The Greatest Increase in Wealth Inequality in American History Occurred During the Obama Administration

Source: David Stockman Email

I just received an email from David Stockman's newsletter, and it included the upper graph taken from Edward N. Wolff's "Has Middle Class Wealth Recovered."  There are a number of ways to look at the question of rich versus poor; the above graph uses one, the relative shares of the top one percent and the bottom  ninety percent. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the nine percent in neither category.)  

The gap narrows in the 1970s, but observe  the lower graph, which is of real wage growth.  Real wages stopped growing in 1973.  The reason the wealth inequality declines during the 1970s in the upper graph is that the stock market was falling in the 1970s. Hence, the decline in wealth inequality during the 1970s is a measure of joint pain and only of theoretical importance.  The solution put forward by Richard M. Nixon in 1971 was pumping money into the economy via the Federal Reserve Bank. 

The pure paper money system established in 1971  helped the wealthy but not the majority.  Notice also that the third-most-rapid increase in wealth inequality, according to the upper graph, occurred during the Reagan administration. It began to solidify during the Bush I years, 1988-1992; it remained constant during the Clinton years; then, following the tech bubble bust of 2001 it escalated during the Bush II years, which were the years of the second-greatest gains in wealth inequality.  However, Bush and Reagan were pikers compared to Obama, who oversaw the most massive wealth transfers, which followed the 2008 crisis via the expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, the creation of massive amounts of reserve IOUs called Federal Reserve bank credit, quantitative easing, and so on. 

The lower graph tells a slightly different story.  Since the early 1970s, when the Fed was given a free hand to redistribute wealth via the creation of paper money, real wages have stagnated.  The GDP has continued to grow, although the meaning of GDP is questionable because it includes government spending and make-work projects that do not create value.  There is little difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Defund the IRS

Steve Forbes hits a home run in the current issue of Forbes: Because of the IRS targeting-of-conservatives scandal, which is reminiscent of the fascistic Europe that Obama and his morally diseased supporters idealize and hope to emulate, the IRS should be defunded until the scandals are resolved.

Forbes notes that the current Obama administration is wracked with scandal more significant than the Teapot Dome in the 1920s, which preceded Warren G. Harding's death, and Watergate.  For some reason the totalitarians in the Democratic Party claim that their Fuehrer did not know, a claim that they would have ridiculed in 1974 when Nixon was president.

Forbes does not go far enough, of course.  The IRS is a criminal organization that should be permanently closed, not just until the Obama scandal is investigated.  With a crooked, fascistic president in Washington, the claim that the federal government is a force for good is nonsense.

Rasmussen Poll Exhibits Anti-Ron Paul Bias

Rasmussen's "Daily Presidential Tracking Poll" exhibits anti-Ron Paul bias today.  This is how the poll describes its survey:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Mitt Romney earning 47% of the vote while President Obama picks up support from 45%. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while three percent (3%) are undecided.

Much of the results of a survey depend on how you ask the questions.  For example, if you ask car buyers, "Do you prefer a Lexus, a Cadillac, or another car," then the results will not be the same as when you ask them, "Do you prefer a Lexus, a Cadillac, or a Rolls Royce."  Rasmussen asks its sample the first question.  The correct question is this:  "Who would you vote for in a three-way election: Obama, Romney, or Ron Paul."

I know that Rasmussen knows this perfectly well. The bias is not because of incompetence.

Romney Outpolls Obama

The Rasmussen Poll finds that Romney noses out Obama 46%-45%.  I'm trying to figure out whether that's good or bad.  Rasmussen also finds that in a national generic congressional poll the Republicans are leading by 46% to 36%.  The difference is volatile, though; last week it was less than half that.

The numbers may result from Obama's unpopular health care law.  Rasmussen finds that 53% of the public favor its repeal.  If 53% favor repeal and 45% favor Obama, either almost all the 9% undecided presidential voters favor repeal, or some Obama supporters do.  That makes sense because we're talking about American voters. It would be interesting to know whether a few percent both favor Obama and favor repeal of Obamacare.  Also, the public is skeptical of Obama's economic program.  Rasmussen finds that only 49% of Americans say that their home is worth more than when they bought it, and only 27% think that the country is headed in the right direction.

