OS continues to maintain that our woes are cultural, and that the cure has to address the culture.
Pastor Peters hits the ball out of the cultural park when he reminds us of the obvious: Every home should have a good hymnal, in use, not on the back shelf.
And, the best 'accessory' for your hymnal is a piano. Lots of them on the market now, at bargain prices.
He is heartened to hear the news that this particular Lutheran hymnal has sold over a million copies since 2006.
Enjoy Pastor Peter's thoughts in the meantime, ya'll.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
"Domingo Biojó", FARC Leader, Killed By Colombian Government Forces
Wanted in the US on several warrants, subject of an Interpol circular, and apparently informed on by people who decided they would rather have USD 555,000 in pocket, and a narco-terrorist sent to his reward.
Colombia, somewhere along the way, decided it was tired of the non-stop violence and disruption caused by the FARC, which is funded by drug money.
They're making progress. Compare and contrast to its neighbor Venezuela.
Which approach is working, and which one breeds poverty and chaos?
Colombia, somewhere along the way, decided it was tired of the non-stop violence and disruption caused by the FARC, which is funded by drug money.
They're making progress. Compare and contrast to its neighbor Venezuela.
Which approach is working, and which one breeds poverty and chaos?
We Are The Super-Rich: This One Is Making The Rounds
Jes' so Miz Nancy can't accuse this author of being some sort of nut-case-Astro-Turf-racist-Teabagger type, let's start with the author's credentials:
Todd Henderson received an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993. He worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the Law School. While at the Law School, Todd was an Editor of the Law Review and captained the Law School's all-University champion intramural football team. He graduated magna cum laude in 1998 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Todd served as clerk to the Hon. Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then practiced appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he specialized in counseling telecommunications and high-tech clients on business and regulatory strategy. His research interests include corporations, securities regulation, bankruptcy, law and economics, and intellectual property.
OK, Miz Nancy, now that THAT's out of the way, let's read what the gent posted on 10 September, 2010.
The rhetoric in Washington about taxes is about millionaires and the super rich, but the relevant dividing line between millionaires and the middle class is pegged at family income of $250,000. (I’m not a math professor, but last time I checked $250,000 is less than $1 million.) That makes me super rich and subject to a big tax hike if the president has his way.
I’m the president’s neighbor in Chicago, but we’ve never met. I wish we could, because I would introduce him to my family and our lifestyle, one he believes is capable of financing the vast expansion of government he is planning. A quick look at our family budget, which I will happily share with the White House, will show him that like many Americans, we are just getting by despite seeming to be rich. We aren’t.
I, like the president before me, am a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and my wife, like the first lady before her, works at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she is a doctor who treats children with cancer. Our combined income exceeds the $250,000 threshold for the super rich (but not by that much), and the president plans on raising my taxes. After all, we can afford it, and the world we are now living in has that familiar Marxian tone of those who need take and those who can afford it pay. The problem is, we can’t afford it. Here is why.
The biggest expense for us is financing government. Last year, my wife and I paid nearly $100,000 in federal and state taxes, not even including sales and other taxes. This amount is so high because we can’t afford fancy accountants and lawyers to help us evade taxes and we are penalized by the tax code because we choose to be married and we both work outside the home. (If my wife and I divorced or were never married, the government would write us a check for tens of thousands of dollars. Talk about perverse incentives.)
Our next biggest expense, like most people, is our mortgage. Homes near our work in Chicago aren’t cheap and we do not have friends who were willing to help us finance the deal. We chose to invest in the University community and renovate and old property, but we did so at an inopportune time.
We pay about $15,000 in property taxes, about half of which goes to fund public education in Chicago. Since we care the education of our three children, this means we also have to pay to send them to private school. My wife has school loans of nearly $250,000 and I do too, although becoming a lawyer is significantly cheaper. We try to invest in our retirement by putting some money in the stock market, something that these days sounds like a patriotic act. Our account isn’t worth much, and is worth a lot less than it used to be.
Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby so we can both work outside the home. At the end of all this, we have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive.
If our taxes rise significantly, as they seem likely to, we can cut back on some things. The (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center, but these are only a few hundred dollars per month in total. But more importantly, what is the theory under which collecting this money in taxes and deciding in Washington how to spend it is superior to our decisions? Ask the entrepreneurs we employ and the new arrivals they employ in turn whether they prefer to work for us or get a government handout.
