Der Kommissar wants his "demographic reserve" tax

Sydney Morning Herald: "Germany set to tax young."

Germany is proposing to levy extra taxes on the young to pay for the costs of the country's growing numbers of old people, under government plans for a ''demographic reserve'' levy.
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats have drafted proposals that, if law, would require all those over 25 to pay a proportion of their income to cushion Germany against a looming population crisis.

There's a very, very predictable cause to this problem:

Because of a slump in Germany's population, as more ageing Germans retire there are fewer young workers to replace them as taxpayers to fund generous welfare and pension arrangements.

To which I say: "Willkommen in Amerika!" young, productive, overtaxed Germans.

I can't believe they're going to cancel this show - Tonight's episode of "Community" was just about the funniest thing I've ever seen since the paintball episode.  It was a community-college pillow fight as told by a PBS version of "The Civil War" complete with a pledge drive in the closing credits.  Genius.

Auto-debt - It's not just General Motors racking up debt: "Saab produced $2 billion in unpaid bills."

Meanwhile, in Motown: "Detroit faces state takeover threat."

Parliamentarian rules: Senate must do its job - Well, this came as a shock for Harry Reid and his Senate which hasn't passed a budget in 1070+ days: "Ruling: Senate can't dodge unpopular budget votes."

Just like last time, watch for Paul Ryan's budget to be voted down and Obama's budget to be super-voted down.

Facts are stubborn things - Guy Benson gives a point-by-point response to Obama's blather today: "Obama's worst speech yet."

Extra - Yuval Levin: "Obama's America."  That would be the America where doing anything to rein in unprecedented government spending and trillion-dollar deficits is heartless social Darwinism.  Oh my.

More - Hey isn't Paul Ryan's budget awful?  WSJ: "The worst economic recovery in history."

And this - Opinion Journal: "If there's a Laffer Curve for Presidential invective—some point at which dishonest political abuse yields diminishing returns—the White House political team must not think their boss has hit it. Even in this hyperpartisan age, President Obama's speech to the Associated Press yesterday was a parody of the form. This was a diatribe that managed to invoke "Social Darwinism" and "a Trojan Horse" in the same paragraph, amid the other high crimes that Mr. Obama says Paul Ryan wants to commit."

Total eclipse of the STA

Today's lesson in irony: the Boston Globe had an editorial today titled "Solyndra shouldn't cast shadow over bigger clean-energy push."

And now the punchline.  Zero Hedge: "World's largest solar plant, with second largest ever Department of Energy loan guarantee, files for bankruptcy":

Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world's largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America ("STA"), filed for bankruptcy.

Oh, man, couldn't they just hold out until November?

Living in Twilight City - This is a really excellent article by Megan McArdle in this month's Atlantic about the convergence of social and economic problems in Europe.  Generous public benefits are straining the budgets in the Eurozone at the very time the fertility rate is plummeting and there aren't enough workers to support the system.  Growth would help but the Eurozone economy is barely expanding and some countries are so deep in debt that austerity is the new normal.

Always loved this song

Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" - with lyric subtitles!



Side note: I was at a piano bar at Walt Disney World a couple years back and I asked for this song (which may be a little obscure) but one of the guys played the opening part and I was mightily impressed.  Unfortunately, they didn't know the whole thing so I think they moved on to "Sweet Caroline" or something.

Hey kids, rock and roll - Doug Ross links to Esquire which notes that the employment rate for young adults is the lowest since the government began recording this information.  So there are no jobs for the very Americans who are going to have to pay off the $5 trillion in new debt incurred by this Administration.

Tea leaves - It looks like Wall Street thinks that Obamacare is going down.

Spain is the new Greece - Powerline has the rundown and one has to wonder how much longer Germany can run around the Eurozone, plugging all the leaks in the dam.

We're back on this nonsense again? - Althouse: "Obama wants to make this country 'a little fairer'" by bringing up the Buffett rule again: "Okay, well thanks for reminding me not to let my income spike up over $250,000. I want to remain in my safe cocoon of acceptably restricted income. I don't want to be one of those people who is making things feel unfair."

At this point, I'd almost like to see Congress pass the law so Republicans can say: "OK, that took care of a day of borrowing.  Now what?"

Oh but the "fairness" of it all.  The sweet, sweet fairness.

Things I do in the supermarket that drive my wife crazy - open thread

I need a break from politics.  Here are some stuff I do in the grocery store on those rare occasions when I'm shopping with my wife:

I'll hum a riff from "Brown Sugar," hold up braunschweiger and say "How come you taste so good?"  "Just like a sausage should."

In the detergent aisle: "Will I ever find Joy?"

In the cereal aisle: act like I can't find a certain cereal then say: "Kix just keep gettin' harder to find!"  Bonus more-obscure alternative: insist that I should pick out a cereal because "You shouldn't let other people get your Kix for you."

Also in the cereal aisle: "How come I can never find Regular K?"

Before it was discontinued by Nabisco, I'd turn the boxes of "doo dads" upside down so they'd read "spap oop."

The Left discovers epistemic closure

Remember when it was the political Right who wouldn't listen to reason because our TVs are permanently tuned to Fox News?  When it comes to Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi found that her explanation of its Constitutionality - "are you serious?" - perfectly lucid.

Objective journalists like Jeffrey Toobin were predicting 7-2 or even 8-1 decisions for Obamacare, because, well all those other arguments against the legislation were just plain silly.

