Stimulus Jr.'s Pricey Jobs

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News estimated that Obama's $447 billion jobs proposal would increase gross domestic product by 0.6 percent next year and add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls. Those were the median estimates of 34 economists. The program also would reduce the jobless rate by 0.2 percentage point in 2012, according to the surveyed economists' projections

Two hundred seventy-five thousand jobs for $447 billion comes to a bit more than $1.6 million a job. Hold on though. Things may not be that bad.  A Harvard economist working with the same numbers cuts the cost per job by 87.5%, to $200,000 a job. 

Looks like a rip off no matter how one finagles the numbers.

ABC News reports that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "didn't dispute" the lowball Harvard estimate "but said the price tag is the wrong way to measure the proposal's worth. He didn't suggest any alternative as a proper way to evaluate it.

N.Y. Slimes Has It Both Ways

In a September 18 editorial the Slimes stated:

* The huge benefits of his health care reform . . .  will become clearer to Americans in the years ahead.

But the headline over a new story in this morning's edition of  the Slimes said:

* Health Insurance Costs Rising Sharply This Year, Study Shows

Because she was devoted to truth, the good gray lady of the past never had a problem with consistency.  Having transformed herself into a cheap tart, she now proclaims whatever is convenient at any given moment.

Hope From Across the Pond

The United States is undergoing one of the biggest political revolutions in its post-war history, and perhaps the most important since Ronald Reagan, with an emphatic rejection of the idea that government knows best when it comes to handling key domestic issues, especially relating to the economy. . . .

Barack Obama could well end up being the last big government president of the United States, a nation that simply cannot afford the lavish excesses of an imperious presidency that drains the pay-checks of hard-working Americans with impunity and reckless abandon. The historic loss of faith in the federal government under Obama has combined with growing support across America for a return to the limited government ideals of the Founding Fathers.

. . . From a Nile Gardiner blog post for London's Daily Telegraph

My Kind of Governor

D.C. a Natural Gathering Point

The seat of government is of course where

the nation's assholes congregate.

Let's Go All Out for True and Complete Fairness

Many Americans apparently believe that its okay to impose higher taxes on the rich . . . the small minority who earn the highest incomes. The thinking seems to be that it's okay to take more from them because they can afford to pay more.

But that's just tinkering at the edges and will not achieve anything meaningful. Were we to seize everything earned by the billionaires and millionaires who are the current targets of political opportunists, the looters would inflict great damage on the nation's economy and still not collect enough to significantly reduce either the debt that the government has accumulated or the budget deficit resulting from excessive spending.

That's not the goal of the demagogues crying out for "fairness." Their goal is to win the allegiance of the envious who disguise their envy of those better off than themselves as merely the pursuit of what is "fair."

So let's stop tinkering on the fringes by permitting politicians and everyone else define for themselves what is fair, and institute real fairness and an objective standard for it.

To do this, we should have the good folks in charge of our government determine the nation's average income and then have the IRS collect from everyone getting more than that amount the entire amount in excess of the average. By definition, those earning more than the average can afford to give up the excess and they should pay more because the can afford to do so. The collected sums then could be distributed among those earning less than the average amount. This would result in true fairness and equality. Everyone would have exactly the same, and the government then could impose a flat tax to meet its budget needs.
 
Who could complain about such a system? It's fairness would be obvious, complete, and true.

Furthermore, there would be no reason to stop there, and true and complete fairness requires that we not do so.  One of the problems with taxing incomes is that doing so doesn't reach true wealth. 

Consequently, what is needed is a determination of the average net worth -- the difference between the value of assets net of indebtedness -- of the nation's entire population. Once that determination is made the government could go about seizing anything and everything in excess of the average owned by any individual and distribute the collected assets among the less wealthy, thus bringing everything and everyone to an equal level. True great and fair balancing.

Of course, human nature being what it is, some people would rise and others would fall going forward.Therefore, fairness will require the process of balancing of incomes and assets to be repeated annually. But that's a minor administrative difficulty that differs only slightly from the similar burdens of our current income tax system.   The nation's current tax system shows that such minor inconveniences can and should be  overcome to achieve real and complete fairness.

