Capitalism

Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Chicago - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Obama Administration Announces Not Enforcing Union Reporting Laws

August 29, 2009 by 9 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you a union member trying to find out information of the criminal actions and shady financial dealings of your union? Well don’t expect Obama and his toady in the Labor Secretary’s office, Hilda Solis, to help you uncover any illegalities perpetrated by your union bosses.

Solis’ department has just announced that it is suspending the stringent reporting requirements that labor unions must by law satisfy to assure that their financial dealings are legal and above-board. That’s right, unions have just been given a free pass for criminal actions by this president.

This is proof that political donations are the key to get away with crime. So, yes Virginia, crime does pay… at least in Obama’s Washington.
Continue reading “

Obama Administration Announces Not Enforcing Union Reporting Laws”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

With Papers Failing Everywhere, Union Members Mad For Keeping Jobs

August 29, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The journalists of Indianapolis want us to feel sorry for them. See, they’ve voluntarily signed a contract that includes a 10% pay cut and precludes raises during this contract’s 2 year term. And they are whining about it.

In a day when papers are failing all across the country, the guild members of Indy journos want us to shed a tear for the fact that they’ve been successful in keeping their jobs. In a day of the highest unemployment in all sectors of the economy for decades, these newspaper folks want us to get all twisted up over the fact that they didn’t get fired. Yes, they are all mad at their employer for not firing them and they are looking for sympathy from us.

Sure they agreed to the contract, but darn it all, they are “angry about it.” And, gosh, they’ve “sacrificed,” man! And they want to be sure that we all know about it.

I have to say, this has to be one of the most amazing displays of self-indulgent hubris I’ve seen in quite a while. Apparently, it doesn’t seem to dawn on these union members to feel grateful that their paper hasn’t gone down the tubes like so many others have. It doesn’t seem to dawn on them that they should feel lucky they have a job at all, either.
Continue reading “

With Papers Failing Everywhere, Union Members Mad For Keeping Jobs”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Conservatives - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - History - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

Government Stimulus Spending: Differing Perspectives

August 29, 2009 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking of the intractable Depression, sourly admitted that Keynesian fiscal policy, in theory, was the simplest thing in the world, but in practice, a disaster.

A thoughtful reader, who generally disagrees with me, posted the following as part of his comment responding to The Bigger the Government, the Harder the Economic Fall:

I must confess that I find your “mysticism” explanation of how business cycles occur somewhat baffling, but knowing your anti-Keynesian viewpoint, I should not be surprised that you view any governmental pump priming with suspicion.

According to the butterfly effect, any seemingly insignificant action will have a cascading effect and invariably lead to a chain of events elsewhere. How much more telling would the expenditure (whether you approve or not) of billions of dollars be to the economy than the flutter of the wing of a moth?

My response:

I can’t presume to speak for the reader’s views, but liberal-progressives on balance advocate the Keynesian macro-economic approach, a variety of chaos-theory, butterfly effect, which appears to me to be simplistic.
Continue reading “

Government Stimulus Spending: Differing Perspectives”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Jobs - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

$15 Million Stimulus Spent for 1,095 Canadian Tourists in Montana

August 28, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What is the cost of three Canadian visitors a day? Fifteen million dollars in Obamabucks, apparently. Worse, this waste of money wasn’t something the president of “transparency” seemed disposed to let us easily discover. Still, the Boston Globe reports that $15 mil is the amount of so-called stimulus money that Obama allowed to be spent by the state of Montana on a tiny border check-point facility that sees about three visitors a day — that’s $14,000,000 per tourist for the year.

Despite Obama’s promises that the stimulus plan would be transparent and free of politics, the government is handing out $720 million for border upgrades under a process that is both secretive and susceptible to political influence. This allowed low-priority projects such as the checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., to skip ahead of more pressing concerns, according to documents revealed to the Associated Press.

Obama claimed he’d be “different,” though. Remember that he was supposed to be the serious president that only did the right thing? Yet, he’s turned his back on any sort of effort to hold stimulus spending to account. Projects all across the country are being given to less needy government facilities instead of going where need is greatest because of the influence brought to bear on distribution of funds by powerful politicians.
Continue reading “

$15 Million Stimulus Spent for 1,095 Canadian Tourists in Montana”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Chicago - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Freedom - Illinois - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - Socialism - Society/Culture - State Government - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

King Daley Apologizes for his Meter Mess

August 28, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tuesday, Mayor “King” Daley apologized for the mess he and his buddies made of the sale of Chicago’s parking meters to a private company.

