Hedge Fund Kings, Paid Big To Forecast The Future, Shifting Donations From Democrats To GOP
— Ace

The thing about hedge fund guys is they hedge.

They're hedging to the right.

The article cites frustration over Obama's anti-Wall-Street/anti-business agenda as the reason for shifting allegiance, but I'm going to go with my first-reaction hunch and guess this is about the likelihood of the Democrats retaining power.

The business of business is business, not politics, and I tend to think these guys, who tend to throw big money at both parties but especially whichever party is in power, are less political/ideological and more mercenary -- and I don't even mean mercenary in a bad way.

I mean they're throwing money at whoever they need to in order to be left alone; they're basically bribing the government powers to not hassle them. (I give Trump a qualified pass on his relentless donations to liberal Democrats for this reason.)

The fact that they're less inclined to bribe Obama says something, I think.

Now Who's Being Naive, Kay? I shouldn't have said they only bribe the government to be left alone, which makes them sound like they're virtuous and want to stand only on their own two feet.

A lot of it is that.

But, as the government has more and more money and, as they say as regards Marxism, "Whatever is not illegal is compulsory," they increasingly seek corporatist/socialist-corporate special favors and licenses from the government too.

The more and more government seeks to impose rents on every common and useful activity, the more rent-seekers will be pounding on its doors. The more government seeks to tax common and useful activity, the more special-pleaders will show up making the case for special (not general) tax breaks.

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (106)
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Not So Much Doom? USAToday Headline: "GOP's Gamble on Budget Pays Off, For Now"
— Ace

Sort of good poll results -- the first good poll result is that the public is split on the painful but realistic and honest Ryan plan and the supposedly pain-free, patently absurd and dishonest Obama plan. That right there is actually pretty cheering news, because nonsense and hokum like Obama's plan to have a plan/death by a thousand commissions crap has generally sold pretty well in the past.

And they still trust the GOP more on the budget.

So: so far, so good:

Americans are evenly divided between the deficit plan proposed by President Obama and the one drafted by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, and those surveyed put more trust in Republicans than Democrats to handle the federal budget and the economyÂ…

The poll highlights perils for the GOP as they move from general points to specific ones. That is not media spin; that is reality. The public has punished anyone who's attempted to do more than talk about reforming our unreformable entitlement scheme.

This is the third rail of American politics, as they say. When Bush attempted to add an ownership-option to Social Security, some analysts were surprised that he'd touched the third rail but hadn't been electrocuted. A Democrat responded: "That's just because we haven't turned the juice on yet." When the juice was turned on, and the ads and media soundbite onslaught began, the public turned sour on the program, and the Republicans retreated, fearful of punishment at the polls.

The Democrats have been doing some attacking on this point, but it's still 18 months out from the election. If I know their minds, and I think I do, they are giving the GOP a general pass on this at the moment, for two reasons:

1, because the hit will have much more impact closer to the election. Especially given that the argument in favor of the Ryan plan is a lengthy, rational one, and will take time and a calm circumstance to explain. If the Democrats just start an all-out attack on the plan with three months to go, there won't be a lot of time for roundtable presentations and townhalls, and furthermore, the public may be riled up and emotional and not given to dispassionate consideration of the facts, and by facts, I mean the mathematics of inevitability.

2, because they want to create a "safe" environment for as many Republicans as possible to strongly endorse the Ryan plan, so that as many as possible will be damaged when the political war begins.

That said, it's still certainly not a bad thing that even given the general "radical" contours of the Ryan plan, the public is still merely split on it.

Since we will not be able to argue rationally about this three months before the election, the GOP's top intellectual guns have to make the rational case now, early and often, so at least there's a cushion of reason when the emotional thrashing begins, and who knows, maybe some people will actually be convinced and hence immunized against the deluge of attack ads.

The GOP is being pretty quiet about the Ryan plan, not wishing to rile the public up about it. That is the wrong strategy. Because the Democrats are going to make sure the public is good and riled at election time.

That is not speculation; that is fact. As much as it is fact that the sun will rise tomorrow, it is also a fact that the Democrats will make a major, noisy, emotional issue of this.

Republicans who are being quiet on this, hoping this storm will just pass without incident, are living in fool's delusion.

The only way to even get to a draw on this issue, and not be devastated by it, is to talk as much as possible during a period when the public is at least inclined to listen.

Anyone who thinks that they get through 2012 without the Ryan plan being a big issue probably should lose (as they probably will), because that's just dumb wishcasting.

Either start talking it up now, if you're in favor, or start doing the Obama Dance of "Wanting a National Discussion" while explicitly refusing to embrace the plan-- one side of the road or the other; anyone in the middle will get roadkilled.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (79)
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Paul Krugman Assails Reactionary Partisan Posturing As Economist, Shredding His Political Claims With Well-Evidenced and Well-Reasoned Economic Analysis
— Ace

Finally, Former Enron financial advisor (and paid shill) Paul Krugman has found an economist beneath him whom he can unmask as the politically-obsessed charlatan he is.

