'Broker Than Any Nation Has Ever Been'

Mark Steyn:

At the end of 2011, America, like much of the rest of the Western world, has dug deeper into a cocoon of denial. Tens of millions of Americans remain unaware that this nation is broke — broker than any nation has ever been. A few days before Christmas, we sailed across the psychological Rubicon and joined the club of nations whose government debt now exceeds their total GDP. It barely raised a murmur — and those who took the trouble to address the issue noted complacently that our 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio is a mere two-thirds of Greece’s. That’s true, but at a certain point per capita comparisons are less relevant than the sheer hard dollar sums: Greece owes a few rinky-dink billions; America owes more money than anyone has ever owed anybody ever.

Public debt has increased by 67 percent over the last three years, and too many Americans refuse even to see it as a problem. For most of us, “$16.4 trillion” has no real meaning, any more than “$17.9 trillion” or “$28.3 trillion” or “$147.8 bazillion.” It doesn’t even have much meaning for the guys spending the dough: Look into the eyes of Barack Obama or Harry Reid or Barney Frank, and you realize that, even as they’re borrowing all this money, they have no serious intention of paying any of it back. That’s to say, there is no politically plausible scenario under which the 16.4 trillion is reduced to 13.7 trillion, and then 7.9 trillion, and eventually 173 dollars and 48 cents. At the deepest levels within our governing structures, we are committed to living beyond our means on a scale no civilization has ever done.

Our most enlightened citizens think it’s rather vulgar and boorish to obsess about debt. The urbane, educated, Western progressive would rather “save the planet,” a cause which offers the grandiose narcissism that, say, reforming Medicare lacks. So, for example, a pipeline delivering Canadian energy from Alberta to Texas is blocked by the president on no grounds whatsoever except that the very thought of it is an aesthetic affront to the moneyed Sierra Club types who infest his fundraisers. The offending energy, of course, does not simply get mothballed in the Canadian attic: The Dominion’s prime minister has already pointed out that they’ll sell it to the Chinese, whose Politburo lacks our exquisitely refined revulsion at economic dynamism, and indeed seems increasingly amused by it. Pace the ecopalyptics, the planet will be just fine: Would it kill you to try saving your country, or state, or municipality?

'Ann Coulter: Why Romney Is The One'

Ann Coulter:

In the upcoming presidential election, two issues are more important than any others: repealing Obamacare and halting illegal immigration. If we fail at either one, the country will be changed permanently.

Taxes can be raised and lowered. Regulations can be removed (though they rarely are). Attorneys general and Cabinet members can be fired. Laws can be repealed. Even Supreme Court justices eventually die.
But capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back.
Similarly, if Obamacare isn't repealed in the next few years, it never will be.

While I would include energy independence into the pot also,I agree with Ann.We must secure our boarders now and repeal Obamacare now -if we can't repeal Obamacare we will never ever reduce the size of government.

This is where Ann loses me: 

That leaves us with Romney and Bachmann as the candidates with the strongest, most conservative positions on illegal immigration. As wonderful as Michele Bachmann is, 2012 isn't the year to be trying to make a congresswoman the first woman president.

Two Little Indians sitting in the sun; one was just a congresswoman and then there was one.

Seriously,Ann,do you think Romney is the one who will accomplish this.Romney will never repeal Obamacare,remember he is the author of Romneycare.Also,who ever steps up and stops illegal immigration will have to have a back-bone,because every sob story you can imagine will be thrown at "such a cruel and ruthless person" who would dare to secure our boarder.Romney has the back-bone of a slinkee,it will bend in whatever direction he needs it to.He will find a contortion to try to appease both sides while keeping our boarders wide open.

