THE GREAT GLOBAL TAX HAVEN LIE
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Cayman is prosperous, in part, because of a great global lie, which causes many big rich nations to pursue bad economic policies. The global lie is that the developed countries have too little government, rather than too much. The simple and obvious empirical fact that most developing and developed countries with smaller government sectors have grown faster in recent decades than those countries with big government sectors is ignored both by the politicians and many in the media. The political classes in these big government countries, rather than taking responsibility for their own misguided policies, look for scapegoats. Their favorite scapegoats are high-growth countries with low tax rates on savings and investment. They blame offshore financial centers like Cayman, Hong Kong, Bermuda, and even mid-sized countries like Switzerland for engaging in "unfair tax competition." The truth behind the great global "tax haven" lie is that offshore financial centers owe their prosperity to tax transparency, not tax evasion.
NO, MR. PRESIDENT, ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF VIOLENCE, NOT PEACE!
"Allahu Akbar!" (God is greater), shouted the terrorists who attacked the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. "We have avenged the Prophet Mohammed." The terrorists weren't Moslems, because Islam is a religion of peace, said President Barack Obama. The United States needs to "redouble" efforts to explain "what the tenets of Islam actually are," said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. "Islam teaches peace," the president said at the UN last September. "Islam" means peace, he and like-minded liberals often have said. No it doesn't, said Anjem Choudary, imam of a mosque in London. "Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone," Mr. Choudary writes in USA Today (1/07). "Therefore, Moslems do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires."
YOUR ADVENTUROUS YEAR
How about making 2015 be that for you? The older you get, the more apparent it is that life - your life - is really short. There is a scene in the movie On Golden Pond where the character played by Henry Fonda is celebrating his 80th birthday with his family. His wife (Katherine Hepburn) asks him, "How does it feel to be 80?" He answers, "Well, I'm surprised it got here so fast." The only way I know of to not get to old age fast is to not slow down - to speed up instead. My way is to fill my life with more adventure than ever. As old age approaches, lots of people make a "bucket list," things they dream of doing before it's finita la musica. Yet the sooner you start your own bucket list, no matter what age, the better - for the more time you'll have to live your dreams. Don't be under the illusion, however, that you have plenty of time. The years pass ever more quickly. This last one has come and gone - 2014 is over forever. Don't let 2015 be the same before living one of your dreams. Carpe diem. Here we go. Ever see this? It's one of the most iconic pictures of World War II - a section of the famed Burma Road called 24-Zig.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/09/15
Since I discussed yesterday the Moslem Massacre in Paris in Time to End the Insanity, we'll start with what happened on Capitol Hill this week. The rage directed at John Boehner, while fully justified, nonetheless, calls for a step back into perspective. Let's have a 19th century American poet from Vermont provide it, John Godrey Saxe (1816-1887). You see, the real problem in the House GOP is far scarier than Boehner... In California, the building of the Santa-Barbara News-Press was vandalized late Wednesday night (1/07) after the editors refused demands they stop referring to illegal aliens as "illegal." "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" was spray-painted in red on the building. For now, the pro-illegal thugs are armed with spray cans, not AK-47s. But many will now ask, in the wake of Charlie Hebdo and the growing threat of Mexican Nazis - for how much longer?... Yet you may be amazed that the HFR Hero of the Week without doubt is a Moslem... And there's juicy stuff, good news, and the HFR Health & Fitness feature as well...
TIME TO END THE INSANITY
The BBC headline this morning (1/08): Winter Storm Brings Misery to Middle East Refugees. Seems like the perfect counterpoint to the Moslem terrorist slaughter in Paris yesterday. But first this:
DEMOCRAT DEATH WATCH
What's most significant about the new 114th Congress is Democrats no longer can block votes on popular reform bills the House passes, says columnist Charles Krauthammer. "The days of hiding under Harry Reid's desk are over." Journalists would rather talk about dissension among Republicans. Even before the new Senate was sworn in, there were stories about how hard it may be for the GOP to keep control in 2016. You wouldn't know from reading them that it's the Democrats who are at death's door. They've become a party defined by desperation. To maintain their slipping grip on power, Democrats make ever more baldly racist appeals. They smear police, side with protesters who disrupt the lives of ordinary Americans, make excuses for rioting and looting. Given that, I might as well tell you what I really think: Democrats today remind me of insects.
