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Posts tagged 'Economics'
I Looked Up What Happened When Sweden Refused To Shut Down – They Were Right, We Were Wrong
Reported By Josh Manning | Published August 1, 2020 at 3:39pm
URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/looked-happened-sweden-refused-shut-right-wrong/
Sweden did it.
The Nordic country defeated COVID-19 without seeming to break a sweat — fever-induced or otherwise. They effectively showed that Fauci & Co. were completely wrong about a shutdown being necessary to save civilization as we know it.
While that accomplishment should be lauded and their efforts duplicated around the world, the media has instead chosen to blast the Nordic state and paint a dismal picture that simply doesn't exist. A few examples (among many, many others) are below:
CBS News declared: "Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID-19."
Similarly, the University of Virginia Health System issued a news release titled: "Lack of Lockdown Increased COVID-19 Deaths in Sweden."
Taking a stab at prognostication, Newsweek said: "Sweden COVID-19 Deaths Linked to Failure to Lockdown as Country Prepares for Second Wave."
Always eager to bravely embrace the status quo, The New York Times ran a piece headlined: "Sweden Tries Out a New Status: Pariah State."
Finally, Business Insider reported: "Sweden's coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success."
It's all awfully prickly from a leftist media that used to adore Sweden's welfare state. The reason for the barbed headlines is simple — Sweden dealt with COVID-19 in its own way.
The country didn't truckle to the tyranny of over-educated, under-experienced experts. It didn't implement authoritarian policies designed as much to break spirits as to break the pandemic. And it didn't turn its voters into quasi-prisoners. In other words, Sweden responded more or less the way the rest of the developed world has responded to contagious diseases until 2020, which just happens to also be President Donald Trump's re-election year.
What were Sweden's results?
Well, first let's consider American results brought to us courtesy of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, the establishment media, government officials around the country and legions of panic-prone and morally superior "Karens." All around the country, the U.S. tried just about every imaginable combination of mask, lockdown, quarantine, curfew and closures orders — up to and including literally refusing entry across some state lines to certain fellow Americans.
The results were, well, not what anyone wanted. As of Saturday, the U.S. coronavirus death rate was 3.35 new deaths per million per day (based on a seven-day rolling average), which ranks as the 11th worst rating on the planet, according to Our World in Data.
And remember, thanks in large part to the Andrew Cuomo nursing home/death camp model of virus containment, New York state accounts for more than a fifth of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins data. So we're probably getting dragged down a little in the ratings by the disproportionate number of deaths in that state.
What else has America's scattershot, but mostly heavy-handed, response yielded? If you read The Wall Street Journal, you will learn it led to anywhere between 30 million and 40 million lost jobs. (Some of those workers have no doubt been rehired as parts of the economy reopen, but millions more haven't. And economists don't really know how many of those job losses are permanent.)
So we destroyed constitutional rights, shed a few dozen million jobs and watched tens of thousands of people die. Oh, and we turned Americans against each other, all the way from the state to family levels.
But at least gross domestic product didn't take it too hard, right? Not exactly. Commerce Department numbers released Thursday revealed that the U.S. economy shrank by a record 32.9 percent last quarter in what Bloomberg called the "sharpest downturn since at least the 1940s."
So what about those rebellious Swedes? The ones who refused to play ball with all-knowing scientists and a ridiculously tunnel-visioned medical establishment?
While much of the rest of the developed world drowned themselves in hand sanitizer, locked ankle monitors onto their citizens and bought super cute masks on Etsy, the stalwart Swedes pressed on. They lived their lives. They didn't mandate masks. They didn't turn into NKVD-aspiring Karens, eager to publicly shame or quietly narc on neighbors, friends and family who dared bare an uncovered nostril.
Sweden defied the (dare we say) scientific consensus and has performed exceedingly well compared to the U.S. As of Saturday, Sweden had registered 0.65 deaths per million per day, based on a seven-day rolling average. Trading Economics projects a second-quarter GDP change of -4.2 percent (and a third-quarter growth of 2.4 percent). Depending on your preferred method of calculation, we could casually say that's 7.8 times better than what the U.S. saw last quarter.
As of June 18, Statista forecast a 2.6 percent drop in Sweden's employment rate for 2020. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meanwhile, reported unemployment in the U.S. shot up 11.2 percentage points from 3.5 percent in February to 14.7 percent in April, before dropping a bit to 13.3 percent in May and 11.7 percent in June as parts of the economy reopened.
Now we're not going to be like the dogmatic pro-mask Stasi here. There are lots of factors that impact the difference between U.S. and Swedish outcomes. We can't say with 100 percent certainty that Sweden's refusal to lock down saved their economy or is responsible for the miraculously low death rate. But it would also be foolish to say that the decision didn't play some role in the different outcome.
We can all learn two significant lessons from how COVID-19 responses have played out in the U.S. versus Sweden.
First, it is clear that the expert class in America whom the left appeals to at every turn (aren't you sick of hearing "scientists say" or "experts find"?) is worth substantially less than we pay them.
We've spent literally trillions of dollars as a result of this virus and have only managed to buy our own personal hell.
Second, Sweden succeeded using an approach that left people free. The response they got from the U.S. media complex, however, wasn't celebration and an urge toward duplication. It was derision and aspersion.
That betrays what lays at the heart of everything COVID-19-related.
In America, COVID-19 has never been first and foremost a virus to fight. It has instead been a tool that the left, anti-Trumpers and the establishment could use to mercilessly kick Americans in our collective groin. With COVID-19, the left finally found a chink in Trump's armor. The left knew exploiting it was vital, and they knew that Americans would have to suffer if they wanted to succeed.
As America continues to languish economically even as deaths drop, remember to thank the left for that. And when you walk into that voting booth on Tuesday, Nov. 3, remember to pay the left back for the hell they've just put us through — pay them back by voting for Donald J. Trump.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Josh Manning
Editor-at-Large, The Western Journal
Josh Manning is deputy managing editor, assignment, at The Western Journal. He holds a masters in public policy from Harvard University and has a background in higher education.
@Josh_Manning
American Left
establishment media
Biden Ad Features Woman Attacking Trump on COVID, Fails To Mention Her $27,000 in PPP Money
Reported By C. Douglas Golden | Published July 6, 2020 at 6:45am
URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-ad-features-woman-attacking-trump-covid-fails-mention-27000-ppp-money/
If you're Joe Biden and you're going to argue President Donald Trump hasn't helped small businesses, and you're going to do this in a campaign advertisement that highlights the owner of a small business, it helps if your people choose a small business that didn't receive help from the federal government headed by Donald Trump.
If you have to pick someone who got assistance from a program signed into law by the president, it also helps to pick an individual who kept this information private. If conservatives discovered this information a month or two down the line, long after the message conveyed by the advertisement was absorbed into the body politic, the effect of the discovery is near zero. If you can find the information out via a quick Google search, well, that's problematic.
I think this would go without saying, but apparently this reminder wasn't relayed to the crack team currently being employed by the former vice president. His new ad features the owner of an eyewear shop in Philadelphia who got a forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loan.
Not only that, she gave an interview about it to BillyPenn, a Philadelphia-area news outlet, thus leaving a short trail of breadcrumbs for anyone willing to put in five minutes to discover it for themselves.
This is the advertisement, released by the Biden campaign on Wednesday:
"Small businesses are the backbone of communities across our nation, and we need to do so much more to help them," read the copy on Joe Biden's official Twitter account. "Donald Trump may have forgotten about them — but I never will."
In the ad, owner Tiffany Easley — who wears a mask in what looks like an empty shop, showily proving an empty point — talks about her business woes at NV My Eyewear in Philadelphia.
"I always wanted to build something from the ground up. I saved, put in the hours, and put off vacations," Easley says in the video.
"I opened NV My Eyewear three and a half years ago, and just as we were adding locations and employees, this pandemic brought everything to a halt. I had to permanently close one location and furlough my employees, and it's my staff. They're my family. It's just heartbreaking.
"But what's worse is that this president seemed to make everything else worse. Donald Trump and his administration left the American people behind," she continued.
"The people that he is supposed to protect and serve. Small businesses, they need a partner in the White House, and that's why I'm with Joe. I know he'll help small businesses like mine get back on our feet. I spent my life building this business from the ground up. I want a president that's going to build this country back better than before."
The advantage of the video is that, save from the anecdotal evidence and information already known to every viewer, the ad is entirely fact-free. It doesn't mention what Trump could have done better or how Biden will do so. Simply put, the ad's fuzzy argument goes, Biden's better, vote him.
Thus, the fact that the ad never mentions that Easley benefited a good deal from a bill signed by Trump doesn't necessarily make it false, just wildly misleading:
In an April interview with BillyPenn, Easley said she'd "lost at least 95% of my revenue for March, and I guess it's gonna be the same thing for April."
