Grim outlook for failing Western economies

In Europe, Britain and the USA

 Many on the Left will finally have got the economy of their dreams – or, rather, the one they have always believed in. At last, we will be living with that fixed, unchanging pie which must be divided up “fairly” if social justice is to be achieved. Instead of a dynamic, growing pot of wealth and ever-increasing resources, which can enable larger and larger proportions of the population to become prosperous without taking anything away from any other group, there will indeed be an absolute limit on the amount of capital circulating within the society.

 The only decisions to be made will involve how that given, unalterable sum is to be shared out – and those judgments will, of course, have to be made by the state since there will be no dynamic economic force outside of government to enter the equation. Wealth distribution will be the principal – virtually the only – significant function of political life. Is this Left-wing heaven?

 Well, not quite. The total absence of economic growth would mean that the limitations on that distribution would be so severe as to require draconian legal enforcement: rationing, limits on the amount of currency that can be taken abroad, import restrictions and the kinds of penalties for economic crimes (undercutting, or “black market” selling practices) which have been unknown in the West since the end of the Second World War.

 In this dystopian future there would have to be permanent austerity programmes. This would not only mean cutting government spending, which is what “austerity” means now, but the real kind: genuine falls in the standard of living of most working people, caused not just by frozen wages and the collapse in the value of savings (due to repeated bouts of money-printing), but also by the shortages of goods that will result from lack of investment and business expansion, not to mention the absence of cheaper goods from abroad due to import controls.

 And it is not just day-to-day life that would be affected by the absence of growth in the economy. In the longer term, we can say good-bye to the technological innovations which have been spurred by competitive entrepreneurial activity, the medical advances funded by investment which an expanding economy can afford, and most poignantly perhaps, the social mobility that is made possible by increasing the reach of prosperity so that it includes ever-growing numbers of people. In short, almost everything we have come to understand as progress. Farewell to all that. But this is not the end of it. When the economy of a country is dead, and its political life is consumed by artificial mechanisms of forced distribution, its wealth does not remain static: it actually contracts and diminishes in value. If capital cannot grow – if there is no possibility of it growing – it becomes worthless in international exchange. This is what happened to the currencies of the Eastern bloc: they became phoney constructs with no value outside their own closed, recycled system.

 When Germany was reunified, the Western half, in an act of almost superhuman political goodwill, arbitrarily declared the currency of the Eastern half to be equal in value to that of its own hugely successful one. The exercise nearly bankrupted the country, so great was the disparity between the vital, expanding Deutschemark and the risibly meaningless Ostmark which, like the Soviet ruble, had no economic legitimacy in the outside world.

 At least then, there was a thriving West that could rescue the peoples of the East from the endless poverty of economies that were forbidden to grow by ideological edict. It remains to be seen what the consequences will be of the whole of the West, America included, falling into the economic black hole of permanent no-growth. Presumably, it will eventually have to move towards precisely the social and political structures that the East employed. As the fixed pot of national wealth loses ever more value, and resources shrink, the measures to enforce “fair” distribution must become more totalitarian: there will have to be confiscatory taxation on assets and property, collectivisation of the production of goods, and directed labour.

 Democratic socialism with its “soft redistribution” and exponential growth of government spending will have paved the way for the hard redistribution of diminished resources under economic dictatorship. You think this sounds fanciful? It is just the logical conclusion of what will seem like enlightened social policy in a zero-growth society where hardship will need to be minimised by rigorously enforced equality. Then what? The rioting we see now in Italy and Greece – countries that had to have their democratic governments surgically removed in order to impose the uniform levels of poverty that are made necessary by dead economies – will spread throughout the West, and have to be contained by hard-fisted governments with or without democratic mandates. Political parties of all complexions talk of “balanced solutions”, which they think will sound more politically palatable than drastic cuts in public spending: tax rises on “the better-off” (the only people in a position to create real wealth) are put on the moral scale alongside “welfare cuts” on the unproductive.

 This is not even a recipe for standing still: tax rises prevent growth and job creation, as well as reducing tax revenue. It is a formula for permanent decline in the private sector and endless austerity in the public one. But reduced government spending accompanied by tax cuts (particularly on employment – what the Americans call “payroll taxes”) could stimulate the growth of new wealth and begin a recovery. Most politicians on the Right understand this. They have about five minutes left to make the argument for it.

More HERE

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Will America be killed by its own internal parasites?

No one understood the dynamics of aging societies approaching decrepitude better than Mancur Olson, an economist who taught at the University of Maryland until his death in 1998. Olson’s crowning achievement was a book published in 1982 titled, “The Rise and Decline of Nations.” Olson argued that the proliferation of interest groups (collusions or distributional coalitions, in his terms) eventually spells doom for the societies they inhabit. And proliferate they have, from 6,000 in 1959 to 22,000 at the beginning of the 21st century, according to the Encyclopedia of Associations. Like it or not, every man, woman, and child in the country is represented by an interest group.

But when we say “interest group,” what exactly do we mean? America’s master political thinker, James Madison, said it best with his definition of “faction” in Federalist 10, as comprising “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (italics added). So much for our contemporary, naïve notions about how factions (interest groups) proclaim to represent some greater good.

It gets worse, especially considering three additional developments. First, America’s mammoth federal government constitutes an interest group itself, which means it does all the things other public and private groups do to protect itself. Second, about half of the population receives some form of aid from the federal government, according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, and these recipients constitute perhaps the most behemoth group of them all. Third, close to one-half of the entire population does not pay federal-income taxes, a figure that climbed from 12 percent in 1969 to 34.1 percent at the beginning of the Bush administration to its current figure as President Obama starts his second term. The question is: What does all this mean for the destiny of America?

Prepare yourself for some very bad news. As societies age, they “tend to accumulate more collusions and organizations for collective action over time,” which in normal speak means that societies become infested with interest groups just like arteries become more rigid and clogged with body gunk as you get older—a phenomenon Jonathan Rauch referred to as “Demosclerosis.” Further, groups “reduce efficiency and aggregate income in the societies in which they operate and make political life more divisive.” Example: anyone read the healthcare bill lately? And the thousands of regulations in existence and forthcoming? And consider its huge increased costs?

The keystone of this argument is a passage that is terrifying in its implications and is worth quoting in full: “The typical organization for collective action [interest group] within a society will … have little or no incentive to make any significant sacrifices in the interest of the society” and “there is ... no constraint on the social cost such an organization will find it expedient to impose on the society in the course of obtaining a larger share of the social output for itself”. This means nothing less than it says: a group will kill its host, the American republic in this case, before relinquishing even a modicum of benefits for itself.

Nations die this way, empires collapse, societies atrophy, and countries implode (like the old USSR) or are conquered from without. In the United States, this phenomenon cannot be blamed exclusively on Democrats or Republicans; both parties represent coalitions of groups that all want something from the government. Indeed, if there is any difference between Republicans and Democrats in this regard it is that President Obama has accelerated this process over the last four years. But institutionalized selfishness was a going concern before he came along.

More HERE

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It’s Economic Growth, Not Redistribution, that Lifts Everyone, Including the Poor

Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon note in their underappreciated work, It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years, that in the last century,1900 to 2000, real per capita GDP in America grew by nearly 7 times, meaning the American standard of living grew by that much as well. The authors explain,

“It is hard for us to imagine, for example, that in 1900 less than one in five homes had running water, flush toilets, a vacuum cleaner, or gas or electric heat. As of 1950 fewer than 20 percent of homes had air conditioning, a dishwasher, or a microwave oven. Today between 80 and 100 percent of American homes have all of these modern conveniences.

Indeed, in 1900 only 2% of homes in America enjoyed electricity. As Cox and Alm note further in their insightful Myths of Rich and Poor, “Homes aren’t just larger. They’re also much more likely to be equipped with central air conditioning, decks and patios, swimming pools, hot tubs, ceiling fans, and built in kitchen appliances. Fewer than half of the homes built in 1970 had two or more bathrooms; by 1997, 9 out of 10 did.”

