Yes They Have

clipped from blogs.telegraph.co.uk However, Dr Athreya’s assertions cannot be allowed to pass. The current generation of economists have led the world into a catastrophic cul de sac. And if they think we are safely on the road to recovery, they still fail to understand what they did. Central banks were the ultimate authors of the credit crisis since it is they who set the price of credit too low, throwing the whole incentive structure of the capitalist system out of kilter, and more or less forcing banks to chase yield and engage in destructive behaviour. They ran ever-lower real interests with each cycle, allowed asset bubbles to run unchecked (Ben Bernanke was the cheerleader of that particular folly), blamed Anglo-Saxon over-consumption on excess Asian savings (half true, but still the silliest cop-out of all time), and believed in the neanderthal doctrine of “inflation targeting”. Have they all forgotten Keynes’s cautionary words on the “tyranny of the general price level” in the early 1930s? Yes they have.

In The Middle With Tea

clipped from pajamasmedia.com VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Where Did The Tea Party Anger Come From? “In short, sometime in the last ten years public employees were directly identified with most of what is now unsustainable in the U.S. The old idea that a public servant gave up a competitive salary for job security was redefined as hitting the jackpot. . . . Emblematic of the anger at both top and bottom was the 2008 meltdown: those who had not played by the rules still got their mortgages, then defaulted, and left the taxpayer with their bills; those who made the loans and profited without risk, took the bailout money, and left us with the cleanup. Those in between with underwater mortgages and higher taxes pay the tab.”

Nonbelievers

clipped from www.investors.com Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere. And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law." Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference. With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution. If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

Affirmatively Scheming Liberal Hypocrites

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The Stupid Gap

clipped from pajamasmedia.com COMMENT OF THE DAY: A reason for the “wealth or income gap”: Smart people keep on doing things that are smart and make them money while stupid people keep on doing things that are stupid and keep them from achieving. People who get an education, stay off of drugs, apply themselves, and save and wisely invest their earnings do a lot better than people who drop out of school, become substance abusers, and buy fancy cars and houses that they can’t afford, only to lose them. We don’t have an income gap. We have a stupid gap. Ouch.

Unengaged

clipped from www.ocregister.com To return to Cohen's question: "Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?" Well, he's a guy who was wafted ever upward – from the Harvard Law Review to state legislator to United States senator – without ever lingering long enough to accomplish anything. "Who is this guy?" Well, when a guy becomes a credible presidential candidate by his mid-40s with no accomplishments other than a couple of memoirs, he evidently has an extraordinary talent for self-promotion, if nothing else. "What are his core beliefs?" It would seem likely that his core belief is in himself. It's the "nothing else" that the likes of Cohen are belatedly noticing. Did all those hopeychangers realize that Obama's war would be run by Bush's defense secretary and Bush's general? Hey, never mind: the Moveon.org folks have quietly removed their celebrated "General Betray-us" ad from their website. It took the oil spill to alert Americans to the unengaged president.

But they're just good people looking for a better life

clipped from www.moonbattery.com One advantage of our rulers deliberately allowing Mexico's underclass to colonize and culturally annex the Southwest is that when life in Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix becomes indistinguishable from the chaos south of the border, shopping will be much more exciting. Highlights from a trip to a jewelry store in Monterrey:

Once And Future Slav(e)s

Main Entry: slave
Pronunciation: \ˈslāv\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English sclave, from Anglo-French or Medieval Latin; Anglo-French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclavus, from Sclavus Slavic; from the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe during the early Middle Ages
Date: 14th century

1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another
2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence
3 : a device (as the printer of a computer) that is directly responsive to another
4 : drudge, toiler

— slave adjective

The Overton Window

clipped from chicagoboyz.net This is old hat to a lot of folks in the blogosphere, but defining terms is a good thing. Wikipedia: The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after the former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Joe Overton, who developed the model. It describes a “window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue. Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable. Delivering rhetoric to define the window provides a plan of action to make more acceptable to the public some ideas by priming them with other ideas allowed to remain unacceptable, but which make the real target ideas seem more acceptable by comparison.

Skimobiling

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The "Fix"

clipped from pajamasmedia.com But the centerpiece of the bill is supposed to be a tighter regulation of banks. One of the major elements of the legislation was a proposal to force banks to divest themselves of risky trades, marking the return of the so-called “Volcker Rule”. But Joshua Brown writing in the Christian Science Monitor argues most of the restrictions were for show; that loopholes ensured it is Volcker only in name. Wall Street wins this round. The “teeth” of the Volcker Rule have been kicked in and there are enough holes elsewhere for White & Case to exploit on behalf of their clientele til the cows come home. The Dems unanimously voted for it. Interestingly, Republicans all voted against it. They didn’t think the final version was strict enough or that it did enough to prevent Too Big To Fail. … There will be some limitation to what large banks can do on a proprietary basis, but they will still be de facto giant hedge funds, albeit hedge funds with higher capital reserve requirements.