That’s what happened this week. There appears to be no question in the mind of anyone who read the transcripts or listened to the oral arguments that the conservative lawyers and justices made mincemeat out of the Obama administration’s advocates and the liberal members of the court.
This came as a startling shock to the liberals who write about the court.

Somebody is living in the epistemic closure cocoon.

Don must have misheard you

Just a teensy piece of your freedom - Look at all the neat stuff you'll get!  Andrew Klavan "Obamacare - how nice people crush freedom": "In other words, there’s always a good reason to take your freedom away — your health, the poor, your evil opinions, the lousy way you raise your kids — and never a reason to preserve freedom except the love of freedom itself. Thus, so often, the people destroying the American way of life are actually nice people who just want to help."

Hey, where you goin' with those jobs? - Greg Mankiw: "We're number one!"  In corporate tax rates, that is.

Let's not....get too excited

Naturally, I'm pleased about the events at the Supreme Court today:

Today was the most important day in the history of the individual mandate. And it might be the day the individual mandate died, based on the conservative justices' creative and painstaking assault on the law. "This was a train wreck for the Obama administration," Jeffrey Toobin told CNN. "This law looks like it's going to be struck down."

Of course a ruling won't be made until June but the overwhelming impression is that the conservative justices took the position - never really refuted by the other side - that the individual mandate gives the government limitless powers.  One of my favorite parts was when Justice Kennedy took on the idea that health care is "unique": "And in the next case, it'll say the next market is unique."

I'm sure the other side will say that the justices are "ignoring the law."  But I wonder how much of the Court's considerations are influenced by the fact that Americans have never liked Obamacare and, two years later, dislike it even more.  It's gotta make it easier, listening to the will of the people.

Extra - NY Magazine: "How Paul Clement won the Supreme Court's oral arguments on Obamacare."

More - Links at Instapundit.

And this - Opinion Journal: "A bad day for unlimited government at the High Court."

A stupid, tendentious primer on the Commerce Clause

I subscribe to the Atlantic, which I consider to be a well-balanced magazine, so I was psyched to see an article by one Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza titled "How Obamacare will be settled: a primer on the Commerce Clause." Goody: I'd like to get some additional legal background beyond Wickard v. Fillburn.

It starts out well enough with a clinical discussion of the individual mandate, severability, and how various Circuit Courts have ruled on Obamacare thus far.  But then this, after noting that the Supreme Court will be hearing an appeal from an Eleventh Circuit ruling:

Senator Rick Santorum has used these statistics to claim that the Ninth Circuit is a "rogue" court and "a pox on the western part of our country." Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have called for the abolishment of the Ninth Circuit. But Santorum and Gingrich's complaints about the Ninth Circuit have been discredited. Last term the overall reversal rate was 72 percent. While the Ninth Circuit was reversed 79 percent of the time, the Fifth Circuit -- at 80 percent -- and Sixth Circuit -- at 83 percent -- had higher reversal rates.
Reverse-affirm ratios cannot reliably forecast individual case outcomes. Statistics are particularly uninformative in this instance. There are too many variables -- and too few data points since Justice Elena Kagan's confirmation -- to predict how the Court will rule on the Eleventh Circuit appeal.

Huh?  In what wafer-thin connection did Santorum and Gingrich get dragged into this discussion?  More critically: after citing the reversal rates for three other Courts, why can't we know what the reversal rate is for the Eleventh Circuit?  In the course of a single paragraph, suddenly it's all murky.  After citing all the other Courts, we dare not conjecture on the 11th.

I did a search on Google and the very first link goes to an article noting that the Eleventh had one of the best affirmation rates among the Circuit Courts with 40% of all decisions upheld and a "B+" rating.  Was this sloppy reporting or just an underhanded way to wave away the truth that the 11th's ruling might be upheld?  If I had doubts about the author's objectivity, they were soon wiped away as she rattles through Commerce Clause cases.  Here we come to the second case by the Rehnquist court that pushed back on an expansive interpretation of the Clause:

The second major blow came five years later in U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, another five-four split.

"Major blow?"  I personally would have said "major victory" but you get the point.  It was "another 5-4 split" meaning it was Scalia and his buddies spiking the punch.

Then we get to the section about potential conflicts of interest involving Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Kagan. You could argue that Thomas has some legitimate issues with his wife's finances.  Scalia went to a dinner with some conservatives - that's it.  But Elena Kagan was Solicitor General and was clearly involved with legal discussions regarding Obamacare.  Here's how whatshername reports this:

Critics of Justice Kagan are demanding her recusal on the theory that she may have assisted in preparing the defense of Obamacare while serving as Solicitor General.

Incisive!  Well, that's the "theory" of Kagan's "critics" and you know how they can be.  Maybe she did, maybe she didn't - moving on everybody!

Finally, we come full circle to the persuasive reasoning of the Sixth Circuit.  Wait, what?

The answer to the inactivity argument for supporters of Obamacare is that individuals who do not buy insurance are still active in the health care market. The Sixth Circuit was persuaded by this logic, citing the $100 billion in health care costs incurred by the uninsured each year.

Didn't you just tell us, Ms. B-P, that the Sixth Circuit is the most reversed Circuit Court in the land?  Why would we rely on the ruling of a court that gets it wrong 83% of the time?!?

