Worldwide inflation and its informants...

In a world of global slowdown and rising prices, it makes sense to ask which countries' minimum wage is linked to inflation? This study provides some answers.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:24 AM

"When everyone is someone, no one is anybody..."

This helps explain why we don't like spending new money on new schools here in Cook County Illinois.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:14 AM

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Mean voter theorem revisited?

Finally a poll that distinguishes Keynesianism (government's self-awareness of fiscal/monetary implications) and redistributionism. As many have noted before, Keynesianism wins about as dramatically as redistributionism loses.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:11 PM

Friday, June 27, 2008

Barak Obama: Socialist Slumlord?

Grove Parc Plaza -- a possible testing ground for President Obama's future housing policies -- may argue strongly against this candidate's qualifications and judgment: About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition. Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing... The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Obama was aware of the problems with buildings in his district during his time as a state senator, nor did it comment on the roles played by people connected to the senator. Among those tied to Obama politically, personally, or professionally are: Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems. Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments. Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable. Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting. One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations. Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries. UPDATE: Via Kaus, more on Valerie Jarrett.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:44 AM

Wackos strike again...

Environmental regulation now places a two year moratorium on new energy development. Uh, solar new energy development, that is. Seems to me I read something just yesterday that describes the problem: Action entails risks and consequences. Mere thinking doesn't. In our litigious society, as soon as someone finally does something, someone else can become wealthy by finding some fault in it. Meanwhile a less fussy, more confident world abroad drills, and builds nuclear plants, refineries, dams and canals to feed and fuel millions who want what we take for granted. I guess VDH can add "solar" to that list now.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:03 AM

Thursday, June 26, 2008

A feature, not a bug...

Yes, it is true, we don't really know how much oil/natural gas is available on the outer continental shelf. That's why it is important to drill there. To find out. To expand human knowledge. That's good, isn't it?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:10 AM

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Union wins out over communist dictators...

The Chinese have agreed to a 96% increase in the price of Australian ore imports. Interesting that Paul "Conscience-of-a-Liberal" Krugman can't see this for what it is: a strongly unionized seller with lots of monopoly power facing a communist buyer with lots of monopoly power. The unionized workers seem to have won. Paul's conscience should feel great and he should laud the deal, but this would deprive him of a cheap shot at Bush.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:22 AM

Advice...

Rich Lowry thinks McCain should immediately bring in Bill Kristol as a senior advisor. I couldn't agree more. He needs some senior person to sort out all the contradictory advice he's accepting uncritically.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:52 AM

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Get ready for the Obama presidency...

Some of this might help, some might hurt, some might change a few prices of this or that somewhere sometime, but mostly it shows Obama can find charismatic ways to get ahead of the "drill now drill here pay less" meme and totally outmaneuver John McCain -- you remember, that slow old geezer who can't raise arms above shoulders and doesn't understand economics? UPDATE: All this critiquing of the "Enron loophole" might wind up backfiring if major Democratic supporters -- major union pension funds, for example -- are in fact taking advantage of regulations as they now stand. The very existence of union pension funds' "profiteering" through "oil speculation" could easily be exploited by an unprincipled charismatic Republican candidate. (McCain is of course a candidate -- but for better or worse he is neither unprincipled nor charismatic.) UPDATE: Here, the ever-reliable Jerry Gordon points out the Enron loophole isn't the only loophole, and, yes, major union pension funds have participated heavily in the very speculation Democrats blame for the oil bubble.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:33 AM

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Not responsible for every undercapitalized business...

