It’s Saturday, January 5th, 2012….and time for a Weekend Special.  So without further ado, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of Bill Meisen, the Scariest Jobs Chart Ever:

What’s even more scary is we’d be willing to bet the figures for the current recession don’t include those who’ve “stopped looking for work”, a concept which could only exist under the beneficent reign of B. Hussein.

And since we’re on the subject of the Misleader of the Ever-less Free World, courtesy of Speed Mach and the WaPo, George Will provides an excellent analysis of what he terms….

Our decadent democracy

 

Connoisseurs of democratic decadence can savor a variety of contemporary dystopias. Because familiarity breeds banality, Greece has become a boring horror. Japan, however, in its second generation of stagnation is fascinating. Once, Japan bestrode the world, jauntily buying Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach. Now Japanese buy more adult diapers than those for infants.

America has its lowest birth rate since at least 1920 — family formation and workforce participation (which hit a 30-year low last year) have declined in tandem. But it has an energy surplus, the government-produced overhang of housing inventory is shrinking and the average age of Americans’ cars is an astonishing 10.8 years. Such promising economic indicators, however, mask the country’s democratic decadence, as explained by the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth in the Dec. 24 Weekly Standard:

It is now as clear as it is unsurprising that most Americans will be spared the educational experience of “fiscal cliff”-related tax increases and spending cuts, which would have been a small but instructive taste of the real costs of the entitlement state.

Still, December’s maneuverings taught three lessons.

First, there will be no significant spending restraint. Democrats — you know: the people respectful of evidence and science — even rejected a more accurate measurement of the cost of living that would slightly slow increases in myriad government benefits. Accuracy will be sacrificed to liberalism’s agenda of government growth.

Second, Barack Obama has (as Winston Churchill said of an adversary) “the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.” His incessant talking swaddles one wee idea — raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires,” including people earning less than half a million. He has nothing pertinent to say about the steadily worsening fiscal imbalance that will make sluggish growth — less than 3 percent — normal.

Third, one December winner was George W. Bush because a large majority of Democrats favored making permanent a large majority of his tax cuts. December’s rancor disguised bipartisan agreement: Both parties flinch from cliff-related tax increases and spending decreases. But neither the increases nor decreases would have tamed the current $1 trillion-plus budget deficit nor made a discernible dent in the 87-times-larger unfunded liabilities of the entitlement state.

This state cannot be funded by taxing “the rich.” Or even by higher income taxes on the middle class. Income taxes cannot fund the government liberals want, and they dare not seek the consumption and energy taxes their entitlement architecture requires. Hence, although Republicans are complicit, Democrats are ardent in embracing decadent democracy. This consists not just of infantilism — refusing to will the means for the ends one has willed — but also of willing an immoral means: conscripting the wealth of future generations.

As economists Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane explain in National Affairs quarterly, the U.S. political system “cannot govern the entitlement state” that “exists largely to provide material benefits to individuals.” Piling up unsustainable entitlement promises — particularly, enactment of Medicare in 1965 and the enrichment of Social Security benefits in 1972 — has been improvident for the nation but rational for the political class. The promised expenditures, far in excess of revenue, would come due “beyond the horizon of political consequences.”

“Our politicians,” say Hubbard and Kane, “are acting rationally” but “politically rational behavior is now fiscally perverse.” Both parties are responding to powerful electoral incentives to neither raise taxes nor cut spending. Hence, “the clash over raising the debt limit that gripped Washington during the summer of 2011 was just the beginning, not the end, of our fiscal woes.”

But the perils of the entitlement state are no longer (in Hubbard’s and Kane’s words) “safely beyond the politicians’ career horizons.” Furthermore, a critical mass of Republicans reject the careerists’ understanding of “politically rational” behavior. These Republicans have a different rationale for being in politics.

The media, which often are the last to know things because their wishes father their thoughts, say the tea party impulse is exhausted. Scores of House Republicans and seven first-term Republican senators (Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott) will soon — hello, debt ceiling — prove otherwise.

When it comes to footing the bill for their largesse, Dimocrats are, for once, spot on; it IS….

….all about the children….and the grandchildren….and the great-grandchildren….!

Next up, Jonah Goldberg defines….

Winning Ugly: Obama and the Fiscal Cliff

 

By all accounts, President Obama won the fiscal cliff showdown. Why anyone would take much pride in this kind of “win” is beyond me. It’s a bit like being the least filthy toddler in the mud pit.

One of the main reasons Obama won, according not only to Obama but an at times cheering press, is that he had a mandate. He ran on the need for the wealthy to “pay their fair share.”

