Leftist Media Ignored GM Recall Issues at Toyota’s Expense
Bob McCarty
I disagree with the staff at Automotive News and their selection of the Toyota recall story as the top automobile-related news story of 2010. The story that deserves at least as much attention has to do with how members of the state-run media ignored recall issues at GM (a.k.a., “Government Motors”) at Toyota’s expense.
I covered the Toyota recall story thoroughly in three early-February posts:
In my first post Feb. 5, I examined the number of campaign contributions made by Toyota executives to Barack Obama since Jan. 1, 2007, and found that only two of 151 executives listed on the Toyota web site gave a combined total of $2,500 to Obama for America;
In my second post Feb. 5, I speculated about the possible reasons why the Obama Administration would want to bully Toyota; and, finally,
In a Feb. 8 post, I wondered why the federal government had not yet issued a recall for the Chevrolet Cobalt despite the fact that, according to a Feb. 2 Los Angeles Times report, 905,000 2005-’09 copies of the “Bow-Tie” vehicle, including the Cobalt SS, were the subject of a new investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration due to complaints of electric power steering failure.
It was in the latter post that I revealed the disturbing results of some simple math calculations:
During the days that followed, Edmund’s Inside Line, The New York Times Wheels blog and two other publications reported the same basic story, informing readers that the investigation was launched after more than 1,100 consumer complaints were received.
According to a Chicago Tribune report Jan. 26, the Toyota recall was based upon some 2,000 complaints related to 2.3 million vehicles sold.
In doing the math related to these recalls, I found the following:
• Only 1 in 1,000 (.001) consumers complained about the Chevrolet product; and
• Fewer than 1 in 1,000 (.00009) consumers complained about the Toyota product.
In short, the Chevrolet product has received more complaints per car sold than the Toyota products! So why hasn’t the federal government issued a recall on the Cobalt? Probably because Chevrolet is owned by General Motors (a.k.a. “Government Motors”), a taxpayer-owned company that stands to benefit greatly from having its foreign-owned competitors struggle with the public relations nightmares related to product recalls.
Did Toyota’s recall problems warrant selection as the “Top News” story of 2010? Perhaps. But the state-run media/government treatment of Toyota certainly deserves at least as much attention.
SOURCE
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Could France Go Even Further Right?
With less than a year and a half to go before the next French presidential election, and current President Nicolas Sarkozy at 35% popularity, could France end up shifting further to the right?
The possibility is a good one. Sarkozy won the 2007 race by largely borrowing from the right-wing Front National party’s platform on everything from immigration reform to national security. Keeping in mind that French presidential elections usually consist of two rounds of voting (if no one party gets 50% of votes in the first round), with other parties throwing their weight behind one of the remaining two parties in exchange for concessions and government positions, Sarkozy beat Socialist Segolene Royale in 2007 because he nabbed right-wing and centrist party votes after the first round, which put him over the top in the second and final vote.
The advantage Sarkozy had in 2007 is that he had never been given the chance to be in charge. He always had to dodge the long shadow of his party’s leader, Jacques Chirac, whom few outside of France (or even in France) could ever legitimately label right-leaning or laissez faire. Chirac spent his mandate importing his beloved Africa into France one Muslim immigrant at a time, appreciating the various resulting cultural manifestations such as bar-b-cueing Citroens as a form of public debate, and taking advantage of various sanctions imposed by the world community on dodgy regimes like Saddam Hussein’s to enjoy market monopoly free of any legitimate competition.
Sarkozy was supposed to be a break from all that. But then something got in the way: France. The Economist, having hailed Sarkozy as the new Napoleon, recently called him the “incredible shrinking president”, and criticized him for not following through on his good ideas. The criticism came from the right, not from the left. The result of gridlock or inaction is maintenance of the status quo, which in France is nanny-state left. And this isn’t what a majority of French voted for when they elected Sarkozy.
A summary of the disappointments:
*Sarkozy pushed DNA testing legislation through parliament to ensure actual relation between family reunification immigrants. But when the bill had passed and was ready to be signed, he told his minister not to.
* After running a campaign emphasizing cultural integration and the secular nature of the French state, Sarkozy sent his prime minister – the head of French government -- to open a new mosque during which he made warm declarations about Islam.
* While the value of the Euro is on a roller-coaster ride because some member countries can’t sort out their own messes to the point of just failing and requiring a bailout from others, Sarkozy has been spending his time strong-arming German Chancellor Angela Merkel into coughing up German productivity to help out the deadbeats. Some French don’t understand why they should be forced to pay for Greeks to riot.
* A presidential campaign emphasizing meritocracy has given way to parachuting friends and relatives, and firing critics in both the private and public sectors. The fact that Sarkozy has referred to himself, in various contexts, as the “head of human resources” probably doesn’t help.
* French companies and factories are disappearing from the landscape and setting up shop overseas. Rather than reducing taxes and gold-plated benefits all around and explaining to people that not doing so will choke off their livelihood entirely, Sarkozy just offered the companies goodie-bags* (*cash). Most normal people can’t fathom handing over a wad of money to their significant other without being considered crass, so imagine the reaction of an entire population when money is given to big business – and the money doesn’t come from the giver but rather from other people’s pay checks. “The French should be used to that,” you might say. But no, the French aren’t used to seeing it done that overtly. When their pay checks are stolen from them by the State, it is done underhandedly in the interest of “benefits”, making them think they’re getting something back, or at the very least that it’s going to their employer: the government. In this case, it’s just shooting down a tube directly into other people’s hands.
This is not to say that Sarkozy hasn’t made a dent. He’s planted the seed of change in France, such as getting the French used to the idea of working two years longer – which shut down the country in itself. But the change promised in 2007 hasn’t yet become a reality to the extent it was perhaps anticipated by voters.
So what are these voters to do? Well, this time, they have an alternative that’s as right-leaning as Sarkozy’s UMP party in theory, and perhaps may actually be more so in practice: therein lies the real difference between the two. The Front National party, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, is set to be taken over in the coming weeks by his 42-year old lawyer daughter, Marine: a smart, tough, articulate lawyer and mother with a knack for leading debate and appealing directly to the people over the heads of the elites. In a recent example, she criticized Muslims who flood into the streets and jam entire blocks of public space to conduct their prayers to Allah as “occupying”. A flood of denouncements came from all other parties, along with threats from various minority and ethnic interest groups to take legal action against the remark. A Socialist Party leader conceded that the phenomenon is indeed a problem – while everyone else living in the real world and having to manoeuvre around these sessions can actually see that it is. French people are now supporting Marine Le Pen in record numbers (27% versus Sarkozy’s 35%).
So let’s imagine a scenario that could very well occur if Sarkozy’s popularity continues to decline or remain low. If, in the first round of 2012 presidential voting, Sarkozy’s right-leaning base votes against him and in favour of the Front National (in protest or otherwise), the centrists vote for their own various candidates and divides the center-right, and the left rallies around the Socialist Party, this could result in a second round race between the Front National and the Socialist Party. And while centrists may side with the Socialists, the right and traditional UMP voters would rally around the Front National.
In a country where a presidential candidate can go from 65% popularity to tanking with 18% in the first round of voting (Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in 1995), it’s not unfeasible to imagine the possibility of France now moving further right.
SOURCE
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Japan population shrinks by record in 2010
Only the Japanese can do anything about it but this is nonetheless something we should all view with some concern. The shrinking of such a creative and productive population is a loss for us all
Japan's population fell by a record amount last year as the number of deaths climbed to an all-time high in the quickly aging country, the government said Saturday.
Japan faces a looming demographic squeeze. Baby boomers are moving toward retirement, with fewer workers and taxpayers to replace them. The Japanese boast among the highest life expectancies in the world but have extremely low birth rates.
Japan logged 1.19 million deaths in 2010 — the biggest number since 1947 when the health ministry's annual records began. The number of births was nearly flat at 1.07 million.
As a result, Japan contracted by 123,000 people, which was the most ever and represents the fourth consecutive year of population decline. The top causes of death were cancer, heart disease and stroke, the ministry said.
Japanese aged 65 and older make up about a quarter of Japan's current population. The government projects that by 2050, that figure will climb to 40 percent.
Like in other advanced countries, young people are waiting to get married and choosing to have fewer children because of careers and lifestyle issues. Saturday's report showed 706,000 marriages registered last year — the fewest since 1954 and a sign that birth rates are unlikely to jump dramatically anytime soon.
Japan's total population stood at 125.77 million as of October, according to the ministry.
SOURCE
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Obama's do-gooder credit card laws are hurting both the rich and the poor -- but mostly the poor
Last year, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act. It was supposed to really end the alleged abuses perpetrated by the credit card companies. The law forbids some penalties and interest-rate increases on existing balances.
It is one of President Obama's proudest achievements. "Enough's enough," he said. "It's time for strong, reliable protection for our consumers." Reform, he said, would not come at the expense of honest businesses. "Unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking your customers, you've got nothing to fear."
Finally! Protection! A new bureaucracy will stop greedy credit card companies from unfairly penalizing you. And it won't threaten the credit business. Yippie!
How has it worked out? Not so well. George Mason University Law Professor Todd Zywicki points out that the new restrictions hurt more consumers than they help.
Since the Card Act passed, mortgage and Treasury bill rates have dropped a little, but credit card interest went up -- from 13 percent to nearly 15 percent. Some banks also stopped offering credit to some people. JPMorgan Chase cut off 15 percent of its customers.
So the real result of this "consumer" regulation? "Hundreds of thousands of people can't get cards who used to be able to have cards, and all the rest of us now have to pay more," Zywicki said.
But maybe the people who can't get credit cards are better off because they couldn't handle credit wisely? "Just to say they don't have a credit card doesn't mean that they don't have credit," Zywicki retorts. "They'll just go to more expensive places -- the local payday lender or the local pawn shop."
And pay a lot for credit. Payday lenders make small short-term loans, sometimes just till payday. But the annual interest is nasty -- often more than 500 percent. Several states have outlawed payday lenders. The politicians say they do it to help low-income people. But again, their "help" harms. The lenders' former customers complain that the payday lenders were their only way to avoid missing a bill payment -- and maybe having the lights shut off. "It's not just a matter sometimes of saving money," one borrower told us. "It's a matter of saving yourself grief."
Maybe they should get a credit card. Then they'd have lower interest payments. But of course Congress just made that tougher.
"People who have limited choices when it comes to credit are not likely to have their situations improved by taking away some of those limited options that they have," Zywicki says.
This is a lesson the elitist reformers are determined never to learn. Or maybe the elite like creating new problems. It gives them new chances to ride to the rescue and pose as great humanitarians. Someone likened this to breaking people's kneecaps, then compassionately providing crutches.
Without regulation, wouldn't banks charge monster fees and high interest? "Certainly they would," Zywicki said. "The problem is they can't. I've got four credit cards in my wallet. As I sit here talking to you, my credit cards are competing for my business. If one tries to rip me off, or charge me too much, I'll switch to another."
The law of unintended consequences is never more clear than in the capping of interest -- so-called usury laws. Arkansas once capped interest rates at 10 percent. "Very few people could get a credit card in Arkansas as a result," Zywicki said. Arkansas then became known as the pawn shop capital of America. Pawn shop interest can be 250 percent.
To Sen. Chris Dodd, President Obama and all the credit "reformers," Zywicki says this: "In the 1960s, the second biggest revenue source of organized crime was illegal lending. Is that the world we want to go back to, where we get rid of payday lending, and we're so morally outraged that we're going to put people in the hands of the leg-breakers and the loan sharks? They charged an interest rate that was well over 1,000 percent, and their collection techniques were a lot tougher than your local pawn shops."
When will the political do-gooders realize that the most vulnerable people in society can't take any more of their kindness?
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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Sunday, January 02, 2011
Was the first human being an Israeli?
Could this be seen as theologically significant?
It has long been believed that modern humans emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago -- the earliest evidence for the existence of modern humans anywhere in the world.
The findings were discovered in the Qesem Cave, a pre-historic site located near Rosh Ha'ayin that was first excavated in 2000. Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, who run the excavations, and Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of the university's Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Sackler School of Medicine, together with an international team of scientists, performed a morphological analysis on eight human teeth found in the Qesem Cave.
This analysis, which included CT scans and X-rays, indicates that the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern humans. The teeth found in the Qesem Cave are very similar to other evidence of modern humans from Israel, dated to around 100,000 years ago, discovered in the Skhul Cave in the Carmel and Qafzeh Cave in the Lower Galilee near Nazareth. The results of the researchers' findings are being published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Qesem Cave is dated to a period between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, and archaeologists working there believe that the findings indicate significant evolution in the behavior of ancient humans. This period of time was crucial in the history of humankind from cultural and biological perspectives. The teeth that are being studied indicate that these changes are apparently related to evolutionary changes taking place at that time.
Prof. Gopher and Dr. Barkai noted that the findings related to the culture of those who dwelled in the Qesem Cave -- including the systematic production of flint blades; the regular use of fire; evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat; mining raw materials to produce flint tools from subsurface sources -- reinforce the hypothesis that this was, in fact, innovative and pioneering behavior that may correspond with the appearance of modern humans.
According to researchers, the discoveries made in the Qesem Cave may overturn the theory that modern humans originated on the continent of Africa. In recent years, archaeological evidence and human skeletons found in Spain and China also undermined this proposition, but the Qesem Cave findings because of their early age is an unprecedented discovery.
Excavations at Qesem Cave continue and the researchers hope to uncover additional finds that will enable them to confirm the findings published up to now and to enhance our understanding of the evolution of humankind -- especially the emergence of modern man.
SOURCE
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Obama Administration Closes Year Paying Off Big Labor
With the White House doling out appointments, regulatory favors and other paybacks, Big Labor must be counting its blessings to have an administration in place willing to ignore the will of citizens and job creators. It does not seem President Obama feels inhibited in paying back union bosses even though his initiatives could not and would not pass in the legislature. Instead, he has taken to using unelected bureaucrats not accountable to voters to enact sweeping changes in labor laws.