If these cuts don’t work, we will sell our house – into an already spiraling market of declining asset values – and our cars, assuming someone will buy them. The irony here, of course, is that the government is working to save both of these industries despite the impact that increasing taxes will have.
The problem with the president’s plan is that the super rich don’t pay taxes – they hide in the Cayman Islands or use fancy investment vehicles to shelter their income. We aren’t rich enough to afford this – I use Turbo Tax. But we are rich enough to be hurt by the president’s plan. The next time the president comes home to Chicago, he has a standing invitation to come to my house (two blocks from his) and judge for himself whether the Hendersons are as rich as he thinks.
OS passes this along, and has kept a hard-copy of it, lest it disappear down the Memory Hole in the future.
He hopes his readers will do the same.
Todd Henderson received an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993. He worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the Law School. While at the Law School, Todd was an Editor of the Law Review and captained the Law School's all-University champion intramural football team. He graduated magna cum laude in 1998 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Todd served as clerk to the Hon. Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then practiced appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he specialized in counseling telecommunications and high-tech clients on business and regulatory strategy. His research interests include corporations, securities regulation, bankruptcy, law and economics, and intellectual property.
OK, Miz Nancy, now that THAT's out of the way, let's read what the gent posted on 10 September, 2010.
The rhetoric in Washington about taxes is about millionaires and the super rich, but the relevant dividing line between millionaires and the middle class is pegged at family income of $250,000. (I’m not a math professor, but last time I checked $250,000 is less than $1 million.) That makes me super rich and subject to a big tax hike if the president has his way.
I’m the president’s neighbor in Chicago, but we’ve never met. I wish we could, because I would introduce him to my family and our lifestyle, one he believes is capable of financing the vast expansion of government he is planning. A quick look at our family budget, which I will happily share with the White House, will show him that like many Americans, we are just getting by despite seeming to be rich. We aren’t.
I, like the president before me, am a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and my wife, like the first lady before her, works at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she is a doctor who treats children with cancer. Our combined income exceeds the $250,000 threshold for the super rich (but not by that much), and the president plans on raising my taxes. After all, we can afford it, and the world we are now living in has that familiar Marxian tone of those who need take and those who can afford it pay. The problem is, we can’t afford it. Here is why.
The biggest expense for us is financing government. Last year, my wife and I paid nearly $100,000 in federal and state taxes, not even including sales and other taxes. This amount is so high because we can’t afford fancy accountants and lawyers to help us evade taxes and we are penalized by the tax code because we choose to be married and we both work outside the home. (If my wife and I divorced or were never married, the government would write us a check for tens of thousands of dollars. Talk about perverse incentives.)
Our next biggest expense, like most people, is our mortgage. Homes near our work in Chicago aren’t cheap and we do not have friends who were willing to help us finance the deal. We chose to invest in the University community and renovate and old property, but we did so at an inopportune time.
We pay about $15,000 in property taxes, about half of which goes to fund public education in Chicago. Since we care the education of our three children, this means we also have to pay to send them to private school. My wife has school loans of nearly $250,000 and I do too, although becoming a lawyer is significantly cheaper. We try to invest in our retirement by putting some money in the stock market, something that these days sounds like a patriotic act. Our account isn’t worth much, and is worth a lot less than it used to be.
Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby so we can both work outside the home. At the end of all this, we have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive.
If our taxes rise significantly, as they seem likely to, we can cut back on some things. The (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center, but these are only a few hundred dollars per month in total. But more importantly, what is the theory under which collecting this money in taxes and deciding in Washington how to spend it is superior to our decisions? Ask the entrepreneurs we employ and the new arrivals they employ in turn whether they prefer to work for us or get a government handout.
If these cuts don’t work, we will sell our house – into an already spiraling market of declining asset values – and our cars, assuming someone will buy them. The irony here, of course, is that the government is working to save both of these industries despite the impact that increasing taxes will have.
