Job Advisor Choices Run Gamut From Bizarre To Weird

Among those named by President Obama to advise him on reversing the continuing decline in employment in the U.S. are, according to this report compiled by Investors Business Daily, a bevy of chief executive officers who have led the way in eliminating American jobs. The ludicrous list includes the heads of:

*  GE, which, according to its annual reports, has cut its American workforce by 25,000, or 16%, between 2001 and 2010 . . . while at the same time increasing the number of its employees in other countries.

*  American Express, which in 2010 employed 28% fewer workers than it had a decade earlier.

*  Kodak, which shrank its payroll from 75,000 employees in 2001 to 18,000 in 2010.

*  Xerox, which in 2009 (before it acquired another company) had cut a third of the number of employees it had in 2001.

How does anyone expect advice from job eliminators to stem U.S. job losses?

Pathetic . . . Just Pathetic

This report just in from the Associated Press


A new national assessment finds that less than a quarter of students are proficient in U.S. history.

The 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress tested students on topics such as the American Revolution, Civil War and the contemporary U.S.

Just 20 percent of fourth-grade students, 17 percent of eighth-graders and 12 percent of high school seniors scored at a level showing solid academic performance.

The Lengths (and Depths) To Which the Leftrickle Media Will Go (and Disappointingly Find No Dirt)

Obama's 'Bumps In the Road

"Of Course Only Cops Are Professional Enough To Have Guns!"

What does this say about the competency and training of some unknown and unknowable number of our police officers?

What a Founder Understood . . . and We Have Forgotten

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

. . . John Adams, 

Address to the Military 

1798

Even Truer Today Than Ever Before

The Obama Doctrine: "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Declaration of War"

The Obama administration is claiming the right to use America's military as an executive branch instrument when, where, and how it chooses notwithstanding that the Constitution vests Congress and Congress alone -- not the executive branch -- with the right to declare war.


Such a claim, as reported here, would have shocked and been forcefully rejected by not just the nation's founders but by virtually all Americans as recently as just a generation or two back. That it now is being accepted or going almost unnoticed is due to the nation's having tolerated decades of repeated violations of the Constitution that Americans once celebrated, cherished, and held sacred. The degradation of, and disregard for the nation's basic and fundamental law probably has been the inevitable result for our having repeatedly elected to governmental offices individuals who perjure themselves when they take their oaths of office. They falsely swear to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution when in fact they have no intention of doing so. In most cases they have neither any knowledge of, or interest in learning what the Constitution says or means.


Make no mistake about it. What we're being told by our overlords is: We'll do as we please, whatever we can get away with, and

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' CONSTITUTION

Internet Business and Rapacious Statists

In their search for any and all dollars they might be able to grab to fund ever more government spending, the statist looters again are making a run at collecting sales taxes on internet transactions by businesses located outside the looters' jurisdictions.

The looters arguments ignore the fact that such businesses use none of their jurisdictions' services and derive no benefit from them.

They also ignore the fact that the out-of-state businesses have no vote or representation in the state and the idea that taxation without representation is tyranny that once was firmly held in this country. That idea has gone by the wayside, as is shown by the plethora of hotel and airport taxes that have been enacted and risen to increasing exorbitant levels in recent years. 

Politicians love being able to extort taxes from people who have no recourse at the ballot box.

Response From a Reader

The mindset -- [that reflected in the post immediately beneath this one] -- brings to mind California's last boom days when Willie Brown was running the state legislature. In response to a question about heavily taxing businesses to finance unrestrained spending, Willie referred to the burdens as the "price of admission" and declared that "companies that want to do business in California are just going to have to pay the price." Willie of course left 'public service' a rich man and, with many of those companies having departed, the rest of us now are left to pay the price. 

The Looter Mindset

"Dear Mr. [Journalouse],

"One of the Ayn Rand's perfectly depicted Atlas Shrugged looters must have ghost written the column that appeared under your byline in today's S.F. Comical."

The above was sent by the writer of much that appears on this blog to the author of a column that appeared during the past week in San Francisco's major leftirckle media outlet and dealt with Apple Computer's plans to consolidate and expand its facilities in Cupertino, California.

The column criticized the Cupertino city council for having been wowed by Apple's magnificent plan. Nor did the column express appreciation or gratitude that Apple, instead of joining the business and job exodus from the state, was staying put and even expanding in its home town. The writer didn't even mention or recognize the state's hostile business climate or its effects. 

No, not a bit of that. The gist of the column is captured by its headline:

City should tell Apple to work for its approval

and it contained the following perfect expression of the mindset of

statist looters:

Apple posted revenue of $65 billion in its last fiscal year, with 

profit of $14 billion. Couldn't it fork over a few mill to provide 

Free Internet access to its citizens, much like the city offers its 

streets and emergency services to Apple's employees?

The city's streets and emergency services are, of course, not free. 

As the largest taxpaying contributor to the city's coffers, Apple 

pays for those services, as its president noted in his comments to 

the city council:

On the subject of Wi-Fi, Jobs said: "I'm a simpleton. I've always

had this view that we pay taxes and the city should do those

things. If we can get out of paying taxes, I'd be glad to put up

Wi-Fi." 

That, of course is not how the journalouse with the looter mindset

sees it.  Because Apple made what appears to him to be a great 

deal of money, he cavalierly suggests that the city demand "a few 

mill."  


