I did not have relations with that Administration - Ricochet: "Completing the Limbaugh theorem."

How the other half budgets

In a post closely related to mine about how young Americans will respond to the Obamacare mandate, Megan McArdle recounts the opinion of a pastor who deals with "median" Americans who aren't so good with their money (via Instapundit):

What I’m saying is that for a large minority of people opting out of the ACA probably won’t even be a conscious choice. It will just happen because of the complexity, the upfront sticker cost and the lack of ability to make good financial decisions.

The individual mandate assumes most people are rational about health insurance when, clearly, they are not.

Set up 'em, knock 'em down - Hit & Run: "Obama preps army of straw men, false choices to defend NSA surveillance."

Satan says: "Damn it's cold in here" - Fox News: "New York Times editorial board says administration has 'lost all credibility'."

You know who built this extra-Constitutional monster, NYT?  The Gray Lady, that tireless cheerleader of everything Obama, whose editorial page (typically) reads like a Jay Carney press release.  Did your crack staff of quote-unquote journalists break any one of these scandals?  No you did not because you were busy doodling "Obama" in your notebooks.

This one's for you, NY Times:

Blair Litton: "Oh, you think anyone who's proud of the work we do is an ass-kisser."
Aaron Altman: "No, I think anyone who puckers up their lips and presses it against their bosses buttocks and then *smooches* is an ass-kisser."

Inertia

In a bit of counter-intuitive legerdemain, Michael Hilzik of the L.A. Times says "Social Security should be expanded, not cut."  The premise of his article is that Americans have done such an awful job of saving for their own retirement and are now so dependent on anticipated Social Security benefits that, gosh darn it, it's up to the government to come to the rescue.  (You'll never guess where we're going to get all the money for this expansion.  Oh, you did.)

But this got me thinking: since the decline of defined benefit plans and the rise of defined contribution plans (e.g. 401(k)s), Americans have been warned and cajoled and urged to save for their own retirements.  But they don't because the abstract of the future is so less tangible than the consumer goods of today.  So young workers save grudgingly, if at all.

The success of Obamacare fulcrums on a critical funding mechanism: the so-called "young invincible" workers have to enter the insurance pool to subsidize older (and sicker) Americans.  But what happens when these kids experience the rate shock of health costs that may more than double?  Will they sign up?  I would guess the young'uns would have even less incentive to join the health insurance pools than they would fund their own retirement plans.

Here's why: for 401(k)s or 403(b)s, your contribution is going into an investment account that will belong to you, no matter what.  Your investments in Enron might have tanked but a conservatively balanced portfolio in index funds will return a solid 6% or so a year.  It's your money.  The new "affordable" care law requires a large hike in premiums for a comprehensive policy when most 20-year-olds can get by with cheap catastrophic coverage.  There is very little value to a expanded policy.  It's a car you are (likely) never going to pull out of the driveway.

So younger workers are likely to do...nothing.  They'll do nothing because signing up for insurance is a pain, they can sign up instantly if they need it, the tax penalty is almost certainly going to be less than the cost of insurance, and the penalty can only be assessed if these kids expect a refund on their tax returns.  A simple re-filing of a W-2 form will fix that.  But mostly they won't do anything for the same reason they don't fund retirement plans: when you're a "young invincible" the prospect of an expensive disease is as far-flung as retirement at age 65.

I know this to be true because the kids aren't buying insurance now:

Most young childless adults in most states could purchase catastrophic insurance right now for about the cost of a cell phone data plan.  They have not done so.  Maybe this is because they don't realize how cheaply they can acquire bare-bones coverage.  Or maybe they have a hard time fitting even $100 a month into a tight budget. The monthly take-home for someone making $32,000 a year and living in a major city is probably something under $2,000.  As I well recall, carving an extra $100 out of that is not easy. 

And $200 is less easy on top of crushing student loan debt and virtually no jobs.  As Megan McArdle notes, this is the genesis of the death spiral:

Without the subsidies from "young invincibles" paying $150 a month for almost nothing, the older, sicker part of the insurance pool will have to pay more.  The healthier ones may eventually decide that they simply can't afford it; better to pay the fine, tolerate the tiny risk of a huge ER bill, and count on the fact that you can always sign up for insurance if you get sick.  Rinse and repeat until the only people in the market are incredibly expensive to cover.

What's it going to be kids?  Take your lumps now and pay up for expensive coverage or take your chances?  If retirement plan funding is the guideline, it's going to be a rough ride for Obamacare.

Extra - Weekly Standard: "CBO: Uninsured under Obamacare never falls below 30 million."  Well, at least it was expensive.

Over the years I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap - Note to NBC Sports: try to avoid the open mike when Pittsburgh is losing to the Bruins on their home ice.  Tsk tsk.

Let's light this rocketship to recovery! - Big Government: "Unexpected: Manufacturing shrinks in May."

In related news: entrepreneurs are saying "no thanks."  Hold tight to your current jobs, America.  It's going to be a long slog.

Speaking of the late 1980s - This condemnation comes 25 years too late: "Al Sharpton's long bill of goods from Tawana Brawley to primetime."

I have a Frank Lautenberg story

New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg passed away today, the last WWII veteran in the Senate.  Despite his unfortunate choice of political parties, he was a great man: a war hero, a successful businessman, and an advocate for the people of New Jersey.

