It seems as if Thomas Jefferson were speaking to us across the ages and warning us of the dangers of our government devolving into unbridled power.
"Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operation, perverted it into tyranny."
"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and assemblies, judges and governors shall become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions."
Monday, November 29, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Caroline Glick Describes How Obama's Ineffectiveness at Dealing with Enemies of Freedom is Making The World an Incredibly Dangerous Place
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com Crises are exploding throughout the world. And the leader of the free world is making things worse.
On the Korean peninsula, North Korea just upended eight years of State Department obfuscation by showing a team of US nuclear scientists its collection of thousands of state of the art centrifuges installed in their Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
And just to top off the show, as Stephen Bosworth, US President Barack Obama's point man on North Korea was busily arguing that this revelation is not a crisis, the North fired an unprovoked artillery barrage at South Korea, demonstrating that actually, it is a crisis. But the Obama administration remains unmoved. On Tuesday Defense Secretary Robert Gates thanked his South Korean counterpart Kim Tae-young for showing "restraint." Thursday, Kim resigned in disgrace for that restraint.
The US has spoken strongly of not allowing North Korea's aggression to go unanswered. But in practice, its only answer is to try to tempt North Korea back to feckless multilateral disarmament talks that will go nowhere because China supports North Korean armament. Contrary to what Obama and his advisors claim, China does not share the US's interest in denuclearizing North Korea.
Consequently, Beijing will not lift a finger to achieve that goal.
Then there is Iran. The now inarguable fact that Pyongyang is developing nuclear weapons with enriched uranium makes it all but certain that the hyperactive proliferators in Pyongyang are involved in Iran's uranium based nuclear weapons program. Obviously the North Koreans don't care that the UN Security Council placed sanctions on Iran. And their presumptive role in Iran's nuclear weapons program exposes the idiocy of the concept that these sanctions can block Iran's path to a nuclear arsenal.
Every day as the regimes in Pyongyang and Teheran escalate their aggression and confrontational stances it becomes more and more clear that the only way to neutralize the threats they pose to international security is to overthrow them. At least in the case of Iran, it is also clear that the prospects for regime change have never been better. READ "Rocking Obama's World" at Jewish World Review.
On the Korean peninsula, North Korea just upended eight years of State Department obfuscation by showing a team of US nuclear scientists its collection of thousands of state of the art centrifuges installed in their Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
And just to top off the show, as Stephen Bosworth, US President Barack Obama's point man on North Korea was busily arguing that this revelation is not a crisis, the North fired an unprovoked artillery barrage at South Korea, demonstrating that actually, it is a crisis. But the Obama administration remains unmoved. On Tuesday Defense Secretary Robert Gates thanked his South Korean counterpart Kim Tae-young for showing "restraint." Thursday, Kim resigned in disgrace for that restraint.
The US has spoken strongly of not allowing North Korea's aggression to go unanswered. But in practice, its only answer is to try to tempt North Korea back to feckless multilateral disarmament talks that will go nowhere because China supports North Korean armament. Contrary to what Obama and his advisors claim, China does not share the US's interest in denuclearizing North Korea.
Consequently, Beijing will not lift a finger to achieve that goal.
Then there is Iran. The now inarguable fact that Pyongyang is developing nuclear weapons with enriched uranium makes it all but certain that the hyperactive proliferators in Pyongyang are involved in Iran's uranium based nuclear weapons program. Obviously the North Koreans don't care that the UN Security Council placed sanctions on Iran. And their presumptive role in Iran's nuclear weapons program exposes the idiocy of the concept that these sanctions can block Iran's path to a nuclear arsenal.
Every day as the regimes in Pyongyang and Teheran escalate their aggression and confrontational stances it becomes more and more clear that the only way to neutralize the threats they pose to international security is to overthrow them. At least in the case of Iran, it is also clear that the prospects for regime change have never been better. READ "Rocking Obama's World" at Jewish World Review.
Muslim Terrorists in America Under Our Noses
It's scandalous that it's taken so long to prove that these Muslim groups have ties to terrorism if not down right sponsoring it. They should be kicked out of the country or imprisoned if they have broken American laws.
Islamofascism: Now that a federal judge has unsealed evidence showing the three most prominent Muslim groups in America support terror, Washington must cut all ties with them.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis has ruled there is "ample evidence" to support the Justice Department's decision to blacklist the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror trial.
He refused requests to strike their names from the list.
At the trial, which ended in guilty verdicts on all 108 counts, FBI agents testified that ISNA, NAIT and CAIR are fronts for the federally designated terrorist group Hamas, which has murdered countless Israelis and at least 17 Americans...
...Outrageously, these dangerous fronts, cloaked as they are in religious garb, still enjoy charitable tax status. The IRS exempts their funding, much of which comes from the Middle East.
And they are still free to lobby Congress, Homeland Security and the TSA against airport profiling and other anti-terror measures.
Yet none are even registered as lobbyists, let alone foreign agents.
Although the FBI has severed ties with CAIR, other government agencies have not...
The FBI, meanwhile, still does outreach with ISNA. And the White House has solicited the group for resumes. Many Muslims tied to ISNA have been hired for sensitive positions within the government.
A handful of senators — including Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — have called for a governmentwide ban on these groups, a move that seems long overdue, given the new court evidence. At a minimum, the IRS should revoke their tax-exempt status.