This story illustrates something I've taken for granted for quite some time. As a small business owner, when I was frightened out of my skin by the proposed Clinton health care plan, I realized virtually all technocrats, policy wonks, and pro-government-expansionists of all parties can't or won't make intelligent distinctions between "big" business and the rest of we poor struggling small players. To them, if you're not Humana or General Motors or ADM you're nothing.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:20 AM

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

What to answer

When you encounter someone who shouts this at you, just ask what exactly they have against generating more and cheaper energy for our children? Yeah. Ten years down the road. Think of the children.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:02 AM

Historical Materialism

As Karl Marx taught, we must look to the economic basis underlying all things cultural, religious, and, well, political: Barack Obama's position on Iraq has shifted significantly over the last six years. What is interesting is how his position on Iraq matches up with developments in Chicago. Specifically, there appears to be a direct correlation between the rising and falling prospects of his longtime friend and fundraiser Tony Rezko's attempts to secure multi-million-dollar contracts to build and operate a power plant in Kurdish Iraq and the senator's Iraq flip-flops... The shifts in Barack Obama's policy toward Iraq show a remarkable correlation with the rise and fall of Tony Rezko's business prospects in the Chamchamal Power Plant. As the story of the Rezko syndicate is exposed in his Chicago trial, the subject of its Iraqi commercial interests will come under a brighter light. "Flip-flops" are worrisome but human, even funny. Flip-flops with some occult economic motivation may be all too human, but they are more scary than funny.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:40 AM

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

How old are his parents?

Dana Milbank humorously criticizes John McCain's switchover on energy policy: "Put Your Right Wing in, Take Your Right Wing out...If John McCain keeps dancing like this, he's liable to break a hip." I guess words like these can be a barrel of laughs for Milbank's age cohort, but we baby boomers constantly worrying about our parents' continuing problems can't quite see the two words "broken hip" as funny. UPDATE: Are dems talking about McCain's age in "code?" I guess so. HE CHANGES POLICY SO FAST HE MAY BREAK HIS HIP, HUH?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:43 PM

Monday, June 16, 2008

Disconnect...

There's a dreamy unreality to Barak Obama's Father's Day Speech, which reads as if all families would finally be completed if every irresponsible independent male went back to one single-family mother and took up the role of fatherhood. This would of course improve things, but it would definitely not place a father in the home of every single mother. On average there is not one but many single-family moms for every independent irresponsible young male out there. This is like Spike Lee's first movie, Do the Right Thing, which addressed ghetto life by showing poverty, racism, alcohol abuse, and lots of other things -- but somehow left drugs out of the picture.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:25 AM

Saturday, June 14, 2008

"...Iowans, regardless of race, work together to help one another..."

One of many great comments appearing below the story: Has the media noticed how Iowans, regardless of race, work together to help one another and there isn't this mass hysteria, blaming the federal govt, waiting for help, focusing the blame on everyone else but the source - the weather? And the governor is a democrat, just like the one in [L]ousiana at the time of Katrina. Look media - take a look at the people of Iowa - they aren't waiting - they are helping one another. I am so sick and tired of people in this country trying to place blame on everyone else and doing nothing to try and solve the problem. Compare/contrast how the Iowa people will rebuild and make their state great again, while Louisiana will still cry of injustices, poverty and no help. Sorry, but there is poverty in Iowa too. People don't just sit on their lazy ***** waiting for someone else to do the job. Do you see anyone w/ shotguns, do you see any looting, do you see any whining? Iowans are a great example of how people should behave in time of crises...

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:41 PM

Friday, June 13, 2008

McCain does economic flipflops, just like Obama...

It is becoming increasingly clear McCain lacks sufficient knowledge of economics to generate a coherent message. To be a credible candidate you must be able to recognize when one economic advisor is contradicting another. McCain doesn't know enough about economics or business to do so. This is why his economic message is so thoroughly garbled and unserious. It galls me to say so but Obama -- sufficiently mired in 60's new left ideology as he is -- generates a more coherent view of economic policy.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:47 AM

PC Dictionary: factionalism="diversity"

As an undergraduate I remember that someday-to-be-respected political commentator Lowell Bergman musing on the remarkable tendency of the left to ever-dissolve into warring factions rather than always move forward thru ongoing coalition-building. I remember those thoughts when I look forward to the possibility of an Obama presidency and a House/Senate with a veto proof Democrat majority. James Joyner seems to be thinking the same thing: Contrariwise, if the Democrats were to succeed in electing Barack Obama president and achieving a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, which is not inconceivable, their coalition is sufficiently diverse that remaining united on any given bill would be far from assured. I wonder whether the politics of a Democrat majority might wind up even more bitter and fractious than what we see today? (Think: Great Revolt, 66-70 C.E.) UPDATE: First evidence was Obama versus Hillary. In the aftermath, more evidence.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:54 AM

Mobility of capital as well as labor, eh?