Such economic growth produced dramatic improvements in personal health as well. Throughout most of human history, a typical lifespan was 25 to 30 years, as Moore and Simon report. But “from the mid-18th century to today, life spans in the advanced countries jumped from less than 30 years to about 75 years.” Average life expectancy in the U.S. has grown by more than 50% since 1900. Infant mortality declined from 1 in 10 back then to 1 in 150 today. Children under 15 are at least 10 times less likely to die, as one in four did during the 19th century, with their death rate reduced by 95%. The maternal death rate from pregnancy and childbirth was also 100 times greater back then than today.

Moore and Simon report, “Just three infectious diseases – tuberculosis, pneumonia, and diarrhea – accounted for almost half of all deaths in 1900.” Today, we have virtually eliminated or drastically reduced these and other scourges of infectious disease that have killed or crippled billions throughout human history, such as typhoid fever, cholera, typhus, plague, smallpox, diphtheria, polio, influenza, bronchitis, whooping cough, malaria, and others. Besides the advances in the development and application of modern health sciences, this has resulted from the drastic reduction in filthy and unsanitary living conditions that economic growth has made possible as well. More recently, great progress is being made against heart disease and cancer.

Also greatly contributing to the well-being of working people, the middle class, and the poor in America has been the dramatically declining cost of food resulting from economic growth and soaring productivity in agriculture. As Moore and Simon report, “Americans devoted almost 50 percent of their incomes to putting food on the table in the early 1900s compared with 10 percent in the late 1900s.” While most of human history has involved a struggle against starvation, today in America the battle is against obesity, even more so among the poor. Moore and Simon quote Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, “The average consumption of protein, minerals, and vitamins is virtually the same for poor and middle income children, and in most cases is well above recommended norms for all children. Most poor children today are in fact overnourished.” That cited data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. As a result, poor children in America today “grow up to be about 1 inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.”

That has resulted from a U.S. agricultural sector that required 75% of all American workers in 1800, 40% in 1900, and just 2.5% today, to “grow more than enough food for the entire nation and then enough to make the United States the world’s breadbasket.” Indeed, today, “The United States feeds three times as many people with one-third as many total farmers on one-third less farmland than in 1900,” in the process producing “almost 25 percent of the world’s food.”

Moreover, it is economic growth that has provided the resources enabling us to dramatically reduce pollution and improve the environment, without trashing our standard of living. Moore and Simon write that at the beginning of the last century,

“Industrial cities typically were enveloped in clouds of black soot and smoke. At this stage of the industrial revolution, factories belched poisons into the air—and this was proudly regarded as a sign of prosperity and progress. Streets were smelly and garbage-filled before the era of modern sewage systems and plumbing.”

Such sustained, rapid economic growth is the ultimate solution to poverty. It was economic growth in the last century that reduced U.S. poverty from roughly 50% in 1900, and 30% in 1950, to 12.1% in 1969. Among blacks, poverty was reduced in the 20th century from 3 in 4 to 1 in 4 through economic growth. Child poverty of 40% in the early 1950s was also reduced by half. It was economic growth that made the elimination of child labor possible as well.

The living standards of the poor in America today are equivalent to the living standards of the middle class 35 years ago, if not the middle class in Europe today. With sustained, vigorous economic growth, 35 years from now the lowest income Americans will live at least as well as the middle class of today.

If real compensation growth for the poor can be sustained at just 2% a year, after just 20 years their real incomes will increase by 50%, and after 40 years their incomes will more than double. If pro-growth economic policies could raise that real compensation growth to 3% a year, after just 20 years their real incomes would double, and after 40 years it would triple. That is the most effective anti-poverty program possible.

Just imagine what 2100 will look like if we can keep this economic growth going. Physicist Michio Kaku gave us an indication of that in a March, 2012 interview in the Wall Street Journal, explaining, “Every 18 months, computer power doubles, so in eight years, a microchip will cost only a penny. Instead of one chip inside a desk top, we’ll have millions of chips in all of our possessions: furniture, cars, appliances, clothes. Chips will be so ubiquitious that we won’t say the word ‘computer.’”

Kaku continued, “To comprehend the world we’re entering, consider another word that will disappear soon: ‘tumor.’ We will have DNA chips inside our toilet, which will sample some of our blood and urine and tell us if we have cancer maybe 10 years before a tumor forms.” He adds, “When you need to see a doctor, you’ll talk to a wall in your home, and an animated artificially intelligent doctor will appear. You’ll scan your body with a hand-held MRI machine, the ‘Robodoc’ will analyze the results, and you’ll receive a diagnosis that is 99% accurate.”

Kaku further projected, “In this ‘augmented reality,’…the Internet will be in your contact lens. You will blink, and you will go online. That will change everything.” Kaku concludes, “If you could meet your grandkids as elderly citizens in the year 2100, you would view them as being, basically, Greek gods.”

Just maintaining the real, long term, U.S.economic growth rate of 3.2% from 1947 to 2007 would have doubled our GDP of today 4 times, meaning a GDP 16 times as large as today, In that future, the poor of the time will have the standard of living of the American middle class in 2065. We will enjoy peace in our time, as the American military will be so advanced and dominant that no one else will even try to spend enough on their military to even threaten or challenge us. A world of free trade resulting from this Pax Americana will spread prosperity throughout the now third world. If we can gain some sense and reform and modernize our entitlement programs, and restrain unnecessary spending, America’s national debt will be a tiny fraction of our GDP.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare

Surgery center provides free-market medicine

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. The 51-year-old Smith, a self-described libertarian, and his business partner, Dr. Steve Lantier, founded the Surgery Center 15 years ago, after they became disillusioned with the way patients were treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where the two men worked as anesthesiologists. In 1997, Smith and Lantier bought the shell of a former surgical center with the aim of creating a for-profit facility that could deliver first-rate care at a fraction of what traditional hospitals charge.

The major cause of exploding U.S. heath care costs is the third-party payer system, a text-book concept in which A buys goods or services from B that are paid for by C. Because private insurance companies or the government generally pick up most of the tab for medical services, patients don’t have the normal incentive to seek out value.

The Surgery Center’s consumer-driven model could become increasingly common as Americans look for alternatives to the traditional health care market—an unintended consequence of Obamacare. Patients may have no choice but to look outside the traditional health care industry in the face of higher costs and reduced access to doctors and hospitals.

 "It's always been interesting to me,” says Dr. Jason Sigmon, “that in any other industry, tons of attention is devoted to making systems more efficient, but in health care that's just completely lost." Sigmon, an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, regularly performs procedures at both the Surgery Center and at Oklahoma City's Integris Baptist Medical Center, which is the epitome of a traditional hospital. It's run by a not-for-profit called Integris Health, which is the largest health care provider in Oklahoma serving over 700,000 patients a year.

Sigmon says he can perform twice as many surgeries in a single day at the Surgery Center than at Integris. At the latter institution, he spends half his time waiting around while the staff struggles with the basic logistics of moving patients from preoperative care into the operating room. When the patient arrives, Sigmon will sometimes wait even longer for the equipment he needs.

Except for the clerical staff, every employee at the Surgery Center is directly involved in patient care. For example, both human resources and building maintenance are the responsibility of the head nurse. "One reason our prices are so low," says Smith, "is that we don't have administrators running around in their four or five thousand dollar suits."

In 2010, the top 18 administrative employees at Integris Health received an average of $413,000 in compensation, according to the not-for-profits' 990 tax form. There are no administrative employees at the Surgery Center.

Because bills charged by Integris are paid primarily by insurance companies or the government, the hospital gets away with gouging for its services. Reason obtained a bill for a procedure that Dr. Sigmon performed at Integris in October 2010 called a “complex bilateral sinus procedure,” which helps patients with chronic nasal infections. The bill, which is strictly for the hospital itself and doesn't include Sigmon's or the anesthesiologist's fees, totaled $33,505. When Sigmon performs the same procedure at the Surgery Center, the all-inclusive price is $5,885.