To his credit, Obama never said raising taxes on the “rich” will solve all of our problems. What he did say, however, is that he couldn’t in good conscience ask seniors and college students to take a hit from budget cuts without asking the wealthy to pay their fair share. He wanted “shared sacrifice” and a “balanced approach” because we’re “all in it together.”

Here is what Obama said in his weekly address on July 16, 2011: “The truth is, you can’t solve our deficit without cutting spending. But you also can’t solve it without asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”“This is not class warfare,” Obama said in September of 2011. “It’s math.”

He continued: “Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. We can’t afford to do both.”

And here’s what he said just days after he was re-elected: “But as I’ve said before, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity. If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue. And that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes. That’s how we did in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president.”

Now, I have plenty of disagreements with all of this. The president seems to think that if he calls class warfare “math,” it’s suddenly not class warfare. Also, the man’s version of the last two decades of economic history has always struck me as at best flawed and more properly speaking barmy. During the campaign he assiduously worked to give the impression that the 2008 financial crisis was caused by George W. Bush’s tax cuts (something even the official studies of the crisis never suggested) and that the 1990s economic boom, which didn’t even begin on Clinton’s watch, was launched by Clinton’s tax hikes.

Also, the idea that the rich hadn’t been paying their fair share is at least debatable. When Obama took office in 2009, the richest 5 percent of Americans paid almost 40 percent of all federal taxes, and the richest 1 percent paid 22 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If you count only federal income taxes, the top 5 percent and top 1 percent paid, respectively, 59 percent and 37 percent.

But none of that matters. Obama was re-elected on a twofold promise. Part one was to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Part two: fix our debt crisis, which Obama himself has conceded is chiefly driven by entitlement spending. Right or wrong, he’s done part one, according to the standards he laid out in the campaign (although he did want to raise taxes on incomes starting at $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples but settled for $400,000 and $450,000, respectively). The fiscal cliff deal raises $41 in taxes for every dollar it cuts in spending — not just by raising rates on the wealthy, but also by raising payroll taxes on everyone. The revenues from making the rich pay their fair share will slow the sinking of America into an ocean of debt about as much as throwing all the swizzle sticks off the Titanic would have delayed the inevitable.

Heck, the deal actually increases spending and the national debt. So clearly, promise number two remains unfulfilled.

Will Obama act on the second part of his mandate? It doesn’t look good. He’s now claiming he already cut $1 trillion in 2011, largely by “cutting” spending no one ever planned to spend. If I plan to build an orbital Death Star for $10 trillion and then think better of it, I’ve cut $10 trillion, according to Obama’s math. His own White House Office of Management and Budget says spending went up $147 billion last year. Moreover, at the last minute, before the deal was even agreed to, Obama insisted that any future deficit-reduction package must include even more tax hikes.

It’s clear that the Republicans mishandled this whole fiasco. If they were going to lose on tax hikes anyway, they might as well have lost early and spent the last month pounding Obama on the second part of his promise. Meanwhile, if the press corps can take a break from celebrating Obama’s victory over those crazy Republicans who want to keep us from going bankrupt, they might start asking Obama about the rest of his mandate.

Yeah, when pigs fly; or….

….Hillary finally testifies!  Rumors Clinton’s appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee would be delayed due to complications from injuries suffered while under fire in Bosnia….

….remain unconfirmed.  Think about it; blatant lies like this undeniably on the record, and she’s still poised to be America’s next President.

In a related item, the Morning Examiner‘s Conn Carroll asks the same question Kim Strassel posed yesterday in the Journal:

What do Republicans want?

 

In the just concluded debt limit fight, President Obama had one distinct advantage: the default result of the two parties agreeing to nothing was a $4.6 trillion tax hike. Since they have successfully branded themselves as the anti-tax party, Republicans simply could not allow that to happen.

But in the next two rounds, Republicans now have the default advantage. If the debt limit is not raised, Obama will be forced to cut federal spending by 44 percent. If the sequester is not rescinded, $1.2 trillion in spending cuts will go into effect. As the party of the welfare state, Democrats simply can not allow this to happen. Republicans are now in position to get the better side of the bargain. But what do they want?

This Wednesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan chatted with radio show host Hugh Hewitt about conservative strategy for the debt limit fight:

Hewitt: Will the Republicans speak with specificity as to what they are demanding on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as part of this round of spending reform?

Ryan: Yeah, I mean, I have been, we have twice already. I mean, this session ends today, or we have a new session tomorrow. We passed two budgets that showed you exactly how we would fix this. …

Hewitt: Now Congressman, I agree that the budget is very specific, but not as to the priority of what you must have in this deal. And I think one of the problems we had in the last two months is that there wasn’t great specificity as to what the Republicans insisted on having as opposed to wanting to have. … So is there a conversation underway? Will the Republicans on the Hill unveil their specific, must-haves as opposed to want to haves before we get to the end game, as happened over the last 48 hours?

