Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
A good read
The book is about humanity's transition from a nomadic, hunter- gathers society to an agrarian society (the first wave), From an agrarian to an industrial society (the second wave) and from an industrial to a technology (information) society (the third wave).
What's incredible is that Toffler wrote this book 30 years ago. For you youngins, that was before shoebox sized cell phones.
Tofler describes how all of our institutions (religious, educational, media, etc) evolve to fit into the next "wave" of society.
The one thing that makes him almost prophet like is his belief that segments of our society would fight the next wave to the death and you see this today with labor unions. Unions continue to fight yesterday's battle. Instead of blowing billions of dollars of the membership's money to protect a life that no longer is, they could be spending that money to get their member's ready for the technological wave we're in.
In my previous post, I link the video of Jack Welch really describing in detail how our country stands in the face of a global economy and how there's really nothing anyone can do to preserve our old industrial complex.
Between now and November, educate yourself. Read the Third Wave and vote accordingly.
Jack Welch says Obama Administration Beholden to Big Labor
This whole interview is really a must watch in educating the public on today's world economy.
Watch it here..........
O - H, UH OH
There's no shortage of political tumult in the Buckeye State this year, where the Democratic-held governorship and at least six Democratic-held House seats are in jeopardy. But what makes it particularly notable is that the state represents several key demographic groups whose changing perspectives will give serious insight into President Obama's broader political standing for 2012.Out of curiosity, can one person tell me what Ted Stickland has done to bring jobs to the Ohio economy?The voters Obama is losing -- white-collar managers in Columbus, blue-collar union workers in Youngstown, pro-life independents around Cincinnati -- are exactly the types he needs to win re-election in 2012, and they're backing away from his party in droves. Obama tallied a whopping 60 percent disapproval rating in Quinnipiac's latest Ohio poll, with nearly two-thirds of voters disapproving of his economic performance.
That dissatisfaction extends across the board to Democrats on the statewide ballot. The Quinnipiac poll showed Gov. Ted Strickland down 17 points to Republican John Kasich and Republican Rob Portman leading Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher by 20 points in the Senate race. A separate CNN/Time poll was striking in that the two statewide Democrats were badly underperforming in nearly every part of the state, among almost every key demographic.
Working-class Democrats are abandoning the party to support Republicans with both Wall Street and Washington ties. The business-friendly base around Columbus, which swung towards Obama in 2008, now gives both Portman and Kasich substantial leads. A sizable share (42 percent) of Kasich backers in the Quinnipiac poll said they were casting their vote specifically against Strickland, who was once one of the most popular chief executives in the country.
The gloomy numbers for Ohio Democrats are all the more telling, given that the two Republicans on the statewide ballot are near-perfect punching bags for the White House's signature message -- that Republicans are beholden to the wealthiest few, Wall Street and big business. Kasich worked for Lehman Brothers as an investment banker during his time in the political wilderness, before the company went bankrupt. Portman stood side-by-side with former President Bush heading the Office of Management and Budget, and is an advocate for free-market and free-trade principles that are often received warily by the Buckeye State's blue-collar electorate.
Yet they're both leading by eye-popping margins, and Democrats are already privately discussing the possibility of moving money out of Ohio into other, more winnable, states. In a sign that the populist attacks focused on Kasich's past haven't had much of an impact, Strickland abandoned his own Wall Street attacks on Kasich in favor of a more positive message touting his economic record in Ohio -- a tough sell in a state with a 10.1 percent unemployment rate, ninth-highest in the country.
I'm just asking for one. The only thing of note I can remember is the introduction of Keno to the Ohio lottery, a true success story.
More......
Tea partiers ignored by the establishment
The head of the RNC got an earful of the conservative blogosphere's anger at the RNC head quarters moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Michael Steele over over criticism of the right, accusing the leadership of "Christian punching."
"We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day," the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Steele on the call, which was organized for conservative bloggers and media.
The call seemed to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the Republican establishment and the online and organized right: Though RNC advisers in the past have dumped on conservatives, anonymously and even on the record, Steele repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file GOP.
Actually, that's not what was written, but you'd be hard pressed to witness a report on the left's civil war over the fact that Christine O'Donnell once wish that her parents would die because in seventh grade they wouldn't let her go to her best friend's birthday party.
Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere's anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of "hippie punching.""We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day," the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Axelrod on the call, which was organzied for liberal bloggers and progressive media.
The call seemed to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the White House and the online and organized left: Though White House advisers in the past have dumped on the left, anonymously and even on the record, Axelrod repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems.
Seriously, I'm thinking that I might find some agreement with a lefty out there when I say that it's finally time to inject a third party into our political system so that both lefties and righties can kick our ideological heretics to the curb thus allowing both sides to create a brand that means something.
More.....
Who's blocking what?
Here's a reminder of how the democratic party runs important legislation through........