'Repo Men'

Kevin D. Williams:

On and on and on it goes: Sen. John Kerry invested aggressively in health-care companies while shaping health-care legislation. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R. Ala.) was a remarkably apt options trader during the days when he had a front-row seat to Congress’s deliberations on the unfolding financial crisis. The Obama administration poured billions of dollars into solar companies, of which the failed Solyndra is the most infamous. But a lot of that money went to other firms, including First Solar, which is owned by billionaire Obama supporter Ted Turner and by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is omnipresent. And during the financial crisis, a big piece of Goldman Sachs was bought by Warren Buffett, who stacked up a lot of cash when the government poured money into that struggling investment bank with the support of Barack Obama. When the federal government bought into Goldman Sachs, it negotiated for itself a 5 percent dividend. Warren Buffett got 10 percent — on top of the benefit of having Washington inundate his investment with great rippling streams of taxpayers’ money. Republicans are no saints, either, but Democrats were running the congressional show during such crucial episodes as the implementation of the bailouts and the health-care debate — which were big investment opportunities for political insiders with access to market-moving information. Congress has effectively exempted itself from insider-trading rules, not that the SEC would have the guts to go after a Senator Schumer or a Speaker Pelosi for these exploits. And that — not campaign contributions, not lobbying — is the really stinky petri dish of festering corruption at the nexus of Washington and Wall Street. You want a case for limited government? That’s it. And Wall Street is on the wrong side of the argument, which is one reason free-market conservatives should not romanticize the lords of finance.

These 'lords of finance' and there hench men in Washington are doing nothing less than raping their country.

Everyone is looking for another Reagan to set things straight.Maybe we should be looking for another Andrew Jackson to end the corruption that prevails in Washington and on Wall Street.

'Don't Mess with Firefly!'

I'm a big fan of 'Firefly',so this caught my eye.



Whether in the name of tolerance or public safety,hate speech and political correctness is nothing more than fascism and a threat to our God given liberty.

Burn the land,
Boil the sea,
But you can't take the sky from me.

Hat tip to Hot Air.

The Solar Fraud

From The Market Ticker:  

Look folks, solar is an interesting idea but it's not economically viable. It requires ridiculous amounts of land to be dedicated to it and it only works when the sun is shining (obviously), which isn't all of the time. Industry and personal users, on the other hand, would like electricity to be available any time the switch is thrown. This sets up a rather serious problem, and that's before we start talking about money, which is also an issue.

Solar has never been viable without government subsidy, and that is unlikely to change at any time in the near future. If and when it does it will rise all on its own without a need for anyone to hand out "free money."
But the numbers do not support any sort of mass-investment on this technology. Among other things manufacturing is energy intensive and creates a pollution problem. We've "solved" that by shoving it in the corner (in China), just like we have with so many other things, but in fact that's a public fraud as well.
I'll be interested in solar when it is cost-effective standing alone as a peaking source. There it might indeed, some day, be worthwhile. But the competition for peaking plants today is natural gas, which today is also quite cheap. It may not be tomorrow, but today it is.
As a base load source solar is next-to-worthless as it simply is unable to provide energy on a 24x7 basis, and that's what's required in that role. Whether or not we like it solar simply doesn't pass the economics test as a prime energy source -- and there's nothing that indicates that in the reasonably near future it will.

Solar,like all other "green" energy sources,is a confidence scheme perpetrated on us by Flim-Flam men,both in Big Business and Big Government,to raid the public till.

Have A Miserable Kwanzaa

Today the calender says its Kwanzaa.Which leads to a very good question.What is Kwanzaa?What exactly are you celebrating on this day?

Kwanzaa is a made up holiday by,atheists,Muslims,and liberals.It is a day to disdain everything American and to celebrate their hatred for the United States.It is quite simply a day for the left to celebrate their own misery.

Merry Christmas

'Three Years Under Obama'

This is what the GOP candidate's for POTUS should be saying!

Hat tip to The Other McCain.

'Boehner Folds Up Once Again .........'

Via Hell On Earth:

If there is a tax we whould be paying it is this one. The tax they cut last year and extended for another whole two months is the one that funds Social Security and Medicare. Since there is no Social Security "lockbox

All this "tax cut" does is short change the Social Security system and add to what our government has to borrow each year. We are going to wind up paying for it anyway.
Boehner needs to quit being such a pussy and stand up. Be a man. If he never intended to follow through with this thing he should have saved himself the humiliation and gave in from the beginning. Now he just looks really lame.
We need someone else in charge of the House. Someone with a PAIR of balls...

