You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Interesting: citizens voted down a tax increase on a small and vilified minority then voted to curtail runaway government costs in...California.

Obamacare was more important than fixing the economy

This is a potent line of attack by the Romney campaign, combining Obama's negligence/ineptness on the economy with his much-hated legislation.  It was all about "making history" for the One.  In response, Noam Scheiber responds to Romney interpretation of his book with, well, you can't call it a contradiction:

I argue that Obama really was more focused on long-term, historically significant accomplishments than marginal, near-term differences in the pace of the recovery. On some level, Obama was prepared to accept (and I’m making up these numbers for argument’s sake) three years of painfully high unemployment with health care reform rather than 30 months of painfully high unemployment without it. And the reason is the one Summers alluded to (before disputing): Health care was simply more historically important than avoiding those extra six months of pain. 

Obama never shuts up about inheriting the worst economy since the Depression but as soon as he checked the box with his useless stimulus, it was time to set his rendezvous with history.  America would just have to "accept" the pain, lie back and think of Obama.

Our agent has been exposed - Hot Air: "Let's face it, Bill Clinton's a double-agent for the GOP."

CNN tries to build suspense on WI recall, fails, cuts to the Queen - Hit and Run: "CNN's squeaker looks not so squeaky."  Most everybody called the race after an hour and, as up this writing, Scott Walker is up by 15% which is way more than most polls indicated heading into this recall race.

Working hard to save exactly one job

Via White House Dossier, here's Obama's schedule for tomorrow:

9:20 am ET || Departs the White House
11:45 am PT || Arrives San Francisco
12:20 pm PT || Attends a fundraiser; Landmark Tower, San Francisco
2:15 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Julia Morgan Ballroom, San Francisco, San Francisco
3:15 pm PT || Departs San Francisco
4:20 pm PT || Arrives Los Angeles
7:15 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Beverly Wilshire Hotel; Beverly Hills, California
8:55 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; private residence; Beverly Hills, California

He's really padding that record of his.

Baby Boomers + institutional inertia = bankruptcy - Hot Air: "CBO report: U.S. debt will be two-times GDP by 2037."

"The money you pay into Social Security is not yours" - Zero Hedge says you shouldn't expect it back: "The Lie that is Social Security."

On Wisconsin! - Heard this on NPR today: the Republicans didn't have a great ground game in Wisconsin but, thanks to the intense national attention on the Scott Walker recall election, now they do.

For all your Wisconsin coverage, check out Badger State blogger Ann Althouse, who has been on top of the Walker-Barrett race for months now.

Extra - WSJ: "The Wisconsin recall stakes."

A New Jersey native in Western Massachusetts - I've always been a Devils fan (although I rooted for the Bruins when they made the Stanley Cup Finals) but I'm definitely in the minority here.  The LA Kings goalie is Jonathan Quick who graduated from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.  Boy, he's been good so far.

Don't mess with the Devils!

Not just Solyndra - Heritage Action: "Can President Obama name ONE clean energy success?"

Another bad number - Hey, between the unemployment rate and the stock market, let's add this one from Zero Hedge: "US debt soars by $54 billion overnight."

The sun'll come up tomorrow - Hot Air: "White House on disastrous job report: Problems won't be solved 'overnight'."  "Anyone want to try defining “overnight” for me, just so that we have a rule of thumb going forward? On Inauguration Day, I would have accepted “2009″ or even “his first two years in office” as plausible answers. Instead, five months out from election day, somehow dawn still has yet to break."

Well, I seem to recall that the original line-in-the-sand was three years.  There must be a "headwinds" proviso.

What? The hot surface ignitor? The solenoid valve? - NY Times: "Obama's 'thingamajig' offers cure for boredom if not the economy."

Extra - From Doug Ross.

Elizabeth Warren doubles-down on ridiculous

In a lengthy interview in the Boston Globe, Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren stands with a fist: "I won't deny who I am."  Oh, and by the way, I remember that I did tell Harvard and UPenn that I was Cherokee, but it had nothing to do with diversity hiring and it's just a coincidence that I stopped listing myself as a minority after getting tenure.  Because Elizabeth Warren is proud - so very proud - of her heritage.

