President Biden’s sliding poll numbers have set off alarm signals among Democrats, who are beginning to see that he might lose the 2024 election to Donald Trump. Those polls have also gotten the attention of pundits who have confidently said for three years now that Trump could never again win a national election.
Articles tagged as
National
Is This the Fate of Patriotism in America?
In just a few days, we’ll be celebrating Independence Day, traditionally a day of boundless pride in America. But something’s changed in recent years.
American Federal Character
Americans should contemplate the under appreciated federal aspect of independence. We obsess about the size and strength of the national government. But it was our ancestors’ desire to govern themselves. They contemplated doing it in legislative bodies much closer than the British Parliament. That brought about the Declaration of Independence. How we got here… Have we … Read more
Paul Ryan – House GOP Plan v. Obama
H/T Brett Healy, BigGovernment.com
Unemployment- Is the Good News Bad?
The percentage went down to 9.4% for December but is that a good thing? We will have to wait until we get the January numbers to shake out the holiday hiring but overall it is not strong news.
Stop START then re-START
New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen chews up a large chunk of the Sunday Union Leader’s opinion page to sell us on president Obama’s START treaty with Russia. Most of the words revolve around suggesting this will enhance security, that it is a good deal for America, and that there are a busload of experts, past and current military, former Secretaries of State, ex-presidents and sundry others who agree that this Treaty should be ratified. But a few things stand between taking this at face value and moving forward on her recommendation.
First, Mr. Obama, a man who has excelled at degrading his own country, and minimizing its global influence, wants it real bad. Not a good sign.
Second, look at the context. What would we say if this was George Bush, wasting political energy and government time and resources, to advance something like this when we should have all our attention on the failure of the debt commission to agree to its own recommendations? Should we not still have all eyes and all hands dealing with a looming tax increase that could send the economy into a bigger tailspin just a few weeks from now? What about the deficit? Where is the laser like focus? Why not job growth polices–other than using the extension of unemployment benefits for class warfare against opponents who just want it paid for from some dark corner of Obama’s multi-trillion dollar budget or one of his many slush funds. Why START now?
Third, and this ties into the first, START is to strategic nuclear security what Obamacare was to Health care. Its pursuit appears almost Pyrrhic, as if the victory must come regardless of the cost. So this is not a strategic defense effort, it is just another feather in Obama’s agenda cap. And with the brakes now being applied to his agenda come January 3rd, he is more obsessed with the Obama of history than the one responsible for national, and based on how they are selling it, Global security.
But like everything else that comes out of the administration or the drooling mouths of the party lap-dogs assigned to promote it, this is predicated on their standard template. "We can’t just do nothing" and "Things could be worse."
If we search the landscape of the Obama Presidency however, neither of these ideas is compelling. If we actually look at what Obama is willing to pass off as ‘doing something,’ it looks as if he has just bowed to another foreign leader, only this time over a nuclear weapons treaty.
Drop Dead Fed
In the most recent issue of National Review Gary Wolfram, Professors of Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College wrote this in regard to Mises and Hayek’s Austrian business-cycle theory.
""This theory emphasizes the role of the interest rate in bringing together the plans of producers and consumers. The interest rate is the price of loanable funds — in effect, the price of money — and, like the price of any good or service, it gives producers information about consumers’ behavior and the actions of other producers. For example, if consumers wish to save — to put their money in banks, which lend it out — they will increase the supply of loanable funds, putting downward pressure on the interest rate. Producers can then borrow that money cheaply and invest in capital goods such as machinery, factories, and housing — which they can use to create goods for consumers to buy in the future with the money they have saved. Thus do producers and consumers arrive at the equilibrium interest rate, which matches producers’ plans to invest in capital goods with consumers’ desire to save.