The Integris bill for the same nasal procedure went to Blue Cross of Oklahoma, so the patient had no compelling reason to question its outrageous markups. They included a $360 charge for a steroid called dexamethasone, which can be purchased wholesale for just 75 cents. Or the three charges totaling $630 for a painkiller called fentanyl citrate, which all together cost the hospital about $1.50.

While patients and their insurance companies rarely pay the full price on a hospital bill, the bigger the bill, the more the hospital gets. Uninsured patients at Integris generally get a 50 percent discount, while private insurance companies pay closer to 60 percent of the full bill, which is still greater by orders of magnitude than what the Surgery Center collects.

Integris Health declined to make a spokesperson available to be interviewed for this story. But in a statement, the company defended its outrageous bills on the grounds that it needs a way to cover losses on services offered free. Whatever the merits of that argument, Integris must also cover overhead costs and bureaucratic inefficiencies that the Surgery Center has managed to abolish.

The rising cost of health insurance has been driving companies to look for ways to cope with the third-party payer system. Health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, have been one approach. Today, a growing number of firms are dumping their health insurance providers and becoming “self-funded,” meaning they pay their employees' health care costs directly out of their revenues. This model was virtually nonexistent 30 years ago, and today an estimated 60 percent of Americans work for “self-funded” companies.

Self-funded companies, like individual patients, can negotiate directly with hospitals for lower prices. Recently a handful of self-funded Fortune 500 companies struck deals directly with major hospitals to care for their patients for a negotiated fee.

In Oklahoma City, there’s an alternative health care market taking shape in which hospitals offers competitive flat fee prices to self-funded companies. And it’s all modeled after the Surgery Center.

This was the brainchild of Jay Kempton, who is the president of The Kempton Group, which administers health care plans for self-funded companies. When Kempton met Keith Smith, he had been looking for a way to help his clients deal with their exploding health care costs. "Cutting edge procedures are justifiably expensive," Kempton concedes. "But what we also see are soaring increases in relatively garden-variety procedures, like a knee resurfacing or a carpal tunnel release. Those things should not be experiencing 10 or 15 percent inflation every year."

So Kempton and Smith came up with a cost-saving arrangement: If their employees agreed to be treated at the Surgery Center instead of a traditional hospital, they would be spared the cost of all co-pays and deductibles.

Almost immediately, Kempton was approached by other surgical centers and hospitals. There are now four health care facilities participating in his flat-fee consortium, and more are on the verge of coming onboard.

June Wietzikoski is a typical patient benefiting from this alternative health care market. She works as a loan officer for a community bank in Groesbeck, Texas, which is a client of the Kempton Group. She had carpal tunnel release procedure done at the Surgery Center for the all-inclusive price of $2,775, which was covered by her employer. Had she gone to a traditional hospital run by Integris the discounted bill would have come to about $7,452 and she would have been personally responsible for the first $5,299, since she hadn’t met her deductible.

"It makes me mad that people are bankrupted by our current health care system when many times the costs are completely unjustified," says Smith.

Is Kempton's model replicable in other places? There are obstacles. Oklahoma has an unusually entrepreneurial health care sector, which stems from a 1989 decision to roll back the state's Certificate of Need (CON) laws. CON laws, which are still on the books in 35 states, require all medical facilities to get permission from a planning board before opening, which in practice provides a way for traditional hospitals to use political influence to keep new entrants out of the market.

A new provision buried in Obamacare effectively prohibits doctors from starting their own hospitals or expanding the hospitals they already own, which has been widely interpreted as a give-away to the American Hospital Association.

The Surgery Center is exempt from this statute, since it's technically not a hospital and it doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare. So Smith and Lantier are considering expanding to accommodate their growing clientele.

Smith believes that despite the obstacles, market-driven facilities like his will thrive and proliferate as consumers catch on to costly collusion between big government and big health care.

Says Smith: "Everyone can see what the prices are at the Surgery Center, and that affordable health care is possible. So the jig is up.”

SOURCE

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ObamaCare Mandate To Cut Worker Hours, Leaving The Poor Worse Off

In Barack Obama’s first term the U.S. labor force shrank to a 30-year low. Job growth lagged behind population growth as millions gave up their search for gainful employment. Income levels receded, productivity sputtered and deficits soared — all in the name of “recovery.”

So what does Obama have planned for an encore? How does he intend to further “stimulate” the economy during his second term?

In his victory speech, Obama pledged he would continue pursuing “the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.”

That’s a truly frightening thought. In fact if left unchecked, Obama’s “bold, persistent experimentation” could very well wind up making this crisis every bit as bad as that one.  For example, atop Obama’s second term “to do” list is the full implementation of his signature first term accomplishment: ObamaCare.

Having secured another four years in the White House, Obama can now block any effort to overturn his socialized medicine law — although states can (thankfully) still stop much of its new spending if they reject ObamaCare’s “exchanges” and refuse its Medicaid enrollment expansions. For the sake of our future deficits, let’s hope they do so en masse.

One provision of ObamaCare that can no longer be stopped, however, is its “employer mandate.” While nowhere near as infamous as the “individual mandate” compelling citizen participation in the health insurance market, ObamaCare’s requirement that companies provide coverage to all employees working more than 30 hours a week will be a job killer nonetheless.

Not only will this mandate prevent job growth among small businesses, it will also result in fewer hours and less income for workers at larger companies. These are people struggling to make ends meet on limited income — people who cannot afford to lose these hours.

Last month Darden Restaurants — which employs 185,000 people at nearly 2,000 Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse and Red Lobster restaurants — revealed that it was scaling back many of its employees’ workweeks to 28 hours. Ordinarily such a move would result in high turnover and an influx of less-competent employees — but not in Obama’s economy.

This month Kroger — the grocer that employs 350,000 people — announced that existing part-time workers and new hires would be limited to working 28 hours per week.

“Kroger is doing this to avoid paying for full-time health care for employees who currently only receive part-time benefits,” one employee explains. ”And (so) they will not get hit with the $3,000 penalty.”

Darden and Kroger won’t be the only employers limiting hours in anticipation of ObamaCare’s crippling new levies. Millions across the country are likely to be affected by the mandate — and the vast majority of these will be lower middle class people who desperately need that extra income to make ends meet.

In other words ObamaCare’s “employer mandate” will wind up hurting the very people Obama claims to be fighting for — reducing their take-home pay at a time when loose monetary policy is already whittling away at the value of every dollar they earn.

The impact of all this lost income on our consumer economy — and on our soaring taxpayer tab — isn’t hard to predict. When people make less money, they spend less money — slowing economic activity. They also become more dependent on government handouts — further inflating a welfare tab that exceeded $1 trillion during the last fiscal year.

What can be done to stop these terrible outcomes? That’s what’s so depressing: Absolutely nothing — at least not over the course of the next four years. In fact, this is just the beginning of the “bold, persistent experimentation” that Americans are going to see from Obama during his second term. Just ask him.

SOURCE

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Union bosses shaft their members -- 18,000 of them

Hey Obama!  What about a handout?

Hostess Brands Inc., the bankrupt maker of Wonder bread and Twinkies, said it will fire more than 18,000 workers and liquidate after a nationwide strike by bakery workers crippled operations.

“Companies in bankruptcy don’t have any margin for error,” Chief Executive Officer Gregory F. Rayburn said today in an interview with Betty Liu on “In the Loop” on Bloomberg Television. “We just didn’t have enough workers crossing the picket line.”

The 82-year-old maker of Hostess CupCakes, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos was undone by the strike after changes in American diets led to years of declining sales while ingredient costs and labor expenses climbed. The decision to liquidate capped a weeklong standoff between the company, once the largest U.S. wholesale baker, and a union that called its proposed labor contract “horrendous.”

Rayburn said Hostess will dismiss most of its 18,500 employees and focus on selling assets. Shipments of bread, snack cakes and other products will continue until supplies run out, he said. While Hostess has fielded interest in pieces of the business, its labor contracts and pension obligations have deterred any bids for the whole company, Rayburn said.

