Occupy Wall Street Protesters in Madison Really Are Jerk-Offs

You always knew they were a bunch of wankers:

A neighboring hotel's staff alleged voiced concerns about having to recently escort hotel employees to and from bus stops late at night due to inappropriate behavior, such as public masturbation, from street protesters.

Reported here.

The Republican Establishment Has Taken the Tea Party to the Cleaners

So said Lawrence Hunter, here, of the debt-ceiling fiasco:

[T]he problem with the direction the country is headed is the Republican Establishment, which has made a long career out of snookering and hoodwinking conservatives into believing the Republican Party is the party of small government, low taxes, freedom and prosperity at home, and peace abroad.  Republicans are, in fact, the very opposite.  To paraphrase Pogo, “We Republicans have met the enemy and he is us.”

Republicans are the stern, conservative side of the Janus Faced welfare state at home and empire abroad.  The GOP is Twiddle Dum to the Democratic Twiddle Dee.  And dear Tea Partiers, they just took you to the cleaners the same way they have been taking the American people to the cleaners since FDR rolled around the Oval Office. Welcome to the Nation’s Capital. ...

Until the Republican Establishment is replaced to a man (there are no women) with serious people devoted to restoring America, rather than just getting themselves re-elected time and again, no progress will be made toward winning this epic struggle for freedom, peace and prosperity.


Compare Rush Limbaugh here on October 13th, who keeps maintaining that the Tea Party must take over the Republican Party, but who on issues running the gamut from bank bailouts to taxes and tariffs to George W. Bush to spending to free trade adopts the alloyed rhetoric of the very establishment he decries:

The Tea Party is under assault from the Democrats and the Republican elite, and now the battle has been brought full fore in the pages of the New York Times Magazine.

There's some quotes from various people in this story.  Bill Kristol on the Tea Party:  "It's an infantile form of conservatism."  Scott Reed, veteran strategist and lobbyist:  "I think it's waning now," talking to the reporter of the story about the Tea Party's influence.  "Party leaders have managed to bleed some of the anti-establishment intensity out of the movement, Reed said, by slyly embracing Tea Party sympathizers in Congress, rather than treating them as 'those people.' Did he mean to say that the party was slowly co-opting the Tea Partiers? 'Trying to,' Reed said. 'And that’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them.'"  This is a Republican consultant talking about how to neutralize the Tea Party.

John Feehery, a lobbyist who was once a senior House aide I think to Denny Hastert, is also quoted.  "The thing I get a kick out of is these Tea Party people calling me a RINO. No, guys, I've been a Republican all along. You go off on your own little world and then come back and say it's your party. Well, this ain't your party."


Rush should spend more time reading Forbes and less time The New York Times.

The Constitution Was in a Shambles Long Before Obama Came on the Scene

So says Lawrence Hunter here, who thinks the expedient of a Bill of Rights was only a parchment barrier to begin with:

The Founders gave us The War Power Clause of the Constitution vesting the exclusive power to declare war with Congress. Politicians replaced it with The War Powers Resolution and presidential wars of whim.

The Founders gave us myriad constitutional restrictions on the powers of the federal government both explicit and implicit. Politicians and judges replaced them with a series of court rulings, on the Commerce Clause for example, so sweeping in their expansion of the federal government’s regulatory powers beyond the Constitution’s writ that, in the words of Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, “The Commerce Clause has proven voracious enough to swallow the rest of the Constitution. Any scraps left over will be devoured by the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.”

The Founders gave us habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment, protecting against arbitrary arrest and guaranteeing that people would be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Politicians replaced them with The Patriot Act and the Homeland Police State, preventative detention, rendition, unauthorized wiretaps, secret searches and seizures and TSA.

The Founders gave us the Fifth Amendment, guaranteeing the people protection against over-reaching police and prosecutors, forced self-incrimination and double jeopardy, and against laws that would confiscate private property without due process and just compensation. Courts and Politicians gave us a series of rulings and legislation allowing the police, prosecutors and judges to act arbitrarily in the name of the general welfare, public safety and national security without regard to the cherished Rights of Englishmen that were passed down to us through the United States Constitution.

The Founders gave us the Eighth Amendment protecting the people against the imposition of excessive fines and infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. PB&J gave us RICO, prosecutorial charge stacking, extortionate plea bargaining, lawless and pathological judicial/prosecutorial misconduct, GITMO and water boarding.