All of this takes place in the context of Big Labor having spent half a billion dollars to elect Obama in the first place and hundreds of millions more in the midterm elections just a few, short months ago. So instead of engaging in public dialogue and advancing initiatives in Congress, the Obama Administration has settled on a skewed and secretive rulemaking process largely driven by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Just a year ago, we heard over and over again from union bosses that they would be able to achieve enactment of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act. Friends of Big Labor in the Senate echoed the sentiment, confident that they would push this job-killing bill through, but small business owners and voters refused to allow it. The bill would remove workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union elections and force government-mandated contracts on employees and employers alike without their consent.
Frustrated with this failed effort, Big Labor turned its sights elsewhere and redirected its focus to the White House where they handpicked advocates to serve on the NLRB and do their bidding. It began with Craig Becker, the former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) attorney who received a recess appointment after being rejected in a bipartisan fashion by the U.S. Senate and who now refuses to recuse himself from matters directly related to and benefiting his previous employers.
Just this month, the NLRB decided in favor of union bosses in its ruling on the Dana Corporation. In this decision, employers and unions can conspire to identify the workers most easily persuaded into forming a collective-bargaining unit having them sign cards, while leaving the remaining half of the workforce without a voice or vote in the process which affects their wages, benefits and workplace rules.
In addition, the NLRB also pushed this year for electronic voting in unionization elections, which would take voting out of the workplace and introduce a myriad of potential problems – not the least of which would be coercion of workers. Factor in the high potential for fraud and it is easy to see where the NLRB’s loyalties lay – with union bosses, not workers.
As if changing the mode of voting wasn’t enough, the NLRB is now considering reversing a determination that employees have a 45-day window to file petitions for an election after being notified that the employer has recognized a union through a so-called “voluntary” card check agreement. Shortchanging workers by rushing them into a union vote and not giving them ample time to educate themselves before making a decision is just another way this government agency is paying back Big Labor.
And last week, the NLRB stated that it would require companies to publicly alert their employees of their right to unionize under Federal law, requiring postings on bulletin boards, and sometimes even calling for emails to be sent to all staff members. But there was no mention made of the right of employees to remain without a collective bargaining unit or even how to decertify one. Claiming the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as its justification, the NLRB is taking one more jab at small business as we approach the end of the year.
Job creators will not simply look the other way and will hold to account those who advocate for job-killing policies.
SOURCE
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Charge NYC Union Leaders With Negligent Homicide
Well, it turns out that the slow snow removal process in New York City was the act of childish adults protesting budget cuts. According to the New York Post:
"[Unionized city workers] sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
On Wednesday, MYFOXNY.com reported that two people died, including a new born baby, because emergency crews couldn’t navigate the unplowed streets.
Plain and simple: the union leaders who called for the job action should be charged with negligent homicide. Let them prove that their actions did not result in the unfortunate deaths of these New Yorkers. For too long, Big Labor has been allowed to hold taxpayers hostage in order to get their way at the bargaining table. And this time, their utter selfishness may have contributed to the deaths of two innocent people.
Jeopardizing the health and safety of innocent New Yorkers in order to make a cheap political statement is reprehensible, and must be denounced in the strongest possible terms. New York citizens need to know if the willful inaction of municipal employees contributed to nine-hour wait for emergency crews that tragically resulted in the death of a newborn child.
This is America – such behavior cannot be acceptable. Or are we turning into Germany and France and willing to sit idly by as the actions of Big Labor result in death and chaos?
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
Huge gas find a boon for Israel: "A massive offshore natural gas reserve is poised to give Israel energy security, freeing the desert nation from the threat of boycotts and reshaping the political dynamics of the Middle East. Estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to more than a quarter of Canada’s proven reserves and enough to meet Israel’s domestic demand for 100 years – the Leviathan field is believed to be the largest such deepwater gas discovery in a decade. Observers say the windfall, whose size was confirmed this week, could also affect Israel’s relationships not only with its traditional enemies but also with its allies"
Iraq: Gunmen target Christian homes, 2 killed: "Militants attacked at least four Christian homes Thursday night with a combination of grenades and bombs, killing two people and sending fear into the already terrified tiny Christian community. It was the first attack against the country's Christian community since al-Qaida-linked militants last week threatened a wave of violence against them. Christians went so far as to tone down their Christmas celebrations in what was a peaceful holiday, but the attacks Thursday night demonstrated the intent of militants to keep up their deadly pressure on the Christian community."
Chess players’ opt for trial after prosecution for playing in NYC park: "Two New York City men arrested for playing chess in a city park have rejected a plea deal with the city and have insisted on going to trial. Yacahudah Harrison was among six men playing chess at a Parks Department stone table with a chess table built into it on Oct. 20. The table, however, was located inside a children's section of Inwood Hill Park when police rushed them and issued them summonses for failure to obey park regulations."
Single tip now lands you terrorism watch list: "A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorism watch list .... Even though Abdulmutallab’s father had told US officials of his son’s radicalization in Yemen, government rules dictated that a single-source tip was insufficient to include a person’s name on the watch list. Since then, senior counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip, as long as it is deemed credible, can lead to a name being placed on the list."
Minimum wage hurts workers: "That the minimum wage helps the working poor is a popular policy. Congress recently increased the national minimum from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. A CNN poll found that 86% of Americans supported the change. ... The late senator Kennedy called raising the minimum 'a fairness issue ... If you work … you should not live in poverty.' But as with so many politicians' promises, this one has awful unintended consequences. It hurts workers -- and the least-skilled workers lose the most."
Is big government a myth?: "Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts. As we'll see, yes Virginia there is indeed a big — and growing — government in DC, as even that government's own numbers confirm."
Almost everything is a crime in America now: "Doesn't it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns. But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things? Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society."
The real number of uninsured Americans: "Across the health care debate, supporters of Obamacare have tried to inflate the number of uninsured, and too often they have gotten away with it. Yesterday, for instance, a Huffington Post banner headline read, 'Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to Over 50 Million.' But this claim cannot withstand examination."
The right way to balance the budget: "The federal debt is at its highest level since the aftermath of World War II -- and it's projected to rise further, says Andrew G. Biggs, resident scholar, Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies, and Matt Jensen, research assistant, at the American Enterprise Institute. Stabilizing debt levels would require an immediate and permanent 23 percent increase in all federal tax revenues or equivalent cuts in government expenditures, according to Congressional Budget Office forecasts."
Federal real estate swelled despite “push to purge”: "President Obama over the summer signed a memorandum ordering department heads to 'identify and eliminate' unneeded properties, with the goal of saving 'no less than' $3 billion by fiscal 2012. The order followed a similar efficiency pledge made by former President George W. Bush in 2004. While the administration claims it's making serious headway toward that goal, a recent inventory from the Federal Real Property Council showed that 2009 was a banner year for gaining -- not selling -- federal property."
VA: Man protests molestation at Richmond airport, is arrested: "A Charlottesville man who stripped down to his underwear at Richmond International Airport in protest of security screening procedures was charged with disorderly conduct Thursday. ... police reported that when they arrived at the checkpoint, they found Tobey, 'absent of pants and shirt in full public view, exposing language regarding the Fourth Amendment written on his chest and abdomen with marker or crayon.' The message read, 'Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,' said Bell."
What you pay for Medicare won’t cover your costs: "You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and want your money's worth: full benefits after you retire. Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so they deserve their full benefits -- no cuts. But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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Could this be seen as theologically significant?
It has long been believed that modern humans emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago -- the earliest evidence for the existence of modern humans anywhere in the world.
The findings were discovered in the Qesem Cave, a pre-historic site located near Rosh Ha'ayin that was first excavated in 2000. Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, who run the excavations, and Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of the university's Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Sackler School of Medicine, together with an international team of scientists, performed a morphological analysis on eight human teeth found in the Qesem Cave.
This analysis, which included CT scans and X-rays, indicates that the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern humans. The teeth found in the Qesem Cave are very similar to other evidence of modern humans from Israel, dated to around 100,000 years ago, discovered in the Skhul Cave in the Carmel and Qafzeh Cave in the Lower Galilee near Nazareth. The results of the researchers' findings are being published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Qesem Cave is dated to a period between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, and archaeologists working there believe that the findings indicate significant evolution in the behavior of ancient humans. This period of time was crucial in the history of humankind from cultural and biological perspectives. The teeth that are being studied indicate that these changes are apparently related to evolutionary changes taking place at that time.
Prof. Gopher and Dr. Barkai noted that the findings related to the culture of those who dwelled in the Qesem Cave -- including the systematic production of flint blades; the regular use of fire; evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat; mining raw materials to produce flint tools from subsurface sources -- reinforce the hypothesis that this was, in fact, innovative and pioneering behavior that may correspond with the appearance of modern humans.
According to researchers, the discoveries made in the Qesem Cave may overturn the theory that modern humans originated on the continent of Africa. In recent years, archaeological evidence and human skeletons found in Spain and China also undermined this proposition, but the Qesem Cave findings because of their early age is an unprecedented discovery.
Excavations at Qesem Cave continue and the researchers hope to uncover additional finds that will enable them to confirm the findings published up to now and to enhance our understanding of the evolution of humankind -- especially the emergence of modern man.
SOURCE
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Obama Administration Closes Year Paying Off Big Labor
With the White House doling out appointments, regulatory favors and other paybacks, Big Labor must be counting its blessings to have an administration in place willing to ignore the will of citizens and job creators. It does not seem President Obama feels inhibited in paying back union bosses even though his initiatives could not and would not pass in the legislature. Instead, he has taken to using unelected bureaucrats not accountable to voters to enact sweeping changes in labor laws.
All of this takes place in the context of Big Labor having spent half a billion dollars to elect Obama in the first place and hundreds of millions more in the midterm elections just a few, short months ago. So instead of engaging in public dialogue and advancing initiatives in Congress, the Obama Administration has settled on a skewed and secretive rulemaking process largely driven by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Just a year ago, we heard over and over again from union bosses that they would be able to achieve enactment of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act. Friends of Big Labor in the Senate echoed the sentiment, confident that they would push this job-killing bill through, but small business owners and voters refused to allow it. The bill would remove workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union elections and force government-mandated contracts on employees and employers alike without their consent.
Frustrated with this failed effort, Big Labor turned its sights elsewhere and redirected its focus to the White House where they handpicked advocates to serve on the NLRB and do their bidding. It began with Craig Becker, the former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) attorney who received a recess appointment after being rejected in a bipartisan fashion by the U.S. Senate and who now refuses to recuse himself from matters directly related to and benefiting his previous employers.
Just this month, the NLRB decided in favor of union bosses in its ruling on the Dana Corporation. In this decision, employers and unions can conspire to identify the workers most easily persuaded into forming a collective-bargaining unit having them sign cards, while leaving the remaining half of the workforce without a voice or vote in the process which affects their wages, benefits and workplace rules.
In addition, the NLRB also pushed this year for electronic voting in unionization elections, which would take voting out of the workplace and introduce a myriad of potential problems – not the least of which would be coercion of workers. Factor in the high potential for fraud and it is easy to see where the NLRB’s loyalties lay – with union bosses, not workers.
As if changing the mode of voting wasn’t enough, the NLRB is now considering reversing a determination that employees have a 45-day window to file petitions for an election after being notified that the employer has recognized a union through a so-called “voluntary” card check agreement. Shortchanging workers by rushing them into a union vote and not giving them ample time to educate themselves before making a decision is just another way this government agency is paying back Big Labor.
And last week, the NLRB stated that it would require companies to publicly alert their employees of their right to unionize under Federal law, requiring postings on bulletin boards, and sometimes even calling for emails to be sent to all staff members. But there was no mention made of the right of employees to remain without a collective bargaining unit or even how to decertify one. Claiming the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as its justification, the NLRB is taking one more jab at small business as we approach the end of the year.
Job creators will not simply look the other way and will hold to account those who advocate for job-killing policies.
SOURCE
**************************
Charge NYC Union Leaders With Negligent Homicide
Well, it turns out that the slow snow removal process in New York City was the act of childish adults protesting budget cuts. According to the New York Post:
"[Unionized city workers] sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
On Wednesday, MYFOXNY.com reported that two people died, including a new born baby, because emergency crews couldn’t navigate the unplowed streets.
Plain and simple: the union leaders who called for the job action should be charged with negligent homicide. Let them prove that their actions did not result in the unfortunate deaths of these New Yorkers. For too long, Big Labor has been allowed to hold taxpayers hostage in order to get their way at the bargaining table. And this time, their utter selfishness may have contributed to the deaths of two innocent people.
Jeopardizing the health and safety of innocent New Yorkers in order to make a cheap political statement is reprehensible, and must be denounced in the strongest possible terms. New York citizens need to know if the willful inaction of municipal employees contributed to nine-hour wait for emergency crews that tragically resulted in the death of a newborn child.
This is America – such behavior cannot be acceptable. Or are we turning into Germany and France and willing to sit idly by as the actions of Big Labor result in death and chaos?
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
Huge gas find a boon for Israel: "A massive offshore natural gas reserve is poised to give Israel energy security, freeing the desert nation from the threat of boycotts and reshaping the political dynamics of the Middle East. Estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to more than a quarter of Canada’s proven reserves and enough to meet Israel’s domestic demand for 100 years – the Leviathan field is believed to be the largest such deepwater gas discovery in a decade. Observers say the windfall, whose size was confirmed this week, could also affect Israel’s relationships not only with its traditional enemies but also with its allies"
Iraq: Gunmen target Christian homes, 2 killed: "Militants attacked at least four Christian homes Thursday night with a combination of grenades and bombs, killing two people and sending fear into the already terrified tiny Christian community. It was the first attack against the country's Christian community since al-Qaida-linked militants last week threatened a wave of violence against them. Christians went so far as to tone down their Christmas celebrations in what was a peaceful holiday, but the attacks Thursday night demonstrated the intent of militants to keep up their deadly pressure on the Christian community."
Chess players’ opt for trial after prosecution for playing in NYC park: "Two New York City men arrested for playing chess in a city park have rejected a plea deal with the city and have insisted on going to trial. Yacahudah Harrison was among six men playing chess at a Parks Department stone table with a chess table built into it on Oct. 20. The table, however, was located inside a children's section of Inwood Hill Park when police rushed them and issued them summonses for failure to obey park regulations."