The problem with the president’s plan is that the super rich don’t pay taxes – they hide in the Cayman Islands or use fancy investment vehicles to shelter their income. We aren’t rich enough to afford this – I use Turbo Tax. But we are rich enough to be hurt by the president’s plan. The next time the president comes home to Chicago, he has a standing invitation to come to my house (two blocks from his) and judge for himself whether the Hendersons are as rich as he thinks.
OS passes this along, and has kept a hard-copy of it, lest it disappear down the Memory Hole in the future.
He hopes his readers will do the same.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Yep, The Recession Is Over! Just Ignore The Neighborhoods of St. Louis Being Torched By Thieves
Nothing to see here, just move along, now.
Law enforcement officials, politicians and historic preservationists here have concluded that brick thieves are often to blame, deliberately torching buildings to quicken their harvest of St. Louis brick, prized by developers throughout the South for its distinctive character.
“The firemen come and hose them down and shoot all that mortar off with the high-pressure hose,” said Alderman Samuel Moore, whose predominantly black Fourth Ward has been hit particularly hard by brick thieves. When a thief goes to pick up the bricks after a fire, “They’re just laying there nice and clean.”
It is a crime that has increased with the recession. Where thieves in many cities harvest copper, aluminum and other materials from vacant buildings, brick rustling has emerged more recently as a sort of scrapper’s endgame, exploited once the rest of a building’s architectural elements have been exhausted. “Cleveland is suffering from this,” said Royce Yeater, Midwest director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “I’ve also heard of it happening in Detroit.”
DidYewJestHearWhutISaid??!!! The recession's over! Get yerself somewhar' else, now.
Nothin' worth seein' heah! Goh-won! GIT!!
Law enforcement officials, politicians and historic preservationists here have concluded that brick thieves are often to blame, deliberately torching buildings to quicken their harvest of St. Louis brick, prized by developers throughout the South for its distinctive character.
“The firemen come and hose them down and shoot all that mortar off with the high-pressure hose,” said Alderman Samuel Moore, whose predominantly black Fourth Ward has been hit particularly hard by brick thieves. When a thief goes to pick up the bricks after a fire, “They’re just laying there nice and clean.”
It is a crime that has increased with the recession. Where thieves in many cities harvest copper, aluminum and other materials from vacant buildings, brick rustling has emerged more recently as a sort of scrapper’s endgame, exploited once the rest of a building’s architectural elements have been exhausted. “Cleveland is suffering from this,” said Royce Yeater, Midwest director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “I’ve also heard of it happening in Detroit.”
DidYewJestHearWhutISaid??!!! The recession's over! Get yerself somewhar' else, now.
Nothin' worth seein' heah! Goh-won! GIT!!
What Are They Smoking In Cambridge, MA? NBER Declares The Recession Ended In June 2009
Really...
They gotta be smoking something, likely the ObamaGanja, 'cuz if you ride the streets of Cleveland, or Chicago, or Memphis, or Nashville, or the small towns in between, you see a succession of boarded-up storefronts and empty businesses, a host of shabbily-dressed and discouraged looking people, along with a few people for whom life has never looked better.
The poverty/public assistance rate is now one in seven. And that's according to the gubb'mint, who knohz 'bout such thangs.
OS increasingly thinks that The Great Recession is a product of the era of The Great Disconnect, in which ThePeopleInChargeOfTheseThings in business, government, ecclesia, culture--all retreated into some sort of bubble of their own making. They tell themselves everything's just fine, and therefore it is.
Sort of like people who, well, smoke ganja all the time.
The NBER even tells us who's been inhaling, in case you're curious. A Who's-Who of the American Academic Bubble.
The current members of the Business Cycle Dating Committee are:
Robert Hall, Stanford University (chair);
Martin Feldstein, Harvard University;
Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University;
Robert Gordon, Northwestern University;
James Poterba, MIT and NBER President;
James Stock, Harvard University;
and Mark Watson, Princeton University.
David Romer, University of California, Berkeley, is on leave from the committee and did not participate in its deliberations.
Deze boyz ain't been within shouting distance of reality since they left graduate school to take a cruise courtesy of their family trust funds.
OS's gotta go, so he doesn't wind up like those one in seven in Real America.
They gotta be smoking something, likely the ObamaGanja, 'cuz if you ride the streets of Cleveland, or Chicago, or Memphis, or Nashville, or the small towns in between, you see a succession of boarded-up storefronts and empty businesses, a host of shabbily-dressed and discouraged looking people, along with a few people for whom life has never looked better.