All of this raises the specter of a double-breasted Republican victory: Republican control of congress and the presidency. On the one hand, that may have the effect of repeal of the health care law. Also, it would slow the environmental initiatives of the Obama administration: the attacks on energy development, the local initiatives like Smart Growth and LEED, and the concomitant attacks on home rule and democracy.   Unfortunately, the Republicans have backed erosion of home rule and land rights too, but to a lesser degree.  It is not clear that government will shrink under double-breasted GOP control; rather, the Republicans have previously consolidated Democratic expansions of state power and big government.  If they do, in fact, repeal Obamacare, it will be a first.

At the same time, the Republicans have been good at causing inflation, expanding military spending, and government tyranny.  All of this goes goes back to the Progressive era, with the establishment of the Fed (under Democrat Wilson, who was elected with the aid of Republican Roosevelt), the FBI, and the Palmer Raids.  (Incidentally,  if you haven't seen Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar starring Leonardo DiCaprio, I recommend it.)

The Bush administration accented the problems with Republican government:  crony capitalism, pork barrel waste, and monetary expansion.  In other words, the problems with electing Republicans are about the same as the problems with electing Democrats.  The difference is that the Republicans bloat government to subsidize Republican special interests while the Democrats bloat government to subsidize Democratic special interests.  Both subsidize Wall Street. 

I am in favor of  a third party, either the Libertarian Party or a new party if Ron Paul chooses to establish one.  Governor Gary Johnson would be a first-rate candidate on the Libertarian ticket. He is more moderate and more competent than either Obama or Romney.  Unlike Romney, who is a crony capitalist who has made his living through connections and monetary expansion, Johnson built a real business from scratch.  He did not expand government in New Mexico; he fought a Democratic legislature to restrain government. In America, now, a third party candidate like Johnson is a more moderate choice than either a Democrat or a Republican.

Republican Mathematics

David Rockefeller = Nelson Rockefeller = Nixon = Kissinger = H. W. Bush = W. Bush = Romney = Cain = Santorum = Gingrich = Obama.

Or, to put it as a poster here just did, choosing between Romney and Obama is like choosing between Chase and Wells Fargo.

Obama's Dishonest & Uncivil Discourse

I picked this up on Mitt Romney's campaign site.

FBI Investigates Long Time Obama Comrades

Mairi sent me this article from Accuracy in Media. AIM says that according to The Washington Post, the FBI is conducting an investigation of communists in Chicago that has reached "Chicagoans who crossed paths with Obama when he was a young state senator and some who have been active in labor unions that supported his political rise.” Also according to AIM:

Those under investigation are suspected of providing support to foreign terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Middle East, a Marxist group. The Post called them 'Colombian and Palestinian groups designated by the U.S. government as terrorists.'

The FBI must be a racist organization. The proof: they are investigating Obama's associates. Obama's media supporters probably won't explain why the president possibly has associated with terrorists. After all, in The Economist's view, presidents rise to the office. Perhaps in four years the Democrats will run Bill Ayers himself.

United States of America, RIP

I just received this e-mail. Professor Tyler was prescient, but he omits one point. In American democracy the ideology of freedom and the ideology of hard money had to be replaced before the ideology of Progressivism or socialism could replace them. This was done by ideologues posing as experts in fields like economics and sociology.  Also, American socialism does not even benefit the voting mob. It benefits a thin layer of super-rich, who have used Progressive and socialist ideologies to explain their money grab. The e-mail reads:

 

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012 
It doesn't hurt to read this several times.
           
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in  St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by:          Obama: 19          McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by:      Obama: 580,000    McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:    Obama: 127 million  McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:  Obama: 13.2  McCain: 2.1 

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the  United States  is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA  in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on November 2012.

If you are as concerned as I am, please pass this along.

When the Democrats Say They Want Universal Health Care, They Mean They Want to Kill the Feeble

My wife was just watching a television show which depicted an Oregon man who was dying of cancer. He asked his physician for a treatment of chemotherapy, but the physician demurred. The hospital sent the man a letter to the effect that although he could not be given chemotherapy because his condition was too advanced, he could take advantage of Oregon's "Death with Dignity" law and commit assisted suicide.  Besides the moral issues involved in suggesting to a patient that he commit suicide, the Oregon law has serious implications for future decades.

