Dogonomics

Bin Laden IS Dead, But Obama Didn't Build That!

ICYMI

This Presidency has been Photoshopped

(Update:  Awoke this morning to the news that unemployment miraculously fell to 7.8%!     I rest my case.)
Every aspect of this Presidency has been Photoshopped.  It’s been air-brushed, edited, manipulated, faked, phonied, cropped, distorted, misrepresented, massaged, tweaked, falsified, misreported, and staged.  What you see is not real.  Almost nothing you have been told about Barack Obama is true.  Ditto for Mitt Romney.  Even when you think you are seeing them speak in their own words, you are being duped.  That’s why Mitt Romney’s debate victory last night was such an unexpected surprise to so many.     

The deceptions started from the moment Barack Obama walked onto the national stage.  Air-brushed was his work as a “Community Organizer”: a job title originated by revolutionary Saul Alinsky, who advocated for the destruction of our society in pursuit of an undefined utopia.  Unreported were Obama’s associations with terrorist Bill Ayers, Communist Frank Marshall Davis, anti-Zionist Rashid Khalidi,  racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and many others with similarly controversial ideologies.  Edited was his race baiting and divisive rhetoric aimed at previous administrations, white Americans, and the rich.  Cropped was his avowed affinity for “Marxist professors”, disdain for “typical white” people, and conflicting stories on everything from his religion, to his Mother’s death.  Unasked were any tough questions by the media or any follow-ups to his deceptive answers.

Once the campaign of 2008 got underway the Photoshopping went bipartisan.  John McCain was falsely accused of an extramarital affair in a huge front-page feature in the New York Times.  Misrepresented were his mostly moderate views.  Cropped was Senator Obama’s record as the most liberal member of the Senate.  Unmentioned was his nickname as the “Senator from Fannie and Freddie”.  Scrubbed was his distinction as the man who received campaign contributions from the “toxic twins” at a higher rate than any other public official.   Covered-up was his long-time advocacy for the very policies which were the immediate cause of the financial crisis:  subsidized mortgages for irresponsible borrowers.  Staged was Obama’s preferred meme for the cause of the crisis: greedy bankers, Bush, and The Republicans. 

The Photoshopping then continued throughout Obama’s Presidency.  Unreported was the fact that the recession officially ended in June 2009, before Obama policies largely took effect.  Falsified was the fact that Obama’s nearly Trillion Dollar stimulus, printed out of thin air, added not a thimbles worth of net value to the American economy.   Lied about was the notion that Obama’s unprecedented government-run GM bankruptcy was somehow better than a normal lawful court-run bankruptcy.   Air-brushed has been Obama’s featherweight work schedule, a calendar filled with none of the markers of diligence…except to politicking, golfing, and recreation.  Buried was the unprecedented partisan nature of the entire ObamaCare process.  Photoshopped was Obama’s opposition to all of the Bush policies which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden (Live captures, Gitmo, interrogation, and wiretapping).   Unreported is the fact that under Obama, US casualties have doubled in Afghanistan, the soldiers we are training are murdering us, and we are now in full retreat throughout the middle-east.  Even Government statistics like Unemployment, Inflation, and GDP Growth have been manipulated to always paint a rosy picture no matter how awful.  (Just the other day it was breathlessly reported that housing prices rose handsomely, while the volume of homes remained low.  This was celebrated as an indication of improved economic conditions, instead of being reported as dollar weakness and inflation, which it most likely was, given the unchanged volume!) 

Finally, lied about is the Presidents propensity to be on both sides of every single issue.   It is impossible to find an issue on which Barack Obama has not taken opposing positions.  These are not flip flops.  This is a deliberate smoke screen of cognitive dissonance designed to hide the revolution and maintain power.     

