The execrable "give back to the community" guilt-trip.

I really hate the guilt-trip phrase “give-back” the way that it is used here and in the post that it links to.

See: https://twitter.com/#!/SeattlePD/status/189419396429643776

And: http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2012/04/09/spd-officers-give-back-to-the-community/

The term is loaded with the implication that something was wrongly taken and that the taker has “given back” to make amends for their aggression against those that they have victimized.

People need to call bullshit on this crap.

These police officers did not take something wrongly. They did not victimize "the community" by taking something from it by force or by fraud. Neither they nor any of us should allow ourselves to manipulated by the cult of victim-hood that promotes that damnable “give-back” crap. It demeans all of us when it is used.

Vote for Obama and get FREE STUFF!

About that Free Healthcare, . . .

See: BAD WEEK FOR FREEDOM

Only a deceitful government busybody do-gooder would actually argue that forcing insurance companies to cover millions more Americans and cover pre-existing conditions would result in lower costs for the average family. I wonder what will happen in 2014 when 30 million more Americans are guaranteed “free” healthcare under Obamacare. The saddest part of this oncoming train wreck is that millions of willfully ignorant people actually believed the blatant lies and false storyline fed to them by sociopathic politicians who desire to control every aspect of their lives. These people believe they know what is best for you. They believe they are smarter than you. They do not care what means are required to achieve their ends of absolute domination over your life. Personal freedom, individual liberty and a critical thinking populace are the antithesis to the desires of the governing elite.

And about all of that other Free Stuff that you are being promised . . .

See: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff

Mr. Obama says he is not waging class warfare against the wealthy in America. He is, of course. His campaign slogan might as well be: ” Vote for Me … I’ll Give You Free Stuff.” This is enticing. Imagine if you pay no federal income taxes and one of the candidates says, “I’ll take money from rich people and give it to you to pay your mortgage – even if you were irresponsible and bought a house you couldn’t afford. Vote for me, I’ll make sure you get unemployment benefits for almost two full years. And, oh yeah, vote for me and I’ll make sure you get birth control pills — free of charge.

The most important, underreported story in America is the one about who we Americans are becoming. As Bill O’Reilly put it: President Obama is “calculating that the American voter has changed into a person who wants free stuff from the government and is willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to get the free stuff. And you know what? The President might be right.”

Like Bernard Goldberg, I am not convinced that this election is a slam-dunk for the Republicans. I think that when a large enough portion of the voting population is dependent on the government for their material comforts and wants, our mandate to be "a free people" devolves into pleading to be "a people of free stuff."

We are becoming more and more like the serfs of our feudal past.

An Important Explanation Of The Thinking Behind 9-11

We are approaching the ten year anniversary of 9-11.

Ten years is a long time.

As memories fade, it is important for those of us that cannot forget that awful day to remind those that have of what happened - and even more importantly, "why" it happened.

The "Why" of it all has been the subject of much debate and argument over the last ten years. Lee Harris' Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology, written in the summer of 2002, offers an explanation that is worth thinking about.

See: Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology

"KNOW YOUR ENEMY” is a well-known maxim, but one that is difficult to observe in practice. Nor is the reason for this hard to fathom: If you are my enemy, it is unlikely that I will go very much out of my way to learn to see things from your point of view. And if this is true even in those cases where the conflict is between groups that share a common culture, how much more true will it be when there is a profound cultural and psychological chasm between the antagonists?

That is just the first paragraph.

Read the whole thing.

Trump Bails, Gingrich Fails.

See: Trump Not Running for President: 'Decision Does Not Come Easily Or Without Regret'

"I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election," Trump said in a statement on Monday. "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."

No regrets from me. I was having too much trouble taking Trump seriously as a candidate to begin with.

And in another corner this Sunday, we had the former Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, proving that he is now completely unfit to lead the Republican Party in any capacity.

See: Gingrich Blasts House GOP's Medicare Plan

White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare "right-wing social engineering," injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party's efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate.

I have a middle finger here for you Newt.

In the same interview Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama's health law.

And here is the other middle finger for you Newt.

Newt, you're fired!

If you would like to read a transcript of the interview, you can find it here : Meet the Press transcript for May 15, 2011 (The msnbc website is a real POS. It is a huge pain in the ass to navigate but if you would like to go to the original source, help yourself.)

[Additional] See: Gingrich Shifts to Damage Control

About The Republican Redistricting Advantage

See: Will Redistricting Be a Bloodbath for Democrats?

