Not only did I read this article, I bought the book ("Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo)! There are no revelations in it other than putting names and numbers on feelings I have had about much of our foreign aid for years. Like many harmful activities which have become trendy, mindless, yet harmful, foreign aid to Africa is not about to end. But in considering the "insidious aid culture which has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable…" one must draw an analogy to us here in the United States. Are we not a country dependent on governmental aid? Aid which doesn't come from faceless third-party countries, but from ourselves. We tax ourselves, hire elected officials (our "employees") who turn around and re-distribute all that money to...ourselves, keeping a sizeable amount for themselves. Hmmm. How is that different? And isn't it an "insidious aid culture" which is leaving us more dependent, not to mention debt-laden, and prone to upcoming almost guaranteed inflation? Aren't we more vulnerable to those holding all that debt? According to the author, Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian female who was educated and has worked only in the West, corruption costs Africa something like $50 billion a year. Is it too much of a stretch to ask: doesn't Congress in its own legal way threaten to pass laws, or not, and change taxation, or not, to demand campaign contributions? Is that corruption? Aid creates dependency; dependency strangles freedom. Dependency is the antithesis of freedom. Can you think of one small area in our country that the government's tentacles aren't wrapped around our freedoms? President Obama and the Democratic Congress intend to turn the octopus into a giant squid. As Ms. Moyo explained, we know what works (and what doesn't work) to reduce poverty and encourage growth. It is not where we are headed in the United States.
The parallel of the discovery of the need for rich countries to "save" the African continent from abject poverty and the emergence of the moral authority of the United States to save Negroes from racism, discrimination and poverty heaped upon them by centuries of slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society were big screen displays of ridding our country of racism, discrimination and poverty. Not to matter that it didn't work even after 35 years, it was in the trying that mattered: the ability of citizens to feel good about themselves. Of course, the real goal was for Democrats to continue the charade of helping targeted segments of American voters to get votes. As rich, mostly western countries spread aid to Africa, America was spreading aid and changing laws to provide for African Americans. While the goals of the aid to Africa started out for political reasons, to wit to "win" the cold war through real estate, it morphed into a trendy thing for liberals to discuss over cocktail parties and for which to throw benefits. What both have in common is the establishment of gigantic bureaucracies which the members depend for income and to some extent their vary identites. Those bureacracies need to continue the dependency on government. And those dependencies guarantee poverty and a lack of opportunity for Africans and African Americans. Both are still endemic in the continent of Africa and in African American society in the United States.
Democratic policies have destroyed two generations of African Americans.
Cut the apron strings, which really are tentacles, and empower.
Democrats have used the words "poverty" and "Middle class stagnation" with great impact, they have been lying. According to official government figures, the best (lowest) poverty rate was -- get this -- in 1973, but percapita income is 50% higher today than in 1973, median family income (smaller families) 20%. Yet spending on "antipoverty" programs doubled. Consider what Democrats don't want known-- they use misleading numbers to obfuscate people's standards of living -- using consumption figures , what people actually buy and get, are far better now than then. Then 50% of the "poor" didn't have cars and today nearly 75% do, and 14% have two! Poverty? Today the "poor" spend more than than they get in income, assuming welfare like food stamps and earned income credits aren't "income", so why does the left-leaning government bureaucracy measure "income"? In order for Democrats to keep and get the votes of the poor. Democrats need to keep the "poor" (of course as Democrats define "poor") thinking they need aid; then the act of giving it to them keeps them voting Democrat.
And the Obama government plans to change the Bush emphasis on the free market and private companies to purchase for the government and will hire 13,00 new civil servants plus up to 30,000 more within five years to replace private contractors. More Democrats to vote to keep Democrats in power.
And then there's healthcare. But that's another story.
The United States needs real conservatives to right this listing ship of state. It needs a coda of growth not dependency. With Democrats continuing in power the entire United States population ultimately will end up like the African American generations of hopelessness and poverty.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Government Support vs. Personal Responsibility: Letter to the Editor
A Letter to the Editor from your correspondent
Editorials / Opinion
Our network sites seattletimes.com Advanced
Northwest Voices Letters to the Editor
Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words opinion@seattletimes.com.
E-mail Subscribe Blog Home
March 20, 2009 4:21 PM
Tackling homelessness
Posted by Letters editor
Throwing money not the answer
["Group hopes to cut number of homeless families in state," Local News, March 19 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008884912_gateshomeless19.html ] argues against these blanket leftist schemes that throw money at perceived problems, thus extending the problems.
Carefully read about Jackilin Abiem. She has gotten pregnant twice and, so, can't find or afford an apartment. Now think if she hadn't gotten pregnant. Would her life and opportunities be better? What about her personal responsibility?
Certainly there are many people "down on their luck" from circumstances beyond their control. They should be assisted. But Ms. Abiem? I have trouble either feeling sorry for her or being supportive of spending tax money on encouraging unwed births.
Another article in Thursday's paper ("More kids born in '07; fewer moms married," News) states that 40 percent of births are to unwed mothers. I don't think that is necessarily good for society as a whole, to which Ms. Abiem's problems attest.
-- Theodore M. Wight, Seattle
The Original Article is:
Originally published Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 12:00 AM
NEW - Introducing a new blog
Gates Foundation joins others in goal to cut homelessness
A partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits is pledging today to redouble its efforts to help the growing number of homeless families in Washington state. The pledge includes up to $60 million over 10 years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times staff reporter
COURTNEY BLETHEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
The Gates Foundation and other partners have committed $60 million toward helping homeless families in Washington state. One family in particular is 25-year-old Jackilin Abiem, of Sudan, right, and her 17 month old son, Nassir Getdet. Abiem is expecting her second son to be born in two weeks to join her family at their home at Katherine's Place, a local nonprofit offering affordable housing and support services.
A partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits is pledging today to redouble its efforts to help the growing number of homeless families in Washington state. The pledge includes up to $60 million over 10 years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Partners in the Washington Families Fund vowed to reduce the number of homeless families by 50 percent over the next decade.
"I feel this is an opportunity right now, as much as I'm a realist about the economy," said Alice Shobe, deputy director of Building Changes, which administers the fund. "It is ambitious, but we have a vision about how to do it. We have the creativity and broad partnership to make it happen."
As the recession throws more people into poverty, "we must do more to help families achieve and maintain stability," said Gov. Chris Gregoire, who signed an agreement with King, Snohomish and Pierce counties and the cities of Seattle, Everett and Tacoma to collaborate with the private partners.
Created by the state Legislature in 2004, the Washington Families Fund has received contributions of more than $20 million — $12 million from the state and $8.3 million from 18 other partners, including the Gates Foundation, Boeing, Microsoft, the Campion Foundation, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, the Ben B. Cheney Foundation and United Way. It has awarded $13 million in grants so far.
The Washington Families Fund has not yet revealed any new financial commitments other than the Gates Foundation's pledge.
Governments and private groups together spend about $200 million a year to address the problem in Washington state, but as economic conditions worsen, the number of homeless families keeps going up. About half of the state's estimated 22,000 homeless households are families with children.
Winter nights
The family of Jackilin Abiem, 25, was one of them. She arrived in 2001 as an orphan from Sudan after fleeing civil war and walking for three months across the country and eventually to a refugee camp. Once in Washington, she lived with two foster families, graduated from Garfield High School and landed her first job at McDonald's.
Abiem then worked for two years as a cook at a retirement home, but she never earned quite enough money to afford her own apartment. She became homeless after the youth housing where she was staying made her leave when she became pregnant.
She then bounced around, staying with four different friends and her foster mom through the birth of her son, Nassir. She remembers "window shopping" outside on winter nights as she waited for friends to get off work.
"When I was pregnant, I didn't have a place to live, so I was just running around between friends," she said. "It was hard for me to go house to house and to old friends. I keep them worried ... that I may give birth [at] their house."
Spending some nights with her foster mom in Mount Vernon and other nights with friends in South King County made it tough to be in West Seattle consistently for her job, and she lost that, too.
Abiem is now at Katharine's Place, in a transitional apartment for homeless families in Rainier Valley, but her two-year term ends in December. She is about to give birth to her second son. Katharine's Place had so many people on its two-year waiting list that it closed the list to new applicants in January.
Prevention
That reflects a rise in the number of homeless families in 2008 over 2007, especially in South King County.
"The trend lines have gone in the wrong direction, period," said David Bley, director of the Pacific Northwest Initiative at the Gates Foundation. "We need to go about tackling the problem differently than we have in the past."
For one thing, there's not enough emphasis on preventing homelessness by keeping people in affordable housing. Only 3 percent of the $200 million is used for prevention, he said.
"It feels totally out of whack from what we know works — it's easier to keep people in a home than put them back once they've lost one," Bley said.
Bley said other needed changes include providing permanent housing as soon as possible, rather than "transitional housing," and standardizing the fragmented systems used to determine what families need, so they get access to the same services no matter where they go for help.
"Some people will need a lot of services and some people will need nothing more than a rent subsidy," he said.
The program also will focus on improving the economic prospects of people with low incomes or no income, connecting them with work-force development and job training. And more money will be invested in getting better data on homeless families to understand the problem.
"It is difficult to assess progress if you don't have good numbers," Bley said, "and it is very difficult to serve individual parents and children well if no one is tracking their needs, the support they get and the progress they are making."
"Gains being lost"
The Gates Foundation has previously given $40 million in grants to help homeless families and learn how to better tackle the problem. Grants to help homeless families are part of the foundation's Pacific Northwest giving, which totaled $33 million in 2009.
While that money is only a fraction of the billions the foundation gives away globally, it does make it the largest private human-service grantmaker in the state, said T.J. Bucholz, Gates Foundation senior program officer.
Washington is studying the practices of other communities that have managed to reduce homelessness by 40 to 50 percent. But even the most effective programs are seeing some erosion of progress.
"That's what was really frightening about the current economic climate," Bley said. "We see a lot of those gains being lost in those communities that were very innovative."
However, he added, "there would be a lot more homeless families if we weren't doing this work."
Kristi Heim: 206-464-2718 or kheim@seattletimes.com
Editorials / Opinion
Our network sites seattletimes.com Advanced
Northwest Voices Letters to the Editor
Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words opinion@seattletimes.com.
E-mail Subscribe Blog Home
March 20, 2009 4:21 PM
Tackling homelessness
Posted by Letters editor
Throwing money not the answer
["Group hopes to cut number of homeless families in state," Local News, March 19 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008884912_gateshomeless19.html ] argues against these blanket leftist schemes that throw money at perceived problems, thus extending the problems.
Carefully read about Jackilin Abiem. She has gotten pregnant twice and, so, can't find or afford an apartment. Now think if she hadn't gotten pregnant. Would her life and opportunities be better? What about her personal responsibility?
Certainly there are many people "down on their luck" from circumstances beyond their control. They should be assisted. But Ms. Abiem? I have trouble either feeling sorry for her or being supportive of spending tax money on encouraging unwed births.
Another article in Thursday's paper ("More kids born in '07; fewer moms married," News) states that 40 percent of births are to unwed mothers. I don't think that is necessarily good for society as a whole, to which Ms. Abiem's problems attest.
-- Theodore M. Wight, Seattle
The Original Article is:
Originally published Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 12:00 AM
NEW - Introducing a new blog
Gates Foundation joins others in goal to cut homelessness
A partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits is pledging today to redouble its efforts to help the growing number of homeless families in Washington state. The pledge includes up to $60 million over 10 years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times staff reporter
COURTNEY BLETHEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
The Gates Foundation and other partners have committed $60 million toward helping homeless families in Washington state. One family in particular is 25-year-old Jackilin Abiem, of Sudan, right, and her 17 month old son, Nassir Getdet. Abiem is expecting her second son to be born in two weeks to join her family at their home at Katherine's Place, a local nonprofit offering affordable housing and support services.
A partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits is pledging today to redouble its efforts to help the growing number of homeless families in Washington state. The pledge includes up to $60 million over 10 years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Partners in the Washington Families Fund vowed to reduce the number of homeless families by 50 percent over the next decade.
"I feel this is an opportunity right now, as much as I'm a realist about the economy," said Alice Shobe, deputy director of Building Changes, which administers the fund. "It is ambitious, but we have a vision about how to do it. We have the creativity and broad partnership to make it happen."
As the recession throws more people into poverty, "we must do more to help families achieve and maintain stability," said Gov. Chris Gregoire, who signed an agreement with King, Snohomish and Pierce counties and the cities of Seattle, Everett and Tacoma to collaborate with the private partners.
Created by the state Legislature in 2004, the Washington Families Fund has received contributions of more than $20 million — $12 million from the state and $8.3 million from 18 other partners, including the Gates Foundation, Boeing, Microsoft, the Campion Foundation, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, the Ben B. Cheney Foundation and United Way. It has awarded $13 million in grants so far.
The Washington Families Fund has not yet revealed any new financial commitments other than the Gates Foundation's pledge.
Governments and private groups together spend about $200 million a year to address the problem in Washington state, but as economic conditions worsen, the number of homeless families keeps going up. About half of the state's estimated 22,000 homeless households are families with children.
Winter nights
The family of Jackilin Abiem, 25, was one of them. She arrived in 2001 as an orphan from Sudan after fleeing civil war and walking for three months across the country and eventually to a refugee camp. Once in Washington, she lived with two foster families, graduated from Garfield High School and landed her first job at McDonald's.
Abiem then worked for two years as a cook at a retirement home, but she never earned quite enough money to afford her own apartment. She became homeless after the youth housing where she was staying made her leave when she became pregnant.
She then bounced around, staying with four different friends and her foster mom through the birth of her son, Nassir. She remembers "window shopping" outside on winter nights as she waited for friends to get off work.
"When I was pregnant, I didn't have a place to live, so I was just running around between friends," she said. "It was hard for me to go house to house and to old friends. I keep them worried ... that I may give birth [at] their house."
Spending some nights with her foster mom in Mount Vernon and other nights with friends in South King County made it tough to be in West Seattle consistently for her job, and she lost that, too.
Abiem is now at Katharine's Place, in a transitional apartment for homeless families in Rainier Valley, but her two-year term ends in December. She is about to give birth to her second son. Katharine's Place had so many people on its two-year waiting list that it closed the list to new applicants in January.
Prevention
That reflects a rise in the number of homeless families in 2008 over 2007, especially in South King County.
"The trend lines have gone in the wrong direction, period," said David Bley, director of the Pacific Northwest Initiative at the Gates Foundation. "We need to go about tackling the problem differently than we have in the past."
For one thing, there's not enough emphasis on preventing homelessness by keeping people in affordable housing. Only 3 percent of the $200 million is used for prevention, he said.
