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

Category: Economy

  • End the war; raise the taxes

    A bridge collapses in Minnesota and everyone automatically assumes the only answer is to raise Federal taxes. Well, except Barney Frank – he has a two-point plan. End the war in Iraq (he’s careful to say Iraq specifically, otherwise someone might think he’s a crackpot who wants to end the war against Pakistan) and raise taxes.

    LibertyPost records some of the mooniest/battiest internet posts from the Democrat Underground while Bob Parks, of Black and Right, ventures into the Daily Kos. 

    Can someone tell me why a taxpayer in Arizona should pay money out of his earnings so someone in Minnesota doesn’t have to drive around a body of water? Why should we abandon our worldwide struggle for national security to repair potholes in South Dakota?

    Well, of course, the real answer is that any straw the Democrats can grasp they use. They blamed the Republicans for two hurricanes, I guess they blame them for bridge collapses, too. Just so long as the people who vote remember that Federal government isn’t the answer to every-fricken-question-ever-asked.

    I remember in 1992, the Democrats blamed the President’s father for Hurricane Andrew and when he expanded the capabilities of FEMA (which was little more than a phone bank), the Democrats accused him of “growing government” in the election.

    Any group of people who thought that Al Gore and John Kerry were the best choices for the last two presidential races certainly don’t have the answer to two difficult questions – especially if the only answer they can come up with is “end the war and raise taxes”. A two-year-old could have think that one up.

  • Stop me before I buy Chinese

    The populist Senate Banking Committee moved to punish the Chinese for manipulating their capital without real evidence that they’re doing it. The Wall Street Journal’s John McCary writes;

    Efforts to sanction China over trade policies seen hurting the U.S. gained steam on Capitol Hill as a second congressional panel approved legislation aimed at pressuring Beijing to revalue its currency.

    The Senate Banking Committee, in a 17-4 vote, moved to tighten the government’s definition of currency manipulation and close an exemption that has allowed the Bush administration to avoid taking that step against China because of an apparent lack of intent. The action follows Senate Finance Committee approval of a bill to address the same problem, but with a different solution: allowing companies claiming to be hurt by currency manipulation to seek antidumping penalties on imports from the offending nation.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid. This will only trigger a legislative war worldwide. And it’s only to buy votes. Americans seem concerned about China’s economic growth (12 1/2% last quarter) yet we still buy all the cheap little plastic crap they dump in our stores.

    It’s just like those stupid Japanese cars that have flooded our highways. Everyone is worried about our “trade deficit” yet the same boneheads who complain about it are buying some over-priced version of a shitbox Toyota or Honda. Yeah, I know, the saleman told you that it was made in the United States with American craftsmanship. But if that’s true, why is it every time I lay on the beach in Miami I see these ships with TOYOTA on the side pulling up with another load of shitboxes? Don’t you feel like a tool?

    And of course we can all count on Chuck Schumer to act like a two-year-old;

    One senator said it was incorrect to raise the threat of retaliation by China as a reason to oppose the legislation.

    “If we manipulated our currency, then China should go after us. But we don’t,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

    Detroit wants Congress to put tariffs on imported cars, Congress wants to manipulate China’s currency, the FDA wants to advise China on food safety. We don’t need government to do these things – we have control over our spending, our wallets, our lives don’t we? Then why do ya’all buy that crap?

    See, the problem isn’t that the government won’t regulate trade, the problem is that Americans have allowed salesmen to tell them what they should buy. I remember my grandfather and my father wouldn’t buy anything that said “Made in Japan” on it (fifteen years after Pearl Harbor). Neither will I. It’s that simple.

    Congress is only doing this for votes. People who don’t want to think about what they buy, people who don’t understand how protectionism triggered the Depression and our involvement in World War II are just happy to see Congress do something – anything that might help tomorrow, but will desvastate us next month. Does Congress care? Nope. The Democrats and Republicans both can blame the president for our economic woes in the next election.

  • DC Schools should make everyone mad

    Well, here we are weeks from another school year beginning, and the Washington Post reports that, just like this time every year, DC schools – which get about 20% of their funding from federal revenues; re:your tax receipts – aren’t ready to teach students;

    One month before school starts, District officials said yesterday that half of D.C. public schools do not have all their required textbooks and half of the school buildings will not have any air conditioning on the first day of school — conditions as traditional in the city as back-to-school shopping for a new box of crayons.

    Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said an investigation found that some schools received incorrect book shipments and others have not received any books.

    An investigation? You need an investigation to know you received the wrong (or no) textbooks? I’ll bet you needed some rocket scientist to investigate, too.

    At a news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) promised that this would be the last year of such textbook debacles and said the city is updating school heating and air-conditioning systems.

    Different mayor, same old story. Fenty took control of the DC school system last Spring promising this stuff would come to an end. Yet, here we are.

    During the meeting with reporters, beads of sweat formed on Fenty’s head and dripped onto his suit jacket as he stood in a Head Start classroom at Davis Elementary School in Southeast Washington. The room, where a wad of bright pink bubble gum decorated a ceiling covered by peeling paint, was one of five classrooms with air conditioning out of 40 in the 64-year-old building, Principal Joyce Thompson said.

    So what has the school district been doing all summer?

    The District spends about $12,000 per student (about 1/4 is from federal spending). Hell, for that much money, they should just forego educating kids and just start paying them $5.77/hour to sit at home and watch TV ($12,000 works out to $5.77/hour for 52 weeks and a 40 hour work week).

    Since truancy is a big problem in DC schools (25% of students are absent without an excuse 20 days or more a year) you might as well just pay them to stay home. Apparently, the schools don’t care about the students, the parents don’t care, the city doesn’t care. Maybe it’s time for the American taxpayer to demand accountability from the District since it’s us throwing our money down a black hole that turns out illiterate pinheads at $144,000 a pop.

    We’d better do something quick, the Washington Examiner says that $200 million bucks isn’t enough to rebuild the school system’s infrastructure, according to Fenty – that’s another $3100/student.

    David Lipscomb at the Washington Times reports that things are worse than in a third world country;

    The problem was discovered last week and probably will not be fixed before the start of school on Aug. 27, said Miss Rhee, adding that the extent of the mistakes will be known within a week.

    Getting textbooks on time has historically been a problem in the District, one which Miss Rhee’s predecessor, Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, tried to prevent by installing a $3 million automated validation system.

    Additionally, Miss Rhee has issued a hiring freeze in the school system’s central office while the office is “streamlined.” Miss Rhee cited the need to outline job responsibilities after several employees could not tell her their job descriptions.

    “The vast majority of answers I got was ‘I do whatever Mr. So-and-so tells me to do,’ ” Miss Rhee said. “There’s not a clear sense of the individual personal responsibilities for ensuring specific outcomes.”

    $3 million for a tracking system that doesn’t track – school district employees that don’t know their job’s description. Yeah, I know alot of you just shrigged and said to yourselves, “Well, that’s government.” It’s time we stopped shrugging and making excuses and started storming the schools.

    The problems of this country stem from our poor and degraded schools – and the administrators who syphon every penny for more administration instead of spending money on education. I’ll bet you cash money that Clifford Janey wouldn’t spend three million bucks to organize his own home – yet, instead of making people do their jobs, he bought a machine and a system that’s apparently as useless as the people he hired.

    That’s the problem – Americans used to resist technology as a solution to every problem. Now we’re just too lazy to resist – and we blame technology for our own sloth and incompetence. Maybe if we made people earn their damn salaries instead of letting them making lame excuses about damned technology.

  • Latin immigrants to boycott illegal activity

    The “immigrants” in Prince William County, VA, in probably one of the strangest boycotts in history, are planning on ceasing illegal activity there for a week to teach the legal residents of the county a lesson, according to the Washington Examiner’s Dan Gentz;

    The Hispanic immigrant population in Prince William County is considering a major business boycott to protest a new county resolution aimed at making it easier to deport illegal immigrants and banning them from receiving some government services.

    The four-week boycott on purchases from nonimmigrant merchants would be the centerpiece of a broader, coordinated response to the resolution that may also include a one-day work stoppage.

    Details still have to be worked out and will be announced Tuesday, said Ricardo Juarez, a coordinator with Mexicanos Sin Fronteras. The boycott may be set for Aug. 27 through Sept. 23.

    Um, how does one become “Mexicans Without Borders” without a border? Mexico is a country that has borders, dumbass. So a Mexican would have to come from that political entity called Mexico that is clearly delineated with borders. Mexico is not a race.

    Reminds me of a line from a really bad movie I saw once “Yeah, I’ve been to Brazil, Honduras, Argentina – all of those Mexican countries”.

