CNBC's John Carney Defends The Debt Ceiling

John Carney is a rare voice of reason at CNBC.

Here's the conclusion to his defense of the authority of Congress over appropriations, taxes and borrowing:

The logic of the opponents of the debt ceiling is that Congress implicitly approves borrowing when it votes for spending and taxing laws. By this same logic the President should have the power to tax unilaterally based on spending authorizations and borrowing limits. Likewise, the President should have spending powers based on directions to federal agencies in the absence of legislative appropriations.

This isn't the logic of the Constitution's framers, who built a system in which Congressional mandates do not imply a power to spend, in which appropriations do not imply a power to tax, and in which neither mandates nor appropriations imply a power to borrow. Each requires distinct, specific Congressional authorization. 

The framers built this around a revolutionary idea: that these powers, which had so often been held by kings, should be held by legislatures. Authority that still rests in the hands of the executive branches of government across much of the world is, in the United States, in the hands of legislators. 

This cannot be undone with a bill. It would require a constitutional amendment. And, of course, a rejection of the framers's wisdom about who should have the power to borrow on the credit of the United States.

In a word, the president of the United States isn't a king. The current one just thinks he is.

CNBC Laughably Portrays Sen. Alan Simpson Of Wyoming As A Conservative

Sen. Lisa MirrorCowSki gets ready for a date!

Republican Alan Simpson has never been a conservative and hates conservatives. When CNBC portrays him as one, here in "More Conservatives Tell GOP: Don't Mess With Debt Ceiling", it's pure propaganda:

"It would be a grave mistake to use the debate on the debt ceiling to get President Obama to agree to spending cuts," Alan Simpson, co-founder of the Campaign to Fix the Debt and former GOP senator from Wyoming told CNBC's "Closing Bell" Tuesday.

"I know they're (GOP lawmakers) going to try it and how far they'll go with that game of chicken I have no idea," said Simpson, who was co-chair of the Simpson-Bowles Commission that looked at reducing government debt.

The former Senator from Wyoming may carry some weight with liberal Republicans, like Sen. Lisa Mercowsky of Alaska, but not with conservatives. The last thing liberal Republicans want is for the gravy train to run empty.

Continuing resolutions have done nothing but continue to fund government at the new much higher baseline established by Democrats in 2009 with the addition of massive stimulus spending, after which they have passed no budgets. It was an ingenious strategy to ramp up government spending and keep it there. Republicans only participate in this charade by continuing to raise the debt ceiling which facilitates it.

Republicans should shut down the government until the lawful budget process is restored, which means Sen. Reid must pass a budget out of the Democrat-controlled Senate and send it to the House, which he has not done in violation of the law in place since 1974. If anyone should be impeached in this country, it is Sen. Reid.

What Do You Feel When You Shoot A Tyrant?

                                                                                                              Recoil.

"A 30 Round Magazine Might Be Too Small"

". . . from my cold dead hands!"

Erick Erickson summarizes well the historical background for the 2nd Amendment, here, the point of which is that not only should individual Americans possess the very latest weaponry, but that as long as there are standing armies and militarized police forces in America, we can never really be free from impending tyranny, despite the existence of the Oathkeepers:

Many historians have come to view the American Revolution as a conservative revolution. The revolutionaries believed they were protecting their English rights from the Glorious Revolution of 1688. They were, in effect, revolting to demand the rights they thought they already had as English citizens. It is why, for much of 1775, they petitioned the King, not Parliament, for help because they had, separated by distance and time, not kept up with the legal evolution of the British constitutional monarchy in relation to Parliament. The colonists believed themselves full English citizens and heirs of the Glorious Revolution.

One of the rights that came out of the Bill of Rights of 1689 in England following the Glorious Revolution was a right to bear arms for defense against the state. The English Bill of Rights accused King James II of disarming protestants in England. That Bill of Rights included the language “That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.”

The Americans, however, saw the British government, via Parliament, begin curtailing the rights of the citizenry in the American colonies. When they formed the federal government with ratification of the Constitution, the colonists, now Americans, were deeply skeptical of a concentrated federal power, let alone standing armies to exercise power on behalf of a government. This is why, originally, the colonists chose to require unanimity for all federal action under the Articles of Confederation that the Constitution would replace. Likewise, it is why many early state constitutions gave both an explicit right to keep and bear arms, but also instructed that standing armies in times of peace should not be maintained.

Prior to the Civil War, the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government and that first Congress dropped references to “as allowed by Law” that had been in the English Bill of Rights. The Founders intended that Congress was to make no law curtailing the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.

