Miscellany: 9/30/13

Quote of the Day
If it's me against 48, 
I feel sorry for the 48.
Margaret Thatcher

Most Popular Question on Healthcare.Gov

Courtesy of the Illinois Policy Institute

Facebook Corner

Via Laissez Faire Capitalism on FB

 "You didn't build that.." To answer the Statist: The PRIVATE SECTOR would--faster, better, cheaper...

What would my life be without government, without the chains, seen and unseen, imposed by megalomaniac politicians and judges, without government agents plundering my pocket, without the government meddling with my right to contract for labor or business, without impeding my pursuit of happiness, without living me alone? There are many faith-sponsored and other private sector hospitals and schools, private tollways, prisons, private security guards, volunteer safety associations, militias or mercenaries, etc. Relatives and/or charities serviced the sick and the aged before pandering politicians set up Ponzi schemes or impersonal government bureaucrats got in the way.

Sigh... Maybe if I wish a little harder, the shutdown will last longer....



Are you more concerned about a government shutdown or that Washington can’t cooperate to make a budget? Laissez-Faire Capitalism

That government can't live within its means.

The best they can come up with for why the government shutdown would be bad for you is:-  You won’t be able to go to the zoo... Libertarian Republic

Isn't it about time we privatize zoos?

Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day

Courtesy of Illinois Policy Insitute

Shut Down Government-Sponsored Pear Promotion Shows in China

Courtesy of Sen. Coburn (R-OK)

The Hypocrite-in-Chief Blames Republicans For His Own Decision Not to Negotiate a Budget Deal

As I predicted in yesterday's post, Senate Republicans gave party-line support for the second House bill, this one pushing a 1-year deferral and the next one this evening, eliminating Congressional/White House exemptions from the ObamaCare exchanges.

Obama was, as usual, engaging in partisan rhetoric:

"You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you're supposed to be doing anyway ... just because there's a law there that you don't like.." The Republicans are shirking  passing budgets and paying the government's bills. Obama said a partial government shutdown — which would start at midnight unless there is an 11th-hour deal — will damage economic recovery and hurt "real people right away".

This is grandstanding, self-contradictory, hyperbolic, polemical nonsense from a so-called "leader" whom argues that it's his way or the highway; he won't negotiate. So let's get this right: he thinks it will "damage the economic recovery" but he's unwilling to forward a single concession to prevent such damage? Obama confuses principled opposition in a divided government with his rubber stamp. For all the mandate he claims in a weak reelection where he got millions fewer votes, the people returned House control to the GOP, and perhaps the biggest issue in their reelection was repeal of ObamaCare. Notice in the clip below Chicago public sector retirees want no part of ObamaCare exchanges courtesy of Mayor Dead Fish:

Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Reason Nanny of the Month (2013): Starring California (Of Course): Virtual Political Correctness Police Run Amok



Your Grandchildren's Hard-Earned Taxes Going To--End-of-Fiscal-Year Artwork Shopping Sprees?

From the "Use It or Lose Ir" annual end-of-year shopping binge: according to Washpo:

• the Agriculture Department spent $144,000 on toner cartridges
• the Department of Veterans Affairs bought $562,000 worth of artwork; on Monday, VA paid $27,000 for an order of photographs showing sunsets, mountain peaks and country roads. They would go into a new center serving homeless veterans in Los Angeles; [on Tuesday] VA spent another $220,000 on artwork for its hospitals; on Thursday, VA spent $216,000 on artwork for a facility in Florida
• the Coast Guard spent $178,000 on “Cubicle Furniture Rehab.”
• “Twenty-five percent of my business, right, will happen in this month. Twenty-five percent of my year,” said Art Richer, the president of ImmixGroup [federal government contractor]. On Monday, Immix began bringing its sales team three catered meals a day. 

Let us remember some golden oldies:

• In 2010, the Internal Revenue Service had millions left over in an account to hire new personnel. The IRS spent the money on a lavish conference. Which included a “Star Trek” parody video starring IRS managers.
• In 2012, the government spent $45 billion on contracts in the last week of September; 9 percent of the year’s contract spending money, spent in 2 percent of the year.
• [Via government employees:] three years’ worth of staples. Portable generators that never got used. One said the National Guard bought so much ammunition that firing it all became a chore.

How do I feel about federal managers pursuing morally reprehensible spending they would never do in an analogous context of their household budget? See the clip below (as you can tell, as a native Texan, I love my picante sauce/salsa/hot sauce). Now seriously, I know several vets; not one of them ever went to a VA facility to view the artwork... Seriously, folks; there are millions of people out of work, and these bozos are spending confiscated tax money stocking up their inventory with years' worth of office supplies? You already know what I think: these jokers would only need 2 weeks' worth of office supplies if I were President; I would bring my own pink slips to the Oval Office my first day. I would even bring in Donald Trump to throw out the ceremonial first terminated bureaucrat.



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez and Townhall

Political Humor

Jay Leno via Patriot Post

Musical Interlude: Motown

Diana Ross and the Supremes, "Love Child"

Miscellany: 9/29/13

Quote of the Day
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Albert Einstein

Latest Posted Alternate Blog Comment

Responding to: "Conservatives and Libertarians need a plan. a vision, something positive Americans can relate to and believe in. Ideas sell. Simple continuing negativity and obstructions with the goal of returning to 1776 won't fly in the present 21st century."

We do have a positive vision--the dynamism of an unfettered private sector, liberated from the failed morally hazardous "progressive" policies and Ponzi scheme, incompetently managed government entitlements. We believe in virtuous individuals and voluntary associations vs. grossly incompetent, unqualified President and his fellow partisan demagogues whose only philosophy is to bribe voters in their next election.

Pro Liberty Thought of the Day

Courtesy of the Libertarian Republic via Laissez-Faire Capitalism on FB

Al "The Bore" Gore Wins JOTY Nomination

Al Gore sucking the spirit from former wife Tipper
via The Telegraph

The "sex-crazed poodle" and discredited climate alarmist decided to cross the border of civility in trying to defend the Democrats' dogmatic refusal to negotiate under the Spendthrift-in-Chief:

 "The only phrase that describes it is political terrorism,” Gore said at the launch of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Effective Public Management in Washington. “Why does partisanship have anything to do with such a despicable and dishonorable threat to the integrity of the United States of America?"

