Things are coming apart

What’s New Today 

Story #1 tells of a former CBS producer who is fed up trying to defend the liberal bias in the MSM.  #2 relates how frustrated the MSM is trying to trick Romney into going off message and not staying on the economy.  The economy is the loser for Obama so they don’t want Romney talking about it.  #3 has Jimmy Carter back in the news showing us all he wasn’t just a horrible president, but he’s also a horrible ex-president.  #4 is all about Obamanomics and how it’s fared.  #5 gives you a dictionary of what the Democrats actually mean when they say certain words.  

Today’s Thoughts

“We can be outspent and still win — but we can’t be outspent 10 to 1 and still win.”  Barack Obama in an urgent fund raising letter.  Love the exaggeration.

“They all pretend like they’re part of the 99 percent, but they’re not; they’re part of the 1 percent,” Adam Corolla said of Hollywood’s liberal elites. “They’re all incorporated, they all have tax attorneys, believe me.” 

1.  Liberal Media Bias

For former CBS producer Greg Kandra, the selective editing of a segment that was shown on Andrea Mitchell’s show on MSNBC of Mitt Romney’s remarks after going to a Wawa convenience store for the first time was the last straw. He is now “done” defending his former colleagues and denying the existence of liberal media bias.

Kandra, who is also a Catholic Deacon, took issue with Mitchell on his Deacons Bench blog to express his outrage:

I’m tired.  Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no.  Calm down.  They meant well.  It was just a misunderstanding.  A mistake.  These things happen.”  I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

But now?

Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

Good job.

I just have one question:

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/former-tv-network-producer-upset-with-andrea-mitchell-says-im-done-denying-liberal-media-bias/

The press has earned the disdain and mistrust of the general public.  This is again a horrible reality for the Democratic Party.  They had the press in their back pocket, but now almost everyone knows it and they don’t believe them anymore. 

2.  MSM trying to trap Mitt Romney

…It's a trap. 

The media currently coordinating with the White House knows it's a trap. 

Thank God, though, Mitt Romney knows it's a trap and refuses to play.

 

As a result, the media's narrative focus has now laughably turned away from immigration policy and towards Romney refusing to talk about anything but the economy. 

This is a media narrative borne of desperation for two reasons:

1. Polls show that the last ten days have done nothing to move the needle in Obama's direction.

2. If the focus stays on the economy, Obama loses. 

Time's Michael Crowley bared all of the corrupt media's backside this morning with a high-profile feature titled: "One-Note Mitt: Is Romney Too Focused on the Economy?"…

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/06/26/Time-Romney-Economy

Did the author mention it’s a trap?  Somehow I’m reminded of Uncle Remus and Baer Rabbit asking not to be thrown in the Briar Patch. 


3.  Jimmy Carter accuses Obama of Human Rights violations

A former U.S. president is accusing the current president of sanctioning the "widespread abuse of human rights" by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists.

Jimmy Carter, America's 39 th president, denounced the Obama administration for "clearly violating" 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a NY Times op-ed on Monday that the "United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights."

"Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends," Carter wrote.

While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 . Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources.

In addition to the drone strikes, Carter criticized the current president for keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, where prisoners "have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers."…

http://news.yahoo.com/jimmy-carter-accuses-u-widespread-abuse-human-rights-154057442--abc-news-politics.html

Jimmy Carter was a horrible president and an even worse ex-president.  The man is a complete fool.

4.  Obamanomics:  the verdict

One of the consequences of all the stimulus and subsequent QE is that long time traders of our markets know they are screwed up. Consistent printing of money and 0% interest rates world wide have created their own economic imbalances. As the saying goes, there is no free lunch.

Economists such as Taylor, Cochrane, Zingales, Rajan and Murphy have said as much over the past four years. Turns out, they were right and the Keynesians are wrong.
 