Now relax and swing
Head down
Grip firm but not tight
Slight bend at the hips
Elbow in
Knees slightly bent
Hips loose
Shoulders square
etc.
Now relax and swing!!!!!
The Obamunists are signing an alleged small business bill today that will allegedly help small businesses with loans.
Here's a little secret for these dumbasses. I have talked to at least 20 clients this week for a variety of reasons. Whenever, I talk to them I always ask what could improve their businesses.
Not one of them will tell you it a lack of capital. Every one of them will tell you that it's a lack of demand for the service/product(s).
I have talked to two bankers who are aggressively pursuing loan business.
Credit is available to businesses...... profitable businesses......
If you are a home builder who lost $60,000 last year and have no contracts for a home this year and you want to borrow $300,000 to build a spec home in this market. You will not get credit from any bank in this country. Regardless, of any federal loan program. Banks just are not going to do it.
So it's no surprise that many people are skeptical of the prospects of the Obamunists latest greatest pork project.............
President Barack Obama's $30 billion small community business lending program faces one big challenge: many of the community banks and businesses it's supposed to help don't want it.Instead of setting up a myriad of bull shit programs, how about the idea of dropping tax rates, and letting business owners keep their money to invest as they want.The lending program is part of a bill that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday and now awaits the president's signature. The legislation contains a mix of tax cuts and credits aimed at helping small businesses. The centerpiece of the bill is an effort to make billions of dollars available to community banks for loans to small businesses.
It seems like a simple effort to unclog a credit pipeline that has been blocked since the financial meltdown two years ago. But interviews with seven community bankers, as well as small business owners, show a reluctance to participate.
"People in my constituency can't get credit, and this will get money out to small businesses, who are the engine of job creation for this country," said Republican Sen. George LeMieux of Florida, who co-authored the amendment that created the lending program.
Bank executives say their customers don't want loans, even at low interest rates, because the sluggish economy has chilled expansion plans. Some say the federal money isn't worth it because they fear it will come with too much regulatory oversight.
"We have taken a strategic decision not to have our primary regulator, the government, also be a partner in our bank," said William Chase Jr., CEO of Triumph Bank in Memphis.
Chase said the bank already has enough capital to meet the paltry demand for loans. "Our business customers are mired in uncertainty and are reluctant to invest in their businesses," Chase said.
But congress seems hell bent on taking your money but letting you have some back if you ........
Invest in equipment
Hire an unemployed worker
Need to borrow money
Invest in energy efficient property
Offer health insurance
etc....
Now relax and swing
More......
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
2011 tax planning
By the way, if you have a sizable estate, you might want to die in 2010 to avoid estate taxes.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again....
Some of the country's most prominent health insurance companies have decided to stop offering new child-only plans, rather than comply with rules in the new health-care law that will require such plans to start accepting children with preexisting medical conditions after Sept. 23.
The companies will continue to cover children who already have child-only policies. They will also accept children with preexisting conditions in new family policies.
Nonetheless, supporters of the new health-care law complain that the change amounts to an end run around one of the most prized consumer protections.
"We're just days away from a new era when insurance companies must stop denying coverage to kids just because they are sick, and now some of the biggest changed their minds," Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, an advocacy group, said in a statement. "[It] is immoral, and to blame their appalling behavior on the new law is patently dishonest."
Three insurers - WellPoint, Cigna and CoventryOne - all cited uncertainty in the health insurance market for their decisions. That incertitude and the resulting decision of other insurers to drop their child-only plans, according to WellPoint spokeswoman Kristin Binns, "has created an unlevel competitive environment."
Now the lefties will blame the insurance companies for dropping coverage based on their stupid laws.
More......
Being "progressive" = Back to the Future
Take for instance their "progressive" attitudes towards energy. Forget Nukes. They want to invest in wind and solar energy. You may remember from your history book that we left those forms of energy, oh, about, 140 years ago, because we came up with something more efficient.
Now take public health. As a result of bans on DDT as well as other chemicals, diseases such as malaria which could have been eradicated are now on the way back. Kind of like, the year 1920.
Or how about bed bugs............
Think the bedbugs are biting? You're not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say the pest that was oh-so last century is making a big comeback in the United States as well as other countries. There's currently no bedbug hotline to record the extent of the bug's return, but federal agencies suspect the rise of pesticide-resistant bedbugs and increase in international travel may have led to the latest invasion.
Cities like Chicago are feeling the pinch. Alejandra Cancino of the Chicago Tribune reports: "Bedbug complaints to the city's 311 help line increased by about 76 percent in the last year, with 1,478 made between Sept. 1, 2009, and Aug. 31, compared with 842 in the same period the year before." The spreading problem even came to the attention of the governor who in July authorized a bedbug committee to determine the extent of Chicago's problem and what to do about it.