"It feels totally out of whack from what we know works — it's easier to keep people in a home than put them back once they've lost one," Bley said.
Bley said other needed changes include providing permanent housing as soon as possible, rather than "transitional housing," and standardizing the fragmented systems used to determine what families need, so they get access to the same services no matter where they go for help.
"Some people will need a lot of services and some people will need nothing more than a rent subsidy," he said.
The program also will focus on improving the economic prospects of people with low incomes or no income, connecting them with work-force development and job training. And more money will be invested in getting better data on homeless families to understand the problem.
"It is difficult to assess progress if you don't have good numbers," Bley said, "and it is very difficult to serve individual parents and children well if no one is tracking their needs, the support they get and the progress they are making."
"Gains being lost"
The Gates Foundation has previously given $40 million in grants to help homeless families and learn how to better tackle the problem. Grants to help homeless families are part of the foundation's Pacific Northwest giving, which totaled $33 million in 2009.
While that money is only a fraction of the billions the foundation gives away globally, it does make it the largest private human-service grantmaker in the state, said T.J. Bucholz, Gates Foundation senior program officer.
Washington is studying the practices of other communities that have managed to reduce homelessness by 40 to 50 percent. But even the most effective programs are seeing some erosion of progress.
"That's what was really frightening about the current economic climate," Bley said. "We see a lot of those gains being lost in those communities that were very innovative."
However, he added, "there would be a lot more homeless families if we weren't doing this work."
Kristi Heim: 206-464-2718 or kheim@seattletimes.com
Friday, March 20, 2009
Nero Hero of the Week III
NERO HERO OF THE WEEK III
(Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus)
While it may not be fact, it is a belief that has lasted over two thousand years: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Well, that is what is happening in Washington, District of Columbia, right now. Especially in the White House and Halls of Congress. I feel it incumbent upon me to laud one person each week for fiddling while the United States of America burns. Some might argue that the burn is intentional and set by liberals and Democrats beginning with the inauguration Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Others might simply state that the Chief Executive Officer, newly elected, of the United States of America (hereinafter defined as "US&A) is laughably and predictably acting as a neophite. In other words, with no experience in running anything and no experience in hiring exceptional -- or even unexceptional -- executives to report to him, he's floundering and with his fishy behavior the nation is going belly-up. And he seems to be copying a recent whale: former president George Bush, Junior.
While I stated that I would designate one person as Nero Hero of the Week each week, circumstances have caused me to designate a gaggle of geese: Congress and the Obama Administration for railing against legally-contracted bonuses to hard-working employees of the American International Group (AIG). These AIG people, including administration-appointed CEO Edward Liddy who is working for $1 a year, have been demonized by those who have caused this whole fiasco: Congressional Democrats and President Obama and his team of Keystone Kops...or is it the Three Stooges? OK, House of Representatives financial king-pin, Barney Frank, as far as I can see has never held a job other than political (including teaching at Harvard). Beginning in 1968 as Boston mayor Kevin White's Chief Assistant, Frank has suckled at the teat of the taxpayers since then. Frank was a steller, moral arbiter in 1990, when the House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Steve Gobie's parking tickets. Frank confirmed that he paid Gobie for sex, hired him with personal funds as an aide and wrote letters on congressional stationery on his behalf to Virginia probation officials. September 2003, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to a new agency that would be created within the Treasury Department. In addition, Frank's former partner, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie from 1991 to 1998, where Moses helped develop many of Fannie’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs. In 1991, Frank pushed for reduced restrictions on two- and three-family home mortgages. Frank and Moses' relationship ended around the same time Moses left the company. Oh, did I mention, Frank is a homosexual who has used his power to pass laws favoring the homosexual affinity group. He also has been the recipient of substantial Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions. (And I don't know about Frank and Fannies, so to speak.)
Christopher John Dodd graduated in 1972, Dodd earning a Juris Doctor at the University of Louisville, one of the best known law schools in Louisville. (He is from Connecticut.) He dated at different times Bianca Jagger and Carrie Fisher and got suckle from taxpayers starting in 1975. He must have started practicing law in 1972 and certainly still is practicing because he hasn't gotten anything right so far, except being re-elected. Being a member of the so-called "Watergate class of '74, Dodd obviously learned from President Nixon when in June 2008 he stated: "I don't believe I did anything wrong" ["I am not a crook"] in being given a couple of below-market mortgages as a Friend of Angelo, CEO of Countrywide Financial Services, prime suspect in the meltdown of sub-prime mortgages, most of which were purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the prodding of Barney Fife (oops, I mean Frank) and Dodd. Sen. Dodd received more campaign contributions from AIG than any other candidate in 2008!
I don't know if it's the corruption (both Barney and Chrissie took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the financial industry they were laughably "regulating" -- Dodd is Chairman of the Senate Banking and Extortion Committee) or the complete lack of real-world experience in anything, that is most troubling about these two. Add President Obama, who, except for a brief unsuccessful stint at IBM (affirmative action? I don't know) has also been on the public dole all of his adult life.
Perhaps the rules of Congress that gives committee and sub-committee to those with seniority, not knowledge and experience should be to blame. In companies (a term the above three don't regard seriously) generally board of directors members are those with some experience and knowledge, especially in committees, such as audit. That Congress doesn't do this is disgraceful and I would submit one of the reasons the economic meltdown has occurred. To counter, inexperienced President Obama is mindlessly shovelling out future tax dollars to any squeeky, compaign contributing wheel in our country.
And Congress and the Administration are attempting to deflect blame by demonizing bonuses, those that approved them, except Congress and the Administration who did, and those who received them ("fiddling"or "playing the fiddle") while this economy, this country and the economies around the world burn. Burn to the ground. Yes Dictator Barack Nero and Congresspeople Barney and Chris Nero would be proud.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Break Union Monopolies
The Far-left Congress joins the Far-left president to impose on the American economy the most draconian shackles on its ability to create jobs, grow and provide tax income to the U. S. Government and for companies to be free to create products and services that consumers desire. Union bosses themselves say that this bill (the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act")would add 20 million more union members to their rolls, resulting in up to $12 billion more in forced union dues taken from the pockets of American workers. Where will these bosses spend all tht new money? On higher salaries, perks, vacations, cars for themselves and, most importantly, much will be spent to elect Far-left Democrats to continue the business-killing monopolies of unions.
What do unions really do?
Well first, The National Right to Work Committee recently reported "that union violence is responsible for at least 203 Americans deaths since 1975; 5,869 incidents of personal injury; and more than 6,435 incidents of vandalism and tens of millions of dollars in property damage."
Artificially jack up wages of a tiny minority of workers at the expense of more jobs. Artificially jack up prices, which amount to an additional tax on consumers, the proceeds of which line union leaders pockets and elect Far-left Democrats. Union leaders tell businesses how to manage their employees. The same employees who freely accept jobs created by these businesses. Why hobble business now? Well, union bosses using their members' dues elect Far-left Democrats.
"A study recently released by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan LECG Consulting Group, concluded that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs in just the first year after enactment of Card Check (as predicted by union leaders) would lead to an initial loss of 600,000 American jobs."
Recently union leaders in cahoots with Congress have triggered a possibly-devastating trade war with our third-largest trading partner and next-door neighbor, Mexico. Mexico has slapped tariffs on 89 products American companies ship there. From an added 10% to a killing 45% on a variety of products, including table grapes, wine, almonds, Christmas trees (liberals hate these anyway), pears from my Washington State, scrap batteries, some personal hygiene products and precious metal jewelry among other things. Why? To protect a perceived handful of Teamster jobs from Mexicans driving their trucks over the border as the North American Trade Agreement allows. Just to remind: it was trade barriers that helped start and continued The Great Depression. Check out this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742090606978583.html
Obviously union leaders are playing the strings of Obama the puppet and, of course, Democrats in Congress. Is Obama simply another Uncle Tom: "yessa, yessa, mastah! Please elect me!" When Obama talks of a strong economy and job saving and job creating, he is lying to America. Lying! And those same leaders to whom our president is so beholden have killed U. S. industries, steel, airlines, auto manufacturing and auto parts manufacturing, not to mention government entities such as Amtrak, the U. S. Postal Service. And unions have destroyed generations of African American kids who can't get decent educations, among other "students".
Cahoots?: From "The Audacity of Hope," "I owe those unions... When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don't mind feeling obligated."
Check out this link for a comment by a former U. S. Secretary of Labor: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742166937078741.html
Another article in The Wall Street Journal (Monday, March 16, 2009, page A18 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123723839801146937.html ) describes what labor bosses have done to Germany, Italy and France; Margaret Thatcher turned them back in England, but those other three countries are competitively on the bottom rung and financially crippled by welfare to those who are not productive.
Now is the time Republicans need to stand up and fight for America: Break the job- and business-killing union monopolies. If business monopolies were broken a century ago, because of misuse of power, now is the time to apply those same considerations to the union monopolies. The first start is stopping the addendum to Obama's Elect Democrats in 2010 "stimulus bill which is the Employee No Choice Act. It must be stopped if there is to be any small chance of an economic comeback in the United States and the world.
What do unions really do?
Well first, The National Right to Work Committee recently reported "that union violence is responsible for at least 203 Americans deaths since 1975; 5,869 incidents of personal injury; and more than 6,435 incidents of vandalism and tens of millions of dollars in property damage."
Artificially jack up wages of a tiny minority of workers at the expense of more jobs. Artificially jack up prices, which amount to an additional tax on consumers, the proceeds of which line union leaders pockets and elect Far-left Democrats. Union leaders tell businesses how to manage their employees. The same employees who freely accept jobs created by these businesses. Why hobble business now? Well, union bosses using their members' dues elect Far-left Democrats.
"A study recently released by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan LECG Consulting Group, concluded that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs in just the first year after enactment of Card Check (as predicted by union leaders) would lead to an initial loss of 600,000 American jobs."
Recently union leaders in cahoots with Congress have triggered a possibly-devastating trade war with our third-largest trading partner and next-door neighbor, Mexico. Mexico has slapped tariffs on 89 products American companies ship there. From an added 10% to a killing 45% on a variety of products, including table grapes, wine, almonds, Christmas trees (liberals hate these anyway), pears from my Washington State, scrap batteries, some personal hygiene products and precious metal jewelry among other things. Why? To protect a perceived handful of Teamster jobs from Mexicans driving their trucks over the border as the North American Trade Agreement allows. Just to remind: it was trade barriers that helped start and continued The Great Depression. Check out this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742090606978583.html
Obviously union leaders are playing the strings of Obama the puppet and, of course, Democrats in Congress. Is Obama simply another Uncle Tom: "yessa, yessa, mastah! Please elect me!" When Obama talks of a strong economy and job saving and job creating, he is lying to America. Lying! And those same leaders to whom our president is so beholden have killed U. S. industries, steel, airlines, auto manufacturing and auto parts manufacturing, not to mention government entities such as Amtrak, the U. S. Postal Service. And unions have destroyed generations of African American kids who can't get decent educations, among other "students".
Cahoots?: From "The Audacity of Hope," "I owe those unions... When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don't mind feeling obligated."
Check out this link for a comment by a former U. S. Secretary of Labor: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742166937078741.html
Another article in The Wall Street Journal (Monday, March 16, 2009, page A18 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123723839801146937.html ) describes what labor bosses have done to Germany, Italy and France; Margaret Thatcher turned them back in England, but those other three countries are competitively on the bottom rung and financially crippled by welfare to those who are not productive.
Now is the time Republicans need to stand up and fight for America: Break the job- and business-killing union monopolies. If business monopolies were broken a century ago, because of misuse of power, now is the time to apply those same considerations to the union monopolies. The first start is stopping the addendum to Obama's Elect Democrats in 2010 "stimulus bill which is the Employee No Choice Act. It must be stopped if there is to be any small chance of an economic comeback in the United States and the world.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
NERO HERO OF THE WEEK II
NERO HERO OF THE WEEK II
NERO HERO OF THE WEEKNero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68) born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus.
While it may or may not be fact, it is a belief that has lasted over two thousand years: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Well, that is what is happening in Washington, District of Columbia, right now. Especially in the White House and Halls of Congress. I feel it incumbent upon me to laud one person each week for fiddling while the United States of America burns. Some might argue that the burn is intentional and set by liberals and Democrats beginning with the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.
The first Weekly Hero was the president of the United States of America (hereinafter described as the US&A), Barack Obama for reasons outlined March 6, 2009.
This week the Nero Hero of the Week is Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro (Patty D? Patsy? No that's us) Pelosi (born March 26, 1940) one of the richest members of the Senate. (Worth around $20 million a couple years ago.) Representing the Union of Socialist San Francisco and like-minded left-wing socialists and apparently a politician for life, she's been elected 11 times as well as being a second generation Congressperson, sister to a politician and sister-in-law to a politician. Can't these Pelosis work for a living? Oh, yes, she's also the first non-male-gendered Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.
Nancy Patty is working hard (if you can believe it, three whole days a week) to be reelected, electing and reelecting Democrats in general and liberalizing everything in sight. She's using our hard- really hard-earned pay for taxes to do so, a trillion here, a trillion there. And she wants more, but not all of our money, only as much as she deems "fair". A twenty-times-millionaire deciding how much of my money she gets for electing Democrats. All the while having a Gulfstream III (or several; in fact all of them the U. S. Air Force has) at her disposal. Isn't that queen-like? Life is good here in the US&A (for politicians).
As Vice President of the US&A Joe Biden informed everyone, Aging Queen Nancy Patty's luxury jet(s) will require hard-working American tax payers (that's us), to buy thousands of gallons of expensive jet fuel for her every week. She flies home to California on a whim for only $60,000 each way! As Honest Joe noted, "Unfortunately we have to pay to bring her back" so there goes another $60,000. Weekly flights cost us at least $480,000 per month ($5,760,000 a year). And she complains that a plane isn't waiting for her, that the GIII isn't big enough to fly without stopping on the way at a gas station for more gas and, bye the bye that the war in Iraq is expensive. Oh yeah, she also flies around the world, too, from time to time. And yes, she's happily warming the globe!
As Vice President of the US&A Joe Biden informed everyone, Aging Queen Nancy Patty's luxury jet(s) will require hard-working American tax payers (that's us), to buy thousands of gallons of expensive jet fuel for her every week. She flies home to California on a whim for only $60,000 each way! As Honest Joe noted, "Unfortunately we have to pay to bring her back" so there goes another $60,000. Weekly flights cost us at least $480,000 per month ($5,760,000 a year). And she complains that a plane isn't waiting for her, that the GIII isn't big enough to fly without stopping on the way at a gas station for more gas and, bye the bye that the war in Iraq is expensive. Oh yeah, she also flies around the world, too, from time to time. And yes, she's happily warming the globe!