Back in 1988, I was a junior at Rutgers and Frank Lautenberg was running for re-election against Republican Pete Dawkins.  Dawkins had a dream resume: he had won the Heisman Trophy for West Point in 1958, became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, got his PhD from Princeton, became a Brigadier General in the Army, won two Bronze Stars in Vietnam, and then became a partner on Wall Street.

The man had done it all.  But the peripatetic trappings of a life in the military meant that Dawkins didn't have deep roots in New Jersey and the Lautenberg campaign ran a commercial (can't find it on YouTube) that just cut him to the core.  I remember it was a video of Dawkins responding to a question about running in NJ and the awkward answer concluded with a black screen and an exasperated voiceover: "C'mon Pete."  It was devastating and Dawkins lost the election by eight points. 

Whisper campaign - Hot Air: "NYT: 'Some in the West Wing' wish Holder would hit the road."

Yeah, yeah, here we go again - The Hill: "Medicare on track for insolvency in 2026; Social Security seven years later."

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

The never-ending campaign continues, this time on student loans:

President Obama's 2014 budget calls on Congress to prevent a doubling of interest rates on student loans and make the rates "more market-based." Last week House Republicans and four Democrats voted to prevent the rates from doubling and make the rates more market-based.
Naturally, Mr. Obama is sitting down with the leaders of both parties in a good-faith effort to iron out their remaining differences before the July 1 rate increase. Just kidding.
After hurling a veto threat at the House, Mr. Obama is hosting a White House media event Friday morning. As his spokesman Jay Carney described it, "the President will be joined by college students here at the White House for an event where he will call on Congress to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling on July 1." Does Mr. Obama realize he can't run for re-election again?

That's right: it's another campaign event.  The main difference this time is that we need "fairness" and now is not the time to "turn our backs on young people."

Cue the slow clap.

This thing has more Indian kids than a Bollywood remake of "Harry Potter" - I'm watching the National Spelling Bee and the last Caucasian kid left the stage ten minutes ago.  All these tweens are really accomplished with academics, band and such.

Today's heart-warming story - Medical News Today: "Woman has heart attack on plane - 15 cardiologists on board."  They were on their way to a medical conference.

Benchmark no more - The Truth About Cars: "Three questions GM should answer."

Now it can be told

Big Journalism: "Associated Press: Many will have insurance cancelled due to Obamacare."

This is also a classic case of the media making sure they are on the record reporting something, but only doing so after it is too late to hurt their big government agenda. The media wanted ObamaCare to pass, so the media refused to do any kind of reporting like this when it might have derailed the legislation before it became law.

Ain't that the truth.  How many of us took a look at this turd of a law and warned that you wouldn't be able to keep your insurance, that "Cadillac" plans would be curtailed, and younger workers would have to pay way above current rates due to "community rating" designed to spread the cost of healthcare around.  Due to fairness and all.

And that's how it was sold and that's how the media regurgitated it.

Unfunded liability - USA Today: "States sinking in pension plan debt."  "One inescapable fact remains: Without meaningful reform, paying down these liabilities would cost the average American household an additional $1,385 in taxes every year for the next three decades."

Holder lied, either to the Court or Congress

Jennifer Rubin notes that when AG Eric Holder told Congress that he had nothing to do with the wiretapping of Fox News' James Rosen, it doesn't square with the court order DOJ requested:

The catch is this: If Holder never considered prosecution of journalists including Rosen, then the affidavit laying out a purported criminal case against Rosen was a ruse, a false statement under oath, directed to the court to conduct a wide-ranging dragnet. If, on the other hand, the affidavit which Holder signed off on is true in laying out the case against Rosen, then he didn’t level with Congress. In either event, he needs to come back and explain himself. If he refuses or takes the Fifth, there is no alternative but to name a special prosecutor.

Also, we now know that Holder went judge-shopping until he found somebody to sign off on the secret spying.  This case has gone far past the question of impropriety.  Time for a special prosecutor.

Extra - From Hot Air.

Memorial Day

The flag is up.

Resolute - Fox News: "Thousands run final mile of Boston Marathon."

That darn 4th Amendment - Twitchy: "Ryan Lizza awards Mother Jones 'dumbest and most frightening take' on James Rosen story."

Magically untainted by corporate cash - Ricochet: "Left-wing think tank hoist by its own corporate funding petard."

Car wars

The Truth About Cars has an excellent story about how Tesla repaid their DOE loan (!) and then claimed they were "the only American car company to have fully repaid the government."

Four hours later, Chrysler responded: "Not exactly, Tesla."

To which Tesla retorted: "You aren't an American car company and you didn't pay back your loan."  Burn!

Holder on loosely - It looks like Eric Holder's days as Attorney General are numbered now that it's been revealed that he out-and-outright lied under oath about approving wiretaps for Fox News reporter James Rosen.  When both Sarah Palin and the Huffington Post say it's time to go, better start packing.

Terrific me and those awful others

We're heard this before and the link on Real Clear Politics read "The Ad Hominem Presidency" but here's Charles Krauthammer detailing how Obama's habit of vilifying all who disagree with him has sent a message to the acolytes in his administration:

It’s not unlawful to run an ad hominem presidency. It’s merely shameful. The great rhetorical specialty of this president has been his unrelenting attribution of bad faith to those who disagree with him. He acts on principle; they from the basest of instincts.
Well then, why not harass them? Why not ask the content of their prayers? Why not read their e-mail? Why not give them especially horrible customer service?