Republicans took control of at least 19 Democratic-controlled state legislatures Tuesday and gained more than 650 seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The last time Republicans saw such victories was in 1994, when they captured control of 20 state legislatures.

Republicans haven't controlled as many state legislatures since 1928.

Across the country, the map for state legislatures has turned noticeably red as Republicans now control 55 chambers, with Democrats at 38 and the remaining yet to be decided. At the beginning of this week, Democrats controlled 60 of the country's state legislative chambers and Republicans 36.

Tuesday also was a historic day for many state legislatures. In Minnesota, Republicans won the Senate for the first time ever, while in Alabama, they took control for the first time since reconstruction.

The answer to the headline writer's question is yes! (Sort of.)

There will be a bloodbath, but if the Republicans forget about the future, they will just piss away the brief and ephemeral advantage that redistricting will give them.

Republicans will have a unique opportunity to shape the political landscape for the next decade. Redistricting in the States where Republicans now dominate will help adjust the balance of political power at both the state and the federal levels.

Red States will become more red. Blue states will become more blue.

The end result will be a deeper divide between the Constrained in the Red States and the Unconstrained in the Blue States.

Think San Francisco versus Boise.

Republicans should not get too full of themselves over their truly monumental and historic win. Republicans need to keep in mind that the opposition is still convinced that their Unconstrained world-view is the one that should dominate our nation politically and they still have a sizable following.

The main challenge for Republicans over the coming decade will be to seize this historic opportunity to reshape the political landscape by arguing forcefully and confidently for liberty as the best solution to our nations problems. On the other side, the left will argue for Statism as the solution to our nations problems. They will do so boldly and self-righteously. They will not just wither up and blow away.

Redistricting will help Republicans on the margin, but it is not a long term solution to our nation's problems. Our nations's problems are in our culture. Only by reshaping our culture will we be able to help our nation step away from the Statist precipice that the left has brought us.

With every issue that comes up in our nations future, we must argue for increasing individual Liberty as the best solution. Whenever our counterparts on the left offer Statism as a solution to a problem, we must aggressively challenge them and their assertions that surrendering our liberties to the state will solve our problems. Make them defend their assertions. They aren't used to being challenged on their core principles, so this can be fun too.

This is a long term generational project. Do not expect or even hope for quick results. Changing a culture takes time, patience and persistence.

Look to the future, not to just tomorrow.

Borders Versus The Quest For World Peace

See: Memo outlines backdoor 'amnesty' plan

With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty."

The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to "reduce the threat of removal" for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.

On the surface, it is about the politics of illegal immigration.

But there is something happening here that is working below the surface. It is a "Big Picture" thing. It is something that is working on an emotional level in the Modern American Left.

It explains much of the way the modern American Left feels about the problem that we have with illegal immigration.

*Primarily, the Modern American left. along with their European counterparts, have a problem with National borders. They see Nationalism as the cause of much of the warfare and strife of the last one hundred years. They believe that a world without borders would necessarily be a more peaceful one. Without countries, they reason, there could be no war, there could only be peace and love.

John Lennon's Imagine is not just a silly pop song. It is their prayer, their hymnal, their anthem. It is a dream that the Modern American Left hopes is our future and the whole worlds future.

(Yoram Hazony's Israel Through European Eyes explains why Israel is hated by much of the European, and by extension, the American Left. The core of his argument is compelling and it has important implications for all of the Western Nations that fought in WWII.)

Oliver Stone - Shaping The Things To Come

Oliver Stone is an influential shaper of public thought.

His movies, which include Natural Born Killers, Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Nixon, and W will be viewed by hundreds of millions of people, not just in the US, but all over the world. The people who see his movies, see the world through his world-view.

What is his world-view? What does the man think?

See: Oliver Stone: US should nationalize oil resources

LONDON – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that the United States should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry, filmmaker Oliver Stone said Tuesday.

The Academy Award-winning director of "Born on the Fourth of July" and "JFK" said that America's country's natural wealth was too important to be left in private hands, telling journalists in central London that oil and other natural resources "belong to the people."

"This BP oil spill is typical" of what happens when private industry is allowed to draw revenue on what should be a public good, Stone said.

"We shouldn't make this kind of profit on oil or on health or on war or on prisons. All these industries should be public industries."

Stone, 63, is in the British capital to promote his documentary, "South of the Border," which tells the story of firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his left-wing Latin American allies.

