Bring Back the Unions

RealClearPolitics - On Missing "Big Labor":

Dionne lefts his socialism way out of the bag on this one including praise not just for big labor, but for Eugene Debs. If all there was to wealth was "spreading it around", and it was never created or lost but just "was", then I suppose we could spend our time just distributing it. As it is, it is more like "beer", and if you just focus on distributing it, there will soon be none to drink!

Please Please take note that the primary home for unions today is with public workers where the profit motive isn't operative and all they need do is fleece taxpayers for ever more. That is why their current average wages and benefits are DOUBLE those that are paying for them! (roughly $60K vs $120K)

"A movement historically associated with the brawny workers in auto, steel, rubber, construction, rail, and the ports now represents more employees in the public sector (7.9 million) than in the private sector (7.4 million)."

Weekend With Summer Recovery

Power Line

With apologies to "Weekend At Bernies" ;-)

Economic Indigestion

Dana Milbank - Economist Christina Romer serves up dismal news at her farewell luncheon

I actually got to hear some of this mess, it was enough to give ardent left winger Dana Milbank a good deal of heartburn. Her cheery HS glee club delivery did add sort of an air of the surreal to the proceedings. She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things. Here is Milbank on the topic:

What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare."

It must be a bit scary to even the liberal elite as they bask in the remembrance of that joyous time of Katrina, just 5 short years ago, when it was all so simple. The combination stupid and evil W was responsible for all that was ill. Through maximum press and political maneuvering, they managed to convince vast swaths of the electorate that what was needed was "change". 14 months later, the shining new "age of change" was ushered in Nov '06, as Nancy and Harry took the reigns of congressional power, and Dodd and Frank the control of legislation over our nations financial system. The evil W was the lamest of lame ducks, one last "declared to be a failure before it started" gasp in "The Surge", and happy days would be fully here.

A year and a half later, the financial system would teeter on collapse. Victim of a housing bubble exacerbated by Sub-Prime Loans and lax government oversight on one hand, and massive amounts of leverage from Wall Street on the other. To the Democrats, "sauce for the goose". The broad shoulders of W would do yeoman service as scapegoat, the likely shallow recession would be trumped up to "Depression" in the interests of electing the ultimate change agent: BO. Even sweeter, vast amounts of taxpayer money and debt would be transferred to the financiers that had bankrolled the Democrat takeover, as well as the Unions and any other group that was on the left side of politics.

Now in charge of the candy store, the joy of handing out free candy to all their friends is fading as the shelves become more and more bare. Clearly the world is unfair, the shelves ought to be automatically replenished by hard working conservative drones ... or something. For certain, the entire enterprise is a matter of extreme confusion to the liberal economists in the BO stable.

It's All Hopeless

Op-Ed Columnist - Freedom’s Just Another Word - NYTimes.com

When reality becomes apparent to liberals, their heart turns to hopelessness. Their shining knights of goodness -- currently BO, formerly Slick Wille, and in the 7o's, Jimmuh, of "Desert Classic" fame were all certain (in their minds) to achieve greatness upon election, but their images end up needing much burnishing of the kind that can only be gotten by working to tarnish those of Republican presidents -- even those from decades ago. In the Democrat mind, their leaders stand tall because they have buried their counterparts to the waist in mud. The way BO is going, it looks like they are going to need more mud. Perhaps BO will look "tall" if Reagan is buried to his ears.

I remember the Carter time -- the twin spots of Vietnam and Watergate could never and should never be expunged from our American political soul (the only kind of soul that Democrats will admit to). The situation was not fixable -- and of course, in their minds, it was not fixed by the '80s ... as Rich says in the article, a "cartoonish" era. America was and is a tarnished place -- racist, sexist, militaristic, unkind to the poor. In need of massive change, not jingoistic cheering of the Reagan sort. Oh, how sad the '80s were for guys like Rich.

Now, 30 years later, the twin spots of Iraq and "overspending" under Bush have added yet more rot to that imaginary American "political soul". There is a lot of sadness in being a liberal -- the only thing that apparently approaches "happy" is pointing out the supposed horror of being a conservative. There was a brief 2 years of hope under Slick Willie, before those hopes were dashed by Newt and that horrible band of pirates taking the house that had so rightly belonged to the Democrats for 50 years.

Now, after owning that house for 4 short years, and the whole of government for a mere two, they survey a wreckage beyond what they beheld in '94 and possibly commensurate with the devastation of '80. How can it be so?? They are so good, so right, so intelligent, and yet the powers of reality seem to work against them -- yes, yes, it MUST be that "political soul", corrupted by the evil right ... with their lies and machinations of power cooked in kettles by Rupert Murdoch and the demons of Fox news.

