It isn’t easy being Liberal

indyfromaz

Al Gore will have a school devoted to the Environment (aka Global Warming Indoctrination)  name after him.
It’s built on a former Toxic Waste dump site.
I love it!
**************************************************************

“In this year of economic uncertainty and critical mid-term elections, the corporate-owned media will not be offering lessons about: our rigged political system; the conservative crusade against Muslims; the phony ‘panic’ over debt; vets abandoned by the VA; taxes and the Tea Party and much, much more,”

The Progressive Left’s magazine The Nation. They want to bring more liberal “education” to the classroom.

More?

Really?

Gee, I guess total domination is the goal then, eh?

********************************************************************

A Gallup survey of registered voters this week had Republicans beating Democrats in a generic ballot by 10 points, 51% to 41%. In the 68-year history of that poll, the GOP had never led by more than five points.

**********************************************************************

ETU ORSZAG!
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated the Obama administration’s opposition to extending tax cuts for America’s highest earners this afternoon, after former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, at left, suggested a two year extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts.
Orszag, who left the Obama administration in July, wrote in an op-ed in today’s New York Times that raising taxes would “crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt.” He suggested the administration extend all the Bush tax cuts for two years before ending them altogether in order to lower the deficit. This includes ending the tax cuts for middle and lower-income people that the Obama administration wants to extend permanently.
In his press briefing this afternoon, Gibbs responded to Orszag’s comments, emphasizing that while the White House is committed to extending tax cuts for middle and low-income Americans, it stands firm in its belief that maintaining similar breaks for the nation’s highest earners is fiscally unsustainable.

“Our viewpoint on this is that we should and must pass legislation that extends the tax cuts for middle-class families,” he said. “But we cannot afford, in this environment to — in our budgetary and fiscal environment to extend the tax cuts for those that make more than $250,000 a year.”
“I don’t think the president believes that we are a $100,000 tax cut from a millionaire away from an economy that works for families that are making $40,000 a year,” Gibbs said.
Wealthy Americans aren’t spending so freely anymore. And the rest of us are feeling the squeeze.
The question is whether the rich will cut back so much as to tip the economy back into recession — or if they will spend at least enough to sustain the recovery.
The answer may not be clear for months. But their cutbacks help explain why the rebound could be stalling. The economy grew at just a 2.4 percent rate in the April-June quarter, the government said Friday, much slower than the 3.7 percent rate for the first quarter.
Economists say overall consumer spending has slowed mainly because the richest 5 percent of Americans — those earning at least $207,000 — are buying less. They account for about 14 percent of total spending. These shoppers have retrenched as their investment values have sunk and home values have languished.
In addition, the most sweeping tax cuts in a generation are due to expire in January, and lawmakers are divided over whether the government can afford to make any of them permanent as the federal budget deficit continues to balloon. President Barack Obama wants to allow the top rates to increase next year for individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000. The wealthy may be keeping some money on the sidelines due to uncertainty over whether or not they will soon face higher taxes.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index has tumbled 9.5 percent since its high-water mark in late April. Home values fell 3.2 percent in the first quarter, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index.
Think of the wealthy as the main engine of the economy: When they buy more, the economy hums. When they cut back, it sputters. The rest of us mainly go along for the ride.
“It isn’t a good omen for the consumer recovery, which cannot exist without the luxury spender,” said Mike Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers.
At the same time, government reports show shoppers as a whole cut back on their spending in both May and June.
Companies have responded by refusing to step up hiring. The housing market is stalling. And Americans are seeing little or no pay raises. It adds up to a recipe for a grinding recovery to slow further.
And it helps explain why economists expect the rebound to lose momentum in the second half of the year. Especially if the rich don’t resume bigger spending.
“They are the bellwether for the economy,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The fact that they turned more cautious is why the recovery is losing momentum. If they panic again, that would be the fodder for a double-dip recession.”
That’s because whether they’re saving or spending, the wealthy deliver an outsize impact on the economy. (CNS)

So the obvious answer is to tax them even more. So we take it away from them.

After all, the greedy bastards deserve it!

Mind you, the 47% of the people who don’t even pay taxes to begin with need a good class ware fare motivation to vote for Democrats.

Firedoglake: “For the thousandth time, tax cuts aren’t very effective, and those applied to rich people suck. When the government gives a tax cut — essentially a gift — to the richest Americans, they spend proportionally less to stimulate Mainstreet’s economy and gamble a lot more on Wall Street’s casinos. Everyone should know this by now. Transferring money from the middle class to the rich impoverishes Mainstreet and enriches Wall Street. So retaining lower taxes for the middle class is as much a democratic equity argument to help redress the egregious distribution of wealth to the richest people as it is an economic stimulus plan.”