This man makes movies. His movies shape people's understanding of reality. What kind of world will his viewers make for our future?

Politics Is Downstream Of Culture

Bill Whittle's Declaration Entertainment Project



Website Link

Yoram Hazony makes a similar argument. Hazony argues that books and schools are the big drivers in the culture. I think that both Whittle and Hazony are correct. Books and Movies are entertainment venues. Schools shape the people who will wright the books and make the movies that America and the world will read and see.

See: Israel Through European Eyes

What can be done? A good start would be to read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—or to read it again if you read it in college. If you’re used to academic books, it’s an easy read. And if not, it’s a bit of an effort, but worth it. No book will give you a clearer insight into what’s happening to Israel today in the international arena, on the campuses, and even, to some extent, in Israel’s universities.

After that, we have to begin talking about what it takes to establish a new paradigm, or to rebuild an old one that has collapsed. There’s much to be said about this, and it’s not for now. But I’ll leave you with just this thought as a start on it: Paradigm shifts aren’t like an election campaign or a struggle over some aspect of policy, much less a short-term media battle like the one over the Turkish flotilla, which can be resolved one way or another in matter of weeks or months, if not days. Paradigm shifts are unusual in the lives of individuals. And when they happen, they often take years to work themselves out. For this reason, clashes between political paradigms tend to play themselves out over a generation or more. By the same token, the relevant media in which these clashes are played out aren’t the newspapers or television or the internet. By the time we’re reading the newspapers or watching CNN, we’ve already got our paradigm in place—just like the reporters we’re watching, who just keep reporting from within their own set paradigm, over and over again. When it comes to shifts of political paradigm, these take place principally through books, which expose people to an idea at length and in depth; and in schools, where such books are studied and discussed, especially universities. If we are interested in the reconstruction of the paradigm that has served as the foundation for Israel’s existence, that’s where the work is going to have to be done.

See: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas S. Kuhn

HT CC

Of Riots And Renting Votes With Borrowed Money

See: The disintegration of the welfare state

Democracies produced Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, fulfilling the expectation of Socrates and Machiavelli that democracies end in tyranny. Now democracies are fulfilling the complementary expectation of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman that democracies end in bankruptcy. Put a democracy in charge of the Sahara, Mr. Friedman once said, and sand itself will become scarce. Democracies are indeed profligate trustees – or have been for the past 30 or 40 years. Mr. Friedman’s primary fret, though, was the tendency of democracy to centralize political and economic power in the same hands. Most critiques of democracy reflect this elemental distrust. “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb,” Benjamin Franklin reputedly said, “voting on what to have for lunch.”

Democratic self-deprecation isn’t quite as funny as it once was. Mobs have already taken to the venerable, iconic streets of European states, notably among them Greece, birthplace of Athenian democracy. It’s apparently easier to give wealth away than it is to take it back. Democracy assembled the welfare state peaceably enough. Can democracy dismantle it as peaceably? No, it can’t. The mobs are not finishe

d.

Further down in the article is this gem:

“The adoption of Keynesian analysis provided politicians with a rationale for borrowing money to buy votes.”

And here we in the US find ourselves, much as our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic do, broke and deep in debt.

The trouble stems from the fact that you can't really buy a person's vote. At best you can only rent it, one election at a time.

It doesn't take a degree in economics to understand that borrowing money to pay a rent is madness.

Not that madness seems to bother politicians much.

And where will it all end?

Democracies have made people more dependent on the state than any humanitarian necessity required. For Italy, and for other democracies, the worst is surely yet to come. Already, hundreds of thousands of middle-class people have thronged the streets of Paris and Rome, of Milan and Sarajevo, of Reykjavik and Bucharest (where demonstrators stormed the presidential palace, an insurgent act that evokes the spectre of revolution). The World Socialists’ website proclaims an age of rage ahead – and chillingly quotes British historian Simon Schama: “You can smell the sulphur in the air.”

Fun times ahead my comrades. Fun times indeed.

The Health Care Scheme And The Making Of Political Pawns

During the political debate that accompanied the Democrat's health-care scheme's passage, you may have encountered one or two or more people for whom the issue was personal, because they were both poor and had pre-existing conditions that made private health-care insurance something that was beyond their reasonable financial means.

These people were (and still are) in a terrible bind.

For them, the health-care debate was important because they saw themselves as being direct and immediate beneficiaries of the socialized medicine scheme.