The Presidential Campaign continues to be Photoshopped.  Edited were Mitt Romney’s 47% comments (The hidden tape of his remarks runs for over an hour, yet the 47% comment is abruptly cut-off just as he is likely to elaborate!).  Faked is an MSNBC clip that falsely paints Romney as churlish and petty.   An edited Mitt Romney gets almost universally negative coverage from both the US and foreign press.  Photoshopped images of Mitt Romney unable to spell his own name are taken as real and become punchlines.  Made-up comments make repeated rounds on Facebook and elsewhere, until the lies become mainstream.   Falsified is the image of Mitt Romney as a murdering, misogynistic, tax cheating, greed-head, who is mean to puppies.  Meanwhile, an air brushed Barack Obama gets universally positive coverage.  Unreported go the reprehensible cover-ups of Fast and Furious and the Libya debacle, skipped security briefs, failed Afghanistan policy, Iraq failures,  jailed filmmakers, support for the violent Occupy movement, dismal economy, compulsive mendacity, and on and on.    

This could go on for pages, but the point is not to provide a history lesson.  The point is to say this:  if you were totally blindsided by Mitt Romney’s debate performance and equally surprised by Barack Obama’s, you need to think long and hard about your media sources.  You are being played like a Stradivarius. 

Can't this guy even spell his own name?  Photoshopped!

Media Summary of the 2012 campaign:

Basement Liberals

One of the most enduring images from the GOP convention in Tampa was when Paul Ryan said: “College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Then there was Mitt Romney’s hidden camera riff about the 47% who will vote for Obama no matter what because they want everything for free, pay no income tax, and see themselves as victims.   

These two images get to the essence of what really separates Liberals from Conservatives, not just in the US, but also around the globe.  It also gives me an opportunity to make a philosophical point, which ought to be a central theme in conservatism today and ought to be front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign:  The Federal Government must never be the safety net! 

Liberals and Government:

Liberals view government as their parent.  Accordingly, they want a really cool parent.  One that lets them live in the basement indefinitely, buys and cooks the food, does the laundry, pays the bills, gives them a free cell phone, and takes care of them when they are sick.  A cool parent asks no questions and makes no demands.   A cool parent wouldn’t care if you smoked weed in the basement, slept until noon, played video games all night, had frequent wild parties, and blasted loud music.  Really cool parents wouldn’t mind your alternative lifestyle because it would just enhance their own coolness!  They might even remodel the basement for you, put on an addition, and add a private entrance to make you totally comfortable living there.  Really cool parents are awesome, no?  In fact they are so awesome, why would you ever leave the basement?

And there’s the rub; you wouldn’t.  You would happily live the decadent life of a dependent mooch in your parent’s basement where you would obtain none of the habits or skills to ever be independent or make a positive contribution to society.  Then one day your parents or the money would disappear, and you would be one angry helpless slacker living in a dark basement that the bank wants to repossess. 

This is why socialism eventually fails wherever and whenever it is tried.  Sure, it might take a few generations to breed all the success traits out of the population, but eventually that will happen and the society will crumble.  

  

Conservatives and Government:

Conservatives don’t view government as their parents, don’t want to be dependents living in anyone’s basement, don’t care if their government is cool, and are not afraid of being independent. That does not mean Conservatives reject all government.  On the contrary, Conservatives understand that for them to be free they need strong federal and state governments.  But conservatives want a federal government that only does the things no other entity can, like defense, lawmaking, judiciary, money, foreign relations, and taxing.  All the other things, like taking care of dependents, healthcare, education, retirement, and free cell phones, should be done by the states, individuals, families, non-government organizations, religious groups, and private companies.   These are the fibers which weave together to form a resilient society.  The States and the society must provide the safety net, not the federal government, and for good reason. 

The federal government is unique in that it alone can print money!  This sets up a classic conflict of interest.  This is why the federal government must never be the safety net.  Keeping these entitlements and safety net items out of the federal sphere is the only way to insure that the voters don’t ever have the power to vote themselves free money and “rights” which belong to other generations.  Thus, the states and non-government society are in a better position to honestly provide a sustainable safety net.  I wish this philosophy was front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Incidentally, this is the way the country was laid out in The Constitution.  Those founding parents may not have been “cool” but they sure were smart. 

Here’s what it looks like when the process is complete:  

The 2012 race in a nutshell:

  

Obama is Awesome

Worth revisiting...

Desperation

Labradoodle2012

Eastwood Made My Day

Clint Eastwood struck a nerve at the GOP convention.  The Left is apopleptic.  Many on the Right are confused too.  The apoplectic Left understands exactly what happened and their outrage is justified.   The confused Right have no excuse.

