That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we're not done yet. I've got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we're gonna start lowering health care costs and you're never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we've got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we've expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America's respect around the world.
The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it
In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.
That the recently withdrawn letter from the Justice Department to Congress denying federal responsibility for the program was not a lie, “because it all has to do with your state of mind and whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up with something that would be considered perjury or a lie.”
In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions “are now forced to take their children to food banks.” You have to admire the audacity. That’s the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection!
"“It allows us to continue to create jobs and growth in Canada,” Kent said."
“To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agriculture sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory and building in Canada,” Kent said.
Conservatives who dislike George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism have Gingrich to thank for it. After Gingrich lost the budget battles with President Bill Clinton, it took 15 years for any politician to take up the cause of limited-government conservatism that he had discredited.
The larger truth is that recessions always destroy wealth and small business incomes at the top. Perhaps those who obsess over income shares should welcome stock market crashes and deep recessions because such calamities invariably reduce "inequality." Of course, the same recessions also increase poverty and unemployment.
"If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term).
Every conservative has thus to ask himself two questions: Who is more likely to prevent that second term? And who, if elected, is less likely to unpleasantly surprise?"
"The history of the 20th century is a painful lesson on what happens when collective choices replace individual choices. Even leaving aside the chilling history of totalitarianism in the 20th century, the history of economic central planning shows it to have been such a widely recognized disaster that even communist and socialist governments were abandoning it as the century ended.
"
"We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration, or the next generation,’’ Obama told a White House summit on fiscal responsibility . “You don’t spend what you don’t have.’"
"Sure, the pipeline would have produced thousands of truly shovel-ready jobs. Sure, delay could forfeit to China a supremely important strategic asset — a nearby, highly reliable source of energy. But approval was calculated to be a political loss for the president. Easy choice.
It’s hard to think of a more clear-cut case of putting politics over nation. This from a president whose central campaign theme is that Republicans put party over nation, sacrificing country to crass political ends."
Krugman cites Sweden as an example of a social welfare success in Europe, but fails to mention two important points. Firstly, in recent years, Sweden has begun rolling back the welfare system and government expenditure while adopting important free market reforms. Secondly, Sweden decided to stay out of the eurozone, another key reason why it has so far kept out of the financial mess engulfing southern Europe. As Johnny Munkhammar, a Swedish member of parliament noted in a piece for The Wall Street Journal in January, Sweden owes its success not to welfare statism but to reforms that have increased economic freedom, including greater competitiveness in the provision of health care and other public services:
The reality that Krugman refuses to accept is that Europe offers a glimpse of America’s future if it continues down the path of European-style big government. The root of Europe’s financial crisis lies in decades of over-spending and over-borrowing, largely to pay for overgrown and bloated welfare systems, vast public sectors, and incredibly generous pension plans. Europe has a huge entitlements disaster heading its way, with graying electorates unable to sustain the status quo. Added to this has been the disastrous euro experiment, which has created a one-size fits all approach for 17 EU countries, with varying levels of economic advancement. It has been a huge leap into the dark, without a shred of democratic accountability.
"As with the late, unlamented Sen. Joe McCarthy—of whom Coulter remains an unapologetic cheerleader—she corrupts us merely by our association with her species and coarsens our culture by her very presence in it. Shame on Maureen Dowd for enabling her to do so with the imprimatur of The New York Times."
Where does it all end? In the real world, when you push spending, deficits and debt to record levels — 11, 11, 11, right across the board — the national fuses blow and the music of prosperity ends. When it does, you're left with a country in fiscal crisis that looks a lot like Greece does today. But, as Nigel might say, “That's just nitpicking, isn't it?”
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1. (1% of the bill)
The sixth would pay $3. (3%)
The seventh would pay $7. (7%)
The eighth would pay $12. (12%)
The ninth would pay $18. (28%)
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. (59% of the bill)
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings on his previous tax payment for 5th man)
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
"Lesser, albeit still significant amounts were measured in other locales around the northeast, including 1.3 inches of snow in New York's Central Park as of 2 p.m. -- the most ever for this date since record-keeping began in 1869. And snow continued to fall Saturday evening, as the system moved over New England."
The rap mogul Russell Simmons and the rapper Kanye West meandered over to Occupy Wall Street’s cradle, Zuccotti Park. By all accounts West was wearing more bling, though Simmons has bigger bucks: his net worth has been estimated as being between $100 million and $340 million. West’s is below that, and he made only $16 million or so last year.
Still, it is good to know that America’s reporters haven’t completely forgotten how to do research. Given the lack of interest they have shown in Barack Obama’s early life–that is, his life before 2004–to say nothing of his father’s history–and the studiousness with which they avoided learning anything at all about John Edwards, I thought maybe they had given up researching presidential candidates altogether.
In fact, in the first nine months of this year, federal spending was $120 billion higher than in the same period in 2010, the data show. That's an increase of almost 5%. And deficits during this time were $23.5 billion higher.
Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden, wrote over the summer that "government spending cutbacks have been a large drag on growth in recent quarters and have led to sharp losses in state and local employment."
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued in September that "the turn toward austerity (is) a major factor in our growth slowdown."
The problem for Hartland-Lakeside was that WEA Trust was charging significantly higher rates than the school district could find on the open market. School officials knew that because they got a better deal from United HealthCare for coverage of nonunion employees. On more than one occasion, Superintendent Glenn Schilling asked WEA Trust why the rates were so high. "I could never get a definitive answer on that," says Schilling.
"His words struck a chord. When I visit Mr. Zuckerman this week in his midtown Manhattan office, he reports that three people approached him at dinner the previous evening to discuss his August op-ed. Among business executives who supported Barack Obama in 2008, he says, "there is enormously widespread anxiety over the political leadership of the country." Mr. Zuckerman reports that among Democrats, "The sense is that the policies of this government have failed. . . . What they say about [Mr. Obama] when he's not in the room, so to speak, is astonishing."
"The time has come for men and women of conscience in this nation to stand up. It's vital that we elected individuals, regardless of party, who choose not to be an incestuous relationship with the rich in this country who are only about fattening their bottom lines while ignoring the plight of others.