I would hope that if I was in their desperate situation, that I would be able to stand on principle and still be able to oppose having my health-care subsidized by the forced appropriation of other peoples earnings. That would be a difficult position to be in. None of us should think it easy to stand on principle when doing so means the strong likelihood of suffering a miserable life and an untimely death.

It is important to keep in mind that they have an extremely difficult time considering the implications of socialized health-care dispassionately. They are directly and immediately involved. They are looking for something that will give them hope for a life that will not be one long grind of depressing poverty and poor health.

I know people like this. I am sure that you do too.

I worry for them.

They have put so much of their hope for a better life into the sweet promises of socialized medicine that they are the ones that will be the most hurt by the inevitable politicization of health-care that is the real heart and driving force of the socialized medicine scheme.

Now for the rest of their lives, they will be whipsawed and terrorized by the unscrupulous Democrats that have now made them desperately dependent on the generosity and and good will of the political class. They will be made the pawns of evil Democrat politicians that will parade them about as victims to be pitied and a reason for which the rest of us should surrender ever more of our earnings and our rights to an ever growing government.

It has already begun.

Take the following news article.

See: Health law risks turning away sick

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured.

Critics of the $5 billion high-risk pool program insist it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.

Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people. Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under the program, or redistributing funds between state pools. But they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility.

There it is. “. . . it will run out of money . . .“ - “. . . they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility . . .”

The chronically ill and those with per-existing conditions are now political pawns in a very dirty political game.

We have seen this kind of thing done before (in every election for the last 60+ years) by the Democrats with Medicare and Social Security.

The Democrats will now work to frighten the hell out of the people that they have made dependent on Obama-care by threatening them with misery and death if they vote for anyone but Democrats. This will now happen in every election from now till the end our nation's days.

The chronically ill and those with per-existing conditions think that Obama's socialized medicine scheme will save them. The reality is that they have been reduced to political pawns, to be forever paraded about by Democrats as pathetic and helpless miserable victims in order to help the political class rob the rest of us of our earnings and our rights. On top of that, they will be forever threatened by Democrats with ruin and death at every election should the Democrats ever lose at the ballot box.

Heaven help us all.

How is that "Hope and Change" working for you?

It seems it ain't working so well for Obama's "progressive" supporters.

See: Progressives Ask: Is It Obama, Or Is It Us?

Left-wing activists described the year leading up to Barack Obama's election as exhilarating, empowering and exciting.
Now, if you ask progressives gathered for the America's Future Now conference in Washington, D.C., about the first year and a half of his presidency, they say:

"Frustrating."

"Sobering."

"Brutal."

At least, those were the reactions of, respectively, union activist Nick Weiner, University of Minnesota political science professor Dara Strolovitch, and Steve Peha, who heads an education reform consultancy.

"I had hoped for something different," Peha explains. "I had hoped for the president who ran for office, and not so much the one who's in office."

Peha says he's a pragmatist -- he knows that campaigning and governing are different. But "what I wish is that President Obama had worked a little less for his ideal of bipartisanship and a little more for the people who elected him," he says.

This is the prevailing feeling at this week's America's Future Now conference. And no one is hiding it.

There are several things to remark upon here.

One, the Obama administration has easily been the most partisan administration that this country has suffered through since Johnson. His "take it or leave it" strategy for ramming through his health-care scheme is example enough of that. On that charge, the progressives are talking out their ass. They wouldn't know what "bipartisanship" was if it reached across the isle and slugged them.

Two, Obama is the most progressive President this country has had since Woodrow Wilson. Again, his health-care scheme is proof enough of that. We could also talk about his high tax policy and his regulatory policy per Cap and Trade. Then there is that whole financial crises fiasco created by the progressive geniuses Barney Frank and Chris Dodd that Obama managed to make much worse. He even seized control of GM for goodness sake. GM is now a government run enterprise strait out of the Mussolini play book. What do the progressives want! Any more progressive and and this administration would be considering controlling political speech by taxing internet news aggregators or bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" to radio.

Three, Obama cannot realistically satisfy his hard left supporters. These are the people on the fringe of reality, more inclined to look at working through the constraints of the law and the constitution as backsliding and evidence of a spiritual weakness. These people were going to turn on him no matter what. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the schadenfreude while watching his own snakes turn on him.

Heh. . . Here is some "Hope and Change" good and hard you "progressive" dip-shits.

