-----------------------------------------------------
On Dec 11 2013 a commenter named Polybius said this about "income inequality"
To counter the 'income inequality' fallacy, two points need to be shouted from the rooftops:
1. The natural economic state of any human society is universal poverty. It is false to ask why so many Americans live in poverty. Poverty is the natural, common state of all people, in all places, at all times. Instead, the correct question is to ask why so many Americans are able to escape poverty.
2. Just as there is bad cholesterol and good cholesterol, there is bad income inequality and good income inequality. Bad income inequality is income and wealth generated by the exercise of power and influence to game the economic, social and political system to one's economic favor. Income derived from corruption, lobbying, favorable legislative and regulatory drafting, political bailouts and industrial regulatory capture are all examples of bad income inequality. They are examples of people unfairly manipulating the system to protect and build their wealth at the expense of others.
Good income inequality is income and wealth derived from hard work, talent, innovation, more than a little luck and the ability to provide people (consumers) with goods and services that people want at a price people are willing to pay. In short, good income inequality derives from actual wealth CREATION, rather than the taking of wealth from others.
If we were talking about corn inequality, would we vilify the farmer for having so much more corn than anybody else? Of course not! He has more corn because he grew it! 'Thank you, Mr. Farmer, for growing corn for the rest of us.'
If we were talking about car inequality, would we vilify the car manufacturer for having so many more cars than the rest of us? Of course not! The manufacturer has more because it built more. 'Thank you, Mr. Car Manufacturer, for building these cars for the rest of us.'
If we were talking about regulatory inequality, would we vilify a company that can afford contributions to politicians sufficient to ensure regulation in favor of itself over its competitors? Of course! The company has more wealth because it has manipulated the system in favor of itself, while harming its competitors and, ultimately, the consumers who cannot benefit from the fair competition. 'Down with you, foul company, and the politicians in your pocket!'
If I was in the position of someone like Newt Gingrich, with a voice that could carry to the American people, I would say, "Yes, I'm in favor of income inequality. That is to say, I'm in favor of good income inequality. And I oppose bad income inequality with every fiber of my being". Embrace the narrative that liberals want to impose on free-marketers, and turn it around on them. Narrative Judo.
-----------------------------------------------------
Someone posted this list of statements made by Democrats about Saddam Hussein before Bush actually did something about it and they switched to "Bush Lied, Kids Died". Hypocrites....
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by: -- Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998-----------------------------------------------------
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.
The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002.
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002.
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002.
"[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003.
Responding to The Teen Workplace Disengagement Epidemic
September 17, 2010 - by Tom Blumer
In the Weather Underground Manifesto they discuss keeping the youth unemployed as a strategy to overturn the gov’t. Looks like Obummer knows the Manifesto well as he’s chummy with so many Underground and SDS radicals. (Ayres, Dorhn, A Stein,Jeff Jones etc) - E-----------------------------------------------------
Responding to Keith Olbermann, Sexist
Sep 16th 2010 - by Frank Ross
True story about Keith Olberman- I live a few blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood, and on Sept 11, 2001 I watched the attacks from beginning to end. From my roof I watched the worst things one can imagine - many people jumping to their deaths and the eventual collapse of those buildings. To see it firsthand I can tell you that TV did not do it justice.-----------------------------------------------------
The police and FBI evacuated my building and the entire area for several days. I was allowed back on Saturday September 15, 2001. That day I walked to Greenwich street, a few blocks from my home, because you could see directly down the street to the smoldering buildings' remains. I noticed standing there was Keith Olberman speaking into a tape recorder. So I went over, said hello, and asked if he was reporting for TV. He said at that time he was reporting for a few radio stations on the West Coast, I believe, and that he hadn't been on TV for a while.
At that point a bunch of other people had recognized him and were standing around him with me. I then asked him what he thought of this whole thing. He said
"Well, there was one good thing to come out of it. Barbara Olsen was on the plane flown into the Pentagon, and that b*tch got what she deserved." We were all shocked and there was a collective moan from the other people. I said excuse me. He repeated "That b*tch Barbara Olsen got what she deserved."