In other words, removing "as allowed by Law" means the right to keep and bear arms is not susceptible of further modification by legislative, or executive, action. Or for that matter by judicial action. The Second Amendment is a settled matter. Americans have simply forgotten this, and to the extent they have are already slaves.

Dr. Strangeobama Blames Republicans Yesterday For Net Zero Jobs In August 2011?

It's like a scene out of Dr. Strangelove, where the delusional General Ripper blames fluoridation of the water supply beginning in 1946 on the Commies.

Here's Obama yesterday, finally blaming Republicans, not Bush, which is a sort of progress, I guess, for losing the AAA credit rating, adding in the zinger that the debt-ceiling showdown in summer 2011 somehow was responsible also for net zero jobs created in August 2011, the first time that's happened since World War II. Boy, that report must have really rankled him to bring it up now, a lot more than losing the AAA credit rating. Who even remembers that?!

From the transcript of Obama's remarks yesterday, here:

So we’ve got to pay our bills. And Republicans in Congress have two choices here. They can act responsibly, and pay America’s bills, or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis. But they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy. The financial wellbeing of the American people is not leverage to be used. The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip. And they better choose quickly, because time is running short.

The last time republicans in Congress even flirted with this idea, our AAA credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history. Our businesses created the fewest jobs of any month in nearly the past three years, and ironically, the whole fiasco actually added to the deficit.

Got that? "The fewest jobs of any month in nearly the past three years." He's not referring to last month, December 2012. He's referring to August 2011, and trying to rewrite that history by blaming it on Republicans and couching it in the context of the last three years when the news reported August 2011 as a sensational first in the post-war period. That's how keenly Obama feels the sting of his lousy job creation record. He's the worst president for jobs in 65 years, and he knows it.

Obama's Gangster Government Of, By And For The Banks

Matt Taibbi provides a pretty thorough look at the recent history of the bailout alliance between the federal government and the big banks for Rolling Stone, here, from which this excerpt:

All of this – the willingness to call dying banks healthy, the sham stress tests, the failure to enforce bonus rules, the seeming indifference to public disclosure, not to mention the shocking­ lack of criminal investigations into fraud committed by bailout recipients before the crash – comprised the largest and most valuable bailout of all. Brick by brick, statement by reassuring statement, bailout officials have spent years building the government's great Implicit Guarantee to the biggest companies on Wall Street: We will be there for you, always, no matter how much you screw up. We will lie for you and let you get away with just about anything. We will make this ongoing bailout a pervasive and permanent part of the financial system. And most important of all, we will publicly commit to this policy, being so obvious about it that the markets will be able to put an exact price tag on the value of our preferential treatment.

But Taibbi goes pretty easy on Obama's role in all of this, who has profited handsomely from it with reelection, focusing instead mostly on underlings like Geithner and Summers. Taibbi seems to hate only the big bankers for their profiteering, not the administration responsible for the continuing massive bailouts. He never connects Obama's admiration for dictatorship in China with our gangster government's stick up of the American people, and even gives Obama credit for some success with HAMP. It's as if the imperial president is merely an accessory to the crime, which Taibbi calls right up front "one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people."

By the way, Taibbi endorsed Elizabeth Talking Bull for president.

The Second Amendment Is For Stopping Creatures Like These . . .

not these . . .

What The Country Needs Most Right Now Is . . .

. . . a new federal holiday!

Your proposals should include someone born in March, April, June or August, to fill in the months missing a federal holiday.

Now, what's the quickest way to add a new holiday to this list?

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was born in March 1751. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was born in April 1743. Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America and defender of both the Constitution and the Declaration, was born in June 1808. Barack Obama, the current president of the United States and the opponent of both the Constitution and the Declaration, was born in August 1961, or so they say.

Seeing that Barack Obama isn't dead, yet, I think your choices are limited to Madison, Jefferson, or Davis. But maybe we should just get all three right now, because the country may not last long enough under Obama to add them all in, slow like.

Housing Prices Rise To Within 3% Of Pre-Bubble 20th Century Highs

Housing prices according to the Case-Shiller Housing Price Index for the 3rd quarter of 2012 here have clawed their way back to within 3% of the 20th century's historic high before the housing bubble.

The index has climbed in 2012 from 124.48 at the end of March to 132.97 at the end of June, and now sits at 134.97 as of the end of September 2012, a rise of 8.4% in just six months.

Prices at this level are high by historical standards, if one ignores price action during the housing bubble. Excepting that period, the high water mark for housing prices in the 20th century was reached on Sep 30, 1989 at the level of 138.54 on the index, 8 years before the tax law was changed to make it possible to churn real estate capital every 2 years, which was the real fuel for the housing bubble.