An Economic Collapse in 2011?

Art Laffer discusses the predictable results of raising taxes.

See: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse

On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts.

Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.

Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

We are more broke then we know.

Economics is an exercise in dynamic behaviors. People change their spending, investing and working behaviors when the tax code is changed. They will make decisions with the purpose and intent of keeping as much of their money as possible.

Expect people to behave rationally, even if that means working less because they can keep less of what they earn.

Hat tip: LuciusSeptimius @ Correspondence Committee

Public Employees Unions & Bankrupt Governments

We may soon see a wave of city and county governments file for bankruptcy in the near future. Bankruptcy gives the local municipal governments the means to deal with a significant source of their problems with their budgets.

See: Bankruptcy talk spreads among Calif. muni officials

Despite its stigma, bankruptcy has paid an important dividend for Vallejo: It has forced public employee unions to the negotiating table, providing city leaders an opportunity to rein in compensation, which city officials said accounts for more than three-quarters of Vallejo's general fund spending. City Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes said the effort has led to concessions from three of four city unions.

Like Vallejo, Los Angeles is suffering from weak revenue at the same time the cost of its pensions and other retirement benefits are rising. Former Mayor Richard Riordan said those factors put the government of the second largest U.S. city on track to declare bankruptcy between now and 2014.

Riordan sees bankruptcy as a necessary tactic for squeezing concessions from the city's public employee unions. It could also pave the way for 401(k) retirement accounts for new city workers instead of defined pension benefit plans with escalating costs, he said.

"The threat of bankruptcy is really the only way you're going to get them to make major changes," Riordan recently told Reuters.

The public employee's unions are the most powerful lobbies in existence. They own most (particularly the blue) local governments, lock, stock and barrel. They are an organized block of votes and campaign contributions that dominate local elections. They get their people out to vote. They control huge heaping gobs of money that get donated to (almost exclusively Democrat) campaigns. They are the deciding factor in blue districts. They own them.

The end result? The municipalities that have been generous with the compensation packages that they have given to their public employees unions are now broke. There is little or nothing left in the private sector to loot. Their economies are in the toilet, the rich are fleeing the state, and the low end private work force that remains earns next to nothing and pays next to nothing in taxes.

In such circumstances, filing bankruptcy can look like a good idea.

Too bad it won't work.

Dealing the unions a setback only leaves them in place to again manipulate elections so that they can again vote themselves ever larger portions of the public purse. So long as Public Employee Unions are able to influence local politicians, they will own those politicians. Nothing will really ever change.

~

See Also: Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich

We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates.

See Also: Best and Worst States for Business 2010

How is it that the nation’s most populous state at 37 million, one that is the world’s eighth-largest economy and the country’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer, a state that had the fastest growth rate in the 1950s and 1960s during the tenures of Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Governors Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, should become the Venezuela of North America?

Californians pay among the highest income and sales taxes in the nation, the former exceeding 10 percent in the top brackets. Unemployment statewide is over 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. State politics seems consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it. Against national trend, union density is climbing from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002. Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states. In addition, unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government.

Are we having fun yet?

Hillery Clinton Talks About Brazil As A Taxation Model

See: Clinton: 'The rich are not paying their fair share'

"Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what — they're growing like crazy," Clinton said. "And the rich are getting richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty."

Both Clinton and Obama campaigned for president on promises to allow the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans expire this year, a plan that is now part of Obama's budget. The move will effectively raise taxes sharply on people earning more than $250,000.

Hillery is clearly suggesting that Brazil's high tax rate is the reason that its economy is growing.

Brazil may have a high tax rate, but it also largely avoided the banking disaster that has put many other western nations on the brink of bankruptcy.

See: Lessons from Brazil: Why Is It Bouncing Back While Other Markets Stumble?

But all of Brazil's banks can be thankful that, to a large extent, they haven't had to deal with the toxic assets that crippled banks in developed countries. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere, Brazilian banks were not as exposed to the property sector and credit derivatives, and financial soundness indicators were robust coming into the crisis, according to Fabio Barbosa, head of Banco Santander Brasil and the Brazilian Federation of Banking Associations (Febraban). He cites the high capitalization requirement as a key reason for the sector's resilience -- the minimum capital adequacy requirement in Brazil is 11%, compared with 8% under the Basel regulations that other banks around the world follow. In December 2008, the average ratio for the sector in Brazil was 20%, and for the country's five largest banks (accounting for 67% of total assets) the ratio was 18.5%. He adds that Brazil also didn't have a shadow financial system, like in the U.S., thanks to tight regulatory and supervisory oversight. All financial institutions (including investment banks) are under the watch of the Central Bank.

