JUSTAPHOTO, O ON THE RAMP

Posted on August 21, 2011 | 2 comments

 

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Posted in Just photos

IL VOLO DOES POP

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 4 comments

Never mind Dolly Parton’s Italien cousine.  Just listen to the music.

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Posted in Audio/Visual

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OBAMA’S APPROVAL RATING JUMPS TO 62%

Posted on August 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

In a White House poll taken of 57 golfers, one from each state, the President was given a 62% approval rating.  It was a big jump from the 49% he got in the prior month when the poll was taken right after he six putted one of several 3 par holes on the government course.

“Barry’s swing is much improved” said Joe, “I think it’s because he’s spending much more time on the links since he retired.  That’s why I voted Yes.”

“He hasn’t retired yet, Joe.  Barry is still holding on to his big government job.  Where have you been, Joe?”

“No one told me, Harry, but I guess I should have known.  He still shows up at the first tee with that noisy helicopter thing.  It just about blows the socks right out of my spiked sneakers.  Have you seen my stuff anywhere?”

A shout came from another player on the other side of the fairway.  “Barry is the best player we have ever had on our foursome.”  It was Karl Engles.  “Agreed!” yelled Frederick Marks, the fourth member of the group.  “He plays the game like Karl and I have always said it should be done.”

“Second that!” came a lady’s voice from the center of the green.  The speaker displayed a big broad smile as she turned and pulled a long handled gavel from her bag to use for the putt.  She plunked a short one in the cup.  It wasn’t difficult.  She had a good lie.  At last sight, the veep had found his balls but was still looking for his hat.

LOOK! I THINK JOE FOUND HIS HAT

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Posted in Satire

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WOODROW WILSON AND THE LAFFER CURVE

Posted on August 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

If you were to ask the question, “Who was America’s most socialistic president ever?” A young person would say Barack Obama (an honest young person, that is).  An older person might say Franklin Roosevelt.  A historian would probably name Woodrow Wilson.  He at least belongs high on the list.  The only reason Wilson is not better known for his socialism is that he accomplished little of it because the American people were not yet ready to accept any of it.

Wilson was a Democrat, of course.  To see how far that party has come in the last 90 years, consider this quote.  (Hat Tip to Stephen Hayward)

“The Congress might well consider whether the higher rates of income and profits tax can [ ] be effectively productive of revenue, and whether they may not, on the contrary, be destructive of business activity and productive of waste and inefficiency.  There is a point at which [ ] high rates of income and profits taxes destroy energy, remove the incentive to new enterprise, encourage extravagant expenditures and produce industrial stagnation with consequent unemployment and other attendant evils.” Woodrow Wilson 1919

Can you imagine any Democrat making that statement today?  How high would tax rates need to go before the Left might say something like that again?  In 1919 the top tax bracketwas applied both to wages and to capital gains from investment.  The rate was 73%.  Wilson was beginning to wonder if that might be enough.

DAN MITCHELL

Dan Mitchell is here from the CATO Institute. Poke him in the nose with your cursor and he will explain it for you. (Sorry about that, Dan)

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Posted in Political philosophy

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OBAMA DISAPPROVAL HITS 71%

Posted on August 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

If you hire a demolition expert you should not be surprised when the building collapses.

A community organizer knows nothing about building the wealth of a nation, only about how to appropriate wealth that has already been created.  The process is a destructive one.  That’s obvious.

In 2007 there was an economic meltdown due to excessive issuance of sub-prime mortgages.  ACORN was in the forefront of the activist community pressuring banks and regulators to make more and more of these loans until the inevitable collapse.  To fix it we hired an ACORN trainer.

You can hire an arsonist to put out a fire if you wish.  But don’t expect his heart to be in it.

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Posted in Political philosophy, Political polemics

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PERRY’S TEXAS TALK, BERNANKE TAKES SOME HEAT

Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

When Howard Cosell asked Mohamed Ali where he aimed his punches, Ali said “I aim for the back of the head.”  Mohamed Ali fought like a champ.  Republicans, on the other hand are given to pulling their punches.  Not Rick Perry.

It would be treason, Perry says.

“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all will do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas,” Perry said to laughter from supporters in Iowa.

“Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, treasonous in my opinion,” he said.

Ears on the Right heard NO MORE STIMULUS!  Ears on the Left heard only a blasphemous threat.  Those in the middle are provoked to thought.  In my opinion, it was a gotcha that won’t get.  Any sane person knows the comment was a slander, not a real threat.  Slanders are the spice of choice in political campaigns.  Bernanke is a good guy and Perry knows it.  But even good guys make mistakes.

