The Obama administration is accumulating power at an amazing rate, aided and abetted by its complicit Congress, who seems hell-bent on handing over its responsibilities to the Executive branch.

This accumulation of power is un-constitutional, and is quickly reducing our liberties and free speech.

Transfer of Legislative and Judicial powers to the Executive

If you read the bills that are pouring out of this Congress, you will note the way that Progressives bypass the Constitution and public discussion of the contents (See article by Thomas Sowell).  These laws (health care, financial reform, etc.) strengthen the power of the Executive by instructing the Government to do 3 things:

1. Set up a Board, Office or Department to make rules (“Legislative”).
2. Execute against those rules (“Executive”).
3. Prosecute, try and punish people who break the rules (“Judiciary”).

So in a single bill, power from the Legislative and Judicial branches passes to the Executive.  You might argue that this is how government has worked forever. Wrong!  The health care bill created over 150 “Boards, Offices or Departments”, and that had never been done since … you guessed it .. FDR.

This whole process turns the entire political system that created this country upside down!

Take a look at once example:

FCC Fines Firm for Astroturfing

PR firm Reverb Communications was hired to write favorable reviews of iPhone games on Apple’s App Store.  I don’t know about you, but I know that in the anonymous world of the Internet, that anyone can do a review of a product, and I have to take that with a grain of salt – caveat emptor.  In fact, it is why “trust” systems, like that encouraged by eBay and Amazon, add value to reviews.  They help you recognized legitimate reviewers, and trusted people, so you can separate them from the author’s brother, mother, or PR firm.

The FCC decided (in 2009 – the Age of Obama) to pass a rule that any “Consumer-generated media” would have to disclose whether or not a reviewer had a commercial link to the product/service being reviewed.  The FTC can fine you $11,000 (plus injunctions against your future reviewing!) (Read the FTC PR announcement here.)

So in a flash (and I don’t recall any public debate, and mention in Congress), the FTC lays down its “guidelines” for free speech for Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements.  Yikes!  Did they mention Bloggers!?!

So, if a Blogger who works for, say the Democratic National Committee, promotes its product anonymously on a web site, they could be in violation of FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255.  If you read your brother’s new book and thought it was great, a nice review could land you an $11,000 fine, if you and your brother have a “material connection”.

Would your opinion/review on ePinions.com be a violation? (as ePinions.com pays you and collects money from the advertisers).

What is a product review?  Why does the FCC decide that my speech (in this blog, for example) is acceptable , or not?

And how do they suddenly decide they can pass down a fine?  Well, to be fair, they state:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

However, in the Reverb case, Reverb looked for an easier (cheaper) way out, as I am sure you and I would do, when faced with a huge bureaucracy with “unlimited resources” coming at you …

Reverb agreed to the settlement terms, though the company maintains that it disagrees completely with the FTC’s allegations and admits to no wrongdoing. [my emphasis]. “During discussions with the FTC, it became apparent that we would never agree on the facts of the situation,” Reverb said in a statement released to MTV Multiplayer. “Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion.”

The journalist in ars technica also went on the say:

Still, Reverb’s potentially unfair influence on App Store buyers may not be that great. As MTV Multiplayer pointed out, only those that have downloaded a game from the App Store can review it, so it would take serious effort and a lot of paid reviewers to influence its overall rating. If a game is truly awful or truly amazing, the ratings will reflect that fact.

The Harvard Law Review published an opinion on this regulation, calling it unconstitutional.

Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised their Endorsement and Testimonial Guides (Guides) to cover “consumer generated media” such as blogs and other internet media forms. In the interest of providing consumers with full disclosure, the Guides require bloggers to disclose any “material connection[s]” they have with producers of any products that they “endorse” on their blogs. A “material connection” includes not only monetary compensation, but also any free good received by the blogger — even if that good was provided unsolicited, with no conditions attached, for the purpose of allowing the blogger to review the product. Yet a constitutional analysis of unpaid blogger endorsements shows that such endorsements are not commercial speech — which receives reduced constitutional protection — but rather noncommercial speech entitled to full First Amendment protection. Not only do the Guides burden bloggers’ protected speech, they also create an unfair double standard by exempting legacy media from the Guides’ disclosure requirements. Therefore, the Guides should be ruled unconstitutional as applied to bloggers.

Yet, the first test case that the FCC has using this results in a target rolling over.  It seems like part of a plan to regulate the Internet.