“A lot of people say it’s the management. I can’t say whose fault it is,” said Misty Williams, 40, who worked at the company for 14 years. “I wish they were able to come to an agreement,” Williams, who just bought a house in Pennsylvania, said. “They were just too stubborn, I guess; the union and the management.”

Twinkies and other Hostess brands will probably disappear from the marketplace, said Tim Ramey, a Lake Oswego, Oregon- based analyst for D.A. Davidson & Co. Any buyer would need a distribution system, he said.

“Without your own distribution, it’s pretty problematic,” Ramey said today by telephone. “Twinkies has been on a slow death spiral for a long time. Somebody might decide they want something to do with it, but it’s not likely.”

More HERE

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Obama's Hostile and Evasive Presser

Obama's first post-election press conference, if you could call it that, tells us a great deal about his attitude and the approach he intends to pursue in his second term, which is the same failed policy mix on steroids.

Obama's words and body language indicate he intends to be quite aggressive in his second term and more dictatorial. It was as if he regards his election as a coronation to kingship. His responses and deflections even to softball press questions and his hostile attitude toward elected GOP officials in the co-equal legislative branch make that abundantly clear.

In his first response, Obama repeated the mantra that this economy still suffers because of events that preceded his first term anointment. He offered the tautology that a growing economy depends on a thriving middle class. Yes, prosperity depends on people being prosperous, but the question is: How do we get there?

According to Obama, we do it through economic protectionism, rebuilding those roads and bridges he believes are responsible for creating the businesses that American entrepreneurs didn't build themselves, throwing more federal money at education, and, for good measure, reducing our deficit in a "balanced" way, which means his way (only on "the rich"). He expressed his openness to "compromise" and "new ideas" and then demonstrated in his remaining answers how insincere that bipartisan gesture was.

In Obama-speak, "balance" means weighted against the rich. It makes no economic sense to increase tax rates on the highest income producers when many small businesses responsible for most American jobs fall into that category. It will further retard economic growth and yield insufficient revenues to make a dent in our deficits or debt.

After making it emphatically clear that it would be his way or the highway, Obama said, yet again, that the American people just want the parties to work together. On the most important issue facing us, spending, especially on entitlements, he didn't even bother to pretend to have a plan.

In his first term, Obama routinely abused his authority and paid no price for his usurpations. If there were any doubt before the election that Obama intended to unilaterally impose his will and avoid accountability for it in his second term, he has now eviscerated it.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Australia: The miserable and aggrieved end of politics (Labor Party) versus the cheerful end (conservative coalition)

Even though they are in government, the Leftist party is still the miserable party



So rancorous are relations between the government and the opposition that even the humble Christmas party invitation is being used as a political weapon. At least in Labor's case.

With the festive season approaching - and for many in this place, the temporary lull cannot come soon enough - the usual round of Yuletide knees-ups are being organised for the final sitting week, which is the last week of November.

The Coalition invitation, extended to MPs, senators and staffers, features an innocuous Christmas tree illustration. The most frightening aspect is the revelation that the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party senator, Nigel Scullion, will be plying all and sundry with his "famous mango daiquiris".

Labor's invitation is far more foreboding. It features Tony Abbott, portrayed as the evil Christmas Grinch, poised atop Parliament House, his pointy fingers holding a bright red Christmas bauble upon which is inscribed the word "no".

The portrayal of Mr Abbott as the Dr Seuss character - a bitter, grouchy, cave-dwelling creature with a heart two sizes too small - has not gone unnoticed in the Coalition.

"There's a clear choice this Christmas: enjoying Nigel's famous mango daiquiris, or a Labor Party obsessed with Tony Abbott. Which would you rather attend?" said one senior Liberal figure.

Moreover, the Coalition party is free.  Depending on who you are and when you pay, Labor's shindig costs between $25 and $50 a head. Mr Abbott may be the Grinch but Labor is Scrooge.

A Labor staffer returned fire: ‘‘The Coalition’s has to be free otherwise no-one would turn up. They’ve got to bribe staffers with free booze.’

SOURCE

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A Few Observations on the Efficiency of Local Government

Recent discussions of local government and state finances have focused on high-profile employees. Efforts to control costs in Wisconsin resulted in protests and a recall election. Now Scranton, Pennsylvania, has reduced its workers’ wages to the legal minimum wage. Local budgetary crises have made it difficult for towns to pay for police, firefighters, and school teachers. Some people claim that government employment must be maintained—maybe even increased—because these workers provide vital services.

As a teacher at a private college, I can’t help but notice that the private sector can and does supply education—as well as security. Private provision of education and security are and will always be imperfect, but the track record of government services is hardly enviable. Towns like Sandy Springs, Georgia, and Maywood, California, have saved money by contracting local services, except for the police and fire departments, out to the private sector. (While bidding for a government contract is semi-competitive—there’s only one purchaser—the winning firm is a monopolist, so this arrangement is different from a competitive market.)

We should examine the relative merits of private and government education and security, but there are other issues that may deserve more attention. Many town departments get little scrutiny. The operation of our water, road, recreation, and engineering departments often escapes notice.

Twenty-seven years ago I worked as a summer employee of the Livingston, New Jersey, engineering department. At that time I intended to earn a degree in civil engineering, so this job seemed like a good idea. I was told the engineering department hired several local college students every summer so they could learn surveying, build a résumé, and “earn” some money. During this summer I observed a local government from the inside. I had plenty of time to watch what people were doing because as the chief engineer put it on my first day, “There is no work for you to do in this job.” I thought he might be exaggerating, but this was not the case.

One could say that my own observations are merely anecdotal, but Livingston’s government works like other municipal governments. A town council makes decisions, and residents pay for these decisions, mostly through property taxes and small fees.

The time I spent not working that summer enabled me to observe others not working. The engineering department of Livingston had three full-time civil engineers. There wasn’t enough actual work to keep even one busy. We surveyed land that had already been surveyed. We observed a road construction project and some housing construction. Very little of what any of us did had any practical purpose.

The water department was slightly more productive. Every morning the water department van would go out to fix broken water mains. Most of the time there were none to fix, so this crew of about a half dozen men would be “on call.” How often did water mains break? Once every month or two. How long did it take them to fix a broken main? Two or three days. Do the math and it is obvious that these men were paid to do nothing most of the time. What did they do? They would hang around the local parks, the Livingston Mall, the Donut Basket, or somewhere else.

The road department would clear fallen trees or branches a few times a year. During the summer that I worked in the town hall, some of them were busy replacing street signs they had previously misspelled.

The town recreation department was somewhat busy during the spring and summer. I am not sure how they passed the time the rest of the year.

Perhaps the oddest daily event was the 2 p.m. break in the town hall. Every day town employees would gather in the break room for about an hour for donuts and coffee. This was not a break from work so much as a break from sheer boredom. Soon after the “break” ended, town employees would leave this den of inactivity, fill up their cars at the taxpayer-funded town gas pump, and go home.

My overall impression that summer was that if the entire town hall staff had been abducted by aliens, it could have been weeks, perhaps more than a month, before any residents would have noticed.

I doubt much has changed. Several years ago Livingston had a scandal when the town council built a new and lavish town hall. The remodeling was so expensive that it sparked outrage. The point here is not just to note an example of waste, but also the difference between high- and low-profile waste. Livingston wasted $30 million on its municipal building, but paying the salaries and benefits for dozens of nearly useless town employees over decades costs even more.

As a graduate of the Livingston public school system I can say that the teachers do teach.  As a former resident of Livingston I can attest that the streets are safe. High-profile government employees do provide some services. But as an economist I can see that town governments are biased toward waste. Local taxes are coercive and go into a general fund to finance all of a town’s departments. Local taxes disperse costs over all residents, obscuring the costs of financing specific departments and of hiring individual employees. Many costs of operating local government go entirely unnoticed, making cost control impossible. What takes the place of decision-making on the basis of cost? Decision-making on the basis of politics. There is no market test because the “buyers” of services are not free to say no. Thus politicized management by local governments has a proven track record of waste, to the point where many cities and states are faced with budget crises or have gone bankrupt.