I have some experience with this phenomenon.  I inadvertently turned the tables on Obama and the Left by ridiculing them in this cartoon from 2011.  The response was amazing and ferocious.  Ridicule, especially in the electronic media, is the exclusive domain of the Left.  How dare I make fun of Obama and the Left on YouTube and have it go viral!

I doubt Clint Eastwood intentionally borrowed a page from the Left's tactical bible.  In "Rules for Radicals", Saul Alinsky states:

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

I have no way of knowing if Mr. Eastwood ever read that rule.  That's not important.  The undeniable fact is that he somehow understands it.  That anyone on the Right does not get this after all these years is beyond disappointing.

The reality is, Clint Eastwood's bumbling razor-sharp improv will be watched by millions of independent voters over the next few weeks and that is pure genius.  He has gotten under the Left's skin like no politician ever could.  He made my day.
  
This is the video that went viral for me:


Here is the Eastwood improv in case you missed it:

Dear Mr. Eastwood

Dear Mr. Eastwood,                                                   (originally posted  2/8/2012)

With all due respect, for Chrysler’s bond-holders it is not “Half-Time in America”.   No, for those unlucky victims of President Obama’s bailout, it is actually “game over”.
  

Let me tell you a story worthy of a Hollywood script:

One week before my father-in-law died at 88, he confided in me that a chunk of his life’s savings had been wiped-out when Chrysler’s secured bondholders were bypassed in Obama’s bailout.  Unlike you, Robert W. Scisco Sr. did not play a tough guy in the movies.  Instead, he actually fought real Nazis in North Africa, up through Italy, eventually earning a Purple Heart in France.  This was not a man prone to showing fear, yet at the time he told me about his Chrysler bonds, he seemed afraid - afraid of his own government!   

You see, President Obama did not follow the normal bankruptcy route when he imposed the Chrysler bailout on us.  Instead, he decided to bypass the secured bondholders, who were first in-line, wiping them out, and delivered the company unencumbered to Fiat, the US Government, and the UAW.  This was an unprecedented redistribution from secured creditors to the President's supporters.   Unlike you, Bob Scisco understood this, and was wise enough to envision the full implications for him, his heirs, and the future of economic liberty in the country he had fought to defend.
   

For Chrysler’s bondholders like my father-in-law, Obama’s bailout was a knife in the back.  Within a week of him telling me this, with fear in his eyes, he was gone.

Regards,  Ronald Reich

(This was in response to Clint Eastwood's Chrysler ad during the last Superbowl.  I am reprinting it on the eve of his appearance at the GOP convention with minor edits.  PS My father in law was relatively healthy and died unexpectedly during a routine medical test under anesthesia.)

Brilliant

Copy and post to FB if you like!  

Isaac

The Pop Media

“The Issue”

Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan has changed the focus of the election and put “The Issue” front and center.

You may think The Issue is the economy.  Mitt Romney has been campaigning all along as though it is, but it is not.  The interesting conundrum of the economic argument is that wherever the economy is weakest, Obama is strongest.  The States with the weakest economies are all solid Obama wins according to the polls.  The groups with the worst economic performance are all solid Democrat supporters.  The cities with dying industries, dying downtowns, dismal economies and crumbling finances are largely Democrat run and Democrat leaning.  When Obama says “Our plan worked!” he may be referring to this apparent conundrum; the weakened economy has actually strengthened his support among his base.

  

You may think The Issue is jobs.  Republicans talk an awful lot about jobs, but here again, high unemployment does not appear to help them.  As with the economy, states and groups with the highest unemployment are all solid Obama territory.  More evidence his plan is working. 

To make a long story short, The Issue is not the deficit, nor healthcare, nor national security, nor is it energy, even though all those will play a role in the upcoming debate.  The reason Obama is strong in all those areas with high unemployment and dismal economic performance is because he has greatly increased federal hand-outs.  Jobs and economic growth are superfluous when the government gives you everything.   Not only did we have an existing mess in entitlements, Obama has made it much worse.  The Issue is entitlements.