Similarly, asked why she never raised her Native American roots with Globe reporter Noah Bierman when he met with Warren in Oklahoma City for a three-thousand word story on her upbringing, published in February, she replied softly, “Noah didn’t ask.’’

Q.E.D.

This fellow really cares about just one job - White House Dossier: "Obama to hold six fundraisers in one day."  I hope he can squeeze in a round of golf.

Extra - From Jammie Wearing Fools.

Springfield standoff - MassLive: "Cherokee group to protest Elizabeth Warren outside state Democratic convention in Springfield."

Here come the automatic Social Security cuts

I've been warning for years that current law requires that when the Social Security Trust Fund runs out of government bonds, benefits must be cut to match incoming revenues.  For most Americans, that means an automatic 25% cut in benefits.  But there's a much more immediate, much worse benefit cut than sending monthly checks to Baby Boomers.  WashPost: "Social Security disability trust fund projected to run out of cash in 2016."

A government entitlement program is headed for insolvency in four years, and it’s not the one members of Congress are talking about most.
The Social Security disability program’s trust fund is projected to run out of cash far sooner than the better-known Social Security retirement plan or Medicare. That will trigger a 21 percent cut in benefits to 11 million Americans — people with disabilities, plus their spouses and children — many of whom rely on the program to stay out of poverty.

Don't worry, though: Washington will break through and find a solution.

Neither President Obama nor House Republicans in their proposed budgets has addressed the disability program’s shortfall.

Oh well.

That's my governor!

Deval Patrick didn't exactly go for the jugular against Mitt Romney on Morning Joe today.  Hot Air: "Noted Obama surrogate from Massachusetts praises Bain & Romney."

On Bain: "Bain is a perfectly fine company.  They have a role in the private economy and I've got a lot of friends there."
On the Bay State unemployment rate when Romney left office: "I think when he left office, it was in the fours...yeah, not bad."

Maybe the Obama campaign can get Cory Booker back.

Extra - Politico: "Deval Patrick aims for Mitt Romney, hits Obama."

Meanwhile, here in Western Massachusetts - The Bay State Democrats are holding their convention in Springfield this weekend and the big story is whether Marisa DeFranco can gather up 15% of the delegate vote to force Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren into a primary fight.  So, after stating repeatedly in the past that he would not inject himself into primary politics, Governor Deval Patrick endorsed Warren today in what can be interpreted as an attempt to keep DeFranco under the the 15% threshold.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "Gov. Deval Patrick runs interference for Elizabeth Warren on false Cherokee claim."  With fun video.

What a bargain - Enterprise Blog: "CBO: Obama stimulus may have cost as much as $4.1 million per job."  The lowball estimate is a half-million in money borrowed.

Massachusetts miracle - Ace of Spades HQ: "Obama's newest attack on Romney: Massachusetts' unemployment rate was 4.7%."  This is why the Obama surrogates keep talking about being "47th in job growth" - there was almost full employment to begin with.  Meanwhile, guess which Lightbringer Chief Executive (aw, I gave it away) presided over the worst 30 months of employment in the last quarter-century.

Perfect gibberish

Today White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked to explain how Bain Capital's mixed record on helping businesses differs from Obama's investment of taxpayers' money.  His answer combines English words (I assume) in a way that sounds lucid but is sucked dry of exposition.

In case you missed it, here's the video:



Extra - From Hit & Run.

The cult of personality - Here's WashPost blogger Ed Rogers "Time for Democrats to decide: is Obama an idol or a President?"  "Many on the left have lost any insight into their own bias; nothing Obama says is over the top, and nothing he has done lacks significance or inspiration. Likewise, nothing Romney says or has done amounts to much. By forcing a halo upon Obama, suggesting dark hearts among any who don't see it and follow, and ignoring the virtues of a decent man like Romney, does not serve the president well. It stirs resentment among voters who chafe at being told to love him or else."  I'm looking at you, Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Memorial Day

We remember: "As Memorial Day nears, a single image that continues to haunt"

...

This number is going nowhere but up - Weekly Standard: "Last decade, 65% of federal expenditures went to pay for entitlements."  As we prepare to head deeper into debt, by all means, let's talk about really important matters.

A question on the House finale - How did House know what Wilson was saying at the funeral?  The moment Wilson starts calling him an "ass" the cellphone has a text messages reading "Shut up, you idiot."  Was House at the funeral in disguise?  It seems impossible that House could hobble in, unnoticed.  Anyway, here's a review from Maggie's Farm: "House MD: End of a cantankerous era."