Unfortunately, that economist is Paul Krugman, Model 2011.

Ugly, short and Krugman is no way to go through life, son.

Thanks to Monty.

Bonus insults: Insults added at the suggestion of commenters. "Ace of Spades HQ Stylebook" noted that Krugman should never, ever be referenced without the "money call" title of "Former Enron Financial Advisor and Paid Shill."

The Mega Independent suggested the Dean Vernon Wormer joke.

Posted by: Ace at 08:58 AM | Comments (148)
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Brit Hume: If You Don't Want To Raise The Debt Ceiling, It's Cool By Me
— Ace

Not exactly endorsing that, but knocking down the claims of dire fortune should we fail to raise it promptly, and pushing for leveraging the vote for cuts in spending.

In case that idea wasn't already mainstream in the party (I don't know why it wouldn't be, but then, I don't know why we didn't cut $100 billion either), Hume's status as elder statesman should further that along. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:32 AM | Comments (90)
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DOOM? You're soaking in it!
— Monty

Bernanke: All in, baby! What's the worst that could happen?

In a chilling warning, Hussman writes:

“In order to achieve a non-inflationary increase in yields even to 0.25%, the Fed will have to reverse the entire amount of asset purchases it has engaged in under QE2. Indeed, the last time we observed Treasury bill yields at 0.25%, the monetary base was well under $2 trillion.”

Top ten American sports franchises that filed for bankruptcy. People sometimes forget that a professional sports team is a business, and is not exempt from the economic laws that every other enterprise is bound by.

Tax hikes are the Democrats' preferred mechanism for balancing the budget, but in spite of their "tax the rich" mantra, they know full well that any tax-based solution is going to have to raise taxes on the middle class -- because that's where the money is. And the tax-hike won't be a little one, either. The writer of the piece, like every other liberal, shrieks in rage at the mere notion of cutting entitlement spending, the main driver of our debt; but he does get this part right:

The RepublicansÂ’ alternative plan gets close to the $4,000bn target established by the independent Bowles-Simpson commission, but it does so by amputating health plans that are popular even among staunch conservatives. A recent McClatchy-Marist poll found that even 70 per cent of Tea Party supporters were opposed to cutting Medicaid and Medicare.

Older Americans love their benefits, no matter how unsustainable or ruinous to the nation's finances, and will fight to keep them regardless of party affiliation.

Robert Samuelson is only the latest in a long series of observers to note that His Most Royal Highness and Radiant Majesty Barack Hussein Obama has no plan...for anything, really. President Obama's theory of governance seems mainly to center around showing up to work in the morning and just letting the day wash over him.

The poor boned residents of California may finally be waking up to the perils that face them. It's too bad it didn't happen before the recent elections, when it might have made a difference. As it is, the realization of the mess they're in only serves to highlight their boned-ness.

I have my differences with Megan McArdle-Suderman of The Atlantic, but she's very on-point here:

The real issue starts, not when China starts selling our bonds, but when China stops buying our bonds. As soon as that happens, we're in big trouble.

And Instapundit says something I've often thought myself: "Plus, as a commenter suggests, what if the Chinese economy collapses and theyÂ’re no longer able to buy Treasuries? ThatÂ’s hardly inconceivable." (I'd say it's more likely than not, myself, Tom Friedman's admiration notwithstanding.)

The problem is not with China, though. China is what it is, and has what success it's having, because of the West. China turned itself into a huge factory for the rest of the world -- it generates very little value-add of its own. It has a notoriously opaque internal market and highly-suspect financial numbers from its banks. The largest employer in the country is the PLA (their Army). It does not encourage entrepreneurs or risk-takers or visionaries -- in fact, the regime tends to beat such people down and chase them away. And it is still, lest people forget, a Communist-led authoritarian police-state. The problem is with us -- we are giving China a lot of our money to make cheap crap for us to buy, then we borrow our own money back to finance still more purchases of cheap crap. It's not China's fault that we're in the mess we're in; it's ours.

They say that the first step in handling a crisis is admitting that there is a crisis.

The housing downturn didn't spare the wealthy and famous. Check out Las Vegas, ground-zero for the real-estate bust:

Almost 70 percent of Las Vegas-area homeowners with mortgages were underwater at the end of 2010, meaning they owed more than the value of the property, according to CoreLogic Inc. (CLGX), a Santa Ana, California-based real estate information company. Among cities with a population of more than 200,000, Las Vegas has led the nation in the pace of foreclosure actions since November 2009, with one of every 31 homes receiving a filing in the first quarter of this year, RealtyTrac Inc., an information provider in Irvine, California, reported April 14.

[UPDATE 1]: Wall Street, which went big for Obama in 2008, is hurt that their former BFF is now bad-mouthing them to his friends. It's almost like they kissed his ass for nothing.

