Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

The US is still shedding jobs, but because it shed fewer jobs than experts predicted, stocks rose and this article wants us to think everything is rosy. How stupid do they think we are? A year and half after the crash, we're still losing jobs. The GDP and stock prices are artificially and destructively inflated by the Fed. They have no real meaning. Jobs mean something, and our economy is still going downhill. The aggregator headline called this a surprise. The word expert doesn't mean what it used to mean anymore. Expert is supposed to mean somebody who knows enough to get the predictions right, not somebody who's repeatedly surprised by reality. Another report says unemployment remains unchanged. Obviously both these reports can't be accurate. Government statistics are a fraud designed to make the government look as good as possible.

How the coming union pension plan collapse is affecting decision at the White House. With long list of collapsing pension funds.

TAX AND SPEND:

I think this essay by Mark Steyn comparing the US government's fiscal crisis to the Greek fiscal crisis is one of the weakest Steyn essays I've ever read, but people keep linking it everywhere I look, so maybe I'm wrong. I'll link it just in case. But I think others are linking it because of the subject matter, not because it's insightful or clever.

"What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe."

This is a rehash of the info in his great book, America Alone. Everywhere government dominates people's lives, the fertility rate craters. Communist countries have it worst. Japan and European welfare states next. The US is on the verge of demographic collapse under the weight of big government next.

"We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government."

I keep saying that it isn't the people working in the private sector earning a living who are greedy. Earning wealth is not greedy. Greed is taking wealth from others by force. Thieves are greedy. Aristocrats are greedy. Bureaucrats are greedy. Welfare recipients are greedy. Politically connected corporations and labor unions which use government to extract unearned benefits from others are greedy.

"The problem is there are never enough of "the rich" to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?"

That's a pretty good ending. Actually, I like the whole essay a lot better the second time around, but it's still basically a rehash of America Alone, and it lacks Steyn's usual wit and humor. Maybe the problem is not enough people read America Alone.

How come Greece suddenly doesn't need financial help and investors bought newly issued Greek bonds? Something changed, and this article isn't reporting it.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama admits Obamacare is just a next step on the road to socialized medicine.

The Heritage Foundation explains why all this talk of passing health care using reconciliation is virtually impossible. Democrats are lying to us to make us think this is fait accompli. It's not. I bet that health care won't be passed this year either, and Obama will have wasted two years of prime opportunity for oppression on this overreach. Another hurdle for House Democrats is trusting Obama and Harry Reid.

"President Obama may wind up just signing the Senate bill into law no changes whatsoever -- preserving some of the most egregious elements that made the Senate bill such a public lightning rod.

These include not just the "Cornhusker Kickback," "Louisiana Purchase" and other special-interest deals rolled into the Senate bill last December to buy wavering Democratic votes. Democrats also would have to explain all over again why 800,000 seniors in Florida will be spared Medicare Advantage cuts, while those elsewhere won't."

I bet this is Obama's real plan. Obama considers his own party to be useful idiots. They think they're making a better country through government force. Obama knows better. He's using government force to destroy America and spark a Marxist revolution. Obama thinks like Lenin - the worse the better. Obama hasn't called for reconciliation. He doesn't need reconciliation. He just needs the House to pass the Senate bill, then he can sign it into law and the deed is done. House Democrats would be fools to trust the Liar-in-Chief and Harry Reid.

Democrats hid the doc fix in the jobs bill so they could claim Obamacare is cheaper (at over $1 trillion) than it actually is.

POLICE STATE:

Interesting contrast to the response of a shooting at a government facility versus a shooting in the civilian world.

WAR:

White House considers military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Better late than never. This guy should have been tried years ago.

Man walks into the Pentagon and starts shooting. I'm afraid as government gets more oppressive by the day, this is going to become commonplace as government pushes more and more citizens over the edge. Don't expect government to reconsider why it's pushing people over the edge,  let alone reverse course. Don't they have metal detectors at the Pentagon?