REPUBLICANS SHOULD COMPROMISE ON TAXES IF…..
Here's a fascinating fact that ought to be guiding budget negotiations: Since the end of World War II, federal tax revenues from all sources have averaged 19.6 percent of the gross domestic product, according to a study by the American Institute for Economic Research. Who gets taxed how, and by how much are important questions which have moral implications, and can have profound economic consequences. But however high tax rates rise, revenues rarely -- and barely -- exceed 19 percent of GDP. If no matter how tax laws are changed, tax revenues will fall somewhere between 19 percent and 20 percent of GDP, the only way to increase tax revenue significantly is to grow the economy. So changes in tax policy should be judged by how the change would affect economic growth, since only this will make a significant difference in revenue. Thus, the GOP in Congress whould compromise on taxes only if the Dems....
THE REGRET MATRIX
If you are a member of Congress and you wish to be re-elected, do you increase your chances of winning by voting for or against raising taxes on the "rich"? In decision theory, "regret" is defined as the difference between the actual payoff and the payoff that would have been obtained if a different course of action had been taken. In the upcoming votes on the "fiscal cliff," members of Congress will be making decisions about what is best for the economy and the nation - and what is best if their highest goal is re-election. You may think that these two decisions are at odds. But members of Congress need to know that the Regret Matrix shows they are not.
SCREWED BY OBAMANOMICS
Some Americans benefit from Obamanomics. Campaign "bundlers" for President Barack Obama have received, on average, $21,000 in federal loans and grants for every dollar they contributed, said Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute. (A"bundler" gathers donations from many different individuals and presents the candidate with a lump sum.) The president's supporters who aren't crony capitalists will discover shortly Obamanomics isn't so good for them. Lets's count up the ways they are screwed.
IS THE UN TAKING OVER THE INTERNET?
I've been getting lots of questions on the Dubai ITU conference, which begins next Monday (12/03-14). There are a lot of misleading stories floating around. Each group in this fight has journalists that they control, and these "noble servants of the fourth estate" are dutifully raising concerns from several different angles at the same time. Now, before I explain what's happening, let me warn you that it's an ugly mess, and that none of the players are clearly "the good guys." So here's a breakdown on the Players, the Fights, and What Will Happen.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/30/12
We begin with 61 traitors in the Senate. On Tuesday (11/27), they voted to bring a bill to the floor that exemplifies the pervasive trashing of the Constitution by our outlaw federal government. Every single Democrat (except one who was not there but would have if he had been) voted Yes - but trashing the Constitution is what Dems do for a living, it's what their constituents pay them to do, thus that's normal. So calling Dems traitors is just being redundant. It's the 9 Pub senators who deserve our focused opprobrium: Kelly Ayotte (NH), John Barrasso (WY), Scott Brown (MA), Susan Collins (ME), Orrin Hatch (UT), Richard Lugar (IA), John McCain (AZ), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Olympia Snowe (ME) all voted Yes. There were 36 No votes - all Pubs. Here's the roll call. The vote was for a motion to proceed towards ratification of a UN Treaty called the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or CRPD. It uses crippled children as the excuse to advance UN Fascism and destroy US sovereignty. The Dems want this. Do those 9 Pubs? Doubtful. More likely they acted out of sheer cowardice, which is par for their RINO course. Every one of the Brave 36 are being subjected to massive intimidation by the CorruptMedia. Utah's Mike Lee is one. Here's an article in yesterday's (11/29) Salt Lake Fascist Tribune, headlined Mike Lee Vs. The Disabled.
DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE A CLOTHES TREE
Have you ever tried to start an exercise program on your own? The world is full of home exercise equipment displayed as modern art forms like Duchamp's famous and ridiculous "sculpture," Fountain - which is just a urinal turned in a different orientation. Today we have masterpieces such as a treadmill transformed into "Clothes Tree," racks of dumbbells as "End Table," and rowing machine as "hurdle." The abundance of such a range of home art displays is not, sad to say, a phenomenon of mass creative genius. It is a function of the difficulty of focusing one's will consistently in multiple directions. It takes willpower to decide to establish a new habit, and without some kind of support for this new habit - in the form of a clearly defined commitment, some kind of accountability, and incorporation into a daily routine - the dynamic potential of a new, positive habit can become stuck in the regret of an unrealized vision. There are also certainly many home gyms that are used consistently and effectively. There are people who do establish new habits of regular exercise that they stick to on their own. What is the difference?
