Macroman wrote: No one detests President Obama more than I, but I must point out two overstatements in this column. 1. "...employment in 2012 is roughly the same as it was back in 2001...Obama has compressed a lost decade into just three years." Labor force participation has been declining since 2000, not just 2008. That seems a partial reversal of the increase that occurred since about 1965. Obama had little to do with any of it.- Polls, Pump, No Friend to Obama
Dear Comrade Macroman,
Yes, labor force participation rates have been going down since 2000. But to pretend that Obama has no blame for the precipitous drop in those rates since he became president is willful malpractice by economists.
By official count we’ve been out of the recession for a while. But still we’ve seen not just a decline in labor participation rates, but a plunge in those rates since Obama became president.
Compare the rates between Bush after 2000 where rates eventually leveled off and started increasing and Obama where they have continued to plunge. The real difference between the two presidents was that one instilled confidence and the other does not.
There is no economic reason for the economy to be as sluggish as it’s been- there is plenty of money and liquidity out there to make the thing go. But there are also plenty of political decisions that are holding the economy back.
Oden wrote: A Goldman Sachs guy quits the firm and blasts its greedy practices and disregard for its clients, millions of people have seen his parting letter and its reportedly the talk of Wall Street. And here's a Towncrier "finance editor" and the other "finance editors" just shoveling more anti-Obama garbage. Where's the story on Towncrier? Where's the idiot analysis y'awl are known for? Wotta bunch of hacks.- Obama's Phony Numbers Adding Up
Dear Comrade Oden,
A Goldman Sachs guys quits Wall Street in bitter disgust every day. Half the brokers I know are thinking about quitting at any given moment.
It’s not really news unless you subscribe to the New York Times.
But if you have read me for the last year, you’ll know that I’m not exactly a cheerleader for Wall Street types like Bernanke or Paulson or Geithner or Goldman Sachs.
Just for you, however, I’ll include some analysis of the Goldman news:
Who was the second largest contributor to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008? Goldman Sachs, via your Democrat friend John Corzine, who used to be the CEO at Goldman. Of course Corzine himself is responsible for one of the largest bankruptcies in US history at MF Global. MF Global clients are still out $1.7 billion in supposedly segregated customer accounts. And where are Eric Holder and the Justice Department on that one? I’ll tell you where: They’re still covering up Fast and Furious. Way too busy to enforce the law of the land and arrest someone for stealing $1.7 billion, especially big Obama campaign contributors.
I want reform on Wall Street. The sooner Washington and Wall Street separate, the better it will be for Main Street.
But don’t come at me with your faux OWS outrage about greedy bankers.
Your guys- the Soroses, the Buffetts, the Franks, the Corzines, the UAW’s Kings- are the problem with Wall Street not the solution.
Recommended
StephanusCA wrote: John Ransom: "What it means, rather, is that no one, but mostly including Muslims, can’t afford to tolerate Islamists.” So apparently Ransom distinguishes between Muslims and Islamists. I am not sure how he would define Islamist. But most of the comments here seem to lump all Muslims together, even to the point of arguing that Islam is not a genuine religion and those who follow it are not entitled to the same rights of religious freedom as others in our society.- in response to Tolerating Islam: “He grabbed her by the hair and then shot her in the head”
Dear Comrade Stephen,
An Islamist is a person who advocates Islam as a contained religious, social and political system that is destined to take over the world. Generally speaking, Islamists reject the materialism of the two previous dominant Western philosophies of Communism and Capitalism- along with liberty in the case of Capitalism- as unable to satisfy man’s longing to know God, live for God and fulfill God’s will. Islamists believe that by forcing people, even against their will, into the Islamic system that they are acting in behalf of God.
Personally, I think that Islamists under the above definition are mostly sexually frustrated, intellectual dwarfs. I would include in that group every ayatollah who has ruled Iran, but most especially, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. I think there is a legitimate question of whether Khomeini’s version of Islam even qualifies as Islam.
Only God can know for sure what’s in the heart of any man. It’s not the popular version that most people are taught about Catholicism, but as a Catholic I was taught to respect all religions, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.
I believe that there is a Divine plan, and I am content to let God sort it all out without me interposing. In other words, I think God can handle every person’s salvation without me having to butt in.
But it’s interesting to note that people in this country who argue for freedom from religion- as opposed tofreedom of religion, on which the country was founded- seem to have no problem with Muslim countries that routinely oppress religious, political and social minorities.
Those same people also seem to have no problem with the attacks that are going on against the religious here in America. Attacks on religion can easily be turned into attacks on freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, freedom to live without insurance.
On the other, if Islamists weren’t blowing people up, shooting them, hanging them and beheading them in public squares; if they weren’t engaged in “honor killings” and female circumcision; if they weren’t special pleading for exemption from a common-law system that has been the most successful in history, in order to implement feudal law that protects male insecurity, you’d probably not see people arguing about the legitimacy of Islam as a religion. For example you don’t have people furious with Hindus in this country or Buddhists.