The public debt has more than doubled under the Obama Presidency; apparently Obama's failure to show leadership and negotiate under a divided government isn't relevant in hypocritical Gore's appallingly partisan analysis; the GOP wants changes to a hugely unpopular partisan healthcare law, which is a textbook case example of administrative incompetence, violations of the rule of law, unintended consequences and ruled  in part (Medicaid extortion of the states)  unconstitutional. That Gore tried to reverse his 2000 election loss by trying to mine enough votes from disqualified ballots in Democratic-controlled election areas in Florida has any moral standing to charge "partisanship" and "despicable and dishonorable" borders on incredulous. Obama is the only political hack refusing to negotiate, as if this is an admirable quality in a national leader under divided government; throwing a temper tantrum because you don't control both chambers of Congress is hardly virtuous. Gore thinks that opposition leaders aren't entitled to object to bad public policy; he is in Obama's 57th state, the State of Denial.

Gore said that the effort among some Republicans in the House and Senate to demand that Congress defund Obamacare in order to approve funding for the government “cannot be allowed.” “And now you want to threaten to not only shut down our government but to blow up the world economy unless we go back and undo what we did according to the processes of this democracy?” Gore asked. “How dare you?”

How dare they what--represent their constituencies whom overwhelmingly opposed ObamaCare? Isn't that supposed to happen in this democratic republic? This country has repealed bad laws before--Prohibition and the luxury yacht tax immediately come to mind.  The fact that Al Gore is an economic illiterate engaging in exaggerated hyperbole is apparent from his over-the-top rhetoric. The Democrats did not run in 2008 on that odious piece of corrupt Senate dealing making that failed to draw a single GOP vote--unprecedented for a major entitlement; in fact, almost no Democrat voting for that pile of legislative excrement even read it. Never mind that Obama is threatening to veto a GOP compromise measure calling for a one-year deferral on an individual mandate--which Obama himself opposed in 2008, after Obama unlawfully allowed a one-year deferral for businesses.

I think Gore also referenced the SCOTUS decision--first of all, a split 5-4 vote is hardly a judicial mandate (vs., e.g., the 7-2 finding that Gore's election appeal violated equal protection). Moreover, the case was decided by an idiosyncratic opinion of the Chief Justice whom accepted it on the grounds that the mandate penalty was a reasonable extension of the Congress' taxing authority. He may have opened up Pandora's box of  Big Nanny politicians assigning penalties for an infinite number of non-events.

Obama Will Negotiate With Putin--But Not Speaker Boehner

Obama will NOT Stop Spending the Money of Younger Generations
or Deploying Another Ponzi Scheme Healthcare Entitlement

Courtesy of Drudge Report

Greenbackers Trying to Co-Opt the Tea Party

I think Gary North has fought the good fight against this wolf in sheep's clothing. (My favorite historian Tom Woods has also addressed this issue here.) The Greenbackers are trying to leverage libertarian-conservative unhappiness with crony bank policies like "too big to fail" and the Fed, often portrayed as a cartel of private banks with crony government privileges.. However, you discover that they don't really believe in limited government and the concept of free banking; they regard private banks charging interest on loans as intrinsically evil and don't oppose centralized banking--so long as it's in the public sector. Today they propose "solutions" like canceling out debt held by the Federal Reserve (side note: one reason the Fed holds bonds is a check on inflation: selling bonds soaks up excessive money supply). They see sound money policies like a gold/commodity standard as serving the moneyed interests and want to turn the tables on lenders. The government printing presses essentially debase/devalue existing loans (if not forgive them directly) and are instruments of inflation, as experienced by the States/colonies and the Continental Congress. The fact that the Constitution specifically adopted a bimetallic standard versus a paper/fiat currency was no accident.

It really wasn't until the Civil War that we saw fiat money being used.  Banks did issue notes which could be converted to specie (gold/silver coins) on demand. A key concern for banks was maintaining a sufficient reserve of coins to back their notes. As the Civil War approached/progressives, commerce slacked which made banks receptive to bidding to service government bonds. Import duties and other federal revenues worsened which exacerbated war/government funding. There was also an incident involving a British vessel that worsened relations between London and Washington, throwing another element involving bank willingness to underwrite the government loans. There was also a lag issue between coinage used to process the loan and when the coinage was returned to the bank through government expenditures to vendors, soldiers, etc.: would processing the loan dangerously lower their coinage reserve to meet customer demands for conversion? It's clear that Salmon Chase, a Lincoln rival for the 1860 GOP nomination and his Secretary of the Treasury, did not really like the idea of issuing paper money not backed by currency: "the greatest care will .... be requisite to prevent the degradation of such issues into an irredeemable paper currency, than which no more certainly fatal expedient for impoverishing the masses and discrediting the government of any country can well be devised."  "Impoverishing the masses" is not that subtle a reference to inflation. It's clear Chase and Lincoln basically held their noses during the issuance of Greenbacks but had a higher priority in funding the war. In fact, Lincoln made it clear in an 1863 message to Congress that he was concerned about another round of Greenbacks being authorized.

Over the coming decade or so after the end of the war, the US returned to a backed currency, but the taste for irredeemable paper currency, the cheaper silver vs. gold currency,  etc., resurfaced in populist parties, as e.g., farmers wanted higher crop prices or to pay off their loans with cheaper currency.

As I mentioned, Gary North, who the Greenbackers accuse of being a tool of the moneyed interests, has tracked and refuted them for decades; among other things, they try to portray Lincoln as a kindred spirit. I think I've seen one of their websites where they also claim an endorsement from Milton Friedman. But the bottom line is that true Tea Partiers should question centralization of banking in the noncompetitive public sector and the demonizing of banking; not all banks need or seek crony privileges.

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Glenn McCoy and the Libertarian Republic

Musical Interlude: Motown

The Supremes, "You Keep Me Hanging On"

Miscellany: 9/28/13

Quote of the Day
I think that how one lives is more important
 than how long one lives. 
So I don't feel too bad.
Lim Yoon-taek (32 Year old South Korean cancer victim)

Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day

Best Mockery of the Day

[From Porter Stansberry:  Editor's note: we believe the issues in today's essay are so important, we're making an exception to our usual policy of vigorously enforcing our copyright.] I've abridged and made minor wording and other edits below...