***

At least five of the 34 House Democrats who voted against their party’s health care reform bill are highlighting their “no” votes in ads back home. By contrast, party officials in Washington can’t identify a single House member who’s running an ad boasting of a “yes” vote — despite the fact that 219 House Democrats voted in favor of final passage in March.

One Democratic strategist said it would be “political malfeasance” to run such an ad now.

Democrats have taken that advice to heart; it appears that no Democratic incumbent — in the House or in the Senate — has run a pro-reform TV ad since April, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ran one.
Most of the Democrats running ads highlighting their opposition to the law are in conservative-leaning districts and considered the most endangered. They’re using their vote against the overhaul as proof of their willingness to buck party leadership and their commitment to watching the nation’s debt.
Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va.) says in an ad that went up last week that he voted against the law “because it cost too much.”
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) says she voted against “all the bailouts and the trillion dollar health care plan” because “it wasn’t right for South Dakota” or for children anywhere.
And an ad for Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) quotes constituents who say, “I like that Jason Altmire is not afraid to stand up to the president … and Nancy Pelosi.”

As for the members who voted yes? A Democratic strategist familiar with the polling on the issue says the most effective approach — when asked — is to highlight that the law provides consumers with the same health care that members of Congress get.
Another method is to tell voters that the law bans insurance companies from denying coverage once a customer gets sick — a provision that would be undone if Republicans repeal the law, as they have promised to do if given the opportunity.
The Kaiser survey found that likely voters listed health care as the third most important factor in determining how they will vote. It’s behind the economy and “dissatisfaction with government.”
About one-third of voters said support for the health reform law would make it more likely that they’d vote for a candidate. But one-third said it would make it less likely, and another third said it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Those figures haven’t changed much since the law passed. (Politico)

Emphasize that the unpopularity is mostly about the messy process, and that when voters appreciate the benefits, they will come around.

And if that doesn’t work, well, you’re just a racist, a bigot, or just plain stupid!

The Democrat Strategy Part II: Voting

“When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn’t suspect that it’s fake — you should presume that it’s fake, until further evidence becomes available,” columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

So you wonder why the Liberal Media won’t cover or covers up stories like Rev. Wright, The Black Panthers Case, ACORN scandal, etc.
Or at least they won’t cover it like “journalists” actually would.
They are the Ministry of Truth after all.
So now we come to the Vote.
Supposed to be the most sacred act in America.
Unless you want to win by any means necessary that is. The end justifies the means.
So cast yourself back to 2000.
VP Al Gore has won the popular vote but not the Electoral College.
Forget all the crap about “hanging chads” and focus on the Electoral College.
Liberals have been fuming mad about this for 10 years.
Yes, it was the first time in nearly 200 years that this occurred. But it happened to THEM.
The vastly superior Liberal Progressives. That can’t be allowed to stand.
Problem is, it’s in the Constitution.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution specifies how many electors each state is entitled to have and that each state’s legislature decides how its electors are to be chosen. U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College. The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election.
Citizens vote for electors, representing a state, who are the authorized constitutional participants in a presidential election. In early U.S. history, some state laws delegated the choice of electors to the state legislature. Electors are free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.

And here’s where the Liberals want to corrupt the process.
The Electoral College is there to prevent the most populace states for running roughshod over the smaller states. Everyone gets a proportional vote.
But the liberals have been pissed that they lost to George W Bush in 2000 in the Electoral College ever since.
Not for any other reason that pure partisanship.
And now they want to subvert it, for pure partisanship. Along with other tactics to cheat to win.
It’s called euphemistically, The National Popular Vote Bill.
And it has begun in liberal states.
Under the proposed law, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes nationally.
Supporters are waging a state-by-state campaign to try to get such bills enacted. Once states possessing a majority of the electoral votes (or 270 of 538) have enacted the laws, the candidate winning the most votes nationally would be assured a majority of the Electoral College votes, no matter how the other states vote and how their electoral votes are distributed.
Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington have already adopted the legislation, according to the National Popular Vote campaign’s website.
It sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? But that’s just the apple. There is a donkey-shaped snake in this garden.
This effort began innocently enough several years ago when a few law professors were doing what some might say they do best: engaging in mental gymnastics, apparently just for the fun of it. Or maybe as a part of a continuing effort to see who can outdo the other, coming up with imaginative ways to legally do something that was supposed to be illegal. Could they come up with a way to eliminate the Electoral College without actually amending the Constitution?