The media discovers Obama is quite the spender - Doug Ross: "Oh my, even the Associated Press mocks Obama's deficit hawk claims."  And in case you missed it, the WashPost Factchecker bestowed three more Pinocchios on the White House spin.

The legend of Fauxcahontas

Three takeaways from this article in the Boston Globe today: "Filings add to questions on Warren's ethnic claims":

1.) Elizabeth Warren self-identified herself as Native American, presumably using the "high cheekbones" criteria: "According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves."
2.) Harvard really wanted to check off the box of adding minorities to the faculty: "In the years before Warren first came to Harvard Law, the school was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty."
3.) Warren had no idea that Harvard was identifying her as a minority despite articles in the Harvard Crimson and a letter to the New York Times.

And, of course, Harvard was so very impressed with Warren's background that it would be churlish to suggest a position was opened for her based on her cookbook contributions.  Here in Massachusetts there's little evidence that this issue is hurting Warren in the polls but I don't see how she can extricate herself from this tangle once the Senate race heats up.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "Warren listed as 'woman of color' in Harvard student journal."  Another reference she knew nothing about, presumably.

More - From Althouse.

Let's all pay taxes, and by "all" I mean those rich guys

I was listening to NPR this evening and caught this unintentionally humorous interview with California governor Jerry Brown:

Ryssdal: Why is it that this debate, Governor, happens on the far ends of the economic spectrum? We're talking about cutting services for the most needy in our society and taxing the very richest. How do you reconcile that with an electorate that lives mostly in the middle?
Brown: Well, the electorate in the middle is telling every survey that they don't want any more taxes. They are willing to see the taxes on the most affluent increase at least temporarily -- if it's for schools, for public safety and for the most vulnerable. So faced with a gap of $15.7 billion, I can either fold my tent and then just slash away, or I can give the voters an opportunity to say, 'OK, we'd like to shoulder part of that burden.'

And by "we", Brown means a tiny sliver of the Golden State population.  Golly I hope everybody's "willing" to let somebody else pay for California's mess!  Predictably, it's all about "economic fairness."

Blessed are the peacemakers - American Interest: "Peace Prize follies."  (H/T Arts & Letters).

Noted unicorn rider talks about the "real world"

Here's Jim Gereghty on the Corner:

President Barack Obama, who has spent almost all of his career and adult life in academia, law firms, and government, begins his criticism of Mitt Romney by declaring, “those of us who have spent time in the real world . . .”
It would probably be rude of me to think about Michelle Obama’s work, where her salary jumped from $121,910 to $316,962 per year after her husband became a U.S. senator, a job that was strangely left unfilled after she stepped down to focus on her husband’s campaign.
Such positions are quite challenging to find in the . . . real world.

It's a beautiful life and spending other people's (well, taxpayers) money means never having to say you're sorry.

Moving the goalposts again - Initial jobless claims edged down 2,000 last week, resulting in a lot of "jobs improve slightly" headlines.  How'd that happen?  Well, last week's estimate was revised up by 2,000 - voila! - a "better" job picture.  This is the 62nd time out of the last 63 estimates that have been revised in one direction.

Hey big spender - Hot Air: "Correcting the media on Obama's spending record...again."

And James Pethokoukis adds some numbers to the fight: "As I point out in my original post, if Obama wins another term, spending—according to his own budget—would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. If that forecast is right, spending during Obama’s eight years in office would average 23.6% of GDP. That average is higher than any single previous non-war year in American history."

David Brooks *hearts* private equity

The New York Times columnist has a full-throated defense of Bain Capital and firms that promote capitalism, jobs, and growth: "How Change Happens."  I, for one, believe that the Obama camp should keep on pushing this line of attack.

Let's have that debate about how that guy took control of a failing company and a hundred-thousand people lost their jobs.

What Americans want, but not really - Zero Hedge: "Americans want smaller government and lower taxes."  Yet government just continues to grow and grow under both Democrats and Republicans.

Julia wept - Nice Deb: "Dozens of Catholic institutions file suits over HHS mandate."  Notre Dame's president frames the argument perfectly: this is not a question about access to contraception, no matter how much the White House spins their "war on women" narrative.  It's about the government compelling religious institutions to violate their tenets.