If you look up the word chump in the dictionary,there next to it will be a photo of John Boehner.

'History Of Western Philosophy'

Margaret Sanger: The Mother Of The Culture Of Death

'Margaret Sanger and the War on Compassion':

Despite the insistence of her ardent supporters that Sanger was caught up in the common thought of her times, she was opposed by many contemporaries, who rejected such theories on the grounds both of faith and of American principles. She may have lived a life of passion, as Jean Baker asserts, but among her great passions was eugenics. It was one of the great legacies she sought to leave to the world.
In many ways, Sanger’s dream has been realized. For generations the sterilization of the poor and the vulnerable has been a reality pushed by government agencies and population-control groups. North Carolina is one of a number of states still debating reparations for victims of the state’s mandatory sterilization program from the mid-20th century. Currently, roughly 90 percent of unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. Obsessed with plucking the “weeds” from the human garden, Sanger and her fellow eugenicists lost sight of what it means to be human.
In the end, Sanger’s passion waged war on compassion, redefining pregnancy as a battle zone for the survival of the fittest. It is a bleak doctrine, made all the more terrible because of the millions in public funds still being deployed to advance her eugenic struggle.

In many ways Margaret Sanger was more dangerous than,Adolf Hitler.Her ideas on 'social engineering' have not received the stigma of evil as Hitler's ideas of a Aryan super-race has justly received from history.No,her ideas have been embraced by the West,producing abortion on demand and the killing our elderly,in the name of 'the greater good.'In the end,Margaret Sanger,has been a far greater force for evil in this world.

'The Relic'

This is just way too cool!!!!!!!



Hat tip to The Feral Irishman.

'GM Inflates Chevy Volt Stats With Fleet Sales'

Iowa GOP Establishment In Panic

The GOP establishment is in an uproar at the potential of a Ron Paul victory in the caucus in 2 weeks.The truth though is they have no one to blame for Ron Paul's rise than themselves.

This past year we have seen how a GOP House of Representatives -who were mostly elected under a Tea Party banner- has caved time and again.Right now in Washington we are arguing with the Democrats on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts either 2 months or a whole year.We should be putting our foot down demanding that they be made permanent and then if the Democrats want to end them,let them raise taxes.

Also,this current field of candidates is pathetic.Romney,Gingrich,and Huntsman are RINO's.Do not be fooled by any of their rhetoric they are essentially the same,Big Government Republicans.Bachmann and Perry are a joke.Santorum would be more of Beohner's leadership,which is lacking.

 Ron Paul understands the peril this country is really in too.While the rest want to rearrange chairs on the deck of the Titanic,he understands we have to stop the leak -balancing the budget now,reducing the national debt now- if we are to survive.

Sarah Palin says this about Ron Paul:

“No one seems to have really grasped, except for Ron Paul, the gravity of our economic situation,”

All of this and more is producing Ron Paul's surge.Many conservatives are -like myself- dissatisfied with the GOP.Many of us just want a real choice between big government and smaller government.We want a party that stands for something,not a 'big tent' that stands for every thing and thereby stands for nothing.

That is the very appeal of Ron Paul,he actually stands for smaller government.He hasn't poll tested his belief's to see if they are popular or not.He believes what he says.You can't say that for the rest of the GOP.

 

Extending Unemployment Insurance,Is In Reality A Tax On Employers

Via The American Spectator:

Another part of the bill would extend unemployment insurance.  My Cato Institute colleague Chris Edwards explains why this is bad policy:

any stimulus from UI benefits will be counteracted by the anti-stimulus of the higher taxes needed to pay for them. Many states have been raising their UI taxes on businesses in order to replenish their unemployment funds, and these tax increases are surely harming job creation.
Another negative effect of UI benefits is that they increase unemployment because they reduce the incentive for people to find work. Higher UI benefits delay the need for people to make tough choices about their careers, such as switching industries, taking lower pay, or moving to a different city. It's a basic rule that when the government subsidizes something, we get more of it.

