WHY DEMOCRAT BANKING REGULATIONS HURT LOW-INCOME AMERICANS MOST
Imagine what life would be like if you did not have a bank account and a credit or debit card. It would be much harder to pay your bills, take trips on airlines (which normally require a credit or debit card), and receive payments, just to start. The shocking thing is that more than one-quarter of all American households are unbanked or underbanked and that this number is rising, not falling, largely because of ill-thought-out financial regulation and policies. The term "unbanked" refers to people who have neither checking nor savings accounts. "Underbanked" refers to people who have either a checking or savings account but rely on alternative services such as non-bank money orders and check cashing, payday loans, pawn shops, refund anticipation loans, etc., at least once a year. These alternative sources usually are much more costly than banking services. Banking services to lower-income people have become increasingly expensive directly because of unthinking government regulators.
DEMOCRATS SMELL LIKE AN OPEN SEWER
Ugly and pathetic. That's what you get when you combine envy with desperation, and wrap them in hypocrisy. Democrats envy and fear the Tea Party, a grassroots movement that arose spontaneously after CNBC Editor Rick Santelli's epic rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Feb. 19, 2009. The Occupy Wall Street movement "has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries," enthused ABC anchor Diane Sawyer. That's remarkable, since there are only 195 countries on Planet Earth (196 if you count Kosovo). Ms. Sawyer's accuracy is rivaled by those journalists who compare OWS protests to the Tea Party. Tea Partiers cleaned up after themselves. Garbage is strewn wherever OWS protesters march. The OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park, reports the New York Post, smells "like an open sewer -- with people urinating and defecating in public." ABC News reported Monday (10/10) that "Democrats Seek to Own ‘Occupy Wall Street' Movement." How appropriate. The party of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Hussein Obama does indeed smell like an open sewer.
THE MOST ENDANGERED SPECIES IN AMERICA
I wouldn't think it would be worthwhile to draw attention to the Occupy Wall Street "movement," or its list of demands that wouldn't pass muster in an average kindergarten class. But President Obama sees these demonstrations against corporate America as reasonable protest toward "the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this situation to begin with." This should provide perspective to what our most fundamental problem is today. We have an endangered species in America whose loss threatens our future. That species is...
THE GREED OF THE LEFT
I've never resented the successful for enjoying the fruits of their labors. Democrats do. The top one percent of earners pay nearly 40 percent of the federal income tax. The top one tenth of one percent pays about 20 percent. But "the rich" still don't pay their "fair share," Democrats say. They're "greedy" if they don't want to pay more. "At a certain point, you've made enough money," President Barack Hussein Obama says. The truly greedy, it seems to me, are those who think they've a right to live well at the expense of others.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/07/11
So we're down to three this week. Christie out to no one's dismay - except for his die-hard fans known as "girthers" - and so is Palin to the serious dismay of many. It's too late for late entries - say goodnight Donald and Rudy - while the other candidates are there just for stubbornness or ego. Rick, Mitt, or Herman, those are the only choices now. The next debate is this coming Tuesday, 10/11. It could be make or break for Perry. The Forum's resident Perryista, Ella - she's a Texas gal - assures us that, while he wasn't prepared for the first three debates due to his laser focus on raising $17 million in 49 days, he's primed and pumped for this one. Let's hope so. I for one am rootin' for Rick to come out with guns blazing. It's show time. Will it be show time for Cain? Will one of his competitors ask him about the fatal flaw in his 9-9-9 tax reform plan?
