Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Guinness, great post regarding wind. I am not against wind energy it's just important to keep in perspective that as we increase our investment in it, hopefully private and voluntary, that it will continue to make up closer to 1-2% of thepower on the future grid.  That means 98% of our focus should be elsewhere. 

It is a tragedy that natural gas is 'wasted' on electrical generation since it is so extremely valuable for other uses.  Also a tragedy is our refusal to recognize the merits of nuclear, carbon-free, powerful and safe.  We had more deaths from a one-line 19mph light rail line here in one year than in the nationwide history of nuclear power. 

If we eventually invent the holy grail car battery and move most of the transportation sector energy to the electrical grid, where then does the additional carbon-neutral energy come from, not to mention grid capacity?

I can think of only two answers, sequestered coal and clean secure nuclear energy.

Back to wind, aside from the lengthy caveats about wind, that half the country isn't windy enough, that none is produced when the wind goes down and none is produced during shut down when the wind is too strong and that they litter, obstruct and dominate the natural landscape, there is a cost factor as well.  Best estimates I have read put the cost of wind at 5-times clean coal and solar at 15-times clean coal.  Given that disparity I think it wonderful if people choose of their free will to cover their roof with energy security and invest in their own wind tower on their own land, but not a solid payoff for public expenditure.

Deep thought inspired somewhere in my readings the past couple of days - maybe it was here.

Obama and the leftist machine contend that healthcare would be better if we spent less.  Let's apply same principle to education!

This point was already mentioned but glossed over in Tom Frieman's NY Times piece recently and made again in the piece copied below.

The unrest, demonstrations, protests and public outcry in Iran comes directly from the fact that immediately across their borders they are acutely aware that the totalitarian regime is gone, the murderous bloody dictator was hanged, and in its place is an old fashioned (new fashioned?) electoral system out of an obscure and ridiculed  idea from George Bush and Dick Cheney where politicians must campaign and compete for voter approval and citizens receive a basic human right called 'consent of the governed'.  Who knew that such a ridiculed idea could try to spread to other oppressed people in the region??
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From Powerline 6/24:

Paul Rahe is the distinguished intellectual historian and professor of history at Hillsdale College. Professor Rahe is the author, most recently, of Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. If any scholarly study in the history of political thought was ever timely, Soft Despotism is it.

Professor Rahe's new book has inspired much witty and learned commentary. Mark Steyn freely draws on the book in the lead article featured in the current issue of the New Criterion. The reviews by Professor Harvey Mansfield in the Weekly Standard and by William Voegeli in NR are must reading.

Professor Rahe has forwarded us his thoughts on the events in Iran:

    I spent the mid-1980s -- when the Iranian Revolution was young, when Hossein Mousavi was the Islamic Republic's Prime Minister, and the Iran-Iraq war underway -- in Istanbul as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, writing about Turkey primarily and also about Greece and Cyprus (which I visited with some frequency). In previous years, I had closely followed events in Iran, and I continued to do so while residing nearby. I was at the time haphazardly working on a book that would bear the title Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, and I was fascinated by the progress of a revolution that was at the time same theocratic and republican.

    I can remember thinking that the combination was likely to be unstable. The nascent regime might be led by a Supreme Leader drawn from the Shiite clergy and respected for his understanding of the Koran, and the Council of Guardians, whom he appointed, might veto legislation and carefully vet candidates for office with an eye to protecting the clerical regime, silencing its critics, and suppressing opposition. But the fact that the voters had a choice, that the candidates had to campaign, and that they had to tailor their campaigns with an eye to popular sentiment allowed in a fashion hard to circumscribe for the more or less free formation of public opinion.

    Something of the sort had taken place in ancient Athens under the rule of Peisistratus and his sons -- when the regime had been in form a republic and in reality a tyranny -- and, after the death of its founder, form asserted itself and reshaped political reality. In such a polity, semi-free elections may be necessary for the purpose of rallying popular support, but they also have the effect of confering a measure of authority on the populace and of suggesting to ordinary citizens that they have a role to play in public deliberation and in setting the polity's course. What began as a theocratic republic might easily evolve into something else. So I thought.

    In March, 2002, while on a visit to Istanbul, I had an opportunity to question an Iranian journalist as to the validity of my hypothesis. I had not been in Turkey for some years; I wanted to get a sense of what 9/11 meant in the one Muslim country I knew well; and I had been invited by another former fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs to a dinner to which he had also invited a number of Turkish journalists.

    Michael Ledeen had been suggesting in articles published hither and yon that Iran might be on the verge of a revolution, and I began by asking my Iranian acquaintance what he thought of the likelihood. He responded that many of the men who ran the Islamic Republic had been graduate students in eastern Europe. "They know how to control a population, but they do not know how to control their own children," he observed. "There will some day be a revolution--but not any time soon. Iran will change in the manner in which China did--when a new generation comes to power."

