David Stockman doesn’t like what he sees coming

Probably with good reason. I’m a little curious to hear a man who lives in Conyers Farm on wealth accumulated in his days as a leveraged buyout guy at Blackstone railing against Wall Street, excessive debt and the low taxes we all pay but as I try to gently (and so futilely) tell Dollar Bill, address the argument, not the man.

Q: Why are you so down on the U.S. economy?

A: It’s become super-saturated with debt.

Typically the private and public sectors would borrow $1.50 or $1.60 each year for every $1 of GDP growth. That was the golden constant. It had been at that ratio for 100 years save for some minor squiggles during the bottom of the Depression. By the time we got to the mid-’90s, we were borrowing $3 for every $1 of GDP growth. And by the time we got to the peak in 2006 or 2007, we were actually taking on $6 of new debt to grind out $1 of new GDP.

[snip]

A: Let the Bush tax cuts expire. Let the capital gains go back to the same rate as ordinary income. (Capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, while ordinary income is taxed at marginal rates up to 35 percent.)

Q: Why?

A: Why not? I mean, is return on capital any more virtuous than some guy who’s driving a bus all day and working hard and trying to support his family? You know, with capital gains, they give you this mythology. You’re going to encourage a bunch of more jobs to appear. No, most of capital gains goes to speculators in real estate and other assets who basically lever up companies, lever up buildings, use the current income to pay the interest and after a holding period then sell the residual, the equity, and get it taxed at 15 percent. What’s so brilliant about that?

Q: You worked for Blackstone, a financial services firm that focuses on leveraged buyouts and whose gains are taxed at 15 percent, then started your own buyout fund. Now you’re saying there’s too much debt. You were part of that debt explosion, weren’t you?

A: Well, yeah, and maybe you can learn something from what happens over time. I was against the debt explosion in the Reagan era. I tried to fight the deficit, but I couldn’t. When I was in the private sector, I was in the leveraged buyout business. I finally learned a heck of a lot about the dangers of debt.

I’m a libertarian. If someone wants to do leveraged buyouts, more power to them. If they want to have a brothel, let them run a brothel. But it doesn’t mean that public policy ought to be biased dramatically to encourage one kind of business arrangement over another. And right now public policy and taxes and free money from the Fed are encouraging way too much debt, way too much speculation and not enough productive real investment and growth.

All your bases are belong to us

Hackers elect cartoon character to D.C. school board University of Michigan professor and two students did it -took them less than two hours – after the board dared anyone to try to breach their “secure” system.

Earlier this week I posted an article on  Connecticut’s Demmerkrats pushing for same day voter registration. While online voting is not part of that scheme, yet, the Democrat’s Secretary of State did say, [p] eople should be able to register and vote on the same day. We have computers now.”

I think I know where this is going.

Daily Kos speaks

 

Remember her?

North Korea no worse than South Korea or the USA

North Korea begs to differ: Three generations of defectors’  families will be executed.

It’s not just posters on Daily Kos who support North Korea, of course - the left loves the place, just as they love Venezuela and Cuba. Give me a communist dictator, I’ll show you Sean Penn.

And you thought the YMCA dispute was complicated

Ipswich, MA: Testing donor’s intent, 350 years later.

Feel safer now?

 

Janet Napolitano says she's a terrorist. Or our TSA head is just jealous.

Woman forced to milk her breasts in airport’s public toilet to prove her breast pump was “real”. We have spent billions on TSA airport security in the past ten years, we are not the least bit safer and we have created a force of thugs dressed in rented uniforms to intimidate and harass passengers. Government gone amok.

Back from Mussel Shoals

Self-portrait

Quick trip because these shoals are at Tod’s (at the western outlet from Eagle Pond, should you be so inclined). linguine and mussels tonight. You don’t even need a clam rake to harvest mussels, by the way, in fact a rake just breaks their shells. See them, pick them up, albeit a little effort’s involved in twisting them free from the rocks and fellow mussels they entwine themselves in. Wussies (is that a homophobic term?) can wear rubber gloves – I use bare hands because it’s easier.

Obama: when will the white middle class get the benefits they’re entitled to?

Well no, the Great Unifier didn’t actually say that, but here’s what his hand-picked Attorney General did say:

Holder expressed support for affirmative action, saying that he “can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease.”

“Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices,” Holder said. “The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. … When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?”

You could ask why the Attorney General, an officer of this country who is supposed to represent all its citizens, feels that some citizens are more equal than others. Or you might ask the basis for his assertion that blacks are entitled to benefits ripped from whites, hispanics, asians and anyone else who unlike Holder and his boss, doesn’t have an African ancestor.