Ryan: Yeah, I mean, I’m not going to get deep into detail, because we’re still having all those kinds of discussions among ourselves, and we need to have it with our friends in the Senate as well.

In other words, no, Republicans have no idea what they want to ask for in the upcoming debt limit debate. Yes, they want all the entitlement reforms in the Ryan budget, which are specific enough, but the Harry Reid Senate is never going to pass that budget and Obama would never sign it. So what, realistically, should Republicans insist on? Nobody seems to know.

Unlike Chris Christie, we still hold Paul Ryan in respect, and feel fortunate to still have him heading the House Budget Committee.  But he needs to stick to his numbers; beyond that, he’s not the one we want carrying the ball for Conservatives on the national stage.

Then there’s this forward from G. Trevor, Lord High King of All Vietors, an assessment of The Dear Misleader’s reaction to the Republican surrender penned by an individual who will remain anonymous:

Good afternoon –

We have skirted the cliff and plopped down right in the middle of the briar patch.  Regardless, the media is aglow, and the stock market is en fuego (Dow +308!).  The White House has released a propoganda puff piece entitled: “Fact Sheet: The Tax Agreement: A Victory for Middle Class Families and the Economy”.  Let’s take a look at the President’s “facts” –

Strengthens our recovery next year by cutting taxes for the middle-class

This is twice wrong.  With expiration of the payroll tax reduction, taxes go up on 77% of the population with middle class taxes going up $125b in 2013.  And the consensus opinion is that the net effect of the tax deal is a drag on GDP of 1%.

Provides greater economic certainty for families and businesses

They gotta be kidding with this line. The tax deal leaves open the pesky questions of A) the debt limit, B) the sequestered amounts, C) cuts in entitlement spending, D) additional taxes and don’t forget, E) the President needs another Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the lights on. (No budget from the Prez means another CR is required) The market may be happy today, but what is in front of is much more troubling than what is behind us.

Cuts the deficit and reduces the debt as a share of the economy over the next five years

Compared to what? The fact is the country just agreed to an additional $4TR in debt.  Here’s the picture of the debt profile that is the result of this deal.  That ugly orange stuff is the additional debt the country signed up for with the tax deal.  Some victory!

And victory in hand, President Obama has not even signed the bill yet.  Instead, he got right back on Air Force One and returned to Hawaii (at tax payer expense of $7MM).  Channeling Jack Nicholson: “You want the truth?  You can’t handle the truth!”.

Neither is the truth in him.

Moving on, Hank Murphy forwarded this must-read (and we mean “must-read”) article by one Robert Avrich detailing his first-hand, up-front-and-personal experience what is was like confronting the Mob during the L.A. riots in 1992 as a….

Jew Without a Gun

 

I am republishing my three-part series about the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 in which Karen and I and the children were trapped for several frightening hours. We were unarmed, helpless save for our wits. The police were conspicuously absent and the bad guys, frequently armed with heavy weapons, owned the streets. It was a defining moment in my life.

I’m reposting this series as a cautionary tale because the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre has sharpened the claws of the statist utopians, whose ultimate aim is to disarm law-abiding American citizens.

Just as Obamacare has nothing to do with health, and cap and trade has nothing to do with so-called global warming, anti-gun laws have nothing to do with saving children’s lives. It’s just another opportunity for the left to centralize power.

http://www.seraphicpress.com/jew-without-a-gun/

Yeah….we’ll give up our firearms when The First Family’s Secret Service detail gives up theirs.

Speaking of those who would deny others the right to self-protection they afford themselves, George Lawlor sent us some information on the Current TV sale you won’t get from the MSM:

The Rich Get Richer: Dianne Feinstein’s Husband Also Cashes in on Current Sale to Al Jazeera

 

And because I write the rules, we won’t pay a dime of tax on it!  Bwah, ha ha!!!!  Think I’ll buy another handgun.

Most of the attention today has been devoted to the obscene amount of money Al Gore walked off with selling his low-rated cable outfit to Al Jazeera. And who knows how much Gore even invested in the initial venture considering it was a $70 million investment with numerous partners back in 2004.

Finally, after nearly a year of nail biting and a cameo appearance by Barry Diller, who owned a part of the entities–Gore lobbied him in person–Gore and Hyatt snagged NWI in May 2004 for $70 million. (Their investment partners included former Goldman Sachs senior director Philip Murphy, who is now the Democratic finance committee chair; Richard Blum, husband of California Senator Dianne Feinstein; Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy; and Bob Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner.)

