This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Bankrupt who?

    All around the blogs today, I’ve been reading about this interview that Obama gave the San Francisco Chronicle back in January in which he lays out his plan for bankrupting the coal-burning energy plants by taxing the shit out of them. Here’s the audio;

    Here’s the quote from Hot Air;

    So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

    Of course, we know business don’t go bankrupt all by themselves…they take a boatload of consumers with them. Tax a legitimate business and they pass the costs on to consumers. When coal-produced electricity goes up, the co-generated electricity prices go up, too. Since we know we can’t get a nuclear plant built with Democrats as gatekeepers, the consumers will bear the burden of this ill-conceived plan. All consumer goods costs will rise, the economy stalls like it never has stalled before. And it becomes a national security issue.

    Here are the top coal-producing States;

    Notice Pennsylvania and Virginia, two States that both Obama and McCain need to win. Another State they need, Ohio, isn’t far behind those on the list.

    Over at DPUD’s house, It’s Vintage Duh! says the Obama campaign is telling us we’re too stupid to hear what we heard;

    The Obama campaign says that Palin took Obama’s position out of context because in the interview Obama said that “this notion of no coal, I think is an illusion.” Obama and McCain have both pushed for technology to develop cleaner burning coal. “What we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon,” Obama told the Chronicle in the interview.

    But you see, I’ve heard all of this before. Back when I talked with some MoveOn types at a rally at the Capitol a few months back, they spouted the same crap in regards to gasoline prices. They want to price everything out of reach of the poorest consumers so that the economy crashes and they can present themselves as the solution – like they’ve successfully done in regards to oil price problems last Summer and the mortgage problems this Fall. Even though they were the cause of the problems in the first place, with their willing accomplices, the intellectual zombies in the media, they’ve convinced the countless millions that they’re the solution.

    Rupert Murdoch said today that China and India will reshape the world – is it any wonder when our leading candidate for the presidency is a Luddite? China and India have growing economies and they don’t act like their major employers and the folks that drive their economies are some kind of criminals.

  • McCain vs. Obama on tax cuts

    The Wall Street Journal reports tonight that the presidential candidates dualed over tax cuts at their respective rallies today;

    “At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” the Republican presidential nominee said in a radio address. “Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut. It’s just another government giveaway.”

    At an afternoon McCain rally in Woodbridge, Va., a woman yelled out about Obama, “He’s a socialist!”

    From St. Louis, Sen. Obama replied that both candidates want to cut taxes. But he said he would cut taxes for working Americans where Sen. McCain would favor corporations and wealthy taxpayers.

    “John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people ‘welfare,’” he said.

    Earlier this week, I wrote about an exchange on Fox News between Sheppard Smith and Obama’s economic advisor;

    When Smith called Goulsby on the “tax cut for 95% of Americans” lie and mentioned that 45% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, Goulsby got defensive and spit out that all working Americans pay payroll taxes (the latest camoflage word for Social Security taxes).

    Smith called it a “redistribution of wealth” and Goulsby got defensive again. The rebate wasn’t coming from other tax payers, it was a refund of payroll taxes.

    So Smith asked Goulsby if Obama was going to cut payroll taxes and Goulsby answered that a cut in social security taxes would adversely affect the “Social Security Trust Fund” (whatever that is), but that Obama would refund ($500?) to low income workers. So that if their tax balance on April 15th is $0, they’d get a ($500?) check from the IRS, which is supposedly a rebate on their Social Security taxes.

    So, it’s not a tax cut, by any standard…it’s giving one group of citizens money that another group of citizens earned. Redistribution of wealth. Confederate Yankee writes that some of what Obama counts as his tax cut is just not ending some of the Bush tax cuts. Henry Louis Gonzalez at Babalu Blog writes;

    Obama says he’s only going to raise taxes on people who make $250,000 or more. But he also says he’ll roll back the Bush tax cuts on the top 5 percent. Notice that to be in the top 5% you need an Adjusted Gross Income of $153,542. Now a taxpayer that has an AGI of $150k is doing quite well, but is this person rich? Well that depends. That money goes a lot further in Wyoming than Manhattan.

    Obama claims that McCain has redefined tax cuts…but if the definition of tax cuts has changed it’s coming from the Obama camp. A tax cut is keeping more of your own money, not getting someone else’s money.

    Obama wants to spend another $185 billion on road projects and extending unemployment benefits instead of giving tax cuts to the people who’ll ultimately create jobs. His bottom-up strategy for the economy is what extended the Depression.

    When Franklin Roosevelt became president, unemployment was 25%, on Sept. 1, 1939, the day World War II began, unemployment was at 19%. Six years of the National Recovery Act barely put a dent in unemployment. And that’s what those same tired Democrat policies will do in this century.

  • Senator Government vs. Joe the Plumber

    Last night’s debate couldn’t have highlighted the differences between the two candidates more and it was best illustrated by John McCain’s freudian slip when he called Barack Obama “Senator Government” and the most talked about American in the debate, the fellow dubbed Joe the Plumber.