We should be very concerned about this enormous accumulation of power in an uncontrolled bureaucracy.  It threatens our freedoms, and the very foundation of the country.

(Cross-posted to http://liberty.cooperusa.net/2010/08/29/increasing-executive-power-by-passes-due-process-threatens-blogger-free-speech)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

Rudyard Kipling

So-called “intelligent people” are continuing to call shots and give advice to the US President and Congress that is leading us straight over the financial cliff.

Obama claims that the root causes of our financial crisis are: a) Bush, b) Wall Street, c) Banks, and d) Republicans.

Paul Krugman, like Obama, a Nobel-prize winner (which should say something about his credibility) is a perma-Keynesian who writes for the NY Times. I noted recently that he has been one of the prime proponents of MASSIVE borrowing and spending by the Federal government.

Now on Sunday the 27th, he warned we are entering a Depression. He whines about the lack of spending from government:

“you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.”

Gee Paul, what part of reckless spending don’t you understand? He says that not spending is a deliberate mean-spirited act:

“the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.”

It now seems that Krugman, Obama and his merry men are becoming a smaller and smaller voice, as governments all over the world wobble with crushing debts and deficits. Obama encouraged the G20 in Toronto to spend; they told him to pound sand.

Rebuffed, Obama still cannot bring himself to reduce government spending — rather we will see some wild-ass tax proposals. As far as he is concerned, though federal expenditures are up 21% in the last 2 years, spending isn’t the problem. He wants to hike taxes, but knows he hasn’t got a chance before the November elections, so he sent a veiled warning from Toronto:

“I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I’m calling their bluff, And we’ll see how much of the political arguments they’re making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics.”

Why wait? Well, he has to wait for his blue-ribbon debt commission to come back (after the election), so he can propose taxes, taxes, taxes .. to save us. But that committee looks like there are some no-nonsense members, like Alan Simpson, who aren’t going to pussy foot around — so that may blow up on Obama.

Of course, the root causes of the financial crises are not, according to the government:

Reckless government spending
Unfunded programs: social security, medicare, prescription drugs
Unfunded government union pensions
A non-transparent and reckless Fed, who is trying experiments never tried before
Freddie and Fannie, encouraged by Congress, backing ridiculous loans to anyone with a dog
And did I mention? reckless government spending
The reality is that we cannot spending our way out of an over-spending problem, regardless of what Nobel-prize winning economists say.

Allan Meltzer writes in today’s WSJ: “Why Obamanomics Has Failed:

“Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it’s harmful now.”

The solution? Reganomics anyone?

“The contrast with President Reagan’s antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.”

Are we too late to following recovery plans like Prices’s “Stop Reckless Spending” plan, Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future”, or Eric Kantor’s You Cut project?

I’m afraid we will suffer a lot of pain before then. Mish Sherlock wrote this week that “An Economic Depression is Here”. Congress and The Fed are to blame.

Hold tight … this won’t be fun.
(Cross posted from LibertyYes Blog)

Is it a requirement of people who run for public office that they must abandon all sense of fiscal sanity? It would seem so.

A review of the headlines over the past 2 weeks shows us that Forrest Gump was right:

Stupid is as stupid does.

Where do we start?

Governments Borrowing to Pay Debts

What would happen to your family finances if you took out a Home Equity Loan to pay the mortgage?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out .. you will have more debt that you have to pay off down the road.  But it seems that governments all over the place have developed this very habit.  The Solution to Overspending on Credit? More Credit, of Course.

It started on June 11 when Gov Paterson of New York borrowed $6 Billion from the New York State pension fund to pay … the New York State pension fund!  Talk about dumb!  The pension fund plans to earn 8% on its investments, but is willing to lend it to the Government for a mere 4.5% – 5.5%!  Sort of stupid .. sort of really corrupt.  When the cows come home to roost on this one, God Bless New York!

Even more frightening to us all is the bottomless liability posed by Freddie and Fannie. Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case. Now a Trillion is a lot of money. Rather than collapse these disasters and turn mortgage underwriting and insurance back to the private sector, these living dead will suck the blood out of us for years to come …

Government Drunk on Spending

I always preface drunken government spending comments with this quote from Ronald Reagan:

We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money.

Want to really get concerned?  Take a look at the US Debt Clock. The Total Debt Per Citizen sits at $175,281, or $669,993 per family.  Given income per family is only $62,445, it would take 10 years of working just for the government for us to pay of this debt.

