Total World Stock Market Capitalization Year-End 2010 at $56 Trillion

Data here.

Total Demand Deposits in January at $0.8 Trillion

Total Savings and Money Market Deposits in January at $6.057 Trillion

Irrational Exuberance in Home Ownership Rates

MJ Perry has a good post on the deflating home ownership bubble here, and this cool chart, which shows once again that starting in 1995 all manner of metrics assumed an irrationally exuberant upward trend.

An additional chart at the link less convincingly makes the case that low down payment loans were a cause, rather than a by-product, of the bubble.  Looks like a lagging indicator to me, but obviously it is an imprudent policy to require only 3 percent down.

Famous Republican Ted Olson Responsible For Challenging CA Proposition 8

Conservatives needing another reason not to support the Republican Party need only look to this case:

Ted Olson, one of the lawyers representing couples who challenged Proposition 8, said: "This case is about equality and freedom and dignity and fairness and decency. It is about whether we are going to eliminate government-sponsored discrimination written into the constitution of the biggest state in the U.S."

Mr. Olson, a Republican stalwart, teamed up with David Boies, a Democrat and his adversary in the 2000 presidential-election case of Bush v. Gore, to bring the challenge to Proposition 8. ...

Six states, plus the District of Columbia, permit same-sex marriages, and proponents of gay marriage are gearing up to press their cause during this election year, including in Maine and Washington state.

From the Log Cabin Republicans to Ted Olson, Republicans have been in the vanguard of the insane waging war on nature and nature's God.

To hell with them all.

Radioactivity 150 Miles From Vermont's Troubled, Aging Yankee Nuclear Plant Blamed on Atmospheric Testing in 1940s and 1950s, and on Chernobyl

Strontium-90 has been found in bass far from Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, according to this story:

Now, new tests of bass caught 150 miles away in northwestern Vermont and outside the area affected by the plant's groundwater show similar levels of Strontium-90, said William Irwin, chief of the Vermont Health Department's radiological division.

The likely source, rather than Vermont Yankee, is residue from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union in 1986, he said.


This report puts it as follows:

Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State.

"The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."


The similar levels of radioactive contamination suggest that the reasons for shutting down an aging plant like Vermont's Yankee Nuclear are distinct in this case, not the least of which is that the design is identical to the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plants which melted down after the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.

Obama: Pesky Constitution Gets In Way of Getting Things Done

Quoted here:

"What's frustrated people is that I've not been able to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008. Well, it turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes. But what we have been able to do is move in the right direction," Obama said.

Obama Knows His Base Is Women, And ObamaCare Was Designed For It

Romney would lose in November because he's competing for a voting block which Obama already owns. While 48 percent of Romney's voters said they were Republican, 41 percent self-identified as Independent.

Once again, from the Florida exit polling here, Romney's biggest support came from women (52 percent), Hispanic/Latino (54 percent), moderate/liberal (59 percent), oppose Tea Party (57 percent), Roman Catholic (56 percent), and the abortion should be legal crowd (54 percent).

Compare that with this from CNN (here):

Catholic teaching opposes abortion and the use of contraceptives, though a 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute showed 98% of sexually active Catholic women had used contraception.

The Democrat strategy, as always, is to divide and conquer, but when it comes to the Catholic church, there isn't a lot of dividing work to do. Obama has known for a long time that the loyalty of Catholic women to the church is divided over reproductive issues, as is the loyalty of Christian women generally.

Women in this country want the freedom to kill their unborn children. Otherwise Roe v. Wade would not continue to stand.

Obama knows his base. ObamaCare was designed for it. Catholic women in Florida went for Romney like they'll be going for Obama in November. The better to eat you with, my dear.



"Those domestick traitors, bosom-thieves,
Whom custom hath call'd wives; the readiest helps
To betray the heady husbands, rob the easy."

-- Ben Jonson

Thomas Sowell Says Mitt Romney's Minimum Wage Views Prove He's No Conservative

Here:

When you set minimum wage levels higher than many inexperienced young people are worth, they don't get hired. It is not rocket science.

Milton Friedman explained all this, half a century ago, in his popular little book for non-economists, "Capitalism and Freedom." So have many other people. If a presidential candidate who calls himself "conservative" has still not heard of these facts, that simply shows that you can call yourself anything you want to. 

The Difference Between Us and Them, Well Stated

Here:

For conservatives, answering the essential question of what our political goals are is not difficult. We do not believe in the perfectibility of the world. Those of us who are Christian conservatives believe that the government can fight wars, as well as provide protection from discrimination and a safety net for the poor. Capitalism and the free market are not perfect systems, but they are the best systems for providing human flourishing. We believe in progress that reenforces timeless truths.

Yet if you do believe in the perfectibility of the world -- or "fundamental transformation" in the president's phrase -- then nothing, not even the human conscience, can be allowed to get in the way.

F. Fukuyama: Our World is Devoid of Monstrous Projects of Social Transformation

The Big Lie, softly told.

In The New York Times, here:

"The undergraduate students I teach . . . are fortunate not to live in a world where ideas could be translated into monstrous projects for the transformation of society, and where being an intellectual could often mean complicity in enormous crimes."

