"soak-the-rich" - a history of polarizing rhetoric

Railing Against the Rich: A Great American Tradition

Excerpt:

Franklin Roosevelt himself, trying to steal the thunder of the populists, proposed the so-called "soak-the-rich" tax, passed in 1935, which targeted high corporate salaries and investment income, even though it did little to increase government revenues or reduce the real wealth of those required to pay. He made a series of speeches in 1936 excoriating the selfishness and greed of the "economic royalists." He had struggled, he said, "with the old enemies of peace, business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering…. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." This polarizing rhetoric was greeted with some of the most enthusiastic responses of any of his speeches.

....

Few 21st-century Americans have any real experience with economic populism. That appears to be changing fast. In the 1930s, the demonization of the upper class did not really begin until almost two years after the stock-market crash. We are now six months into our own economic crisis, and signs of populist resentment are already visible: in the perverse fascination with Bernard Madoff's remarkable fraud, the popular outrage at the tax problems of public officials, the growing contempt for the many overseers of the credit markets, the ruined investments of millions of ordinary people, the growing army of the unemployed (still far below the 15% to 25% unemployment of the 1930s, but 7.6% in January and growing fast), the likelihood of a recession that could last not just for months, but for years. These are the preconditions of populist revolts. Mr. Obama's chastisements of bankers and CEOs have been relatively mild compared to the routine denunciations of "economic royalists" in the 1930s. But the longer the crisis goes on and the deeper it grows, the more Huey Long-like challenges to those in power will arise, and the more pressure there will be for national leaders to launch populist battles of their own.

Whether that would help or hurt the Obama administration is hard to predict. In 1896, in the midst of another great depression, the Democratic party chose as its candidate the great populist hero William Jennings Bryan. His crushing defeat ushered in 36 years of almost unbroken Republican rule. In 1936, at the height of Franklin Roosevelt's populist rhetoric, his landslide re-election helped solidify a comparable period of Democratic dominance. Cultural populism has been a staple of the right since at least 1968, and it has alternately helped, and badly hurt, conservative candidates and causes. Economic populism has the same capacity either to bring down the president's ambitious agenda or, if handled skillfully, to open up opportunities for greater change than he may yet have imagined.

Comment: I used to think like this - basically thinking that the rich got that way by luck or inheritance. The "soak the rich" mentality is actually counterproductive to real economic progress.

Blue Dog Heath Shuler stands up to Pelosi and Reid

Pelosi, Reid have "failed," Shuler says

Excerpt:

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C) has further ingratiated himself with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — not — by declaring that Pelosi and Harry Reid "failed" the bipartisanship test on stimulus.

"In order for us to get the confidence of America, it has to be done in a bipartisan way," Shuler said in Raleigh following an economic forum, according to the AP.

"We have to have everyone — Democrats and Republicans standing on the stage with the administration — saying, 'We got something done that was efficient, stimulative and timely.'"

Here's the kicker: "I truly feel that's where maybe House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed."

Shuler, rumored to be mulling a '10 Senate run, was one of 11 House Democrats to vote "no" on the stimulus and was already deep in Pelosi's doghouse. Now he'll have to build a Harry Reid wing.

Comment: Heath Shuler Blue Dog Coalition. We need more "Heath Shulers"!

Biden: "new tone" or "newspeak"?

Biden promises 'new tone' in U.S. foreign affairs

Excerpt:

Vice President Joe Biden emphasized a "new tone" in Washington and around the world as he delivered his first major speech Saturday in Munich, Germany.

Biden told delegates at a security conference that the United States will work "preventively, not pre-emptively" whenever possible to avoid conflict, and will at the same time "vigorously defend" the nation's security.

Comment: Newspeak; Prevent; Preempt

G.K. Chesterton quote: on wine

The dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.

Comment: I can't verify that it is a G.K. Chesterton quote but looks like he cited it here.

Why (and How) I Drink

Excerpt:

During my formative-drinking years, when alcohol was still a relative novelty, I had something that many of my harder-drinking friends did not: parents who demonstrated a responsible relationship with alcohol. My father and sometimes my mother would crack a cold beer on hot days, and wine was regularly served at dinner on weekends and special occasions to everyone including the kids. They kept a decently stocked liquor cabinet, but usually only opened it for drop-by guests and the occasional dinner party, which were celebrated in good cheer but were seldom if ever followed by awkward phone calls the next day.

This open yet modest approach to alcohol was in contrast to the paths taken by the families of some friends and neighbors, whose habits ranged from over-indulgent to abstemious and were sometimes an odd mix of the two: it was not lost on me during my secular Bible Belt upbringing that some of my hardest-drinking friends – whose relationships with booze were often of the vomit-in-the-shrubbery, loss-of-all-personal-control variety – were from religious homes in which alcohol was seldom if ever served.

Comment: My parents drinking was like the authors: very rarely! To my Christian teetoalling brothers, I am not advocating drinking! There appears to be three Christian views on drinking: 1.) Abstinence (prevalent Baptist view); 2.) Moderation; 3.) Prohibition. My view is as follows: 1.) it is clear that drunkenness is sin (Galatians 5:21, Ephesians 5:18, and other verses! 2.) it is doubtful that Jesus turned water into grape juice (John 2) (if I am right about this, there is an application there!); 3.) The Christian should eschew activity that would cause another brother to stumble (Romans 14:21); 4.) It is possible to be a moderationist in theory but an abstainer in practice (see Romans 14:21 in previous point).

Romney rebuts Obama

Mitt Romney: Stimulate the economy, not government

Excerpts:

... any new spending must be strictly limited to projects that are essential. How do we define essential? Well, a good rule is that the projects we fund in a stimulus should be legitimate government priorities that would have been carried out in the future anyway, and are simply being moved up to create those jobs now.

...

if we're going to tax less and spend more to get the economy moving, then we have to make another commitment as well. As soon as this economy recovers, we have to regain control over the federal budget, and above all, over entitlement spending for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This is more important than most people are willing to admit.