This is one of the ways the (current account) trade gap closes when your currency goes down: European companies are not just being pulled to America by a cheaper dollar. They are also being pushed away from Europe by a business environment that is not as attractive as that in the United States. For many companies, moving across the Atlantic is the fastest and cheapest way to cut costs and become more competitive. The average hourly manufacturing wage in Europe is 16 percent higher than in the United States. Social insurance and payroll taxes are far steeper in Europe. As are energy costs: the average price of a kilowatt-hour for industrial usage in Europe is roughly 60 percent more than in the United States. Transportation costs are higher, too. And the cost advantages of operating in the United States don’t stop there. Land is still far cheaper in the United States. An acre of rural land in the United States will cost you an average of $1,900. The same plot of land will cost you $5,700 in Germany, $6,650 in Spain, and $14,600 in Denmark. I love the way this essay ends: Although difficult economic times always create political opportunities for demagogues and populists, America is far from ready to repeal capitalism. And stopping the Euroinvasion would require nothing short of that.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:45 AM

Thursday, June 12, 2008

According to Wikipedia, Die Tageszeitung is a coop-owned "alternative" German daily newspaper with a strong focus on green politics. The incomparable Dasha sends us the following illustration of a recent issue and the following translation of Polish commentator Gazeta Wyborcza's thoughts: The front page featured a picture of the White House under the headline 'Onkel Baracks Hutte' (Uncle Barack's Cabin). "Yes, the Americans are voting for a black. But will the citizens of other countries accept a black US president? ..." The publishers claim it was intended as a satirical piece. But this newspaper has already published an article about [former] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice titled 'Onkel Toms Rice' (Uncle Tom's Rice - an allusion to her surname). So the newspaper's journalists are well aware of the negative associations with 'Uncle Tom'. It is good to hear foreign voices expressing concern about Obama's lack of experience in international affairs. Although these concerns are fully justified, I do detect a racist tone in them sometimes. ... The way American politics is perceived in other countries has always said a lot about the countries themselves[,] but never as much as in this year's US election campaign. (12/06/2008) UPDATE: It is an ironic comment on our times that the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which served as an effective and angry call to arms against slavery, has come to be viewed as emblematic of racism.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:06 AM

Terrorist Families for Change

Another fundraiser soon to be thrown under the bus. Via Memeorandum.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:05 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

More of the same old...

