Category Archives: Welfare

Government Motors (GM) Is Reckless? You Don’t Say!

Business, Free Markets, Government, Law, Welfare

The greater the incursion of government into markets, the less quality control consumers are able to exert over the products they purchase.

GM (Government Motors) has been propped up by “government-backed guarantees,” on the backs of taxpayers. That’s government’s SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Government Motors was further inoculated against legal liability by filing for Chapter 11 protection, or bankruptcy.

“Immunity is pure cowardice,” complained a plaintiff. “They are hiding behind bankruptcy.”

You got it. That’s what government-supported bankruptcy did for Government Motors. It conferred “legal immunity from liability for deaths or injuries in accidents that happened before the current company was created out of the government-supported bankruptcy in July 2009. It was left free of old claims and lawsuits and those remained with ‘old GM,’ which holds assets and liabilities that did not go with the ‘new GM.'”

People have to make up their minds, for once and for all. Do they wish to rely on the benevolence of market forces or the malevolence of government force.

The Dynamics And Domino Effect Of The CBOaf

Debt, Economy, Healthcare, Welfare

OK. We don’t expect that parasitical hag Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the political retards in Washington to grasp Bastiat’s What-Is-Seen-and-What-Is-Not-Seen principle. But left off last night from Fox News’ corner of the idiot’s lantern, where looking for enlightenment is as hopeless, was the following pesky detail: Zero Care’s total of $1 trillion in tax increases and $2 trillion in subsidies for low-income individuals come from someone. Some workers are carrying this load. (Some of them live in China, where the money fairy resides.)

In fact, fewer and fewer of these workers are working harder and harder to support more and more.

The context? The latest immoral utterance to issue from the Obama White House, in the person of Press Secretary Jay Carney, and to be repeated across the liberal media: The “2.5 million Americans leaving the workforce was a good thing, because they would no longer be ‘trapped in a job.’”

Clarified by the WaPo’s occasionally factual Fact Checker, “the CBO said ACA, a.k.a Obamacare, would reduce the number of hours worked by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers by 2025. That means that workers will decide to reduce their hours, not that employers are reducing the number of jobs.”

Writes ObamaHead Dana Milbank: “The CBO predicted the law would have a “substantially larger” impact on the labor market than it had previously expected: The law would reduce the workforce in 2021 by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers, well more than the 800,000 originally anticipated. This will inevitably be a drag on economic growth, as more people decide government handouts are more attractive than working more and paying higher taxes.”

Incidentally, the mandate of the CBOafs (The Congressional Budget Oafs) is this: First they confirm government predictions of the great saving that are to be had from all government spending on welfare programs. Later, when it’s safer, they adjust their oafish and outlandish lies, so that the TV and radio mouths can continue muttering about their great authority, “Oh, the impartial CBO says this; oh, the independent CBO says that.”

* An example of a recent CBOaf nerd joke-cum-lie is this factoid: “The federal budget deficit will shrink to $514 billion in 2014, or 3 percent of GDP, CBO projects.”

Older ones include:

“CBO Confirms Families Will Save Money Under Health Reform.”

“CBO Update Shows Lower Costs for the New Health Care Law.”

“CBO Confirms: The Health Care Law Reduces the Deficit.”

That little derisive snicker made by the adorable Sheldon Cooper is in order on each account. (And this column snickers aplenty.)

POTUS Quits Pretending US Has A Constitution

Barack Obama, Constitution, Fascism, Federalism, Welfare

With my pen and phone I will free thee from want, promised the president. While I prefer not to pretend, as conservatives do, that the U.S. is still a constitutional republic; Obama could at least be polite about the poor thing, the Constitution, that is.

“We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” President Obama told reporters before a meeting with his Cabinet Tuesday. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.”

Don’t the rules specify that you are supposed to wait on legislation?

Giving (Bill) Gates The Icy Tongue-Lashing He Deserves

Business, Christianity, Gender, Judaism & Jews, Morality, Objectivism, Private Property, Welfare

The late Steve Jobs was not the only man who had no time for that excuse of a man, Bill Gates.

“[H]edge fund founder Robert W. Wilson, who [sadly] committed suicide over the weekend,” had nothing but contempt for the patronizing Gates (who is also a racist and a statist).

Mr. Wilson, “one of the most active philanthropists in the country”—“over the course of his career he donated an estimated $500 million to various causes”—refused to join what he termed Bill Gates’ “worthless Giving-Pledge” charity—as if Gates’ showy, sanctimonious, very public efforts are the way to give.

Quite the opposite:

The righteous give secretly. The pious give publicly. Accustomed to the hedonism of Hollywood and the exhibitionism of cable news anchors, it may surprise some to learn that the manner in which most Americans give satisfies the exacting standards of righteousness specified by Maimonides. The 12th century Jewish philosopher stipulated that the highest form of charity is practiced when “donor and recipient are unknown to each other.” This is self-explanatory.
Observe how in no time at all, Brangelina, Madonna, Clooney, Lady GaGa …, and Gisele Bundchen advertised the sums they gave. …

(From “Haiti: Trade In Voodoo For Values”)

On BuzzFeed you can puke your way through Bill Gates’ paternalistic, condescending verbose missives to the late Mr. Wilson. Here I’ve posted only Wilson’s “caustic” replies (courtesy of BuzzFeed):

From: Robert W. Wilson
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 12:16 PM
To: Bill Gates
Subject: Re: Giving Pledge discussion

Mr. Gates, I decided more than ten years ago to try to give away 70% of my net worth and have already given away one-half billion dollars. (I’ve never been a Forbes 400) So I really don’t have to take the pledge.

Your “Giving Pledge” has a loophole that renders it practically worthless, namely permitting pledgees to simply name charities in their wills. I have found that most billionaires or near billionaires hate giving large sums of money away while alive and instead set up family-controlled foundations to do it for them after death. And these foundations become, more often than not, bureaucracy-ridden sluggards. These rich are delighted to toss off a few million a year in order to remain socially acceptable. But that’s it.

I’m going to stay far away from your effort. But thanks for thinking of me. Cordially

When the vapid Gates disgorged more empty words, the admirable Mr. Wilson put an end to the discussion. Decisively:

——- Original Message ——-

From: Robert W. Wilson

To: Bill Gates

Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 4:15 PM

Subject: Re: Giving Pledge discussion

Mr. Gates, thanks much for your email. But as my previous email indicated, I wouldn’t have much fun or add much value to this group. You, being a liberal, think you can change people more than I think.

But let me make one comment. When I talk to young people who seem destined for great success, I tell them to forget about charities and giving. Concentrate on your family and getting rich—which I found very hard work. I personally and the world at large are very glad you were more interested in computer software than the underprivileged when you were young. And don’t forget that those who don’t make money never become philanthropists.

When rich people reach 50 and are beginning to slow down is the time to begin engaging them in philanthropy.

I’d greatly appreciate just leaving it at that. Cordially

What a shame that steely Randian men such as Robert W. Wilson are a dying breed, and creepy androgyny like Bill Gates are multiplying.