It's a scandal such enemy collaborators continue to enjoy government entree and recognition in a time of war. READ- CUT TIES TO TERROR at IBD.
Islamofascism: Now that a federal judge has unsealed evidence showing the three most prominent Muslim groups in America support terror, Washington must cut all ties with them.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis has ruled there is "ample evidence" to support the Justice Department's decision to blacklist the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror trial.
He refused requests to strike their names from the list.
At the trial, which ended in guilty verdicts on all 108 counts, FBI agents testified that ISNA, NAIT and CAIR are fronts for the federally designated terrorist group Hamas, which has murdered countless Israelis and at least 17 Americans...
...Outrageously, these dangerous fronts, cloaked as they are in religious garb, still enjoy charitable tax status. The IRS exempts their funding, much of which comes from the Middle East.
And they are still free to lobby Congress, Homeland Security and the TSA against airport profiling and other anti-terror measures.
Yet none are even registered as lobbyists, let alone foreign agents.
Although the FBI has severed ties with CAIR, other government agencies have not...
The FBI, meanwhile, still does outreach with ISNA. And the White House has solicited the group for resumes. Many Muslims tied to ISNA have been hired for sensitive positions within the government.
A handful of senators — including Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — have called for a governmentwide ban on these groups, a move that seems long overdue, given the new court evidence. At a minimum, the IRS should revoke their tax-exempt status.
It's a scandal such enemy collaborators continue to enjoy government entree and recognition in a time of war. READ- CUT TIES TO TERROR at IBD.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Lie: "Government's Denial of the Link between Islam and Terrorism"
Rob Tracinski at www.TiaDaily.com discusses the LIE that is our airport security. Because of political correctness we must not name the enemy. And that is exactly why we have not defeated the Islamic terrorists because we have become craven cowards unable to name whom we are fighting. Well the Israelis will have non of that....they know who the enemy is and they have used profiling for decades and NOT ONE - NOT ONE incident has occurred in their airport. To be victorious over an enemy one has to name them first and then can one see clearly what one has to do. Here is Tracinski, then the article at New York Post.
...The article below describes these measures as "security theater" meant to create the impression that the government is taking extraordinary measure to protect us, when it really isn't doing anything but harassing the law-abiding.
In fact, airline passengers themselves continue to be the only effective line of defense. They have to submit to taking their shoes off or having their groin groped—yet they are the ones who subdued the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber.
But the real purpose of all of this "security theater" is to support a lie. Its purpose is to support the government's denial of the link between Islam and terrorism by acting as if anyone might be a terrorist. The government is deliberately avoiding focusing its security screening on those who pose the greatest threat, because it doesn't want to admit that they are a threat.
This is another problem whose solution is very simple: stop lying to ourselves. If we were willing to recognize the source of terrorism and the identity of the enemy, we could adopt a system more like what the Israelis use, successfully, to prevent terrorist attacks on El Al flights—and believe me, if the Arabs could blow up Israeli planes, they would have done so long ago.
The center of this system is profiling, i.e., the use of intelligence gathering to target extra security screening at those who are actually most likely to pose a risk. READ at TIA Daily.
...The article below describes these measures as "security theater" meant to create the impression that the government is taking extraordinary measure to protect us, when it really isn't doing anything but harassing the law-abiding.
In fact, airline passengers themselves continue to be the only effective line of defense. They have to submit to taking their shoes off or having their groin groped—yet they are the ones who subdued the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber.
But the real purpose of all of this "security theater" is to support a lie. Its purpose is to support the government's denial of the link between Islam and terrorism by acting as if anyone might be a terrorist. The government is deliberately avoiding focusing its security screening on those who pose the greatest threat, because it doesn't want to admit that they are a threat.
This is another problem whose solution is very simple: stop lying to ourselves. If we were willing to recognize the source of terrorism and the identity of the enemy, we could adopt a system more like what the Israelis use, successfully, to prevent terrorist attacks on El Al flights—and believe me, if the Arabs could blow up Israeli planes, they would have done so long ago.
The center of this system is profiling, i.e., the use of intelligence gathering to target extra security screening at those who are actually most likely to pose a risk. READ at TIA Daily.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Climate-gate Erupts So Now Will Come "Global Reparations Climate Tax"...It never Ends with The Power Hungry
How can we get government to stay out of our lives permanently? Why does mildly OK government always devolve into tyranny? We must be careful of who we put into office until we find the miracle cure for powerlusters.
Hoaxes: A high-ranking member of the U.N.'s Panel on Climate Change admits the group's primary goal is the redistribution of wealth and not environmental protection or saving the Earth.
Money, they say, is the root of all evil. It's also the motivating force behind what is left of the climate change movement after the devastating Climate-gate and IPCC scandals that saw the deliberate manipulation of scientific data to spur the world into taking draconian regulatory action.
Left for dead, global warm-mongers are busy planning their next move, which should occur at a climate conference in relatively balmy Cancun at month's end. Certainly it should provide a more appropriate venue for discussing global warming than the site of the last failed climate conference — chilly Copenhagen.
Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist and co-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change (say that twice), told the Neue Zurcher Zeitung last week: "The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War." After all, redistributing global wealth is no small matter.
Edenhofer let the environmental cat out of the bag when he said "climate policy is redistributing the world's wealth" and that "it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization."