Add liabilities of Social Security, Prescription Drugs, Medicare and other unfunded liabilities – the total liabilities per citizen rises to $352,617.  Assets are $235,844.  So we are technically bankrupt. We are short $116,773 per man, woman and child in the country!!

Government Ignoring Need to Stop Spending

Encouraged by Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman who wrote even this week: The Bad Logic Of Fiscal Austerity.  He argues that borrowing a $1 Trillion and paying the interest is affordable and

not much cost to pay for generating jobs when they’re badly needed and avoiding disastrous cuts in government services.

Ah! The last thing we can do is stop government spending!  If in fact government spending was actually positive, then is there a limit?  Why not spend as much as we can borrow? (Oops! I think they are already doing that!!)  Now don’t think you have permission to argue with this Nobel Laureate or the anointed economic elite.  You just don’t “get it”.

During the last 5 years, governments have increased their spending and hiring by leaps and bounds, while their revenues have shrink.  According to the Krugman crowd, this makes sense.

Who is Footing the Bill?

But you will pay the bills.  I extracted some figures from the Debt Clock to create the following analysis:

Private industry workers (who pay ALL the bills) comprise 51% of all people working, unemployed, retired or working for governments.  Government employees, who are 14% of this total, consume over 30% of the GDP.  So 1/2 of us have to pay for the other half … BUT WAIT!

Only 1/2 of us who file tax returns pay federal taxes!  If we assume this is evenly distributed among private industry workers, we have 1/4 of the population paying for the largess of government!

I don’t think this ends well.  It can’t. It doesn’t make sense. And when you need a Princeton PhD to explain why it does, I know it doesn’t.

(Cross posted from http://liberty.cooperusa.net/2010/06/16/how-deep-is-the-bottomless-pit-of-government-spending )

Today we take a detailed look at a recent FTC proposal that effectively regulates the news. You can get it here.

Hold onto your copy of the US constitution, which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The FTC, packed with Obama socialists, has just published a Discussion Draft on “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism“.  These proposals seek to regulate the Internet — not just access speeds and bandwidth, but the information itself!

Proposal 1: Control the Utterance of Facts

The FTC deplores the fact that copyright does not protect “facts” in news stories, that other organizations can “free-ride” by repeating the facts gathered by newspapers.

Advocates argue “the copyright act allows parasitic aggregators to ‘free ride’ on others’ substantial journalistic investments,” by protecting only expression and not the underlying facts, which are often gathered at great expense. They define parasitic aggregators as those that, without permission, post enough material to render the original news stories redundant. This free-riding undercuts revenue for those who make investments in journalism and undermines theirincentive to do so, according to advocates. They suggest that federal hot news legislation could help address revenue problems facing newspapers by preventing this free-riding.

So the first point is : why does the FTC think they have to intervene to help one type of competitor in the media?

They go on to discuss what the moratorium period might be under federalized “hot news” rules — rules that would prohibit, it would seem, you from tweeting information published by, say, the White House news team.  While they discuss a “2 hour” ban — what would stop politicians and liberal courts from a 2-month ban?? … making the only facts available from White House trusted sources.

Proposal 2: Limit Search Engine Fair Use of News

To be fair, this argument is balanced, but consider this — that obscure blog that breaks embarrassing news might not be indexed by the search engine, ensuring that popular sites (Time, Newsweek, New York Time and other left-leaning sites) are the only ones with the ”facts”.

Proposal 3: License News

Getting a chill yet. They go on to say:

governments have considered how to provide adequate incentives and funding for the news and ar exploring, for example, the creation of government-fostered pilot programs to investigate new business models for IP  [Intellectual Property] and discourage free-riding.

The notion: If you want to tweet a story, you pay a “micro-payment” back to the originator: the NYT, the White House news machine, etc.

They acknowledge:

A compulsory license places an effective tax on certain conduct.

So yes, the FTC proposes we tax the dissemination of  FACTS, clearly abridging the freedom of speech and the free press.

Proposal 4: Drop Anti-Trust Rule for Newspapers So They Can Collude to Force Consumers to Pay for News

Another chilling concept.  So let me count it up so far (and I am only on page 13 of the 47 page report) … you can’t repeat facts, you can’t search news, and you have to pay to find news facts … all under government licence.  Now, big news can syndicate their news and prevent anyone from uttering the facts they find!!!

