NYT Explains Economic Fall and Gay Marriage in two Paragraphs

The Age of Innocence - NYTimes.com

This is one of the reasons why Europe and the United States are facing debt crises and political dysfunction at the same time. People used to believe that human depravity was self-evident and democratic self-government was fragile. Now they think depravity is nonexistent and they take self-government for granted. 

Neither the United States nor the European model will work again until we rediscover and acknowledge our own natural weaknesses and learn to police rather than lionize our impulses.

Pretty much covers it. Recognize our natures are flawed and learn to compensate -- with check/balances, religion, culture, etc. 

Unfortunately, I don't expect this enlightenment to be generally sinking in anytime soon. 

Setting A New Standard for President

What was Mitt Romney like in high school (and should anyone care)? | Power Line

Or more honestly, for Republican Presidents. With W the issue of  "was he a good pilot when he was in the TX National Guard 30 years ago?" was of critical and obsessive importance to the MSM. Dan Rather lost his job working on that important issue.

For BO, the standard was "ANYTHING about his past -- college records, church he went to, his citizenship, radicals he may or may not have associated with, his drug and alcohol abuse, his statement that he had taken on the "dreams of his father" and was an anti-colonialist (and the US is now considered a "colonial power", etc were ALL "racist, off limits, and not legitimate issues". The "Dreams From My Father" book is a veritable treasure trove of oppo research, including BO reading it aloud, including passages using the "N word" and "Pussy" ...

Slick Willie established that there is no MORAL standard to occupy the presidency -- for a D. BO established that there is not standard of COMPETENCY, again, for a D. Will Americans sit and allow things that happened in HIGH SCHOOL to be a valid issue for an R? Is there NO limit to the double standard? What happens if the standards completely break down -- for BOTH parties?

Now, for Romney, his carrying of a family pet on the roof of his car, his church, and now his HS behavior ARE critical issues that are stated by the leading MSM "news" outlets as items having significant bearing on the suddenly important "character issue".

Couple things  come to mind on this front.

1). The current obsession with "bullying". When I was a kid, the mantra was "Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you". Today, it is the opposite -- children are basically raised to be thin skinned, and they are. It looks like this is a lefty fad on par with "Climate Change" at least in the short term. One can see how it fits with their mind set -- human nature is infinitely pliable, all it takes is a bit  more "re-education and state control" and we can have millions of automatons behaving exactly as we decree. Nothing can go wrong, go wrong, can wrong go ....

2). The MSM has now raised the ante on presidential character for Republicans to "stories from HS". Can junior high and grade school be far behind? Horror of horror, supposedly "Christian values family man" had a Playboy in Jr High, or looked at dirty pictures on the web. One asks if there is a limit -- no, there isn't, and it will get worse. They went out and got Clarence Thomas's video rental list, they WILL find some future Republican candidates internet surf list from Jr High.

3). I can only hope this is an "over reach". I'm starting to see the "Dreams" book material show up.The imaginary girl friend for example. Eating the dog. While the MSM will do all it can to keep a firm double standard, is that going to be possible with such a rich treasure trove of significantly unflattering anecdotes allegedly by BO's own hand just sitting there?

The Other Guys Have Issues

Lugar Defeat and End of Bipartisanship - NYTimes.com:

Human nature is so wonderfully and woefully predictable. If you write for the NYTs, you literally CAN'T SEE both sides of many issues at all. Do I really need to say anything beyond Joe Lieberman?? The Democrat party had to purge itself of a man that it ran for VP in '00. One could go on forever of the now extinct "Democrat Hawks", "Pro-Life Dems", and "Blue Dogs" that have been purged from the Democrat party as it has lurched to the left.

No, what folks at the Times pine away for are the kind of "compromises" where one side gets it's spending and the other gets it's tax cut and vice - versa ... oh, and let's put 85% of the ballooning budget on autopilot  as "entitlements" before we retire to the bar for a genial drink.

That kind of "compromise" is killing us --- it is the obese person cutting exercise AND eating more. The drunk drinking more on weekends AND during the week. This is a time for INTERVENTION, not compromise, but the left sincerely believes that spending, taxing and borrowing can A:L:L keep rolling and buying them votes forever.