Single tip now lands you terrorism watch list: "A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorism watch list .... Even though Abdulmutallab’s father had told US officials of his son’s radicalization in Yemen, government rules dictated that a single-source tip was insufficient to include a person’s name on the watch list. Since then, senior counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip, as long as it is deemed credible, can lead to a name being placed on the list."
Minimum wage hurts workers: "That the minimum wage helps the working poor is a popular policy. Congress recently increased the national minimum from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. A CNN poll found that 86% of Americans supported the change. ... The late senator Kennedy called raising the minimum 'a fairness issue ... If you work … you should not live in poverty.' But as with so many politicians' promises, this one has awful unintended consequences. It hurts workers -- and the least-skilled workers lose the most."
Is big government a myth?: "Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts. As we'll see, yes Virginia there is indeed a big — and growing — government in DC, as even that government's own numbers confirm."
Almost everything is a crime in America now: "Doesn't it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns. But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things? Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society."
The real number of uninsured Americans: "Across the health care debate, supporters of Obamacare have tried to inflate the number of uninsured, and too often they have gotten away with it. Yesterday, for instance, a Huffington Post banner headline read, 'Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to Over 50 Million.' But this claim cannot withstand examination."
The right way to balance the budget: "The federal debt is at its highest level since the aftermath of World War II -- and it's projected to rise further, says Andrew G. Biggs, resident scholar, Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies, and Matt Jensen, research assistant, at the American Enterprise Institute. Stabilizing debt levels would require an immediate and permanent 23 percent increase in all federal tax revenues or equivalent cuts in government expenditures, according to Congressional Budget Office forecasts."
Federal real estate swelled despite “push to purge”: "President Obama over the summer signed a memorandum ordering department heads to 'identify and eliminate' unneeded properties, with the goal of saving 'no less than' $3 billion by fiscal 2012. The order followed a similar efficiency pledge made by former President George W. Bush in 2004. While the administration claims it's making serious headway toward that goal, a recent inventory from the Federal Real Property Council showed that 2009 was a banner year for gaining -- not selling -- federal property."
VA: Man protests molestation at Richmond airport, is arrested: "A Charlottesville man who stripped down to his underwear at Richmond International Airport in protest of security screening procedures was charged with disorderly conduct Thursday. ... police reported that when they arrived at the checkpoint, they found Tobey, 'absent of pants and shirt in full public view, exposing language regarding the Fourth Amendment written on his chest and abdomen with marker or crayon.' The message read, 'Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,' said Bell."
What you pay for Medicare won’t cover your costs: "You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and want your money's worth: full benefits after you retire. Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so they deserve their full benefits -- no cuts. But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Friday, December 31, 2010
New year thought
This next year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog.
*******************
Northern Europe doing fine
Note that both Germany and Sweden are under conservative leadership
NORTHERN European countries, lead by Sweden, are providing a glimmer of hope to a continent savaged by a sovereign debt crisis.
In late November, as euro-zone leaders struggled to quell Dublin's debt maelstrom, something odd was happening farther north. In Stockholm, government statisticians reported the strongest economic growth in Sweden's modern history.
Having been torpedoed along with the rest of the West in the banking bust, the Nordic country was now riding on a high, with gross domestic product rising almost 7 per cent thanks to a potent rebound in domestic spending and strong exports.
Sweden was not alone. Germany, Europe's dominant economy, enjoyed its most powerful economic expansion since the country's reunification in 1990, borne aloft not only by its hyper-competitive manufacturers but by an acceleration in consumer spending and rising employment.
And further east, Poland was showing signs of shrugging off its own credit crunch hangover to report a growth spurt, with gross domestic product rising by an annual 4.7 per cent in July to September.
The figures defy the perception of a Europe that is drifting into economic somnolence, the only thrills coming from fiscal car wrecks in the single currency area.
Some of the region's key economies are enjoying remarkable success, in part thanks to their exporters' ability to cash in on demand from fast-growing emerging markets, but also because of strengthening household spending and confidence at home.
"It is a great divide; we have the best and worst in the world in this region," said Christopher Potts, head of economics and strategy at CA Cheuvreux. "We have countries in serious, serious difficulties, but we have other parts of Europe that are enjoying a period of prosperity."
More HERE
********************
The betrayal of the young
However misguided their slogans and questionable their tactics, it is difficult not to sympathise with the young protesters in London, Paris and Madrid whose street marches marked 2010. After all, their elders have left them a legacy of public debt that can only translate into future tax increases and spending cuts.
Pressures for fiscal retrenchment will doubtless be even stronger next year. Interest rates on government bonds are about 12 per cent in Greece, 8.6 per cent in Ireland and 6.4 per cent in Portugal, compared to a mere 2.6 per cent in Germany: clearly, markets have not found the European Financial Stability Facility as reassuring as all that.
And with the US and the European countries poised to borrow a historically high $3.5 trillion to fund fiscal deficits, interest rates are likely to rise, so that debt servicing will weigh even more heavily on public budgets. This will force greater tax increases and reductions in outlays if fiscal targets are to be achieved.
Whether those targets will indeed be met remains to be seen. With 21 per cent of the labour force out of work in Spain, 15 per cent in Greece and 13 per cent in Ireland, securing real improvements in budget deficits will test political systems that have long found fiscal discipline a struggle.
But the problems go far beyond the most egregious basket cases. And whatever the role of the euro, their origins predate the move to a common currency.
Rather, an important factor is that Europe's overall productivity performance has been poor for some time.
From 1973 to the early 1990s, European productivity increased to levels close to or even exceeding those in the US. After that, however, productivity growth in the European Union halved, just as US productivity levels surged. By 2007, gross domestic product per hour worked in the EU was about 12 percentage points below the US level. And partly as a result of high tax rates, Europeans now work 20 per cent fewer hours per head than Americans, so the gap in output per hour leads to an even greater gap in total output.
Slowing productivity growth constrained the tax base that could be used to fund public expenditure. But instead of cutting back on powerful constituencies, many European governments accumulated debt, shifting tax burdens to future generations.
Those burdens will prove all the more painful as, rather than leave assets that could help pay off debt, much of the public spending has gone to fund consumption or on white elephants.
And the pain is increased further by the widespread protection of labour market insiders through stringent unfair dismissal regulations. These have imposed high costs on Europe's young, who have struggled to gain secure jobs. The result has been a marked rise in income inequality between cohorts of working age.
The French case is symptomatic. In 1977, the earnings gap between 30 to 35-year-olds and 50 to 55-year-olds was 15 per cent; now, it is 40 per cent.
Moreover, while earnings continue to rise for the baby-boomer cohorts, cohorts born since the mid-60s have experienced stagnant incomes, a far greater risk of unemployment and slow rates of job advancement.
This is all the more striking as periods of rapid technological change typically increase the relative income of younger cohorts, who have more up-to-date skills. In other words, the between-cohort income spread usually narrows, even if the within-cohort spread rises, as has occurred in the US.
Overall, young Europeans face a double whammy: they will have to make good years of wasteful spending and do so out of incomes lower and more uncertain than those of older generations. Little wonder they are referred to as the iPod generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden.
The politics this gives rise to are made poisonous by the widespread loss of credibility of European political elites.
In many countries, those elites are increasingly a gerontocracy: in 1981, for example, the typical French parliamentarian was 40; today, he or she is 60. And that the elites are embroiled in scandals further undermines their legitimacy.
So does the fact the elites have no credible answers to European society's challenges, most obviously immigration. Here too, protecting labour market insiders has imposed high costs, compounding the many other problems of integration.
A recent French government report finds that adjusting for factors such as age and education, the unemployment rate for migrants is 1.5 to 2 percentage points greater than for the native born, with an even greater gap for migrants from Africa. While that may be unsurprising, the study also finds that second generation migrants are even more disadvantaged than their parents were.
It concludes that despite substantial public spending, the social problems of areas with a high proportion of migrants are worsening, including in terms of violent crime. And the evidence it surveys suggests the French situation, while hardly satisfactory, is no worse than that in The Netherlands and Sweden.
To all this, neither the social democrats nor the traditional conservative parties have any sensible response. And neither is capable of channelling popular discontent. As a result, Europe's Tea Party movement has taken forms far more virulent than its US counterpart, including xenophobic, at times overtly racist, organisations such as the Swiss Union of the Democratic Centre, the New Flemish Alliance in Belgium and Geert Wilders's Party For Freedom in The Netherlands.
This is not to say nothing good has come from the current crisis. Some madcap projects, such as Greece's national broadband network, have been shelved. And fiscal accountability has been enhanced, including by strengthening independent review of budget proposals
SOURCE
**************************
Making 2011 the Year of Economic Growth
The liberal media has been heralding all the grand achievements of the 111th Congress, especially the legislation pushed through during the lame duck session. The Congress which took its last vote on Dec. 22 added $3.2 trillion to the national debt, setting a record for red ink that exceeded the $2.0 trillion in deficits run up during the 110th Congress. Since the Democrats took control of both houses after the 2006 election, the national debt has grown by $5.2 trillion, or by 30 percent. The deficits are mainly the result of the 2008 recession, which reduced revenue and spurred the use of stimulus spending to speed recovery. Yet, with unemployment at 9.8 percent, it would seem that the fiscal programs were poorly devised and accomplished little for the huge sums spent.
The best anti-recession policy was something Congress did not do. It did not enact the so-called "cap and trade" initiative to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by raising costs for energy production and use. Had such legislation been implemented, there would have been no chance for an economic recovery. The new burdens envisioned for the core activities of America's modern, affluent society would have made the lapse of the Bush tax cuts pale in comparison. The misnamed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) just barely passed in the House or Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212. Only eight Republicans voted in favor and 44 Democrats opposed it. The bill then stalled in the Senate in the face of a bipartisan coalition worried about the recession. GOP gains in the 112th Congress should render its re-introduction futile.
Yet, sending the United States not just into another Great Depression, but turning the clock back several generations in living standards is the aim of the Left-wing Green movement. Groups like Climate Justice Action want to “ensure that large-scale, destructive corporate-controlled false solutions to climate change are eliminated. This includes so-called ‘clean coal,’ agrofuels (industrial scale biofuels), nuclear power, and large-scale hydropower.” And “we should not build electric cars or trucks running on biofuels but massively reduce their numbers through the radical development of public transportation." To them, there is no way forward, only backwards.
Economic stagnation or decline is vital to the sustainability of socialism. Marxists have always assumed they would be taking over a capitalist system that had already solved the economic problem of producing all that society needed. Their mission was simply to run the system more "fairly" by eliminating "profits" and "the wealthy" who had more than their proper share. There was no understanding that the modern age was only dawning when the core doctrines of the Left were being formulated in the 19th century. Without a capitalist system with its financial incentives for material advancement, economic progress comes to an end. For many on the Left, this is an acceptable outcome, but it cannot be sold to the general public which expects living standards to continually rise. The fear that their children may not be better off than they are is driving middle class angst.
The solution for the Left is to convince the public that economic progress is bad. Several attempts have been made to sell this idea since it was spawned by the New Left in the 1960s. The early "tree hugger" approach extolling the "simple life" never got beyond the hippie communes, where its application was quickly found to be appalling. Then came the "limits to growth" argument that there aren't enough "resources" to maintain middle class standards as populations increase. Capitalism and technology, however, keep finding new ways to do things, using resources more efficiently and finding new resources. The Greens have had to devote time to denying access to resources to starve progress (such as restrictions on oil drilling and mining, and even to building wind mills and dams) so they could artificially create shortages.
Finally, unable to persuade people to go backward, the Greens invoked their own version of the "voice of god" to command regression on pain of universal death. Hence, the birth of the "global warming" notion. Progress is not good, for it will kill us all. That socialism cannot create progress ceases to be a failing; it becomes the movement's central platform plank. Material advancement will be "capped" and what benefits are available will be "traded" under socialist administration to assure "fairness" and a minimum standard for all---but not more than a minimum or the planet's future will be in peril. Nature requires socialism, end of the debate.
This argument has reached further than the hippie communes, but not much further. The vast majority of the world's people and their governments have not bought it, as evidenced by the continued failure of the UN climate conferences to find any general support for imposing restrictions on national economies (as opposed to the purely political battle by some groups of states to impose limits on rival states). The "right to develop" which has been at the core of human nature since before recorded history continues to be the rallying cry of those who live in the real world. The embrace of retrogression is a sickness unique to the cloistered halls of Western liberalism.
Unfortunately, the death of "cap and trade" legislation does not mean the battle is over. The race in domestic policy will continue between those who are pushing expanded energy production from nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and domestic oil against those who are trying to close down energy sources like coal, oil (from anywhere) and nuclear. Securing funding for one side while denying it to the other will decide the contest.
On Dec. 23, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its plan for establishing GHG standards in 2011. Its press release said, "The agency looked at a number of sectors and is moving forward on GHG standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries—two of the largest industrial sources, representing nearly 40 percent of the GHG pollution in the United States. EPA will propose standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively." The EPA claimed it would hold "listening sessions with the business community, states and other stakeholders in early 2011, well before the rulemaking process begins."
Among the "other stakeholders" are all Americans who want to keep their country moving forward, which cannot happen if energy costs are driven upward by EPA fiat. As one Greenwebsite put it, "the ultimate regulations, which will apply to factories, oil refineries, and power plants, including many of the oldest, dirtiest coal plants, is a huge deal." Concerned citizens and their representatives in the new Congress must make sure the "deal" works in the national interest, which is assuredly won't if the Green Luddites stack the deck.
Meanwhile, California's Air Resources Board approved its own state-wide cap-and-trade system on Dec. 16. After 2015, refiners and distributors of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and other fuels will be required to buy emissions permits at auctions or purchase them from other companies. Gradually, the state will reduce the number of permits available, squeezing companies that do not reduce their GHG emissions. Again, the cost of producing or using energy will go up. The California authorities seem bent on blasting holes in a ship that has already run aground to make sure it can never be refloated to sail again as the vanguard of American affluence.
California's impending bankruptcy is rooted in the same liberal doctrines that triggered the national rebuke of the 111th Congress. Too much spending on non-productive programs while the foundations of the economy are being undermined; making any spending for any purpose (even on the basic duties of government) impossible to sustain. Society requires growth, end of the debate.
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
This next year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog.
