Ruminations - 9/26/09
Quick thoughts (or not) from stuff I'd like to do more on but have not the time to do so...
So, how's Obama at picking a winner in the US automobile manufacturing sphere? Not so good if this pans out:
Through August, Chrysler's sales were down 39 percent compared with the same period last year, the largest decline of any major automaker. In the critical midsize segment, which often is top-seller in the U.S. market, the company this year has sold only 34,700 of its two entries, the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger. That's only 15 percent of the 238,000 Camrys told by Toyota, the perennial leader.
If stimulus was supposed to save jobs, any boob can and should see that losing an additional 40% of sales is not the way to do it.
What's the over / under that Fiat (Chrysler's newest owner along with we taxpayers [thanks, Obama's payoff to the UAW!] will pull an Obama and throw Obama and the UAW under the bus?
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There are elections going on here in NH - the big one is for Manchester (biggest city in NH) Mayor. What's the next best way to do a "voter proxy"? By money raised, of course!
Roy (Democrat) raised: $11,210
Spent: $5779.08
COH: $15,843
Gatsas (Republican) raised: $23,260
Spent: 25,611.75
COH: $99,221.06
I have learned that campaigns HAVE to have money to win. But not having volunteers will put a big dent in a politician's dreams too. I wonder when THAT will become a stat as well? No, not the paid operatives often found in big, expensive campaigns - but the person willing to go and knock on door and put up signs and make calls.....you know, the REAL grassroots!
I keep hearing that certain "journalists" are in favor of getting a bailout from the Feds. While I agree that an informing Press is vital to a democracy and is written into the Constitution, I see NO reason why they should get a bailout - programmers aren't, so why are they so special:
But regardless of his reasoning or intentions, one thing is clear: the use of our tax dollars to bail out the newspaper industry is just one new example of a federal government that is intent on expanding its own power and reach -- all the while trampling on America’s traditional notion of capitalism and free markets. Now, that is something worth reporting.
You know, with the majority of the "journalists" in the news rooms voting for Obama, one has to wonder if this is just yet another payback....it worked for the UAW?
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If you read the 'Grok regularly, you know that I'm far from being Obama's #1 fan by a long shot. Having him, in street parlance, "run his mouth" once again (this time at the UN) and elevate himself about his country. In my eyes, the President IS the country's Cheerleader-in-Chief and not the Apologist-in-Chief (especially when apologizing to the wrong despots for the wrong things).
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And I thought that the LACK of consumption lately was one of the reasons why this recession is not receding; wasn't that the whole reason for "stimulus"? Yet another uber-liberal clown who believes your money belongs to the government instead of who earned it:
John Podesta compared the nation’s current budget crisis to the situation former President Bill Clinton faced in 1993 and said some form of a value-added tax is “more plausible today than it ever has been.”
“There’s going to have to be revenue in this budget,” said Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff and co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s transition team, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing today.
Someone is ignoring the TEA Parties if he thinks that rising revenues are going to safe ANY budget with Obama's name attached to it. Hammering those in the private sector that actually create jobs with yet another ball in chain will eventually get them all kicked out of office.
Podesta said such a tax may be regressive, but can be balanced by exempting some products and using “the money to support low-wage workers.”
Just more redistributionists at work....
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The young man was given three choices: get turned over to the police, go one-on-one in a fight with a seasoned war veteran, or be duct-taped to a flagpole for six hours with a sign around his neck identifying his alleged crime: flag burning.
It was the third option that would still have the small town buzzing a week after a 21-year-old was hunted down and forced to endure a public humiliation with its roots dating to the Middle Ages. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1938 were incensed enough to tie up the man last Sunday after they accused him of setting the flag in front of their building on fire.
Shame - a powerful tool that should be used more often for the right reasons....that way, we can tell politicians to stop trying to make laws to cover any and all situations.
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Law of Unintended Consequences steming from the clueless:
The result could be the end of fixer-upper homes; surely, this is not what Congress has in mind. Some families prefer to buy a home in less-than-stellar condition on the cheap and make repairs and upgrades themselves.
For people who don’t have a lot of money, or who enjoy working with their hands, or who want to customize their home, this can be a very fulfilling path to homeownership. Waxman-Markey would take that away.
If the sellers are required to make all these improvements pre-sale, buyers lose the opportunity to, say, choose what kind of appliances they can have, what kind of insulation to put in the attic or what kind of doors or windows they would like.
Hey, President Obama, is this what you mean by "whether it works or not"?
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During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.
Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.
In that same West Virginia speech last year, Obama said, “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.”
The Heritage study says, “Applying that same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.”
...“One in seven in total federal and state dollars now goes to welfare. But this is a completely unknown story,” Rector said. “This is not being reported. No one knows Obama is spending $10 trillion on welfare.”
Welfare spending has taken its toll on the federal debt. Since the beginning of the “war on poverty,” $15.9 trillion has been spent on welfare programs. The total cost of every war in American history, starting with the American Revolution, is $6.4 trillion when adjusted for inflation.
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Obama has said that the Supreme Court never addressed redistributive change.... but he certainly is"
By 2012, nearly $1 trillion from the top 30 percent of American families will be redistributed among the bottom 70 percent if Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care, and climate change become law, according to the Tax Foundation.