Just as an example, how is it that U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, 18-year-old kids who weren’t even alive when discrimination against blacks was still practiced in this country, have a quota imposed on them by the admission committees of California schools? If I remember my American history, the parents and grandparents of these children were subjected to severe discrimination before the War and during the war saw their property confiscated while they themselves were rounded up and placed in concentration camps – where’s Obama’s concern for affirmative action, reparations and recognition of some sort of entitlement for them?

Or you could just reflect on the fact that the Attorney General serves at the pleasure of his president and the president serves at the pleasure of us citizens, and vote accordingly.

Occupy Wall Street, Oakland branch, arrested for hate crime

And for stealing her wallet after beating her and calling her a lesbian, NTTAWWT.

Global warming: it’s here

And already saving lives! Bring it on (and thanks to the New York Times for reporting this.)

Should we take him at his word?

Thursday our president said, “I don’t bluff.” later on that same day at one of four fund raisers held in Wall Street he said this: “But I promised you, but I promised you, I promised you back then that I would always tell you what I believe. I would always tell you where I stood.”

There is good reason to believe Obummer on this, at least in some areas. For instance,

He promised to bankrupt anyone who dared to build a new coal-powered energy plant (San Francisco, January, 2008)

His soon-to-be Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, promised to raise gasoline prices to European levels. (September, 2008, interview with the WSJ)

He vowed to ” ‘invest’ $15 billion a year in alternative energy projects and create 5 million new ‘green jobs’ “. The money was spent (the jobs creation part evaporated,but let’s blame Bush for that).

He promised “one million electric cars on our roads by 2015.”

He promised to repeal the Bush era tax cuts (2008 campaign).

Obama hasn’t lived up to his word, yet, on many of these threats but he seems to be gearing up to run for another four years in office when, without the threat of an election defeat that would toss him from office (and wouldn’t the Chief Vacationer be pissed off at that!), he’ll be free to try again. I believe him.

The Socialists are busy up in Hartford or, why Johnny can’t read

Driving honme a sense of democracy

Reader and fellow blogger Terry Cowgill sends along this example of the latest mischief state Democrats have foisted on our children. They won’t stop force-feeding their agenda down the throats of our children until all students think alike and think as they do. Or should I say, can’t think at all?

School curriculums must now include, in addition to Puerto Rican history and the dangers of joining gangs, the history and current status of the union movement in our country. Buried down there at number 12 is a brief mention of teaching reading, grammar and mathematics. Nice to know they give a token tip of the hat to what was once the basis and purpose of public education.

4.(a) In the public schools the program of instruction offered shall

5 include at least the following subject matter, as taught by legally

6 qualified teachers, the arts; career education; consumer education;

7 health and safety, including, but not limited to, human growth and

8 development, nutrition, first aid, disease prevention, community and

9 consumer health, physical, mental and emotional health, including

10 youth suicide prevention, substance abuse prevention, safety, which

11 may include the dangers of gang membership, and accident

12 prevention; language arts, including reading, writing, grammar,

13 speaking and spelling; mathematics; physical education; science; social

14 studies, including, but not limited to, citizenship, economics,

15 geography, government and history, labor history and law, including

16 the history of organized labor, the collective bargaining process and

17.existing legal protections in the workplace; and in addition, on at least

18 the secondary level, one or more world languages and vocational

19 education. For purposes of this subsection, world languages shall

20 include American Sign Language, provided such subject matter is

21 taught by a qualified instructor under the supervision of a teacher who

22 holds a certificate issued by the State Board of Education. For purposes

23 of this subsection, the “arts” means any form of visual or performing

24 arts, which may include, but not be limited to, dance, music, art and

25 theatre.

37 (d) The State Board of Education shall make available curriculum

38 materials and such other materials as may assist local and regional

39 boards of education in developing instructional programs pursuant to

40 this section. The State Board of Education, within available

41 appropriations and utilizing available resource materials, shall assist

42 and encourage local and regional boards of education to include: (1)

43 Holocaust and genocide education and awareness; (2) the historical

44 events surrounding the Great Famine in Ireland; (3) African-American

45 history; (4) Puerto Rican history; (5) Native American history; (6)

46 personal financial management; (7) labor history and law, including

47 the history of organized labor, the collective bargaining process and

48 existing legal protections in the workplace;

Proof at last: Obama’s no Christian

Likens himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela but not Jesus Christ!. His defenders say the omission just shows what a refreshingly humble man he is.