I wanted to slug him and said to him that was way out of line.
That is the Keith Olberman NBC hired. - bw
Responding to "‘Like a Dog’: The Origins of Barack Obama’s Petulance"
September 8, 2010 - by Victor Davis Hanson
Dear Dr. Hanson:And also:
Thanks for a particularly insightful article. Most impressive. May I add just a few additional ideas?
Those of us who work for a living, who have actually spent a lifetime in the world where, each and every day, reliability, accomplishment, dedication, industry, practicality and honor matter know that one of the primary indicators of character–or lack thereof–is whether a man is humble or self aggrandizing. Will he allow his work to speak for itself, or must he heap undeserved honors on himself, or allow others to do it for him, refusing to correct their misconceptions?
Two examples: Mr. Obama has, as far as I can remember, allowed others to call him a “constitutional law professor.” I know that he has often said that he has taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, but I am not certain that he has claimed professorship, so I’ll not attribute that to him. The problem is that he was never a professor, the highest academic, teaching rank in any university. He was merely an adjunct lecturer, and by all accounts, a lecturer for a position invented just for him to advance his political fortunes. He had no qualifications for such a post that outstripped those of any other law school graduate. In academia, if one is not a professor, one does not claim to be a professor, nor does one allow others to create or hold that misconception. It is not only bad manners, it is revealing of a serious character flaw. The second, previously mentioned here, is the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize committee admitted that Mr. Obama had done nothing to deserve it. Mr. Obama admitted that he had done nothing to deserve it, yet he accepted it anyway, debasing himself, and the Prize for a very long time. Perhaps the best commentary I saw on this topic was posted on a restaurant’s sign: “Free Nobel Peace Prize with Shrimp Taco.”
Who then is Mr. Obama and why is he befuddled? i’ve said it before: He’s a con man, a con man who forgot the prime directive of con men–make the con and run before the marks know what hit them. Never hang around too long. The worst sort of hubris to which the con man is subject is falling for his own cons, believing that he is invulnerable, that he is actually what he fools others into believing he is. After so many years of living with ever changing lies, of manipulative, shallow relationships, of always coming out on top without any real, honest labor involved, of believing the world to be populated with two types of people: Marks and you, it’s easy to believe your own hype. When one has the entire national media calling you a God, when women–in the media and out–talk of their sexual fantasies revolving around your glory, when you lecture in front of faux Greek columns behind your faux pre-presidential seal, emanating from the extra-constitutional, non-existant Office of The President-Elect, and every vapid, cliched, meaningless syllable you utter is met with rapturous applause and adulation and is said to surpass the Gettysburg Address, is it any wonder the demi-god con man might begin to lose himself utterly.
And so Mr. Obama is in unfamiliar territory and ill equipped, mentally, physically, and rationally to deal with any of it. The marks have caught on, and more are catching on every day, and he’s still not running. But more and more of his wanna be con men in the House, Senate and elsewhere are catching the scent of decay and are running–away from him. He will not handle it well. He will not moderate. He may very well melt down in any number of ways. And he will bring additional, new dishonor to America and to the Office of the President. And if we’re very, very lucky, that’s the worst he’ll cause to happen. - MCM
I kept all these bookmarked over the past few years:-----------------------------------------------------
The very astute Richard Epstein, professor of law at University of Chicago, noted that “I like Obama but I reject the suggestion that he is an intellectual. He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual.”
In response to the question, “How good is Obama’s mind?”, Epstein replied: “His mind is pretty good, but it is a clever ‘means-ends’ mind. He has never written a scholarly article in his entire life. ”
I am Obama’s age and knew many students like him: preppy third world wannabes and poseurs who loved to give the impression that they were both scholarly and engaged by namedropping authors like Fritz Fanon and Edward Said, both of whom Obama has cited as influences.
