Obama the Honest

Well, at least he stopped pretending...

Statists (both Conservative and Leftist) fallaciously believe that the role of the US President is to "govern". To "get things done". They are wrong, because no president can do that. All that a president can do is "do no harm". He can use the power of veto to reduce the Congress's encroachments on Americans' liberties. The best presidents in the US history have done exactly that.

But Obama has even retreated from (pretending to occupy) those lines. Now he has admitted that he got the job description wrong. The purpose of the president is not to get "things done". It's to bullshit the American public into a sense of national unity:

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president told CBS television in an interview, "the mistake of my first term — couple of years  — was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right.

"And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times ..."

So, keeping in mind that the government that governs least governs best (simply because everything that the government does will be harmful a priori), if all that Obama does in his second term is "tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism" (I guess someone watched The King's Speech), he will join the ranks of the best American presidents.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's all that he will do...

(By the way, if you were wondering why I haven't been posting for a while, it's because, b"H, I had a baby girl born on Shabbos, Gimmel Tammuz. Now that the baby is toilet trained, walking, and talking, I have more free time on my hands and will try to start posting again...)

Is it proper for a Jew to have a driver’s license?

[A re-post]

Following the topic of dealing with the outside world, here’s some news from Jerusalem:

Four students were expelled from the Tiferet Israel yeshiva in Jerusalem after it became known that they had obtained driver’s licenses in violation of the yeshiva’s rules.
The decision triggered a heated debate among the ultra-Orthodox public surrounding the question of the legitimacy of owning a license.
After learning that some of their students might have taken driving lessons, the yeshiva heads conducted a thorough investigation and even contacted the Transportation Ministry on the matter.
“Anyone can call the Transportation Ministry, give an ID number and inquire whether that person owns a driver’s license,” one of the students explained.
Following the inquiry, the yeshiva heads convened to discuss the “problematic phenomenon” and eventually decided to immediately expel any student who is in possession of a license.
The rabbis told the students that they could be readmitted once they have their license revoked.
However, one of the expelled students was later readmitted after the rabbis found out that he got the license to help his crippled father.
Most ultra-Orthodox rabbis oppose the notion of a haredi person getting a license. “It’s inappropriate for a person who defines himself learned in the Torah to have a driver’s license,” a prominent rabbi told the yeshiva director when the latter came to consult him on the issue.

From the Rebbe’s book of everyday thoughts, Hayoim Yoim (7th of Kislev):

There are three schools of thought:

1. The discipline of nullification of the material by indicating the repulsive and abhorrent nature of all that is bodily and material. This is the school of Mussar.
2. The school of recognition of the superiority of the “inner form” and the spiritual — the dimension of character-traits and intellectuality — and instruction as to how one may come closer to attaining these. This is the school of Chakira, philosophy.
3. The discipline of predominance of form over matter. This school teaches the unique quality of the material when it is purified, and the unique quality of “form” when integrated with the material; the two are to be so thoroughly fused that one cannot detect where either of them begins or ends — for “Their beginning is wedged into their end, and their end into their beginning”. The One G-d created them both, and for one purpose — to reveal the light of Holiness of His hidden power. Only both of them together will complete the perfection desired by the Creator. This is the school of Chassidus.

From the talk given on motzei Shabbos, parshas Yisroi, 1984:

The last Mishna in the Ethics of the Fathers states: “All the Holy One, blessed be He, created in this world, He created only for His glory.” [...]

This Mishnah answers those who question the use of modern advances in technology for the sake of Torah. They frown upon the use of radio in disseminating Torah, claiming that since their predecessors were able to learn Torah and teach it to others without its use, it should not be used now [...].

Learning Tanya on the radio is a manifestation of the dissemination of the wellsprings of Chassidus to the outside. Through the radio, the actual wellsprings of Chassidus are spread instantly to every place in the world, engulfing the “outside” in the wellsprings — and thereby purifying the “outside”. It is the preparation to the fulfillment of the promise, “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the L-rd as the waters cover the sea”, for, as was promised to the Baal Shem Tov, Mashiach will come “when your wellsprings shall spread forth to the outside”.

