry wind;
Thus whirling round, together draws
Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws."

-- Swift

Underwater Mortgages: Effectively Half of All, or 25.5 Million, Says Mark Hanson

Because it's not just a matter of selling for a price which pays off the current note. It's a matter of also paying the realtor 6 percent and having enough left over for 10 percent down on the next purchase.

Half of all mortgage holders are in the situation where they would not have enough left over for 10 percent down on the next home. This is the key problem according to Mark Hanson:

"Because repeat buyers have always carried the market as the foundation, this is why demand has not come back. It's as if half the potential buyers in America died over a two-year period of time."

Read the full story about negative equity from Diana Olick here.

Technically 14.6 million are in negative equity on the note alone, but that's only 28.6 percent of homes with mortgages. 50 percent is more like 25.5 million homes with mortgages which cannot be sold without bringing money to the table for the next purchase. People are quite literally stuck.

To paraphrase Jonathan Swift:


Mortgages, the lifeblood of the nation,
Corrupt and stagnate in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Their motion and their heat maintain.

'Money is the Lifeblood of the Nation'

"Money, the lifeblood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and its heat maintains."

-- Jonathan Swift

The Turning Currents of Sarah Palin's Vulgarized Mind

Even after a very long relationship, John Ziegler can't quite seem to put his finger on Sarah Palin's problem in the essay excerpted below. There's hardly a man alive who can diagnose the feminine disease, blinded as men are to women by their own passions, but Jonathan Swift came close: "The current of a female mind stops thus, and turns with ev'ry wind."

Ziegler didn't realize it, but he was on to it, here:

“Hi, John Ziegler, this is Governor Sarah Palin,” said the familiar voice on my phone message. There was a pause. “From Alaska,” she added. It’s typical of Sarah’s underappreciated sense of humor to pretend this needed to be clarified. “I just sat down and watched your movie about 9/11,” she went on, “and it’s unflippin’ believable”—”flippin’” is one of her favorite expressions—”I would like to talk with you about this next documentary. Could you give me a call?”

At this point, Sarah and I had met only once, but we were already developing a bizarre relationship. Over the almost three years that followed, we would often act like friends—while at other times she would act like she barely knew me.  

If We Want More Home Sales, Subsidize Home Ownership, Don't Tax It

It's an old principle too often forgotten in discussions of economic policy:

"If you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of something, subsidize it."

We've learned in America that when you don't limit welfare in some way, you'll get lots more people on it. And tax people too much like we did in the 1970s, and you'll proliferate money in tax shelters.

What we need more of right now in America is home sales. 18.4 million dwellings sit vacant in the US, and homeowners all across the country who want to sell and scale down or sell and move up can't, because of the housing slump. Properties go unsold season after season, and people are stuck.

Jonathan Swift put it this way a long time ago:

"Money, the lifeblood of the nation,

Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,

Unless a proper circulation

Its motion and its heat maintains."

Logic tells us that we should subsidize housing through tax policy even more than it already is, but the Obama regime, and a bunch of misguided libertarians, want to do the opposite: recover the "tax loss expenditure" created by the mortgage interest deduction.

In other words, they want to tax home ownership, in the name of tax neutrality, handing the advantage to landlords who can still deduct their mortgage interest, along with the maintenance and depreciation which homeowners cannot deduct. It almost sounds like planned crony capitalism.

If Obama and company succeed, we'll have even less home ownership than we have now, and even lower values, but lots of new politically favored slumlords.

The following is an excerpt from John C. Weicher's "Repealing the Mortgage Interest Deduction? Hold the Applause!,"  found here, which touches on some of these issues:

The President’s budget for 2012 proposes to take a small but significant step in the same direction.  The value of the deduction would be reduced for families with incomes above $250,000.  These are the same taxpayers for whom Mr. Obama wanted to raise taxes back in December - “the rich.”   

But the deduction isn’t a particular benefit for rich people. ... they only account for about 20% of all mortgage interest reported on tax returns, according to the IRS.

Most of the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction goes to households who are not “rich,” households with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000.  These are middle-class families, reasonably well off, but working, and working hard. ...

Repealing the mortgage interest deduction will make it harder for young families to become homeowners.  Repealing the capital gains exclusion, another Commission recommendation, will make it harder for older families, when they want to move to a retirement home or move to be near their children and grandchildren. 

On Suffering Women's Suffrage

In a dull stream, which moving slow,
You hardly see the current flow;
When a small breeze obstructs the course,
It whirls about for want of force,
And in its narrow circle gathers
Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:

The current of a female mind stops thus,
and turns with ev'ry wind;
Thus whirling round, together draws
Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws.

-- Jonathan Swift, 1713