Saturday, August 27, 2011

The cure for unemployment that we're waiting to discover

There are hundreds if not thousands of potentially devastating videos just waiting to be created about The Teleprompter Jesus and his ability to make bad situations worse.
Note the unemployment rate early on in this video, as employers defensively react to every word that this guy says.
Kinda like the way the stock market reacted during his speech on the economy.



Here's the Obama speech that employers are waiting to hear:

"Yeah, we made some mistakes.
We're not going to try to do anything else to create jobs for the rest of our lives.
Why not?
Because we suck at it.
Taking money from group A to give to group B so they will hire more people from group C ? That merely causes group A to hide their money, causes group B to create projects that Washington likes rather than consumers, and creates a nastly little political bloc out of group C.


Also, we're going to settle in on a Flat Tax system. It's going to slide between 5% and 15%. If you're homeless, you're still going to pay 5% of your "profits" to Washington. If you're Bill Gates, you're going to pay 15%. No loopholes in exchange for campaign donations. Ever.


Oh, and one other thing. ObamaCare is now over. If you hire someone, you're not expected to be his nursemaid, doctor, surgeon, or insurance agent.


I almost forgot... CardCheck is now over. If you hire someone, you don't have to worry about him banding all of your labor vendors together to force you to hire from a certain group.


I'm going to remain on vacation for the forseeable future.


Hope this helps.


Now, watch this swing....


The State Department wasn't the only one playing Footsie with Gaddafi

Muammar Kaddafi was "Dictator Du Jour" on this site a few days ago.  It's a new program I've started to honor the murderous dictators that our State Department blesses with lots of free stuff - training, military hardware, etc. 

(Note: I'm no longer even trying to spell this guy's name consistently from link to link.)


It gets better and better.  This is from The Business Insider:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware, as one of the United States' partners in the war on terror," according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

If the Nobel Peace Prize committee wants to atone for giving the prize to The Teleprompter Jesus, they oughta give it to Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of Wikileaks. 

The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.

McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. as "excellent," to which Liebermann added: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi."

"Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends," the cable continues. "The Senators recognized Libya's cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger."

Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya's highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.

Note that the article doesn't say "in exchange for this, Gaddafi gave us money".  It just says that "in exchange for this, Gaddafi pledged"....to do something or other. 

The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms. 

On the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money, Part 3, The final conflict !!!

Warren Buffett wishes he could pay more taxes, if only someone would make him. 
Check out my two previous posts,

Then look at what this guy wrote. 

Lord have mercy, what a Corporatist/Statist tool. 

Friday, August 26, 2011

An update on the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money

Read the previous post before you read this bit o' greatness....

Here's some more about Warren Buffett, who says he should be paying MORE taxes, out of fairness !!

But if he (Buffett) were truly sincere, perhaps he might simply try paying the taxes the IRS says his company owes? According to Berkshire Hathaway’s own annual report — see Note 15 on pp. 54-56 — the company has been in a years-long dispute over its federal tax bills.

According to the report, “We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the IRS for the 2002 through 2004 tax years at the IRS Appeals Division within the next 12 months. The IRS has completed its examination of our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2005 and 2006 tax years and the proposed adjustments are currently being reviewed by the IRS Appeals Division process. The IRS is currently auditing our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2007 through 2009 tax years.”

Americans for Limited Government researcher Richard McCarty, who was alerted to the controversy by a federal government lawyer, said, “The company has been short-changing the tax collection agency for much of the past decade. Mr. Buffett’s company has not fully settled its tax bills from 2002-2009. Yet he says he’d happily pay more. Except the IRS has apparently been asking him to pay more going on nine years.”

The mind recoils. 

On the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money

Zillionaire Warren Buffett has been in the news a lot. 
First, he made worldwide headlines by complaining in a New York Holy Times editorial that he isn't forced to give enough money to our government. 
This is strange.  Anyone wanting to give more money to the government can do so by hitting this link, which gives you some helpful information, plus this address:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

No New York Times editorials are necessary.  No complaining is necessary.  No righteous posturing is required.  All Mr. Buffett has to do is write a check for the amount he thinks he should be paying, mail it to that address, and his money will be wasted just as quickly as the money that Washington is borrowing from China.  (And if Mr. Buffett wants some publicity and increased stature amongst The Statists, that would do it.  The more rational half of the nation, however, would know that he'd gone stark, raving mad.) 

Or perhaps Buffett just wants other people to pay more money, but not himself.  We'll never know.  You can go here to read an analysis of why Buffett's claims about his tax rate are somewhat misleading.

Here's something else about how Warren Buffett chooses to spend his money, this time from The Wall Street Journal:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will invest $5 billion in Bank of America Corp., giving the nation's biggest bank a much-needed vote of confidence amid questions about the credibility of its management.What do you think? Will that figure shore Bank of America up adequately for a return to profitability? Is Buffett seizing a golden opportunity, or taking too risky a gamble?

Hmmmm..... This is a strange one.  You can go elsewhere on the internet and read that it isn't just the 5 billion investment that has caused Bank Of America's stock to increase.  It's that Warren Buffett, The Sage of Ohama, has taken a look at Bank Of America, thought about it, and declared BofA to be worthy of his money and his shareholders' money.  If Warren Buffett says it's a good investment, it's a good investment. 