*******************
Northern Europe doing fine
Note that both Germany and Sweden are under conservative leadership
NORTHERN European countries, lead by Sweden, are providing a glimmer of hope to a continent savaged by a sovereign debt crisis.
In late November, as euro-zone leaders struggled to quell Dublin's debt maelstrom, something odd was happening farther north. In Stockholm, government statisticians reported the strongest economic growth in Sweden's modern history.
Having been torpedoed along with the rest of the West in the banking bust, the Nordic country was now riding on a high, with gross domestic product rising almost 7 per cent thanks to a potent rebound in domestic spending and strong exports.
Sweden was not alone. Germany, Europe's dominant economy, enjoyed its most powerful economic expansion since the country's reunification in 1990, borne aloft not only by its hyper-competitive manufacturers but by an acceleration in consumer spending and rising employment.
And further east, Poland was showing signs of shrugging off its own credit crunch hangover to report a growth spurt, with gross domestic product rising by an annual 4.7 per cent in July to September.
The figures defy the perception of a Europe that is drifting into economic somnolence, the only thrills coming from fiscal car wrecks in the single currency area.
Some of the region's key economies are enjoying remarkable success, in part thanks to their exporters' ability to cash in on demand from fast-growing emerging markets, but also because of strengthening household spending and confidence at home.
"It is a great divide; we have the best and worst in the world in this region," said Christopher Potts, head of economics and strategy at CA Cheuvreux. "We have countries in serious, serious difficulties, but we have other parts of Europe that are enjoying a period of prosperity."
More HERE
********************
The betrayal of the young
However misguided their slogans and questionable their tactics, it is difficult not to sympathise with the young protesters in London, Paris and Madrid whose street marches marked 2010. After all, their elders have left them a legacy of public debt that can only translate into future tax increases and spending cuts.
Pressures for fiscal retrenchment will doubtless be even stronger next year. Interest rates on government bonds are about 12 per cent in Greece, 8.6 per cent in Ireland and 6.4 per cent in Portugal, compared to a mere 2.6 per cent in Germany: clearly, markets have not found the European Financial Stability Facility as reassuring as all that.
And with the US and the European countries poised to borrow a historically high $3.5 trillion to fund fiscal deficits, interest rates are likely to rise, so that debt servicing will weigh even more heavily on public budgets. This will force greater tax increases and reductions in outlays if fiscal targets are to be achieved.
Whether those targets will indeed be met remains to be seen. With 21 per cent of the labour force out of work in Spain, 15 per cent in Greece and 13 per cent in Ireland, securing real improvements in budget deficits will test political systems that have long found fiscal discipline a struggle.
But the problems go far beyond the most egregious basket cases. And whatever the role of the euro, their origins predate the move to a common currency.
Rather, an important factor is that Europe's overall productivity performance has been poor for some time.
From 1973 to the early 1990s, European productivity increased to levels close to or even exceeding those in the US. After that, however, productivity growth in the European Union halved, just as US productivity levels surged. By 2007, gross domestic product per hour worked in the EU was about 12 percentage points below the US level. And partly as a result of high tax rates, Europeans now work 20 per cent fewer hours per head than Americans, so the gap in output per hour leads to an even greater gap in total output.
Slowing productivity growth constrained the tax base that could be used to fund public expenditure. But instead of cutting back on powerful constituencies, many European governments accumulated debt, shifting tax burdens to future generations.
Those burdens will prove all the more painful as, rather than leave assets that could help pay off debt, much of the public spending has gone to fund consumption or on white elephants.
And the pain is increased further by the widespread protection of labour market insiders through stringent unfair dismissal regulations. These have imposed high costs on Europe's young, who have struggled to gain secure jobs. The result has been a marked rise in income inequality between cohorts of working age.
The French case is symptomatic. In 1977, the earnings gap between 30 to 35-year-olds and 50 to 55-year-olds was 15 per cent; now, it is 40 per cent.
Moreover, while earnings continue to rise for the baby-boomer cohorts, cohorts born since the mid-60s have experienced stagnant incomes, a far greater risk of unemployment and slow rates of job advancement.
This is all the more striking as periods of rapid technological change typically increase the relative income of younger cohorts, who have more up-to-date skills. In other words, the between-cohort income spread usually narrows, even if the within-cohort spread rises, as has occurred in the US.
Overall, young Europeans face a double whammy: they will have to make good years of wasteful spending and do so out of incomes lower and more uncertain than those of older generations. Little wonder they are referred to as the iPod generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden.
The politics this gives rise to are made poisonous by the widespread loss of credibility of European political elites.
In many countries, those elites are increasingly a gerontocracy: in 1981, for example, the typical French parliamentarian was 40; today, he or she is 60. And that the elites are embroiled in scandals further undermines their legitimacy.
So does the fact the elites have no credible answers to European society's challenges, most obviously immigration. Here too, protecting labour market insiders has imposed high costs, compounding the many other problems of integration.
A recent French government report finds that adjusting for factors such as age and education, the unemployment rate for migrants is 1.5 to 2 percentage points greater than for the native born, with an even greater gap for migrants from Africa. While that may be unsurprising, the study also finds that second generation migrants are even more disadvantaged than their parents were.
It concludes that despite substantial public spending, the social problems of areas with a high proportion of migrants are worsening, including in terms of violent crime. And the evidence it surveys suggests the French situation, while hardly satisfactory, is no worse than that in The Netherlands and Sweden.
To all this, neither the social democrats nor the traditional conservative parties have any sensible response. And neither is capable of channelling popular discontent. As a result, Europe's Tea Party movement has taken forms far more virulent than its US counterpart, including xenophobic, at times overtly racist, organisations such as the Swiss Union of the Democratic Centre, the New Flemish Alliance in Belgium and Geert Wilders's Party For Freedom in The Netherlands.
This is not to say nothing good has come from the current crisis. Some madcap projects, such as Greece's national broadband network, have been shelved. And fiscal accountability has been enhanced, including by strengthening independent review of budget proposals
SOURCE
**************************
Making 2011 the Year of Economic Growth
The liberal media has been heralding all the grand achievements of the 111th Congress, especially the legislation pushed through during the lame duck session. The Congress which took its last vote on Dec. 22 added $3.2 trillion to the national debt, setting a record for red ink that exceeded the $2.0 trillion in deficits run up during the 110th Congress. Since the Democrats took control of both houses after the 2006 election, the national debt has grown by $5.2 trillion, or by 30 percent. The deficits are mainly the result of the 2008 recession, which reduced revenue and spurred the use of stimulus spending to speed recovery. Yet, with unemployment at 9.8 percent, it would seem that the fiscal programs were poorly devised and accomplished little for the huge sums spent.
The best anti-recession policy was something Congress did not do. It did not enact the so-called "cap and trade" initiative to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by raising costs for energy production and use. Had such legislation been implemented, there would have been no chance for an economic recovery. The new burdens envisioned for the core activities of America's modern, affluent society would have made the lapse of the Bush tax cuts pale in comparison. The misnamed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) just barely passed in the House or Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212. Only eight Republicans voted in favor and 44 Democrats opposed it. The bill then stalled in the Senate in the face of a bipartisan coalition worried about the recession. GOP gains in the 112th Congress should render its re-introduction futile.
Yet, sending the United States not just into another Great Depression, but turning the clock back several generations in living standards is the aim of the Left-wing Green movement. Groups like Climate Justice Action want to “ensure that large-scale, destructive corporate-controlled false solutions to climate change are eliminated. This includes so-called ‘clean coal,’ agrofuels (industrial scale biofuels), nuclear power, and large-scale hydropower.” And “we should not build electric cars or trucks running on biofuels but massively reduce their numbers through the radical development of public transportation." To them, there is no way forward, only backwards.
Economic stagnation or decline is vital to the sustainability of socialism. Marxists have always assumed they would be taking over a capitalist system that had already solved the economic problem of producing all that society needed. Their mission was simply to run the system more "fairly" by eliminating "profits" and "the wealthy" who had more than their proper share. There was no understanding that the modern age was only dawning when the core doctrines of the Left were being formulated in the 19th century. Without a capitalist system with its financial incentives for material advancement, economic progress comes to an end. For many on the Left, this is an acceptable outcome, but it cannot be sold to the general public which expects living standards to continually rise. The fear that their children may not be better off than they are is driving middle class angst.
The solution for the Left is to convince the public that economic progress is bad. Several attempts have been made to sell this idea since it was spawned by the New Left in the 1960s. The early "tree hugger" approach extolling the "simple life" never got beyond the hippie communes, where its application was quickly found to be appalling. Then came the "limits to growth" argument that there aren't enough "resources" to maintain middle class standards as populations increase. Capitalism and technology, however, keep finding new ways to do things, using resources more efficiently and finding new resources. The Greens have had to devote time to denying access to resources to starve progress (such as restrictions on oil drilling and mining, and even to building wind mills and dams) so they could artificially create shortages.
Finally, unable to persuade people to go backward, the Greens invoked their own version of the "voice of god" to command regression on pain of universal death. Hence, the birth of the "global warming" notion. Progress is not good, for it will kill us all. That socialism cannot create progress ceases to be a failing; it becomes the movement's central platform plank. Material advancement will be "capped" and what benefits are available will be "traded" under socialist administration to assure "fairness" and a minimum standard for all---but not more than a minimum or the planet's future will be in peril. Nature requires socialism, end of the debate.
This argument has reached further than the hippie communes, but not much further. The vast majority of the world's people and their governments have not bought it, as evidenced by the continued failure of the UN climate conferences to find any general support for imposing restrictions on national economies (as opposed to the purely political battle by some groups of states to impose limits on rival states). The "right to develop" which has been at the core of human nature since before recorded history continues to be the rallying cry of those who live in the real world. The embrace of retrogression is a sickness unique to the cloistered halls of Western liberalism.
Unfortunately, the death of "cap and trade" legislation does not mean the battle is over. The race in domestic policy will continue between those who are pushing expanded energy production from nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and domestic oil against those who are trying to close down energy sources like coal, oil (from anywhere) and nuclear. Securing funding for one side while denying it to the other will decide the contest.
On Dec. 23, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its plan for establishing GHG standards in 2011. Its press release said, "The agency looked at a number of sectors and is moving forward on GHG standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries—two of the largest industrial sources, representing nearly 40 percent of the GHG pollution in the United States. EPA will propose standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively." The EPA claimed it would hold "listening sessions with the business community, states and other stakeholders in early 2011, well before the rulemaking process begins."
Among the "other stakeholders" are all Americans who want to keep their country moving forward, which cannot happen if energy costs are driven upward by EPA fiat. As one Greenwebsite put it, "the ultimate regulations, which will apply to factories, oil refineries, and power plants, including many of the oldest, dirtiest coal plants, is a huge deal." Concerned citizens and their representatives in the new Congress must make sure the "deal" works in the national interest, which is assuredly won't if the Green Luddites stack the deck.
Meanwhile, California's Air Resources Board approved its own state-wide cap-and-trade system on Dec. 16. After 2015, refiners and distributors of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and other fuels will be required to buy emissions permits at auctions or purchase them from other companies. Gradually, the state will reduce the number of permits available, squeezing companies that do not reduce their GHG emissions. Again, the cost of producing or using energy will go up. The California authorities seem bent on blasting holes in a ship that has already run aground to make sure it can never be refloated to sail again as the vanguard of American affluence.
California's impending bankruptcy is rooted in the same liberal doctrines that triggered the national rebuke of the 111th Congress. Too much spending on non-productive programs while the foundations of the economy are being undermined; making any spending for any purpose (even on the basic duties of government) impossible to sustain. Society requires growth, end of the debate.
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Thursday, December 30, 2010
If Republicans Stick With Six Simple Words, They'll Be Golden In 2011
The end of the year is the right time for Republicans to revisit the lessons learned in 2010 and look forward to 2011. Several months ago, I recommended that Republican Party provide the American electorate with a calling card, a clear statement of what it stands for. The GOP delivered.
The elections resulted in an overarching victory for conservatives, making it clearer than ever that the Republicans’ position can be summarized in 6 words: Small Government. Low Taxes. National Security.
Now it is time to take that slogan into everyday governing as well as into the next election cycle and use it to end Barack Obama’s mangled presidency. With the Republicans earning a mandate in the House and an effective minority in the Senate, it is incumbent upon them not to lose their focus on the 6 simple words, and to continue to trumpet their ideals at each and every instance.
We learned again this past year that if Republicans stand by their beliefs, the other side inevitably buckles to the pressure. Below are two concrete examples:
1. First, in the recently concluded tax debate, Republicans scored a victory for their conviction that Low Taxes are a necessity. While Republicans remained steadfast that a recession is not the time to raise taxes across all economic classes, Democrats declared that they would never allow the Bush – era tax cuts to be extended.
However, when the moment of truth came, the Republicans prevailed in the fight for low taxes and Americans do not have to worry about their tax duties going up in these difficult times.
2. Second, the Republicans’ ability to stand strong on their belief in Small Government resulted in the failure by the Democrats to pass their $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, a heap of pork-barrel and special interest spending.
Even with a majority in the Senate, Harry Reid was not able to coerce his caucus into voting for the measure which was a sum of separate spending bills which could not be passed on their own. In desperation, the left attempted to bribe Republican Senators with pork barrel provisions, but leader McConnell made sure the Republicans stood united on their principle that government has to be small and not overreaching. The omnibus bill was pulled from the Senate floor.
2011 is going to be a momentous year in national politics, and each Republican candidate for president has to follow the two examples I've mentioned above and show the country that GOP principles do not bend.
The GOP bench is strong, featuring, among others, such experienced leaders as Governors Barbour, Pawlenty, Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Christie.
It is critical as the primary competition goes into full swing that the candidates remember that it is not just the Republicans who will be following and watching, it is the whole electorate.
With that in mind, the candidates need to keep the country focused on Small Government, Low Taxes, National Security. and if that is achieved, there will be a Republican president elected in November, 2012.
SOURCE
****************************
European riots and the real party of "No"
Thomas Sowell
Economists are the real "party of No." They keep saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch-- and politicians keep on getting elected by promising free lunches.