I could go on but let's just say that Rebecca spends four paragraphs on Solicitor General Verrilli's arguments for the case and doesn't even mention his counterpart Paul Clement.  This was advocacy and agitprop masquerading as journalism and it wouldn't be so annoying if it weren't so common.

Yeah, you would think so - Here's Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: "As Dems rack up debt, youth should flock to GOP."  How much longer can this era of cheap debt go on?  My fear is that Americans will be lured deeper and deeper into the forest and then - too late - we'll find we're in a debt spiral.  Young Americans who will foot the bill of high debt and rising entitlement costs should think twice.

Debt-to-revenue ratio at an ironic 911% - Mark Steyn: "Gradual insolvency about to speed up."

Twitter fun - Twitchy: "Conservatives take over #ILikeObamacare."

Bizarro World update - Hot Air: "NY Times credits Bush, Cheney with U.S. energy surge."

Compulsory commerce - George Will "Obamacare's contract problem": "Now the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm, has focused on this fact: The individual mandate is incompatible with centuries of contract law. This is so because a compulsory contract is an oxymoron."

Kind to be cruel

Here's John Stossel on my favorite topic in "What is fair?"

“Think about Social Security in terms of what would happen if a private company came up with a deal like this,” Goyette said. “The president of the company says, we’ve got to sell some new policies tomorrow to pay you what you’re due when you cash in today. They’d lock these guys up.”
Goyette was referring to the fact that your payroll taxes are not invested. The money is spent right away, and the government counts on new money from current workers to pay retirees. The touted trust fund doesn’t exist.
“There’s no trust. There’s no fund. There’s no security. And the really bad thing—this is what’s really destructive—it has changed the propensity of the American people to save for themselves....We’re creating a multigenerational calamity. And it’s right at our doorstep.”
We’ve taught people to be dependent. But dependence robs us of our dignity and keeps poor people poor.

The thing is I understand the genesis of Social Security and how it was important to protect seniors in a post-Depression economy where physical labor was the main kind of work.  But little of that fits into a 21st century economy where seniors have much more wealth than younger Americans and work has become more automated and much less physical.

Now we've raised generations of Americans who have not saved for retirement because they're living on the completely incorrect notion the government will provide in old age.  They're in for a rude, rude awakening.

The individual mandate's slippery slope - From the law blog Volokh Conspiracy "The individual mandate case is not easy": "In reality, the plaintiffs have never argued that the unprecedented nature of the mandate by itself proves that it is unconstitutional. Rather, their brief repeatedly emphasizes that the main reason to strike down the mandate is that there is no logical way to uphold it without giving Congress virtually unlimited authority to impose other mandates."

An annoying aspect of the Obamacare supporters is the emphasis on the "unique" nature of health care in that virtually everybody will need it.  While that may be true, opening up the Commerce Clause to this level of coercion casts aside the limited and enumerated powers listed in the Constitution.  It seems unlikely that some future Administration (of either stripe) will not succumb to the easy road of Commerce Clause fiat.  Then it won't be quite so unique.

Extra - Charles Krauthammer "The Reckoning": "Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness."

After the subsidies

Well Solyndra went belly-up and they've halted production of the Chevy Volt.  But the Obama administration insists that we need to give these clean energy alternatives a chance (with taxpayer money, of course).  But what happens to a long-and-heavily subsidized "clean" energy source has its crutch taken away?  NPR: "Ethanol industry lurches in wake of lost subsidy, oversupply."

After predicting they would survive the end of a major federal subsidy without problems, it looks like officials at the nation's ethanol producers may have been too optimistic.
Since the subsidy ended Dec. 31, ethanol profit margins have declined sharply, even slipping into negative territory. Experts see no quick turnaround in sight.

Whoops.  If only we had given ethanol a couple more decades.

Extra - Hot Air: "Green-jobs subsidies created 1 job for every $4.85 million spent."

Growth would be nice - The Grumpy Economist: "Austerity, stimulus, or growth now?"

Italy without Italians - Walter Russell Mead recounts how Italy's sclerotic and dysfunctional economy, which has pushed youth unemployment above 30%, is forcing Italians to leave the homeland or move home with the folks.  With little hope for the future, the birth rate is way below the replacement rate.

Let the sun shine in

President Obama visited a solar panel factory today as part of his "it's not my fault gas prices are high" tour.  Here's the inevitable nut graf from Q&O: "More green energy 'winning'":

Construction of the plant involved over 300 part-time jobs, but currently only five full-time employees operate the plant, a Sempra spokeswoman confirmed. That comes out to $10.8 million in tax-dollar subsidies per employee.

But, really, can you put a dollar amount on taxpayer money spent on green energy?

Extra - Ace: "Obama baffled as his "green" investments produce no jobs."

Caught in the debt trap

Via Zero Hedge, here's a good explanation of the interest expenses on the national debt if interest rates reset to historical levels.  Hint: taxing the "rich" won't save us.

Maybe the government can just mandate that we send more Valentines - CNN: "Postal service: We need more junk mail."

Forget it Jake...it's Obamatown

Raising the national debt by almost $5 trillion in eight years: "unpatriotic."

Raising the national debt by almost $5 trillion in less than four years: "spenderific!"

The problem, my friend, is blowing in the wind

Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Electricity claims fizzle for seven Reno windmills"

The windmills were built with about half of a $2.1 million federal energy grant the city received in the economic stimulus package Congress passed in 2009. So far, Geddes says they have saved the city $2,785 after generating 25,319 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Another success for Steven Chu!