One of Brazil's biggest advantages is that it did not have a Barney Frank or a Chris Dodd plundering it's banking system to redistribute wealth.

Comparatively, with the rest of the western world seeing their future play out for them in the street riots of Greece, Brazil is doing pretty good. It could do even better.

High tax rates reduce the private sectors ability to raise money for new projects, new ideas, new services, and new businesses. If Brazil were to reduce its tax rake to a lower level, productivity in their private sector would likely increase, which ironically enough, would also increase the amount of tax revenue that the government would be able to take in. Increasing the opportunity for the private sector to make money also increases the potential amount of taxable revenue that can be collected.

Conversely, if Brazil were to increase its tax rake even more than it is at present, it could expect to see an eventual decline in private sector productivity. Lower profits would reduce the amount of taxable revenue that the government could then skim out the publics pockets.

There is a point at which the tax rates can be raised high enough that the result would be reduced tax revenue to the Government. Right now, Brazil is in a boom period. They are making money. The high tax rate is not the reason that they are making money. It is just a factor that businesses in Brazil have to deal with, a hindrance that they have to overcome, a red-line that they have to pay for in their books.

In time, as their economy matures, that high tax rate of theirs will become more of a problem. Their politicians will either have the wit and the will to lower their tax rates which will increase profits and tax collections, or they will squeeze the public even harder with even higher taxes, which will reduce profits and reduce tax collections.

But to think that Brazil has somehow managed to tax itself into prosperity . . . is nuts.

"We Erect Courthouses For A Reason"

See: Wash. court: Jail trial unfair to murder defendant

James Frank Jaime was convicted of killing a man during a drug deal in 2005. The judge agreed with prosecutors who for security reasons wanted to hold his trial in a courtroom at the jail, rather than in the courthouse across the street.

In an opinion by Justice Debra Stephens, the high court ruled 6-3 Thursday that the setting was prejudicial, akin to letting jurors see the defendant in shackles, and that the judge did not analyze whether the security concerns were justified.

"We erect courthouses for a reason," Stephens wrote. "They are a stage for public discourse, a neutral forum for the resolution of civil and criminal matters. ... The use of a space other than a courthouse for a criminal trial, particularly when that space is a jailhouse, takes a step away from those dignities."

And a few paragraphs later:

That prompted a separate writing from Alexander, who noted that in many counties, the jails have been located on the top floor of the courthouse. Anyone entering the building gets the sense of being in a courthouse, not a jail, he said. That's not the case in the Yakima jail.

"There is a significant difference between a jail in a courthouse and a courtroom in a jailhouse," Alexander wrote.

[Emphasis is mine.]

I realize that many people would look at the defendent in the above mentioned instance and say "Just hang the bastard!" He may well deserve to hang. Had the trial and conviction taken place accross the street, we would likely never have heard of him or even give much of a damn about him and his trial. Setting his trial in the jail house was a mistake.

Jail implies guilt.

Inteligent people, some would argue, can look past the setting of the trial in and prevent themselves from allowing the location of the trial to bias their view of the defendant. This is a bad argument on several counts, two of them notable.

Firstly, intelligence does not prevent someone from being influenced by the settings and surroundings that they find themselves in. We are all human beings, influenced emotionally as well as intellectually by the events and circumstances that we find ourselves in. We are not Vulcans, emotionally detached or dead. Settings will affect how we "feel" about something, no matter how much we "think" about it.

Secondly, juries are comprised of our "peers." That is not "peers" as in people of the same intellectual caliber or social strata, but "peers" as in people picked almost completely at random from the community that they court serves. The odds of them all being "intelligent" enough to be able to ignore the setting that the trial is staged in is . . . well, its ridiculous. Only the delusional or those that have never actually met or dealt with the public could think that a Jury would always or even often be comprised of only "intelligent" jurors.

The stage and the setting that a trial takes place in needs to command the respect of the defendants, the juries and the public at large. It must also be neutral. The defendant deserves to have a fair trial. The public needs the trials to be fair so that it can be certain that the convictions and the acquittals that result are sound and proper, even if they may not be the emotionally desired outcome.

In this case, holding the trial for this defendant in the jail was a mistake.

