Random Wisdom o' the Day: Always eat your German meat products before attempting to go through US customs.

Younger Voters Want Government to Support Traditional Values?

Well that seems to be what this Gallup survey says. Interestingly support among young voters reached its nadir in 2008 and since then has been skyrocketing since then. Hmm I wonder what could have happened in 2008?

Sometimes the worst thing in the world is to get exactly what you thought you wanted.

10 Things You DidnÂ’t Know About the Witness Protection Program

In the U.S., witness security has protected 7,500 witnesses and 9,500 of their family members since it began, and the testimonies of these witnesses has led to an 89% conviction rate of those they testified against. Here are 10 other things you didn't know about the program that helps take down organized crime, gang violence, and terrorism.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:54 PM | Comments (726)
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Sometimes I wonder if we could do worse by replacing elections with an American Idol-like contest to find the 535 stupidest people in America and send them to congress. This is one of those times.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tells MSNBC regulations create jobs because a business will have to hire people to help them comply with the new requirement.

"I think the answer is no," Ellison said when asked if he believes regulations kill jobs. "And here is why: When we talked about increasing fuel efficiency standards, the industry responded, and they need engineers and designers and manufacturers, and they need actually more people to help respond to the new requirement."

Got that? Government diktat causing people to be hired chasing unicorns is good for the economy. I wonder why they don't just decree full employment.

Problem. Solved.

I swear, the first week of every new Congress should be devoted to studying Bastiat's broken window fallacy. Then there should be a test.

Posted by: andy at 03:18 PM | Comments (216)
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The human microphone is creepy enough.

Add in the weird "let's come to a forced group consensus" dynamic and it's just scary. And it all happens with this Pod Person false niceness.

Have you ever in your life seen a group of people less equipped to make decisions for themselves, let alone for the nation? more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (485)
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Where does all this money come from?

In this case, it comes from Working Families Party, which itself was concocted out of the professional left in the unions and in... ACORN.

New York's Working Families Party was first organized in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions, ACORN and other community organizations, members of the now-inactive national New Party, and a variety of public interest groups such as Citizen Action of New York.[citation needed] The party blends a culture of political organizing with unionism, 1960s idealism, and tactical pragmatism.

But where did they get their money? They don't make things. They add nothing to the economy. So they should not have a lot of money to throw around for Astroturfing.

Unless they have big benefactors. Who?

I suspect that among those big benefactors are we ourselves, getting tapped, taxed, skimmed and scammed at every turn by a thousand government leeches, which then pump economic blood to these cretins to demand more taxation.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (237)
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Eric Holder: The GOP is being so mean about Operation Fast and Furious. Can't we just drop this thing and all get along. Look ... squirrel!

Darrell Issa: Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort.

Dear Attorney General Holder:

From the beginning of the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has offered a roving set of ever-changing explanations to justify its involvement in this reckless and deadly program. These defenses have been aimed at undermining the investigation. From the start, the Department insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred and asked Senator Grassley and me to defer our oversight responsibilities over its concerns about our purported interference with its ongoing criminal investigations. Additionally, the Department steadfastly insisted that gunwalking did not occur.

Once documentary and testimonial evidence strongly contradicted these claims, the Department attempted to limit the fallout from Fast and Furious to the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). When that effort also proved unsuccessful, the Department next argued that Fast and Furious resided only within ATF itself, before eventually also assigning blame to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona. All of these efforts were designed to circle the wagons around DOJ and its political appointees.

To that end, just last month, you claimed that Fast and Furious did not reach the upper levels of the Justice Department. Documents discovered through the course of the investigation, however, have proved each and every one of these claims advanced by the Department to be untrue. It appears your latest defense has reached a new low. Incredibly, in your letter from Friday you now claim that you were unaware of Fast and Furious because your staff failed to inform you of information contained in memos that were specifically addressed to you. At best, this indicates negligence and incompetence in your duties as Attorney General. At worst, it places your credibility into serious doubt. (emphasis added)

Read the whole, beautiful thing. It's a long-form version of "you lie!" more...

Posted by: andy at 10:00 AM | Comments (321)
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Last month, Gawker claimed the NYT had a big scoop-- that the president was suffering from something that looks very similar to full-blown clinical depression.

The Times being the Times, they never ran that story.

But the New York Post now runs an article with a very similar angle, noting the "rumor" keeps going around.

The reports are not good, disturbing even. I have heard basically the same story four times in the last 10 days, and the people doing the talking are in New York and Washington and are spread across the political spectrum.
The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist.

Everybody else, including members of his Cabinet, have little face time with him except for brief meetings that serve as photo ops. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both have complained, according to people who have talked to them, that they are shut out of important decisions.