Obama poison-pilled the debt compromise

There's a remarkable behind-the-scenes story in the WashPost about the secret meetings between House speaker John Boehner and President Obama.  It looked like Boehner and House majority leader Eric Cantor were going to sign up for hundreds of billions in tax hikes in exchange for significant changes to entitlement programs, which comprise the major drivers of future deficit spending.  And then.....

What happened? Obama and his advisers have cast the collapse of the talks as a Republican failure. Boehner, unable to deliver, stepped away from the deal, simple as that.
But interviews with most of the central players in those talks — some of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the secret negotiations — as well as a review of meeting notes, e-mails and the negotiating proposals that changed hands, offer a more complicated picture of the collapse. Obama, nervous about how to defend the emerging agreement to his own Democratic base, upped the ante in a way that made it more difficult for Boehner — already facing long odds — to sell it to his party. Eventually, the president tried to put the original framework back in play, but by then it was too late. The moment of making history had passed.

To be fair: it would have been equally difficult for Boehner to sell tax hikes to the House as it would have been for Obama to sell Medicare cuts to the Democrats.  But then the White House tried to pass off the heavy lifting to the "Gang of Six" and then to the Supercommittee.  When the whole deal fell apart, Obama took to the airwaves and - how can I put this? - lied about how the Republicans wanted a "cuts only" approach to deficit reduction.

Powerline has more commentary on the "grand bargain" and how Obama treated Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as bit players during his negotiation follies.

We had to pass it to find out how much we hate it

Politico has an update on Obamacare: "Four hard truths of health care reform"

1.) Some people won't get to keep the coverage they like
2.) Costs aren't going to go down
3.) It's just a guess that the law can pay for itself
4.) "The more they know, the more they'll like it" isn't happening

Golly, weren't all these things accurately predicted by opponents of taking over one-sixth of the economy?  The history of American entitlements is one of low initial cost estimates followed by out-of-control costs.  Forcing price controls and mandates inevitably lead to shortages.  What a mess.

Good energy question - Tina Korbe asks why we don't just end government subsidies on all energy sources, instead of beating up on "big oil" all the time?  After all, we haven't exactly been getting a good return on investment at the renewable companies.

Forward looking at backward ideas - Mark Steyn: "Future generations will laugh at us for taking Obama seriously."

Patriot League! - USA Today: "Upset: Lehigh dispatches No. 2 Duke."

Fark piles on "For the last time this season, Duke sucks."  Hey, I called it.

Extra - Allahpundit: "America rejoices."

It's not disaster containment, it's a jobs program - Doug Ross: "Administration spending millions to train firefighters how to combat exploding Chevy Volts."

Many a bracket died tonight - Holy cow, did you see Norfolk State knock off #2 seed Missouri tonight in the NCAA tourney?  Wow.  Great stuff.

There's only one team I'm rooting for: Lehigh.  Ever since I read John Feinstein's "The Last Amateurs" I've been a fan of the Patriot League and the college basketball players who will (probably) never make it to the NBA.  I think they have a good chance against Duke tonight.

Another issue that, curiously, can wait until after the election

Let's see, there was the debt ceiling debate and the Keystone pipeline decision, and now the White House is signaling they're going to hold off on the "free" contraception for Catholic groups for further review:

Basically, it was a thinly veiled attempt to punt the entire issue into 2013, thus allowing the president to continue his doublespeak on the issue — pretending that he is interested in protecting religious liberty with pronouncements about a forthcoming concession while the policies he actually implements go in exactly the opposite direction.

In other news, it's been over 1040 days since the Senate passed a budget.  That can wait, too.

We're goin' down down down

Zero Hedge: "Charting the Legacy of the Baby Boomers"

Just makin' stuff up, dead President edition - Fact Check: "Obama's fake Hayes quote."

Extra - From Instapundit.

"Wars against arithmetic don't end well" - American Interest: "NY suicide caucus votes down Cuomo pension reform."  In only a couple years, New York's pension obligations will consume one-third of the state budget.

When the facts contradict the narrative, print the narrative

That's how they roll at the NY Times.  Mickey Kaus examines how the Times spins poll results that don't help their hero:

These are not close results. It’s hard to read this poll and not conclude that, contrary to some accounts, Obama wasn’t such a genius to pick a fight over mandated contraception coverage–because he appears to be losing the public debate on the question. That’s a conclusion the Times story effectively hides from readers.
It’s also one possible explanation for Obama’s otherwise somewhat mystifying overall drop in approval during the period–March 7-11–when the poll was in the field. But not an approved explanation.
Gas prices are the official MSM explanation. Got it? Gas prices.

I guess that the Times conclusion that the polls are "reflecting volatility" isn't as flashy as the Weekly Standard's straightforward: "By 21-point margin, Americans oppose birth control mandate."  After all, numbers are confusing unless they can be used to explain confusion.  Margins of error and all that jazz.

Extra - Ace: "Washington Post in full 'Protect Obama' mode."

Election time's a'comin - The Hill: "Obama energy chief disavows 2008 remark in favor of raising gas prices."  How convenient.

No mo town

Now that Harrisburg has dodged bankruptcy, will the next city to go belly up please step forward?

Not so fast, Stockton.

