Month: May 2016

Want an Increase in Wages? Lower Corporate Income Taxes!

Lawrence Kudlow put forth the above proposition very well in an April, 2016 article in IBD.  His premise is the U.S. pays the highest corporate income taxes in the world (among developed countries) and penalizes global companies taxing them twice, thus they leave profits outside our country. No wonder companies move overseas, it isn’t the evil capitalists, it is the federal government’s lousy policies.

President Obama has given lip service to lowering these barriers but as usual has not led.

“Numerous studies have shown that the biggest beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts is the middle-income wage earners,” states Mr. Kudlow.

But let’s not look at the data, let’s create a bogey man to blame and hate. That is the refuge of poor leaders, of which we have an abundance on both sides of the aisle.

Lincoln didn’t demonize his opponents, only persistently stated his positions with reason, and love for all.  Washington did the same. We have seen leaders do this well, let’s all pray for another few to come to the front.

Someone is Killing 1,800,000 birds each YEAR-WHO?

Robert Bryce reports in the 16 May, 2016 WSJ that 1.8 million birds are being killed each year.  Three oil companies were just criminally indicted for killing six ducks and one phoebe, INADVERTENTLY by the way, CRIMINALLY INDICTED. As well they should be, by the way a Phoebe is, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(bird).

So who is going to Guantanamo for killing 1.8 million, uhhhh, NO ONE. Huh?  What gives?

Windmills kill this many each year, and by 2030 that number will triple, that is 5,400,000 birds.  Golden Eagles to the 3 ounce Phoebes.  The Wildlife Society Bulletin has given us the data.

Who will stand up for the 5.4 million, who?  My goodness, a moral and ethical dilemma for the progressives, what shall they do?

Less Free Market, More Suffering, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, et al

Brazil’s Senate just impeached Dilma Rousseff, she left office and her Vice President was sworn in as she awaits her trial. This is the result of major corruption eruptions involving the state owned oil company and other issues.

Ms. Rousseff and her party have “..dreamed their whole lives of converting Brazil into a Cuban paradise” per an article in the WSJ today by Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Margaret Thatcher.

It appears socialism has resurfaced as the Bern’s success seems to indicate. HRC has moved left (at least in her statements, she was never comfortable with Bill’s policies anyway) to obtain her life dream. Trump has certainly issued statements that indicate his lack of free market ideals, eminent domain being one.

How many times do we have learn the lesson that the bigger the organization the less effective they are allocating resources. This especially applies to governments as they have no profit/loss accountability.  In some cases a P&L analysis is not appropriate but it is in most cases.  What were the results of our investment, did we get what we expected.

Ms. O”Grady goes on, ..”But along with state ownership, the heavy regulatory burden has been a drag on growth. Protection increased under Rousseff, which added Brazilian content rules and ship building, oil drilling, etc.”  Let’s see, lets’ protect American workers by renegotiating trade deals, erecting barriers, punishing unfair traders.  Sounds like BOTH of our presumptive nominees and the remaining self described Socialist in our presidential race.

GOOD GRIEF Charlie Brown!

 

Investors’ Business Daily, May 16, 2016. “Embracing Socialism”, an editorial, details the most recent results from countries who decided that evil free market capitalism should be trashed.  Great data! France, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina. Even more interesting is to go back in time and read the quotes by progressives about how wonderful all those countries are by implementing polices that have beggared their populace. How’s this for prescient thinking, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/socialism.html

Taxes, the Rich Need to Pay More! Dammit!

Yeah, the rich get off easy say the progressives, and even Trump.  Sanders proposed plan raises taxes for all, ALL, the poorest families taxes would go up $165. The Tax Policy Center has put out data, http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/.

Today 88% of income taxes are paid by 20% of households, 12% by the rest and 45% of income earners pay NO income taxes.

Bernie Sanders and his wife pay an effective rate of 13.4% on their income of $206,000. The average “wealthy” income earner pays and average of 23.4% in income taxes. This is not including medicare, FICA, state income or sales taxes.

So what is “fair?” Some would say an equal, flat tax is fair. Some would say a VAT, or tax on all sales is fair. France tried to levy a 90% tax on millionaires, upon lots of threats to leave they backed off. Some would say let’s spend and borrow the deficit is fair, an eternal question about pros and cons (Fact, if interest rates go up 1%, the federal debt service goes up $180 BILLION a year.)  Fair is such a lousy word, very relative to each speaker. What is fair to you may not be to me. Paying taxes is patriotic, Joe Biden, I agree. What we don’t agree on is how much and how well are our dollars spent.