However, she was able to stay in business thanks to the PPP, one of President Trump's signature COVID-19 relief packages.
"The reason she's able to be optimistic about the future? For one, Easley is a woman of faith, she said. Also, she was able to score emergency financial relief from two different sources," BillyPenn reported.
"NV My Eyewear is one of the businesses that got a payout from the first phase of the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Easley was awarded a loan of $27,000, which will be forgiven if she uses it to rehire staff, as she's planning to do."
The other aid came in the form of a $5,000 grant from a Philadelphia COVID-19 relief fund.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Trump campaign has called the ad "dishonest." The Biden campaign and Easley didn't respond to requests for comment, the Free Beacon reported.
One muffed ad doesn't a spoilt message make, although the case of NV My Eyewear speaks to a larger issue in Biden's messaging that presented itself when, in the early days of response to the novel coronavirus, he was asked what he would have done differently from the president.
The suite of changes he originally presented were materially identical to what Trump had done. Oh, but he'd have gone further. How? Don't ask for details, because that's not Biden's forte. That this isn't remembered more acidly is proof of the kinds of the passes a mediocre establishment Democrat will receive both from his own party and the media.
Biden's small business proposals, such as they are, are likely to get the same kid-gloves treatment.
What's his messaging here — that he wasn't president when the coronavirus hit? That he would have given out more money in PPP money? He would have spent more money than the trillions that had already been spent?
The ad makes none of that clear.
Biden has called for student loan forgiveness, according to Forbes, and a stimulus package "a hell of a lot bigger" than the $2 trillion in the CARES Act, according to Politico.
These would have to be paid for, at least in part, through tax increases.
Those words aren't featured in the ad, and for good reason: If you want one weird trick to get voters to recoil from Biden just as COVID-19 lockdowns have led to record unemployment, it's telling them they need to pay more taxes.
Another weird trick to get investors spooked: Tell them that the American people will have less money to spend as we attempt the greatest economic turnaround in history.
Interestingly, Easley has appeared in one other interview recently. In a June 15 Philadelphia Inquirer story, she talked about the looting and rioting going on in a business corridor that served the black community in Philadelphia. Easley told the newspaper residents in the neighborhood discouraged rioters from destroying NV My Eyewear as they had with so many other small businesses on historic 52nd Street in the City of Brotherly Love.
"I probably would have been devastated if my business was one of the properties," she said. "I thank God that people remember me."
If only there were a political party that believed in standing up against the rioters instead of saying that it was just property damage and it was time to defund our police.
If only there were a president who wanted to restore law and order so business owners like Easley's wouldn't have to worry about savage mobs destroying their livelihood.
I wonder if anyone's going to tell her.
4 Key Points Nobody's Addressing About Trump's Federal Pay Decision
Reported By Fred Lucas | September 1, 2018 at
URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/4-key-points-nobodys-addressing-trumps-federal-pay-decision/
President Donald Trump makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Thursday. (Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump announced he's not granting the usual 2.1 percent pay hike for federal employees, prompting staunch opposition from many Democratic lawmakers. It's the latest move by the Trump administration to try to rein in excessive compensation packages for federal employees, after the president signed three executive orders in May.
"Specifically, I have determined that for 2019, both across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero," Trump's letter notifying Congress said Thursday. "These alternative pay plan decisions will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well-qualified federal workforce."
Here's a look at what the pay freeze could mean.
1. Fiscal Impact
In his letter to Congress Thursday, Trump asserted the pay hikes would not be responsible at this time:
"I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate.
"Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 25.70 percent, costing $25 billion, would go into effect in January 2019, in addition to a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base general schedule. We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases."
However, the impact may be negligible, said Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in economics, budget and entitlements with the Heritage Foundation.
"Basically, it's not the most efficient reduction in spending or excessive pay, but it's all the administration can do on their own," Greszler told The Daily Signal. "And pay increases shouldn't be automatic."
2. Current Federal Compensation
In recent years, the Congressional Budget Office and conservative think tanks the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute all produced reports finding federal compensation packages far outpace the private sector.
Further, the government watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com found that one in five of employees at the 78 largest federal agencies has a salary that is six figures. Another 30,000 rank-and-file career government employees earn more than any governor.
A 2017 CBO report estimated taxpayers compensate federal workers with 17 percent more than what similar employees – with comparable education, skills and experience – earn in the private sector.
The Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration estimated the federal government would spend $337 billion in 2017 on the civilian federal workforce.
Also, with seniority comes at least two pay hikes for some years under the current system. All federal employees generally get a cost-of-living adjustment that is not based on performance. Second, federal employees are paid for each "step increase" they move up in the system based on seniority, which provides a 3 percent hike.
Federal employees get a retirement contribution of between 15 and 18 percent of their pay, while private sector employees average 3 to 5 percent, according to a 2016 Heritage Foundation study. Federal employees also contribute significantly less to their retirement, as taxpayers fund the bulk of the pensions.
3. Performance Pay
Greszler co-authored a 2016 Heritage Foundation study that estimated a performance-based system would reduce federal personnel costs by $26.7 billion.
In his letter to Congress on Thursday, Trump made what seemed to be a long-term point.
"In light of our nation's fiscal situation, federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing federal employees and those with critical skill sets," Trump said. "Across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases, in particular, have long-term fixed costs, yet fail to address existing pay disparities or target mission critical recruitment and retention goals."
Simply holding off on raises won't accomplish anything without broader civil service reform, said Robert Moffit, senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.
"The federal pay system does not effectively reward the most talented and productive because the system is highly standardized," Moffit told The Daily Signal. "Federal employees in many cases should be paid more and many should be paid less. We need more employees in some areas and less in others."
4. What Trump Has Done So Far
In keeping with the president's "drain the swamp" reform efforts, the Trump administration has pushed for civil service reforms in budget proposals to Congress with little action.
However, Congress did pass and the president signed a law to make it easier to fire bad employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs following the VA waiting list scandal in which employees had doctored lists, leaving some veterans to wait excessively long times for care.
Congress has left most of the rest of the federal bureaucracy untouched. However, on May 25, Trump issued an executive order to move the ball on civil service reform.
One order holds nonproductive workers more accountable by speeding up the disciplinary and appeals process. In many cases, it takes more than a year to remove an employee. The order also limits the grace period to shore up their performance from 120 days to 30 days. The order also limits the ability of federal managers from simply moving employees that engaged in poor performance or illegal activity from one agency to another.
Federal agencies would share performance reviews, and also consider performance in making layoff decisions. Previously, layoffs were based on the amount of time employed by an agency.
A separate executive order limits the amount of time a federal employees can spend on union activity during work hours to no more than one-quarter of their workday. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found more than 12,500 federal workers took "official time" to work on union activities in 2017. Of them, 470 worked in the VA.
Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of "The Right Side of History" podcast.
A version of this article previously appeared on The Daily Signal website under the headline "4 Key Points to Consider About Trump's Federal Pay Decision."
Democrats, Business-first GOP Senators Block Trump's Immigration Reforms
Authored by Neil Munro | 15 Feb 2018
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/2018-elections/2018/02/15/democrats-business-first-gop-senators-block-trumps-immigration-reforms/
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
60 Democrats and business-first establishment Republican Senators blocked President Donald Trump's populist immigration reform agenda, pushing the hot-button topic towards the November election.
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer used his brief speech before the vote to blame President Donald Trump for the Democrats' refusal to accept a reform-for-amnesty deal, saying:
President Trump created this problem by terminating the DACA program last August. Since then, President Trump has stood in the way over every single proposal that could become law … President Trump has failed his test of leadership spectacularly.
The Trump-backed bill, led by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, lost by 39 to 60, showcasing the political clout of the tacit alliance between pro-immigration progressive Democrats and roughly 12 business-first Republicans, plus at least one anti-amnesty Republican. Many business groups had pressured the GOP Senators to vote against the reforms, largely because Trump promised to cut future legal immigration levels.
The defeat may block pending Senate negotiations over the appropriation of $1.6 billion for the border-wall spending in 2018. The funding decision is slated for completion in late March.
The defeat also invites Trump to make immigration reform a central issue in the November election. White House officials have pushed that strategy in the last few days, noting that polls show that most Americans want immigration rules to favor Americans and their paychecks — instead of cheap-labor companies or immigrants.
The vote showed that several red-state Democrats facing the voters this November joined with the business-first Republicans to maintain wage-cutting immigration, and to preserve the unpopular visa-lottery and chain-migration programs.
Throughout the four-vote series of amendments, few Democrats crossed the line to vote for Trump's pro-American proposals, while several Republicans backed the cheap-labor amnesty bills.
