In the Mad Max movies, it took an apocalypse to start the war for gasoline. In 2012 in New York and New Jersey it only took a Category 1 hurricane.
Oh yeah. We're so advanced.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Republicans Lose Again Because They Offered No Conservative Alternative
Andrew McCarthy for National Review here gets it, even if I would quibble about the precision of his election results:
In truth, millions of Americans have decided that Republicans are not a viable alternative because they are already too much like Democrats. ...
Washington’s Republican establishment is progressive, not conservative. ...
[T]he Republican campaign called for enlarging a military our current spending on which dwarfs the combined defense budgets of the next several highest-spending nations. When was the last time you heard a Republican explain what departments and entitlements he’d slash to pay for that? ...
Republicans talk about limited central government, but they do not believe in it ... They look at a money-hemorrhaging disaster like Medicare, whose unsustainability is precisely caused by the intrusion of government, and they say, “Let’s preserve it — in fact, let’s make its preservation the centerpiece of our campaign.” ...
Truth be told, most of today’s GOP does not believe Washington makes things worse. Republicans think the federal government — by confiscating, borrowing, and printing money — is the answer to every problem, rather than the source of most. That is why those running the party today, when they ran Washington during the Bush years, orchestrated an expansion of government size, scope, and spending that would still boggle the mind had Obama not come along. ... No matter what they say in campaigns, today’s Republicans are champions of massive, centralized government. They just think it needs to be run smarter — as if the problem were not human nature and the nature of government, but just that we haven’t quite gotten the org-chart right yet.
That is not materially different from what the Democrats believe. ... Tuesday pitted proud progressives against reticent progressives; slightly more preferred the true-believers. For Americans who don’t see much daylight between the two parties — one led by the president who keeps spending money we don’t have and the other by congressional Republicans who keep writing the checks and extending the credit line — voting wasn’t worth the effort.
McCarthy thinks about 2 million fewer voters showed up in 2012 than in 2004, which is "staggering", except that his election math already looks just a little off. Today I'm showing 122.5 million total votes in 2012, and 122.3 million in 2004, eight years and two elections ago. Still, that is a staggering comparison when you realize that the population has grown by a net 21 million over the period.
Clearly, as McCarthy says, the voters in 2012 "shrugged", but the shrug was actually bigger in 1996 when Republicans again characteristically picked two other moderate losers in Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. Fully 8% fewer ended up voting in 1996 than in 1992 (1% fewer voted in 1988 than in 1984).
Starting with 1968 and ending with 2008, the average increase in total votes cast in the presidential from election to election has been 6%. 2012 compared to 2008 shows 6% fewer votes cast. The slightly smaller shrug over moderate Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan may reflect the distance in time and understanding from the debates over conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s.
The single biggest gains in total votes cast, incidentally, occurred in 2004 in Bush 43 v. Kerry (16% more votes cast than in 2000) when war in Iraq put patriotism center stage (just barely 51% voted for that despite buying off seniors with Medicare Part D in 2003), followed by 1992 in Bush 41 v. Clinton (13% more votes cast than in 1988) when the issues were breaking the no new taxes pledge (43% voted against that) and "that giant sucking sound" (19% voted against that).
Republicans still haven't learned how to put conservatism all together and wrap it in a bow.
Of 7000 Banks, 3500 Need Recapitalization, 2000 Need To Sell
So note various experts in this story by Stephen Gandel for Fortune, who concludes:
Mortgage rates are about one percentage point higher than they would be if we had more competition. Apply that to all mortgages, and that higher interest rate costs consumers about $100 billion a year in extra interest. Not to mention all those who can't actually get refinanced. I'd say that's pretty good evidence that we should figure out a way to keep small banks around.
The bottom line: Dodd-Frank will not go away because Obama is not going away, so up to as many as 6300 banks may go away, destroying what's left of free market competition in banking. The people are already the losers, and stand to lose even more.
Since the beginning of 2008, 460 banks have failed.