Radio is a comparatively new technology. Only recently has it been utilized by Jews for holy purposes such as learning Tanya, whereas before that it had been used for secular and even unholy purposes. On this basis, say some Jews, Tanya should not be learned on radio, for radio is intrinsically evil.

Such a claim is not only wrong, but totally contradicts Torah and the Jewish faith.

Nothing and nobody but G-d has the ability to create even the smallest thing (Sanhedrin 67b; Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, 7). This is fully recorded in Scripture (Bereishis 1:1): “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth”: “the heavens — to include everything therein, and the earth — to include everything therein” (Rashi, Bereishis, 1:14). Evil cannot create; everything in this universe, including the ability to transmit through radio, is a creation of G-d. In the words if the Alter Rebbe (Tanya, p.260): “He alone has it in His power and ability to create something out of an absolute naught and nothingness.”

If the above applies to even the smallest things, it certainly applies to radio, a powerful force that G-d invested in nature enabling a person’s voice to instantly be heard all over the world.

Since everything in the world was created “for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Israel” (Rashi, Bereishis 1:1), it is clear that the powerful force of radio was created so that it be utilized for holy matters, such as the dissemination of Torah. Indeed, our Sages explicitly state (Pirkei Avos 6:11): “All that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, He created solely for His glory.”

However, as in all matters, man is given free choice to use radio for good or evil — “Behold, I have set before you this day [a free choice] between life and good and death and evil” (Devarim 30:15). And, says G-d, “Choose life!” (Devarim 30:19). That some people misuse radio for evil purposes is therefore no reason not to utilize it for the purpose for which it was created — “for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Israel.”

We find a parallel to the above in Mishnah (Avodah Zarah 4:7): “The [Jewish] elders in Rome were asked, ‘If [your G-d] has no desire for idolatry, why does He not abolish it?’ They replied: ‘If people would worship something unnecessary to the world, He would abolish it; but they worship the sun, moon, stars and planets. Should He destroy His universe on account of fools?!’” In our case, because there are fools who use the power of radio for bad purposes, should this prevent the use of it for good purposes?

But, counter those people whose whole delight is to interfere with good and holy projects, the use of radio cannot be compared to the above mishnah. The sun and moon, the purpose of which is to give light, were created before fools began to worship them; therefore it makes sense that G-d should not destroy His world on account of fools. Radio, however, was originally used for secular and even profane purposes. How then can we say that radio was created only “for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Israel?”

An explicit refutation to this argument is found in a Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 16:2), which states: “The world was not worthy to use gold. Why then was it created? For the sake of the Mishkan.” Gold was created in the six days of creation and was immediately in evidence, as stated (Bereishis 2:12), “The gold of that land is good.” Yet from creation to the making of the Mishkan there were 26 generations! And even before gold was used for the Mishkan it was used for idolatry, as Rashi says (Devarim 1:1), “They used gold for Baal,” and as the Midrash relates, there were idols of silver and gold in Avraham’s times. Nevertheless, after gold was used for idolatry, it was used for the purpose for which it was created — “for the sake of the Mishkan.”

Hence, although the earliest use of radio was for unclean purposes, this should not prevent Jews for using it for holy purposes — the goal of its creation.

Ironically, those very same people who decry the use of radio to spread Torah use its power for secular things. The telegraph runs on the same principle as radio, and these people use them in their business dealings. To use radio or telegraph to make money is permitted, it appears. But when it is used to disseminate Torah — it is all of a sudden prohibited to use this “evil” means [...].

Whence comes this illogical thinking and this claim that radio is a creation of evil? It is not the use of radio per se that bothers them. It is the dissemination of Chassidus that vexes them; and their chagrin causes them to find any pretext to condemn the spreading of Chassidus as a bad thing — to the extent that they put forward arguments that contradict a basic tenet of the Jewish faith.

We speak of this only because it is necessary to emphasize and adjure that one should not be ashamed because of scoffers. Instead, one must increase as much as possible in the dissemination of Chassidus via all means — including radio. [...]

May it be G-d’s will that all these matters be fulfilled with pleasantness and with peace, with true and full serenity.

