America's Funniest Congressional Videos

I think a show called America's Funniest Congressional Videos might do pretty well on prime time tv. It would seem, in this video, that the interviewer's Miami Vice tie thinks more logically than does Harry Reid, leader of the democratic party.

Hey as long as you don't accept someone else's "phraseology", I guess it's okay to be full of BS. If you are a thinking person, then watching that last video is probably going to make you need this next video to ease the sudden onset of I-need-to-voluntarily-beat-some-sense-into-a-liberal syndrome (symptoms may include nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea...not to mention shrinkage, swollen glands, and/or any of the symptoms mentioned here). Thanks for voting, Nevada!

Ouch, Dennis! Totally harsh

Wonder Land

Daniel Henninger has always been one of my favorite writers at the WSJournal. Here is today's excellent article on Democrats vs. the Private Sector.

Dear AIG, I Quit!

Jake DeSantis, former EVP of AIG, does the work of defending the legitimate, contractually obligated bonus payments that AIG CEO Edward Liddy refused to do before Congress... and DeSantis does it in the pages of the New York Times. The faux outrage and ridiculous posturing (not to mention not-so-veiled threats and the confiscatory "tax") by elected officials who knew about the bonus payments months ahead of time is almost criminal.
See more here.

Daydream Believer

Cheer up sleepy Jean! And read VDH's article here: Thoughts about Depressed Americans. Now then, since our government is apparently spending trillions of dollars to do whatever it thinks is necessary to babysit the American public and bail out the global financial system that surely couldn't survive without Uncle Sam's overbearing mothering instinct to dote over it (i.e. worsen/prolong its condition), I've decided to just throw my hands up in the air for this post and link to something that's just peaceful and nice that I found online. Since they have the "power of the purse", I dedicate this to Congress, the real Daydream Believers.

Ok, nobody breathe

Or drive. Or cook. Or participate in a dynamic world economy. Heaven knows, we wouldn't want the globe to ever emerge from its recession.

In fact, why don't all of us just go ahead and die so we can STOP SCREWING UP THE BLOODY MOTHER EARTH, EH?

...um.

Sorry. Won't happen again.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

From the webcomic XKCD.

The Law of Unintended Consequences, a continuing series

I have no idea what number we're up to now. I think the basic rule of this Law is, if you do something in haste, in an emotional state, you are 100% more likely to do something that has (multiple) negative unintended consequences.
That said, here's this week's installment.

If the "TARP bonus" bill the House passed today becomes law, any of the hundreds of thousands of people who work for Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, and nine other major US corporations will have to fork over 90 cents of every bonus dollar that puts their household income over $250,000.

That's household income, not individual income.* If you're married and filing singly, you'll have to surrender anything over $125,000. Indefinitely.

(h/t MR)

Brilliant

Read article by Walter Williams, "Prosperity Lost".

AIG Bonus Payments, part II

What did I tell you yesterday?
New York Times:

A.I.G. executives said they would never have proceeded with the bonus payments before getting approval from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

“We would never make any important business decisions without discussing them with our government managers and owners,” said one executive, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

This quote is in reference to the bonus payments. How much more, then, would "important business decisions" like $100B in back-door bailouts to AIG's partner banks, governmental entities, and foreign-owned corporations be discussed with their "government managers and owners"? Given the amount of money that was moved around in the AIG shell game, and the ultimate recipients of that money, it is almost inconceivable that AIG's government minders did not approve of it.

Remember too, these bonuses were contractually mandated...and they might just be a poison pill.

AIG's bonus payments

Ok, so let me get this straight. So the man who runs the perpetually-PR-challenged insurance giant AIG was hand-picked by the US Government.
The US Government (that would be you, me, and the other taxpayers) now owns 80% of AIG.
I don't know about you, but if I own 80% of a business and I hand-pick the guy to manage my operation's day-to-day activities, I would want to know about any substantial cash outlays he was planning to make.
And in fact, AIG is subject to a wide variety of regulators (insurance, banking, securities) as well as increased public scrutiny due to the $170,000,000,000+ in taxpayer bailouts AIG has received to date.
So you look me in the eye and tell me that the $100B+ that went out the back door to almost 80 companies and municipalities (including $37.5B to four foreign-owned banks) went entirely without notice and approval by that very same US Government, I will tell you that you are deluding yourself.
AIG is a convenient scapegoat, and the money made it to its intended destinations (including politically powerful Goldman Sachs, and the Democrat-held state of California). Who intended said money to go to those places is up for debate, but I assure you every penny of it went on purpose, directed by the actual owners of the company (the people who run our Government).

