21 December 2010
How Much Euro Membership Has Cost Ireland In Terms Of GDP
This is the problem with having a single currency. You're not letting the Market set a value on what your economy is worth, and so your currency ends up being managed by a bunch of ministers in a far off land. Instead of what's best for each individual country, they're concerned with what's best for the collective.
How many times after the fall of the Soviet Union do we need to prove that Collectivism doesn't work?
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure
How many times after the fall of the Soviet Union do we need to prove that Collectivism doesn't work?
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure
20 December 2010
So they're using Assange as a scapegoat for imposing censureship on the Internet. Oh well, so much for Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
Freedoms We Lost
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By ROBERT M. MCDOWELL
Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government's reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.
How did the FCC get here?
For years, proponents of so-called "net neutrality" have been calling for strong regulation of broadband "on-ramps" to the Internet, like those provided by your local cable or phone companies. Rules are needed, the argument goes, to ensure that the Internet remains open and free, and to discourage broadband providers from thwarting consumer demand. That sounds good if you say it fast.
David Klein
Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.
Analysts and broadband companies of all sizes have told the FCC that new rules are likely to have the perverse effect of inhibiting capital investment, deterring innovation, raising operating costs, and ultimately increasing consumer prices. Others maintain that the new rules will kill jobs. By moving forward with Internet rules anyway, the FCC is not living up to its promise of being "data driven" in its pursuit of mandates—i.e., listening to the needs of the market.
It wasn't long ago that bipartisan and international consensus centered on insulating the Internet from regulation. This policy was a bright hallmark of the Clinton administration, which oversaw the Internet's privatization. Over time, however, the call for more Internet regulation became imbedded into a 2008 presidential campaign promise by then-Sen. Barack Obama. So here we are.
Last year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski started to fulfill this promise by proposing rules using a legal theory from an earlier commission decision (from which I had dissented in 2008) that was under court review. So confident were they in their case, FCC lawyers told the federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., that their theory gave the agency the authority to regulate broadband rates, even though Congress has never given the FCC the power to regulate the Internet. FCC leaders seemed caught off guard by the extent of the court's April 6 rebuke of the commission's regulatory overreach.
In May, the FCC leadership floated the idea of deeming complex and dynamic Internet services equivalent to old-fashioned monopoly phone services, thereby triggering price-and-terms regulations that originated in the 1880s. The announcement produced what has become a rare event in Washington: A large, bipartisan majority of Congress agreeing on something. More than 300 members of Congress, including 86 Democrats, contacted the FCC to implore it to stop pursuing Internet regulation and to defer to Capitol Hill.
Facing a powerful congressional backlash, the FCC temporarily changed tack and convened negotiations over the summer with a select group of industry representatives and proponents of Internet regulation. Curiously, the commission abruptly dissolved the talks after Google and Verizon, former Internet-policy rivals, announced their own side agreement for a legislative blueprint. Yes, the effort to reach consensus was derailed by . . . consensus.
After a long August silence, it appeared that the FCC would defer to Congress after all. Agency officials began working with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman on a draft bill codifying network management rules. No Republican members endorsed the measure. Later, proponents abandoned the congressional effort to regulate the Net.
More on Technology
Still feeling quixotic pressure to fight an imaginary problem, the FCC leadership this fall pushed a small group of hand-picked industry players toward a "choice" between a bad option (broad regulation already struck down in April by the D.C. federal appeals court) or a worse option (phone monopoly-style regulation). Experiencing more coercion than consensus or compromise, a smaller industry group on Dec. 1 gave qualified support for the bad option. The FCC's action will spark a billable-hours bonanza as lawyers litigate the meaning of "reasonable" network management for years to come. How's that for regulatory certainty?
To date, the FCC hasn't ruled out increasing its power further by using the phone monopoly laws, directly or indirectly regulating rates someday, or expanding its reach deeper into mobile broadband services. The most expansive regulatory regimes frequently started out modest and innocuous before incrementally growing into heavy-handed behemoths.
On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of a long winter's night for Internet freedom.
Mr. McDowell is a Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.
FCC WORKING WITH AL SHARPTON TO LET HIM DRAG RUSH AND OTHERS IN FRONT OF A PUBLIC HEARING TO EXPLAIN THEMSELVES
Here comes the Censors
What I don't get is he claims that Rush and the others offend others because of "who" they are, I'd like to see a SINGLE example of what he's talking about, because from what I've seen and heard from Rush, he attacks others based on their BELIEFS, specifically, if they believe in Socialism, he's going to explain WHY they are wrong.
What I don't get is he claims that Rush and the others offend others because of "who" they are, I'd like to see a SINGLE example of what he's talking about, because from what I've seen and heard from Rush, he attacks others based on their BELIEFS, specifically, if they believe in Socialism, he's going to explain WHY they are wrong.
22 November 2010
It Pays to be Poor!
Someone Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than Me – A Middle-Classer
Interesting stuff. I read it this morning here, and the chart they provided as a visual (for people like me who avoid just numbers alone) was pretty damn telling.