Now, I could understand if owning a car (or a driver’s license) was forbidden to a yeshiva bochur, because it may give him ability to leave yeshiva whenever he pleases, etc. (even though I don’t agree with such pedagogical approach, but that’s another matter). But these rabbis, it seems, think that owning a driver’s license is inappropriate for a talmid chochom in and of itself. To this one cannot answer anything clearer than what the Rebbe said. We came into this world to transform it — not to separate ourselves from it. We must engage the world — in a G-dly way and for the purpose of G-dliness alone — but engage nonetheless.

Crook vs. racist?

Back in the day, there was an election in Louisiana between two candidates for a governor (or a senator, I am not sure and am too lazy to look up). Much of the intelligentsia supported one of the candidates. The slogan of the intelligentsia was: “Better a crook than a racist” (this just shows you the realities of politics in Louisiana; as well as the realities of any politics, for that matter).

I was just thinking while reading this (I don’t know anything about this blog; it’s just the first source of that speech I found while googling) that I suppose people voting for the current president did not think in the same terms (not that McCain was a crook; I mean whatever flaw people who voted for Obama found in McCain was obviously worse that the flaws of Obama). I actually know a 22-year-old who was quite proud of the fact that her first act of political activism (nothing to be proud of ever, but never mind that) was to vote for Obama. I think it’s quite sad, to be honest.

 Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.

We heard it in Jesse Jackson's "HYMIE town" remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about "them Jews" not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a "Jew" problem.

Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were "greedy cheaters" who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were "evil". Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.

In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of "The Nation", but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, "he speaks the truth" and "stands up for the black man". What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived "enemies" of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.

The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does. First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called "sitting under". You don't merely attend a church, you "sit under" a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama "sat under" Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his "Million Man March". I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what "good" he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support. [read on] 

But — hooray for the free dental insurance. (Well, I personally don’t have it, but I am happy for those that do.)

Also, this caught my attention: “Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were ‘greedy cheaters’ who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood.”

But, which shop owners (or worse yet, factory owners, CEOs, etc.) are not “greedy cheaters who cannot be trusted”? You hear from many very intelligent, educated people with good character traits that they “don’t like capitalism”. Of course, they like being able to buy bananas while living in a northern state more than once a year. And pizza (which may be made locally, but most of the things to make it, including the ingredients and the tools, were brought from other states by those huge trucks or even from overseas). And they like to be able to afford to make use of air (or bus, or taxi) travel. And of the 99% of their life that would be impossible without capitalism. And yet, the people who provide them with the goods and services are not to be trusted and the system of free exchange of goods and services is bad.

Also, recently I heard from a family member that “there shouldn’t be business-type relations within a family”. I asked her: “Do you mean that if I own a business — or, let’s make it less evil, a lab — and your husband is a specialist, and I need exactly that kind of specialist, it is bad for me to hire him and allow him to provide for his family, while I get in return his service?” She said: “Well, no, of course not. I mean relations of a simpler lomd”. So, I said: “You mean, if I need a babysitter for my kids, and my niece is looking for a summer job, it’s better for me to hire a complete stranger, and my niece to go working for complete strangers than for us to help each other out with what each one is looking for?” She didn’t think that was too evil either. Whatever example I was providing was not evil. In the end, it seemed, some kind of business-like relations in a family are fine. As long as children don’t “borrow” two dollars from their parents and then demand those back. Well, yeah, that’s just a bit stupid.

A note

(“If you use your free insurance, your teeth will look as shiny as mine”)

A note found in President Obama’s desk from his predecessor.

To: President Obama
From: President Bush
Subject: When [...] hits the fan

Dear Borya,

When things get tough, do the following:

1. Blame everything on me.
2. Do everything exactly like me.

Best of luck,
Garik

It seems our mighty leader has gotten to step two. (If you remember, President Bush started a war in Iraq. The war was going badly. Liberals and the press were screaming. Then the President found a proper general, who won the war. The same story, by the way, happened with President Lincoln.)

[via arbat]

Walter Block on radio

I am from New Orleans, and recently, a government river killed a lot of people.

A Jewish libertarian professor of law from Loyola University (New Orleans) talks about privatization of rivers and roads, about the ecological disaster in the Gulf, about the contribution of the free market (and avarice) vs. the government to the crisis, the difference between Keynesian (including the evil Chicago school) economists vs. Austrian economists, and many other topics.