From the 1950s right up to the end of 1997, prices on the index hewed closely to 120, rising above that level and below it in a cyclical manner in the absence of meddling with housing and tax law. But after 1997 prices became unhinged and rapidly increased, shooting above the upper range limit of 140 in September 2000 on their way to the bubble peak of 218.72 in December 2005. We all know the sorry aftermath of that.

Today prices for housing assets are very high by historical standards. The new fuel for them is Federal Reserve zero interest rate policy, which represents violent meddling with interest rate markets designed in part to help homeowners refinance existing mortgages and buyers buy at affordable rates. This is surely frustrating and destructive at the same time, as any person without a job needing to refinance and any person needing interest income can tell you.

While it is difficult to predict what the new normal should look like with respect to future housing price trends as the market adjusts to the exploded bubble and current housing policy and tax laws, prices supported by federal manipulation cannot be real.

The country desperately needs a free market in housing, but it doesn't have one.

Women Bore The Brunt Of Unemployment, But Voted For Obama Anyway

men's unemployment level falls below old ceiling

women's unemployment level remains above old ceiling

You can argue all you want about equality between the sexes, but it's more obvious than ever before that women have a double standard when it comes to equality.

Women by a significant majority still think someone else has an obligation to take care of them when things head south, whether it's daddy, hubby or The State. In 2012, despite bearing the brunt of four years of the worst unemployment since World War II, they didn't blame those four years of zero progress on Obama. Instead they voted for more of it, believing in the commitment of government to help them even though it isn't.

While the number of unemployed men has fallen below the previous peak reached during the recession of the early 1980s, the number of unemployed women has not and remains at record levels.

HuffPo reported on the phenomenon here two weeks after the election: 

This year Obama campaigned on giving a leg up to those needing education, health care or job training. Romney talked about shrinking government, except for the military, and said overgrown social programs were creating a culture of dependency. Their arguments fit the long-running fissure of the gender gap.

"Women stuck with Obama," said Karen Kaufmann, a University of Maryland associate professor who studies the gender gap. "We didn't see a lot of movement from women. The movement was really men going back to the Republican Party."

Women's support for Obama dropped just 1 percentage point from 2008; they voted for him by 55 percent to 44 percent this time. Men's support for Obama dropped 4 points, flipping them to Romney's side, by a 52-45 margin. Women were 10 percentage points more likely to vote for Obama than men were, according to the survey of voters at the polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.

This is the political price the country has had to pay for eschewing marriage and for non-commitment in relationships generally. And whatever else may be said, the dependent sex is proving that it is still the weaker sex, and if men aren't paying the weaker sex directly with emotional commitment and financial support, the whole country is paying it in the form of higher taxes and larger deficits, and getting family breakdown and legions of socially dysfunctional offspring in the process.

The sexual revolution has been bad for America in every way, Obama aims to prolong it, and women by a significant majority, being weaker, see no alternative and won't until men provide one.

By Every Measure, The War On Women Has Been Waged By Obama

white women over 20

all women over 25

women who maintain families

black women over 20

hispanic women over 20

Unemployment levels for all women, regardless of race, have reached and stayed at all time highs under Obama. They should have asked for a divorce from the president, but instead they are standing by their man.

old women

Unemployment Levels For All Races Reach, Stay At, All Time Highs Under Obama

Hispanic Unemployment Reaches, Stays At, All Time Highs Under Obama

Black Unemployment Level Stays At All Time Highs Under Obama

The prior ceiling of 2.4 million in the black unemployment level, reached briefly when Ronald Reagan was president, has become the new floor under Barack Obama.

Black unemployment has stayed at these all time highs under Obama since early 2009.

Has the first black president been good for black employment? The answer is No.

$11,480 Was Your Fair Share Of The Taxes For 2011. How Come You Didn't Pay It?

For fiscal 2011, federal spending came to $3.6 trillion, and US population came to 313.85 million people.

If we taxed everyone equally as the US Constitution called for originally (you know, "direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers", which is one reason why we must have a census every ten years to begin with), all that federal spending in 2011 divided by all those millions of people comes to . . . wait for it . . . $11,480 owed per person.

The actual paid in tax revenues, for everything? $2.3 trillion, divided by 313.85 million people is . . .

. . . just $7,328 per person.

So pay up you deadbeats.

Quit Complaining: Here's How Social Security Taxes Have Increased Over The Years

View the table here.

You got a break for two years, now your rate goes back to what it was starting in 1990.

Quit complaining.