    As I have tracked events over the last few days, I have come back to that conversation again and again. I have no idea whether my Iranian acquaintance was accurate in describing the educational background of many of the Iranian leaders, but I have long suspected that he was correct in his estimation of their ability to keep the population in line and of their inability to control their own progeny. Five things are nonetheless clear.

    First, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not win anything like 63 percent of the vote in the recent election. Over the last four years, he has brought Iran to the edge of economic disaster; many Iranians are fully aware of their plight; and the authorities, fearful that he would go down to defeat, rigged the entire process from the start. Second, the ruling order in Iran is bitterly split over what amounts to a coup d'état. Third, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has put his prestige and that of the regime itself on the line. Fourth, the people of Iran are aware that they have been hoodwinked, and the Islamic Republic is now without a shred of legitimacy. And, finally, if the police and the militia should prove unable to control the crowds in Teheran, and if the Revolutionary Guard is called out and the guardsmen refuse to fire on their fellow citizens, things really will come apart.

    If the authorities manage to restore order (as, I suspect, they will), the pot will nonetheless continue to boil -- unless they resort to severe repression and purge those within their own ranks who lent support, open or tacit, to the demonstrators. But if they do this, they will at the same time seriously narrow the base of the regime's support, and that will only hasten the day of reckoning. As Reuel Marc Gerecht argues in a trenchant piece in the Weekly Standard, we are witnessing a game-changing moment.

    From all of this, the supporters of George W. Bush's policy in Iraq should draw consolation, for the elections that took place in that country under the American aegis contributed mightily to the discontent in Iran. The people of Iran were witness to the emergence within Iraq of a secular republic sponsored by an Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, possessed of an erudition and an authority rivalling and arguably surpassing that of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were witness to elections that were really free and to public debate open in ways that debate within the Islamic Republic is not. Morever, in Quom, the stronghold of the Shiite clergy, the clerics who most fully command respect have long rejected, as contrary to Shiite tradition and the interest of Islam, the path of direct clerical rule pursued by Khomeini.

    Iran today looks something like England in the wake of Oliver Cromwell's death. There has been a religious revolution; it never commanded full popular support; it is now seen, even by many of its most ardent supporters, to be a failure; and there will be a scramble to attempt to sustain the polity it produced. Ordinarily, American leverage does not amount to much. In this situation, it could nonetheless be considerable. Economically Iran is on the ropes. If we keep the pressure on, following the policy of the Bush administration, the regime may in fact collapse. If, however, in the interests of stability, in the manner of the so-called "realists," the Obama administration opts to take the pressure off and, in effect, bails out Iran's bankrupt regime, it may stumble on for some years to come.

BBG, Amazing photo!!  Curious, do they apply for a greenhouse gas permit before eruption or, like Communist China, is God excluded from Kyoto jurisdiction?

Must steal this Milton Friedman wisdom from BBG post in the healthcare debate and apply it to all issues:

What should we do about it? Ideally, Friedman argued, we should reverse the mistake that started all the trouble... Yet Friedman was a realist. Vested interests, he recognized, would make such a radical reform impossible. Instead he believed we should seek incremental changes, asking of each proposal simply whether it would move [the issue in question] "in the right direction."

Thank you Freki for a great post.  Bankruptcy is only bad news if you didn't already know that the firm had failed financially. 

Those who make the argument that an airline, automaker, brokerage or insurance company is too big to fail are the same ones IMO who do not understand or favor market capitalism in the first place.  President Obama to my knowledge has not read a book about free market capitalism that does not oppose it.  Same I'm sure can be said about Pelosi, Reid, Durban, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy and the rest of the current power structure.

Failure is the lifeblood of capitalism and new growth.  It puts a market check, price check and reality check on ideas, strategies and organizations.  Out of failure comes re-priced assets and human talent free to start new and better enterprises.  The sooner failed enterprises fail, the sooner that better, more efficient and more innovative ones can emerge.

Too big to fail is a perfect description for the old Soviet economy.  There was no dynamic movement of resources and capital to its most efficient use.  By refusing to recognize failure of the large, bureaucratic, inefficient, non-competitive enterprises, they blocked the emergence of newer and better ones.  Eventually the whole house of cards came crashing down.  Every day under this regime we look more and more like them.

Looks to me like 49 states derive individual rights from the Creator.  Missing from the list: Vermont, District of Columbia and one poster here who believes the right of a store in suburban Paris to sell products of their own choosing, free from disruption, is derived from LA County and the 9th Circuit, not from the Creator.

"Food Inc."  - Name implies monopoly/conspiracy but the industry exhibits all of the opposite attributes: highly competitive, productive, falling prices, intense competition, etc.