If we don't get free coffee, it's like the terrorists have won

Allysia Finley makes the case for mandates in "Coffee is an essential benefit too."  I like this part, turning the contraception/religious liberty debate on its head:

Republicans might argue that requiring Mormon charities to serve coffee is a violation of "religious liberty" since the Mormon church's doctrine proscribes coffee, but this argument is a red herring. Leading medical experts recommend drinking coffee. Moreover, 99% of adults have drunk coffee at one point in their lives (including most Mormons).

The Minuteman is all in favor of the latte liberty: "Wake up and smell the (free!) coffee."  And surely the insurance companies can get behind the "free" benefit of cough drops.  After all, cough drops now means significant savings from throat surgery later.

Sharecroppers in the U.S.A. - Here's Jeff Jacoby in today's Boston Globe: "Medallion system shackles cabbies."

Paging Billy Crystal - CBS News: "Louis C.K. pulls out of reporter dinner after criticism."

Oh yeah, and there's this - Lost among the unemployment numbers for today: "U.S. budget deficit hits all time high in February."  The U.S. is borrowing 54 cents for every dollar it spends?  Yawn.  Don't worry: Paul Krugman told me that bond rates are still low.

"How did you go bankrupt?"
"Two ways.  Gradually, then suddenly."
 - Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Maybe if you're the Osmond family and you're commuting to Topeka

Here's the smartest president ever yesterday:

Now, because of these new standards for cars and trucks, they're going to -- all going to be able to go further and use less fuel every year.  And that means pretty soon you’ll be able to fill up your car every two weeks instead of every week -– and, over time, that saves you, a typical family, about $8,000 a year. 

Now I could make the obvious joke here about how Obama reads whatever is on the teleprompter.  But at some point wouldn't we expect the President to review his speeches in advance and say: "Whoa, that seems awfully high for gas expenditures, much less anticipated savings."  Sadly, no.

Extra related - Ace: "This administration seems to have a very theoretical connection with reality."

The demographic dual-edged sword - Interesting interview in Opinion Journal with a research who says there will be "Bad News for Boomers" when they retire en masse.
In short: when all the boomers start to cash out their 401(k) and stock portfolios to fund their retirements, well, somebody has to buy those securities.  Too much supply + not enough demand = low value.

Government program designed to be merely expensive becomes expensive and useless - Fox News: "Stimulus money meant to help 400 job seekers reportedly helped 2."  Even if it helped 400 workers, that comes out to $27K for a new set of work clothes.

The greatest election news tonight EVER

PC World Geektech: "Hackers elect Futurama's Bender to the Washington DC school board"

Electronic voting has earned a pretty bad reputation for being insecure and completely unreliable. Well, get ready to add another entry to e-voting's list of woes.
One Bender Bending Rodríguez was elected to the 2010 school board in Washington DC. A team of hackers from the University of Michigan got Bender elected as a write-in candidate who stole every vote from the real candidates. Bender, of course, is a cartoon character from the TV series Futurama.
This was not some nefarious attack from a group of rogue hackers: The DC school board actually dared hackers to crack its new Web-based absentee voting system four days ahead of the real election. University of Michigan professor Alexander Halderman, along with two graduate students, did the deed within a few hours.

I can relate to Bender because he's just like me...awesome in every way.

Plus, I can get behind his political position of "A Poppler in every pot."

The Golden State, indeed

LA Times: "Salary 'spiking' drains public pension funds" in California.

Approaching retirement, Ventura County Chief Executive Marty Robinson was earning $228,000 a year.
To boost her pension, which would be based on her final salary, Robinson cashed out nearly $34,000 in unused vacation pay, an $11,000 bonus for having earned a graduate degree and more than $24,000 in extra pension benefits the county owed her.
By the time she walked out the door last year, her pension was calculated at $272,000 a year - for life.

Nice work if you can get it.  Well, I guess those are the rules and Marty played them to the tune of a quarter-million+ a year.  I'm sure the hundreds of students protesting tuition hikes in California state colleges will sympathize.

Chevy Volt put on hiatus

WashPost: "GM to suspend production of Chevy Volt"

Never a good sign:

Extra - From the Truth About Cars.  Looks like 1,300 GM workers will be watching soap operas for the next five weeks.

Don't violate my First Amendment rights: buy me a new computer

This is the best explanation I've seen of the contraception issue: since when does failing to provide something for free equal an abrogation of rights?  Hit & Run: "Does reproductive freedom imply a right to free birth control?"

Supporters of Obama's birth control rule conflate liberty with subsidies, insisting that you are not really free to do something (in this case, use contraceptives) unless it's free. According to this logic, observant Jews do not have religious freedom unless the government pays for their kosher food, bloggers do not have freedom of speech unless taxpayers buy them computers, and Americans in general do not have a right to keep and bear arms if they have to pay for guns with their own money. By contrast, the religious institutions that object to the contraceptive mandate are not asking for subsidies; they are resisting them. They object to a regulation that forces them to pay for products and services they consider immoral. They want the freedom to offer their employees health plans that do not cover contraception and sterilization.

On a related note, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was questioned at a Congressional hearing about who was eventually going to pay for all this new contraceptive care.  She replied: Dude, it's totally free because "The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception."

But if we're trying to avoid pregnancies, why is the government paying for boner drugs?  CBS News: "Medicare benefit to cover Viagra."

Ah, government...is there anything it can't do?