No real love of books, or of reading and thinking. All just a display for appearance’ sake.
The respected Thomas Lipscomb contends he didn’t write either of his books.
After Obama graduated from Harvard Law, he did not to seek work as a clerk for a prominent liberal judge, as most of his Harvard colleagues did. The work of a law clerk is demanding and it is doubtful that Obama was capable of completing such a challenge. Instead, Obama was hired by a Chicago law firm. But he didn’t do any heavy lifting there either. Instead, he spent all his time writing notes for his first book. As Allison Davis, a founding partner of the firm wrote: Some of my partners weren’t happy with that, Barrack sitting there with his key board on his lap and his feet up on the desk writing the book.
Obama referred to himself as a “law professor,” but – in truth – he had only served as a Senior Lecturer spent some time with the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law a few months back, and he did not have many nice things to say about “Barry.” Obama applied for a position as an adjunct and wasn’t even considered. A few weeks later the law school got a phone call from the Board of Trustees telling them to find him an office, put him on the payroll, and give him a class to teach. The Board told him he didn’t have to be a member of the faculty, but they needed to give him a temporary position. He was never a professor and was hardly an adjunct.
The other professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified, never attended any of the faculty meetings, and it was clear that the position was nothing more than a political stepping stool.
According to my professor friend, he had the lowest intellectual capacity in the building. He also doubted whether he was legitimately an editor on the Harvard Law Review, because if he was, he would be the first and only editor of an Ivy League law review to never be published while in school (publication is or was a requirement).
The Doug Ross blog post is a telling reminder President Obama was never a professor. He was never even close to being a professor. Professors publish articles, compete for tenure, conduct research, win grants, and speak at national and international conferences. They attend faculty meetings where their expertise and skills are challenged in lively debate. In this world, the time professors spend teaching classes, creating exams and grading papers – the majority of Obama’s work as a Senior Lecturer – has only limited significance and prestige.
Obama’s insistence that he was a law school professor shows that he sought the status of being a law school professor…yet never proved he had what it took to compete among the academic elite.
a report from Carol Platt Liebau, managing editor of the Harvard Law Review at the time of Obama’s presidency there [emphasis mine]:
[W]hen he was at the HLR you did get a very distinct sense that he was the kind of guy who much more interested in being the president of the Review, than he was in doing anything as president of the Review.
A lot of the time he quote/unquote “worked from home”, which was sort of a shorthand – and people would say it sort of wryly – shorthand for not really doing much. He just wasn’t around. Most of the day to day work was carried out by the managing editor of the Review, my predecessor, a great guy called Tom Pirelli whose actually going to be one of the assistant attorney generals now.
He’s the one who did most of the day to day work. Barack Obama was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally he would drop in he would talk to people, and then he’d leave again as though his very arrival had been a benediction in and of itself, but not very much got done.
It reminds me a little bit of my experience with him when he was president of the Harvard Law Review. You know, I hesitated to say a lot about this during the campaign because I really thought maybe it wasn’t fair. That maybe, finally, when he got to be President, this would be a job big enough to engage and hold Barack Obama’s sustained interest, because really, is there a bigger job out here?
Sound familiar?
Responding a liberal complaint on "Have Obama’s Policies Failed? Let Us Count the Ways..."
August 13, 2010 - by Rick Moran
Pretorian – having observed for some time the sick parade of collectivist pornography that passes for your thought processes, I have a few questions. Where do you suppose that you fit in this spectrum?
1. Wishful thinker – don’t you just wish that the world was a nicer place? If only everyone were just as smart, just as clever, just as enlightened as you, it surely would be, wouldn’t it? You, and those like you aren’t really up to doing the heavy lifting, but you surely do vote and applaud into power those who will. Trouble is, those folks typically have an agenda that doesn’t quite match yours. As witness the buyers’ remose that appears to be settling in now.