Proposal 5: Provide Government Subsidies to Some News Organizations

Yikes! The FTC comments:

Many people, including journalists, recoil at the thought of government assistance to sustain journalism.

(Me too!)  Yet it justifies subsidies with a comment that it has been done and:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has received direct support for over 40 years.

The FTC report waxes on for pages on the glories and success of Public Broadcasting.

“the fundamental purpose of public service media is to provide programs and services that inform, enlighten and enrich the public… CPB invests in programs and services that are educational, innovative, locally relevant and reflect America’s common values and cultural diversity.”

Can you hear the choirs singing the praises to the glories of PBS?  The FTC moans on …

The U.S. government’s support for public broadcasting is very small compared to other democratic countries. For example, “if the United States spent at the same per capita level as Canada, our federal commitment would be $7.5 billion.” Per capita spending by Finland and Denmark is approximately 75 times greater.

So the proposal is to provide subsidies (i.e.  Place more news organizations under government funding = control).

Subsidies

• Fund AmeriCorps Journalism Division. Can anyone say “Socialism youth camp and ministry of information”?
• Direct more funds to Public Broadcasting.
• Directly fund local news.  Now who would hand out the money? Would a non-government supporting blog get funded?
• Provide tax credits for hiring reporters.
• Provide citizens with a voucher to buy non-profit news!  You have to read the entire text to grasp the Orwellian nature of this proposal.

• Establish Citizenship News Vouchers. Citizenship news vouchers would allow every American tax payer to allocate some amount of government funds to the non-profit media organization of their choice. People could indicate on their tax return whether and to which nonprofit organization they want a specific amount (perhaps up to $200) to be donated, but they would not be required to designate a donation. They could split their “federal funds” donation among several different qualifying nonprofit media . Proponents of this approach suggest it would create a funding mechanism to encourage viable independent Internet journalism while avoiding government control or the creation of a bureaucracy that could influence the recipients of the money based on politics. This proposal also could give foundations a role to play. Foundations could provide start-up funding for 3 to 5 years to help new ventures, “and then see if there is popular support for the venture in the form of Citizenship News Vouchers.” If desired, this proposal could be structured to apply to commercial, as well as non-profit, news entities.

• Provide grants to universities to conduct investigative journalism.  Has anyone seen a journalism school in America that is not far left-of-center?
• Provide SBA funds to nonprofit journalism organizations.  Can you spell “ACORN”?
• Point the Voice Of America at America.
• Increase postal subsidies for newspapers.

New Taxes

The FTC paper then rambles into a long discussion of how to tax to pay for “better news”.

1. 7% tax on radio and TV revenues! (Watch your cable bill folks!)
2. 5% tax on TVs and radios!
3. Tax on spectrum auction prices.
4. 2% tax on all advertising!
5. Another federal 3% tax on cell phone bills!

A Better Society for All

The FTC then waxes on about the best organization structure for news so that it serves

social purposes, such as economic redevelopment or environmental protection.

Some news entities may wish to explore hybrid organizational structures that integrate the pursuit of social purposes with business activities. These organizational designs include, among others, “Flexible Purpose” and “Benefit” corporations and low-profit limited liability companies (L3Cs). These hybrid designs may make sense for news entities, because journalism can fit a “social purpose” paradigm – that is, good journalism improves social welfare by educating the public through truthful and insightful reporting.

The report suggests government make Freedom of Information Act data (and most government information) more readily available, indexable and available (to select new organizations) for a reduced-fee.

Summary

In a nutshell, the FTC proposal suggests we:

• Abridge the freedom of speech and the press by restricting the utterance of facts reported in the news.
• Limit the ability of search engines to search news.
• License news so you pay when you repeat a fact.
• Allow news organizations to collude.
• Subsidize some news organizations, and promote non-profit news organizations for good social purposes.
• Provide you with a voucher so you can buy non-profit news.
• Tax TV, radio, TVs, radios, spectrum, advertising and cell phones.

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW.  If any one of these proposals gets into any bill, it is a clear and blatant abridgment of the First Amendment.

Citizens: beware!

News Reaction:

Even the Huffington Post says to the FTC: Get off our lawn!

The LA Times ridicules it in a story: Obama’s FTC plan to reinvent America’s news media.

The Washington Examiner asks: Will journalists wake up in time to save journalism from Obama’s FTC?