ON DEATH AND CANCER
If we could prevent or cure all cancer, what would we die of? The new year has begun with a war of words over whether cancer is mostly bad luck, as suggested by a new study from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and over whether it's a good way to die, compared with the alternatives, as suggested by Dr Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Cancer is now the leading cause of death in Britain even though it is ever more survivable, with roughly half of people who contract it living long enough to die of something else. But what else? Often another cancer. Cancer's growing dominance of the mortality tables is not because it's getting worse but because we are avoiding other causes of death and living longer. It is worth remembering that some scientists and anti-pesticide enviros in the 1960s were convinced that by now lifespans would be much shorter because of cancer caused by pesticides and other chemicals in the environment. In the 1950s Wilhelm Hueper - a director of the US National Cancer Institute and mentor to Rachel Carson, the environmentalist author of Silent Spring - was so concerned that pesticides were causing cancer that he thought the theory that lung cancer was caused by smoking was a plot by the chemical industry to divert attention from its own culpability: "Cigarette smoking is not a major factor in the causation of lung cancer," he insisted. In fact it turns out that pollution causes very little cancer and cigarettes cause a lot. But aside from smoking, most cancers are indeed bad luck.
THE PREDICTABLE RESPONSE TO MOSLEM SLAUGHTER IN PARIS
This morning (01/07), 12 people, including two policemen, have been murdered in Paris at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by two hooded men wielding AK47s and shouting "Allahu akbar! We are avenging the honor of Prophet Mohammed!" In 2011 the magazine was firebombed after running a caricature of Islam's founder. Charlie Hebdo's most recent tweet, before the latest attack, was a cartoon featuring the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Here's what will happen next. 1. French authorities will urge the public not to jump to any unhelpful conclusions about the motivation of the killers. 2. Politicians, police chiefs and mainstream media reports will urge restraint over what is clearly an inexplicable rogue incident which may have nothing whatsoever to do with the Religion of Peace. 3. Extensive - and largely fruitless - efforts will be made to find Moslem community leaders prepared to speak out against the incident. 4. Liberal commentators will take pains to draw a distinction between Islamism and Islam, noting that the former is a malign perversion of the latter which, as any informed person knows, explicitly forbids the murder of innocents. 5...
THE GOP CONGRESS’ JOB ONE: TARGET BUREAUCRATS
What is the greatest obstacle confronting the new congressional Republican majority in enacting good policy? It may not be President Obama, because there is an even more formidable force in Washington that crushes good policy: the Permanent Bureaucracy. The permanent bureaucracy is made up of federal employees, government contractors and their employees, congressional staff and the special-interest lobbying community (including law and accounting firms). It also includes the media establishment, which depends on leaks and information from those in government for stories in exchange for protective coverage. Hardworking taxpayers never cease being ripped off by wasteful and fraudulent government spending and regulation. Unlike what happens in the private sector, people in government rarely go to jail or are even fired for financial misconduct. The government requires financial and senior officers of companies to sign off on the accuracy of their financial statements in order to protect stockholders. Company officers are subject to civil and criminal penalties, including jail time for misstatements, and their names are released to the press. There is no reason for taxpayers to be any less protected than stockholders from financial negligence or fraud. Here's how to do it.
JEB BUSH 2016? YEAH, RIGHT
Jeb Bush is the "clear frontrunner" for the Republican nomination for president, prominent pundits say. Evidently these pundits don't know many Republicans. Not that Jeb is an implausible candidate. He was arguably the best governor in America during his 8 years in Florida (Jan, 1999--Jan, 2007), left office with high approval ratings. Florida, with 29 electoral votes, is the 4th largest state, by far the largest swing state. Barack Hussein Obama won it narrowly in 2008 and 2012. A Republican must carry Florida to be elected president. But Jeb Bush has been out of office for 8 years, an eternity in politics. He's old news now, and Republicans have never been as fond of the dynasty thing as are Democrats. Jeb led New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 23 percent to 13 percent, in a CNN/ORC poll Dec. 18-21. Pundits treated this as if it were a very big deal. It isn't. Here's why.