Category Archives: Uncategorized

UPDATE II: News You Missed (Taxpayers Vs. Tax Consumers)

America, China, Debt, Media, Uncategorized

The ostrich press, “Bloomberg, CNN, New York Times or anywhere in the US print or TV media,” did not report it. VDARE did:

“On Thanksgiving eve the English language China Daily and People’s Daily Online reported that Russia and China have concluded an agreement to abandon the use of the US dollar in their bilateral trade and to use their own currencies in its place. The Russians and Chinese said that they had taken this step in order to insulate their economies from the risks that have undermined their confidence in the US dollar as world reserve currency.” …

“The American financial press finds solace in the episodes when sovereign debt scares in the EU send the dollar up against the euro and UK pound. But these currency movements are just measures of financial players shorting troubled EU-denominated debt. They are not a measure of dollar strength.”

MORE.

UPDATE I: The custodians of the Irish state are still better than the filth that gathers to rule us from DC. The American governing class has been unique in working against the economic interests of its countrymen and their country. (Treason?)

News comes that, “Ireland [will] endure the toughest cuts and tax hikes in its history as an unavoidable price for saving the debt-burdened nation from bankruptcy, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told lawmakers as they prepared to vote on a brutal 2011 budget.”

“Lenihan’s plan — the harshest yet of four emergency budgets unveiled since 2008 to combat a runaway deficit — contains euro4.5 billion ($6 billion) in spending cuts and euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in tax rises.”

Lenihan said income taxes would be broadened to bring tens of thousands of low-salaried workers into the tax net for the first time, while welfare payments would be cut across the board. Spending on capital projects — chiefly jobs-intensive building of roads and public transportation networks — would be cut by euro1.8 billion ($2.4 billion).

“Lenihan said Ireland had no choice but to slash spending and raise taxes immediately because the country this year is spending more than euro50 billion on regular government and at least euro45 billion to bail out its banks — yet collecting just euro19 billion this year in taxes. The staggering imbalance means an underlying deficit this year of 11.6 percent that, when bank-bailout costs are included, balloons to a modern European record of 32 percent of GDP.”

[SNIP]

I like the Irish idea of tax hikes on the poor a lot. Really. The cost of the welfare state must be felt by those who demand its spoils. Making the rich bleed for creating wealth will not ween the poor off welfare.

UPDATE II: The state has bifurcated the population into taxpayers and tax consumers. The so-called poor don’t really pay taxes as they receive in the form of assorted transfer payments from the government more than they contribute. They are net tax consumers.

The so-called rich pay all the taxes. Making the poor pay might just turn them against all the stuff they believe they are owed.

Beck’s Left The Building

Glenn Beck, Media, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist, Uncategorized

Glenn Beck believes that the blackboard has made him a philosopher king, a teacher. Most of the Glenn Beck Show, unfortunately, is now devoid of useful information. it wasn’t always so. I was, as you recall, a big Beck fan. Since I require information—news, data—I opt for Hardball. A horrible prospect, I know, but Chris Matthews’ currency, however debauched, is the news of the day. The same cannot be said for the Beck hour. Hardball also gets me the progressive perspective. I have to keep abreast of Left-liberal thinking on the issues, since it is never intuitive.

From Beck you get the following:

Sighs.
Nods.
Lots of self-affirmation (Glenn said this and that years ago).
More ego announcements and exhortations to TiVo upcoming segments
Mention of George Soros (who also recognizes Glenn for the threat he is)

Today Beck was pushing for an answer his rapt audience was unable to give him because, mercifully, they do not “think outside the box” like he does (he kept trying to get them to be as “creative”). Beck asked those present in the studio what could transpire when Germany, forced to bailout out Europe, felt backed to the wall. Of course, knowing how he thinks (and he has maligned the Europeans in the past), I knew that what Glenn wanted to hear was this: given their history, the productive and pedantic Germans could well turn to fascism if forced into an economic corner.

In the past, Beck has attempted to provide historical information. Now he only alludes to the need to know history so as not to repeat it, study it, buy books about it (his).

Other repetitive themes:

Dark times are ahead (well, dah!)
Help your neighbors.
Pray
Be true to yourself.
Be honorable
Sign up for my …

I don’t watch Oprah. Why would I watch her conservative, male counterpart? I want the old Beck back but that bloke has left the building and is levitating high above it.

I guess Judge Napolitano, on at 5:00PM at Fox Business, makes up for it all.

Summers Time

Business, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy, Uncategorized

LAWRENCE SUMMERS, director of the White House’s National Economic Politburo, says “[m]istakes on Wall Street in the mortgage area led to the subprime bubble that led to houses appreciating, that led to the situation where millions of people got loans that they were no longer able to service and faced foreclosure.”

Credit errors made on Wall Street brought financial institutions to the brink of insolvency that left no choice but to commit taxpayer funds.

Summers has the podium and the power. He does not have to be honest about the exuberance on Wall Street being part of a creative response to crippling legislation. He could come clean, but he does not have to.

And if he wishes to remain in office, he dare not admit to the force that propels the banks and the bandits in office. In the words of Bob Higgs:

“[T]he American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the impossible: home ownership for those who cannot afford homes, credit for those who are not creditworthy, old-age pensions for those who have not saved, health care for those who make no attempt to keep themselves healthy, and college educations for those who lack the wit to finish high school. Moreover, they want it now, and they want somebody else to pay for it.” …

Updated: ‘M’ Is For Moratorium (& Moron)

Economy, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Uncategorized

Any policy maker not a moron or a traitor will know what to do with respect to immigration, at a time of record unemployment among Americans. Since our representatives are almost all morons and certainly no patriots, the reality is that “Legal Immigration has Increased (YES—INCREASED!) During The Recession”:

“Any sane policy would reduce immigration as American unemployment rises. But Washington is not doing it. In the post-Crash year of 2009, the U.S. issued 1,130,818 green cards—an increase, from 1,107,126 in 2008 and 1,052,415 in 2007. In contrast, during the Great Depression from 1930-1939, we issued only 699,375 during the entire decade.

The 2009 total is the fourth highest number of green cards issued since 1914—behind 1990, 1991, and 2006. (And it is worth noting the bulk of the green cards issued in 1990 and 1991 were not given to new legal immigrants but to illegal aliens granted amnesty in 1986—so in terms of new arrivals, 2009 was actually higher.)

But most immigrant workers only create economic growth in so far as they lower labor costs for employers, possibly causing them to further invest. This effect is always much smaller than the jobs and wages immigrants take from Americans, to say nothing of the government services spent on them. However, with our record unemployment, even these marginal economic benefits disappear.

And in 2009, as always, most of the legal immigrants are low-skilled. Immigrants of exceptional ability, with advanced degrees, or investors make up a measly 8% of all immigrants combined. No doubt this has much to do with the system’s ongoing bias toward Third World immigrants through its ‘family reunification’ mechanism. Only 9.3% of all new green cards went to Europeans. In contrast, 14.6% went to Mexicans alone.

The obvious solution: a moratorium on immigration. …”

[SNIP]

To dilate on the last point about exceptional-abilities visas, read my VDARE article, “Why Aren’t The H1-B Hogs Satisfied With The O-1 “Extraordinary Ability” Visa? Oh, Wait A Minute…”

Update (April 22): Vrye Denker’s point is well taken. Refugee status or some other compassion-based visa should apply to all ethnic white South Africans. Farmers are certainly needed here. Farm workers too. However, US immigration policies—the family unification aspect—privilege Third-World “minorities.”