Leave it to Congress to create more long-term problems with every step they take trying to deal with the economy.  This may be the most important argument on behalf of a policy of laissez faire.  Private markets are far from perfect.  But politicians always in every case make a bigger mess of things!

Ronald Reagan said it best,"government is not the solution,it is the problem."

The Boston Tea Party: 238th Anniversary

238 years ago,in 1773 the Founding Fathers dumped the King's tea into Boston Harbor to protest the oppressive tax King George III had levied on his American colonies.

Today,the current Tea party,after protesting Obama's radicalism,has joined the Republican party and drank the Kool-Aid of Big Government.Sometimes I think we are not worthy of our Founding Fathers.

The Fox News GOP Debate Put Into Perspective

Victor Davis Hanson correctly sums up last nights Fox News GOP debate and all other future debates:

A good debate that reminds us by now that all that was to be said has already been said.

'The Abject Failure Of The GOP'

From Frankenstein Government:

This GOP crew is the sorriest assed bunch I have seen in a long time. Even the GOP faithful know it. All the GOP faithful can manage to do is clench their teeth and hope anything is better than Obama. Like McCain.

Had the GOP lured Scott Walker or Chris Christie away- we might have had hope. The GOP and elections in general have in fact- become beauty contests. We are going to nominate another guy who pisses us off the least- the guy who comes off like a nice guy. A beauty contest winner and I don't see any way it is going to be anyone but Romney- the big weasel. And then we are going to get the same old results that we have always been getting- because we keep doing the same thing over and over again. The only guy that the GOP has put forward in my lifetime, a guy who had accomplished a great deal, a man of substance and courage, a man that was not a serial cheater, was Ronald Reagan. They still talk about him. Even blind squirrels find an acorn now and then.

I like to refer to this current GOP field as the Election From Hell Part II.When you thought that the original Election From Hell -the 2008 field- couldn't be any worse,then comes along its sequell -2012 field- sinking to new depths.

We are going to have to come to the cold honest truth,the GOP is never going to be the vehicle to change this country descent into the Abyss.In fact the GOP is part of the problem,they are Democratic-Lite.Name once since last years election has Boehner and company dug in their heels and told Obama and the Democrats no?You can't,it hasn't happened and won't happen.

The only answer is to leave the GOP behind and form a third party,to give this country a true choice between big government and smaller less intruisive government.

Remember,Ronald Reagan was a Democrat a one time.When asked why he left the Democratic party,Reagan would always retort,"the Democratic party left him."Well,the Republican party has left us conservatives and its time we found a new home,thats of our own making and all our own.

'Why Obama's Stimulus Failed'

This was theft,plain and simple.Obama used the stimulus as a slush fund to pay off his friends in big business,the unions,state governments,and so-called non-profits like ACORN.

'Statist Delusions'

Mark Steyn:

It would be truer to say that the present situation reflects the total failure of “you’re not on your own” economics — the delusion of statists that government can insulate millions of people from the vicissitudes of life. Europeans have assured their citizens of cradle-to-grave welfare since the end of the Second World War. This may or may not be an admirable notion, but, both economically and demographically, the bill has come due. Greece is being bailed out by Germany in order to save the eurozone but to do so requires the help of the IMF, which is principally funded by the United States. The entire Western world resembles the English parlor game “Pass the Parcel,” in which a gift wrapped in multiple layers of gaudy paper is passed around until the music stops and a lucky child removes the final wrapping from the shrunken gift to discover his small gift. Except that, in this case, underneath all the bulky layers, there is no there there: Broke nations are being bailed out by a broke transnational organization bankrolled by a broke superpower in order to save a broke currency. Good luck with that.
The political class looted the future to bribe the present, confident that tomorrow could be endlessly postponed. Hey, why not? “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day,” says Macbeth. “To borrow, and to borrow, and to borrow,” said the political class, like Macbeth with a heavy cold (to reprise a rare joke from Mrs. Thatcher). And they failed to anticipate that the petty pace would accelerate and overwhelm them. On Thursday, Jon Corzine, former United States senator, former governor of New Jersey, former Goldman Sachs golden boy, and the man who embodies the malign nexus between Big Government and a financial-services sector tap-dancing on derivatives of derivatives, came to Congress to try to explain how the now-bankrupt entity he ran, MF Global, had managed to misplace $1.2 billion. The man once tipped to be Obama’s Treasury secretary and whom Vice President Biden described as the fellow who’s always “the smartest guy in the room” explained his affairs thus: “I simply do not know where the money is.” Does that apply only to his private business or to his years in the Senate, too?