Such promises may seem to be kept, for a while. There are ways the government can juggle money around to make everything look OK, but it is only a matter of time before that money runs out and the ultimate reality hits, that there is no free lunch.
We are currently seeing what happens, in fierce riots raging in various countries in Europe, when the money runs out and the brutal truth is finally revealed, that there is no free lunch. You cannot have generous welfare state laws that allow people to retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.
In the United States, that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions-- which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."
Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow. The results are not pretty, as we can see on TV, in pictures of rioters in the streets, smashing and burning the property of innocent people, who had nothing to do with giving them unrealistic hopes of living off somebody else, or with the inevitable disappointing of those hopes with cutbacks on the giveaways.
Nothing is easier for politicians than to play Santa Claus by promising benefits, without mentioning the costs-- or lying about the costs and leaving it to future governments to figure out what to do when the money runs out.
In the United States, the biggest and longest-running scam of this sort is Social Security. Fulfilling all the promises that were made, as commitments in the law, would cost more money than Social Security has ever had.
This particular scam has kept going for generations by the fact that the first generation-- a small generation-- that paid into Social Security had its pensions paid by the money that the second and much bigger "baby boom" generation paid in.
What the first generation got back in benefits was far greater than what they themselves had paid in. It was something for nothing-- apparently.
This is the way a Ponzi scheme works, with the first wave of "investors" getting paid with the money paid in by the second wave. But, like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme creates no wealth but only an illusion that cannot last. That is why Mr. Ponzi was sent to prison. But politicians get re-elected for doing the same thing.
As the baby boomers begin to retire, and there are now fewer working people per retired person to pay for Social Security pensions, this scam is likewise headed for a rude revelation of reality-- and perhaps riots like those in Europe.
All the incentives are for politicians to do what they have done, namely to promise benefits without raising enough taxes to pay for them. That way, it looks like you are getting something for nothing.
When crunch time comes and politicians are either going to have to tell people the truth or raise taxes, the almost inevitable choice is to raise taxes. If the people think they are already taxed too much, then the taxes can be raised only for people designated as "the rich." If "the rich" object, then demagogues can denounce them for their selfishness and "greed" for objecting to turning over ever-growing amounts of what they have earned to politicians.
Economists often make stronger objections than the high-income people themselves. That is because history has shown repeatedly that very high rates of taxation lead to all sorts of ways by which those very high rates of taxation do not have to be paid.
No matter how high the tax rates are, they do not bring in more revenue when many of the people subject to those tax rates do not in fact pay them. The scams inherent in welfare states are not only economically counterproductive, they turn group against group, straining the ties that hold a society together.
SOURCE
***********************
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13. Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat patrol:
"Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths...... No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make ..... for you....
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.... Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.....
"Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. ...... But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
“The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: ‘Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?’ I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, ‘No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.’ They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
“A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms....
“What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as [Iraqi policemen on the scene] had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
“You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: ‘Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.’ The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.
“It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
“For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing nonstop ...... the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore into the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe..... because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.
"The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
“The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty ..... into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight —for you.”
SOURCE
***********************
ELSEWHERE
Israel: Aid for Torah study challenged: "Chaim Amsellem was not the first parliament member to suggest that most ultra-Orthodox men should work rather than receive welfare subsidies for full-time Torah study. But when he did so last month, the nation took notice. Amsellem is a rabbi, ultra-Orthodox himself, and his outspokenness ignited a fresh -- and fierce -- debate about the rapid growth of the ultrareligious in Israel."
America's fading liberties: "Are the Americans greater today than before 1917 or 1898? In the military sense, they are so undoubtedly. But every step towards world domination has been at the expense of the qualities that underpin their general greatness. Their government has become more distant and opaque, more centralised and more open to capture by special interests. It has repeatedly violated the old Constitution. Liberties have been abridged on the grounds of dealing with emergencies, and then never restored. America has been at war almost throughout the whole of the past century -- at war with other countries, or at war with abstractions like 'drugs' or 'terrorism.' As everywhere else, war has been the health of the State and the sickness of the people. If the Americans today remain the freest people in the world, that is only because they started with so much more to lose."
In money-changers we trust: "In a parallel universe lives Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s former budget director and key adviser, who even faster than his mentor, Robert Rubin, has passed through that revolving platinum door linking the White House with Wall Street. The goal is to use your government position to advance the interests of your future employer, and Orszag and Rubin’s actions in the government and then at Citigroup provide stunning examples of the synergy between big government and high finance."
A tithe for Uncle Sam: "Political leaders talk as if the money Americans keep (not paid in taxes) belongs to the government and that our keeping money they could tax is an actual cost to them. This kind of distorted thinking has led us into the fiscal irresponsibility that threatens to destroy our country."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
The end of the year is the right time for Republicans to revisit the lessons learned in 2010 and look forward to 2011. Several months ago, I recommended that Republican Party provide the American electorate with a calling card, a clear statement of what it stands for. The GOP delivered.
The elections resulted in an overarching victory for conservatives, making it clearer than ever that the Republicans’ position can be summarized in 6 words: Small Government. Low Taxes. National Security.
Now it is time to take that slogan into everyday governing as well as into the next election cycle and use it to end Barack Obama’s mangled presidency. With the Republicans earning a mandate in the House and an effective minority in the Senate, it is incumbent upon them not to lose their focus on the 6 simple words, and to continue to trumpet their ideals at each and every instance.
We learned again this past year that if Republicans stand by their beliefs, the other side inevitably buckles to the pressure. Below are two concrete examples:
1. First, in the recently concluded tax debate, Republicans scored a victory for their conviction that Low Taxes are a necessity. While Republicans remained steadfast that a recession is not the time to raise taxes across all economic classes, Democrats declared that they would never allow the Bush – era tax cuts to be extended.
However, when the moment of truth came, the Republicans prevailed in the fight for low taxes and Americans do not have to worry about their tax duties going up in these difficult times.
2. Second, the Republicans’ ability to stand strong on their belief in Small Government resulted in the failure by the Democrats to pass their $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, a heap of pork-barrel and special interest spending.
Even with a majority in the Senate, Harry Reid was not able to coerce his caucus into voting for the measure which was a sum of separate spending bills which could not be passed on their own. In desperation, the left attempted to bribe Republican Senators with pork barrel provisions, but leader McConnell made sure the Republicans stood united on their principle that government has to be small and not overreaching. The omnibus bill was pulled from the Senate floor.
2011 is going to be a momentous year in national politics, and each Republican candidate for president has to follow the two examples I've mentioned above and show the country that GOP principles do not bend.
The GOP bench is strong, featuring, among others, such experienced leaders as Governors Barbour, Pawlenty, Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Christie.
It is critical as the primary competition goes into full swing that the candidates remember that it is not just the Republicans who will be following and watching, it is the whole electorate.
With that in mind, the candidates need to keep the country focused on Small Government, Low Taxes, National Security. and if that is achieved, there will be a Republican president elected in November, 2012.
SOURCE
****************************
European riots and the real party of "No"
Thomas Sowell
Economists are the real "party of No." They keep saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch-- and politicians keep on getting elected by promising free lunches.
Such promises may seem to be kept, for a while. There are ways the government can juggle money around to make everything look OK, but it is only a matter of time before that money runs out and the ultimate reality hits, that there is no free lunch.
We are currently seeing what happens, in fierce riots raging in various countries in Europe, when the money runs out and the brutal truth is finally revealed, that there is no free lunch. You cannot have generous welfare state laws that allow people to retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.
In the United States, that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions-- which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."
Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow. The results are not pretty, as we can see on TV, in pictures of rioters in the streets, smashing and burning the property of innocent people, who had nothing to do with giving them unrealistic hopes of living off somebody else, or with the inevitable disappointing of those hopes with cutbacks on the giveaways.
Nothing is easier for politicians than to play Santa Claus by promising benefits, without mentioning the costs-- or lying about the costs and leaving it to future governments to figure out what to do when the money runs out.
In the United States, the biggest and longest-running scam of this sort is Social Security. Fulfilling all the promises that were made, as commitments in the law, would cost more money than Social Security has ever had.
This particular scam has kept going for generations by the fact that the first generation-- a small generation-- that paid into Social Security had its pensions paid by the money that the second and much bigger "baby boom" generation paid in.
What the first generation got back in benefits was far greater than what they themselves had paid in. It was something for nothing-- apparently.
This is the way a Ponzi scheme works, with the first wave of "investors" getting paid with the money paid in by the second wave. But, like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme creates no wealth but only an illusion that cannot last. That is why Mr. Ponzi was sent to prison. But politicians get re-elected for doing the same thing.
As the baby boomers begin to retire, and there are now fewer working people per retired person to pay for Social Security pensions, this scam is likewise headed for a rude revelation of reality-- and perhaps riots like those in Europe.
All the incentives are for politicians to do what they have done, namely to promise benefits without raising enough taxes to pay for them. That way, it looks like you are getting something for nothing.
When crunch time comes and politicians are either going to have to tell people the truth or raise taxes, the almost inevitable choice is to raise taxes. If the people think they are already taxed too much, then the taxes can be raised only for people designated as "the rich." If "the rich" object, then demagogues can denounce them for their selfishness and "greed" for objecting to turning over ever-growing amounts of what they have earned to politicians.
Economists often make stronger objections than the high-income people themselves. That is because history has shown repeatedly that very high rates of taxation lead to all sorts of ways by which those very high rates of taxation do not have to be paid.
No matter how high the tax rates are, they do not bring in more revenue when many of the people subject to those tax rates do not in fact pay them. The scams inherent in welfare states are not only economically counterproductive, they turn group against group, straining the ties that hold a society together.
SOURCE
***********************
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13. Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat patrol:
"Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths...... No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make ..... for you....
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.... Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.....
"Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. ...... But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
“The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: ‘Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?’ I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, ‘No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.’ They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
“A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms....
“What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as [Iraqi policemen on the scene] had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
“You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: ‘Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.’ The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.
“It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
“For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing nonstop ...... the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore into the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe..... because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.
"The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
“The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty ..... into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight —for you.”
SOURCE
***********************
ELSEWHERE
Israel: Aid for Torah study challenged: "Chaim Amsellem was not the first parliament member to suggest that most ultra-Orthodox men should work rather than receive welfare subsidies for full-time Torah study. But when he did so last month, the nation took notice. Amsellem is a rabbi, ultra-Orthodox himself, and his outspokenness ignited a fresh -- and fierce -- debate about the rapid growth of the ultrareligious in Israel."
America's fading liberties: "Are the Americans greater today than before 1917 or 1898? In the military sense, they are so undoubtedly. But every step towards world domination has been at the expense of the qualities that underpin their general greatness. Their government has become more distant and opaque, more centralised and more open to capture by special interests. It has repeatedly violated the old Constitution. Liberties have been abridged on the grounds of dealing with emergencies, and then never restored. America has been at war almost throughout the whole of the past century -- at war with other countries, or at war with abstractions like 'drugs' or 'terrorism.' As everywhere else, war has been the health of the State and the sickness of the people. If the Americans today remain the freest people in the world, that is only because they started with so much more to lose."
In money-changers we trust: "In a parallel universe lives Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s former budget director and key adviser, who even faster than his mentor, Robert Rubin, has passed through that revolving platinum door linking the White House with Wall Street. The goal is to use your government position to advance the interests of your future employer, and Orszag and Rubin’s actions in the government and then at Citigroup provide stunning examples of the synergy between big government and high finance."
A tithe for Uncle Sam: "Political leaders talk as if the money Americans keep (not paid in taxes) belongs to the government and that our keeping money they could tax is an actual cost to them. This kind of distorted thinking has led us into the fiscal irresponsibility that threatens to destroy our country."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The makeup of the human brain may guide people's political views, according to a recent study
An amusing "spin" put on the findings below: The usual old Leftist attempt to smear conservatives. The brain and its component parts are very complex and associating one of those parts with "fear" is ludicrously simplistic: Rather reminiscent of the old-time phrenologists, in fact. Other research has been interpreted as showing the same area to be associated with greater "sociability", for instance. Take your pick!
Phrenology: "Head reading"
Nonetheless, the report is interesting in that tends to confirm what has long been known from twin studies -- that ideology is highly heritable genetically
Political views may be hard-wired into people, according to a study that suggests those with right-wing views have a larger area of the brain associated with fear.
Scientists have found that people with conservative views have brains with larger amygdalas, almond-shaped areas in the centre of the brain often associated with anxiety and emotions, London's Daily Telegraph reports.
They also have smaller anterior cingulate, an area at the front of the brain associated with courage and looking on the bright side of life, than those from the opposite end of the political spectrum.
The research was carried out by scientists at University College London, who scanned the brains of two members of parliament and 90 students.
The study found that the size of the two areas of the brain related directly to the political views of the volunteers.
However because the volunteers were all adults, it was hard to say whether they had been born that way, or whether their brains had developed through experience.
Geraint Rees, director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said he was “very surprised” by the finding, which is being peer reviewed before publication next year.
The study was commissioned as a light-hearted experiment by actor Colin Firth while guest editing BBC Radio's Today program, the Press Association reported. But it has now developed into a serious effort to discover whether we are programmed with a particular political view.
Professor Rees said although it was not precise enough to be able to predict someone's stance simply from a scan, there was “a strong correlation that reaches all our scientific tests of significance”.
“The anterior cingulate is a part of the brain that is on the middle surface of the brain at the front and we found that the thickness of the grey matter, where the nerve cells of neurons are, was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing,” he told the BBC program.
“The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative.
“It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes.”
SOURCE
**************************
Fox News Makes You Stupid?
There is nothing the left believes in more robotically than the stupidity of conservatives. Otherwise, they would not be conservatives. When liberals get routed in an election, they do not question themselves. The first -- and for most, only -- verdict is that the American people were disastrously flooded by a tsunami of stupidity and misinformation.
So it's not surprising that left-wing bloggers would rejoice when they can write the headline "New Study Proves That Fox News Makes You Stupid." That's the Daily Kos headline. According to them, Fox News is "deliberately misinforming their viewers" to help Republicans, who "benefited from the ignorance Fox News helped to proliferate," as voters "based their decisions on demonstrably false information."