Larry Kudlow Slanders Christ On His Radio Program
Larry Kudlow, former Democrat, member of SDS, drug addict and alcoholic, and supposedly a Jewish convert to Christianity, slandered Christ in the final hour of his radio program yesterday. That's a lot of "formers".
He did so while attacking Paul Krugman for advocating that the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire as a remedy for the fiscal cliff, ridiculing the idea with the ever popular provincialism "for Christ's sake".
Obviously the defeat of Mitt Romney has pushed all of Kudlow's buttons at once. He began the program with a full-throated denunciation of the Pat Buchanan wing of the Republican Party and its anti-amnesty stance on illegal immigrants, saying it must be "crushed".
You can take the man out of the SDS, but you can't take the SDS out of the man.
You can not hear a podcast of Kudlow's program anytime you don't want to, here.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Larry Kudlow Declares War On Pat Buchanan Wing Of Republican Party
Just now on the radio show, saying the anti-amnesty wing, the Pat Buchanan wing, of the Republican Party must be defeated and "crushed".
Two back to back defeats of liberal/moderate Republican candidates for president continue to be misinterpreted by the fifth column on the right.
They should join the Democrat Party once and for all.
David Frum Loves The 47%
Here:
"To be a patriot is to love your country as it is. Those who seem to despise half of America will never be trusted to govern any of it. Those who cherish only the country's past will not be entrusted with its future."
David Frum should know a thing or two about patriotism. He's from Canada.
Did the Founders love England as it was, or any of the huddled masses yearning to be free love the hellholes they came from as they were?
Gold To Oil Ratio Skyrockets to 20.11
The action, however, is mostly on the side of gold, which is movin' on up because of Obama's re-election.
He aims to tax and spend, but the US House stands in the way of that, which takes some of the pressure off the need to borrow money or print it, which is negative for gold. But with Ben Bernanke serving at his pleasure at the Fed, dollar devaluation through quantitative easing is still positive for gold and negative for the dollar.
Gold doubled under Obama's first term, from $850 the ounce to $1,730 today. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen again.
$3,400 the ounce in 2016?
Just the thought of it makes my nose bleed.
He aims to tax and spend, but the US House stands in the way of that, which takes some of the pressure off the need to borrow money or print it, which is negative for gold. But with Ben Bernanke serving at his pleasure at the Fed, dollar devaluation through quantitative easing is still positive for gold and negative for the dollar.
Gold doubled under Obama's first term, from $850 the ounce to $1,730 today. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen again.
$3,400 the ounce in 2016?
Just the thought of it makes my nose bleed.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Don't Blame The 47%
Don't blame the 47%.
- The percentage which Romney said wouldn't vote for him in the general (the takers)
- The percentage which did vote for him in the general (the makers)
- The percentage which didn't vote for him in the Republican primaries (the achers)
Instead, blame Romney (the faker).
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Why It's Too Early To Evaluate Election Turnout
Election turnout in 2012 as of right now is 117.5 million, dramatically lower than 2004, let alone 2008.
Turnout in 2008 was 131.5 million, in 2004 122.3 million, and in 2000 105.4 million.
Hurricane Sandy badly disrupted voting in densely populated areas of the eastern seaboard, especially in hard hit New York, namely in Queens, Long Island and Staten Island. The difference in New York alone between 2008 and 2012 to date is 1.6 million, and 600,000 in New Jersey.
Add to this the late voting arrangements for voters in New Jersey, and the absentee and military vote being tabulated after election day and the turnout numbers for 2012 could yet change significantly, even if relatively few races might be impacted by the outcome.
It's still too early to draw sweeping conclusions about the meaning of the turnout until we know more exactly what it is.
Rush Limbaugh Is Grasping At Straws To Explain Romney's Loss
Yesterday Rush informed us that maybe Romney lost because there are now more of "them" than of us.
In other words, we on the right are now demographically outnumbered by Democrat Hispanics, Blacks, etc. and won't be able to win anymore without more of "them" in the Republican Party. That is the reflexive interpretation of the Republican Establishment, as reported here:
"It's not about geography anymore with the Republican Party," said Margaret Hoover, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor. "It's about demographics, and we've got to start thinking about growing the party."