He's never heard of Barack Obama, I guess, nor the enormous crime of abortion in which all our intellectuals are complicit, nor the compulsion of ObamaCare, targeted drone killings, the TSA's war on the fourth amendment, the illegal war in Libya, TARP and the fascist bank bailouts, the zero interest rate policy war against elderly savers, the war on carbon, the war on the rich and the middle class, gays in the military . . ..

Obama's Attack on Roman Catholicism Evokes Charges of Tyranny, Fascism, Totalitarianism

From one Mark Judge, here:

The New Comstockery is a metastasizing liberal cancer not just of intolerance, but of hatred for those who disagree. ...

The New Comstockery is fascist. ...

[L]iberal tyranny ... has become evident recently in both the Obama administration[']s violation of the First Amendment in forcing Catholic institutions to sell birth control, and the reaction to the Susan Komen Foundation's attempt to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. ...

[S]omething ... in our time has become a terrible reality: the totalitarian impulse of liberalism, particularly when it comes to sexual matters.

Pace Mark Judge, the consequences of the relaxation of morals in the West produced a horrific 20th century on both sides of the Atlantic. It makes no difference that the tens of millions killed here in America have been faceless. Their blood cries out no less than the millions of Stalin's and Hitler's victims.

Nor has the impulse to liberal tyranny been only just recently evident.

It was evident to many of us much earlier, especially in ObamaCare in 2010 and in the fascist bailouts of 2009, which gave rise to the Tea Party. George Bush's liberalism which ended with TARP at home was just the kinder, gentler Republican version of it, trampling out the vintage for the most part in foreign fields.

But Obama has brought the grapes of wrath back home.

Few have been the voices decrying the expansion of the national security state in 2011. The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA have been hard at work implementing nationwide checkpoint programs, using scanners and military surveillance technology, particularly drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) to "patrol the borders," hunt down cattle rustlers and execute without trial (admittedly noxious) American citizens in foreign lands.

In 2012 the Republican House is actually cooperating by passing legislation which routinizes the domestic integration of UAVs under the control of the FAA. And Republicans think Mitt Romney is going to make a difference?

The revolution has been measured, taking off one obstacle at a time so as not to cause widespread alarm, but its objectives are indeed totalist.  Dismissing religious freedom now in 2012 almost comes as an afterthought, a mere by-product of ObamaCare.

The spider weaves its web, and soon we will all be caught it in, if we aren't already.

It's good that Mark Judge is finally paying attention.

Is anyone else?

"There is no contradiction between economic Liberalism and Socialism."

                               -- Oswald Spengler, 1933 

Women Are The Ruin Of Many Tyrants

The Tax Man Stands In The Way Of The Deleveraging Crisis

Household net worth in Q3 2011 has fallen to $57.4 trillion, and relative to GDP this is still well above historical peaks in the post-war period in the 20th century.

If total household net worth relative to GDP fell to the post-war historical peak before the recent silliness, at present levels of GDP this implies a further pull-back in total household net worth of roughly 7 percent, or $4 trillion, to $53.4 trillion.

It is interesting to note that mortgage debt relative to current GDP also as shown here should correct down about 33 percent to match the post-war historical peak of that metric. With about $10 trillion in mortgage debt currently outstanding, a 33 percent adjustment down comes to $3.3 trillion, a figure very similarly sized to the outsized net worth noted above.

In other words, we could come a long way toward rectifying both metrics almost instantly by taking from net worth and paying down mortgage debt, if only the tax man didn't stand in the way.

It should be emphasized that roughly $5 trillion of $18 trillion in retirement funds stands ready in IRA accounts alone to address this problem, if only government gave people the freedom to do so.

Another interesting point suggests itself.

The post-war average GDP of 3.5 percent per annum has utterly failed to materialize in the first decade of the 21st century, as GDP has averaged instead in the neighborhood of 1.7 percent per annum.

Both net worth and debt measured against an economy pumping out 50 percent more GDP would mean I wouldn't be writing about this right now.

I'd be too busy relaxing and getting ready to make lots of money tomorrow.

There's more than one way to skin a cat: less meddlesome tax policy, or growth-oriented economic policy.

Preferably both.

Does The Fed Help Precipitate Recessions By Raising Rates, Or Lowering Them?

Yes!

Alan Greenspan was confirmed as Federal Reserve Chairman in August 1987, Ben Bernanke in 2006.

Two Episodes of Nearly Vertical Exuberance in Net Worth

Two recent episodes of nearly vertical exuberance are shown by dramatic spurts in total net worth of households over 5 year periods: beginning from the mid-1990s and from about early 2003, coincident with stock market and housing bubbles.

A correction to trend implies a net worth decline to around $45 trillion, or 21 percent from the present $57 trillion.

Irrational Exuberance In Credit Creation Has Stalled

Yet one more metric showing how a new trend line began in the mid-1990s coincident with dramatic new housing and banking legislation of the time. A reversion to the status quo ante implies an overall reduction in asset values of at least 33 percent to 42 percent, and perhaps more in a crash which over-corrects below the more modest trendline set by bank credit of approximately $5.5 trillion.

Democrats and College-less Least Likely To Vote For A Mormon

Well, there goes the crossover vote.