A Letter from the Chairman of Government Motors

Dear shareholders,

Moody's Investors Service last week upgraded General Motors' rating. Nobody was more surprised than me.... all of the other major ratings houses (S&P, Fitch, Egan Jones) continue to rate our corporate obligations as "junk" – speculative debts that have a significant risk of default.

I'm the chairman of a publicly owned corporation, whose debts are soaring, whose margins are collapsing, and whose capital structure is still controlled by the government and our unions. So when the reporters called me to ask about the Moody's upgrade, I said: "Good things happen when you build great cars and trucks and deliver strong financial results."  [Notice I didn't say "we did"...]  In the first six months of 2012, we generated $2.8 billion in automotive operating profits. In the first six months of this year, we made a little more than $2.1 billion. Thus, our core, global automotive business has seen its operating profits decline substantially… by more than 24%.

We are approaching another crisis at GM, one that has its roots in the bailout of 2008/2009. The faulty bankruptcy process caused this crisis by failing to address our largest obligations (pensions and retired employee health care). At GM, we abandoned capitalism in 2010 when we emerged from bankruptcy. Instead of treating all of our creditors fairly, we gave the lion's share of the company's assets to the federal government and the UAW health care trust. Meanwhile, we didn't do anything to mitigate our enormous pension liability, which today stands at $26 billion. At the end of the bankruptcy process, none of our 400,000 retired workers lost a nickel. On the other hand, our shareholders, creditors, and many of our suppliers were wiped out.

 In total, we've made about $26 billion in operating cash flow – what our main business generated before paying capital expenses and similar costs – since we emerged from bankruptcy .So where did this money – the so-called free cash flow – go? In total, we've sent around $18 billion in cash to these interests – far more than we've been able to earn. These payments started with $3.9 billion in dividends on special "preferred" shares the union, the U.S. Treasury, and the Canadian government got during the bankruptcy process. Another $8.5 billion went to repay debts to the U.S. Treasury and the union, obligations that we were saddled with in bankruptcy. But in this case, the $5.1 billion worth of stock we bought back ALL came from the U.S. Treasury. We paid a $2-per-share premium to the actual market price of our stock.  It was the U.S. Treasury stealing $400 million from the shareholders. So we continue to owe far more to unions and governments than we're earning. In addition to about $8.8 billion in cash payments we made to support our pension plan and other retirement benefits, we contributed in 2011 60 million shares of stock (worth $2 billion) to the pension plan. In 2012, we announced a big deal to eliminate our entire legacy, white-collar-salary pension obligations. We paid the Prudential insurance firm around $3.5 billion to manage $25 billion worth of our pension liabilities, taking them off our books.

 In the three years after bankruptcy, we made roughly $6 billion-$7 billion in "free cash flow." Somehow, that cash was supposed to cover $18 billion in obligations. And for our common shareholders, our real owners? We haven't paid a cent. To pay off the union then, we'll have to borrow money… billions.  In the first six months of 2012, we sold $74.5 billion worth of cars around the world (automotive revenues). We made an operating profit of $2.8 billion, a margin of merely 3.8%. If anything were to happen to consumer demand,  these puny margins would disappear overnight. 

We can't compete on price because we don't have the cheapest costs. Instead, we have the highest. GM will have to compete on credit. We'll have to work out a deal with Wall Street to borrow billions and billions and funnel the money to car buyers who the other makers won't lend to...You might recall that our company's last foray into finance didn't end well… huge losses at our former finance subsidiary were one of the primary reasons our company spiraled into bankruptcy back in 2008. Our loan book has ballooned to $11.5 billion. We made about 75% of these loans to borrowers with FICO scores lower than 600. Unbelievably, we're even lending billions (more than $3 billion, actually) to folks with FICO scores less than 540.

I call it morally corrupt crony unionist/government strip mining, a dying cash cow... This has all the stink of the city of Detroit issuing debt under circumstances of inadequate disclosure to gullible bondholders, issuing debt they knew they would never be able to pay off under a collapsing tax regime for stop-gap coverage of pensions. If you can manage margins only in the range of artificially low long-term Treasury rates after years of pent-up auto demand, how are  you ever going to clear yourself of debt and unfunded liabilities, never mind invest in innovative products and infrastructure? But depending on high-risk borrowers to sell cars smells like the subprime mortgage crisis redux....

There is no way GM survives another recession; GM's only real shot was for the unions to share the pain as well as bondholders and stockholders. Obama didn't "save" the auto industry--he fought to save crony unionists, whose unsustainable contracts largely contributed to GM's problems as it shed lower-margin product lines; if foreign producers could profit in abandoned segments, they certainly could compete in higher margin segments. Checkmate! Game over! There will be no second federal bailout with a GOP-controlled House, and any future attempt to manipulate future bankruptcies will result in Obama's impeachment.

Personally I think China is biding its time; GM is a favorite brand in China. I would not be surprised to see China attempt a buyout. I seriously doubt, given Obama's attempt to describe the auto industry as an American "crown jewel",  that Obama and a bipartisan group of protectionist legislators would would allow that to happen.  I think it's more likely  China would buy a large stake in the company and/or offer to buy GM operations in China. This is sheer speculation, of course.

I hold no position (including any short position) in GM. But the single best thing GM could hope for (beyond necessary union givebacks and improved cash flow) is getting the US government to relinquish all remaining equity in GM, something I called for some time back.

The Best President of the Past Half-Century

Courtesy of the Libertarian Republic

Some Observations on the Continuing Resolution Kerfuffle

Two things are clear:

• Obama and the Democrats think that they will politically benefit from any shutdown and furthermore benefit from the GOP's internal conflict
• The Republicans will be portrayed as the loser by the mainstream media.