The Baby Boom generation failed to see any progress in its economic welfare because the Federal Reserve Bank debased the dollar and transferred much of the nation's wealth to financial interests.  The result is that there has been inflation, and the real hourly wage has not increased since 1970.  In the days of laissez faire capitalism, when there was no income tax, the average American's real hourly wage increased two percent per year. This continued through the 1960s, when government spending was less as a portion of GDP than it is now taking into account all three levels of government. After 1970, when restraint on the Federal Reserve Bank was eliminated because Richard M. Nixon abolished the gold standard, facilitating rapid government expansion, income inequality has expanded and the real hourly wage has been stagnant for the first 40-year period in American history.  America is no longer the land of opportunity because of the Federal Reserve Bank, high income taxes and big government, a system that has facilitated wealth transfer by staunching small scale capital development and transferring wealth from wage earners to property owners.

One effect of the Fed-generated  wage stagnation is that Americans no longer have the wealth necessary to provide themselves with health care.  Until 2009 the system had permitted the average American to retain the illusion that he would be able to afford health care.  The two Obama health care laws expanded access to health insurance by cutting Medicaid and establishing mechanisms that will increasingly reduce care. The average American will no longer be able to afford care at the level that his or her parents had it.  Although more Americans will be able to gain low-cost treatments of the kind that Michael Moore celebrated in his movie Sicko, when he extolled the Cuban medical system, fewer Americans will have access to the kind of care that Moore ridiculed: the sewing on of fingers that had been cut off in an accident.  Replacement of fingers is likely not available in Cuba and likely not available in countries with public health care systems. Such systems ration care using bureaucratically designed rules. They save money by reducing care of the type that Moore complained was absent in the American system.  In fact, the pattern is the reverse. Elaborate treatments are less likely to be available in a socialized health care system.

By expanding care and taking steps toward socialization of medicine, the Democrats have insured that Americans will receive reduced care.  As well, we can expect a second pattern.  The institution of murder in place of treatment, as we see with the Oregon law. The Democrats, in the name of providing universal care, are going to substitute murder for care, with Progressive Republicans marching in synch. This is necessitated by the  big government policies that have led to declining real hourly wages, the socialization of medicine, and the failure of Progressivism.

Obama's Popularity Sign of American Voter Derangement

Rasmussen reports that Obama's popularity has been higher this month than last.  Whereas 42% had strongly disapproved of Obama's performance on March 31, and 24% had strongly approved of him, as of May 9, 34% strongly disapproved, while  26% strongly approved. Rasmussen's total approval score for Obama is now at 51%, while his total disapproval score is at 48%.  In contrast, on March 31, his total approval score was at 44% and his total disapproval score was at 55%. However, Rasmussen's "presidential approval index," the percentage that strongly approves less the percentage that strongly disapproves, remains in negative territory at -8%. Lots of racists out there who dislike seeing American contribute $12.8 trillion to commercial banks and Wall Street.

The reason for the shift is likely the belief that Obama killed Osama. Of course, the military  had been seeking Osama for ten years, so it is difficult to grasp why anyone would imagine that Obama had much to do with killing Osama other than getting out of the way of the inevitable.  Concurrently, rumors are circulating that the military and the president knew about Osama's whereabouts for four or more years. 

My prediction is that Obama's popularity blip will fade. Elections are 18 months away, and the economy's state, thanks in large part to the Fed's and Obama's policies, is parlous.  I am getting back into silver and and buying some extra gold today.  The recent correction in silver may not be over, but it is not a permanent shift. The Fed and the Republicrats have been playing a game of chicken with worldwide dollar holders.  The dollar will continue to decline, and thanks to Obama, Bush and America's deranged democracy, Americans continue to see their representatives support policies that are gradually impoverishing them and supporting (a) Wall Street, (b) commercial banking, (c) government employees, and (d) stockholders. 

Rasmussen also reports that 57% of Americans support repeal of the national health care and only 36% oppose repeal.  44% strongly favor repeal and 26% oppose. 50% believe that the health care law will be bad for the country.  I guess most Americans don't look forward to seeing the reductions in their quality of health care that Obama, the Democrats and the Wall Street-owned media aim to induce.