There is a real danger that with trillions of additional borrowing -- from the budget deficit and from the stimulus -- world investors will begin to fear that our dollars won't be worth much in the future. It is essential that we demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the value of the dollar. That means showing the world that we will put a stop to runaway spending and borrowing.

... we must begin to recover from the enormous losses in the capital investment pool. And the surest, most obvious way to get that done is to send a clear signal that there will be no tax increases on investment and capital gains. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be extended permanently, or at least temporarily.

And finally, let's exercise restraint in the size of the stimulus package. Last year, with the economy already faltering, I proposed a stimulus of $233 billion. The Washington Post said: "Romney's plan is way too big." So what critique will the media have for the size of the Obama package?

In the final analysis, we know that only the private sector -- entrepreneurs and businesses large and small -- can create the millions of jobs our country needs. The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.

Comment: He defines essential stimulus! Nice rebuttal to Obama's editorial yesterday. He also asks a good question: "what critique will the media have for the size of the Obama package?". Mitt should be the GOP front runner for 2012!

Add this button

http://www.addthis.com/


Comment: Looks worthwhile

Snake story

Prehistoric 'monster snake' remains discovered

Excerpt:

Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the snake would have weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- dwarfing the largest modern pythons and anacondas which can grow to 6 meters (19.5 feet).

Scientists believe it slithered around the planet between 58 and 60 million years ago.

Geologist David Polly, who identified the position of the fossil vertebrae which made a size estimate possible, said in a statement Wednesday: "At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips. The size is pretty amazing.

"But our team went a step further and asked, how warm would the Earth have to be to support a body of this size?"

Titanoboa's fossilized remains were discovered at a coal mine in the tropical Cerrejon region of northern Colombia by an international team of scientists.

"Truly enormous snakes really spark people's imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood," paleontologist Jonathan Bloch, who co-led the expedition, told reporters.

"The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie 'Anaconda' was not as big as the one we found."

Based on the snake's size, the team was able to calculate that the mean annual temperature in equatorial South America 60 million years ago would have been about 91 degrees Fahrenheit, about 10 degrees warmer than today, Bloch said.

"Tropical ecosystems of South America were surprisingly different 60 million years ago," said Bloch. "It was a rainforest, like today, but it was even hotter and the cold-blooded reptiles were all substantially larger.

"The result was, among other things, the largest snakes the world has ever seen...and hopefully ever will."

According to Nature.com, snakes are poikilotherms (cold-blooded) that, unlike humans, need heat from their environment to power their metabolism. Therefore research suggests that at the time the region would have had to be no less than 86 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit for the snake to have survived.

Comments: I am a young earth (don't ask me how young because I don't know) creationist, so I don't buy the "60 million years ago" part of the story. But how about that size. And the temps ... it was (as if they really know) "10 degrees warmer than today". Touches on the global warming debate. Pic from Fox News.

Yet another Obama tax scofflaw!

Husband of Rep. Solis, Labor nominee, settles tax liens

Excerpt:

The husband of President Obama's Labor secretary nominee paid about $6,400 Wednesday to settle tax liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years against his business, the Obama administration told USA TODAY this afternoon.

The disclosure came shortly before a scheduled 2 p.m. meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will vote on Rep. Hilda Solis' nomination as labor secretary. The hearing was postponed; no reason was immediately revealed.

At a press conference, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said of Solis: "I read the story in USA TODAY and it quotes somebody who works here. Obviously we know about the story. We reviewed her tax returns and her tax returns are in order.Her husband had an issue."

"She's not a partner in that business," Gibbs said. "We're not going to penalize her for her husband's business mistakes."

Gibbs said he thought Solis' husband, Sam Sayyad, paid the liens back because he owed the taxes, not because of White House pressure. "The White House believes that if you owe taxes you should pay them," Gibbs added.

Comment: I'm starting to lose count!

1. Hilda Solis, Labor secretary nominee
   
2. Tom Daschle, Heath and Human Resources (Withdrawn)
   
3. Nancy Killefer, chief performance officer (Withdrawn)
   
4. Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary (Confirmed)
   

On the "New World Order"

Comment: Thank you anonymous commenter for directing me this article.

The chance for a new world order

Excerpt:

The nadir of the existing international financial system coincides with simultaneous political crises around the globe. Never have so many transformations occurred at the same time in so many different parts of the world and been made globally accessible via instantaneous communication. The alternative to a new international order is chaos.

The financial and political crises are, in fact, closely related partly because, during the period of economic exuberance, a gap had opened up between the economic and the political organization of the world.

The economic world has been globalized. Its institutions have a global reach and have operated by maxims that assumed a self-regulating global market.

The financial collapse exposed the mirage. It made evident the absence of global institutions to cushion the shock and to reverse the trend. Inevitably, when the affected publics turned to their national political institutions, these were driven principally by domestic politics, not considerations of world order.

Every major country has attempted to solve its immediate problems essentially on its own and to defer common action to a later, less crisis-driven point. So-called rescue packages have emerged on a piecemeal national basis, generally by substituting seemingly unlimited governmental credit for the domestic credit that produced the debacle in the first place - so far without more than stemming incipient panic.

International order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves.

In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.

A new Bretton Woods-kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome. America's role in this enterprise will be decisive. Paradoxically, American influence will be great in proportion to the modesty in our conduct; we need to modify the righteousness that has characterized too many American attitudes, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Comment: I love this comment: "The alternative to a new international order is chaos". So it is a new world order (with greatest centralization of power and less individual autonomy) or chaos!. I'll take freedom and chaos any day!

Let's get it right ... not do what we "feel"

Obama warns of need for stimulus bill right away

The Action Americans Need

Direct Excerpts:

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

...

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

...

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

Comments:

1. I personally buy the need for an economic stimulus. I may be wrong and you may dispute this, but I start my comments with this basis.
   