In his IPCC post, Edenhofer was a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Based on anecdotal evidence, it contained unsubstantiated claims that the Himalayan glaciers would soon disappear and Bangladesh would be totally submerged.
Edenhofer claims "developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community" and so they must have their wealth expropriated and redistributed to the victims of their alleged crimes, the postage stamp countries of the world. He admits this "has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."
It has everything to do with a different kind of green. U.N. warm-mongers are seeking to impose a global climate reparations tax on everything from airline flights and international shipping to fuel and financial transactions. At first, this punitive tax on progress is expected to net $100 billion annually, though that amount, like our energy costs, is expected to necessarily skyrocket. ..
READ "The Climate Cash Cow" at IBD.
Hoaxes: A high-ranking member of the U.N.'s Panel on Climate Change admits the group's primary goal is the redistribution of wealth and not environmental protection or saving the Earth.
Money, they say, is the root of all evil. It's also the motivating force behind what is left of the climate change movement after the devastating Climate-gate and IPCC scandals that saw the deliberate manipulation of scientific data to spur the world into taking draconian regulatory action.
Left for dead, global warm-mongers are busy planning their next move, which should occur at a climate conference in relatively balmy Cancun at month's end. Certainly it should provide a more appropriate venue for discussing global warming than the site of the last failed climate conference — chilly Copenhagen.
Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist and co-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change (say that twice), told the Neue Zurcher Zeitung last week: "The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War." After all, redistributing global wealth is no small matter.
Edenhofer let the environmental cat out of the bag when he said "climate policy is redistributing the world's wealth" and that "it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization."
In his IPCC post, Edenhofer was a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Based on anecdotal evidence, it contained unsubstantiated claims that the Himalayan glaciers would soon disappear and Bangladesh would be totally submerged.
Edenhofer claims "developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community" and so they must have their wealth expropriated and redistributed to the victims of their alleged crimes, the postage stamp countries of the world. He admits this "has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."
It has everything to do with a different kind of green. U.N. warm-mongers are seeking to impose a global climate reparations tax on everything from airline flights and international shipping to fuel and financial transactions. At first, this punitive tax on progress is expected to net $100 billion annually, though that amount, like our energy costs, is expected to necessarily skyrocket. ..
READ "The Climate Cash Cow" at IBD.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Americans Turn From Docility to Rebellion
"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be—to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all—the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government." Thomas Jefferson.Tyranny throughout the ages has always been fought by individuals who defy the tyrants. The 20th and the beginning of the 21st century can be defined as an era of ever shrinking freedom for Americans. Our politicians at every level of government are constantly inventing new "rules of the game" to control us and to suck us dry. Americans need a hero or at least a new philosophy to rally around and to focus our attention on the growing tyranny in this country. Rob Tracinski at http://www.tiadaily.com/ does a great job of explaining this. Let's rally around "Don't Touch My Junk" and get government out of our lives. Get TIA.daily in your mailbox for great analysis of what's going on from the point of view of individual freedom.
...And as a statement of the proper relationship between the individual and the state, "don't touch my junk" is a principle with universal application. It is the answer to nearly every political question.
Should we raise income taxes to pre-Bush levels? Don't touch my junk. Should the EPA be allowed to issue sweeping new regulations on the greenhouse gas emissions that come from your car, your lawnmower, your house? Don't touch my junk. Should the new "food bill" be allowed to put massive new regulations on farmers, dictating what you can and cannot eat? Don't touch my junk...John Tyner isn't just a folk hero. He is a political philosopher of the first order.
He is astute enough, at least, to name one big issue clearly. Told that being groped by a TSA screener was not sexual assault, he replied, "It would be if you were not the government." And that's the big issue: when we have no rights, all restrictions on government—from the Constitution to ordinary criminal law—are broken down.
All of this depends on only one thing: our docility. It depends on our being overawed by the authority of government. The Tea Party movement and its electoral results were a demonstration that the ordinary American will stand up when pushed far enough. John Tyner has just opened the next phase of this rebellion.
The enhanced patdowns and strip-search scanners are a kind of trial balloon, to test exactly how much we're going to take, to see whether there is any area so intimate that we will demand that the government stay out of it. And now we know what to say in response.
Don't touch my junk. (www.TIADaily.com)
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Is It Time For the Federal Reserve to be Brought Down a Peg or Abolished?
Let's learn as Americans all we can about "The Federal Reserve" because they have done much damage to our economy at different times ever since its creation in 1913 with the "Federal Reserve Act". We can only hope now that the great champion of abolishing the Federal Reserve, Senator Paul Ryan the incoming Chairman of the House budget Committee will now be successful at least at reining it in.
If there is a silver lining to the uproar over the Federal Reserve's decision to create $600 billion in new reserves in the next few months, it is the renewed public attention to the Fed's impossible dual political mandate for stable prices and maximum employment.
To be specific, Paul Ryan suddenly has company. The Wisconsin Congressman has since 1999 proposed legislation that would let the Fed focus monetary policy solely on the goal of stable prices. This week he's been joined by fellow Republicans Mike Pence of Indiana and Tom Price of Georgia, while Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told us he plans to work with Mr. Ryan to introduce legislation next year that would lift the dual mandate. If the 112th Congress did nothing else, this would be worth the price of its election and a major contribution to better economic policy.