"it's easy to know where to point the finger, since the biggest meat-processing companies and agribusiness firms profiled in the film -- Smithfield, Tyson, Perdue, Monsanto -- universally declined to provide any access or on-camera interviews."  - It would appear that this is intended to be an attack film on their business.  Declining to participate after watching the chopping of Michael Moore's films like Columbine makes perfect sense to me.

"production of food has changed more in the last 50 years than it did in the previous 10,000."  -  Yes.  For the better (?)

"With the massive application of fertilizers, pesticides and economies of scale"  - It is a massive industry.  everything is massive.  Are they being wasteful?  I don't see why they would they more fertilizer or pesticide than necessary for healthy crops with expensive materials, scarce resources and low margins?

"industry dominated by a handful of big companies who run on low-wage labor"  - No. Small operators can hire low wage labor.  It is dominated by big companies because of the high cost of the machinery necessary to operate at this level of productivity and competitive profit margins.

"In one remarkable example Pollan provides, the meat in a single fast-food burger might have come from 400 different cows."  - Okay, but are the cows different?  Same genetics raised and fed the exact same way?

"This change has had obvious benefits for consumers.[the film takes pains to notice."  - Good. The Prices would be even more affordable if we weren't stealing farmland to grow energy and if we weren't artificially driving up the cost of fuel to operate food production.


"[Organic]" represents about 3 percent of the total food market."  That is the market making a choice.  " If you surmise that that 3 percent correlates strongly with upper-middle-class, college-educated folks in coastal cities and college towns, you're probably right."  - No.  The affluent in America that can afford to eat well make up a majority, not 3% and the biggest nutritional issue of the non-affluent in America is over-consumption.  They are not faced with no choices,; they are making wrong choices IMO.

"Food, Inc. will inevitably be compared to "An Inconvenient Truth" (and there are undeniable similarities)"  - From the piece, I definitely agree.  Same logic strings are used. Examples below.

Kenner explores cases of E. coli poisoning (from tainted ground beef) - Is there a higher percentage of poisoned food now than previously?  I doubt it and he didn't say.

"...a food production system that is so destructive to human health"  - We keep dying younger and younger...  Oops, it's just the opposite.  We are living longer and longer: http://www.dohc.ie/statistics/health_statistics/table_b1.html

"When Walmart decided to stop selling dairy products from cows treated with bovine growth hormone, the market for such hormones went south, and most farmers stopped using it."  - There's a market solution.  Did low prices end with that correction?  No.

"When McDonald's decided to phase out genetically modified potatoes"  Yet they are still on they dollar menu...

"a few million people demanding grass-fed beef at Safeway, Giant Food and Food Lion could transform the system virtually overnight"  - Offer a choice or demand a prohibition?

"This inexpensive food is coming to us at a high cost."  - Uh, we still don't know that.

"what makes it all the more powerful is that you have to eat this stuff."  - Of course that is not true.  We all still have the option to raise our own food if we are so inclined.

"It’s wonderful how little it costs, but we’re starting to see the real damage it does."  - Uh no, still not demonstrated.

"And we’re having growth in farmer’s markets, and hopefully that will empower smaller farmers as well."  - Is the implied monopoly trying to close them down or are they competing successfully on price and quality?

Do people have to get their heads around the idea that food really shouldn't be as cheap as it is now?"  - The old soften the premise with a question mark trick.

"when he was a kid, food cost about 18 percent of the average American's income. Today that food costs 9.7 percent of our income. Basically it’s been cut in half over a 40- to 50-year period. But medical costs have gone from 5 percent to 18 percent, so in aggregate, we’re spending more money for medicine and for food today than we used to."  - Wow!  That is logic right out of inconvenient truth.  He should give credit to Al Gore.  Also to Obama.  The text did not say that the increased productivity in food production caused the tripling of health costs, but the cadence and the flow pretends that it did.  Very impressive, and no unnecessary scientific studies wasted to back it up, lol.

"But it's coming at a cost, and that’s one of the things that we try to point out. They're invisible costs; you might not see them at the checkout counter. One-third of all Americans born after the year 2000 are going to have early-onset diabetes."  - Wow! That came out of nowhere.  The reader smarter than me must already know that it is caused by improved food production. My guess would have been lazy lifestyles, paying people to do nothing and a more aggressive diabetes diagnostic industry.

"That's going to bankrupt the healthcare system."  - I thought he was a 'filmmaker'.  Now he is an expert on everything?

"Environmentally, we’re going to have tremendously high costs. Ultimately a large part of our carbon footprint is due to this food system."  - Environmentally we would have had to cut down and farm every rainforest on the planet to get this kind of production 'the old way'.

"This food is grown in an unsustainable way, it's based on gasoline and it’s based on pollution."   - I think he means diesel fuel but go with it...

"When gasoline prices spike, it's going to make this food very expensive."   - Gasoline is going to spike because of public policy choices, not unsustainability.