2. No stimulus package is going to be perfect ... hey it's Washington ... need I say more.
   
3. I sometimes spend money imprecisely - eg tomorrow I am having work done on a furnace vent. I have an imprecise estimate. Kathee will be there and sign off. It may be $ 253 ... or $ 312. I'm OK with either or between. Government spending, organizational spending, and probably your wife's spending is the same way.
   
4. But before we spend A TRILLIION ... let's get it right.
   
5. Bush (blame it on intelligence (not his own ... the CIA, etc) did not get WMD right! We may have gone to war anyway, but 5 more months or even a year would have been nice to "get it right"!
   
6. Obama's editorial is fear mongering. Example: "if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse". Truth be told, if Washington did nothing ... in due time the economy would correct itself.
   
7. On his comment, "voted resoundingly for change". President Obama, we elected a President not a dictator. I didn't vote for you but I support you. I pray for you and I want to see you succeed! On the "change we can believe in" ... let's face it it's more of the partisan same! Lobbyists and tax scofflaws have been nominated by you to cabinet positions. That's not change!
   
8. This may not be the best way, but the absolute fastest way to give money back to the people (it is the peoples' money!) is for tax cuts. The stimulus bill as it stands is like Campbell's bean with bacon soup. Not much bean ... even less bacon and a lot of water! The proposed stimulus is like that ... a lot of fluff and not much stimulus.
   
9. The Republican minority can be your best friend, President Obama. Listen to them and negotiate with them. Don't expect them to roll over just because because people "voted resoundingly for change".
   
10. And my final point: Let's get it right. This is not chump change we are talking about ... this is A TRILLION DOLLARS. Washington has a long history of waste. How much of that Trillion will be wasted? If the generations after us have to pay for this, let's make sure that they are getting what they will be paying for.
    
11. I'm working on a small (large to me but small in light of the above) project. We've been working this since late November. It should have been completed. It is still in quality assurance. We haven't gotten it right to pass on to our customers. This stimulus package still isn't right!
    

Update: Centrists in Senate Push to Cut Billions From Stimulus

The effort is being led by two centrist senators, Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who say they would like to pare from $50 billion to $200 billion from the package. The final Senate vote on the stimulus package is expected late on Thursday.

Among the initiatives that could be cut are $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million for climate change research. But so far, none of the suggestions come close to being enough to shrink the package on the scale proposed.

Can Facebook turn traffic into profits?

Facebook turns five

Excerpt:

One challenge Facebook is yet to overcome is how to make money.

US software giant Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook in 2007 for 240 million dollars, valuing the social network on paper at 15 billion dollars.

But Facebook, unlike other Web giants such as Amazon, eBay, Google and Yahoo!, is yet to prove how it is going to translate traffic into cash.

"There's no significant visible source of revenue other than investors," said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

"There's a lot of potential there but they're still kind of living in this dotcom mindset where a business plan doesn't make a difference," he said. "And as we saw with the dotcoms, that has a very unfortunate end to it."

"Google was able to figure out fairly quickly how to monetize what they were doing and they became a giant and that's the potential for Facebook but they've got to cross that chasm," Enderle said.

Going public with an IPO, or initial public offering, would not appear to be an option for Facebook right now.

"Doing a public offering when you have no revenue? Good luck with that -- particularly in this market," said Enderle.

Advertising could be a money-spinner but "the ad model doesn't seem like it works all that well for Facebook -- though it could," said Enderle. "You know an awful lot about people, and so you would think they could do targeted ads."

Comment: I think it is a really cool service. I didn't even know that they weren't making money. Wonder if Facebook will be around 5 years from now?

Is trillion the new billion?

Numb and numb-er: Is trillion the new billion?

Excerpt:

To provide some perspective on just how big a trillion dollars is, think about it like this: A trillion dollars is the number 1 followed by 12 zeroes. Or you can think of it this way: One trillion $1 bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles (about 109,400 kilometers) into the sky, or about a third of the way from the Earth to the moon.

Some Republicans are hardly over the moon about the growing size of the proposed economic stimulus plan. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said this week that Americans have become desensitized to just how much money that is.

"To put a trillion dollars in context, if you spend a million dollars every day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spent a trillion," McConnell said.

CNN checked McConnell's numbers with noted Temple University math professor and author John Allen Paulos.

"A million dollars a day for 2,000 years is only three-quarters of a trillion dollars. It's a big number no matter how you slice it," Paulos said.

Comment: Another helpful site: What’s a billion?. This one if for the kids (Aren't we all): A billion pennies (trillion pennies image captured from this site.

Now go to Ebay and look up Zimbabwe banknotes.

Buy some for your kids .... explain to them hyperinflation. And say "get ready for it"

Public Service Announcement: Zombies Ahead

Hackers make electronic road signs warn motorists of zombies, raptors; highway officials angry

Excerpt:

Pranksters in at least three states are messing with electronic road signs meant to warn motorists of possible traffic problems by putting drivers on notice about Nazi zombies and raptors. And highway safety officials aren't amused.

The latest breach came Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Ill., where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, "DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES."

Comment: This is the kind of foolish prank I would have done as a teenager (had I the opportunity and ability). Thank God I grew up!

Has the "Tylenol killer" been caught?

FBI Searches Home Of Man Linked To Tylenol Deaths

Excerpt:

The FBI is searching the Cambridge home of a man linked to the deadly 1982 Tylenol tampering scare in Chicago.

FBI officials confirmed to WBZ they are at an apartment complex called the Pavilion on Gore Street in Cambridge, but would not say why. Authorities would not confirm the search in Cambridge was linked to the Tylenol investigation.

Witnesses tell WBZ Radio that FBI agents spent several hours removing boxes from an apartment where James Lewis and his wife Leann lived shortly after James' release from prison in 1995. Lewis served more than 12 years for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol scare. In the note, Lewis demanded $1 million to "stop the killing."

Lewis is listed as a partner in a Web design and programming company called Cyberlewis. On its Web site, which lists the location searched Wednesday as the company's address, there is a tab labeled "Tylenol" with a written message and audio link in which a voice refers to himself as "Tylenol Man."