Dr. Block is a libertarian, but it’s hard to figure out whether he is an anarchist or minirchist. (I think it’s like mishichist vs. anti-mishichist. Different libertarians say different things, but you know they are all secretly — or openly — you-know-what.) In any event, I think the interview is very interesting, whichever religious views about the economics you adhere to.

Listen here.

Evolution of liberal reform (part 2)

(Part 1 here.)

A friend of mine on the Facebook says: “My employer put in new carpets and installed auto flush toilets in the bathrooms. We still have free soda. Does this mean that recession is over?”

His friend responds: “No... Actually, it means that the recession is worse. Notice that the automated toilets flush directly into the input-pipe of the free soda machine.”

That, my friends, is what most liberal reforms are all about.

Some facts on the healthcare bill

Go, Wisconsin.



Another one, more accessible to the average IQ, and going to the core of the problem with liberalism:



Now, one mistake in the above videos is the assumptions that liberals 1) care about numbers, 2) know what the numbers mean, 3) have any semblance of distinguishing the reality from a fantasy.

The full speech from the second video (emphasis mine):

RepPaulRyan — March 21, 2010 — Madam speaker, there is a lot wrong with this bill.

We know the problems with its cost. We know it doesnt really reduce the deficit. We know that it increases health care premiums. The CBO has given us all of this information and its clear that what we have is a bill chock full of gimmicks and hidden mandates.

So I’m not going to get into all of that again.

But what I will ask is this: why has this decision become so personal to our constituents? Why are so many people swarming the Capitol over this? Why have we received 100,000 calls an hour from all over the country?

It is because health care affects every one of us. And yet, here we are, debating whether the government should have a bigger role in making those personal decisions.

So make no mistake about it. Were not just here to pass a healthcare bill. We are being asked to make a choice about the future path of this country.

The speakers to my left are correct: this is history. Today marks a major turning point in American history. This is really not a debate about prices, coverage, or choosing doctors.

This is ultimately about what kind of country we are going to be in the 21st century.

America is not just a nationality its not just a mass of land from Hawaii to Maine, from Wisconsin to Florida. America is an idea. Its the most pro-human idea ever designed by mankind.

Our founders got it right, when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature's God — not from government.

Should we now subscribe to an ideology where government creates rights, is solely responsible for delivering these artificial rights, and then systematically rations these rights?

Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives — or do we now believe that government’s role is to equalize the results of peoples lives?

The philosophy advanced on the floor by the Majority today is so paternalistic, and so arrogant. It’s condescending. And it tramples upon the principles that have made America so exceptional.

My friends, we are fast approaching a tipping point where more Americans depend on the federal government than on themselves for their livelihoods — a point where we, the American people, trade in our commitment and our concern for our individual liberties in exchange for government benefits and dependencies.

More to the point, Madam Speaker, we have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. The European social welfare state promoted by this legislation is not sustainable.

This is not who we are and it is not who we should become.

As we march toward this tipping point of dependency, we are also accelerating toward a debt crisis a debt crisis that is the result of politicians of the past making promises we simply cannot afford to keep. Déjà vu all over again.

It is unconscionable what we are leaving the next generation.

This moment may mark a temporary conclusion of the health care debate — but its place in history has not yet been decided. If this passes, the quest to reclaim the American idea is not over. The fight to reapply our founding principles is not finished, it’s just a steeper climb. And it is a climb that we will make.

On this issue — more than any other issue we have ever seen here — the American people are engaged. From our town hall meetings, to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, you have made your voices heard. And some of us are listening to you.

My colleagues, lets bring down this bill — and bring back the ideas that made this country great!

Ministry of Magic

He had remained speechless throughout Fudge's kindly explanation that there were witches and wizards still living in secret all over the world and his reassurances that he was not to bother his head about them as the Ministry of Magic took responsibility for the whole Wizarding community and prevented the non-magical population from getting wind of them. It was, said Fudge, a difficult job that encompassed everything from regulations on responsible use of broomsticks to keeping the dragon population under control (the Prime Minister remembered clutching the desk for support at this point). Fudge had then patted the shoulder of the still-dumbstruck Prime Minister in a fatherly sort of way.