All of this walks past the root cause, not enough economic growth to fund the governments’ policy decisions. Meaning, the folks we elect spend more money than they take in, and we actually pay them $170,000 a year to do it!

Solution. 1. Stop spending so much. 2. Get out of the way of the economy so it can grow (tax rates-regulations-F.U.D. (fear-uncertainty-doubt)).

 

Free Speech 1, Kamala Harris 0

The above title is from a WSJ article editorial. Ms. Harris is the attorney general of California and has been trying to sue non profits to obtain lists of donors.  The case ended up in Federal court and the judge, Real-a LBJ appointee-ruled against the states’ case.

It was shown that on numerous occasions the privacy of donors, as promised by the state, was violated in their Schedule B’s.

The progressives are hot, how dare the court rule against them in what they think is “right.”  Well, a judge who applied the law, thank goodness.

May 16, 2016

The WSJ editorial page today, “The IRS’ Donor List” talks more about this, especially focusing on the right to privacy and a bill that has come out of committee prohibiting the IRS from collecting the data.

Five Big Truths about Trade

The above title is from an article in the WSJ by Alan S. Blinder. He states five truths. 1. Most job losses are not due to international trade. (Five million jobs are created and lost each MONTH. Mostly a net gain. Trade is a minor part of this volume) 2. Trade is about efficiency-and hence wages-than about the number of jobs. (When items can be made more efficiently elsewhere there is disruption and change in our labor structure. Instead of resisting it and losing in the long run, we should prepare for it so to take advantage of the change, not yell about it). 3&4. Bi Lateral trade imbalances are inevitable and mostly uninteresting. He states trade deficits mean nothing if our economy is growing, we were mercantilist for well over a 100 years. 5. Trade agreements barely affect a nations’ trade balance. (He states that populist talk from Trump, Sanders and Clinton is just that,not based on fact.)

Without healthy trade deals we would pay more for the stuff we consume every day, impacting the less well off significantly.  We can’t make T Shirts cheaper than Vietnam. Do we need fair trade deals, certainly, whatever than means. Should we do a better job of assisting workers affected by trade, certainly-Congress and administrations from both parties have not done well here.

But to color international trade as bad is just plain stupid.

An Update, The weekly Investors’ Business Daily had an editorial on the same subject, “A Lost Chance On Free Trade” on May 16th also echoing the above but also citing a YouGov.com survey that shows the largest support for global trade is among millennials, 48%.  The older you are the less support you give for trade, I think supporting the argument that trade is good, but the support for those affected must be reasonable.

Little Sisters of the Poor Say “Yes” to the Court

The above title is from an article in the WSJ by Loraine Maguire.  The Little Sisters are in court to protest offering abortion benefits to their employees.  The Supreme Court asked the Order if there was a way to provide these benefits outside of the health plan of the Order.  The Order said yes.

Wow, a solution that both sides can accept.  Those who want the benefits can get them, the sisters don’t have to include them in their plan. But wait? The government, meaning the Obama administration, said NO WAY! In other words, you must fall in line with us or we will absolutely punish you. You must think like us, or else!

This is the epitome of arrogance and abuse of power. No wonder Congress is deadlocked.  The job of a leader is to bring opposing sides together, not actively separate them.  That is called totalitarianism, fascism, etc. I have the power, I will force you to fall in line even if there is a compromising solution available.

Pope Francis took time out of his trip to the U.S. to visit the facility of the Little Sisters of the Poor to commend their work. Maybe the Justice Department will take the hint?

Lord Acton, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” 1887. Let’s not let absolute power happen. We are trending in that direction.

5/17/2016

The Supreme court has sent the case back down to the lower court, http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/supreme-court-sends-birth-control-case-back-lower-courts?utm_name=newsletters&utm_source=rollcallnewsalerts&utm_medium=email.

According to the article, it appears that both sides are willing to reach an agreement. The LIttle Sisters won’t be fined, the government will accept a change in its’ position. I spoke too soon, sense has prevailed?

Sanders Proposes Raising CO2 Levels!

That’s right! Bernie Sanders, who says Global Warming (Oops, I mean climate change, since warming isn’t) is the largest global threat (he agrees with President Obama) is proposing to INCREASE the United States CO2 emissions!

Our emissions of CO2 have been falling as a percent of GNP for a couple of decades, and in actual tons for the last ten years, https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html. China and India continue to rise and the former is the largest emitter now. The recent Paris accords allows them to continue to increase a couple of decades into our globe’s future.