As the Chicago Sun-Times reports:

“I’ll be the first to admit that we totally screwed up the way it was implemented. I want us to do better — and we will,” Daley plans to tell the crowd at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. Shore Dr., according to a copy of his speech obtained by the Sun-Times.

No issue in recent memory — not even the Hired Truck scandal or Daley’s notorious midnight destruction of Meigs Field — has resonated more with voters than the 75-year, $1.15 billion parking meter lease tied to a steep schedule of rate hikes.

An apology is pretty meaningless when Daley is already walking around with the cash merrily jingling in his pocket and no real changes are being offered. After all, even as he was to “apologize” Daley planned to go on to say that the whole episode was still the best of ideas.

So, it’s really just more empty words from Mayor Daley.
Continue reading “

King Daley Apologizes for his Meter Mess”

Capitalism - Conservatives - Economy/Finances - Elections - Media Bias - Warner Todd Huston

A Night With WSJs John Fund

August 26, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tonight I am blogging from an evening with the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund sponsored by the Illinois Policy Institute a conservative, economic policy group out of Cook County, Illinois.

We are meeting in the sumptuous legal library at the Five Star Center at the top of 190 S. LaSalle Ave., Chicago with a commanding view of the city appearing in the large picture windows. The sun (what there was of it on this rainy day) is preparing to set and we are all milling about in welcome, convivial conversation. Having a conversation about matters conservative is not a common thing here in the Windy City, after all.

I have already purchased and had personalized by copy of Mr. Fund’s excellent book “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” and was gratified that this excellent writer chronicalling today’s spiral remembered me from our meeting earlier in the year. No, really. He did. Excellent memory that one.

Incidentally this is an important book for those of you out there that want to get some hard facts on how the Democrats perpetrate vote fraud. Knowing is half the battle of combating it.

In any case I expect to hear some excellent commentary on our political scene by Mr. Fund. I want to thank the Illinois Policy Institute for setting this up and inviting me to come cover it all.
Continue reading “

A Night With WSJs John Fund”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Tax for Clunkers

August 26, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Yep, you read that right. In many states car buyers that turned in their “clunkers” for up to $4,500 off the cost of a new car are finding out that they have to pay state sales tax on the $4,500 too. And still others just might find out next year that they’ll have to pay income tax on that “free” government money.

Many South Dakotans, for instance, have been shocked to find that the wonderful gift from Obama was still added in with the cost of the automobile for the sales tax calculation, so their tax went up accordingly despite that they didn’t pay the $4,500 themselves.

Some states calculate sales tax by subtracting from the total cost of a new purchase the trade-in allowance of a buyer’s old car. But in the case of cash for clunkers, there is no trade-in allowance and the $4,500 remains added to the car purchase.

Even worse, many states will charge income tax on the $4,500 because the sum will be determined to be the same thing as income to the car buyer.

There is also another interesting aspect to this cash for clunkers situation. One can be sure that many buyers did not take the time to negotiate with dealers and paid full sticker price further negating the supposed savings that they were supposed to realize from the cash for clunkers program. As Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger quipped, “Ain’t car dealers grand (several grand out of your pocket, that is!)”
Continue reading “

Tax for Clunkers”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Business - Capitalism - Conservatives - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Jobs - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Republicans - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Obamacare to Force Restaurants to Post Health Info

August 26, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Another great piece by CNSNews reveals that Obamacare will force restaurants to post nutrition information on menus throughout the country. This is more of the amazing overreach that Obama is attempting to force upon all Americans as he launches a full assault on the American character in order to push his nanny state ideals.

If Obamacare passes, Congress has taken upon itself the power to force millions of businesses to reprint their menus. Congress expects any restaurant with 20 outlets or more to observe a provision in section 325 of the House healthcare bill that demands nutritional information to be printed on menus.

Section 325 of the bill says the listings must be placed “(i)n a nutrient disclosure statement adjacent to the name of the standard menu item, so as to be clearly associated with the standard menu item, on the menu listing the item for sale, the number of calories contained in the standard menu item, as usually prepared and offered for sale.”