Obama collects two more Pinocchios

He said that job growth was slower under Bush; the WashPost begs to differ:

There’s no doubt that Bush owns an unimpressive record on job creation. But Obama comes in either last, second-to-last or in the bottom half among presidents since the Great Depression, depending on which way you look at the numbers.
The president said that policies from 2000 through 2008 produced the “most sluggish job growth we’ve ever seen.” Perhaps so, but the worst numbers on record occurred under his watch.

As the article notes, Obama wants to count only private sector job growth and not from the start of his term or even the "end" of the recession but from when jobs started (slowly) coming back.  In other words, everything good is a result of The One's magic while everything bad is that other guy's fault.  And it only cost $5 trillion in new debt.

Incredible: non-cheerleading article appears in the NY Times - How did this one get past the editors?  Campbell Brown: "Obama, stop condescending to women."

Train in vain - Althouse: "Not even a busted fisc can stop Jerry Brown's train to nowhere."  With less than half the cash needed to fund California's high-speed rail boondoggle, I'm getting the distinct impression that Jerry Brown's strategy is the same as Teddy Kennedy's sinkhole, the "Big Dig."

Step one: get the underfunded project started.  Step two: go broke.  Step three: beg the federal government for a bailout.  Step four: Profit!

Take the money and run - Doug Ross: "Ruh roh: Europe's invisible bank run accelerates."

But can he win another? - CNN: "I'll Have Another wins Preakness in close finish."  One more and we'll have the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

Legendary DJ Pete Fornatale, rest in peace

I just got off the phone with my buddy who told me Pete Fornatale died a couple weeks ago.  Now that I'm living in Massachusetts, the news of New York disc jockeys doesn't make the headlines.  But it should.  This paragraph from his obit in the NY Times brings back all those rock-n-roll memories:

Mr. Fornatale was at the forefront of the FM revolution, along with WNEW-FM colleagues like Scott Muni, Rosko, Vin Scelsa, Dennis Elsas, Jonathan Schwartz and Alison Steele (who called herself “the Nightbird”). They played long versions of songs, and sometimes entire albums, and talked to their audiences in a conversational tone very different from the hard-sell approach of their AM counterparts.

Fornatale! Muni! Elsas!  I grew up in northern New Jersey listening to WNEW and the New York rock stations and there was an intimacy with these DJs that simply does not exist with the loudmouth drive-time jerks which populate the airwaves today.  One of my favorite segments on WNEW was the "Perfect Album Side" where fans would suggest a side to listen to, non-stop and commercial free (e.g. side 1 of "Born to Run.")  And, boy, did they know their music from artist to liner notes.

Dennis Elsas has a tribute to Fornatale up at his WFUV page.  I'm going to listen and remember Pete.

The media's response and responsibility - Tom Maguire has been all over the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case and his coverage is less about the altercation than the subtext of how the media has handled the case.  Which is poorly as he demonstrates today in the WashPost's coverage.  Can't "professional" reporters get even the most basic facts right?  If there are riots after Zimmerman's all-but-certain acquittal, there will be blood on the hands of the media who stoked their narrative first and reported the facts...eventually.

Shocking: people try to avoid paying taxes

I think Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin is a bit of a jerk to renounce his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying taxes on his IPO windfall, but that's his decision.  Of course, NY Senator Chuck Schumer never misses an opportunity to grab a headline with the outrage du jour so he's trying to move some punitive law that will go nowhere.

In turn, Zero Hedge has a "A simple question for Senator Schumer."  "Can Senator Schumer please rep, warrant and guarantee that none of his corporate sponsors, i.e., his Top 100 Contributors, have ever engaged in any form of explicit or implicit tax avoidance, tax offshoring, and tax shelter."  Wow, that's quite a list, including the Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and union-buster Verizon.  Let's see that clean bill of patriotic taxpaying, Senator.

How Pixar almost lost "Toy Story 2"

To un-deletion...and beyond!

Everybody act surprised - Hit & Run: "Of course foreclosure settlement money isn't going to people with foreclosures."  Governments just grab the cash.

Three years without a budget - Powerline: "Senate Democrats achieve a new standard of irresponsibility."

