Cost of Obama's Stimulus Revised (Again), Up $34 Billion to $821 Billion

As reported here.

What if the Declaration of Independence Said . . .

. . . The history of the present president of the united States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. A president whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people?

Crowd Based Confuting

What we are really witnessing in Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio is the reaction of the duly elected representatives of Americans who are finally fed up with the intimidation and militancy of unions first legalized under FDR with the Wagner Act, says Richard Salsman in "Ochlocracy and the Menace of Government Unions" for Forbes here.

Rule by the mob, or the crowd (the "ochlos" in Greek), used to mean you paid way too much for a big American car with tail fins that broke down too often (F.O.R.D. = fix or repair daily). Now it means your property taxes go up and up to pay the salary of a fat Physical Education teacher who routinely gets a substitute to teach his classes while he sits behind a keyboard or schmoozes with the staff as your kid still struggles to tell analog time in the fourth grade:

Government teachers ensure that students (future voters) are illiterate and innumerate, while populist “leaders” appeal not to voters’ reason but to their passions. Sacrificed in an ochlocracy is respect for individual rights, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. Peaceful assembly, petition and persuasion are displaced by the scream, the curse, and the threat.

Don't miss the rest at the link.

Teachers Averaged $272,000 in Salary Under Obama's Stimulus Bill

Stimulus funds preserved 367,524 teacher jobs in 2009-2010, and the amount spent on saving these education-related jobs in the nation's public schools was nearly $100 billion, according to a story in The Baltimore Sun which relies on data from the US Department of Education.

That's about $272,000 for each teacher. Wow. Those must be some kind of wonderful teachers.

That also means taxpayers all across America ended up on the hook for the salaries of about 7,350 teachers per state.

Formerly these teachers were paid directly from local property tax revenues, not borrowed funds, but these revenues have been in dramatic decline due to the crash in the housing market and due to skyrocketing unemployment and home foreclosures.

It is highly unlikely that more stimulus funds are on the way, and it is highly unlikely that property tax revenues will be raised easily in this economy, so isn't it time for the teachers in Wisconsin to pack it in already and quit the illegal strike?

They should be thankful just to have a job.

Wisconsin Teachers Haven't Earned Their Very Generous Pay and Benefits

As the regime itself admits:

In 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin public school eighth graders scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. In 2009, Wisconsin public school eighth graders once again scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. Meanwhile, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to 10,791 per pupil in 2008. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator the $4,956 Wisconsin spent per pupil in 1998 dollars equaled $6,546 in 2008 dollars. That means that from 1998 to 2008, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil spending by $4,245 in real terms yet did not add a single point to the reading scores of their eighth graders and still could lift only one-third of their eighth graders to at least a “proficient” level in reading. ...


Nationwide, only 30 percent of public school eighth graders earned a rating of “proficient” or better in reading, and the average reading score on the NAEP test was 262 out of 500.

More here.

Democrats in Wisconsin and Now Indiana Agree

The story is here.

HOPE: THE LAST REFUGE OF THE MISERABLE

The miserable have no other medicine,

But only Hope:

I've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die.

     -- Claudio, William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene I

This is the Way Banks Go 'Round the QE Mulberry Bush

James Hamilton for Fortune here provides an excellent explanation and illustration of how the Federal Reserve "printed" money with which to buy assets from troubled banks, who in turn have kept the "cash" on deposit with the Fed, earning interest, in an effort to re-structure their balance sheets.

Here is an excerpt:

But if the Fed didn't print any money as part of QE2 and earlier asset purchases, how did it pay for the stuff it bought? The answer is that the Fed simply credited the accounts that banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold with the Fed. These electronic credits, or reserve balances, are what has exploded since 2008. The blue area in the graph below is the total currency in circulation, whose growth we have just seen has been pretty modest. The maroon area represents reserves.

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from the Fed, this operation is not designed to stimulate job growth or boost stock prices. It is designed to do one thing and one thing only: rescue the banks.

And don't even think about maintaining a strong dollar.

When that maroon area returns to an imperceptible sliver, if it ever does, you'll know things are back to "normal." Unlike George Bailey who had two dollars left from his two thousand dollar honeymoon stash at the end of that day when there was a run on his bank, the Federal Reserve can theoretically keep on  running this shell game indefinitely. But the consequences for the value of the dollar will be, and are, grave indeed, which makes Mr. Bernanke's warnings to Congress to get its spending under control almost amusing.


Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you 
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must 
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! 
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! 
Will't not off?


-- Lucio, in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, V, 1

What Do These American Presidents Have in Common?

U.S. Grant

W.H. Taft

T. Roosevelt

D.D. Eisenhower

J.F. Kennedy

R.M. Nixon

R.W. Reagan

G.H.W. Bush

NRA members all. 