Self-Absorbed College Grad Blames Payroll Tax Increase On Selfish Congress

FoxNews has the story here:

“As a newly-graduated person, someone coming straight out of college, I don’t like the idea of having less money coming to me due to the selfish interests of people in Congress who don’t have any interest in reducing our financial problems,” Hoffman told FoxNews.com. “This is an impediment for future economic growth. It’s going to make it harder for young people like myself to get married, find a better job, you name it.”

I guess no one ever told her Democrats invented Social Security under FDR in the 1930s, and that every American has had to pay increasing rates of tax for it ever since. How do you graduate from college not knowing that?

Equality. It's such a bummer.

Obama's Obsessive Hatred Of The Rich Will Lead To This

"Accounts of village reform show how a whole community could be roused through mass meetings to attack its wealthier members, to kill the most hated, and then to redistribute all the confiscated property."

Jose Manuel Barroso Call Your Office, Existential Threat For You On Line 2

From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here:

A day after European Commission chief Manuel Barroso said the "existential threat to the euro has essentially been overcome", we have the monthly jobless data from Eurostat. Unemployment has reached a record 26.6pc in Spain, rising to 56.5pc for youth. It is almost the same in Greece: 26.0, (57.6) ... but Greece's data is old. It will soon be worse. Followed by: Portugal: 16.3, (38.7) / Ireland: 14.6, (29.7) … but improving, since Ireland is highly competitive in EMU / Slovakia: 14.5, (35.8) / Italy: 11.1, (37.1) … though be cautious of the Italian data because it famously undercounts discouraged workers. Italy's rate is probably nearer 14pc, comparing like with like. It is a record 11.8pc for EMU as a whole. ... Mr Barroso was once a Maoist and a student activist in Portugal's Carnation Revolution against the reactionaries. Good for him. Which side would he be on now if he were 40 years younger?

(image source)

Wow. 11 Years Ago Gasoline Was Just Over A Buck!

Workers Depending On 2 Part Time Jobs Hits All Time High

figures annualized to show the trend

The latest monthly reading in December 2012 shows that a record 2.118 million Americans have part time jobs both for their primary work and their secondary work, 23% above the upper range limit of 1.72 million breached in 2006.

In both August 2000 and August 2002 the low point in the monthly measurement was reached: 1.398 million. The all time high now is 51.5% higher than that low point from over ten years ago.

Demented Jim Isn't Going To Lead The People, He's Going To Follow Them

Jim DeMint of the Heritage Foundation announces the first phase of the new strategy, here, in The Washington Post:

We need to test the market and our message to communicate more effectively.

That’s why Heritage will start this year to help the conservative movement understand how Americans from all walks of life perceive public policy issues and how to communicate conservative ideas and solutions.

This research project into current public perceptions and how we change them will assist in the resurgence of the conservative movement in America.

That's right Jim, tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. It's easier to win that way.

Secretary of the Treasury Designate Jack Lew is a Prick

That's the basic conclusion of the story here.

Oh well, what's one more prick in an administration full of them, and headed by one?

CNBC Calls Terrible 9-Week Unemployment Trend "Stability"

"Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week, the latest sign of stability in the job market."

These are stable, too:

CNBC. Propagandists for the regime.

Harold Meyerson Thinks The Rich Got One Sweet Deal From The Democrats

Because the capital gains tax rate was raised only 33% from 15% to 20% instead of rising 164% to equalize it with the fiscal cliff deal's highest ordinary income tax rate of 39.6% on the richest Americans. Yikes! Can you imagine?

For The Washington Post, here:

"The tax deal Congress passed last week raised the top rate on wages and salaries from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. The rate on income from capital gains and dividends, however, was raised to only 20 percent from 15 percent. There has been no rending of garments nor gnashing of teeth from our super-rich compatriots; they got one sweet deal."

But it's a point conservatives should ponder more because Meyerson writes of common ground we share.

For one thing, there is love of country in Meyerson's article, a desire to see Americans benefit from investment domestically where it throws off all sorts of additional beneficial economic effects, instead of seeing those accrue to communities in foreign lands. American business long ago became unpatriotic in service to the almighty bottom line, which is why your job went to Mexico and then to China. This ushered in a process which has made the American worker more equal to the poverty of the foreign worker, instead of the other way around. But higher taxes on investment capital aren't going to reverse that. Only disincentivizing foreign investment and rewarding domestic investment will, which is a point which illuminates a conservative principle.

