Tuesday: We thought we were richer than we were

Politics
Obama '12: The record he’ll run on

President Obama is described — or demagogued, depending on your view — as many mutually exclusive things; he’s been called a left-wing or socialist ideologue, but also a pragmatist and post-partisan dealmaker.

The 44th president is more elusive than many of his predecessors, and yet THE 2012 ELECTION WILL BE ALL ABOUT HIM.

But even if the man himself is difficult to define, his achievements and failures with regard to his 2008 campaign promises are much more concrete.

Obama cannot be accused of being a do-nothing president; what is unclear is whether his progress toward his goals will hurt or help him

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/164815-obama-2012-the-record-hell-run-on

Be sure to read the comments on the article. As one person said, the title should be Obama 12: The record he’ll run from.

Tyler Cowen: The Great Stagnation

Businessweek has a very flattering article on Tyler Cowen and how his book The Great Stagnation HAS PROMPTED A SHIFT IN THE DEBATE ABOUT POOR ECONOMIC GROWTH. Having read the book I strongly recommend reading it.

The Great Stagnation runs through three centuries' worth of what Cowen calls THE "LOW-HANGING FRUIT" OF ECONOMIC GROWTH: FREE LAND, TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS, AND SMART KIDS WAITING TO BE EDUCATED. FOR DEVELOPED ECONOMIES, HE ARGUES, NONE OF THESE REMAINS TO BE PLUCKED.

Even more important than land, in my view, is energy. As Peter Tertzakian pointed out in his book A Thousand Barrels a Second, previous energy transitions of the last couple of centuries WERE TO ENERGY SOURCES THAT WERE CHEAPER AND/OR MORE CONVENIENT. The transition to petroleum combined both cost and convenience advantages. For example, the transition from coal to oil for heating eliminated the need to load coal into the furnace and to clean out ash. OIL ENABLED A HUGE GROWTH IN PRODUCTIVITY OF FARM EQUIPMENT, CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT, AND IN THE TRANSPORTATION OF HUMANS AND GOODS. The orders of magnitude increases in energy usage made possible our high living standards far more than did widespread college education. Many of the technological innovations were basically to use petroleum in more ways (e.g. to power jet engines). Our problem: Supplies of our most convenient fuel are looking pretty limited. What passes for good news on oil supplies (e.g. hydraulic fracturing of tight oil shale) costs more and projected flow rates aren't high enough to enable a return to the years of substantial annual increases in oil production.

"WE THOUGHT WE WERE RICHER THAN WE WERE."

Yet America, Europe, and Japan have built political and social institutions on the assumption of endless growth. Cowen summarizes the financial crisis in eight words: "We thought we were richer than we were."

It's not that he disagrees with any of the better-known explanations for the crisis—easy credit, flawed ratings—it's that he sees a more fundamental problem, ONE THAT CAN'T BE FIXED WITH REGULATION, BAILOUTS, OR TAX CUTS. Cowen thinks that now that America has used up the frontier, educated all of the farm kids, and built a couple of cars for every family, WE MIGHT BE DONE GROWING FOR AWHILE.

A slowing or halting of growth is highly problematic because SO MUCH HAS BEEN SET UP BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF CONTINUED ECONOMIC GROWTH AT A RATE CLOSE THE POST-WWII AVERAGE. Debt instruments have been issued and entitlements promised based on assumptions about long term growth that are not realistic. Pension funds project their funding needs based on rates of return from their stock market investments that are too optimistic. EVEN WORSE, WE COULD BE LOOKING AT SOMETHING EVEN MORE PAINFUL THAN STAGNATION: A RECEDING TIDE OF PROSPERITY.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/008110.html

I definitely agree about energy being a huge factor in our prosperity. The industrial revolution wasn’t so much a revolution of machinery, but a revolution of power. This appears to be a very important book to read.

Elites: Give us some respect!