Our Government at Work

It would be great to live in the kind of country that the U.S. used to be, a country in which there was no need to take an interest in officialdom. Today though, not taking an interest in government doesn't guarantee it won't take an interest in you . . .  or in your property.

That's an expensive and painful lesson that has been learned by an Idaho couple who planned to build a home on property they had purchased. Federal agents suddenly showed up and told them in effect that Your Land Is Our Land, as is spelled out in detail in this account.  

Tar and Feathers Wouldn't Suffice

Some poll last week reported that a good many Americans are "tar and feathers angry" toward those in the nation's public offices.

Not me.

I'm gallows and guillotine angry.

Let the punishment fit the crime, say I.

No Loftier Purpose

A current post by the estimable Lee Rodgers on his superb blog at 

http://www.radiorodgers.com/

indicates that he finds something untoward about our public treasury having shelled out $4.3 million to two San Francisco Bay Area legal megafirms for putting together the deal in which our government dropped more than a half billion taxpayer dollars into and with the now bankrupt solar panel maker, Solyndra. 

This is hugely disappointing because I always enjoyed listening to the unusually intelligent radio talk show that the acerbic and well informed Mr. Rodgers used to host. 

But I cannot overlook that only the most benighted of the poor sods among us can fail to appreciate and understand that paying legal fees is the highest calling in American life and business. After all, were this not so lawyers might find it difficult to realize the God-given right that He has bestowed on them to each be paid at least a million dollars a year.

U.S. Experiencing Obama's 'Success'

He set out to "spread it around" and we're experiencing the result of his efforts:

The inherent vice of capitalism 

is the unequal sharing of blessings; 

the inherent virtue of socialism 

is the equal sharing of miseries.

. . . Winston Churchill

On the Education Front

Reading scores on the SATs have reached an all-time low. 

Or, as Obama's Education Secretary reported: 

 SATs Be Most Baddest.

Government Of, By, and For the Scumlords

Any doubts about our institutions having been corrupted by the ever thickening and expanding layer of scum at their top layers should follow the advice of onetime New York City Mayor Al Smith to look at the record. A review of just some of the things that our government has done recently shows the following:

*  It has rewarded financial executives and institutions for having caused the collapse of the nation's economy by showering them with billions of taxpayer dollars from the public treasury.  Of course the benefits of such crony socialism do not extend to ordinary citizens who continue to be preyed on by, and to suffer from the ministrations of those who do enjoy such programs.

*  It has given a free pass to voter intimidation by truncheon wielding New Black Panther party thugs.

*  Together with a supine judiciary, it has destroyed confidence in the rule of law and created a hostile climate for business investments by riding rough shod over established law in the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings to pay off the administration's big labor supporters ahead, and at the expense of holders of bonds of those concerns. Yet they are puzzled at the absence of investments in business and employment growth!

*  It has transformed the Department of Justice into a Department of Just Us and used it, among other things, to (i) prevent states from protecting themselves from illegal immigrants, and (ii) put guns into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, whose members have deployed them with deadly results against American law enforcement officers, and it is continuing the cover up of the latter accomplishment.

*  It has gambled billions of dollars from the public treasury on collapsing ventures too risky to attract private capital to remain in business, shrugging off the loss to the taxpayers when a recipient such as California solar power maker Solyndra goes bankrupt. Solyndra's executives are taking refuge under the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying about the possibly corrupt deal. But, because of the way it was structured, the venture's politically connected  private investors will get repaid in preference to the public treasury with anything realized in its bankruptcy proceedings. 

By such misgovernment, our institutions have forfeited their credibility and legitimacy. 

Meanwhile, a probably even worse administration boondoggle that also entails national security concerns is just beginning to unfold. It involves  a venture called LightSquared and the nightmarish situation is outlined in this report.

Breaking Job Creation News

President Barack Obama and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who chairs Obama's jobs council, have just unveiled a program they are implementing to create 3.4 million new jobs. Up to 50 of those jobs may be in the United States.