SF Chronicle rewrites the same article for yet the 546th time: Energy analysts said the problem for Congress is that most of its policy options would have little impact on gas prices in the short term. A windfall profits tax could appeal to public anger at the oil companies, but it would not lower gas prices. Opening the Arctic refuge or offshore areas to drilling would take years before the fuel reached the market. What's needed here is a little imagination. The all-familiar tired impression -- energy development is massively expensive at the front end, with a gigantic ten years of expenditure and a little trickle of new energy at the end -- is a thoroughly false picture. All you need do is think a bit about that "massive initial expense." It actually represents new great jobs, higher workers' income, more workers' spending on local goods/services, subsequent rounds of spending as recipients of workers' spending in turn spend their shiny new larger paychecks, and on it goes. The so-called "massive initial expense," in other words, is payment for some of those "good jobs" we used to have so many of. Maybe it takes ten years for the new oil to trickle out, but the benefits of energy business expansion are felt immediately and, we might add, dramatically. UPDATE: And once again John McCain declares drilling in ANWR is like drilling in the Grand Canyon. What elitist nonsense. It comes from a man who (regardless of other virtues) is about as close to the kinds of families who vacation at national parks as I am to Jennifer Lopez' breasts. Most national parks really mean something to families like mine. But ANWR is a gigantic waste tract visited by virtually nobody except a few wealthy members of the environmental extreme-outdoor-vacation set. It may make earth worshippers feel good about themselves, but for the rest of us it does absolutely nothing. McCain will not win this election without getting a little closer to the people. The people want to drill here, to drill now, and to pay less. UPDATE II: Via Instapundit, more from Larry Kudlow. UPDATE III: Via Memeorandum, the Blogger Dyre Portents points out ANWR isn't "the solution." He's constructed a reasonable post, but he fails to remember the basis of much modern dispute: some of us keep seeking "solutions" while others of us recognize there are no "solutions," but, rather, just tradeoffs. UPDATE IV: Bloger Right of the Star agrees with my policy prescriptions but corrects my impression McCain doesn't know the Grand Canyon. UPDATE V: Victor Davis Hanson says it's the right thing to do! UPDATE VI: Now this at National Review online. The "drill-now-drill-here-pay-less" meme is rapidly evolving into capitalist populism versus environmental elitism. I speak as a small business employer (click here for details) who is considering moving to a standardized four-day week to help employees cope with high gas prices.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:15 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Regulate -- rhymes with (expression deleted)

Everyone seems to agree investment banks need more regulation, but: When I try to get people to specify [what] we should do, there's a lot of hemming and hawing. Even the left-wing think tankers sort of look at their shoes and whisper "We need a better regulator". At which point even the left-wing journalists in the audience start asking "Where are we going to find regulators who understand this better than the guys at Goldman Sachs--and are willing to work for, say, a GS-13 salary?" The only people who confidently state that they have a surefire master plan to fix the problem are, not to put too fine a point on it, morons with very limited understanding of financial markets. These people generally start by talking about how the Bear Stearns crisis can really be traced back to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, then almost immediately reveal that they know nothing of Glass-Steagall other than its name. Via Memeorandum

Link posted by Steve Antler : 2:49 PM

Daddy, why do we have beer as well as wine?

The answer has to do with European changeover from grapes to grains during the little ice age: The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual...Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. Minimum activity generally occurs as the cycles change. Solar activity refers to phenomena like sunspots, solar flares and solar eruptions...The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why...In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:14 AM

McCain throws corporate CEOs under the bus...

And you know what? Given everything else he's offering, I think I really don't care that much!

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:53 AM

Why didn't I think of these?

Eleven easy ways to raise the price of domestic energy.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:35 AM

We were excited about the future...

In 1979 Eastern Canada was all abuzz about rumors of offshore oil. Yes, they found it, and we gravely heard predictions all would be okay because oil prices were rising fast enough to make the Hibernia oil field economic at then-projected production costs of $31 per barrel. Then, as we all remember, oil prices plunged all the way back to $17/bbl. The offshore projects went forward anyway, and prices finally rose once again, enough to make the projects economic on a nonsubsidized basis. But remember: expected price was $31, actual postboom world price settled at about $17. Lots of new projects are now going forward. How long before the world price once again starts to take the plunge?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:51 AM

A rose by any other name...

Via Instapundit, Mickey Kaus points to Jim Johnson as having "gotten obscenely rich off of public service while pursuing a failed liberal antipoverty theory (community develpment)... " Community Development is one of those great-sounding abstractions that has real-world voter implications never imagined by most of its proponents in the grant-application/grant-reception set. In real life terms -- to small businessmen and their workers -- "community development" relates to unannounced aggressive fundraisers whose demands for community support are in tone and manner not dissimmilar to their organized-crime-predecessors of the 1950s. In short, to most small businesses "community development" means shakedown; they and many of their employees' voting patterns may someday surprise the Obama team for this reason.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:10 AM

Monday, June 09, 2008

I didn't know that about myself!

Just when Bruce Bartlett unearthed an unanticipated community of Obamacons, Paul Krugman proved everyone on the other side must logically be a racist.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:09 AM

Wal-Mart? The RNC? Big Oil?