This is why the guy can't get anything done unless he has a filibuster-proof majority: he refuses to parlay with those misguided souls who can't acknowledge his own wonderful-ness, the puppy-kickers.

Hooch is crazy

Stuff that happens in Flyover country - Veronique de Rugy: "Americans without a bank account the next unforeseen Obamacare implementation problem."  How many Americans do not have a checking account to pay mandatory health insurance premiums?  A lot more than you think.

From Nothingburger Witch Hunt to "Heads must roll!" in 24 hours flat - AoSHQ: "Ezra Klein and Josh Marshall, who got a VIP briefing at the White House yesterday, are curiously on the same page today."  Marching orders.

Nobel Peace Prize winner update - Via Hot Air: "Obama has killed more U.S. citizens than foreigners waterboarded under Bush."

Smoking gun, hiding in plain sight - By the way, if you missed it, check out the NY Times chicanery via Mickey Kaus: "NYT buries lede....in the lede!"

Essentially, the Times reported that a "manager" at the IRS Cincinnati office told accountants to scan for "Tea Party" in applications.  Who is this mystery manager?  The Times doesn't know and doesn't care to know!  That's some top-notch journalism there.

Well, maybe Lois Lerner can clear this up when she testifies tomorrow.  Or not.  Let the hagiography commence!

Obama breaks the law & the law apologizes for being so vague - Draw and Strike has a great post about how the NY Times massaged the headline and opening of a story about the IRS scandal.  Suffice to say it's about what you'd expect.  Clearly the problem is that the law needs clarification so this won't happen again.

When we said nobody knew about the IRS scandal until recently, we meant everybody knew a month ago

My, my, it's getting hard to keep track of all these lies.  Politico: "The White House's shifting IRS account"

The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago.
Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department.
Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press.

So, to believe that Obama didn't know about this brewing embarrassment to his Administration, you have to believe that neither the White House counsel, nor the Treasury Secretary, nor the White House Chief of Staff - either collectively or individually - decided to tell the President.

That is a bridge too far, sir.

As Allahpundit quips on Hot Air: "So, when’s McDonough getting fired?"

Extra - From Twitchy, it sounds like the WH Press Corps wasn't buying it either.

When pandering meets reality - Legal Insurrection notes that the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute called Elizabeth Warren's student loan proposal "embarrassingly bad" and a "cheap political gimmick."

A talking point and nothing else - Hot Air: "About those 'doctored' Benghazi emails."  I know this administration expects/depends on the media to parrot their silly lines but, after the AP spying, I think those days are over.

Age of Aquarius

Althouse: "It's all about the Republicans' political ambitions. That's the spin. That's what they have."
Minuteman: "Their gist - the White House won't be distracted by these distractions and neither will the Times."
Tweet of the Day: "When your job is to carry water for the administration, everything looks like a bucket."

Crafting the YouTube video lie

Here's Michael Barone with "Benghazi and IRS targeting: Politics by other means"

What actually happened in Benghazi was out of sync with the Obama campaign line. Osama bin Laden was dead. Al-Qaida was on the run. The global war on terror -- well, don't call it that anymore.
A deliberate effort to mislead the voters was launched. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House press secretary Jay Carney and the president himself talked about a spontaneous protest of an anti-Muslim video -- even though no evidence of that came from Benghazi.
The White House and the State Department altered the CIA's talking points -- not just in one minor particular, as Carney claimed, but through 12 separate versions. The Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, armed with the talking points, spoke sternly about a spontaneous protest and an anti-Muslim video on five Sunday interview shows.

Remember when this preposterous lie came to light?  Suddenly it was all "let's wait for the investigation" and "the situation is fluid."  But that Sunday, the spin couldn't wait.

And what was the Commander-in-Chief's involvement?  Andrew McCarthy suggests it was the sole purpose of "That 10 p.m. phone call":

We do not have a recording of this call, and neither Clinton nor the White House has described it beyond noting that it happened. But we do know that, just a few minutes after Obama called Clinton, the Washington press began reporting that the State Department had issued a statement by Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. 

President Checkbox said "keep me apprised of the situation" and got his rest for Vegas.

Extra - Charles Krauthammer: "Redacted truth, subjunctive outrage."

More - Stephen Hayes on the email dump: "Despite the centrality of the YouTube video to the administration’s public discussion of Benghazi, it goes virtually unmentioned in the nearly 100 pages of emails between the nation’s top intelligence and Obama administration officials as they reshaped the talking points provided by the CIA."

Also - Daily Caller: "White House's Benghazi email dump shows critical two-day gap; CIA objection."  There's a reason we're not allowed to see the first 67 hours of emails and it's surely not a good one.

Thank you for that question so I can get ahead of the damning IG report - Legal Insurrection: "IRS planted question at ABA meeting."  We're being governed by the very best.

MP3 volume level 20 = My wife is watching either Joan Rivers or Gordon Ramsey on TV.

Can't a low-level blogger get some love and/or linkage?

Look, I know I'm a bodega in the world of WalMart blogs.  But I wrote this Wednesday and then today I see this post on the super-heavy Ace of Spades:

Kimberly Strassel: Obama Set the Tone, the IRS Executed It
"Who will rid me of this troublesome Tea Party?"

GMTA or downright plagiarism?  C'mon, throw me a bone here.

"Who will rid me of this meddlesome Tea Party?"