In the past several years many people have realized that the overall costs of government are excessive. Public outrage over waste can have two outcomes. Government officials may occasionally respond to public pressure on high-profile issues, perhaps yielding partial or temporary improvements. Lasting solutions to government waste (local or federal) require extensive privatization. There is a fundamental problem with government in that the people who are most familiar with the worst examples of waste are precisely those people who gain from it: public employees. Taxpayers are at a permanent disadvantage when it comes to learning exactly how their tax dollars are spent or wasted. The smartest move for taxpayers is therefore to press not for more efficient government, but for much less government.

Modern government is a failed social experiment at both the local and national levels. Those who insist on maintaining traditional government services at any cost fail to see that we have options. Recent examples of outsourcing services have been successful, but these moves may not go far enough. Economist Walter Block has written extensively on road privatization. The late Elinor Ostrom, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, examined common-pool resource management by local nongovernment organizations. Alternative institutions have proven track records. We should have moved away from government economic management before it created severe budgetary crises. Now that these crises are upon us, we should act decisively to end the era of big government.

SOURCE

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Statist Claptrap on the Gas Lines

by Jacob G. Hornberger

For an excellent example of the economic ignorance that pervades the mainstream press, take a look at these two articles: “Behind New York Gas Lines, Warnings and Crossed Fingers” by David W. Chen, Winnie Hu, and Clifford Krauss and “Around Odd-Even License Plate Rules, a History of Impatience” by James Barron.

The articles address the long lines at gasoline stations in New York in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. What makes the articles so astounding is that as one reads through them, it becomes obvious that all of the authors are totally ignorant of the true cause of the gas lines.

Here’s the lead paragraph from the first article:

The return of 1970s-era gas lines to the five boroughs of New York City was not the result of a single miscalculation, but a combination of missed opportunities, ignored warnings and a lack of decisiveness by city and state officials that produced a deepening crisis and a sense of frustration.

The article then proceeds to explain how New York officials dallied over whether to implement a rationing plan, as New Jersey had already done. In an implicit dig at the “free market,” the authors of the first article state, “These officials seemed to cross their fingers that somehow the gas supply would improve and that they would be able to avoid resurrecting unpleasant memories of the 1970s.”

The authors also alluded to “panic buying and hoarding” as contributing causes of the long lines. On the supply side, they blamed the problem on damage to a refinery and to several gas terminals.

Lest you have any doubts about the ideological perspective of the authors, consider this line from the first article: “Compounding the problem was the lack of a centralized way for officials to coordinate with counterparts in the region’s complicated fuel-distribution network….”

In other words, what was needed to solve the problem of those long gas lines was central planning, with the plan to include a rationing system. You know, just like in the old Soviet Union! You remember that system, right? You remember how well central planning worked there, right? You remember the rations there, right? You remember the perpetually long lines there, right?

Ultimately, New York officials did impose a rationing system, one that permitted people to get gas on certain days depending on the last digit of their license plates.

The second article compared the long gas lines to those in the 1970s. The author of that article blames the shortage of gas on the fact that “the storm forced tankers bound for the New York area to wait it out…” and to the fact that the storm cut off electricity to gas stations. The author then proceeds to describe the long gas lines in the 1970s, blaming them on the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1979, which he says set off “panic buying and long lines at gasoline stations.”

As any libertarian or Austrian economist will tell you, all this is just sheer nonsense. But like I say, it’s classic statist. Despite all the writings that libertarians and Austrians have published on this subject over the years, the statist mindset simply cannot process it or even allude to it.

Consider these two articles:

“New York Investigates Price Gouging Post-Sandy” by James O’Toole at CNN Money.

“N.J. Sues Gas Stations, Hotel for Post-Sandy Gouging” by David Voreacos at Bloomberg.

Now, I’d be willing to bet that those four New York Times authors are familiar with these price-gouging legal actions. But what is painfully obvious is that none of the four is able to tie the two things together!

The reason for those long post-Sandy gas lines was not the “free market,” or “panic buying,” or a reduction in supply, or the failure of public officials to implement a good central plan, or their delay in imposing a rationing system.

The reason for those long gas lines was very simple: Price controls, both today and in the 1970s! Those anti-gouging laws are a form of price control. They make it illegal for the free market to operate. Remember: the term “free market” does not mean that things are given away — as in the common use of the word “free.” It means a market that is free of government control or regulation.

Thus, it’s obvious that when the state makes it illegal for owners of gasoline (or anything else) to charge whatever they want, that is not a “free market.” That is a controlled or regulated or managed market.

The worst thing that public officials can do in a hurricane or other disaster is impose price controls (or anti-gouging laws). Prices are nothing more than the free market’s intricate messaging system. When a disaster occurs, the price of gasoline soars, owing to skyrocketing demand and drastically reduced supply.

The soaring price tells consumers to conserve. It also tells suppliers to supply. So, people cut back. They’re more careful about how they use gasoline because it’s so expensive. At the same time, entrepreneurs, attracted by the extraordinarily high profits they can make, figure out ways to get gasoline to consumers. Gradually, the price starts to drop.

When public officials intervene with their price-gouging laws, they disrupt the free market’s intricate messaging system. By artificially keeping prices down, they ensure that consumers will continue using available stocks of gasoline as if nothing has happened. And they destroy the financial incentive of entrepreneurs to rush more stocks of gasoline to the affected areas.

What’s most astounding about all this is that it’s only libertarians who see the moral abomination that is involved with price controls. The gasoline doesn’t belong to the states of New York or New Jersey. It doesn’t belong to society. It doesn’t belong to consumers. It belongs to the owners of the gasoline. An owner of something has the right to sell it at any price he wants. It’s his property! By the same token, consumers have the right to walk away.

Why can’t statists see this? Why do they turn to methods that were embraced by Soviet officials rather than the free market? Because the last thing any statist is going to do is even hint that the state is responsible for the problem. We saw that during the Great Depression, which was caused by the Federal Reserve but blamed on “the failure of free enterprise.” We’re seeing it now in New York. To the statists, the government is god. To them, the state is always the solution, not the source, of the problem.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Businesses against deregulation:  "Most people believe that businesses abhor regulations and would love to do away with them entirely. This belief is often wrong. Many regulations make it harder for startups to enter the market, and can hobble smaller competitors. That’s why incumbent firms in many industries regularly welcome new regulations with open arms, and will spend millions on lobbying to pass them. It’s a way to keep the competition out."

China-bashing season over, but frictions will persist:  "Although bashing China, especially by the candidate trying to unseat the incumbent, has become a feature of nearly every US presidential campaign of the past 20 years, Romney's criticism was particularly intense. Moreover, the Republican Party has changed noticeably over that time, with the role of religious conservatives becoming more prominent and the role of business leaders less so. That shift made it even more likely that a Romney administration would have adopted a hard-line, if not outright confrontational, stance toward Beijing. Obama's re-election makes such a stance less likely. However, complacency about the bilateral relationship is unwarranted and could prove dangerous."

Greed, self-interest, and the extended order of voluntary transactions:  "One virtue of a private-property free market is that it channels our self-interests so that we serve our self-interests best by serving the self-interests of others. I can get a beer from you, a brewer, only by giving you something that you value more than the beer in return. We both gain. Government, in contrast, unleashes greed."