Oddly though, today nobody seems to be asking DiFi about her hubby’s latest windfall.

Current TV’s investors included funds controlled by Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle and San Francisco money manager Richard Blum, according to a 2008 Securities and Exchange Commission filing when the company unsuccessfully sought to sell stock to the public. Blum is married to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from San Francisco.

There’s no indication Blum ever divested himself (he’s still listed on their board), so how much did he rake in from this sale? It’s worth noting Burkle was once fast friends with Bill Clinton, though Burkle said hiring him was the dumbest thing he ever did.

As Jonathan Tobin notes in Commentary Magazine:

“….The real issue here is not a false argument about diversity. It is instead one about what it means to be a liberal in today’s media environment. As Alana noted yesterday, Gore refused to sell his channel to conservative Glenn Beck saying that he didn’t wish to see his vanity project fall into the hands of those who disagreed with his politics. Fair enough. But the fact that Gore sees Al Jazeera as a good match for his brand of American liberalism speaks volumes about the nature of that set of beliefs.

Most Americans still think of Al Jazeera as the network that was Osama bin Laden’s outlet to the world in the years after 9/11. Since then, it has earned a reputation in some quarters as the best source of news about the Arab and Muslim world, especially during the Arab Spring protests. But its perspective remains one in which the United States and Israel are routinely pilloried and where terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are depicted as freedom fighters.

I don’t worry about Al Jazeera being able to persuade most Americans to buy into this skewed view of the world. What is worrisome is that Gore and other liberals such as the editorial writers at the Times seem to think there is a connection between this perspective and contemporary American liberalism.”

The Obamao’s planned appointments of John Kerry and Chuck Hagel to State and Defense only serve to validate Tobin’s hypothesis.

And in the Environmental Moment, courtesy of Bill Meisen, it’s another “NOW they tell us” moment:

Study: Fluorescent Light Bulbs Emit High Levels Of UV Radiation

 

A new study finds fluorescent light bulbs, although eco- and budget-friendly, could pose a health risk. Researchers at Stony Brook University found energy-efficient bulbs emit high levels of harmful ultraviolet radiation. They randomly tested the bulbs and found the rays were so strong that they could actually burn your skin on the cellular level.

“The results were that you could actually initiate cell death,” according to Marcia Simon, professor of dermatology at Stony Brook. That means exposure to the bulbs could lead to premature aging and cancer. “It can also cause skin cancer in the deadliest form, and that’s melanoma,” said dermatologist Rebecca Tung.

In every bulb that researchers tested, they found the protective coating around the phosphor, which creates the light inside the bulb, was cracked, allowing dangerous UV rays to escape. They could not point out why the bulbs were cracking. The compact fluorescent industry says the bulbs are safe but admits they do emit UV rays. In a statement they insist, “the levels of UV radiation emitted are acceptably low” and are safe under normal use.

Researchers say you can be safe by exercising caution. Make sure you’re always two feet away from these bulbs, whether they’re in an overhead fixture or a lamp, because a shade will not protect you. The Food and Drug Administration maintains fluorescent bulbs are safe but suggest buying ones that have an additional coating to reduce UV exposure.

“Safe under normal use”; Yeah….just like any firearm!

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, we’ll call it a day with a shout-out to the latest winner of the Solyndra Award for proving yet again the only place The Obamao can pick a winner is his nose:

Lincolnton Furniture Company, praised for bringing jobs back to US, closes

 

Lincolnton Furniture Company closed abruptly Thursday just one year after it was hailed by President Barack Obama as an example of the recovering U.S. economy. Furniture-making operations stopped indefinitely and only a few people will remain employed moving forward, company financial officer Ben Causey said.

“I don’t know where it’s going to go exactly; we’re still evaluating our situation,” Causey said. “We just didn’t have any choice at this point.” The company was not receiving the orders it needed to sustain its operations, Causey said. “We needed more orders is really what it boiled down to,” he said. “We thought they would materialize.”

Owner Bruce Cochrane, a fifth generation furniture-manufacturer, formed the company in 2011 with a $5 million investment and the hope he could make a profit off people who wanted to buy furniture made in America.

It was a move that caught the attention of North Carolina officials and those in the White House. Last year, Cochrane sat with the first lady during Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address. He also joined the president and other business leaders in a discussion about how to create more jobs at home.

While we certainly sympathize with his plight, Mr. Cochrane obviously misread his market.  But his biggest mistake may have been publicly stating his intention to vote for Mitt Romney.  Now if he’d pushed a few thousand of his hard-earned money The Obamao’s way, though he might still be out of business….

….the rest of America would be taking the loss!

Magoo