Consider one absurd Democratic talking point--the 2011 S&P downgrade of its US credit rating was "caused" by the GOP wanting a leaner budget. True, S&P was concerned about the budgetary uncertainty caused by divided government, but there were 2 sides to the dispute, and credit rating agencies are concerned with the ability to pay off new debt; that is affected by factors like the aggregate debt and loan terms, i.e., interest rates. The fact that the government has to borrow hundreds of billions just to pay its current expenses, including about $300B in interest on the debt, is not favorable. True, this year the deficit is likely to be under $1T (probably somewhere between $600-700B) for the first time in Obama's Presidency, but the projections I've seen show the debt spreading, not thinning, in future years. Here is the salient point:

The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less  reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

To analytically-challenged "progressives", S&P wants less spending--less need for new debt, less risk of the need to raise interest rates to attract buyers of new debt, fewer budgetary constraints if ObamaCare costs surpass projections, not to mention the risk of a recession which could shrink revenues and raise safety net costs. The S&P is apolitical; it's not going to point its finger at Obama's intransigence on Keynesian spending sprees and failure to compromise or back his own deficit reduction commission's proposals, but clearly the focal point of any dispute has to be the President.

I kept a low profile on Cruz' quixotic filibuster in an attempt to defund ObamaCare. The problem is, everybody knows the government is going to be funded; conservatives want their priority, defense spending, to be funded, and nobody wants to see the global markets roiled over a shutdown. If I had a vote, I would have voted with the 19 behind the defund effort but more saliently against the unconscionable budget, But I can understand why one of my favorites, Tom Coburn, wasn't one of the 19: you shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater; ObamaCare is hardly the biggest line item in the budget, and Coburn, who was part of the bipartisan majority in Simpson-Bowles, probably is worried about picking one's battles and thinks this plays into Democratic propagandists' hands.

As I write, I've seen email notifications that the House has sent another bill to the Senate, this one postponing the individual ObamaCare individual mandate and the medical device funding surtax, but an emboldened Majority Leader Reid and Barry Obama have already said no deal. This one I think will get more Senate GOP support. I think Reid and Obama are on much thinner ground here, because there is a clear double standard. Obama will not enforce the employer mandate--something not even allowed under his own law. I think, once again, this is mostly a political maneuver to force vulnerable Democrats in next year'selection to vote on the record.

Eventually, I think Obama gets what he wants, although Speaker Boehner is suggesting a shutdown is in play if the Senate turns the new proposal down. However, Obama should be careful of what he wishes for--his personal approval rating according to Gallup is at 43 and a net disapproval of 7 points. ObamaCare is also an unpopular policy. If there is a shutdown or if the markets are roiled, Obama will take a hit. Does he really want to argue why giving individuals the same year's grace he is giving business is worthy of shutting down the government over? Of course, if the House folds, it will lose a lot of credibility. But they do not fear a President with a 43% rating; even if Obama wins, he loses. The Dems think the Republicans are trapped, but Obama is not the Clinton whom survived the 1990's shutdown.. In this case, the Dems may win a Pyrrhic victory: the President will be weakened, and the Senate will likely be lost next fall.  Obama should sign onto the new House bill; I think the political costs outweigh the benefits. It may well be that Obama falls into Boehner's trap by rejecting the bill.

Political Cartoon

ObamaCare can only survive by the lifeblood of subsidies, much more than the Democrats' disingenuous kaleidoscope accounting estimates. Even Dracula couldn't survive without a more robust economy. Cruz was not likely to win over both the Democratic Senate and President.

Courtesy of Eric Allie and Townhall

Musical Interlude: Motown

The Supremes, "I Hear a Symphony"

Miscellany:9/27/13

Quote of the Day
To raise new questions,
new possibilities, 
to regard old problems from a new angle, 
requires creative imagination 
and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein

Guest Quotation of the Day

The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. - F.A. Hayek via Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek (of course)

The way I interpret this thought is consistent from the standpoint of my accounting minor background and traditional accounting professional standards, involving independence in fact and appearance from the client. I have also worked for management consulting affiliates of audit firms which required us to divest of any preexisting positions with respect to their affiliated audit client list, even though there was no contact between consultants and auditors. So we were prohibited from holding even minor stock positions in attractively-priced, well-run clients. This is to provide assurance to stockholders and other stakeholders (vendors, customers, employees, etc.) that we have no vested interest, that auditors inspect with due professional care and diligence management's assertions in financial statements for fair statement.

Now consider the legitimate bases of government, like guaranteeing the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property; a limited but effective national defense and robust, independent judiciary are not reserved to a narrow constituency; we all are equal under the rule of law. When it comes to dishing out special privileges like union protection and other protectionist measures (anti-competitive tariffs, quotas, rules and regulations), individual handouts, various special interest subsidies, exemptions, deductions, etc., our current political system is replete with vested interests, where demagogues promise unsustainable "free" goodies, pass moral hazardous laws, and promote morally corrupt, divisive zero-sum policies. Any legitimate independence and/or professional ethics standards would require legislators to refrain from voting for, promoting or negotiating earmarks for their constituencies, for  (for example) Democrats to refrain from nominating union cronies or negotiating public sector union collective bargaining agreements, etc. A political majority that votes to exploit a political minority (say, for instance, the upper 1% of income earners) is engaging in little more than legal plunder and is morally corrupt.

Philosopher of the Day: Plato

I'm sure that Plato would have had ObamaCare in mind.

Both Images via the Libertarian Republic

Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day

From the Father of Austrian School Economists
Courtesy of the Laissez Faire Capitalism Facebook Group

Rant of the Day

Aren't we all sick and tired of the snake-oil-hyping, finger-pointing, scapegoating Demagogue-in-Chief?Obama needs to stop bitching and start leading. I can't believe that this guy is still playing politics versus addressing an all-but-bankrupt government, excessive international meddling, and a house-of-cards entitlement system. So he earns yet another JOTY nomination. Utterly pathetic: given the fact he essentially owns the mainstream media and the Internet accommodates any number of news stories and political views, this failed communicator and leader tries to blame a cable news source? Here's a flash to The Clueless One: the American people rejected further government intervention in health care in 1993-1994, aka HillaryCare, long before FNC became a cable news powerhouse. Anyone who follows this blog knows that I only rarely reference Fox News; in fact, I think I cite the Gray Lady more than Fox. Fox is hardly creating the opposition; the majority center-right clearly has not found a home among the national broadcast networks which all pander to a progressive political standpoint; Fox News saw an opportunity to address an  underserved audience. Obama is defensive, thin-skinned, and constantly makes excuses. He's the one whom shoved a nationally unpopular odious piece of Senate corrupt partisan sausage making down the House's throat, losing dozens of fellow Democrat votes in the process. He, who campaigned for office on the theme of post-partisan politics and transparency, has done precisely the opposite.