"We can no longer drink the water in some farm states."  - When was our water supply ever better than right now?  Where I live it is cleaner now than 50 years ago.

"Our topsoil has become totally depleted."  - That argument wasn't proven last time it came up either.  His use of exaggeration makes it patently false and reason to suspect other problems with the propaganda.  I can see why business people might not want to go on-camera with him.  Totally depleted??

"And this food that we’re eating has far less nutritional value than the food we used to eat..."  - Our ability to have fresh fruits and vegetables at a reasonable cost in all seasons especially in the extreme climate that I live in is nothing short of amazing!  Tell me what fresh blueberries and oranges tasted like on the Minnesota prairie in a January blizzard during the 1800s.  Were they airlifted in from California or Cenrtral America?  I don't think so.  Our choices are far better now IMO.

Thanks for compliments but I was dead serious with my Biden comment.  In my quest for more positive things to say about our President, Barack Hussein Obama, here are the top 5 reasons I toast his good health, safety and security, hoping for a full Obama term:

Order of Presidential Succession
 The Vice President:  Joseph Biden
 Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi
 President pro tempore of the Senate:  Robert Byrd
 Secretary of State:  Hillary Rodham Clinton
 Secretary of the Treasury: Timothy Geithner

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see a topic for 'limited government' - maybe since it hasn't been pursued by either party in our lifetimes.  Could be put as 'way forward for conservatives' but even more important to me is to get reasonable Democrats to remember the value of concepts like 'limited government'.   - Doug

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/12/new_bill_ends_government_run_companies_96956.html

June 12, 2009
New Bill Ends Government-Run Companies
By John Thune

The federal government currently holds various ownership stakes in over 500 private companies. This alarming fact, along with the events of recent days in the auto industry, should serve as a wakeup call for all those concerned about preserving the free market principles upon which our nation was founded. As we have been so rudely reminded, government ownership of private companies threatens the fairness of markets, creates coercive business conditions, and allows government bureaucrats to dictate business decisions.

Government ownership interests in private companies create an uneven playing field. Companies aided by the government are given an unfair competitive advantage that private companies do not enjoy. Because of this influence, government entities distort the competitive process and lead to inefficient market outcomes which favor the government-owned entity.

Greater government involvement in private companies also fosters coercion and government manipulation. In the last six months, the federal government has fired CEOs of major corporations, intervened in advertising and production decisions, pressured businesses to make certain decisions and take certain public policy positions, and coordinated "pre-arranged" bankruptcy filings designed to reward the government's "friends." Instead of the private hand of the market guiding market activities, the cold hand of political power is shaping business decisions.

The federal government now finds itself in the strange position of owning 60 percent of General Motors, one of the nation's oldest and largest car companies, and eight percent of Chrysler. To reach this point, creditors who thought they held positions superior to other creditors were sent to the back of the line so that government-favored creditors could receive favorable treatment. Those who opposed the government-imposed solution and the outrageous division of assets were branded as trouble-making "speculators."

Now in control of several private institutions, the federal government will have the power to make management decisions. Instead of being guided by the discipline of the market, however, government owned companies are free to pursue the social goals of government bureaucrats, whether they be certain kinds of cars, loans to preferred demographics, or the latest demands of government-favored unions. Whether these experiments are unprofitable may not matter in the same way that it would for privately-owned companies. Unlike their privately owned counterparts, these government owned companies benefit from untold billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, without any guarantee of repayment in the future.

This state of affairs sounds so strange because it is so new. The heightened degree of government control of our economy is a major deviation from our nation's free-market philosophy. From the beginning of our republic, the economic sector has largely been dominated by privately owned firms competing with one another without the government dictating how these firms should act. But with little warning, we have entered a brave new world in which a large number of private firms are now subject to government control, an economic model perhaps familiar in Europe or South America, but not the United States.

Neither the citizens of this republic nor their elected representatives in Washington voted for this degree of government control over private businesses. Instead, what was supposed to be a short-term program to relieve financial institutions of toxic assets morphed into an uncontrolled and unauthorized bureaucracy extending its tentacles into hundreds of private businesses. With no explicit vote of Congressional approval, the federal government is now in the business of running banks, insurance companies, and car manufacturers.

To stop this dangerous course of action, I have introduced the Government Ownership Exit Plan Act. This legislation would put an immediate end to government purchases of additional direct ownership interests of private companies. It would also prohibit government officials from making or influencing business decisions when it comes to the companies in which the government already has an ownership interest.

It is equally important to set an exit strategy for this unprecedented government intrusion. The Government Ownership Exit Plan sets a hard deadline for the final termination of government ownership interests in private companies and puts our economy back on the path to competitiveness and private ownership, not governmental control. The legislation would require the Treasury to sell any ownership stake in a private entity by July 1, 2010. Revenue from the sale of these assets would be used for debt reduction.