Here's Peter Wehner with "Obama is the ultimate ad hominem President"

The president can hardly go a day without impugning the motivations of his opponents. They never have honest differences with the president. Instead they are suffering from an illness (“fever”), cowardice (afraid of what Rush Limbaugh might say about them), and lack of patriotism (caring about elections rather than future generations). Mr. Obama is the ultimate ad hominem president.

This reflex to impugn those who would disagree with the One reached its disgusting apex during the gun control debate when Obama suggested that Republicans didn't want to give him "a win."  Because it there couldn't be any other reason for their opposition, the bastards.

So on the endless campaign trail that is the Obama Administration, is it any wonder that a handful of like-minded acolytes would take the hint and seek to punish conservative groups?  After all, those small-government types have hearts as black as coal.  Obama said as much.

Adjust your expectations - If you're an avid MSNBC viewer, this report may surprise you.  If you're a Fox News viewer, not so much.  Hit & Run: "The Treasury's Inspector General Just Released a Damning Report About the IRS Targeting Tea Party Groups."  Yawn.

Legend in their minds - Reason Online: "The myth of the scientific liberal."

Media becomes the story and must cover itself

Oh, that's a deft double-entendre.  This past weekend, I wondered if the trajectory of media coverage on Benghazi meant that even the most die-hard bastions of Obama-cheerleading would have to do some actual reporting or risk losing all credibility.  Now even the ombudsman for the NY Times has said "enough".  TimesWatch: "NY Times public editor: Soft IRS, Benghazi coverage, lends credence to conservative criticism":

Many on the right – as noted last week in my blog posts about Benghazi – do not think they can get a fair shake from The Times. This coverage won’t do anything to dispel that belief.

No....kidding, Sherlock.  I've pretty much stopped reading anything linked to the Times because their editorial page is indistinguishable from White House press releases.  Now that Associated Press reporters have been wire-tapped by the Justice Department, will they stop doodling "I heart Obama" in their notebooks?  Stay tuned to the Internet.

Extra - From Commentary and Q&O.

Hillary can't believe her best buddy "Chris" is gone

Mark Steyn unloads with "The Benghazi lie":

As Mr. Hicks testified, his superiors in Washington knew early that night that a well-executed terrorist attack with the possible participation of al-Qaeda elements was under way. Instead of responding, the most powerful figures in the government decided that an unseen YouTube video better served their political needs. And, in the most revealing glimpse of the administration’s depravity, the president and secretary of state peddled the lie even in their mawkish eulogies to their buddy “Chris” and three other dead Americans. They lied to the victims’ coffins and then strolled over to lie to the bereaved, Hillary telling the Woods family that “we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.” And she did. The government dispatched more firepower to arrest Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in Los Angeles than it did to protect its mission in Benghazi. It was such a great act of misdirection Hillary should have worn spangled tights and sawn Stevens’s casket in half.

There's an image for you.  But then what difference does it make at this point?

Detroit's economy hoping that Dr. Cox buys some more Red Wings jerseys

Hot Air: "Detroit emergency manager: We're flat broke and can't borrow anymore."  Judging by this story, there's going to be some real pain and some very unhappy public workers.

Positively Nixonian - Coming on the heels of the IRS "enemies list" we have this new development: "Justice department secretly obtained AP phone records."

Not to worry: Obama knows whose fault it is that Americans are getting cynical about government.

This is the crew enforcing Obamacare - Doug Ross: "The IRS scandal and Obamacare: yes, your private health information will be used against you."

Extra - More IRS roundup at Legal Insurrection.

Betcha by YouTube, wow

In honor of the White House's "stylistic edits" of the Benghazi memo, here are the Stylistics:

The media stirs

I can't tell if the moribund American media is finally doing their job on Benghazi or if they're being dragged, kicking and screaming.  I do find this progression interesting:

Weekly Standard
National Journal
CBS News
ABC News
The New Yorker

No wonder the White House had to gather up their loyal subjects for a "deep background" review.  When it was a Fox News and Weekly Standard story, it could be marginalized by this White House; when you've lost the New Yorker can CNN and MSNBC be far behind?  OK, well, not MSNBC.

Update - They're resorting to extreme measures now: "Smoke forces evacuation of White House press room."

Banker bashing - Megan McArdle explains the silliness of Elizabeth Warren's proposal to hold student loan rates at the same level of banks.  In short, banks get very low loan rates because these loans are held for a very short time and the banks have significant collateral.  College students are taking loans out over a decade or more and the collateral is a promise to repay and nothing more.

But then, despite what most of the hardcore commenters over on TPM or Daily Kos believe, this turd of a bill isn't going anywhere.  Harry Reid won't even embarrass himself by bringing it up for a vote.

Extra - From Legal Insurrection.

More - Coyote Blog: "I  find it  a simply astounding sign of the bizarre times we live in that a leading anti-bank progressive is working on legislative strategies to get 18-year-olds further into debt."

Nice health care system you got here...be a shame if anything happened to it - AoSHQ: "HHS Secretary Sebilus Is Extorting Money From Health Care Industry To Promote ObamaCare."

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you - In a development that is surprising for how un-surprising it is, the IRS has apologized for targeting Tea Party and conservative groups.

Hit & Run wonders if the NY Times will similarly apologize for applauding IRS harassment.  Rhetorically, of course.

Dog bites man story - TTAC: "Another DOE backed auto makes bites the dust."  Oh, well, it's only taxpayer money.