“Not to worry,” he had said, “it's odds-on you'll never see me again. I'll only bother you if there's something really serious going on our end, something that's likely to affect the Muggles — the non-magical population, I should say. Otherwise, it's live and let live. And I must say, you're taking it a lot better than your predecessor. He tried to throw me out the window, thought I was a hoax planned by the opposition.”
— HP VI

This reminded me of the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter. Except its goal was not to protect the wizards but to protect the muggles (or so I am told).

Which brings me to my main point: [censored] “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they are not really out to get you”. (You have to apply this saying inside-out in this case.)

Modern War of the Worlds

Everyone knows this story about radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’s novel about alien invasion of the Earth:

Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast, and in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety just prior to World War II, took it to be a news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, people fleeing the area, others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance.

Richard J. Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some six million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'". While Welles and company were heard by a comparatively small audience (in the same period, NBC's audience was an estimated 30 million), the uproar was anything but minute: within a month, there were 12,500 newspaper articles about the broadcast or its impact, while Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."

Now see here:

Moscow — Millions of Georgians wrongly thought their country was being invaded after a spoof prime time news broadcast showed Russian tanks heading towards the capital Tbilisi and said the president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been killed.

The spoof was broadcast on Imedi, one of Georgia's biggest TV channels, and most viewers missed a brief announcement at the start of the 30 minute broadcast explaining that the news bulletin was a simulation of "the worst day in Georgian history."

An agitated newsreader told shell-shocked viewers that the country's opposition had called in the Russian military to quell political unrest and showed key opposition figures apparently agreeing to work with the invaders.

The bulletin caused panic across the strategically vital former Soviet state which is still struggling to come to terms with fighting and losing a short sharp war against Russia in 2008.

Gripped by panic, mobile phone networks crashed, people started fleeing the capital, crowds rushed to stock up on vital foodstuffs, and there were reports of volunteer fighters preparing to resist. Other TV channels interrupted their own broadcasts to show Imedi's footage and, for a short period, some Russian media began to broadcast the "news."

When Georgians finally realised that the news bulletin was a spoof they were furious. Crowds mobbed Imedi's headquarters and opposition politicians angrily denounced the TV channel which is run by a close ally of the president, Mr Saakashvili.

Typical...

Great news from the front

Such fun:

President Obama may have to raise taxes to pay for public health care and the growing deficit [rrreealllly?.. who could have guessed?..], an eventuality that administration officials touched lightly on Sunday as they promoted an economy emerging from recession.

With an expected deficit next year of $1.8 trillion, and spending still being planned for a $1 trillion, 10-year health care reform, officials say something will have to be done to prevent further erosion of the economy.

"We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we ... can convince the American people that we're going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on ABC's "This Week."

Asked point blank whether it was right to suggest it is a matter of when, not if, taxes will be raised, Geithner responded, "It is absolutely right."

But the president's team circling the Sunday morning news shows was quick to note that there are signs the recession is easing despite a persistent decline in job losses in the past six months [no worries then; all signs of improving economy here].

Administration officials say they hope to see positive economic growth before the end of the year, and credit the $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in February with preventing recession from going into depression.

The legislation — opposed by all but three Republicans in the House and Senate — was intended to help save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs. But since that time, the jobless rate has grown to 9.5 percent, higher than the administration predicted even without a stimulus package. [But that’s not because the administration’s model of the market, its prediction abilities, presence of common sense and in general the view of the Universe the administration is living in are all shit. It’s because… err… well, it would be even worse without the stimulus package, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?]

Of course, raising new taxes and increasing minimum wage will make it more likely for new jobs to appear… Rrrrright?.. I mean, if you are a business owner, and your profit becomes even lower because you need to pay new taxes and pay more to each worker than the market (i.e., competition between businesses for workers) allows, you are not going to cut jobs; you are going to hire even more people. Yep, yep…

Also, friends, in case you were wondering, this is an image of an asshole:

July 28, 2009: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner offers a toast during a dinner after the first meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. (Reuters)

What brings us together

Three participants of the beer summit, left to right, each thinking:

“A white man’s drink…”
“F—ing assholes. I wish I was drinking whiskey with my buddies, watching Sox…”
“Left side is my best photo angle…”

Fox News reports:

“I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart —” Obama said, adding: “…booze.”