The government stimulus had a multiplier effect of 0. It did nothing for job growth or GDP growth in the US. Combine the inefficiency of US fiscal policy with the continued implosion of Europe, and you have a world wide malaise. In China, because of macro economic effects, wages are rising, costs to produce are increasing. Companies are also wary of both the poor property rights system and the lengthened supply chain. China is slowing down.
 
The economies of the world aren’t going to contract because of government spending decreasing. They are going to contract because the continued machinations of the world’s central bankers have screwed up the costs of capital normally paid by the markets. The money that they have printed hasn’t gone into the productive marketplace. Instead, it went to shore up balance sheets and sits.
Money isn’t turning over. There is no velocity….

http://pointsandfigures.com/2012/06/26/watch-out-for-more-deflation/

There’s a lot in this article that needs to be understood.  Keynesian economics doesn’t work and it never has.   

5.  Political Dictionary 

Since this is an election year, we can expect to hear a lot of words -- and the meaning of those words is not always clear. So it may be helpful to have a glossary of political terms.

One of the most versatile terms in the political vocabulary is "fairness." It has been used over a vast range of issues, from "fair trade" laws to the Fair Labor Standards Act. And recently we have heard that the rich don't pay their "fair share" of taxes.

Some of us may want to see a definition of what is "fair." But a concrete definition would destroy the versatility of the word, which is what makes it so useful politically.

If you said, for example, that 46.7 percent of their income -- or any other number -- is the "fair share" of their income that the rich should have to pay in taxes, then once they paid that amount, there would be no basis for politicians to come back to them for more -- and "more" is what "fair share" means in practice.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

"Racism" is another term we can expect to hear a lot this election year, especially if the public opinion polls are going against President Barack Obama.

Former big-time TV journalist Sam Donaldson and current fledgling CNN host Don Lemon have already proclaimed racism to be the reason for criticisms of Obama, and we can expect more and more other talking heads to say the same thing as the election campaign goes on. The word "racism" is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything -- and demanding evidence makes you a "racist."…

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/26/a_political_glossary

A good op-ed piece showing how the left likes to use and abuse language. 

Wisconsin and other Democratic disappointments

What’s New Today

Story #1 tells us it is beginning.  We are starting to hear the excuses for the coming election.  #2 tells of why Obama will try to dump Biden.  Hillary would be a great choice, but it is doubtful she will do it.  She gains almost nothing by joining the sinking ship and risks a lot.  #3 Eliot Spitzer think Obama should run on his record.  Of course he also thinks we’ve been using Keynesian economics for the past 70 years.  I guess he was busy in a bawdy house from 1980 to 2008.  #4 tells how the Democrats are claiming the NYT poll is biased.  It is, but it is biased toward the Democrats.  #5 tells you to remember to be careful what you ask for because what you end up getting may not be the results you were looking for especially in Wisconsin.  #6 lays out the problems in California which may act as a warning to the country.  #7 looks at what the Democrat policies mean to the cost of energy. 

Today’s Thoughts

I saw an interesting article today questioning whether we are no longer close to peak oil and we may have passed peak government.  

On the View on Tuesday, Obama told the people not to comparing him to the Almighty.  I’ve never made that mistake, have you?  

Doug Ross in his blog posted a list of translation from Californese to Texan.  Some of the translations include: Arsenal of Weapons (C)-- Gun Collection (T).. Delicate Wetlands (C)-- Swamp (T).. Undocumented Worker (C) -- Illegal Alien (T).

Latest news on the Zimmerman case shows that Zimmerman had a broken nose, multiple abrasions, and a hurt back while Trayvon Martin had bruised knuckles.  It seems the facts are supporting Zimmerman’s version of what happened. 

1. And it begins…

Asked during a television interview how close he expected the result of November's presidential election to be, Mr Obama said: "When your name is Barack Obama, it's always tight".
After a host noted that his full name was "Barack Hussein Obama," he repeated this twice, stressing the middle name that has led conspiracy theorists to claim erroneously that he is secretly Muslim.

