That Awful Economy

Via Sam, That awful economy

Late afternoon roundup, and a book

The roundup
It's been a busy Monday here at casa de Fausta but I came across some really interesting stuff while waiting for dinner to cook:

Friend I Haven't Met Yet (FIHMY) Arthur Chrenkoff has an excellent article Good News From Iraq? More than in the Past

Barak Obama wants to issue drivers' licenses to illegal aliens

At Cafe Hayek, I Worry Much Less About the Reality than About the Reactions and I agree with Brian Wesbury when he says that the economy is fine.

The Anchoress, also a FIHMY, has another lovely post on beautiful music.

And last but not least, Dreams Into Lightning has an excellent roundup, "The thugs in Tehran stay busy, Palestinian officials like to create a little atmosphere, and more." Go read it.

The book:
I was on my way home yesterday afternoon when I saw this in a bookshop window:



I love bassets, and had to take a look.

Well, it's the old Strunk and White, only this time it's been improved with witty illustrations by Maira Kalman. The full color pictures highight the text at the same time that they add humor and sometimes insightful nuances to the rules.

I bought it, recommended it to two other FIHMY, and sent one for a birthday gift.

Yes, buy it for the pictures!



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VDH on The Moral Economy

Via Maria, Victor Davis Hanson writes about The Moral Economy (also at Real Clear Politics) :

...despite the politicians' rhetoric, it is not hard to understand why America is in trouble.

First, there has been too much madcap real estate speculation. In recent years, housing prices were driven sky-high on the expectation that almost anyone, often with little security, could profit by borrowing easy money to buy and sell property.

Too many investors lost the old pedestrian notion that the purpose of a house was to be a home in which to live, to raise a family and to take pride in ownership. Its acquisition used to be a multi-year, if not once-in-a-lifetime, investment — not quite comparable to the easy buying or selling of volatile paper stocks and bonds. Others did not have the means to afford the type of home they purchased, once risky variable interest rates climbed.

Back when I lived in Convent Station, Morris County, NJ, I used to sell houses.

I advised every single one of my two-salaried customers to buy the house they could afford with only one salary.

I always had the customer speak to a mortage rep and discuss not only the no-documentation, low-downpayment adjustable rate mortagages but also the fifteen-year 25% down mortages. Once the customers could make the numbers and see the difference, a surprising number opted for the 15-yr mortagage.

Each one of those customers is free of mortgage debt right now.

A lot of real estate agents (who rely on a commission to make a living, and the commission is paid by the seller most of the time) would insist that their buyers overstretch with the wildest possible financing. Obviously I have a different mindset from theirs.

The reason was simple: I started a carreer in real estate when my husband got laid off from his job at Allied Corporation, and I knew there were more layoffs coming. He was not in a unique situation: within two years, the major employers in the Morris County area, Allied, AT&T, Henkel and Exxon had major layoffs. I mean ALL of these employers, at the same time. I wasn't psychic, I just had enough contacts that worked in managerial/supervisory jobs in those companies to know there was reason to be cautious.

People who had purchased the most expensive house they could - most frequently having only enough money left to buy a kitchen table and chairs, furnish the bedroom(s) they slept in, and purchasing a sofa and a TV for the family room - were left in desperate straits when one of the salaries disappeared.

There was a glut of ten-room houses on the market. Imagine hundreds of ten room houses with most of their rooms empty signalling to the buyers that the owners are hurting and have to sell. The ones that overstretched ended up owing money to the bank when the houses finally sold at a much lower price than they bought them.

Economies are cyclical. As a homeowner, it is your personal responsibility to you and your family to not gamble on your family's basic need for shelter.

In the larger issue of the economy, VDH continues,

First, at this late date, Republicans shouldn't vote for any candidate who promises another tax cut without first offering a matching slash in expenditures. And Democrats should reject any candidate who promises another multi-billion dollar entitlement without detailing how the additional revenue is to be raised.

Second, instead of demanding new billion-dollar programs for health care and education, we should take more responsibility for our own welfare.

Americans need to readjust their budget priorities. One might be able to believe that a $200 dollar a month private catastrophic health plan is out of the reach of most Americans — if we were also to hear that sales of video games, cell phones and plasma televisions have crashed.

Third, we need to ignore the alarmist hysteria, calm down and appreciate that life is better than at any time in the last 5,000 years of civilization. People are living longer; we're healthier; and millions of Americans have the opportunities to travel, communicate and avoid physical drudgery that were once reserved only for a tiny aristocracy. There is plenty of excess in modern American life that can be shed without real hardship.

Finally, we must view our present economic challenges in a larger philosophical and ethical framework — and redefine success as being able to pay off what we owe, and spend only what we earn.

Amen to that!


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Radioactive in Jersey City, Hitchens, and other items

Via Pamela by way of Larwyn, Radioactivity at accident site in Jersey City? Conflicting reports...