Comment: This was hot news back in 1982. More on this here. This crime lead to tamper-evident safety-seals to bottles and other packaging.

Wells Fargo responds

Wells Fargo Responds to Misleading Reports About Employee Recognition Events

Excerpt:

Today’s Associated Press story about Wells Fargo’s recognition events is intentionally misleading. The event is not a “junket” for executives but a four-day business meeting and recognition event for hard-working team members who made homeownership achievable and sustainable for borrowers across the nation. In 2008 alone, the team members who were invited to this event and their colleagues produced $230 billion in mortgage loans for U.S. homeowners.

Through all economic cycles, our recognition events have been an important part of our company’s culture. Late last year, we cancelled recognition events for 2009 except those where the financial commitment was so great that no meaningful savings would occur by cancelling these events. We had scaled back the mortgage event, but in light of the current environment, we have now decided to cancel this event as well. We do not plan to have any other recognition events this year.

The Associated Press story also misleads readers by implying Wells Fargo used the government’s investment to pay for these events. As we’ve said before, we’ve used the government’s investment to lend to creditworthy customers and to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Since credit began contracting 18 months ago, Wells Fargo has made almost half a trillion dollars in new loan commitments and mortgage originations. Last quarter alone, we made $22 billion in loan commitments and $50 billion in mortgage originations. That's more than $70 billion or almost three times the amount of the U.S. Treasury's investment in Wells Fargo -- which has begun to benefit from our performance through the dividend we will pay to the Treasury this quarter.

Comment: Tobin, a CF reader (thank you Tobin!) referred me to this site as well: Tiger Hawk: Do not pick on Wells Fargo for the Vegas trip

WFC: Reality Check

Wells Fargo cancels Las Vegas events

Excerpt:

Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), which received $25 billion from the government's bank bailout program four months ago, said it had canceled employee events in Las Vegas after a report saying it had booked expensive hotels.

The move came after the Associated Press said the bank had booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas (WYNN.O) and the Encore Las Vegas, two of that city's more upscale hotels, as part of a conference for top mortgage officials.

Wells Fargo had also been planning a 3-day meeting starting on Feb. 25 for 40 insurance employees at another high-end hotel, the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's website.

The bank issued a statement saying it had canceled events, although it was not immediately clear when these were planned for. Wells Fargo was immediately available for comment.

"We had scaled back the mortgage event, but in light of the current environment, we have now decided to cancel this event as well. We do not plan to have any other recognition events this year," it said in a statement.

The bank, however, defended such events as part of its culture, and said the Associated Press report was misleading.

"The event is not a 'junket' for executives but a four-day business meeting and recognition event for hard-working team members who made homeownership achievable and sustainable for borrowers across the nation," it said.

Comment: Since I've been asked about this by several relatives I will briefly comment.

• The so-called "bailout" money was the Government buying dividend paying preferred stock in WFC.
  
• Preferred stock pays interest to the government (like a bond) &
  
• Preferred stock dividends pay out before common stock dividends. I have XXX shares of WFC stock that pay dividends. I will never see those dividends until after WFC pays the government preferred dividends.
  
• Rewards for sales people is a part of every sales culture in America.
  
• I'm in IT not sales but I used to sell computers for IBM and later DEC. When I had a great year (I had some stinkers too!) I would get a trip. So what. The salesmen earn it.
  
• If it were in Toledo, or Green Bay no one would be complaining. Do you know it is less expensive to fly people to Las Vegas than to Toledo or Green Bay.
  

CNN and the other main stream media outlets did a great disservice by giving "half-truths" (a form of a lie!). But it doesn't surprise me. Also reports like this take the focus off Dems that don't pay taxes or pork-laiden wasteful government spending. My 2 cents.

Pelosi: channeling the ghost of Margaret Sanger

Commentary: Ridiculous items in stimulus plan

Excerpt:

I'd settle for removing more of the ridiculous items that House Democrats slipped into the legislation to advance their sociopolitical agenda. Like $350 million for child care on military bases. Or $335 million to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

In normal economic times, there might not be anything wrong with this. But these aren't normal times. And these politically motivated giveaways do nothing to fight the recession.

Another such item, which was removed from the bill, was a plan to spend more than $200 million on birth control funding as a way of stimulating the economy.

Who could possibly defend such a thing? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concocted an argument that was ridiculous and offensive. In fact, the argument was so bad that it might have single-handedly led to the demise of the funding, which some conservatives considered a giveaway to Planned Parenthood.

When ABC's George Stephanopolous asked Pelosi to explain how birth control helps the economy, here's what the speaker said: "The family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now, and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those -- one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

You know the nation's cupboard is bare when politicians propose limiting the number of births as a way of improving the economy. That's a conversation we shouldn't be having.

There is nothing more private -- that is, none of the government's business -- than the personal decision that a family makes about how many children to have. Besides, Pelosi's comments had an ugly ring to them.

For a minute, it sounded as if the House speaker was channeling the ghost of Margaret Sanger. The 20th-century birth control advocate is a hero to those who worship at the altar of reproductive freedom. She even founded the American Birth Control League, which became Planned Parenthood.

But there is more. Sanger also embraced birth control as a means of social engineering. She was a leader in the eugenics movement, which had a number of influential supporters.

Many in that school of thought considered immigrant groups like Jews, Italians and Irish to be inferior genetically, and they felt that these groups were having too many children, a trend they believed needed to be stopped -- by forced sterilization if necessary.

In an article she wrote in 1932 for Birth Control Review, a publication she founded, she spelled out her "Plan for Peace," which included having "Congress set up a special department for the study of population problems and appoint a Parliament of Population" whose main objectives would include keeping "the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race such as ... [those] barred by the immigration laws of 1924." Those laws were mainly intended to stop the immigration of Italians, Greeks and Jews.

Nice. There are still people who believe that stuff. The only difference is that, in this century, the folks under attack are more likely to be Hispanic or African-American.