"Sweeping" Reform

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A Whale Of O Disaster

clipped from hotair.com The A-Whale bills itself as the largest open-water oil skimmer in the world, and it’s at least very impressive.  Originally an oil and ore tanker, the ship’s owners recently refitted the ship to do exactly the kind of work that the US so desperately needs in the Gulf of Mexico, and to do it on a vastly larger scale than current operations can handle.  According to the ship’s project manager, the entire American effort in 66 days has skimmed off 600,000 barrels of oil.  The ship’s owners claim that A-Whale can skim 500,000 barrels a day. So where is the A-Whale now?  In the Gulf?  Not yet.  It’s on its way there after being tied to a dock in Norfolk, Virginia, and won’t be allowed to join the cleanup effort until the Coast Guard and the EPA figure out whether it meets their standards

Who's The Real Smart *ss?

clipped from ace.mu.nu A small business owner has the audacity to tell Sheriff Joe, he'd like to keep a little more of the money he earns and Biden let's him know what he thinks about that idea.

Ouch

clipped from pajamasmedia.com THE REAL SCIENCE GAP: “It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.” UPDATE: A reader emails: I work for a very large high tech company. I presently manage a research team in the corporate lab. The problem is that there is no encouragement for American non-minority males to go into science and engineering because we will almost never hire them. Instead we are being forced to look for technical females and under-represented minorities. Since very few American females choose engineering, we end up hiring Chinese and Indian women. I believe within less than a generation we will be in deep trouble, technically, in this country, and we’ll be without the means and capability to maintain the highly sophisticated civilization that we’ve constructed. Ouch.

Worse Than It Appears

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Writing in the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone explains why the Dems are in even worse shape heading into the 2010 elections than it may at first appear from polling data: Obama's job rating among black voters is 91% positive. A lttle back of the envelope arithmetic suggests that Obama's job rating among the 88% or 89% of non-black respondents is about 39% positive and 54% negative. That's pretty weak - a whole lot more negative than the numbers you usually see for all voters. This is hugely relevant to the 2010 elections. Most of the states with seriously contested Senate races or Democratic seats that seem almost certain to go Republican have below-national-average black percentages. Exceptions: Arkansas (where polls show Democrat Blanche Lincoln well behind), Florida, and Illinois.

Son O Frank

clipped from canadafreepress.com Liberals, evidently, have not yet been brought up to speed on the Venona project and other new information.  Obama refers to McCarthyism as “cowardice” in Dreams.  McCarthy didn’t vote “present” on matters of national security. In 1995 the CIA released decoded Soviet communiqués known as the Venona cables which turned out to be most revealing.  After decades of liberals savaging the reputation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, almost no one other than authors Ann Coulter and M. Stanton Evans are talking about the Venona discoveries which vindicate McCarthy. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, enormous amounts of data became available, including the Venona papers:  coded messages from the KGB and other communist intelligence agencies about communist agents in the United States   (Evans, M. Stanton.  Blacklisted By History:  The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies). That would be the  CPUSA of Frank Marshall Davis.

The Captured Estate

clipped from www.doczero.org Just the other day, I was discussing the challenge of maintaining cordial relationships in a highly politicized society with a friend of mine.  When politics have infused every aspect of our lives, right down to the menus at fast-food restaurants, our political opinions are often interpreted as judgments of character.  The conservative sees a diehard Obama supporter as an accomplice to tyranny, while the Obama supporter sees the opponents of socialized medicine as accessories to the murder of the uninsured.  No matter which side of the debate you come down on, it’s easy to see that the stakes are high, and participation has become mandatory.  The option to stay out of the argument no longer exists, because regardless of your station in life, this vast and activist government is not going to leave you alone. I found myself thinking along these lines while watching JournoList, the electronic locker room for liberal reporters, collapse beneath the weight of Dave Weigel’s spleen.

See The Previous Post

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill. To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. Read the whole thing.

No Questions Asked

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

U.S.A. R.I.P.: Do Your Job Edition

clipped from hotair.com Via the Right Scoop, proof positive that Palin’s not the only Republican governor who knows how to spin populist gold out of Obama’s failings. The necessary materials? An extremely popular Arizona immigration law, soon to be challenged by the federal government; freaky deaky reports of parts of the state turning into no man’s land thanks to weak border enforcement; and of course a broken promise by The One to send at least token reinforcements to help out. Weave them all together and voila — you’ve got an incumbent who was struggling three months ago on her way to re-election with 55 percent. Well played, Jan Brewer. Very well played.