13 August 2007: A minor accident that took place at Hoboken and Summit Avenues in Hoboken, New Jersey Sunday night - a mere 6-mile drive from the Empire State Building in Manhattan prompted the response of police to the scene as the driver of one of the vehicles fled on foot after the accident. But the police were summoned for another reason – the vehicle from which the suspect in the hit-and-run fled contained a “box” in the trunk containing “radioactive” symbols. According to a law enforcement source close to the Northeast Intelligence Network interviewed shortly after 5:00 this morning, sensors carried by police that measure radioactivity sounded an alarm that indicated higher than acceptable levels of radioactivity, prompting a response from HAZMAT and other officials. Police, fire and HAZMAT officials established a safe perimeter around the accident scene, and the driver of the car containing the box or device emitting radioactivity was caught several blocks from the scene.

This event took an unusual twist, however, when Fox Channel 5 news reporter from New York City was reporting live from the scene. As he was describing the event, a voice coming from the reporter's ear piece was picked up by his microphone: "TELL THEM NO RADIOACTIVITY" was the message clearly heard as isolated as a sound file HERE. Viewers can clearly see the befuddled reaction by the news reporter to the message from his ear piece in the video clip below, and the confused response to the complete change of information by the television anchor.

You must read the rest of that report.
Here's the video of the TV newscast mentioned in the report

The incident took place less than 72 hours from the NY city "dirty bomb" threat.
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Thomas Barnett has a Nice analysis of the sub-prime "crisis"
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Hitchens lays to rest the Foolish myths about al-Qaida in Mesopotamia:

To say that the attempt to Talibanize Iraq would not be happening at all if coalition forces were not present is to make two unsafe assumptions and one possibly suicidal one. The first assumption is that the vultures would never have gathered to feast on the decaying cadaver of the Saddamist state, a state that was in a process of implosion well before 2003. All our experience of countries like Somalia and Sudan, and indeed of Afghanistan, argues that such an assumption is idiotic. It is in the absence of international attention that such nightmarish abnormalities flourish. The second assumption is that the harder we fight them, the more such cancers metastasize. This appears to be contradicted by all the experience of Iraq. Fallujah or Baqubah might already have become the centers of an ultra-Taliban ministate, as they at one time threatened to do, whereas now not only have thousands of AQM goons been killed but local opinion appears to have shifted decisively against them and their methods.

The third assumption, deriving from the first two, would be that if coalition forces withdrew, the AQM gangsters would lose their raison d'être and have nothing left to fight for. I think I shall just leave that assumption lying where it belongs: on the damp floor of whatever asylum it is where foolish and wishful opinions find their eventual home.

A must-read!

Via Gateway Pundit by way of Larwyn, The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe. The astonishing part about this headline is that it comes from Der Speigel.

Davids Medienkritik says,

We would speculate that SPIEGEL editors have finally reached the realization that the version of reality they have painstakingly crafted for the German public since the conflict began - one of failure, disaster, debacle and quagmire for the Americans in Iraq - is no longer tenable when compared to the facts on the ground and will ultimately collapse on their heads like a flimsy house of cards. But with many American Democrats still in full irrational disaster-mode on Iraq (despite obvious recent improvement with the surge) this seems a somewhat unusual and perhaps premature move.

Don't expect the NYT to wake up any time soon, though.---------------------------------------------------------------
Phyllis Chesler has an excellent article on how The Legal Jihad Is Already Underway
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Moron in Macon.
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Exclusive: Hillary's first TV ad debuts
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More from Matt: 4 Million Muslims Marching for an Imam
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Behold the Trunki:

14,000 DOW!!

France's economy and the upcoming election

While Captain Ed aks, Will France Abandon Socialism? and the London Telegraph says that a Taste of Right is proving irresistible to French, I believe the French won't readily embrace anything resembling a capitalist system; their approach is more like this (emphasis added):

"We don't want your Anglo-Saxon system but we can't go on like this."

In an article about Segolene Royal, The Beeb points out that

Employment, or rather the lack of it, is one of the main issues in this campaign.

Mr Sarkozy has promised to make the French "value" hard work again, criticising France for working fewer hours than any other European nation.

The Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal has pledged a higher minimum wage, along with a new form of youth job contract, to ensure that the young in France have a chance of entering the tough job market that all but the best-qualified feel excluded from.

That is, Royal proposes measures that increase the number of the unemployed: a higher minumum salary makes it cost-prohivitive to hire unskilled workers, and so do the employment contract.

I have yet to find any French candidate at all that would even dare suggest doing away with the employment contracts. Anyone doing so would be symbolically drawn and quartered - the French are big on symbollism.

Via The politics of fear

Fear is the common denominator in the French presidential elections. Fear trumps plan or project as the real winning argument in a country largely afraid of change.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who once called the French social model a sham, runs against the fear he would demolish its cherished ethos of comfort in order to install harsh (and not-so-French) standards of risk, accountability and competition for all.

Ségolène Royal, who has promised France something close to a painless, spiritual overhaul, but without much supporting detail or coherence, must confront voters' fears that she is in over her head - not competent enough to run a very important and complex country.

