Sean Hannity's Libertarianism Is Stupid

The radio ad for Sean Hannity's program runs incessantly, featuring him saying, "Society doesn't need to put its seal of approval on the choices people make."

This in reference to same sex marriage.

He obviously doesn't appreciate how the government already puts its seal of approval on people's choices, and has done so for a very long time.

The most obvious social example is marriage itself, which receives a healthy tax preference in the form of the tax code's filing status "married filing jointly" . . . since the end of the Second World War! This isn't just a seal of approval. It's actually a financial encouragement to marry.

Or consider the child tax credit, which you aren't going to get without having children. With it, the government encourages the having of children.

Or the earned income credit, which you don't get unless you have some earned income. It's government's way of encouraging people who don't work at all to get a job and get work experience, on the assumption that they will move up the ladder eventually to positions which pay too much to receive the credit.

All of these things the government encourages to promote social stability in the form of nuclear families, home ownership, work, and population growth, all of which are essential to . . . tax revenue.

Giving same sex partners the same rewards as heterosexual unions ignores the fact that the former are naturally incapable of growing the population. Government has no interest in promoting the ineffectual.

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

-- John Locke

New Evidence Proves Obama Was Member Of Socialist Third Party In 1996

And lied about it in 2008 to get elected president.

So claims Stanley Kurtz for National Review:

Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office.

Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows:

Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.

Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

Knowing that Obama disguised his New Party membership helps make sense of his questionable handling of the 2008 controversy over his ties to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). During his third debate with John McCain, Obama said that the “only” involvement he’d had with ACORN was to represent the group in a lawsuit seeking to compel Illinois to implement the National Voter Registration Act, or motor-voter law. The records of Illinois ACORN and its associated union clearly contradict that assertion, as I show in my political biography of the president, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

Why did Obama deny his ties to ACORN? The group was notorious in 2008 for thug tactics, fraudulent voter registrations, and its role in popularizing risky subprime lending. Admitting that he had helped to fund ACORN’s voter-registration efforts and train some of their organizers would doubtless have been an embarrassment but not likely a crippling blow to his campaign. So why not simply confess the tie and make light of it? The problem for Obama was ACORN’s political arm, the New Party.

The revelation in 2008 that Obama had joined an ACORN-controlled, leftist third party could have been damaging indeed, and coming clean about his broader work with ACORN might easily have exposed these New Party ties. Because the work of ACORN and the New Party often intersected with Obama’s other alliances, honesty about his ties to either could have laid bare the entire network of his leftist political partnerships.

Although Obama is ultimately responsible for deceiving the American people in 2008 about his political background, he got help from his old associates.

Read the whole story here.

Sweden's Economic Miracle Partly Due To Cutting Spending By 20 Percent Of GDP

So says Anders Aslund for Bloomberg.com:

Not so long ago, Sweden could claim world leadership in unmitigated Keynesian economics, with a 90 percent marginal tax rate and a welfare state second to none.

Now Swedes look at the conflict between the U.S. and German examples over whether more spending or more austerity is the key to financial salvation, and for them the choice is easy: Germany was right. Northern Europe harbors no sympathy for the spendthrifts of Southern Europe.

Americans still think of Sweden as a tightly regulated social-welfare state, but in the last two decades the country has been reformed. Public spending has fallen by no less than one-fifth of gross domestic product, taxes have dropped and markets have opened up.

The situation is similar in the other Scandinavian countries, the Baltic nations and Poland. But no turnabout has been as dramatic as Sweden’s.

Read the rest, here.

"The Banking System Is Incompatible With Public Safety And Prosperity"

So wrote Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, in 1819.

Read why here.

NAACP's Endorsement Of SS Marriage Causes Leader From Iowa To Resign

Yah man! Hallelujah!

Story here.

EU's Equivalents Of US FDIC Can't Cover Even 1 Percent Of Eligible Deposits In Bank Failure

According to a March 2011 policy brief from the European Credit Research Institute, here:

The [European] Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) collected data from all DGS [Deposit Guarantee Schemes] in the EU to examine the ability to handle payouts (JRC, 2008). It revealed that the coverage ratio in most countries is not even sufficient to protect 1% of eligible deposits . . ..

. . . [T]he JRC carried out a ‘stress-testing’ exercise, which confirmed the weaknesses of EU DGS to handle payouts. Three different scenarios were tested, taking into account the availability of funding (ex ante, ex post and borrowing of funds):

•Small-impact scenario: €100 million average financial burden

•Medium-impact scenario: €2.18 billion average financial burden

•High-impact scenarios: €8.69 billion average financial burden

Results showed that all EU DGS could cover a small-impact bank failure. A medium-sized failure could be borne by seven EU countries with the highest coverage ratios using only ex ante funds. Six member states would not be able to reimburse depositor claims in the medium-impact case, even if they used all available funding, including ex post funds and additional borrowing. No member state was well-equipped to cope with a large failure using only ex ante funds.

To date in the current crisis, the US FDIC has paid out in excess of $88 billion. It appears the EU equivalents can't pay out even 10 billion euros. All guarantee schemes are individual member country responsibility.

The UK Guardian Savages Obama As An Authoritarian and Killer

Here:

[T]he three major policies of the Bush war on terror – rendition, military commissions and indefinite detention – continue to this day. But Mr Obama has also presided over a massive expansion of secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency. There is a ferocious crackdown on whistleblowers. He has made more government documents classified than any previous president. And he has become a true believer in drones. ...