For example, only three Democrats voted against the Democrats' main proposal — which would have suspended enforcement of immigration law for migrants who arrived before January 1 (a morning draft of the legislation said the deadline was June 30).
At least two of those Senators only voted no after the 41 GOP Senators had already successfully voted to block the proposal. They were New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall and California Sen. Kamala Harris. The final result was 47 to 54.
Three red-state Democratic Senators voted for the Grassley/Trump measure. They were North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Roughly 14 GOP Senators voted against the reform.
Also, eight Republicans voted for the Democrats' main amnesty bill, which was credited to the Democrat-dominated "Common Sense Coalition." The amnesty GOP Senators were led by Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Jeff Flake, but also included Maine Sen. Susan Collins, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Tennesee Sen. Lamar Alexander, and Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson. The Democrats' anti-enforcement measure was also supported by GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, who is actually the chairman of the GOP Senators' 2018 election campaign.
Media outlets portrayed the GOP's business-first Senators as "moderates" or "conservatives."
The 14 GOP Senators who voted against the Grassley-Trump measure included South Dakota's Sen. John Thune, who is a member of the leadership team with Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. The no votes included Sen. Ted Cruz, who said earlier he would oppose it because it endorsed an amnesty along with immigration reforms.
The list of 14 Senators also included several pro-amnesty Senators — Collins, Flake, and Murkowski — plus a series of business-leaning Senators, including Sens. Ben Sasse, John Thune, John Barrasso and Mike Enzi from Wyoming, Mike Lee from Utah, Jerry Moran from Kansas, Steve Daines from Montana, and John Kennedy from Lousiana.
Four GOP Senators — Flake, Gardner, Graham, Murkowski — also voted yes for another amnesty bill drafted by Democratic Sen. Chris Coons and GOP Sen. John McCain. That bill was defeated 47 to 52. Sen. Joe Manchin, a red-state Democrat who faces the voters in November, vote against the Coons-McCain giveaway.
Several of the Schumer-allied, pro-amnesty GOP Senators covered their pro-amnesty votes by also voting for the Grassley measure once it was clear that it would fail. They included Alexander, Gardner, Graham, Isakson, and Rounds.
Nearly all Democratic Senators voted against a proposal by GOP Sen. Toomey to financially penalize sanctuary cities. The amendment got 54 votes, which kept it six votes below the 60-vote threshold. Forty-seven Democrats voted against sanctuary-city penalties.
Even without the new laws from Congress, Trump can continue to enforce immigration laws, punish employers for hiring illegals and update visa and security rules to exclude dangerous migrants.
Many polls show that Trump's 2016 immigration policies are very popular in the polling booth. His proposed amnesty for 1.8 million illegals gets high scores in business-funded polls but is unlikely to shift any votes into the GOP column in November.
Immigration polls which ask people to pick a priority, or to decide which options are fair, show that voters in the polling booth put a high priority on helping their families and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy. Those results are very different from the "Nation of Immigrants" polls which are funded by CEOs and progressives, and which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants.
Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market.
But the federal government inflates the supply of new labor by annually accepting roughly 1.1 million new legal immigrants, by providing work-permits to roughly 3 million resident foreigners, and by doing little to block the employment of roughly 8 million illegal immigrants.
The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids' schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.
immigation
Apple CEO: Trump Tax Plan 'Will Result in Job Creation and a Faster Growing Economy'
Reported by Lucas Nolan | 18 Jan 2018
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/01/18/apple-ceo-trump-tax-plan-will-result-in-job-creation-and-a-faster-growing-economy/
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a recent interview that President Trump's tax plan would result in a faster-growing economy and greater job creation.
In an interview with ABC News, Cook discussed a number of recent announcements by Apple, including their plan to invest $350 billion in the U.S. economy over the next five years and how President Trump's tax plan will help the U.S. economy. Cook refused to "take a position" on how the new tax plan will affect individual Americans but commented on the corporate tax saying, "I do believe the corporate side will result in job creation and a faster growing economy." Cook added that under Obama's tax plan, the $38 billion tax payment the company plans to make as part of repatriating offshore cash would not have been paid.
"I hope — I have that faith — that it will be used for great purpose for the country," said Cook, "whether that's infrastructure or education, or what have you, that will further supply jobs in the U.S." Cook criticized the Obama-era tax plans saying that he "never thought" that the old tax system was "good for the United States." Cook stated that he believed the harsh tax restrictions forced "people to invest elsewhere instead of within the country." Cook also believes that a company like Apple could only have been founded in America and they have a responsibility to give back to the country, "one of the ways to do that is to create jobs," said Cook.
Cook also discussed the company's decision to pay employees $2500 in stock grants, "We're one of the few — we're probably the only company of our size where every person is an owner in the company," Cook said. "… Instead of a onetime kind of bonus, we wanted to do something that lasts a longer period of time." Apple will reportedly be focusing on three areas in the future: direct employment by Apple, spending and investment with U.S. suppliers and manufacturers, and helping to grow the thriving app-store economy.
"We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity," said Cook, "and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness. We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible," Cook said in a press release.
Watch the full ABC News interview here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com.
Apple CEO
Breitbart California
Venezuela: Maduro Raises Minimum Wage by 40 Percent to $2 a Month
Reported by Ben Kew | 3 Jan 2018
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/01/03/venezuela-maduro-raises-minimum-wage-by-40-percent-to-2-a-month/
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, shown in this November 24, 2017 file photo, maintains that the United States is carrying out "financial persecution" against Caracas | AFP/AIZAR RALDES
Venezuela's socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has raised his country's minimum wage by a further 40 percent, meaning public sector employees will now earn around two dollars a month in his seventh and final major hike of 2017.
"We have good news regarding the protection and stability of all the workers," said Maduro in a televised address. "I am announcing the rise of the national minimum wage by 40 percent for all our doctors and public sector workers."
The move means that working Venezuelans will now receive a basic salary of 248,510 bolivares, equivalent to $2.02 a month. On top of that, they are also handed an increased food ticket worth 549,000 bolivares worth $4.46, meaning their total income amounts to around $6.48.
Over the course of 2017, Maduro instigated seven separate minimum wage hikes in order to fight back at what he describes as an "economic war" led by the United States and other Western powers against his regime. However, the hikes are only like to worsen the country's unprecedented rates of inflation continually depleting the value of its currency, meaning that figure is only likely to fall.
According to latest figures, inflation rose by a staggering 1,369 percent between January and November last year. The figures were only released by the country's opposition, as the Maduro regime refuses to publish them.
As part of his socialist "Bolivarian revolution," Maduro's late predecessor Hugo Chávez would boast of Venezuela having the highest minimum wage in Latin America, equivalent to $372 a month. However, inflation began to soar as early as 2007 and accelerated further after oil prices crashed in 2012. In recent years, Venezuelans have been seen carrying thousands of banknotes to buy the simplest of products, in scenes similar to Germany's Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe's hyperinflation crisis. The government has responded by introducing higher denomination bank notes, although even the maximum note of 100,000 bolivares is still worth under one dollar.
Hyperinflation is just one of many serious economic problems faced by the regime, who in November defaulted on their debts, which amount to around $200 billion, mainly owed to Russia and China. The government is also facing the pressure of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, which mainly target the country's state-run oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela, as well as a number of government officials.
The Maduro regime is currently moving forward with plans to launch its own national cryptocurrency known as the 'Petro,' backed by the nation's considerable reserves of oil, gold, and diamonds.
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.
Boliviarian socialism
WSJ: The Tax Cuts Will Grow the Economy by Much More than Expected
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Reported by John Carney | 18 Dec 2017
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/18/wsj-the-tax-cuts-will-grow-the-economy-by-much-more-than-expected/
Tax cuts are going to grow the economy by much more than expected.
That's the verdict of the Wall Street Journal's prestigious "Heard on the Street" column. Importantly, Heard on the Street is run by the news side of the WSJ, not its tax-cut loving editorial page. So there's no particular pro-tax cut or pro-Republican bias at work here.
Justin Lahart of Heard writes:
There were several surprises for investors when Republicans unveiled their final tax bill Friday, but the most significant is that they add up to a bigger boost to economic growth next year.
The bigger stimulus could fundamentally change how the market behaves in 2018. Sales and profits will be stronger than most investors expect. But with the unemployment rate low, wage pressures will mount faster, and inflation should pick up more. If the tax plan passes, as seems likely, it could lead the Federal Reserve to raise rates faster, putting the bond market at risk.