That's not to mention the fear and loathing surrounding the right-wing extremist, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Or the concern about François Bayrou, the centrist whose big pitch is being none of the other main candidates, but who the French fear would never be able to put together a workable government or parliamentary majority.

This generalization of fear is not necessarily symmetrical. Sarkozy's views on immigrants' being required to train in French identity have gotten more attention than Royal's bloopers on foreign policy. But fear's place as the election's hardest currency has had two certain effects:

It has removed the necessity for big changes in French life as the essential focus of the election. And if Sarkozy and Royal, as the polls suggest, advance through Sunday's first round of voting, it points to a miserable, recriminatory runoff May 6.

Christopher Hitchens observes,

All this comes at a time when the French political elite is discredited and enervated to an amazing degree. There is general agreement that the country cannot afford any more featherbedding, but the Socialist program is only the most egregious in promising to pay people more than they earn. Anti-Americanism has reached a point of diminishing returns. A society that has benefited hugely from EU subsidies now resents the very bureaucracy at whose tit it has so long nursed. Amazing insularity is demonstrated in almost every presidential debate, with Mme. Royale the most astonishing in her apparent innocence of a world beyond the landlocked French district of Poitou of which she is regional president. (In the latest of many gaffe-strewn interviews, she seemed to be blissfully unaware that the Taliban was no longer the official government of Afghanistan. And which French Socialist does not know how to snigger at George Bush for his lack of sophistication in foreign affairs!)

Meanwhile The Economist has Sarko as Napoleon on the cover. Sarko actually looks pretty good in the tricorne (Is that a tricorne? I'm not sure):
France's chance:
After a quarter-century of drift Nicolas Sarkozy offers the best hope of reform

This election matters. France is the euro zone's second-biggest member and home to ten of Europe's 50 biggest companies. But it is deeply troubled. It has the slowest-growing large economy in Europe, a state that soaks up half of GDP, the fastest-rising public debt in western Europe over the past ten years and, above all, entrenched high unemployment. Over the past 25 years French GDP per person has declined from seventh-highest in the world to 17th. The smouldering mood of the suburbs (banlieues), home to many jobless youths from ethnic minorities, blazed into riots in 2005 and lay behind new trouble that flared recently at a Paris railway station. The disenchantment of voters is reflected not only in opinion polls but also in their rejection of the European Union constitution in 2005. Tellingly, they have not re-elected an incumbent government for a quarter-century.

The most urgent cure for all these ills is to get the economy growing faster. That requires radical liberalisation of labour and product markets, more competition and less protection, lower taxes and cuts in public spending, plus a shake-up of the coddled public services. None of these things was seriously tackled in the past 26 years, under the presidencies of François Mitterrand, from the left, and Jacques Chirac, from the right. This was a time when other European countries, such as Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Nordics, transformed themselves for the better, and still largely retained their cherished social models and welfare systems. Here lies the biggest challenge for the next French president.

Indeed.

Surge, TIPS, Red Lights, and a fast

Dr Krauthammer notices that Surge Results are Visible, and asks,

How at this point -- with only about half of the additional surge troops yet deployed -- can Democrats be trying to force the U.S. to give up? The Democrats say they are carrying out their electoral mandate from the November election. But winning a single-vote Senate majority as a result of razor-thin victories in Montana and Virginia is hardly a landslide.

Second, if the electorate was sending an unconflicted message about withdrawal, how did the most uncompromising supporter of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, win handily in one of the most liberal states in the country?

And third, where was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November.

Which the president has done. He changed the civilian leadership at the Department of Defense, replaced the head of Central Command and, most critically, replaced the Iraq commander with Petraeus -- unanimously approved by the Democratic Senate -- to implement a new counterinsurgency strategy.

Dr Krauthammer also points out that

John McCain has had no illusions about the difficulty of this war. Nor does he now. In his bold and courageous speech at the Virginia Military Institute defending the war effort, he described the improvements on the ground while acknowledging the enormous difficulties ahead. Insisting that success in Iraq is both possible and necessary, McCain made clear that he is willing to stake his presidential ambitions, indeed his entire political career, on a war policy that is unpopular but that he believes must be pursued for the sake of the country.

I've participated in two bloggers' calls with Sen. McCain and will continue to participate for as long as they have me.
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My favorite economist, Larry Kudlow, notices that

so far this year the 10-year TIPS inflation spread has risen about 21 basis points, putting it above its 5-year average

and that could signal inflation.
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El Cubano Cafe continues the Friday fast for all political prisoners
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Larwyn sent Fantasy Manhood from France, Thomas Lifson's review of the movie Feux Rouges (Red Lights)

But for a French film director today to address the fear of the rise of Muslim violence, it would be necessary to operate at a purely metaphorical level, staying away from anything which might suggest a connection to politically incorrect hate-mongering against Muslims or Islam. After all, France locks up people for what it regards as inciting hatred. Keep the subject matter overtly unrelated, but throw in some telling symbolic details allowing viewers to realize what the game is.