The poverty/public assistance rate is now one in seven. And that's according to the gubb'mint, who knohz 'bout such thangs.
OS increasingly thinks that The Great Recession is a product of the era of The Great Disconnect, in which ThePeopleInChargeOfTheseThings in business, government, ecclesia, culture--all retreated into some sort of bubble of their own making. They tell themselves everything's just fine, and therefore it is.
Sort of like people who, well, smoke ganja all the time.
The NBER even tells us who's been inhaling, in case you're curious. A Who's-Who of the American Academic Bubble.
The current members of the Business Cycle Dating Committee are:
Robert Hall, Stanford University (chair);
Martin Feldstein, Harvard University;
Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University;
Robert Gordon, Northwestern University;
James Poterba, MIT and NBER President;
James Stock, Harvard University;
and Mark Watson, Princeton University.
David Romer, University of California, Berkeley, is on leave from the committee and did not participate in its deliberations.
Deze boyz ain't been within shouting distance of reality since they left graduate school to take a cruise courtesy of their family trust funds.
OS's gotta go, so he doesn't wind up like those one in seven in Real America.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
JDA Missed Her Calling
She should have been a preacher.
Really.
Sample this bit below, in which she illuminates the pronouncements of the luminaries who assure us that all is well.
Regulatory uncertainty has pretty much assured the employment situation will remain sketchy for the foreseeable future, or at least until we figure out the true real-world impact of genius moves like Obamacare, financial reform, consumer protection and accounting rule changes implemented in the midst of crisis as a direct result of the impact of old rules on the economy. That's called having to pay for that hamburger on Tuesday that you borrowed money for last week in case you aren't paying attention.
Banks are still clinging to crap assets and functioning as official money laundering machine for the US Treasury by borrowing money at 0 from Uncle Bernanke and stuffing it into Treasurys. That's all well and good but what happens if Bernanke grows a pair, hikes up interest rates and takes away the crack? How are banks going to breeze through new Basel capital requirements then?
I don't know about you all but I can't drive more than a block through San Francisco or any of our lovely Bay Area 'burbs without seeing vacant, for lease, for sale or otherwise "available" properties. Were I to try and come up with an estimate as to just how many I see on an average stroll through town I'd have to guess somewhere between a metric shit ton and a massive fuck ton, it's hard to say.
Is that a recovery? Does it feel like a recovery? Does it look like a recovery?
A recovery would imply a return to normal. Free money from the Fed is not normal. 10% unemployment is not normal. 99 weeks of unemployment is not normal. .1% returns on savings or CDs are not normal. Riots, protests, rallies and general civil unrest (be it mild at this point) are not normal. Trading volume of practically nothing for anyone except for HFT robots, hedge funds and the invisible hand is not normal.
Someone needs to get the Fed that memo so they can stop with this nonsense and I'd love to see their senior economists coming up with something far more useful than the same HOORAH WE'RE SAVED propaganda we have all heard and read since March of 2009.
You'll have to read the essay to get to her payoff line. Wouldn't wish to spoil it for you.
She's the wonderfullest when she gets her preacher on.
Really.
Sample this bit below, in which she illuminates the pronouncements of the luminaries who assure us that all is well.
Regulatory uncertainty has pretty much assured the employment situation will remain sketchy for the foreseeable future, or at least until we figure out the true real-world impact of genius moves like Obamacare, financial reform, consumer protection and accounting rule changes implemented in the midst of crisis as a direct result of the impact of old rules on the economy. That's called having to pay for that hamburger on Tuesday that you borrowed money for last week in case you aren't paying attention.
Banks are still clinging to crap assets and functioning as official money laundering machine for the US Treasury by borrowing money at 0 from Uncle Bernanke and stuffing it into Treasurys. That's all well and good but what happens if Bernanke grows a pair, hikes up interest rates and takes away the crack? How are banks going to breeze through new Basel capital requirements then?
I don't know about you all but I can't drive more than a block through San Francisco or any of our lovely Bay Area 'burbs without seeing vacant, for lease, for sale or otherwise "available" properties. Were I to try and come up with an estimate as to just how many I see on an average stroll through town I'd have to guess somewhere between a metric shit ton and a massive fuck ton, it's hard to say.