The remarks, made on ABC's The View, appeared to be a rare admission by Mr Obama that four years after he became the first black US president, his ethnicity continues to repel some American voters. 

Asked "why do you say that now, after four years?" Mr Obama appeared to gather his thoughts and said: "I think it's going to be tight because the fact of the matter is, the country has gone through a very difficult time – the worst financial crisis, the worst economic crisis, since the 1930s."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9268002/US-election-When-your-name-is-Barack-Hussein-Obama-getting-elected-is-difficult.html

It’s beginning already.  Obama and the Democrats are getting their excuses in line.  When he is defeated, it won’t be because he’s failed, but rather the American public has failed.  They couldn’t support a black man.  They were too prejudiced to elect someone who believed in common decency and gay marriage. And in the final analysis, it was Bush’s fault, but he’s having to pay for it. 

2. Expect a Desperate Obama to Dump Biden
Vice President Joe Biden isn't invited to Sunday campaign strategy meetings at the White House, The New York Times reported May 4.
President Barack Obama designated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., his top surrogate on foreign policy issues, fueling speculation he'd be secretary of state in a second Obama administration.
So Washington is abuzz with rumors the president will replace Mr. Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
He ought to. Slow Joe is a national embarrassment….
…Something stupid the vice president says makes news nearly every week. Last week he suggested to a group of rabbis that the Bush administration was to blame for the Iranian nuclear weapons crisis, as opposed to Iran.
Mr. Biden may suffer from logorrhea, which Merriam-Webster defines as "pathologically excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness that is characteristic especially of the manic phase of bipolar disorder." So what the White House calls "Joe Bombs" will keep on coming, a prospect which must chill Team Obama.
But there are downsides to dumping him. The move would reek of desperation.
Dumping a loyal supporter, however feckless, would seem ruthless and selfish. These are not traits a president wants foremost in voters' minds when he's hoping that his personal-approval ratings will compensate for his low job-approval ratings.
If Mr. Obama dumps Slow Joe, he'd be admitting he chose poorly in 2008. This president can't afford to give voters more reasons for questioning his judgment.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/15/expect_a_desperate_obama_to_dump_biden_114154.html

I have no doubt that this has been talked about.  The question is whether Clinton would take the job.  The upside would be the VP is a kick off point to get the Democrat Nomination in 2016.  But she probably can have it then anyway and there is no guarantee they would win.   Another downside is if they win anything that goes wrong in the next four years would be her fault and would distract from her electability.  

3. Spitzer wants Obama to run on his Record

Appearing on ABC's "This Week," former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (why do they give him a forum?) offered the Democratic Party's defense of the Obama economy. The Republicans, Spitzer sputtered "want to go back to medieval medicine, the bloodletting, leeches. They want to go back to the very crazy economics that brought us over the cliff and created a cataclysm."

Ah, ABC must have hired him for his high-minded contribution to the debate. Spitzer continued: "What we tried here under Barack Obama is Keynesian economics, restructure the economy, invest where you need to. It worked for 70 years. It will work in the next 100 years. That is what the public should focus on."

Spitzer must not have been paying attention when we experienced stagflation in the 1970s -- impossible under the Keynesian model. Does Spitzer really want the public to focus on the Obama economic record? The president doesn't seem to. He scarcely mentions the nearly $1 trillion economic stimulus, Dodd-Frank or Obamacare. He seems more eager to talk about free contraceptives, gay marriage and bashing the rich. Obama doesn't seem to think there's anything to boast about. In fact, he's been creative about finding excuses. The financial crisis was worse than we knew, he says. Or it was the Japanese earthquake, the European debt crisis or the Arab Spring.

Let's take Spitzer up on his invitation and focus on the economic record. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was supposed to jump-start the economy and keep unemployment below 8 percent, clearly failed. Unemployment topped 10 percent after the stimulus became law and has remained above 8 percent since.

http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2012/05/15/spitzer_wants_to_focus_on_economy_really

Spitzer’s attack on the Republicans certainly seems to fit Jonah Goldberg’s latest book, Tyranny of Cliches.  Medieval medicine?  The bloodletting?  Leeches?  And when was the last time you heard him mention Obamacare? 