Since the very first tax-day Tea Parties popped up in April 2009, a raging sense of puffed-up indignation has possessed our ruling class. Emerging as the single truly bipartisan issue of our day, this how-dare-they-question-us obsession has grown from spurts of shocked angst among media talking heads to hands-on-the-hips Capitol Hill lectures to full-blown rhetorical assaults on populist candidates.

JUST AS ALL HUMAN BEINGS FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL HAVE, OUR OWN RULING CLASS OF ELITES CRAVE THE ONE THING WHICH MUST STILL BE EARNED -- R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Unfortunately, our elites just can't get no respect from the people. This irks them down to the marrow of their souls. From sunup to sundown, day after day, they squirm and fret and bellow for the respect they've lost among the governed….

….POLICIES LONG HERALDED AS THE CURE FOR ALL THAT AILS NOW HAVE BECOME THE OOZING BOILS ON A DISEASED ECONOMY and every American middle-class family bears the pain.

THE HOME-OWNERSHIP-FOR-EVERYONE PUSH, backed by both parties for decades, has brought us a devastating bubble-burst, with worse housing-price declines than the Great Depression. OUR GOVERNMENT-RUN "EDUCATION" SYSTEM, operated by unions dedicated to feathering their own nests, under discipline constraints that ensure chaos, has produced whole generations of illiterate "graduates," who are unfit for any workplace. GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS, in a shoddy, self-justifying system designed by our elites, choke our entrepreneurial engines of success with ever-growing ropes of regulation.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/why_our_elites_just_cant_get_no_respect.html

The article goes on to praise Sarah Palin and her message, “We are Americans.” It’s a another way of looking at what the book above is talking about. It raises the question of can we recover?

Weiner fesses up

Embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted to posting lewd photos of himself on Twitter at a Monday afternoon press conference.

While addressing the media at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Weiner made the following statement: “LAST FRIDAY NIGHT I TWEETED A PHOTOGRAPH OF MYSELF THAT I INTENDED TO SEND AS DIRECT MESSAGE AS PART OF A JOKE TO A WOMAN IN SEATTLE. ONCE I REALIZED I POSTED IT TO TWITTER, I PANICKED, I TOOK IT DOWN AND SAID THAT I HAD BEEN HACKED. I THEN CONTINUED WITH THAT STORY TO STICK TO THAT STORY WHICH WAS A HUGELY REGRETTABLE MISTAKE.”

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/06/shirtless-photos-allegedly-of-anthony-weiner-posted-on-biggovernment-com/

I guess the little brain was in charge here.

Science

Stem Cell Therapy To Fix Broken Bones

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown in an animal study that TRANSPLANTATION OF ADULT STEM CELLS ENRICHED WITH A BONE-REGENERATING HORMONE CAN HELP MEND BONE FRACTURES THAT ARE NOT HEALING PROPERLY. The UNC study team led by Anna Spagnoli, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and biomedical engineering, demonstrated that stem cells manufactured with the regenerative hormone insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) become bone cells and also help the cells within broken bones repair the fracture, thereby speeding the healing. The new findings are presented Sunday, June 5, 2011 at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
Peak bone mass is reached most often in one's 20s. Well, WHY WAIT FOR BROKEN BONES BEFORE DELIVERING STEM CELL THERAPIES? ONCE YOUTHFUL BONE STEM CELL THERAPY BECOMES AVAILABLE IT WILL MAKE SENSE TO GET IT ONES 40S OR 50S TO REVERSE THE BONE LOSS LONG BEFORE BREAKS BECOME A RISK.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/008121.html

This is some very good news. One factor you frequently see is some older person will break their hip and this starts the beginning of the end. A therapy like this could eliminate needless death and reduce costs of medicine.

History

Palin was right

You may have heard recently something about that Sarah Palin telling a reporter that Paul Revere warned the British on his famous rousing revolutionary ride.