If we do not act now, government ownership of these private entities could persist for decades. If we want to once again promote free market principles and the private ownership of business, it is time to act.

Thune is a Republican Senator from South Dakota.

I don't know why the govt is allowed to ask or keep track of 90% of what they do, and then for the important matters like verifying citizenship - they don't...  Meanwhile get ready for impostors to come by (and for ACORN/Census double agents to 'share' your info)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09162/976339-94.stm?cmpid=lifestyle.xml

Be cautious answering census questions
Bureau employees won't use e-mail and won't ask for Social Security or bank numbers
Thursday, June 11, 2009
By Larry Walsh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Cooperative, but cautious.

That's the advice the Better Business Bureau is giving to consumers when they are contacted by members of the 2010 U.S. Census.

"Most people are rightfully cautious and won't give out personal information to unsolicited phone callers or visitors," said BBB President Warren King. "However, [Census Bureau employees are] an exception to the rule."

Those employees already have begun verifying the addresses of households across the country. Next, they will collect information about every person living at those addresses, including their name, age, gender, race and other relevant data.

"It's important that people provide that information," Mr. King said.

Census data is used to allocate more than $300 billion in federal funds every year. It also is used to determine the number of members each state may send to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Households are required by law to comply with the Census Bureau's request for information. Unfortunately, that mandate has opened the door for con artists who are posing as census workers and asking people for their Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers or other sensitive financial information.

Although the Census Bureau will collect information by mail, phone or personal visits, it won't use e-mail.

Those who receive an e-mail that purports to be from the Census Bureau, and the odds of receiving one are great, delete it. No matter how "official" it looks, delete it. And no one should ever click on a link or open any attachments in an e-mail that supposedly is from the Census Bureau.

Mr. King said law enforcement officials in several states have issued warnings that scammers posing as Census Bureau employees are knocking on doors and asking for donations and Social Security numbers.

How can the public tell the difference between a Census Bureau employee seeking legitimate information and a crook trying to raid their bank accounts or steal their identity?

Mr. King said census workers will have a badge, a handheld device, a census bureau bag and a confidentiality notice. Residents should ask to see their identification and badge before answering any questions.

If a visitor purporting to be from the Census Bureau asks for a Social Security number or financial information, the resident should not give it to them, should close the door and should call the local police.

"While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, it will not ask for Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers [and they won't] solicit donations," Mr. King said.

He said the BBB's "cooperative but cautious" campaign is part of a partnership arrangement with the Census Bureau to help it collect the most accurate information it can. The public can do its part by cooperating with legitimate Census Bureau employees and reporting the con artists to the police.

My take (even though they all wanted someone else  ) on this Stratfior piece - that Obama is in a position of strength and Netanyahu of weakness:  Strat is always insightful and thought provoking.  Their points are valid, but... I don't think Netanyahu puts clinging to power above clinging to his principles and his vision Israel's best interests.  Far as I know he never has. Obama is just the opposite.  He has swayed with the wind on dozens of issues and shows no sign of extraordinary backbone on this one. 

Israel lost at least part of an ally in the last 2 American elections.  Israel's strategy now is survival with or without the full support of the U.S.  The re-emergence of Netanyahu is a sign of that.

From Statfor: "[Israel] is not facing a situation like 1973, when Israeli survival depended on aid being rushed in from the United States. The technology transfer now runs both ways, and the United States relies on Israeli intelligence quite a bit. In other words, over the past generation, Israel has moved from a dependent relationship with the United States to one of mutual dependence."

To me, that is instructive.  The debate on the board recently over who needs whom the most misses the reality that the need is mutual.  Obama may not realize this yet as he learns the names of the intelligence agencies, after basketball practice and auto company board meetings.

Strat thinks Netanyahu's political survival rests on compliance with US demands.  Maybe so but a man based in principle isn't likely to cave based on opinion polls or a cling to power.  The assumption that Obama is an eternal legend with the everlasting excitement of his victory speech in Grant Park Chicago is fading.  Power dissipates with falling opinion polls.  Bush learned that.  At the peak of the exuberance, Obama won 28 states.  Bush won 31 states just 4 years earlier before losing it all in the congressional midterms 2 years later. 

Netanyahu knows about 9.4% American unemployment and that Dems in the US are starting to poll behind R's on key issues at home.  That is before the fights on cap trade taxation, nationalized healthcare, activist confirmation hearings, full year record trillion and a half dollar deficit numbers release and double digit unemployment materializing.  His 'unity' coalition includes Jewish Americans (like Rahm) working with the world's greatest haters of Jews and Israel, and independent deficit hawks voting with the world's biggest spenders.  There is plenty on Obama's plate without this fight and Israeli settlements won't be in the top 10 or top 100 issues facing his administration or the American public as he heads into his own mid-terms, nor is Middle East tranquility about to break out suddenly either way. 