The outrage over the $1B in (contractually mandated) bonus payments is way of saying "hey, look over here! not over there!" Don't believe it? Sound too conspiracy-theorist to you? See if the media and politicians can work up any anger over back-door bailouts of foreign-owned banks. You won't find it.

On Homosexuality

I was recently asked by a friend to consider supporting an effort to keep a law from passing that would legally divorce homosexual men and women that had formed legal marriages. My friend included the following link:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce

My response to my friend follows (feel free to disagree and comment if you would like):

"I just wanted to respond to your request regarding the petition related to homosexual marriage. It was a cool and touching video. Catchy song too. I want to preface what I have to say by telling you that I believe very strongly that persecuting a person for his beliefs or his state of being is uncharitable, often hypocritical, and un-Christian. It can be evil even when done under the auspices of Christianity. Simultaneously, however, the unbiased acceptance of all beliefs is unnecessary and sometimes potentially dangerous.

I wanted to respond to your email in a purely logical sense, neglecting morality and emotions per se. Not that I think morality or emotions to be unimportant, but they are probably not effective arguments, either pro or con, in this case [since most homosexuals probably do not consider homosexuality to be a moral issue]. First, let me say that I don't agree with this "divorce" idea of Ken Starr's (though I haven't studied his motivation or his argument for it), however, neither do I support gay marriage at this time.

I find it hard to actively support gay marriage for the following reasons which you are welcome to debate me on if you wish because it's important to me to solidify and challenge my beliefs in this way:

1. I do not find that homosexuals are treated with inequality. If anything, this lifestyle is abstracted and glorified in our society.

2. Homosexuals are not a minority in the way that a certain race can be a minority or a so called "protected class"; the logical difference being the concept of choice. There is an obvious sense in which homosexuals choose their actions and outcomes whereas a black man doesn't choose his pigmentation. This choosing is where morality enters in, though there is no need to mention that here. The point being that there is no morality without choice which is why it is obvious that being black, white, or whatever cannot be inherently good nor evil.

3. It seems intuitive that homosexuality is nothing more than a psychological reaction (which may or may not include some genetic predisposition) which precedes choices which either reinforce or redirect homosexuality. The question is: a reaction to what?

4. It seems biologically obvious that homosexuality is an anomaly which serves no evolutionary purpose which is further evidence that it is a misdirected reach for the basic human sexual and companionship needs.

5. Finally, regarding homosexual marriage; it seems to me that this concept is, in a way, analogous to me wanting to marry two women. I may feel very strongly that I must marry them both, however, this is neither legal nor necessary. My rights are not being oppressed because I have the same rights as everyone else. Similarly, homosexuals have all of the same rights that heterosexuals do. There is some sense in which gay marriage is a perversion of marriage. Once redefined, marriage will be increasingly more malleable, incorporating beliefs further and further from its original meaning. The key is that supporters of gay marriage must believe the assumptions that homosexuality is both natural and unintentional from a biological, psychological, and spiritual standpoint. I am not convinced of that at this time.

I appreciate you thinking of me for this, and I'm sorry I can't support you on this particular thing right now. Hope you're doing great, and I'll be happy to discuss things further with you if you like."

Not a surprise

Due to a number of factors (congressional overreach tops among them), banks are actively turning down TARP injections and now giving TARP money back to the Treasury.

Other banks have suggested that the recently passed stimulus package, which included a measure aimed at reining in bonuses for senior executives and top earners at banks that got TARP funds, would harm their firms even further.

"We believe participation in TARP has created a competitive disadvantage for TCF and it is in the best interest of our shareholders to redeem these shares," said TCF Chairman and CEO William Cooper in a statement when the company announced its plans last week.