Oh, the pain ... the sadness. The little people are blinded and even the brilliant BO has failed to transmit the proper message to their sorry "political souls" ... oh, the humanity!! Perhaps if we put on sack cloth and ashes and tended our boils alone in the wilderness -- then, maybe then, we could see the truth of life as seen by guys like Rich. Yes, there ought to be the campaign mantra of the Democrats --- vote for us, pay your penance in poverty and pain, admit to your political sins and willingly accept your punishment. Only by seeing the decadence and failing of America and by being very very sorry for the sins of electing evil people like Bush and Reagan is there hope of atonement for America -- and even then, it is but very very dim!

I think I'm beginning to understand why Howard Dean's favorite New Testament book was "Job". To the liberal mind, that IS reality!!

Hawking As Lord

Stephen Hawking on God, Science and the Origins of the Universe - WSJ.com

A good short synapsis of the fact that we live in a "Goldilocks Universe" ... not too hot, not too cold ... or "too" a whole bunch of stuff, but JUST RIGHT. How can that be if it is all "random"?

Well, the easy answer is that God created it that way, but that is never good enough for the REALLY REALLY smart among us. As Hawking says at the end:

Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states. Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense the lords of creation.

Were one to accept even the strong potential of a creator infinitely smarter than even Hawking, Hawking would no longer be "lord of creation". Given Hawking's physical state, this would seem to prove that the human mind is the source of hubris, not the body.

So how is the new level of "just right" explained, now that Carl Sagan's "billions of stars" that used to be the explanation has proved too small? Easy ... way, way, way, way .... way, more UNIVERSES than even billions x billions ... 10 to the 400th is a postulated number of universes "theorized" (imagined?) at this point.

What is my prediction? Well, it used to be "enough time", then it was "enough time and enough systems" ... but the more we learn, the more it looks impossible with even the time and space that we can see that we could happen, so we are now "scientifically" postulating 10 to the 400th universes with no current way to verify in order to say "there is no god" with a semi-straight face.

BUT, I strongly bet that if we manage to create say a quantum computer, that allows us to see vastly more than we do now, and it turns out that 10 to the 400th is still not enough, I wager there will be some amazingly larger number of "meta-universes" ... or "sub-universes" or maybe "string dimensions" that allow it to be "clear" that God really isn't necessary after all and at least the REALLY REALLY "smart" among us are "lords of creation".

No matter how far we "advance", there we are.

Steve Wynn Takes On Washington

Steve Wynn Takes On Washington

Well said. Just take the time to watch a guy that knows just say it simply as it is.

Carter or Clinton

Will Obama be a Clinton -- or a Carter? - CNN.com

My my, the old comparisons were FDR or Lincoln, the new comparisons are Slick Willie or Jimmuh. The mighty have indeed fallen. This is CNN, so maybe the Obamanites are finally returning to earth.

Iraq Through the Looking Glass

Iraq Through the Looking Glass - The Corner - National Review Online

He covers a lot of my thinking with some different text, but the thesis is the same.

1). BO can't possibly take legitimate credit for Iraq. He was against the surge (as were Biden and Hillary), the withdrawal agreement was done by Bush/Petrayus, he just honored it. (which, given Gitmo, "open government", campaign finance, and a ton of other things, is pretty amazing).

2). It is REALLY disingenuous to take credit for Iraq when he opposed to the surge, but blame Bush for the economy when the Democrats took over both houses of congress in '07 -- and managed to defeat Bush's requests for ending sub-prime since '01, something like 13 times. Bush bears responsibility for the surge (it worked), at BEST, as a very politically weak lame duck, economic responsibility during the last two years of his term would be "shared". BO himself was in the congress that had significant responsibility for the economy.

If Democrats don't believe that control of congress is important, why don't they just cede control to Republicans without a fight? If it IS important, then how can they not accept significant blame for what happened to the economy after they took over in '07?

The Failure of the Liberal Economic Experiment?

The Failure of the Liberal Economic Experiment?:

The liberals were quick to declare "the end of capitalism" after the '08 election. It now appears that their declaration was far premature. I like this quote ... the whole article is excellent. This quote refers to an old observation on government spending -- typically, the "seen" are some more government jobs, some public works projects, maybe even a new building or bridge; the "unseen" is effectively "the bill", the higher taxes and the misallocated resources that result in a lower standard of living for all; since the "seen" is immediate, and the "unseen" tends to be less so, often even wildly off the mark government spending can be a political asset. Apparently, thankfully, not this time!!

"Because of these policies, the “unseen” became “seen” in a fashion devastating to the politicians supporting them. Americans judged that the party in power intends the radical expansion of the size of government in perpetuity. That expansion will have to be paid for. There is no reason to expect very much good from the future if you are the sort of person who generates income and creates jobs. Your “permanent income” is going to decline, and your gut response will be to husband your resources."

All the ways to Kill an Economy

Our Macroeconomic Fetish - Forbes.com:

One of they liberal problems is that they never know "when to say when". Everything they want calls for more, more, more ... more stimulus, more taxes, more entitlements, more regulation, but they have zero concept of "enough". They are addicted to government in the same way as a heroin addict is addicted to their drug of choice.