Today he's changing his tune. Today he's blaming . . . the white or conservative or Christian Republican base!
In other words, because Romney may have underperformed McCain's turnout (by 2.8 million) therefore Republicans didn't turn out for Romney.
Well, how does Rush know they were Republicans? What if they were independents?
I don't know how you can blame the base when for the first time ever I had to wait in line to vote on Tuesday, in deep red semi-rural Michigan, like many others all across the country.
And I don't know how you square that with the fact that it wasn't even close in South Carolina, ground zero for Tea Party antipathy toward Mitt Romney. The right everywhere held its nose and turned out, not for Romney it is true, but to defeat Barack Obama.
And now Rush is blaming US!
Gee, thanks Rush. You've just given the Establishment another reason to exclude conservatives from the Republican Party, and it isn't even true.
Turnout yesterday won't be precisely known for weeks, and it is important to wait, not just to learn the Republican turnout, but the Democrat contrary to what Rush is saying today.
In 2008 McCain slightly underperformed Bush in 2004 in the swing states, but in 2008 Obama way outperformed John Kerry from 2004, by 3 million in the swing states if I remember correctly. Obama won in those states by a margin of only 1.4 million. A half million Republicans weren't to blame for that.
"The Electorate Always Gets Things Right", Illustrated From The Bible
"The wisdom of crowds", according to Jude Wanniski, John Tamny and the libertarian quacks of Forbes Magazine, illustrated from the Bible:
"And all the people brake off the golden earrings which [were] in their ears, and brought [them] unto Aaron. And he received [them] at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These [be] thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." -- Exodus 32:3f.
Hours After Re-election, Obama Moves Against Arms Industry
Obama's way of attacking our Second Amendment check on tyranny isn't overt. He takes the circuitous route by attacking capitalism generally and specifically the arms manufacturers, who thrive on trade.
Hours after re-election he's back in negotiations over the UN treaty which would control trading of arms. His Democrat-controlled Senate could ultimately ratify this treaty, thus by-passing the politics of the issue in the Republican-controlled US House.
Better stock up. Once he ruins a few companies here, and limits the import trade, guns are going to get harder to come by.
This is what giving Obama more time meant during the campaign season. And Republicans had a candidate who never brought it up or made it an issue.
Too late now.
Reuters reports here:
Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Hey John Tamny! Did The Electorate Get It Right Last Night?
The invisible hand of the electorate and the invisible hand of capitalism cannot be falsified by anything, because they are, well, invisible, here:
Put plainly, Wanniski argued that the electorate always gets things right, or in his words:
“…the electorate as a whole is wiser than any individual member in understanding its interests, it is wiser than any economist or group of economists.”
No doubt many readers are scratching their heads in response to the above, but as Wanniski put it to the late William F. Buckley (paraphrase), “You’re likely smarter than every individual inside a packed football stadium, but collectively those individuals are smarter than you are.” The wisdom of crowds….
We may not have always liked the end result, but the electorate has always been right. ...
The electorate unhappily gave [George W. Bush] another shot; one it presumably came to regret. ...
Obama ... [i]s as a result presiding over a sick economy that should be strong, and as the electorate dislikes failures, Obama’s days in the White House are numbered. ...
The electorate is dying to fire Obama, history says it will given its aversion to failures, yet Romney’s timidity with regard to policies actually meant to grow the economy point to a close win for Romney when it should be a rout. Wanniski’s electoral model says so.
The libertarians are as bat-shit crazy as the Keynesians.
Presidential Aspirant Rep. Michele Bachmann Narrowly Re-elected In MN
Results here.
Her stand on many of the issues approximated real conservatism, but her district appears less inclined to vote for her after the presidential run.
Romney's Path From 206 Ended At 266
Romney was competitive only in Florida with 49.3% (29), Virginia with 47.8% (13) and Ohio with 48.2% (18), with no evidence beyond that suggesting a path to victory, just hope (!) for the best.