So, we have a conflict -- and unlike what the NYTs thinks, BOTH SIDES have "girded their loins" in the words of Joe Biden. One side seeks to grow the US government forever, one seeks to have a nation of "limited government" as it says in the constitution. We can't have both, so there is conflict.

Let Us NEVER Talk "Civility" Again!!

Carville: Wake up Democrats; you could lose - CNN.com

Why a man who knows he is running for president (who claims to know something about the American economy) would for any reason keep money in offshore accounts, I have no idea. And I know that we are going to take him out to the cornfield (like at the end of the movie "Casino") on the Ryan budget.

Ok, The "Cornfield Scene" is a merciless beating and burial in shallow grave that has been called "possibly the most difficult to watch" scene in a movie of all time". WOW, there have been A LOT of really bad beating scenes in movies ... I had to go find just that scene, and it is brutal. 


However, certainly ZERO PROBLEM with no less than Democrat Strategist James Carvelle talking about what they are going to do to Romney in the fall on the off shore accounts and the Ryan Budget. Nice imagery -- uh, saying someone is a "target" (for defeat) is supposed to not be "civil"?? Give me a BREAK!! we are all well aware that this is TOTALLY a one sided issue -- the left can do ANYTHING it wants, witness "The Assassination of George Bush". 

What Democrats seek is "unilateral rhetoric disarmament" -- when your objective is a one party Soviet style system, you have to get rid of the opposition somehow! 

The quote ought to have been: "Why would a REPUBLICAN who knows he is running for president ...:. " Kerry had houses galore, both domestic and international, and no end of "of shore" -- of course "that was owned by his wife". No story there, move along. He also kept his yacht in RI to avoid MA taxes -- no problem there, he is a Democrat, he wants OTHERS to pay high taxes!!

The Bubble Inevitability

The ‘folly’ of the U.S. housing bubble - The Washington Post

Good little article. Now that all the scapegoats have been herded up and duly flogged -- if not prosecuted, let's realize that we have met the enemy, and as the inimitable Pogo pointed out long ago, "he is us".

Foote, Gerardi and Willen admit that economists are no closer to explaining the U.S. house mania than they are to understanding the tulip mania in Holland almost four centuries ago. They think the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy or Fannie Mae’s interventions might have helped start the madness but can’t account for its timing or momentum. 

We can clean up the housing mess and learn from it. But even the most enlightened policy can’t guarantee it will never happen again. Folly is human nature, and you can’t regulate human nature.

As much as "progressives" believe you can regulate, educate, tax, fine, etc it away, the enemy is STILL us! ... worse, the "progressives" are at least as bad, and likely worse, since they STILL don't understand that "bubbles", "irrational exuberance", "x is ONLY going to go up in value", etc are endemic to the human creature.

Government spending / debt is just one more bubble -- the fine people of Europe decided to thumb their nose and say that "what has gone up is going to keep going up FOREVER" -- but it still won't. Reality bites -- and it cares not for the opinion of even the "wisest" man on the matter.

It Isn't the Cliff, We Gotta Hit Bottom

RealClearPolitics - Austerity as a Bridge to Nowhere

"Austerity" is here re-defined to mean "living within your means". I guess "normal living" must be defined to be continually running massive deficits and ignoring anyone who says it is "unsustainable".  ... oh, and while not covered in this particular column, it also tends to involve cutting energy production, massive taxes on the productive, huge government regulation, and bully pulpit abuse of anyone making a profit.

"Unsustainable" is used to point to anyone that thinks drilling, mining, making things at a profit, etc are good ideas. THOSE are "unsustainable" ... where massive government financial incontinence is not only "sustainable", it is good policy!!

The solution proffered? "growth". Since the election of a Socialist was cheered, I can only guess what "growth" means to this columnist.

I especially love this one:

In Britain, the economy was growing when Prime Minister David Cameron took office two years ago. Adhering to the platform of his Conservative Party, Cameron took the austerity route with a host of gloom-and-doom budget cuts. Now unemployment is rising and the economy appears to be slipping back into recession. Nice job, Tories.

