The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift.
Pierre Corneille
My Choice: Most Ridiculous Lawsuit: July 2013
Prisoner Sues for $1T over Prison Food
A 61-year-old Arizona prisoner, convicted 15 years ago of aggravated assault, is suing over meals allegedly giving him cramps and causing him to lose sleep. He has also filed some 379 other suits, a related one being for $10T over getting meals late two days in a row, resulting in an eating disorder.
Might I suggest a 15% discount off his next prison meal and "Lunches Designed By Michelle Obama" (I bet that he prefers lunches that taste good vs. lunches of good taste); Paul Krugman might know where he can get a hold on one of those $1T coins.
Detroit Bankruptcy Judge Lays the Smackdown on Crony State Judges: Thumbs UP!
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes yesterday noted that bankruptcy proceedings for cities are in the federal justice system, including the eligibility of Detroit to declare bankruptcy; all creditors, including public sector retirees, will have their opportunity to bring their claims before the bankruptcy court. It does not make sense to have multiple courts deciding the same claims. (There are a number of misleading or poorly written accounts on specifics. One account suggested that the $9B in unsecured debt to union retires is in the form of unfunded liabilities, i.e., cumulative underinvestment relative to secure ongoing pension and/or healthcare program for current and future retirees.)
Obama: STOP THE CHEAP DEMAGOGUERY!
Granted, Obama audiences and fans are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, and he sold the same snake oil for 2 Presidential elections. No thinking, sane person could have voted for this incompetent in good faith given the indisputable record of failures of "progressive policies".
I just heard another clip of this piece of work talking about pay increases of CEO's, and I've reached the limit of my patience with his Politics of Envy cow patties. I think he must have permanent brain damage from hitting his head on the wall so many times on this and related issues; he never learns from his mistakes. No doubt if someone made a talking Barack Obama doll (you first need batteries for the teleprompter accessories), it would say :"Budget math is tough". Listen, I'm not one of those "overpaid" CEO's, but let's face it: as Babe Ruth might say, they've had better years than Obama. No CEO could ever run up a $6T debt; as a taxpayer, would I pay someone from the private sector $50M a year to get this country's financial affairs in order? I don't have that kind of money, but I bet a majority of taxpayers would side with me in a heartbeat. Obama wins yet another nomination for JOTY for his divisive polemics.
I am so sick and tired of "progressives" of pulling this garbage. If Obama was intelligent, he would know that "progressive" policies do little more than sink the car ever deeper into the muck. The discussion of CEO salaries is just a distraction from how Obama has blundered his way into imitating FDR's ineffectual activist domestic policies. You have employers cutting hours or holding off hiring to avoid getting hit with huge ObamaCare-related costs. The government sucks up dollars directly or indirectly (compliance or mandated costs) that would otherwise be saved, invested or spent in the real economy versus sustaining a parasitic bureaucracy.
Now let me say as a stockholder, I'm not impressed with the performance of a lot of CEO's, and if I sat on the board of directors I would be more of a miser about executive compensation unless a company was increasing global market share and reaping commensurate profits (which is why I'll probably never be asked to serve on a board). But when you consider bone-headed CEO's, like in the auto and banking industries, can cost stockholders billions, not to mention thousands of well-paying jobs, I would rather overpay a great executive versus settle for whom I could get cheaply: you sometimes get what you pay for.
Obama needs to stop obsessing how big the slices of the pie are; all he's doing is ending up with shrinking pies. He needs to focus is growing the pie (so ALL the slices get bigger), and the way you do that is to get all the politicians out of the kitchen and let the chefs do their own thing.
Are We Rome?
I've been waiting for the right moment to promote one of the best essays I've read comparing Rome and the US: Lawrence Reed's "Are We Rome?" Most people are no doubt are familiar with the rise and fall of Roman imperialism (particularly starting with the lifetime of Jesus Christ) but less so with Rome's political and economic history. Reed's obvious comparisons (even accommodating monetary policy) are chilling, and the story about the man whom captured the wild hogs Reed uses to close the essay is compelling: "I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can corrupt them enough to depend on me for a free handout!”, nor unlike how a drug dealer gets a user hooked with free samples or how "progressives" bait the hook with government freebies (or underfunded benefits people delude themselves into believing are "earned" or "paid for"), like food stamps, retirement entitlements, and government-sponsored healthcare. In the second highlighted quote below, how many don't see the obvious implied reference to Martin Niemöller's "first they came"?
In the waning years of the Roman republic, a rogue named Clodius ran for the office of tribune. He bribed the electorate with promises of free grain at taxpayer expense and won. Thereafter, Romans in growing numbers embraced the notion that voting for a living could be more lucrative than working for one.
Emperor Nero is said by Roman historian Gaius Suetonius in De Vitae Caesarum to have once rubbed his hands together and declared, “Let us tax and tax again! Let us see to it that no one owns anything!” Taxation ultimately destroyed the wealthy first, followed by the middle and lower classes. “
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Nate Beeler and Townhall |
The Beatles, "Drive My Car"