Remember this isn’t about changing the Constitution. This is about manipulating it.
Keeping the system, but pass laws that gut it and hollow it so it means nothing.
Then you have, Amnesty for 12 million new Democrats.
You have ACORN, busted for voter fraud.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes made a jaw-dropping announcement to attorneys in Justice’s Voting Rights section. She said she would not support any enforcement of a key section of the federal “Motor Voter” law — Section 8, which requires states to periodically purge their voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters and those who have moved out of state.
You have The New Black Panther Voter Intimidation case that the Dept of Justice refuses to handle.
“We’re not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it.”
Access for minorities that is…
Last year, Justice abandoned a case it had pursued for three years against Missouri for failing to clean up its rolls. When filed in 2005, one-third of Missouri counties had more registered voters than voting-age residents. What’s more, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who this year is her party’s candidate for a vacant U.S. Senate seat, contended that her office had no obligation to ensure individual counties were complying with the federal law mandating a cleanup of their voter rolls.
The case made slow but steady progress through the courts for more than three years, amid little or no evidence of progress in cleaning up Missouri’s voter rolls. Despite this, Obama Justice saw fit to dismiss the case in March 2009. Curiously, only a month earlier, Ms. Carnahan had announced her Senate candidacy. Missouri has a long and documented history of voter fraud in Democratic-leaning cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City. Ms. Carnahan may now stand to benefit from voter fraud facilitated by the improperly kept voter rolls that she herself allowed to continue. (WSJ)

So you have a Dept of Justice that will go after Arizona for Illegal immigration enforcement but will ignore voter fraud and voter intimidation.
You have a Justice Department that isn’t interested in the rule of law, but the rule of ideology.
You have the Propaganda of the Liberal Media that has now been absolutely been proven to be manipulating the facts for their own agenda.
The SEIU thugs (who beat up a Tea Party activist last year and got away with it, by the way)
Class Warfare rhetoric.
Race Wars (getting minorities to vote against “crackers”– aka Republicans)
“You’re a Racist” if you disagree.
The DISCLOSE Act that would restrict corporations (aka non-liberals mostly) and favor Union speech again.
And you have hundreds of thousands of  “illegal voters” out there that you refuse to clean off the books (i.e. the deceased, or felons, etc).
Pack the courts with activist Judges and liberal ideologues.
And you have the makings of a banana republic farce where you hold an election just to make it look like it matters but in point of fact you’ve rigged the outcome.
That would work for the progressive liberal superiority complex now wouldn’t it.
It’s “fair”. :)
They win every time. That’s “democratic” :)
Five states have so far endorsed this ill-advised scheme to skirt the Constitution: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington (61 electoral votes). The latest fronts in this battle are Massachusetts (12 electoral votes) and New York (31 electoral votes). The Massachusetts House and New York Senate have both approved the bills, so approval by the Massachusetts Senate and New York Assembly would send the measure to the states’ respective governors. Both states could act at any time. Three other state legislatures have approved NPV, although the bills were vetoed: California, Rhode Island, and Vermont (62 electoral votes). The Rhode Island House later rejected the measure. These latter states remain important because of a lawsuit that could be filed in an attempt to overturn the vetoes.
If each of these states is included, NPV could have as many as 166 electoral votes in favor of its scheme. It needs 270 to essentially eliminate the Electoral College. NPV is close to success, yet because of the manner in which it is seeking change, the vast majority of the country remains completely unaware that the presidential election system is so close to such radical change.

So you secretly line up your forces.
That’s very “democratic” isn’t it :)
The country can’t conduct one coherent national election when there are 51 different sets of state and local election codes in place. Today, the variance among state election laws is irrelevant because each state (plus D.C.) need accomplish nothing more than elect its own slate of electors. In essence, Americans conduct 51 different elections and expect 51 different sets of results. NPV, by contrast, expects to smash these 51 sets of laws into one completely national result. It won’t work. Instead, the resulting chaos will make Florida 2000 look like a picnic. (campaignfreedom.com)

So I guess the federal government would have to come and have “supremacy” in order to have an orderly election process and ensure it was “fair” for all. :)
And it would bring “order” to the “chaos”…
Sssssssssssssssssssssss 