There is a large organization that is privatizing its formerly self-owned-and-operated food service: The embarrassment of [this] food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable...Last week...the [organization] agreed to privatize the operation of its food service, a decision that would, for the first time, put it under the control of a contractor and all but guarantee lower wages and benefits for the outfit's new hires. So exactly who are these privatizing explitative villians? Why, they are the members of the United States Senate! It's a shame they're willing to do for their own fat bellies what they're unwilling to for the millions of Social Security recipients facing retirement after being forced to buy into an insolvent plan.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:10 AM

Invisible hand (soon to be) revisited...

Lawrence Solomon -- with all the wisdom that ought to go with his name -- praises C02 in the Financial Post. And underpopulated northern frontiers can now accommodate higher populations owing to climate change.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:00 AM

Saturday, June 07, 2008

I've got a bar in the back of my car and I'm driving myself to drink...

Via Instapundit, something I don't remember from 1962.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:25 PM

Via Wizbang and from my business I can verify everything the following story, from Patterico, is true: My parents own an ice cream shop, and rely heavily in its operation on eight 16-20 year olds working part-time schedules of 16-24 hours a week, along with one full-time manager who is assisted by my parents in their free time. Over the course of a 7 day work week, they typically employ the part-time workers for a total of about 340 hours a week. Raising the minimum wage by .70 increased their straight wage expense by $240 a week, or about $1000 a month. But it had collateral consequences as well, as their worker's comp. and unemployment insurance costs rose in relation to their payroll, as did their payroll tax contributions. The combination of wage increase and the various increases that spin off that wage increase was about $1500 a month. This is against a total wage expense for the part-timers of about $8000 a month. Now, the ice cream parlor business is somewhat inelastic from a price stand point -- people won't continue to pay higher and higher prices for an ice cream cone when the alternative is simply to do without. So, that increase in operating expense could not, in total, be passed on to the customers. Instead, my parents worked a few more hours themselves and trimmed back on the hours they had the part-timers working. When one of the part-timers quit, they didn't hire a replacement for her. Now, the same thing is going to happen next month -- another increase of .70 per hour, totaling about $1500 a month in additional operating expenses is going to kick in. This will come on top of significant increases over the past year in product costs -- multiply the increased cost of milk you are paying at the supermarket several times over and you get a feel for the increased cost of buying ice cream on a large scale for a business establishment. They will raise the prices a little, but not enough to cover the total increase. They will cutback on the hours the part-timers work, and work a few more hours themselves. And if they lose another worker, they probably won't hire a replacement. My parents are both in their late 60s, and they don't want to work 60 hour weeks at an ice cream parlor they bought on a lark after they retired. But they aren't going to operate it as a money loser either.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:12 PM

Friday, June 06, 2008

Change we can all believe in, a.k.a. infirmity of purpose

Jerusalem must remain Israel's undivided capital, except for the divided part. Full disclosure: some this post's title is from Melanie Phillips. UPDATE: Also known as: 1. Please try to find room for Jerusalem under the bus 2. He was for a united Jerusalem before he was against it 3. Were you fibbing then or are you fibbing now? Meanwhile, we're waiting for somebody to bring in that magic word: "nuance." UPDATE: At last, in the comments to this post: 4. Nuance you can believe in! UPDATE II: And by the way, Jerusalem (according to official US policy) actually isn't the capital of Israel. Shouldn't somebody running for Diplopmat-in-Chief know that? UPDATE III: Matthew Yglesias: it depends on what the meaning of the word "undivided" is.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:03 AM

Plural possessive...

Trial lawyers' new tax break. File under "continuing victory of American appropriation over American production."

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:49 AM

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Scientific self loathing?