I suppose 115K jobs and 2.2% positive in the US is "growth"? Oh, wait ... I'm sure any problem we have is due to the sad fact that Republicans have "held the lid" on spending to ONLY the tune of $1.5 T budget deficits -- as Krugman says, they ought to be MUCH higher! Oh, and anyone that still has a job or is making a profit ought to be taxed until after they learn to shut up after screaming loudly in pain. 


The elections in Europe show that just going over the cliff is not enough -- people need to hit the bottom with lots of blood and explosions before they wake up.

Death of a Salesman’s Dreams - NYTimes.com

Death of a Salesman’s Dreams - NYTimes.com

I don't have a lot of time to go dig into this, but this somewhat artsy column reduces "the purported death of the middle class" to basically this paragraph:

Then again, in 1949, the top marginal tax rate was 82 percent. The drop in that rate to 28 percent by 1988 helped create a stratum of people who could afford to pay high prices for everything from inflated theater tickets to health care and college tuition.

The assumptions in such a view are vast -- a few must be "income re-distribution is a PRIMARY function of Government, AND it works!".  Also,  "tax rates have little or no effect on people's motivation to make money". I especially like the last -- I'd be MUCH more inclined to look for a job to supplement my pension if it wasn't for the fact that 40-50% of money I made would go to taxes (fed, state, local, FICA, etc). Why oh why would one go to work for half of what you earn if you are already reasonably comfortable?

How about if you only got 18 cents on the dollar (the proud 82% tax rate)? Very short answer, they wouldn't. Very few people that have achieved reasonable food, shelter, clothing and very basic recreation are going to work for even 50 cents on the dollar, virtually none are going to work for 18 cents on the dollar.

In support of my way of thought, I found the following -- in a paper dedicated to pointing out the EVILS of "income inequality". Note that since 1922 the top 1% has bounced primarily between 30-40% of national wealth. The "best" for re-distribution was the wonderful '70's ... a period of economic disaster that we do seem rather intent on returning to.

Otherwise, it is what you expect -- the wealthy own the stocks, bonds and property where the rest of us work. When the economy is good, the value of American Industry (the stock market) goes up, so their percentage goes up. When the economy sucks, their valuation drops. When you wound the goose that lays the golden eggs, you get less eggs ... news at 11!

Our "elite" generally has such a lack of understanding of economics that they believe the "messages" they get from a Broadway play -- one could only hope they would direct us via Horoscopes, it would be a distinct improvement!

Table 3: Share of wealth held by the Bottom 99% and Top 1% in theUnited States, 1922-2007.

	Bottom 99 percent	Top 1 percent
1922	63.3%	36.7%
1929	55.8%	44.2%
1933	66.7%	33.3%
1939	63.6%	36.4%
1945	70.2%	29.8%
1949	72.9%	27.1%
1953	68.8%	31.2%
1962	68.2%	31.8%
1965	65.6%	34.4%
1969	68.9%	31.1%
1972	70.9%	29.1%
1976	80.1%	19.9%
1979	79.5%	20.5%
1981	75.2%	24.8%
1983	69.1%	30.9%
1986	68.1%	31.9%
1989	64.3%	35.7%
1992	62.8%	37.2%
1995	61.5%	38.5%
1998	61.9%	38.1%
2001	66.6%	33.4%
2004	65.7%	34.3%
2007	65.4%	34.6%

Sources: 1922-1989 data from Wolff (1996). 1992-2007 data from Wolff (2010).

Note, by this chart, at least this measure of the dreaded "inequality" was WORSE during the reign of the glorious Slickster, he whom walked the halls of power with his pants around his ankles! Naturally, the media was MUCH less concerned about it in those days!

Pocahontas Warren

White and wrong: On the reservation with Elizabeth Warren - BostonHerald.com

This is just way to funny ... and sad. Just read it.

I especially loved "the race card, Obama never leaves home without it!"

If I Wanted America To Fail

RealClearMarkets - If I Wanted America to Fail: Free Market Agitprop With a Lesson:

The little video embedded below is worth the 5 min if you have not seen it. Note, it DOESN'T say that Progressives want America to fail -- just that many of their policies might be causing that result. "Surgery" is only surgery if it works a reasonable percentage of the time -- otherwise it is just mutilation or murder.