When it comes to economic inequality, conservatives should consider Meyerson's observation that the biggest gains overall in recent decades have come in investment income to wealthy investors, not in ordinary income to the rest of us. He doesn't say so, but it illustrates a conservative principle: When you want less of something, tax it. That is precisely what has produced the situation he decries. We have taxed ordinary income exorbitantly compared to investment income and consequently we have less of the ordinary income variety and more of the investment income variety. And we also actually reward foreign investment in the tax code, allowing unpatriated profits to escape taxation. To get more gains in ordinary income, we should equalize tax rates between ordinary and investment income . . . just not at progressive income tax rates. Conservatives should press for a world in which all money is treated the same in the tax code by taxing income of all kinds at one low uniform rate. Income inequality has to begin somewhere, and it begins in the tax code, not in the profits of Warren Buffett.

Similarly with supporting an aging population, it would be nice if there were a little liberal outrage, and a little conservative outrage for that matter, for the way the federal government conspires to suppress interest rates with a weak dollar policy. This punishes savers, but especially the old who expected and need return on capital to take care of themselves instead of depending on government. A strong stable dollar which has the same value when you are 80 as it had when you were 8 is what we need, but sadly our entire class of elites is committed to monetarism, which at its root means the dollar of 2013 could hardly be less equal to the dollar of 1913 than it is.

There is a theme here involving inequality, expressed in lower-wage foreign workers, ordinary income punished with higher relative taxes, and devalued savers' dollars, which could unite liberals and conservatives, and also the country, if only it had an effective advocate in a statesman who had the audacity to point out that big business and big government seem to be joined in common cause against the best interests of the American people. None dare call it fascism.

101 Years Of The US Government 10yr Bond Yield

US Government 10yr Bond Yield Pops 10% On Fiscal Cliff Deal

But quickly cools, meaning the bond market's opinion was Meh.

By way of contrast, yields plunged roughly 33% between July and September 2011 from the 3s to the 2s in the wake of the debt-ceiling mini-compromise.

The five year yield nadir was about 1.38 in late July 2012. Yields today are almost 35% higher than that, but are still 50% off what they were in early January 2008 near 4.

Interactive chart here.

Velocity Of Spending Money Falls To Early 1990s Levels As Americans Hoard It

Meaning money isn't changing hands for new goods and services like it had been after 1996. M1 has skyrocketed from $1.4 trillion in 2008 to in excess of $2.4 trillion today (here). That's about $21 billion a month over four years being withheld from spending by consumers.

Another bubble bursts.

Rock Valley College In Illinois Cuts Part-Timers To 25 Hours To Avoid ObamaCare

As reported here:

"Rock Valley College took action last week to pare down the hours of their Continuous Part Time employees to 25 hours. Beginning in 2014, public and private employers, who have part-time employees, will be required to offer insurance benefits to those employees who work an average of 30 hours per week or face a financial penalty.

"New part-time employees at RVC are being hired with a 25 hour maximum. At this time the college cannot afford the insurance expense or the penalty for not providing the health insurance."

Nebraska Wendy's Cuts Hours For 100 To Avoid ObamaCare

As reported here:

"A fast-food chain is slashing employee hours so franchise owners don't have to pay health benefits. Around 100 local Wendy’s workers have learned their hours are being cut. A spokesperson says a new health care law is to blame.

"The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week."

Liberal hysteria at thinkprogress.org here inflates the reported number to 300:

"Not long after the owner of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains admitted their anti-Obamacare campaigns hurt more than helped, the owner of a Wendy’s franchise in Omaha, Nebraska plans to cut 300 employees’ hours to part-time to avoid providing them health care coverage."

How else do you miss that detail in both the first and last paragraphs of the story unless you didn't bother to read it?

Job Leavers Today Represent Just 8% Of The Unemployed

Job leavers today represent just 8% of the unemployed. Historically when this metric reaches 15% it appears predictive of a recession. Just two recessions occurred when the metric was below that, near 12.5%. Coincidently those were the two worst recessions in the post-war period from an unemployment perspective, with total unemployment peaking near 10% in 1982-83 and 2009. They were also the only two recessions where the percentage of unemployment from job leavers plunged below 7.5%.

Rush Limbaugh Adopts The Class Warfare Of Obama/The Wall Street Journal

Today, here:

The middle class still is, in an aggregate sense, where all the money in the country is. That's where all the money is in the economy. The rich do not hold all the money.

This is the voice of a very rich man who is under attack by a leftist president and a leftist consensus which says that the rich do not pay their fair share, the voice of a man who is not reasoning as a conservative but emoting as a rich man. If he reasoned as a conservative, if The Wall Street Journal reasoned as conservatives, we would be seeing something other than the suggestion that the leftists go victimize the middle class. Like the bank robber, this thinking, if it can be called thinking at all, maintains that you should tax the middle class because that's where the money is.