Sorry, Gramps - Derek Thompson at the Atlantic: "Why older Americans have the worst long-term unemployment crisis."  Part of it is higher health care costs and another part is that they still remember floppy disks.

The President makes a lot of sense

No, not that one:

Bill Clinton said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s goal of hiking taxes on the rich alone is not enough to solve the country’s fiscal woes and suggested that middle class Americans must also eventually contribute more.

Meanwhile, Obama was continuing his "Steel Magnolias" tour by taking to "The View" to suggest that the country could close our trillion-dollar deficits if - gosh darn it - we could pass that Buffett rule.  Also, America might be racist if he doesn't win re-election.

California enters the death spiral - Jennifer Rubin in the WashPost: "We don't all wish to be California."  Jerry Brown banked on hope and delusion (not necessarily in that order) in the belief that a suddenly-improving business climate would lead to revenues that would forestall painful budget cuts.

Alas, the tax revenues did not materialize and spending continued unchecked.  Now California is facing not the $9 billion deficit it expected but a yawning $16 billion hole.  In other words, the budget cuts coming that were once just painful will now be excruciating and Gov. Brown wants raise taxes in the state with the 48th worst business tax climate.  Good luck with that plan, buddy.

Living in borrowed times - Zero Hedge notes that it now costs $2.50 in new debt to generate $1 in GDP growth.

Oh, oh, oh, it's magic! - You know.  Never believe it's not so.  Maggie's Farm has four clips from Penn & Teller's show "Fool Us."  Watch the first clip with the birds before you read down.  Impressive.

There's the camera



I'm playing in a trivia contest tonight that, typically, would ask players to name all the movies in this montage.  I'm proud to claim "The 400 Blows."  That's a deep cut.

Inexplicably, another law school identifies Elizabeth Warren as Cherokee faculty

The Boston Globe reports that while at the University of Pennsylvania, Fauxcahontas was identified as minority professor.  Why do these mistakes keep happening?

The reference offers another piece of evidence that Warren was identified as a Native American as part of her professional career. Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard University, her current employer, had described her as a Native American when it was under fire for a lack of diversity on its law school faculty.

Bryan Preston quips: "Once could be a mistake.  Twice, that's a career strategy."

It's funny when people try to gain an advantage with Native American heritage:

Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) learn that all of Lily's friends have been put in preschool causing the couple to panic. Mitchell calls Claire to see if Wagon Wheel is a good school and asks her if she can get them an appointment. At Wagon Wheel the assistant tells them with their diversity (Mitchell and Cameron being gay and Lily being Asian) they can get into any preschool. Mitchell starts calling Cameron his life partner to seem even more diverse to make it in Billingsley, the expensive school nicknamed "the Harvard of preschools." They soon become beaten at their own game by an interracial, disabled lesbian couple with an adopted African American child. Cameron pretends to be one sixteenth cherokee to seem more diverse in their interview. They eventually decide to go to Wagon Wheel after bombing the interview.

Oh Cam, that's so hilariously underhanded.  You should be a Senator.

Winner of a story - Here's the latest narrative from the Obama campaign: after spending $299 million in taxpayer money, Obama saved this guy's job...except he's been employed since 2006.  Scrubbing your Facebook was a winning move, buddy.

The layoffs will continue until morale improves - Hit & Run: "High unemployment is the new normal": "The headline unemployment statistics are wrong. Unemployment is higher than 8.1 percent and it will be for a while."

Not to worry: initial jobless claims dropped last week after the previous week's claims were revised upward for the 17th straight week.  So they can go down.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe employee #50 - Business Week: "Why France has so many 49-employee companies": "Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons."

Mark Halperin beclowns himself

The Time magazine "journalist" comes across as a bespectacled pre-teen, looking longingly at all the kids in their clubhouse having a swell time.  Gee, they're a cool bunch!  Ann Althouse accurately calls this piece "a particularly silly example of press love for Obama."

This section in particular caused me to LOL:

Romney also has the luxury of an open schedule. Although without the gilded mantle of the presidency, he can spend every waking hour as a full-time candidate, while the President is required to do his day job.

Oh yes, it's a non-stop schedule of fundraisers, golf, posh parties, campaign stops masquerading as "policy speeches" and checking boxes.  Obama's so busy, he just doesn't have time for press conferences or passing economy-killing budgets.  The poor man should take a vacation.