The tax plan was always expected to juice the economy, but the Senate version, which passed after the House approved its bill, had relatively modest short-term stimulus. While the stock market kept rising in anticipation of a cut, the bond market hardly budged. The bill unveiled Friday front-loaded more than $200 billion in stimulus for next year. Economists had been penciling in a boost of about a third of a percentage point next year. Now that is looking way low.
Some of the pro-growth changes include eliminating any delay to the corporate tax cuts, lowering of the top individual rate, lowering rates for most taxpayers, and increasing the child tax credit. The latter is particularly important because middle-class households are "more likely to spend extra income than the rich."
The tax bill could increase GDP by 1.3 percent, Lahart writes.
That's an additional full percentage point gain from what economists had been expecting based on earlier bills.
(Full disclosure: I used to work for Heard on the Street and consider Lahart a personal friend. He's had me over to his apartment for fish.)
Tax Cuts
Massive $300 Million Plant to Be Built in the United States, Trump Wins Again
Reported By Ben Marquis | November 21, 2017 at 2:42pm
URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/massive-plant-built-trump-wins/?
President Donald Trump was elected in large part on a promise to revitalize our nation's economy through pro-business and pro-growth policies that would produce countless new jobs for American workers. Though Congress has been dragging its feet when it comes to economy-boosting tax cuts and reform legislation, Trump's administration has done what it can to spur job growth through cutting regulations and fostering confidence among businesses and consumers.
Fox Business reported this week that Tyson Foods, one of the biggest food companies in the world, will be building a massive new plant in Tennessee. The plant will cost an estimated $300 million to build and will provide for at least 1,500 new jobs processing more than 1.25 million chickens per week. The plant is expected to generate upwards of $150 million in additional revenue for the state.
"This project will enable us to provide even more fresh chicken to consumers across the country," Tyson Foods president and CEO Tom Hayes said in a news release. "As one of the world's leading protein companies, we continue to raise the world's expectations of how much good food can do."
The new plant, which is expected to begin operations in 2019, was initially planned as an even bigger facility in Kansas, but was ultimately shifted to Tennessee after local residents expressed opposition in Kansas.
"The (Tennessee) location is attractive to us because of the strong support we've received from state and local leaders, the existing industrial park and availability of labor, as well as access to feed grains produced in the region," stated Doug Ramsey, group president of Poultry for Tyson Foods.
Meanwhile, Fox Business also noted that progress is already underway in Tennessee for construction of a massive, one million square foot factory in which LG Electronics will manufacture new washing machines. That plant is also expected to be operational in 2019.
But even though Kansas may have been passed over as the initial choice for the new Tyson chicken plant, the company still has its eye on the state for an additional expansion in the future, according to The Kansas City Star, meaning even more jobs and economic growth in the years to come.
"We have been fully aware they were considering multiple locations and planning to build more than one new complex," explained Jackie McClaskey, Kansas' secretary of agriculture. "We anticipate positive news in 2018 as we continue to work with multiple Kansas communities and Tyson."
Even as plans for the one plant in Leavenworth County were placed on hold due to local opposition, other communities have expressed interest in being home to a new Tyson plant that will bring in jobs and revenue.
Nor are there any hard feelings — at least in public — at being initially passed over for a new Tyson plant, as the Kansas Department of Agriculture issued a statement congratulating both Tyson and Tennessee on working out a deal, with an obvious eye toward working together in the future.
"Consumer demand drives growth in the food and agriculture industry, and we have been aware throughout our own discussions with Tyson Foods that their expansion plans included multiple facilities in more than one state, so this announcement was not unexpected," said department spokeswoman Heather Lansdowne.
"We look forward to continuing to work with Tyson Foods as they further evaluate expansion of their poultry business unit growth opportunities in Kansas," she added.
Meanwhile, as American businesses expand manufacturing capacity here at home, Trump secured dozens of business deals with foreign nations such as China during his recent trip to Asia, according to CNBC.
It was estimated that, of just 37 deals struck with Chinese companies alone, roughly $250 billion will flow into the U.S. economy as a result.
Left unspecified are similar deals struck with businesses in the other nations Trump visited that could also result in tens of billions more in tax revenue initially and create an untold number of jobs.
This is what Trump was talking about when he repeatedly promised to Make America Great Again.
Business, Political
Breaking: Huge CEO Takes Stand, Hits NFL With Devastating News
Reported By Ben Marquis | on September 27, 2017 at 1:40pm
URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/ceo-takes-stand-hits-nfl/?
https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-13/html/container.html
After President Donald Trump expressed his opposition to the growing trend of professional athletes taking a knee in protest of the national anthem, the NFL responded by supporting the protests, and some 200 players on countless teams "took a knee" this weekend.
Fans who were disgusted by the protests — viewing it as an anti-American middle finger to the flag and all it represents — have begun fleeing the game in droves, so much so that DirecTV felt compelled to offer refunds to customers seeking to cancel their NFL package subscriptions.
Now, a CEO for a company that advertises during NFL games and provides wardrobes for NBC's on-air NFL analysts and sportscasters has decided to take a stand against taking a knee. In fact, he has announced that he is pulling all ads and will no longer provide clothing to NBC talent, according to Independent Journal Review.
That CEO is Allan Jones, owner of the payday lending chain Check Into Cash and Hardwick Clothes — billed as America's oldest suit-maker — according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
"Our companies will not condone unpatriotic behavior" in the NFL, Jones said in a statement. Jones, who has been a big supporter of President Trump, ordered his media buyer — ad agency Tombras Group in Knoxville — to pull all ads for Check Into Cash, Buy Here Pay here USA, or U.S. Money Stores from all NFL games "for the entire season."
"When I see Colin Kaepernick lecturing the 'oppressed' wearing a Fidel Castro T-shirt you realize the hypocrisy to this stupidity," Jones stated, according to The Chattanoogan. "I love America. They have the right to protest and I have the right to turn off the channel and place our ads elsewhere."
"The next time someone ask the public to finance a stadium this will have a very long term effect," he continued. "These guys should really be the lead plaintiffs in the head injury cases — that's the only jury that will find sympathy!"
"If you will research why Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner you will realize why I am upset about these NFL players protesting. They don't even know what it is they are protesting," Jones lamented. "The flag was still standing. 200 English ships tried to take it down. They kept it up all night and it could only be seen when the bombs were bursting in the air. So many patriots gave their lives to keep the flag up — and now to have people protesting who don't have a clue about any of this bothers me."
"Our companies will not condone unpatriotic behavior!" he added. "TAKING A STAND … NOT A KNEE!"
Whether Jones is just the first domino to fall or will end up being the lone CEO to walk away from the NFL remains to be seen. However, if public pressure continues to mount and the NFL refuses to address the issue that is driving fans away, we suspect Jones will likely be the first of many to choose standing patriotically over kneeling.
Political, Sports
National Football League NFL
Exclusive: Donald Trump Urged to Nationalize America's Only Rare Earth Mine
Reported by John Carney | 30 Aug 2017
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2017/08/30/exclusive-donald-trump-urged-to-nationalize-americas-only-rare-earth-mine/
STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
President Donald Trump met with an executive from an American advanced materials manufacturer who urged the president to prevent China from cornering the market in rare earth materials by nationalizing the only rare earth mine in the United States.
An investor group that allegedly has ties to the Chinese government in June purchased the rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California that was one of the final remaining assets of the now bankrupt Molycorp Inc. The mine is one of the very few not already controlled by China, which accounts for 97 percent of the global rare-earth mineral production.
"By buying up Mountain Pass, the Chinese have locked up the only operating rare earth mining operation outside of China," said Michael Silver, chief executive of American Elements Corp., in an interview with Breitbart News about his White House meetings.
China's control of rare earth mining has implications for the U.S. military. According to a 2016 Government Accountability Office study, certain rare earth materials are "essential to the production, sustainment, and operation of U.S. military equipment." Critical military uses include rare earths employed in antimissile defense systems, precision-guided weapons, lasers, communications systems, night vision equipment, satellites and military aircraft.
"Reliable access to the necessary material…is a bedrock requirement for the [Department of Defense]," the GAO wrote.
The GAO found that the Defense Department lacked any comprehensive plan for how to deal with "potential supply disruptions."
The Decline and Fall of America's Rare Earth Capacity
The U.S. was once the world's largest producer of such metals but in recent decades has lost out to China, where the rare earth minerals are plentiful and companies are not burdened by environmental and labor regulation. By 1999, more than 90 percent of the rare earth materials used by U.S. industry came from deposits in China. Today, China produces 97 percent of rare earth elements used globally.
Last year, there were no rare earth materials mined in the U.S., according to the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey. The U.S. imports between $120 million and $160 million worth of rare earths a year, around 9 percent of total global demand for the minerals.