Now about the Fed.  When interest rates are six percent, lowering them to five will promote borrowing by consumers for refrigerators and cars and borrowing by businesses for expansion.  It can poke an economy and get it to move.  But lowering rates from near zero to nearer zero is like trying to move the economy by pushing on its string.  What the economy needs is not another Quantitative Easing.  What the economy needs is a president who isn’t a business killer.

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Posted in Opinion, Political polemics

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KRUGMAN’S KIND OF KOMMON SENSE

Posted on August 16, 2011 | 1 comment
Paul Krugman, Laureate of the Sveriges Riksban...

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Justice Samuel Alito is a Princeton graduate and very proud of it. Nevertheless, if memory serves me right, he said he heard more common sense when talking to one man in the street than he heard from all the Princeton elites. Personally, I suspect the judge must have been thinking of Joe the Plumber and Paul Krugman at the time.

In a recent column in the New York Times, Krugman writes that we are seeing “what happens when influential people exploit a crisis rather than try to solve it.” Shades of Rahm Emmanuel and his “We must not let this crisis go to waste”? Not at all. That would be common sense. In Krugman’s Princetonian mind, unemployment is the crisis, more debt is the solution and opposing debt is exploitation. If you find that confusing, it’s because you have common sense.

Standard & Poor warned that if something wasn’t done to curb the federal debt it could lead to a reduction of the credit rating. When an agreement was reached that prompted an immediate increase in debt with no more than promises to reduce spending the stock market took a plunge. Every householder knows that a credit rating is based on a combination payment history and outstanding debt. But as Krugman sees it, when the markets tanked, they “were signaling, as clearly as anyone could ask, that unemployment rather than deficits is our biggest problem.” In other words, to improve your credit rating you must increase your debt.

The elite economist closes with “The usual suspects will, of course, denounce such ideas as irresponsible.” No, Paul, such ideas are not irresponsible, they’re just plain stupid. Have you no common sense?

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Posted in Opinion, Political philosophy, Political polemics

WARREN BUFFET IS AT IT AGAIN

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 1 comment

C’mon Warren, tell the whole story. The only reason your net tax rate is so low is because most of your income is from stock dividends. Your salary puts you in the top tax bracket which is 28% and that is what you are paying on your wages. Tell it like it is.

TWO CORPORATE JET MAGNATES

The money that’s paid to you in dividends is taxed at 35% before you even get it. Then you are taxed another 15% on the same money. The government is getting half of the profit the business makes. Isn’t that enough? It’s in the same ballpark as many other countries although they collect it differently. Some tax all 50% at the corporate level and take none from the investor. Others take all 50% from the investor and nothing from the corporation on money they pay out in dividends. In the latter case your bottom line taxes would be nearly 50%. In either case the money collected by the government is the same.

Quit your squawking and do more of what your buddy Bill Gates does. Give more of your embarrassment of riches directly to good causes like hospitals, schools and centers for medical research. By-pass the middle man. Your money will go farther. None of it will be siphoned off for political corruption and you can choose what you want to support. If Obama loses the next election your tax money will be managed by Republicans. Is that really what you want?

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Posted in Opinion, Political polemics

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IT’S THE INTERNET, STUPID

Posted on August 15, 2011 | Leave a comment
Thomas Friedman, American journalist, columnis...

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Anything written by Thomas Friedman is always worth a read. Agree or not, he always makes you think and rarely makes you mad. In last Sunday’s New York Times he has the temerity to propose The Theory of Everything (Sort of). He just may be right (sort of).

Friedman notes the pestilent (Arab Spring) and the peaceful (Tea Party) rebellions taking place around the world and asks, why now?

It starts with the fact that globalization and the information technology revolution have gone to a whole new level. Thanks to cloud computing, robotics, 3G wireless connectivity, Skype, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, the iPad, and cheap Internet-enabled smartphones, the world has gone from connected to hyper-connected.

This is the single most important trend in the world today.

The columnist mixes in his observations of changes in the workplace and the evolution of those skills required for success. Many are falling short. At the same time the “globalization/I.T. revolution enables the globalization of anger, with all of these demonstrations now inspiring each other.”  Today, any displeased soul with an internet connection is a potential community organizer.

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Posted in Political philosophy

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WHITE HOUSE REMOVES JERUSALEM FROM ISRAEL

Posted on August 14, 2011 | Leave a comment
Supreme Court of Israel, Jerusalem. Taken from...

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By now, any knowledgeable person knows that the Obama White House is no friend of Israel. Jerusalem is a holy city to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. Wkikpedia states that Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel. There is no reason to doubt the Obama administration acknowledges its size. But they don’t seem to know where it is.

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