Now, that so many Americans have wallowed in their smug confirmation that Palin is an idiot unqualified for anything but repeating sixth-grade history, how far, wide and fast do you think the contradictory news will spread that THE FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA WAS INDEED CORRECT?

That the Republican non-candidate, in fact, knew more about the actual facts of Revere's midnight ride than ALL THOSE IDIOTS UNKNOWINGLY REVEALING THEIR OWN IGNORANCE BY LAUGHING AT HER FAUX FAUX PAS? HOW SECRETLY EMBARRASSING THIS MUST BE, TO BE FORCED TO FACE THAT YOU'RE DUMBER THAN THE REPUTED DUMMY.

As it happens, though, such phenomena are regular occurrences in American politics, reminding consumers of news to be wary when some fresh story seems to fit contemporary assumptions so absolutely perfectly.

The well-known fable is Revere's late-night ride to warn fellow revolutionaries that....

...the British were coming. LESS KNOWN, OBVIOUSLY, IS THE REST OF THE EVENING'S EVENTS IN WHICH REVERE WAS CAPTURED BY SAID REDCOATS AND DID INDEED DEFIANTLY WARN THEM OF THE AWAKENED MILITIA AWAITING THEIR ARRIVAL AHEAD AND OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION'S INEVITABLE VICTORY.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/06/sarah-palin-says-paul-revere-warned-the-british.html

Ideology is one thing, but stupidity is forever. And the left keeps demonstrating a strong bias for stupidity.

Live Free

Obama Misreads Message of `Live Free or Die'

The failure of big government over small government

Moody compared Maine, a state that more than 60 years ago embarked on
one path, with New Hampshire, which went a different route. Like the president,
Moody favors an emphasis on the household pocketbook. He therefore spends time looking at per capita personal income of individuals.

The result? Decade in, decade out, New Hampshire’s economy grew
faster than Maine’s, so that the Granite State surpassed the Pine Tree
State in 1984 and today boasts an output that is 20 percent bigger.
Maine’s recessions and double dips were worse than New Hampshire’s. Eventually
New Hampshire also won the population contest, passing Maine, in part thanks to
migration. Last month, joblessness was 8.1 Percent in Maine, better than Ohio but still bad, and 5.8 percent in New Hampshire.

What about that family pocketbook that the White House
highlights? Bureau of Economic Analysis data show average per capita income for
Maine in 2009 was $36,745, a bit more than Ohio. In New Hampshire that number
was $42,831, eighth highest in the nation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-24/obama-misreads-message-of-live-free-or-die-commentary-by-amity-shlaes.html

Bad news for the Democrats.

Although their numbers have been in the tank for months now, one rationalization used by the Democrats is that the real election season doesn’t begin until after Labor Day when the public really starts to pay attention. It appears this isn’t the case.

Many More Now Following Mosque Controversy – And Don’t Like
It

A lot more voters are paying attention to the plans to build a
mosque near the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City,
and they don’t like the idea.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% of
U.S. voters say they are now following news stories about the mosque planned
near Ground Zero. That’s a 34-point jump from a month ago when only 51% said they were following the story.

Another executive order reversed by the judiciary

Judge Forces Obama Admin to Stop Funding Embryonic Stem Cell
ResearchWashington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A federal judge on Monday issued a
decision forcing the Obama Administration to stop funding embryonic stem cell
research with taxpayer funds. The judge ruled the executive order Obama issued
allowing such funding contravened a federal law prohibiting taxpayer funding of
the destruction of human embryos.

http://lifenews.com/bio3145.html

Obamacare—the lies are being revealed.

Remember Nancy Pelosi’s statement “We need to pass the legislation in order to find out what’s in it.” Well, they passed the legislation and what we are finding is not very pretty.