The Political Class

The frustration that voters are expressing in 2010 goes much deeper than specific policies. At a more fundamental level, voters just don’t believe politicians are interested in the opinions of ordinary Americans.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 68% believe the nation’s Political Class doesn’t “care what most Americans think.” Only 15% believe the Political Class is interested in the views of those they are supposed to serve. Another 17% are not sure.
Skepticism about the Political Class interest in voters is found across just about all demographic and partisan groups. However, self-identified liberals are evenly divided on the question.  Eighty-eight percent (88%) of conservatives and 64% of moderates reject the notion that the Political Class cares.
Adults over 40 are more skeptical than younger adults about the Political Class. But even among voters under 30, nearly half (47%) don’t think the Political Class cares what most Americans think. Only 18% of these younger voters think the Political Class does care, while 35% are not sure.(Rasmussen)

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

By Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 – August 2010 issue American Spectator
(Excerpts)

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ “toxic assets” was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s “systemic collapse.” In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets’ nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.
When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term “political class” came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the “ruling class.” And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.
Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several “stimulus” bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind. Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government’s agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about “global warming” for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class’s continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.
Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America’s upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and “bureaucrat” was a dirty word for all. So was “social engineering.” Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday’s upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.
Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the “in” language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.
The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century’s Northerners and Southerners — nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, “prayed to the same God.” By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God “who created and doth sustain us,” our ruling class prays to itself as “saviors of the planet” and improvers of humanity. Our classes’ clash is over “whose country” America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark’s Gospel: “if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

The ruling class had sunk deep roots in America over decades before 2008. Machiavelli compares serious political diseases to the Aetolian fevers — easy to treat early on while they are difficult to discern, but virtually untreatable by the time they become obvious.
Its attitude is key to understanding our bipartisan ruling class. Its first tenet is that “we” are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained.

When Woodrow Wilson in 1914 was asked “can’t you let anything alone?” he answered with, “I let everything alone that you can show me is not itself moving in the wrong direction, but I am not going to let those things alone that I see are going down-hill.”

Sound Familiar? It’s for your own good.  “I”  know better…

March 17,2010: President Barack Obama said he’s confident his health-care plan will pass Congress because it’s “the right thing to do” for the country and that he isn’t concerned about criticism of Democratic legislative tactics.

And anytime this President says he is putting aside politics (for any reason) I want to reach for the barf bag.
As the saying goes, they came to Washington to do good, and stayed to do well.
Confident “knowledge” that “some of us, the ones who matter,” have grasped truths that the common herd cannot, truths that direct us, truths the grasping of which entitles us to discount what the ruled say and to presume what they mean, made our Progressives (the worst form of Liberal Democrats) into a class long before they took power.
Our ruling class’s agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a “machine,” that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels’ wealth. Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges — civic as well as economic — to the party’s clients, directly or indirectly.

Which is why before this blog on chat rooms during the 2006 Congressional and 2008 Presidential campaigns and the Democrats only real thought was to harp on Republican “corruption” I said repeatedly, they just want to replace the republican corruption with their corruption.
Switch out the cronies.
And that’s what we have. You have to be a minority and/or a union worker to get anything from this administration besides the back of their hand.
If you’re rich and successful, you are a demon, unless the government “deems” you useful or wants to take over your business that is.
Like Fannie and Freddie who were excluded from Financial Reform.
The Trial Lawyers were excluded from Health Care Reform.
Both are cronies of the government and the Trial Lawyers are the biggest cronies of Liberals.
As I said last week in a blog, the Liberals love to sue you into submission.

Rasmussen: “The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right or the center. The American people want to govern themselves,” says Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “The American attachment to self-governance runs deep. It is one of our nation’s cherished core values and an important part of our cultural DNA.”

But self-governed people are bad for the government busy bodies and their cronies who want to run your life for you because you’re an idiot and can’t do it for yourself.
They just know deep down, you’re a moron and they have to take care of you.
So Let Them Eat Cake!
Oh, sorry, Cake is politically incorrect because it has so much sugar in it and that’s bad for you.
So let them Eat Cookies.
Nope, not that either, cookies are the spawn of the devil  and lead to bad health habits…
So Let them Eat Tofu!
Without any help it’s flavorless, bland, or not very appetizing.
PERFECT!

Getting in Touch with Your Inner Banana

I will explain the title in due course.  So bear with me. there’s a bit of a set up needed.

Timothy “Tax Cheat” Geithner:  US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told the BBC that the world “cannot depend as much on the US as it did in the past”.
He said that other major economies would have to grow more for the global economy to prosper.
We are now declare The United States Not to be a Super Power and a World Leader, so piss off!
Yes, that’s the demoralizing sound of the White House spreading more malaise.
Welcome to Carter Malaise II: The Intentional Sequel.
In other words, don’t expect the engine that has been the driver for the world economy for over a century to keep up the pace.
This fits with President Obama’s conviction that the U.S. is no more extraordinary than any other country.
We’re nothing special. We are just another country of many. Nothing to see here, move along…
Everyone is equal and no one is better than anyone else.