As such what Rush says is not conservative, but purely reactionary in the worst sense of the term: it responds to an historical development in which it finds itself the victim and seeks escape instead of statesmanship. This is what you get from a Rush Limbaugh, who abhors learning. You wouldn't get that from a William F. Buckley, Jr.

It goes without saying that it is absurd to suggest that all the money is in the middle, but apparently we must insist that it is not so.

The middle quintile of households made a median income of almost $50,000 in 2011. Generously speaking, this approximates to every single income in the country in 2011 making between $35,000 and $65,000 annually, 35 million workers, accounting for $1.7 trillion out of $6.2 trillion in net compensation, just 27% of the total pie. The bottom end of the richest quintile, on the other hand, begins somewhere just north of $100,000 annually, 10 million workers, accounting for $2.1 trillion out of $6.2 trillion in net compensation in 2011, significantly more at almost 34% of the total pie.

But this is no way for a conservative to look at it.

The founders of the country envisioned equality of contribution from taxation, which the original constitution required to be direct, apportioned according to population. This is why taxation was always very low, because the poor could not afford it. This is also why we have a census in the constitution, not so that we may learn how many Americans are of Italian descent, but simply how many there are, for tax purposes. If it is pleaded that the constitution has been changed to permit indirect taxation, it is still more originally American to insist on equality of treatment under the tax code. The real problem with America is that originalist principles were thrown under the bus in the early 20th century by progressives like Teddy Roosevelt, and enshrined in constitutional amendments under people like Woodrow Wilson.

Equality of treatment under the law is the principle conservatives should be trumpeting. But you will listen for that in vain from Rush Limbaugh.

The progressives like Wilson, a Presbyterian whose grandiose ideas bordered on the fanatical and are reminiscent of no one so much as George W. Bush, misused Christianity by insisting that "to whom much is given, much is required" in arguing for progressive taxation, and forgot that "no one can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that he has". The actual price of Christian discipleship was everything you had, whether you were rich or poor. But in the secularized, immanentized bastard version of this under progressivism, the price became distorted so that the richer you were the more you owed, the poorer the less. It is little wonder that for that the rich demanded more, and eventually got it, in special rules in the tax code designed especially for them, which since that time have evolved into the elaborate distortions and complexities of the tax code we face with trepidation and consternation today.

In a very real sense when it comes to the tax code, The American Century has been the most un-American one of all, and the crying need of the time is to reverse it and refound the country anew on the original American principle of equality of treatment.

Rush Limbaugh: Turd In The Conservative Punchbowl

On Rush Limbaugh's role in the decline of American conservatism, as recounted by Andrew Ferguson for The Weekly Standard, here:

The idea that conservatives should have a special interest in high culture​—​the best that has been thought and said, sung and played, carved and drawn​—​has been selectively applied. In speeches and in the [Mars Hill Audio] Journal [Ken] Myers has often raised the question of why political conservatives, who defended the literary canon, the Great Books, with such energy in the eighties and nineties, went limp when it came to defending other traditional forms of cultural expression.

A watershed may have been reached when Rush Limbaugh, who would replace William Buckley as conservatism’s chief publicist in the early ’90s, chose as his show’s theme music a Top 40 track by the Pretenders​—​a self-conscious contrast, Limbaugh has said, to the baroque trumpet concerto that opened Buckley’s TV show Firing Line. Buckley’s fanfare had signaled that he aspired to something lively but elevated, slightly at an angle to the surrounding popular culture. The Pretenders’ guitar riff was meant to signal that Limbaugh’s conservatism would have none of that stuffy stuff: He was fully at home with what had become of American culture and wasn’t terribly curious about what had come before.

Which is why Rush Limbaugh isn't much interested, either, for example, in the original principle of direct taxation in the constitution. American history doesn't exist for Rush before 1913, which is why Donald Trump, who believes in tariffs on China, doesn't qualify as a conservative. Rush only learned the bad stuff from Buckley . . . like how to excommunicate people from the movement. "Stripped-down" isn't just for punkers.

Is FINRA Bent On Driving Out The Little Broker?

Inquiring minds will wonder, after reading this:

Since 2007, there are 12.5 percent fewer brokerage firms, 5 percent fewer branch offices and 6 percent fewer registered representatives in the financial services industry.

According to Treece’s data, there has been a 26 percent increase in the number of disciplinary actions taken against member firms, a 31 percent increase in the number of firms expelled from the industry and a 65 percent increase in the number of individuals expelled. After three hours, the Finra brass apologized to Treece.