Showing concern for the financial meltdown and high unemployment of her subjects, Aging Queen Nancy Patty stopped in its tracks an attempt to rein in automatic pay raises for members of Congress. Their latest pay raise of $4,700 took effect in January 2009 and brought congressional salaries to $174,000.
I wonder if the luxury jet is large enough for the lyre she must be playing while the US&A is burning. By the way, a lyre is like a small harp (sometimes played by small harpies), using a plectrum. Well, as Aging Queen Nancy Patty sung recently accompanied by a lyre: "Burn Baby Burn!" and take the free-enterprise system down with you. Who needs the capitalism when you have the government?
I wonder if the luxury jet is large enough for the lyre she must be playing while the US&A is burning. By the way, a lyre is like a small harp (sometimes played by small harpies), using a plectrum. Well, as Aging Queen Nancy Patty sung recently accompanied by a lyre: "Burn Baby Burn!" and take the free-enterprise system down with you. Who needs the capitalism when you have the government?
American Idol - The President Obama and Aging Queen Nancy Patty, are they liars playing lyres or what? Congratulations, Nero would be proud. To Aging Queen Nancy Patty Nero Hero of the Week II, Friday The Thirteenth (March, 2009).
Is Soros Obama's Svengali?
Is Hungarian speculator and convicted inside trader, György Schwartz, aka George Soros, Svengali to President Barack Obama? That is an interesting question. Brilliant, if dishonest (convicted of insider trading, I have read), speculator, Soros financed the failed attempt to unseat then-president George Bush. In spite of making something like $7 billion dollars (Forbes ) in his adopted United States of America's free-enterprise system, Soros seems to have embraced the fall of the very system that has made him rich. Go figure.
To this end, I wonder if -- wonder only -- if the Chicago Mafia is in for a pound. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama kicks buffoon Biden gets kicked to the curb for Rahm Israel Emanuel his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel becomes president for two terms and voila the Democrats have their one-party oligarchy. ACORN and the 250,000 new Americorps recruits ($5.6 billion a year @ $22,400 pay) could arguably become his Brown Shirts, with educational centers, campuses and uniforms? The U. S. becomes Cuba North. Would the "conservative rich" be equivalent to German Jews?
To this end, I wonder if -- wonder only -- if the Chicago Mafia is in for a pound. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama kicks buffoon Biden gets kicked to the curb for Rahm Israel Emanuel his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel becomes president for two terms and voila the Democrats have their one-party oligarchy. ACORN and the 250,000 new Americorps recruits ($5.6 billion a year @ $22,400 pay) could arguably become his Brown Shirts, with educational centers, campuses and uniforms? The U. S. becomes Cuba North. Would the "conservative rich" be equivalent to German Jews?
Stock Market Up With Possible Pause in Card Check Law
I believe yesterday's stock market jump -- or was it a dead cat bounce? -- up 379.44 points, 5.8% the most in almost 4 months -- is attributed to the announcement that the holy grail of union leaders -- the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 1409, S. 560) " but in actuality the "Easily Add Union Dues to Union Leaders' Funds Act" -- is perhaps being delayed by the doubts of some Democrats, along with most Republicans, free-market advocates, and business people not otherwise cowed by fierce union strength. The act makes forcing unions on companies a walk in the park, while diminishing the rights of those very workers that work in the companies who will be intimidated by union organizers who will know who is resisting signing a simple card to dictate union "bargaining". Further, if the union can't come to an agreement with the companies, liberal bureaucrats can write union contracts, including wages, benefits, work assignments, promotion procedures, and any major changes to business practices and operations and compel them to unionize plus there is no meaningful small businesses exemption so it would cover millions of small and newly-organized businesses. While in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission the Supreme Court wrote of the importance of secret ballots in voting one's conscience "without fear of retribution" recently (in 1995), those self-same politicians elected by secret ballot will deny that right to workers, whose "leaders" -- union officials -- elect those legislating Congresspeople.
Unions kill jobs. FDR proved that in extending the Great Depression almost a decade with the forced unionization of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act signed July 5, 1935), which benefitted a small percentage of workers (but all union leaders) and cost the jobs of many, many others. It is telling that only government workers' unions -- whose leader contribute union funds mightily to the Democrat Party in exchange -- haven't lost huge ground over the past 20 years, while in the private sector they have dropped to 7.8% down from nearly 21% thirty years ago. Government-employee union membership is 36.8%! A major reason for the decline in the private sector is that union leaders' demands cripple companies and kill many. Airlines, steel companies, auto companies and related parts suppliers all come to mind.
The stock market as well understands the absolute harm to jobs, thus sends it crashing downward with the spectre of the card check act passing. And apparently vice versa, as yesterday's performance proved.
Take note President Obama.
Unions kill jobs. FDR proved that in extending the Great Depression almost a decade with the forced unionization of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act signed July 5, 1935), which benefitted a small percentage of workers (but all union leaders) and cost the jobs of many, many others. It is telling that only government workers' unions -- whose leader contribute union funds mightily to the Democrat Party in exchange -- haven't lost huge ground over the past 20 years, while in the private sector they have dropped to 7.8% down from nearly 21% thirty years ago. Government-employee union membership is 36.8%! A major reason for the decline in the private sector is that union leaders' demands cripple companies and kill many. Airlines, steel companies, auto companies and related parts suppliers all come to mind.
The stock market as well understands the absolute harm to jobs, thus sends it crashing downward with the spectre of the card check act passing. And apparently vice versa, as yesterday's performance proved.
Take note President Obama.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Miscellaneous Ramblings from Today's The Wall Street Journal
"Retail Sales Show Signs of Life" (Front Page, The Wall Street Journal, Friday, March 6, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123625531533739283.html ) Wall-Mart Stores Inc. showed same store sales increase of 5.1% (the first since September 2008). This one behemoth chain pulled up national industry same store sales to .7% when they otherwise would have dropped 4.1%. This is the retailer that is targeted for unionization by union leaders in the United States, owners of the Obama Administration and Congress. Look out America, don't let this happen.
"Political lobbying Drove FDA Process" (Same issue, Front Page http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629954783946701.html ) Well duh! Our entire political activity -- the very future of this country -- is steered by political lobbying, coupled with the concomitant campaign contributions. I was saddened a bit that the amount of political contribution by ReGen Biologics Inc to the politicians, Menendez, Pallone, Rothman and Lautenberg...some leaders of healthcare in Congress...was not detailed. Our system, our Congress, our administration...all are corrupted by lobbying. The politicians want to be reelected and live the cushy life on the taxpayers. We have made being a politician for life more valuable to a citizen than working for a living and contributing to the economy. I think Republicans killed the term limits and perhaps sunsetting of laws. They are all to blame and should be retired in 2010. Retire in 2010. That has a catchy ring to it. In the meantime, The Wall Street Journal doesn't have enough room to write about all the lobbying that drives government.
"Obama, Health-Care Players Agree to Seek Overhaul" (Same issue, Page A4, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123627593496542123.html ) While Obama laughingly states that "exploding costs of health care in America today" could doom the country or something he ignores the 150,000 pages of Medicare regulations brought to you by the same party. Then he rails against "special interests" for killing previous attempts at "reform". Special interests, of course, are those that espouse opinions opposite those of Democrats. And saving costs by spending a trillion or so dollars seems so...Obamaian. True reform -- impossible as it sounds -- can only come from competition. Check out laser eye surgery, cosmetic surgery. Piling regulations on regulations and fixing prices according to lobbyists' contributions bring coverage for every perceived "cure" leaving out, of course, physicians, nurses, CEOs of healthcare organizations and those that know something through experience. Yes, I think I'll go to Henry Waxman for my sore throat. Democrats see fraud in profits, not understanding the basis of free-enterprise, that profits bring innovation, efficiency and cost reduction. They do not understand that legislation cannot stop crooks. Know this: Obama and the Democratic Congress wants government to own the healthcare industry and as the deficit blows up, so will healthcare regulations. 500,000 pages here we come brought to you by the party that brought us California, Amtrak and the U. S. Postal Service.
"Political lobbying Drove FDA Process" (Same issue, Front Page http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629954783946701.html ) Well duh! Our entire political activity -- the very future of this country -- is steered by political lobbying, coupled with the concomitant campaign contributions. I was saddened a bit that the amount of political contribution by ReGen Biologics Inc to the politicians, Menendez, Pallone, Rothman and Lautenberg...some leaders of healthcare in Congress...was not detailed. Our system, our Congress, our administration...all are corrupted by lobbying. The politicians want to be reelected and live the cushy life on the taxpayers. We have made being a politician for life more valuable to a citizen than working for a living and contributing to the economy. I think Republicans killed the term limits and perhaps sunsetting of laws. They are all to blame and should be retired in 2010. Retire in 2010. That has a catchy ring to it. In the meantime, The Wall Street Journal doesn't have enough room to write about all the lobbying that drives government.
"Obama, Health-Care Players Agree to Seek Overhaul" (Same issue, Page A4, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123627593496542123.html ) While Obama laughingly states that "exploding costs of health care in America today" could doom the country or something he ignores the 150,000 pages of Medicare regulations brought to you by the same party. Then he rails against "special interests" for killing previous attempts at "reform". Special interests, of course, are those that espouse opinions opposite those of Democrats. And saving costs by spending a trillion or so dollars seems so...Obamaian. True reform -- impossible as it sounds -- can only come from competition. Check out laser eye surgery, cosmetic surgery. Piling regulations on regulations and fixing prices according to lobbyists' contributions bring coverage for every perceived "cure" leaving out, of course, physicians, nurses, CEOs of healthcare organizations and those that know something through experience. Yes, I think I'll go to Henry Waxman for my sore throat. Democrats see fraud in profits, not understanding the basis of free-enterprise, that profits bring innovation, efficiency and cost reduction. They do not understand that legislation cannot stop crooks. Know this: Obama and the Democratic Congress wants government to own the healthcare industry and as the deficit blows up, so will healthcare regulations. 500,000 pages here we come brought to you by the party that brought us California, Amtrak and the U. S. Postal Service.
Nero Hero of the Week
NERO HERO OF THE WEEK
(Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus)
While it may not be fact, it is a belief that has lasted over two thousand years: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Well, that is what is happening in Washington, District of Columbia, right now. Especially in the White House and Halls of Congress. I feel it incumbent upon me to laud one person each week for fiddling while the United States of America burns. Some might argue that the burn is intentional and set by liberals and Democrats beginning with the inauguration Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Others might simply state that the Chief Executive Officer, newly elected, of the United States of America (hereinafter defined as "US&A) is laughably and predictably acting as a neophite. In other words, with no experience in running anything and no experience in hiring exceptional -- or even unexceptional -- executives to report to him, he's floundering and with his fishy behavior the nation is going belly-up. And he seems to be copying a recent whale: former president George Bush, Junior.
So the first weekly person to be honored with the Nero Hero of the Week Award is President Barack H. Obama.
He announced this week that the stock market, where something like 55 million of his subjects' households own stock through mutual funds -- nearly 48% of all households -- is like a popularity poll. Apparently all he is worried about with the plunge of the Dow Jones Industrial Averages this year is, "Am I popular today?" Well, Mr. President, yes, you are, according to the polls that really count by MSNBCCBSPPBSABC and the New York (and most other cities') Times. So fiddle away. Oh, by the way, Wikipedia, the on-line source of acknowledged fact wrote: "Over the course of his reign, Nero often made rulings that pleased the lower class. Nero was criticised as being obsessed with being popular." Sounds like another absolute-ruler wannabe.
But one last laugh. In order to show the world you understand, you mentioned something like "profits and earnings ratios". Well, Mr. President you might sound presidential, but you are ignorant. There is no such thing as "profits and earnings ratios", profits and earnings are essentially the same. Did you mean "price earnings ratios" perhaps?
Well the last last laugh is on us, we who elected him. He's putting us in several trillion dollars of additional debt, apparently more than every president since George Washington COMBINED!
So laugh and fiddle Mr. President I hope you like the tune, we don't.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Equalitism
Equalitism
My definition of "Equalitism" is one person or a group of people who espouse the philosophy that a population of individuals should be relatively equal in income, equal in standard of living or, if not equal, tending toward equality. Espouse they might, but they can't really believe it. It might be the opposite of meritocracy. Equalitism is grabbag of political behaviors and speeches constituting this political idealogy, the term and definition coined by me (as far as I know). It identifies typically left-wing liberal pronouncements given with the aim of winning elections and gaining power by diminishing success and those who have achieved it. It reaches close but not quite all the way to socialism, in which everyone together owns everything communally, and thus are equal. But in practice both are essentially the same, describing everyone as equal, except, of course, those in power. Those in power dictate to those "governed" by them how to live and what to have. Equalitism's converse might be exceptualism, or differentialism, or, God forbid, Capitalism, where people are born with equal opportunity and freedom to pursue happiness as they individually define it for themselves. Equal opportunity, not equal outcome.
In case Democrats don't understand, most people are average. Read that again: most people are average. There's a bell -shaped population curve with those least-exceptional -- in ability and intelligence, for example -- at one end and those most-exceptional at the other end; everyone else is average...they are the vast majority. (Although it is probably understood even by liberals that everyone is differently-capable intellectually, physically, socially and in ambition, they rarely admit it.) Democrats have gained power by successfully convincing those in the middle that they should have more. Not by earning it but by simply by deserving it. [Democrats have used the same strategy for several generations to get African Americans' votes without providing them opportunity. Democrats, especially those with financial or power interests in the civil rights bureaucracies, have convinced African Americans that discrimination by white Americans (especially Republicans) have kept them down and brought for many a life of drugs, crime and fatherless families. This is the Democrats' contention of equality denied. Another Equalitism argument: in which citizens should have a right to equality (not opportunity) without effort but don't get it.] Equalitism does not reward achievement, but gives everything for simply being alive. A further argument by Democrats is that equality is a zero-sum game, where those who have, have taken it from those who don't have and who "need".
Democrats completely disregard the self-satisfaction one gets by sacrifice and the pride from accomplishment. Not to mention innovation and the creation of job-creating businesses by incentive. They do not seem to care about anything but power, absolute power for themselves and use Equalitism to get it. Obama promised us CHANGE and gave us CHAINS, the shackles held by the Chinese government. When our president rails against debt yet indebts our country several trillions of dollars, something is terribly wrong. And the reason: to get him and his Congress reelected in 2010 perhaps? Or to simply punish the successful? In any event, they have successfully used equalitism to get there. (Obama's 2009 deficit could reach $3 - 4,000,000,000,000 a sum over three-quarters of all the sovereign-wealth funds' assets, so maybe China won't hold the shackels, the U. S. will have to declare bankruptcy instead.)