4. NYT poll biased?

It's not the first time the New York Times has been accused of bias, but it may be the funniest. Charlie Spiering of the Washington Examiner reports that the charge was leveled this morning by the Obama campaign. MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter to comment on the latest Times/CBS News poll, and she said: "The methodology was significantly biased." She then "said that she didn't want to bore the viewers with talk of methodology, but repeated that she believed the poll was flawed." Pressed by Todd, she said: "It's a biased sample, so they re-biased the same sample." Glad she cleared that up.

The Time’s headline finding was that an overwhelming majority of respondents, 67%, think the president backed same-sex marriage last week "mostly for political reasons," while only 24% think he did it "mostly because he thinks it is right." This column agrees with the 24% more than the 67%, but in any case Obama has managed a neat trick: He has managed to look like a cynical opportunist while taking an unpopular position.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577406352876986544.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

This poll was biased, toward the Democrats.  Looking at the demographics it had 36% Democrats, 30% Republicans and 34% Independents.  Of course it then appears that Democrats are suspicious of Obama’s motives too.    

5. Be Careful what you ask for

The labor movement and its left-wing allies in the Democratic Party thought they were doing something extremely clever when they reacted to their defeats at the hands of Scott Walker in the Wisconsin legislature by starting a recall campaign. The recall enabled the losers of the 2010 election where Walker and the GOP swept to power in the state to, in effect, get a do-over in which they could act as if the previous result didn’t really count. But as the latest polls from Wisconsin show, they are on the eve of a catastrophic loss that will not only leave Walker in power and stronger than ever but also deal the Democrats a crucial loss that may be a harbinger of more setbacks in the fall.

The latest We Ask America poll in Wisconsin shows Walker expanding his lead over the Democratic alternative, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker, who was shown in previous polls to have a smaller advantage, now is ahead by a decisive 52-43 margin. With Walker going over the 50 percent mark for the first time in this race, this is a devastating result as it was assumed that once the Democrats picked their candidate the race would get closer. Instead, Barrett’s victory in the Democratic primary over a candidate preferred by the unions seems to have reminded Wisconsin voters that they already had a choice between Walker and Barrett in 2010 and picked the former….

….Walker stood his ground last year and passed measures that will prevent municipal and state worker unions from holding the state hostage and bringing it to the edge of bankruptcy. His effort to remove some — though not all — of their collective bargaining rights led to his demonization in the press and a vicious campaign aimed at making it impossible for Walker to govern.

But rather than making an example out of him and showing that any challenge to union domination of state government will be punished, the recall may turn out to have the opposite effect. It may not only elevate Walker to a figure of national stature. It could effectively demonstrate that the power of the union movement is finished….

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/05/15/labor-headed-for-catastrophe-in-wisconsin-walker-recall-vote/

What appears to be happening is not what the Democrats and the Unions thought would happen or what they need to happen.  A loss here will be a blow for both the unions and the Democrats.

6. California:  A warning of things to come

Recently, I was driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. As I looked at the congested traffic on the decrepit highway and digested the idea that our public schools are competitive only with Mississippi and Alabama, I wondered — is that what we get for a more than 10 percent income tax, 10 percent state and local sales taxes, and the highest gas taxes in the nation?

To sum up why California has yet another deficit — this time a $16 billion whopper — is pretty easy: The number of demonized one-percenters who pay over 10 percent in their salary to the state has been shrinking, as thousands flee with their ideas, energy, business, and capital to nearby no-tax states, and others make less money due to more and more costs and regulations — while the number of those receiving all sorts of state housing, food, medical, education, and legal support is soaring. (In crude parlance, California increasingly is seen by some as a very bad deal, in terms of the sort of schools, safety, transportation, and housing per taxes paid in comparison to Reno, Tahoe, or Austin, but by far more people as a very good deal in comparison to the costs versus benefits in, for example, Oaxaca or El Salvador.)

