The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Obama's/Dem Orwellian Double-Speak: Enough Already!
I would pay money to see someone slap the taste out of the demagogue's mouth the next time I hear the spendthrift use the term "invest" as a synonym to fecklessly throwing tax revenues of future taxpayers down the rathole of dysfunctional government programs.
I can barely listen to Sunday talk shows because Democrats somehow believe they have co-opted terms like "balanced"--to deficit reduction. Since the Dems grabbed control of the Senate in 2007, spending has gone up a trillion a year--spending not "balanced" by cuts elsewhere in the budget or by new taxes.. Obama has imposed around a dozen counterproductive class warfare tax hikes already this year--kicking in with a struggling economy, lowering the tax base. It had absolutely to do with balancing the budget--the new revenue, if any, will barely amount to a down payment on new spending. It has more to do with income redistribution, an ideological vs. economics priority.
I haven't commented to date on the sorry case of Detroit; Michigan GOP governor Snyder recently appointed Chrysler bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr, a man of color, as Detroit emergency financial manager. (I'm not a fan of the Obama Administration's manipulated bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler; Orr will have to deal with union contracts, among other things, and he can use his ability to file for bankruptcy as leverage. If Mr. Orr, over the coming 18 months, can somehow turnaround one of the most troubled cities in the country (I remember seeing a story a while back that you could buy a house in Detroit for $3000), he would have a very bright future, possibly including a political one.
Porter Stansberry provides a brief history of Detroit since the 1960's, culminating not just in a city all but functionally bankrupt but in misdeeds by former officeholders, including this news note from last week:
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his longtime contractor friend Bobby Ferguson were convicted of racketeering and extortion Monday, marking an end to a more than decade-long public corruption investigation. Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, including five counts of extortion, racketeering, bribery and several mail, wire and tax fraud charges.By the way, what is it about loyalty of black voters to dubious politicians? We have the most recent example of former Congressman Jesse Jackson, whom was overwhelmingly reelected last fall although AWOL from Washington during the last several months of his last term, resigned several weeks ago and recently pled guilty to fraud. We could also discuss ethics-challenged Charlie Rangel and "bribe-money-in-the-freezer" William Jefferson.
Here is a brief synopsis:
Every single mayor of Detroit since 1961 has been a Democrat. Every single mayor of Detroit since 1974 has been black. Detroit has been a major recipient of every major social program since the early 1960s and has received hundreds of billions of dollars in government grants, loans, and programs.
Mayor Cavanagh was the only elected official to serve on Johnson's task force. And Detroit received widespread acclaim for its leadership in the program, which attempted to turn a nine-square-mile section of the city (with 134,000 inhabitants) into a "model city." More than $400 million was spent trying to turn inner cities into shining new monuments to government planning. In short, the feds and Democratic city mayors were soon telling people where to live, what to build, and what businesses to open or close. In return, the people received cash, training, education, and health care. Cavanagh pushed a new income tax through the state legislature and a "commuter tax" on city workers. And so, in 1966, more than 22,000 middle- and upper-class residents moved out of the city. In July 1967, police attempted to break up a late-night party in the middle of the new "Model City." The scene turned into the worst race riot of the 1960s. Over the next 18 months, an additional 140,000 upper- and middle-class residents – almost all of them white – left the city. The Model City program was expanded and enlarged by 1974's Community Development Block Grant Program. The Model City area lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units from the inception of the program through 1990.And yet progressives will never concede a failure in public policy. They'll have 101 excuses why their incompetent central planning fails--principally, we never spent enough money to solve the problem....
The Obama IRA/Pension: Thumbs DOWN!
I used to watch FNC weekly business shows on Saturday morning. Fox has a habit of including clueless liberals on panels just to stir the pot. Almost every week there would be some talking head from the left leaning Economic Policy Institute (for some background, see here). When I hear soundbites like "shared prosperity", I hear a thief rationalizing his entitlement to your property through the Politics of Envy.
There are lots of conspiracy theories out there: who is going to pay for new federal debt if the Fed, Chinese and others don't invest in Democrat budget deficits? Could the government simply steal the retirement assets of those of us whom have worked, saved and invested by the rules to redistribute to others, like FDR confiscated privately-held gold? Not a chance; not only is it dead on arrival so long as the GOP holds either chamber and a filibuster-sustaining minority in the Senate. Even if it gets out of the Congress, SCOTUS would rule it unconstitutional. They may be able to change rules for new investments.