Oh those Medicare Trustees are troublemakers - Hot Air: "For the fourth year in a row, president defies law that demands action on Medicare."

MSNBC beclowns itself - But I repeat myself.  Ace: "Liberals really think this way."  Although, to be fair, the government is capable of generating jobs.  It's just that the jobs disappear a short time later.

No more bailouts...except for the auto bailout which was fantastic

Here's George Condon on February 28th in National Journal claiming that Obama's bailout of the auto industry will be a kick-ass issue for the election:

Democrats today are confident that the message of the UAW speech is not one just for the day of the Michigan primary. They believe - with good reason - it is one that will have traction in the general election, particularly in battleground states where the auto industry is inextricably woven into the local economies.

And today, February 29th, in National Journal: "Despite Detroit comeback, public opposes bailout"

A majority of Americans think the federal government should not have helped out U.S. automakers that were in financial trouble, but rather should have allowed them to go it alone, according to a new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.
Thirty-six percent of Americans think the government should have provided help, but 55 percent think “these companies should have been allowed to succeed or fail on their own,” the poll shows. The results echo other surveys, including a May 2010 poll conducted by CBS News in which a third of respondents thought the government should have helped, while 61 percent thought they should not have.

It seemed only a month ago when some guy was reading off his teleprompter about how there should be "no more bailouts" and everybody should play by the same rules as long as those rules include paying off the unions and ignoring the tax code.

Now let's all buy a Chevy Volt!

Americans H8 Obamacare - Interesting question from Hit & Run: "Will the unpopularity of Obamacare matter to the Supreme Court?"  Probably not.  I can easily see Justice Scalia retorting that if you don't like a piece of legislation, well, that's what elections are for.

Focus on what works - Commentary: "A model for Medicare reform."

Zero Hedge quiz - They asked to "Name that Bubble" but my guess of "Twilight" DVDs was wrong.

Incentives - Megan McArdle argues that corporate tendencies are geared towards avoiding taxes instead of building business and current policy does little to rein in corporate power: "Why I still think we should eliminate the corporate income tax."

Daytona 500 today!  Oscars tonight!

I'm rooting for Tony Stewart in the race and "The Artist" for Best Picture.  In the meantime, here's Danica Patrick going for a ride after getting forced down the track in the Gatorade Duel.  The former Indy driver takes her hands off the steering wheel just before impact because the open-wheel cars will snap a wrist as the force is transmitted to the wheel.

Hoisted on his own eco-petard - Watts Up with That?: "Gleick confesses."

Obama: victim of circumstance or man of action

It all depends on the outcome.  If gas prices rise it's Bush's fault, Exxon, oil speculators, unrest in Iran, demand in Brazil, people buying big trucks, etc.  If they go down, it must be due to the GM bailout, Chevy Volt subsidies, and new fuel mileage standards.  Opinion Journal reviews Obama's latest slice of un-reality:

"The American people aren't stupid," thundered President Obama yesterday in Miami, ridiculing Republicans who are blaming him for rising gasoline prices. Let's hope he's right, because not even Forrest Gump could believe the logic of what Mr. Obama is trying to sell.
To wit, that a) gasoline prices are beyond his control, but b) to the extent oil and gas production is rising in America, his energy policies deserve all the credit, and c) higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy. Where to begin?

I'll take a shot at Obama taking credit for increasing fuel mileage standards to 55mpg.  NPR had an excellent series called "Getting to 55 MPG" that reviewed the challenges.  The first thing to remember is that this is level is for a carmaker's entire fleet average, meaning that the companies are going to have to churn out thousands of cars that few people want since hybrids and electric cars make up a tiny percentage of vehicles sold in America.  If you want to stick with a car that doesn't plug in, you're going to have to do without some, uh, comforts:

"Like, when was the last time you actually took your hand and rolled down a window?" she asks. "But now there's an expectation that every vehicle, even if it's an entry-level vehicle, will have that kind of creature comfort [power windows]."
Wooldridge says we expect our cars to heat faster in winter, to cool faster in summer, have seat warmers and plugs for two cellphones, maybe a DVD player, and - of course - have a radio.

So get ready for the return to stick shifting, America.  Or as Fark put it: "To get to 55mpg you'll have to give up power windows, heated seats, DVD entertainment, and AC that could freeze the Sahara.  But on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness."

So you got that goin' for ya.

Extra - Lots of stuff at Memeorandum.

What kind of club is this? - Maggie's Farm: "Almost half the members don't pay any dues."

General Motors says: "Let's try this Internet thing"

I read somewhere that the management culture at General Motors is so sclerotic and old-school that it's unable to adapt to trends in the automobile industry until they're introduced by other (foreign) car makers.  So I can just imagine the boardroom meeting where somebody proposed starting a blog without understanding what every blogger understands: anybody can make comments.

Here's a good'un from "We did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag"

When GM took the route of getting bailed out rather than bankruptcy & restructuring in order to save the UAW’s featherbed contract it made itself into a political football.
When the crooks in DC gave $7500 subsidies to the VOLT to help rich tree huggers preen as green it made the Volt into a political football.
Get used to it. Volt is viewed as a laughable subsidized toy for the trendy rich, and GM is a now pariah in Conservative circles. All my Democrat friends always drove Japanese cars and laughed at our Buicks & Cadillacs. I always bought GM out of loyalty. No more. From now on, I’ll buy Toyotas and Hondas built in the US by non union workers. Cheaper and better.