[T]his administration is highlighting the fact that its president is a killer. In this new age of secrecy, three dozen current and former advisers are allowed to talk to the New York Times about the president's role of personally overseeing the shadow war with al-Qaida. Mr Obama has not been shy about the role he personally played in Osama bin Laden's death. His counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan makes speeches defending drone strikes as legal, ethical and wise. This administration is not on the defensive about its summary executions. It positively seeks to advertise them.

Wisconsin's Walker Ahead By 9 Points After 85 Percent Counted, CNBC Calls Victory Narrow

Maybe Sarah Jessica Parker Supports Marrying Anyone You Want For A Reason?

. . . here at SarahJessicaParkerLooksLikeAHorse.com.

Does she look more like her Mom, or her Dad?

Spikes In European Irrational Stock Market Exuberance Visualized From The Mid-1990s

Total Consumer Debt Has Barely Budged Since Late 2010

Americans continue deep in debt at $11.44 trillion in Q1 2012, which is $.04 trillion higher than in late 2010, according to this and the latest chart from the New York Federal Reserve:

As of December 31, 2010, total consumer indebtedness was $11.4 trillion, a reduction of $1.08 trillion (8.6%) from its peak level at the close of 2008Q3, and $155 billion (1.3%) below its September 30, 2010 level.

What's The Difference Between A Light Bulb And A Rear End?

You can unscrew a lightbulb.

The Queers Are Only 2 Percent Of The Population

Not 10 percent, and certainly not 25 percent of the population.

They just make up for their small numbers by being loud and by otherwise acting like pricks.

Story at The Atlantic, here.

AP Obama and CNBC.com Team Up To Poo-Poo All That "Obama Is A Socialist" Stuff

What else would you expect from the ideological nexus of media and academia?

Honesty?

These people can't even acknowledge we've experienced a minor economic depression let alone the utter failure of the predictions of their analysts and economists. Instead of failed 5 year plans as in the former Soviet Union we are treated to weekly, monthly and quarterly misses of an astounding variety so routine no one bothers to remark them any more except the gluttons for punishment in the blogosphere.

Remember the green shoots of recovery gibberish that went on and on for months after the so-called recession ended? Or the jobs created or saved nonsense? Or the bottom in housing? Before all that it was how bad was Bush's economy, an economy which Obama now only wishes he had so he could boast about it, which is why he must continue to denigrate it four years removed.

The regulation of American business by government is so massive it is a joke to call this a capitalist economy. Designed to pick the winners and the losers, the revolving door between the two carries a veritable freeway of crony traffic a 1930s fascist would envy.

It's almost pathetic the article spends most of its time quibbling about definitions from the left when Obama's is a socialism of the right.

The whole point is to obscure this fact.

Socialism is a wonderland, Alice, where words mean whatever they say they mean.     

Part Time For Economic Reasons Up Almost 400,000 During March and April

Data and graph here.

The all-time high in this metric was reached on 9-1-10 when 9.25 million were part-time for economic reasons.

The most current reading puts 7.98 million part-time.

It was in late 2008 when the measure reached above 7 million for the first time, and the lowest below 8 million we've fallen since 2009 was in March 2012 when 7.58 million were part-time.

Long Term Investors In Japan Down Over 15 Percent . . . Since 1984!

Housing Prices Need Not Increase, Just Remain Stable, For Economic Recovery

So says Harvard's Edward Glaeser for Bloomberg.com here:

The 1990s offer us one upbeat message. Housing prices stayed static for six long years after 1991, and in real terms, housing prices were no higher in 1998 than they were in 1991. Yet real GDP grew an impressive 28 percent between 1991 and 1998. It’s a myth that the housing market must recover before the larger economy can surge.

Not quite.

The average Case Shiller Home Price Index for 1991 was 125.55, and was 125.10 for 1998, but the chart for the period was flat to slightly declining, until the provisions of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 helped begin the housing bubble. Prices reached a nadir for the period in 1996 at 117.64, a decline of over 5 percent from 1991.

Crude Is Down Nearly 25 Percent In 3 Months, Gasoline Is Falling

On February 25th I reported that gasoline prices had spiked in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from $3.13 to $3.48 in about one week's time, an 11 percent jump.

On June 1 I filled at $3.55 the gallon. Today the cheapest price is already $3.38 the gallon, a 5 percent fall.

The top price I paid this season was $3.89 the gallon, so we've fallen only 13 percent overall . . . so far.

Obama Blames High US Unemployment On . . . Europe!

Betcha thought he blamed Bush again, right?

The story is here:

Obama, speaking at a Chicago fundraiser on June 1 as he bids for re-election in November, said that a report showing the slowest month of U.S. employment growth in a year was in large part “attributable to Europe and the cloud that’s coming over from the Atlantic.” The “whole world economy has been weakened by it,” he said.

With this guy the buck always stops somewhere else.

Vehicles Sales At 14.4 Million Units Annualized Through March 2012

The chart is here and the data here.

Total auto loans outstanding in Q1 2012 came to approximately $686 billion, or 6 percent of the $11.44 trillion total household debt, according to the May 2012 report of The New York Federal Reserve.