Gallup has the data here:

The New Republic's Tim Noah Is A Crapy Spellur, For The Sure

Seen here:

Unemployment Falls to 8.3 Percent: Obama's Average 9.3 %, 36 Straight Months Above 8 Percent

See the graph of historical US unemployment at The Wall Street Journal here:

Ratio of Employed to Population Remains Mired at 58.5 through 1/12

Ads For Democrats Assault Readers of Conservative Websites

This wouldn't have happened in the good old days of print:

Depth and Breadth of Current Employment Recession Still Far and Away Worst in Post WW2 Period

So says calculatedriskblog here:

Manufacturing Payrolls Under 12 Million, Down 30 Percent 2000-2012

Jesus' Message About Rich And Poor Is Meaningless To Us In Obama's Hands

President Obama (here) has invoked a saying in the Gospel of Luke to buttress his argument that the rich should give up some tax breaks they enjoy:

"Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Luke 12:48b).

From this easy misappropriation of a text, which is set in an apocalyptic future where a final reckoning between God and man occurs, one might conclude that President Obama has become a fundamentalist who thinks the teaching of Jesus speaks directly to marginal tax rate policy of the federal government of the United States in the year 2012.

Somehow I don't believe that's what they taught him in Rev. Wright's church.

It is left to us liberals of a certain sort to point out to the president that the teaching of Jesus is not exactly a guide book for conducting our happy lives here in the 21st century, and that this text is instead a witness to the meaning of the true cost of discipleship which Jesus taught, its true cost not just to the wealthy but also to those "to whom little is given".

To his own disciples, his own little flock, Jesus says in the very same chapter the president quotes, "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth" (Luke 12:33).

Sell that ye have and give alms.

From this we learn that Jesus expected his followers, whether poor or rich, to turn their backs on their former way of life in every detail, goods, fame, child and wife, liquidate that way of life, and help the needy and prepare for God's kingdom which he said was "at hand".

Accordingly much is required of those who have much, because what they have is much. Little is required of those who have little, because what they have is little. By definition a rich man who repents turns his back on much, and by definition a poor man who repents turns his back on little. The teaching is cast tautologically to emphasize the point.

But it is all required of the disciple nonetheless, whether the much or the little: "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33).

Do you know anyone like that? I know I do not. And I know that I am not one of them.

I am not a disciple of Jesus.

Now, if we were to apply this teaching evenly, unlike the president, to the contemporary tax debate, it would naturally mean that rich and poor alike owe everything which they have to the government, which is of course absurd, except under a Marxist interpretation of the text, which is exactly what many in America suspect underlies President Obama's rhetoric.

That Jesus' teaching is so one-sidedly represented by our leftist president in the public sphere shouldn't really surprise us, however. He is not the first trimmer to address the American people.

That we owe everything to God according to Jesus' teaching is not even acknowledged in the one place where you should expect to hear it: the church.

The most you will hear you owe is 10 percent, the tithe.

So-called disciples of Christ everywhere trim and hedge around these texts because these texts are simply too difficult to square with the reality of a mundane existence which quietly whimpers, decade upon decade, century upon century, that Jesus' predicted in-breaking of the kingdom of God, final judgment and establishment of God's justice never happened. We continue to live in a broken world where good and evil grow up side by side, within us and without, while Christian utopians everywhere deny this reality and proclaim not just that God's kingdom is here, but that they are it.

After long experience of them, however, many of us beg to differ.

They have more in common with Barack Obama than they care to admit: a delusional version of reality, often accompanied by a healthy helping of contempt for the non-believers.

It is a unique experience to be hated by the Democrats and the Republicans alike.

What we manifestly should not do today is apply the teaching of Jesus to the tax debate . . . because Jesus did not. As far as he was concerned, taxes were beside the point. The world was coming to an end, so let the dead bury their own dead. They would not remain unburied for long.

Inevitably we would fall short of Jesus' teaching, and we do, as any honest observer will admit. Jesus' teaching had its historical opportunity, and we live in our own unique moment. He is not here to speak to us in ours. His voice reaches us from his past, spoken to us, let us at least say, as true man. As true men like him we should listen to it. And therefore inasmuch as his moment was everyman's moment, it is not without significance in our own time.

For example, if (leftist) Americans who import one half of the teaching of this failed utopian preacher for their own utopian schemes stopped doing so, would this not instantly become a much better country?

If the teaching of Jesus about rich and poor means anything in the present debate about taxes, isn't it that  our expectations of each other should mean that we treat all human beings as human beings? But I highly doubt very many on the left want to talk about the poor paying their fair share of taxes, especially when nearly half of us scandalously pay nothing. The poor are too good to be talked to like that, they tell us.

The rich by virtue of being rich thus receive their opprobrium, while the poor receive an exaltation they do not deserve.

To make the contribution of the poor fair, should it not be proportional, a percentage, so that in that way they are made equal to the rich, who would also pay proportionally even though in sum their contribution will make them superior to the poor?

It is wrong to inflame the poor to hate the rich, to awaken the greed, envy and covetousness to which all are susceptible by nature, and of which all are guilty, poor and rich alike.