Obama makes pandering appearances and statements in his photo-ops for his own sake and Netanyahu recognizes that.  JMHO.

CCP: "...why is it ok for certain Americans to be targeted and discriminated against and their wealth confiscated..."
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Thanks CCP for great points made.

My view is that equal protection under the law, consent of the governed, and common morality would prohibit taxing income earned from different sources or by different taxpayers differently.  I don't know the case but understand that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld our unevene tax system based on the logic that any taxpayer IF in any particular situation would be taxed the same way.  But politicians know they are targeting and pandering when they make promises to raise taxes on the 2% and not on the 98% of voters.  Voters know which people they are talking about. How does that pass anybody's test of consent of the governed?

The estate tax is the most egregious.  If we chose a system that allowed no wealth to be passed from generation to generation whatsoever,  at least pass for equal treatment under the law.  Instead we will confiscate the majority of assets from only a small minority of the taxpayers and don't even try to conceal how it aimed at so few citizens that they are powerless to oppose or stop it.

Under previous tax cuts the estate tax was phased out for 2010 but will be brought back in for 2011 at 2002 levels with exclusions as low as one million dollars and rates as high as 55%.  And that is only the federal portion of the tax.

The Pelosi-Obama leftist machine if still in power will likely tweak the estate tax limits so that it is only targeted, as your post suggests, at certain small minorities of people and excludes critical leftist electoral groups.

Compliance with constitutional and moral principles should NOT be trusted only for the courts to sort out.  That didn't work with McCain-Feingold where the court upheld limits on first amendment political speech, second amendment infringements, Japanese-American internments, public takings limits, or hosts of other encroachments.  Constitutional principles should be front and center on every issue, in every campaign and every debate IMHO.

As a practical matter it would seem that no one - Republican or Democrat, enemy of the U.S or ally, marksman or biochemist - would prefer Joe Biden be President.

Boyo posted: "One unsuspecting wife (in Saudi) walked off the US compound in some capri pants (non-Muslim behavior) OOPS  .She was beaten by a group of men, with switches"

JDN actually wrote: "Sorry; she was stupid to walk around in capri pants. And the same punishment would have been meted out whether she was muslim or not...seems "fair" to me.  Hardly, a "mistreatment" of non muslims."

Repeat:  a western woman wore NORMAL western clothing, was beaten by a group of men, and that is hardly a mistreatment of a non-Muslim???
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Crafty, you really want us to IGNORE that level of comment rather than react/over-react?  Besides offensive and not genuine (he also wrote: "they do seem seem to live in the dark ages), these posts are tiresome.  IMO he is just trying to bring down the conversation; these posts don't fit anyone's pursuit of the truth.

Who is/are the biggest donors to the democratic party?" "Anyone care to guess"

Rich Limosine Liberals?  White Guilt? Second and third generation wealth? Buffet, Soros, rich movie directors like Al Gore and Spielberg?

Recently appointed interim Senators and their families?

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae? Lehmann Brothers? LOL

The PRC, DPRK, PSUV, KGB, and the PLO??

"How can you make "logical adjustments missed in the tax code" if we are discussing the marginal TAX rate?"

Reynolds is aware of nominal tax rate tables, lol. No one argues that.  The tax rates from the tables are applied to income or as you say - profits.  The table you pasted took up a paragraph of space and the tax code takes 7500 pages.  You will find if you look that there is substantial disagreement over the ever-changing government definition of business income.  I wonder how many changes have been enacted since my business school accounting taught us that corporations must always keep at least 2 sets of books...

For example, the first 'Bush tax cut' repeal from the Pelosi-Obama congress took effect in 2008 and had to do with favorable depreciation treatment in the tax code for capital equipment investments.  Like it or not, that has the effect of a change in the marginal tax rate if you compare apples with apples for the same measurements of previous years, without rewriting the tables.

America's corporate tax rate is second highest to Japan in the developed world.  While you refer back to verify that, China was lowering theirs.

We also 'tax' corporations with our plethora of regulations, some helpful and some not, but all requiring teams of lawyers, lobbyists and accountants that are not involved involved in production, marketing or innovation.

Before you tell us again how simple it all is, please post all the rules that go with the tables and all the rates, adjustments and exclusions of the 50 states along with the federal and state individual tax rates that the share owner must also pay in order to see a spendable dime in return for his or her ownership investment in a c-corp.
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Not a great example, but even a one man senate candidate couldn't figure it out: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/01/accountants/
"tax experts say the accountant should have known that Franken needed to pay taxes in the 19 different states where Franken earned money in the last four years." Of course the rules, rates and adjustments are different in each one.  Same goes for Geithner and Daschle, much less GE or the former General Motors.  I wonder what tax and regulation compliance costs General Motors paid in order to make a ZERO profit these last several years.  What is the marginal tax rate on profits there??! Infinite and unmeasureable.