“I believe we must each start by setting out plans for getting our national finances under control,” New UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was tossed out this week BY HIS OWN LABOR PARTY.
He was replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard, who became the story of the day by becoming Australia’s first woman prime minister.
It was a bad fall for the man dubbed Australia’s Barack Obama.
Like the latter, the youthful Rudd initiated costly health care, home weatherization, entitlement, and global warming pork barrel projects. In the process, he blew out the Australian budget.
When the time came to pay the bill, he effectively committed political suicide by calling for a 40% tax on Aussie mining companies.
Those firms form the backbone of Australia’s dynamic economy, accounting for half of its exports. As Rudd imagined that it was he who kept Australia out of financial crisis, the reality was it was private firms like these that created the value and jobs for Australians.
When news of Rudd’s tax hikes suggested a bid to expropriate companies’ profits, the stock market took a beating.
To pay for his own bloated government programs, Rudd claimed — as his union supporters did — that he only wanted companies to pay their “fair share.” Unions themselves added to the fantasy by claiming these taxes would create jobs. Rudd echoed that, absurdly claiming the tax would be good for the economy.
“It is important to pay emphasis on the independent modeling of Treasury who’s put all the factors together and projects this industry will grow by 6.5% over five to 10 years,” Rudd told incredulous mining executives from BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue last May as stocks fell. “As a result of (this 40% tax) we will see a better and more dynamic mining industry in the future.” (IBD)


Beginning to sound familiar??
The Full on Socialist German State:
German leader Angela Merkel believes that the massive spending President Obama is advocating is not right for her country to undertake. Merkel, sounding and parroting the familiar refrain of Conservative Republicans, is a proponent, at this juncture, of curtailing spending and sees merit in the German engaging in more savings. President Obama on the hand wants the major economies like that of Germany (ranked number 4) to emulate the profligate spending him and the U.S. lawmakers – at least the Democrats – have contributed to the world money supply. President Obama also wants Germany to curtail its forays into exports and focus it fiscal policies on consumer spending so as to spur economic growth.
Chancellor Merkel may not be operating on her own accord concerning the fiscal policies that she is currently championing like any astute politician, Merkel may be listening to her people’s voice on this matter. Much of the German people did not support the bailout (110 billion Euros) provided for Greece and (750 billion for the European safety net).
This posture by the German people of disagreeing on their version of bailouts mirrors the angst felt by the Tea Partiers in America.
So the Socialists have had enough of full-on socialism, and what does Obama want?
Full on Socialism.
You have to wonder why European Socialists are worried about debt and spending and Obama is not.
Add in Timothy “We are no longer a Super Power” Geithner’s comments and you start to see where I’m going with this.
I hope.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has added his voice to the growing discussion about the United States’ recession spending spree.  In a response to President Obama’s call for further international recession spending, Schäuble stated “governments should not become addicted to borrowing as a quick fix to stimulate demand. Deficit spending cannot become a permanent state of affairs.”

As if there were any doubt about the United States’ spending addiction, Heritage budget expert Brian Riedl explains, “the annual federal budget deficit is projected to reach 8.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020—more than three times the historical average.”
This means that if the US wanted to balance the budget by 2020, one-third of all spending would need to be eliminated or taxes would need to increase by 50 percent.
The Congressional Budget Office has just released its assessment of the administration’s budget outlook. The numbers are shocking. Under the president’s policies the federal deficit will exceed $700bn (€520bn, £467bn) in every year over the next decade. The sea of red ink will more than double the national debt to more than $20,000bn. The upshot is that in 2020, the deficit is projected to be $1,200bn, of which more than $900bn is borrowing to pay interest on previous debt. It is a sorry state of affairs.

So Obama and The Democrats want Financial “reform”.
They want to punish Wall Street!  Those evil, corrupt Capitalist Bastards!
But just like the Health Care “reform” that was more about stealth tactics to eventually kill off the private industry and have you dependent on the government, this too is not about Finances and Wall Street and just another polarized Alinsky tactic.
The upshot: no downgrade in our status as a AAA  Credit nation until interest equals 14 per cent of revenues. (and when it is downgraded the cost of the 13+ Trillion dollar debt goes up!)