Quicker Way To Fix Social Security

Here's a more direct and effective way to accomplish the same thing that Obamacare is designed to do in a more subtle but slower way:

Just Another Robbin' Hood

Take more from the rich because they can afford it!

That's the mindset of armed thugs who prey on those they believe to be worth robbing and statist looters who command public instruments of violence and seek to extort ever more in taxes from the same targets.

The latter group seeks the support of members of the public who envy and perhaps even resent those among them who have achieved a greater than average level of material success.

It's only fair, claim the would be looters, citing the tax burden of ordinary citizens and the enormous and growing debt the claimants have imposed and are continuing to impose on the body politic.

They never mention that almost half of the population lives off the taxes and debt the looters already have put into place to buy their free loading constituencies.

They never talk about stopping spending, and the idea of taxing everybody and of lower taxes for all never enters their thinking or their speechifyings.

Not a Policy Savant

Warren Buffett obviously is a hugely successful -- and perhaps the most successful ever -- investor.

However, does that mean that you would have him remove a tumor from your brain? Obviously not. His investment smarts do no qualify him as a surgeon.

Similarly, his ability to garner wealth by picking securities that appreciate greatly over time is not translatable into public policy decision making. His skills are very narrow. Consider, for example, that Mr. Buffett never has produced or managed the production of any goods or services that the public consumes or uses. His investment skills are essentially those of a parasite that thrives by being capable of selecting healthy organisms on which to feed.

Accordingly, there is no reason for anyone to give any greater weight to Mr. Buffett's views on political issues or even broader economic ones than are afforded to the views of any other individual citizen.

Nation Paying Dearly for Its Media's Irresponsible Failure

Americans are paying the price -- a very high one -- of having elected a president lacking any qualifications for the job.

They bought into a fairy tale that the nation's media were peddling in 2008 when the media utterly failed to vet the current occupant of the oval office and instead undertook his sale to the electorate like a box of soap or, more accurately, a seriously flawed used car.

The media's abandonment and forfeiture of any claim to act on behalf of the public as a watchdog over those seeking and occupying public offices is spelled out by Rex Murphy in this superb account from the September 17 issue Canada's National Post.

Undeterred by never having run anything, the guy in the oval office has an excess supply of undeserved self esteem and confidence in his ability to run the country . . . and he together with his equally unqualified appointees are running it alright . . . right into the ground.

Have I Got a Deal for You!

Three More Knee-Slapping Hoots From Our Government's Executive Branch

With turbo tax cheating Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department now joining the pack of federal departments, bureaus, commissions, agencies, committees, etc., investigating the government's latest multimillion dollar pratfall, the curtain is going up on a keystone kops komedy as various twigs of the government's executive branch begin to fall all over, investigate, and point fingers at one another.

The real mission of each investigation is of course to deflect blame and responsibility away from the investigating entity . . . to some other entity, which is likely to be engaged in a similar endeavor. All of this naturally is being done with taxpayer money, a half-billion dollars of which were lost in the transaction which is the ostensible subject of the investigation.

That transaction is the one in which the geniuses who dispense funds from the public treasury dropped somewhere between $528 million and $535 million dollars -- nobody seems to be quite sure of the exact amount as the numbers keep changing -- into Solyndra, the California solar panel maker that went down the bankruptcy drain with the money. The money was plunked in as America's share of the solar panel industry was plummeting and China's was soaring and Solyndra's auditors and industry investment analysts were warning that the company's business wasn't viable. Having no private industry or investment experience, those dispensing other peoples' money from the public treasury didn't see attempting to catch falling knives as a risky undertaking. Nor did they balk at  subordinating the government's position to that of Solyndra's well connected private investors whose money had gone in and been lost previously but who now stand to get their money back in full before the public treasury recovers anything.

Watching the multitude of investigators stumbling over one another in the charade of our government's executive branch investigating itself is going to be a knee slapping hoot . . . though I doubt it's going to be worth what we have paid to have it take place.

Production of a third knee--slapping act now is being attempted as the Obama administration simultaneously seeks to change the name of the performance from Economic Stimulus to American Jobs Act and to get hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to dispense with the same care and wisdom. 