But it would also be helpful if more so-called Christian Americans came to terms with their proclivity to view "success" from such a paltry, materialist perspective which insists that not having a job makes one nothing more than a depreciating asset. This is but the flipside of the Marxist coin which treats everyone as chattel, as productive assets of the mere material variety. We are richer in things than failed Marxist regimes, but no less dead inside for de-humanizing the unemployed, the elderly and the unborn, some of whom we have now killed in the millions for almost four decades.

How long can that injustice tempt fate?

Jesus clearly understood the dangers of wealth to the individual soul, the responsibility wealth imposes, and how the sheer size and weight of it can keep one from entering the kingdom of God. But American Christians no less than others press on in pursuit of a secure retirement and the paid off mortgage which has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice, gathering up in barns and building bigger ones to hold the increase.

Their recourse to measures which now threaten their own freedoms show that they fear this night their soul shall be required of them and that they will be found wanting.

Wealth exerts a powerful magnetic pull which sucks people inward like a black hole sucks in light. The darkness of it blinds us to the reality of suffering and injustice swirling all around us. Turned by it inward in this way, wealth finds opportunity in in-dwelling evil where it concentrates pride in ourselves to such an extent that it becomes incapable even of the honest human feeling of sympathy, with the result that charity becomes the opportunity only for the praise of other men instead of the relief of suffering which God rewards when done in secret.

Our poorest American brothers and sisters, it should be remembered, are better off than 2/3 of the rest of the whole world.

"Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me."

In truth God calls to the American Empire, but not through the spokesmen du jour.

This is why Jesus is worshipped.

Labor Participation Rate Falls To Carter Administration Levels in 1979-1980

The average civilian labor force participation rate during the Carter Administration was 63.2 percent.

Famous Democrat Notices Romney Doesn't Understand Conservatism

James Cueball Carville, here:

"[H]e doesn’t understand conservative doctrine."

Romney Came Late To Conservatism And Still Can't Speak It Very Well

So Charles Krauthammer, here:

"Romney is a guy who came late to his new ideology and still can't speak it very well."

Well, he doesn't even understand what it means when he says it. He's a fake.

Whatever Ann Coulter is, it isn't Conservative

Whatever Ann Coulter is, it isn't conservative.

At least since her endorsement of Hillary Clinton in 2008 we've had, on the other hand, some good clues about what she in fact is.

For example, she was willing to endorse Hillary Clinton and campaign for her were Hillary the candidate for the Democrats for president. The reason? Because Senator John McCain, the Republican, was determined to end the practice of waterboarding prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Now she has endorsed John McCain's one time nemesis from 2008, Gov. Mitt Romney. And Gov. Romney has just put his foot in it twice only days after winning the very same Florida primary McCain won four years ago, and shown us thereby that he isn't a conservative, either.

Proclaiming himself content with the social safety net for the very poorest Americans, Gov. Romney pledged on one day to expand it in the event it becomes inadequate to the task.

On the very next he announced his commitment to the federal minimum wage, and indexing it to inflation.

This is the same Gov. Romney Ann Coulter predicted would lose to President Obama, and therefore the Republicans had better nominate Gov. Chris Christie instead. Also the same Gov. Romney now endorsed by . . . Sen. John McCain.

Thus Ann Coulter is on record in support of a vigorous and muscular government, one which tortures prisoners of war, further entrenches entitlements which create a class dependent on the dole, and interferes in the free marketplace so that the unemployed, and especially the young, gather no useful work experience because employers cannot afford to pay large numbers of them the minimum wage.

In keeping with this unlimited government philosophy, Ann Coulter now defends RomneyCare in Massachusetts on the grounds that government compulsion is quite American:

States have been forcing people to do things from the beginning of the republic: drilling for the militia, taking blood tests before marriage, paying for public schools, registering property titles and waiting in line for six hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles in order to drive.

To the likes of Ann Coulter, "government is" evidently means "government ought."

Nevermind that conscription was resisted and unsuccessful from the beginning of the country. Fewer than 9 percent of Civil Warriors were drafted. The vast majority were volunteers. And volunteers alone comprise our Armed Forces today and have since 1973.

No one is compelled to marry, only to fulfill certain basic requirements if they choose to. Those who remain single aren't obliged to get blood tests. And those who cohabit forego them entirely without fear of the blood test police knocking down their doors.

Yes "we" pay for public schools, that is, we who own property, but the non-propertied classes do not. But no one forced me to buy a house which is taxed to fund schools.

It's in our interests to comply with government which clearly secures our interests, which is why we support property laws which guarantee clear title and oppose shortcuts which undermine them, like the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, a colossal assault on the most basic of all rights we look to government to safeguard but hasn't.

We also expect government to regulate banking to protect the integrity of our savings and of our currency, but it has done neither.  

And no, I didn't have a six hour wait at the DMV. I mailed my check and got my driver's license renewal in the mail. So what if the picture is four years old? But my mother killed the neighbor's prize sow with a car when she was 16, and never drove again. From then until she died at the age of 93 no one forced her to stand in line at the DMV to get a license she would never need.