Where've we heard that before? From a real liberal, Barack Obama. The opposition could smell our weakness in our imitation of them. And the voters wisely recognized that faux liberalism is no substitute for the real thing. Republicans didn't offer the country a clear alternative to Obama, just a facsimile.
This suggests money spent in places like Michigan was a big mistake, where Obama finished with 53.5% to 45.6%. And believe me, I received numerous robocalls and a fair number of live calls from Republicans trying to win the presidential here. Romney should have arguably allocated more time and money in places like Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Power Companies Pretend News Doesn't Exist, Just Like Liberal Media
Power companies in Long Island and the Rockaways in Queens have simply removed some areas there from their outage maps because power cannot be restored to effectively destroyed service points, aka homes, reports CBS News here.
Kind of like how the media have pretended there's no there when it comes to problems with the Obama biography and record.
If you ignore them, they don't exist.
Gee, I wonder from whom the power companies learned that trick?
Benghazi? Who's that?
Rush Says Rasmussen Puts Republican Registrations +5.8 Over Democrats
Here:
Rasmussen's out with his final Summary of Party Affiliation, as of October 31st.
This is a huge sample of people that Scott Rasmussen asks are they Republican or Democrat or independent or what have you. He has the Republicans at their highest party affiliation he's ever recorded since he's been doing this. Basically it's Republicans plus six: Republicans 39, Democrats 33. The actual number is 5.8. We'll round it up to six points. Rasmussen had the exact turnout in 2008 at Democrats plus seven.
Rasmussen has a +/- 4 margin of error in his polling, which is basically dead even in the daily presidential tracking poll, so I'll go out on a limb and say Romney gets +5 in the popular because of his overwhelming advantage with independents and in Republican registrations, and maybe 285 in the Electoral College: 206 per Rasmussen's current assumptions, plus Florida (29, hello seniors), Virginia (13, hello defense industries), Ohio (18, Kasich and Co.), Wisconsin (10, Walker and Co./Paul Ryan) and Colorado (9, pro-family voters).
Monday, November 5, 2012
Male Median Earnings Are At 1960s Levels
"[T]he earnings of the guy in the middle have declined 20% over the last four decades. As a result, the median earnings of men are back to the levels that prevailed in the 1960s."
-- Michael Greenstone, MIT, quoted here
Your Congressman Could Be On His Parents' Insurance Under ObamaCare
Guess what?
Your Congressman could theoretically stay on his parents' healthcare insurance under ObamaCare, which allows a child to stay on his parents' plan until the age of 26.
How so?
"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years." -- Article. I. Section. 1. of The Constitution of the United States of America
So an enterprising young individual could get himself elected to Congress at the age of 25 and still be on his parents' plan.
That's insane!
Neal Gabler Can't Face It That Democrats Have Betrayed Social Security
Here, for Reuters:
"There is no gainsaying that the basic purpose of the [Ryan] budget is to dismantle New Deal and Great Society programs that assist the poor and gradually remove the juice from the third rail by privatizing Social Security and essentially voucherizing Medicare. To save the country from the flood of debt, they must save us from FDR and LBJ."
The Ryan Budget isn't even the law of the land because Democrats have stopped it in the Senate. But for two years, two years!, Democrats have enthusiastically advocated and voted for reductions in the payroll tax, removing the juice from Social Security, in order to put cash into people's hands and stimulate the economy. Democrats did this in the lame duck session in December 2010, when they still had complete control of the US government: House, Senate, White House:
Looks to me like Democrats represent the biggest threat to the sacrosanctity of Social Security.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
If ObamaCare's Anything Like Feds' Response To Rockaways, We're In Deep Trouble
From a harrowing tale of narrow escape from Hurricane Sandy and subsequent abandonment of his neighborhood, Brian Kelly, a retired FDNY firefighter, in his own words in the NY Daily News, here:
“Listen, I was a firefighter, I know relief doesn’t happen overnight. But we’re four days out now. I’m staying with relatives in Staten Island. I drive back to Rockaway every day because I’m afraid of my house getting robbed. In that time I haven’t seen any help in Rockaway. There are some city cops. I saw just two city garbage trucks. I saw the National Guard drive by a few times. But I’m still waiting for the guard, FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, Red Cross to set up shop in Rockaway and start helping people back to a life. I’m not seeing it.”