Surprisingly, A French director has slyly made just such a thriller, a skillful one at that, superficially unrelated to the threat of violent Muslims, but obviously speaking symbolically to it. The film, Feux Rouges, or Red Lights, came out in 2004, to largely positive reviews internationally. In the United States, it even won the Independent Spirit Award (considered the OscarsTM of indies) for best foreign film.

Done in the style of Hitchcock and/or Chabrol, it is a tale of a French man standing up to a violent escaped con, one who doesn't obey the same law as the rest of us, as the film observes. The movie scrupulously avoids any overt suggestion that the escaped convict is ethnically other than French. But by not giving him a name and having him wear a beard, it does not close that door either.

Look who's green with ethanol envy:

Castro hits out at US biofuel use

Cuban President Fidel Castro has strongly criticised the use of biofuels by the US, in his first article since undergoing surgery last year.

He said George W Bush's support for the use of food crops in fuel production would cause 3bn deaths from hunger.

The article in the Granma newspaper did not mention Mr Castro's health.

As the AP's Anita Snow puts it,

The article is written in the same kind of apocalyptic style Castro typically adopts when discussing the impact of U.S. international policies on developing nations.

(Anita also added, "and there was no reason to doubt he was the author." Val might disagree. But I digress.)

'Fidel' now tells us ethanol is sinister. Will the Left be repeating his line? You betcha.

For starters, Fidel is factually wrong:

As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulosic materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot, according to research by a Michigan State University ethanol expert.

The findings, which are being presented by Bruce Dale today at the ACS meeting in Chicago show that,

"The evidence indicates that large-scale biofuel production will increase, not decrease, world food supplies by making animal feed production much more efficient," Dale said.

But never mind that.

The real reason Fidel thinks ethanol is sinister is because it is a threat to his Communist Revolucion, be it in Cuba, in Venezuela, or elsewhere. As a Cuban minister recently said, "in order for the revolution to survive, it needs the poor".

An ethanol boom in Latin America will create great wealth and prosperity, and is already attracting investment and trade in Central and South America and the Caribbean. As I mentioned in a recent post,

• Sugarcane is grown in many countries throughout the region
• Countries that do not produce sugarcane but have ethanol processing facilities are benefiting from being exempt of the onerous ethanol tariffs.
• "An ethanol boom in Latin America would also attract investment to rural areas and create lots of jobs.That might help to reduce the steady northward stream of illegal immigrants. It would certainly burnish America's image, and stem support for anti-American tub-thumpers such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. He has won friends throughout the region by selling oil cheaply. By sharing technology and promoting investment in ethanol, America would also be reducing Latin America's fuel bill. If it bought lots of ethanol from its neighbours, it would be providing them with a lucrative export of their own."

And that wealth won't be limited to Latin America: Just this week the World Bank is helping Brazil export ethanol technology to African countries such as Ghana, Angola (where Fidel tried to export his revolution by sending troops), and Mozambique.

On a more personal note, I'm sure Fidel must be particularly incensed that sugarcane is bringing wealth to the region, after he ruined the Cuban sugar industry.

As Fidel himself said,

The sinister idea of converting food into combustibles was definitively established as the economic line of foreign policy of the United States

And let's do it right, by abolishing all farm subsidies and tariffs.

Previous post on here.
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In a somewhat related topic, Alvaro Vargas Llosa explains
Why Perfect Totalitarianism Is Impossible:

The lesson of our time, a decade and a half after the fall of communism in Europe, is that the slow, almost geological, accumulation of little bits of heroism throughout society can bring down a totalitarian giant over time. These acts of heroism, both inside and outside the structure of power, constitute the best hope for countries in which governments continue to enslave millions of people today.

But even if these acts of silent heroism are not enough to cause all despots to come tumbling down, they are at least enough to keep the human spirit alive. That is a comforting thought.

Via Dr. Sanity, who today explores the economic interaction of humans.

The great news about the economy, and today's items

Larry Kudlow on the great economy,

Averages across-the-board are now moving toward all-time highs: Dow, transports, utilities, the small cap Russell 2000, the NYSE index and D-J Wilshire 5000. Inside the indexes, the story is the same: commodities, cyclicals, defense, machinery and construction all hitting all-time highs. The depth, breadth and resiliency of this rally is remarkable.

America's bull market economy stands at the epicenter of the newly capitalist world market economy. Therefore, it is no surprise that America's stock rise is being emulated around the world. This is called economic leadership.

The reality is that non-inflationary growth and rising living standards are occurring all around the globe. For this, thank the spread of American-style, free-market capitalism. Some call it cowboy capitalism, but I prefer to think of it as prosperity capitalism.

Record wealth is now being created among a hundred million-plus investors in the United States, including union and public employee pension fund holders who are 60 percent invested in the Bernanke bull market. This, even though they rail against stock market wealth and business in general, and still don't get it that their retirement wealth bread is being buttered by the fabulous expansion of the portfolio value of the ownership society.

Stocks are the best barometer of future business and economic health. They are signaling that the wealth of the nation currently and prospectively looks excellent.

Democrats rule the roost on Capitol Hill, but Bernanke stuck to his free market principles. He is targeting inflation and employment, and so far doing a good job with both.