We could shut down the entire federal government and still not be able to afford our entitlements.  Shut the military, the courts, all the government agencies, the FBI, CIA, NASA, EPA, DOT, the Senate, the House, and everything else except the existing entitlements and interest, and we’d still be insolvent in a matter of years.  In other words, we are living off our kid’s money.  Romney/Ryan believe that our thirst for entitlements constitutes an immoral claim on the labor of others.  They have a strong case.    

Now for the boring numbers part (skip to "Conclusion" if you are ADD/ADHD): 

·      Tax revenue has averaged almost exactly 18% of GDP for 60 years.  During that time, rates have been all over the place for every type of federal tax, but never has federal revenue sustained a long period above or below that 18% level.  Tax revenue is self regulating and fixed over time at 18% of GDP.  Taxing "The Rich" cannot solve this.  (top graph)        

·      Meanwhile, entitlements alone plus interest on the debt will bankrupt us. (bottom chart)

 

*Source: Heritage Foundation

Conclusion:

Every time a politician has tried to even start a conversation about entitlements they have been quickly shouted down, sometimes by their own party.  The reason this is so is that we’ve had a kind of immunity from having to deal with entitlements and deficits.  We alone can print the world’s reserve currency.  We alone can issue US Treasuries.  And we alone can lead the world on interest rates.   This unique position has allowed us to live beyond our means without repercussions.  Our trading partners and financiers keep writing us the equivalent of second, third, and fourth mortgages on our debt while allowing us to refinance at historically low rates.   If only this could go on forever. 

But it can’t, and it is irresponsible and immoral to pretend otherwise as Obama has.  This is where Romney/Ryan come in.

Romney/Ryan are the first modern ticket focusing on The Issue during a campaign.  They are both articulate, informed, accomplished, and serious.  We’ll see if the public is ready to hear their message.  I sincerely hope it goes better than last time around.  You see, once upon a time we had another Presidential ticket which spoke frankly about entitlements.  They too were concerned with an entitlement that amounted to an immoral claim on the labor of others.  Their names were Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin.  

The Campaign So Far

More Fun With Memes

This Is Your Bain

Dear Facebook Friend - Election Edition

Obama's Logic

What is the logical outcome of Barack Obama's philosophy: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that!  Somebody else made that happen!"?

The good news is, we don't have to guess.  At the heart of Marxist-Lenninist theory is "egalitarianism":  the idea that free markets unfairly and unevenly distribute wealth in a society, thus requiring the state to seize the wealth and effect a more even distribution.

Seizing wealth is a tough sell in a society which believes that the people who earned it have a proprietary interest in it.  But if the society can be convinced that wealth really belongs to all members in equal measure, regardless of contribution, then the Marxist-Lenninists will have the critical mass for their revolution.  

The bad news is, the revolution has always been bloody and has never produced  anything except egalitarian misery.

In a totally unrelated thought:

 

Obama Jumps The Shark

Obama campaign Jumps the Shark

scolding businessmen:

"You Didn't Build That!"

"Jumping the Shark", a term which has come to denote the beginning of a downhill slide in the quality of a TV series, originally referred to a Happy Days episode in which the character Fonzie jumped over a shark while waterskiing.  Critics claim that from that point on, the show descended into campy mediocrity.   

The Right asserts: 

• Obama's campaign has "jumped the shark" by scolding business people, "You didn't build that!"

The Left asserts:

• Obama was not actually waterskiing at the time
• The Right is taking his being pulled by a boat "out of context"
• If Obama was being pulled by a boat, it's only because Republicans have let the roads and bridges fall apart 
• Further, if Obama had seen a shark while being pulled by a boat and jumped over it, it's only because he is so kind to animals
• In any case, that was an underrated Happy Days episode
• Mitt Romney waterskis too and has a really expensive boat
• Look, the Koch Brothers! 

(Cautionary tale:  Although the aforementioned Happy Days episode is recognized as the turning point in the series, it dragged-on another six painful years...)  

Ignite!