Wondering what the second hoot was? Well, it's on right now . . . it's the current spectacle of  the administration audaciously seeking the approvals and appropriations necessary to put its planned second economic boondoggle act on stage.

Don't Trust the Dupes (or Worse) With More Dollars

Team Obama, which has self-confessed dupes dispensing billions of dollars from the public treasury, wants more taxpayer dollars to dispense for -- they say -- job creation (nee stimulus).

These are the folks who threw more than a half-billion dollars into Solyndra, the California solar power company that recently went bankrupt.

The "we were duped" claim is the current Team Obama defense. It initially tried to blame the investment on -- guess what -- yes, the Bush administration. But it turns out that the Bush team had decided against investing public money in Solyndra.

It is had to imagine how the Obama gang could have been duped because they put the money into the failing company despite warnings from the company's auditors and solar industry investment analysts that the business was not viable

No money should be entrusted for any purpose to any organization that has in decision-making positions individuals inept or naive enough to be duped in such circumstances. As nobody has been fired or otherwise held accountable for the transaction, those responsible for it still continue in positions of authority as  members of the Obama team.  Another possibility is that they have been promoted to ensure their silence. The precedent for such promotions was set with the officials who had guns put into the hands of Mexican drug gang members who then used the guns against American law enforcement officers.

This alone should be enough to require rejection of the President's clamorings for enactment of his multi-billion dollar job creation proposal.

But the situation may be even worse than the above indicates. 

One has to wonder why anyone would confess to having been duped, to publicly identify oneself as a fool . . . and the obvious answer is that the only other possible explanation for what was done is even worse and more damning -- not misfeasance but malfeasance, not negligent but criminal conduct.

As is set forth in earlier posts on this blog, the Solyndra transaction is replete with indications that the it was a political payoff with public funds. This would follow the pattern previously set by Team Obama in its administration of funds that what were appropriated to stimulate the nation's economy.

Whatever the truth and wherever it lies, Team Obama should not and cannot be entrusted with any funds that it can dispense at its discretion. And its expenditures of funds necessarily appropriated for specific purposed must be monitored very closely.

Spending Cuts: A Perpetually Receding Mirage

Progressives (nee liberals) are wont to remind their conservative opponents that Ronald Reagan signed tax increase legislation into law, but they neglect to mention a related fact necessary to make their statement a completely accurate one.

Reagan was snookered by a Demorat promise to cut spending by multiple dollars more than those to be raised through the enacted tax increases . . . and of course that promise was ephemeral. It was never kept and spending never was cut.

That always is, and must be the case.  That's the way things work in Washington even without taking into account the peculiar language used inside the beltway where a "spending cut" means a reduction in the rate at which spending increases and not actually a reduction in spending.

Ignoring that newspeak phenomenon, however, spending cuts always are ephemeral. They are mirages that constantly recede until they eventually evaporate.

This is so because they come into existence in exchange and as quid pro quo for the enactment of tax increases.  The tax increases become effective immediately if not -- through a Demorat innovation -- retroactively while the spending cuts are promised to be made in the future -- at some indefinite manana.

However, there is no way to bind future congresses, which are free to, and invariably do ignore even well intentioned promises of their predecessors. Because a majority of every Congress is made up of individuals elected, and looking to be reelected, by promising to distribute goodies and ever more goodies to groups of constituents at the expense of the public treasury, the result is foreordained and inevitable.

Our government officials for some unfathomable reason cannot bring themselves to just cut spending right now. If it's been appropriated and is in the pipeline, it's sacrosanct and cannot be stopped. That the treasury's coffers are empty means nothing to the most selfish generation in the nation's history. That is the current generation, the one willing to borrow ever more and pass the resulting obligations on as burdens to its children, grandchildren, great grandchildren . . . ad infinitum. At some point, and probably sooner than later, our progeny will rightfully curse us.

Cabbie Wisdom

Back in the day that New York City still had English speaking cab drivers, I was en route from my Central Park neighborhood hotel to a Wall Street investment bank office when my driver responded to a radio news report with an emphatic bull s--t expletive.