CCP correctly notes the berating of the US in glibness speeches.  I would add the hypocricy of acknowledging Iran's need for nuclear power generation while denying ours.

I condemn the murder of the abortionist.  May he face the full penalties of the law including death penalty if available. 

Beside the crime, he hurts his own movement, encouraging drivel like this: "anti abortion groups.  A rather cold blooded and vicious lot...Lock them all up; for a very long long time."  - Lock up whom? The ones who killed an abortion doctor (we already do that) or the ones who are trying to save lives?

"A late term abortion doctor praying in a church produces in me a deep sense of cognitive dissonance."

I've shed not a tear yet for the late term abortionist, but his life would have been saved IMO if we lived under one of our own pretend principles called 'consent of the governed'.  As posted elsewhere, no serious anti-abortion law has EVER been proposed that does not make exception for protecting the life of the mother.  Assuming the killer's objective was to save innocent life, he would not feel driven to murder, so powerless in the democratic process if there was a possibility in his state to even debate, lobby or petition the government for the right to protect innocent human life from slaughter.

Instead that issue is determined for us by the likes David Souter et al posing as royalty for life, like a third world country.  They even time their departures to allow for the continuation of their agenda with 'policy makers' that cannot be recalled by election and will not answer anything in confirmation that resembles a 'litmus test'.

Regarding the church, offering forgiveness for sins on Sunday for those who then continue their lawful killing on Monday through Friday, may I refrain from posting my view of how the late term abortionist will be judged when he meets his maker.

Sorry I didn't follow the argument about which one of these guys was a martyr.  One kills at least in his mind the guilty to stop the killing of innocent human life, and these are not gobs of goo or embryos.  These are formed, small humans with unique DNA and beating hearts but 'the law' from the liberal elites does not allow any legal means to pursue their protection.  The other was also a martyr, bless his soul, killing to protect the right of the mother to not be forced give birth to a baby, defective or unwanted by her.  The baby is killed inside the womb because a 'legal issue' is created if you remove from the womb first and then kill it.  Also the gruesome procedure allows them to shrink the killed, late term 'little one' to make the procedure easier for the doctor and 'the mother'.

As we judge a wrong and a wrong after removing the issue from legitimate debate in the political arena leaving only street 'justice', we might also take a look at the kill ratios of the 2 martyrs. One killed once wrongly, and the other M-F by occupation.

Regarding prosecution ratios, I don't believe any abortionist killers have ever walked free.  Still waiting for our followup from France regarding the prosecution of the peaceful protesters by day who lawlessly torch vehicles by night.  Even if they are not one and the same, the 'peaceful' protesters  benefit from the intimidation.  He who made the false comparison could post the prosecution rate for cars torched and other violent acts in that particularly peaceful French municipality, but that I don't expect.

Repeating, their is no legal issue over aborting to save the life of the mother.  That is true in far less than 1% of abortions according to planned parenthood statistics and not banned under any pro-life proposal.  And there is no legal issue about prosecuting the accused murderer under the full extent of the law.  His action was wrong and it was illegal.  Too bad that it is likely in his view that it was the only recourse left to him living in an undemocratic society that rejects the principle of consent of the governed for its most hotly contested life and death issue.

Wealth and savings destroyed and federal revenues down 34% (?) but reassuring to know income disparity is lessening.

"And on that gracious note, may I suggest we move on from this particular little discussion."

Like the best NHL hockey referees, they wait unitl the fighters are exhausted and then they break it up.

Thanks Huss, here is a link:  http://declineandfallofwesterncivilization.blogspot.com/

After the 2003 tax rate cuts we had incredible double digit growths in revenues that ended with the inauguration of the Pelosi-Obama congress promising to reverse the cuts especially on investors and employers.

Looks like we have fiscal year to date increases of 17% growth in spending not counting trillions in new future obligations along with a 24% decline in revenues!  I guess the promise that the era of irresponsibility is over was just a bunch of BS.

"A budget is more than simply numbers on a page. It is a measure of how well we are living up to our obligations to ourselves and one another."
                                              – President Barack Obama

"when push comes to shove, the only way the government is going to come up with the money needed to meet its aggressive spending is to print it up."  - But when we print it up we don't really have more money, we are just printing the word dollar on something that is really only a fifty cent piece.  I doubt if that is the policy that many of the supporters were supporting.

Maybe someone can help me here, but is there not a constitutional obligation of these officials to protect the value of our currency and honor our obligations?? 

If we were done borrowing, devaluing our currency would be a very clever trick to lower our debt.  Unlike third world countries, we have borrowed at least until now in our own currency.  Conversely, the day we have to borrow trillions in yuan or euros we return to third world status asking others for debt rescheduling and forgiveness. 

"Im curious to see how obama is going to fund health care"  - Of course he is NOT going to fund it because tax rate increases we know are not how you grow revenues.