I think this blog will have the lifespan of "Attack Watch."

End game - Well, this is a cheery post from Zero Hedge: "As US debt-to-GDP passes 101%, the global debt Ponzi enters its final stages."  "The Fed now has just one mandate: to keep the US fiscal machine well-greased by buying up US debt at zero rates, through wanton monetization."  Hmmm, maybe it's time to re-think gold....and ammo.

That's not how I remember it - The White House goes full-out Rashomon.  Hot Air: "Jay Carney: Hey, Obama didn't cancel the Keystone pipeline, Republicans did."  Uh-huh.

Everybody's on the dole

Missed this last week, but the Grumpy Economist has a good post about how intractable entitlement spending has become because it's mostly cash sent to, well, people who vote:

Comment: Now, could we please stop talking about how we need more taxes to pay for roads and bridges or to help the poor? The main function of our government is to write checks to middle-class and wealthy voters. And that's the reason its finances are in the toilet.

RTWT as they say, but the key to remember is that discretionary spending is getting squeezed by payments to banks (to cover interest on the debt) and relatively well-off seniors.

From Paris to Daytona - Talk about a culture shift: this afternoon, I watched Woody Allen's Oscar-nominated "Midnight in Paris" which was a great movie with a neat little time-shift plot twist.  Now I'm watching the unofficial kickoff to the NASCAR season with the Budweiser Shootout.  What a wreck fest and Kyle Busch won with a backup car he spun out twice.

Take it from me, buddy: nobody cares - LA Times: "Payroll tax cut undermines Social Security's security."  It's always been a big accounting trick and people want their money now.

The end of America, visualized

Doug Ross: "A chart from the Obama budget that is so horrifying it must have been left in accidentally."  Here it is: the new plan is that debt goes up and never comes down.

Tim Geithner thinks it's funny.  Zero Hedge has been covering the austerity riots in Greece and the dissolution of the European Union - that's fun reading too.

Extra hilarity - Hit & Run: "Geithner admits Obama budget leaves America with unsustainable entitlement commitments."

La Solyndra - Hit & Run: "Who knew? European carbon market is an expensive failure."

And in other energy-related news, auto dealers are warning that the speculative fuel efficiency standards set to go into effect will price millions of Americans out of car ownership.  Get on the bus, hippies!

Be careful what you wish for - NPR: "Can Congress ever restore payroll taxes to their usual levels?"

The word "abysmal" means both "deep" and "awful" - What's deeper than the "deep fiscal irresponsibility" of the Bush years?  The Mariana Trench of the Obama Administration.  But that's different because, um, Slurpees!

Extra - Dana Milbank "Obama's budget games": "The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery asked why the projected debt had swelled by $1 trillion since September. Zients spoke about “differences in economic assumptions.”"  In other words: they made stuff up.

More - Weekly Standard: "The Cost of Obama."

Ramming into the debt ceiling - Zero Hedge speculates that the GOP is going to let Obama spend spend spend until he hits the debt ceiling again a couple of months before the election.  This is all so dispiriting on so many levels.

The Senate budget can't be filibustered - After CNN and Meet the Press gave White House chief of staff Jack Lew a pass on his obvious fib, the WashPost's factchecker gives him Four Pinocchios.  If only the talking heads had been so quick.

You'll take your entitlements and like it - Tom Maguire dismantles a NY Times article on Americans "depending" on the government by taking Social Security and Medicare.  As we now know, even if you want to opt out of entitlements - gosh darn it - the government is going to make sure you take 'em.

Extra - Powerline: "Clueless Times."

Why I hate the mainstream media - I was watching "Meet the Press" this morning and when David Gregory asked White House chief of staff Jack Lew why the Senate had not passed a budget in over a thousand days, Lew responded something along the lines that the Senate needs 60 votes to do anything.

Wrong wrong wrong and either Gregory doesn't know that the Senate needs only 51 votes to pass a budget or he willingly lets Lew get away with the lie.  And IIRC the Senate Budget Committee has not even produced a framework of a budget, much less proposed a vote.

Extra - Via Instapundit, here's "Why Americans hate the media" on Amazon.

Houston, she had a problem - Well I just got back from seeing "The Artist" and I was going to post a rave review but the breaking news is that Whitney Houston is dead.  She was only 48.  Tragic.

Everybody act surprised - USA Today: "Obama budget to miss deficit goal."  Hey, maybe this one will get a vote.

What a week - I'm tired.  And there's no football and/or NASCAR this weekend.  I'm going to try to see "The Artist" tomorrow, so that's what I got goin' on.

Aw, c'mon guys, I thought we were pals

Ace: "President Waffles when asked about the contraception mandate: 'Come on, guys'."  It must be unnerving for this President to step out of his cocoon of softball interviews and pre-packaged answers to have a real news conference, which is why he hasn't had once since July 2011.  Don't worry: the media will be demanding one any day now.

Any day now.

Orwellian quote of the day

From "Obama lets 10 states miss 'No Child Left Behind' deadline":

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states without a waiver will be held to the standards of No Child Left Behind because "it's the law of the land."

All shall be equal under the law, but some states will be more equal than others.

Extra - From Hot Air.

Should the Senate do its job?  White House: "Meh."