What he said: The president of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati said Thursday his country may already be doomed because of climate change...President Anote Tong said communities had already been resettled and crops destroyed by seawater in some parts of the country, made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator. What science has measured: What the measurers said: Historical sea level trends, and even to an extent the current SEAFRAME sea level trends, would suggest that we could expect sea level rises of less than 0.5m over next 50 years, which is considerably at variance to current scientific commentary. It is possible, therefore, that the effects of recent accelerations in climate change have not yet started to have a significant contribution to or impact on current sea levels; based on international scientific opinion, it is more a case of when, rather than if. In other words: don't trust what our study found. Listen, rather, to the global warming activists. Trust the narrative, not the numbers.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:26 AM

As my first boss would have said: "So what did you expect?"

The average American would consider it irresponsible for us to leave Iraq without an agreement like this one. Judging from listings in Memeorandum, the entire Stalinite Politically Correct World Press (and of course the bleftosphere) is telling the story as if George W. Bush were discovered having kinky, painful sex with helpless puppies.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:52 AM

Three Questions

Regarding this new vaccine: 1. What does it cost? (By how much will it raise the price of a leg-of-lamb, for example?) 2. Are there unintended consequences? (Will it make lamb taste, you know, less "lamby"?) 3. Does it work for people too?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:20 AM

The old guys wait. And wait. And die.

Having myself waited months to see a specialist during my eighteen years in Canada, I can testify to the truth of this article. But even though this involved some waiting, I was always sent to the front of the line because I was in the easy-to-treat 27-45 year old age group!

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:15 AM

Earth to David: Join Rush 24/7 so you can know from what you're talking...

David Frum really disappoints here. He's better at discussing liberals than conservatives. (Sorry David -- you, of all commentators, should listen to conservative talk radio instead of simply repeating what others say about it!) But it is this little nugget that gets me mad: The cost of "patching" the AMT will sharply rise in the years ahead as more and more taxpayers are caught in its clutches. Click here for a chart from the Tax Foundation that nicely illustrates the scope of the problem. The $65 billion patch of 2008 will cost more and more and more each succeeding year. David, you're starting to sound like a liberal. Why do I say that? The answer is, the only costs and tradeoffs liberals like to talk about are those involved with trimming back the size of government. (Everything else they think is free.) Get with the program, friend. There's no real cost associated with changing the AMT. No money vanishes. Rather, it just stays in the pockets of -- and then gets spent by -- those who really earned it.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:00 AM

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Who said it?

[T]he United States will change, it will have a different approach... [We must] respond to the real demands of the American people: 40 million American citizens do not have health insurance, the victims of the New Orleans hurricane still have no homes. [We] will have to withdraw the soldiers from Iraq [since we cannot] tolerate continued spending of billions of dollars on weapons... We are ready for dialogue with anyone...in relations based on mutual respect and fairness. Click here for the answer.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:16 PM

Our own oil cartel?

Maybe we can't have a cartel, but we can have more oil. UPDATE: Via Instapundit, this additional info.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:19 AM

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

A question for Senator Obama...