The 2015 bankruptcy of Molycorp, which owned the Mountain Pass rare earth mine, was responsible for shutting down U.S. production. That followed from a sharp decline in prices of rare earth as China kept up its massive production, flooding the market. This global excess supply pushed the price of some rare earths below their cost of production, making the mining and processing uneconomical outside of China.
A buyout group led by U.S. investors and backed by China's Shenghe Resources Holding Co. won approval in June by a bankruptcy court to buy the mine. Rival bidder Tom Clarke has called for the U.S. government to review the acquisition with an eye to Shenghe's alleged ties to the Chinese government.
Silver met with Trump twice in July to discuss nationalizing the Mollycorp mine. He also held meetings with Trump's senior staff, including then chief strategist Stephen Bannon and then deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka. He urged the Trump administration to use the power of eminent domain to acquire the mine for use as a new national laboratory dedicated to preserving America's rare-earth mining capacity.
Rare-earth minerals were first used commercially to produce color televisions. Today they are used in the manufacture of high-tech items that are central to the modern economy, including laptop computers, iPhones, wind turbines, camera lenses, aircraft engines and hybrid electric cars. According to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey, rare earth elements are "vital to modern technologies and lifestyles."
China's ramped up production was a reversal of a 2010 that had capped its rare earth exports. The U.S. viewed this cap as an attempt to force manufacturers to locate in China and put pressure on China to reverse its stance. That happened in 2015 following a ruling by the World Trade Organization that China's practices were unfair. The lifting of the caps sent rare earth prices crashing.
Silver, the American Elements executive, says this was the result of China dumping the minerals on the market at rock-bottom prices in an effort to drive out competitors. Any attempt to make the Molycorp mine commercially viable will fail, according to silver, because China can hold prices lower for longer than any competitor can stay solvent.
Now China is using its control of the market to cajole companies to manufacture in China, according to Silver. That puts any efforts to restore manufacturing in America at risk, he said.
A Plan to Prevent China's Sole Control
"We need to assure high-tech manufacturers that it is safe to locate plants in the U.S. At this point, the only place you can site a plant is China because of their control over the minerals," Silver said.
Under Silver's plan, the mine would become one of the U.S. government's national labs. The best-known of these research facilities run by the Department of Energy is the famous Los Alamos National Laboratory. Nationalizing the mine would guarantee that manufacturers wouldn't lose access to the rare-earth minerals if China decided to restrict their import.
"One you guarantee access to the minerals, where's the best place to site your plant? The U.S. because of quality labor, our academics, our know how," Silver said.
Nationalizing the mine would not stop China's ability to set price globally. But government ownership would allow the mine to continue operating even if it were unprofitable. That, in turn, would allow the U.S. to continue to employ rare earth scientists domestically and develop new rare earth technologies. Under the U.S. Constitution, the government is allowed to take ownership of the property through the power of eminent domain so long as property owners receive appropriate compensation.
American Elements is a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of metals and chemicals with a catalog of more than 15,000 products, according to Silver. He was one of the first Americans to set up a distribution supply chain from China to North America, he said in an interview.
"I probably stand to lose money by arguing for nationalizing the mine. But I feel like this is my duty as a patriot," Silver said.
Rare-Earth
More Than 1.1 Million Fewer Americans on Food Stamps Under Trump
Reported by Katherine Rodriguez | 7 Aug 2017
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/07/1-1-million-fewer-americans-food-stamps-trump/
Seth Wenig/AP
More than 1.1 million Americans dropped off the food stamp rolls since President Trump took office in January 2017, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics on food stamp enrollment.
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dropped to 41,496,255 in May 2017, the most recent data available from the USDA, from 42,691,363 in January 2017 when Trump took office.
According to the latest data, SNAP enrollment during the first few months of Trump's presidency decreased by 2.79 percent.
Food stamp participation on average in 2017 has dropped to its lowest level since 2010, and the latest numbers show that this trend is continuing.
Trump proposed cuts to SNAP in his 2018 budget proposal, suggesting that states match up to 20 percent of federal money allotted for the food stamp program and expand work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving food stamps.
Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration has also prompted many immigrants, both legal and illegal, to cancel their food stamps over concerns that they might be denied citizenship or deported.
Federal lawmakers are also working on legislation that would seek to expand food stamp work requirements and put time limits on how long those enrolled in the food stamp program can receive benefits.
At the state level, food stamp enrollment dropped significantly in places such as Georgia and Alabama once they instituted work requirements for able-bodied adults to receive food stamps. Both states fully implemented work requirements for food stamp recipients in 2016-2017.
food stamp enrollment
Pre-Viral
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
California's $15 Minimum Wage Ends Apparel Industry Revival
by Chriss W. Street, 17 Apr 2016, Newport Beach, CA
URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/04/17/minimum-wage-california-american-apparel
American Apparel factory (American_Apparel / Flickr / CC / Cropped)
The first accomplishment of California's pioneering $15 minimum wage law is killing the revival of America's clothing industry.
American Apparel, which provided 10 percent of all apparel manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles, has terminated 500 employees in the last two weeks. Chief Executive Paula Schneider also told the Los Angeles Times that "manufacturing of more complicated pieces, such as jeans, could soon be outsourced to a third-party company."
The company did not tie the announcement directly to California Governor Jerry Brown signing of the nation's first statewide $15 minimum wage on April 4. But the layoffs started shortly almost immediately after Brown's action, and were announced on April 14 as labor organizers filled Los Angeles streets with fast-food workers set to strike, supported by unionized home-care and child-care workers.
Lloyd Greif, Chief Executive of Los Angeles investment banking firm Greif & Co. told LA Times, "They're headed out of Dodge." He added, "They are going to outsource all garments. It's only a matter of time."
At the turn of the 21st Century, Los Angeles County was the "rag trade" capital of America. With 4,000 active apparel-making sites employing almost 90,000 workers, the Los Angeles area was over twice the size of the rag trade in the New York region.
Apparel-making got cut in half over the next decade, as Chinese and Asian imports coming through Los Angeles ports sky-rocketed to $46 billion. The number of local apparel-making sites fell to 2,200 and local industry jobs shriveled to 46,000.
But according to the California Fashion Association, Los Angeles apparel-making was back to growth by 2013 as a "steady inflation rate" in China, driven by higher labor costs, increasingly pushed apparel manufacturing and textile contractors to move to lower wage countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh. Coupled with high sea, land, and air shipping costs, the advantage in outsourcing apparel-making versus U.S. manufacturing became much less attractive.
Last year in Los Angeles County, there were 62,774 workers in apparel-making and 10,887 workers in textile manufacturing. Although imports were still substantial, local companies booked revenues of over $18 billion and paid workers $6.4 billion. Average rate of pay for fashion designers was $35-per-hour, and the average pay for apparel and textile workers hit $15-per-hour.
By capturing 36 percent of all U.S. apparel manufacturing, the Los Angeles County fashion ethosphere also supported 3,770 fashion designers, 5,590 cosmetics workers, 6,985 jewelry workers and 5,904 footwear workers.
Cheered by union workers — some chanting in Spanish — at Brown's Los Angeles signing ceremony for the bill lifting the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, the governor all but admitted he was terminating the competitiveness of the Los Angeles rag trade and tanking the growing workforce with the comment, "Economically, minimum wages may not make sense."
Brown rationalized his action's brutal consequences by stating, "But morally and socially and politically they make every sense, because it binds the community together and makes sure that parents can take care of their kids in a much more satisfactory way."
Fight for 15
rag trade
Democrats' 'Progressive Agenda' is Outright Communism
Posted by Tad Cronn
URL Of the Original Posting Site: http://godfatherpolitics.com/22451/democrats-progressive-agenda-is-outright-communism/#dtl4wsSBLblhYjRB.
It must be so close they can taste it.
It's never been a secret that the Democrat agenda has been quietly driven by the philosophies of Karl Marx and every radical socialist who ever lit a fuse against the United States. With a long line of public figures who have idolized or modeled themselves after Alinsky, Mao, Lenin or Castro, the Democratic Party has been home to the despicably anti-American and their foolishly misguided followers.
Anybody who paid any attention to the party's politics and had a modicum of historical knowledge could spot the connections. But leftists being leftists, the DP leadership has always tried to pretend otherwise because their hold on many of the low-information voters is all based on perceptions. Which is what makes it remarkable that the Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality, a document put together by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, so clearly patterns itself after Communist Party and Socialist Party doctrine.
Even more remarkable is that de Blasio and others are trying to make this the official Democratic Party platform for the 2016 presidential election. The Democrats are calling the Progressive Agenda their "Contract With America," which is as frightening as it is insulting.
Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America" was a stroke of political brilliance that helped pull together congressional conservatives to pass important legislation and help America get back on track.