    But, to the boycott; I don’t understand that either. Ya gotta eat, so all of the boycotters will stock up the week before the boycott, and then restock after the boycott – so what’s the point? Or is there a point?

    Pamela Constable of the Washington Post reports on the disorganized organization attempts to organize;

    Latinos in Prince William County, angered and panicked by a county resolution to crack down on illegal immigrants, are swiftly banding together against what they see as an assault on their community. They vowed this week to block the resolution through a boycott, a petition drive and possibly a labor strike or lawsuit.

    At packed public meetings in three towns this week, organizers signed up volunteers, circulated petitions, set up a hotline for reports of discrimination and announced a campaign of phone calls and e-mails to county officials. They also said they would organize caravans to visit Loudoun County and other communities where Latinos feel targeted.

    So let me get this straight; these lawbreakers are going to teach the residents of Loudon and Prince William County a lesson by ceasing their illegal activity for a week? Of course, we need the debate about illegal aliens muddied by confusing legal aliens with those here illegally;

    Jose Orellana, a 24-year-old El Salvadoran who moved to Manassas Park four years ago with a permit to work, said he turned out Thursday night because of concerns about the county’s resolution.

    “It doesn’t make sense. Everybody came into this country to work and everybody pays taxes,” Orellana said.

    Um, Jose, you have a work permit – you’re here legally. You don’t have a dog in this fight. You’re defending people who didn’t bother to get the right paperwork – people we can’t keep track of. How are they paying taxes, Jose? Sales tax? Possibly. Income tax? Not likely.

    But many legal Latino residents at the three meetings said they feared the resolution would also make them targets of police harassment and official hostility. They said they believed its true aim is to make life difficult for Latinos.

    “We are all worried about these new laws,” said Marta Manzanares, 25, a legal resident from El Salvador who attended the Woodbridge meeting with her husband, a construction worker; their two small sons; and about 500 other Latinos. “Maybe our children will have to leave school and become illiterate. . . . We came out here to buy a house and have a quiet life. Maybe now we can lose that, too.”

    Come on, Marta. When has anything like that happened to legal and law abiding residents in this country? That’s just hyperbole and you know it. In fact, both the Post and Examiner stories just call the group “latins”. Loudon and Prince William County are trying to stop crime – if you’re a legal resident you have nothing to fear. When I travel in Latin America, I always carry my passport and visas and travel papers – what’s the big deal about you carrying yours?

    My wife always has her Resident Alien card in her purse and she certainly doesn’t fear being deported. Nor my step-daughter, nor her daughter. This is all bluster to confuse the discussion as a race issue when it’s a legal issue. We deport all kinds of people we catch here illegally. And Hillary Clinton panders to them, too.

    From the Post story;

    “We are like a sleeping elephant,” said Elmer Arias, president of the D.C.-based Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce. “We who are citizens have good jobs and become comfortable. We forget that we have benefited from the community and that we have the obligation to help our people.”

    Elmer, you also have an obligation to contribute to the security of the nation that has created the environment in which you can prosper and be comfortable. I’ll have pity for you when you put the national security of the United States before petty things like language and race.

  • Edwards would double capital gains tax

    This just shows how little John Edwards learned about poverty when he was pulling down half-a-mil-a-year at a hedge fund. He claims that by raising the capital gains tax from 15% to 28%, he’ll be able to afford to give tax breaks to middle and lower-class taxpayers. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he would raise the capital gains tax rate to 28% from 15% and boost income taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year in order to finance tax cuts and other benefits for middle- and lower-income families.

    The tax proposal lays down a big marker in the 2008 campaign tax debate and is likely to spur Mr. Edwards’s main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, to detail their tax prescriptions in the coming months.

    So far, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have said only that they favor rolling back at least a portion of the Bush tax cuts that favor upper-income families, though Mr. Obama’s aides have said he’s considering raising the capital gains rate to 20%.

    Has Edwards been awake the last few years? Corporations have injected billions of dollars back into the economy by paying investors with the cash they had in reserve (Investors – that means you and me cuz we all have 401ks and IRAs in the stock market). Microsoft alone had $33 million just sitting around until President Bush made it cheaper for investors to take dividends on their stock holdings.