It was early April because the cabbie was taking issue with a comment by the head of the Internal Revenue Service that followed the annual approach to the tax filing deadline report about the prosecution of an alleged tax cheat -- in those days they prosecuted such people rather than appointing them to the cabinet. The IRS commissioner's comments to which my driver was taking offense consisted of the usual blather to the effect that those who fail to comply with the tax code increase the burdens of those who do comply with the law and meet their payment obligations.

My "deese" and "dem" speaking cabbie's full comment was:

Didja even hear such a pile of B.S.? 

When I inquired about why he disagreed with the tax collector's statement, the response was surprising in two respects:

First, because the cab driver who appeared on the surface to be unsophisticated patiently explained that the statement was based on -- no kidding, get this -- a faulty premise.

Second, because of the depth of understanding reflected by his substantive explanation of his reaction:

The claim is phony 'cause it assumes the government will spend only some fixed amount of money and when taxes in that amount are paid everything will be in balance and nobody will have to pay any more. But that's not the deal. The bastards will never be satisfied . . . they'll just go on spending no matter what . . . they'll spend every dollar they can get their hands on . . . and then they'll borrow and tax and spend some more, and borrow and tax and spend still more . . . forever without any end or limit. They'll bleed every one of us dry no matter how much or how little anyone pays.

It took me back to an even earlier time when I spent a summer doing construction work on a large housing project. When I endeavored to get my fellow workers -- all of whom were older than me and most of whom were immigrants from Germany -- to take an interest in politics, I was rebuffed gently and politely, and told:

Hey kid, 'der all teeves!

Health Warning

When you drink Vodka over ice, it can give you kidney failure,

When you drink Rum over ice, it can give you liver failure,

When you drink whiskey over ice, it can give you heart problems,

When you drink Gin over ice, it can give you brain problems.

Ice obviously is bad for you.

Warn all your friends.

Why the Solyndra Raid?

Why has the FBI raided Solyndra, the California solar power venture that went broke and took into the tank with it more than a half billion taxpayer dollars that the government had provided to it in a transaction -- described in earlier postings on this blog -- that reeks of crony capitalist corruption?

Why is the FBI investigating the company and not focusing on the government agencies and officials who committed and threw funds from our public treasury into the politically connected business at a time that solar industry investment analysis and even the company's auditors were warning that the enterprise was not viable?

The curiously uncurious journalice who infest our media aren't asking these questions, let alone providing answers to them. However, there is an obvious and likely answer.

It has to be remembered that the FBI is part of, takes direction from, and is answerable to what once was the U.S. Department of Justice but now, under and as part of the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder, has been transformed into the Department of Just Us.

According, one has to entertain the possibility, if not the likelihood, that the mission of the FBI raid on Solyndra was to ensure that certain facts never see the light of day -- to seize any evidence in the company's possession of criminal corruption in the White House, which pushed and oversaw the transaction. Such evidence now can be hidden away and shielded  from public disclosure because it can be claimed to be "evidence in an ongoing investigation."

How We Got Taken for Big Bucks

The story gets worse and worse as details emerge about the deal in which $535 million of taxpayer money were flushed down the drain along with the California solar venture into which the Obama industry threw our money.

Some of the lowlights are that:

*  The government "investment" was made shortly after the venture's auditors warned, and as solar industry investment analysts were warning -- correctly, as it turned out -- that the recipient of the largess from the public treasury probably was headed for collapse,

*  The government "investment" called for an extraordinarily low rate of interest.

*  The government "investment" was and is subordinate to the interests of private investors in the venture, which means that the private investors will get repaid in full before the U.S. gets anything out of the liquidation of the venture's assets in the course of its bankruptcy proceedings.

*  Prominent among those private investors is the Obama billionaire buddy (and major contributor and bundler of campaign funds) who arranged the half billion dollar plus deal and shepherded it through to consummation in the course of numerous White House visits.

Hey fellow suckers, click here if you want further details about how we got snookered in this latest example of socialism  supporting the well connected rich with public funds while leaving ordinary citizens struggling on their own.