Does anybody remember that President George W. Bush appointed Bernanke? And that Bush's record-low tax rates on capital have promoted strong economic growth? And that this tax-driven growth and investment surge brings inflation down by absorbing the excess money created by Alan Greenspan between 2003 and 2005? The availability of more goods and services makes the existing money supply less inflationary.

In his brief tenure, Bernanke has mopped up this excess liquidity and reduced inflation expectations. Meanwhile, low tax rates are counter-inflationary. So, a combination of strong economic growth and newfound monetary control are working together for the betterment of investors, workers, businesses and federal finances. The supply-side model is very much in place right now.

Contrast that with France
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The "Surge" appears in the streets of Baghdad. Muqtada al-Sadr goes AWOL. The terrorists are hurting.
Where are the Democrats?
Democrats Will Follow Iraq Vote With Push to Block More Troops

And they support the troops, yeah, right.
It's called De-legitimizing the Troops, folks.
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El Cafe Cubano continues the Friday fast for all political prisoners.
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Cultural Marxism

Critical Theory is an ongoing and brutal assault via vicious criticism relentlessly leveled against Christians, Christmas, the Boy Scouts, Ten Commandments, our military, and all other aspects of traditional American culture and society.

Both political correctness and Critical Theory are in essence, psychological bullying. They are the psycho-political battering rams by which Frankfurt School disciples such as the ACLU are forcing Americans to submit to and to obey the will and the way of the Left. These devious devices are but psychological versions of Georg Lukacs and Laventi Beria's 'cultural terrorism' tactics.

Read it all. (h/t Larwyn)
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Dr. Krauthammer writes on how Russia steps back on the world stage
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Amanda Marcotte manages to put together half a dozen sentences without profanity. She keeps that up, I'll start believing in global warming.

It's 13F in The Principality. Amanda's got her work cut out for her.

Who's to blame for Marcotte's fall? According to her, Dan's one of the culprits.
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Over at the church of global warming, Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions

A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.

It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.

Oh, I forgot, it's not global warming; it's climate change.
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Stop the ACLU celebrates its first million visitors.
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Al Franken announces a run for the Senate: a Transcript (h/t Larwyn)
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Don't trust those Reuters photos. And yes, the bombs are retarded.
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If you're a woman who can't find a guy who wants to commit, and you can't figure out why, read this.

Entitlements as disease

Herman Cain, the Godfather Pizza CEO, writes that Entitlement is a Disease, and he's right:

Too many Americans and too many political leaders currently ignore the founders' and King's shared vision. Instead of recognizing the awesome potential within individuals to achieve their dreams and support themselves and their families, power-loving politicians are spreading entitlement like a plague.

The problems inherent in our health care system provide an instructive example. Health care costs of all types are high because individual Americans do not pay enough for their own care.

The problems inherent in our health care system provide an instructive example. Health care costs of all types are high because individual Americans do not pay enough for their own care.

The costs are subsidized by the government and employers, which causes gross distortions in the health care market. Government created this mess by enacting tax laws that actually penalize individual purchasers of health insurance, and by enacting programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to finance health care for those deemed by government as too poor to pay for it themselves.

The disastrous result is not only the fiscal cost to taxpayers, but that entire generations of Americans have been socialized into believing they are entitled to health care coverage.

Instead of legislating reforms to eliminate the tax burden on the self-employed and instill free market forces and individual choice in the health care system, liberals want to mandate even more employer and state-paid coverage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is clear about her desire to mandate universal health care for all Americans. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have made universal coverage a centerpiece of their issue agendas.
...
Schumer stated, "We have big plans. The party that can create a model paradigm... will not only win in 2008 but could create a long-term majority." In other words, more entitlement spending, government mandates and class warfare rhetoric might create long-term power for liberals.

Unfortunately, Schumer is not alone. In a January 31 speech on Wall Street, President Bush stated, "The fact is that income inequality is real; it's been rising for more than 25 years." With all due respect, Mr. President, that statement is false. A recent study released by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee found that from 2001 to 2005 there was no statistical change in income inequality. The president is simply pandering to the entitlement addicts.

Read it all.

(h/t Greta

Fools' paradise, and today's items

Via Linda, Fool's Paradise - Mass Slaughter in Our Public Schools: The Terrorists' Chilling Plan

Via Theodore's World, Global Incident Map

America After The Next Attack
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'The Bush rally' thrills Wall Street

Despite the gloom and doom we heard in last year's elections, a torrent of upbeat economic reports show the Bush economy is alive and well, and it is likely headed for a healthier performance in 2007.

Last week's report from the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis must have come as a shock to President Bush's Democratic critics when it showed the economy racing along at a brisk 3.5 percent annual growth rate in the last three months of 2006. For the year, the economy grew at a stronger than expected 3.4 percent, propelled by falling oil and gas prices, higher wage and job growth, increased consumer purchasing power and even an uptick in housing sales.