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Michigan Gov. Snyder Is 83% Correct On Ballot Proposals
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is 83% correct on the 6 ballot proposals facing voters in Tuesday's elections. He's against all of them except Number 1, the emergency manager law, according to this story in the Detroit Free Press, here:
A gubernatorial bus tour hit Sterling Heights today to reinforce Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's message to vote yes on Proposal 1, no on the rest. ... Proposal 1 asks if the emergency manager law should stay in place. Proposal 2-6 are constitutional amendments that would protect collective bargaining, require utilities to use more renewable energy, put union rights in place for home health care workers, require a two-thirds vote in the legislature for any tax changes and require a vote of the people before an international bridge or tunnel could be built.
Amending the constitution is simply a way for legislators to avoid responsibility for taking a stand on these issues. And Michiganders seem hell bent on helping them do just that when they already have the option of punishing representatives at the polls for voting contrary to their wishes on the matters. They should exercise that option. If government isn't representing the people to their satisfaction, I suggest increasing representation, not sabotaging it by making such representation as we have even less representative by going over its head. Amending the constitution over and over again is nuclear warfare against our form of government.
The first proposal is really the same sort of thing, but if the voters really hate the emergency manager law then they should throw the bums out who passed it. Going over their heads to a ballot proposal really takes the heat off of them when it should really be on them all the more if it's such a bad law.
I happen to think it's a bad law, but I'd rather vote against my representatives who passed it.
Unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this one.
Mayor Doomberg Cancels NY Marathon: Starting Line Was On Staten Island
Mayor Doomberg has canceled the NY Marathon because . . . it was to have started on Staten Island, and the optics of starting a race at ground zero for Hurricane Sandy were simply unthinkable. People there are still under water and without electricity, food and heat.
AP Obama reports here:
The storm forced cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism about running the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs. ... [O]n Staten Island, there was grumbling that the borough was a lower priority to get its services restored. "You know it's true," said Tony Carmelengo, who lives in the St. George section of Staten Island and still does not have electricity. Added his neighbor, Anthony Como: "It's economics. Manhattan gets everything, let's face it."
Rasmussen Shows Obama Support Eroding In Michigan
Rasmussen today shows Michigan only leaning Obama, meaning his support in Michigan has eroded enough to lose that dark blue hue.
He also shows the candidates tied in Ohio instead of slightly favoring Romney.
Based on the math as of this moment, Romney will come up short with 267 Electoral College votes if he does not win Ohio, Wisconsin or Nevada, assuming he wins Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida.
Election 2012: Do It For The Geezers
One sunny day in January, 2013, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay," and walked away.
The following day the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and again just walked away.
The third day the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Obama. I've told you already that Mr. Obama is no longer the President and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"
The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it." The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."
Don't forget to vote.
That old man is depending on you!
h/t Ruth
Ron Radosh Skewers Filmmaker Oliver Stone's Mendacious Stalinism
According to his own testimony, if he had become president, Wallace would have made Harry Dexter White his secretary of the Treasury and given a position in government to Laurence Duggan. Both men were Soviet agents. As a KGB cable found in the Venona archives shows, the Soviets hoped that Duggan would aid them “by using his friendship” with Wallace for “extracting . . . interesting information.” ... Stone allows no critical opinions by scholars who have studied the Soviet archives to disturb his rehash of Communist propaganda themes. His sainted Henry Wallace opposed the creation of NATO, advocated abandoning Berlin in response to the Soviet blockade, denounced the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction as “the martial plan,” and justified the 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia as a measure to thwart a plot by fascist forces. Precisely the Kremlin line.
Hillary Clinton's Got Some 'Splainin' To Do
Patrick J. Buchanan, here:
On Aug. 16, a cable went to the State Department describing the imminent danger, saying the compound could not defend itself against a “coordinated attack.”