These columns have decried the dual mandate since it became the law of the land in 1978 with the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, aka Humphrey-Hawkins. To appreciate the problem, consider that in the original Federal Reserve Act of 1913 Congress asked the central bank to supervise banks. It did not mention explicit economic goals. Even in the Keynesian heyday of the Employment Act of 1946, Congress did not ask the Fed to manage the economy.
But with Humphrey-Hawkins, Congress ordered the central bank to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates." The political context in that age of Jimmy Carter will sound familiar. U.S. unemployment was stubbornly high and the fiscal policies (tax rebates) of a Democratic Congress had failed to stimulate. So the politicians decided to conscript the Fed in its job creation mission by ordering the ostensibly independent central bank to target employment as well as prices...READ the rest at "The Fed's Bipolar Mandate" at The Wall Street Journal.
If there is a silver lining to the uproar over the Federal Reserve's decision to create $600 billion in new reserves in the next few months, it is the renewed public attention to the Fed's impossible dual political mandate for stable prices and maximum employment.
To be specific, Paul Ryan suddenly has company. The Wisconsin Congressman has since 1999 proposed legislation that would let the Fed focus monetary policy solely on the goal of stable prices. This week he's been joined by fellow Republicans Mike Pence of Indiana and Tom Price of Georgia, while Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told us he plans to work with Mr. Ryan to introduce legislation next year that would lift the dual mandate. If the 112th Congress did nothing else, this would be worth the price of its election and a major contribution to better economic policy.
These columns have decried the dual mandate since it became the law of the land in 1978 with the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, aka Humphrey-Hawkins. To appreciate the problem, consider that in the original Federal Reserve Act of 1913 Congress asked the central bank to supervise banks. It did not mention explicit economic goals. Even in the Keynesian heyday of the Employment Act of 1946, Congress did not ask the Fed to manage the economy.
But with Humphrey-Hawkins, Congress ordered the central bank to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates." The political context in that age of Jimmy Carter will sound familiar. U.S. unemployment was stubbornly high and the fiscal policies (tax rebates) of a Democratic Congress had failed to stimulate. So the politicians decided to conscript the Fed in its job creation mission by ordering the ostensibly independent central bank to target employment as well as prices...READ the rest at "The Fed's Bipolar Mandate" at The Wall Street Journal.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
America is Being Forced to the Left as Europe Veers to the Right - Huh?
... the traditional American economic model based on small government and private initiative has been under attack for a long time.
Europe's social democracies themselves, however, are also undergoing change. While the Bush and Obama administrations may have increased the size and scope of government in the United States, a number of European countries have turned to free- market solutions.
True, the European left sees social-democratic Europe as the antithesis of America's "cutthroat capitalism." Germany's left uses the term "American conditions" as shorthand for a total lack of a social safety net.
In reality, the annual price tag of anti-poverty programs ($600 billion), unemployment insurance ($60 billion) and Social Security payments and Medicare benefits ($1.2 trillion) in the U.S. is staggering.
The American left sees Europe as an inspiration. Earlier this year, Paul Krugman declared European social democracy as "a success" that "demonstrates ... (that) social justice and progress can go hand in hand." In reality, the left on both sides of the Atlantic hangs onto an image of a Europe that no longer exists — if it ever did.
First, in terms of social and economic policy, there is no such thing as "Europe." The European Union is an association of 27 independent countries that have pooled their sovereignty in a number of important policy areas, including trade relations with the rest of the world.
The EU "government" in Brussels remains less powerful in terms of its competencies than the U.S. federal government, though, as is the case with Washington, much of what the bureaucrats in Brussels do is either unnecessary, such as regulating the curvature of cucumbers, or possibly harmful, such as a common fisheries policy that has resulted in massive depletion of fish stocks in the waters around Europe.
Second, European nation-states still retain a great deal of independence in social and economic decision-making. That independence leaves national governments substantial room to maneuver. Some have used it to surprising ends.
For example, seven EU countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia) have introduced a flat income tax, which has proven so popular and economically beneficial that three more EU members (Hungary, Poland and Greece) are considering it.
Meantime, the U.S. is stuck with a tax system so complicated that the cost of compliance is estimated to reach $483 billion per year by 2015.
Similarly, driven by falling birth rates and rising costs, seven EU countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden) have reformed their unsustainable pay-as-you-go pension systems. These countries now allow or mandate their citizens to invest a portion of their retirement contributions in private pension funds.
In the U.S., Social Security reform remains highly contentious, worsening demographics and $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities notwithstanding.
Another seemingly unsolvable problem in the United States is the country's appallingly expensive but underperforming system of state-run primary and secondary education. In the 1990s, one European Union country embraced a radical reform that saw the establishment of private for-profit but taxpayer-funded schools that succeeded in raising education standards in both private and state-run schools. That country is Sweden — the supposed paragon of social democracy.
Sweden is not the only Western European social democracy with some surprisingly free-market characteristics. The World Bank's annual Doing Business report, which looks at the ease of doing business around the world, shows that while the U.S. has the fourth-most-welcoming business environment, Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland come in 5th, 6th and 7th place, respectively.
Are we witnessing a convergence of the two models? It may seem that way now, but the future of the social democratic model seems doomed. Just as the crisis of the early 1990s forced the Swedes to curb government spending and intervention, the current crisis is forcing the Greeks to reevaluate the balance between government spending and private-sector growth. READ "Europe Embraces Free-Market Reforms" at IBD.