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The future Nagger in Chief raises her fists in her characteristic anger and yells at you what she knows will be best for you
Hillary's Dark Energy Agenda

Clinton’s remarks are the first time that a nationally known Democrat has openly called for the government seizure of an industry since President Harry Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry in 1952. The U.S. Supreme Court slapped back Truman’s takeover in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. et al. v. Sawyer. (Like Senator Clinton, Truman also championed a national health-care scheme.)

While other politicians have suggested establishing an alternative energy fund, Clinton is the first to advocate funding it by taking the earnings of a publicly held American company.

----------------------------------Via Larwyn,
Iran: No Bombs, No Appeasement.

"That's only true if we say so" — our self-absorbed media culture I'll be reading "Hitchens's review of Frank Rich's book later today.

The fence near Edwards's manse sends him a message.

Not suitable for work, especially if you listen to the Mark Levin radio link Olbermann Left Limp After On Air Smack Down. Olbermann decided to name Levin "the worst person in the world". Turns out Keith picked on the wrong guy.
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In a lighter mode,
Darren's freezing in Richmond.
Because of that lack of global warming, Gerard went to Costco. I've been to Costco twice in my life and will try to avoid a third time.

Today's Princeton Global Warming Update
It was 6F when I got up at 6:30Am today. The sun came out and now it's 8F
It's so cold (How cold is it?) I'm wearing one of these, even when it's not really flattering:

Time to wear these:

Ugly boots, yes. Warm, definitely yes.
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Update: Superbowl Commercials 2007, via Kim.

What's the matter with New Jersey?,

asks The Wall Street Journal (by subscription; emphasis added)

The idea of financing state services without an income tax is hardly radical. Nine states today - Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennesse, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming - manage well without them. With a few exceptions, the non-income tax states are America's most prosperous. Meanwhile, the high income states, which tend to be congregated in the North East, keep surrendering jobs, people, and voters to the South and West.

State lawmakers also seem to have learned from two of the most recent states to adopt an income tax: New Jersey and Connecticut. As recently as 1965 New Jersey had neither an income nor sales tax, but managed to balance the budget every year. Now it has both taxes - its income tax is the 5th highest in the nation -

And let's not even think of the highest property taxes and school taxes, too,

but the state is facing what Stateline.org calls a "staggering budget deficit." Allied Van Lines reports that the Garden State is one of the leading places for people to flee.

I first started this blog out of frustration with NJ taxes. While my frustration hasn't diminished, I've become so fed up of the subject that I'm posting about it because The Husband asked that I do.

The National Center for Policy Analysis has more on the "ferocious competition to attract jobs and businesses" among the states.

New Jersey is entirely out of the competition.

Update In the comments section, Francis Porretto recommends Robert Higgs's excellent book, Crisis and Leviathan

I read this book several years ago and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in fiscal policy, economics, or how their hard-earned money is spent by the politicians.

An Excellent Economic State of the Union, and today's other items

An Excellent Economic State of the Union

More than 55 million Americans, or four out of every 10 workers, left their jobs in 2005. Since there were more than 57 million new hires that same year, this is good news. It also means that new hires exceeded employee separations by an average of 364,000 per month. Per month!

Eat your heart out, Lou Dobbs.

The fact is, jobs continue to boom. So do real incomes, productivity and profits. Economist Michael Darda points out that real wages over the first five years of the Bush expansion are actually growing more rapidly than over the first five years of the Papa Bush/Bill Clinton boom.

Meanwhile, unemployment today is only 4.5 percent. Federal, state and local tax collections are soaring through the roof. Budget deficits are plunging. Inflation-adjusted GDP is averaging just more than 3 percent. Family wealth stands at a record of slightly more than $54 trillion. Total employment is at a record 146 million.

Stock markets, as you might have noticed, also continue to rise. They have done so, almost without interruption, for four years, on the shoulders of a remarkable surge in business profits -- which itself is a function of the high-tech, knowledge-based product explosion.

These corporate profits, along with our record-setting stock markets, have enriched the more than 100 million investors who are participating in this prosperity. In fact, this America boom is spearheading a global economic surge. While the American free-market model is often derided as "cowboy capitalism," imitation remains the sincerest form of flattery. And it isn't just China, India and Russia who are acquiescing to the worldwide spread of American capitalism. It's also Eastern Europe and parts of South America. Heck, even the socialists in Old Europe -- like France and Germany -- are getting into the act by reducing individual and corporate tax rates to promote growth.

The Terrorist Defense Initiative

Simply put, the most important question for U.S. leaders is: What set of policies is most likely to prevent Islamist terrorists from arriving in Los Angeles, or any other American community, with the capacity to kill thousands of people?

Ultimately, the attitude of voters toward any national security initiative presented as part of the "war on terror" will be determined by how they answer their own version of this question: Does this policy increase or decrease the chances Islamist terrorists will kill me, my family or my neighbors?

Two different war strategies

Michael Fumento has Yet more on the attack on OP Hotel ("The Ramadi Inn"). Don't miss it. Again, it is the embed independent journalists and bloggers who are reporting the real news in Iraq.