    Anyone listening closely would have heard Barack Obama pushing government programs from education to tax “cuts” as the solution to all of our problems…in other words, Senator Government saw himself as the answer to all of our problems. John McCain, on the other hand, told us that we were solution to our problems, that he saw his job as keeping government out of our way – the same thing that Joe the Plumber saw the solution to his problems.

    Obama finally stopped talking about McCain’s “special interest friends” and started admitting to having a few special interests of his own…teachers unions, community organizers and unrepentent terrorists. He stuck to the same tired explanations that have served him over the last 20 months…and since he’s the affirmative action candidate, that was good enough for many Americans. Since he played the Santa Claus to John McCain’s grumpy grandfather, he came out looking like a champ. Never mind that he relied on the same old tired broken and failed social programs of the last forty years…everyone heard how they were going to win the lottery of life when Obama ascended to his throne.

    John McCain, ever the straight talker, didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. Unfortunately, he didn’t bother to tell America that there are no tax cuts for the real middle class coming from Obama, that health insurance premiums will sky-rocket under Obama’s plan, that Obama’s pandering to unions won’t save our education system. Obama called every factual disagreement with his proposals an “attack” and McCain shrank from his responsibility to point that out.

    McCain failed to point out that Obama was partially responsible for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac problems because he wouldn’t act against his own special interest friends and rein them in even though McCain had several opportunities to do so. And that was his last chance.

    That leaves it up to us. As Ace of Spades wrote last night “If McCain Won’t Do It, We Will“.

  • How’s that reaching out working, John?

    The other day, characteristically John McCain pleaded with supporters to not be afraid of Barack Obama (video at LGF) . Attendees booed him.  Bloggers booed. So how did that bit of reaching across the aisle work for McCain ? Well the WSJ’s Washington Wire reports that it got him called a reincarnation of Democrat segregationist governor and presidential candidate George Wallace by John Lewis;

    Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, compared Republican presidential nominee John McCain to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a legendary segregationist. Lewis (D, Ga.) said that McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, are “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.”

    […]

    “What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” he wrote.

    He went on to compare the Republican candidates to Wallace, who ran unsuccessfully for president.

    “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama,” Lewis wrote. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”

    So John McCain responds with more feel-good, happy talk;

    “Congressman John Lewis’ comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale,” he said in a written statement. “I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.”

    The Obama campaign responds as one might expect them to respond;

    “Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies,” Burton said. “But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night.”

    I guess that the democrats don’t see that they’re ones fueling the “hateful rhetoric”, calling us racists,  describing us as hicks and gun-clinging whackos. I hope they trot out some more race pimps like Lewis – it’ll only galvanize the folks that make this country work against Obama in these finals weeks.

    Michelle Malkin says; Look who’s gripped by insane rage.

  • Sal in Harlem

    Now I’m no Howard Stern fan, but this audio of his show last week is pretty funny…or scary. One of Stern’s minions went into Harlem and asked voters about the reasons they’re voting for their candidate. You decide if it’s funny or scary.

    Language warning, as if you needed it knowing it’s Stern.

    (more…)

  • What else are they hiding?

    IAVA’s Paul Rieckhoff emailed us and apologized for slighting TAH on his response to the charges TSO levied on them on this board. I won’t revisit that but I will amend my statement that Rieckhoff is just like Solz…he has a bit more class than Jon Solz. I’ve added his response below the jump, but first I have unfinished business;

    I mentioned in the previous post, I’d taken some screen caps of some of IAVA’s cached pages…ya know, just in case. TSO and I thought it was little bit weird that all of the links to IAVA were down last night at the same time we were having trouble with our own site. So here’s two of the screen captures I took last night from their staff page; the first mentioning Phillip Carter, but the second capture is what changed over night;

    In his email to Blackfive, Rieckhoff wrote “And as for Phil Carter, it is no secret that he is an IAVA member. We have tens of thousands of members—and Phil is one of them. And we have clarified Phil’s role at IAVA on this page just so there is no confusion.” At the time he wrote that, the page he linked to looked like the photo above. But then their website went blank after his email to B5.

    This morning, the same webpage looks like this;


    Notice the italicized disclaimer that’s been added. Did someone step in something?

    There has also been rumors bouncing around that IAVA is going to start an intimidation campaign. I can’t be intimidated – if you want to know where I live, email me and I’ll tell you. If you don’t want to be called deceitful, don’t be deceitful.

    I have an absolute hatred for my “comrades” who’ll climb the bodies of the fallen for their own selfish political gain – and that’s what that scorecard was. Political hackery bought and paid for by “our own” for themselves.

    There’s more than enough proof of everything TSO wrote and I won’t be intimidated into silence by any-Goddamn-body. You fucksticks think you can be the next John Kerry – not as long as I draw a breath.