Deep into the Big Red - Forbes: "Ten reasons Wall Street should be (very) worried about the U.S. debt."  There are two common themes in the article: one is that spending is on auto-pilot and there is virtually no political will to address an unsustainable level of debt.  Otherwise, it's a fun read.

Related - Zero Hedge notes that non-revolving debt has hit an all-time record, as the federal government encourages car loans to prop up Government Motors and further inflates the student loan bubble.

Julia and Elizabeth

Mark Steyn "Composite Americans": "Have you dated a composite woman? They're America's hottest new demographic."

That poor, fatherless kid - City Journal: "The life of Zachary."

Obama 2012: "Look at all the stuff I gave you with the money I borrowed from China"

Hot Air reviews the life and times of "Julia" who enjoyed the benefits of the federal government while the national debt climbed to over $20 trillion.  Curiously, the Obama narrative leaves out this salient point and the less-than-hypothetical scenario where China stops borrowing U.S. Treasuries or - worse - asks for their money back.

It seems that hypothetical "Julia" will enjoy the benefits of Social Security when she retires, despite the statements by those liars at the Social Security Administration.  David Harsanyi nails this one:

If you think Social Security benefits allow you to live your retirement without worry, you deserve Barack Obama.

Keep living the dream, America.

Extra - IBD: "Obama promises women a lifetime of dependence."

More - From Powerline: "In this election, the lines couldn’t be more clearly drawn. The Democrats are the party of free stuff. Well, not actually free of course, but taxed away from someone who earned it or borrowed from our children."

And this - The Memeorandum wrap-up.

It's a whopper - PowerLine notes that Obama scored himself the un-coveted "Four Pinocchios" award: "Washington Post rebuts Obama's malicious lie."

Aww, she just wanted a warm meal - Althouse: "Elizabeth Warren explains that she listed herself as a minority lawprof "in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon.""  Makes sense.

America, heck yeah!

Heaven knows I have many, many problems with President Obama.  But, honestly, I don't have an issue with an American President going to the heart of Taliban country and saying: "Remember that guy we swore we'd kill?  He's sleeping with the fishes.  He's pushing up sea cucumbers in Davy Jones' locker."

He's the Commander-in-Chief (for now) and, let's face it, if the whole deal had gone south we'd be talking about Carter's "Desert One" until the cows come home.  It's his one unvarnished moment of glory - let him have it.

What Obama yelled to Hugh Beaumont while playing his 95th round of golf

"Fore, Ward!"

The Obama campaign finally released their slogan for the 2012 and it's "Foreward!"  To which I say, yes! Forward with the endless supply of material for ridicule!

I like this one: "Was 'Reply-All' taken?"
To which I might add: "Look forward but - for God's sake - don't look back at the past three-and-a-half years."  Or "Forward-looking...after blaming everybody in the past."
Or how about this warning of another trillion-dollar federal deficit: "Not to worry! Obama will just, uh, pay it forward.  Or rather, we will."
I like the socialist spin: "Just like China's Great Leap Forward, but in America!"
And if you want to get really old-school there's Stalin's Order #227, comrades.

I predict this slogan will go down the memory tube of bad ideas along with Dan Rather's one-word signoff:



Extra - Ace has more along with Gateway Pundit.  Forward in the glorious struggle!

More - RNC tweet: "Under Obama's budget, Americans can look FORWARD to $1.9 trillion in higher taxes."  Uh-oh, there's another hijacked hashtag.

Sooner and sooner - Veronique de Rugy notes that the year that Social Security's trust fund runs dry keeps creeping closer and closer, now pegged for 2033.  And, boy, this sounds really familiar: "But the real problem is that, for years, the federal government has used Social Security’s surpluses to pay for roads, education, and wars. Now that the Social Security program will be demanding its money back from the Department of Treasury on an annual basis, the government will have to borrow more and more from investors, increasing the publicly held debt at a greater pace."

Dances with Ethnicity - Legal Insurrection: "Confirmed - Elizabeth Warren knowingly self-identified as Native American on law association forms."

I wonder how long it will take before this is characterized as part of the invented "war on women"....too late!

Who's going to pay for all this stuff?