When you make the argument that contraception is a cost-saving measure for state and federal government, some might think what you're implying is that the babies who would otherwise have been born were destined to become dependent on welfare and other public services.

Comment: For decades, abortion has disproportionately targeted minority babies (Whatever the intent of the abortion industry may be, by functional standards, abortion is a racist institution. In the United States, black children are aborted at 5 times the rate as white children and Hispanic children don't fare much better)

Unappetizing Federal budget numbers

Congress Will Have the Buffet

Excerpt:

[Rep. Jim Cooper (Democratic, Tennessee)] has an unshakable appetite for unappetizing numbers, wishes that more Americans were similarly eccentric and would read the 188-page 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government — the only government document that calculates what deficit and debt numbers would be if the government practiced, as businesses must, accrual accounting.


Under such accounting, future outlays to which beneficiaries are entitled by existing law are acknowledged as expenditures before they are paid. Were the Social Security surplus sequestered for accounting purposes, reflecting the truth that it is already obligated, and were there similar treatment of the other entitlement programs' liabilities, the deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 would have been $3 trillion rather than $454.8 billion. The report's numbers show that the true national debt is $56 trillion, not the widely reported $10 trillion.


The report says that in 25 years the portion of the population 65 and older will increase from 12 percent to 20 percent, while the share of the population that is working and paying taxes will decrease from 60 percent to 55 percent. If Medicare spending continues to grow, as it has for four decades, more than 1 1/2 times as fast as the economy, the big three entitlements, which currently are 44 percent of all federal expenditures (excluding interest costs of the national debt), will be 65 percent by 2030. Under current law, 30 years from now government revenue will cover only half of anticipated expenditures.


For years, many conservatives advocated a "starve the beast" approach to limiting government. They supported any tax cut, of any size, at any time, for any purpose, assuming that, deprived of revenue, government spending would stop growing. But spending continued, and government borrowing encouraged government's growth by making big government cheap: People were given $1 worth of government but were charged less than that, the balance being shifted, through debt, to future generations. In 2003, Republicans fattened the beast with the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Cooper opposed it), which added almost $8 trillion in the present value of benefits scheduled, but unfunded, over the next 75 years.

Comment: Our government will not do anything about this because governing today is about being reelected. Rep Cooper is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition.

More from George Will

On Barack Obama's inaugural address

"The time has come," he said pointedly, "to set aside childish things." Things, presumably, such as the pandemic indiscipline that has produced a nation of households as overleveraged as is the government from which the householders insistently demand more goods and services than they are willing to pay for.

Key phrase about the Federal government: "overleveraged"

Stimulus legislation - "an exercise in wretched excess"

Stimulus math for the GOP

Excerpts:

... congressional Democrats have turned the 647-page stimulus legislation into an excuse for something that never needs an excuse — an exercise in wretched excess.

...

The [GOP's] duty is to assert inconvenient truths, one of which is that the truth shall make you modest. There never is a moment when an open society that wants to remain such does not need the wisdom of Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who said: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." So the deference accorded this president should be proportional to his willingness to acknowledge that neither he nor anyone else can know whether the stimulus will work.

Comment: Before they vote it they should have a high degree of confidence it will work! More from Newsweek:

Obama Ducks Hard Choices

Excerpts:

Among the many claims made for the "economic stimulus" package now before Congress is that it will "jump-start" a "bigger, better, smarter" electric grid, enabling Americans to use energy more efficiently. The package commits $4.5 billion to this, which (says the White House) will help finance 3,000 miles of transmission lines and 40 million "smart meters." Sounds great.

But it may be mostly hype. For starters, $4.5 billion is a pittance. An industry study in 2004— surely outdated—put the price tag of modernizing the grid at $165 billion. More important, says a report from J.P. Morgan, the "smart grid" isn't mainly a matter of building new transmission lines or installing new meters. It's more "communications and information processing technology" that allows for more efficient transportation and use of power.

....

As it turns out, President Obama didn't make the tough choices on the stimulus package. He could have either used the program mainly (a) to bolster the economy or (b) to advance a larger political agenda, from energy efficiency to school renovation. But Obama wanted both, and, superficially, the two can be portrayed as an enlightened partnership.

"This is not just a short-term program to boost employment," Obama said recently. "It's one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education, health care, and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century."

....

The $819 billion program passed by the House would only slowly provide stimulus. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in fiscal 2009 (through this September) about 21 percent of the new spending and tax cuts would flow to the economy. For 2010, the estimate is an additional 44 percent. The total of 65 percent means that, by the CBO's estimate, about a third of the $819 billion package would be spent after fiscal 2010. That falls far short of Obama's stated goal of 75 percent in the first 18 months.

"What could they have here that you could possibly want to buy?"

In Bolivia, Untapped Bounty Meets Nationalism

Excerpt:

“We know that Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” said Francisco Quisbert, 64, the leader of Frutcas, a group of salt gatherers and quinoa farmers on the edge of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat. “We are poor, but we are not stupid peasants,” he said. “The lithium may be Bolivia’s, but it is also our property.”

...

The United States Geological Survey says 5.4 million tons of lithium could eventually be extracted in Bolivia, compared with 3 million in Chile, 1.1 million in China and just 410,000 in the United States. Independent geologists estimate that Bolivia might have even more lithium at Uyuni and its other salt deserts, though high altitudes could make accessing the mineral difficult.

Comment: Wiki: Lithium

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

[arriving in Bolivia]
Butch Cassidy: You know, it could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I checked on it.
Sundance Kid: What could they have here that you could possibly want to buy?

-------
Image from worldnomads.com

How Washington works: "by dint of his name & connections"

In Daschle’s Tax Woes, a Peek Into Washington

Excerpt:

Beyond the ramifications for Mr. Daschle’s ascent to the cabinet, the disclosures about Mr. Hindery and the many clients Mr. Daschle advised on public policy offers a new window into how Washington works. It shows how in just four years an influential former senator was able to make $5 million and live a lavish lifestyle by dint of his name, connections and knowledge of the town’s inner workings.

