Pray that you will never have to bear
all that you are able to endure.
Jewish saying
Just a Reminder:
I published my Man of the Year Post Yesterday
The Piece of Work in the Oval Office
I only rarely use profanity, which I won't do in this blog, but this hack doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Here's a clue, Obama : second-term midterms usually aren't good for incumbents. We cannot continue to spend 40 cents on the dollar we don't have; government spending money that is being taken away from the private sector. In the real economy companies can't run up tens of trillions of debt and unfunded liabilities, most companies would have gone to layoffs, put projects on hold, cut training and travel budgets, etc.
The Republicans have to be the grown-ups in the room--and politically it takes a lot more political courage to talk about cutting budgets (and taking on the wrath of those addicted to Uncle Sam's teats or conferred privileges). The Demagogue-in-Chief is already reverting to his "elections have consequences" crap, as if he refuses to acknowledge he barely beat a man whom is part of the fabled 1% and whom the majority of voters preferred on the economy. Here are relevant excerpts from the WSJ on the fiscal cliff negotiations:
Another factor was what Republicans saw as President Obama's unwillingness to bend when a deal was in sight, jamming the speaker with a deal his party couldn't swallow.
Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn't reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.
At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, "I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?"
"You get nothing," the president said. "I get that for free."
Brett Loper, the speaker's top policy aide, prodded White House officials to look for tax revenue elsewhere. In phone calls and meetings, he steered them to tax shelters and suggested limiting deductions for tax-exempt municipal bonds.
The president repeatedly reminded Mr. Boehner of the election results: "You're asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"
The White House's first formal offer, presented Nov. 29 left Mr. Boehner incredulous. It included a request for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over 10 years, a permanent increase in the debt ceiling and money for road projects and other year-end priorities. In return it offered spending cuts of $400 billion—25 cents for each dollar in new revenue.
Mr. Boehner said he wanted a deal along the lines of what the two men had negotiated in the summer of 2011 in a fight over raising the debt ceiling. "You missed your opportunity on that," the president told him.
On the call, Mr. Boehner restated he needed $1 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue raised. He dropped a prior demand to increase the Medicare eligibility age.
On Friday afternoon, the president spoke to both Mr. Boehner and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid in a bid to resurrect a deal. Soon afterward he left the White House for his annual family vacation in Hawaii.Where to start; remember Sowell's quip it's like being a mosquito in a nudist colony? First of all, Mr. Obama: the only way you get renewal of middle class tax cuts is through the GOP. Threaten to make inaugural or State of the Union address partisan events? Any hopes of bipartisan cooperation during a second term would be done. It would be a politically suicidal move on Obama's part.
Remember all the idiotic voices from the Obama campaign raising the point of Romney rejecting (in a GOP debate) even a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to each incremental new tax dollar? That was a variant of the question: how much would it take for you to agree to sleep with me. Romney would have loved to have had a 10:1 deal with the majority Democratic legislature in Massachusetts. During the campaign, I believed that Obama was talking a 2-3:1 deal--but here he offers a 25 cents to $1 deal? Is he out of his mind?
The bit about Boehner offering to streamline higher income deductions to get more taxes from higher income people? Why would Obama take it given it was in Romney's plan? This was a CONCESSION from Romney to get more revenue from upper income taxpayers without the adverse effects of raising marginal rates? Why use this approach? Because when you increase tax rates on income you get less income: supply and demand.
The bit about Obama deciding to pull the debt ceiling negotiation framework off the table and telling Boehner he gets no spending cut concessions for putting $800B in tax revenues on the table? Talk about bad faith negotiations on the part of Obama. I didn't see a single credible concession from Obama in the entire discussion. What I see is an immature jerk rubbing in his electoral victory which came with ZERO MANDATE
This is not a game, and Obama is playing dice with America's future. There aren't enough rich people to pay Obama's bills. Romney won nearly half the votes in the election--not just the upper 1%. Obama needs to understand WHY he came close to losing this election. There is already talk of replacing the Speaker--one whom will not be inclined to give Boehner-like concessions. Obama needs to make this a win-win situation; his whole second term is at risk Polls are fickle. If the economy turns south, the people will blame Obama, not Boehner. He spent this term blaming Bush over his own performance failures and he's going to spend his second term blaming the House Speaker?
It's not about you, Mr. Obama; it's about the nation's business. Grow a pair, and show some constructive leadership for a real change.
Every Step You Take: I'll be Watching You
The creepy stalker is the public school bureaucrat. more worried about getting moolah for the student going to classes versus the student getting lost in classes. Let's hope that the technology isn't hijacked to track potential victims.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Granted, the Fed is not the only party at fault for the economic tsunami. The Congress and Presidents put pressure on lenders to lend to low-collateral, higher-risk prospective homeowners, there were/are generous tax incentives, the GSE's were using federally guaranteed money to buy non-traditional loans, etc.
Occasionally the Good Guys Win One
Follow-up to below story from Creative Loafing Atlanta (my edits):
In 2009, then-Mayor Shirley Franklin outsourced the city's public-vending program to UK-LaSalle, a subsidiary of General Growth Properties, one of the nation's largest mall operators. Under the deal, LaSalle would install and rent kiosks. In July 2011, Larry Miller and Stanley Hambrick, two vendors who sold t-shirts outside Turner Field, filed suit in Fulton County Superior Court with the help of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm that's mounted a crusade to against unfair vending laws. The vendors' lawyers claimed that kiosk rental cost ranged between $500 to $1,600 each month - much higher than the $250 licensing fee that vendors paid under the old system.
In a four-page order issued [Dec 21], Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn LaGrua said the city "exceeded the powers granted to it" in its charter by "creating an unauthorized exclusive franchise." Therefore, the judge ruled, the law and contract with GGP is "void and without effect."
Musical Interlude: Christmas Retrospective
Salvatore Adamo & Celine Dion, "O Holy Night". I think this is not an actual duet but probably a dream duet mix (sometimes mixes have a way of coming to life, like the DJ whom spliced together Streisand and Diamond on the latter's song, "You Don't Bring Me Flowers"). I'm not familiar with Adamo or other European singers whom haven't had cross-over success on the US charts. I was always confused why Celine, a French-Canadian whose first hit was in French, did an all-English version of a traditional French song. I'm a huge Celine fan, but for some reason Youtube won't allow some of her material (especially French) to be played in the States. I have featured Minuit, Chrétiens/Cantique de Noël in prior year selections (my mom loved the ones I found).