Europe's social democracies themselves, however, are also undergoing change. While the Bush and Obama administrations may have increased the size and scope of government in the United States, a number of European countries have turned to free- market solutions.
True, the European left sees social-democratic Europe as the antithesis of America's "cutthroat capitalism." Germany's left uses the term "American conditions" as shorthand for a total lack of a social safety net.
In reality, the annual price tag of anti-poverty programs ($600 billion), unemployment insurance ($60 billion) and Social Security payments and Medicare benefits ($1.2 trillion) in the U.S. is staggering.
The American left sees Europe as an inspiration. Earlier this year, Paul Krugman declared European social democracy as "a success" that "demonstrates ... (that) social justice and progress can go hand in hand." In reality, the left on both sides of the Atlantic hangs onto an image of a Europe that no longer exists — if it ever did.
First, in terms of social and economic policy, there is no such thing as "Europe." The European Union is an association of 27 independent countries that have pooled their sovereignty in a number of important policy areas, including trade relations with the rest of the world.
The EU "government" in Brussels remains less powerful in terms of its competencies than the U.S. federal government, though, as is the case with Washington, much of what the bureaucrats in Brussels do is either unnecessary, such as regulating the curvature of cucumbers, or possibly harmful, such as a common fisheries policy that has resulted in massive depletion of fish stocks in the waters around Europe.
Second, European nation-states still retain a great deal of independence in social and economic decision-making. That independence leaves national governments substantial room to maneuver. Some have used it to surprising ends.
For example, seven EU countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia) have introduced a flat income tax, which has proven so popular and economically beneficial that three more EU members (Hungary, Poland and Greece) are considering it.
Meantime, the U.S. is stuck with a tax system so complicated that the cost of compliance is estimated to reach $483 billion per year by 2015.
Similarly, driven by falling birth rates and rising costs, seven EU countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden) have reformed their unsustainable pay-as-you-go pension systems. These countries now allow or mandate their citizens to invest a portion of their retirement contributions in private pension funds.
In the U.S., Social Security reform remains highly contentious, worsening demographics and $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities notwithstanding.
Another seemingly unsolvable problem in the United States is the country's appallingly expensive but underperforming system of state-run primary and secondary education. In the 1990s, one European Union country embraced a radical reform that saw the establishment of private for-profit but taxpayer-funded schools that succeeded in raising education standards in both private and state-run schools. That country is Sweden — the supposed paragon of social democracy.
Sweden is not the only Western European social democracy with some surprisingly free-market characteristics. The World Bank's annual Doing Business report, which looks at the ease of doing business around the world, shows that while the U.S. has the fourth-most-welcoming business environment, Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland come in 5th, 6th and 7th place, respectively.
Are we witnessing a convergence of the two models? It may seem that way now, but the future of the social democratic model seems doomed. Just as the crisis of the early 1990s forced the Swedes to curb government spending and intervention, the current crisis is forcing the Greeks to reevaluate the balance between government spending and private-sector growth. READ "Europe Embraces Free-Market Reforms" at IBD.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Japan Asks: Will Obama Honor It's Commitments to Our Allies?
Thugs of the world like China smell weakness and probably celebrated the election of Obama as President of the United States. Do you see Obama defending and standing up for Japan's right to the island under dispute? Probably not. He bows to kings and dictators and shrugs off democratically elected leaders of nations like England. We elected, for the first time since Wilson and Roosevel,t the worst anti-American President in our history. Now we have to pay the piper for another 2 years then undo all the damage Obama has left in his path.
Obligations: A seemingly minor collision off an obscure Pacific island chain may mean nothing. Then again, it may be about China seeing just how serious we are about our treaty commitments to Japan.
It would be easy to dismiss the recent collision of a Chinese fishing boat with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels as a minor altercation between two former adversaries with a contentious and often bloody history. Easy, that is, if it weren't a continuation of incidents testing Western reaction and will.
The incident occurred off a group of uninhabited rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea just south of Okinawa called the Senkaku Islands. They are called the "Diaoyutai" by the Chinese, who claim them as China's territory largely based on legend and old drawings and paintings depicting the area
....Worth noting is that the waters off the Senkaku Islands are not only rich fishing grounds. They also sit atop significant oil deposits vital to a China scouring the world for energy for its growing economy. Possession of these uninhabited rocks would be the basis for declaring an exclusive economic zone around the islands.
Japan claims that aside from the dispute over who first discovered the islands, the Senkakus became Japanese territory after Japan defeated China in their 1894-95 war. Japan points out that neither Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China nor Mao Zedong's People's Republic of China protested at the post-war placing of the islets under American administration.
It was only after a 1968 U.N. survey reported the huge oil and gas potential of the area that both competing Chinese governments began to protest against the scheduled 1972 U.S. return of the islets to Japanese control.
So far, the U.S. government has taken no position on ultimate ownership of the Senkakus. But it has noted that, as things currently stand, the islands would be under the purview of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that covers all territories under Japanese administration.
We should make our commitment to Japanese security and sovereignty unmistakably clear. The West failed to do so in 1938, when Nazi Germany claimed sovereignty over a faraway place called the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. And the rest, as they say, is history. READ "Testing an Alliance" at IBD.