    To illustrate how out of touch Edwards is with reality, he continued;

    In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Edwards said Bush administration’s tax policies rewarded wealth over work, and he pledged to rewrite the tax code to benefit Main Street over Wall Street. “The great engine of growth in America isn’t the special interests or the money managers; it is the teachers and factory workers and engineers who quietly contribute every day,” he said.

    Um, dumbass, it’s the teachers, factory workers and engineers who are all invested in 401ks and 403bs and get capital gains in their investments - tax deferred distributions. All you’re doing is making companies not want to pay investors dividends to avoid the double taxation. It’s all feel good catch phrases to placate the ignorant.

    Raising capital gains tax would also impact retirees who plan on selling their houses when they retire, or anyone else selling their house. It punishes people who invest any money in any investment vehicle – you know the folks whose money drives our economy and people who plan rather than blindly spend. 

    Tax revenues are are at an all time high – even adjusted for inflation – so why would anyone want to raise taxes on anyone? There are indeed two Americas – one that wants this country to grow and get stronger, and one that wants a hand out. Edwards belongs in the latter having never had a real job in his life, having lived off the sweat of the productive. And he wants the rest of America to follow his example.

    Oh, and by the way, Edwards, making one group of people anticipate a windfall of tax deductions based on the increase of taxes on another group of people is called class warfare – it’s dividing America.

    How about, for a change, you advocate spending cuts instead tax increases – but “I’m going to take your six children off of SSI payments because their poor performance in school is their own fault not the American taxpayers’ fault” won’t fit on a bumpersticker.

  • Big government for tiny brains

    It was just eleven years ago Bil Clinton declared that “the era of big government has ended” after he got stomped in 1994 elections largely due to his failed attempt at a national Healthcare Plan. Now the Democrats in Congress are bringing back that era in an effort to gain political headway. According to the Washington Post;

    “We’re sitting on the doorstep of a definitional moment,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He said legislation on health care, the minimum wage, homeland security and congressional ethics would respond to virtually all the pressure points of an anxious public.

    Republican leaders plan to stand in the way, arguing that Democrats are reviving big government programs that will intrude into the free market and taxpayers’ wallets. They argue that a homeland security mandate that all maritime cargo be screened within five years will chill international trade. And the children’s health insurance expansion amounts to “a giant tax increase in an effort to expand government-run health care,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

    We’ve been through all of this before. Of course, the first thing I think when I hear that healthcare for children will be expanded is “Great!” But, then the right side of my brain asks “who’s going to pay for it?” and “what has government ever done right for anyone?” and I snap back to reality. And the reality is this; Healthcare is already expensive because of government give-aways and boondoggle programs that funnel money to corrupt healthcare agencies and insurance companies.

    I remember, about 5 years before Medicare and Medicaid existed, my two brothers and I were all sick. My mother called the doctor down the street (back when doctors actually lived among us common folk) at about 8 in the morning, an hour-or-so later, he dropped by the house, looked us all over, gave my mother some medicine for us and she paid him $5. You can’t even buy a bottle of asprin for $5 these days.

    One of the big reasons I stayed in the Army was so my kids would have health care – I figured it was part of my responsibility as a parent to make sure my kids were healthy. How stupid of me to think ahead, huh? Granted it probably wasn’t the best care, but it was as good as any HMO, if not better.

    I lived next door to a minister in a rural church a few years back. In his backyard he had a trampoline for his teenage kids to play on. One day when they were all at work or school, some of the neighbors kids decided to avail themselves of the opportunity to play on the unguarded trampoline. of course, one of the youngsters broke his arm. The minister found out about it a week later when he was served lawsuit papers from the child’s parents. The parents apologized, but admitted that they hadn’t taken advantage of the health insurance offered through the father’s work and needed to pay the child’s medical bills. So the minister’s homeowner insurance ended up paying the child’s bills. How many things in that story should be compensated for by the government – the tax payers? Too many bad choices involved, none of them compensable.

    Since when is it the responsibility of people who waited until they could afford kids to fund the poor choices of the impetuous and small-minded goofballs that start spitting out babies as soon as they reach puberty? I’ll grant you that it’s not the children’s fault, but it’s certainly not the fault of society’s real adults either. And it’s certainly not the responsibility of government.

    If government wants to start mandating healthcare, how about mandating that people have insurance for their kids from the moment of conception. But I guess government can’t legislate common sense, especially since government is bereft of common sense itself.