The Progressive Agenda is aimed at turning us into something just shy of the Soviet Union.
All the hallmarks are there:
hike the minimum wage (c'mon, if it's such a great idea, why not make it $100 per hour, guys?);
national paid family and sick leave;
pass laws to make it easier to force workers to unionize;
"immigration reform" to organize illegals;
refinance student debt;
expanding state brainwashing with mandatory pre-kindergarten, after-school and child-care programs;
increasing taxes on "the rich"; etc.
De Blasio, who calls President Obama "too conservative" to lead a Progressive economic policy, said last week at the agenda's rollout, "It's time to take that energy and crystallize it into an agenda that will make a difference. We'll be calling on leaders and candidates to address these issues, to stiffen their backbones, to be clear and to champion these progressive policies."
Democrat officials had a variety of silly metaphors about cavalry and "meat on the bones" to use in praise of de Blasio's manifesto. The most interesting remark, however, came from Rep. Charles Rangel, who talked about "revolution."
Buzzword alert.
The Revolution, of course, was the crucible in which the United States was formed. But there's a world of difference between the way the Founding Fathers meant it and the way modern Regressives mean it.
The Founders meant to take back something that never belonged to the King in the first place: our independence.
Regressives mean to assert everyone's dependence on government and take things from the public treasury that never have belonged to them. **Please see related historical record regarding this point**
To facilitate the fattening of their own purses, Progressive leaders will begin by taking away your rights. If you don't believe that, then you are dangerously naive. Look at history. That's always how "progressive revolutions" begin.
It's already started here. Obama was the warmup act. Now we've got closet socialist Hillary, open socialist Bernie and B-string socialist Fauxcahontas (aka Elizabeth Warren), all eyeing the Oval Office. And leftists hope their Communist Manifesto, er, Progressive Agenda will pave the way.
Lurking in the background, supporting de Blasio's agenda, is Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party and founder of the New Party. The openly socialist New Party, Chicago branch, once claimed a young Barack Obama as a member, something his flying monkeys have denied for years. De Blasio was executive director of the New Party's New York branch.
The basis of his plan was a report by Nobel prize-winning Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, who also held "teach-ins" at Occupy Wall Street. Stiglitz has accepted funding from billionaire George Soros, the ex-Nazi employee who helped fund Obama's career and who has hosted fundraisers for Elizabeth Warren and donated to Hillary Clinton's PAC. Stiglitz also sits on the boards of several Soros organizations, including one whose aim is to remake the global economy.
You start to see how the pieces fit together? Who says there aren't any real-life conspiracies to destroy America? Oh, right, mostly the people involved in them.
**Related Historical Context**
Not Yours To Give
Davy Crockett on The Role Of Government
from: The Life of Colonel David Crockett
compiled by: Edward S. Elis (1884)
"Money with [Congressmen] is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
Introductory note by Peter Kershaw:
Davy Crockett served four terms in the U.S. Congress from 1827-1835. In 1835 he joined the Whig Party and ran a failed attempt for the Presidency. Immediately thereafter he departed his native Tennessee for Texas to secure the independence of the "Texicans." He lost his life at the battle of the Alamo and forever secured his legendary status in history as "king of the wild frontier." The following story was recounted to Edward Elis by an unnamed Congressman who had served with Colonel Crockett in the U.S. House of Representatives.
…Crockett was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me. I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. It seemed to be that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make a speech in support of the bill. He commenced:
"Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House; but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into argument to prove that Congress has no power under the Constitution to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.'
"Mr. Speaker, I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks." He took his seat. Nobody replied.
The bill was put upon its passage, and instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as no doubt it would, but for that speech, it received but a few votes and was lost. Like many others, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move for a reconsideration the next day. Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning and found him franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table. I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what the devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied: "I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen." I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into the hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there, I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.'
"The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.' "The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them. "So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddlebags, and put out. I had been out about a week and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence.'
"As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow when I said to him: 'Don't be in such a hurry my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted.' He replied: "'I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.'
"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those fortunate beings called candidates, and . . . .'
"' Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.'
"This was a sockdolager (decisive argument: a decisive blow or argument)…. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.'
"'Well, Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. … But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'
"'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.'
"'No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?'
"'Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote which anybody in the world would have found fault with.'
"'Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?' "Here was another sockdolager; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said: "'Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury; and, I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'
"'It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.'
"'If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.'
"'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in Washington, who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.' "I have given you," continued Crockett, "an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:'
"'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'
"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in this district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:'
"'Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I have ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.' "The farmer laughingly replied: 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than defeating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'
"'If I don't,' said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'
"'No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday seek. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.'
"'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.'
"'My name is Bunce.'
"'Not Horatio Bunce?'
"'Yes.'
"'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend. You must let me shake your hand before I go.'
"We shook hands and parted that day in gentlemanly friendship and amity.' "It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met that man. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence, incorruptible integrity, and, for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.'
"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with. In fact I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifest before.'
"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached the home of Mr. Bunce, and under ordinary circumstances should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.'
"I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt before.'
"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him — no, that is not the word — I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will you sir, if everyone who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.' "But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand me there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted — at least, they all knew me.'
"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying: "'Fellow-citizens — I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.'
"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation as I have told it to you, and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying: "'And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.'
"'It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but my friend Horatio Bunce is entitled to the credit of it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'
"He came upon the stand and said: "'Fellow-citizens — It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'
"He went down, and there went up from the crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'
"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.' "Now, sir,' concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. I have had several thousand copies of it printed, and was directing them to my constituents when you came in.'
"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a weeks' pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men — men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased — a debt which could not be paid by money — and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation.'
"Yet not one of those Congressmen responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
Progressive Agenda
socialist New Party
Third-World Detroit… A Glimpse of America's Future
http://joeforamerica.com/2014/06/third-world-detroit-glimpse-americas-future/
Posted by Christy "Snarks" on Jun 12, 2014
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It seems the current occupant of the White House is determined to solidify his title as the "Worst President Ever", as he is in the process of creating a crisis of mass proportions along the U.S. southern border. Throngs of illegal immigrants, most of whom are minors, are pouring over the border in search of the rainbows and unicorns that Barack Obama, Harry Reid and other demon spawn in Washington have promised. The reality that is greeting them however, involves being warehoused in cesspools of disease and hunger. In fact, the situation has become so dire, that it is now being compared to Hurricane Katrina, and Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) worries that many children will lose their lives trying to get here.
As thousands flood our borders daily, seeking amnesty and free handouts, they need only look at a certain city within these United States to realize what liberal promises are worth. If you want to see a lib squirm, mention the word "Detroit." Detroit was one of the most prosperous cities in the country in the 1950s, when America's auto industry was at its prime, but fat cat union bosses killed the goose that laid the golden egg with their desire for handouts and special favors at the expense of the industry that kept the city alive.
Detroit's economic collapse has resulted in bankruptcy to the tune of $18 billion, as jobs and taxpayers flee the area. Even impoverished Tijuana, Mexico, had a lower unemployment rate at the end of 2012, at 7.4%, than Detroit at 10.2%. Now, languishing in blight, bankruptcy, and despair, this once-great city is no longer of any interest to Obama or his fellow Democrats. After all, if they have the votes of Detroit's population sewn up, and it's been run by Democrats since 1962, why put forth the resources?
An article in Crain's Detroit Business points out that, while politicians are busy hand-wringing over young illegals, the infant mortality rate in Detroit is higher than some third world countries, including Mexico. In fact, infant mortality is the leading cause of death for children in Detroit, with violence coming in second, but when jobs are scarce so is prenatal care. These children are American citizens, but they have no political capital to the "progressive" elites, the way foreign children seeking amnesty do. In addition, overall life expectancy in Detroit is the lowest of the top 25 most populous metropolitan areas. When there is no "hope", longevity loses its luster anyway.
This is what happens when people become accustomed to suckling at the government teat. "Progressives" of both parties are nothing but dependency pushers, and they are no better than street corner heroin dealers. They serve their own purposes and they cherish the power that dependency provides.
The time is now for the pushback. The Eric Cantor dismissal was a good start. There has been speculation that his desire to reach an amnesty agreement with Obama is what did him in. There has been further speculation that any hope for an immigration deal this year leaves with him. Don't count on it. The momentum is on the side of "We The People", but now is NOT the time to retreat.
This country is teetering dangerously close to the point of no return. The flood of illegals at our borders may very well help Barack Obama "fundamentally transform" America into a place where every major city mirrors Detroit. The bitter irony is that the illegal immigrants now invading our country may soon discover that the great "promised land" they once dreamed about looks very much like the tattered mess they left behind.