Truth001 wrote: We always have had right wing and in some cases left wing extremist that are ticking time bombs wanting to force their ideals on the US. This kind of problem has been around for years. This not new to the US. Has everyone forgot about Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to right wing extremious who blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. So Mr Ransom is sounds like you would like to round up all the Muslims and march them to gas chamber much like the Nazi's to the Jews. I guess that is one way to deal with what you perceive as problem. - in response to Tolerating Islam: “He grabbed her by the hair and then shot her in the head”
Dear Comrade Pravda001,
No, it actually doesn’t sound like I want to round anyone up and put them in the gas chamber. I’m generally opposed to the death penalty. Generally.
My recollection is that Timothy McVeigh was convicted in federal court of murder and died by lethal injection, under the law. While waiting to die, he was housed with other terrorists in ADX Florence, such as Islamist Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993.
Nichols is serving 161 life sentences at ADX Florence.
I have no pity for McVeigh or Nichols. Both got the justice they deserved. They don’t represent the right-wing of anything.
Your claim that I want to march Muslims en masse to the gas chamber is the usual liberal hysteria that you guys throw up when can’t come up with anything else. I never hinted at such a thing and would be the first person to protest against it.
Homicide is wrong for Nazis, Christians, Jews and, yes, even Muslims.
ModMark wrote: One of the coal plants shut down in Chicago was built ~90 years ago. While upgraded in the 1950's. it still did not meet EPA standards before Obama was elected. These plants were grandfather in when the clean air act was past. These ancient relics should have been converted to natural gas long ago.Do you really want to live next to one of these ancient plants? –in response to Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap
Dear Comrade Mark,
The building was built 90 years ago, but the actual power plant generating electricity is considerably younger than that. And according to the company, the plant either meets “or exceed[s] federal and state emissions requirements” according to thePasadena Star.
And… oh, by the way… the plant did meet EPA standards well before Obama was elected. That’s why one of the largest buyers of renewable energy- Southern California Edison- bought the coal-fired plants in the first place: They generated cheap electricity from that plant that could be sold to the highest bidder, while staying in compliance with EPA requirements for their class. For the buyers it helped subsidize the costs of more expensive “green” energy.
The issue for plant closure is that the people- think voters- who live around the plant would see the value of their real estate go up if the plant closed down. They would also see their neighbors lose their jobs. But, hey, jobs are optional in Obamaland. So the politically connected did what they do best in Chicago: They waged a harassment campaign against the power plant until the company agreed to close.
No doubt the plant’s an eyesore. But once again liberals perverted science to pretend that it was a threat to the health of the community. Study after study showed that while it’s true that Chicago has high asthma rates, it’s not because of this one power plant. In fact, asthma rates around the plant are lower than average for Chicago.
That and some variation of it, is why cities like Chicago and states like Illinois are losing population to places that don’t confiscate property from others.
You can cite this as an example of policy that works, but this exactly why Chicago has become one of the worst cities to live in in the country and why the city is broke and broken.
Plane wrote: Re: "Because coal has just been given the death sentence"..... not quite correct....... coal users have to break down and make the capital investment to stop their spewing acid rain forming smoke and soot from their outdated furnaces. –in response to Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap
Dear Comrade Plane,
Why do liberals have such an aversion to just telling the truth? Or reading an entire article?
Enviro-Whackos are jubilant over the EPA regulation that would require coal’s carbon emissions to meet or exceed the carbon emissions that come from natural gas. Short of carbon sequestration- which isn’t really technically possible yet- coal can never match natural gas in carbon emission reductions.
“If old King Coal isn’t dead already, he’s certainly teetering toward life support,” said Frank O’Donnell, president Clean Air Watch in Washington according to Bloomberg.
The capital investments that you are talking about make coal completely uneconomic, by design.
“So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can,” said candidate Obama “it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
And now he has basically tied this country to a single source of fuel: natural gas.
What happens when activists play the “health and safety” card on natural gas, like they have already started to? What happens when an LNG store goes boom in the middle of Boston Harbor?
Mike wrote: Governments are made up of people. Your post left you open to the question, what do you think is the difference between governments and corporations, as far as being invested with moral qualities? Point of reference: Citizens United. –in response to Gospel According to Democrats: Woman, Behold Thy Government Program!
Dear Comrade Mike,
Neither governments nor corporations are moral. Morality is distinctly a human quality. I think when Romney talked about corporations being people, he meant “made up of people,” not actual human beings.
But that distinction doesn’t mean that corporations can’t have standing in law or in politics. It just means that we should recognize in both governments and in corporations their inability to be moral. They will always act in their own selfish best interest, even if that best interest sometimes looks like it has a moral objective.
We see this in “green” marketing. Do corporations care about “green” because of the altruistic benefit it can give to others? Or do they see “green” as a marketing tool?Behind “green” marketing is a series of balance sheet and cash flow calculations that, once they come out on the negative side of the ledger, will determine whether “green” marketing is a short-term thing or something that’s a long-term trend.