Obligations: A seemingly minor collision off an obscure Pacific island chain may mean nothing. Then again, it may be about China seeing just how serious we are about our treaty commitments to Japan.
It would be easy to dismiss the recent collision of a Chinese fishing boat with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels as a minor altercation between two former adversaries with a contentious and often bloody history. Easy, that is, if it weren't a continuation of incidents testing Western reaction and will.
The incident occurred off a group of uninhabited rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea just south of Okinawa called the Senkaku Islands. They are called the "Diaoyutai" by the Chinese, who claim them as China's territory largely based on legend and old drawings and paintings depicting the area
....Worth noting is that the waters off the Senkaku Islands are not only rich fishing grounds. They also sit atop significant oil deposits vital to a China scouring the world for energy for its growing economy. Possession of these uninhabited rocks would be the basis for declaring an exclusive economic zone around the islands.
Japan claims that aside from the dispute over who first discovered the islands, the Senkakus became Japanese territory after Japan defeated China in their 1894-95 war. Japan points out that neither Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China nor Mao Zedong's People's Republic of China protested at the post-war placing of the islets under American administration.
It was only after a 1968 U.N. survey reported the huge oil and gas potential of the area that both competing Chinese governments began to protest against the scheduled 1972 U.S. return of the islets to Japanese control.
So far, the U.S. government has taken no position on ultimate ownership of the Senkakus. But it has noted that, as things currently stand, the islands would be under the purview of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that covers all territories under Japanese administration.
We should make our commitment to Japanese security and sovereignty unmistakably clear. The West failed to do so in 1938, when Nazi Germany claimed sovereignty over a faraway place called the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. And the rest, as they say, is history. READ "Testing an Alliance" at IBD.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sarkozy Can Teach Obama A Thing or Two About Facing the Truth About the Need to CUT GOVERNMENT
France's Sarkozy is doing the right things to get control of runaway pensions, spending and unions - even in the face of severe protests by the French and his lowering popularity. But sometimes in life just as fathers and mothers must do the tough disciplining of their children in order that they straighten up so must a country that has run awry of their duty to govern within their mandates and means. Sarkosy deserves kudos and applause and Obama should learn a lesson in leadership - that is honest leadership.
Leadership: France's President Nicolas Sarkozy signed off on pension reform Wednesday, winning big and saving his nation's system. But the obstacles he stared down went beyond anything average politicians will tolerate.
Ever since he was elected in 2007, the conservative French president has vowed to "modernize" France's stagnant, noncompetitive, socialist economy.
So in just three years, Sarkozy extended the work week, changed laws to permit overtime, scrapped retail price controls, simplified business formation, tamed unions and yanked benefits from work-shirkers.
But his biggest victory to date was this week's reform of France's lavish pension system that was fueled by endless deficit spending.
Naturally, the usual mix of communists, union thugs, illegal immigrants, students and criminals sprang into action to protest any cuts in entitlements, rioting night after night. They did this in the hopes that Sarkozy would roll over for them — just as past French presidents, particularly Jacques Chirac, always did.
When car burnings and street blockades didn't work, they shut down transport, including even air traffic. When that failed, they shut down oil installations, bringing on fuel shortages.
And in the worst blow for a politician, Sarkozy's popularity dropped, precipitously, falling from the high 60s to the low 20s, as the public balked at the reforms he promised.
As the invective and Molotov cocktails flew, Sarkozy refused to back down. "I am fully aware that this is a difficult reform," Sarkozy said. "However, I always felt it was my duty, and the government's duty, to carry it out. With this law, our pension plan by equal division is saved."
He's right that it's not easy to tell workers anywhere that their retirement age must be raised by two years to 62 for a partial pension, or 67 for a full one if the system is to stay solvent.
But it's even harder to argue with economic numbers, which unflinchingly warned that the demographic curve in France was falling and, unless adjustments were made, the system would crash.
Sarkozy, who had held top positions in budget, economy and interior ministries, fully grasped that the situation in France was unsustainable and chose reality over the false promises of socialism.
It was leadership at its finest and a wake-up call to the U.S. that courage will be needed from our own political leaders to stop the flood tide of spending. As incoming U.S. congressional leaders confront runaway spending and the urgent tasks of entitlement reform, including Social Security, Sarkozy provides a useful lesson.
His big message: To win, it takes courage. Will Congress have it? (READ AT IBD Sarkozy's Boldness)
Leadership: France's President Nicolas Sarkozy signed off on pension reform Wednesday, winning big and saving his nation's system. But the obstacles he stared down went beyond anything average politicians will tolerate.
Ever since he was elected in 2007, the conservative French president has vowed to "modernize" France's stagnant, noncompetitive, socialist economy.
So in just three years, Sarkozy extended the work week, changed laws to permit overtime, scrapped retail price controls, simplified business formation, tamed unions and yanked benefits from work-shirkers.
But his biggest victory to date was this week's reform of France's lavish pension system that was fueled by endless deficit spending.
Naturally, the usual mix of communists, union thugs, illegal immigrants, students and criminals sprang into action to protest any cuts in entitlements, rioting night after night. They did this in the hopes that Sarkozy would roll over for them — just as past French presidents, particularly Jacques Chirac, always did.
When car burnings and street blockades didn't work, they shut down transport, including even air traffic. When that failed, they shut down oil installations, bringing on fuel shortages.