The liberal pranksters masquerading as pollsters at the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) are at it again. In a new survey, they claim that those who watched Fox News Channel on a daily basis were significantly more likely to believe in "misinformation." But how is that word defined? Look at the details and you will be floored by the misinformation -- coming from the pollsters themselves.
Here's Exhibit A: Fox viewers were more likely to believe "Among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law on the federal budget deficit over the next ten years, more think it will increase the deficit."
That is misinformation? This question is not about facts at all. It's about the opinions of economists looking into a crystal ball, and PIPA's "economists" estimate that herding 35 million uninsured Americans into a new federal entitlement program is going to reduce the deficit. This assertion by liberals that ObamaCare would cut deficits isn't technically a "lie" -- yet. It is merely a patently ridiculous claim that doesn't acknowledge the real world. But somehow, Fox News viewers are tagged as the "misinformed" dummies, because their opinions are grounded in logic.
Here's Exhibit B: Fox viewers were more likely to believe "Most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus legislation saved or created a few jobs or caused job losses." Once again, this isn't about facts, but about economists and their estimation. The idea that there is "misinformation" afoot, and it's not about the incredibly nebulous and politicized notion of "saving or creating" jobs -- something so nebulous it can never be factually verified -- shows you the bias of the PIPA pollsters.
Let's go all the way back to the drawing board on this poll. Is it fair -- whether the pollsters are liberals or conservatives -- to expect the American people to identify correctly the estimates made by a panel of economists organized by news editors of The Wall Street Journal? In a random polling sample, how many memorizing Journal subscribers are you going to find?
There is a more serious polling problem here for PIPA. The poll was done from Nov. 6-15, 2010, with a sample size of 848 respondents, for a margin of error of 3.4 percent. Given that an average primetime audience of Fox News is 2.2 million out of a nation of more than 300 million people, that's 0.7 percent. Out of 848 poll respondents, 0.7 percent would give us total of about six Fox viewers. In their own polling breakdown, PIPA says 17 percent said they were almost-daily Fox viewers, or about 145 people. Even that is simply not high enough to test in a serious poll.
That is why this survey wasn't food for the national media, but scraps left for craven bloggers who know nothing about facts and care less about the truth.
Almost every piece of "misinformation" the PIPA people floated to measure how conservatives misunderstood Obama involved blatant spinning about Obama's role in the auto bailout or the TARP program, or how the "stimulus" included tax cuts, or even Obama's birth certificate.
They're not alone in trying to nail Fox. In August 2009, an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported 72 percent of self-identified Fox News viewers believed the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79 percent believed it will lead to a government takeover, 69 percent thought it would use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75 percent believed that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.
Sadly for NBC, this "misinformation" is already coming true: On Christmas, The New York Times reported "death panels" are back in the ObamaCare regulations, and we knew by midsummer that states were funding abortions through ObamaCare.
These polls identify the real liberal fear: that someone will trust Fox News to tell them things the liberal media try to crush and bury.
SOURCE
************************
The Case Against the Corporate Tax
As the new Congress gets set to liberate America from the stranglehold of the freshly defeated Red Congress, hopes for change are arising. One is the hope for a lowering of the US corporate tax rate.
This rate is a hefty 35%, second highest among the developed economies of the world. It seems obvious, just considering basic psychology, that lowering the corporate tax will be economically beneficial. It is a truism of behaviorist psychology that if you punish (negatively reinforce) a behavior you get less of it, and if you reward (positively reinforce) a behavior you get more of it. Corporate taxes punish business activity, resulting in less business — great if you are a leftist, but lousy if you are anyone else.
The Heritage Foundation has released the results of a study by economists Karen Campbell and John Ligon that spells out the case for lowering corporate taxes, called The Economic Impact of a 25 Percent Corporate Income Tax Rate. Campbell and Ligon ran a simulation of the economic impact of lowering the corporate tax from 35% to 25%. The results are eye-opening.
Their simulation (which covers the period 2011 to 2020) estimates that under the lower taxes, GDP would grow by an extra $132 billion annually, creating over 530,000 new private-sector jobs per year. The average family of four would see its after-tax yearly income go up by nearly $2,500. Gross private investment would rise by over $57 billion annually, and foreign assets in the US would rise by 4% annually. American capital stock would grow by $240 billion more a year, and real after-tax corporate profits would increase by an average of $124 billion a year over the current projected levels.
Notwithstanding all this, it is questionable whether Obama will ever allow a drop in corporate tax rates. He is instinctively anti-business, and although the economic case is compelling, he is the most economically ignorant president in recent history.
SOURCE
**********************
Rewarding Misbehavior with Presidential Nominations
By Hans A. von Spakovsky
So how does President Obama treat a political appointee who may have helped suborn perjury, obstruct an investigation, and make law enforcement decisions based on politics? By nominating him to a higher (but equally sensitive) political job, of course. Instead of being asked some tough questions, Leon Rodriguez is on track to be the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Rodriguez is no stranger to controversy. He is the former county attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland, where, according to the Washington Post [1], he was accused in 2008 of authorizing the search of the computer and phone records of a council member and her senior legislative aide without their permission. Prior to that, he served from 1997 to 2001 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, where he functioned as the chief of staff for the U.S. Attorney appointed by Bill Clinton, Harry Litman....
What is even more damaging is Rodriguez’s violations of basic rules of professional conduct, including the possible involvement and assistance with the perjury of his boss, Thomas Perez. As a former county counsel in Maryland, Rodriguez is presumably licensed as an attorney in that state. Rule 3.3 of the Maryland Lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct (as well as the bar rules of all states) requires candor towards a tribunal, which includes not making false statements of fact or law, or failing to correct a false statement of material fact or law. Rodriguez did not testify before the Civil Rights Commission, but his boss Perez did, and the subsequent testimony of other witnesses strongly suggests that Perez knowingly lied in his testimony.
Much more HERE
*****************************
ELSEWHERE
Health plans for high-risk patients lag: "President Obama’s administration and states are stepping up their efforts to motivate people to buy government-sponsored health plans for high-risk patients, as the new program continues to attract only a fraction of the projected customers. At the same time, since the high-risk insurance pools began in late summer and early fall, the medical bills have been much higher than anticipated in a few states, raising the question of whether the $5 billion that Congress has allocated for the program could run out even if relatively few people join."
DE: Judge says cops can’t track with GPS: "In what may set a Delaware precedent, a Superior Court judge has gutted a criminal case against a Newark man who was pulled over with 10 pounds of marijuana because police used a GPS tracking device without a warrant to follow him for nearly a month."
Government should not be in the business of preventing price gouging: "Changes in price are important for allocating scarce resources. This is why the price for plywood increases during hurricanes — individuals living in disaster-ridden areas have a higher demand for plywood than, say, a person building a treehouse elsewhere in the country. Because the former individual has a more critical need for the resource, he or she is willing to pay more for it. Those who think that the price has grown too high will refrain from buying the product, which leaves more available to be purchased by those with a higher willingness to buy."
Effectiveness of airport scanners questioned: "The full-body scanners in use at 78 US airports can detect small amounts of contraband and hidden weapons, all while producing controversial images of travelers. … finding small amounts of marijuana wrapped in baggies, other drugs stitched inside underwear, and ceramic knives concealed in shirt pockets. But the machines could miss something far more deadly: explosive material taped to someone’s abdomen or hidden inside a cavity.”
NASA’s Ares rocket dead, but Congress lets you pay $500 million more for it: "Thanks to congressional inaction, NASA must continue to fund its defunct Ares I rocket program until March — a requirement that will cost the agency nearly $500 million at a time when NASA is struggling with the expensive task of replacing the space shuttle. About one-third that money — $165 million — will go to Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, which has a $2 billion contract to build the solid-rocket first stage for the Ares I, the rocket that was supposed to fill the shuttle’s role of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.”
No Israeli apology for responding to an attack on its troops: "Netanyahu said that while Turkey wanted an apology for the Mavi Marmara attack, "we – of course – don't want to apologize." He said that Israel was willing to express regret for the loss of life, as it already had done. But, he said, Israel wanted to protect its soldiers and officers who have been accused of war crimes and could be arrested around the world. For that reason, he said, Israel sought Turkish recognition that Israel did not act out of malice, and that the soldiers acted out of self defense."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
An amusing "spin" put on the findings below: The usual old Leftist attempt to smear conservatives. The brain and its component parts are very complex and associating one of those parts with "fear" is ludicrously simplistic: Rather reminiscent of the old-time phrenologists, in fact. Other research has been interpreted as showing the same area to be associated with greater "sociability", for instance. Take your pick!
Phrenology: "Head reading"
Nonetheless, the report is interesting in that tends to confirm what has long been known from twin studies -- that ideology is highly heritable genetically
Political views may be hard-wired into people, according to a study that suggests those with right-wing views have a larger area of the brain associated with fear.
Scientists have found that people with conservative views have brains with larger amygdalas, almond-shaped areas in the centre of the brain often associated with anxiety and emotions, London's Daily Telegraph reports.
They also have smaller anterior cingulate, an area at the front of the brain associated with courage and looking on the bright side of life, than those from the opposite end of the political spectrum.
The research was carried out by scientists at University College London, who scanned the brains of two members of parliament and 90 students.
The study found that the size of the two areas of the brain related directly to the political views of the volunteers.
However because the volunteers were all adults, it was hard to say whether they had been born that way, or whether their brains had developed through experience.
Geraint Rees, director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said he was “very surprised” by the finding, which is being peer reviewed before publication next year.
The study was commissioned as a light-hearted experiment by actor Colin Firth while guest editing BBC Radio's Today program, the Press Association reported. But it has now developed into a serious effort to discover whether we are programmed with a particular political view.
Professor Rees said although it was not precise enough to be able to predict someone's stance simply from a scan, there was “a strong correlation that reaches all our scientific tests of significance”.
“The anterior cingulate is a part of the brain that is on the middle surface of the brain at the front and we found that the thickness of the grey matter, where the nerve cells of neurons are, was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing,” he told the BBC program.
“The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative.
“It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes.”
SOURCE
**************************
Fox News Makes You Stupid?
There is nothing the left believes in more robotically than the stupidity of conservatives. Otherwise, they would not be conservatives. When liberals get routed in an election, they do not question themselves. The first -- and for most, only -- verdict is that the American people were disastrously flooded by a tsunami of stupidity and misinformation.
So it's not surprising that left-wing bloggers would rejoice when they can write the headline "New Study Proves That Fox News Makes You Stupid." That's the Daily Kos headline. According to them, Fox News is "deliberately misinforming their viewers" to help Republicans, who "benefited from the ignorance Fox News helped to proliferate," as voters "based their decisions on demonstrably false information."
The liberal pranksters masquerading as pollsters at the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) are at it again. In a new survey, they claim that those who watched Fox News Channel on a daily basis were significantly more likely to believe in "misinformation." But how is that word defined? Look at the details and you will be floored by the misinformation -- coming from the pollsters themselves.
Here's Exhibit A: Fox viewers were more likely to believe "Among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law on the federal budget deficit over the next ten years, more think it will increase the deficit."
That is misinformation? This question is not about facts at all. It's about the opinions of economists looking into a crystal ball, and PIPA's "economists" estimate that herding 35 million uninsured Americans into a new federal entitlement program is going to reduce the deficit. This assertion by liberals that ObamaCare would cut deficits isn't technically a "lie" -- yet. It is merely a patently ridiculous claim that doesn't acknowledge the real world. But somehow, Fox News viewers are tagged as the "misinformed" dummies, because their opinions are grounded in logic.
Here's Exhibit B: Fox viewers were more likely to believe "Most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus legislation saved or created a few jobs or caused job losses." Once again, this isn't about facts, but about economists and their estimation. The idea that there is "misinformation" afoot, and it's not about the incredibly nebulous and politicized notion of "saving or creating" jobs -- something so nebulous it can never be factually verified -- shows you the bias of the PIPA pollsters.
Let's go all the way back to the drawing board on this poll. Is it fair -- whether the pollsters are liberals or conservatives -- to expect the American people to identify correctly the estimates made by a panel of economists organized by news editors of The Wall Street Journal? In a random polling sample, how many memorizing Journal subscribers are you going to find?
There is a more serious polling problem here for PIPA. The poll was done from Nov. 6-15, 2010, with a sample size of 848 respondents, for a margin of error of 3.4 percent. Given that an average primetime audience of Fox News is 2.2 million out of a nation of more than 300 million people, that's 0.7 percent. Out of 848 poll respondents, 0.7 percent would give us total of about six Fox viewers. In their own polling breakdown, PIPA says 17 percent said they were almost-daily Fox viewers, or about 145 people. Even that is simply not high enough to test in a serious poll.
That is why this survey wasn't food for the national media, but scraps left for craven bloggers who know nothing about facts and care less about the truth.
Almost every piece of "misinformation" the PIPA people floated to measure how conservatives misunderstood Obama involved blatant spinning about Obama's role in the auto bailout or the TARP program, or how the "stimulus" included tax cuts, or even Obama's birth certificate.
They're not alone in trying to nail Fox. In August 2009, an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported 72 percent of self-identified Fox News viewers believed the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79 percent believed it will lead to a government takeover, 69 percent thought it would use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75 percent believed that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.
Sadly for NBC, this "misinformation" is already coming true: On Christmas, The New York Times reported "death panels" are back in the ObamaCare regulations, and we knew by midsummer that states were funding abortions through ObamaCare.
These polls identify the real liberal fear: that someone will trust Fox News to tell them things the liberal media try to crush and bury.
SOURCE
************************
The Case Against the Corporate Tax
As the new Congress gets set to liberate America from the stranglehold of the freshly defeated Red Congress, hopes for change are arising. One is the hope for a lowering of the US corporate tax rate.
This rate is a hefty 35%, second highest among the developed economies of the world. It seems obvious, just considering basic psychology, that lowering the corporate tax will be economically beneficial. It is a truism of behaviorist psychology that if you punish (negatively reinforce) a behavior you get less of it, and if you reward (positively reinforce) a behavior you get more of it. Corporate taxes punish business activity, resulting in less business — great if you are a leftist, but lousy if you are anyone else.