Take for example autos, which in the late 1970s and early 1980s were all about mile per gallon. As the price of oil went down relative to inflation, automakers stopped caring about miles per gallon and started selling amenities instead. Now that oil is more expensive automakers will care again about miles per gallon.
Human beings are different, in the sense that they have the ability to innately know the difference between right and wrong.
CS Lewis believed that it was this ability to understand the moral absolutes that was the most compelling proof of the existence of God.
Liberals believe that governments are moral and corporations are immoral. Conservatives know that both are amoral.
TwFox wrote: If anyone should recuse himself, it is justice C.Thomas for conflict of interest with regards the Afordable Care Act. His wife, Virginia, rceived $1.6 million from conservative anti-health care reform groupe between 1997 and 2011.Incredibly, Justice failed to report this incomefor years. She stands to earn millions more if Thomas kills the Affordable Care Act. Any other judge in America would have to recuse themselves or be recused for such a conflict.- in response to Court Tells Obama: Eat Your Own Darn Peas
Dear Comrade Fox,
Ha, ha! The Heritage Foundation described as a “conservative anti-health care reform groupe?” Yeah right.
What about all those Republican Congress-people? Are they a “conservative anti-health care reform groupe?”
The fact that Virginia Thomas got paid by a conservative think-tank doesn’t really mean anything, unless of course you think “conservative” anything is bad.
What about Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Her husband was counsel in DC for Fried Frank until 2009. According to their site: “We have strong practices in corporate transactions as well as in securities regulation and enforcement, antitrust, tax, intellectual property and technology, commercial litigation, government contracts, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, and white-collar crime and internal investigations.”
Do you think any of those matters came before the court?
Doctor Roy wrote: I asked this question somewhere last week but didn't get an answer. If Corporations don't really pay income taxes- but instead pass it on to consumers- if a particular corporation pays little or no income tax (and there are many of them) could it then be possible that they are just using the statutory rate instead of their actual rate as an excuse to raise prices and outsource jobs overseas?-Obama's Solution to High Taxes: Even Higher Taxes
Dear Comrade Roy,
To paraphrase the movie Billy Madison, I think we are all a little dumber for having listened to your question here today. Your question is another shining example why liberals should NEVER have anything to do with our economy.
Corporations may pass along corporate taxes to customers, but that doesn’t mean that the tax has no effect on them. When a corporation is saddled with high taxes, they raise the price of the products they sell, which means that they sell fewer products and they do so at a lower profit margin.
Corporations write checks to the government all the time to pay for taxes on their profits.
If you looked at the financial pages all week last week, companies were reporting “earnings;” that is profits. And profits are what really drive the market.
There are few GEs out there that pay nothing.
Even assuming that your blended mash of words makes some sense, one should ask why companies are going overseas to start with? Why are other countries lowering their statutory tax rates, as you call them, if it doesn’t make the companies more competitive?
Take Illinois for example- where you live.
Why did the state cut deals with Caterpillar and CME and Jimmy Johns to give them tax breaks AFTER raising the so-called statutory tax on corporate profits? The did it because they realized that if they didn’t those companies would leave the state.
Lois01 wrote: Capital-ISM; Conservat-ISM; Patriot-ISM; National-ISM; International-ISM; Deconscructiv-ISM; Antidisestablilshmentarian-ISM; Yes, all ISMs are exactly the same. - The Obamunist-Controlled Press Has a Job to Do on Jobs
Dear Comrade Lois,
I didn’t say that all isms are exactly the same.
What I wrote was: “Obamunism has the same problem that most isms share. People picked it based on emotion and have spent their lives- and their credibility- trying to justifying it based on logic. And emotion, in these cases, always wins out.”
Obamunism, unlike some of the isms that you pointed out (capitalism, conservatism, patriotism, nationalism) is a relatively short lived invention.
Let’s see it can make it even four more years.
WotanofAZgard wrote: Always funny when GOP twits like Ransom cite the NYT as a credible source when its reporting can be used for rightwing propaganda. -Stop the Liberal Presses: New York Times/CBS Poll Finds Trouble for Obama
Dear Comrade Odin,
It’s nice when you take a break from listening to Zeppelin tunes in the basement and drop the Mein Kampf to make one of your intellectual arguments here on Townhall. You might be the last living person who actually thinks that calling someone a “twit” is going to carry an argument.
There are much better words than “twit.”
You should broaden your vocabulary.
For example, if I was that kind of guy who called names, I would call you names like: piker, pinhead, lemonhead, clod-patted moron, doofus, progressive pig-dog, lickspittle, ignoramus, dunce, dunderhead, or even the cystic mystic.
But instead I call you… comrade. Da?
I actually use the New York Times a lot in my articles.
In this particular case I was citing a poll in which the known New York Times’ liberal bias would tend to buttress my claim that Obama is in trouble.
That’s it for this week,
V/r,
JR
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