[UPDATE 2]: Commenter Kratos links a question that I've asked liberals many times myself: If deficits don't matter and the government can just print money any time they want, why levy taxes at all? The silence coming out of the liberal cognoscenti on that question is deafening.

[UPDATE 3]: (Via Dave In Texas) Texas City refineries without power; it may be days before the refinery comes back on-line. Get ready for another fuel-price bump. These refineries constitute about 5% of the national refining capacity. The regional price-effects will probably be more severe yet.
more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:12 AM | Comments (275)
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Top Headline Comments 4-26-11
— andy

Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes. Gabe tweeted this picture from his ground blind yesterday. Unless there's a rail yard or an overpass somewhere off-camera back to the left, that's not much of a stand for hobos, but I hope he's having some luck.

If you're needing a break from watching HRH King Barry the Red's boning of America today and want to see how they do it in other countries, check out this longish piece from Steyn. Like its healthcare plan, Canadian "free speech" turns out to not be so free after all:

Last week, Commissar Murray Geiger-Adams of the British Columbia "Human Rights" Tribunal pronounced stand-up comic Guy Earle guilty of the novel "human rights" crime of putting down lesbian hecklers in a homophobic manner. Reacting to the news of his conviction and the accompanying fine of $15,000 ...

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Posted by: andy at 03:00 AM | Comments (179)
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Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

Meet Mr. XM-25 (Again)

In case you haven't been keeping up with all teh smart military blogging around here the XM-25 ("Punisher") is the military's newest grenade launcher and according to early reports from Afghanistan it could be a game changer in fights with the Taliban. Ace covered this earlier but for those who missed it, the XM-25 is a 25mm grenade launcher with a laser distance finder that can set the fuse in the grenade to explode directly over the target out to over 500 meters. Bad times for Mr. Taliban hiding behind a wall.

But enough with all the words - watch the video to see how it works.

more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:49 PM | Comments (699)
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Ron Paul Announces That Internet Will Once Again Be Very Robotic And Annoying For Next Two Years
— Ace

Ron Paul!!11!1!!!

Posted by: Ace at 03:24 PM | Comments (555)
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Levi Johnston To Affix Name To Book To Be Written By Author To Be Unnamed Later
— Ace

Yeah, Levi Johnston's got a book deal. It will be called, no seriously, Deer In The Headlights: My Life In Sarah Palin's Crosshairs.

Let me note, for all of you Palin fans, that there is one huge benefit were Palin to withdraw from public life: The moment she becomes a purely private citizen, Levi Johnston is forced to begin working for a living, and by "working for a living," I mean playing the part of Naive Redneck Twink-Boy in gay porno movies at $300 a pop (and I do choose my words carefully).

And no, I don't want to see that. I just want to know it's going on.

I know men can't get pregnant, but I want Levi Johnston to have as good a shot at it as physically endurable.

Thanks to Jane D'Oh.

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Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (184)
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Stephanopolous Laments Obama's Falling Poll Numbers, Blaming Them On Country's "Gas Gripes"
— Ace

Gripes? I don't remember a dismissive word like that, freighted with the notion of irrationality and churlishness, being tossed in the public's direction when they held Bush responsible for rising gas prices.

But this is just the overall Narrative at work: The only reasons someone may have to disapprove of Barack Hussein Obama are all unreasonable, unfair, irrational, unsophisticated, or hateful, and very likely each of these.

Related to that, the AP seems to struggle to find any problem with rising gas prices apart from that unfair complication they cause for Obama.

Another bit of bias: Anyone writing stories for the media is by definition working, and probably at least decently paid. So these people continue to treat the misery of the economic quagmire as just some abstract hurdle Obama has to leap over.

Schadenboner Part I: New York Times, Newsweek most probably doomed.

Schadenboner Part II: Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan most likely doomed.

The other day I referred to Andrew Sullivan refusing to stand up to his corporate masters at The Atlantic. I have to correct -- I forgot, by which I mean I never knew, Sullivan moved from The Atlantic to the Daily Beast last month, which I guess means he's now freer to indulge his Trig Trutherism.

Another Correction (?): Drew thinks Kaus is wrong and I'm wrong to follow him in his error -- he thinks that SiteMeter graph shows hits to Sullivan's old address/site at the Atlantic, and the steep drop-off is just due to people figuring out they don't have to go there to get redirected, but can just go straight to the Daily Beast.

There's no SiteMeter (that I can see, anyway) at the Daily Beast.

Seems to be a likely explanation.

Gas Pump Activism: Some are talking up taking activism to the gas pumps, putting up notices that these gas prices are all part of Obama's plan. Instapundit cautions against permanent or hard-to-remove notices -- that's vandalism, of a sort -- and suggests instead post-it notes.

A good way to do it is just with a bumper sticker -- when people see it, they're in their cars, so it's in their minds. Plus they'll see even more of it if they're behind you at the pumps.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (170)
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