Democratic/liberal dogma demands that in order to achieve equality, those less capable should be supported and elevated by government. And those more capable are deemed able to stand on their own. The question of whether this is better for society as a whole has never been openly debated because Democrats don't want Equalitism questioned. Does belief in Equalitism and its goal of pushing inward the edges of the bell-shaped curve, thus making the unexceptional and exceptional more average, yield a "better" society? Or does it simply buy votes of the average to gain and retain power?
I believe exceptualism should be encouraged, because the exceptional have always been the ones to invent, create, and take risk to better society as a whole as they better themselves. But the exceptional -- in ability and intellignce -- are always few in number, so they represent a small number of voters. Few could argue that the exceptional become the successful entrepreneurs and, yes, small business creators. While the "trickle-down" theory has been roundly discredited by liberals, it was said to be invented by a liberal, Will Rogers. It is a typical distortion of reality. Reality is: only businesses create lasting jobs. Only business creates wealth.
Equalitism tends to diminish wealth, jobs and society as a whole. But it elects Democrats.
In summary, in my view Equalitism is simply a vehicle by the use of which Democrats achieve power over others. If Republicans and conservatives are aware of this, they are afraid or otherwise unable to publicize it. We need to get back to having incentives to succeed, not just be alive. Government diminishes opportunity by diminishing achievement.
It might be like this:
(Bell-shaped Curve)
10% of population /80% of population/ /10% of population
Support their exceptualness /Leave alone/ /Assist their needs
Thursday, February 26, 2009
ObamaNation (Abomination)
OBAMANATION
All For The One
The One for The One
Candidate Obama promised CHANGE
Instead President Obama has given us CHAINS
With the shackles held by the Chinese Government
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The One-Trillion Dollar One Party Quest
The One-trillion Dollar One Party Quest
The Obama Administration and the present Democratic Party aren’t about equality, fairness or what’s good for this country or its citizens. It is about power, raw power over others. It is the culmination of a quest that began in earnest with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration 76 years ago this month (March 2009).
Their rise to current power may be the end of the free-enterprise system in the United States of America. The reward for risk and the achievement of success in the rough and tumble capitalist system is becoming so yesterday. The irresponsible are being rewarded at the expense of the responsible. As has been proven in myriad countries, including the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, socialism doesn’t work and doesn’t last. (And neither does Keynesian economics.) But it does ruin countries. FDR’s (or his advisors’) brilliant strategy of segmenting voter blocs of affinity groups and purchasing their votes using taxpayer money has reached fruition with the current Democratic-controlled Congress and President Obama. FDR’s union leaders, seniors, the unemployed and the poor, Negroes and in a brilliant coup, writers and artists (through the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration’s Writers’ Projects) have been leveraged into Democrats winning this country a step at a time from Republicans, most of whom were busy creating businesses and jobs. While the Democrats ruthlessly buy votes, they spray the mantra of Socialist fairness (unfairness by conservatives) and equality for all (except for its puppeteers) and yes, Change! and utopia over all of us like piss.
Modern-day Democrats have added more affinity groups, such as gays, feminists, anti-warriors, environmentalists, Hispanics, the disabled and, of course the catch-all, the “disadvantaged”, whoever and wherever the Democrats want them to be. Socialism and Communism in the end aren’t about utopia, social harmony or equality, they have always been used as vehicles to gain and retain power. Karl Marx may have been quoted but fear, retribution and subjugation gained the power and the wealth. Ordinary citizens were left with what was left.
And so it is with the Obama Administration and the present Democratic Party, power at all costs. And clearly they are well on their way to a one-party system. The “Elect Democrats in 2010” Bill was $787,000,000,000 devoted to gaining a one-party system. Adding today’s (February 19, 2009) $275,000,000,000 Obama Housing Plan to subsidize losers (a majority of whom are Democrats) and penalize the responsible (a majority of which are Republicans) exceeds $1,000,000,000,000 ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to completely obliterate the Republican Party.
Yes, this is the same party that managed California to its present success!
Superamerican
The Obama Administration and the present Democratic Party aren’t about equality, fairness or what’s good for this country or its citizens. It is about power, raw power over others. It is the culmination of a quest that began in earnest with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration 76 years ago this month (March 2009).
Their rise to current power may be the end of the free-enterprise system in the United States of America. The reward for risk and the achievement of success in the rough and tumble capitalist system is becoming so yesterday. The irresponsible are being rewarded at the expense of the responsible. As has been proven in myriad countries, including the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, socialism doesn’t work and doesn’t last. (And neither does Keynesian economics.) But it does ruin countries. FDR’s (or his advisors’) brilliant strategy of segmenting voter blocs of affinity groups and purchasing their votes using taxpayer money has reached fruition with the current Democratic-controlled Congress and President Obama. FDR’s union leaders, seniors, the unemployed and the poor, Negroes and in a brilliant coup, writers and artists (through the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration’s Writers’ Projects) have been leveraged into Democrats winning this country a step at a time from Republicans, most of whom were busy creating businesses and jobs. While the Democrats ruthlessly buy votes, they spray the mantra of Socialist fairness (unfairness by conservatives) and equality for all (except for its puppeteers) and yes, Change! and utopia over all of us like piss.
Modern-day Democrats have added more affinity groups, such as gays, feminists, anti-warriors, environmentalists, Hispanics, the disabled and, of course the catch-all, the “disadvantaged”, whoever and wherever the Democrats want them to be. Socialism and Communism in the end aren’t about utopia, social harmony or equality, they have always been used as vehicles to gain and retain power. Karl Marx may have been quoted but fear, retribution and subjugation gained the power and the wealth. Ordinary citizens were left with what was left.
And so it is with the Obama Administration and the present Democratic Party, power at all costs. And clearly they are well on their way to a one-party system. The “Elect Democrats in 2010” Bill was $787,000,000,000 devoted to gaining a one-party system. Adding today’s (February 19, 2009) $275,000,000,000 Obama Housing Plan to subsidize losers (a majority of whom are Democrats) and penalize the responsible (a majority of which are Republicans) exceeds $1,000,000,000,000 ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to completely obliterate the Republican Party.
Yes, this is the same party that managed California to its present success!
Superamerican
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Rambling Through the Left-leaning Press
"Starbucks spars over union"...(Headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tuesday, February 17, 2009 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/400295starbucksunion17.html)
Committed left-wing supporter of Democrats and President Obama, Starbucks CEO, apparent anti-union Howard Schultz, is reaping what he helped sow. The even-further left Industrial Workers of the World, professed anti-capitalist and pro-worker, wants to "take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the world." Sounds like the Democratic Congress! An IWW leader is quoted as saying, "It's a problem [Schultz' anti-union, pro-"partner" mantra] because it means that whoever (sic.) runs the company believes they (sic.) know what's better for their workers than their workers." Sounds like the Democratic Congress criticizing the American citizenry. And by the way the IWW doesn't like traditional unions which focus on negotiation and bargaining. Well, under Obama and the Democratic Congress, unionizing will soon in all likelihood be a walk in the park. So, Mr. Schultz, enjoy as your once-gigantic investment in Starbucks evaporates like Carnation milk.
"California on fiscal cliff", Page A6. Seattle post-Intelligencer, Tuesday, Febraury 17, 2007 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/400360califbudget17.html) Yes this is a prelude to the United States of America, also run by Democrats.
And for Katrina redux: "Education chief faces decisisions" (Page A6, same paper, same edition. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/400357education17.html) Congress doubles the budget of the U. S. Education Department by spreading $100,000,000,000 "emergency" aid for unionized public schools and left-leaning colleges. There is absolutely NO WAY this money can do any good thrown around in this bureaucracy. Might as well simply give it to ACORN. And most of it is for the disabled and disadvantaged; what? nothing for those who are exceptionally capable to contribute to society? No, they might not vote Democratic. Congress does, of course, penalize those who might be able to lead the banking system out of its present problems (because some might be Republicans.) Congress constrained "pay for performance" -- incentive comp -- for those who will manage the institutions which need "bailout" money. Doesn't matter if they had the reins during the fall, they can't make much money by turning them around. Sure, Congress, they'll pitch right in! Oh, I noticed, Congress that you all just got raises.
All in all another depressing day for the future of the United States, being managed by the International Workers of the Congress.
Committed left-wing supporter of Democrats and President Obama, Starbucks CEO, apparent anti-union Howard Schultz, is reaping what he helped sow. The even-further left Industrial Workers of the World, professed anti-capitalist and pro-worker, wants to "take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the world." Sounds like the Democratic Congress! An IWW leader is quoted as saying, "It's a problem [Schultz' anti-union, pro-"partner" mantra] because it means that whoever (sic.) runs the company believes they (sic.) know what's better for their workers than their workers." Sounds like the Democratic Congress criticizing the American citizenry. And by the way the IWW doesn't like traditional unions which focus on negotiation and bargaining. Well, under Obama and the Democratic Congress, unionizing will soon in all likelihood be a walk in the park. So, Mr. Schultz, enjoy as your once-gigantic investment in Starbucks evaporates like Carnation milk.
"California on fiscal cliff", Page A6. Seattle post-Intelligencer, Tuesday, Febraury 17, 2007 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/400360califbudget17.html) Yes this is a prelude to the United States of America, also run by Democrats.
And for Katrina redux: "Education chief faces decisisions" (Page A6, same paper, same edition. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/400357education17.html) Congress doubles the budget of the U. S. Education Department by spreading $100,000,000,000 "emergency" aid for unionized public schools and left-leaning colleges. There is absolutely NO WAY this money can do any good thrown around in this bureaucracy. Might as well simply give it to ACORN. And most of it is for the disabled and disadvantaged; what? nothing for those who are exceptionally capable to contribute to society? No, they might not vote Democratic. Congress does, of course, penalize those who might be able to lead the banking system out of its present problems (because some might be Republicans.) Congress constrained "pay for performance" -- incentive comp -- for those who will manage the institutions which need "bailout" money. Doesn't matter if they had the reins during the fall, they can't make much money by turning them around. Sure, Congress, they'll pitch right in! Oh, I noticed, Congress that you all just got raises.
All in all another depressing day for the future of the United States, being managed by the International Workers of the Congress.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Elect Democrats in 2010 Act passed.
An update to the so-called "Stimulus Act" as of July 2009: it hasn't worked. Unemployement was 7.6% when Obama took over and he then promised unemployment would only reach 8% and save or create 3 million jobs. Unemployment now 9.5% and heading over 10, with 2.6 million jobs lost. Now of course he's backtracking, saying that the stimulus bill was for two years (safely making it after the 2010 elections, where it planned to re-elect Democrats.)
The Elect Democrats in 2010 Act has been passed. Everyone in America, with the exception of one minority group: successful businesspeople, has been bought by the Democrats in the fruition of a 75 year quest begun by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He segmented the voters into a number of blocs: the aged, the unemployed, the creative (artists, writers and the like), the union leaders controlling workers, blacks, and through deficit spending bought each of them. Purchases that have lasted. In the intervening years the Democratic Party has added other affinity groups: gays, anti-warriors, environmentalists. Again almost every voter in America except those who finance the country: businesspeople. Toss a few more trillions of dollars of government debt onto foreign markets, and, at some point not only carrying costs become impossible to finance, with diminished business, but what if those foreign entities either can't or decide not to buy our paper? I don't know if there's a Chapter 11 for countries. But probably not. They call our debt and they own us.
And to even get Democrats on board it was a difficult buy. The Senate made a strategic purchase of three "Republicans" (now is the time to differentiate between Republicans who belong to a party but don't necessarily share and ideals and conservatives who have many deep ideals, such as, to start: a trust in the citizens to make the best decisions for themselves; support of business - the engine of all growth and wealth; and a distrust of large, invasive government - the diminisher of growth and wealth.) Rep. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe got an additional $420 million for Maine's Medicaid program, a well-known economic stimulator; and Senator Arlen Specter got an additional $6.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health to help him with his cancer. He also got to watch the Superbowl with President Obama. These purchases go along with $300 million for government cars, to boost the automakers union leaders; $75 million for the left-leaning Smithsonian Institution; $2 billion for the Obama powerplant in Illinois (wonder what fuel it'll consume); and let's get a little something for the Speaker: Instead of protecting citizens $30 million will protect a tiny salt marsh harvest mouse with wetlands restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area because the little rat is endangered. Or perhaps Speaker Pelosi has other reasons. And some cash for welfare to those who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes. Roughly half the voters now won't contribute anything to support the federal government. FDR must be smiling in Hell right now.
Goodbye Our United States of America. Hello One-Party System. Or perhaps a Chinese overseer.
Superamericanperiodictablet.com
The Elect Democrats in 2010 Act has been passed. Everyone in America, with the exception of one minority group: successful businesspeople, has been bought by the Democrats in the fruition of a 75 year quest begun by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He segmented the voters into a number of blocs: the aged, the unemployed, the creative (artists, writers and the like), the union leaders controlling workers, blacks, and through deficit spending bought each of them. Purchases that have lasted. In the intervening years the Democratic Party has added other affinity groups: gays, anti-warriors, environmentalists. Again almost every voter in America except those who finance the country: businesspeople. Toss a few more trillions of dollars of government debt onto foreign markets, and, at some point not only carrying costs become impossible to finance, with diminished business, but what if those foreign entities either can't or decide not to buy our paper? I don't know if there's a Chapter 11 for countries. But probably not. They call our debt and they own us.
And to even get Democrats on board it was a difficult buy. The Senate made a strategic purchase of three "Republicans" (now is the time to differentiate between Republicans who belong to a party but don't necessarily share and ideals and conservatives who have many deep ideals, such as, to start: a trust in the citizens to make the best decisions for themselves; support of business - the engine of all growth and wealth; and a distrust of large, invasive government - the diminisher of growth and wealth.) Rep. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe got an additional $420 million for Maine's Medicaid program, a well-known economic stimulator; and Senator Arlen Specter got an additional $6.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health to help him with his cancer. He also got to watch the Superbowl with President Obama. These purchases go along with $300 million for government cars, to boost the automakers union leaders; $75 million for the left-leaning Smithsonian Institution; $2 billion for the Obama powerplant in Illinois (wonder what fuel it'll consume); and let's get a little something for the Speaker: Instead of protecting citizens $30 million will protect a tiny salt marsh harvest mouse with wetlands restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area because the little rat is endangered. Or perhaps Speaker Pelosi has other reasons. And some cash for welfare to those who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes. Roughly half the voters now won't contribute anything to support the federal government. FDR must be smiling in Hell right now.