Rocco's back from Iraq go read about it. (h/t Jeremayakovka)

Somehow, it's hard to imagine Hillary Clinton waxing about any gossamer meadow.
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In a lighter mode,
I've met Charles, and that man in the photo is definitely not Charles. Jeff Jarvis's picture is blurry, and they found Glenn Reynold's high school graduation photo. I could have sent them a current picture of Glenn.
On the other hand, I hope that Forbes will use this picture if they ever confuse me with anyone else.
Update Forbes now has the right guy!

Underwear outerwear
The latest from Milan,
Via The Manolo, Leggings Are the New Must-Have. The last guys I've seen wearing leggings were the guys from ballet class.

A lot of women, and all men, don't look good in leggings. Not even gay men.

And let's not forget the Deadwood underwear of choice,

Trousers: don't leave home without them.

"X" men, and other items

What about "+" signs?
Via Beth, Will Saudis Ban the Letter 'X'?

The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

Read the article - I"m not the only one asking about "+".
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Miracles Appear in the Strangest of Places

Last year's remarks by Pope Benedict XVI might just have signaled a watershed event in the global struggle against those who are most willing to use that sword.

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More reasons to blame Bush: Economists upgrade US outlook after surprisingly strong data

Lehman Brothers chief US economist Ethan Harris on Friday boosted his forecast for fourth quarter 2006 growth to an annualized rate of 3.3 percent, a leap from the firm's prior call for just 2.0 percent growth.

Also via Dr Sanity, War? - What War?
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Via Larwyn,
Liberal Blogs Attack Conservative Radio Station

US Rep. Ellison Uniquely Positioned To Launch Bush Impeachment Effort

V2K, Baby: Tinfoil Hat Brigades (Literally!) Form Support Groups. I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago when the clock radio malfunctioned and there is a late-night radio talk show where people that believe in this stuff call in. Very strange.

MSNBC: Blames Jew Lobby for Carter's Mental Illness Update Deceit, Dysnfuction And The Dance Of The LeftMoney quote:

The terror that has become an acceptable form of political expression has never been about a religious endeavor. It is the misuse of a religion, a calculated attempt to realign a religion to serve the needs of a few evil men. It is an effort that is succeeding, because there are people that are chained and in servitude and their willing, desperate search for an escape from their dark medieval prisons.

Terror organizations and terror supporters are using our own language to defeat us. Suicide bombers and terrorists are now 'military factions,' while those that plan and pay for the crimes are now referred to as 'political factions' - as if patterning themselves after legitimate political organizations will somehow camouflage their identity and objectives. Ever dutifully, the media parrots these ridiculous assertions as credible.

How many people will the peace movement kill this time? Part II.

Iran smog kills 3,600 in a month
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Via Irwin, Two Alliances
President Bush has managed to divide and conquer the Middle East

When the Bush administration came into office, only Egypt and Jordan were functioning allies of the U.S. Iran and Iraq were already declared enemies, Syria was hostile, and even its supposed friends in the Arabian peninsula were so disinclined to help that none did anything to oppose al Qaeda. Some actively helped it, while others knowingly allowed private funds to reach the terrorists whose declared aim was to kill Americans.

The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same.

Related post, Have a little faith

Via Maria, A Campaign for Order
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Jay: "It shouldn't be long now before we start hearing the 'human rights' crowd start crying about how inhumane this was".
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Ignoring Proven Stem Cell Therapies For Political Gain
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In a lighter mode,
Via Maria, For the birds. Unfortunately what attracts birds also attracts deer.

More blogging later.

Eyes on the minimum wage

The current lowest minimum wage is set by law at $5.15/hr. In NJ, it is higher.

As an entrepreneur, I know (because I'm the one writing the checks) that an employer's costs for an employee are twice that employee's salary because of benefits, insurance, payroll taxes, and other items. Hold that thought for a moment while you read this post.

Minimum Wage Game

Here is the truth about minimum wage.

From the U.S. Department of Labor:

• According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2005, 75.6 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, 479,000 (or .6%) were reported as earning exactly $5.15
• About one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19
• The industry with the highest proportion of workers with reported hourly wages at or below $5.15 was leisure and hospitality (about 14 percent). About three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the Federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, primarily in the food services and drinking places component. For many of these workers, tips and commissions supplement the hourly wages received.

...With less then 1% of Americans currently working on the books earning the minimum wage, and the majority of those being under the age of 25, it is clear that a hike in the minimum wage will not do much to bolster most household incomes.

On the contrary, employers who are currently hiring young adults for entry level positions which start at the minimum wage during the training period, may now have to dissolve those positions or be forced to raise the prices they charge the consumer in order to cover their inflated cost of business.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred's also looking at the minimum wage this morning. He notices that:

It is important to understand that no state is bound by federal minimum wage laws. Each state has the right to determine their own minimum wage laws, taking into account local economic conditions.
...
There is no federal legislation that forces employers to pay minimum wage- in fact, almost 90% of all hourly workers are paid above either state or federal minimum wage.

Why then, is federal minimum wage legislation such a priority for the democrats?