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Ronald Reagan Flashback: A Rendezvous With Destiny

Will the GOP ever again have such clarity of vision?  He was usually called "amiable"  -- and he was.  But he could bark when barking was needed



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Voting fraud roundup

Philadelphia - Court-appointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers, according to GOP officials.
Paul Bedard at washingtonexaminer.com

Philadelphia - One polling site in Philadelphia apparently had a mural of President Obama emblazoned on the wall directly behind the voting machines. The mural, at a local school being used as a polling site, contained the words "change!" and "hope," along with a quote from the president.
foxnews.com

Philadelphia Black Panthers - Jerry Jackson, who was charged in the 2008 case along with Minister King Samir Shabazz, but later saw charges dropped by the Department of Justice, was seen early Tuesday outside a North Philadelphia voting site wearing the group's trademark black beret, combat-style uniform and heavy boots. Fox News confirmed he is a designated poll watcher.
foxnews.com

Philadelphia, ACORN affiliate CVP - The Community Voters Project is a "non-partisan" lefty organization whose mission is to register people to vote, with a particular emphasis on minorities... This year, however, it seems they aren't registering everyone who wants to vote. Outside a CVP office in Philadelphia, for example, they shredded and threw away numerous registration forms.
Mike Flynn at breitbart.com

Perry County Pennsylvania - A video posted on YouTube  at a Pennsylvania polling station allegedly shows an electronic voting machine changing a man's vote from President Barack Obama to Mitt Romney.
CBS DC at washington.cbslocal.com

Chicago - "This photo, taken by a voter this morning at the Ward 4, Precinct 37 polling place shows an election judge checking in voters while wearing an Obama hat," a source writes. "Chicago's 4th ward is home to President Barack Obama." The voter who took the photo says: "Woman in front of me also given an extra ballot.
Daniel Halper at weeklystandard.com

Guilford County North Carolina - I cast my vote for Mitt Romney but Obama's name got the Check Mark (touch screen machine)! I was LIVID! So I called over a volunteer to show them. I clicked on Romney again and NO Check Mark appeared.  So I clicked Romney AGAIN and PRESTO CHANGE-O..Obama's name got Check Marked AGAIN right in front of the volunteers' eyes!
Voter, via Joel Pollak at breitbart.com

Charlotte North Carolina - On Tuesday morning, there was a concern raised at Winding Springs Elementary School. Two voters Eyewitness News talked with said when they pressed the button attempting to vote for Mitt Romney, the machine put the check mark next to the name of President Barack Obama.
wsoctv.com

St. Louis Missouri - Claims of faulty machines giving votes intended for Mitt Romney to President Obama are unfounded, the Missouri Secretary of State's office says.
Johnny Kampis at watchdog.org

Detroit - The Michigan Republican Party is alleging that a poll watcher in Detroit on Tuesday morning was threatened with a gun. According to the Michigan GOP the poll watcher's 911 call was rejected.
Kerry Picket at washingtontimes.com

Detroit - A woman in a Detroit polling location was aggressively campaigning for Obama. A female voter in line objected. The Obama supporter punched the woman in the face. Police came to arrest her and she smacked the cop.
@electionjournal via breitbart.com

Bay Area California - We found over 25,000 questionable names still on the state voter rolls.  A closer look at the data revealed that some of the dead people were not only registered, but somehow, even voted, several years after their death.
Stock, Escamilla and Nious at nbcbayarea.com

Pueblo, Colorado - officials have received reports of touch-screen voting machines casting votes for Obama after people intended to vote for Romney.

Las Vegas - Last week, I met with two immigrant noncitizens who are not eligible to vote, but who nonetheless are active registered voters for Tuesday's election. They said they were signed up by Culinary Local 226.
Glenn Cook at lvrj.com

Medina Ohio - Flyers claiming to be from a non-existent Tea Party in Medina, Ohio were placed in mailboxes on Monday urging Ohio voters to defeat "the n***er" in the White House to "help keep our country strong and white."
Tony Lee at breitbart.com

Sturtevant, Wisconsin - Voted this morning at 9:30 am.  I was confronted by two Obama supporters, wearing pro Obama shirts, taking pictures of everyone inserting their paper ballots in the voter machine asking how we were voting.  I told clerk and she kicked them out but they just moved to the hallway of the entrance.
breitbart.com

Boca Raton Florida - A woman attempting to vote in West Boca Raton this morning was initially prohibited from entering the polling place because she was wearing a tee shirt with the letters MIT.
bocanewsnow.com

Tallahassee Florida - A poster featuring President Obama that read "Change the Atmosphere" was reported to be hanging on a wall at a Florida, polling station. This photo was reportedly taken by a voter.
danjoseph at mrctv.org

SOURCE

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Romney made camo wearing voters disappear

Analyzing elections when feelings are still raw is usually a bad idea.  Of course that doesn’t stop those with an agenda from opining and pushing specific pet ideas.

That is what we have been witnessing in the wake of Tuesday’s massive disappointment.  The media and some talking heads have been all over the idea that changing demographics are the problem and that Republicans have to become Democrats in order to appeal to Hispanics.

However, digging into the numbers reveals a little more complex story.  Preliminary analysis of exit polls of people who voted suggest that many lower income white voters chose to stay at home rather than vote for the lesser of two evils.

By this analysis, this drop in white participation rather than a massive increase in ethnic participation is likely what caused Romney to lose.  These dropped out voters would not have liked Obama, but didn’t trust Romney either.  In fact, a good argument can be made that Romney, the candidate who establishment Republicans declared to be the most electable, was the worst possible choice to win this election.

In picking Romney, Republicans chose a candidate who personified big business, signed legislation banning semi-automatic firearms, and obviously wore the big government millstone known as Romneycare.

While those in the know continually urged social conservatives to keep quiet, because the election would be won on economic issues, the Obama campaign smartly exploited Romney’s weakness with lower income blue collar voters by playing to their natural suspicion of big business.

As a former state lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, I saw this dynamic repeated in election after election, as blue collar voters struggled between the candidate who they believed represented their economic interest against the one who represented their personal freedom interest.

The 2012 election was set up for these voters choice to be easy, as Obama’s four years in office forfeited any claim he had to being supportive of their economic interest.  Obama also is a threat to their firearm rights and is against them on every social issue.

But, without an opposing candidate who they believed was on their side, they stayed home.  While some might claim that this was a failure of the NRA or other lobbying groups who supported Romney, those groups can only open the door for a candidate, he or she has to walk through it.

Romney didn’t.  Instead, Romney stood at the threshold hoping that others would deliver blue collar voters into his column, without him risking taking any negative media hits.  But there is only so much an organization like the NRA can do when the candidate himself has both a terrible record and never addresses the overall issue in a compelling and convincing way.

SOURCE

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Reid Short on Votes for 'Filibuster Reform'

An important update to this report from last week -- it appears that Harry Reid is struggling to cobble together the requisite 51 votes to nuke long-standing minority prerogatives in the Senate:

Democrats don’t have the 51 votes they need in the Senate to change filibuster rules that could make it harder for the GOP minority to wield power in the upper chamber. Lawmakers leading the charge acknowledge they remain short, but express optimism they’ll hit their goal. “I haven’t counted 51 just yet, but we’re working,” said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a leading proponent of the so-called constitutional or “nuclear” option, in which Senate rules could be changed by a majority vote.

Part of the struggle here is that some tenured Democrats recall what things were like when the shoe was on the other foot:

The problem for Udall and other supporters of filibuster reform is that many veteran Democratic senators remember when the filibuster was a useful tool in their years in the minority. In the tradition-bound Senate, these veterans aren’t thrilled with changing the upper chamber’s rules, particularly with the use of the controversial constitutional option — which has never been used to change the chamber’s rules. Under the option, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) would send to the Senate desk a resolution changing the rules and ask for it to be adopted immediately. The parliamentarian would rule the request out of order and then the presiding chair — likely Vice President Biden — would affirm or ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling. The Senate could then uphold Reid’s move to change the rules with a simple majority vote. Biden could break a 50-50 tie in Reid’s favor, meaning Udall and others backing filibuster reform only need 50 votes in the Senate to win.