• How many know that Denver, Colorado has an active anarchist movement?  
• How many know that Denver has an active Occupy movement?
• How many realize Occupy and anarchists are one?*  
• How many know that there is actually an anarchist newspaper in Denver?  (called "Ignite!")  
• How many know that anarchist movements have particular animus towards Police?  
• How many know that Police were the intended target of the booby trapped apartment?  
• How many realize that this mass murder had no other motive other than anarchy and killing Police? 
• How many realize that Batman has always had an anti-anarchist theme?*
• How many realize Barack Obama got his start as a Community Organizer Occupying banks? (Sorry, this is "Obama's Mob" )*
• How many realize Barack Obama supports the Occupy movement?*      
• How many realize we are now several days into this, and no Pop Media outlet is pointing any of this out?

* UPDATED From The Original

Mitt Romney Is Batman

There's a new Batman movie coming out and I hear Rush Limbaugh has compared Mitt Romney to Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Ergo, it is time to revisit one of my favorite mash-ups.  (Apologies to Herman Cain fans, but he had already dropped out when I made this.)

Grand Ayatollah Roberts

When Obamacare, arguably the most invasive legislation in the history of our nation,  passed the Senate with not a single Republican vote, I likened it to being raped and posted the "Stages of Adjustment" a rape victim goes through.  Here are a few examples:

SHOCK—Numbness - Offering information to the survivor during this stage is not helpful, as s/he will likely remember very little, if anything, about what occurs during this time period

DENIAL—“Not me, I’m fine.” “This can’t have happened!” “It’s not that bad.”  Not yet able to face the severity of the crisis, the survivor spends time gathering strength. The denial phase serves as a cushion for the more difficult stages of adjustment that follow.

ANGER—Rage, Resentment… “What did I do?” “Why me?”
A survivor’s anger may be the result of having experienced a loss of strength or loss of control over her/his life. The anger may be directed toward the offenders, a doctor, the police, or anyone else, including her/himself.

The list goes on to include the later stages: PLEA-BARGAINING, DEPRESSION, ACCEPTANCE, and ASSIMILATION.  Here's the full list. 

If you felt abused by the original passing of the bill, it might feel like you've had to deal with a second assault, as if the judge made you re-enact the rape in the courtroom. 

Moreover, this SCUTUS ruling is akin to trying a rape case in a Sharia court.  According to Islamic Sharia law there must be four male eye-witnesses in order to convict a rapist.  Lacking those four eye witnesses or a confession, the rape victim is found guilty of fornicating or adultery and given 100 lashes or stoned to death.  Yes, that's right, the victim is guilty despite eye witness testimony.  John Roberts would fit right in there.  Maybe we should just call him Grand Ayatollah Roberts? 

(Note that this case even had its four male eye-witnesses! Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito.  Nevertheless, the Grand Ayatollah prevailed.) 

The Tragedy of ObamaCare

Forget the politics. What matters to me, and should matter to everyone, is that ObamaCare has always been a shit-sandwich and it remains so today.  The only two things we learned from today's Supreme Court ruling, we already knew: ObamaCare was deceptively sold, and anyone looking for salvation from the Supreme Court is looking in the wrong place.

The debate all along on healthcare was flawed. The debate focused on the visible: your costs, your choices, your doctor, your insurance, and the constitutionality of the mandate. That’s understandable. Voters relate to what they can see. But what makes modern healthcare so dynamic is not the visible, and that is what will atrophy under a federal top-down system.

Virtually all the advances in healthcare we have come to take for granted: X-Rays, MRIs, arthroscopic surgery, pharmaceuticals, surgical devices, implanted defibrillators, and all the high-tech gadgets and substances one sees in a hospital, are produced by private industry. The more involved the federal government gets, the harder it becomes to make and improve these things. We won’t notice the slowing pace of advances right away. It will happen slowly and inexorably. Years from now, we won’t even realize we are dying from routine diseases which a private health system could have cured.

None of this was necessary. Every problem we have with health insurance today is already caused by government: It comes through your employer because of tax laws that allow deductibility only for employers. You can’t buy insurance across state lines due to a law called McCarran Ferguson. Medicare rate controls guarantee high inflation for non-Medicare patients. There are no limits on malpractice awards. State monopolies force residents into high-cost plans. You can’t even be charged with theft if you drive up to a hospital in a Ferrari, demand to be treated, and then refuse to pay!

