You’re invited to a birthday bash at the Ministry of Love.
Politics above everything…even reality. Especially economic reality…
Tagged: Economics Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
County treasurer sues Fannie and Freddie for back taxes.
Color me unsurprised…
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Jehuda
WSJ: Layoffs deepen gloom: “Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery.”
It’s like the Stimulus didn’t work…or did it work just like Obama intended?
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Jehuda
Poverty in the USA: Actually not that bad?
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Jehuda
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee blames the budget impasse on…RAAAAACISM!!
Of course! Can’t come to an agreement because agreement is a…person of color? How would that work? Not sure.
But if Dems have to play the race card to get some traction in the budget debate, then House Republicans must be on the right track…
UPDATE: Liberal group warns Obama on cuts. The base is restless…
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Jehuda
Sounds like MoveOn feels cheated by Obama on the Social Security cuts issue.
(Via TOM)
Yesterday, it was Frank Rich who was bellyaching about something or other regarding Obama. How long before #DudeWhere’sMyUtopia becomes a trending topic on Twitter?
Related: Debt deal in sight? Plus, how cutting Social Security would work.
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Jehuda
Film School has been a bad deal for a long time, actually, but it may be easier to come to that same realization in these tough economic times.
As I’ve said before: go to the library instead, it’s cheaper.
Take it from me. I graduated from one of the university film schools mentioned in the article almost 20 years ago. I’m still paying the student loans, have been working in the industry for over 15 years; and realized about a decade ago that the degree itself contributed little or nothing to my career. No one in the biz really cares about what your diploma says, anyway. It’s all about what you can do.
UPDATE: Link was bad. Just fixed. Sorry about that!
MORE: Related: John Stossel on the College Scam.
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Jehuda
Team Obama starts sweating : “The president’s reelection team, once hoping to run on a ‘Morning in America’ theme now doesn’t have that luxury. No wonder, the president’s advisers over the past month have been making moves that suggest they’re awfully concerned about his prospects”.
Read the whole thing.™
Related: Oil prices skyrocket. Looks like releasing all those barrels from the Strategic Reserve didn’t quite do the trick…
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NYT: The Lawyer Surplus, State by State.
Not quite a dime a dozen, but I suppose things could eventually get to that point if the schools keep churning out these many J.D.’s…
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Jehuda
WSJ: “The White House said Wednesday that taxpayers could lose roughly $14 billion of the money spent on auto industry bailouts“.
Funny. Just last week – or the week before that – I was at the gym incidentally watching MSNBC ‘s Ed Schulz proclaiming that all the Congressional Republicans who dared to describe the auto bailouts as a waste of taxpayers’ money were dirty liars…or something like that. You know, your typical Ed Schulz fare. I wonder if he’ll apologize to them when he’s allowed back on the air?
Of course, the White House didn’t just say the above. They added that “while ‘there is no joy’ in acknowledging that loss, the bailout succeeded in saving jobs and preventing a broader industry collapse”. That’s some pricey success, isn’t it?
So what they’re saying is that the $14 billion loss was worth it and maybe even necessary? That’s a little hard to accept as even making some sense. Ford Motor Co. is part of the same industry, employs the same unionized workers, accepted no bailout funds…and yet is thriving. But then again, I don’t expect anyone at the White House to be able to tell a good investment from a bad one…
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Jehuda
The rumors are picking up steam, with Laura Ingraham adding fuel to the fire.
I hope it’s all true. And I say that not just as a proud native Texan, but as someone who believes Perry has a good chance against Obama.
UPDATE: Related content at HotAir: Growing jobs is big in Texas.
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Jehuda
Talk about gutsy calls! How did POTUS go from ‘Yes, We Can’ to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ in less than 3 years?
Easy: he wants to get re-elected.
Evidently, American wallets weren’t impressed by the Osama hit. Why would they?
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Jehuda
Wisconsin entitlement culture, that is.
Clearly, not all Wisconsin culture. Right, Ms. Kloppenburg?
You may recall that Greece and Wisconsin share a mutual affinity, so much so that the Mediterranean nation almost annexed Wisconsin merely a few weeks ago…
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Jehuda
The Corner: Nobody gets re-elected with numbers like this.