Goodbye Our United States of America. Hello One-Party System. Or perhaps a Chinese overseer.
Superamericanperiodictablet.com
Monday, February 2, 2009
President Makes Down Payment on Obligation to Union Leaders and Trial Lawyers for Electing Him
Re: the so-called Lilly Ledbetter "fair pay" bill --
Questions and answers about the equal pay bill that the House passed and sent to President Barack Obama on Tuesday:
By The Associated Press
Questions and answers about the equal pay bill that the House passed and sent to President Barack Obama on Tuesday:
Q: When may claimants file suits?
A: President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law on Thursday. With that, claimants may file suits immediately under the newly clarified statute of limitations provisions.
Q: The personnel or records involved in original acts of discrimination that occurred years ago may no longer be available. Who is responsible for providing evidence in a discrimination suit?
A: The burden of proof ultimately falls on the plaintiff, or employee. It is up to the plaintiff to show there was the intent to discriminate.
Q: Who is Lilly Ledbetter?
A: Ledbetter,70, worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Gadsden, Ala., from 1979 to 1998. Near the end of her career, she received an anonymous tip that she was earning less than her male colleagues. She filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A jury initially awarded her more than $3 million in back pay and punitive damages, a sum that a judge later reduced to $300,000.
Q: Was there a Supreme Court ruling in the Ledbetter case?
A: Yes. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in May 2007 threw out Ledbetter's complaint, saying she was required to bring suit within 180 days of the initial act of discrimination even though she was not aware at the time that she was receiving less than her male colleagues.
Q: What does the bill do?
A: It clarifies that the 180-day statute of limitations is extended every time an employer violates the law by issuing a paycheck or engages in other practices that discriminate. Therefore, if an employee alleges that she received a salary 20 years ago that was less than that of male co-workers because of discrimination, each new paycheck since that occurrence would be a new unlawful employment practice that resets the statute of limitations. The bill retains current limits on employer liability by restricting back pay awards to two years.
Q: What is the legal basis of the equal pay bill?
A: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act makes it illegal to discriminate in paying wages based on race, gender, national origin and religion.
"Letter to the Editor" as published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sunday, February 1, 2009, Page B 6:
OTHER SIDE
Unions get their payback
The Obama administration and Congress began their payback to the unions for electing them with the bill that will make it easier for trial lawyers to sue companies on behalf of their "plaintiffs" for pay "discrimination" over years, perhaps decades. That will kill jobs. Add it to the stimulus bill and any "recovery" will be extended to years.
Why don't you present this side of our government to your readers?
Theodore M. Wight
Seattle
Questions and answers about the equal pay bill that the House passed and sent to President Barack Obama on Tuesday:
By The Associated Press
Questions and answers about the equal pay bill that the House passed and sent to President Barack Obama on Tuesday:
Q: When may claimants file suits?
A: President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law on Thursday. With that, claimants may file suits immediately under the newly clarified statute of limitations provisions.
Q: The personnel or records involved in original acts of discrimination that occurred years ago may no longer be available. Who is responsible for providing evidence in a discrimination suit?
A: The burden of proof ultimately falls on the plaintiff, or employee. It is up to the plaintiff to show there was the intent to discriminate.
Q: Who is Lilly Ledbetter?
A: Ledbetter,70, worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Gadsden, Ala., from 1979 to 1998. Near the end of her career, she received an anonymous tip that she was earning less than her male colleagues. She filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A jury initially awarded her more than $3 million in back pay and punitive damages, a sum that a judge later reduced to $300,000.
Q: Was there a Supreme Court ruling in the Ledbetter case?
A: Yes. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in May 2007 threw out Ledbetter's complaint, saying she was required to bring suit within 180 days of the initial act of discrimination even though she was not aware at the time that she was receiving less than her male colleagues.
Q: What does the bill do?
A: It clarifies that the 180-day statute of limitations is extended every time an employer violates the law by issuing a paycheck or engages in other practices that discriminate. Therefore, if an employee alleges that she received a salary 20 years ago that was less than that of male co-workers because of discrimination, each new paycheck since that occurrence would be a new unlawful employment practice that resets the statute of limitations. The bill retains current limits on employer liability by restricting back pay awards to two years.
Q: What is the legal basis of the equal pay bill?
A: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act makes it illegal to discriminate in paying wages based on race, gender, national origin and religion.
"Letter to the Editor" as published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sunday, February 1, 2009, Page B 6:
OTHER SIDE
Unions get their payback
The Obama administration and Congress began their payback to the unions for electing them with the bill that will make it easier for trial lawyers to sue companies on behalf of their "plaintiffs" for pay "discrimination" over years, perhaps decades. That will kill jobs. Add it to the stimulus bill and any "recovery" will be extended to years.
Why don't you present this side of our government to your readers?
Theodore M. Wight
Seattle
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Left Gets, Caused and Embraces the Crisis
From an opinion in the Wall Street Journal (January 30, 2009 P. A13)
"'Think Long' To Solve The Crisis"
By George P. Shultz
Mr. Shultz as brilliant as he is, doesn't get it. I don't believe the Left is stupid, so they understand that living beyond our national and personal means is a disaster beyond imagination for this country. But to them the current economic crisis is simply an opportunity to extend their power. Much of what Mr. Shultz writes is accurate from a reasonable, rational person's point of view, that we are in a crisis which will lead to a catastrophe; but in my opinion to the Left, it is an opportunity, as I wrote, to extend their power. It didn't start with a"prolonged period of Fed-provided, exceptionally easy money", it started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brilliant strategy of 1) segmenting voters and 2) buying each vulnerable segment. "People…behave more responsibly when they have…some 'skin in the game'". Well, Mr. Shultz, I hate to break this to you, but the Left since FDR has taken each group's skin out of the game by handing out skin in exchange for votes. There have been some ups and downs of this strategy, but generally it is working. After President Obama's almost certain changes to taxes, around half of voters won't pay anything to maintain their government (federal income taxes). Nothing. And almost everyone is financially dependent on the government; in essence they are paid in one way or another, to vote for Democrats. Rather than name the people and groups so dependent, I challenge anyone to describe on affinity group that isn't. So, understand, Mr. Shultz and "conservatives", there is no "wake-up call', there is little "skin in the game". It isn't from a "failure to deal adequately with clear problems" it is that liberals have purposely caused these problems and instead of the Left being punished for pushing this country into virtual-bankruptcy by being voted out, their newest leader is welcomed like a rock-star. America is so over!
Superamerican
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A "tax lapse" isn't illegal if Obama says it isn't
Timothy Geithner won confirmation as President Barack Obama's treasury secretary inspite of his criminal activities in not paying taxes. Unfortunately this reinforces the fact that Democrats are above the law. Because Obama said "Tim's work must begin at once", everything illegal he did is OK. That is the moral picture of Obama's self-righteous, self-centered administration. Whatever you want, Mr. President... Throw Geithner into the pool with other tax cheats such as Charlie Rangel, moral liars such as Eliot Spitzer and former-Democratic almost-candidate John Edwards, conflict-of-interesters such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and out-and-out crooks such as Rod-O Blag-O. A group of which to be proud.
But the real tragedy is the continued clueless weakness of Republicans. They are continuing their losing streak. America is the real loser.
I will be updating this regularly with news of Democrat vs Republican crooks.
DEMOCRAT
From another blog, 2-29-09
Economic Crisis, The Audit — April 28, 2009 06:12 PM
Bronte Capital with a Major Scoop on Alleged Fraudster
By Ryan Chittum
Single Page
Print
Email
Comments
Digg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious
John Hempton the excellent Aussie blogger who writes Bronte Capital appears to have a blockbuster of a scoop.
A Connecticut hedge fund called Ponta Negra Group, run by 27-year old Francesco Rusciano has been frozen by the SEC, which accused it of fraud. Hempton was all over this a few weeks ago, but had to take down his posts when Ponta Negra lawyers threatened to sue him. They’re back up now.
But the big news here is Hempton’s discovery that the allegedly fraudulent fund has some, um, oddly coincidental connections to Vice President Joe Biden’s son and brother, who run a firm called Paradigm Global. The firms are run out of the same floor at 650 Fifth Avenue in New York, share the same “marketer,” a guy named Jeffrey Schneider of Onyx Capital LLC, whose website is currently down, and the SEC filing gives a phone number for Ponta Negra that goes through Paradigm’s switchboard.
Ruh roh.
This wouldn’t be the first time the Bidens’ fund has intersected with an alleged fraudster. Two months ago it was discovered to be entangled with disgraced financier Allen Stanford in a $50 million fund co-branded Paradigm Stanford Fund and marketed by Stanford.
Mr. Schneider was involved in that joint venture, which the Bidens say they made without ever even meeting Mr. Stanford:
A Paradigm marketer, Jeffrey Schneider, confirmed accounts provided by others that he brought in the Stanford business. Stanford would bring clients to the fund and Paradigm would manage it, according to Mr. LoPresti.
Now, I suppose there could just be an amazing amount of coincidences here. Hempton is good on the “to-be-sure” stuff:
I was worried at first that Ponta Negra might be a legitimate fund headquartered in another cubicle on the 17th Floor of 650 Fifth Avenue. It turns out that there are several funds also HQ’d there. Paradigm it seems does all the signage on the floor – but once you get past the couple of Paradigm people on the front desk you find several doors behind which reside several hedge funds – a hedge fund hotel if you want. Most of the offices were empty mid-morning – which was very surprising. These funds are largely marketed by Paradigm.
Still there could be a fund (Ponta Negra) independent of Paradigm on the 17th floor. There could be – they too would need to employ a Jeffrey Schneider as a marketing agent.
But let’s face it:
Ok – by this point you should at least be open to the possibility that the Vice President’s son and brother employ someone who uses the good Biden name and a stolen client list to market Ponzi schemes.
There is no allegation here that the Bidens are involved. Just that their standard of due diligence is low. Very low.
Now the Biden’s hedge fund hotel contains an assortment of other colourful funds. One of them is a SIPC registered broker dealer who also manages client money. This broker dealer does not list their auditor anywhere on their website. However they report startlingly good funds management results for 2006 and 2007 though they have surprisingly failed to update their website to include 2008 results. Their website boasts that their trades will be completed with zero commissions and transaction charges allowing them to focus exclusively on the investments that best meet the needs of the clients without the concern of transaction charges and hidden revenue sharing…
Here’s what Dow Jones says about Rusciano:
According to the complaint, Rusciano previously worked at UBS Securities before forming the Ponta Negra Group, but was later forced to resign after he allegedly misreported certain Brazilian bond transactions and non-deliverable forwards. He now also faces charges by the Federal Reserve that he engaged in illegal trading and banking practices and schemed to defraud UBS by trying to conceal major losses, the complaint said. After starting up his own company, the SEC further claims he never disclosed the Fed’s allegations against him or the reasons why he left UBS.
Not only did Hempton break the news on what he originally called a “Ponzi scheme” before having to take it down under legal threat, he’s put together this Biden family connection.
Just outstanding work.
It wouldn’t be the first time a fraud has been cracked by a blogger before the big media and regulators lumber around to it. Alex Dalmady broke the Stanford scandal, with a big push from Felix Salmon, then at Portfolio—and got disgracefully little credit by the media.
This is going to be a big story. I’ll be eyeballing the press closely to see how it handles attributing the news to the Bronte Capital blog.
(h/t Felix Salmon)
4/22/09
Did President Obama's auto czar Steven Rattner's former firm Quadrangle Group "intentionally deceive" the city of New York's pension funds when it failed to disclose paying a finder's fee to now-indicted political advisor' Hank Morris for a New York Pensioin Funds' investment in Rattner's firm's hedge fund? The New York City's comptroller's office is conducting an investigation. The suspense continues.
4/22/09
Democratic Representative from California, Jane Harman, denied any wrongdoing when she was wiretapped having as she said, "casual conversations and kid[ding]around" with pro-Israel lobbyists about seeking leniency for two of them being investigated for espionage by trying to influence the Bush administration. And apparently she was trying to convince Queen Nancy Pelosi to put her on the House intelligence committee, whatever. Change as usual.
4/16/09
News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal
Steven Rattner, leader of the auto task force, was one of the investment-firm executives involved with payments now under scrutiny in a state and federal probe into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992516941227309.html#mod=djemalertNEWS
3/12/2009 Chris Dodd, Chair Senate Banking Committee. Received two preferential-rate mortgages from Angelo R. Mozilo, founder of Countrywide Financial Corporation in 2003. In addition, he -- like President Obama -- entered into a real estate transaction, in Dodd's case a 10-acre estate on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay off the Ireland Coast, County Galway, purchased with a shady "investor" who sold his share back to Dodd at a low-call price, thus increasing Dodd's net worth by potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. Along with them was Edward Downe, Jr. a convicted insider trader for whom Dodd got then-president Clinton to grant a pardon. It is possible that Sen. Dodd lied on his Senatorial disclosure documents about this transaction.
From some blog today, March 19, 2009:
White House Calls Vivek Kundra's 1997 Theft Conviction 'Youthful Indiscretion'Eric Krangel, Silicon Valley Insider
Should a crime committed 12 years ago stick with you forever? That's the question being asked of America's CIO Vivek Kundra. Earlier this week, it surfaced Vivek pled guilty to a charge of misdemeanor theft (less than $300) back in 1997, when he was 22. Nick Shapiro, White House spokesman, weighs in: "Twenty years ago, Vivek committed a youthful indiscretion. He performed community service and we are satisfied that he fully resolved the matter." (1997 was twenty years ago?) There's also an ongoing FBI investigation into bribery and kickbacks at Vivek's old office. "Mr. Kundra has been informed that he is neither a subject nor a target of the investigation," the White House says. Still no word on just what it is Vivek stole.
It is reported (The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2009, page A14, "Congress's Own Liechtenstein") that Democrat, Representative Pete Stark, from California has been claiming --illegally -- that he lives in Maryland to beat the punitive taxes in his home dacha, California. He, along with fellow Congressperson, Democrat from New York (another Soviet colony) Eliot Engel, has been told nada, you can't do that, Comrade Mr. Congressman.