Better life through chemicals.
Not in a "progressive" world.
More....
Life in "Progress" City - Cincinnati edition
Cincinnati police made a swift arrest Monday, just hours after a 20-year-old man was fatally shot sitting at a bus stop with a child in a stroller at his side.Police say a teenager with “mental issues” who walked away from a juvenile placement center roughly 130 miles away in Pedro, Ohio, shot Kevin Isaac of Winton Terrace.
Isaac, who was baby-sitting the child, died at University Hospital shortly after the shooting.
Ronnell Parks, 17, walked up and shot Isaac twice, Cincinnati Homicide Unit Sgt. Robert Liston said. Parks has been charged with murder.
As I have said before, liberal policies do nothing to help the lower class in this country. This clown didn't escape from the juvy and head to "Redville" to murder some corporate executive. He gunned down an innocent bystander, I'll guess lower to middle class (given that he was waiting on a bus).
That seems to be the irony of liberal politics 1) create an city where shitballs can thrive 2) allow the shitballs to victimize the innocent people in those cities 3) keep electing the same dirtbags to office who perpetuate the process.
Gunning down a father waiting on a bus with his baby?
Now that's "progressive"!!!!!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Migration John Galt style
Rank | State | Tax Return Outflow | Exemptions Outflow | AGI Outflow |
| 1 | NY | 962,100 | 2,161,953 | $71,732,015,000 |
| 2 | CA | 723,098 | 2,249,194 | $47,653,140,000 |
| 3 | IL | 376,373 | 831,433 | $31,959,827,000 |
| 4 | NJ | 280,044 | 492,545 | $21,724,614,000 |
| 5 | MI | 276,750 | 409,144 | $15,880,307,000 |
| 6 | OH | 273,378 | 395,847 | $19,683,721,000 |
| 7 | PA | 195,837 | 174,517 | $10,093,603,000 |
| 8 | MA | 169,540 | 371,635 | $12,496,936,000 |
| 9 | LA | 133,989 | 291,900 | $7,192,784,000 |
| 10 | CT | 117,057 | 176,962 | $7,862,730,000 |
Into the red.............
Rank | State | Tax Return Inflow | Exemptions Inflow | AGI Inflow |
| 1 | FL | 864,960 | 1,666,629 | $97,161,723,000 |
| 2 | AZ | 448,463 | 862,732 | $29,762,956,000 |
| 3 | NC | 402,594 | 803,148 | $25,266,713,000 |
| 4 | GA | 383,030 | 798,849 | $15,205,329,000 |
| 5 | TX | 362,494 | 861.576 | $20,768,262,000 |
| 6 | NV | 296,276 | 569,094 | $19,831,176,000 |
| 7 | CO | 202,079 | 346,303 | $14,120,073,000 |
| 8 | TN | 183,594 | 402,551 | $9,662,364,000 |
| 9 | SC | 153,181 | 323,383 | $13,557,343,000 |
| 10 | WA | 145,217 | 256,834 | $11,091,142,000 |
The Tax Foundation with an interactive tool so you can see where income is moving to/from.
History lesson part II
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.More.....The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
A history lesson for Charles Krauthammer
Assume the geniuses are right. In fact, assume the worst case: O'Donnell loses the general election and the Senate ends up 50-50, with the tie-breaking vote going to Joe Biden. If we wingnuts hadn't screwed things up by electing O'Donnell in the primary, the Senate would be majority Republican in 2011-12. How much better would a majority-by-one outcome be?We do not have to hypothesize such a situation. Exactly that happened in 2001. And this is what happened: Jim Jeffords, nominal Republican, left the Republican Party to caucus with the Democrats, putting them in majority control for the remainder of that Senate term.Jumpin' Jim had gone through an election just eight months prior to his defection. All that time, the geniuses told us Republicans to support guys like Jeffords. He's running in Vermont, for goodness' sake -- whaddaya want? You can't expect a Jim DeMint Republican to win in the Northeast. We need such "moderate" Republicans in order to control the Senate.January 2001 was the first time in 46 years that the president, the House, and the Senate were Republican. That state of affairs lasted from January 20 to June 6. After that, meaning after Jumpin' Jim's jump, the Democrats controlled the Senate and blocked everything that might have been worthwhile coming from the Republican House and ready to be signed by President Bush.When we really, really needed him, Jumpin' Jim jumped. To be clear, all of the good do-bee Republicans who supported our "moderate" Republicans from the Northeast still got screwed. They lost the money they sent him and lost the Senate anyway. Strike one.
You can also read the saga of one Arlen Specter and the Prescription drug benefit bestowed upon us by these RINO's.
More.........
Taxing the super rich
Read this piece........
If our taxes rise significantly, as they seem likely to, we can cut back on some things. The (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month.
This why I say it's only poor people who ultimately pay for tax increases on the rich.