As I’ve said before, wallets are not likely to feel the Bin Laden hype. Especially now that the ‘Recovery’ the White House started celebrating last year is looking not limp, but sunk (a double-dip recovery?). The administration is fooling itself if it thinks it can successfully ride into 2012 on the coattails of Bin Laden’s bloodstained tunic.
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TOM: Wall Street tumbles. Double Dip Recession Is Now Undeniable.
But it’s not all bad news: “Because the one thing that could fix the economy is for Obama to be defeated in 2012″.
But at what price?
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National Journal: “Events are unlikely to work out the way anybody expects right now.”
Wallets in particular are probably not impressed. I think the Left forgets that at their own risk.
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Michelle Malkin has a round-up.
Obama certainly deserves credit. He’s the Commander-In-Chief; and he didn’t drop the ball, like Carter did in a similar instance. I think it’s a little ridiculous to get mad at the mention of Bush’s role in the end result of an operation that began years ago. But really, who cares? Any Leftie who thinks killing Bin Laden in the Spring of 2011 is an automatic 4-year renewal of Obama’s right to sit in the Oval Office is either a little naive or a little desperate. Or just plain dumb.
By the end of the month, after most Americans have completed their obligatory 3 or 4 visits to their local supermarkets and gas stations, the euphoria over Osama’s death will have faded. If inflation continues apace, by this time next year – about 6 months before the next presidential election – more people will be hurting even worse than they are now.
Let’s just put it this way: hundreds of Americans were cheering last night, but their wallets weren’t. Public Enemy #1 is inflation. And it’s still out there.
UPDATE: This Targeted Killing Brought To You By Waterboarding: AP: ” “Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.”
Good round-up on this topic at Insty‘s.
On behalf of W, Dick Cheney and John Yoo: You’re welcome.
MORE: Barney Frank seems to believe you can only politicize Osama’s death in one direction. OK. I think Iowahawk agrees with the Senator.
And here’s some more Leftie re-electioneering spotted by R.S. McCain, who links (thanks!), plus reaction from an a Leftie bystander outraged at so much celebration just because a “person is dead”.
I was a little taken aback at seeing so many young people merrymaking over Osama’s death, but not because I thought it wasn’t good that he was killed. I just didn’t think so many 20-somethings, who were in their teens or even younger on 9/11/01, felt that strongly about his capture.
But I was certainly happy about Osama getting rubbed out. Not sure it was worth partying about, but I’m in my 40′s. What do I know?
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Jehuda
Even jobs held by animals!
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Jehuda
Barney Frank is calling for tort reform: “Liberal firebrand Barney Frank (D-Mass.) broke with party orthodoxy on Tuesday by calling for restrictions on lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that experts think contribute to the nation’s growing healthcare costs.”
“The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that caps on malpractice damages could shave up to .5 percent off national healthcare spending every year.”
Said Frank: “That’s something that I would throw in if we had an otherwise overall compromise [on the national debt], because I recognize everybody’s got to give something to get this.”
So that’s the sort of spending cuts Barney Frank can get behind. He wants to balance the budget on the backs of injured plaintiffs. Doesn’t this amount to a tax on malpractice victims?
Does anyone know if Senator Frank uses botox?
(Via New York Personal Injury Law Blog)
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Jehuda
Is it wishful thinking or a Jedi mind trick?
To be precise, Matthews being with MSNBC, it’s an effort to deflect responsibility from president Obama. Code for: “True, the administration doesn’t support drilling, but it wouldn’t make any difference anyway”.
Either way, it’s not working: Obama’s re-election chances remain indirectly proportional to the price of oil.
And that’s just as well, since he doesn’t care anyway…
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Jehuda
And in this case, plain unrealistic: MSN Money: Why you should love $5 gas.
The author either is a utopian dreamer; an Obama 2012 staffer; or just a freelancer who had to write something, but wasn’t really up to it (or maybe all three). One of her reasons to love $5 gas is “End of Wars”. Another is that with expensive gas “we’ll starve those oil-rich despots out of existence”.
Who writes this stuff?
One quasi-sensible thought the author did include in her list is :”if gas prices rise enough, the government will open up areas now closed to oil production, and oil companies will be able to invest in more-expensive methods of extracting oil.”
That’s awfully optimistic. Don’t count on it. Not with Obama in the White House.
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Jehuda
WSJ: Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad.
Closer to home, McDonald’s has a big hiring push in the works.
Winning The Future!