Regarding Mr. Sanders

A little outdated, but still apropos (text edited out a bit to make it more PG-13). Click on the picture to see a larger version (does anyone who reads blogs not know this yet?):



“Who is Mr. Sanders”, you ask? Why, it’s Mr. Pooh’s real name.

Obama’s plan is working!

It is, it is, it is! Haven’t you heard: “The economy is gaining momentum and the Democrat-passed stimulus package is only just beginning to pay dividends to the American workforce, President Obama's advisers said Sunday, defending the administration against GOP accusations that the stimulus is falling flat. […] White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee […] says the economy is showing encouraging signs.”

Nu, nu. And the fact that unemployment is way worse than predicted and expected had the stimulus not been implemented is no big deal. Part of the game. Keep looking at this figure — all the evidence of Obama’s wisdom is staring at you:


(Blue and light-blue are models. Maroon is what actually happened. Oopsus… Click on the figure to see a larger version.)

At the same time, stupid-stupid Europeans refuse to see the light and (fed up with socialism) told liberals to go take a hike.

When socialism was implemented in Russia and Eastern Europe, the power was placed in the hands of low-lifes and bastards. When socialism was implemented in Western Europe, the power was placed in the hands of people who thought that just because a rose smells better than a cabbage, it will taste better in a soup¹. As socialism is being implemented in the US, the power is placed in the hands of overgrown children and clowns whom the children like for the bright-red noses.

__________________________
¹ The simile is borrowed from a quote by H.L. Mencken.

The circus is back in town

An interesting article on Voz Iz Neias: “What Obama taught me”.

Holocaust, schmolocaust.

Aren't those pesky Jews ever going to go away? Yes, denying the Holocaust is "hateful." But let's get a grip. Palestinians "endure . . . daily humiliations." Their lot's "intolerable." Israel "devastates Palestinian families." No wonder our president shunned wicked Israel during his trip - sending a clear, if unspoken, message that Jews are now fair game.

"America's strong bonds with Israel are . . . unbreakable." Yup. And they're issued by Chrysler.

Hamas is a legitimate, recognized voice of the Palestinians. Rocket attacks against civilians, suicide bombings and kidnappings really work.

Iran can have nukes.

Our president's acceptance of "peaceful nuclear power" for Tehran was coded language for "no pre-emptive military action."

Jordan doesn't matter.

So much for one Arab country's attempts at human decency. If you want attention from our president, you've got to be a desert gangbanger.

My wife wondered why Obama didn't make his speech in Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim state, where he would've been welcomed proudly as a home-boy. Obama just reinforced the stereotype that Muslim equals Arab.

Democracy isn't for everybody.

We're done peddling that particular drug.

What are my personal thoughts about our president’s speech? They are fully expressed in this video:

Obama is trying to recreate Japan’s “Lost decade”

It’s not foolish to trip and fall. It’s foolish to trip and fall on the same place twice.

From here:

The scenario was eerily familiar. A long real estate bubble that had expanded extra rapidly for the previous five years suddenly burst, and asset prices came crashing back down to earth. Banks and financial institutions were left holding piles of worthless paper, and the economy soon headed south. The national government responded to the crisis by encouraging more lending and spending previously unfathomable amounts of money on public works projects in an effort to stimulate consumer spending and restart growth.

But that stimulus did not save the Japanese economy in the 1990s; far from it. The ensuing period came to be known as the Lost Decade, characterized by multiple recessions, an annual average growth rate of less than 1 percent, and a two-decade decline in stock prices and corporate profits.

The Japanese government’s easing of credit rates, instead of spurring real demand, created artificial demand. Federal loans and stimulus spending were not economically productive, and they vastly increased the nation’s debt and prolonged the economic malaise. Worse, businesses spent critical time on the sidelines, waiting for government bailouts and other centralized actions, instead of speedily consolidating their losses, clearing their balance sheets of bad investments, and reorganizing.

The United States in 2008–09, unfortunately, has started down the same path. Federal intervention and the expectation of additional government action are removing firms’ incentive to clean up their balance sheets by selling “toxic” assets. Why accept pennies on the dollar if a deep-pocketed new bidder (i.e., the state) looms large on the scene? The Japanese experience shows that when the government is an active participant in the market, many firms would rather accept state support than initiate the inevitable financial reckoning. Such a status quo does not provide a sustainable foundation for the economy. Instead, it restricts economic growth and creates a cycle of stagnation.