To hear Ann tell it, we might as well castrate and sell our young, or even eat them because these things were said to be the custom once upon a time, as adultery, incest and sodomy manifestly ever are:

Be it then, as Sir Robert says, that anciently it was usual for men to sell and castrate their children, Observations, 155. Let it be, that they exposed them; add to it, if you please, for this is still greater power, that they begat them for their tables, to fat and eat them: if this proves a right to do so, we may, by the same argument, justify adultery, incest and sodomy, for there are examples of these too, both ancient and modern; sins, which I suppose have their principal aggravation from this, that they cross the main intention of nature, which willeth the increase of mankind, and the continuation of the species in the highest perfection, and the distinction of families, with the security of the marriage bed, as necessary thereunto.  -- John Locke

Is this the reason Ann Coulter is friendly with sodomites today? Because they exist? Or should Thomas Jefferson's advice to castrate sodomites carry more weight?

Did someone hit Ann Coulter with a rock? And is she now living under it? More than half of the country hates ObamaCare because it is compulsory.

The animus against compulsion is as old in America as the revolt against taxation without representation. And older still for refugees from religious compulsion.

If Ann Coulter were alive in 1776 with her present views she'd be a loyalist who would have ended up fleeing to Canada. And in 1861 she'd have gladly plunged the country into a war which killed hundreds of thousands of fathers and brothers because some South Carolinians killed a Union mule at Ft. Sumter.

Ann Coulter's way of thinking has a long pedigree. It's called tyranny.

Ann Coulter Flashback: Hillary Clinton More Conservative Than John McCain

Reported here four years ago today:

"She's more conservative than he is," Coulter said on Fox News. "[Hillary Clinton] lies less than John McCain. She's smarter than John McCain. I will campaign for her if it's McCain," she said.


Coulter's "reasoning" had to do with John McCain's resolve to stop torture at Guantanamo.


CNN here had reported just the day before:

[Sen. John McCain] passed a key test Tuesday in winning Florida's primary, the first early contest that only allowed registered Republicans to participate.

Reacting to criticisms from his party's most conservative quarters, McCain told the San Francisco Gate Thursday, "I'll continue to reach out to all in the party, try to unite the party, until everybody realizes that the only way we're going to defeat the Democratic candidate is through a united party."


Ann Coulter has now famously endorsed McCain's defeated opponent Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election as the most conservative, but just yesterday Romney re-affirmed his support for indexing the minimum wage to inflation, as reported here:

[A] reporter asked Romney aboard his campaign plane Wednesday if he still believed the minimum wage should be indexed to account for inflation, essentially increasing the minimum wage each year to keep up with the cost of living.

Romney failed to expound on his position, but said he has "the same thoughts as in the past." Since he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney has said he supports automatic hikes in the minimum wage.


That may be a Republican position now and again, but it's never been a conservative position, let alone a free-market capitalist position.

Maybe Mitt learned to like it at Bain Capital.

At least now we know what Ann Coulter thinks conservatism is: waterboarding people and interfering with what employers pay them.

FBI Mistakes Apartment 2R For 2F, Terrorizes Tenant With Chainsaw

In Fitchburg, MA.

Story here.

Instead of 10,267 US Representatives We Had 12,592 Lobbyists in 2011

If we followed the US Constitution our House of Representatives would have 10,267 elected representatives today.

Republicans and Democrats put the kibosh on that in 1929 to concentrate power in themselves, which is why today we have only 435 elected to the House. They don't much give a damn what we think about anything, and the approval rating of Congress is now so low it's almost within the margin of polling error.

Instead of the founders' idea of adequate representation we had 12,592 active lobbyists in 2011, spending over $3 billion to influence the 435 petty tyrants. Isn't it odd how closely the natural lobbying market today approximates what the authors of the constitution deemed to be a suitable level of representation?

Does anyone really think Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party, The Heritage Foundation, The National Association of Realtors, The American Bankers' Association or any of the other myriad interest groups would exist in their current form if Congress were more representative of the individual American? Congressmen must sit in their offices and laugh at all the wasted, disorganized and therefore impotent effort spent influencing their votes.

When a representative's constituency is only 30,000 strong instead of 700,000, however, the prospects of his reelection are more sensitive to a narrower range of interests: Yours. Blow it with a few thousand of us and out he would go.

No wonder they got rid of the idea when they could.

Isn't it time to right this wrong?

Romney Will Be Competing For The Same Voters Who Already Prefer Obama

The metros:

Romney beat Gingrich in the urban centers of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach County, in the cities of Southwest Florida, across a swath of Central Florida from Tampa to Orlando and Daytona Beach, and in northeast Jacksonville. Gingrich defeated Romney in 35 less populated counties -- painting a contrast between Romney’s urban and suburban support and Gingrich’s appeal to rural Republicans.

More here.

Florida Liberals Help Republicans Select Mitt Romney, A Candidate They Can Beat

Fully 59 percent of Romney voters in FL said campaign ads swayed them.

And no wonder. Romney spent more on ads in Florida's primary alone than John McCain spent in the entire country in the 2008 primaries:

It's estimated that the Romney campaign and its associated bodies spent $15.3 m[illi]on on TV spots in Florida in the past month alone. To put that into context John McCain spent just $11 million on ads during his entire 2008 primary campaign.

There have been a number of academic studies that suggest that while negative campaigning can motivate the base of support it can also alienate other voters, thus reducing voter turnout.