2. Coercive utopian – you just know that no one is going to do what it takes to usher in the new millennium, the New Man, that immanent eschaton that’s just around the corner. Put socialism / communism and its imperatives and consequences right out on the table in front of everyone, and most in their right minds wouldn’t buy it. Hence, Antonio Gramsci’s dioctrine of the ‘long march through the instutions.’ Trouble is, you coercive types tend to be fairly bloody-minded. For example, Billy Ayers and his wrecking crew thought that once they achieved power would have to slaughter over 25 million Americans too stubborn to toe thier utopian socialist line – that was back in the 1970’s so we’re actually giving him a bit of a discount on that 25 million figure. But what’s a few million here and there? Eric Hobsbawm, Marxist historian (now there’s an oxymoron) has also said as much in a BBC interview where he allowed as to how the ’sacrifice’ of millions would have been worth it in order to achieve socialism. So, Prraetorian, is that you? A little slaughter, a ‘re-education camp’ or two not too much a price to pay for heaven on Earth?
3. Lord of the flies– now we’re at the top of the pyramid of power, and those driven by that insatiable will to power. These are the ones who, once they achieve absolute power, really make things happen. And we’ve got over 260 million dead in this century and the last to prove it. Now, Praetorian – pay attention – that’s 260 million unarmed civilian non-combatants killed by their own governments. They were murdered by those exercising the power of the state. They were starved, gassed, tortured, shot, impaled, burned alive, drowned, frozen to death, hacked apart with hoes, axes and machetes – a litany of brutality and atrocity beyond human imagination. Hundreds of millions more lived their lives enslaved, impoverished and in despair. Communism, socialism, the immanent eschaton – who cares? Ideology is only the particular horse they riding in pursiut of absolute control of mankind.
Those who are driven by the will to power typically disguise their intentions under the guise of ‘achieving the greatest good for the greatest number’ or under the rubrics of social or economic justice. They may claim that they are ‘doing the business of the people’ or that they are acting according to ‘the will of the people’. The statement, ‘It’s for the children,’ should inspire instant disbelief and skepticism. When it has come to creating the ‘New Socialist Man,’ those who advance such arguments remain untroubled by the oceans of blood they would have to spill and the mountains of corpses they would have to pile up in order to realize their dreams. They are all animated by the unrestrained and unappeasable ‘will to power’. The Will to Power plays itself out at all levels. From the malice or indifference of the petty bureaucrat to the savage and demonic mass murderers of recent times. As we have seen, power and the exercise of that power is more addictive than any drug.
The need is insatiable. The result is horror.
So – where are you in all of this? If you’re a follower or apologist for today’s political and social multiculturalism, an adherent of liberal democracy, or believe that our culture can continue without a basis in moral absolutes, which camp do you suppose you belong in? Are you a cynical but clever elitist intoxicated by the will to power? Are you on to the deception but support it out of pathological spite? Or are you simply ignorant of your role in the intentional destruction of your culture, even if you think you stand in the relative right?
You may want to re-think your premises, buddy, because you are not likely to survive the consequences of the ones you’ve shown us. History is my witness.
W.D.
------------------------------------
Sigh. So many conservative commentators fall into this trap. It’s as if there were a mind-control device in operation that prevents conservatives from seeing the facts and speaking the truth.More as I find 'em - check back frequently
Obama’s policies are not failing. They’re working exactly as intended. The problem isn’t Obama’s grasp of policy matters; it’s his intentions.
Obamunism aims to reduce the United States to a socialist state without the military power required to maintain an acceptable level of international order. It’s not about “combatting the recession.” It’s not about “restoring our image in the world.” It’s about transforming the last free society on Earth into a carbon copy of Sweden, if not something even lower.
A course of action “works” if it brings about the desired result at an acceptable cost. As Obama and his henchmen pay no costs — indeed, they’ve contrived to profit from his machinations — they’re getting exactly what they aim for. They’ll continue to get it until they’ve been expelled from power.
Barack Hussein Obama is a bad man, surrounded by bad men, enacting an evil agenda. Never forget it.
F.W.P.
No comments:
Post a Comment