2012-12-13

Washington Post

Such nonsense abounds because Obama's objective in these negotiations is not economic but political: not to solve the debt crisis but to fracture the Republican majority in the House. Get Boehner to cave, pass the tax hike with Democratic votes provided by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and let the Republican civil war begin.

It doesn't even matter whether Boehner gets deposed as speaker. Either way, the Republican House would be neutered, giving Obama a free hand to dominate Washington and fashion the entitlement state of his liking.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-its-nothing-but-a-power-play/2012/12/06/83061050-3fde-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html

... time to call Obama's bluff.  The real power over spending is in congress.  Just say no.   I would demand $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes THIS YEAR and forget false promises of cuts that are ten years down the road. 

2012-12-10

Fwd: China


'Six cities in Liaoning province, including Shenyang and Anshan, recently announced they are converting abandoned industrial sites to farmland.  Dongguan, once a booming factory center, is on the verge of bankruptcy as companies close, leaving the local government severely cash-strapped.

 

Just two years after China overtook the U.S. to become the world's largest manufacturer, the country faces the prospect of decades of de-industrialization.'


...


Fifth, the most important factors in eroding China's competitive position involved the labor force, the reason why foreign companies moved to the country in the first place.  For one thing, the world's most populous country, paradoxically, began to run out of people.  

2012-12-05

10 people who led us to the 'fiscal cliff'

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-people-who-led-us-to-the-fiscal-cliff-2012-11-21?link=MW_story_popular

2012-12-03

Fwd: budget

'A couple of years back, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute calculated that, if Washington were to increase every single tax by 30 percent, it would be enough to balance the books — in 25 years. If you were to raise taxes by 50 percent, it would be enough to fund our entitlement liabilities — just our current ones, not our future liabilities, which would require further increases. This is the scale of course correction needed.

 

If you don't want that, you need to cut spending — like Harry Reid's been doing. "Now remember, we've already done more than a billion dollars' worth of cuts," he bragged the other day. "So we need to get some credit for that."

 

Wow! A billion dollars' worth of cuts! Washington borrows $188 million every hour. So, if Reid took over five hours to negotiate those "cuts," it was a complete waste of time. So are most of the "plans." Any "debt-reduction plan" that doesn't address at least $1.3 trillion a year is, in fact, a debt-increase plan.'

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/334549/kindly-note-impending-bankruptcy-mark-steyn