President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government.

The presidentÂ’s workdays are said to end early, often at 4 p.m. He usually has dinner in the family residence with his wife and daughters, then retreats to a private office. One person said he takes a stack of briefing books. Others arenÂ’t sure what he does.

This article doesn't exactly float the "depression" rumor. Instead it discusses the president not talking to his aides, but narrates it in such a way as to suggest depression.

51% of the country says Obama does not deserve a second term, versus 41%, the most vindictive people in the world, who do wish to punish our over-his-head flop-sweat failure of a president with another four years of ego-grinding futility.

Oh, by the way: Hi!

Posted by: Ace at 09:18 AM | Comments (313)
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The guest bloggers left and took all the content with them.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:10 AM | Comments (50)
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After a string of dull and ineffective web ads, Team Perry finally unleashes the guy who did the T-Paw ads (at least I assume it's him).

I have two problems with Perry's approach.

First, I think most people who supported him when he jumped in didn't abandon Perry because they love Mitt. They did so because they have questions and/or problems with him. Mitt's support has been fairly steady throughout the course of the campaign. The problem with attacking Mitt is people already know his problems, there's a reason he was rejected last time in favor of John McCain. People either support Mitt because they like him or think he's the best chance to beat Obama. Either way, his negatives are known and factored in already.

Second, the real threat to Perry isn't so much Mitt but at the moment, Herman Cain, who is now even beating Obama in at least one poll, questionable though it may well be.

I get why Mitt thinks he can wait the Cain boomlet out but at some point, doesn't Perry need to start trying to actively peel away some voters from Cain? They are probably betting that at some point people will conclude Cain isn't a real option against Obama and those voters will migrate to Perry not Mitt.

Perry obviously doesn't want to run the risk of angering Cain voters by attacking him but if they may find out that by the time Cain runs his course, Perry is too far behind to capitalize. I guess there's really no good choice for Team Perry but every day he attacks Mitt and doesn't change either of their numbers, is another day Mitt and Cain just keep humming along.

I really hope Perry gets his act together and soon. There are debates scheduled for this week and next. With the primary schedule getting ever more condensed, it's getting late pretty early for Perry.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:44 AM | Comments (304)
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There are many lessons for America in the current agonies of the Greeks. Perhaps the most important is that there is such a thing as “national character”. The Greeks collectively are mercurial, spendthrift, comparatively unproductive, and have an unearned sense of entitlement. They feed on past glories while doing nothing to ensure future prosperity. The dodge taxes as though it were a national sport. They take alms as if they are earned wages, and then complain that the money isn’t enough. They lied their way into the Eurozone and now resent the consequences of that lie.

The “prosperity” they achieved with the Euro was nothing of the sort: it was simply a mad borrowing binge, and all that borrowed money must now be repaid...in one way or another. Debt, by itself, is morally neutral -- but debt incurred in service to weakness, vanity, and vice is most assuredly not moral. Immorality that goes unpunished or ignored leads to decadence; decadence leads to societal rot. Fiscal improvidence is a symptom. The disease is a deficit of national character.

I have pity for individual Greeks who, through no fault of their own, are held hostage by the wastrels among them. But so many of these stories you read show the defects of the Greek character: a sense of entitlement, of grievance, of inchoate anger at their creditors, a lack of appreciation for cause and effect. Read the comments from the Greeks -- they have no plan to recover the situation, no actual belief in change. Their only hope seems to be that the world will somehow keep giving them money even though they produce nothing that the world wants.

Consider this quote from single mother Dougia:

"If we can survive just this year, I will build a statue of myself. I will put it in the middle of the living room and bow to it every day, because I will be a hero," she said.

Does America have enough national character -- enough strength of will, and of purpose -- to avoid the fate of the Greeks?

Zut alors! We must sell ze dollars!

The entire globalized trade system is in jeopardy. That may be, but whenever I hear assertions that the motley collection of Eurozone nations “must” do something, I wonder to myself: what evidence have they given so far that they are willing to do anything (or, indeed, even able to)? It’s obvious even to the most ardent Euro boosters that the whole Euro idea was badly flawed to begin with -- many are wondering if the Euro is even worth saving. The Euro project makes no real sense in an economic context; it was always a backdoor plan to force the various European nations into a single political union. But it turns out that the various European nations not only like their sovereign status, but tend to hear “transfer union” when the Eurocrats insist on "political union". Germans in particular understand full well that fiscal union means transferring German dollars into Greek pockets essentially forever, and they don’t much care for the idea. It may be true that Europe needs a solution to bring closer economic integration; it is also true that the Euro project is not that solution.