“Even if none of Obama’s policies becomes law, the extent of income redistribution is remarkable,” Scott Hodge, president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, said. “The top-earning 40 percent of families will transfer $826 billion to the bottom 60 percent in 2012.”
Under the Obama plan, 70 percent of American families as a group -- those earning less than $109,460 -- will receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, Hodge said.
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Oh goody, Obama's recession is making Social Security go broker faster:
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Let's add more fuel to the fire - why does Obama keep talking about that we have to act "sustainably" if he is driving these kinds of numbers?
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I wish our American Media were this honest. Instead, I may start reading the Brits more often:
It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.
It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House.
The UN is not a club of democracies - who still remain a minority within its membership – it is a vast melting pot of free societies, socialist regimes and outright tyrannies. Obama’s clear lack of interest in human rights issues is a big seller at the UN, where at least half its members have poor human rights records.
The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt.
Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack.
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That said, this comes close (emphasis mine):
Israel is looking like the new leader of the Free World. The previous leader, the United States, resigned this role last week at the United Nations to take the position of global community organizer. This was made plain by President Obama in his speech, titled "Responsibility for Our Common Future," in which he heralded "a new chapter of international cooperation." By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a blunt and forceful call to action in the central challenge facing free people today. This is the struggle of "civilization against barbarism" being fought by "those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."
Mr. Obama's address was the predictable mix of criticism of the past policies of the United States, self-praise for correcting said policies and vague calls to united action on matters of collective interest. It sought to ingratiate rather than offend. But Mr. Netanyahu chastised the United Nations for its "systematic assault on the truth." He spoke truths that Mr. Obama would never whisper regarding the regime in Iran, which is "fueled by an extreme fundamentalism" and an "unforgiving creed." Mr. Netanyahu rebuked those members who countenanced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's diatribe before the same world body, rightly calling it a "disgrace."
Mr. Netanyahu repeatedly paid tribute to the blessings of liberty and "the allure of freedom." He marveled at the technological advances freedom made possible. He asked if the international community would support the Iranian people "as they bravely stand up for freedom." He envisioned a future of Israel and Palestine, "two free peoples living in peace, living in prosperity, living in dignity." Mr. Obama, meanwhile, touted the imperative of responding to global climate change and mentioned as an afterthought that democracy should not be an afterthought.
Israel stands out because it understands the central challenge faced by the civilized world and by its willingness to take action. Israel is readying to stem the tide of barbarism and stand up to the threat of a nuclear Iran. In return, it asks only for moral support. "If Israel is again asked to take more risk for peace," Mr. Netanyahu said, "we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow." He challenged the countries of the world with a clear-cut test: "Will you stand with Israel? Or will you stand with the terrorists?"
Mr. Obama said in closing that "we call on all nations to join us in building the future that our people deserve." But people only deserve what they have earned. Mr. Netanyahu called on the civilized world to "confront this peril, secure our future, and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come." Sometimes the future doesn't come without a fight.
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We had Bill Wilson Here's a good write up of him in, of ALL places, the NY Times:
It is the weekly research meeting at Americans for Limited Government, and Bill Wilson is presiding with gusto. The Obama administration is serving up so many rich targets that Mr. Wilson and his crew of young conservatives hardly know where to begin...
... A longtime Boy Scout leader with a broad light bulb of a forehead, Mr. Wilson, 56, seems to take avuncular pleasure in mentoring his young staff members at Americans for Limited Government, a nonprofit advocacy group with a $4 million budget. In person, he is no obvious firebrand.
But for more than 30 years, migrating through groups pushing right-to-work laws, term limits and school choice, he has been a member of Washington’s permanent class of ideological activists. Appointed to no government post, elected to no office, they populate research and advocacy groups with names that often seem to include the word “American,” laboring to steer the ship of state to the left or right.
A look at Mr. Wilson and his 18 staff members — one modest island in the sprawling archipelago of conservative groups based in and around Washington — shows how valuable it is proving to have a well-defined enemy...
...“I was raised to believe and have always believed that small government is best,” he said. “And that is the majority view of the American people.”
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A commentary on our educational system - are we rotting from the schools outward?
I tend to think so. Parents keep standing in lines to put their kids into Charter schools and home schooling - and their kids seem to be doing better and better than their government school based peers. An anecdote:
...The problem is cultural, and no amount of wonkery or financial aid is going to solve it. I frequently think of Michael Barone's Hard America, Soft America, a truly excellent book. Few elements of American society are as "soft" as academia, where standards are lowered every year to make sure that everyone can succeed. Yet failure is only magnified. I would say no part of American society is "harder" than combat arms — yet kids who may not have succeeded in school show judgment, initiative, and courage that would boggle the minds of academics who are convinced that "self-esteem" somehow builds character. It's almost as if real challenges build character while coddling destroys it. Go figure.
Anyway, it's ominous to see "soft America" drifting into the marketplace. Recently, I was approached by an earnest law student who said, "I'd love to work for you, but I only want to work nine to five — family comes first." My response? "Good to know. I hear Wal-Mart is hiring."
Entitlement mentality....RTWT (Read The Whole Thing)