And in the worst blow for a politician, Sarkozy's popularity dropped, precipitously, falling from the high 60s to the low 20s, as the public balked at the reforms he promised.
As the invective and Molotov cocktails flew, Sarkozy refused to back down. "I am fully aware that this is a difficult reform," Sarkozy said. "However, I always felt it was my duty, and the government's duty, to carry it out. With this law, our pension plan by equal division is saved."
He's right that it's not easy to tell workers anywhere that their retirement age must be raised by two years to 62 for a partial pension, or 67 for a full one if the system is to stay solvent.
But it's even harder to argue with economic numbers, which unflinchingly warned that the demographic curve in France was falling and, unless adjustments were made, the system would crash.
Sarkozy, who had held top positions in budget, economy and interior ministries, fully grasped that the situation in France was unsustainable and chose reality over the false promises of socialism.
It was leadership at its finest and a wake-up call to the U.S. that courage will be needed from our own political leaders to stop the flood tide of spending. As incoming U.S. congressional leaders confront runaway spending and the urgent tasks of entitlement reform, including Social Security, Sarkozy provides a useful lesson.
His big message: To win, it takes courage. Will Congress have it? (READ AT IBD Sarkozy's Boldness)
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Obama WANTS to Ruin America-There is No Other Explanation
Obama is about all that is negative. There is nothing positive for our country coming from the Oval Office. And one has to ask himself if this is by design. The answer after 2 years of spending and talking down this great country is a resounding yes. He definitely has an agenda and in many areas he is incompetent. This last one, incompetence was obvious during the gulf oil spill. What a difference to Bobby Jindal and his proactive attention to the oil spill getting people working on the situation and talking to the affected people trying to allay their fears. But we don't have Jindal for President we got Obama and what a disaster it has been so far. So now we have another wave of printing money which is backed by nothing not even the productivity of the American people because there are so many out of work.
This was written back in June of 2010 by Rob Tracinski at TIADaily.
...Everywhere you look, wherever there is a crisis, Obama is not simply doing nothing. He's making things worse. America is about to plunge into unsustainable deficit spending? Obama got us started early with the stimulus package and the health care bill. Big states are being bankrupted by public employee unions? Obama wants to increase the unions' power. Not enough power plants? Obama wants to restrict them further. Iran is seeking nukes? Obama gave them a reprieve against a popular uprising. Karzai doubts America's resolve in Afghanistan? Obama wavers on our strategy and declares our intention to bug out, no matter how much disarray there is in our strategy and command.
There's an old saying: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But the pattern of the Obama administration has me wondering if we're seeing the inverse: when you plan to fail, you fail to plan. That is, if American contraction and retreat is your goal, why would you make any plans to revive the economy or win wars?
I think what we're seeing here is something worse than just a failure of leadership by a disengaged president. We have to ask ourselves why he is disengaged. Why, when multiple alarm bells are ringing, is he spending more time on his hobbies than the rest of us? Or more to the point, when existing policies lead to failure, why does he double down and make things worse?
From the beginning, we've been warning that Barack Obama is an anti-American president, that he believes in American decline on principle—that he thinks we're too wealthy, too powerful, and too free and need to be taken down a peg. His policies are achieving that goal.
Americans are learning that Obama is an ineffectual leader by the standard of achieving America's success, prosperity, and security. What they need to learn next is the terrifying truth that these are not his standards. Everything is still true today. Obama is a dedicated socialist who wants to bring America to her knees. Go to www.TIADAILY.com for more from Rob Tracinski.
This was written back in June of 2010 by Rob Tracinski at TIADaily.
...Everywhere you look, wherever there is a crisis, Obama is not simply doing nothing. He's making things worse. America is about to plunge into unsustainable deficit spending? Obama got us started early with the stimulus package and the health care bill. Big states are being bankrupted by public employee unions? Obama wants to increase the unions' power. Not enough power plants? Obama wants to restrict them further. Iran is seeking nukes? Obama gave them a reprieve against a popular uprising. Karzai doubts America's resolve in Afghanistan? Obama wavers on our strategy and declares our intention to bug out, no matter how much disarray there is in our strategy and command.
There's an old saying: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But the pattern of the Obama administration has me wondering if we're seeing the inverse: when you plan to fail, you fail to plan. That is, if American contraction and retreat is your goal, why would you make any plans to revive the economy or win wars?
I think what we're seeing here is something worse than just a failure of leadership by a disengaged president. We have to ask ourselves why he is disengaged. Why, when multiple alarm bells are ringing, is he spending more time on his hobbies than the rest of us? Or more to the point, when existing policies lead to failure, why does he double down and make things worse?
From the beginning, we've been warning that Barack Obama is an anti-American president, that he believes in American decline on principle—that he thinks we're too wealthy, too powerful, and too free and need to be taken down a peg. His policies are achieving that goal.
Americans are learning that Obama is an ineffectual leader by the standard of achieving America's success, prosperity, and security. What they need to learn next is the terrifying truth that these are not his standards. Everything is still true today. Obama is a dedicated socialist who wants to bring America to her knees. Go to www.TIADAILY.com for more from Rob Tracinski.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
What 52% of The Electorate Wanted For the Past Two Years Was Ice Cream
From a teacher in the Nashville area.