Cross posted to http://liberty.cooperusa.net/2010/06/02/ftc-proposes-to-regulate-internet-news

The Federal government (through the quasi-private Federal Reserve Bank) is the only level of our government who can coin money. So profligate spenders at state, county and local levels are going bankrupt , especially under the weight of bloated salaries and pensions for pubic workers.

Mish reports a story of the pending bankruptcy in Miami.

The city of Miami is in such financial dire straits that commissioner Marc Sarnoff is using the “B” word, bankruptcy.

“We are not the only city, municipality to be going through this. It looks like Los Angeles sometime next week or the week after will be going bankrupt. It looks like there will be 30 more cities following suit.”

Increases in public worker salaries is one of the main reasons why the budget is so tight. The average salary for a Miami city employee is $76,000. The average salary for a Miami city resident is $29,000.

Employee pensions are choking the budget too. In 2000, pension payouts cost taxpayers $16 million. In 2009 that number spiked up to $70 million.

Not un-coincidentally, state governements all over are cutting pay, payrolls and crushing pension benefits:

• Education Minnesota Drops Opposition to Curbing Benefits
• The Atlantic reports: Public Pensions Headed for Disaster
• New York City’s pension contribution for 2011 is projected at $7 billion, more than 10% of the entire budget.
• Even the New York Times cries: Padded Pensions Add to New York Fiscal Woes

more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

This widespread and obscene theft of public money is unsustainable and is crashing down all over … as it must.

EXCEPT …. to the rescue is the nanny of all nannies – the bottomless pit of money from the Federal government:  Sen Bob Casey (D-NJ) has proposed bill S.3157 to “save” public pensions .. those pensions that pay public workers 2-4 times the average private individual … with the money from .. you got it .. the poorer private individuals.

I think few in the private sector voted for this “fundamental change” in America — where private individuals are plundered for the benefit of overpaid public workers.  This has to end NOW, or it will crash in an ugly fashion.

(Cross posted to : http://liberty.cooperusa.net/2010/05/28/more-bailouts-from-fed-to-save-governments )

Here you go, from the Fraser Institute in Canada.

• The Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2009. The total tax bill of the average Canadian family, including all types of taxes, has increased by 1,624 percent since 1961.
• Taxes have grown much more rapidly than any other single expenditure for the average Canadian family. In contrast to the jump in taxes, spending on shelter increased by 1,198 percent, food by 559 percent, and clothing by 526 percent from 1961 to 2009.
• In 1961, the average family had an income of $5,000 and paid a total tax bill of $1,675 (33.5 percent). In 2009, the average Canadian family earned an income of $69,175 and paid total taxes equaling $28,878 (41.7 percent).
• The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes than it does on the basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing. In 1961, the average family used 56.5 percent of its income on basic necessities, while only 33.5 percent of the family’s income went to taxes. In 2009, the proportion of income consumed by taxes had increased (to 41.7 percent), while the fraction of income spent on food, shelter, and clothing had dropped dramatically (to 37.1 percent).

Why Canada?  Everyone that I meet in the USA says: “Why can’t we have the economy (motored by oil), the health care (run by governments) and the economic stability (Run by excessive taxation) like they have in your home country of Canada?”

Canada is another one of the ”canaries in the coal mine” about the creeping socialism all over the world.  Greece, Spain, Italy … somewhere down the line is Canada and the USA.

The report continues on …

Including deferred taxes (deficits) means the tax bill of the average Canadian family has increased by 1,793 percent since 1961.

Yikes!  I just don’t get it!  Governments all over have been spending FAR MORE than they can afford, racking up, especially, future pension liabilities for everyone …. then when the economy collapses, we do a bail-out.

Imagine what is going through the mind now of an average frugal German .. who is asked to bail out Greece.  Greeks are living far beyond the means … but will they cuts liabilities? not when Germans will send them cash.

I chatted with a friend last evening who told me that he had a huge sum in municipal bonds. I cautioned him, noting that Central Falls RI went bankrupt this week, and many states SHOULD follow.  His response: “Oh, the Federal government will just bail them out of the bonds get in trouble.”  He said this after a 20 minute rant on the size and invasiveness of government.

We all may be capitalists, but but we like the nanny state.  Until we throw out the bums who would spend and tax us to oblivion, and change this attitude … we are screwed.  But, on the horizon, I expect we will see more Chris Christie’s — honest, straight-talking politicians who aren’t in government to line their own pockets.

Cross post from liberty.