Uptick in savings could be drag on recovery

Consumers in U.S. Increase Savings While Spending Less

Excerpt:

The latest economic data released Monday painted a picture of American consumers and businesses embarking on an era of thrift as the recession deepens, spending less on consumer goods, housing and big-ticket developments like office buildings and hotels.

Americans cut their spending for a sixth month in December and, perhaps more significant, put more into their savings accounts, the government reported Monday, as they worried about losing their jobs and earning less in a deteriorating economy.

...

“If households are shying away from spending, what’s going to cause businesses to start spending again?” a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com, Aaron Smith, said.

Comment: Haven't seen the numbers yet, but a low savings rate has hurt the US Economy.

Straight talk on college loans

Some Debt-Laden Graduates Wonder Why They Bothered With College


Comment: Good read. A lot to think about before borrowing heavily for college.

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Shopping: From "fugue state" to "essentials-only mode"

Recession Can Change a Way of Life

Excerpts:

Many studies have shown that when a job is harder to find or less lucrative, people spend more time on self-improvement and relatively inexpensive amusements. During the Depression of the 1930s, that meant listening to the radio and playing parlor and board games, sometimes in lieu of a glamorous night on the town. These stay-at-home tendencies persisted through at least the 1950s.

In today’s recession, we can also expect to turn to less expensive activities — and maybe to keep those habits for years. They may take the form of greater interest in free content on the Internet and the simple pleasures of a daily walk, instead of expensive vacations ...

..

Recessions and depressions, of course, are not good for mental health. But it is less widely known that in the United States and other affluent countries, physical health seems to improve, on average, during a downturn. Sure, it’s stressful to miss a paycheck, but eliminating the stresses of a job may have some beneficial effects. Perhaps more important, people may take fewer car trips, thus lowering the risk of accidents, and spend less on alcohol and tobacco. They also have more time for exercise and sleep, and tend to choose home cooking over fast food.

...
In addition to trying to get out of the recession — our first priority — many of us will be making do with less and relying more on ourselves and our families. The social changes may well be the next big story of this recession.

Comment: Maybe some of these changes will be good in the long run! Next article highlights the Mall of America (from the NYTimes):

Our Love Affair With Malls Is on the Rocks

Excerpt:

... [The] Mall of America [is] a convenient starting point for rethinking the 50-year marriage between the American shopper and the American mall.

...

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the problem: We are reliably informed that whatever part of the economic crisis can’t be pinned on Wall Street — or on mortgage-related financial insanity — can be pinned on consumers who overspent. But personal consumption amounts to some 70 percent of the American economy. So if we don’t spend, we don’t recover. Fiscal health isn’t possible until money is again sloshing into cash registers, including those at this mall and every other retailer.

In other words, shopping was part of the problem and now it’s part of the cure. And once we’re cured, economists report, we really need to learn how to save, which suggests that we will need to quit shopping again.

...

At Web sites like deadmalls.com, the carcasses of these abandoned buildings are photographed and toe-tagged, along with tributes from former shoppers. All this as the worst retail environment in decades continues to sag in a sickly economy.

...

The economic crisis has caused shoppers to go into an essentials-only mode. But the mall has never trafficked in essentials. You can’t, for instance, fill a prescription at the Mall of America, because it doesn’t have a pharmacy. You can, however, buy a vanilla hazelnut fragrance candle in the shape of a miniature cooking skillet. Or a $13 baseball hat that looks as though it’s made of cheddar cheese. A store called Corda-Roy’s sells a variety of bean bags that convert into beds. Magnet Max sells a battery-operated guinea pig that runs continuously on a spinning exercise wheel.

...

SPEND enough hours in the Mall of America and you wind up in a sort of fugue state in which the specifics of time and place turn fuzzy. The hope, one assumes, is that you’ll spend more freely in this alternative universe of nonstop distractions.

Comment: From deadmalls.com view the story of Western Woods Mall (Cincinnati) where I worked as a shoe salesmen at Bakers Shoes in the late '60s. Re: "shopping was part of the problem and now it’s part of the cure": A low savings rate is the problem. Tax policies that "disincent" (deter) savings and investment hurt individuals and our society in the long run. This article is somewhat dated (January 2006) but discusses that issue: U.S. savings rate hits lowest level since 1933 - Consumers depleting savings to buy cars, other big-ticket items: "The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing. The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs."

Mount Obama, Barack Obama Day, & Obamamania

Bush Hatred and Obama Euphoria Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Excerpt:

... though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom. Urgent though the problem is, not even the efficient and responsible spending of a $1 trillion stimulus package would begin to address it.

Examples of irrational Obamamania exuberance

New York School Renames Itself For Obama

Excerpt:

A school on Long Island has been renamed Barack Obama Elementary School in honor of his historic rise to the presidency.

The move at the largely black and Hispanic school in Hempstead is among the first in what will likely be a wave of name changes around the world now that Mr. Obama has been elected president, from schools and streets to parks and mountaintops.

The prime minister of the Caribbean nation of Antigua has said he's taking measures to have the island's highest mountain peak renamed Mount Obama. In Portland, Ore., students want to rename Clark K-8 At Binnsmead school. Elsewhere on Long Island, the Clear Stream Avenue School in Valley Stream will consider a renaming resolution in December. And parents already have been naming newborns Barack.

"When I'm older I'm going to look back and say I went to Barack Obama Elementary School," said fifth-grader Teonte Jackson, who played Mr. Obama in a mock presidential debate before the election. "He had the guts to run for president and believe in himself."

Renamed schools, streets mark early tributes to Obama

Excerpts:

• Opa-Locka, Fla., renamed one of its main city streets in December. Hollywood, Fla., is considering doing the same.
  
• St. Louis made an honorary name change to a busy road that used to divide white and black neighborhoods. The postal address is still Delmar Boulevard, but the city will post signs that also designate the street Barack Obama Boulevard.
  