A family of 4 on minimum wage now has more disposable income than a hard working American middle class family making $60,000 a year.
Zero Hedge reported, via Free Republic:
Tonight’s stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the “Evil Empire”, Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.” And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks. America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system. Not surprisingly, it is not only the richest and most audacious thieves that prosper – it is also the penny scammers at the very bottom of the economic ladder that rip off the middle class each and every day, courtesy of the world’s most generous entitlement system. Perhaps if Reagan were alive today, he would wish to modify the object of his once legendary remark.
And here’s the nifty little graphic that tells the story quite clearly:
The analyst in the article states that someone is pretty much better off working one week a month at minimum wage than working their ass off at a full-time $60K-a-year gig. Go figure.
And it reminds me of that chick I once saw at a grocery store in Atlanta – she had a Louis Vuitton purse full of freakin’ food stamps, which she used to pay for her groceries (shrimp was included, of course), and then got into her Mercedes and drove away.
Yep. I guess I’m the chump for working 60-hour weeks. Stupid me…
05 November 2010
Confidence In The U.S. Will Collapse And Change Will Come With Alarming Speed
People just don't get it, they don't seem to realize what a HUGE problem we're sitting on, yet the average person goes on as if nothing is wrong. We need to change direction FAST, and we need to prepare ourselves, our families and our friends.
The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It: Make a Fortune by Investing in Gold and Other Hard Assets
The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It: Make a Fortune by Investing in Gold and Other Hard Assets
17 October 2010
Volunteers Wanted: We Need You, Race to the Finish Line for Allen West!
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15 August 2010
Obama claims GOP trying to destroy Social Security
I ran across this story and thought it was a Joke. Social Security is broke, this year for the first time it's paying out more than what they're taking in, as for a Trust fund there ISN'T any "Trust" fund. It's a bunch of "funny Money". Government simply taxes everyone for what they need to keep the system going. That's not a trust fund that's welfare. Yet Obama claims the GOP is trying to "destroy" something that in reality, DOESN'T EXIST!
Let's take a look at Chile, where the average working stiff actually has a higher net worth than those here in the U.S. Why, because their private IRA's and Pension funds are REAL Assets, not the funny money variety that the Government "guarantees" us here. In addition, these funds can be willed to a spouse or kids, can the same be said of the Social Security "Trust Fund" here in the U.S.? I think not!
Obama claims GOP trying to destroy Social Security
Erica WernerPresident Barack Obama used the anniversary of Social Security to trumpet Democrats' support for the popular program and accuse Republicans of trying to destroy it.
Seventy-five years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday: "We have an obligation to keep that promise, to safeguard Social Security for our seniors, people with disabilities and all Americans — today, tomorrow and forever."
Some Republican leaders in Congress are "pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall," Obama said.
He contended that such privatization was "an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market."
Most Republicans, in fact, are wary of touching that idea, because Social Security is virtually sacrosanct to voters, particularly seniors.
Nonetheless, Democrats have been able to seize on the issue because of a proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, that would allow younger people to put Social Security money into personal accounts.
Ryan's idea is similar to a proposal pushed unsuccessfully by former President George W. Bush. It's not been endorsed by party leaders and has attracted only a small number of GOP co-sponsors.
With Social Security's finances strained, policymakers talk frequently about the need to address the solvency of the entitlement program. How to do so is less clear, as Obama's comments Saturday underscored.
Obama said he's "committed to working with anyone, Democrat or Republican, who wants to strengthen Social Security." But he proposed no ideas for doing that.
Many Democrats adamantly oppose any cut in benefits to reduce costs and some won't accept a gradual increase in the retirement age, something that was done in the last overhaul in 1983. Republicans say an increase in Social Security taxes is out of the question, even for the wealthy.
Unless Congress acts, Social Security's combined retirement and disability trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037. At that point, Social Security will collect enough in payroll taxes to cover about three-fourths of the benefits.
Obama has created a bipartisan fiscal commission that is supposed to come up with recommendations in December on improving the government's troubled finances and has said everything should be on the table.
"Democrats made an impossible mess out of health care and cut a half-trillion from Medicare, so I don't know whether the commission will come up with anything on health care or not," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement. "But on Social Security, hopefully they will come up with a credible plan that I can support and my members can support."
Republicans used their weekend address to accuse Democrats of pursuing an "extreme ideologically driven agenda" that threatens the nation's economic recovery.
"I am deeply concerned about the direction we're heading in right now," said former Rep. Pat Toomey, speaking for the GOP. "That direction is being driven by extreme policies that are coming from one-party domination of government in Washington. ... It's time we put some real checks and balances back in place this November."
Toomey, the GOP Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, focused on bailouts for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the car companies; the economic stimulus legislation that has failed to cut unemployment rates; and Obama's health care law.
"Now, where do all these bailouts, takeovers and spending sprees leave us?" Toomey asked. "They leave us with a weak economy without job growth and with a mountain of debt for our kids."
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