It's A Wild And Wacky World....And That's Just In The US

Why are the Newspapers going bankrupt?

You'd think that they'd be able to focus a lot of eyeballs on their pages and advertising, with all the riveting stories they could print, if they'd just be a little journalistic.  It's gotten to be that the real difficulty is what topic to comment on, as there's so many to chose from.  

Not a surprise is that all the news is "old news", in that we've seen it all before.
Please, spare me the shock.... 

• Surprise that Gov. Blagojevich awarded lucrative state contracts to large donors, in addition to "selling" Obama's open Senate seat?  
• Rahm Emmanuel "discussing" Obama's replacement with Gov. Blago? 
•  Raised-eyebrows over Obama selecting nominees for Cabinet positions who are married to big-time lobbyists, despite demonizing them throughout his campaign?  
• Bill Richardson facing a Grand Jury probe on the awarding of contracts to donors (this issue is getting redundant).  
• Ponzi schemes like Madoff's work, especially with the wealthy.
  
• The UAW blaming the Republicans for not getting a Senate agreement on the Big 3 Bailout.

But, there are a few topics this week that deserve further comment.  

• The Democrats are thumbing through those old worn pages of their play book to come up with today's plan.  They, and Obama, are particularly fond of the old idea of "make work" jobs.  They're proposing a Trillion Dollars worth of wealth redistribution, primarily from non-union workers to union workers and their unions, all in the name of infrastructure.  This issue took center stage in the Democrat's campaign to "let no crisis be wasted" as Rahm Emanuel phrased it,  when the bridge in Minneapolis crashed; not due to lack of maintenance or decrepitude, but just poor initial design.  But, who cares about that, or the fact that the Federal Excise Tax on gasoline, collected to maintain the highways, has collected more than $1.34 trillion since 1977 (after adjusting for inflation), in gasoline tax revenues— by the way, that is more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period.
  

The fact that this approach to Government spending it's way out of a recession has never worked, not even in the Democrat's Golden Period during the "New Deal", is immaterial to them.  When the Government sucks capital out of the market, that capital is put to inefficient and wasteful ends, and deny's capital to more efficient and economically beneficial opportunities.  I can't think of anything that the government does better than the private sector except make war (and even there, Blackwater has been producing some effective competition)

• Along the same path, the Democrat's attempt to create an "Auto Czar" who would wrestle the Big 3 back to profitability, is just another version of Socialism.  We've had Democratic Socialism in Western Europe, totalitarian socialism in Eastern Europe, Fascist Socialism in WWII Germany and Italy, atheistic socialism,  and "scientific socialism" in the Soviet Union.  None of which was ever effective in anything but in destroying wealth.  So, if we wanted to be accurate, the Democrats should really call this position the "Auto Commissar" .  It would be much more fitting.
  
  Can you imagine the dismal prospects of the Big 3 Auto Companies if Congress starts to play with managing them....and they will, if they have the slightest chance.  Our product choices will come right out of the "Green" Catechism.  We'll have cars that look like a Citroen 2CV with solar collectors on the rear.
  
  Even French President Sarkozy has had to dodge a report his government produced that found that....there is not much future in the much vaunted developed of all electric-powered cars. Instead, it suggests that the traditional combustion engine powered by petrol, diesel, ethanol or new biofuels still offers the most realistic prospect of developing cleaner vehicles. Carbon emissions and fuel consumption could be cut by 30-40 per cent simply by improving the performance and efficiency of traditional engines and limiting the top speed.  Overall, the Syrota report says that adapting and improving conventional engines could enhance their efficiency by an average of 50 per cent.
  
  
• Of course, in order to pay for this proposed $Trillion in Government "Newer Deal", taxes need to be raised on business and "on the rich".  But we all know that never happens, because businesses don't pay taxes - they just pass them on, and the rich can structure their affairs so that they don't pay it.  The actual impact falls on the 'not-rich'.  And, when that happens, tax revenues fall, because remember, we tax things that we want less of.  So, whatever is taxed, there will be less of, and of course fewer of the people who made those items will be employed, so we'll need even more tax revenue to support those folks....you can see where this is going, can't you (As an aside, think about the results of the Democrats' [who support workers] absurd demonization of the Auto Exec's private planes.  The companies who make those planes will sell less, thereby losing revenues, laying off workers, buying less from other businesses where the same effects will now be felt; the workers who maintained those planes will be laid off; and all the stockholders, including Union pension plans, will lose value.  Great job, guys!  Keep it up!)
  
  Since we'll now have to increase taxes on business, our goods will be more expensive to overseas customers.  They'll buy less, and the previous aside will kick in once again.
  
• Nicholas Kristof, writing in the NY Times , had a fantastic suggestion for Obama in his selection of a candidate for a new Secretary of Agriculture, change the title to Secretary of Food! This is the best suggestion that I've heard yet, for as we all now know, "word's mean things".
  
  Maybe this title change and re-focus would also help get rid of Al Gore's mandates to produce ever-increasing amount of corn ethanol, a prime factor in this past year's food inflation, as well as fuel cost increases.

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

 An industrial farm with 5,000 hogs produces as much waste as a town with 20,000 people. But while the town is required to have a sewage system, the industrial farm isn’t.

“They look profitable because we’re paying for their wastes,” notes Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. “And then there’s the cost of antibiotic resistance to the economy as a whole.”

One study suggests that these large operations receive, in effect, a $24 subsidy for each hog raised. We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon?

And, last but not least.... 

•  Seth Borenstein and Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello wrote a piece bemoaning the fact that the incoming Obama Administration has little time left to thwart Global Warming.
  

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it. "The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," Obama said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice-Pres. Gore.

 The following from the National Weather Service ...

THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
ON DECEMBER 14TH DROPPED TO -18 AT 635 PM AND NEVER DROPPED
BELOW -18 PRIOR TO MIDNIGHT.  SO THAT ESTABLISHES A NEW 
RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 14TH BREAKING THE
OLD RECORD OF -14 DEGREES SET IN 1901.  
THEN ON DECEMBER 15TH...THE TEMPERATURE BOTTOMED
 OUT AT -19 DEGREES AT 231 AM. THIS IS A NEW RECORD 
LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 15TH  BREAKING 
THE OLD RECORD OF -6 SET IN 1951.

And this from the Great Fall's Tribune :


White Sulphur Springs reported 29 degrees below zero to the National Weather 
Service today, stretching way beyond the last daily record low of 17 degrees 
below zero set in 1922.

The actuality is that Obama has little time to act on 
Global Warming and CO2 because the obvious reality 
of that scam is begining to be effectively exposed.

We'll leave the topic of Caroline Kennedy replacing Hillary 

as Senator from NY for a later post. Too much hilarity in 

that for right now.