Now the semi-thoughtful liberal will say "conservatives are just the same with money, they want more, more, more money for the rich, and there is never such a thing as enough".

To which I'd reply, spending and making are NOT the same thing! Bill Gates is fabulously wealthy because he was the best at putting personal computers on everyone's desk. Warren Buffett is fabulously wealthy because he is the best allocator or scarce economic resources in the world. Putting limits on either of these guys limits us all -- not just them. Taking both their fortunes and spending them buying votes from unions doesn't grow a thing (other than more government bureaucracy when the same crooks get elected).

Great article, read it. A sample on the lack of limits:

"The situation is only worse because while our Keynesian disciplines preach the need for more stimulus now, they offer no explanation as to how much stimulus is too much. The law of diminishing returns applies to every known human activity, including government decisions to prime the pump. Yet both Tyson and Krugman give us no hint about when to quit or why."

Basically, there is more than one way to kill an economy, and BO and company are coming close to finding them all.

It is possible to tell a similar tale of woe in virtually any other sector that comes to mind: health care, energy, environment, banking and money, securities regulation, corporate policy, intellectual property. At every stage we see a populist frenzy to support new layers of regulation, each of which in its own way kills jobs and chokes off economic growth.

In sum, there is more than one way to kill an economy. Ours is dying a death of a thousand cuts, which no stimulus program can cure.

Government Pay, Upside Down

Government Pay: Now For The Really Bad News - Forbes.com

Not only are we getting fleeced, we are paying them make our lives even worse while we pay them more to do it!!!

By now, most Americans are familiar with the newly revealed statistics concerning federal pay. As we slept, as it were, our federal minders awarded themselves impressive pay/benefits increases that average out to $123,000 per year, compared with $61,000 in the private sector.

Not only are we fleeced to cover the rising pay and gold-plated benefits of federal workers, we're essentially paying them to make our lives more difficult. The more they're able to do so, the more they advance.

I Pray He is Right!

Hugh Hewitt: Seventy percent of Americans know they've been conned | Washington Examiner

Super column, concise, just READ IT! Something solidly over 50% ought to be good enough, please oh please make it so!

Two years into what had been sold as a new politics and a new approach, the 70 percent are fully aware that they have been conned, suckered, and taken to the cleaners by a hyper-ideological amalgam of leftist public intellectuals, snarling bloggers, career politicians with limited abilities who are often corrupt, and a president wholly inexperienced in the management of complex problems who is in way over his head and prisoner to slogans and schemes that make for great campus debates -- but for disaster in the real world.

Actually, it is more like 4 ... the Dimocrats took over congress in '07 and the slide got a good start ... but for two years, they have had no excuses whatsoever. 


Let the end of their disastrous rule be limited to just the two years of hell we have already been through!

BO On Bike

Ah yes, remember the days when a dorky picture of W would be plastered all over? Wonder how far and wide this gem will get to go? Maybe the worship has finally slipped a bit, this seems like a gem.

Remember Europe?

Op-Ed Columnist - The Parent Model - NYTimes.com

Back when W was President, any contrary opinion from Europe was automatically worthy of a lot of study -- and to pay a lot of attention to it was "arrogant". Naturally, with the advent of BO, the MSM is now of a completely different mind -- when Europe has a different opinion from BO, they must be wrong, as is everyone else that disagrees with the brilliant failed community organizer.

Now, we have some emerging results. Germany spends 1.5% of GDP, trims labor costs, increases employment flexibility and enjoys a 9% GDP growth. We spent 6% of GDP, give a bunch of kickbacks to unions/threaten future unionization ("Card Check"), pass a bunch of new laws to make employing people more expensive and restrictive and the result is 1.6% growth.

Is this absolute proof that Germany is completely right and we are completely wrong? **NO!! ... it is INFORMATION, just like when Europe would have some anti-Bush thing to say. We get smarter by looking at data and results, we get stupider when we let ideology be our ONLY guide ... which is the left-primary view.

Oikophobia

Oikophobia - WSJ.com

The Ground Zero mosque is an affront to the sensibilities of ordinary Americans. "The center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence," as theAssociated Press has reported. That Americans would find this offensive is a matter of simple common sense. The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that's a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.

The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' " What a perfect description of the pro-mosque left.

By jove, I think he has got it! It takes no other sense than "common sense" to identify a Victory Mosque opening on 9/11/11 as an abomination, and common sense is the the sort that Oiks oppose most vehemently!

Yet the oiks' vision of themselves as an intellectual aristocracy violates the first American principle ever articulated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

This cannot be reconciled with the elitist notion that most men are economically insecure bitter clinging intolerant bigots who need to be governed by an educated elite. Marxism Lite is not only false; it is, according to the American creed, self-evidently false. That is why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting.

Ok, I'm SURE that he has it! This is EXACTLY what we have going on, and BO is the "Uber-Oik"!