The negative ads motivated Romney's base alright, the liberal base:

females (52 percent of his vote);

people who believe abortion should be legal in all cases (57 percent);

think of themselves as moderate/liberal (59 percent);

are opposed to The Tea Party (57 percent);

favor illegals as temporary workers (51 percent);

make $200,000 or more (60 percent).

And yes, this alienated other voters, namely the conservatives who even in Florida outnumber such liberals nearly two-to-one: just 11 percent of Romney's Florida voters think Romney is a true conservative. Hence the immediate appearance of Ann Romney last night protesting how conservative is her husband.

The fact is 41 percent of Romney voters in Florida self-identified as Independents, not Republicans.

Just 48 percent of Romney voters called themselves Republican in the exit polls.

Considering that Republican turnout was down 16 percent from 2008, it is hard not to conclude that Democrats this year especially queered the vote in the Florida Republican primary. With over 360,000 non-Republicans trying to select the Republican candidate, conservatives arguably had two not entirely satisfactory candidates and lots of negative ads dividing and subduing their turnout. Divide and conquer, and personally destroy, both the strategies of Democrats. In 2008 when Republican turnout was much higher, the number of non-Republicans interfering was only slightly higher at 390,000. Romney's victory in 2012 thus owed much more to them than it would have in 2008.

Florida liberals have just helped select the Republican they know they can beat in the general: Mitt Romney.

Unfortunately Republicans nationally may not realize that the well was tainted before it's too late.

Romney's Biggest Demographic in FL Was Women

As reported here and here.

52 percent of women overall, and 51 percent of married women.

Also notable about Romney voters:

Self-described moderates, 62 percent;
$200K+ in income, 60 percent;
Self-described moderate/liberal, 59 percent;
Oppose Tea Party, 57 percent;
Religion Catholic, 56 percent;
Abortion legal in all cases, 57 percent;
Doing well financially, 52 percent;
Foreclosures not a problem where I live, 54 percent;
Mitt about right on the issues, 82 percent;
Decided more than a month ago, 55 percent;
Campaign ads were important to decision, 59 percent;
Self-described Republican, 48 percent;
Self-described Independent, 41 percent.

"Sure, I'm a Republican."

Romney Trots Out Wife Ann To Defend His Conservatism

Oh yeah, that'll convince 'em, getting your wife to defend you against the attacks.

What a sissy.

Here:

“I know where his values are on a personal level. He is a conservative guy. I know how he has governed from a conservative point of view, and I know how he will govern, which is from a conservative place to rein in the spending, and help the country."

Repeat after me, "Mittens is a Reagan Robot, just like Newt."

FL Exit Polls Show Women Go Big For Romney at 51 Percent, Gingrich Second with 29

As reported here:

Among women, Texas Rep. Ron Paul won six percent, Gingrich won 29 percent, Romney won 51 percent and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum 13 percent.

Why aren't Santorum's and Paul's negatives with women indicative of their (non-existent) infidelities?

Erick Erickson predicted here that Cain and Gingrich would do poorly with women and not progress to the nomination because of their alleged infidelities.

Republican women in Florida must be pro-choice big time.

The So-Called Conservatives Invented ObamaCare

So says James Taranto in so many words, quoted here in Forbes last October:

“Whatever the particular differences, the Heritage mandate [dating back as far as 1989] was indistinguishable in principle from the ObamaCare one. In both cases, the federal government would force individuals to purchase a product from a private company—something that Congress has never done before. ...  [I]t seems to us that the [subsequent Heritage Foundation] brief [against ObamaCare] overstates the extent to which the proposed Heritage mandate was ‘limited' [i.e. to catastrophic coverage]. But it is clear that Heritage has repudiated the idea of an individual mandate… All these years later, it pleases us that our erstwhile employer has come around. ... [I]t worries us that Mitt Romney, who may well be the next president, lacked the instinct to be offended by the idea when it crossed his desk in Boston. ... [T]he next time a think tank or a blue-ribbon commission comes up with an idea this bad, can we trust President Romney to reject it?"

The Heritage Foundation has ingloriously flipped on the issue of the healthcare mandate. It should have more vigorously vetted its origins instead of grasping at straws against HillaryCare.

Lick finger, check wind, go with The Tea Party.

To some, this is enough. But not for the true born sons of liberty.

Laughs at Fed Meetings Peaked With Housing Bubble in 2006

So says The Daily Stag Hunt here, where the data show that laughs suddenly surged in 2006.

Compared with the average of 20 laughs per meeting in the previous six years, laughs in 2006 bubbled up to an average of nearly 44, an increase of 115 percent.

Call it "irrational exuberance."

The meeting with the fewest laughs? October 1, 2001, with just 7 recorded laughs during the Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

It's Romney Who Disavowed Reagan, Not Gingrich

From The Washington Times, here:

Meanwhile, Mr. Romney’s allies who are pushing this false narrative that Mr. Gingrich is insufficiently Reaganesque couldn’t care less that it is their candidate who disavowed Reaganism. “I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush,” boasted Mr. Romney. “I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” Of course he’s not. Why is that? Mitt’s answer: “I’m someone who is moderate and my views are progressive.”

