I have some thoughts on status-quo bias and human spaceflight over at Open Market.
Category Archives: Business
The Budget Numbers
Bringing them down to size. That’s a presentation that even Barack Obama might understand.
Tax And Spend
…is not a jobs plan.
A Letter To Neil Armstrong
From the young people who will be affected by his testimony.
Note what it doesn’t mention.
Obama’s Fascist Economy
Observations over at The American Thinker:
A key characteristic of the reality of fascist thinking is rampant cronyism and corruption. Certain capitalists, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the state, are willing to fund the election of those in power in exchange for favorable government contracts and avoidance of regulatory wrath. Recently, much of Wall Street, Hollywood, the unions, major companies such as General Electric, and the super-wealthy such as Warren Buffett are willing to sleep with those in power and be used as props in any propaganda campaign initiated by the Obama regime.
The Obama administration has, through the Justice Department and other agencies, behaved exactly as many quasi-fascist regimes in the past — almost all of whom have been governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect themselves and their friends from accountability.
The term “fascism” has been redefined by the horrendous acts of Mussolini and Hitler, actions spurred by their megalomania and nationalism. However, the economic philosophy that is fascism is alive and well and being pursued in the United States by those whose desire it is to control the people of the country and reinforce their domestic power base, not to conquer the world. Yet the pursuit of the same tenets that motivated Franklin Roosevelt has prolonged and exacerbated the current economic disaster facing the United States.
Sadly, the crony capitalism inherent in the Senate Launch System is part of it. It’s bipartisan.
Compassionate Conservatism
Frank J. takes pity on politicians:
I have to admit: I laughed the first time Obama said he was going to “pivot to jobs.” And the second time. And the third time. But by the sixth time, it was getting pretty sad.
And when he proposed his new “jobs bill,” he was so earnest about it that I found myself rooting for the poor guy. It’s just a desperate mishmash of ideas — like he knows that one button on the keyboard starts a program, so he’s going to mash all of them with his palm — and as funny as it is, I’m starting to worry that his blundering like this is getting in the way of people who actually do create jobs (namely, business owners and such).
So this has gone on long enough. I know some people don’t feel any sympathy for the politicians; much like reality-show contestants, they selected themselves for this mockery. Still, this is no way to treat fellow human beings or even lawyers.
Plus, what if eventually the politicians become so frustrated that one of them says, “I have a brilliant idea! Let’s drop an atomic bomb on our own country! The rebuilding it will require will create lots of jobs! We’ll call it the ‘Nuclear Deal.’” It wouldn’t even be their dumbest idea. (Actually, has anyone read through Obama’s entire proposal yet to make sure that’s not in there?)
That would be the Paul Krugman plan.
But Other Than That, It’s Great (Part Two)
The president’s tax plan defies economics. Again, how does that distinguish it from any of his other plans?
[Update a few minutes later]
After Obama, I don’t think there will be any more John Kerry or Al Gore sermons about the superior Europe model either. A disarmed, undemocratic, insolvent, shrinking, and increasingly polarized continent is now a model of what the United States should not be. There simply have been too many California as Greece stories for any politicians to advise us with the old admonition: “But In Europe, they….”
Obama thought that he would replicate the EU paradigm. He would bring in properly certified technocrats from academia or government like Chu, Geithner, Goolsbee, Holder, Orszag, Romer, and Summers to oversee massive new regulations and taxes that would dictate from on high how the ignorant masses must be protected from everything from cheap gas to old-style light bulbs. In less than three years, they all proved far more ignorant about what makes America work than the local car dealer, welder, or farmer. After Obama, Americans will not be fooled for a generation or so into thinking that a Harvard PhD or Berkeley professor “really” knows that borrowing is prosperity, that gas should cost as much as it does in Europe, and that the more we pay millions to regulate, the more the vastly fewer who produce make us all prosperous. (And given Obama’s mysterious silence about the undergraduate record at Occidental and Columbia that won him a scholarship to Harvard Law, we won’t take seriously any more the usual liberal critique of supposedly weak-minded conservative candidates who, based on their leaked undergraduate transcripts, could not get As decades ago in college.)
I hope that the current disastrous presidency turns out to be a blessing in disguise, by finally exposing all the mythology of the left, and inoculating us against such insanity for at least a generation.
[Update a few minutes later]
Tax the rich, just not my rich:
Menendez, Lautenberg and Kirsten Gillibrand support eliminating some or all of the Bush tax cuts. Schumer said the $250,000 limit is unacceptable since it will hit the metropolitan area disproportionately because of the high cost of living here.
“$250,000 makes you really rich in Mississippi but it doesn’t make you rich at all in New York and there ought to be some kind of scale based on the cost of living on how much you pay,” Schumer said.
So, Senator, if we should adjust taxation for areas with higher cost of living, why should there be a single federal minimum wage for the whole country?
[Update a few minutes later]
The president’s plan is all tax hikes and no cuts. What a shocker.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Barack Obama, home alone:
Ron Suskind quotes former administration official Larry Summers complaining: “We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.”
Put aside the misbegotten nostalgia for Bill Clinton, whose new status as an elder statesman wipes from memory his bouts of reckless immaturity. The Summers comment (subsequently denied, of course) stands as the best summation of the current occupant of the White House, who constantly congratulates himself on his high-minded leadership without exercising any.
Wasn’t this the guy who mused that he’d make a pretty good chief of staff? I’m trying to figure out what he’s good at, other than being a con man.
There Is No Market For Space Tourism
I mean, how silly is it to think that someone would pay money to see something like this?
Kelo
A sad epilogue:
Susette and I were talking in a small circle of people when we were approached by Justice Richard N. Palmer. Tall and imposing, he is one of the four justices who voted with the 4-3 majority against Susette and her neighbors. Facing me, he said: “Had I known all of what you just told us, I would have voted differently.”
I was speechless. So was Susette. One more vote in her favor by the Connecticut Supreme Court would have changed history. The case probably would not have advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Susette and her neighbors might still be in their homes.
Then Justice Palmer turned to Susette, took her hand and offered a heartfelt apology. Tears trickled down her red cheeks. It was the first time in the 12-year saga that anyone had uttered the words “I’m sorry.”
It was really an appalling decision. It greatly enhanced local governments’ capacity for tyranny.
You Don’t Say
Obama deficit plan may miss its targets. Our days of taking this guy seriously should be way past a middle.