The Heritage Foundation has released the results of a study by economists Karen Campbell and John Ligon that spells out the case for lowering corporate taxes, called The Economic Impact of a 25 Percent Corporate Income Tax Rate. Campbell and Ligon ran a simulation of the economic impact of lowering the corporate tax from 35% to 25%. The results are eye-opening.
Their simulation (which covers the period 2011 to 2020) estimates that under the lower taxes, GDP would grow by an extra $132 billion annually, creating over 530,000 new private-sector jobs per year. The average family of four would see its after-tax yearly income go up by nearly $2,500. Gross private investment would rise by over $57 billion annually, and foreign assets in the US would rise by 4% annually. American capital stock would grow by $240 billion more a year, and real after-tax corporate profits would increase by an average of $124 billion a year over the current projected levels.
Notwithstanding all this, it is questionable whether Obama will ever allow a drop in corporate tax rates. He is instinctively anti-business, and although the economic case is compelling, he is the most economically ignorant president in recent history.
SOURCE
**********************
Rewarding Misbehavior with Presidential Nominations
By Hans A. von Spakovsky
So how does President Obama treat a political appointee who may have helped suborn perjury, obstruct an investigation, and make law enforcement decisions based on politics? By nominating him to a higher (but equally sensitive) political job, of course. Instead of being asked some tough questions, Leon Rodriguez is on track to be the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Rodriguez is no stranger to controversy. He is the former county attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland, where, according to the Washington Post [1], he was accused in 2008 of authorizing the search of the computer and phone records of a council member and her senior legislative aide without their permission. Prior to that, he served from 1997 to 2001 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, where he functioned as the chief of staff for the U.S. Attorney appointed by Bill Clinton, Harry Litman....
What is even more damaging is Rodriguez’s violations of basic rules of professional conduct, including the possible involvement and assistance with the perjury of his boss, Thomas Perez. As a former county counsel in Maryland, Rodriguez is presumably licensed as an attorney in that state. Rule 3.3 of the Maryland Lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct (as well as the bar rules of all states) requires candor towards a tribunal, which includes not making false statements of fact or law, or failing to correct a false statement of material fact or law. Rodriguez did not testify before the Civil Rights Commission, but his boss Perez did, and the subsequent testimony of other witnesses strongly suggests that Perez knowingly lied in his testimony.
Much more HERE
*****************************
ELSEWHERE
Health plans for high-risk patients lag: "President Obama’s administration and states are stepping up their efforts to motivate people to buy government-sponsored health plans for high-risk patients, as the new program continues to attract only a fraction of the projected customers. At the same time, since the high-risk insurance pools began in late summer and early fall, the medical bills have been much higher than anticipated in a few states, raising the question of whether the $5 billion that Congress has allocated for the program could run out even if relatively few people join."
DE: Judge says cops can’t track with GPS: "In what may set a Delaware precedent, a Superior Court judge has gutted a criminal case against a Newark man who was pulled over with 10 pounds of marijuana because police used a GPS tracking device without a warrant to follow him for nearly a month."
Government should not be in the business of preventing price gouging: "Changes in price are important for allocating scarce resources. This is why the price for plywood increases during hurricanes — individuals living in disaster-ridden areas have a higher demand for plywood than, say, a person building a treehouse elsewhere in the country. Because the former individual has a more critical need for the resource, he or she is willing to pay more for it. Those who think that the price has grown too high will refrain from buying the product, which leaves more available to be purchased by those with a higher willingness to buy."
Effectiveness of airport scanners questioned: "The full-body scanners in use at 78 US airports can detect small amounts of contraband and hidden weapons, all while producing controversial images of travelers. … finding small amounts of marijuana wrapped in baggies, other drugs stitched inside underwear, and ceramic knives concealed in shirt pockets. But the machines could miss something far more deadly: explosive material taped to someone’s abdomen or hidden inside a cavity.”
NASA’s Ares rocket dead, but Congress lets you pay $500 million more for it: "Thanks to congressional inaction, NASA must continue to fund its defunct Ares I rocket program until March — a requirement that will cost the agency nearly $500 million at a time when NASA is struggling with the expensive task of replacing the space shuttle. About one-third that money — $165 million — will go to Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, which has a $2 billion contract to build the solid-rocket first stage for the Ares I, the rocket that was supposed to fill the shuttle’s role of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.”
No Israeli apology for responding to an attack on its troops: "Netanyahu said that while Turkey wanted an apology for the Mavi Marmara attack, "we – of course – don't want to apologize." He said that Israel was willing to express regret for the loss of life, as it already had done. But, he said, Israel wanted to protect its soldiers and officers who have been accused of war crimes and could be arrested around the world. For that reason, he said, Israel sought Turkish recognition that Israel did not act out of malice, and that the soldiers acted out of self defense."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
UPDATE:
I have resumed daily updates to my EDUCATION WATCH , GUN WATCH, and FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blogs -- now that my rather extended Christmas is over.
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.
**********************
Good news about 2050
Slowdown in U.S. population growth will be beneficial in many ways
The Census Bureau issued the first results of the 2010 Census this week, showing that the U.S. growth in population in 2000-2010 was only 9.7%, the lowest decennial growth since the 1930s and the second lowest on record. This has modest if beneficial effects on our understanding of where the United States is today. However it has much more important effects on what kind of United States we will see in 2050, because the change in “slope” of the population curve makes a big difference to the outcome when extrapolated 40 years.
There is a “consensus” view of the United States in 2050, based partly on multi-culturalist wishful thinking and partly on extrapolation of the 13.2 percent population growth of the 1990s. The Census Bureau in 2009 estimated 2050 population at 439 million, but to the conventional thinkers that has always seemed too conservative – after all, if 1990-2000’s population growth rate had been repeated over the succeeding five decades, the population in 2050 would have been 523 million. Needless to say, in that case the United States would have become “majority minority” -- a prediction that first appeared in “Time” magazine after the 1990 census and has been repeated ad infinitum since.
The new census result blows such predictions out of the water. Admittedly, if population increase were 9.7% per decade over each of the next four decades 2050’s population would be 447 million, somewhat above the Census Bureau’s 2009 projection. However the second derivative of population needs to be considered as well as the first. The slowing of growth in the 2000s should continue at least well into the 2010s, making future growth rates much lower than projected. Since the 1980s’ population growth was only 9.8%, barely higher than this decade’s, and the trend had been steadily declining since the 1950s, it now appears that the 1990s growth of 13.2% was the anomaly, with the decade’s population artificially boosted perhaps by the tech bubble and certainly by the succession of illegal immigrant amnesties passed after 1986.
If the second derivative of population, roughly constant from 1960 to 1990 as the decadal population growth rate declined from 13.3% in the 1960s to 11.5% in the 1970s to 9.8% in the 1980s, had stayed that way, then the trajectory of population would have led to 8.1% growth in the 1990s, 6.3% growth in the 2000s and a population of 285.8 million today – 22.9 million below today’s actual population. We can imagine the difference to be made up mostly of today’s illegal immigrants, generally estimated at 12 million, plus the additional children born to the unexpectedly large immigrant population. In other words, the rapid population growth of 1990-2005 appears to have been a blip.
We can then project forward from 2010’s actual number an “inherent” population growth, assuming a constant second derivative (minus the 1990-2005 blip) and tight immigration law enforcement, and get a U.S. population in 2050 of a mere 333 million, with a slight decline in the 2040-2050 period. That intuitively seems far too low, but with immigration law enforcement likely to tighten at least in the short term, a 2050 population of below 400 million certainly now looks plausible, with the demographic split only moderately changed from today’s.
Ignoring the social effects of changing demographics, the economic effect of a lower population growth rate is very considerable, and mostly positive. First, with only 90 million new inhabitants in the next 40 years compared with the previous estimate of 130 million plus, only two thirds of the projected expenditure on schools, roads, housing, government offices and other infrastructure will be needed, saving perhaps $500 billion per annum (including housing and schools) in scarce capital resources that can be devoted to more economically productive capital investment in the nation’s businesses.
Second, with 10% fewer people around in 2050, the endowment of land and capital will be 10% greater per capita. In general, that should ensure that real wage rates even for the unskilled cease the unhappy slippage of the past few decades and start to increase again as Joe Sixpak once again claims his fair share of the nation’s ever-increasing output. Even between 2000 and 2010, the 0.1% lower than expected annual growth of population results arithmetically in a 0.1% higher annual; growth in real GDP per capita. That may not sound like much, but in the decade between the 2000 and 2010 census quarters, when real GDP per capita growth ran only at an appalling 0.69% per annum, an extra annual 0.1% makes a substantial difference, raising the per capita growth rate by a seventh. A slower rate of population growth in 2010-2050 implies a generally richer 2050, with higher per capita income growth and better opportunities at the bottom of the earnings pyramid, both unalloyed blessings.
More HERE
*********************
An ex-Soviet immigrant goes Socratic on his liberal American critics
by Oleg Atbashian
The two women who showed up early for my book signing at a small bookstore in Houston, TX, never even bothered to open my book. Wearing knowing smiles, they engaged me in a bizarre discussion that wound up leaping all around the known and unknown universe. They hadn’t the slightest curiosity about my ideas as an ex-Soviet immigrant in America, or what I had to say about my experience working inside the two ideologically opposed systems. As it turned out, they had spotted my flyer in the store window the day before, and the book’s title — Shakedown Socialism — had enraged them so much that they decided to return the following day and give me a piece of their collective mind.
Their act almost made me feel as if I were back in the USSR, where the harassment of people with my opinions was the norm. The shorter, pudgier woman was the soloist bully, while her skinnier, older comrade provided backup vocals and noise effects. The duo’s repertoire was an eclectic collection of unoriginal talking points, each branded with an almost legible label: NPR, Air America, MSNBC, and so on. Not only were those mental fragments mismatched in key and rhythm; the very existence of harmony seemed an unfamiliar concept to them. But compared to the hard-core screaming I used to hear from card-carrying Soviet bullies, this was almost elevator music. If I had survived the original cast, I could certainly handle a watered-down remake.
Framed on their terms, the debate zigzagged from the evils of unbridled capitalism to global warming to Bush’s wars for oil to Sarah Palin’s stupidity. Since my opponents wouldn’t give me a chance to respond, I soon became bored and tried to entertain myself by redirecting the flow of mental detritus against itself in a way that would cause its own annihilation. I did that by asking questions.
I remembered an old trick invented in the fifth century B.C. by Socrates. Instead of telling people what he thought was true, Socrates asked seemingly simple questions that put his opponents on the path of finding the truth for themselves. Seeking genuine knowledge rather than mere victory in an argument, Socrates used his questions to cross-examine the hypotheses, assumptions, and axioms that subconsciously shaped the opinions of his opponents, drawing out the contradictions and inconsistencies they relied on.
As the two women faced my questions, their knowing smiles turned to scowls. Sometimes they would backtrack and correct their previous statements; sometimes, they would angrily storm out of the room in the manner of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg on The View with Bill O’Reilly. After a while they would return with more talking points, and then they had to answer another logical question. My friends who witnessed the scene told me later they saw the shorter bully beginning to foam at the mouth....
I reminded my opponents about the existence of the scientific method of discovery — a logical device that had made Western civilization so successful in the past, but had now been abandoned by “progressive” thinkers. The resulting cognitive dissonance made them disoriented. In due course, they panicked and walked out, never to come back.
Much more HERE (Including sample questions)
************************
The Icelandic Model Disproves “Too Big to Fail”
In 2008, there were two competing wisdoms about what to do about failing financial institutions in the wake of the economic crisis. The first said to do nothing and allow institutions that behaved irresponsibly and became overleveraged during the housing bubble to fail. The second said that those institutions were so interconnected, and that the losses they were facing were so insurmountable, that their failure would have spawned a worldwide depression. In short, they were too big to fail.
In the U.S., obviously, policymakers opted for bailing out the financial institutions. This, we are told, saved the nation and indeed, the world, from a complete economic collapse.
Others, like Iceland, refused to bail out the banks and let the bank’s bondholders eat the losses. Perhaps this is owed in part to the fierce liberty of the Icelandic people.... So, its decision to go against the grain and forego a banking bailout has become something of a testing ground economically. Who is better off, those who bailed out the financial sector, like Ireland, or those that did not, like Iceland?
Certainly, the case for “too big to fail” in Iceland would have been compelling. As noted by Bloomberg News, at the time the crisis hit in 2008, “the banks had debts equal to 10 times Iceland’s $12 billion GDP.” By the logic of “too big to fail,” Iceland’s decision to let the banks fail should have completely destroyed the economy. Businesses should have closed down shop completely from an inability to meet payroll as credit ceased to exist.
But that did not happen. Surely, a recession did follow the largest financial crisis per capita in human history. It immediately resulted in a massive devaluation of the Icelandic currency, the krona, in foreign exchange markets. And although the recession was steeper in terms of GDP compared to Ireland, its unemployment is and will remain lower, according to data by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development: 8.1 percent projected in 2011 for Iceland versus 13.6 percent for Ireland.
So too is Iceland’s budget picture better off than Ireland’s, according to the Bloomberg News report, citing European Commission estimates: “Iceland’s budget deficit will be 6.3 percent of gross domestic product this year… compared with the 32 percent shortfall in Ireland… [And] Iceland’s budget will be in surplus by 2012, compared with Ireland’s deficit of 9.1 percent of GDP”. How can this be?
“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Iceland President Olafur Grimsson told Bloomberg Television. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.” ... According to the prevailing wisdom here across the pond, their failures should have been a financial doomsday.
But it wasn’t. Apparently, the damage that Wall Street can inflict on Main Street should it fail is not as cataclysmic as is widely believed. New York Times’ Paul Krugman makes the same point: “The moral of the story seems to be that if you’re going to have a crisis, it’s better to have a really, really bad one. Otherwise, you’ll end up taking the advice of people who assure you that even more suffering will cure what ails you.”
So, because Iceland let the financial institutions, and not the taxpayers, bear the losses of the financial collapse, the country remains essentially solvent. In contrast, Ireland is in deep trouble, and just had to accept an €85 billion bailout from the European Union. Shucks. Trillions of dollars later in bailouts and “stimulus,” should we have just done nothing after all?