Who's The Opportunist? Newt Gingrich or Pat Buchanan?

Pat Buchanan has asserted (video and discussion here) that the Reagan White House viewed Newt Gingrich as something of a political opportunist and Rockefeller Republican:

“[I]n the Reagan White House, Newt Gingrich was considered quite frankly by a lot of folks to be something of a political opportunist and who was not trusted and who had played no role whatsoever. He was a Rockefeller Republican in the great Goldwater-Rockefeller battle, where conservatism came of age.”

Michael Reagan on The Laura Ingraham Show this morning found that amusing, coming from a guy who left the Republican Party to run for The Presidency on a third party ticket when he felt he could no longer get any traction in the GOP. Michael Reagan also pointed out that his father the president had once been a liberal Democrat before switching to the Republican Party in 1962.

Pat doesn't name names. Maybe "a lot of folks" is just code for "Pat Buchanan." Quite frankly.

Punish Gingrich's Character Assassins At The Ballot Box

So says Thomas Sowell, here.

'Wasteful Spending Will Always Rise To The Level Of Revenues'

So says Arthur Laffer in support of Newt Gingrich in The Wall Street Journal, here:

Mr. Gingrich's flat tax proposals—along with his proposed balanced budget amendment—would put a quick stop to overspending and return America to fiscal soundness. No other candidate comes close to doing this.

Here is a corollary I learned from a Harvard-trained philosopher, PJWM:

'Work expands to fill the time allotted.'

Rush Limbaugh Gets 'Hermaphrodite' Spectacularly Wrong

This is almost charmingly naive when you think about it:

Wait 'til you hear what was said about them and what these guys were saying about each other back in 1800. Only on their deathbeds when they both died within seconds of each other, according to legend -- only on their deathbeds -- did they put it all back together. Well, prior to that Adams had sent Jefferson a letter. "Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character..." He accused him of being a hermaphrodite, which of course means that you have neither the aspects of a man or a woman. You're like a moderate. "You hermaphrodite!" It's like calling somebody a moderate with no sex organs to boot. You know, no nothing.

Radio Talker Mark Levin Doesn't Know What He's Talking About On Speaker Gingrich

“I like Newt Gingrich a lot. But he had nothing to do with the development of supply-side economics. …It pre-dated his election to the House by several years. So he didn’t help Ronald Reagan develop supply-side economics. He wasn’t even on Ronald Reagan’s radar at the time. I’m not trying to be controversial or rude, but I want you to know the facts.”
























(source)

Conservatism Has Never Meant So Little, Especially to the Likes of Pete Wehner

Or, to put it another way, today's neo-conservative idea of fundamental change means a return only to the spending trend line assumed by Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, established in the 1970s.

As if such a reaction against the nearly vertical spending trend, first of George W. Bush in the 2000s and then the even worse one of Barack Obama after him, would represent an achievement.

(See the discussion illustrating the differences, here.)

I refer, of course, to Peter Wehner's post at Commentary, here:

The single most important [!] idea, when it comes to fundamentally changing Washington, is the budget plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan last April. When most massive-scale-of-change [!] conservatives were defending Ryan’s plan against scorching criticisms from the left, Gingrich described the plan as an example of “right-wing social engineering.” It was Gingrich, not the rest of us, who was counseling caution, timidity, and an unwillingness to shape (rather than follow) public opinion. (The Medicare reform plan Gingrich eventually put out wasn’t nearly as bold and far-reaching as the one put out by Governor Romney.)

So much for Mr. Fundamental Change.

This is the problem with a conservatism which has no imagination, although its implicit repudiation of the dramatic spending under George W. Bush is rather refreshing considering where it comes from.

Be that as it may, after a leftist Obama lurches the country dramatically toward oblivion, any pull-back from that instantly becomes fundamental change, when all it is, once achieved, is really just a pale reflection of what real conservatism might actually have looked like.

Newt's formulation has been interpreted with the emphasis all on the "right-wing" idea of the formulation, when it's the "social" which I think was his real target.

Speaker Gingrich was mocking today's right wing for its lack of imagination, as if codifying social welfare spending at a somewhat reduced level represented an achievement. When his taunt was misunderstood and quickly became toxic to him, he realized he had no political recourse but to recant and change the subject. The truth had become the enemy of the political, which is why professors have so little impact. Believe me, it frustrates the hell out of them.

Regrettably, most of us on first blush assumed Speaker Gingrich meant his criticism from the left, and, horror of horrors, that he now supposedly lived there. No one wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe his was a criticism from the right.

I know I didn't.

On further reflection I suggest Speaker Gingrich meant to criticize Ryan's plan because it represented a conservative codification of big government (albeit on a smaller scale than Obama was implementing at the time). He meant thereby to criticize it as an (unacceptable) truce with the post-war consensus for Social Security, Medicare and their iterative expansions under Republican and Democrat administrations.

Consider that the trend line of spending of the status quo ante Obama was itself a radical departure from the post-war period, and even from that established in the 1960s. The new and truly radical trend began after the recession of 1974. Real conservatism, if it could exist at all, would seek to recapture the post-war trend lines of spending before 1974, but Paul Ryan's plan is nothing more than a return to that untenable trend.