In the last two decades, the number added to the prison rolls (ca. 115,000) was not that much smaller than the number of new tax-filers (150,000). And of the last 10 million added to the state’s population, 7 million are on Medicaid.

But California being California, such reductionist thinking is taboo, and we are not allowed to make any suggestion that there is a connection between fleeing entrepreneurs, massive and illegal influxes of undocumented foreign nationals in recent years, and record public salaries and unfunded pensions….

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/299975/can-california-be-fixed-victor-davis-hanson

70 percent of the people who have been added to California’s population are on Medicaid?  California is one of the 50 experiments that show us the results of policy decisions.  Progressivism doesn’t work.

7. Obama, the Greens and the Cost of Energy

[T]wenty-nine states (and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) have required utility companies to deliver specified minimum amounts of electricity from “renewable” sources, including wind and solar power. California recently adopted the most stringent of these so-called renewable portfolio standards (RPS), requiring 33 percent of its electricity to be renewable by 2020. …

But this patchwork of state rules—which now affects the electricity bills of about two-thirds of the U.S. population as well as countless businesses and industrial users—has sprung up in recent years without the benefit of the states fully calculating their costs. …

[W]e have compared the costs of electricity in RPS [renewable portfolio standards] and non-RPS states, using price information from the EIA. Our analysis has revealed a pattern of mostly higher costs in states with RPS mandates:

* In 2010, the average price of residential electricity in RPS states was 31.9 percent higher than it was in non-RPS states. Commercial electricity rates were 27.4 percent higher, and industrial rates were 30.7 percent higher.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/05/the-high-cost-of-regulation.php

The progressives tell us about global warming and berate us if we question them.  But their policies will hurt the country and the people who live here. 

Why isn't it working?

What’s new today

Our # 1 story is an excellent look at Keynesian economics and why it isn’t working.  #2 has one of Obama’s cabinet secretaries demeaning the TEA Party and using a sexual slur in referring to them. #3 tells the story of how the Russians have tried to get a spy into close connection with the Obama Administration.  #4 relates how Nancy Pelosi thinks Boeing should either unionize their new plant in South Carolina or shut it down.  I guess you have to be a union member to have a job in Nancy’s America.  #5 shows how despite what you hear from the left, school teachers make more than their counterparts in private industry and if you include fringe benefits, a lot more.  #6 shows the hypocrisy in the left.  While the OWS are out protesting Wall Street, we see Fannie and Freddie executives getting millions in bonuses even after the Federal government has had to come up with hundreds of billions in bailouts.  Finally in #7, we find that the British government is cutting the subsidy to solar in half and the predictions are that the industry will fold as a result. 

1.   Four Reasons Why Keynesians keep getting it Wrong

…FIRST, BIG INCREASES IN SPENDING AND GOVERNMENT DEFICITS RAISE THE PROSPECT OF FUTURE TAX INCREASES. Many people understand that increased spending must be paid for sooner or later. Meanwhile, President Obama makes certain that many more will reach that conclusion by continuing to demand permanent tax increases. HIS DEMANDS ARE A DETERRENT FOR THOSE WHO DO MOST OF THE SAVING AND INVESTING. Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for heightened uncertainty and reduced confidence. Potential investors hold cash and wait.

SECOND, most of the government spending programs redistribute income from workers to the unemployed. This, Keynesians argue, increases the welfare of many hurt by the recession. What their models ignore, however, is THE REDUCED PRODUCTIVITY THAT FOLLOWS A SHIFT OF RESOURCES TOWARD REDISTRIBUTION and away from productive investment. Keynesian theory argues that each dollar of government spending has a larger effect on output than a dollar of tax reduction. But in reality the reverse has proven true. PERMANENT TAX REDUCTION GENERATES MORE EXPANSION THAN INCREASED GOVERNMENT SPENDING OF THE SAME DOLLARS. I believe that the resulting difference in productivity is a main reason for the difference in results….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204777904576651532721267002.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

Well worth your time to read the entire article. 