A fund of hedge funds managed by the brother and son of the Vice President of the United States, Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. , was marketed exclusively by disgraced and accused Texas "financier" (crook?) R. Allen Stanford. It is alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission that he engaged in an $8 billion fraud. The fund, co-branded by Stanford Financial Group and the Bidens' Paradign Global Advisors LLC was Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund and had $50 million, including $2.7 million of Stanford cash for seed money. Little Biden son, Hunter, wanted to be a hedge fund operator like the big boys and apparently bought Paradigm with Uncle James -- Joe Biden's brother. Apparently Joe didn't want HuntHunt to be a lobbyist, which he was, when Daddy ran for President, which he laughingly did. Even John Edwards beat him. And with respect to its purchase the Bidens are suing some guy named Anthony Lotito Jr. who sounds like an Italian. Can't say it's illegal, but did those 104 investors ($49.8 million) want something from VP or Senator Honest Joe? Also can't say if HuntHunt or Uncle Jim knew anything about hedging or investing. The hugely successful asbestos litigation firm, SimmonsCooper invested put up $2,000,000 for Hunter and Uncle Jim after teaming with another Joe son, Beau Biden's firm in Wilmington, Del.In 2005, SimmonsCooper shifted its focus away from Madison County, Illinois, after Chief Judge Edward Ferguson transferred the mammoth asbestos docket from Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron to Circuit Judge Daniel Stack. The firm targeted Delaware because many businesses incorporate there and the firm's roster of defendants always includes Delaware corporations.No one at SimmonsCooper held a Delaware law license, so Beau Biden's firm filed the suits and SimmonsCooper identified itself as, "of counsel."Beau Biden dropped an asbestos defense client to accommodate SimmonsCooper.At the same time, Joe Biden resisted asbestos litigation reform in the Senate judiciary committee. HuntHunt and Uncle Jim reportedly bought Paradigm from a drug addict with a partner who specialized in providing ACCESS to public employee retirement funds for money managers and apparently had been engaged in touting a number of penny stock "investments". In addition there were rumors of "side deals", kickbacks and representation by a lawyer heading to prison for fraud. All this is too sick for me to continue. He is our vice (so to speak) president, anyone interested in this crap can Google it all.
And speaking of ..."Texas Businesman Sought for Influence in Corridors of Capitol. (The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, February 18, 2009, page A13) and the next article down. "SEC Charges Financier Stanford With 'Massive' $8 Billion Fraud". Both are about Texas "businessman" R. Allen Stanford, of the Biden article above, and how 1) he stole and 2) contributed greatly to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D. N.Y.), iand $250,000 to the Democratic Party, among other Democratic coffers. His main lobbiest is Ben Barnes, "influential Democratic lobbyist and fund-raiser, Men Barnnes to whom he paid $1,125,000 lobbying for Stanford Financial Group. Stanford is also fighting the IRS over $70,000,000 in back taxes and interest.
"FBI investigates generous donor to Dicks, Murray" (Seattle Times, March 23, 2009, front page http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008906547_pma23.html ). Seems the PMA Group, Arlington, VA, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to mostly Democratic members of the Appropriations Committees in exchange said politicians earmarked millions of dollars to PMA clients. These Democrats have killed any effort -- so widely advertized while they and President Obama were running for office -- to rein in such extortion. Hopefully the FBI -- under Obama's Justice Department -- will be allowed to really investigate and also hopefully it won't all be swept under the table by these dirty politicians donating "questionable donations" to charity. And from another blog, March 30, 2009:
Criminal Inquiry Into Murtha Lobbyist Heats Up
Monday, March 30, 2009 2:28 PMBy: Rick Pedraza
Article Font Size
The PMA Group, a lobbying firm that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe into embattled Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., has closed up shop after reports that federal prosecutors recently raided the office and home of its top operative Paul Magliocchetti, the New York Times reports.
Magliocchetti, who is under investigation for making campaign donations in the names of other people, reportedly directed tens of millions of dollars in contributions to lawmakers while steering hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked contracts back to his clients at PMA.
Murtha earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University, which then rerouted the money to clients of PMA Group, a military-oriented lobbying firm that has close ties with Murtha, Politico reports.
Former PMA staff members familiar with the inquiry tell The Times that prosecutors are focusing on the possibility that Magliocchetti used straw campaign contributors to give large sums in coordination with PMA, whose offices were raided by the FBI in November.
The front, which allegedly funneled illegal donations to friendly lawmakers, carries a felony charge that could result in a minimum sentence of five years.
Prosecutors also are looking into whether violations of longstanding Congressional ethics rules occurred, which could lead to more serious bribery charges if linked to official acts by Murtha.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Murtha has collected $2.37 million in campaign contributions from PMA lobbyists, the Associated Press reports.
“All the combustibles are here for a very salacious set of allegations that could go far beyond his campaign finance problems,” Stanley Brand, a Washington criminal defense lawyer, tells The Times.
Murtha, who is head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, was involved nearly three decades ago in the Abscam corruption probe, a federal investigation that convicted several lawmakers of taking bribes in return for doing business with the government.
A spokesman for Murtha says the lawmaker had done nothing wrong and is not involved in the investigation. The FBI is continuing its investigation into whether Murtha earmarked special-interest spending provisions in return for campaign contributions.
“We have not been contacted by any federal agency,” Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey tells Newsmax, “and no one is suggesting that Congressman Murtha has anything to do with this investigation.”
"Acting Director of OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision) Put on Leave Amid Probe (From the Wall Street Journal March 27, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123812215116454401.html )
This was backdating a capital infusion into IndyMac Bankcorp a bank which arguably a letter by Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat) put into failure. This same bank is being bought by investor including Uber Democrat George Soros. Hmmmmmm.
April Fools Day, 2009: "Cabinet pick has tax trouble" (Seattle Times page A4) Another Obama cabinet selection, this time Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, made "errors" on tax returns, this time for fudging charatable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses. Only $8,000 and "unintentional".
Is the NY Times (or Seattle Times, for that matter) railing about Democrat corruption yet?
REPUBLICAN
But the real tragedy is the continued clueless weakness of Republicans. They are continuing their losing streak. America is the real loser.
I will be updating this regularly with news of Democrat vs Republican crooks.
DEMOCRAT
From another blog, 2-29-09
Economic Crisis, The Audit — April 28, 2009 06:12 PM
Bronte Capital with a Major Scoop on Alleged Fraudster
By Ryan Chittum
Single Page
Comments
Digg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious
John Hempton the excellent Aussie blogger who writes Bronte Capital appears to have a blockbuster of a scoop.
A Connecticut hedge fund called Ponta Negra Group, run by 27-year old Francesco Rusciano has been frozen by the SEC, which accused it of fraud. Hempton was all over this a few weeks ago, but had to take down his posts when Ponta Negra lawyers threatened to sue him. They’re back up now.
But the big news here is Hempton’s discovery that the allegedly fraudulent fund has some, um, oddly coincidental connections to Vice President Joe Biden’s son and brother, who run a firm called Paradigm Global. The firms are run out of the same floor at 650 Fifth Avenue in New York, share the same “marketer,” a guy named Jeffrey Schneider of Onyx Capital LLC, whose website is currently down, and the SEC filing gives a phone number for Ponta Negra that goes through Paradigm’s switchboard.
Ruh roh.
This wouldn’t be the first time the Bidens’ fund has intersected with an alleged fraudster. Two months ago it was discovered to be entangled with disgraced financier Allen Stanford in a $50 million fund co-branded Paradigm Stanford Fund and marketed by Stanford.
Mr. Schneider was involved in that joint venture, which the Bidens say they made without ever even meeting Mr. Stanford:
A Paradigm marketer, Jeffrey Schneider, confirmed accounts provided by others that he brought in the Stanford business. Stanford would bring clients to the fund and Paradigm would manage it, according to Mr. LoPresti.
Now, I suppose there could just be an amazing amount of coincidences here. Hempton is good on the “to-be-sure” stuff:
I was worried at first that Ponta Negra might be a legitimate fund headquartered in another cubicle on the 17th Floor of 650 Fifth Avenue. It turns out that there are several funds also HQ’d there. Paradigm it seems does all the signage on the floor – but once you get past the couple of Paradigm people on the front desk you find several doors behind which reside several hedge funds – a hedge fund hotel if you want. Most of the offices were empty mid-morning – which was very surprising. These funds are largely marketed by Paradigm.
Still there could be a fund (Ponta Negra) independent of Paradigm on the 17th floor. There could be – they too would need to employ a Jeffrey Schneider as a marketing agent.
But let’s face it:
Ok – by this point you should at least be open to the possibility that the Vice President’s son and brother employ someone who uses the good Biden name and a stolen client list to market Ponzi schemes.
There is no allegation here that the Bidens are involved. Just that their standard of due diligence is low. Very low.
Now the Biden’s hedge fund hotel contains an assortment of other colourful funds. One of them is a SIPC registered broker dealer who also manages client money. This broker dealer does not list their auditor anywhere on their website. However they report startlingly good funds management results for 2006 and 2007 though they have surprisingly failed to update their website to include 2008 results. Their website boasts that their trades will be completed with zero commissions and transaction charges allowing them to focus exclusively on the investments that best meet the needs of the clients without the concern of transaction charges and hidden revenue sharing…
Here’s what Dow Jones says about Rusciano:
According to the complaint, Rusciano previously worked at UBS Securities before forming the Ponta Negra Group, but was later forced to resign after he allegedly misreported certain Brazilian bond transactions and non-deliverable forwards. He now also faces charges by the Federal Reserve that he engaged in illegal trading and banking practices and schemed to defraud UBS by trying to conceal major losses, the complaint said. After starting up his own company, the SEC further claims he never disclosed the Fed’s allegations against him or the reasons why he left UBS.
Not only did Hempton break the news on what he originally called a “Ponzi scheme” before having to take it down under legal threat, he’s put together this Biden family connection.
Just outstanding work.
It wouldn’t be the first time a fraud has been cracked by a blogger before the big media and regulators lumber around to it. Alex Dalmady broke the Stanford scandal, with a big push from Felix Salmon, then at Portfolio—and got disgracefully little credit by the media.
This is going to be a big story. I’ll be eyeballing the press closely to see how it handles attributing the news to the Bronte Capital blog.
(h/t Felix Salmon)
4/22/09
Did President Obama's auto czar Steven Rattner's former firm Quadrangle Group "intentionally deceive" the city of New York's pension funds when it failed to disclose paying a finder's fee to now-indicted political advisor' Hank Morris for a New York Pensioin Funds' investment in Rattner's firm's hedge fund? The New York City's comptroller's office is conducting an investigation. The suspense continues.
4/22/09
Democratic Representative from California, Jane Harman, denied any wrongdoing when she was wiretapped having as she said, "casual conversations and kid[ding]around" with pro-Israel lobbyists about seeking leniency for two of them being investigated for espionage by trying to influence the Bush administration. And apparently she was trying to convince Queen Nancy Pelosi to put her on the House intelligence committee, whatever. Change as usual.
4/16/09
News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal
Steven Rattner, leader of the auto task force, was one of the investment-firm executives involved with payments now under scrutiny in a state and federal probe into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992516941227309.html#mod=djemalertNEWS
3/12/2009 Chris Dodd, Chair Senate Banking Committee. Received two preferential-rate mortgages from Angelo R. Mozilo, founder of Countrywide Financial Corporation in 2003. In addition, he -- like President Obama -- entered into a real estate transaction, in Dodd's case a 10-acre estate on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay off the Ireland Coast, County Galway, purchased with a shady "investor" who sold his share back to Dodd at a low-call price, thus increasing Dodd's net worth by potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. Along with them was Edward Downe, Jr. a convicted insider trader for whom Dodd got then-president Clinton to grant a pardon. It is possible that Sen. Dodd lied on his Senatorial disclosure documents about this transaction.
From some blog today, March 19, 2009:
White House Calls Vivek Kundra's 1997 Theft Conviction 'Youthful Indiscretion'Eric Krangel, Silicon Valley Insider
Should a crime committed 12 years ago stick with you forever? That's the question being asked of America's CIO Vivek Kundra. Earlier this week, it surfaced Vivek pled guilty to a charge of misdemeanor theft (less than $300) back in 1997, when he was 22. Nick Shapiro, White House spokesman, weighs in: "Twenty years ago, Vivek committed a youthful indiscretion. He performed community service and we are satisfied that he fully resolved the matter." (1997 was twenty years ago?) There's also an ongoing FBI investigation into bribery and kickbacks at Vivek's old office. "Mr. Kundra has been informed that he is neither a subject nor a target of the investigation," the White House says. Still no word on just what it is Vivek stole.
It is reported (The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2009, page A14, "Congress's Own Liechtenstein") that Democrat, Representative Pete Stark, from California has been claiming --illegally -- that he lives in Maryland to beat the punitive taxes in his home dacha, California. He, along with fellow Congressperson, Democrat from New York (another Soviet colony) Eliot Engel, has been told nada, you can't do that, Comrade Mr. Congressman.
A fund of hedge funds managed by the brother and son of the Vice President of the United States, Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. , was marketed exclusively by disgraced and accused Texas "financier" (crook?) R. Allen Stanford. It is alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission that he engaged in an $8 billion fraud. The fund, co-branded by Stanford Financial Group and the Bidens' Paradign Global Advisors LLC was Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund and had $50 million, including $2.7 million of Stanford cash for seed money. Little Biden son, Hunter, wanted to be a hedge fund operator like the big boys and apparently bought Paradigm with Uncle James -- Joe Biden's brother. Apparently Joe didn't want HuntHunt to be a lobbyist, which he was, when Daddy ran for President, which he laughingly did. Even John Edwards beat him. And with respect to its purchase the Bidens are suing some guy named Anthony Lotito Jr. who sounds like an Italian. Can't say it's illegal, but did those 104 investors ($49.8 million) want something from VP or Senator Honest Joe? Also can't say if HuntHunt or Uncle Jim knew anything about hedging or investing. The hugely successful asbestos litigation firm, SimmonsCooper invested put up $2,000,000 for Hunter and Uncle Jim after teaming with another Joe son, Beau Biden's firm in Wilmington, Del.In 2005, SimmonsCooper shifted its focus away from Madison County, Illinois, after Chief Judge Edward Ferguson transferred the mammoth asbestos docket from Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron to Circuit Judge Daniel Stack. The firm targeted Delaware because many businesses incorporate there and the firm's roster of defendants always includes Delaware corporations.No one at SimmonsCooper held a Delaware law license, so Beau Biden's firm filed the suits and SimmonsCooper identified itself as, "of counsel."Beau Biden dropped an asbestos defense client to accommodate SimmonsCooper.At the same time, Joe Biden resisted asbestos litigation reform in the Senate judiciary committee. HuntHunt and Uncle Jim reportedly bought Paradigm from a drug addict with a partner who specialized in providing ACCESS to public employee retirement funds for money managers and apparently had been engaged in touting a number of penny stock "investments". In addition there were rumors of "side deals", kickbacks and representation by a lawyer heading to prison for fraud. All this is too sick for me to continue. He is our vice (so to speak) president, anyone interested in this crap can Google it all.