• The Associated Press reports that Antigua is renaming 1,300-foot Boggy Peak, its highest spot, Mount Obama (Click for official announcement).
  
• In Perry County, Ala., where the 1965 killing of a black man by a white state trooper in Marion led to the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, commissioners paid tribute to the president by designating the second Monday in November a legal holiday: Barack Obama Day.
  

Obama signs temporarily replace Bush signs

Excerpt:

When Barack Obama was sworn in Tuesday morning as the nation’s first black president, his vision of change for the country was culminated in dramatic fashion.

That message rang particularly clear in San Francisco in more ways than one, starting with a literal change on The City’s streets made by a vandal.

Signs marking Bush Street, which happens to be the surname of the country’s former president, was temporarily marked over with the last name of the president that would soon succeed him, Obama.

The freshly minted Obama signs, which covered both sides of the structures featured the same font and print as the pre-existing Bush Street signs.

Cars passing through the intersection didn’t seem to have any problem navigating through the altered signage, and a few curious passers-by elected to snap up photos of the new moniker.

“I think it’s great,” said Oakland resident Laura Page. “I just think it’s in the spirit of the day. There is a lot of excitement and I think people are looking forward to a new era.”

Despite Page’s enthusiasm for the impromptu changes, city officials were called on to rectify the new street signs.

Comment: A wrong emphasis on man!

A Titantic moment (airline style)

Comment: From an airline executive to me: "an airline joke, but pretty true to fact"

Goto try this!

Comment: http://www.faceinhole.com


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My childrens' tax problems

Use of Free Car Lands Tom Daschle in Tax Trouble

Excerpt:

On Friday, members of the Finance Committee received a report on the vetting of Mr. Daschle, done by members of the committee staff from both parties. The report says that he paid back taxes and interest totaling $32,090 for 2005, $38,507 for 2006 and $69,570 for 2007.

The Finance Committee document said Mr. Daschle had amended his tax returns to show “unreported income from the use of a car service in the amounts of $73,031, $89,129 and $93,096 in 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively.”

An administration official said Mr. Daschle’s failure to pay the taxes was “a stupid mistake.” But, the official said, Mr. Daschle should not be penalized because he had discovered the tax liability himself, paid up and brought it to the committee’s attention.

...

“Under Section 132 of the Internal Revenue Code, the value of transportation services provided for personal use must be included in income,” the report said. “Senator Daschle estimated that he used the car and driver 80 percent for personal use and 20 percent for business.”

The car and driver were not Mr. Daschle’s only problems. The Finance Committee said he failed to report consulting income of $83,333 on his 2007 tax return and overstated the deductions to which he was entitled for charitable contributions from 2005 to 2007. In his amended tax returns, he reduced the deductions by $14,963.

Under his consulting arrangement with InterMedia, the report said, Mr. Daschle received $1 million a year, or $83,333 a month. The payment to Mr. Daschle for May 2007 was omitted from the annual statement of income sent to him by InterMedia. Ms. Backus said the omission resulted from “a clerical error by InterMedia.”

Comment: If I put "my children" in the title, they will read it! My children DID NOT PAY TAXES on the free use of cars that I provided for them. I am officially and publicly posting this - that they violated Section 132 of the Internal Revenue Code! About Tom Daschle .... I only say "not like us"!

"Life: Imagine the Potential"

Comment: Rejected as a Super Bowl ad (no surprise). I wonder what "the Goracle" would say:

Question: "What does your modeling tell you about how long we're going to be around as a species?"

The Goracle: "I don't claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator"

---
For the aborted .... already gone!

A tax break for Tinseltown

Raiders of the Lost Taxpayer

Excerpt:

National Journal reported this week that the Senate's economic stimulus bill includes a provision that would make Hollywood studios eligible for a special 50% write-off of equipment purchases. According to the report, "the provision is backed by firms like the Walt Disney Co., and the industry trade group the Motion Picture Association of America."

The House version of the stimulus already includes a bonus depreciation that lets businesses immediately write off 50% of their 2009 capital expenditures. But the Senate bill expands the definition of "qualifying property" -- specifically to include "certain motion picture film or videotape." Hollywood moguls like Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and George Lucas were among the biggest backers of President Obama's candidacy, and it looks as though Democrats have found a way to return the favor.

Comment: Change we can believe in?

How NOT to do Sunday School

HT: Jamie Steele

Antarctic cold

HT: Between Two Worlds

God, Man, and Philosophy

God, Man, Philosophy

Comment: Lesson # 2 from Romans (1:18-32)

Eleven Courageous Democrats

NYTimes Interactive Graphic: House Vote on H.R.1: Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2009


Comment: Kathee and I were discussing this morning the eleven who voted "no" on the 825 Billion Dollar Boondoggle. My guess was that they were all Blue Dog Democrats from the South. I was nearly right.

The Goracle speaks!

With Al Due Respect, We're Doomed

Excerpts:

Question: "Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy,"

The Goracle: "Geothermal energy" ... "This has great potential; it is not very far off."

The Goracle on subject of nuclear power: "I have grown skeptical about the degree to which it will expand"

Question: "What does your modeling tell you about how long we're going to be around as a species?"

The Goracle: "I don't claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator"

More Goracle (Moracle?): "We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization," ... "This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced." And: It "could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force."

The Goracle on oil demand: "This roller coaster is headed for a crash, and we're in the front car."

The Goracle on polar ice: "Like a beating heart, and the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body along the eastern coast of Greenland."

Sometimes The Goracle speaks cryptically: "The road to Copenhagen has three steps to it,"

Comment: Decrypt the prophet ... Google "The Road to Copenhagen". Answer

Comment: This is serious folks! If you want to understand the concept of true versus false prophets read the book of Jeremiah. If you want to learn about Man's origins read the book of Genesis. If you want to know Man's ultimate destiny read the book of Revelation. If you want to know about Man's only hope - The Savior, read the Gospels. If you want to know how to be right with God, read the book of Romans.