In the U.S., the worst may yet be ahead, although, the current 9.8 percent unemployment rate and a national debt at almost 100 percent of the GDP is certainly bad enough. Our budget picture is so bad that the Federal Reserve will soon be, if it is not already, the top lender in the world to the U.S. government — more than China or Japan.
Moody’s has threatened to shift the credit outlook of the nation to negative as soon as 2011, and to downgrade our Triple-A credit rating by 2018 if the accumulation of debt is not reduced drastically.
This may ultimately result in a sovereign debt funding crisis where interest rates go through the roof, inflation too would rise, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency would be threatened.
Of course, it’s not too late, but if that happens, it may be that the U.S. traded a severe recession that would have resulted from letting financial institutions fall for a national default that threatens to destabilize the global economy once again. “Too big to fail” will have become too big to save. Certainly a recession, even a sharp one, would have been better than losing the status of the world’s economic superpower. Too bad we were not more like Iceland.
SOURCE
***************************
Is Basic Health Care a ‘Right’?
Here’s a letter to the Boston Globe from economist Donald J. Boudreaux
Ronald Pies, MD, asserts that every individual has a “right” to “basic health care” – meaning, a right to receive such care without paying for it (Letters, Dec. 26).
The rights that Americans wisely cherish as being essential for a free society require only the refraining from action. Your right to speak freely requires me simply not to stop you from speaking; it does not require me to supply your megaphone.
Not so with a “right” to “basic health care.” Elevating free access to a scarce good into a “right” imposes on strangers all manner of ill-defined positive obligations – obligations that necessarily violate other, proper rights. For example, perhaps my “right” to basic health care means that I can force Dr. Pies away from his worship service in order that he attend (free of charge!) to my ruptured spleen. Or perhaps it means that I have the “right” to pay for my health care by confiscating part of his income. If so, how much of his income does my “right” entitle me to confiscate? Who knows?
And if Dr. Pies is planning to retire, do I have the “right” to force him to continue to work so that the supply of basic health care doesn’t shrink? If Dr. Pies should die, am I entitled – again, to keep the supply of basic health care from shrinking – to force his children to study and practice medicine?
Does my right to basic health care imply that I can force my neighbor to pay for my cross-country skiing vacation on grounds that keeping fit is part of basic health care?
Talking about “rights” to scarce goods and services sounds right only to persons who are economically illiterate, politically naive, and suffering the juvenile delusion that reality is optional.
SOURCE
*************************
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
I have resumed daily updates to my EDUCATION WATCH , GUN WATCH, and FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blogs -- now that my rather extended Christmas is over.
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.
**********************
Good news about 2050
Slowdown in U.S. population growth will be beneficial in many ways
The Census Bureau issued the first results of the 2010 Census this week, showing that the U.S. growth in population in 2000-2010 was only 9.7%, the lowest decennial growth since the 1930s and the second lowest on record. This has modest if beneficial effects on our understanding of where the United States is today. However it has much more important effects on what kind of United States we will see in 2050, because the change in “slope” of the population curve makes a big difference to the outcome when extrapolated 40 years.
There is a “consensus” view of the United States in 2050, based partly on multi-culturalist wishful thinking and partly on extrapolation of the 13.2 percent population growth of the 1990s. The Census Bureau in 2009 estimated 2050 population at 439 million, but to the conventional thinkers that has always seemed too conservative – after all, if 1990-2000’s population growth rate had been repeated over the succeeding five decades, the population in 2050 would have been 523 million. Needless to say, in that case the United States would have become “majority minority” -- a prediction that first appeared in “Time” magazine after the 1990 census and has been repeated ad infinitum since.
The new census result blows such predictions out of the water. Admittedly, if population increase were 9.7% per decade over each of the next four decades 2050’s population would be 447 million, somewhat above the Census Bureau’s 2009 projection. However the second derivative of population needs to be considered as well as the first. The slowing of growth in the 2000s should continue at least well into the 2010s, making future growth rates much lower than projected. Since the 1980s’ population growth was only 9.8%, barely higher than this decade’s, and the trend had been steadily declining since the 1950s, it now appears that the 1990s growth of 13.2% was the anomaly, with the decade’s population artificially boosted perhaps by the tech bubble and certainly by the succession of illegal immigrant amnesties passed after 1986.
If the second derivative of population, roughly constant from 1960 to 1990 as the decadal population growth rate declined from 13.3% in the 1960s to 11.5% in the 1970s to 9.8% in the 1980s, had stayed that way, then the trajectory of population would have led to 8.1% growth in the 1990s, 6.3% growth in the 2000s and a population of 285.8 million today – 22.9 million below today’s actual population. We can imagine the difference to be made up mostly of today’s illegal immigrants, generally estimated at 12 million, plus the additional children born to the unexpectedly large immigrant population. In other words, the rapid population growth of 1990-2005 appears to have been a blip.
We can then project forward from 2010’s actual number an “inherent” population growth, assuming a constant second derivative (minus the 1990-2005 blip) and tight immigration law enforcement, and get a U.S. population in 2050 of a mere 333 million, with a slight decline in the 2040-2050 period. That intuitively seems far too low, but with immigration law enforcement likely to tighten at least in the short term, a 2050 population of below 400 million certainly now looks plausible, with the demographic split only moderately changed from today’s.
Ignoring the social effects of changing demographics, the economic effect of a lower population growth rate is very considerable, and mostly positive. First, with only 90 million new inhabitants in the next 40 years compared with the previous estimate of 130 million plus, only two thirds of the projected expenditure on schools, roads, housing, government offices and other infrastructure will be needed, saving perhaps $500 billion per annum (including housing and schools) in scarce capital resources that can be devoted to more economically productive capital investment in the nation’s businesses.
Second, with 10% fewer people around in 2050, the endowment of land and capital will be 10% greater per capita. In general, that should ensure that real wage rates even for the unskilled cease the unhappy slippage of the past few decades and start to increase again as Joe Sixpak once again claims his fair share of the nation’s ever-increasing output. Even between 2000 and 2010, the 0.1% lower than expected annual growth of population results arithmetically in a 0.1% higher annual; growth in real GDP per capita. That may not sound like much, but in the decade between the 2000 and 2010 census quarters, when real GDP per capita growth ran only at an appalling 0.69% per annum, an extra annual 0.1% makes a substantial difference, raising the per capita growth rate by a seventh. A slower rate of population growth in 2010-2050 implies a generally richer 2050, with higher per capita income growth and better opportunities at the bottom of the earnings pyramid, both unalloyed blessings.
More HERE
*********************
An ex-Soviet immigrant goes Socratic on his liberal American critics
by Oleg Atbashian
The two women who showed up early for my book signing at a small bookstore in Houston, TX, never even bothered to open my book. Wearing knowing smiles, they engaged me in a bizarre discussion that wound up leaping all around the known and unknown universe. They hadn’t the slightest curiosity about my ideas as an ex-Soviet immigrant in America, or what I had to say about my experience working inside the two ideologically opposed systems. As it turned out, they had spotted my flyer in the store window the day before, and the book’s title — Shakedown Socialism — had enraged them so much that they decided to return the following day and give me a piece of their collective mind.
Their act almost made me feel as if I were back in the USSR, where the harassment of people with my opinions was the norm. The shorter, pudgier woman was the soloist bully, while her skinnier, older comrade provided backup vocals and noise effects. The duo’s repertoire was an eclectic collection of unoriginal talking points, each branded with an almost legible label: NPR, Air America, MSNBC, and so on. Not only were those mental fragments mismatched in key and rhythm; the very existence of harmony seemed an unfamiliar concept to them. But compared to the hard-core screaming I used to hear from card-carrying Soviet bullies, this was almost elevator music. If I had survived the original cast, I could certainly handle a watered-down remake.
Framed on their terms, the debate zigzagged from the evils of unbridled capitalism to global warming to Bush’s wars for oil to Sarah Palin’s stupidity. Since my opponents wouldn’t give me a chance to respond, I soon became bored and tried to entertain myself by redirecting the flow of mental detritus against itself in a way that would cause its own annihilation. I did that by asking questions.
I remembered an old trick invented in the fifth century B.C. by Socrates. Instead of telling people what he thought was true, Socrates asked seemingly simple questions that put his opponents on the path of finding the truth for themselves. Seeking genuine knowledge rather than mere victory in an argument, Socrates used his questions to cross-examine the hypotheses, assumptions, and axioms that subconsciously shaped the opinions of his opponents, drawing out the contradictions and inconsistencies they relied on.
As the two women faced my questions, their knowing smiles turned to scowls. Sometimes they would backtrack and correct their previous statements; sometimes, they would angrily storm out of the room in the manner of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg on The View with Bill O’Reilly. After a while they would return with more talking points, and then they had to answer another logical question. My friends who witnessed the scene told me later they saw the shorter bully beginning to foam at the mouth....
I reminded my opponents about the existence of the scientific method of discovery — a logical device that had made Western civilization so successful in the past, but had now been abandoned by “progressive” thinkers. The resulting cognitive dissonance made them disoriented. In due course, they panicked and walked out, never to come back.
Much more HERE (Including sample questions)
************************
The Icelandic Model Disproves “Too Big to Fail”
In 2008, there were two competing wisdoms about what to do about failing financial institutions in the wake of the economic crisis. The first said to do nothing and allow institutions that behaved irresponsibly and became overleveraged during the housing bubble to fail. The second said that those institutions were so interconnected, and that the losses they were facing were so insurmountable, that their failure would have spawned a worldwide depression. In short, they were too big to fail.
In the U.S., obviously, policymakers opted for bailing out the financial institutions. This, we are told, saved the nation and indeed, the world, from a complete economic collapse.
Others, like Iceland, refused to bail out the banks and let the bank’s bondholders eat the losses. Perhaps this is owed in part to the fierce liberty of the Icelandic people.... So, its decision to go against the grain and forego a banking bailout has become something of a testing ground economically. Who is better off, those who bailed out the financial sector, like Ireland, or those that did not, like Iceland?
Certainly, the case for “too big to fail” in Iceland would have been compelling. As noted by Bloomberg News, at the time the crisis hit in 2008, “the banks had debts equal to 10 times Iceland’s $12 billion GDP.” By the logic of “too big to fail,” Iceland’s decision to let the banks fail should have completely destroyed the economy. Businesses should have closed down shop completely from an inability to meet payroll as credit ceased to exist.
But that did not happen. Surely, a recession did follow the largest financial crisis per capita in human history. It immediately resulted in a massive devaluation of the Icelandic currency, the krona, in foreign exchange markets. And although the recession was steeper in terms of GDP compared to Ireland, its unemployment is and will remain lower, according to data by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development: 8.1 percent projected in 2011 for Iceland versus 13.6 percent for Ireland.
So too is Iceland’s budget picture better off than Ireland’s, according to the Bloomberg News report, citing European Commission estimates: “Iceland’s budget deficit will be 6.3 percent of gross domestic product this year… compared with the 32 percent shortfall in Ireland… [And] Iceland’s budget will be in surplus by 2012, compared with Ireland’s deficit of 9.1 percent of GDP”. How can this be?
“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Iceland President Olafur Grimsson told Bloomberg Television. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.” ... According to the prevailing wisdom here across the pond, their failures should have been a financial doomsday.
But it wasn’t. Apparently, the damage that Wall Street can inflict on Main Street should it fail is not as cataclysmic as is widely believed. New York Times’ Paul Krugman makes the same point: “The moral of the story seems to be that if you’re going to have a crisis, it’s better to have a really, really bad one. Otherwise, you’ll end up taking the advice of people who assure you that even more suffering will cure what ails you.”
So, because Iceland let the financial institutions, and not the taxpayers, bear the losses of the financial collapse, the country remains essentially solvent. In contrast, Ireland is in deep trouble, and just had to accept an €85 billion bailout from the European Union. Shucks. Trillions of dollars later in bailouts and “stimulus,” should we have just done nothing after all?
In the U.S., the worst may yet be ahead, although, the current 9.8 percent unemployment rate and a national debt at almost 100 percent of the GDP is certainly bad enough. Our budget picture is so bad that the Federal Reserve will soon be, if it is not already, the top lender in the world to the U.S. government — more than China or Japan.
Moody’s has threatened to shift the credit outlook of the nation to negative as soon as 2011, and to downgrade our Triple-A credit rating by 2018 if the accumulation of debt is not reduced drastically.
This may ultimately result in a sovereign debt funding crisis where interest rates go through the roof, inflation too would rise, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency would be threatened.
Of course, it’s not too late, but if that happens, it may be that the U.S. traded a severe recession that would have resulted from letting financial institutions fall for a national default that threatens to destabilize the global economy once again. “Too big to fail” will have become too big to save. Certainly a recession, even a sharp one, would have been better than losing the status of the world’s economic superpower. Too bad we were not more like Iceland.
SOURCE
***************************
Is Basic Health Care a ‘Right’?
Here’s a letter to the Boston Globe from economist Donald J. Boudreaux
Ronald Pies, MD, asserts that every individual has a “right” to “basic health care” – meaning, a right to receive such care without paying for it (Letters, Dec. 26).
The rights that Americans wisely cherish as being essential for a free society require only the refraining from action. Your right to speak freely requires me simply not to stop you from speaking; it does not require me to supply your megaphone.
Not so with a “right” to “basic health care.” Elevating free access to a scarce good into a “right” imposes on strangers all manner of ill-defined positive obligations – obligations that necessarily violate other, proper rights. For example, perhaps my “right” to basic health care means that I can force Dr. Pies away from his worship service in order that he attend (free of charge!) to my ruptured spleen. Or perhaps it means that I have the “right” to pay for my health care by confiscating part of his income. If so, how much of his income does my “right” entitle me to confiscate? Who knows?
And if Dr. Pies is planning to retire, do I have the “right” to force him to continue to work so that the supply of basic health care doesn’t shrink? If Dr. Pies should die, am I entitled – again, to keep the supply of basic health care from shrinking – to force his children to study and practice medicine?
Does my right to basic health care imply that I can force my neighbor to pay for my cross-country skiing vacation on grounds that keeping fit is part of basic health care?
Talking about “rights” to scarce goods and services sounds right only to persons who are economically illiterate, politically naive, and suffering the juvenile delusion that reality is optional.
SOURCE
*************************
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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