I would not be adverse to Obama's reelection if the choice is between a big government Republican, such as Romney or Trump, and Obama. In that case I will certainly be voting for the Libertarian Party, hoping for a Republican Senate and House, and a Democratic presidency.

Violent, Obama-Supported Protesters Riot in Wisconsin

The Blaze.com posted this video of violent public employees protesting in Wisconsin. Obama has lent his support to the violent protesters because they support him financially.  Ironically, the pro-Obama propaganda machine has characterized peaceful Tea Party demonstrators as violent, while giving a wink and a nod to the violent criminals who demonstrate on behalf of the Democrats and Obama.

New York and the Legacy Media

In a recent e-mail, Jim Crum uses an excellent moniker for the Democratic Party media: the legacy media.  The phrase is embedded in Jim's important discussion about demographic trends that may undermine the legacy media's influence.  Jim links to a LifeSiteNews.com article which notes that the Republican states are growing in population relative to the Democratic states:

"...states that went for Obama saw population declines that will result in fewer electoral votes and states that did not support Obama in 2008 saw their population increase and, as a result, the number of electoral votes they will allocate to a presidential candidate next time.

"The census found the United States population bumped up from approximately 281 million in 2000 to 308,745,538 as of April 1. Regionally, the northeast grew 3.2 percent while the Midwest grew 3.9 percent, the South grew 14.3 percent and the West grew 13.8 percent — making it so states that typically go Republican experienced more growth than predominantly Democratic areas.

"On the Republican side, Texas picked up four seats, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah will gain one seat each while Louisiana loses one thanks to population declines following Hurricane Katrina and Missouri loses one as well. On the Democratic side, New York and Ohio lose two electoral votes each while the Obama-supporting states of Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania lose one and the pro-Obama states Nevada, and Washington gain one and Florida gains two.

"Ultimately, states voting against Obama in 2012 gained six electoral votes while states supporting him in 2008 lost six — a total shift of 12 electoral votes."

Jim contends that one-sided, pro-Obama media coverage will counteract the population trend in the presidential election.  While this may be, I'm not convinced that the Republicans in '12 will do better than they did with John McCain in '08.  McCain would not have been much better than Obama.  As we stand now, the nation is putting band aids on the dike which, Jim notes quoting Edmund Burke, is being eaten away by rats.  Many Republicans are as much rats as Democrats and, besides, the Republican band aids are too small.

For instance, New Yorkers for Growth forwarded to me John Faso's Op Ed in the New York Post, a Republican newspaper. I met Faso at a fundraiser last spring.  Faso makes some good points but fails to address the underlying cause.  Faso observes that New York is going to lose two congressional seats (I hope my Congressman, Maurice Hinchey, is one of them) because of the census.  As well, he notes that more than one million New Yorkers have exited during the past ten years.  He says that Governor Cuomo (once more that horrible sound) ought to declare a fiscal emergency. He notes that the Tax Foundation ranked New York 50th in hospitality to business.  

I wonder what that does to my students' job prospects...the same students who support regulation 10 to 1.  And there's the rub. New York's problems are so psychologically entrenched that the economic wizardry that Faso proposes will not help.  My students, like the majority of New Yorkers, are brainwashed to believe in socialism.  The population believes that economic goods like health care and housing are rights.  Therefore, anyone who works must be taxed to subsidize anyone who doesn't. New Yorkers will favor that to the maximum extent possible until they learn that there is no such thing as a "positive right."  A right can only exist in nature.  You do not have a right to housing in nature. You have to build housing.  If you dig your spot in a cave, I don't have the right to force you to dig my spot in my cave.  But New Yorkers believe that I do. Therefore, there is no hope for New York until it collapses or until the education system is revamped.

Even many brainwashed ideologues among New Yorkers find that the positive rights theory in which they have been indoctrinated does not work.  Some of those who work leave the ones who don't.  But I suspect they take their socialist ideologies with them and then aim to destroy the states to which they move.  Thus, New York has become a state made up of people who don't work: welfare cheats; Wall Street stock jobbers; lawyers and college professors.  Those who leave aim to destroy the futures of states around the country. New York is a venomous disease.