They could skip Thursdays

Postmaster General: Mail days may need to be cut

Excerpt:

Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

If the change happens, that doesn't necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year. "If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year," Potter said in testimony for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

Total mail volume was 202 billion items last year, over 9 billion less than the year before, the largest single volume drop in history.

Comment: Thursdays seem to be junk mail day! Seriously, cutting back to 3 days a week would be fine by me!

Madoff bites Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Says Madoff Scheme Cost Bank $294 Million

Excerpt:

Wells Fargo & Co. wrote off $294 million because Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme wiped out some of its customers and left them unable to pay loans, said Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins.

“This is not our exposure to Madoff, this is our exposure to customers of ours who had investments in Madoff,” Atkins said today in an interview after the company announced fourth-quarter results, which included the pretax charge tied to Madoff. “They’ve gone from being wealthy to not having any money,” Atkins said. He didn’t say how many were involved.

Comment: Yet Bernie is still under house arrest in his multimillion dollar apartment!

8 Sampsonia Way

What's going on in Pittsburgh?


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HT: Woot: The Battle Of Pittsburgh, In Google Street View

Stimulating "more government and more debt"

Obama presses his case on stimulus

Excerpt:

"The Democrat bill won't stimulate anything but more government and more debt," Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the Republican conference, said Tuesday. "The slow and wasteful spending in the House Democrat bill is a disservice to millions of Americans who want to see this Congress take immediate action to get this economy moving again."

...

Several Republicans said they would like the tax cuts to move more swiftly, according to people in the room, but the president replied that $275 billion was the most he would be willing to negotiate.

A 40-Year Wish List - You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill

Excerpt:

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.

....

Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.

Bill May Not Stimulate Jobs Right Away

Excerpt:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected less than half of the $355 billion that House Democrats want to spend on highways, bridges and other job-creating investments is likely to be used before the end of fiscal 2010. The CBO said the balance would likely be spent over the next several years, after the recession is projected to end.

Republicans said the analysis shows that the package, which Democratic leaders drew up with top Obama aides to boost the ailing economy, wouldn't create the promised jobs. "Clearly, we're not talking about a stimulus bill," said Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican.

Comments:

• I am praying for my friends (some of whom read this!) who are out of work. I actually fear for my own job based upon what is happening in my company and our industry. I have a son, a nephew, and a niece who have all recently lost jobs. I say this to emphasize that real economic stimulus is in my mind a high priority and that real economic stimulus should create real jobs right here at home (not in China, Mexico or the other places from which we import!)
  
• This Nancy Pelosi authored package won't do it! ("Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.)
  
• This bill is government waste piled high. Your children and grand children will pay for it in inflated dollars and this (along with the 10 Trillion dollars of debt (see the debt clock in the upper right!) will be the end of this nation as we know it. Perhaps and probably not in our lifetimes, but this waste will be the financial ruin of this country that I love!
  
• What would real stimulus look like? A cut in taxes - sharp, deep and short! Put money back in the hands of the American populace. A tax holiday of even a month or two would stimulate this economy.
  
• Republicans are wise to vote against it!
  

Bad Bank Credit Card

Stocks jump on reports of plan for bad bank assets

AND

FDIC May Run ‘Bad Bank’ in Plan to Purge Toxic Assets

Excerpt:

Financial stocks led Wall Street higher Wednesday on investor hopes the Obama administration will create banks to absorb the bad assets weighing down the financial system.

Comment: If you are going to have a "Bad Bank" you will need a credit card. The above is my idea. The malicious, spider-looking logo in the upper right is from the logo of "the Ministry of Information" from the film Brazil.

Obama folderol

Obama - Great Candidate for AntiChrist

AND

Is Barack Obama the Messiah?


Comment: There certainly is an unusual obsession by many about this man!

21st Century John the Baptist

Comment: I appreciate John Piper!

Can do - Ubuntu?

I saw in one on my blogs comments something to the effect that you can't do everything on Ubuntu that you can do in Windows. I thought I would briefly comment on this topic.

It's not good to blog about work (so I've heard at the office) but I will keep this corporate neutral. I work for a Fortune 500 company in IT. Specifically in desktop (think PC's) IT. I am not a Windows expert but I can say that in my job I have a degree of oversight over nearly 100,000 PC's. I know PC's and I love Windows XP. Ubuntu will not replace what our company uses Windows XP PC's for. Won't happen .... case closed.

But at the personal level, a non-Windows PC can do everything and then some that Windows XP (or Vista) does:

• Money management - YES (plus if you use online bill pay from a service like WellsFargo.com, you don't need Quicken)
  
• Office Suite - YES ... Open Office does everything Word, Excel and Powerpoint can do!
  
• Web development (something I have extensive experience with): Ubuntu has it all over Windows unless you need to do .asp programming. But there are are so many other options. Need an HTML editor - Linux has it; FTP - Linux has it; Want to host a website - Apache server on Linux has it
  
• Graphics: I use PaintShop Pro on my work desktop. Love it. Linux has something called GIMP
  

Comment: Ubuntu. Want to have fun ... take an old PC ... say with 256 or 512 MB of memory. And put Ubuntu on it.

Romans study

Tomorrow night we commence our Romans study at the Fourth Baptist Young Adult ministry.

If you are interested in following along, please visit http://www.4bya.info. I am not going to do a "verse by verse" exposition of Romans - so you will need to fill in some blanks. I intend to tell the young adults tomorrow night: 1.) I don't have all the answers; 2.) I am not always right; 3.) Your opinions count. Romans is a difficult book ... can anyone say "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated!" (Romans 9:13).

Here are three links with resources:

• Paul’s Concern for the Romans (my outline of Romans 1:8-17)
  
• Romans - Outlined (My first feeble attempt of an outline of the book)
  
• Romans Resources (If you only read one, the ISBE (International Standard Bible Encylopedia) introduction to Paul's Epistle to the Romans, is worthwhile reading)