Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Once again, Peter Schiff tells it like it is, and it isn't pretty.

"However, politics quickly trumped economics, and the Lehman trial balloon soon turned into the Hindenburg. Washington had no stomach for the ensuing financial carnage, and when other institutions began to topple, Bush, Paulson and Bernanke abandoned their prior convictions and threw all they had into the ensuing bailout bonanza. As a result, the moral hazard that they had sought to avoid now exists on a scale unprecedented in our history. Capitalism has been extinguished on Wall Street, and our financial institutions now exist as public utilities. The presidents of our biggest banks are now the highest paid civil servants in the world!"

This can end only one way, and we're all going to be far worse off for it.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama claims that mandating people get insurance and fining them if they don't isn't effectively a tax increase. What would you expect him to say? It's government taking money from people by force. It's a tax.

Perfect example of how paying for you own health care saves money.

There is no right to health care. It's fiction created by people who want to take power from others.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Naturally the UN wants to replace the dollar as the world's international currency with a new currency run by a world-wide central bank. That way it can destroy all the world's economies at once. One world communist government.

POLITICS:

Civility is overrated. The politicians of both parties love civility because it lulls the people to sleep and enables them to run roughshod over our rights. It takes some incivility to wake the people up to fight for their rights. I prefer the latter to the former any day.

"This new focus on civility is meant to cloud another issue. Let's not confuse personal civility with political civility. A "civil" citizenry can mean a pliable citizenry, waiting—sometimes forever—to speak their minds.
We have no duty to say "please" and "thank you" to elected officials. Not yet."

For all those people who are ignorant of history and think we're more uncivil than ever, go tell it to Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.

People didn't just discover that Obama was black in August. They're just fed up with the growth of government.

FOREIGN POLICY:

George Will wonders if nation building failed in Bosnia despite all it's advantages, how we can expect it to succeed in Afghanistan with all its liabilities.

Obama ups the ante in trade war with China with tariff on Chinese tires, no doubt a gift to his union buddies.

"China has not been competing unfairly on tires — just more effectively, mainly because of its far lower labor costs. As a result, its tire exports to the United States tripled from 2004 to 2008. Four United States tire factories have shut down since 2006, with more to follow."

So change was happening, unprofitable businesses were closing down in favor of profitable businesses, but Obama wants to stop change. He's the anti-change candidate.

Pretty good analysis of the eastern European missile defense plan canceled by Obama. Missile defense is a wonderful technology we should continue to aggressively advance, but using it to lock ourselves into a commitment to defend ex-Soviet satellite states is a terrible idea.

"Even if Obama didn't win specific concessions from the Russians, he still made the right decision. Saving money and avoiding needless antagonism of Moscow are victories in and of themselves."

I agree, but I think Obama could have won something from Russia in exchange.

MISC:

Blagojevich's defense for selling Obama's senate seat: he was trying to get important legislation passed for the people of Illinois. Politics is corruption.

My position on net neutrality is evolving. Sure, it would be wonderful if internet service providers could provide unlimited bandwidth to every provider and customer, but bandwidth is a scarce resource like any other, and rationing is inevitable. I would rather have competing service providers in the private sector ration bandwidth than the government. Of course that assumes unrestricted competition which government doesn't allow right now.

It'll be interesting to compare the coverage of this small Muslim march on Washington to the non-coverage of the gigantic tea party last weekend.