A Newt Gingrich presidency might make such episodes of misunderstanding a more frequent occurrence, but from the look of things Americans appear instead to be hoping for the bell to ring so they can get to the next class, which will be, thankfully, lunch, study hall, or possibly human health and hygiene.

I, for one, hope Newt sticks around to keep entertaining the thinkers in the class.

But we're most probably going to end up with a very boring president instead of him, not unlike the one we have now.

Probably the same one. 

Romney Has Changed His Position On Abortion At Least Three Times

So says David Catron for The American Spectator here:

Perhaps the most egregious of Romney's one-eighties have involved abortion. He has changed his position on that issue at least three times. During the 1994 Senate race against Kennedy he said, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." In 2001, however, he published a letter in The Salt Lake Tribune in which he wrote, "I do not wish to be labeled prochoice." If the "evolution" had stopped there, many would accept what could well have been a genuine change of heart. But when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he declared, "I will protect the right of a woman to choose under the law of the country and the laws of the Commonwealth." Now, for purposes of his current presidential campaign, he's again "pro-life." How he avoids vertigo while executing so many pirouettes is anyone's guess.

Rick Santorum on Mandates: Romney's For Them, 27 States Disagree and So Does Santorum

From his campaign website, here:

"The Romneycare individual mandate is essentially the same as the Obamacare individual mandate. Both reform laws rely on the government’s ability to tax and fine individuals to coerce them into purchasing “approved” health-insurance plans. Because of his support for an individual mandate, Mitt Romney finds himself at odds with the governors and attorneys general of 27 states, who are currently suing the federal government on the grounds that it is unconstitutional for the government to force people to purchase anything, even health insurance.

"Romney’s insistence that Romneycare is somehow different from Obamacare, simply because it was implemented at the state level rather than the federal level, is misleading. Romneycare, like Obamacare, is a massive intrusion of government into the private sphere. Neither of these government-run, top-down approaches to health care is the right prescription for America."

Treasury Dept. Has Boosted Auto Bailout Cost From $14 Billion to $23.77 Billion

As reported here by The Detroit News.

Rage Against the Machine: Palin's Half Endorsement of Newt is Merely Luddite

Even at this late date Palin cannot declare whose side she is on. She's pathetic and she's a coward.

As seen here:

"When both party machines and many in the media are trying to crucify Newt Gingrich for bucking the tide and bucking the establishment, that tells you something. And I say, you know, you have to rage against the machine at this point in order to defend our republic and save what is good and secure and prosperous about our nation," Sarah Palin said on FOX News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine" program.

"We need somebody who is engaged in sudden and relentless reform and isn't afraid to shake up that establishment. So, if for no other reason, rage against the machine, vote for Newt; annoy a liberal, vote Newt.

Yeah, we need somebody alright, but it ain't YOU.

Gov. Johnson, NM, Now Seeks Libertarian Mantle and Favors Gay Marriage

Gee, what a shock, a libertarian for gay marriage.

From HuffPo, here:

Former New Mexico GOP Gov. Gary Johnson says he’s the best presidential choice for gay voters -- better than even President Obama -- calling Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney "out of touch." ...

Currently seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, Johnson dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination back in December, after appearing in two of the televised national debates in 2011. He came out for marriage equality in the fall, after first supporting civil unions.

Tea Party Princess Michele Bachmann Still Sitting on the Fence

Today in fact, here:

Bachmann declined to endorse a candidate - though she said she reserved the right to do so later - and said "I am on board the team, put it that way, no matter who our nominee will be."

Perry, Cain and Palin are on board with Newt.

Where's Michele?

Ann Coulter, Supporter of Mitt Romney and Gay Rights, Prominently Featured on GOProud.org

Here:

Republicans Must Repudiate George W. Bush NOW

So Roger Kimball, here:

[P]oll numbers might be wildly different come November. But the current numbers are not without significance.  They tell us, above all, that there is a great hunger that is not being satisfied. They also tell us that there is widespread unhappiness, not to say disgust, with the status quo ante. The Republican establishment seems unwilling or unable to take this on board. They are still playing the game with yesterday’s dice.

Romney in 1994 Was All For Mainstreaming Gay Rights

As reported in The New York Times, here, in 2006:

“We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Mr. Romney wrote in a detailed plea for the support of the club [Log Cabin Republicans], a gay Republican organization.

Mitt Romney epitomizes everything that is wrong with the Republican Party, and our country, in our time.

Herman Cain Endorses Newt Gingrich Saturday, January 28th, 2012

As reported by Politico, here:

"I hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt Gingrich for president of the United States," Cain told the cheering crowd here. "Speaker Gingrich is a patriot. Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas. And I also know that Speaker Gingrich is running for president and going through this sausage-grinder-- I know what this sausage-grinder is all about. I know he is going through this sausage-grinder because he cares about the future of the United States of America."

Gov. Rick Perry Endorses Newt Gingrich Thursday, January 19th, 2012

As reported by Politico, here:

“I believe Newt is a conservative visionary who can transform this country,” Perry said. ...

“Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?” said Perry.

Citing his Christian faith, Perry said of Gingrich: “I believe in the power of redemption.”