2.   Carrying Water for Obama, Hilda Solis Picks a Fight with the Tea Party

With the team behind President Barack Obama targeting the Sunshine State in their bid for a second term in 2012, the White House sent U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to speak to the Florida Democratic Convention on Saturday.

A day after Vice President Joe Biden told the convention at Walt Disney World that Obama needed to carry Florida to win in 2012, SOLIS ATTEMPTED TO RALLY DEMOCRATS FOR THE ELECTIONS AND URGED THEM TO PUSH FOR THE OBAMA JOBS PLAN WHICH, with Republicans controlling the U.S. House, has no chance of passing Congress.

Speaking at a luncheon event on Saturday, Solis carried water for Obama, bashing Republicans and praising the administration’s economic policies.

Solis offered harsh words about conservatives. Looking at 2012, SOLIS SLAMMED THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT, CALLING THEM “TEABAGGERS” and promising the Obama administration will take them on.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/carrying-water-barack-obama-hilda-solis-picks-fight-tea-party

These people are simply ignorant bigots.  Calling TEA Partiers what she did is the equivalent of a racial slur.  It’s time for Solis to resign. 

3.   Russian Spies come close to infiltrating Senior Obama Administration

The FBI rounded up a network of deep-cover Russian spies last year after the group came close to placing an agent near a Cabinet official in the Obama administration, a senior FBI  counterspy said Monday as the bureau released once-secret documents on the case.

Frank Figliuzzi, assistant FBI director for counterintelligence, did not identify the Cabinet official, but OTHER U.S. OFFICIALS SAID IT WAS SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.

Mr. Figliuzzi said in an interview that the FBI decided to end its more than 10-year-long counterspy investigation of the network because of concerns that THE SPIES WERE “GETTING VERY CLOSE TO THEIR OBJECTIVE.”

“These 10 Russian officers were sent to the U.S. on a specific mission to get close to U.S. policymakers and leaders in our government,” he said, noting that one had developed a friendship with someone close to a Cabinet official.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman at the time the case broke, P.J. CROWLEY, SOUGHT TO DISTANCE HER FROM THE CASE, BUT DID NOT DENY THAT SHE WAS THE PERSON MENTIONED IN COURT PAPERS. “There is no reason to believe that the Secretary of State was a special target of this spy ring,” Mr. Crowley said in an email….

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/31/fbi-says-russian-spies-got-close-to-cabinet/

The lesson here is that we need to be ever vigilant. 

4.   Nancy Pelosi:  Government should shut down non-union manufacturing

In an interview late last week, House Minority Leaeder Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNBC that BOEING SHOULD EITHER UNIONIZE ITS PRODUCTION FACILITIES IN SOUTH CAROLINA, OR SHUT THEM DOWN ENTIRELY.

“Do you think it’s right that Boeing has to close down that plant in South Carolina because it’s non union?” asked host Maria Bartiromo. Pelosi’s reply: “Yes.”

THE MINORITY LEADER QUICKLY ADDED THAT SHE WOULD RATHER IT SIMPLY UNIONIZE AND STAY OPEN. BUT BARRING UNIONIZATION, BY PELOSI’S REASONING, IT SHOULD SIMPLY SHUT DOWN…

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/01/pelosi-heck-yeah-the-government-should-shut-down-that-scab-plant-in-south-carolina/

Freedom and liberty aren’t Democratic values at least they aren’t if you believe what former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said. 

5.   Public school teachers make more than private sector workers

We can already hear the anguished, angry protests of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. But our headline captures the essence of an important new study being released today by Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis and American Enterprise Institute's Andrew Biggs. RICHWINE AND BIGGS FOUND THAT WHEN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS AND PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS ARE COMPARED OBJECTIVELY ON THE BASIS OF COGNITIVE SKILLS -- RATHER THAN YEARS OF SERVICE OR EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT -- THE EDUCATORS ENJOY HIGHER COMPENSATION -- contrary to the claims of union officials in public debate and in negotiations with school boards.