    But then the campaign slogan “Hey stupid! Insure your kids’ health” doesn’t get you votes, does it?

  • Associated Press and the minimum wage

    I just love it when the media celebrates completely useless feel-good legislation – like the minimum wage. The Associated Press is positively giddy about the $.70/hour increase scheduled for September, especially since it’s the only piece of legislation that the 2007 Reid/Pelosi Congressional session has been able to get signed into law;

    The nation’s lowest-paid workers will soon find extra money in their pockets as the minimum wage rises 70 cents to $5.85 an hour today, the first increase in a decade.

    It ends the longest span without a federal minimum-wage increase since the pay floor was enacted in 1938. The last increase came in September 1997, when then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill raising the minimum wage 40 cents to $5.15 an hour.

    Legislation signed by President George W. Bush in May increases the wage 70 cents each summer until 2009, when all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour.

    Government figures show about 1.7 million people earned $5.15 or less in 2006.

    So who are those 1.7 million low-income workers scheduled to be rolling in dough in a few weeks? Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006, the number is actually 1.692 million out of the total workforce of 76.517 million workers – 2.2% of the workforce earn minimum wage or less. 1.2 million of that 1.6 number (3/4) earn less than minimum wage now – so how’s a minimum wage increase going to help them?

    866,000 of them (over half) are between 16 and 24 years old – high school and college kids. 1.24 million of the total work in service related industries, the largest occupational group of minimum wage workers, out of that number, 880,000 are in food service and preparation (um, MacDonald’s), 24,000 are security guards, 52,000 are janitors. Only 340,000 work 40+ hours every week (less than 1 in 5 minimum wage earners) at the job for which they’re paid minimum wage.

    477,000 have less than a high school diploma, 127,000 have college degrees (how many of those are grad students I wonder). 8,000 have master’s degrees, but there are no Phds making minimum wage – some kind of correlation there?

    Not quite the picture of sustained poverty that AP would like us to think, is it? And that extra $28 bucks is going to do a world of good for them, huh? In ten weeks they’ll finally be able to afford that PSP they’ve wanted for playing video games in class.

  • Obama choses image over substance

    I love it when my posts become reality. Yesterday I wrote two – one about La Raza and the other about image vs. substance. While I was writing, Barack Obama was writing my post for today, according to Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times;

    Sen. Barack Obama told the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group yesterday that he earned their support for his presidential campaign by marching in last year’s May 1 immigrant rallies and challenged them to learn whether others met that standard.

    “Find out how many senators appeared before an immigration rally last year. Who was talking the talk, and who walked the walk — because I walked,” Mr. Obama said at the National Council of La Raza’s annual convention in Miami Beach. “I didn’t run away from the issue, and I didn’t just talk about it in front of Latino audiences.”

    The Illinois Democrat said the recent Senate immigration debate “was both ugly and racist in a way we haven’t see since the struggle for civil rights.”

    Racist in what way, Barack? In a way that we don’t encourage people to break the law? When people who want to live in this country and make a better life for their families here, stand in large groups and wave the flag of another country – the country from which they escaped? The country that repressed them in the first place and made them want to come here? In that way?

    And since when does marching with a group of people give you some sort of credibility? Again, Democrats depend on imagery – no substance. Marching in a large group of people doesn’t get you anything except photo ops. In fact, it’s comical that Obama thinks that he has more credibility with latins than his opponents who didn’t walk. I guess we know why he marched with them in the first place, don’t we.

    I don’t suppose Obama noticed that denouncing racism to a group that calls themselves The Race is pretty hypocritical.

    Almost as bad as Clinton II blaming the poor Bush economy for the venom in the immigration debate;

    In remarks during a morning brunch, Mrs. Clinton said she has been trying “to understand where all of the venom and the incredible anxiety came from” in the immigration debate.

    “I am very disappointed, and I was really quite offended by the tone of the debate and some of what was said by outside parties who were trying to influence the debate,” she said.

    She blamed the tone on what she called a poor economy under President Bush.

    “Until recently, I did not hear the kind of insecurity and opposition to bringing immigrants into American society as I hear today,” she said, adding that when her husband was in office, “people were too busy getting a better future for themselves.” 

    You know, the economy that’s been growing at a faster rate than in the 1990s, the economy that has seen the lowest sustained unemployment rate ever in our history of keeping those statistics – as Larry Kudlow calls it “the greatest story never told”. More image over substance.