Yet, Bernie wants to reverse the trend of reducing U.S. emissions! No you say! Tell me it isn’t true! How can that be! Bernie is my buddy! Well, Bernie is a science non believer, wait, science is the basis for progressive thinking I thought! Only when convenient.

Bernie wants to ban fracking. Fracking produces natural gas, a much cleaner source of electricity and industrial heating. Fracking has NEVER been associated with water table pollution, after many studies. Fracking does however involve roads where there are none today, and does involve drilling mud that has to be taken care of. But again, no long term affects.

Bernie also wants to eliminate nuclear.  He has proposed as president he will not renew any licenses. Nuclear has ZERO emissions to produce electricity.  Roughly a third of our emissions come from electricity. Think of that, no emissions for all our electricity.  We can send our coal to China and India since they are allowed to use it. Maybe in twenty years we will figure out a way to burn coal cleanly, since we have the worlds’ second largest reserves of the stuff (http://www.worldenergy.org/data/resources/resource/coal/). France produces most of their electricity from nuclear, even they think it is a good idea.  A new technology, molten salt reactors (fuelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor), is now being put into a test reactor that will use the fuel currently stored at our nuclear facilities as its’ fuel. Instead only using 5% of the fuel and storing the other 95% for 10,000 years as we currently do, this new technology will use almost all of that stored fuel requiring a “short” 100 years or so of storage.  Maybe Harry Reid will have passed on by then and the many billion dollar site we have paid for can be utilized for that short period.

Well, science loses again to fuzzy headed populist politicians.

Settled Science, Huh?

“Curt Schilling the Science Guy” is the title of an editorial by William McGurn in a recent WSJ. He said that “a man is a man no matter what they call themselves” in response to bathroom hoopla.  He has been chastised by ESPN and the “nattering nabobs..”

The article goes on to say the progressive movement loves to use science when convenient.  Climate change (no longer global warming, since it isn’t) is science based. Your gender isn’t anymore.

A fetus isn’t a person according to progressive science, yet people have been convicted of double murder when they kill a pregnant woman (was she a real woman, or a man who…).  When a progressive woman is pregnant they talk about their new baby while in utero, shouldn’t they wait until “it” really is a person?  HRC was recently criticized for saying a fetus is an unborn PERSON, heaven forbid.

Those who don’t feel science can predict our global temperature accurately, or the amount of affect man has on that temperature are now possibly in violation of the LAW, can be criminals, put in jail–Galileo must be exited to have people possibly joining him! Proposing that a different scientific view is illegal proves the adage, “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton, 1887).

Wisdom is keeping an open mind.  Is The American Mind Closing?

Israel, to support or not support, that is the question.

Israel. A nation created in 1947 by the winning allies of WW2. A “homeland” for the Jewish faith. Prior to this date “Zionists” had been moving into the area from various parts of the world as the Jews were ex-pulsed (Spain 1492), persecuted (Europe for hundreds of years), slaughtered (Germany, Russia), objects of prejudice (U.S., R.O.W.), etc. Theodor Henzi is credited with formalizing the “Zionist” movement in the late 19th century.

A democratic nation, with 80% of the population of the Jewish faith, elections are hotly contested.  The parliament flows between very conservative views to more liberal, peace with their Arab neighbors an elusive goal.

They have been attacked militarily numerous times, almost losing a couple of times. They continue to be attacked politically in the “United” (what a misnomer) “Nations” by Arab states and ankle biters, and increasingly in Europe by various groups. Antisemitism (another misnomer, Arabs are Semites also) is on the rise again.

Our current president has gone out of his way to weaken our relationship, maybe with good intent to improve our relationship with Arabic nations but with amazingly horrible results.

Israel’s foes are mostly totalitarian monarchies, many are theocracies that reject individual liberties, especially freedom of religion.

Has Israel done things that we should criticize, certainly. Settlements, guerrilla warfare, killing of innocents (Hotel David in 1946), etc.

But, should we as a country stand beside Israel?  My view is most assuredly. If a country refuses to acknowledge our right to exist, to publicly  say we should all be killed because of what we choose to believe would we rise up and resist, absolutely.

We must not be seen as supporting those who refuse to acknowledge the right for Israel to exist and call for its’ destruction.  By not vehemently opposing such a view in public, and by not imposing consequences on those who say such things, we leave Israel in the wind.

We knew about the death camps and did not act. We knew about the genocide in Rwanda and did not act. Until Pearl Harbor “America First” was the majority opinion. The KKK had millions of members at one time. Leaders are called upon to remind citizens of our moral compass. We currently lack such a leader.