Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Tyranny

If the president of the united states sacking the head of GM doesn't scream tyranny then the world is upside down. Unbelievable

Headline of the Day

"Compassionate Capitalism". From the top Huffington Post. That sounds familiar right? Compassionate Conservatism. How did that work out? Geithner did say capitalism will be different. Well here it is...long live free market capitalism!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I really wish...

24 was a movie or a three hour show. One hour is just not enough. I hope this is not the last season becuase i got a feeling Jack might die. He's been exposed to radioactive materials. We'll see. This season has definitely gotten better. Save Tony!

Berkeley Dissapointment

I've never been a big fan of UC Berkeley but I did have some serious respect for their Economics professors, at least some of them. Especially Christina Romer. BUT apparently she checked her intellect at the door to join the Hope and Change team. What a tool! How do you do a massive study and write an extensive paper on a subject and then turn around and do exactly what your hypothesis proves is wrong? Doesn't make any sense right?? Exactly! What is she smoking? Or drinking for that matter. I had some hope for her but she's a lost cause. Going on every friggin TV channel to say that she's sure "our" plan will work. Are you really? How dopey is that. It's not even a matter of "hoping [it] fails", I know it will fail. And you can quote me! I'm so frustrated with people who checked their ideology, intellect, priorities or beliefs at the door. They say one thing and do another. Useless. Where's my 1984 book?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

What's new?

Ahh, so I pull up espn.com and what do I get as the home page? A picture of Barack Obama. Seriously? Are they for real? I'm getting sick of these people. Can I go somewhere without seeing this dude's face? My gosh. It's getting worse than big brother. You turn the tv to every channel and there he is. Sickening. Over-exposure is not a strong enough to describe this. The hubris will haunt this administration down all the way to the end. Useless.

Monday, March 16, 2009

My Beef with Meaghan McCain

I don't have a problem with Meaghan McCain's weight or anything, whatever she wants for her body is her business. I don't have any special interest in her in that sense to care. My beef with her is that she seems clueless. It's funny (not really), seeing somebody all of a sudden talk about how much they "love the Republican Party". Really? She supported John Kerry in '04. That said, her dad was the failed nominee of the GOP last year and all of a sudden she's a voice of the GOP young generation....go figure! Really? If she didn't support her dad, then I would say something was obviously wrong with her. But for somebody who cannot tell us why she "loves the Republican Party", she's just another passer-by trying to use celebrity status to take a stakehold in politics. And then she whines about how conservatives are extremists. Really? I'm sorry you don't have any convictions or any principles on which you base your life but because we do, all of a sudden we're extremists. That's not it. She blabs about Ann Coulter this, Laura Ingraham being mean. Spare me. She makes people of my generation look like a bunch of idiots that just want to get along for getting along sake. And then she goes over to liberal outlets to air her problems with conservatives. Don't we have enough David Frums already? Enough. Anyhow, only thing she says is we need to be more like liberals. Newsflash Ms. McCain, we just did that with your dad. No disrespect, but he got his behind handed to him. And don't even start to blame it on Sarah Palin. Your dad's campaign was a disaster before he picked her, she salvaged whatever she could for his no convictions, liberal republican ideas. Ok, I exaggerated about the whole 'only thing she has to say' thing. She does think earmarks are bad...I wonder where she got that idea from?
My thing is, for someone to come out to say they want to be some kind of standard bearer for young republicans (i guess i don't really fall in there, since I'm just a conservative not a republican), and not have any kind of agenda other than get a "name" for themselves by attacking Ann Coulter, you should just stay home. God, I hope the rest of my generation isn't like this! I'm 21, yeah I'm out of college already, but to hear Ms. McCain talk is disturbing. To assume that conservatives are not hip enough. The conservatives I know are pretty hip and who the heck said you vote for people because their hip? Look where that got us, thanks to the Hope N Change crowd.
My hope is that she's just another David Frum and not a representation of my generation. Some of us actually have principles, believe in free markets, the constitution, family values and hardwork. And we're not ready to give that up just yet for some kind of watered down conservatism. Hopefully, our army is greater than yours, Ms. McCain and god-willing we will conquer the republican party and save it from it's utter destruction by your kind. Hopefully me and you can squash our beef soon. Cheers!

Last week's '24'

I finally got to watch the '24' episode from last week that I TIVO'd and yes, I was not dissapointed! The season is getting better. I was a bit worried at the beginning but the heat has turned up. Tonight looks even better. I have to say the wannabe Chloe chick, I really can't stand. Maybe partly because she's a big Lib but that doesn't usually make me not like actors. I think it's prob she acts entirely too paranoid it's annoying. I was pretty stunned that in the middle of the show "President Taylor" does a commercial about global warming. What is up with this hysteria? Can I watch my show and not be bombarded with bunch of whinning about saving the planet? The planet will save itself...it got here without our help right? "So shut up and Sing" (to steal Ms. Ingraham's title). No seriously, enough already.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Michael Steele

Let me say first that I like Michael Steele. That said, enough already! Can he stop doing anymore interviews...seriously. The more he talks the more he gets himself in trouble. Honestly I don't care if he's pro-choice, keep that crap to yourself. Who gives a rat, you're not running for president. I wish he gets on the job and do his 'thing'. But please, I hope he saves himself from anymore embarassment. It seems that everything he says, he has to retract. C'mon dude, you're supposed to be 'media savvy'. Hah! That's been a joke so far, I will say I thought he actually was 'media savvy'.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

God save us from government intervention!

As if we needed to be more convinced, but if we do here's more evidence:

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FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
By
Meg Sullivan
8/10/2004 12:23:12 PM
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."
In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.
"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."
Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.
In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.
Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.
"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."
The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.
Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.
Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure.
"This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?"
NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage.
"Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices."
Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found. Ohanian and Cole painstakingly documented the extent to which the Roosevelt administration looked the other way as industries once protected by NIRA continued to engage in price-fixing practices for four more years.
The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate.
NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years.
Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found.
"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."
-UCLA-

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Sounds pretty familiar...hmm

Friday, March 6, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

All is not necessarily lost

It makes sense to point out some good around here especially from our genius president since all his other plans are working so far. But i have to say Obama gave a darn good speech friday about the iraq war. he usually gives good speeches that are full of lies but this one, there was little he could lie about. His pride and unnecessary elitsm will not allow him to acknowledge how wrong he was about the surge (publicy say the words "i was wrong"), thank George Bush for having the guts to pull of the surge and stick to his guns (literally) and get the withdrawal agreement together before he left. But he's too good to admit all that. I would take his speech friday for concession. Take what you can get. Also good move pulling out of the hate israel conference...shouldn't have thought about going in the first place. I guess maybe he thought if he "reaches out", they'll "uncleach their fits"...LOL...Good luck with that. Hopefully some more realities are in stall for this genius president of ours.