Speaking of BOCare, I saw a great political cartoon on the Laissez Faire Capitalism FB page here--I won't embed it because I can't attribute the author, but the line is "We've heard that laughter is the best medicine so Monday we'll start regulating it." Uh-oh, Jay Leno: do you really want Rachel Maddow reviewing your monologue? You want to regulate humor? Have Obama tell a joke without serving as his own laugh track...



Image of the Day: We Are the Trend

Courtesty of Cato Institute

Facebook Corner

Since I have found myself occasionally discussing Facebook exchanges, I have decided to create a new segment tag. This question is posed by The Libertarian Republic:

What if the phrase "In God We Trust" was replaced with "In Allah We Trust"? Would you still support it adorning our public buildings and currency?

I once posed a similar question. At a niece's graduation on Air Force Academy grounds, one of the female student speakers of the public high school graduating class decided to give testimony on Jesus Christ. I found this entirely inappropriate, although my folks and my niece's family strongly disagreed. One of the questions I asked was how they would have felt if a Muslim student was testifying about Muhammad.

This phrase, of course, was popularized with the Star Spangled Banner and its use in coinage stemming from the Civil War and its official adoption as a national motto and appearance on fiat currency since the Eisenhower Administration, motivated in part to the desire to distinguish the US from atheistic communism during the Cold War.

Now, for me as a libertarian, the motto has this particular significance in terms of the Lockean notion of our unalienable rights (life, liberty and property) underlying our Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. It is suggestive that our rights are not granted by mere men but some higher order, however you wish to conceptualize that. I also think the motto reflects the traditional significance of our distinctive, historical religious liberty, tolerance, and pluralism. I see "God" used not as religiously distinctive and reflective of some centralized nationalized belief system by fiat but in terms of a common experience, in the search for a higher purpose.

Now, personally, I would oppose putting the name of God on currency for religious reasons: the Gospel teaching on the imperial tax ("Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's..."); I want to separate religion from politics. I don't like 'God' being used as a political gimmick in the sense of an "I love Mommies, babies, and puppy dogs" act. I also think that it is unnecessary, hardly distinctive (there are a number of state religions, for instance)  and unduly provocative and divisive to non-believers (freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion). So I would have voted like Justin Amash, in opposition to the related 2011 resolution.

At the same time, I do not believe in atheists or agnostics engaging in censorship of religious speech. We all have to respect and tolerate the rights of others with whom we disagree. I do not believe any display of a religiously generic motto is a material imposition on the rights of atheists or agnostics (the same holds true of things like a display of the Ten Commandments). Personally, for example, I don't like our coins to include the faces of mediocre Presidents I personally despise, like Lincoln and FDR. But I don't have to profess a positive belief in the presidents when I use a penny or dime; the decisions were made by a majority of other people, and my philosophy is "don't sweat the small stuff".

Do you agree with Ron Paul that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a bad president? If so, why?

Hell, yes. His domestic policies created regime uncertainty, his Court-packing scheme not only violated the balance of powers but pressured SCOTUS off defense of economic liberty and into almost unchecked federal expansion beyond enumerated powers, he was an aggressive international interventionist, and he put his political career (an unprecedented 4 terms) above tradition and the interests of the people.

Political Humor: Remy is Back!
Sebelius Is Pitching a Taxpayer-Paid Contest for Best ObamaCare Propaganda Song, So...



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Lisa Benson and Townhall

Musical Interlude: Motown

The Supremes, "Baby Love"

Miscellany: 9/26/13

Quote of the Day
I am free of all prejudices. 
I hate every one equally.
W. C. Fields

My Favorite Comment on the Potential Government Shutdown

OMG - a government shutdown. No more predation and killing by the biggest government on the face of the earth? We should be so lucky.  - Lew Rockwell on Facebook

One Way That the Fed is Feeding the Stock Market Boom

My retirement savings hit new highs today, although I have to admit it's getting harder to find good buys that meet my criteria. There are some cheap plays out there (to name a few: fertilizer stocks, mining stocks (hurt by slowing Chinese imports and recent corrections in gold and silver), and emerging markets), but I don't see these gaining momentum in the short term. However, shipping stocks have had a recent run (SEA is up 7% over the past month, which seems to suggest a stronger global economy). (This is not an investment blog: invest at your own risk.) But the point is whatever moderate success I've experienced over the past year benefits from cheaper money, as other traders bid up stocks, not unlike easy money pumped up the Nasdaq bubble, housing bubble and/or credit bubble over the past generation. It's also likely some investors have reallocated funds from low-performing bond funds. (There's some evidence that bonds are peaking; recall that dumping bonds lowers prices: there's an inverse relationship between prices and yields. If longer-term bonds increase in yield, the Fed may be forced to raise short-term rates to attract/retain investors.)

Since business interest rates are an offset of "safer" Treasury debt, the Fed as a Treasury buyer of last resort artificially lowers federal interest expenses (and even then it returns interest income back to the Treasury). Artificially low interest rates allow buyers to bid up the underlying security (as described above). By some valuation metrics, the P/E ratio is lower than peaks in past stock market bubbles, so there may be room to run; there's no hint that the mom and pop investors are all in and chasing up, say, emerging markets.

But make no mistake: there is a cost to the Fed's manipulation of interest rates (see the second chart below via ZeroHedge).

Courtesy of NYXData and Daily Reckoning

Via ZeroHedge

Latest JOTY Nominee: White House Adviser  Dan Pfeiffer 

No need to explain necessary; here is an excerpt from Business Insider:

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer used three vivid analogies to attack House Republicans' laundry list of demands for raising the debt ceiling, comparing Republicans to arsonists, hostage-takers and suicide bombers.

On the Pseudo-Scientific Climate Alarmists

Alexander Volokh, "The Revival of the Contract Clause": Thumhs UP!