ObamaCare was never about fixing those problems. ObamaCare has always been about control and power for the Democrat Party. Democrats know that once the government controls your healthcare, they control you.

This has been and still is the tragedy of ObamaCare.

Why Exercise?

We keep hearing about the shrinking workforce, or what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls, “The Labor Force Participation Rate”.  Since Barack Obama was elected, the size of the workforce, that is the number of Americans working or seeking work, has dropped precipitously from 66% to 63.6% (source: BLS*).  This is the first time since such measurements were made (1948) that the rate has gone down like that.  Why?

Here’s a thought experiment:  Suppose a law was passed that guaranteed everyone an average lifespan, but no more.  Medical professionals would annually predict the overall average life expectancy, and that would be it.  The sick would have their lives extended up to that average age by every means available.  Everyone, sick or healthy, would be terminated when they hit the average life expectancy age.   In other words, you would would be guaranteed the exact same lifespan as your drug addicted, cigarette smoking neighbor, regardless of your health condition. 

What do you suppose would happen to the fitness craze?  Would Americans spend hours running, weight lifting, cycling, and eating healthy foods knowing the longest they could possibly live would be…average?  What would be the marginal advantage of staying healthy?  What would happen to cheesecake consumption rates for those over, say, 60?  In other words, what would happen to the “Fitness Force Participation Rate”? 

  

Also, what would happen to the average lifespan over time, would it go up or down?

* Bureau of Labor Statistics - Labor Force Participation

Brett Kimberlin - A Limerick Poem

In honor of "Blog about Brett Kimberlin Day"

Here's a brief summary:  Brett Kimberlin is a convicted violent criminal, most likely a murderer, and now a free man who has become a violent and dangerous leftist activist who gets funding from leftist sugar-daddies like George Soros and Barbara Streisand.  His latest terrorism is focused on bloggers bent on exposing his past, his current activities,  and his leftist ties.  He is a menace to society, a menace to the 1st amendment, and must be stopped.

Some links:
The original expose' by LC (important)
Who is Brett Kimberlin? (a short video)
More Here... (good)
What is Brett Kimberlin up to now? (scary)

The First Composite President

Whatever You Want Him To Be...
Wanna close Guantanamo?  He does too.
Wanna keep Guantanamo open?  Yup, him too.
Wanna kill terrorists?  He does too.
Wanna try terrorists like citizens? Yup, him too.
Do you hate rich people?  He does too.
Are you rich? Yup, him too.
Are you black?  He is too.
Are you white? Yup, him too.
Do you love your country?  He does too.
Do you want to fundamentally transform your country?  Yup, him too.
Etc. etc. etc.

Shit Romney Won’t Say – Part I

Politicians rarely speak their mind, or at least their whole mind.  Their job, which is to be liked by as many people as possible, is antithetical to speaking in absolutes.  Here is a quote from the man many regard as our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln:

 

"I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio" (September 17, 1859), p. 440.

“I should not object if it should gradually terminate…”  Huh?  Why not: “If elected, I will emancipate all slaves.”?  Note that the above quote was about a year before the election of 1860.  If you compare Lincoln’s rhetoric on either side of the campaign with his statements right before the election, there is a marked difference in tone.  Abe Lincoln, our greatest President, adopted a more moderate tone during his campaign.   Apparently, Lincoln had an Etch-A-Sketch.

With that in mind, here are some things Mitt Romney won’t say during this campaign.  All I know is, I find these things to be axiomatic, and I can say them even if Mitt won’t:    

·   Barack Obama did not inherit this mess.  In fact, he is largely responsible for the Financial Crisis of 2008!  No, he didn’t do it singlehandedly;  he had lots of help.  But, I defy you to find a single human being who was present at more stages of this economic cluster-fuck than Barack Obama.  From his college days, to his Community Organizer days, to his ACORN days, to his Non-Profit days, to his State Senate days, to his U.S. Senate days, all the way to his Presidency, he has been an effective proponent of the very policies and philosophies which crashed the financial system in 2008 and have kept us from escaping the malaise.  To wit:  Marxist student?  Check.  ACORN activist against bank lending standards?  Check.  Community Reinvestment Act?  Check.  Supported Subprime Mortgages for anyone?  Check.  Fannie and Freddie’s biggest money recipient by rate?  Check.  TARP?  Check.  Continued support for the re-distribution of credit?  Check.  Continued war on bank lending standards?  Check.  Continued support for Fannie and Freddie? Check.  Supported Fed Chairman Bernanke all along?  Check.  I could go on for pages.      