Fauxahontas knows the solution for student loan debt: more cowbell

Student loan debt has hit a record high and now outpaces both credit card debt and car loans, driven in part due to the spread of for-profit schools which disproportionately account for a large share of loan defaults.  How to address this issue?  Elizabeth Warren says let's make student loans nearly free:

Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Warren said that as her first bill, she was introducing legislation that would set the interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans at the same rate banks borrow from the Federal Reserve.
Calling the increasing amount of student debt a "quiet but growing crisis," Warren said her bill would bring some much-needed fairness to students, while highlighting the low rates banks enjoy from the federal government.

It's the old "fairness" and "damn banks/oil companies" one-two punch that is a Warren specialty.  If only there were a recent historical analogue where extremely low interest rates caused a cycle of borrowing, rapid devaluation and default.

Extra - Prof. Jacobson: "But the principal still needs to be paid back, so unless student loan forgiveness is the next step (probably), enabling students to borrow more money cheaply in order to subsidize tuition increases makes the bubble worse."

We don't need no stinkin' badges - Hit & Run: "Justice Department Sees No Need For a Warrant To Snoop Your Email."

Test your science I.Q. - Pew Research Center has a science and technology quiz.

Suddenly scandalized - Fox News: "Democrats now critical of Rice's Benghazi explanation."  Yeah, factual evidence will do that.

Extra - From Gateway Pundit.

This guy is great - Demetri Martin shorts.

At least they're consistent

To recap, four years ago the Obama administration said that if we spent nearly a trillion dollars in "stimulus" the unemployment rate would be at 5% by now.  Then last month, Obama said that the sequester would be a "huge blow" to the economy.

Maybe if Obama starts to do the opposite he can both fix the economy and get a job as assistant to the traveling secretary of the New York Yankees.

No brown M&Ms - The Chive has a list of some of the backstage demands by various musicians.  Britney Spears, for example, wants a framed photo of Princess Di.  I read somewhere that Van Halen buried the "no brown M&Ms" clause in their contract as a way to determine if promoters actually read it.  If they saw brown M&Ms, it was a sign that there was a good chance that their very-heavy stage equipment could fall through the floor.

Saving for retirement: freedom & return vs. statism & poverty

Writing in Slate, Matt Yglesias says "401ks suck."  The Instapundit responds:

Instead [Yglesias] calls for “a much more forceful, much more statist approach to forced savings, whether that’s quasi-savings in the form of higher taxes and more Social Security benefits or something like a Singapore-style system where ‘private’ savings are pooled into a state-run investment fund.”
The problem is, those approaches suck, too. Social Security is going broke. If you want to see a pooled state-run investment fund, look at CalPers. It’s going broke amid horribly politicized mismanagement. And state-run pension funds are subject to all sorts of politicized investment decisions that have nothing to do with the interests of the pensioners.

There are two issues here.  One is the eternal impulse of the good-intentioned Left to take a little bit of your freedom because, gosh darn it, you're just not smart enough to handle your own money.  Yglesias doesn't propose that we launch a massive education initiative to show Americans that they need to save much more for retirement - more than they think.  Instead, the sheep need to accept higher taxes so that the government can supplement their meager savings.

The corollary to that is money not going to the government is going to investment firms and that is simply intolerable.  So Yglesias conjures up Uncle Moneybags taking a fat cut.  To this assertion, he has something of a point.  But ultimately the name of the game is your rate of return on your investment.

Let's say you are a young worker and your 401(k) earns a modest 5% after fees.  You earn $50K/year and invest the same percentage in your plan taken out in Social Security (6.2%).  Not counting any company match, after 20 years you would have a little over $100,000.  Since Social Security now has a negative rate of return - we'll round that off to zero for this exercise - the same $3100/year "invested" would yield $62,000 after 20 years.  That's a 40K difference and you still have 25 years to work and compound - or not.

Social Security was never supposed to be more than one leg of the "three-legged stool" for retirement.  If you spend all your retirement cash trying to win an XBox and all you have is a Rastafarian banana, the government isn't compelled to bail you out.  You should have known better.

Extra - Reason's Hit & Run: "Neoliberalism 3.0: More forceful, much more statist approach to forced savings."

Footnote - I failed to mention that the Social Security Trust Fund runs dry in 2033 and then, by current law, benefits will be cut by about 25%.  This makes a bad investment worser.  You heard me.

The saga of Leo and Moshimo

Oh, man, I chuckled at this: Mom explains "The Matrix"

Tubs of fun, indeed

Sometimes I read a story and say to myself "Can't possibly be true."  Today: "New Hampshire man spends $2,600 while trying to win kids prize on $5 game."  Allegedly there was some "double or nothing" action on the side but - by any fair estimate - the guy must have played hundreds of games and spent several hours trying to win an XBox he could have purchased with his losings.  I just don't buy it.

Journalists prepare to enter job world of blacksmiths

Make way for those who can scribble into notebooks.  AoSHQ: "Half of L.A. Times staff may quit if Koch brothers buy the failed and undistinguished newspaper."  Shocker, but I agree with Ace here:

Prediction: About five of these guys would quit.

Get a load of these guys and their "specialized skills."

Extra - From Rick Moran.

Welcome to Massachusetts.  Please don't kill us.