The cable was sent to Hillary Clinton – and signed by Ambassador Chris Stevens.
On Sept. 11, Ambassador Stevens died in a coordinated attack on the Benghazi compound by elements of Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaida.
Catherine Herridge of Fox News, who unearthed the Aug. 16 cable, calls it the “smoking gun.”
Friday, November 2, 2012
Why Obama Will Lose Ohio: Only 2,800 Show Up To Meet POTUS 4 Days B4 Election
Reported here:
“I’ve said I will work with anybody of any party to move this country forward,” President Obama told a crowd of 2,800 this morning in Hilliard, Ohio. “If you want to break the gridlock in Congress, you’ll vote for leaders who feel the same way whether they’re Democrat, Republican or independent.”
Has Anybody Noticed Hillary Clinton Is A First Class F&%K Up?
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| At least it ain't KoolAid |
The historical high water marks of her incompetence will include HillaryCare, which got Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in control of Congress in 1994, and Benghazi, which sure looks like she doesn't have the first clue about running anything foreign either, and looks to get her boss unelected right quick like, as they say down Arkansas way.
Half NYC Hurricane Death Toll Comes From Staten Island
Reported here:
On Thursday, police recovered the bodies of two brothers, ages 2 and 4, who were swept away after the SUV driven by their mother, Glenda Moore, stalled in Sandy's floodwaters Monday evening. ... The discovery was another heartbreaking blow to Staten Island, a hard-hit borough that residents say has been largely forgotten. At least 19 people have been killed in Staten Island, about half the death toll for all of New York City.
Rasmussen Has Iowa As Toss-Up, Romney Slightly Ahead
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| The lefty? Or the righty? |
Scott Rasmussen still shows Iowa as a toss-up as of this hour, with Romney slightly ahead in the polling.
Its 6 Electoral College votes added to Romney's theoretical 279, assuming Romney wins the toss-ups where Rasmussen shows Romney currently polling ahead, would give Romney a final total of 285, 15 more than he needs to win the presidency.
Watch Florida and Virginia, says Rasmussen here:
"Florida and Virginia are absolute must-win states for the Romney campaign. If the president wins either, the election will be his. It is quite reasonable to think the challenger can win these states but far from a sure thing. If he can win those two states, Romney will then have to win either Ohio or Wisconsin to stay in the game. It is possible that the president could win both and keep his job, but that outcome is far from certain as well."
Liberal NY Hypocrites Care More About Marathon Than Staten Islanders
Brooklyn Councilman Vincent Gentile said, “With some neighborhoods still smoldering, I think postponing the marathon would be a better option.”
Unemployment in October Ticks Up to 7.9%
Read the report from the BLS here.
This is the big picture:
"Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October. Employment growth has averaged 157,000 per month thus far in 2012, about the same as the average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011. In October, employment rose in professional and business services, health care, and retail trade."
The average jobs added per month of 155,000 in the last two years has been insufficient to alter significantly the rate of unemployment, seeing that unemployment ticked up 0.1 points from September. All year the unemployment rate has been no higher than 8.3%, and no lower than 7.8%.
Meanwhile the long-term unemployed, those part-timed, those no longer in the labor force and those entering the labor force for the first time, who all number in the tens of millions, fight for that small pool of jobs. At 300,000 new jobs per month, double the current rate, it would take over 8 years to suck up 30 million people.
There remains no driver for jobs in an economy barely growing at all at 2.0%.
NJ Gov. Christie To Housing Haters: "Nothing Is More Precious To People Than Home"
"There's nothing more precious to people than their homes. Those are where their families are, their memories and possessions of their lives, and there's also a sense of safety to home," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said late on Thursday.
"That sense of safety was violated with water rushing into people's homes at an enormous rate of speed and people having to literally swim, climb, jump for their lives," he said.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
NRA Grades Dem. Pestka Better Than Rep. Amash In Michigan 3rd
Don't believe it? See for yourself, here.
Michigan Democrats are making hay with this. A four-color direct mail piece arrived in my mailbox today highlighting the fact, mailed from the party office in Lansing.