When Republicans were contemplating their own version of the nuclear/constitutional option during the Bush administration, it was to be limited to presidential judicial appointments only -- a response to Democrats' unprecedented campaign of obstructing majority-supported nominees. Their argument at the time was that the Constitution states that the president "shall appoint" members of the judicial branch, and that the "advice and consent" clause was never intended to entail super-majority support. (Article II, Section II of the Constitution does specify a two-thirds majority threshold for treaty approvals, but not for executive appointments). Democrats loudly objected to Republicans' proposal, eventually leading to the "Gang of 14" compromise, to which both parties have generally adhered ever since. At the time, one of the primary admonitions against the notion of changing Senate rules by a simple majority vote was that limiting the judicial filibuster would shove the Senate down a slippery slope to limiting or eliminating the "sacred" legislative filibuster -- which is precisely what Reid is seeking to do now. Though Democrats may be shy of the 51 votes they'd need at the moment, the complexion of the Senate majority coalition will change considerably in the upcoming session:

The most likely time for Reid to use this option is at the beginning of the new Congress. Supporters call it the constitutional option, but it is well-known as the “nuclear” option for the meltdown in partisan relations that it could effect. All seven Democratic senators-elect — Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Tim Kaine (Va.), Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) — have pledged to support filibuster reform. Sen.-elect Angus King (I-Maine) made filibuster reform a central plank of his campaign.

Republican leadership is hinting it would wage partisan warfare against the majority's entire agenda if Democrats attempt to jam through their procedural "reforms" -- a warning shot across Reid's bow:

...Winning over Republican support for weakening a powerful tool for the minority party seems like wishful thinking. Senate GOP leadership aides say any effort to change the rules by a partisan party-line vote will “poison the well” for reaching bipartisan deals. “We hope Democrats will work toward allowing members of both sides to be involved in the legislative process — rather than poisoning the well on the very first day of the next Congress,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Frustrated Democrats accuse the GOP minority of waging (or threatening) a record number of filibusters to thwart various initiatives and legislation over the last six years. Republicans counter that they've been forced to take these dramatic actions because Reid's unprecedented and imperious control has choked out other, less severe minority tools, such as offering amendments to bills. Facing another stalemate, and with both sides fuming, the Democrats are considering dropping a procedural bomb into the upper chamber. As I asked last week, shouldn't a non-nuclear compromise that addresses both sides' concerns at least be attempted before slinging partisan acrimony into the stratosphere?

The best solution to this problem would be for the Senate leadership to hammer out a compromise that would significantly curb the majority "filling the tree," in exchange for the minority curtailing their filibuster posturing.

...The manner in which this issue is handled could set the tone for the next two years of American governance. Will we witness reasonable solutions, or will comity erode further -- leading to increased legislative dysfunction, and plunging Congressional approval to subterranean new lows?

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ELSEWHERE

What does this tell you about the U.N.?:  "The U.N. General Assembly yesterday voted overwhelmingly to condemn the U.S. commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba for the 21st year in a row. The final tally yesterday was 188-3, with Israel and Palau joining the United States. The Marshall Islands and Micronesia both abstained. Last year’s tally for the symbolic measure was almost identical, 186-2, with three abstentions."

Should Christians use UPS?:  "United Parcel Service (UPS), one of the three largest shipping companies in the U.S., has announced that it is instituting a new policy governing its charitable giving that will restrict it from donating to organizations with discriminatory policies. According to Think Progress, Boy Scouts of America (BSA) will be one of the groups to lose funding from the UPS Foundation because of its refusal to shed its anti-LGBT policies."

Upstart Square battles payment giants:  "Two years ago, employees from the start-up Square Inc descended on farmers markets in San Francisco to hand out a new type of credit-card reader that let small, independent merchants accept plastic via their smartphones or tablets. But this month, when Starbucks Inc and Square announced that 7,000 coffee shops across the country would begin accepting payment through Square's smartphone app, the small white cubes that were Square's original calling card didn't merit a mention."

Africans launch campaign against gay marriage:  "A few hundred Liberians representing the Christian and Muslim faiths and civil society organizations gathered here Saturday to launch a campaign to press the government to ban same-sex marriage. The campaign is seeking 1 million signatures supporting a resolution to ban gay and lesbian activities here."

Israeli aircraft strike Gaza sites:  "Israeli aircraft struck three times in Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday morning, hitting a weapons storage facility and two rocket launching sites used by militants, the military said in a statement. As a growing crisis in the Gaza Strip moved into a fifth day, the Israeli army said it had scored direct hits on the targets. No casualties were reported in the strikes which caused loud explosions."

Obama considering John Kerry for “defense” secretary:  "President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus. Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with the transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations."

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Obama Likely Won Re-Election Through Election Fraud

Rachel Alexander

There were many factors that hurt Mitt Romney and favored Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. The Democrats portrayed Romney in the worst light possible; as a wealthy, out of touch millionaire who wanted to return women to the 1800's. The left wing media predictably did everything it could to perpetuate that false caricature. Obama's race was an advantage; voters of all persuasions, particularly minorities, still cannot get over the allure of the first black president. The 47% of Americans on welfare were predisposed to vote for the food stamp president over Romney, wanting the free goodies to keep on giving, despite the long-term unsustainability.

In spite of those odds, polls indicated that Romney was going to win the election. The economy is close to Great Depression era conditions, and unemployment is almost as high as when Obama entered office. Economic conditions became so dire after Obama took office it prompted the rise of an entire new movement, the Tea Party. Presidents rarely win reelection when the economy is in the tank.

So how did Romney lose a race that numerous reputable polls and pundits predicted would be an easy win, based on historical patterns? The most realistic explanation is voter fraud in a few swing states. According to the Columbus Dispatch, one out of every five registered voters in Ohio is ineligible to vote. In at least two counties in Ohio, the number of registered voters exceeded the number of eligible adults who are of voting age. In northwestern Ohio's Wood County, there are 109 registered voters for every 100 people eligible to vote. An additional 31 of Ohio's 88 counties have voter registration rates over 90%, which most voting experts regard as suspicious. Obama miraculously won 100% of the vote in 21 districts in Cleveland, and received over 99% of the vote where GOP inspectors were illegally removed.

The inflated numbers can't just reflect voters who have moved, because the average voting registration level nationwide is only 70%. The vast majority of voters over the 70% level are not voting because they want to, they are voting because someone is getting them to cast a vote, one way or another. Those 31 counties are most likely the largest counties in Ohio, representing a majority of Ohio voters. This means the number of votes cast above the 70% typical voter registration level easily tops 100,000, the margin Obama won Ohio by.

Videographer James O'Keefe, known for his undercover videos exposing left wing fraud, caught a Virginia Democratic Congressman's son on video in October explaining how to commit voter fraud. Patrick Moran, the son of Rep. Jim Moran, told O'Keefe's videographer that in order to make a vote for someone else, you'd need two pieces of identification, such as a utility bill, explaining, "they can fake a utility bill with ease, you know?" He went on to advise the videographer that he should also call the voter and pretend to be a polling company in order to make sure the voter isn't intending to vote. He said that Democrat attorneys would be located in the polling places to assist him if challenged casting one of these illegal votes.

In another video, O'Keefe's videographer tells a DNC staffer from Obama's Organizing for America that she intends to vote in both Texas and Florida. The staffer laughs and says, "It's cool." The staffer then prints out a voter registration form for the undercover videographer and advises her on what to do if she gets caught.

These are just the known instances of attempted voter fraud. How many instances occurred that were not discovered? Obama's Organizing for America looked up voters in swing states – many who would not have bothered voting otherwise – and got them to vote. How did they get them to vote? They may have given them rides to the polls, they may have offered to fill out and return their ballots for them, or they may have voted ballots for the ones who were not going to vote.

Many on the left believe there is nothing wrong with committing fraud in order to ensure Obama's reelection. It is a common tenet on the left that the ends justify the means. Saul Alinsky, the 1960's radical who inspired Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, taught community organizers like Obama that dishonesty is acceptable if it achieves your political goals. And when caught, Alinsky teaches radicals to deny the wrongdoing and change the topic to put their accusers on the defensive. One Obama supporter brazenly posted on Facebook that he was voting four times for Obama, asserting that the ends justify the means.