Sarkozy and Merkel still at loggerheads as to how to bail out...er, “recapitalize”...European banks.

If Obama gets a second term, the US will be as boned as California now is -- if itÂ’s not already.

Demographic DOOM. Modern technology has made people selfish -- they think they can put off marriage and family indefinitely in the pursuit of personal fulfillment (whatever that means). The reasons for this change are complex: the emancipation of women, the cultural debasement of marriage, the growth of the welfare state, the gradual disempowerment of men. Yet our expectations for the future do not match our present behaviors: we continue to behave as though there will be an ever-growing population of young people to support us in our dotage, and yet we are doing little to ensure that result.

Steyn, en fuego. “T]he great advantage of mass moronization is that it leaves you too dumb to figure out who to be mad at.”

Concerns over Fannie and FreddieÂ’s debt grow.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, has tried to reassure investors saying they would have recourse to the Treasury in the case of any default.

But data from Credit Suisse shows a material change in the appetite, which dropped markedly from July. For example, Asia took only 3 per cent of $4bn of 5-year Fannie debt issued in August at a spread of 35.5 basis points over Treasuries, a relatively wide level, compared to earlier this year.

Dexia: The vanguard of European bank nationalisations? From The Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if Dexia is the new Creditanstalt.

The butcherÂ’s bill for ObamaÂ’s 2012 jobs act? $288 billion, give or take. I guess among ObamaÂ’s inner circle, numbers in the mere billions no longer cause much alarm.

How bad would another recession be? It depends on what you mean by “bad”.

Encourage the private sector to grow, and jobs will follow. The fact that the government doesnÂ’t do this tells you all you really need to know about ObamaÂ’s views on job-creation. HeÂ’s for creating jobs...so long as it doesnÂ’t reduce the power and reach of the federal government.

IÂ’m never quite sure if the anti-business rhetoric and policies of the Obama administration are part of a deliberate strategy, or simply a result of incompetence. I incline towards incompetence, simply because that meets the OccamÂ’s Razor requirement. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by simple stupidity.

The Soviet UnionÂ’s Bill of Rights was better than ours? Who knew?

We may look back and say that this was the tipping point when DOOM became inevitable: half of American households receive some kind of government benefit. The other half funds that outlay, remember; the “government” has no wealth of its own. I don’t have to tell you what happens when the takers outnumber the makers, or when the breakers outnumber the builders.

Remember what IÂ’ve been saying about the overoptimistic return assumptions of pension actuaries? Yeah.

The Great Depression...the good old days?

Who are “the rich” in Democrats’ eyes? Basically, anyone who has money but doesn’t use it to further Democrat ends. Democrats will define “rich” down until it hits the middle-class right in the wallet, and for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: that’s where the money is.

If only women would buy more shoes, the economy would spring back to life. Or something. I would respond: you cannot consume something until it has been produced. The producers always have the whip hand in an economy. Put five people on a desert island and give them each a million dollars, and the money will do them no good at all. Their lot only begins to improve when they produce things to spend their money on. We can argue that our current malaise is in part caused by overproduction, but this indicates that more deflation is necessary before prices achieve market equilibrium. People arenÂ’t buying stuff because stuff is either a) too expensive, or b) not necessary. In the West, it may be that our voracious appetite for consumer goods is finally nearly sated -- which means that the consumer-driven economy is in real trouble if China and India donÂ’t pick up the slack.

My opinion of professional economists is not high, and Robert Shiller agrees with me that we have been very badly served by the so-called "experts" in the Dismal Science. (Shiller's fondness for Keynes distresses me, but hey, he's an academic from Yale. I expected no less.)

In a critique of the Shiller paper presented to the conference, Bhidé writes: “The narrowing of economics in the last several decades seems indisputable; the claim that this has allowed for ‘great progress' raises a question, however: From whose point of view? Paul Samuelson once said – approvingly – ‘in the long-run, the economic scholar works for the only coin worth having--our own applause.’”

The Solyndra economy.

UPDATE 1: Netflix: "Yeah, 'Qwikster' was a dumb idea. Forget we ever mentioned it."
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:28 AM | Comments (185)
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Hey all, I'm baaack - all jet-lagged, exhausted, but still contractually present.
Will give more details once I finish my debriefing, get de-wormed, and catch up on a little shut-eye.

Where People Are Immigrating From And To

Curious where people are coming to and from around the world? Then check out the Migration Map.

Here's the result for immigration to the US.

Not a surprise about the number of Mexican immigrants but the next three sources - the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Germany - would not have been on my top 10 list.

You can see where Americans are emigrating to here. And check out the results for Britain, France, and Mexico. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:20 PM | Comments (546)
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