To the surprise of virtually nobody in the Bay State, the Boston Herald reports that "Tsarnaev family received $100G in benefits"

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.
“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

Of course, we shouldn't let this information enter the debate on either immigration reform or welfare policy because we just can't.  Just keep feeding that crocodile and hope for the best.

Cutting to the bone - Zero Hedge: "Europe's fauxterity in three simple graphs."  Just like here in America, "austerity" means very slightly slowing the rate of government spending.

The biggest asshat I've ever sat next to on a plane

I saw this story on AoSHQ about e-cigarettes and it reminded me of my flight out to Arizona last week.  Now let me preface this by saying that I've done a fair amount of air travel, both for business and vacations.  I know the drill.  Go to the bathroom right before you board, bring something to read, stay awake for the meal and then sleep when you can.  Most of all, don't be a jerk to other passengers.  This became 10X truer after 9/11.  We're all stuck in this tin can for a couple hours so just keep it together.

This was a flight to Las Vegas so it was mostly older travelers but there's always a couple of kids on board (including mine) so it's a good idea to watch your language and demeanor.  Not this guy.  He was cursing it up with his like-minded dad while he puffed up his head pillow.  Vegas, baby! F-yeah!  Then he prepared these adhesives to the back of the seat in front of him so he could attach his IPad and watch his own in-flight movies.  Ah, very clever, I thought.  Then he proceeded to watch parts of "The Departed", "Casino", and one of those "Harold & Kumar" movies, complete with violence and nudity, for all to see from his aisle seat.  At least he kept his headphones on so the only profanity you could hear was his personal brand.

Then, THEN, he "lit up" an e-cigarette.  I was dumbfounded.  Seriously?  What the hell is the purpose of that thing other than to draw attention to yourself?  The flight attendant came over quickly and told him to put it out.  And this jagoff actually said: "Hey, we're all adults here" which is exactly the tagline from the commercial for the Blu e-cigarette.  Wow.  Like he's striking a blow to the man.  Oh well, back to Malin Akerman taking off her shirt.

By the end of the flight, my annoyance had gradually turned to pity.  I have never seen a man so needy to show off his testosterone level.  His buddies must have caught him flipping through Vogue while eating a cucumber sandwich and watching "Steel Magnolias."

Hey, let's make this a weekend open thread.  Anybody have a similar experience?  By the way, on the flight back home, I sat next to a quiet guy (an RPI student I think) who placidly read his Mad magazine and occasionally chuckled to himself.

The peasants are revolting

Mediate: "The narcissism of the White House Correspondents' Dinner is hurting the media's already tarnished brand."  Here's Tom Brokaw, who's staying home:

“The breaking point for me was Lindsay Lohan,” Tom Brokaw recently said. While this statement could apply to so many circumstances, he was specifically referring to the annual gala event known as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “[W]hat we’re doing with that dinner, as it has been constituted for the past several years, is saying, ‘We’re Versailles. The rest of you eat cake,’” 

In related news, our Boy King has closed off the palace to the people.

Let's hear it for "Danny"

I read the story on the Boston Globe today but the re-telling on NPR today was better.  "Danny" is the Chinese engineer who was carjacked by the Tsarnaev brothers after the Boston bombing.  He stayed cool, saw his chance for escape, then alerted the cops that his IPhone and car could be tracked.

Extra - From Patterico.

Die Kinder sind gut - The German kids are all right..and they're working.  NPR: "The secret to Germany's low youth unemployment."  The secret is internships and apprenticeships, keeping the wheels of commerce turning.  (Hat tip: Maggie's Place.)

Meanwhile, almost everywhere else is Generation Jobless.

The horror, the horror - Harold Meyerson of the WashPost has an unintentionally hilarious article today griping about the Koch brothers' pending takeover of the Tribune Newspaper group.  Apparently it would lead to a pandemic of advocacy journalism with a partisan bent!  Legal Insurrection: "Writer aboard Titanic worried about who's buying other ocean liners."  "But no column I’ve seen is more self-unaware than What would the Koch brothers do to the Los Angeles Times? by Harold Meyerson"

Profile in courage

Here's our idiot Senator Elizabeth Warren standing up for civil rights...or not:

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says federal prosecutors need to "find the right balance" in deciding whether to read Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights.

Huh?  Must be fancy Harvard-talk.

NYC says "Let's help out the mob" - Hit & Run: "NYC considers hiking cigarette age in apparent effort to boost black market."  "Assuming that your goal is to get everybody to go to the black market, what else can you do to nudge retailers and smokers to deal with the guys selling off the back of trucks? Well, how about raising the smoking age — effectively imposing prohibition on some existing smokers so that they have to go underground to get their smokes? That's the plan in New York City, where officials, including a leading mayoral candidate, want to rase the legal age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21."

I'm going to go against my libertarian friends here in support of this new age restriction since it will lead to a precipitous drop in tax revenues from death sticks.  It's up to you, New York.

Extra - Andrew Stuttaford: "Revolting."

I think we saw this coming - Gateway Pundit: "Boston bombers were motivated by 'radical Islam.'"  And yet the brothers weren't tied to any Islamic groups.

Extra - Michael Mukasey in the WSJ: "Make no mistake, it was jihad."

Solidarity - Twitchy: "For Boston: London Marathon honors victims of Boston."  I like the runners wearing Red Sox t-shirts.

"Why work?" - New York Times (!): "Danes rethink a welfare state ample to a fault."