Vote For Cain To Prove You're Not Stupid

(available here)

Cain v. Unable 2012

Beat Obama With a Cain!

Herman Cain for President: A Pizza in Every Oven

(as seen here)

'Only We Can Call Each Other Cracker'

(as seen here)

I'm Nominating This One For Blown Prediction of 2011

As seen here:

Retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners expects that American consumers have worked to put their finances in order and are ready to spend. Their forecast calls for holiday sales in the November to December period to rise 6.5 percent from last year to $554 billion.

That's twice consensus forecasts, which have put holiday sales growth between 2.5 percent to 3 percent. It also is the fastest pace for retail sales growth since 2004, when holiday sales rose 6.9 percent.

Why is this a crazy prediction? Because Whirlpool announced today that it is laying off 5,000 as consumers are unable to buy major appliances.

And because of this, reported here in the same place, also today:

The total compensation paid by employers in the third quarter rose by the smallest amount since at least 1982 as employees paid for a greater portion of their health care and companies continued to sit on their record hoards of cash. ...

Meanwhile, the savings rate plummeted to 3.6 percent, the lowest in four years, according to separate data released Friday from the Commerce Department. That’s down from 5.3 percent in June.

“Spending more when you’re taking home less and cutting into savings — That’s not the best recipe for stronger spending in the near term," Jonathan Basile, an economist for Credit Suisse, wrote in a note to clients.

Consumers remain under stress just to pay the bills, and are reducing savings to cope. That is not a recipe for a smashing holiday spending season.

The Federal Reserve is Deliberately Robbing Widows, Orphans and Retired People

So says Robert Higgs, here:

Given that the Fed’s official policy is to drive all interest rates to near zero, one may conclude that the Fed seeks to impoverish the widows, orphans, retired people, and all other financially untutored people who rely on interest earnings to support themselves in their old age or adversity. Can a crueller official policy be imagined, short of grinding up these unfortunate souls to make pet food or fertilizer?

The politicians constantly bark about their solicitude for those who are helpless and in difficulty through no fault of their own. Yet, the scores of millions of people who saved money to support themselves in old age now find themselves progressively robbed by the very officials who purport to be their protectors.

Marines Embrace Occupy Wall Street, Threaten Tipping Point.

Because one of their own got injured, not on substantive grounds.

Story here:

So I ask all of you, can you too sense the tipping point? When will enough be enough? If not now, when? I feel the problem is that the average Joe citizen is ignorant and comfortable. These, in addition to selfishness have become the standard for the majority of the population. As long as people are comfortable they remain silent. Well, I’m really . . . uncomfortable and I’m sick of seeing this . . . happening. The Occupy protests that are going on are our first glimmer of hope.

Probably never heard of the Tea Party, or Oathkeepers, or the November 2010 elections.

Jarheads. Hard on the outside, empty on the inside.

Federal Revenues Came From Tariffs and Land Sales in First Half of 1800s, From Tariffs and Excises in Second Half

A largely forgotten fact when discussing the history and meaning of US tax policy.

Gary M. Anderson and Dolores T. Martin examined the role of land sales in considerable detail in 1987 here.

I provide a few excerpts:

[F]rom 1800 until the beginning of the Civil War, proceeds from the sale of public lands constituted a major source of revenue for the federal government, accounting for 48 percent of net receipts in 1836. ...

After 1820, receipts from land sales became a major component of federal revenues. During 1836, for example, receipts from land sales exceeded 48 percent of total federal revenues. From 1820 to 1860, receipts from land sales averaged 10.8 percent of total federal receipts per annum.

From the program’s beginnings in 1796 until 1862, privatization of the public lands via sales to the private sector scored several major successes. By 1862, acreage equaling about 67 percent of the public domain in 1802 had been sold, and land sale receipts provided a significant, although fluctuating, fraction of total federal revenues. ...

Before the Civil War, proceeds from land sales and tariff revenues were the two major components in federal receipts. The proceeds from these different sources were highly substitutable; one dollar of revenue from land sales could replace one dollar from a tariff and vice versa. There is strong evidence to suggest that this substitutability may have been a significant factor in the demise of the system of revenue-maximizing land sales.

Of course the rise in reliance on excises from 1862 onwards could also explain why reliance on land sales declined to almost nothing by century's end, quite apart from the so-called rent-seeking aspects of tariff politics which the authors explore. But they seem not to notice the role of excises.