China Commits $350 Million To Develop Thorium Power

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has the story here, and tells you better than I can why you should care. What's old may become new again.

Global Warming To Blame For Hurricane Sandy, Now Record Low Temps In China

Amazing, but true. Coastal waters freeze, trapping ships!

Story here.

Obama Finally Cracks The 51% Barrier

It only took two months of diligent counting, but Obama has finally garnered 51.03% of the popular vote in Election 2012, entitling him to a tax increase on the 0.31% of Americans at the top of the income ladder, or so he says.

Mitt Romney got 47%, but not the now proverbial 47%, who are about to find out that tax increases on the rich amounting to $60 billion a year divided by 148 million Americans comes to a handout of just 405 bucks each. Don't spend it all in one place.

And the libertarians, fittingly, got the 0.99%, the actual support of Occupy Wall Street which, like all crackpots, claimed to represent nearly everybody in the 99% while crapping on your front stoop, which free expression libertarians are all for.

Data here.

The Most Important Thing You Need To Know About The Middle Class

Rich people need it for cover.

Here We Go Again: The Wall Street Journal's Lies About The Middle Class

No matter how much and how long they repeat it, it still isn't true: $250K isn't "upper middle class".

Like their opponents on the left, maybe because as libertarians they are genetically related to the left, The Wall Street Journal likes to assert false premises buried in subordinate clauses of paragraphs addressing a different topic, hoping to gain your assent through rhetorical slight of hand. It's an effective technique used by leftists everywhere to ideologize people, which is to create beliefs which are not supported by facts.

Here they are this morning, squealing like all the other rich libertarian pigs at RealClearMarkets about the raw deal they just got in the fiscal cliff compromise:

"Under the new law, some of the steepest tax increases may fall on upper-middle class earners with incomes just above $250,000."

As much as I get tired of challenging this assumption, the stupendous lie that it is awakens in me just enough disgust to get the old corpuscles going in the morning.

If you make $250,000/year, you are in the top 0.67742% of wage earners in this country, ok? You wouldn't know middle class if it hit you in the ass with a sack of potatoes. You can complain all you want about how hard it is to live in New York City on that income, but it still doesn't make you middle class. I'm not sure what it makes you, but out of 314 million Americans, there are only 1.025 million like you at the top of the income ladder. Like in the dictionary, you can look it up.

I'm not surprised to read lies in The Wall Street Journal. They actually advocate lying, here, or excuse it with the is is ought argument, here. In 2012 lying seemed to be a peculiar fascination of the editors.

That's the difference between the old America and the new one. The old America still believes lying is wrong, whether to ourselves or to others. The new one wants to be free to lie. In fact, it believes that unless you are free to lie you aren't free.

To hell with that.

"PMS Is The Major Cause Of Water Retention In Women"

So says How Stuff Works, here, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, here:

"Chris Christie does not have a weight problem. He has a water retention problem.”

Does anyone know if the Weeper of the House included funds for that in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill?

GDP Under Bush Was More Than Twice As Good As It Is Under Obama

Americans Have Been Hoarding Spending Money Since October 27th, 2008

That's the last time M1 was at the $1.4 trillion level.

Americans haven't looked back since.

Since that date in 2008, hoarding of spending money has increased at a rate north of 66% overall. Compare that to the previous four year period from October 2004 to October 2008 when money in consumers' spending accounts increased only 8.4%.

Theoretically, in excess of $1 trillion has been removed from consumer spending over the four year period since 2008, but it has been kept in such a way that it is ready to spend, suggesting Americans have been waiting to spend the money, preparing to spend the money, or just plain saving the money in the only accounts they own where they can keep it.

I'll go with the latter.

This is an enormous sum when compared with the actual dollar increase in GDP for the three years from 2009 through Q3 2012 annualized, which is a measly $1.84 trillion. Assuming non-crisis conditions, however, these monies might have been spent instead of saved and GDP would have increased to at least $2.84 trillion instead of $1.84 trillion, or as much as 35% higher than the reality.

Parenthetically, notice the fear represented by the near verticality of allocation to this category during the debt ceiling crisis of Summer 2011, and then the resumption of the trend upward.

Another such episode will be upon us shortly.

Bush Tax Cuts Made Permanent, Obama Tax Cuts Expire, Payroll Tax Rockets 33%

And Rush Limbaugh says Obama won a "massive victory"?

It depends on your point of view, doesn't it? If you have a Republican bias, you think George Bush won, which he obviously did. The permanent adoption of Bush's tax cuts by the opposition is a vindication, which Rush somehow can't bring himself to crow about, let alone even acknowledge. If you have a Democratic bias, you think Obama won.