Back from the American Southwest

Well, I just got back from Route 66 and there are a couple things I wanted to note.  First of all, at virtually every store or restaurant we visited there's a sign at the entrance reading something like: "Please don't bring firearms in."  It was a subtle reminder that while issues like gun control and immigration don't resonate for many Americans in the Northeast, they're a prime concern in the border states.

Also of higher concern (I imagine) is the price of gas since the distances between destinations can be vast.  As somebody who grew up in New Jersey where gas stations are spaced out by the football field, I started to worry when I didn't see a gas station for a hundred miles.

The Grand Canyon is as breathtaking as promised.  This is a school vacation week across Massachusetts and I think everybody there was either from the Bay State or another country.  I heard every language under the sun except Latin: French, Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Italian and others unplaced.

Naturally, everybody wearing a Nantucket T-shirt or a New England Patriots sweatshirt was following the events in Boston from Monday through the end of the week.  Neither the Internet sources nor the mainstream media demonstrated much integrity reporting on the manhunt but the so-called "professional" journalists completely beclowned themselves.  I'm looking at you, CNN and the New York Post.  Remember, we bloggers who didn't go to a fancy-schmancy J-school, are the ones who are irresponsible for sure.

Speaking of an "Army of Davids," Boston was brought to a standstill as hundreds of police officers swept the city looking for Suspect #2...who was found when some guy went out to his backyard for a smoke.

Spring break - I'm taking a week off.  See you soon.

Every Thursday night

That's one way to deal with gender wage disparity - Legal Insurrection: "Elizabeth Warren pays interns $0 per hour."

The cult of Gaia - Via Bookworm Room's "Global warming is a global hoax" here's part of a letter by Prof. David Deming: "One might think that the foregoing facts would raise doubts in scientists interested in pursuing objective truth. But global warming is not so much a scientific theory subject to empirical falsification as it is a political ideology that must be fiercely defended in defiance of every fact to the contrary."

Not a hint of discipline - The President's budget seeks to lock in record spending levels with Obamacare thrown in to boot.  The upshot: "U.S. debt to hit a gnarly 78% of GDP in 2014."

Slow news day - Meh.  If you expected anything different (I didn't), Obama's budget has a worse debt trajectory than the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  Plus, the debt reduction he counts assumes the sequestration never happened.  (Psssst...it did).  Let's move on the entirely rational shift on Social Security inflation indexing as a sign we're going to be serious.

Where the money is - Coyote Blog: "I would be willing to bet him that within the decade, it will become a mainstream idea in the progressive community to fund shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare with a full or partial seizure of 401K's."  Oh, yeah, the grasshoppers are coming for the ants' cache.

The Architect in Amherst - Tomorrow night, Karl Rove will be speaking at the University of Massachusetts. We'll see how the tolerant, open-minded, free-speech loving students will greet Mr. Rove.

Coming after your 401(k) - Prof. Mankiw "The President's latest bad idea": "Retirement accounts, such as IRAs and 401k plans, are one way our tax code has gradually evolved from an income tax toward a consumption tax.  The use of these accounts should be encouraged, not discouraged."  But...fairness!

Rest in peace, Prime Minister

Wall Street Journal: "Not for turning."

The latest front in the class war

Obama 2010: "At a certain point you've made enough money."

Obama 2013: "At a certain point you've saved enough money."

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.
The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code.
The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

Nine billion is a shade more than what the government spends every day.  At a certain point, you have to wonder if the Obama administration is more concerned about punishing the rich than building the economy.

Extra - Ben K @ Ace of Spades: "Don't worry though, they'd never come after your retirement account."

More - From Hot Air.

Remembering "The Game" by Queen

I heard "Another one bites the dust" on Pandora tonight and it reminded me of Queen's biggest hit album in the States: "The Game."  What I remember about "The Game" is that I chose it as my favorite album in my high school Music Appreciation class and I had to explain why I liked it.  Back then, I said my fave song was the under-appreciated Brian May song "Dragon Attack."

One cheer for Obama - none for Boehner

Since I consider Social Security reform my specialty, let me give a nod of approval to President Obama who (apparently) is going to include modest entitlement reforms to his late budget.  As I've noted, Obama talks and talks about making these programs solvent for the next generation but never puts anything on paper.  Well, now he has, so let's acknowledge the proposal.

On the other side, it seems churlish of Speaker Boehner to reject the budget out-of-hand because it contains tax hikes.  First of all, that's what Obama does: class warfare and tax hikes.  But then of course Obama is going to seek something in exchange.  Perhaps it's a poison pill maneuver, but Boehner could have at least waited until the budget actually arrived at the Capital before ripping it apart.  Maybe this is all "a good offense is the best defense" inside-Washington gamesmanship, but I think the Republicans are blowing an epic opportunity here.

In my fevered mind, where debt is a cancer eating at the national soul, I think a dollar-for-dollar swap of new revenues for entitlement cuts is a good deal.  Furthermore, I think the Speaker could make the case for a deal this way: "We'll match revenues for entitlement reform but that includes the revenues from the taxes just raised in January."  There have been no commensurate spending cuts matched to these tax hikes - make them a starting point for budget negotiations.

Only Nixon could go to China and only a Democrat can reform our out-of-control entitlements.  Given the brewing backlash by the left wing against the One, I'm pretty sure he'll back down soon enough.  In the meantime, why not keep open the lines of discussion?  If there's an agreement to extend the lifetime of Medicare and Social Security, it will be good for the country and fairer for future generations.  If we can make it an even trade while neutering the Democrats' perpetual campaign cry, that's a win-win.