'A Simple Observation about Job Creation And The Free Market'

Via Patterico's Pontifications:

When we talk about how many jobs some government official or entity has created, we are missing the point, and falling into the trap of using the other side’s terminology.

In connection with Karl’s point below about regulation: government doesn’t create jobs, except when government actually hires people. Government creates jobs by getting out of the way.
The free market isn’t some crazy abstract libertarian concept. It is what happen when millions of individuals make decisions on their own about what is best to buy and sell. When those decisions are free and unfettered by government intervention, the results of those decisions are determined by the collective wisdom of all those millions of people. When the decisions are handed down by a central authority, the results are determined by a handful of people who think they are smarter than the country as a whole.
I employ this model in blogging. I rely on readers because I don’t believe in the model of blogging where the blogger is like a cult figure, to whom everyone pays obeisance and talks endlessly about how brilliant they are. I believe in the model of blogging where you bring a bunch of smart people together to form a community. No matter how smart any one blogger may be, chances are their audience is, collectively, smarter. That’s because groups of people tend to have more collective brainpower at their disposal than any one person.
The same goes for the economy. When the central Soviet authority decided who was going to grow how many crops where, they didn’t know what the farmers knew. And people starved.
The free market is just free people making decisions for themselves.
So let’s not talk about who created more jobs. Let’s talk about who got out of the way — and let employers create more jobs.

'A Day That Will Will Live In Infamy'

70 years ago today the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.We remember all those who lost their lives in service of their country on this day and God bless all of you who survived that day.

'Slick Willism?'

Victor Davis Hanson:

There are some preliminary reports about Bill Clinton’s purported $50,000-a-month retainer — paid out to Teneo, a firm where he is chairman of the board — from his friend Jon Corzine’s now broke MF Global. It reminds of Newt Gingrich’s getting $30,000 a month for his work as a “historian” for Freddie Mac up until the eve of its crack-up. One comes away with a sort of despair that our most prominent politicians, who have already done quite well in private and public life, still cannot refrain from cashing in on their contacts for even more cash.

The symptoms are depressingly the same: the big retainer fee, the financial insolvency of the clients, the lack of financial expertise on the part of the consultant, the apparent lack of any quantifiable value in the service rendered, the euphemisms employed to disguise the lobbying efforts (Clinton was supposed to improve the “image” of CEO Corzine, rather than be an historian of the company). 
One can think up all sorts of new rules and regulations to stop this sort of insider influence peddling (the various ways of making millions are endless, as the Freddie and Fannie vets attest — cf. Emanuel (Freddie), Gorelick (Fannie), Johnson (Fannie), Raines (Fannie), etc. — but there would no doubt be ways of circumventing them. In the end, the only antidote we are left with is shame, and a general public weariness with affluent and pensioned figures maximizing profit in ways made possible by their past public office.

I have to disagree with Professor Hanson here.It is not shame that will stop the Newt's and Clinton's from cashing in on their postitions and influence.Lets face it,these men have no shame.What will stop all of this is reducing the size of the Federal government and limiting its in influence in the private sector.When you do this the political in-crowd have nothing to peddle.

'Baggage'

The left-wing media finally accomplished its task with the character assination of Herman Cain,causing him to suspend his campaign,basically quiting the race.I am no supporter of Herman Cain,primarily because of his wishy-washingness concerning the Constitution,but he has been slandered by the MSM based on allegations from a bunch of gold diggers,with no real proof he did anything.When these same kind of allegations happened to the whoremonger and chief,Bill Clinton,we were told by the same MSM that this was his personal life and did not pertain to his ability to hold office.Can you say hypocrites!