Amash's beef with the NRA is principled, based on his belief, which is correct, that the Commerce Clause of the constitution is not the basis for legislation for interstate reciprocity for concealed carry. The McDonald decision is another example of a "victory" for gun rights which was wrongly decided, but the NRA nonetheless cheered. The NRA is not infallible, and Amash is right to point it out, but in the political contest against the foes of gun rights, his trumpet makes an uncertain sound.
But while Pestka scores better than Amash with the NRA, you'll notice there's no endorsement by the NRA. That's because NRA members think they know Amash is a friend of gun ownership who just hasn't yet persuaded the NRA to improve its constitutional interpretation.
One might be tempted from this to think Pestka is an alternative to consider instead of Amash, especially since liberals haven't been too happy with Pestka for once voting to de-fund abortion providers, something Amash recently couldn't bring himself to do, alienating social conservatives, including me (a specialty of libertarians like Amash). See the HuffPo story, here. But Pestka now regrets his vote. His record is being used opportunistically.
Amash continues to defend his vote against de-funding Planned Parenthood because singling out PP for defunding is unprincipled, thus favoring others who still get funding. To which we say, so what? There is tons of spending in government which is unprincipled because it picks winners and losers, and is otherwise simply wrong. To err on the side of picking losers by cutting them off isn't a failing, it's a start! The journey to a clean room begins with one moldy sock.
We shouldn't make the good the enemy of the perfect as Amash does now and again. It's a lesson learned from life experience, which Amash hasn't had enough of yet. That's an argument against investing young people like him with political power until they are ready, something Aristotle understood long ago, and our Founders understood when they enshrined age requirements for office in the constitution. The young are to be tested and tried as they climb a ladder of offices, an idea which derives from the old Roman cursus honorum, with which the Founders were intimately familiar. A good boy is just that. It remains to be seen if he turns out to be a good man.
Not all matters are susceptible of resolution by appeal to the constitution. It is not an infallible holy book which dropped from the sky for our instruction in everything, as much as we rightly submit to it. For example, the constitution is now schizophrenic because it allows those aged 18 to vote, but only those aged 35 to serve as president. It is probably only theoretical that one day there could be a dearth of people in the country old enough to serve as president, or that there might one day be a surplus of people serving in Congress under 35. Nevertheless in the former case the pressure to change the constitution to lower the age requirement would fly in the face of the Founders' wisdom, experience and judgment on the matter. In the latter it could happen that the death of the president and vice president might mean a too young speaker of the house would be next in line to the presidency, in violation of the constitution.
We adhere to the spirit of the constitution, but to which part? Shall we make the 26th Amendment the enemy of Article II. Section 1, or the other way around? Shall we stifle youth and enthusiasm utterly, or channel it and shape it?
Not everything is reducible to the letter on the page, or to a single principle one only imagines superintends our deliberations. What were once thought remedies on later reflection turn out to have been mistakes, which only the good mind can conclude.
It Takes One To Know One: Carl Bernstein Smells Radicalism In The Air
Carl Bernstein of Woodward-Bernstein fame thinks he's caught a whiff of radicalism in Mitt Romney and the Tea Party, here at The Daily Beast, imagining all sort of vain things about both of them.
By the end of the hysterical tirade he calms down a little and realizes his own progressivism qualifies as radicalism, too, but he'd much rather call his beloved progressivism a "transformational movement". In other words, "progressivism good, radicalism bad", sort of like how liberalism got a bad name and had to be replaced at all costs if liberalism were to continue to retain influence.
The reality is the Tea Party is a reactionary movement trying to forestall the radicalism of Barack Obama. Reactionary movements often are mistaken for radical movements because in order to succeed in their objective they have to get to the root being yanked out of the ground by others, by the revolutionaries, and replant it. As such reactionaries, the Tea Partiers are counter-revolutionaries: "Put It Back!"