Economy that has nowhere to go but up...doesn't 

In case you missed it, the economy created 88,000 jobs in March, less than half of what was predicted.  As James P. notes, do you know when we get back to full employment at that job creation rate?  Never.

This is now officially a Jimmy Carter economy with the lowest labor force participation rate since 1979.  But don't worry, President "The Buck Stops There" knows it's not his fault.  Must be time for another interview with Steve Kroft.

The greater good - Maggie's Farm says "blame the politicians" for the march towards institutionalized confiscation.  For society.  Longer version here.

Quod erat demonstrandum - Hit & Run: "Obamacare was designed, passed, and implemented by Democrats.  Obviously Republicans must be responsible for its failures."  Makes sense.

The big brain at Princeton on climate "scientists"

Freeman Dyson is the top guy at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, holding the position once held by Albert Einstein.  What does he think of the global warming kooks?  Not much.  NJ Star Ledger: "Climatologists are no Einsteins, says his successor."

"I just think they don’t understand the climate," he said of climatologists. "Their computer models are full of fudge factors."
...
"The models are extremely oversimplified," he said. "They don't represent the clouds in detail at all. They simply use a fudge factor to represent the clouds."

Dyson's physicist buddy weighs in:

"There are people who just need a cause that’s bigger than themselves," said Happer. "Then they can feel virtuous and say other people are not virtuous."
To show how uncivil this crowd can get, Happer e-mailed me an article about an Australian professor who proposes — quite seriously — the death penalty for heretics such as Dyson. As did Galileo, they can get a reprieve if they recant.

Furthermore, Dyson believes that atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial to the environment because it helps agricultural yields.  Gosh, why haven't we heard about this?

In fact, there’s more solid evidence for the beneficial effects of CO-2 than the negative effects, he said. So why does the public hear only one side of this debate? Because the media do an awful job of reporting it.
"They’re absolutely lousy," he said of American journalists. "That’s true also in Europe. I don’t know why they’ve been brainwashed."

Because saving the earth is always more ego-boosting than reporting facts.

You can have anything you want if you don't care about the cost

Well, here's a dumb idea from the WashPost and the "non-partisan" New America Foundation: "The case for expanding Social Security, not cutting it."  The problem is that Americans are doing a bad job of saving for retirement.  The answer: double the payroll taxes for Social Security.

So how much would this cost in taxes? Quite a bit. At the moment, Social Security is expected to experience a funding shortfall by 2033. Congress will need to raise taxes by between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP just to maintain current benefits. On top of that, the expanded benefits proposed by New America would cost an estimated 3.7 percent of GDP. The net cost: About 5 percent of GDP.

This plan is so outlandish that even the Wonkblog author admits it's going nowhere fast:

Needless to say, this isn’t the sort of proposal Congress is likely to take up anytime soon. Hiking taxes by 5 percent of GDP is far outside the bounds of what either party is contemplating. 

No kidding, especially so since payroll taxes are paid by all workers and the burden can't be shifted to the "rich."  But I also object to the idea that this creaky, Depression-era program that already has a negative rate of return should be expanded because some Americans mistakenly believed it would be a sole source of retirement support.  These silly counter-intuitive studies are good for a headline and nothing else.

So Joe Klein said this - Hot Air: "Joe Klein: My, the administration is looking pretty incompetent in Obamacare implementation."  I don't know if it's so much incompetence than Obamacare is an impossibly byzantine, poorly designed piece of legislation that has never been popular among Americans.  Only one-third of states have agreed to set up insurance exchanges, businesses are laying plans to either self-insure or cut workers down to the magic payroll of 49, and doctors are preparing to move to concierge service.

There's that "unsustainable" word again - Hit & Run: "Obamacare's unsustainable revenue raisers."  "The revenue mechanisms built into the law are starting to fall apart. The spending, of course, remains."

Stockton: the meteor of California

Herman Melville called abolitionist John Brown "the meteor of the war" because his raid set in motion events that precipitated the Civil War.  Now a federal judge may have planted the seeds to California's decline by ruling that the city of Stockton can declare bankruptcy:

But despite yesterday’s ruling, the fight over debt in Stockton, and the rest of California is far from over. Not only did [Judge] Klein open the door for the city’s bondholders to take significant payment and principal cuts, but he also left open the possibility that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) would see their payments cut, too. Under state law, cities may not cut their payments to Calpers. But a federal court could rule that U.S. bankruptcy law trumps state law. That would open the door for hundreds of California cities to cut their payments to Calpers, which would only send the state government deeper into debt because Sacramento would have to make up the missing payments.

California's retirement fund is already underfunded to the tune of $87 billion because cities and towns are struggling with the worst economy in the Union.  If the quarter-trillion dollar Calpers system starts to unravel as municipalities start to bail out, we could be looking at another "too big to fail" bailout.

A golden state of debt - Ricochet: "California, in context."  The American Interest also took a shot at the NY Times' cheerleading with "NY Times pushing California 'comeback' over heads of poor, jobless."

Expected consequences - Millions of low-skill manufacturing jobs have been either outsourced or replaced by robotics.  Guess what's going to accelerate the exodus to China?  Hot Air: "Obamacare could give advantages to some businesses that ship jobs abroad."  You got it, America.