Let’s party ‘til 2014 because in the Obama administration budget, D-Day (Downgrade Day) is 2015 when the magic number reaches 14.8 per cent. Moreover, the plan is not merely to flirt with modest deterioration in creditworthiness. In 2020, the ratio reaches 20.1 per cent. The US is on track for a junk-bond bonanza.
Just after 2014 when all the Health Care taxes come into full force and by then private health plans will likely be near extinction.
Coincidence?
I think not.
It’s just another takeover, but in the 2000+ plus throw the frog in cold water and then boil him slowly to death kind of way these Democrats seem to prefer.
Hell, they don’t even READ their own damn bills!
And it’s brought to you by Barney Frank and the retiring Chris Dodd, the guys who created the Mortgage mess!!
So the fox is going to save the chickens in the chicken coop!
Some Highlights
The Power to Unwind:
The FDIC would have the authority to liquidate failing firms while the Treasury Department fronts the money to do so. There would also be a repayment plan so that taxpayers are guaranteed to get the money back (and where does the government get the money??? You’re looking at his computer!).
So if the government “deems” you failing, you get taken over and sold off.
Gee, that can’t be abused at all can it!
Financial Stability Oversight Council:
The council would monitor systemic risk across the entire financial system and make recommendations to the Federal Reserve to alleviate that risk. The ten-member council would include the heads of the federal financial agencies.
Corporate America’s Sith Overload. What do you bet they will be political appointees?
Just like the Oil Spill Investigation commission that has a bunch of left wing environmentalists and not one Engineer or Oil Businessperson!
They would never use any of those Chicago tactics on them, now would they…
The government also gets to decide what is a “financial” firm. Does GM, which makes loans, fall into that category? How about Wal-Mart, which issues its own credit cards?
In effect, this lets the government seize and dismantle the assets of almost any company — and then force others to pay for it.
Fannie/Freddie:
Republicans biggest beef with the whole bill is that it does nothing to address the problems, and sustainability, of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
For instance: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were in arguably at the heart of the financial crisis, and which have already cost U.S. taxpayers $146 billion (with hundreds of billions more on the way), aren’t addressed in this bill at all.
The major reason for the collapse in the first place gets ignored!
Wonder Why?
Oh, that’s right, it’s government owned, heavily in debt, and guaranteed to be bailed out! (by you of course!)
Just Like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security!
No problems there!
No Resolution Fund:
The House wanted to create a $150 billion fund to pay for any future bailouts. The fund would be paid for by the banks. This provision was gutted. Conferees agreed that this could only be created after a massive collapse. This is the fund that Republicans successfully painted as a permanent bailout fund when Democrats in the Senate tried to include a similar, but only $50 billion, fund.
And the Republicans were right. Can you say, slush fund!
Any bank that runs into trouble can still walk up to Uncle Sam’s borrowing window and, hand outstretched, ask for money. And if the bank is politically connected or very large, it will get it.
The bill also creates a new agency inside the Federal Reserve that will have extensive power over consumer lenders. Hold the applause, because likely new limits on checking account fees and interest on credit cards will mean less access to credit, not more.

So you have less credit available, you have new regulations and new taxes, an Oversight committe that can swoop in and shut you down, and Health care cost are going to skyrocket under ObamaCare.
Sounds like a great business climate to me. Sign me up.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told the BBC that the world “cannot depend as much on the US as it did in the past”.
Because the Government is going to intentionally, “for your protection” get in the way of business even more now than before.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economic recovery won’t be catching fire any time soon.
Businesses and governments are likely to reduce spending in the second half of the year. Consumers, who drive most economic growth, aren’t expected to take up the slack.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.7 percent in the first quarter, offering its third and final estimate for the period. It was slower than initially thought because consumers spent less and imports rose faster that previously calculated.
Economists anticipate even slower growth ahead as companies bring their stockpiles more in line with sales. Factory output has climbed this year. But it was driven more by businesses replenishing their warehouses after the recession and less by consumer demand.
“The economy is growing, but still at a disappointingly slow pace,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities. Take away businesses restocking their inventories and “you still have a lukewarm recovery,” he said.
Other factors could hold back growth. Federal government stimulus spending is expected to fade. The European debt crisis could slow U.S. exports and world trade. And state and local governments are likely to rein in spending and raise taxes as they struggle to close budget gaps.
“This is still the weakest and longest economic recovery in U.S. postwar history,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics.
High unemployment and tight credit have kept consumers from ramping up their spending as in past recoveries. The housing industry has played a big role after previous recessions. But this time it is slumping and subtracting from economic growth.
Most economists expect the unemployment rate, currently at 9.7 percent, to remain above 9 percent through the end of the year.
The economy has grown for three consecutive quarters after shrinking for four straight during the recession — the longest contraction since World War II.
And Stimulus III is on the way. After all, the previous ones were a roaring success!! So let’s do it again! and again! and again!!
Another part of the bill, and one that’s gotten little attention, makes changes to the amount of capital banks must keep to back up their loans. Banks eventually will be forced to raise more capital, or to reduce their lending. It also gives the government oversight over the $600 trillion derivatives market, without telling us what the rules will be. That, no doubt, will be left to bureaucrats. (IBD)

And they do a bang up job of it, always.