The Geniuses Of New York

clipped from www.moonbattery.com How could a left-wing fool at best ambivalent as to whether he sides with America against Islamic terrorists get elected POTUS only 7 years after the horrific atrocities of 9/11 — winning by an overwhelming majority in New York, home of Ground Zero? This video explains it:

Boots On The Neck

clipped from www.sodahead.com “Goldman Sachs wasn’t alone either in its astute “foreknowledge” of the collapse of BP’s stock value due to the Gulf disaster as BP’s own chief executive, Tony Hayward, sold about one-third of his shares weeks before this catastrophe began unfolding too. But according to this FSB report the largest seller of BP stock in the weeks before this disaster occurred was the American investment company known as Vanguard who through two of their financial arms (Vanguard Windsor II Investor and Vanguard Windsor Investor) unloaded over 1.5 million shares of BP stock saving their investors hundreds of millions of dollars, chief among them President Obama. Important to note is that none of this wealth Obama, Goldman Sachs, and other American elites is acquiring would be possible without this disaster, all of whom, as the evidence shows, “somehow” knew what was going to happen before it actually did

Here It Comes

clipped from www.numbersusa.com Dear President Obama: We understand that there’s a push for your Administration to develop a plan to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States. We understand that the Administration may include aliens who have willfully overstayed their visas or filed for benefits knowing that they will not be eligible for a status for years to come. We understand that deferred action and parole are discretionary actions reserved for individual cases that present unusual, emergent or humanitarian circumstances. Deferred action and parole were not intended to be used to confer a status or offer protection to large groups of illegal aliens, even if the agency claims that they look at each case on a “case-by-case” basis. Such a move would further erode the American public’s confidence in the federal government and its commitment to securing the borders and enforcing the laws already on the books.

Listen To The Generals

clipped from pajamasmedia.com UPDATE: Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism Of President Bush. Well, sure. Under a Republican President, it’s listen to the generals. Under a Democratic President, it’s all about civilian control of the military. Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:01 pm

Bush!

clipped from pajamasmedia.com PELOSI EXCUSE FAILS: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently blamed Bush appointees who “burrowed in” at the Minerals Management Service for the regulatory failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But as it turns out, not one of the officials responsible for overseeing the exploded rig was a Bush political appointee. The Washington Examiner has obtained biographic information on the MMS officials responsible for overseeing BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig at the time it exploded, from the Gulf Region Director to the last inspector to set foot on the rig. Most of these federal employees started with the agency decades ago. Not one was a presidential appointment of George W. Bush, although one longtime MMS employee in question was promoted to his current position during the Bush Administration. I blame Sarah Palin. Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 9:46 am

Surrender Moi

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Some residents of Paris wanted to have a little cocktail party last Friday with wine, cheese, and sausage. But, the Muslims... whom we are told are not at all in control of Europe's urban areas, but are just a loyal tile in the beautiful multicultural mosaic that is 21st Century Eurotopia... threatened violence because it was their "holy day," and sausage and wine offend their religious dietary proscriptions. The Police sided with the Muslims, and shut down the party before it even happened. Later, a minor seismological disturbance was recorded as Charles Martel started spinning in his grave. The Charles Johnson "I See a Nazi Behind Every Bush" crowd is claiming that the group throwing the party were just Euro-Fascists who deserved to have their party shut down. But if the authorities can shut down a cocktail party they deem hateful, what's to stop them from shutting down a blog they also deem hateful?

Unravelling

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk And are we any safer now that the EU has failed to restore full confidence with its €750bn (£505bn) "shock and awe" shield, that is to say after throwing everything it can credibly muster under the political constraints of monetary union? This is the deep angst that lies behind last week's surge in gold to an all-time high of $1,258 an ounce. The World Gold Council said on Friday that the central banks of Russia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan and Venezuela have been buying gold, and Saudi Arabia’s monetary authority has "restated" its reserves upwards from 143m to 323m tonnes. If there is any theme to the bullion rush, it is fear that the global currency system is unravelling. Or, put another way, gold itself is reclaiming its historic role as the ultimate safe haven and benchmark currency. It is certainly not inflation as such that is worrying big investors, though inflation may be the default response before this is all over.

February 13th

clipped from www.foxnews.com 1. It appears, Mr. President, that you were informed by BP about problems on Deepwater Horizon on February 13 and the company wanted your help. What did you say? 2. Given this new revelation,  Mr. President, how can you can sleep at night knowing that your inaction cost the lives of eleven men in Louisiana? 3. Did you inform the victims' families about these facts when you invited them to the White House for last month's photo op? 4. You've said, Mr. President, time and again, that the buck stops with you. Doesn’t that statement seem like something bordering on propaganda when you follow it up with what appears to be a false sense of outrage by telling Matt Lauer that you're looking for rear ends to kick? 5. Does the buck stop with you… or not?