And speaking of ..."Texas Businesman Sought for Influence in Corridors of Capitol. (The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, February 18, 2009, page A13) and the next article down. "SEC Charges Financier Stanford With 'Massive' $8 Billion Fraud". Both are about Texas "businessman" R. Allen Stanford, of the Biden article above, and how 1) he stole and 2) contributed greatly to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D. N.Y.), iand $250,000 to the Democratic Party, among other Democratic coffers. His main lobbiest is Ben Barnes, "influential Democratic lobbyist and fund-raiser, Men Barnnes to whom he paid $1,125,000 lobbying for Stanford Financial Group. Stanford is also fighting the IRS over $70,000,000 in back taxes and interest.
"FBI investigates generous donor to Dicks, Murray" (Seattle Times, March 23, 2009, front page http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008906547_pma23.html ). Seems the PMA Group, Arlington, VA, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to mostly Democratic members of the Appropriations Committees in exchange said politicians earmarked millions of dollars to PMA clients. These Democrats have killed any effort -- so widely advertized while they and President Obama were running for office -- to rein in such extortion. Hopefully the FBI -- under Obama's Justice Department -- will be allowed to really investigate and also hopefully it won't all be swept under the table by these dirty politicians donating "questionable donations" to charity. And from another blog, March 30, 2009:
Criminal Inquiry Into Murtha Lobbyist Heats Up
Monday, March 30, 2009 2:28 PMBy: Rick Pedraza
Article Font Size
The PMA Group, a lobbying firm that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe into embattled Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., has closed up shop after reports that federal prosecutors recently raided the office and home of its top operative Paul Magliocchetti, the New York Times reports.
Magliocchetti, who is under investigation for making campaign donations in the names of other people, reportedly directed tens of millions of dollars in contributions to lawmakers while steering hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked contracts back to his clients at PMA.
Murtha earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University, which then rerouted the money to clients of PMA Group, a military-oriented lobbying firm that has close ties with Murtha, Politico reports.
Former PMA staff members familiar with the inquiry tell The Times that prosecutors are focusing on the possibility that Magliocchetti used straw campaign contributors to give large sums in coordination with PMA, whose offices were raided by the FBI in November.
The front, which allegedly funneled illegal donations to friendly lawmakers, carries a felony charge that could result in a minimum sentence of five years.
Prosecutors also are looking into whether violations of longstanding Congressional ethics rules occurred, which could lead to more serious bribery charges if linked to official acts by Murtha.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Murtha has collected $2.37 million in campaign contributions from PMA lobbyists, the Associated Press reports.
“All the combustibles are here for a very salacious set of allegations that could go far beyond his campaign finance problems,” Stanley Brand, a Washington criminal defense lawyer, tells The Times.
Murtha, who is head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, was involved nearly three decades ago in the Abscam corruption probe, a federal investigation that convicted several lawmakers of taking bribes in return for doing business with the government.
A spokesman for Murtha says the lawmaker had done nothing wrong and is not involved in the investigation. The FBI is continuing its investigation into whether Murtha earmarked special-interest spending provisions in return for campaign contributions.
“We have not been contacted by any federal agency,” Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey tells Newsmax, “and no one is suggesting that Congressman Murtha has anything to do with this investigation.”
"Acting Director of OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision) Put on Leave Amid Probe (From the Wall Street Journal March 27, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123812215116454401.html )
This was backdating a capital infusion into IndyMac Bankcorp a bank which arguably a letter by Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat) put into failure. This same bank is being bought by investor including Uber Democrat George Soros. Hmmmmmm.
April Fools Day, 2009: "Cabinet pick has tax trouble" (Seattle Times page A4) Another Obama cabinet selection, this time Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, made "errors" on tax returns, this time for fudging charatable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses. Only $8,000 and "unintentional".
Is the NY Times (or Seattle Times, for that matter) railing about Democrat corruption yet?
REPUBLICAN
Thursday, January 22, 2009
American Idol - Elmer Gantry?
Perhaps starting with Sesame Street, or parenting, where expectations of offspring became few, I don't know, but America has become obsessed with a pretty face, a pretty voice or something beyond real-world achievement. Thus, in my opinion, we have just elected American Idol - Presidential Version. But it also proves that "religion" is alive and well in America. We all need to believe in something. And now we have Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America. Most citizens have been swept away and, while believing, have suspended belief. President Obama, a charismatic figure, has been appointed CEO of the largest, most complex organization in history. Sort of like me being made CEO of MobilExxon. President Obama could have a backbone stronger than our last president; he could embrace the free-enterprise system as the best ever invented in the world; he could stand back, like President Reagan, and manage to a few basic first principles. Or he could Carter-like attempt to micromanage each aspect of the country; he could be bulldozed by Congress; he could yank the country further toward anti-free-enterprise socialism. I hope President Obama succeeds at being the grown-up in the midst of the liberals' sandbox of playthings. Is he Mr. Rogers or Elmer Gantry? Putting our economy into the hands of data-driven "intellectuals" as he is doing is putting it into the hands of those who invented the mortgage-backed securities, derivitives and other computer-modeled securities that have decimated our economy and hiring for Treasury Secretary who didn't pay his taxes and broke the laws of hiring illegals, isn't a good start.
Superamerican
Periodictablet.com
Superamerican
Periodictablet.com
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Hope Can't Pay the Bills.
Today is the Inauguration (Coronation) Indoctrination Day. The 44th President of the United States of America, January 20, 2009. President Barack Obama ran and won on the promise of CHANGE and HOPE. (Well perhaps the ineptness of John McCain his opponent and the overwhelming financial “meltdown” elected him.) But hope won’t pay the bills. He has never made an important decision. He has never hired anyone. Now he is running the largest institution in the world. Our experiment in Democracy has come full circle from where democracy meant white, male, property owners those typically with success, intelligence, worldliness, education running things. Now democracy is proving out its weakness: everyone gets to vote. (Well if they are citizens and at least age 18.) There needs be no intelligence, worldliness, education nor stake in society. In fact today something like 38% of the working people pay no federal income taxes and about half of them get welfare back (“Earned Income Tax Credits”). Franklin Delano Roosevelt first discovered the segmentation of voters into subgroups and pandered to each of them in exchange for votes. Some (me) might call it buying elections, and indirectly that is exactly what the Democrats have done. By promising only retirement security and healthcare for seniors the country owes somewhere around $60 trillion in future obligations to its citizens. And that was only the beginning. In every nook and cranny of our lives the government intrudes and increases costs, red tape and reduces freedom. We are not a free country. And it will only get worse.
Along with seniors, FDR bought farmers, trade union leaders (who could then more easily unionize workers and take their union dues to gain power, live well and elect Democrats), Negroes, the unemployed, and, in a stroke of unanticipated consequence, artists, writers, and the “liberal”, who went on to be newspaper writers, authors, painters, movie producers propagandizing citizens’ minds for the Democrats. In recent decades environmental evangelists with their lawsuits, trial lawyers with their money and the homosexual affinity group (“gays”) with their audacity and publicity have joined the crowd. It is clearly the popular place to be – a Democrat, a liberal. But they are anything but liberal. They want nothing more than to control our lives. From embracing and releasing criminals to give them their “rights”; handcuffing and lambasting the police for its “abuses”; to monetizing victimhood from which trial lawyers reap billions of dollars; to controlling where we smoke; what we eat; how and where we build things; criminalizing thought and speech (“hate crimes”); while legalizing that which used to be illegal; curtailing organized religion; demonizing business and the successful; and promoting, not equal opportunity but absolute equality for all.
Equality is impossible, those promising it are liars.
Government pays for healthcare, education, lost jobs, "safety", diversity, accessability, and on and on. But who pays for government? Business, commerce, companies. Only businesses can create wealth from nothing. Only business can create lasting jobs. Therein lies my problem with Democrats, they are anti-business, anti-free-enterprise. They think they know better how to run business than those who created those businesses and those who manage them, because they'll run them for "stakeholders" -- employees, the public, the government, the environment. Their supporters: trial lawyers, union leaders, environmentalists among others can only have power and wealth through taking from businesses, thus weakening them, thus diminishing wealth in the United States, thus causing it to be unable to “grow its way out of its unfunded liabilities.
But Democrats know they are right and moral and how we should manage our lives. They are our overseers.
Our nation is doomed to mediocrity, and with it, comes "equality" on a much lower level. Well, equality for everyone except those in power. Some things never change.
Ted Wight, Coronation Day, 2009.
Along with seniors, FDR bought farmers, trade union leaders (who could then more easily unionize workers and take their union dues to gain power, live well and elect Democrats), Negroes, the unemployed, and, in a stroke of unanticipated consequence, artists, writers, and the “liberal”, who went on to be newspaper writers, authors, painters, movie producers propagandizing citizens’ minds for the Democrats. In recent decades environmental evangelists with their lawsuits, trial lawyers with their money and the homosexual affinity group (“gays”) with their audacity and publicity have joined the crowd. It is clearly the popular place to be – a Democrat, a liberal. But they are anything but liberal. They want nothing more than to control our lives. From embracing and releasing criminals to give them their “rights”; handcuffing and lambasting the police for its “abuses”; to monetizing victimhood from which trial lawyers reap billions of dollars; to controlling where we smoke; what we eat; how and where we build things; criminalizing thought and speech (“hate crimes”); while legalizing that which used to be illegal; curtailing organized religion; demonizing business and the successful; and promoting, not equal opportunity but absolute equality for all.
Equality is impossible, those promising it are liars.
Government pays for healthcare, education, lost jobs, "safety", diversity, accessability, and on and on. But who pays for government? Business, commerce, companies. Only businesses can create wealth from nothing. Only business can create lasting jobs. Therein lies my problem with Democrats, they are anti-business, anti-free-enterprise. They think they know better how to run business than those who created those businesses and those who manage them, because they'll run them for "stakeholders" -- employees, the public, the government, the environment. Their supporters: trial lawyers, union leaders, environmentalists among others can only have power and wealth through taking from businesses, thus weakening them, thus diminishing wealth in the United States, thus causing it to be unable to “grow its way out of its unfunded liabilities.
But Democrats know they are right and moral and how we should manage our lives. They are our overseers.
Our nation is doomed to mediocrity, and with it, comes "equality" on a much lower level. Well, equality for everyone except those in power. Some things never change.
Ted Wight, Coronation Day, 2009.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
"Investment in Clean Technology Suffers Steep Quarterly Decline"
"Investment in Clean Technology Suffers Steep Quarterly Decline"
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123129110594759499.html]
TECHNOLOGY JANUARY 7, 2009, 10:28 A.M. ET Investment in Clean Technology Suffers Steep Quarterly Decline Article, Wall Street Journal.
By JIM CARLTON
Venture-capital investment in clean technology fell 35% in the fourth quarter from the prior quarter amid the economic slowdown, the steepest quarterly drop in two years.
In total, $1.7 billion was invested in the sector in the fourth quarter, the smallest amount in six quarters, according to estimates by the Cleantech Group LLC, a market-tracking firm in San Francisco. Clean technology includes technologies such as solar that, in general, makes industry greener.
The swoon in what has been one of the hottest venture-capital sectors was largely driven by the global economic downturn, and is likely to persist at least into the current quarter, say officials of Cleantech, which tracks venture activity world-wide. But they say clean-tech spending is likely to rebound, given indications by the incoming Obama administration that it will invest heavily in green technologies as well as a long-term push by corporations to become more energy efficient.
"The fundamentals are still strong when it comes to clean tech," said Brian Fan, Cleantech's senior director of research. "We know the world has to get off coal and has to replace oil."
For 2008, venture investments in the sector rose 38% to a record $8.4 billion, up from $6.1 billion in 2007, according to Cleantech's estimates. The numbers, which exclude some places like Japan and South America, have shown growth every year since 2001 when reported transactions totaled $506.8 million.
Solar continued to account for the lion's share of investments with 40% of the total, followed by biofuels, transportation and wind. Some of the biggest investment rounds went to thin-film solar companies, which use materials typically cheaper than the silicon solar panels that have dominated the industry.
In 2008, U.S. clean-tech companies raised $5.8 billion in 241 disclosed investment rounds, up 56% from 2007. Those companies accounted for 68% of the global total tracked. Top investors included Khosla Ventures, which participated in 21 disclosed rounds, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which participated in 18. Both Silicon Valley venture-capital firms have been pioneers in clean-tech investing.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
Response by Superamerican, emailed to Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2009:
This article has it all wrong. Venture investment in "clean technology" [sic] fell because the price of oil/gasoline fell. If these so-called new technologies can't pay off economically for investments made, no investments will be made. This is a great time for me to promote my idea of a floating federal gasoline tax, where the price of gasoline at the pump remains relatively fixed and high enough to encourage private investment in alternative technologies. The tax would float up or down opposite to the underlying wholesale price of gasoline thus keeping the same retail price for gasoline. This would yield huge sums to the federal government for infrastructure spending while encouraging the private sector to invent new technologies alternative to fossil fuels. If gasoline is, say, $3.00 or $3.50 and relatively fixed it would serve as a base on which to develop business plans for alternative energies. This would be a win-win-win: 1) government would get funds for infrastructure from users; 2) alternatives to oil could be invented and developed by the private sector, where such innovation always comes. At the same time it would keep the federal government out of "investing" in alternative energy which typically would see funding for either technologies which are bureaucratic favorites or large campaign contributors. And the final "win" 3) would be to allow consumers to have a continuing fixed gas price from which to budget their expenses. Add a fourth win: 4) it would allow public transportation companies to reliably budget operating expenses and capital expenses for expansion.
Theodore M. Wight
2201 Third Avenue
Seattle WA 98121
(206) 956-011
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123129110594759499.html]
TECHNOLOGY JANUARY 7, 2009, 10:28 A.M. ET Investment in Clean Technology Suffers Steep Quarterly Decline Article, Wall Street Journal.
By JIM CARLTON
Venture-capital investment in clean technology fell 35% in the fourth quarter from the prior quarter amid the economic slowdown, the steepest quarterly drop in two years.
In total, $1.7 billion was invested in the sector in the fourth quarter, the smallest amount in six quarters, according to estimates by the Cleantech Group LLC, a market-tracking firm in San Francisco. Clean technology includes technologies such as solar that, in general, makes industry greener.