Add in that the Government has taken over Banks, Car Companies,Insurance Companies, and now wants to micromanage the financial sector.
So they want to decide who lives and who dies (Health Care)
Who is employed, by who whom and how that company operates. And if they don’t like it, they will swoop in “for your own protection” and save you from the evil capitalist exploiters.
Unions, especially Government Unions get special perks, deals and exemptions.
They are actively trying to destroy the Oil Industry (the moratorium) so they can take that over because “it’s too big and too important fail”. But if we help it fail, that’s ok.
Medicare and Medicaid  and Social Security are bankrupt. Fannie and Freddie are a bottomless pit.
The Congress wants an Internet “kill switch” for cyber-terrorists (terrorists being Right-wingers according to Homeland Security Secretary Napalitano last year)
Taxes are going up in 2011 by large amounts.
New taxes from ObamaCare start in 2011.
Unemployment may permanently be around 10% some economist are saying if everything remains as is.
50% of the people don’t even pay taxes.
The only sector of jobs that’s growing is the Public, government sector.
They want “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” aka Amnesty. And will not settle for less.
They are going to sue Arizona for wanting to protect itself.
That’s the Government’s job!
And if you don’t like the fact that they aren’t and don’t care to, tough bovine fecal matter!
We are the Power. Not You!
So they want to control your Energy, you Job, your Boss, your security, your Medical Care, Your Health, your retirement, and your how you make money.
So what does this all mean?
It means we have a President who willfully and with ideological malice wants to downgrade America to not only  ‘just another country’ but a banana 2nd or third tier one to boot. Nothing special.
What our country needs today is an inspirational leader, one who gets what makes the U.S. unique and who’ll boldly lead the nation out of its slide toward despair as he invites the world to climb with us.
What we have is a Banana Republic Dictator Wannabe.
He wants to throw the American People (the frog) in the cold water and boil them to death slowly.
To take over your life completely.
He want’s to “know whose ass to kick”.
Yours.
So he’s in touch with his Inner Banana (Dictator that is!).

Greece-ing The Skids

WASHINGTON (AP) – Your parents were right. Money can’t buy you happiness.
That was the message from the Federal Reserve chairman on Saturday to graduates of the University of South Carolina.

Or was it?

“We all know that getting a better-paying job is one of the main reasons to go to college. … But if you are ever tempted to go into a field or take a job only because the pay is high and for no other reason, be careful!” Ben Bernanke said in his commencement address.
“Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off,” he said.'

Unless you’re a  Liberal that is…
If you’re rich, you’re above it all. But we will demonize only Republicans.
If you’re not, you are told you’re entitled to other people’s money, so don’t worry about it.

But doesn’t this sound a lot like Michelle Obama’s Zanesville speech that got her in so much hot water that she was removed from the campaign trail.
“The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you’re in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids,” she says.
“Barack and I were in that position,” she continues. “The only reason we’re not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books… It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids.” A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”
Collectively, according to the IRS, they made $5 Million Dollars last year.
I guess that wasn’t so evil.
The message, don’t strive so hard to succeed.
Lower your expectations.
Because, we already know we are living so far beyond our means as a government that eventually,  in 10 or 20 years or less you’ll be Greece’d.
So better to lower the expectations now so they can lessen the violence when the fecal matter hits the air circulation device.

In Greece:
They are angry because for years they have been encouraged to live beyond their means, taking advantage of the cheap credit on offer since Greece joined the euro in 2001. Now, the rug is being pulled from under their feet. People who have taken out mortgages to buy homes, loans to purchase cars and credit cards to pay for overpriced basic goods are being asked to meet all these commitments with a much lower income than they had budgeted for.

Fannie and Freddie anyone??
UK Guardian: Saddled with burgeoning public sectors (which help sustain muscular trade unions)– SEIU, UAW, NEA anyone?

This is not what angers Greeks most, though. What you will hear time after time, both at the protests and at workplaces and cafes, is that this crisis confirms the failure of the country’s political system. In other words, that for years politicians have been bleeding the country dry, looking after themselves and their friends and failing to build a robust economy and a country equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.