Perhaps most tellingly, Politico writes that the presentation's "final
page of 'Don'ts' counsels against claiming 'the law will reduce costs and
deficit.'" Instead, the presentation advises, "Keep claims small and
credible"; "don’t overpromise or 'spin' what the law delivers." Thus, the
administration’s central claim from the start – made ad nauseam by everyone from President Obama on down – that Obamacare would somehow reduce health care costs, is apparently just "spin." (This, of course, was
recognized by a great many Americans all along.) And now, a $2.5
trillion law that's longer than War and Peace must, incredibly, be defended
on the basis of claims that are "small and credible."

http://www.theweeklystandard.com/blogs/leaked-white-house-memo-advises-democrats-how-spin-obamacare

The Failure of Liberal Economics

From the liberal declaring the failure of capitalism two years ago, we now are finding the American people are declaring their substitute a failure today.

You would have expected that, and you would have been right—but only
briefly. Since the beginning of 2010, a surprising reversal has occurred. Rather
than supporting and encouraging government intervention to mitigate an economic calamity caused by “profit-oriented thinking,” Americans have come to believe that government has failed to fix the problem and may, in fact, have made it worse. Now it is liberal, not conservative, economic policies that are suddenly in jeopardy. …..

What bothers the public, plain and simple, is that the steps that
were taken to mitigate the recession—which involved greater government
involvement, including ownership of the largest auto and insurance companies,
and vastly more federal spending—have not worked

.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-failure-of-the-liberal-economic-experiment--15500

Grandiose views

Dems--the Federal Government can do most anything

In a recent townhall, Democrat Representative Pete Stark of California when asked about the Constitutional limits on the Federal government said the Feds could do just about anything in this country.

You can see it here.

http://www.breitbart.tv/congressman-at-town-hall-the-federal-government-can-do-most-anything-in-this-country/

The Divine Duty of Kings

After centuries of the the Divine Right of Kings, it now appears we have the Divine Duty of Kings
Prince Charles thinks "he has been placed on Earth as future King ‘for a purpose’ - to save the world."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299099/Prince-Charles-My-duty-save-world.html#ixzz0vRsAlQkx

Stem Cell Therapy for spinal cord injuries

Geron Corporation will begin a clinic trial to see if stem cell therapy can help people with spinal cord injuries.

The FDA had placed a clinical hold on the drug due to safety concerns: A
preclinical animal study showed a higher frequency of small cysts within the
spinal cord injury sites injected with Geron's treatment. But as Geron developed
new molecular markers and procedures to minimize such risks, it asked for the
FDA to lift the clinical hold, which it did this week.

Geron hopes to start the human trial this quarter. It plans to recruit eight to 10 spinal-cord injury patients with complete impairment, meaning they have no motor or sensory function in the effected areas, and whose injuries are in the middle vertebrae. Patients will be injected with a low dose of the drug seven to 14 days after their injuries.

http://srph.it/cnb4aQ

Let us hope that this trial is successful or can lead to success in the future. Since it is an embroynic stem cell test, the documented problems with tumors, etc. seem to be a concern, but it must be promising enough to have the FDA lift their clinical hold on the trial.

Party of the Privileged

It appears that the Democrats are trying to show Americans that they are the party of the privileged. Recent events include:

1. Michelle Obama's trip to Spain with her daughter. While she is gone, Barack will celebrate his 49th birthday by jetting to Chicago.

2. Chelsea Clinton's 3 to 5 Million Dollar wedding.

3. John Kerry's 7 million dollar and 79 foot "sailboat" (don't call it a yacht) that he was docking in Rhode Island to avoid paying taxes in his home state.

I particularly enjoyed Barack Obama telling us how he and Michelle were just folks before he became president.

It's official--the economy now belongs to Obama and the Democrats

For the first since President Obama took office, voters see his
policies as equally to blame with those of President George W. Bush for the
country’s current economic problems.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters now think Obama’s policies are to blame for the continuing bad economy, up three points from last month. Forty-seven percent (47%) say the recession that began under Bush is at fault.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/august_2010/48_blame_obama_for_bad_economy_47_blame_bush