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AmericanPower: 69 more firms that have left California.
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Jehuda
I suppose the TelePrompter was off: “I remember what it was like pumping gas.”
Remembering is one thing. Giving a damn is another. And when you hear him say stuff like “You may want to think about a trade-in”, it sounds like he doesn’t give a damn. In fact, it evinces a lack of empathy that no Republican would ever be able to get away with. Heck, the elder Bush was raked through the coals for not knowing what a supermarket scanner was or knowing the price of milk.
It’s not a double standard. It’s the party line…
UPDATE: The AP seems to agree that the above sounds as if Obama doesn’t give a damn. They rewrote the story and scrubbed the offending quote from the article!
So lame. Maybe we should call it the SP, instead: Supine Press. Unbelievable.
UPDATE: The slippery slope of decline: Remember when Obama just wanted us to inflate our tires properly? Now he want us to get new cars. What will he suggest next? High speed rail, I suppose…
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Jehuda
But comparing Arianna to the Borg?
Sounds rather unfair to the Borg. The Borg run a true collective, as opposed to Arianna who talks a good collectivist game, but is very much a capitalist…
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Jehuda
China’s Ghost Cities: “Vast new cities of apartments and shops are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completely uninhabited ghost towns. It’s all part of the government’s efforts to keep the economy booming.” (via Geekosystem)
Related story here.
It sounds like China has a government-fueled real estate bubble of its own, just like we once did in the US. What will happen to the world economy when the Chinese real estate bubble bursts?
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Jehuda
But not quite extinct yet: Judge puts California’s job-killing greenhouse gas law on hold.
Let’s see how it does on appeal…
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Jehuda
Mere tea leaves, but hard to ignore:
NYT: Obama disavows involvement in protests.
Joe Klein – yes, the Joe Klein – is sounding a little bit like Andrew Breitbart about the whole thing…
UPDATE: Blunder!
So Markos was whistling past the graveyard. It was the Left’s turn, but they made the wrong move…
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Jehuda
James Sherk: FDR warned us about public sector unions:
The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”
Word.
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Jehuda
“In an interview set to air this weekend, George Soros accuses President Obama of ‘losing control’ and letting Republicans set the agenda on the economy.”
Correction, Mr. Soros: Obama didn’t let them set the agenda. The Tea Party movement made them set it. But you’re probably too European to understand how that can even be possible.
Indeed, the Left is going to need a bigger Sorosphere. But remember: there are no permanent victories in politics. This agenda that you have seen sweeping into Washington so decisively can just as easily be swept away.
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Jehuda
Did you know that European carbon credit markets have been closed since January 19 due to a huge fraud scheme which ripped off carbon traders by the millions of Euros?
I guess it’s only fair, given that carbon traders seem increasingly engaged in a fraudulent scheme of their own…
UPDATE: Related: the long list of states affected by this week’s winter storm. Chilling out from New Mexico to Maine!
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Jehuda
Gizmodo: How Ma Bell shelved the future for 60 years: “Why would company management bury such an important and commercially valuable discovery? What were they afraid of?”
Just another reason why monopolies are bad. Competition encourages innovation…
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Jehuda
Rap battle that is:
These animated news videos are probably familiar to you by now. They’re from Next Media, the same company that created that famous Tiger Woods animation. They are a Taiwanese company which was profiled by Wired magazine fairly recently.
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Jehuda
Not exactly a vote of confidence: Chinese bond agency cuts U.S. debt rating.
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Slate: Law Schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs.
Which explains why I still work in TV production…
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Jehuda
NYT’s Kate Zernike has never heard of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom?
It should come as no surprise that Zernike lives in a bubble in which Hayek and his work are never discussed. The real sin here is that she didn’t bother to do the research before writing the piece. But even if she had, would she be able to discern good research from bad?
Then again, with Zernike, it’s a mistake to have high expectations. Journalism is just too hard for her…
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Jehuda
Blogprof: Old GM CEO: We repayed the bailout in full with interest! New GM CEO: Repaying bailout could take years.
There’s a JournoList joke in there somewhere. Something about lying consistently across time and space, but it eludes me…
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Jehuda
Nevada gubernatorial candidate proposes $25 license to speed to fix budget crisis.
But it would expire 24 hours later. Are there that many people in a hurry in Nevada?
Via Consumerist.