ABC News Jake Tapper posited this question to press secretary Jay Carney today:

TAPPER: President Obama is going to be introducing his outline for a budget. Fed Chair Bernanke has said the lack of a budget having been passed by the Senate has had an adverse affect on growth because it’s created uncertainty. Harry Reid has said that he doesn’t think there’s a need to introduce a budget this year. Who do you — who does the president think is right, Harry Reid or Ben Bernanke?

As reported, the White House has "no opinion" as to whether the Senate should pass a budget as required by law.  It's already been a thousand days, so what's the hurry?  President Truman Obama wants to run against a "do nothing" Congress and the Senate is happy to oblige.

This is what happens when your kid takes the PSAT - I'm so proud of my son for receiving an exclusive and prestigious invitation to this phony-baloney conference.

I think that 53rd guitar was out of tune

Here's the OK Go video promised during the Super Bowl and you have to admire the scope of this project:

Fair's fair - Some good questions here: "A fairness quiz for the President."

Super Bowl roundup

Well, obviously I would have preferred a different finish for the football game.  Here are the commercials I loved:

Volkswagen's fat dog getting into shape PLUS Darth Vader at the Mos Eisley cantina.  LOL.
Doritos cat killing dog.  I know I shouldn't laugh at feline-icide but the "You didn't see nuthin'" was great.
The "Kill Bill" / Betty White singing in the shower promo for some show.

Ads I hated:

Every Go Daddy commercial...ever.
That E-Trade baby just creeps me out.
Clint Eastwood's "Halftime in America" and not because as some have alleged that it was a commercial for the auto bailout.  It was just a long monologue of hollow bromides of cheap nationalistic boosterism.  Shorter version: "We're Americans, how you like them apples?!"  The only thing missing was a shot of the USA Hockey team beating the Russians in 1980, although that might have been in there, I don't remember.  I do remember it was Chrysler which took a bailout and is now partially owned by Fiat.  USA! USA!

Superbowl Sunday - Go Patriots!

Sign of the Apocalypse: Krugman turns on Obama

In a stunning and biting article in the New York Times, self-described liberal Paul Krugman lambastes the President for his tepid jobs record.  Check out “No More Excuses on Jobs” (slight editing by yours truly):

With all the debt they've racked up, the Obamites have precious little job creation to show for it. Though the onset of the recession was not their fault, the complete failure over three years to retrieve those lost jobs certainly is.
As job growth continues to elude the U.S. economy, we're hearing two main excuses from the Obama administration and its supporters: that the real situation is much better than you're hearing, and that to the extent employment is lagging, it's the result of factors outside the administration's control. But after three years of extravagant promises and dismal results, the time for excuses has passed.

Krugman notes that job creation has failed to keep up with population growth, resulting in a stagnant labor force.  Then he takes on today’s BLS report on a drop in the unemployment rate:

But wait - hasn't the unemployment rate fallen since last summer? Yes, but that's entirely the result of people dropping out of the labor force. Even if you're out of work, you're not counted as unemployed unless you're actively looking for a job.
We don't know why so many people have stopped looking for jobs, but it probably has something to do with the fact that jobs are so hard to find: 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work more than 15 weeks, a 20-year record. In any case, the administration should feel grateful that so many people have dropped out. As the Economic Policy Institute points out, if they hadn't dropped out, the official unemployment rate would be an eye-popping 7.4 percent, not a politically spinnable 5.6 percent.
In short, things aren't as bad as they seem; they're worse.

On the point of a smaller labor force distorting the unemployment rate, Krugman is correct.  As Zero Hedge forcefully reported today: “No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month!”  As Commentary noted, if the labor force in January 2012 had been the same as January 2011, the unemployment rate would have been an eye-popping 8.9% and not the merely troubling 8.3% rate reported today.  Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge goes even further and declares the unemployment rate is 11.5% once you strip away the BLS gimmicks.  As Krugman implies, no matter which figure you choose, it’s not politically spinnable.

One other thing: Krugman’s figures of long-term unemployment are much worse than he cites.  CNN is reporting that the percentage of long-term unemployed of people who have been out of work six months or more now stands at 42.9%.  But he is correct that it’s a depressing new record.

No sensible person blames Mr. Obama for the onset of the recession in 2008. But he does deserve blame for the fact that all he has to show for three years of supposed job-creation policies is a mountain of debt. 

And how.  Well, it’s refreshing to see Krugman give some balanced criticism for once.

That's why they get the big bucks



Nice!

Charity begins at somebody else's home

Politico: "Obama: Jesus would tax the rich"

President Barack Obama on Thursday tied his proposal to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to his faith, telling leaders gathered for the National Prayer Breakfast that Jesus’s teachings have shaped that conclusion.
The rich should pay more not only because “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’”

The man makes a point: the government must seize more money from the rich because some of them are just common-day tightwads.

Double-A haircut - I'm sure at some point during the Social Security debates I averred that I'd rather have my retirement fund in a private account, even if it paid a lower rate of return than the government program, as long as I knew it was under my control.  Otherwise, you're just depending on promises that can disappear when the Trust Fund runs dry or your company goes belly-up.  Megan McArdle: "American Airlines wants to terminate pension plan, lay off 13,000."  Ouch.

Nice Steely Dan reference - Vodkapundit "California tumbles into the sea": "Translation: Sacramento isn’t making its Visa card payments, while racking up additional debt on the MasterCard."