Category Archives: Business

UPDATED: Solyndra Scandal

Barack Obama, Business, China, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Economy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics

“This new factory [Solyndra] is a result of the Recovery Act, a result of those loans,” puled Barack Obama back in 2009. “The company received the loan and expanded their operations,” the man continues with arrogant certitude. The president really doesn’t understand how a viable market functions. The fact that Solyndra was awarded $527 million from the taxpayers (at $479,000 per temporary job created), and was seen to be doing spiffy stuff with the funds—this, thinks Obama, is sufficient to secure a profitable market for the product.

Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism (Regnery, 2007), has the goods on the racket Obama is running for green energy’s special pleaders. Obama has created a bubble worth $80 billion dollars, stolen from productive workers and funneled into these unsustainable, gangrene “revenue streams”

The waste. The theft. The thug from Chicago.

UPDATE (Sept. 15): “At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy,” reports Fox News. The companies implicate China in their uncompetitiveness. Prediction: American rent seeking will morph into a political opportunity for Donald-Trump like, bellicose synophobia. The perfect distraction.

Should the Fretboard Man Fret?

Business, Free Markets, Government, Individual Rights, Law, Music, Natural Law, Regulation, Technology

The house virtuoso does not own a Gibson guitar; he dislikes them with a passion. Being one hell of a neoclassical, instrumental guitarist, Sean Mercer has his reasons. (Listen to the YouTube posted below.) He does, however, own the following fine instruments, which are crafted with assorted hardwoods, some rare, and possibly illegal:

Carvin DC747 (Maple)
Carvin AC275 (Hawaiian Koa body & neck, Ebony bridge)
Carvin AC175 (maple, ebony)
Carvin LB76 (Curly maple)
Carvin IC6 (Walnut, maple)
Carvin NS1 classical (mahogany, ebony bridge & fretboard)
Warwick Streamer (Wenge, maple) – Germany
Warwick Double Buck (Wenge neck, Alder)
Yamaha Classical (Rosewood back & sides, Ebony, Spruce)
Jackson SL1 (maple)
Kramer Stagemaster (Maple, ebony fretboard)
Kramer Pacer (Rosewood fretboard, maple)
Dean 7 string (mahogany body, maple neck, ebony fretboard)
Brian Moore iGuitar (Rosewood fretboard, alder border)

For the possession/importation/smuggling of “rare ebony wood from India used to make some of the world’s most coveted guitars,” US federales have raided the Tennessee plants of Gibson Guitars.

The meek chief executive of Gibson Guitars, Henry Juszkiewicz, pleaded plaintively with the public: “We were not engaged in smuggling. ‘We have been importing fingerboard stock on a regular basis from India for 17 years.'”

He might have pointed to the fact that this is part of the feds’ ongoing criminalization of naturally licit behavior, and that, last he looked, ex post facto prosecutions were unconstitutional. In other words, when Gibson began importing these woods, the practice was legal. It is unconstitutional to criminalize actions that were legal when committed.

Business in the US is anything but Randian; it adopts an obsequious manner with the both the pitchfork-hoisting public and our DC Overlords.

Downsize the “Oink Sector”!

As promised, here is a piece from the CD “Electric Storm,” by instrumental guitarist Sean Mercer. Sean’s compositions were featured in Guitar Player Magazine. Wrote the great Mike Varney:

Sean’s demo showcases his skills as a producer, engineer, writer, performer, and keyboardist. His set of neo-classical instrumentals are [sic] reminiscent at times of works by Tony MacAlpine. Complex arrangements, tightly played ensemble lines, and a grand display of thematic solo work should make this tape of particular interest to neo-classical fusion fans. [Mike Varney, Guitar Player, October 1991]

Leech-In-Chief Robs Job Market

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Economy, Free Markets, Labor, Political Economy, Regulation

Robbing Peter to pay Paul impoverishes. Put differently: this month, the proverbial Peter was unable to create prosperity that would have redounded to all Americans. The leech-in-chief and the political parasites surrounding him have put in place policies which guarantee that the U.S. job market flat-lines, as it did this month. “The worst performance since last September, the Labor Department said.”

Heartbreaking are the images of “job seekers waiting to enter job fairs”—which in themselves often appear to be feel-good affairs organized by ruthless politicians eager to be perceived as doing something.

In the interim, when he’s not preparing to wow us with his words—a disappearing act would be more welcome—President Obama is hiring. He has just nominated a new bloodsucker to advise him on economics. Does Alan Krueger truly believe that fixing the price of labor via minimum wage laws is not such a bad idea? Apparently so.

Considered a form of price control, minimum wage laws create poverty by creating unemployment among the poor and unskilled. “Fixing the price of labor above the market rate or the productivity of the employee as the minimum wage does causes surpluses of labor. The jobs would exist had government not legislated them out of the reach of those who need them.”

They are the individuals in the images.

BHO is also poised to do some more taxing, printing, and borrowing.

A glimmer of good news can be gleaned from the WSJ report: “Cuts in the public sector entirely offset the private sector’s gain of 17,000 jobs.”

If only the poor people standing in line at these job fairs—often only to meet and greet a greasy politician—understood that every little slash at the “Oink Sector” helps to seed a job in the real sector.

Day-Time Tripping Over Triple A

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Elections, EU, Europe

In a world in which the written word is rapidly ceding to sound and images, good luck with finding the transcripts of President Barack Obama’s latest address. I’ve captured some of BHO’s verbal vapors for you. In responding to market madness, Obama, by the way, has said exactly what Bush or any Republican president would have said in his place—and that goes for mega Chris Christie, the Lovable Great Leader GOP devotee Ann Coulter fantasizes about.

Essentially, BHO believes that the downgrading of the US’s credit rating was a function of the country’s mischievous political shenanigans: the leadership’s wrangling over the debt ceiling, and not the debt itself.

Standard & Poor’s, the money market’s mortician, was reacting to our dysfunctional political system—to gridlock on Capitol Hill—and not to any economic reality.

US credit, says BHO, is still among the safest in the world. How does he know this? The rest of the world—Europe, Asia, etc.—are faring worse than we are. This is the sum-total of CNN and MSNBC’s “crayon level thinking”; the mantra John King USA, Ali Velshi (Egghead), Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews find persuasive.

But from the fact that the world is in bad shape it doesn’t follow that the US is better off.

BHO further galvanized the opinion of wealthy statist Warren Buffett who claims the USA deserves and quadruple A rating.

Yes, yes, we need to effect long-term changes, confirmed Zero, but we have already done all that can be done on the deficit and debt reduction fronts. The time now is ripe for “tax reform,” and mere “modest adjustments” to the large social programs (referred to for good reason as Third-Rail issues, because their reform is so popular with politicians and the people. The latter don’t ever want to be without the warmth of the government udder; the former don’t want to have to make a living in the real job market).

Reiterating the Matthews and Maddow “crayon level thinking,” Da Man went on to warn that any further cutting in government programs would … would… would—here I invite the reader to complete BHO’s warning with the most horrible scenario he can possible imagine. My choice: Donald Trump gets elected.

The president called on the country’s planners to show good will and promised the country—BEHOLD!—another committee, which, as this wily fox well knows, is one way to bury an issue for good.

Cutting the distribution machine that has crippled America’s private economy would be deadly to this very economy—so claims BHO. Thus, deficit spending on programs such as unemployment insurance must be extended. To be fair to this ass with ears, the president did tout the payroll-tax cut.