"We are worried about 'the cow' when it is all about the 'Ice Cream.'
The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year.
The presidential election was heating up 2 years ago and some of the children showed an interest. I decided that we would have an election for a class president.
We would choose our nominees.
They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.
We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.
We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.
The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.
I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.
I had never seen Olivia's mother.
The day for their speeches arrived.
Jamie went first.
He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.
Everyone applauded and he sat down.
Now is was Olivia's turn to speak. Her speech was concise.
She said, "If you vote for me, I will give you ice cream."
She sat down.
The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."
She surely would say more. She did not have to.
A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?
She wasn't sure.
Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it? She didn't know.
The class really didn't care.
All they were thinking about was ice cream.
Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.
They want ice cream.
The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.
"We are worried about 'the cow' when it is all about the 'Ice Cream.'
The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year.
The presidential election was heating up 2 years ago and some of the children showed an interest. I decided that we would have an election for a class president.
We would choose our nominees.
They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.
We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.
We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.
The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.
I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.
I had never seen Olivia's mother.
The day for their speeches arrived.
Jamie went first.
He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.
Everyone applauded and he sat down.
Now is was Olivia's turn to speak. Her speech was concise.
She said, "If you vote for me, I will give you ice cream."
She sat down.
The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."
She surely would say more. She did not have to.
A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?
She wasn't sure.
Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it? She didn't know.
The class really didn't care.
All they were thinking about was ice cream.
Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.
They want ice cream.
The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.
Monday, November 01, 2010
The American Revolution at the Ballot Box
Regarding our Constitution the prohibitions are on the government NOT THE PEOPLE! Let's remember this as we go to the polls tomorrow November 2, 2010 - Americans have their revolution in the ballot box. And this one is going to be big.
Puerto Rico Comes on Board the Lower Taxes Bandwagon
There comes a time in the life of every government at least in freedom loving countries when the people must decide enough with the taxation already! That time has come for our country. Are we to live as slaves to a state that has no compunction about seizing a part of our wealth to fund idiotic and expensive politically motivated schemes whose end goals are always to control the "little people"? After all, according to their ideology, people do not know what is best for themselves or for the nation. Well, governors like Chris Christie and apparently Luis Fortuno in Puerto Rico are thinking over that perhaps politicians should not be taking control over the any economy.
Move over, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. You've got a tax-cutting, pro-growth competitor who may be even bolder than you. His name is Luis Fortuño and he is the governor of Puerto Rico, a place that, if you can believe it, is in worse fiscal shape than the Garden State.
When Mr. Fortuño took office in January 2009, Puerto Rico had a 46% budget shortfall equal to $3.3 billion. Things were so bad, he told me in a telephone interview from San Juan on Tuesday, that he had to fly to New York while still governor-elect to explain his fiscal plan to the investment community in order to avoid a sharp downgrade of Puerto Rican debt. "We were one step from junk status," he says.
After 22 months in office and a boatload of spending cuts, the deficit is now down to about 11%. That achievement notwithstanding, the commonwealth still is spending more than it takes in. In the Washington political handbook this means Puerto Ricans are not paying enough in taxes.
Mr. Fortuño has a much different view of the problem: He thinks high taxes have destroyed the Puerto Rican economy. He has already signed into law a five-year property tax holiday for real estate purchased through June of next year and waivers on fees for those transactions. Last week he handed his legislature a radical plan to simplify the tax code and sharply reduce corporate and individual rates.
Mr. Fortuño says that Puerto Rico's recession—which began two years before the U.S. recession—only partly explains the current crisis. "If you look at the past decade, Puerto Rico has had negative growth for the entire period." (According to his office, the economy contracted 0.2% in the 2000s.) This shows, he argues, that "we are in need of a major overhaul. If we just tweak it a little, we won't accomplish what we need."...
READ AT The Wall Street Journal
Move over, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. You've got a tax-cutting, pro-growth competitor who may be even bolder than you. His name is Luis Fortuño and he is the governor of Puerto Rico, a place that, if you can believe it, is in worse fiscal shape than the Garden State.
When Mr. Fortuño took office in January 2009, Puerto Rico had a 46% budget shortfall equal to $3.3 billion. Things were so bad, he told me in a telephone interview from San Juan on Tuesday, that he had to fly to New York while still governor-elect to explain his fiscal plan to the investment community in order to avoid a sharp downgrade of Puerto Rican debt. "We were one step from junk status," he says.
After 22 months in office and a boatload of spending cuts, the deficit is now down to about 11%. That achievement notwithstanding, the commonwealth still is spending more than it takes in. In the Washington political handbook this means Puerto Ricans are not paying enough in taxes.
Mr. Fortuño has a much different view of the problem: He thinks high taxes have destroyed the Puerto Rican economy. He has already signed into law a five-year property tax holiday for real estate purchased through June of next year and waivers on fees for those transactions. Last week he handed his legislature a radical plan to simplify the tax code and sharply reduce corporate and individual rates.
Mr. Fortuño says that Puerto Rico's recession—which began two years before the U.S. recession—only partly explains the current crisis. "If you look at the past decade, Puerto Rico has had negative growth for the entire period." (According to his office, the economy contracted 0.2% in the 2000s.) This shows, he argues, that "we are in need of a major overhaul. If we just tweak it a little, we won't accomplish what we need."...
READ AT The Wall Street Journal
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