However morally repulsive self-absorbed public employee unions are, libertarians do believe that the principle of voluntary contracts should be upheld. Indeed, as Volokh implies, it would be morally hazardous for us to save politicians and voters from the consequences of agreeing to unsustainable terms with the unions. Elected leadership has a fiduciary responsibility to set aside sufficient funding; it is unconscionable to shift burdens to subsequent administrations; consider, for instance, Detroit, where higher-income households had fled to the suburbs for decades and the city was not diversified from its auto industry: a shrinking tax base, inefficient programs, bill juggling,  and accelerating expenses from a retired workforce inevitably led to bankruptcy.

Incidentally Pension Tsunami linked to a Gray Lady story talking about Detroit having spent billions in unadvertised pension benefits:

The payments, which were not publicly disclosed, included bonuses to retirees, supplements to workers not yet retired and cash to the families of workers who died before becoming eligible to collect a pension, according to reports by an outside actuary and other people with knowledge of the matter.

I leave it to the reader to review Volokh's comprehensive overview; I'm not happy about courts finding implied vs. real contracts. He doesn't really address things like union obligations being given preferential treatment, a violation of the concept of the rule of law. He does suggest that cities and states have some flexibility to change terms not including vested benefits to date and that courts will prioritize funding for essential services.

I may write a bigger blurb on this in tomorrow's post, but I was listening to an Econtalk with Robert Frank on the issue of Darwinian competition. I think at one point Frank complains about the financial industry outbidding for the best and brightest out of college. The reason I mention this is that there's an even worse rent-seeking profession: lawyers. You would think in the so-called "land of the free", we wouldn't need so many people trying to enforce an unsustainable regulatory regime, have to fend off nuisance suits, etc. Even if I would have made for a great lawyer and/or judge, what a waste of a good mind! I could feel my impatience growing as I read Volokh's well-written piece....

Musical Interlude: Motown

The Commodores, "Three Times a Lady"

Miscellany: 9/25/13

Quote of the Day
Nature does not bestow virtue;
 to be good is an art.
Seneca

Dedicated to the Fed: Printing Money Out of Nothing at All



Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day

"Social justice" is about as realistic as my chances to date this woman:

Courtesy of Laissez-Faire Capitalism

RAG Walking

Jay Leno has a recurring feature called jaywalking featuring ordinary Americans saying not-so-bright things in interview clips. I'm going to do something similar to economically illiterate things said by "progressives" or social liberals (versus classical (economic/individualist) liberals, like me). This comes via the Being Classically Liberal page on Facebook

Perhaps these ladies from the Paul Krugman School of Luddism will next explain how their little brothers hitting baseballs through neighbors' glass windows stimulate the economy. Excuse me while I go through my speedy self-checkout lane at the Home Depot while these ladies stand in checkout lines they could otherwise spend working or doing anything more constructive than waiting in line.  Even Homer Simpson wanted to weigh in on the ladies' contribution to the economy:



After Bush/Obama, We've Gone From #2 to #17?

... while Russia has gone up 12 places, has a flat tax, has 6% unemployment, and the national debt is 8% of the economy (ours is over 100%). Russia, at #101, still has a way to go (but leads the rest of the BRIC countries).

Courtesy of the Fraser Institute Via Agora Financial

My Comment on a Cafe Hayek Post

Russ Roberts, Don Boudreaux's co-blogger at Cafe Hayek, the host of Monday's weekly hour-plus Econtalk, is back to posting and has written a recent string of posts on Krugman, more specifically Krugman's cheerleading the Democratic Left's populist views of more government spending and regulation. (I have only incidental contact with Roberts; for example, I was once trying to email him and in my browser his link showed Don Boudreaux's email address. I emailed Boudreaux and asked him to forward to Roberts; Roberts replied in a polite but defensive manner. I seem to recall he was arguing something like I couldn't be experiencing the problem because he was getting emails from the link. I did discover I got the correct link using a different browser.) I think both Roberts and Boudreaux go out of their way to criticize GOP politicians for violating free market principles, and one time when I was doing some reading on market monetarism and hadn't seen a recent talk with Scott Sumner, and he curtly responded he had already interviewed Sumner. (I don't think he enclosed links. I recently listened to one of the Sumner podcasts but I don't think that interview discussed monetary policy.) He probably thinks I'm a crank and didn't comment, as of this point, on my comment, although I posted mine a few hours after most other comments.

Roberts and I have different styles; Roberts goes out of the way to show a more humble approach, admitting for instance has more of a classical liberal perspective and wanting to control for any of his own biases in reading the work of others. He is very tactful in disagreeing with others.  I'm more direct but not deliberately provocative; I think I have more patience than most people and avoid ad hominem arguments (I am, of course, judgmental about Obama, but I have studied his proposals and rationales. I will poke fun at him if and when I think he's a little too full of himself (but I also poke fun at myself), but I do not reference what I regard as disrespectful material, but I go out of my way to lay out my perspective and my differences.).

Roberts in this piece thinks that Krugman is overplaying his hand in arguing "austerity" is responsible for current poor economic performance. Roberts talks about other economic factors like regulatory policies (say, wage controls, benefit mandates), morally hazardous social policies (say, overly generous unemployment insurance), uncertainty (e.g., tax policies), etc. But Krugman is arguing that moderating the $1T increase of the budget in less than a decade--essentially less than pocket change in GDP--is the "cause". Keep in mind we've had historically low interest rates, and a tripling of our national debt over the last dozen years--and we had more robust recovery in the past after depressions and recessions without even these tools available (as familiar readers are well-aware). I think Roberts thinks as a first-rate economist, Krugman out of respect for his profession should not participate in a unsupported form of leftist economic populism and be ludicrously dismissive of salient factors....

From a non-economist: A Bastiat-style parable. The man in the street vs. the pickpocket. The man no longer carries his wallet in his pocket. From the perspective of the pickpocket, the economy is failing. But the man in the street gets to spend or save more of his own money.

Bad Elephants of the Year Repeat Nominees: John McCain and Peter King

I think it's safe to say my annual choice will be from among McCain, Graham, and King, although who knows what idiocy could surface in the fourth quarter, just a few days away. In reference to Ted Cruz and particularly his recent filibuster to defund ObamaCare, King was quoted referring to the action of "governmental terrorism" and a McCain aide recently let it slip that McCain "f***ing hates Ted Cruz".