Excises on alcohol and tobacco ramp up dramatically to $100 million to $150 million per year from 1862, from next to nothing beforehand, while tariffs move up and down around a trendline of $200 million in revenues per year starting also at the same time, having been in the $50 million and below range per year for most of the century prior to the War Between the States.

The importance of alcohol, and tobacco, in the social and economic history of America should not be underestimated, as Daniel Okrent's important recent book on Prohibition has reminded us.

Gotta go. Time to light up and have a drink!

Elizabeth Warren is Going After the 'Hick Vote' in Massachusetts

I'll bet you're surprised they had any hicks in Massachusetts. I know I am.

She's gonna have to let her hair down and get a tat, though. And maybe a Harley to chase Scott Brown around in his pickemuptruck.

The story is in The Boston Herald, here.

Cain's 999 Plan Would Produce Faster Economic Growth Than Perry or Romney

So says Louis Woodhill for Forbes, here:

Comparing the Republican candidates’ tax plans as written, Cain’s “9-9-9” proposal is the best, because its 9% (effective) corporate income tax rate would produce faster economic growth than Perry’s 20% rate or Romney’s 25% levy.  Cain’s plan has a number of problems, but these could be fixed if he were to give up on the notion that it should be “revenue neutral”.

Given that Cain has the best plan for economic growth, it is not surprising that the latest polls show him leading the Republican pack.

This having been said, Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is not as good as the FairTax, which Cain himself says is his ultimate goal.  The FairTax , which taxes only consumption spending, would yield the fastest economic growth of any tax system.  The FairTax plan has also had the benefit of years of analysis and refinement to minimize the distributional inequities that would attend any kind of fundamental tax reform.

Mr. Cain should start emphasizing that economic growth is much more important than revenue neutrality, and he should promise to refine his plan so that no income group ends up having to pay much more than they would under the current system.  If he does so, he, like fundamental tax reform, will be unstoppable.

Cain's 999 Plan Beats Perry's Flat Tax

So says Diana Furchtgott-Roth here:

The Cain plan gets rid of payroll taxes, about $15,000 on an income of $100,000, whereas the Perry plan does not. So under the Perry plan, our hypothetical family would pay $25,000, compared with $14,970 under the Cain plan. That's an extra $10,000.

If Cain could get rid of the payroll tax as well as keep tax rates to 9 percent, many taxpayers would gain substantially. But he has not said how he will replace the payroll tax revenues or transition to private accounts.

The S&P500 Still Has A Date With 950

So says James Kostohryz, here:

Europe will be back to square one and descend toward a terminal crisis – ostensibly the same crisis -- within a matter of weeks or months. Global equity markets will collapse, and the S and P 500 will test and possibly penetrate recent lows of around 1,075 on the way to a date with 950-1,020.

Americans Today Pay An Average Gasoline Consumption Tax of 10.2 Percent to States

The current average state excise and tax per gallon of gasoline is 30.4 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute, here.

The federal excise is 18.4 cents.

Today's national average price per gallon is $3.464, as shown here.

This means that today's national average base price per gallon is $2.976 per gallon.

That yields an average state excise of 10.2 percent at today's base price, and an average federal excise of 6.2 percent. 

GDP, Q3 2011 First Report, at 2.5 Percent; Personal Savings Drop Big

See the full pdf at the Bureau of Economic Statistics, here.

Personal savings fell a full percentage point, or $116 billion, while personal disposable income went up $17 billion, matching exactly the increase in personal outlays of $133 billion.

Get it? People are saving less and spending any increases just to get by because of . . . increasing prices.

A falling savings rate, now at 4.1 percent, is woefully inadequate. A person saving at that rate making $50,000 per year would need over 12 years to save just 6 months' expenses.

"Bear market rallies tend to end on good news."

"What more good news is coming?"

-- Mish, here

German Leftist Gregor Gysi Savages The Two-Faced Angela Merkel

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard had the quotations, here:

Die Linke ('Left') leader Gregor Gysi was electrifying. "It is the arrogance of power," he began, and never let go.

"Every week you come up with a different story about this crisis."

"We were told there would be no leverage and you have reversed everything in a matter of weeks. Now we learn that the 20pc loss will fall entirely on taxpayers. They alone will pay. That is the decision you are taking."

"Why don’t you tell German taxpayers the truth? They are being asked to pay the losses for French banks."

Those domestick traitors, bosom-thieves,

Whom custom hath call'd wives;

the readiest helps

To betray the heady husbands,

rob the easy.

-- Ben Jonson