Just a little reminder that America specializes in marksmen, not Marxmen.

Undercover Agent Repeatedly Gets a Handgun Through Scanners

And the screeners missed it on the images.

So all that money for the machines and the personel, and all the inconvenience and humiliation for the public simply boils down to security theater after all?

The story is here.

Michelle Obama Milks It: Jets to Vail with the Girls for some Skiing

Keith Koffler has the story here:

Mrs. Obama has decided to jet out to Vail – instead of visiting slopes closer to Washington DC in Virginia or Pennsylvania – despite already incurring criticism for taking opulent excursions, particularly a trip last summer to Spain. There, she stayed at the country’s swankest [sic] hotel and, like this weekend, was traveling without her husband.

Rooms at her hotel start at $605 a night, and top out in excess of $2,000 a night.

The Marks of a Tyranny According to Aristotle

1.   The object of government in a tyranny is the good of one man only.
2.   The guards of a tyrant are foreigners.
3.   Tyrants arise from the want of a middle class.
4.   Tyrants gain the confidence of the people through hatred of the rich.
5.   Tyrants deprive the people of the use of arms.
6.   Women and slaves do not conspire against tyrants but instead abet them.
7.   The haughtiness of women has been the ruin of many tyrants.
8.   Tyrannies keep the warriors busy with wars.
9.   Tyrannies guard against the rise of high spirits and mutual confidence.
10. Tyrannies quarrel with the nobles.
11. Tyrannies affect to appear to protect the people.
12. Tyrannies extend poverty through public works.
13. Tyrannies oppress the people through poverty.
14. Tyrannies desire to know everything the people say and do.
15. Tyrannies multiply taxes.

You Know, Johnny, It's Not How You Feel, It's How You Rook, and You Rook . . .

Um . . .

Pat McIlheran Reminds Us Wisconsin's Governor Walker is Actually to the Left of FDR, and the Last Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee

From one of America's best columnists writing today:

Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee's mayor in the 1950s and the last card-carrying Socialist to head a major U.S. city, supported labor. But in 1969, the progressive icon wrote that rise of unions in government work put a competing power in charge of public business next to elected officials. Government unions "can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates," he warned.

There was "a revolutionary principle rather quietly at work in American government," he wrote.

The principle was working at about 100 decibels in Wisconsin's Capitol last week, once the union drum-beaters got going. What worked them up was the money they'd concede, they said, but even more that Walker would make their unions surrender the control they'd gained over every government budget.

There is much more at this link.

Madison Protests by Unions and Democrats are a Disgrace

So says Larry Kudlow:

The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget cuts.

That's not democracy.

The teachers' union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.

The teachers' union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers' union.

Read the rest here, at Real Clear Markets. 

Hello Wisconsin!

Wisconsin's Governor Walker Tells Obama To Balance His Own Damn Budget

Quoted here:

"We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing."

Obama couldn't write a balanced budget to save his own life.

Wisconsin Democrats and Unions Try to Shut Down Democracy

The 14 Democrat state senators in Wisconsin have fled the state to prevent a vote on a bill limiting collective bargaining, a bill which has the support of a Republican majority which was recently elected to power last November. For the Democrats' dereliction of duty, they should be impeached and thrown out of office.

Public sector union members meanwhile have conducted what amounts to an illegal strike with 40 percent of teachers in Madison calling in sick. The authorities should scan all the video to identify the sick teachers marching in the streets, and fire them immediately.

The taxpayers of Wisconsin, like taxpayers all across America, are sick and tired of a government monopoly extorting exorbitant wages and benefits which private sector workers can only dream about in this difficult economy.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent opinion piece which lays out many interesting facts which puts this episode into the broader historical context, including this:

The larger reality is that collective bargaining for government workers is not a God-given or constitutional right. It is the result of the growing union dominance inside the Democratic Party during the middle of the last century. John Kennedy only granted it to federal workers in 1962 and Jerry Brown to California workers in 1978. Other states, including Indiana and Missouri, have taken away collective bargaining rights for public employees in recent years, and some 24 states have either limited it or banned it outright.

The times they are a changin', but some people in Wisconsin still haven't gotten the memo.

You may read the entire opinion at this link.

Union Tactics in Wisconsin: Illegal Strikes and Physical Intimidation

The inimitable Pat McIlheran for The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tells it like it is:

The [Wisconsin] public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.

They'll have it if takes marches. They'll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker's Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.

This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions' power over government spending.

The governor should fire their sorry asses.

Read the rest here.

The Answer: For The Same Reason Government Isn't in Jail

The Question: "Why isn't Wall Street in Jail?", asked here by Matt Taibbi, one more time.

It's hard to make Americans hate DC, lower Manhattan and the banksters as much as the terrorists do, but he keeps trying.