    

More Delusional Government Spending

Having expended billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have been killing off or exporting and are are continuing to kill or export private sectors jobs in America, Obama now intends to spend more money from the debt dependent public treasury to train people for the jobs that no longer exist in the U.S.


Is this a great country or what?

Our Government In Action

David Hansell, who runs the federal government’s Administration for Children and Families, told a group of high school students at the U.S. Department of Education’s “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT)” youth summit on Tuesday that the Obama administration is recruiting “LGBT parents” to adopt children.

“[O]f course, we’re also trying to recruit more foster and adoptive parents who are lesbian and gay,” Hansell said in a general session of the summit held at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C.  (The Department of Education barred reporters from attending the summit’s breakout sessions, which were also held at the hotel.)

The foregoing is from (and only part of)  this CNSNews.com report.

Another Day, Another Spending Boondoggle

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 over the past decade funding research that involves getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine and then studying their behavior, including during different phases of the female monkeys’ menstrual cycles.


Is this a great country or what? 


The full report can be accessed and read here.

Spreading It Around

That's what our Anointed One said he wanted to do and, by golly and gee whiz, he's doing it . . . even as economy founders under his ministrations.


Even his EPA, is participating, spreading billions of our tax dollars hither (in the U.S.) and yon (abroad) on some pretty absurd projects for which I and, I think you never would shell out a dime.


Take a gander at this to see where and how Obama's Employment Prevention Agency is throwing our tax dollars around. 

Our Perpetual Debt Machine

As noted in a previous posting on this blog, China appears to be losing its appetite for our debt. It is reducing its holdings of U.S. IOUs that if repaid at all will be repaid with greatly depreciated dollars. 


It is questionable whether and to what extent the U.S. will be able to sell new debt securities to the Chinese . . . but worry not, there is a ready, willing, and able buyer for them: the Federal Reserve.


And in fact, as is reported here, the money printing (and destroying) Fed already has replaced China as the largest single holder of U.S. indebtedness.


What were that old song's lyrics? Oh yes: 

I OWE MY SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE

A very astute professional investor who has experienced notable success over many years has responded to the linked article with the following comment:

Disgraceful monetary and fiscal policy.

 

If I understand correctly our debt and unfunded liabilities exceed $60 Trillion.

There are about 300 Million people in the US.

60 T divided by 300M = $200,000 per individual.

There are about 100M households in the US which is about $600,000 per family.

I read somewhere recently that the average family savings are about $7,000.

 

I have a little trouble imagining what  60 trillion of anything looks like, especially dollars.

Sign In Alaska

What Were We Thinking?

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it.  They failed and it closed.  Now, we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health care to the same lackwits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling whiskey?!"

News: No Comment Needed

The community-organizer-in-chief took time out from his busy Memorial Day golfing schedule to proclaim June "National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month," as he has done annually since his election. 

Economy May Be Far Worse Than Reported

A very credible and highly experienced economist has looked through the numbers and concluded that the nation's financial situation actually is significantly grimmer than that portrayed by the gloomy numbers and the bleak economic reports we've been getting. His penetrating -- and unfortunately persuasive -- insights can be viewed here.

Government Run Health Care: A Report From Britain

Nurses casually stepped over a patient as he lay dying on a  hospital floor.
  
Peter Thompson, 41, was left in a corridor for ten hours before someone noticed he had passed away.


In a final act of indignity, hospital auxiliaries pulled his lifeless body across the floor in a manner his family described as like "dragging a dead animal."

Words To Live By

Years ago playwright/director David Mamet wrote a line of dialogue with an autobiographical echo:

I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.


The above is from a review of Mr. Mamet's recently published book, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, in which he recounts his confrontation with the secular religion of liberalism and his conversion to conservatism. The very much worth reading review, which can be seen here, outlines the book and the quandary that liberals have had in reacting to it.

Accurate Analysis of White House Economic Advisor's Departure

Austan Goolsbee, one of President Barack Obama's longest serving policy advisers and the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, leaves his post pretty much as he inherited it: with the economy moribund, no clear path to vigor in sight and the unemployment rate stubbornly elevated.

From the Huffington Post

. . . and this observant comment by 

Michelle Malkin at Townhall.com

on why economic policy is failing:

Official motto of the White House economic team: Those who can, do. Those who can't, fantasize in the classroom, fail in Washington and then return to the Ivy Tower to train the next generation of egghead economic saboteurs. Life is good for left-wing academics. Everyone else pays dearly. 


And then there is this from Laura Ingraham:


In a Monday interview, Obama admitted that he doesn't know why Friday's unemployment report was so bad. But he did say Tuesday he's not worried about a double dip recession. How can he be sure if he doesn't understand what's going on? It's plain to see he's out of touch with Americans who know we're on the wrong track under his leadership.

Klavan's One-State Solution for the Middle East

All That Need Be Said About the Tawdry Congressional Guttersnipe Currently in the Spotlight

In his combination of unctuousness, mendacity, mock-reasonableness, petulance, bullying, hypocrisy, overweening arrogance, brazen aggression, self-pity, victimhood, and bogus moral preening, it’s hard to beat Congressman Anthony Weiner. He’s the perfect face of the modern American Left in all its glorious pathology.

. . . Michael Walsh in 
National Review Online