The EPI initiative condescendingly doesn't think we can be trusted to save for our retirement, so it wants to create a defined benefit (i.e., pension versus defined contribution) program for worker not in one, with a government guaranteed return (invested in--debt, of course). See here for more discussion.
You have to admit the Democrats have chutzpah. They have more than doubled the publicly held debt over the past 4 years, they have run up unfunded liabilities of $20-40T in each of social security, Medicare, and federal pensions, their spending has sent California, Illinois and other states almost to the point of bankruptcy, but they think they have the integrity to cast judgment over your liberty to plan for your own retirement.
The State of Maryland and Statist Arrogance
When I drive I'm very safety conscious, but safety goes beyond following traffic signs or signals. It requires judgment and prudence on the driver's part. My baby sister barely escaped serious injury when another driver ran a red light, plowing into her car crossing the intersection. I was driving my parents back from dinner to my brother's house near Joliet off I-55S, when a motorist, on a shoulder after being pulled over by a trooper, drove back into traffic and, not even at the speed of traffic, jumped lanes directly in front of me. I was literally standing on my brakes and miraculously avoided a collision. The trooper then pulled ME over. After 10 minutes or so (long enough for the jerk to disappear into the distance), he finally approached my window and said, "I bet you're wondering why I pulled you over..." Duh! He then apologized, taking responsibility of releasing the driver into traffic. I think that he was afraid I would go after the rogue driver. But to be honest, all I could think of is my parents could have been killed in a car I was driving.
Traffic signs are a poor surrogate for judgment. I have nothing but utter disdain for "rules are rules" mentality. I think I mentioned in a past post I was working on a project in a Milwaukee county suburb in 2001; a VP of my contractor employer decided on a last-minute deliverable which required me to cancel a trip back home to move out of my California apartment. What I didn't realize was that a county fair was taking place that weekend, and my hotel was booked solid. I somehow got a reservation at a Travelodge near I-94 but didn't see the contingent nature of the booking nor the cancellation notice hit my inbox before I left the courthouse exhausted after 10 PM. When the Travelodge desk told me I had no reservation and had no suggestions, my only thought was to head south/east on I-94 towards Chicago and maybe find some interim motel or hotel with a vacancy. The meridian for the turn I wanted back onto I-94 started well before the hotel exit so I had no choice but to cross I-94 and retrace my way back to the opposing lane exit. I took a U-turn at the next intersection (no opposing lane traffic). I hadn't noticed any no-U turn sign, but unfortunately for me, the intersection was a block away from a police station, and there was a patrol car sitting at the intersection. I got pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate entry lane. I finally managed to talk him into issuing a warning, but the infraction was a technicality.
Maryland has a speed camera program which has raised a statist windfall of millions of dollars in difficult-to-fight $40 fines. I don't have a personal ax to grind here, but serious questions about the reliability of violations and/or context of violations (e.g., school or work zone slow downs after dark) have been raised:
A review by The Baltimore Sun found that more than 40 percent of speed camera tickets from highway work zones were issued between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., a time when construction crews are often gone. The state cameras placed in highway construction zones represent only a portion of the speed cameras put in place by numerous Maryland jurisdictions, including the Baltimore program found to have issued tickets in error and once to a motionless car.Sowell Takes On the Self-Esteem Education Establishment
Thumbs UP!
In my humble opinion, an advanced education diploma doesn't even make for decent toilet paper. I would be embarrassed to admit the fact that other countries' students do better, despite lower funding, larger class sizes, etc. We have flat student performance since the 1960's despite throwing incredible amounts of money at schools, tenured public school teachers on a 9-month work schedule can earn well above the median household. A Master's degree is more of a ticket punch to a union-negotiated higher salary not tied to student performance deltas.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Glenn Foden and Townhall |
Backstreet Boys, "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely". The first time I ever heard of this group I was working a gig on a custom packaging company (e.g., they made boxes for music collections). They had previously hired an independent Apps DBA contractor; he had a number of quirks--a survivalist, a fitness fanatic (he offered me $50 to throw out all the food in my apartment), and a closet racist (he was okay with his black pregnant wife having a girl but not a boy).So when he put the Backstreet Boys' new album at the top of his shopping list, I just passed it off as another quirk: I had never heard of a grown man into a boy band. I, of course, would see the school-age girls in my apartment complex skipping rope while singing the group's hits. I'll start off my short series with my personal 3 favorite hits from the group..