This is not to say that reactionary movements cannot be hijacked by ideologues any less than true revolutionary movements are inspired by them. The American revolutionaries are a case in point. They never embraced the idealisms which turned into a class war against aristocrats in France. It is unthinkable that the history of the early American independence movement would have turned out as it did had it otherwise been a movement about liberty, equality and fraternity. Former loyalists were welcomed back. While enthusiasm for the idealism of natural rights among Tea Party activists is reminiscent of this, especially among the libertarian elements, the genesis of the movement was in reaction to Obama's proposed mortgage bailouts of deadbeat homeowners, many of whom were becoming infamous for "walking away". Like a good reactionary, Rick Santelli gave voice to his indignation at these people on national television in February but characteristically planned a Tea Party protest on the beach of Lake Michigan for months later, during his summer vacation. In the interim, he had to go to work.
The people, however, had other ideas about waiting. But unlike real radicals such as the Occupy Wall Street types, their protests were peaceful, orderly, clean, and came to an end, and then transformed themselves into the constructive activity of political action, retaking the US House in 2010 for the Republicans in order to stop Obama. As a political movement, it should be understood in those practical prophylactic terms despite the efforts of Republicans to co-opt the movement. The Tea Party is a movement of Americans who are radical only in the sense that they have rediscovered their roots in the constitution and the world which gave it birth.
The true radicals in the bad sense are those who would extirpate them.
Basel III Capital Requirements May Cause 30% Of Banks To Merge
So says Victor Nava, here:
Community banks are generally defined as banks with less than $1 billion in assets. There are approximately 6,800 community banks which represent about 8% of total assets in the banking sector, but they account for almost 40% of all small business loans. The proposed Basel III regulatory capital requirements are an immense and unnecessary burden that will actually threaten their existence. Community banks were already having a hard time re-establishing themselves in a period of weak loan demand, low interest rates, and thinning profit margins. In 2011, only 3 new community banks were chartered, down from 181 new charters in 2007.
But these new regulations will further drive consolidation between them into bigger banks. Community banks that can't find affordable ways of raising capital will be left without many options other than to find a merging partner. Some on Wall Street, like mergers and acquisitions expert John Slater, predict that Basel III's compliance costs will lead to a merger boom, and that in the next 3-5 years 20-30 percent of all banks will merge.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
What Did Hurricane Sandy Do In 1 Night That Obama Couldn't Do In 4 Yrs?
Create thousands of shovel ready jobs.
This Is Not Conservatism: Romney Will Move The Country Leftward
When liberals win, they make conservatives come in their direction. But so-called conservatives have never made liberals compromise to the right. This is why liberals detest them, because they are weak.
Ronald Reagan, former Democrat, didn't do it, and neither has anyone else since. The result has been a constant shift of politics in America to the left. It has never shifted to the right on any social, economic or foreign policy issue. Today's Republican Party is indistinguishable from the Democrat Party of 1960, except on paper, while the Democrat Party struggles mightily to remain American as more and more Democrats openly support self-consciously socialist and even communist ideas.
The country moves inexorably leftward, relaxing moral absolutes from divorce to abortion to homosexuality; growing government and government interference in our lives through mandates while defending old progressive achievements like the income tax, Social Security and Medicare; and ideologizing "democracy" and using it like a cudgel to nation-build abroad.
Mitt Romney will only contribute to this process if he is elected because he has stated explicitly, once again just two days ago in Ohio, that it will be his policy to compromise, to "get things done" as the feeble-minded everywhere like to say:
"We're going to have to do something that has been done in the past in this country and that is we're going to have to reach across the aisle we're going to have to find good Democrats, by the way Democrats love America too, we've got to reach across the aisle find ways to bring in people from the other party work together, collaborate, meet regularly and fight for the American people and we will!," Romney said.
Why conservatives will vote for this I can only answer with the example of Esau, who was so hungry that he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.
It would be far better to elect the intransigent radical Obama and a principled Republican US House to maintain the status quo than to risk "progress", because that is what you are going to get with Mitt Romney, progress . . . to the left.
Conservatives don't have to vote for Obama to vote for gridlock. Virgil Goode will do.
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