The nanny state strikes again.
Continue reading “

Obamacare to Force Restaurants to Post Health Info”

Ann "Babe" Huggett - Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Freedom - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture

Pot Calls Kettle Black: News at 11

August 26, 2009 by

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Hey, greetings fellow Obama critics, or should I say, fellow racists? Yes, that’s right; if you so much as dare to breathe even a scintilla of critical analysis about the national disaster train wreck that is President Obama and his socialist agenda for America, you are now a racist. Just ask the grindingly prejudiced Southern Poverty Law Center or Cuba’s why-isn’t-he-dead-yet Fidel Castro or Hollywood hackette Janeane Garofalo. They’ve demonized you nine ways to Sunday so own up to being a demon and get on with your life…preferably marginalized, ignored, unwashed, unloved and ridden out of town on a rusty rail.

It’s their America now, not yours, peasant, so shut-up when our oh-so-corrupt rulers legally loot the public treasury at their convenience. Corrupt? Did I say corrupt? I beg your pardon! It’s “morally challenged” in the brave new world of socialist double-speak.

Remember all the true moral outrage of real Americans at the Town Hall meetings especially aimed at the elected members of the Jackass Party? Authentic, spontaneous and honest Town Halls are slated for extinction because Democrats can’t stand the smell of real people. Right, Senator Harry Reid? Since Democrats are quick studies get set for stage-managed pro-Obama rallies, where political dissent will be a thing of the past because Obama’s Union thugs will make sure to beat it out of you.
Continue reading “

Pot Calls Kettle Black: News at 11″

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Publius Podcast

August 25, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why do they let him get away with it? That is the question I ask this week on the Publius podcast. Why do they let President Obama lie repeatedly during his snake-oil sales pitch for healthcare?

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston - Welfare

Michael Kent Curtis: Just Another Sold-Out Leftist Professor

August 25, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Michael Kent Curtis, the Donald Smith Professor of Constitutional and Public Law at Wake Forest University, has not only proven his ignorance of the facts, but he has also shown that truth does not matter a whit to him if it gets in the way of common liberal propaganda. He proved this in his blather in the Houston Chronicle on August 22.

Curtis, just another prosaic left-wing professor infesting an institute of higher learning, started his opinion piece off with an outright lie by claiming that “[O]rganized mobs recently have disrupted public meetings.” By this the lefty prof means the thousands of angry citizens that have shown their contempt for Democrat lawmakers at townhall meetings all across the country are not real. They are but dismissible false fronts for anti-Obamacare groups. This refrain is assumed by such as professor Curtis and his fellow leftists so that they can comfortably ignore the outrage against this socialist takeover of nearly 20% of our economy by Obama’s government bureaucrats. Consequently, this refrain of “organized protests” is the left’s talking point du jour.

But have you noticed that we haven’t seen any proof that the angry Americans that have taken the time out of their lives to confront their federal representatives at townhall meetings are not common citizens acting on their own initiative, but are merely “organized mobs”? Have you noticed that no proof of the purported “organized” nature of the protests has once been presented? Have you noticed that the left has not bothered to detail how these protests were organized, that they have not bothered to try and connect the dots? These leftists simply say it is true and then move on as if their case is self-evident.
Continue reading “

Michael Kent Curtis: Just Another Sold-Out Leftist Professor”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Communism - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Frank Salvato - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Uncategorized - Welfare

You Say You Want a Real Solution

August 25, 2009 by

-By Frank Salvato

As the debate over health care reform rages on – and despite the fact that the debate should be over how to provide true health care affordability to all, if in fact the goal of the “overhaul” is genuinely about the good of the downtrodden – we hear one retort from Progressives, Liberals and neo-Marxists, both in government and out: Where is your plan if you don’t like ours? Truth be told, there are several conservative and Republican crafted plans but Madam Pelosi and Mr. Reid won’t entertain them and the agenda-driven mainstream media won’t cover them. But one thing is evident, even to the intellectually challenged. If the goal is truly to provide health care affordability to every American citizen, there are ways to do it without the heavy hand of government.