No wonder a caller just phoned in to tell Rush to stop campaigning for the Democrats. She rightly perceives Rush to be making a political mistake, to which Rush responds he's been the best campaigner against the Democrats for 25 years, but to no avail, by his own admission.

Has Rush Limbaugh been good for America? His own answer is No!

Maybe it's time for Rush to quit! 

Rich Radio Talkers To Make Bazillions Off AMT Fix And Don't Know It!

The New York Times reported the cost to the federal government of the permanent AMT fix over the next decade at $1.8 trillion, here, based on the findings of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Do you know what that means?

If something costs the federal government something, it means it saves someone something, namely, the (mostly) rich taxpayers who pay the damn thing, who now get to bear the blame in the liberal media for increasing the deficit over the next decade because of it. That's a good thing to a conservative, last time I checked (keeping the money, not getting the blame), unless you are a conservative radio talk show host whose stupidity is exceeded only by the size of his paycheck. (Sean Hannity is so stupid he's actually criticizing the fiscal cliff deal because it does just that, increase the deficit. Someone should tell him he's just adopted the liberal argument that tax cuts increase the deficit, not that it would do any good). Teams Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham and Beck really ought to call their CPAs before they continue shooting their mouths off about what a massive victory Obama just achieved on the backs of the rich. The irony here is that while Obama thinks he just won a free Cadillac, it turned out to be a Pontiac from Rent-A-Heap, delivered by Rush, Sean and Glenn. They made Laura drive.

When are you stupid people out there in radio land going to get it? Like this guy does:

"The AMT fix, like the Medicare 'doc fix' was an end of year ritual that couldn’t be resolved permanently.  Why you may ask?  Because any permanent fix would reflect in the CBO’s deficit and debt estimates for the years going forward.  Fixing the AMT for any one year was considered a cost for that particular year, but the CBO would base their estimates by current law, which would have the AMT not being fixed for the next year and every year afterwards.  Fixing the AMT for one year is a cost of 92 billion dollars.  A permanent fix it for the next ten years costs almost a trillion dollars.  From a purely crass, political position, having the costs of a permanent fix to the AMT and Bush income tax cuts accrued under the Obama administration ( two items that Republicans wanted to do but could never find the money for):

Priceless.

However all is not well in conservative talk radio land.  I made it a point to listen to what I think was a fair cross section of conservative radio for their take on all things fiscal cliffdom, and I must say, it was a muddled mess of incoherence."

Nov. Unemployment Revised UP To 7.8%, Dec. At 7.8%

One revision to reported unemployment for 2012 went down, from 8.3% to 8.2% (July), and one went up, from 7.7% to 7.8% (November), a wash.

December unemployment comes in at 7.8%.

Read the pdf from the BLS for yourself, here.

The number of people whose primary and secondary jobs are both part-time jobs has increased in the last year, December on December, by 6.4%, from 1.99 million to 2.118 million (Table A-16).

The total not in the labor force has increased 2.56% in the last year, adding 2.233 million for a total of 89.445 million Americans not in the labor force.

Why Isn't There A Single Conservative Radio Talker Happy About The Fiscal Deal?

Why isn't there a single conservative radio talker happy about the fiscal deal? Not a one is glad that Bush's lower tax rates have been made permanent for the vast majority of the American people.  I thought the Bush tax rates were every Republican's sine qua non, since at least 2003.

I see that the reported salary of Glenn Beck is $20 million/year. Sean Hannity reportedly makes north of $10 million/year on television at Fox, and $20 million/year on the radio. Rush Limbaugh makes way north of $38 million/year if you add in his signing bonus. And Laura Ingraham? Not very credible sources say she makes $15 million/year, but that was before the very recent relaunch of her radio show in 2013 under new, and presumably more attractive financial, circumstances. HuffPo here thinks her TV contract with Fox, filling-in for O'Reilly, is in the neighborhood of $1 million annually.

These four people dominate the talk radio airwaves from 9AM-6PM everyday, and they're all severely critical of the fiscal cliff deal. But there hasn't been a single word of gratitude to today's Republicans for getting the Bush tax rates made permanent for 99.7% of the American people.

The reason, of course, is that the radio talkers haven't the slightest feeling for the American people, the slightest understanding of their day to day experience, having left them long ago for the airy regions of the richest Americans in the top 0.3% income club where they now reside, the lowly victims of a paltry 13% tax increase agreed to by Obama and the Republicans, and they are livid.

Ungrateful wretches.