·   Barack Obama had nothing to do with getting Osama bin Laden.  In fact, the bin Laden raid happened IN SPITE OF Barack Obama!   As a candidate for Senate, a U.S. Senator, and then President,  Barack Obama opposed every single policy which led to the eventual location and termination of Osama bin Laden.  To wit:  Opposed interrogating terrorists?  Check.  Opposed imprisoning terrorists?  Check.  Opposed treating terrorists as military combatants?  Check.  Opposed wiretapping terrorists?  Check.  Opposed Guantanamo?  Check.  Opposed gathering any intelligence from terrorists?  Check.  Opposed waterboarding KSM?  Check.  My Labradoodle, who opposed none of those policies, did more to get Osama bin Laden than Barack Obama.   

·   Barack Obama is not a “nice guy”.  In fact, Barack Obama is an amoral person!  Morality is the difference between Economic Liberals and Economic Conservatives.   To wit:  Marx = Redistribution of Wealth is good for The Lower Classes.  Keynes = Redistribution of Wealth is good for Stimulating the Economy.  Progressives of both Parties = Redistribution of Wealth is good Politics.   All the above definitions focus on the benefit to the receiving class and none address the moral implications.  Redistribution of Wealth is immoral by definition because it amounts to THEFT.   Barack Obama, who may embody one or all the above ideologies, is an exemplary example of this amorality.   He cannot impose an immoral economic system and be “nice” at the same time. 

My real complaint is, not only will Mitt Romney not say this shit, he says the exact opposite.  In all three cases, Mitt Romney could avoid these topics, but instead he is on record saying:  “Obama did not cause the financial mess.”, “Obama deserves praise for getting bin Laden.”, and “Obama is a nice guy.”  It would be like Linclon saying: “Personally, I think slave owners are nice people.  Really, they inherited a bad system, and they deserve praise for failing to completely stop the abolitionist movement.”

Preposterous.   Still to come - Part II.       

Do High Taxes Slow Growth?

(This is my response to a piece which appeared in the Wall Street Journal April, 24th on the Opinion page.  The original can be found here.)       

Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez make a weak case in “High Tax Rates Won’t Slow Growth” (April 24).  Unfortunately, economic statistics are not like baseball statistics; they cannot be compared over long periods of time without significant adjustment.  In baseball, statistics are easily compared going back decades since the variables have mostly remained constant.  Not so with pre-tax income, overall growth rates, or any other economic statistics which have undergone infinite variable changes and need to be put in the proper historical context.  

For example, the authors begin by saying; “The share of pre-tax income accruing to the top 1% of earners in the U.S. has more than doubled to about 20% in 2010 from less than 10% in the 1970s.”  What the authors omit is that back in 1970 there were very few S Corporations and today there are about 5 million.  S Corp. income is reported on individual tax returns thus inflating the reported incomes of S Corp. shareholders.  Diamond and Saez do not indicate that they have corrected for this, and if not, their opening premise is flawed.

   

A similar flaw taints their main point, which is that; “…growth…averaged 1.68% between 1980 and 2010 when top tax rates were relatively low, while growth averaged 2.23% between 1950 and 1980 when top tax rates were at or above 70%.”  As I recently heard Charles Krauthammer point out, Europe and Japan were still smoldering ruins in 1950!  Also, India and China were not playing on the world stage, the U.S. had modest regulations, and Americans were known for their work ethic.   

I would prefer economists find a more unified measurement which would encompass all taxes, regulations, laws, and trade issues affecting economic activity.  Hard as that might be to do, we could then compare 1950 with 2012 just as we do in baseball.