Most honest Americans agree, our health care system – the system that provides medical service, i.e. doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc. – is the best in the world. It certainly does not need reform or government intervention. If you need proof it comes in the form of the richest and most powerful people in the world coming to the United States for treatment, especially when every other avenue of treatment has been exhausted. To fall prey to the notion that the “health care system is broken,” is to be gullible to a fault.

The cog that isn’t meshing correctly in the machine that includes patients, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies is the insurance company cog. Many in our country would like to see more affordable prices, inclusionary coverage for those of us with pre-existing conditions and security in knowing that if a catastrophic medical event happens to us we won’t be driven to the poor house by increased premiums of unfunded procedures. As our health care insurance system exists today, these desirable elements are not within reach of everyone. But by including a few simple provisions and/or pursuing a few sensible avenues, Americans can have affordable, functioning health care insurance for all without creating a government-run health care entity.
Continue reading “

You Say You Want a Real Solution”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Conservatives - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Liberals - President - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Stimulus a Farce in New Hampshire

August 24, 2009 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the first states to attempt to tally the “new jobs” that Obama’s stimulus created has issued its first report and the news is rather discreditable to say the least. New Hampshire’s Director of the Economic Stimulus, Bud Fitch, recently put out his report and he is asserting that the stimulus “saved” or created 796 jobs in all of the state. Naturally 700 of those jobs were government jobs.

New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed economist Brian Gottlob who warned that the supposed 700 jobs saved, nearly all were in education, were probably not jobs on the chopping block in the first place. So to say that these jobs were “saved” is a bit absurd.

Gottlob says that few of these jobs in education would have been cut because the budgets would have been found to keep them stimulus or no. It is infrequent that state jobs in education have been cut in the past, according to Gottlob, so to say that the stimulus “saved” these jobs is not very credible.
Continue reading “

Obama’s Stimulus a Farce in New Hampshire”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Jobs - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - Michael M. Bates - President - Society/Culture - Taxes - Welfare

If ObamaCare Wins, Obama Loses

August 24, 2009 by

-By Michael M. Bates

“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” noted philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with saying. And so it is.

A liberal Democratic president has his heart set on pushing through a proposal strongly unpopular with most Americans. Enjoying substantial Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, he intends to win.

So it was in September, 1977 when Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal treaties to relinquish United States control. An Associated Press opinion poll conducted that month found that only 29 percent of Americans favored the pact. A solid 50 percent opposed it and 21 percent expressed no opinion.

Just as Barack Obama is determined to shove a government health care program down the throats of his protesting countrymen, Carter did what was necessary to get the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties. He cajoled, he promised, he threatened. It worked.
Continue reading “

If ObamaCare Wins, Obama Loses”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - California - Capitalism - Communism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Free Trade - Freedom - Health - Liberals - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Welfare

Obamacare: Quintessential Socialism

August 23, 2009 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The overriding characteristic of President Obama’s National Socialist healthcare is forced equality of consumption, a major step in the direction of egalitarian distribution of income. Emphasis is upon the word forced.

As we see with the widespread town hall protests against the President’s proposed National Socialist healthcare proposals, people do not willingly surrender the fruits of many years’ labor to the government in the name of an undefined abstraction called the common good. Particularly is this true when it is liberal-progressive bureaucrats who decide arbitrarily what constitutes the common good.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed essay, Martin Feldstein, Harvard economics professor and former chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, sums up Obamacare: it’s all about the raw power to decide who gets what treatment, while cramming everyone into identical little boxes in order to eliminate any efforts in the direction of individuality. And the bureaucratic mechanism for eliminating individuality is rationing medical care.
Continue reading “

Obamacare: Quintessential Socialism”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Health - Journalism - Liberals - Media Bias - President - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston - Welfare

A Difference Without A Distinction

August 21, 2009 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has simply changed the way he proposes to ration healthcare.

Dr. Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, is Special Adviser for Health Policy to Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Sara Palin and others annoyed proponents of a National Socialist Healthcare scheme by noting the Dr. Emanuel has opined that rationing medical care is a necessity. In an effort to douse what has become a raging forest fire of disapproval, White House spinmeisters have concocted the following statement from Dr. Emanuel, quoted in the Washington Times:
Continue reading “

A Difference Without A Distinction”