There is anger at the pervasive, high-level corruption for which no politician is ever punished. People are also furious that no government has ever tackled influence-peddling in the public sector. The Greek branch of Transparency International estimated that Greeks paid almost euro800 million ($1 billion) in bribes last year. This is another drain on household budgets but more importantly it creates a sense of injustice, a sense that to get anything done you have to play by the system’s warped rules.
Sound familiar??
This feeling of unfairness is compounded when tax evasion also goes unpunished.
“Turbo Tax” Geithner anyone? Barney Frank? Charlie Rangel??
Salaried professionals and civil servants have their wages taxed at source but many Greeks do not. And, what they declare often bears no resemblance to what they actually earn. The government believes that tax evasion could be worth up to euro30 billion ($38 billion) a year, or 12 percent of the country’s GDP. Allowing one part of the population to consistently get away without paying while Greece’s public finances are propped up by the same people all the time creates incredible resentment. That’s why you hear many Greeks say they will put up with the austerity measures if the government ensures that everybody pays their fair share. If people believe that the usual suspects, who in many cases are wealthy businessmen, doctors and lawyers, are allowed to get away with it, then the level of anger will go up several notches.

47% of all Americans pay NO TAXES whatsover!
Union workers and civil servant can make more in retirement than on the job.
But we aren’t going down that road…oh no…the Nazi, Racist, Violent Tea Baggers are just wrong.


Some of the measures imposed on Greece by the EU in order to bail them out (BBC):
The plans hope to achieve budget cuts of 30bn euros over three years – with the goal of cutting Greece’s public deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. It currently stands at 13.6%.
PAY CUTS
The government is planning a freeze pay for all public sector workers.
Some pay cuts will also be implemented, and public sector contract workers are set to lose their jobs.
This follows several years of continuous increases in pay, with salaries rising by an average of 30% since 2006.
Annual bonus payments – paid as 13th and 14th month salaries – will also be scrapped for high earners and capped for lower earners.
Other bonuses will be scrapped.
In the private sector, the legal maximum number of people companies can lay off each month will be doubled from 2% of personnel to 4%.

PENSIONS
The reforms seek to prevent early retirement. Currently the average age of retirement in Greece is 61, though it is not uncommon for public sector workers to retire in their 50s.
Under the planned changes, the retirement age, which is currently 65 years for men and 60 years for women, will be linked to average life expectancy.
In addition, the minimum number of years someone will have had to have worked to qualify for a full pension will rise to 40 years from 37.
Pensions will also be reduced so that they reflect a worker’s average working pay rather than their final salary.
TAX REFORM
VAT will be increased to 23% from 21% – just the latest in a series of recent increases.
Indirect taxes – including those on alcohol, fuel and cigarettes – will see a 10% rise.
There will also be a clamp-down on tax evasion – widely regarded as a big problem in Greece – and on untaxed illegal construction.
Tax-evasion alone is estimated to cost the Greek government at least 20bn euros a year.
PRIVATISATION
In the longer-term, the government will look to reduce the reliance of the Greek economy on the public sector, reducing the number of people on the public payroll.
This will require growth in the private sector, and possible privatisation of some industries.

Getting eerily uncomfortable I hope.
See our future if  Obama and The Democrats (and Republicans too) are not stopped.
According to a December report from the BLS, state and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked ($26.24 for wages and $13.60 for benefits) for total employee compensation in September 2009. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour ($19.45 for wages and $8.05 for benefits), see chart above. In other words, government employees make 45% more on average than private sector employees.
According to an analysis by USAToday (thanks to Michael Jahr for the pointer), “The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to an analysis of federal salary data.” For example, the number of federal employees making $100,000 or more has increased by 120,595, from 262,163 employees in December 2007 to 382,758 in June 2009, for a 46% increase. The number of federal workers making $150,000 or more has more than doubled since the recession started, from about 30,000 to more than 66,000 (see chart above).
USA Today also reports that “When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.” That’s a 168,900% increase!!

The Unemployment rate in the public sector is about 3%.
It’s been near 10% for a very long time in the real world.
And do the Democrats look concerned?
Do the Republicans?
Do they?

Josh Barro writes for the Manhattan Institute about the “Two Americas” and the “sharp difference between two classes of employees: those who work in the private sector and those who work for the government. Workers in the public sector have experienced a very different recession from those in the private sector.”
So is this Greece-ing the skids for what the government knows is coming if things don’t change?
I think so.