Is that a recovery? Does it feel like a recovery? Does it look like a recovery?
A recovery would imply a return to normal. Free money from the Fed is not normal. 10% unemployment is not normal. 99 weeks of unemployment is not normal. .1% returns on savings or CDs are not normal. Riots, protests, rallies and general civil unrest (be it mild at this point) are not normal. Trading volume of practically nothing for anyone except for HFT robots, hedge funds and the invisible hand is not normal.
Someone needs to get the Fed that memo so they can stop with this nonsense and I'd love to see their senior economists coming up with something far more useful than the same HOORAH WE'RE SAVED propaganda we have all heard and read since March of 2009.
You'll have to read the essay to get to her payoff line. Wouldn't wish to spoil it for you.
She's the wonderfullest when she gets her preacher on.
Friday, September 17, 2010
USD 111 Million Spent, 55 Jobs 'Saved Or Created' In Los Angeles
HT Fox News:
This, in a word, is unsustainable.
More than a year after Congress approved $800 billion in stimulus funds, the Los Angeles city controller has released a 40-page report on how the city spent its share, and the results are not living up to expectations.
"I'm disappointed that we've only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million," said Wendy Greuel, the city's controller. "With our local unemployment rate over 12 percent we need to do a better job cutting red tape and putting Angelenos back to work."
According to the audit, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works spent $70 million in stimulus funds -- in return, it created seven private sector jobs and saved seven workers from layoffs. Taxpayer cost per job: $1.5 million.
This, in a word, is unsustainable.
More than a year after Congress approved $800 billion in stimulus funds, the Los Angeles city controller has released a 40-page report on how the city spent its share, and the results are not living up to expectations.
"I'm disappointed that we've only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million," said Wendy Greuel, the city's controller. "With our local unemployment rate over 12 percent we need to do a better job cutting red tape and putting Angelenos back to work."
According to the audit, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works spent $70 million in stimulus funds -- in return, it created seven private sector jobs and saved seven workers from layoffs. Taxpayer cost per job: $1.5 million.
Running For Cover: TN6 Democrat Candidate Carter Calls For Pelosi To Step Aside
It doesn't take a genius to understand that this guy doesn't stand a chance of winning with the current House leadership in power.
He's even gone so far as to pledge not to vote for Pelosi for Speaker, were he to be elected.
Well, at least on the first ballot..in the closed caucus...and he'll behave after that, ya'll--no worries. He'll be her liddle lap-dog after that. All that money to borrow, print and spend to make certain the economy stagnates for decades. It's a tough job, but OS is certain he's up to it.
But, hey--it's a start.
But why vote for this clown, when you can vote for a lady who'll kick Pelosi's scurvy behonkus to the gutter every time she's given the opportunity?
He's even gone so far as to pledge not to vote for Pelosi for Speaker, were he to be elected.
Well, at least on the first ballot..in the closed caucus...and he'll behave after that, ya'll--no worries. He'll be her liddle lap-dog after that. All that money to borrow, print and spend to make certain the economy stagnates for decades. It's a tough job, but OS is certain he's up to it.
But, hey--it's a start.
But why vote for this clown, when you can vote for a lady who'll kick Pelosi's scurvy behonkus to the gutter every time she's given the opportunity?
Louisiana Fish Kill
From the Solari Report:
This is a Louisiana waterway, in Plaquemines Parish, covered with all manner of dead sea life.
Unknown as yet whether this is related to the BP oil spill. But BP would be well served to get out ahead of this problem, and err on the side of taking on the remediation of this situation.
Again, the Gubbermint won't actually solve anything, and will do what it can to make things worse. This is another opportunity for BP to win the credibility competition, by lending its good offices toward determining the cause and working toward a solution.
This is a Louisiana waterway, in Plaquemines Parish, covered with all manner of dead sea life.
Unknown as yet whether this is related to the BP oil spill. But BP would be well served to get out ahead of this problem, and err on the side of taking on the remediation of this situation.
Again, the Gubbermint won't actually solve anything, and will do what it can to make things worse. This is another opportunity for BP to win the credibility competition, by lending its good offices toward determining the cause and working toward a solution.
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