Federal Courthouses Should Command Respect.

Our Federal government has spent itself into a huge gaping hole.

There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as scape-goats are sought to be slaughtered as offerings on the alter of public opinion.

We can see an example of this happening now with a new report that has come out that complains about the costs of building Federal Courthouses.

See: Building oversize federal courts wastes millions

Federal courthouses built larger than necessary have cost taxpayers $835 million in wasted construction funds since 2000 while the extra space requires $51 million annually to maintain, the Government Accountability Office told a congressional committee on Tuesday.

The GAO found that the 33 courthouses or courthouse annexes completed in the past decade contain 3.56 million square feet of unnecessary space, said Mark L. Goldstein, the GAO's director of physical infrastructure issues.

Larger than necessary? That is the value judgment of someone that does not understand the role of the courthouse in making the law worthy of respect.

Should a Federal Courthouse be a grand and impressive structure? Or should it be a cheap and unremarkable building?

This is not a trivial mater.

Some may argue that over-sized and overbuilt courthouses are a waste of money. They make a serious if not a fatal mistake when the think this.

The over-sized courthouse, with its high ceilings, stone walls and polished marble floors set the stage for the ritual, the ceremony, the drama and the consequence of the law. People's lives and property are at stake in these buildings. In such halls, people's fortunes are saved or destroyed. Even their very lives can be at stake, balanced on the fulcrum of evidence and the rod of the law, with their freedom or death to be decided by judge and jury.

There is a certain stage-craft to the law. It must command respect. Its edifices and facilities should and really must convey to those that are made to stand before it in judgment and appeal, the full majesty of the law as well as the might and authority of the state.

There is ritual and ceremony in the adjudication of the law. There is also the stage that the ceremony and the ritual is set. The ceremony, the ritual and the stage make the legal process stand apart and separate from the everyday events of working, shopping or playing that we all engage in our daily lives. The seriousness of the ritual, the ceremony and the stage that the law is dispensed in can help make it respectable, or help make it a farce.

Think about what a different perception we would have of the law if it was dispensed from triple-wide mobile-home type structures. Can you picture it? Imagine the nine justices of the Supreme Court trying to be taken seriously in a low ceilinged room with plastic coated fake wood paneling.

The law must be respected. Having it dispensed from buildings that scream “cheap” and “disposable” does not make the government that it represents worthy of respect.

Our government is not going broke because it is building grand courthouses. It is going broke because it has turned away from being a protector of rights to a dispenser of welfare benefits. The welfare state is bleeding us dry, not over-sized courthouses.

This may seem like a small thing to some people, but it is not a small thing.

Again, think about how much respect you would have for a court system that was run from disposable buildings. How can you take the legal system of a government seriously that thought its laws should be adjudicated in courthouses that were no more impressive or respectable than trailers in a mobile-home park?

Raise Taxes Or Cut Spending – Two World-views

Democrats in California have put together a plan to tax California out of their spending problems. They can't afford what they have promised, so they will take more from the productive to finance their shortfall.

See: California Democrats unveil tax-increase package

The plan by state Senate Democrats would raise $4.9 billion by raising California's vehicle registration fee, suspending corporate tax breaks scheduled to begin next year and boosting the state's tax on alcoholic beverages.

Democrats control both chambers of the state's legislature and have said they would seek new revenue to help plug the shortfall.

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has ruled out tax increases and is relying largely on deep spending cuts in his plan for balancing the state's books. He has called for $12.4 billion of cuts and would scrap the state's welfare system, a plan Democrats have rejected.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's approach would be to cut spending as the best means to solve the state's spending problem. Arnold may not be the best representative of Republican philosophy, but in this example, he does so well.

For Democrats, raising taxes to solve an over-spending problem is the right thing to do because of the good intentions that drive their want to spend. They really do believe that raising taxes on the productive is a good way to support the poor and the disadvantaged that they want to help.

For Republicans, raising taxes to solve a spending problem is a little bit to much like shooting up with heroin in order to solve a drug problem. Its nuts. It only makes things worse. Reducing the incentive for the productive to produce will not only reduce how many people that the productive can employee, but it will also reduce the amount of profit that they will have that can be taxed. Everybody loses.

The road to hell is paved with . . .

Bitter Resentments And The Death Of The Euro.

All the happy talk in the world from bloviating socialist economist can not stem the tide that is turning against the Euro.