Other Comments: Pope Francis on The Libertarian Republic

Sigh. The last thing I want to do is get sucked up into some inane forum thread like in my low-carb days in 2003-2004. Apparently the editor of the blog is promising a hatchet job on Pope Francis (the hatchet job is implied by other comments he has made implying that he is aware of some "evidence" and asks other sympathetic commentators for evidence); my responses to the alert and related comments are in red).

"Is the new Pope a Marxist? New piece coming soon..."

 As a Catholic, not happy with his populist nonsense about the unemployed workers demanding jobs. I wrote a recent blog post asking "Is the Pope Catholic?" I think his theory of the papacy is to stir the pot; any publicity is good publicity. I personally don't like the papacy by gimmick; we already have an American President by gimmick. Looking at some of the other comments, no, he's not a communist or socialist, but he's more collectivist than individualist and probably favors some statist redistribution schemes. No, the Church does not promote proponents of liberation theology. It is true some early Christian communities had socialist aspects, but other than, say, some monasteries or religious orders, it never persisted. I think some early communities expected an imminent Second Coming, so you don't acquire property if the world was going to end tomorrow.

 "Liberation Theology has been ruling the Catholic church since the 1960's. You bet he's a marxist."

 From a Catholic News Agency story, "One of Pope Francis' former teachers, Argentinean Jesuit priest Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone, has said that the Holy Father never supported a Marxist-based liberation theology."

"He is actually right he is attacking crony capitalism and corporatism which is fascism, in my opinion he defends the free market."

Not a chance. He is stereotyping a culture he sees as focused on money.. Make no mistake: he is attacking capitalism directly, not just corrupt relationships between business and government. I did a simple Google search on "pope" and "anti-capitalist" and just on the first page picked up stories on John Paul II, Benedict and Francis.

Laissez Faire Capitalism FB: A Government Shutdown _?_

My suggestions:

• would liberate the private sector....
•  means that we don't have to pay federal employees for doing nothing...

Courtesy of Reason

Chart of the Day: Economic Freedom vs. Corruption

Courtesy of Alejandro Antonio Chafuen at Laissez Faire Capitalism on Facebook

Announcing the Inaugural Most Favored Politician Class

This designation is a tongue-in-cheek reference to more liberal trade status.

Current Selections:

• Rand Paul, U.S  Senator (R-KY)
• Tom Coburn, US Senator (R-OK)
• Justin Amash, US House of Representatives (R-MI)
• Bobby Jindal,  Governor (R-LA)

Emeritus

• Ron Paul, US House of Representatives (R-TX)
• Mitch Daniels, Governor (R-IN)

International:

• Daniel Hannan, British Conservative MEP

Posthumous:

• Calvin Coolidge, US President
• Grover Cleveland, US President
• Robert Taft, U.S. Senator (I-OH)
• Howard Buffett, US House of Representatives (R-NE)
• Lady Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister

Not a Most Favored Politician: Abraham Lincoln

Gary North cited Abe Lincoln's first political speech in 1832. At least Abe got the last one right but killed a lot of Americans in the process:

“Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
“I am plain Abe Lincoln. I have consented to become a candidate for the legislature. My political principles are like the old woman’s dance-short and sweet. I believe in a United States Bank; I believe in a protective tariff; I believe in a system of internal improvements, and I am against human slavery. If on that platform you can give me your suffrages, I shall be much obliged. If not, no harm done, and I remain respectfully yours, ABE LINCOLN.”

The first one is a variation of the Fed Reserve, the second is anti-consumer, and the third is noncompetitive, centralized infrastructure building.

In Honor of the Cruz Defund ObamaCare Filibuster



Civil Forfeiture = Government Theft



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall

Musical Interlude: Motown

Mary Wells "My Guy" /The Temptations, "My Girl"

Miscellany:9/24/13

Quote of the Day
Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. 
 Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty 
are battlefields which have their heroes
obscure heroes 
who are at times greater than 
illustrious heroes.
Victor Hugo

Image of the Day: Performance of the Federal Reserve
or "Heck of a Job, Helicopter Ben" on That Second Mandate

Courtesy of Daily Reckoning and ZeroHedge

End  Fiscal Year "Use It or Lose It" Federal Spending Spree;  While the Spotlight of Public Scrutiny is on the Congress and President:
All They Want to Do Is Dance (Around Fiscal Responsibility)
While Our Grandchildren's Future is Burning
Obama and Congress Selling Out Quickly
All They Want to Do is Spend, Spend, Spend

According to the Washington Times:

Despite the deep budget sequester cuts that have tightened belts across the government, the Coast Guard is in a rush to empty its budget coffers — the annual fourth-quarter push for federal agencies to spend all of their money or risk smaller budgets the next year.“The standards haven’t changed,” said Carlos Diaz, a Coast Guard spokesman. “We’ve got to spend our entire operational budget every year.”

Known as Christmas in July [i.e., the start of the last fiscal year quarter], the push to spend out budgets has been documented by government auditors for years. The philosophy is that if agencies return unspent money at the end of a fiscal year, Congress will decide it didn’t need all of it and will cut funding the next year. So federal employees go into overdrive by buying office furniture, playground equipment, musical instruments and other items, according to audit reports. Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican and one of the leading fiscal hawks on Capitol Hill, said that must not happen this year.

Tom Coburn is a favorite senator (and will be the inaugural member to attain the blog's Most Favored Politician status).

Reason's pollster Emily Ekins, who I believe is the prettiest pollster on the planet, had earlier pointed out how Republicans, Democrats and independents differ on whether the government spends too much:

Courtesy of Reason

Remember, I recently quoted the Keynesian Minority Queen of the House, Nancy Pelosi, whom insists that we've cut out the waste, the cupboard is bare. (Don't ask her how the Justice Department finds the money to feed its employees $16 muffins or where the IRS finds 10 grand to make a Star Trek training skit, GSA managed to fund flying in government employees for a conference in Las Vegas (two words: web conferencing: no hotel bills, no car rentals, no per diem, no airline booking, etc.))