THE PALESTINIANS’ NAZI HERITAGE
With the nations of Europe and the rest of the world lining up to support the PLO bid to receive non-member state status at the UN General Assembly, it is worth noting two anniversaries of related but forgotten events. Of course, everyone in Israel knows the obvious anniversary today -- Nov. 29, 1947 was the day the UN General Assembly passed the plan to recommend the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan. The Arabs -- both local and regional - rejected it. On November 28, 1941 the religious and political leader of the Palestinian Arabs and one of the most influential leaders of the Arab world, the "Grand Mufti," Haji Amin al Husseini met with Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Husseini had courted the Nazis since just after the Nazis rose to power in 1933. He was forced to flee the British Mandate in 1937 when he expanded his fourth terror war against the Jews, that he began in 1936 to include the British as well. In 1920 Husseini personally invented what later became known as the Palestinian national movement. He shaped its identity around the sole cause of destroying the Jewish presence in the land of Israel. (Note: The story of how Husseini came to be Grand Mufti is told by Jack Wheeler in The English Godfather of Palestinian Terrorism, December 2003.) During World War II, Husseini used his radio broadcasts to shape the political and religious consciousness of the Moslem world by fusing Islamic Jew hatred with annihilationist Nazi anti-Semitism. Whereas much of the Nazi anti-Semitic ideology was discredited in postwar Europe, it has remained the single most resonant theme of Arab politics for 66 years.
THE MICTURATING MONKEY
For close to a half-century now, ever since his first book in 1965, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby, the best writer in America has been Tom Wolfe. He told the story of the Hippie Sixties in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) and contrasted it with the Heroes of the Sixties, the original Seven Astronauts, in The Right Stuff (1979). No one can skewer lefties with a literary rapier better than Wolfe - as he proved in his portrayal of "limousine liberals" (he coined the term) in Radical Chic (1970). His exposure of the lefty fraud of Modern Art and its nostalgie de la boue (nostalgia for the mud) in The Painted Word (1975), is breathtakingly hilarious. He has written four novels, the first in 1987, The Bonfire of the Vanities, which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, and Bruce Willis. The last is brand new, coming out less than a month ago, Back to Blood. The "blood" isn't about gore but ethnicity, specifically the ethnic divisions between Cubans, Whites, Blacks and others in today's Miami. But it's neither the plot nor the characters that we're focusing on here, but Wolfe's tale of The Micturating Monkey - for it is of enormous relevance to conservatives. It reveals the strategy by which the Left can be defeated.
IN PRAISE OF VULTURES
If you lend money at 5 percent interest for 10 years and then suddenly the borrower announces that he is only going to repay you at 30 cents on the dollar, would you think you have been cheated? The Argentine government defaulted on its debt a little more than a decade ago, and some of the creditors are still in court trying to get paid. Last Wednesday (11/21), Federal Judge Thomas Griesa of the New York District Court ruled against Argentina, which made world headlines. Argentine President Cristina Kirchner Fernandez publicly defied the court, saying her government will not pay "one dollar" to creditors she denounced as "vulture funds." Ms. Kirchner thinks she is heaping abuse on her creditors by calling them vultures. We should praise them instead -- for it is risk-takers such as them who force corrupt nations to pay their debts.
IS THE GOLDEN GOOSE COOKED?
Is economic growth over? For the last 100 years, the U.S. gross domestic product has grown 3 percent per year, on average. But tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to go into effect next year will send the economy back into recession, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. The CBO forecast doesn't assess the effects of new federal regulations, the deteriorating situation in Europe, or the rising prospect of war in the Middle East. So investment guru Peter Schiff -- one of the few who predicted it -- thinks the recession triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis was just the "overture." "The opera is coming," next year, or in 2014, he said. There's a 90 percent chance of collapse by April, predicts Max Keiser , who hosts a business and investment program on the BBC.