It was hard to find actual numbers.  Not on a search of OMB, CBO or google...  Try this: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0409.pdf

(It would be nice if cut and paste from a pdf worked better)

Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, April 2009 and Other Periods
[$ millions]
                                                                                                               This Month,  Fiscal Year to Date, Comparable Period Prior Fiscal Year

Net Receipts

Individual Income Taxes ... 136,668  566,369  747,558
Corporation Income Taxes... 14,545 70,781 171,142
Social Insurance and Retirement Receipts:
Employment and General Retirement............................................................................................ 90,985 508,833 507,153
Unemployment Insurance... 7,058 17,117 18,801
Other Retirement ... 323 2,401 2,415
Excise Taxes ... 5,642 34,343 37,130
Estate and Gift Taxes ... 3,976 16,082 18,121
Customs Duties ... 1,878 14,063 15,717
Miscellaneous Receipts ... 5,158 26,077 31,684
Total... 266,232 1,256,066 1,549,720


Net Outlays

National Defense ... 54,273 385,925 359,275
International Affairs... 4,341 21,699 16,171
General Science, Space, and Technology....................................................................................... 1,963 13,911 13,210
Energy ... -25 193 -29
Natural Resources and Environment ............................................................................................... 2,550 18,963 17,303
Agriculture ... 566 22,070 19,470
Commerce and Housing Credit... 3,520 202,359 755
Transportation ... 5,918 43,967 41,123
Community and Regional Development........................................................................................... 1,813 17,230 13,870
Education, Training, Employment and Social Services.................................................................... 7,940 53,538 52,538
Health ... 33,541 189,735 163,115
Medicare... 36,888 243,177 220,427
Income Security... 49,527 321,196 256,969
Social Security... 56,649 380,825 353,363
Veterans Benefits and Services... 8,024 54,214 48,608
Administration of Justice... 3,831 27,674 26,580
General Government ... 1,261 11,989 9,103
Net Interest... 19,223 114,047 145,301
Undistributed Offsetting Receipts ... -4,663 -64,352 -53,962

Total... 287,139 2,058,360 1,703,191



It all reminds me of a personal story from more than a dozen years ago.  I was at a friend's home for a party.  He is a conservative, his wife's politics I don't know, but they met at a liberal twin cities college and these were their friends.  A gal talking was the daughter of the Minneapolis congressman, Kieth Ellison's predecessor (name withheld) who went on tho become state senator of south mpls and a failed Dem. candidate for Lt. Governor.

She explained in the sweetest most genuine way that the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats care mostly about others while Republicans care mostly about themselves.  I waited for my chance to jump in and tried so hard not to say anything that would get me thrown out before the food was served.  I replied that 'Republicans know how to load the wagon and Democrats know how to unload the wagon so we really need BOTH!'  She looked stunned and said she never heard anything like that before.

"I simply went from one form of aggression to another."

I try to only get bent out of shape in 3 situations:  attacks on life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

From Islam in Europe,  I agree with Huss exactly on choosing and encouraging positive immigration before the fact.  Mass deportations never seem to happen.

The JDN conversation with the Justice was interesting for him.  Bringing it here is what the Justice would call 'heresay' because the paraphrasing of cherrypicked answers to cherrypicked questions might not tell the whole story.

I suspect he wasn't asked the question about protesters rights in the checkout lane or dead-baby delivery room at an abortion clinic because they are banned to the sidewalk.  I doubt he was asked whether a gang with "straight power" signs could remove gay oriented products from stores shelves and I doubt he would say no problem on the record, or whether shingles protesters could disrupt a job site by moving the neatly stacked materials in carts and dropped in a pile at a different point on the property.  In that scenario, I think we would be discussing second amendment rights more than the first.

Even more ridiculous than saying the boycotted and removed goods might have been paid for by the hate-Israel people is to believe this justice would have allowed them a protest, with speeches and cameras, removing Israeli-made chairs from their arrangement in his courtroom, while in session, under his watch, without consequence, and even he did, that would be on public property, not in a privately owned store. 

But let's assume he does think I am obligated to host your free speech in my living room or business showroom and vice versa because it's 'free speech' and that you get Justices Breyer and Ginsburg along with Mother Theresa to agree with you, that does not change my view that their utter disrespect for the sanctity of private property is contemptible.

The prison application of cell phone jamming is extremely persuasive though I would think guards also need some form of wireless communication for emergencies such as calling for backup.

In a church or music/theatre application I have mixed feelings.  When I turn my ringer off I miss calls half the following day until I discover it off.  But on silent mode in a quiet area I at least might know what calls I've missed and could excuse myself.  Playing tennis or golf with doctors on call for example, it may be rude to take a call,  but if jammed they couldn't participate if they couldn't regularly look to see if calls were missed.