My view of the core problem of many liberal policies is that the ends are not only assumed to justify the means, once the means are in progress, the questioning of the means is taken as absolute disagreement on the ends. We are all in favor of clean water, but I'd hope that we all agree that extermination of mankind to achieve it would be a very bad "means".

I find the following paragraph to be right on. It seems clear, but the problem is that many liberals are purists while many conservatives are pragmatists. Liberals want "clean water" -- to the highest purity possible, and tend to not care about the cost. Conservatives are willing to make cost / benefit trade-offs, and even worse, both sides have the problem of ALWAYS using less than perfect policies -- so some of them fail. When failure happens, our very adversarial current political situation causes both sides to attempt to use the failure to snuff out the other for good.

"The questions are: Should government policies be judged by their intentions or their results? Should political leaders be judged by what they say they want to accomplish or by what actually happens after they gain the reins of power?"

'via Blog this'

BO Ain't No SEAL

pObama encounters blowback from the SEALS | Power Line

Admittedly, he has to say SOMETHING on the stump, but come on. Mittens is exactly right on this one, .CARTER would have have given a green light to killing Osama!

Jimmuh WAS willing to defend himself against PAWs after all ...

TP, Modern Medieval Penance

Works and Days » It Was the Power, Stupid!

Victor Davis Hanson tends to think way too much like me -- having way too good a memory and loving irony just a bit too much. But this one was good enough that I could not resist.

I especially loved this paragraph -- the similarity of the MSM and the left to medieval catholicism is amazing. When I refer to "progressives" as "regressives", this is partially what I mean. The fetish to chant certain phrases "global warming", "fairness", "the 1%", "corporate greed",  "the reactionary Robert's court", etc ... but then the penance provided to go and be secure in your "sins" of being worth 100's of millions or billions of dollars, multiple houses, private jets, etc.

Two, the Left has always operated on the theory of medieval penance. We surely must assume that Warren Buffett has never had problems with the ethics of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. or had a company he controls sued by the IRS for back taxes. Why? Because he has confessed his sins, and accepted the faith and paid his tithe to the Church. Ditto a Bill Gates or a rich celebrity like Sean Penn or Oprah. In the relativism of the left, if the one-percenters will simply confess that their class is greedy and needs to pay their fair share—even if they are entirely cynical in the manner of GE’s Jeffrey Immelt and penance is written off as the cost of doing business—then they become exempt from the wages of them/us warfare and the “you want to kill the children” rhetoric.

He maybe ties together just a few too many things ... but I do so like how he things.

One Month, The End Of IBM

It has been one glorious month since my mandatory "retirement" from IBM ... it seems like a few days though. Revelations on my future?? Not so much, other than just to live a lot more free than the existence that being an IBM employee had become. While you are there, it is impossible to calculate how much of your mental space and life force is locked in servitude.

I've mostly kept up with Cringely for a long time -- He is the guy behind http://www.pbs.org/nerds/
he has a lot of connections and is usually a reasoned and worthy read. Is he right this time? Unfortunately it certainly seems so.

I really don't think there is anything in here of any real news for those of us currently or recently at IBM. Can the company keep paying some of our retirement after 2015? Bob isn't super clear on that ... Oracle is after all profitable -- but it is not a pretty outlook for IBM as a place to work.

Prelude

Part 1: A Terminal Diagnosis of IBM

Part 2: IBM As Off Shoring Middleware

Part 3: Silver Bullets of the Day at IBM

Part 4: Showing the emperor's nakedness

Part 5: Bob interacts with the IBM of Mythology in his youth

Conclusion: 2015 IBM As Oracle

Miami-Dade '06 New Car Fleet

Miami-Dade New Car Fleet Parked Since ’06 in Garage - ABC News

"Government Efficiency"

Crucify Them

EPA official blasted over 'crucify' oil and gas comments - CNN.com:

Apologize for the use of the word "crucify" and you STILL have an EPA trying to pick out oil and gas companies to "make and example of". We need energy MUCH more than we need the EPA!!

We have another case here of of the would be American Caesar in action. Remember the faux Roman/Grecian pillars at the Democrat convention in '08?? 

Weep for America

Churchill on the Buffett Rule | Power Line:

Read it to the end and weep for America.