For a great analysis on how Detroit went from being a beacon of industry to being brought to its knees, check out Ben Howe's documentary (NEXT), Bankrupt – How Cronyism and Corruption Brought Down Detroit. Follow him on Twitter, @BenHowe.
"We don't need no stinkin' private business sector"
http://joeforamerica.com/2013/08/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-private-business-sector-a-politically-incorrect-fable/
Posted by Molli Nickell, Granny Guerrilla
Once upon a time, two high school buddies, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, decided they could build a graphics-friendly home computer. They set up shop in the Wozniak family garage, hand-crafted 50 computers and sold them to a retail computer outlet. When the computers sold quickly, Steve and Steve realized their product had potential. They needed capital (money) to expand production. A successful businessman co-signed a bank loan for a $250,000 cash infusion that enabled Steve and Steve, in 1976, to officially establish Apple Computer. Now, 37 years later, Apple is valued at $651.51 BILLION dollars and has generated hundreds of products and thousands of jobs all over the world.
Could these two entrepreneurs duplicate their business success today in America? HAHAHA! Are you kidding?
Fast forward to 2013. The Wozniak family own their home and property and have the Constitutional right to use it as they wish. The government doesn't agree. In order to operate a two-person business in a residential garage, Steve and Steve are required to re-zone the hood, obtain multiple permits for this and that, and pay hundreds of dollars in fees.
Uncle SCAM sends an inspector from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to evaluate the workplace, lunchroom/mom's kitchen, and employee/guest bathroom to be sure government standards are being met. OSHA determines the environment is satisfactory and approves access for all company personnel (meaning Steve and Steve).
The OSHA inspector also determines that the most up-to-date and correct permits,business licenses, safety and grievance procedures are posted at the correct height in the correct space on their correct bulletin board which is correctly attached to the correct wall stud. Not too high, not too low, but just right and in accordance with OSHA rules.
Steve and Steve are mandated to install a double-locked storage cabinet for hazardous garage equipment like rakes and hedge clippers in order to prevent unauthorized access and potentially harmful use by a potential future employee with potential emotional issues and the potential to go postal.
OSHA rules require that resident rodent eradicators (like the family cat who has unlimited access to the garage/office/workspace), be properly licensed and checked for fleas and other vermin. When Tabby is observed catching and killing an errant mouse, Steve and Steve are required to file a wrongful death report. This generates a visit from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) who demand the use of humane traps, and require Tabby to attend a "Capture and Release" seminar in Las Vegas, co-sponsored by the GSA (Government Service Agency).
Despite wasting non-productive hours filling out useless OSHA reports and excessive government forms of every type imaginable, Apple's sales increase until it becomes necessary to hire several employees and occupy a larger production facility.
However, Steve and Steve hit a snag. When expansion money is unavailable from the usual financial institutions, they turn to old reliable . . . the bank of Mom and Dad.
However, this bank is closed due to depleted savings and 401(k) retirement accounts. Both mom and dad are restricted to part-time work and must purchase government-approved health insurance that costs 50 to 75% more than before.
So, Steve and Steve, along with Mom and Dad and assorted relatives and friends, locate part-time jobs flippin' burgers and stocking Walmart shelves to generate expansion capital. Their hard work pays off. They accumulate what they need, move their facility to an industrial park and hire workers.
All goes well until Steve and Steve hire their 51st employee.
"Knock! Knock!" (And no, it's not Avon calling.) It's the IRS arriving to exercise the Supreme-Court-granted right to collect health insurance taxes. The agent demands proof of government-approved coverage, then sets about fingerprinting and DNA mouth swabbing all employees. When Steve and Steve object to this un-Constitutional action, the IRS agent quotes the president, "Constitution? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution."
By this time, Steve and Steve realize the extent of ongoing government surveillance by the IRS and OSHA, and the profit-eating nature of having to provide health insurance for all employees. They close up shop.
Their former employees trek down to the government-run unemployment office looking for jobs. A counselor advises them to exercise their Constitutional Rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and signs them up for welfare, food stamps, disability, and cell phones.
Meanwhile, back in the Wozniak garage, ever-creative Steve and Steve invent the all-in-one-apple-pie-mixer-and-easy-bake oven. A trip to the Shark Tank TV program introduces Steve and Steve to Laurie who presents their apple-pie-mixer and-easy-bake oven to the Home Shopping Network. Their product launches with $3 MILLION dollars in initial orders which finances construction of production facilities in business-friendly Singapore.
Sound like a winning scenario? Not really. Because of un-Constitutional interference by a government on steroids, hundreds and thousands of jobs are not created, billions of dollars in personal income and tax revenue is never generated. The world eats apple pie instead of computing, phoning, texting, playing games, shooting videos, or reading books on Apple anything.
START THE CONVERSATION: Pass this politically incorrect fable on to a low-information voter, then ask if they believe government has the Constitutional right to control private sector business.
If you'd enjoy a sneak preview of Molli's upcoming book, "Uncle SCAM Wants Your Money and Your Country," to be published in August, CLICK HERE. A former publisher, Time-Life editor, motivational speaker, and author, Molli writes Politically Incorrect Fables to enlighten low-information voters, fire up patriots, and irritate progressives. Additional fables and daily rants are posted at www.grannyguerrillas.com
Bad News for Blacks
Posted by Rodney Lee
Richard Rahn at The Washington Times has an interesting article about how Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have done by Black Americans. Of course they had different economic philosophies to say the least. Barack Obama regularly denounces "supply-side" economics and scoffs at the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. And cutting taxes? Why that just favors the rich, don't you know.
Rahn sums it up this way: Reagan reduced taxes on job creators by 60%; Obama increased them by 17%. Reagan cut non-defense federal spending by a third; Obama has increased it, to say the least. Reagan cut regulations while Obama has greatly increased them.
Under Reagan, adult black unemployment fell by 20%, but under Mr. Obama, it has increased by 42%.
Black teenage unemployment fell by 16% under Reagan, but has risen by 56% under Mr. Obama.
The increase in unemployment rates has been far worse for blacks under Mr. Obama than for whites and Hispanics.
Inflation-adjusted real incomes are slightly higher for Hispanics and whites than they were in 2008, but are lower for blacks.
The labor force participation rate has fallen for all groups, but remains far lower for blacks than for whites and Hispanics.
Richard Rahn's brilliant piece in it's entirety can be read below:
As a famous man once said, you're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. And here they are:
Are you paying attention Black America? Rahn goes on to say that, in a nutshell, a sane person would look at the above facts, admit that the program wasn't working and change course – especially when you're the first black President and over 90% of blacks voted for you and Oprah is kinda looking bad now for having you on the show. But noooooo, Obama is doubling and tripling down, mainly because he can, I guess.
Why do blacks put up with such high unemployment? Whites wouldn't. They threw Jimmy Carter out on his ass and would do the same to anyone that ran white unemployment up anywhere near where it is for blacks. And why does Obama insist on running the country further into the ground? It's puzzling, unless you buy into the theory that he's just a Marxist who wants the place to fold and then everyone will depend on government.
I happen to be one of those people, but it's not for the faint of heart.
Sugar? No thanks, I'm sweet enough…
follow Rodney Lee onTwitter @rodneyconover
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Rodney Lee Conover is a writer / performer, living in Southern California's Mohave Desert with his whippet "Jack"
RAHN: Obama's bad news for blacks
Obamacare will hurt most those with the least
** FILE ** President Obama pauses as he speaks at the daily news briefing at the White House in Washington on Friday, July 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
By Richard Rahn
If you knew nothing else about President Obama other than looking at the data , you might conclude that he was insensitive to blacks, given that they have done far worse economically under his administration than Hispanics or whites. What is striking is that the president and his advisers still seem to be clueless about which economic policies work and which don't work. Despite his (at least for this week) emphasis on the economy, he persists in being the anti-Reagan, with anti-growth policies. In his speech Wednesday in Illinois, the president came up with no new pro-growth proposals, just more of what has not worked.
President Reagan reduced the maximum tax rate on job creators by 60 percent; Mr. Obama increased the maximum tax rate on job creators by 17 percent. Reagan cut non-defense, discretionary, federal government spending by a third as a percentage of gross domestic product; Mr. Obama has increased it. Reagan cut government regulations while Mr. Obama has greatly increased them.
The results are:
Under Reagan, adult black unemployment fell by 20 percent, but under Mr. Obama, it has increased by 42 percent.
Black teenage unemployment fell by 16 percent under Reagan, but has risen by 56 percent under Mr. Obama.
Most people, when confronted with the evidence presented above, probably would realize that they had been mistaken and then try a set of policies that were successful in the past. Not Mr. Obama. Given the tenor of his most recent talks, he seems to be intent on doubling down on his own failed policies.