Because We May Need The Skimmers Someplace Else!

clipped from hotair.com Remember, this is a guy who wants us to get started on “clean energy” today, even though it could take decades to develop, because there’s no time like the present to begin work. And yet the Jones Act remains in effect almost 10 weeks after the rig blew, presumably because it’ll “take too long” to get skimmers in there. As for the theory that Obama’s keeping foreign ships out to protect American unions, see Bluey’s piece for a debunking of that.

Good Lordy Lord Lord. Un-be-liev-a-ble.

Shocker

clipped from pajamasmedia.com SHOCKER: Sunday Talk Shows All Start With BP Hayward’s Yachting, Ignore Obama’s Golfing. On the other hand, a reader sent this:

The Return

clipped from www.ft.com The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production. The figures are revealed in a league table being published on Monday by IHS Global Insight, a US-based economics consultancy. Last year, the US created 19.9 per cent of world manufacturing output, compared with 18.6 per cent for China, with the US staying ahead despite a steep fall in factory production due to the global recession. If China does become the world’s biggest manufacturer, it will be a return to the top slot for a nation which – according to economic historians – was the world’s leading country for goods production for more than 1,500 years up until the 1850s, when Britain took over for a brief spell, mainly due to the impetus of the industrial revolution.

Green Fuel

clipped from www.latimes.com one thing becomes incandescently clear: Fossil fuels have been one of the great boons both to humanity and the environment, allowing forests to regrow (now that we don't use wood for heating fuel) and liberating billions from backbreaking toil. The great and permanent shortage is usable surface land and fresh water. The more land we use to produce energy, the less we have for vulnerable species, watersheds, agriculture, recreation, etc. "If you like wilderness, as I do," Ridley writes, "the last thing you want is to go back to the medieval habit of using the landscape surrounding us to make power." The calamity in the gulf is heartrending and tragic. A thorough review of government oversight and industry safety procedures is more than warranted. But as counterintuitive as it may be to say so, oil is a green fuel, while "green" fuels aren't. And this spill doesn't change that fact.

Know Democrats, Know Despair

clipped from www.redstate.com On June 18, 2010, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” Sen. Kyl also said he reminded President Obama that the President and the Congress have an obligation, a duty, to secure the border. Know Democrats, Know Despair. No Democrats, No Despair.

Oooh

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com In the past weeks I have relived this moment over and over, on television and radio, in newspapers and blogs. I've listened to a constant stream of commentary. And my sharpest impression is this: Where before I saw a foggy anti-Israel, anti-Jewish link, it's now clear. This feeling is not about statehood. It's about an ingrown, organic hate. It's a sentiment that bears no connection to history, dates, passages or verses. Erase the facts, the dates and the lore. Erase the Jew. Incredibly, even the Nazis said to the Jews, "Go home to Palestine." But Thomas and a babbling stream in our world and country dictate to Jewish people to "go home to Poland and Germany." Yeah, I said "oooh." Christianity believes in the Jewish ancestry. Islam believes in the prophets Moses and Jesus. Can we just rip away the history of Jews in Israel like a Band-Aid, one quick motion across the centuries? Oooh.

Stilled

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Britain’s biggest wind farm companies are to be paid not to produce electricity when the wind is blowing. The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning. Dr Lee Moroney, planning director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a think tank opposed to the widespread introduction of wind farms, said: “As more and more wind farms come on stream this will become more and more of an issue. Wind power is not controllable and does not provide a solid supply to keep the national grid manageable. Paying multinational companies large sums of money not to supply electricity seems wrong.”

DisastO Ho

clipped from www.qando.net Obama has been a foreign affairs disaster to this point, and as Zuckerman points out, this has sent a very clear message to many of those out there who wish us ill as well as those who count themselves as allies: America right now appears to be unreliable to traditional friends, compliant to rivals, and weak to enemies. One renowned Asian leader stated recently at a private dinner in the United States, “We in Asia are convinced that Obama is not strong enough to confront his opponents, but we fear that he is not strong enough to support his friends.” I think at this point, that’s a perfectly defensible and accurate assessment. This is why I continue to say that there are some pretty heavy storm clouds brewing on the international horizon. US leadership is seen as missing or weak – a perfect time for those who take advantage of power vacuums to step forward and make their particular grabs for power. Don’t be surprised to see it happen soon.

Taxed

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The anti-Obama ads for the 2012 campaign are beginning to write themselves. During the debate over Obamacare, the president insisted that the requirement to purchase health insurance, and the imposition of a penalty for not purchasing it, does not constitute a tax. Here he is doing so (see around 3:20 and 4:00) and, when challenged, suggesting that it's somehow unfair to apply the dictionary definition of "tax" (see around 5:00)!: But now, in response to a lawsuit by various state attorneys general challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, the Obama Justice Department has described the penalty on those who don't purchase health insurance as a tax. It employs that description to support the government's contention that it has the right to impose the penalty as part of its power to tax.

Rolling Thunder 2010

clipped from www.youtube.com