The swoon in what has been one of the hottest venture-capital sectors was largely driven by the global economic downturn, and is likely to persist at least into the current quarter, say officials of Cleantech, which tracks venture activity world-wide. But they say clean-tech spending is likely to rebound, given indications by the incoming Obama administration that it will invest heavily in green technologies as well as a long-term push by corporations to become more energy efficient.
"The fundamentals are still strong when it comes to clean tech," said Brian Fan, Cleantech's senior director of research. "We know the world has to get off coal and has to replace oil."
For 2008, venture investments in the sector rose 38% to a record $8.4 billion, up from $6.1 billion in 2007, according to Cleantech's estimates. The numbers, which exclude some places like Japan and South America, have shown growth every year since 2001 when reported transactions totaled $506.8 million.
Solar continued to account for the lion's share of investments with 40% of the total, followed by biofuels, transportation and wind. Some of the biggest investment rounds went to thin-film solar companies, which use materials typically cheaper than the silicon solar panels that have dominated the industry.
In 2008, U.S. clean-tech companies raised $5.8 billion in 241 disclosed investment rounds, up 56% from 2007. Those companies accounted for 68% of the global total tracked. Top investors included Khosla Ventures, which participated in 21 disclosed rounds, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which participated in 18. Both Silicon Valley venture-capital firms have been pioneers in clean-tech investing.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
Response by Superamerican, emailed to Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2009:
This article has it all wrong. Venture investment in "clean technology" [sic] fell because the price of oil/gasoline fell. If these so-called new technologies can't pay off economically for investments made, no investments will be made. This is a great time for me to promote my idea of a floating federal gasoline tax, where the price of gasoline at the pump remains relatively fixed and high enough to encourage private investment in alternative technologies. The tax would float up or down opposite to the underlying wholesale price of gasoline thus keeping the same retail price for gasoline. This would yield huge sums to the federal government for infrastructure spending while encouraging the private sector to invent new technologies alternative to fossil fuels. If gasoline is, say, $3.00 or $3.50 and relatively fixed it would serve as a base on which to develop business plans for alternative energies. This would be a win-win-win: 1) government would get funds for infrastructure from users; 2) alternatives to oil could be invented and developed by the private sector, where such innovation always comes. At the same time it would keep the federal government out of "investing" in alternative energy which typically would see funding for either technologies which are bureaucratic favorites or large campaign contributors. And the final "win" 3) would be to allow consumers to have a continuing fixed gas price from which to budget their expenses. Add a fourth win: 4) it would allow public transportation companies to reliably budget operating expenses and capital expenses for expansion.
Theodore M. Wight
2201 Third Avenue
Seattle WA 98121
(206) 956-011
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
"Time to update schools' reading lists"
By John Foley, guest columnist, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 6, 2009, Page A 9
"Last updated January 5, 2009 3:35 p.m. PT
Guest Columnist: Time to update schools' reading lists
By JOHN FOLEY
GUEST COLUMNIST
The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the "N-word" repeatedly need to go.
To a certain extent, this saddens me, because I love "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Of Mice and Men" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." All are American classics, and my students read them as part of approved sophomore and junior units, as do millions of students across the nation.
They all must go.
I hope they go to private and public libraries and remain in high school classrooms. I would keep copies in my own classroom and encourage students to read them. But they don't belong on the curriculum. Not anymore. Those books are old, and we're ready for new.
Even if Huck Finn didn't contain the N-word and demeaning stereotypes, it would remain a tough sell to students accustomed to fast-paced everything. The novel meanders along slower than the Mississippi River and uses a Southern dialect every bit as challenging as Shakespeare's Old English.
Explaining that Twain wasn't a racist -- or at least didn't hate African-Americans (he had a well-documented prejudice against Native Americans) -- is a daunting challenge. I explain that Jim, a black man, is the hero of the book. I tell them Huck eventually sees the error of his ways, apologizes to Jim and commits himself to helping him escape slavery. Yes, I tell them, he does all this while continuing to refer to Jim by the demeaning word, but Twain was merely being realistic.
Many students just hear the N-word. This is particularly true, of course, of African-American students. I have not taught Huck Finn in a predominantly black classroom, and I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do so effectively. With few exceptions, all the black students in my classes over the years have appeared very uncomfortable when I've discussed these matters at the beginning of the unit. And I never want to rationalize Huck Finn to an angry African-American mom again as long as I breathe.
John Steinbeck's "Mice" and Harper Lee's "Mockingbird" don't belong on the curriculum, either. Atticus Finch, the heroic attorney in Lee's novel, tells his daughter not to use the N-word because it's "common." That might've been an enlightened attitude for a Southerner during the Great Depression, but is hopelessly dated now.
What books should replace these classics? The easiest call is for "Mockingbird." David Guterson's fine "Snow Falling on Cedars" has similar themes and many parallels, and since the novel is set in the San Juan Islands, it would hold more interest for Washington students than the Alabama setting of Lee's novel.
I think a good substitute for "Mice" would be Tim O'Brien's Vietnam novel "Going After Cacciato." Like George and Lennie in Steinbeck's novel, Cacciato dreams of peace and a better world. And the Vietnam War is a more recent -- and arguably more painful -- era in American history than the Depression, and one of more interest to teens.
"Huck Finn" is the toughest book to replace; it's so utterly original. The best choice, in my view, would be Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove." Like Huck, "Dove" involves an epic journey of discovery and loss and addresses an important social issue -- the terrible treatment of women in the Old West. That issue does not rank as high as slavery on our national list of shame, but it definitely makes the list.
Some might call this apostasy; I call it common sense. Obama's victory signals that Americans are ready for change. Let's follow his lead and make a change that removes the N-word from the high school curriculum.
John Foley of Vancouver is an English teacher at Ridgefield High School in southern Washington.
My response:
While I respect Mr. Foley's suggestions, I submit that he is dead wrong. First, to replace true literature of the past with something that's new, fast-paced and perhaps trendy is equivalent to not teaching history because it's old-fashioned. Additionally, the problem always becomes who will choose what to replace and with what? Who chooses the chooser? Time and widespread acceptance have proven the value of Huck Finn, Mockingbird and "Of Mice and Men", not the dictate of a single person or entity. But the most disturbing part of Mr. Foley's guest column is that to pretend "The N-Word" doesn't exist or to command that it not be used is to give it a cachet of darkness, which only breeds desire. In our time of change transparency is the watchword. More than banish such words, thoughts and feelings develop a course on Stereotypes and Epithets, and study them. Show students through education that people who use such words are simply ignorant of the world about them. Let such a class be a boarding gate into the acquisition of knowledge. I believe that if that word and others weren't elevated to such importance that, when they were used, the user would be looked down as ridiculous, then they wouldn't even be thought of. And, finally, Mr. Foley, you state that some students "appeared very uncomfortable" in discussing such "matters". Isn't it the job of a teacher to confront such uncomfortableness with education? In fact to celebrate such emotion, explain it and diminish it by discussion, not by making believe it doesn't occur. No, book banning should not be a part of any curriculum, but education about free speech should be.
Theodore M. Wight
2201 Third Avenue
Seattle WA 98121
(206) 956-111
By John Foley, guest columnist, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 6, 2009, Page A 9
"Last updated January 5, 2009 3:35 p.m. PT
Guest Columnist: Time to update schools' reading lists
By JOHN FOLEY
GUEST COLUMNIST
The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the "N-word" repeatedly need to go.
To a certain extent, this saddens me, because I love "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Of Mice and Men" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." All are American classics, and my students read them as part of approved sophomore and junior units, as do millions of students across the nation.
They all must go.
I hope they go to private and public libraries and remain in high school classrooms. I would keep copies in my own classroom and encourage students to read them. But they don't belong on the curriculum. Not anymore. Those books are old, and we're ready for new.
Even if Huck Finn didn't contain the N-word and demeaning stereotypes, it would remain a tough sell to students accustomed to fast-paced everything. The novel meanders along slower than the Mississippi River and uses a Southern dialect every bit as challenging as Shakespeare's Old English.
Explaining that Twain wasn't a racist -- or at least didn't hate African-Americans (he had a well-documented prejudice against Native Americans) -- is a daunting challenge. I explain that Jim, a black man, is the hero of the book. I tell them Huck eventually sees the error of his ways, apologizes to Jim and commits himself to helping him escape slavery. Yes, I tell them, he does all this while continuing to refer to Jim by the demeaning word, but Twain was merely being realistic.
Many students just hear the N-word. This is particularly true, of course, of African-American students. I have not taught Huck Finn in a predominantly black classroom, and I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do so effectively. With few exceptions, all the black students in my classes over the years have appeared very uncomfortable when I've discussed these matters at the beginning of the unit. And I never want to rationalize Huck Finn to an angry African-American mom again as long as I breathe.
John Steinbeck's "Mice" and Harper Lee's "Mockingbird" don't belong on the curriculum, either. Atticus Finch, the heroic attorney in Lee's novel, tells his daughter not to use the N-word because it's "common." That might've been an enlightened attitude for a Southerner during the Great Depression, but is hopelessly dated now.
What books should replace these classics? The easiest call is for "Mockingbird." David Guterson's fine "Snow Falling on Cedars" has similar themes and many parallels, and since the novel is set in the San Juan Islands, it would hold more interest for Washington students than the Alabama setting of Lee's novel.
I think a good substitute for "Mice" would be Tim O'Brien's Vietnam novel "Going After Cacciato." Like George and Lennie in Steinbeck's novel, Cacciato dreams of peace and a better world. And the Vietnam War is a more recent -- and arguably more painful -- era in American history than the Depression, and one of more interest to teens.
"Huck Finn" is the toughest book to replace; it's so utterly original. The best choice, in my view, would be Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove." Like Huck, "Dove" involves an epic journey of discovery and loss and addresses an important social issue -- the terrible treatment of women in the Old West. That issue does not rank as high as slavery on our national list of shame, but it definitely makes the list.
Some might call this apostasy; I call it common sense. Obama's victory signals that Americans are ready for change. Let's follow his lead and make a change that removes the N-word from the high school curriculum.
John Foley of Vancouver is an English teacher at Ridgefield High School in southern Washington.
My response:
While I respect Mr. Foley's suggestions, I submit that he is dead wrong. First, to replace true literature of the past with something that's new, fast-paced and perhaps trendy is equivalent to not teaching history because it's old-fashioned. Additionally, the problem always becomes who will choose what to replace and with what? Who chooses the chooser? Time and widespread acceptance have proven the value of Huck Finn, Mockingbird and "Of Mice and Men", not the dictate of a single person or entity. But the most disturbing part of Mr. Foley's guest column is that to pretend "The N-Word" doesn't exist or to command that it not be used is to give it a cachet of darkness, which only breeds desire. In our time of change transparency is the watchword. More than banish such words, thoughts and feelings develop a course on Stereotypes and Epithets, and study them. Show students through education that people who use such words are simply ignorant of the world about them. Let such a class be a boarding gate into the acquisition of knowledge. I believe that if that word and others weren't elevated to such importance that, when they were used, the user would be looked down as ridiculous, then they wouldn't even be thought of. And, finally, Mr. Foley, you state that some students "appeared very uncomfortable" in discussing such "matters". Isn't it the job of a teacher to confront such uncomfortableness with education? In fact to celebrate such emotion, explain it and diminish it by discussion, not by making believe it doesn't occur. No, book banning should not be a part of any curriculum, but education about free speech should be.
Theodore M. Wight
2201 Third Avenue
Seattle WA 98121
(206) 956-111
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Market is Wise
In response to an editorial in today's (New Year's Eve, 2008) Wall Street Journal, "The Market Isn't So Wise After all", by Thomas Frank ("The Tilting Yard" Page A 7) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069094735544743.html
Mr. Frank, what are you talking about? The market is not allowed to work (no one thinks it's "wise") because of the government's meddling. The market has never and will never wander upward forever; periodic declines are healthy cleansing periods. Recessions and some lost jobs are part and parcel of the workings of the market. If the government would allow some of this to occur early, they'd be less harmful. But no! And as for the "100-year flood of fraud", get real Mr. Frank, fraud is inherent in humankind. As is gullibility and greed. You think the government can stop it with regulations, laws and the like? I have a Madoff fund to sell you. While there were certain valuable protections established during the Depression, much of the "New Deal" was damaging and extended the Depression. I'd guess the same will happen with the Obama administration and Democratic Congress continuing the haphazard mistakes of the Bush administration. Our leaders should be honest and tell us that life isn't fair, that recessions happen and are the price we pay for the growth and prosperity we all (or almost all) enjoy. This recession will extend much longer and our children and grandchildren will pay the price of this government "bailout" and inability to admit truths.
Mr. Frank, what are you talking about? The market is not allowed to work (no one thinks it's "wise") because of the government's meddling. The market has never and will never wander upward forever; periodic declines are healthy cleansing periods. Recessions and some lost jobs are part and parcel of the workings of the market. If the government would allow some of this to occur early, they'd be less harmful. But no! And as for the "100-year flood of fraud", get real Mr. Frank, fraud is inherent in humankind. As is gullibility and greed. You think the government can stop it with regulations, laws and the like? I have a Madoff fund to sell you. While there were certain valuable protections established during the Depression, much of the "New Deal" was damaging and extended the Depression. I'd guess the same will happen with the Obama administration and Democratic Congress continuing the haphazard mistakes of the Bush administration. Our leaders should be honest and tell us that life isn't fair, that recessions happen and are the price we pay for the growth and prosperity we all (or almost all) enjoy. This recession will extend much longer and our children and grandchildren will pay the price of this government "bailout" and inability to admit truths.
Friday, December 12, 2008
President Al
Well we didn't get Al Gore as president but it does look like maybe we got Al Capone. As of 9:25 am, Friday, December 12, 2008, there is absolutely no evidence that President-elect Barack H. Obama had anything to do with the widespread, generations-long corruption in Chicago and Illinois politics. He only saw Rod D. Blagojevich, Antoin Rezko, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. and Sr., Ali Ata, Joseph Cari, Stuart Levine, Christopher Kelly, Tom Balanoff and John Harris and let's throw in Richards Daley (M. and L.), Al Capone and Bugs Moran, in the neighborhood. Oh, former Senator Obama was only 6 when Al Capone was alive, or his grandmother was or someone was. I guess Ayers and Rev. Wright are out of this picture and neighborhood. Sorry guys. But David Alelrod and Rahm Emanuel are out walking there, too.
And I believe in Santa Claus who is in the same neighborhood with the Tooth Fairy.
And I believe in Santa Claus who is in the same neighborhood with the Tooth Fairy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
