Thrilled with the idea

 Bash the Messenger  No Responses »
Apr 092008
 

There is talk about CBS hooking up with CNN. CNN would do the reporting, while CBS would provide the on-camera airheads.

That would be a shame. How could CBS possibly replace the reportorial talent it has in places like Albany, New York, where their people report that NYC “commuters are thrilled with the idea” of a millionaire’s tax to fund transportation. It doesn’t even need to conduct a poll to know this. All it needed was two quotes.

Oh, well. If the deal with CNN goes through , these reporters can probably get jobs at Gallup and Zogby, and save those companies tons of money by teaching them how to come up with results without doing expensive polling.

But I hope it doesn’t happen until they’re done cheerleading New York City into enacting this millionaire’s tax. Some of those millionaires will need a place to go, and here in Michigan we could use more people like that on our tax rolls.

Start here with price controls

 Free markets  No Responses »
Apr 062008
 

I probably should credit someone for putting a great idea in my head, but I don’t remember who. Maybe it’s George Will, who got me thinking about price-fixers such as Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.

With the command-and-control propensity of contemporary liberalism, Clinton predictably advocates a policy that has a record, running from Roman times to the present, that is unblemished by success. It is the policy of price controls: Her proposed five-year freeze on interest rates would be a control on the price of money.

Despite this “unblemished” record, there are probably people out there who think they are smart enough to make such controls work.

Well, if they’re so smart, let them practice on their own, first. Some of us think government is too expensive. Let them put a freeze on the amount of money government is allowed to take in. No cuts in “services,” no layoffs, just put a freeze on the price of government. Then, after they use their brilliance to get that to work, they can talk to us about putting freezes on private-sector transactions.

Help Hillary fight

 Regulation  No Responses »
Apr 052008
 

I am told (over at SCSU Scholars) that Hillary Clinton was talking about the minimum wage on Jay Leno. She claims a boy told about her mother. The minimum wage was raised, then her hours were cut, so she isn’t making any more money. Hillary says we need to fix that.

I agree, and am willing to join her in that fight. Here are some ways:

  • Cut business taxes so businesses will have more money to pay those higher wages (which they won’t do willingly, of course, but will do when competition forces them to do so).
  • Cut individual income taxes so people will have more money to pay the costs that businesses attempt to pass on to consumers.
  • Vote price-controlling politicians out of office this fall.

A plan for more federal bailouts

 Regulation  No Responses »
Apr 052008
 

There’s a lot not to like about Henry Paulson’s plan for a federal powergrab for the financial services industry, but here’s one I hope people will be thinking about:

The proposals include calls for a federal insurance charter that would allow big insurers — which are currently regulated by the states — to more easily operate nationally.

In other words, this would let the bigger insurers squeeze out the smaller ones, creating monster corporations that will be too big to be allowed to fail, and which will therefore be eligible for federal bailouts.

Florida backlash?

 Bash the Messenger, electoral politics  No Responses »
Apr 032008
 

I’ll bet they’re making it up.   Not a single bit of evidence is cited, and the reporter doesn’t say whether she even asked for any.   Do they have even one example of a Florida voter who says she’ll be so angry about the delegation not being seated that she’ll vote Republican?   Even Democrats tend to be more clearheaded than that.   Is this anything other than the best, lame rationalization that Howard Dean could come up with?

WSJ: Democrats Fear Florida Backlash

Democratic leaders fear that if Florida’s delegation isn’t seated, voters may feel robbed of their primary votes and take out their frustrations on the Democrats in the fall.

A more accurate news item would have said, “Howard Dean claims to fear that if Florida’s delegation isn’t seated…”

Guide to presidential candidates

 electoral politics  No Responses »
Apr 032008
 

Here’s a brief guide to the presidential candidates.  I threw Al Gore in because of Dick Morris’s article.

If Hillary Clinton is president, she’ll wake up every morning thinking about how she’s going to grow the welfare-police state.

If Barak Obama is president, he’ll wake up every morning thinking about how he’s going to grow the welfare-police state.

If Al Gore is president, he’ll wake up every morning thinking about how he’s going to grow the welfare-police state.

If John McCain is president, he’ll wake up every morning thinking about how he can knife conservatives in the back, or pick some scab on a conservative wound that’s just started to heal.   He’ll do other things, too, but that will be his top priority.

Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act

 Regulation  No Responses »
Apr 022008
 

I learned about the “Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act” from townhall.com writer Johnnie B Byrd.   I like it, and I like the new compact fluorescent bulbs.   We’ve started using them a lot at home because of the economics.  But it seems that Congress is scared to death that people will find out that markets can work, so found it necessary to make them mandatory.

Until now I had not ever heard of Michele Bachman, U.S. Representative from Minnesota’s 6th district, who proposed this measure.   From reading the wikipedia article about her I see a few things that make me nervous, but anyone who can propose a law like this can’t be all bad.

And to think I used to live in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which is part of her district.  When I was living there back in the 70s we had a leftwing Democrat as our congressman.  I don’t remember his name, but I remember being told that he had shown up at a manufacturing plant where I was working, to stick his nose in some labor business, and was told by the plant manager to get the hell off of the property.    I like living in a country where plant managers can tell members of Congress to do that without having to live in fear of retribution.   In this particular case, I actually sympathized somewhat with the unionized workers, but I heartily approved of the plant manager’s action.

Pressures for change

 Human rights  No Responses »
Apr 012008
 

“The Olympics will only intensify the ‘pressures for change,'” they said. Matthew Continetti at The Weekly Standard (“Gold Medal in Tyranny“) recounts this and all the other rationalizations as to why it was good that China would host the Olympics. And he points out how the results have been just the opposite of what was predicted.

I think it could have worked out the way the apologists wanted. The trouble is, there too many people are so eager to make money dealing with China that they are willing to overlook or even cooperate in repression. It’s to the point that the pressure is not so much on China, as that the the pressure is on western companies who want to get in on the China business. Under those conditions, our freedoms will become more like those of China than vice versa.

Google greed

 Bash the Messenger, Free speech  No Responses »
Apr 012008
 

This is sick. Google defends its practice of pre-censoring content for the Chinese government, but in the case of a gang rape that was put on YouTube, it doesn’t want to perform the same role. There it wants to be treated as a communications tool rather than a broadcaster. Though it may all seem hypocritical, Google is actually being very consistent. It consistently follows the route of greatest greed. (“Google mistake over YouTube ‘rape’ video“)

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