It was true until the Industrial Revolution of two centuries ago, in a world of little economic growth, that for any individual to become better off, others would have to become worse off. Adam Smith was one of the first to understand that as a result of new technologies and better political and business institutions and organizations — and, most important, the rule of law and proper incentives — everyone could become better off without taking anything from anyone else. Despite the empirical evidence of the past 200 years that Smith and all of the clear and rational thinkers who followed him were right about economic growth, there is still the widespread belief that for one person to prosper someone else needs to suffer. It is this mindset that serves as the basic rationale for socialism and the state as an instrument of income redistribution. One would think that only the uneducated still would have this mindset, but it is most prevalent in universities.
Perhaps a major reason that professors and other educators are so dense when it comes to productivity increases and the resulting economic growth and real rise in living standards is that most classrooms are not much more productive than they were when Aristotle was speaking to a dozen or so students 2,500 years ago. By contrast, entrepreneurs see better ways of producing more for less and visualize and create things that never existed (i.e., the automobile, the airplane, the iPad, etc.) — and they create wealth and jobs. Mr. Obama comes from the government/academic class rather than the entrepreneurial class and has a much more static view of the world.
Reagan thought like an entrepreneur, and thus intuitively understood that economic growth creates opportunities for everyone — most important, for those who have the least. Mr. Obama has fewer senior advisers and top officials in his administration who have had significant private-sector experience than any previous president ; hence, like all too many of the European statists and socialists, they think in static terms.
The unfortunate irony is that America's first black president seems bent on continuing a set of policies that can lead only to continued slow growth or stagnation. The ones who are and will suffer the most from these policies are those who have the least. Mr. Obama no doubt has real compassion for the poor, but until he can begin to understand the destructive second-order effects of his policies and see that getting the foot of government off the forces of economic growth is the only real way to make life better for most of them, all too many will continue to suffer unnecessarily.
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
President Obama Elected Pope!
Posted by Michael Becker http://joeforamerica.com/2013/07/president-obama-elected-pope/
Last I heard, Pope Francis was visiting Brazil and his car took a wrong turn. Obviously something dramatic happened because today it appears that Barack Obama is not only President of the US, he's now Pope. This should, once and for all, put a stake through the heart of the "Muslim" rumors.
President/Pope Obama pontificated at a campaign rally at Knox College today for one hour and six minutes. A truly Clintonesque homily supposedly on his new initiatives to get the US economy moving. This makes his hundred and thirty second "pivot" back to the economy for a speech, and let's be clear, talking about the economy is the only thing he's done for the last five years other than working to regulate the US economy to be the western equivalent of Zimbabwe. Think of it as an affirmative action economy.
You're probably asking yourself, "What's this got to do with Barack being Pope?" and that's an excellent question. Given the level of pontificating he's been doing lately, well, here's Webster…
I'm old, and honestly I can't remember a more pompous or dogmatic speaker. I'm reasonably sure that he could be thinking he's discharging the duties of the pontiff, and I know for sure that he's in love with the idea of the Pope's term of office (that would be "for life").
The next question you're going to ask is probably "What did he say?" Another excellent question. Here's what Doug Schoen, a Democrat and a political strategist, pollster, author and commentator who writes for Forbes has to say.
Obama doubled down on his approach in 2012: division, polarization and moving to the left.
Much like in 2012, the President placed little emphasis on tax reform or growth. He spoke of bringing jobs back to America – specifically in manufacturing – but did not reveal many details of how he would achieve this.
We heard some talk of balancing the budget and deficit reduction, cornerstone issues of the protracted battle in the House at the end of last year and beginning of 2013. But there was no talk of a long-term deficit reduction plan or plan for entitlement reform that will save crucial programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The President emphasized redistribution above all else …
You should read all of what Schoen had to say, I'm just quoting the positive part.
Then there was Obama administration flack Dana Milbank who writes for the DNC Hotsheet Washington Post.
But even a reincarnated Steve Jobs would have trouble marketing this turkey: How can the president make news, and remake the agenda, by delivering the same message he gave in 2005? He's even giving the speech from the same place, Galesburg, Ill.
White House officials say this will show Obama's consistency. …
Yes, but this also risks sending the signal that, just six months into his second term, Obama is fresh out of ideas.
I would question whether Barack Obama ever had any "ideas", at least ideas that he didn't get from Karl Marx.
Then, there is Chris Cillizza (I like to quote him just so I can prove I can type his name) …
You could be forgiven if you thought you had heard President Obama's speech on the economy today before. Because you have. For most of the 2012 campaign. (Don't trust us, read Obama's 2012 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.)
You've got the idea. No new ideas, the same regulation driven, top-down, centrally planned Soviet economy that he's been pushing for the last five years. He did blame Republicans for a whole variety of things like causing gridlock, blah, blah, blah.
It will be most interesting to see how the TV media treat this first speech in what is billed as a whole series on the economy. I'm sure MSNBC will hail it as Lincolnesque, the real question is whether the other networks will have the good sense to recognize that it's a rehash of the stuff that hasn't done anything to actually improve the economy or put people – other than bureaucrats – back to work. If they figure it out maybe they'll just ignore the speech and focus on new Prince George.
I find the print coverage interesting because it looks like President Obama is either losing or has lost the print guys. Last time around with this same speech they were throwing rose petals at his feet.
The next three years could turn out to be, as the Chinese philosopher intoned, interesting times.
The Summer of Our Discontent
Posted by Ken Hoagland http://joeforamerica.com/2013/07/the-summer-of-our-discontent/
We kicked kings, royal decrees and secret courts out of America long ago–or did we?
Now we have a President who decides which laws will be enforced and which citizens will be subject to those laws. Now, we have secret courts issuing rulings without public notice or argument. Now we have powerful federal agencies going after citizens who object.
In the imperial Presidency of Barack Obama, the government takeover of healthcare was enacted over the objections of a majority of citizens–even before repeated and solemn promises of no new taxes on the middle class were ruled false by the Supreme Court. And it gets worse.
Now the Administration has decreed that hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare subsidies will be paid out in states that embrace ObamaCare–with no questions asked about eligibility. Neither income nor existing insurance coverage will be certified before taxpayer money is paid out. It is an open invitation to commit fraud.
In a similar announcement last week, big businesses, like four million citizens (most in pro-ObamaCare unions) are to receive one-year "waivers" by royal decree. There is no legal authority for this decision but that is not stopping him.
Even Congressional staffers and their bosses are now lobbying for their own exemptions. Why not? The committee staffers who wrote Obamacare exempted themselves along with Congressional leadership, the White House and Cabinet officers.
Gone is the very concept of the "Rule of Law" that holds that all citizens are equally subject to federal statutes enacted by representatives of the people. Gone is the concept that those who govern are subject to "consent of the governed".
When past Presidents tried to seize unconstitutional power we relied on the judicial branch of government to assert the needed "checks and balances". But this President is now simply ignoring two federal courts who have ruled illegal his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
Worse, secret courts are making rulings allowing spying on law-abiding citizens with no possible connection to international terrorism. King George had secret courts that rounded up suspects and condemned them without defense or public notice. It is why our Founding Fathers wrote the Fourth Amendment. And how can the governed give consent to such secret decisions? Until Mr. Snowden, they were unknown. .
Frustrated with a divided government and a divided people, Barack Obama has made war on those who disagree. Rogue IRS agents hardly explain how one citizen, Catherine Englebrecht (who started a group investigating voter fraud) found herself the subject of multiple FBI visits and surprise audits from a range of federal agencies, including the IRS. It is simply not believable that this abuse was not directed by powerful figures within this Administration–but the FBI has still not investigated.
His treatment of existing federal laws is equally contemptuous. Obama decreed that 1.5 million illegal immigrants are no longer subject to applicable federal statutes. Unwilling to fight for changes to the No Child Left Behind Act, Obama decided that the law could be ignored. Now, more than half the states have been granted waivers.
Welfare work rules? It was a monumentally successful policy reform embraced by both parties and strong majorities in both the House and Senate, representing widespread public belief that unrestricted welfare payments were actually increasing poverty and dependency. This President has decided that this law, like others, is optional, shifting the entire concept of the Rule of Law and the will of the people to his discretion. All hail the King.
This President has shown through his many actions that he believes that consent of the governed is an outmoded idea that can be ignored. Congress can be ignored. The courts can be ignored. The Constitution that he is sworn to uphold and the Attorney General is sworn to enforce is optional.
We kicked royalty out of our country long ago but royal decrees are here again. Our great experiment in personal liberty is in danger of being erased from within.
Ken Hoagland is chairman of "Restore America's Voice Foundation". His group has delivered two million petitions and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to the House and Senate demanding a new Senate vote on ObamaCare that honestly describes both the taxes levied for the program and the performance promises that have proven false.