In Germany, the Euro is becoming the butt of bad jokes that are funny only because of the truth that they tell.

See: Berliners dream of return to deutschmark

Cabaret artists have been making jokes about wheelbarrows of notes, or telling the one about the German and the Greek who go out to eat, the German choosing the cheapest item on the menu, the Greek gorging on a range of dishes, before the waiter brings the German the bill at the end. The audience doubles over. But the reality is stomach-churning.

"We are building up an almighty bubble of debt which is going to burst in one great bang," says Hans-Werner Sinn, chief of Ifo, one of the country's leading economic thinktanks.

That means a bitter round of budget cuts, deeper than any seen since 1945. Every area of German life is expected to take a hit, from education to welfare benefits, swimming pools to autobahns. Far-fetched as talk of the return of the mark seems, the more it is talked about, the more it is likely to become popular, despite Merkel's insistence that if the euro fails, so will Europe.

Without Germany, the Euro is nothing. The Germans know it. All of Europe knows it. The resentment in Germany is real. Resentment like this will kill the Euro.

Greece - Economic Liberalization And Removing The State From The Market Place

See: The Bitter Pills in the Plan to Rescue Greece

Another reform high on the list is removing the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors like health care, transportation and energy and allowing private investment. Economists say that the liberalization of trucking routes — where a trucking license can cost up to $90,000 — and the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.

Note how in this paragraph, "liberalization" refers to "removing the state from the marketplace."

Greece is in such bad shape, they are considering taking two steps back in order to take one step forward.

Not to worry though. One of the proposals is to have Greece increase its Value Added Tax (VAT) up to 25%. That is a high enough rake off of the private sector to insure that no real economic recovery will come of anything inadvertently positive that could be imposed.

There is no easy solution for Greece or for any other nation that is suffering from the all to predictable results of running out of other peoples money to spend. You can't spend what you don't have. Resorting to debt will only make the problem bigger. Resorting to raising taxes will only cripple that part of the economy that creates wealth. Freeing the economy from government regulation and taxation could work but it can not rescue welfare-state socialism from its all to predictable and inevitibly destructive results.

Bottem line, Socialism Sucks.

Rushing The Sale. A Look At An Environmentalist Propaganda Technique.

With the Cap and Trade bill comming up again, there will be many examples of crude environmentalist propoganda to highlight.

Here is one that claims that Anthropogenic Global Warming will cause the sea-levels to rise and destroy a coastal city.

See:How global warming might transform Vancouver’s shoreline

Rather typical of one of the most dishonest forms of Anthropogenic Global Warming propaganda, the article starts out by suggesting a picture of a well known place transformed (as if in an instant) into a devastated landscape of watery ruin. Many of these propaganda scare stories use this technique to induce an emotional response in the reader.

Granville Island, Kitsilano and Jericho beaches, the Stanley Park seawall, the Downtown Eastside, and the port all help to define Vancouver in the eyes of the world. But try to imagine what this city would look like if all of these local landmarks were underwater.

Ridiculous, you say? Perhaps. But it’s not so far-fetched if all of Greenland’s glaciers were to disappear, causing sea levels to rise—and if Vancouver didn’t take steps to ameliorate the effects.

Of course it is ridicules. It is an extreme picture painted in the most frightening and immediate terms possible in order to rush people into accepting a ready made prescription.

The AGW activist have a solution readymade. You are to transform your life, from everything that you are allowed to do and even everything that you are allowed to think. You are to surrender your body and soul to their benevolent guidance.

If you resist or ask troubling questions, you will be called a “denier,” akin to the insane people that deny the holocaust. With this type of rhetorical slight of hand, they will try to make troublesome AGW doubters into social and political pariahs.

Asking questions will not be allowed in the beautiful future they offer.

"Serve the state" you will be told. "Be happy. Surrender all of your cares and worries to those that can better manage you and the world around you."

And in whispers they will ask - (You aren't a “denier” are you?)

~~~

Climate change is real. The planet's climate is not static. It never has been. It never will be.

AGW is politics. It is a scheme to frighten enough people with something as natural as the rising and the setting of the sun to force the whole world's population to surrender to statist totalitarianism.

It's a Brave New World that the AGW activist are going to bring about. Their paradise of universal totalitarian chattel slavery will do nothing to freeze the climate. The climate can't be made static. Only the mad and the evil would try to shape people's lives on the AGW premise that the climate can or even should be made static. Unfortunately, there are mad and evil people in the world.