For the last year, all political attention has been focussed on the health care debate. In the end, the bills that were ramrodded through Congress and signed by the president will not reduce government spending by a dime.

In fact, Congressman Paul Ryan’s analysis, CATO analysis, heck… anybody with a brain’s analysis will show you that the true cost of the bills could be as high as $2.5 trillion.

Moreover, the on-budget costs of the legislation probably account for only 40 percent of the total costs. The other 60 percent come from the private-sector mandates. But Democrats have systematically suppressed any estimates of those hidden taxes, probably because such an estimate would reveal the full cost of the legislation to be closer to $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

And, did I mention? We don’t have the money!

Gosh, this weekend, Pravda published “American capitalism gone with a whimper“.  The writer laments America’s fall.

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Sort of insulting to be called a sheeple, but the true hurts!  And then Pravda targets the complicity of the financial institutions.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison.

Yikes!  Our banks are ripping us off? Then this article in Bloomberg this weekend:  ”JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS named in Bid Rigging“.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

The bump in the economy is a false trap.  The government spending is a head fake, and smart money is getting out of bonds, equities and hard assets.  Governments who have to balance their budgets (state and local) are going broke and moving to severe austerity programs.  Unions are on the other side: they are organized and militant.

This is not looking good.  Expect, as Moody’s pointed out, that the eventual cure, will cause social unrest.

Cross posted from LibertyYes Blog

In the hours Sunday leading up to the vote that will go down in infamy, I was engaged in a heated debate with a left leaning acquaintance.  He was so far left that he swallowed the line that not only were insurance companies evil, so were all profit making enterprises.  He was jubilant that the days of government run health care were upon us.

I warned him that the laws of supply and demand are not subject to the laws of man … In simple terms: Welcome to rationing.

His response: “Nobody will be turned down for care.”  My counter argument was to provide some examples from Canada, a story where a person was told to leave the hospital, having arrived with a stopped heart.  He response: “He could have gone to another hospital.”  The answer: “No he could not.”  Once the government has ruled, you lose your choices.

If fact, Canadians with money regularly use the USA for serious and higher quality care, especially politicians:  Canadian Newfoundland premier Danny Williams went to Sarasota Florida in February for heart surgery … a low-risk, low cost procedure “not approved” in Canada.

The sad fact is that government health care has to be rationed, or else costs will spiral out of control.  Thomas Sowell has written extensively on the matter and provides the facts.

Government health care around the world:

• 23% of people wait  4 months or more for elective surgery.  5% in the USA.
• 90% of Ontario, Canada patients wait 336 days for a new hip.  (Breaking news, now down to 182 days). In the USA: 7-14 days.
• Canada has 11.2 CT scanners per million; USA 32.2.
• Canada has 5.5 MRI’s per million; USA 26.6.

Bottom line: You have a better chance of surviving cancer in the USA than in Europe or Canada, according a National Center for Policy Analysis study last year.

Yes, government cannot do better then private enterprise … and we now risk destroying the best health care in the world.

(Cross posted to LibertyYes blog)

Ok, we have the BHO-care as law! Sigh!

I read the following from a ChangeWave email today:

Take Our Medicine, Please

Back in 2008, before the U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama promised to “spread the wealth” if he was elected president. Well, with today’s signing of the massive healthcare overhaul legislation, the country is about to see this happen.

While many of the changes to U.S. healthcare can be characterized as “middle of the road,” as President Obama described, there are obviously areas where the government is extending its reach too far — just as the vocal opposition has articulated consistently during the past year’s debate.

I haven’t had an opportunity to read the few thousand pages of the healthcare bill (why should I be any different than our elected officials?), but it’s certain that many details have yet to be sorted out. However, it’s also clear that cost-cutting and operational efficiencies will be the mantra in the industry and those companies that are best equipped to deliver products, services and technologies at economical price points will be the biggest winners.

Yep. We have officially joined the Socialist Alliance! What is that? If you don’t know, you are not “with the program”.

Cross posted at LibertyYes

I just added my vote to a MSNBC Poll. In case you had to be reminded, MSNBC is the voice of the Far Left.

Anyway, the results are showing a remarkably strong disdain for being told that Washington Knows Best.

Wow! The Angry’s outweighed the Exciteds by 2.5 to 1!

Consistent with the thesis that Obama and crew just don’t care about the mood of the public, this is a another factoid that will certainly spell doom for the Dems in November.

Cross posted to LibertyYes Blog