This is seen most dramatically WHEN WORKERS SWITCH FROM NON-TEACHING JOBS TO TEACHING JOBS. SUCH A MOVE TYPICALLY RESULTS IN A WAGE INCREASE OF APPROXIMATELY NINE PERCENT. "TEACHERS WHO CHANGE TO NON-TEACHING JOBS, ON THE OTHER HAND, SEE THEIR WAGES DECREASE BY ROUGHLY 3 PERCENT. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid," Richwine and Biggs said….

…"More generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers, including greater job security, MAKE TOTAL COMPENSATION 52 PERCENT GREATER THAN FAIR MARKET LEVELS, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year. Teacher compensation could therefore be reduced with only minor effects on recruitment and retention," Richwine and Biggs conclude….

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/10/public-school-teachers-make-more-private-sector-workers#ixzz1cSZmj9ZL

This certainly puts a hole in the underpaid, overworked meme by the NEA. 

6.   Crony Socialism at Work at Fannie And Freddie

The Obama administration’s efforts to fix the housing crisis may have fallen well short of helping millions of distressed mortgage holders, but THEY HAVE LED TO SEVEN-FIGURE PAYDAYS FOR SOME TOP EXECUTIVES AT TROUBLED MORTGAGE GIANTS FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC.

The FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY, THE GOVERNMENT REGULATOR FOR FANNIE AND FREDDIE, APPROVED $12.79 MILLION IN BONUS PAY AFTER 10 EXECUTIVES FROM THE TWO GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED CORPORATIONS LAST YEAR MET MODEST PERFORMANCE TARGETS TIED TO MODIFYING MORTGAGES IN JEOPARDY OF FORECLOSURE.

The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts — and despite pledges by FHFA, the office tasked with keeping them solvent, that it would adjust the level of CEO-level pay after critics slammed huge compensation packages paid out to former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines and others.

Securities and Exchange Commission documents show that Ed Haldeman, who announced last week that he is stepping down as Freddie Mac’s CEO, received a base salary of $900,000 last year yet took home an additional $2.3 million in bonus pay. Records show other Fannie and Freddie executives got similar Wall Street-style compensation packages; Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams, for example, got $2.37 million in performance bonuses.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67292.html#ixzz1cSeBDJnJ

This is a major scandal.  The cause of most of the economic problems remains unchanged and even the compensation packages are completely out of whack with the real world.  It’s time to dissolve Fannie and Freddie. 

7.   UK cuts Solar Subsidy

HUNDREDS OF SOLAR COMPANIES ARE LIKELY TO GO BUST BY CHRISTMAS AFTER THE DEPARTMENT FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE CONFIRMED IT IS LOOKING TO HALVE SUBSIDIES FOR NEW PANELS.

Greg Barker, minister for climate change, said the "feed-in tariff" subsidies are currently too generous, because the cost of installing solar panels has fallen.

The proposed cuts, due to come into force from December, will see the amount earned from each panel fall FROM 43.3P PER KILOWATT HOUR OF SOLAR POWER TO 21P. This will save energy customers around £23 a year - or £700m in total - because the subsidies are funded through electricity bills.

However, the industry warned that many home owners and companies may immediately back away from the flagship scheme because IT WOULD NOW TAKE UP TO 25 YEARS TO EARN BACK THEIR INVESTMENTS.

Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said: "The installation rate is likely to fall drastically, and many of the 25,000 newly-employed in this industry may end up joining the dole queue."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8859934/Government-accused-of-destroying-25000-green-jobs.html

This is the problem with green energy.  It is unreliable and expensive.  Without subsidies it is unworkable.  So when people talk about cutting government subsidies to all energy, it’s a good idea and it means the death of solar and wind energy.