I've written about P.D. James' creepy, dystopian novel "The Children of Men" before and Ross Douthat has a good article today about the unsettling demographic trends facing Japan in "The Incredible Shrinking Country."

Eberstadt has spent years writing about the challenges posed by declining fertility around the globe. But Japan, he notes, is a unique case. The Japanese birthrate hovers around just 1.3 children per woman, far below the level required to maintain a stable population. Thanks to increasing life expectancy, by 2040 “there could almost be one centenarian on hand to welcome each Japanese newborn.” Over the same period, the overall Japanese population is likely to decline by 20 percent, with grim consequences for an already-stagnant economy and an already-strained safety net.

Yikes, one centenarian per baby?  That's going to lead to some budget strains unless Japan can get some kids into the work force.

Re-assessment - WSJ: "If you're under 40, don't bank on Social Security" "If Plan A in your retirement scheme is Social Security, it's time to start working on Plan B."

Fair shares - Atlantic: "The 'Fair' question: If we must raise taxes, where should we start?"  Yes, the rich could pay more in taxes but relying on a small sliver of the population leads to high volatility in revenues.  And, no, we shouldn't put the burden on the poor but shouldn't every American pay something for the government?  After all, what incentive is there for limiting the size of government when 45% of Americans don't pay for it?

That said, I agree with this line: "The most reasonable tax fix is the solution neither party wants to talk about. It's higher taxes, across the board, including for the middle class."  Or we can keep borrowing 40 cents for every dollar we spend.

TGIF - How's everybody doing tonight?  I'm good.

Obama admits the economy stinks

From his speech the other day:

The ... news is, today our economy is ... the worst.   [T]here's still a lot of Americans who are out there looking for a job or at least finding a job that pays the bills and helps cover the mortgage.  There's still too many families who don't have that security, that basic middle-class security that started slipping away...

I may have used some special editing.

Surprisingly, crushing taxes didn't help - George Will: "Illinois moves towards state of insolvency."

Jann Wenner, Obama's lapdog

There's a reason that Rolling Stone breathlessly reported their fourth extensive interview with Obama in four years: the President knows he's going to get the softest of Nerf balls lobbed from Wenner and there won't be a doubt to Obama's wonderfulness.  Beyond belief, Wenner burns off his first six questions with the President asking variations of "aren't those Republicans terrible?"

I used to subscribe to Rolling Stone but - Judas Priest - somewhere along the way they must had added an Orwellian two-minute hate to every staff meeting.

Nevertheless, Wenner managed to squeeze in some hard-hitting questions about meeting Mick Jagger.  In fact, here's how I broke down the questions asked of Obama:

Republicans - 6
Race relations - 1
Gay marriage - 1
War on drugs - 1
Occupy Wall Street/Wall Street - 3
Global warming - 1
Military / foreign affairs - 4
Bein' President - 3
Media (TV, music, etc.) - 12

Compare and contrast to the issues that Americans care most about (various polls):

Economy
Jobs
Health care
Budget deficit/national debt
Family values
Fuel costs

Of course, we probably shouldn't expect any less from Rolling Stone.  The New York Times spent all of two days carrying on the charade that this election year will be different before falling back on their own reliable biases.  I'm sure any moment now the media will be discussing the jobless recovery how Gitmo is still open.  Aaaaaaannnnyyy moment now.

Is this a surprise?

Record numbers of Americans consider the news media to be “immoral,” “inaccurate,” and “biased,” a new poll says.

You know what those "Americans" are watching?  Fox News (where Obama fears to tread.)

Feed me, Seymour!

I worried about this years ago: a desperate, out-of-control, federal government will not be able to keep its hands off of American's huge retirement accounts.  Doug Ross: "Good News: Feds Look Seriously at Attacking the Deficit. Bad News: They're Targeting Retirement Accounts."

Obama panders to the kids - Today Obama soaked in the adulation of the future unemployed and tried to get them excited about paying slightly less for their college loans.

Because, you know, student loan debt is bad.  Exploding federal debt?  That's radical!

They always get you with the shipping charges - With a hat tip to my pal Des, here's a $23 million book about flies.

Hey, guess what blogger you love turns 65 in 2033?

CBS News: "Social Security: Trust fund in the red by 2033."