Many bankers are also troubled by the inconsistency in the government's rescue efforts so far. Others worry that regulators or lawmakers could change the accompanying terms of the government's capital purchase program as they see fit in the future.

For example, some fear that banks which have received TARP funds could be pushed to make certain types of loans or fulfill some sort of loan quota, following the ongoing public outcry that banks are not lending.

"The biggest issue is just the fact that the rules can change," said Alan Avery, a partner in the financial services group at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

And the stupid quote of the day:

Yet another unanswered question is what will Treasury actually do with the refunded money.

Um. How about paying down the deficit you enlarged by doing this deal in the first place?

Command of the English Langauge

Classical liberal writer (and one of my favorite bloggers) Jeff Goldstein has a great piece up at HotAir that rated a mention on the Mark Levin show last night. It's a long-ish post, but well worth your time.

Before They Were Stars

The greatest band you've never heard of is Seven Bald Wookies.
Here they are, in all their sad little glory, covering Collective Soul's Runcirca 2002.

That was an acoustic guitar, a little tiny pair of (fake) bongos, and a headset microphone plugged into the computer. Fun times had by all.

Fun times.

The Virtue of Capitalism?

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

How much is a trillion dollars?

This much.

A trillion dollars is about the total amount collected in income taxes by the U.S. federal government in fiscal year 2006-- $1.04 trillion, if you're curious to use the exact number. That gives me a simple rule of thumb for personalizing these numbers. If I want to know what an additional trillion dollars in government borrowing or spending will mean for me, I just imagine what it would be like to pay twice as much in federal income taxes for one year.

So, for example, with the President's proposed budget calling for deficits of $1.75 trillion for 2009 and an additional $1.17 trillion for 2010, after 3 years of paying twice as much as I paid in 2006, I'd have about paid off my share of the bill for the first two years of the proposal.

Read the whole thing.

Disincentives to work

Taxes are always and everywhere a creator of inefficiency: inefficiency of supply, inefficiency of demand, inefficiency of labor. Michellen Malkin comments today on an article from ABC News about how people making more than the magical $250,000 Obama threshold are looking at ways to make $249,999.
This is my favorite quote, and it's straight out of Economics 101:

Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama's plan.

"I've put thought into how to get under $250,000," said Poczatek. "It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off."

"Generally it means being less productive," she said.

It's not just the increase in the tax rate at the quarter-million dollar mark, it's also Obama's proposed itemized deductions reduction. Some of those proposed changes include lower deductibility percentages on charitable contributions and mortgage interest. The former will significantly hurt the non-profit industry since the typical large donor is also a high income earner. The housing market will also take a(nother) hit if mortgage interest is not deductible to the full amount. It wouldn't necessarily be an incentive to sell an existing home, but it would likely be a consideration as to the purchase of a larger versus a smaller home.
Who would actually be able to do this? My guess is small business owners who make between $250-300k are the most likely candidates. Much more than that, and voluntary decrease in income exceeds the avoided tax hit. Anyone who has the ability and desire to change their annual income to a large degree, such as consultants, sales reps, or those living on investment income, have an opportunity. Don't underestimate how many people we're talking about here. The aggregate job loss (see quoted text above) plus the loss of money flowing through the system (because when people don't bring in the income, they don't spend it either)...it's just one more straw on the economic camel's back.

O BAM AMERICA!!!

To follow up on Chris' post below... Is it not a fact that the top earners in our country are also the top employers and biggest taxpayers? Does a vampire never tire of sucking the blood of its victims until there is nothing but bone? Will liberals simply feed off of this country until, finally, with no other victims left, they turn on themselves? President Obama's preacher once said "Goddamn America!" Let's hope he didn't get his wish.

A tax for the rest of us

Mr. The One famously said he wanted to raise taxes on only the top 5% of earners in this country. Well, sir, when you screw with the energy system of America, bad things happen - and they happen to 100% of Americans.

From the mouths of babes...

Dude. Dude.
(He says in a decidedly non-eloquent way, in stark contrast to the gem of rhetoric espoused by this 13 year old young man.)