From advance text of Obama's Final Primary Night Speech: Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who created it. It is appropriate to ask the following question: Senator Obama: isn't wealth generated by the combined contributions of all factors of production -- labor as well as services rendered by capital, land, and natural resources? Or do you rather agree with the Classical economists -- Adam Smith through Karl Marx -- who contended all value is generated by labor power alone, i.e. that only "work and workers" create wealth? UPDATE: Via Instapundit this excellent little paragraph from Commentary and some great reader comments: [More] emphasis should be placed on [Obama's] semi-fascist and anti-intellectual appeal. Obama is our very first postmodernist presidential candidate. He does not have mere voters. No, Obama has followers who look to him to provide existential meaning and hope to their lives. They perceive him to be their secular savior. I am taken by the phrase "first postmodernist presidential candidate." It fits. UPDATE: If you haven't yet heard about the so-called "Michelle Obama Tape" (a.k.a. "Larry Johnson's Holy Grail", "Michelle Obama's Rant Tape," "Michelle's 'Get Whitey' Tape," etc.), you'll supposedly be getting more info quite soon. Anyway, for the purposes of this blog I think it is appropriate for the press to ask very specific questions of the candidate regarding exactly how he believes the US economy works. Forget questions about whether the economy is "unfair" or not. Answers to these involve feelings -- usually feelings about those less fortunate than we, meaning these are feelings most of us share. Rather, we should know whether the candidate feels profits are a pure residual (as Marx, Ricardo, Malthus, Smith, etc.) believed, or whether profits are the valid return to services rendered by capital goods and equipment (as, for example, John Bates Clark and Democratic Illinois Senator Paul Douglas believed). The two alternate views of profit suggest radically differing economic policies. We need to know Obama's view of capitalism itself. UPDATE II: Via Memeorandum, Joseph Cannon is making telephone calls and getting interesting results. We quote: I've left a polite message with a newswoman in attendance, pleading with her to clear the matter up. If she denies that Michelle said such a thing, I will of course publish what she says, even if doing so means a crow-and-hat dinner for yours truly. So far, no response. That fact alone may be telling. Think about it: If Michelle did not use an incendiary term, then those in attendance (including war hero Shoshana Johnson) would be very quick to clear her name. Right? But...they have said nothing. The silence is mysterious. Remember the lesson of the Swiftboat debacle: Always respond quickly. My mind keeps flashing back to the Obama rep with whom I spoke. Before he would comment, he spent a minute talking to his boss, asking for direction on what to say to me. Then I was told that the campaign refuses to address the issue until a video surfaces. Why? UPDATE III: Via Flopping Aces we find this schedule. (Either search the document for "Michelle" or scroll down to Saturday, June 26th, 12pm-2pm, SHERATON BALLROOM 1-7.)

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:20 PM

Bless that doggone falling dollar!

More evidence of manufacturing exports leading recovery from the current "slow-growth" recession.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:00 PM

World "leaders" dine on "pasta" and "sweetcorn"...

Don't you just love the way "quotation" marks are "used" in the first paragraph? Check it out: World leaders attending the UN food summit in Rome settled down today to a "modest" lunch in order not to be accused of "hypocrisy" as they were at the last world food summit six years ago. Lobster, goose and foie gras have given way to pasta, mozzarella, spinach and sweetcorn. "It does not look good if leaders discussing global starvation are seen to be dining lavishly," an official of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said...The summit six years ago aimed to halve the number of the world's hungry by 2015...The 2002 menu, published by The Times, began with foie gras on toast with kiwi fruit and lobster in vinaigrette, followed by fillet of goose with olives and seasonal vegetables and ending with a compote of fruit with vanilla, all accompanied by an array of fine wines. Enough to make you "sick". UPDATE: More menu information here.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:59 AM

A minor distortion at best...

Numbers like these are often used by those touting public-financing of federal elections. But such arguments fail to note all politcal (and indeed any other) advertising money goes first to the TV station, then to its employees in the next payroll check, and then back into the general economy to, frankly, wherever its owner damn well pleases.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:25 AM

Monday, June 02, 2008

If the game is rigged it's okay to cheat...

Peter Schweitzer -- someone who can't be considered exactly neutral on the issue -- cites four credible studies demonstrating liberals taken as a whole tend towards less honesty than conservatives. His explanation: The honesty gap is also not a result of "bad people" becoming liberals and "good people" becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective. This is interesting but perhaps too complicated. Aren't conservatives, after all, the guys who "believe in the system," and aren't liberals the ones who think the whole game is rigged? I've been looking for an excuse to post this diagram, from Alesina and Angeletos' "Fairness and Redistribution: US versus Europe", and it goes well right here: So what do we learn from this? Although many other factors are involved (meaning the observations don't all exactly line up in a straight line) there's a reasonably good positive correlation between, on the one hand, belief that luck (rather than hard work) determines income, and, on the other, the percentage of GDP a nation decides to devote to social spending. In other words: the more you think the game is rigged, the less you're disturbed by taking purchasing power from those who've earned it and giving it to those who haven't.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 2:15 PM

 
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