The worst part of this whole character assination is that a lot of the conservative media joined in on the execution.A lot of our so called 'gate-keepers' need to take heed and listen to Professor William Jacobson:

Point 1 is something I have been writing about almost since the start of this blog, the need to defend Republicans and conservatives and Tea Party supporters against media smears regardless of whether you support the particular candidate. The David Frum wing of the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way, and frankly, neither does much of the conservative media. Piling on Sarah Palin was taken as a sign of moral and intellectual courage when in fact it was moral and intellectual cowardess. Many of those same people joined the Democratic pro-Obama mainstream media in piling on caricatures and distortions regarding Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and now Newt.

Point 2 is a truism, but begs the question of what is “baggage.” I surmise from John’s post that he is talking about Newt, as to whom the term “baggage” most frequently is used. But what is baggage in an election?
Personal faults and defaults will not factor in as much as long as not illegal, provided they are acknowledged and atoned for. That is why the social conservative vote has not written off Newt, or fully embraced other candidates without known personal baggage.
What about political baggage? That’s more problematic in a campaign. It’s the reason the Obama campaign has targeted Romney’s political “core.” As I pointed out before, it’s a theme which has worked in the past against Romney.
But my biggest issue with the “baggage” concern is that it is defensive. Regardless of who the Republican nominee is, the media will deem that candidate to have baggage.
The purest of personally pure candidates will be faulted for being a religious nut and not hip enough to be president, someone from the white bread 1950s. Policies advocating personal responsibility and empowerment will be portrayed as cruel and favoring the rich. Advocacy of treating people according to the content of their characters rather than the colors of their skin will be protrayed as racially insensitive or racist.
So yes, don’t select a nominee with so much baggage that the nominee is unelectable, but think through what “baggage” really means, and don’t try to placate the mainstream media which will be against our nominee, baggage or not.

'Is The Fed Pursuing Our Intrest Or Bank's Intrest?'

Kevin D. Williamson:

All that Bernanke & Co. did yesterday was to lower the dollar-financing cost for banks in Europe, where inter-bank lending is locking up — for good reason. But Europe’s problem is not its banks and their access to dollars. Europe’s banks are in trouble because European government bonds are in trouble, and European government bonds are in trouble because European governments are in trouble. European governments are in trouble because they spend too much money. The Fed can’t change that, and hasn’t tried.
The question is: What is the Fed thinking? Is it looking out for the United States, or is it looking out for the banks?
The generous interpretation of the Fed’s action goes like this: The Fed hasn’t really risked anything — it’s just making it easier for them to borrow from one another, because a European banking crisis would cause a 2008-style credit crisis worldwide. With U.S. economic indicators improving modestly, the main worry of U.S. policymakers right now is economic events outside our own borders. The Fed can’t work out the Europeans’ finances for them, but it can soften the blow to international credit markets, and thereby do a service to the American economy.
The ungenerous interpretation of the Fed’s action goes like this: Everybody knows the jig is up, but lo these many years after the 2008 crisis, trillions in bailouts later, the banks are still in weak shape, we haven’t really reformed our financial rules, there’s insufficient transparency to really know what kind of shape everybody is in, and the world’s biggest banks just got downgraded on Tuesday. We’re buying time and hoping for the best, and giving all our favorite bankers an extra little margin of error to get their acts together before the big kaboom gets heard ’round the world.
I’m open to either interpretation, and to other interpretations.
But here is what is beyond debate: Europe has not solved its fiscal problems. Europe shows no sign of being on the verge of solving its fiscal problems. Europe shows no sign that it wants to solve its fiscal problems. If Ben Bernanke is having “in for a penny, in for a pound” thoughts, he needs to think again: We do not have the resources to bail out Europe, and nobody has the resources to bail out the United States.
Congress should make it clear — today — that the Fed’s mandate does not extend to bailing out Europe’s banks and Europe’s governments. This is especially true after the secrecy and unaccountability with which it conducted the $7.7 trillion shadow bailout on top of TARP.