Nick Gillespie conveniently forgets that it took a GOP Congress to achieve a balanced budget for the first time in decades, he wants to publicly lash the 2003-2006 Republicans for losing their way (and certainly the Patriot Act, the DHS super-bureaucracy, the TARP legislation, and the unfunded war and Medicare drug benefit are inexcusable GOP-led initiatives, but let us recall GOP conservatives, at minimum, revolted against TARP and the new unfunded liability). As for the Dem disingenuous fiscal conservatism, it was just as politically opportunistic as FDR's faux fiscal hawk criticism of Hoover and Clinton's attacks on GHW Bush for agreeing to a tax hike demanded by the Democratic-controlled Congress. Remember, Ted Kennedy argued that Bush's 70% (if not more) increase in federal education spending didn't go nearly far enough, and the Democrats' key criticism of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit  was an unfunded "doughnut hole". In fact, since the Democrats led one or both chambers of Congress since 2007, the budget has gone up more than a trillion dollars and the publicly-held debt has better than doubled. I will say Gillespie seems to recognize this: "I would argue also that while Democrats were relatively more critical of the government during the Bush years, they were also getting a huge heaping serving of what they wanted - a large and growing government that spent more and more and regulated more and more - so the gulf between Dems and Reps was relatively small."  (Nick, do you want to also bust the urban legend that Bush and McCain were ideological deregulators?)  I would also point out that the Bush wars were consistent with "progressive Democrat" intervention wars/rationale during the twentieth century.

I am not being partisan here: I think Bush  deserves more of the blame because he was reluctant to veto anything. This encourages Spenders Gone Wild. The term-limit Republicans gave way to the career politician "Bridge to Nowhere" Republicans where an Alaskan GOP senator threatened to resign his seat if his boondoggle wasn't approved. But compared to Democrat super-spending and super-deficits, the GOP spenders were strictly amateurs. There's also a big difference in overspending once you reach your credit limit, i.e., GDP-sized debt; personally, I'm more a transactor (pay as you go operational budget) vs. revolver.

Courtesy of Gallup Via Reason

Military Intervention: Pro and Con

No surprise whose argument I accept here (non-inventionist). Notice that the pro-side is not discussing a direct threat to America in advocating the application of military power.



Obam-Me, Putin Wants to Play With You



More on Detroit and Self-Government





Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall

Musical Interlude: Motown

Stevie Wonder, "Part-Time Lover"

Miscellany: 9/23/13

Quote of the Day
Life is not the way it's supposed to be. 
It's the way it is. 
The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.
Virginia Satir

Obama's Anti-Small Business Fact of the Day

 Entrepreneurialism is down from 11% to 7% under the Obama administration's reign...Unless the government listens and allows independent economists to conduct a cost-benefit analysis on each new "idea" the Congress or regulatory agent gets, this [$1.8T] drag on the economy will only get worse. - Garrett Baldwin

Quoting the Fed Reserve Chiefs: Sad but Funny

• "The fact that our econometric models at the Fed, the best in the world," reads the autumn public record in 1999, "have been wrong for 14 straight quarters does not mean that they will not be right in the 15th quarter." - Alan Greenspan
• On October 31, 2007: "It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions." - Ben Bernanke
• On March 28, 2008: “At this juncture… the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.” - Helicopter Ben 
• On July 20, 2008: “The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.” - "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke
• On June 3, 2009: "The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt." - Ben Bernanke
• On December 5, 2010: “One myth that’s out there is that what we’re doing is printing money. We’re not printing money.”

Government Gone Rogue

Courtesy of The Libertarian Republic

Detroit: Coping With Dysfunctional Local Government





The  (Negative) Bush/Obama Economic Freedom Trend

We're now behind Canada and Chile in our own hemisphere....

Courtesy of Cato Institute

New Nominee For Bad Judge of the Year: Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin

Los Angeles has a bad pension  problem, and we are mere years vs. decades from trade-offs in essential services. (Another current headline on Pension Tsunami is that in NYC, more cops are drawing pensions than there are active-service officers.) You have retirement programs for pensions and healthcare. Los Angeles has a clause reserving the right to modify healthcare benefit terms. A few years back, Los Angeles in a cost-containing move gave employees a choice of a fixed healthcare benefit or an inflation-adjusted benefit if they chose to contribute an additional amount. At the risk of oversimplification, Lavin found some penumbra that asserts that fixed benefits are unfair to workers/retirees and ordered a reinstatement of inflation-adjusted benefits. So apparently the clause about being able adjust retiree benefits has no legal status but an activist judge can pick and choose precedents to rationalize how a fixed benefit is unconstitutional. I want Judge Lavin's mortgage banker to file suit, arguing that he is paying off his mortgage in cheaper, debased currency, that fixed mortgage payments are intrinsically unfair to lenders...

On the Right of "Progressive" Journalism Professors to Circulate Obnoxious Opinions

I was on a Fox News webpage reading a story of how "progressive" vandals had debased a statue of Ronald Reagan when I saw a link describing a University of Kansas associate professor of journalism, David Guth; Guth allegedly responded to the recent Navy Yard tragedy by posting the following tweet: "#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you."

As a former professor I am always concerned about academic freedom, but more relevant is Guth venting a personal opinion, as is his right under the First Amendment. I am not familiar with the specifics of being put on leave: did he issue the tweet referencing his position at the college?

I personally find the tweet unreasonable and I think that he has done a disservice to journalism programs and professionals by engaging in uncivil behavior, setting a bad example for students. I have been occasionally critical of the NRA, but only a tiny percentage of gun owners abuse their rights, and many crimes of violence involve unregistered weapons. The murderer bears sole responsibility for his actions, depriving others of their unalienable right to live. Wishing harm to family members of people whom disagree with you is unconscionable.

Look, the guy is a jerk, and I think he's inflicted damage to his own reputation. He will probably be known more for his uncivil behavior than his professional scholarship. But don't give him the publicity he is seeking. He has a constitutional right to espouse obnoxious views; threats to his job are unjust. He has lost my professional respect. I think students can find better professors to study under.

Political Cartoon

Time to cut the anchor...

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez and Investors.com

Musical Interlude: Motown

Stevie Wonder, "I Just Called to Say I Love You"