Aiding Obama's win was a devious suppression of the conservative vote. The conservative-leaning military vote has decreased drastically since 2010 due to the so-called Military Voter Protection Act that was enacted into law the year before. It has made it so difficult for overseas military personnel to obtain absentee ballots that in Virginia and Ohio there has been a 70% decrease in requests for ballots since 2008. In Virginia, almost 30,000 fewer overseas military voters requested ballots than in 2008. In Ohio, more than 20,000 fewer overseas military voters requested ballots. This is significant considering Obama won in both states by a little over 100,000 votes.

Voter fraud has been in the works for years. At least 52 employees of the left wing group ACORN have been convicted of voter registration fraud. ACORN itself was convicted of the crime of "compensation," paying its registration canvassers bonuses to exceed their quotas. In 2008, 36% of ACORN's voter registrations were invalidated. Left wing political pundit Chris Matthews admitted last year that pretending to call someone from a polling company, then voting their ballot for them, has been happening in big cities since the 1950's. He admitted he knows that kind of voter fraud takes place in Philadelphia.

Strong-arming people into voting who really have no desire to vote undermines our form of government. People do not choose to vote because they are uninformed about the issues and candidates, are lazy, cynical, or are content with the status quo. Voting someone else's ballot for them is cheating the system and essentially giving yourself two votes.

When people claim that Obama won because the economy was improving, or because Americans generally think he is doing a good job, it is not true. He won through dishonest methods and rhetoric. Many of the votes cast in the swing states were cajoled, some legally and perhaps even more illegally, into supporting him. If voter fraud becomes acceptable, then maybe Donald Trump is right: it's time for a revolution.

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GOP soul-searching and the ‘Dougherty Doctrine’

These days, everyone has their assessment of why Republicans lost and what they need to do in order to win. And you’ll notice a pattern to them.

Pro-lifers say Republicans need a real pro-life nominee. Social liberals say Republicans need to drop all social issues. Hawks say Romney needed to attack Obama on his foreign-policy weakness. Some non-interventionist conservatives say Romney could have won had he staked out a more humble foreign policy.

Conservative writer Michael Brendan Dougherty saw this happening in 2006, and summed it up:

"At the end of the day, the arguments all seem to boil down to something similar: If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you."

The Dougherty Doctrine is that all prescriptions for electoral success coincide neatly with the prescribers favored policies. I exemplified the Dougherty Doctrine with my column today, arguing for a free-market populism and a GOP assault on corporate welfare.

The Dougherty Doctrine gives a reason to look skeptically at any “what-my-party-needs-to-do-now” essays. But let me add a corollary: Just because one’s electoral advice coincides with one’s policy preferences that doesn’t mean the electoral advice is wrong.

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Obama makes mockery of the rule of law

Among the objections to Obamacare, one that has not gotten as much attention as it should is the president's power to waive the law for any company, union or other enterprise he chooses.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution provides for "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans. To have a law that can cost an organization millions of dollars a year either apply or not apply – depending on the whim or political interest of the president of the United States – is to make a mockery of the rule of law.

How secure is any freedom when there is this kind of arbitrary power in the hands of one man?

What does your right of freedom of speech mean if saying something that irritates the Obama administration means that you or your business has to pay huge amounts of money and get hit with all sorts of red tape under Obamacare that your competitor is exempted from, because your competitor either kept quiet or praised the Obama administration or donated to its reelection campaign?

Arbitrary Obamacare waivers are bad enough by themselves. They are truly ominous as part of a more general practice of this administration to create arbitrary powers that permit them to walk roughshod over the basic rights of the American people.

The checks and balances of the Constitution have been evaded time and time again by the Obama administration, undermining the fundamental right of the people to determine the laws that govern them, through their elected representatives.

You do not have a self-governing people when huge laws are passed too fast for the public to even know what is in them.

You do not have a self-governing people when "czars" are created by executive orders, so that individuals wielding vast powers equal to, or greater than, the powers of Cabinet members do not have to be vetted and confirmed by the people's elected representatives in the Senate, as Cabinet members must be.

You do not have a self-governing people when decisions to take military action are referred to the United Nations and the Arab League, but not to the Congress of the United States, elected by the American people, whose blood and treasure are squandered.

You do not have a self-governing people when a so-called "consumer protection" agency is created to be financed by the unelected officials of the Federal Reserve System, which can create its own money out of thin air, instead of being financed by appropriations voted by elected members of Congress who have to justify their priorities and trade-offs to the taxpaying public.

You do not have a self-governing people when laws passed by the Congress, signed by previous presidents, and approved by the federal courts, can have the current president waive whatever sections he does not like, and refuse to enforce those sections, despite his oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed.

Barack Obama, for example, refused to carry out sections of the immigration laws that he does not like, unilaterally creating de facto amnesty for those illegal immigrants he has chosen to be exempt from the law. The issue is not – repeat, NOT – the wisdom or justice of this president's immigration policy, but the seizing of arbitrary powers not granted to any president by the Constitution of the United States.

You do not have a self-governing people if President Obama succeeds in having international treaties under United Nations auspices govern the way Americans live their lives, whether with gun control laws or other laws.

Obama's "citizen of the world" mindset was revealed back in 2008, when he said "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that every other country is going to say okay."

The desire to circumvent the will of the American people was revealed even more ominously when Barack Obama said to Russian President Medvedev – when he thought the microphone was off – that, after he is reelected and need never face the voters again, he can be more "flexible" with the Russians about missile defense.

There are other signs of Obama's contempt for American Constitutional democracy, but these should be more than enough. Dare we risk how far he will go when he never has to face the voters again, and can appoint Supreme Court justices who can rubber stamp his power grabs? Will this still be America in 2016?

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Conservatives Can Win Over Blacks and Latinos

by STAR PARKER

I wrote last April regarding an analysis done by Ron Brownstein in National Journal: "Brownstein estimates that Barack Obama could be re-elected with as little as 39 percent of the white vote. He notes that in 2008, when Obama was elected with just 43 percent of the white vote, it was the first time ever that a presidential candidate was victorious with double digit losses of white voters."

In a column I wrote a month ago, I noted: "What was once the exception to the rule in America - not being white, not being married, not have traditional views on family, sex, and abortion - is becoming the rule. And these constituencies are becoming sufficiently large to elect a president."

We can win our country back.  Low and middle-income blacks and Latinos are hurt disproportionately by a sluggish economy that can only be revived by less government spending and regulation, and low taxes. They just need someone to care to focus on their communities and explain these dynamics to them.

They need to get their kids out of public schools, a cause which only conservatives champion.

And they need to understand that they have everything to gain by getting out of the entitlement programs that the left tells them they need.

The last thing low-income earners need is to pay payroll taxes when they could save this money and build wealth. And the last thing they need is government bureaucrats running their health care.

When the only message blacks and Latinos get is from left wing politicians and media telling them they need government to take care of them, what can we expect but what we just saw in this election?

Business is also about knowing that there is no short cut around hard work.

Republicans must do more than showcase a few black and brown faces at their convention every four years and call this outreach.

Conservatives must get into black and Latino communities, talk to their clergy and community leaders, and explain how conservative policies of limited government and traditional values will save their communities and our nation.

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ELSEWHERE

Obamacare’s doctor depression:  "Thanks to Obamacare, America's corps of doctors appears to have a case of the blues. The Physicians Foundation recently asked more than 13,000 doctors about their morale, their career plans, their practices and their views of the Affordable Care Act. The results were grim. Nearly six in 10 doctors said that they are less positive about the future of healthcare in America under Obamacare. Almost two-thirds have a negative attitude toward their jobs -- nearly twice as many as before the health law was passed in 2010. ... Worse, their collective frustration is exacerbating our nation's troubling doctor shortage."

FEMA’s wasteful “disaster socialism”:  "In the Washington Examiner, Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation notes that FEMA has been as slow after Superstorm Sandy as it was after Hurricane Katrina -- and that when it finally provides aid to residents of affected regions, it will be providing not life-sustaining aid, but loans, handouts and welfare benefits, some of which will flow to people who don’t even legally qualify for them. People have this weird idea that FEMA helps people in the 48-hours after a natural disaster. It doesn’t."

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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