    Per Rieckhoff ‘s request, here’s his full, unedited response in full below the jump;

    (more…)

  • Shelby: We’re becoming the French

    The Wall Street Journal reports that the FBI is probing the four companies at the heart of the recent financial failures;

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s preliminary inquiries are focusing on whether fraud helped cause some of the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., according to senior law-enforcement officials.

    Lehman and AIG declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie and has both companies in conservatorship, also declined to comment.

    The probes come as the huge potential tab for taxpayers in the crisis raises the stakes for the Justice Department. The FBI says it now has 26 companies under investigation, in addition to pursuing more than 1,400 mortgage-fraud cases nationwide.

    While the Executive Branch flails about trying to find answers in this political, they lose another of their allies, Alabama’s RIchard Shelby, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee (WSJ link);

    As a Republican, Mr. Shelby would normally be the one to defend a Republican president’s policies. Instead, he’s the leader of a mounting chorus of conservatives who think President George W. Bush has sold out conservative principles.

    “I think we’re going down the road of France now,” Mr. Shelby told one television interviewer Tuesday, before quickly adding, “in all due respect for my French friends.”

    Michelle Malkin cheers “Go, Shelby, go!”

    As I’ve told others, this bailout will set precedents that will effect us long after the short term results are achieved. Government intrusions (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) always turn out badly sooner or later.

    Warren Buffet proves that there is indeed a private solution without the government by pumping $5 billion into Goldman Sachs (Washington Post link);

    The investment by Buffett represents a major vote of confidence in the battered financial system from one of the country’s most respected investors.

    Buffett has long touted the value of investing in well-known brand names such as Coca-Cola and Kraft because they can charge premium prices for their products and services. Goldman Sachs is no exception.

    I guess Shelby’s point that we’re becoming like France goes to the issue of the government owning stakes in the affected companies. The government can barely get my mail to me on time, I surely don’t want them owning parts of private companies. Offering free taxpayer money to  Fred and Fannie certainly didn’t help them when they were over-extended. The proof that the Feds won’t do what’s best for the country is the fact that Paulson added provisions to include private loans and credit cards in the bailout over the weekend according to the Washington TImes;

    Mr. Paulson was flummoxed after senators expressed outrage that he quietly expanded the bailout program last weekend, citing a Washington Times article on his plans to purchase student loans, credit cards, auto loans and other “troubled” bank assets besides mortgages. Mr. Paulson defended his assumption of broad powers to address the crisis.

    It’s like Christmas, I suppose. When you talk about $700 billion, I guess a few thousand in credit card debt doesn’t seem like much to add. Congress wants to limit CEO salaries of the companies affected, and altough I agree with the principle, the long-ranging effects scare me. The whole thing is becoming a steaming pile and the market needs to work itself out while the Feds stop polticizing the whole thing. There are a lot of things the government shouldn’t do and this one of them.

    Marooned in Marin has a video up (that went around the net yesterday while I was goofing off) from Jim Angle and Fox News explaining the Freddie and Fannie failures;

    [youtube AHj8-HSi5AA nolink]

    Notice how it’s easier to pass off bad debt when government money is behind it and we’re going to throw more federal money into the mess. It doesn’t make much sense to a little guy like me.

  • The politics of “Change” change back

    After telling us for 19 months that he’s for changing national politics, Obama has decided you’ll let him get away with the old politics of fear that have worked so well for Democrats in past elections. In Florida yesterday, he told seniors that Republicans were plotting to get their social security money according to Wall Street Journal‘s Washington Wire;

    “If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week,” Obama told 2,500 supporters at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla. He also told voters that half of elderly women would be living in poverty without Social Security. The Democratic nominee said that McCain would gamble with their life savings. “Millions would’ve watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would’ve been scrambling,” he said.

    Not really. Not even close. Under President Bush’s proposal, current Social Security recipients would have been able to opt out of the new plan…and the new program would have only invested a miniscule portion of Social Security accounts in the stock market. Besides, I’m sure Obama wouldn’t want you to know that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 40% in the last five years as of Friday while your social security money earned about 12% over the same time period.

    Every time the stock market takes a hit, the Democrats drag out this fantasy…but I noticed no one mentioned the 30% rise in stock indexes in 2003 or the 19% in 2005. But those “Change” signs have just become background decorations rather than anything substantial in recent months. The Democrats are just going back the same old vacant strategies of the Clintons, Gores and Kerrys.But the McCain campaign didn’t let the vacuous charges go unanswered;

    The McCain campaign said that Obama’s attacks were “desperate” and unfairly scared voters. “This is a desperate attempt to gain political advantage using scare tactics and deceit,” said Tucker Bounds, a campaign spokesman. He also pointed to Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope,” where the Democratic nominee said that a parallel pension system was needed to complement Social Security.

    What’s next for the Obama campaign? Threatening that Black churches will burn if McCain is elected?