The answer is simple: Union support and union votes.

Many union collective bargaining wage agreements are based on the federal minimum wage. In many industries, union wages are calculated as multiples of the federal minimum wage.

Suppose the minimum wage is $7.00 an hour. If the collective bargaining agreement calls for a 3 times minimum wage base, that means the union employee would be paid $21.00 an hour.

If the minimum wage is raised to $8.00 an hour, the same union employee would see his or her wage raised to $24.00 per hour. The additional cost to the employer union would be $6,000 per year for each employee. There are many union employee contracts that call for wages at 5 and even 6 times federal minimum wage levels.

This article realizes that (emphasis added)

Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 will placate the Democrats' union bosses, but won't do much to raise the quality of life for Americans.

First, the claim that minimum wage employees are mostly the working poor struggling to raise families is a myth. The average minimum wage worker lives in a household with an income above $50,000 a year, suggesting that most are teen-agers and college students. Fewer than 20 percent live below the poverty line.

And a minimum wage hike will restrict the number of entry-level jobs, as employers reduce the workforce to control payroll costs.

As this chart shows (via SC&A), the minimum salary in New Jersey is $7.15, and you are eligible for overtime pay (1 1/2 x basic pay) after working 40 hrs/week. This is such a high amount that law-abiding small businesses are leaving NJ for cheaper pastures.

In the Princeton area, the much-maligned Wal-Mart (which is actually in Lawrenceville and whose employees come from much poorer Trenton - all in Mercer County), hires unskilled labor for non-unionized jobs with starting salaries at almost twice the minimum wage.

For comparable jobs, Wal-Mart is competitive with much more prestigious employers, among them the many colleges and universities in the area (including Princeton U). Likewise, other stores in the Nassau Park Shopping Center (Wegman's Supermarket, Target, Kohls, Home Depot, Sam's Club and others) hire inexperienced unskilled labor at similar wages.

However, the one factor depressing unskilled labor pay is not the minimum wage. In this area, the one single factor depressing pay for unskilled labor is the sizeable numbers of illegal aliens working at cash-only jobs. Those businesses and those employees are breaking the law.

What does Nancy propose on that?

School with beauty parlor, school without; and today's other items

Forty-five years before Oprah...
Before Oprah went to South Africa to open a girls' school with a beauty parlor,

While a beauty salon may be an unorthodox addition to the traditional educational experience, it is in keeping with the Oprah gospel of empowerment through self-love.

a group of Americans founded in 1961 the first multi-racial private college in Kenya, which is now co-ed, Strathmore University. Next week I'll be interviewing my friend Tom Pyle, director of the Strathmore University Foundation.
While Strathmore doesn't have a beauty parlor on campus, it has been training scholars, women and men, for leadership positions for decades.

Mona Charen reviews Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student

"Unprotected" is a hard slap at the sexual free-for-all that prevails on American campuses and throughout American life. The author, revealed since publication as Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist at the student health service at UCLA, was hesitant to put her name on this book. The orthodoxy within the academic world is a strict one, and those who transgress often pay with their jobs. Let's hope for her sake, but particularly for her patients' well being, that she is not punished for her heterodox views.

It boggles the mind to read that a physician with her qualifications fears for her job for telling the truth.

Mary Katherine looks at the right deficit

Via Darleen, Congress is going to be about the children:


ACLU Condemns Vote to Advance Marriage 'Discrimination'; Vows to Redouble Efforts to Force It On The People

From Maria
An act of moral hygiene
Children see, children do:

Also via Maria, a beautiful video about Lorenzo's horses

From Larwyn
Talking about the longest running big lie

First, the murders of Noel and Moore (and the Belgian diplomat who was murdered in the incident) were performed in the most brutal possible manner. The victims were raked with machine gun fire starting from the feet and going up to the head in order to inflict the maximum amount of suffering. Second, the Fatah paymaster who cut the checks for all such operations (including the Black September operation at the Munich Olympics in 1972) was Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's right-hand man, the current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Pork Soup is Not Racist in France

Bad science, and today's items

Via Maria, Celebrities told to embrace the facts, not bad science
The Sense About Science guys have their work cut out for them.
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From Larwyn,
Supply Factors and Stagnant Wages

Blue collar workers' real wages have stagnated because of labor supply factors. These include:

-The baby boom
-Immigration
-Diversity

They have also stagnated because of:

-Health insurance costs and
-Costs of bureaucracy due to workplace regulation.

Social stratification has increased because of:

-Urban renewal and disruption of blue collar social networks and
-Unnecessary college degree requirements.

In other words, supply factors and government intervention have caused the stagnation of blue collar real wages that the US has suffered in the past 30 years.

RTWT

More on Conyers: Get This Turkey Off Judiciary Committee
Oh yes, let’s put our lives in the hands of the government
UN Workers Raping 12 year olds in Sudan
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Via Beth., Honoring Those Who Died
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Via SC&A, from the Victims of Political Islam site, Dr Nasr Abu Zaid
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Call me overprotective, but I would have never allowed my son to do this when he was fourteen.

More blogging later.