Read on, for a detailed analysis of the ongoing situation and general description of how bubbles form and burst, etc.

On different responses

A response of a conservative and a liberal to what Obama is doing to the market:

Government backs your waranty

So. Many. Jokes.

It is just too hard for me to determine which of the thousand or so jokes in my mind deserves to be voiced out. And besides, whatever I write, it is still going to be not as funny as seeing this clown speak himself:



The only question that comes to mind is: does he believe himself in what he is saying? Or is this the biggest mass-scale scam in the history of the Western society since Reform Judaism?

It’s fun to be a fundy

Old:

New:

Put your actions where your words are

One of arbat’s commentors writes:

Calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” he warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” he said. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, he said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

And why didn’t Americans elect the person who said the above their President? Oh wait, they did — it’s a speech by Obama himself.

I just had an idea — there are two of them out there: Barack Obama and Borat Obama. One of them, of course, is a [time traveller]. Borat sits in Washington and works on economic policy, while Barack travels around New Mexico and makes speeches.

In case you have no idea what it is he is going on about, compare the quote in italic from above with these charts:



In gray is evil conservatives’ spending. In red — you-know-who’s:



And finally, I love this figure:



Greg Mankiw comments:

To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year — approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.

Nu, nu. I hope I don’t have to tell you that it’s your money, folks.

Keep remembering this: whenever the government “finances” or “stimulates” something, it does it with your money. Not just money out of your paycheck. The extra money you pay for products which did not become cheaper, because their manufacturers were taxed and did not invest extra money in product development. In those products that you cannot afford. In extra you pay for house, for your amenities. In all that civilization advances on which you missed out — about which, of course, you don’t know since they are not there.

So, I guess, in one sense it’s not so bad. It’s like living in 19th century without toilet paper. It sucks, but you don’t know it does, since you don’t know what you’re missing.

I hope you enjoy those stones.

Crisis solved!

Nah, just kidding. In your dreams.

About two and a half weeks ago, some brave genius nicknamed Anonymous wrote the following as a comment to my post in which I said that I hope Obama’s efforts will fail:

I used to say the exact same thing when it came to the Bush Administration and the conservative congress. However, there is one big difference between our view ... mine has come to pass and has been proven correct and yours is just speculation.

Bad grammar, style and punctuation aside, let us now see what results the plans of Bush-haters — also known in zoological taxonomy as Homo liberalis — have given birth to. Wall Street is certainly looking happy:

Top bankers have been leaving Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others in rising numbers to join banks that do not face tighter regulation, including foreign banks, or start-up companies eager to build themselves into tomorrow’s financial powerhouses. Others are leaving because of culture clashes at merging companies, like Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, and still others are simply retiring early.

So, regulations are working out well then. Arbat comments: some of the bankers leaving these firms are actually the same ones who voted for Democrats who had promised to regulate these banks. I don’t know whether this is a comment on the character or intellect of Homo liberalis, so I won’t say much further.

But — you may ask — what do I care? I am not a banker. I am simple tax payer. Well, it may just absolutely shockingly turn out that “Exodus of Top Bankers [is] Bad News for the Taxpayer”:

The message couldn’t be clearer: no seasoned investment banker worth their salt wants to work for the government if they can help it. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, who now shares in the prosperity of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America via the recent bailout packages, the bankers who packed their bags and jumped ship last week are arguably some of the most seasoned professionals the industry has to offer.

[...]

The exodus suggests that there is far too much bureaucratic oversight going on at the big banks right now. Silly schemes such as 90 percent taxation for higher-paid employees at government-aided firms ought to be quickly put to rest. Otherwise banks will continue to lose the very employees they need to steer them through this crisis, and enable taxpayers to get a quick and handsome return on investment.

Instead, we’ll be left with a range of new privately-owned financial houses staffed with the best finance has to offer — which the taxpayer reaps no reward from.

So, the liberals buy the banks out with the taxpayers’ money and then regulate them to death, while the only people who can possibly steer the boat away from the shoals are leaving it as quickly as possible. And this is bad for taxpayers? I am absolutely flabbergasted. Nobody could have ever seen this coming.