THE KEY PROBLEM OF OUR ECONOMY: POLITICAL MISALLOCATION OF CAPITAL
If a Republican wins in 2012, and if the economy doesn't markedly improve by 2016, a Democrat (quite possibly Hillary) will almost certainly win in 2016. What would it take for the economy to markedly improve by 2016? To understand that, one needs to understand elementary classical (Austrian) economics. The fundamental problem is that governments, both in the US and around the world, have politically misallocated tens of trillions of dollars of capital to economically lower valued uses because these uses were of higher political value. Wasting so much seed corn year after year, decade after decade, has inevitably resulted in progressively leaner harvests. Unfortunately, this extensive capital misallocation is being done by many different methods and the misallocated capital is going to many politically favored groups, so there is no one silver bullet that will fix the mess. A partial list:
TRADE WITH CHINA AND OUR NATIONAL SECURITY
With a fledgling economy the focus of the 2012 presidential campaign, there has been one glaring omission from the debate so far: the failure of our current trade policy, particularly with China. Trade policy affects national security by putting the safety of our people and their jobs at risk. Between 2000 and 2010, the United States ran an aggregate trade deficit in goods of $6.8 trillion. This is one measure of how much money went to support production and job creation overseas rather than here at home. Last year, the trade deficit in goods was $635 billion. The import share of the domestic economy has grown very rapidly in textiles, machinery, computers, electrical equipment and motor vehicles. We buy a third to a half of these products from overseas, leaving American factories idle and American people jobless. One-third of the trade deficit in goods over the past decade was with communist China. Our 2011 trade deficit with Beijing is on track to hit a record $300 billion. In their new book, "Death by China," University of California at Irvine economists Peter Navarro and Greg Autry calculate that this deficit has cost America 10 million jobs over the past decade.
CAIN AND THE CASTRATION OF THE LEFT
Rendezvous XI begins tomorrow evening (10/07), and quite frankly, if you're not there you'll really wish you were. In addition to the extraordinary camaraderie you get with your fellow TTPers, you'll hear from billionaire investor Robert Agostinelli on The Future of the World Economy and You, New Tang Dynasty satellite television manager Dong Xiang on What's Really Going On In China, the next United States Senator from Texas (and incredibly inspiring conservative speaker) Ted Cruz on Texas, the Senate, and 2012, Jack Abramoff on It's All Bribery Now in Washington, plus... We are so honored to have a great American hero, on the battlefield and now on Capitol Hill, Lt.Col. and Congressman Allen West speak to us in a special presentation. There's so much more (e.g., what you'll learn from one of our speakers Saturday night will totally blow you away), so if you don't want to miss out, call Miko now - immediamente - at 703-992-4529 to see how he can squeeze you in. A Rendezvous is an opportunity to just relax and be with our own kind, rational conservatives. There will be no zombies. It was Bob Hope who first explained the connection between zombies and Democrats in his 1940 movie, The Ghost Breakers:
GOOD STUFF HAPPENING IN WISCONSIN
Since Governor Scott Walker signed the Budget Reform Bill, limiting collective bargaining for state employees to wages only on March 11, Wisconsin school districts and cities have been rescuing their budgets. No longer, for example, were the districts forced to purchase health insurance from the teachers' union insurance company (WEA Trust Insurance) at exorbitant rates. The savings have been substantial (all figures and quotes compiled from local news reports): Ashland School District - saved $378,000 on health insurance. Kimberly School District - saved $821,000 by dropping WEA Trust Insurance. Edgerton School District - dropping WEA Trust, expecting to save at least $500,000. Pittsville - will see a 9% decrease in the school portion of their property tax levy. "This is the first year we have not needed to short-term borrow," stated Board President Strenn. Appleton School District - will save $3.1 million just in health insurance costs due to being able to bid out the coverage and being able to drop WEA Trust.
IMPEACHING HOLDER
It's time for Congress to impeach Attorney General Eric Holder. Congress may remove from office "all civil officers of the United States" if they are convicted of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors," the Constitution says (Art. II, Sec. 4). Only the House of Representatives can impeach, which is comparable to indictment. The official is then tried by the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required for conviction. The Constitution doesn't say what constitutes "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," but perjury surely is among them. So is obstruction of justice. A clear case can be made that Mr.Holder is guilty of both.