Not to worry folks. Senator Tom Harkin is here to set the record straight:

Social Security is financed by its own revenue stream, the payroll tax and, by law, it cannot add to the deficit. Since the payroll tax will still be collected, even after 2033, Social Security will be able to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits going forward, assuming that Congress would take no action to address this problem.

Yeah, I think that last part is a pretty fair bet.  Harkin wants you to know that all that money you paid into that FICA box on your paycheck - well - you'll get a portion back if you live to 65 or, in my case, 67.  The rate of return would be far, far below what you'd have if you just put that money into a 401(k) or savings account but you'll get it back because the government said so.  Why would you ever want to opt out of a such a great program?

Because you can't.

Related - From Hot Air.

And this - LA Times: "Social Security is slipping closer to insolvency."

Reality intrudes at the Times - For a blog that is kinda dedicated towards the unsustainability of traditional entitlement plans from Greece to Medicare, this piece from Walter Russell Mead about the enormous bubble-bursting at the New York Times is delightful reading: "For readers, this is a fascinating and revealing glimpse inside the Times bubble. I am not sure which is more disconcerting; the deeply embedded sense of blue entitlement so palpably on display or the poor political judgement that led the union brass to think that releasing this video to the public would be good PR. Either way it serves as a powerful illustration of just how fundamentally out of touch many of the people working at America’s most famous newspaper have become."  The "living in a cardboard box and eating cat food" narrative is, well, just hilarious stuff for a media elite fed on Zabar's bagels.

Extra - Powerline: "Mind of the Times"

We're super-broke - Zero Hedge: "Presenting the U.S. government's own infographic of its own insolvency." And guess what?  The problem isn't student loans or a lack of revenue from Warren Buffett: it's entitlements.  Talking about anything else is like thinking your car won't run because of low tire pressure.

California, here we go - Here's Joel Kotkin in Opinion Journal: "The great California exodus."

CBO: Obama's budget will put us into a death spiral

Hey, I'm back from vacation!  Here's the first nugget of the day from the Hill: "CBO estimates Obama's 2013 budget plan would hit economic growth."  In sum, they estimate it could slow growth between 0.5 and 2.2% because of federal borrowing sucking all the oxygen from business:

Larger deficits caused by the budget would cause the government to issue more bonds, sucking up private capital to finance its debts and thereby reducing the funds businesses could use to expand and hire, the CBO said. An increased tax on capital gains included in the president's plan would also tend to reduce private capital, it says.

So business can't grow, meaning the government can't collect much-needed corporate and personal income taxes, which then leads to calls by Obama to increase spending to help Americans affected by the economic downturn.  Smartest President ever.

Blogging hiatus

Be back soon - don't be blue.

No fair! - Reason: "Obama's fairness fiction": ""Fairness," an elusive idea normally exploited by spoiled children, is now the foundation of the Democratic Party's economy policy."

Fun with unemployment graphs - Zero Hedge: "Here is today's chart of the day from BofA, which begs one simple question: when will the two time series recouple, because recouple they will, and how will America react to the realization it was lied to for 2% worth of unemployment "improvement"? The chart says it all."

A Depression-era program in a 21st-century world

This title from Hit & Run says it all: "FDR would have opposed today's Social Security."  In short, FDR was a fan of the "lock box" idea so that Americans had faith that the government would protect retirees' money.  But somewhere along the way, Washington conspired to pick its own pocket and shifted to the Ponzi-ish "pay as you go" system.

One of my (many) complaints about Social Security is that it was designed to help the elderly at a time when work involved physical labor: farming, factory work, ditch-digging, etc.  Social Security was available at 65 when the life expectancy was 63 and penicillin was a new-fangled invention.  At the signing of the Social Security Act, FDR lauded it as a way to protect against "poverty-ridden old age" but today it's largely a subsidy for relatively affluent and healthy seniors.

Let's enjoy ourselves before reality intrudes - Zero Hedge: "There will never be a failed U.S. Treasury auction...until there is."  "Everyone is betting on this one idea -  that the Fed will never lose control of interest rates and the US Treasury will never have a failed auction.  The same way nearly every major financial player on the planet was willing to bet that US real estate could never fall for an extended period of time. And we all know how that trade worked out."

In related news: "Egan-Jones cuts U.S. rating citing growing debt."  Geez, don't harsh my mellow, man.

Happy Easter!

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.