Why would Warren Buffett voluntarily throw money at a risky proposition like a failing bank, but complain about not being forced at gunpoint to give more money to a failing government? 

I think it is because Bank Of America is probably a good investment, and a good use of Buffett's money, and a good use of the money of the investors who trust Warren Buffett. 

The United States Government, under present leadership, is not. 

Money talks, bullshit walks.  Especially if it is Warren Buffett's money. 


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Quote of the day, on a logical consequence of huge debt

I found this on Samizdata:

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Christians were not supposed to charge interest. Therefore, the most common moneylenders-to-kings were Jews. They could loan money at a profit, and were thus more likely to lend it.
But whenever the King's debts got too large to repay, he began to demonise the Jews. And eventually came a pogrom. And hey-ho, the debt went away along with the Jews.
I'm seeing the demonisation of banks. I wonder how long before government throws a pogrom?

- Ellen Kuhfeld



Monday, August 22, 2011

Muammar al-Qaddafi - Our Dictator Du Jour (we were for him before we were against him)

Ron Paul has a reputation amongst The Statists as being totally naive on foreign policy. 
This means he is always right. 
Not just kinda right, but gloriously validated and vindicated.   You don't earn a bad reputation in Big Government circles by being wrong. 
Here's a little dustup that Paul had with our Secretary Of State, also known as She Whose Name Is Not Spoken:



“A lot of people in this country have come to the conclusion that our policy overhaul has been inconsistent; that sometimes we support the bad guys and the bad guys become our enemies,” Paul told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Rep. Paul pointed to America’s support for Osama bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, its collaboration with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s, and its propping up the Shah in Iran for decades before that.

“But we keep supporting Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, all these dictators, and yet we pretend that as soon as, well, it looks like the dictator might fall, we're all for democracy and we're for freedom and we're against these dictators,” he said.

To which The Hildabeast responded:

“Congressman, you make a very passionate argument, and my response is that, you know, the United States, over the course of its entire diplomatic history, has had to make some very difficult decisions,” she said.

“We try to balance what we believe to be in our interests. Sometimes, and I would argue most times, we get it right. Sometimes we don't,” America’s top diplomat conceded.

You can go here for a partial list of dictators that we've supported, and that most sane and sober people would examine and say "Dang, Hillary.  You sure got that one wrong.  What possessed you folks to give that dictator a bunch of money?"  

So here's today's update:  Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi is now on the run.  Rebels have almost taken Tripoli, and our State Department will soon be able to claim that our military involvement in Libya was justified.  But what about this, from 2009 ??

The State Department has designated $400,000 in international aid funds for two foundations run by the children of Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi, a move that two Republican members of Congress today called a misuse of taxpayer funds that should be immediately cut off by President Obama.


The Congress members’ complaints on Thursday came just a day after Kaddafi delivered a bizarre speech to the United Nations in which he suggested the Israelis may have been behind the Kennedy assassination and the swine-flu virus was cooked up in a corporate lab. It also comes amid mounting international criticism of Kaddafi’s regime after it provided a hero’s welcome to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people.

Ironically, one of the groups designated for $200,000 in State Department funds is the Kaddafi Development Foundation, headed by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s son who personally arranged for Megrahi’s flight back to Tripoli last month after the convicted terrorist was released on “humanitarian” grounds from a Scottish jail. Another $200,000—part of $2.5 million in State Department economic-support funds for Libya—is slated to go to an organization headed by Kaddafi’s daughter Aisha, to promote “women’s economic opportunities.”

“This waste of taxpayer dollars is particularly outrageous following the hero’s welcome given to the Lockerbie bomber,” said Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee. Ros-Lehtinen wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to cut off the entire $2.5 million designation for Libya, noting that it was provided by Congress in order to “promote democracy and human rights” in Libya. “How could this assistance effectively promote democracy when entrusted to the dictator’s family?” she asked.

Yeah.  Good question.  I think that funding got blocked, but I don't have time this morning to research it properly.  But how about this later attempt to give Qaddafi some money?  Not just some money but an increase in his allowance?  This was going on in March of this year !!!!

While President Obama calls Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi a threat to his own people, just one month before attacking Libya the president asked Congress to increase U.S. aid for Qaddafi's military to $1.7 million.


According to State Department figures, the money was earmarked to train Libyan military officers, improve its air force, secure its borders and to counter terrorism.

If this seems contradictory, welcome to the world of U.S. foreign aid, where billions of tax dollars go to people we don't like and nations some say don't need the help. The latest unrest has drawn renewed scrutiny to these policies. 

Hell, by the way they keep trying to throw money at him, you would think that Qaddafi worked for SEIU or ACORN or maybe the Wisconsin Teachers' Union.  If time permitted, I'd check to see if he got any stimulus funds. 

If you have time and don't mind getting depressed, you can go here and see that, through various aid organizations, we've given Libya $176 million since Qaddafi took over as dictator. 

Good job, Hillary. 

*********************

I think my next Dictator Du Jour will be Spain's Francisco Franco or Cambodia's Pol Pot.  We supported both of them until we were against them.  Or I can take nominations for other dicatators from you folks.  The floor is open, and there are plenty of candidates. 

The pic of our man in Libya came from here.  The Aid Trap picture came from here, and that entire article should be tattooed on Hillary's thighs. 

Sunday, August 21, 2011