As far as the legacy media, the value of not consuming it cannot be overstated.  The reason is framing.  A frame is how you conceptualize a situation.  If you listen to the Wall Street-owned legacy media  you are induced to frame issues as they wish.  They do not wish you to frame issues in realistic terms of monetary policy and special interest brokerage. The issues in the United States revolve around these two concerns.  If you believe the news media there is no such thing as a special interest lobby and no such thing as the Federal Reserve Bank. Putting Americans to sleep intellectually is necessary  to manipulate them.

Framing determines how you think and therefore the decisions you make.  The legacy media frames issues in a certain way.  It claims that there is a national consensus, when in fact few Americans have the first idea of what the issues are.  Consuming the legacy media is a sure way to lose track of the real issues.  Why waste your time?

Obama Lied About His Religious Affiliation

Because of recent poll findings (reported in Newsweek, for example, with factual errors) that as much as 31% of the public believes that Obama is a Muslim, there has been a spate of publicity concerning an issue that surfaced on my blog during the election campaign: whether then-Senator Obama was lying about his religious affiliation.  The Democratic Party's media refused to ask this question (Newsweek insists, without evidence, that the claim is factually wrong.  Unlike Newsweek, I look for evidence when I claim something to be a fact), and otherwise hard headed analysts such as Mayor Ed Koch happily allowed themselves to be duped.  It seems that party affiliation, political correctness and anger about George W. Bush made many eager to be conned.  The propaganda characteristically part of the Democratic Party's media also played a role.  For instance, Newsweek reports (assuming that they were able to get this straight, which is dubious) that the editors of the Atlanta Constitution now believe that a presidential candidate's religious beliefs ought not to concern the public.  Rather, I would suggest that the Atlanta Constitution's opinions ought not to concern the public. 

Sharad Karkhanis has forwarded Madeline Brooks's Canada Free Press article article to me (see below). For me, the question is not whether he is a Muslim or a Christian but whether he misrepresented his religion as well as his position on Israel, the Middle East and Pakistan-India conflict.  No issue is off limits with respect to a presidential race, and the fact that the Atlanta Constitution's editors think otherwise suggests that they are not an important or useful source of information.   The gullible willingness of many Jews and Hindus as well as Christians to believe the Democratic media's propaganda concerning Obama shows a serious weakness in our educations and in common sense.

Madeline Brooks called Obama's church to learn that, contrary to logic and any possible interpretation of either Christianity or Islam, Jeremiah Wright's church sees no conflict between Islamic and Christian doctrine. Hence, the fact that Obama had produced no evidence of conversion is entirely consistent with his legitimate membership in Wright's church.  He need not have converted to Christianity to belong to Wright's church, and the church says that many members are Muslims.  No one in the Democratic media ever asked Wright's church whether a Muslim could belong.  It turns out a Muslim can belong. Hence, his membership, far from being evidence of Christianity as the flightless birds at Newsweek claim, is actually evidence of his Muslim faith.  Nor is Obama's assertion of Christianity evidence of a thing.

Obama’s Unique Form of ‘Christianity:’ No Baptism Or Renunciation of Islam Required By Madeline Brooks  Saturday, August 21, 2010

New questions arise lately concerning whether President Obama is a Muslim or a Christian, as Mr. Obama gives his partial support to the mosque at Ground Zero. 

We’ve all heard by now that Obama became a Christian mostly to expedite his political career and that the Trinity United Church of Christ he joined, presided over by Reverend Jonathan Wright, was not exactly mainstream.  We’ve heard about Wright’s damning of America and we know that the church was – and might still be - a hot bed of black nationalism.  But what is not as well known is that no baptism is required, nor must Muslims renounce Islam to be accepted as full members in that church.

On a tip from a pastor, which I wrote about here I called the Trinity United Church back in February, 2010 to ask about the requirements of membership.  The church receptionist transferred my call to the Director of Membership, who told me that baptism is optional and that Muslims who believe in the prophet Mohammed can be full members.  In fact, she reassured me cheerfully, they have plenty of Muslim members.

Never mind that this is theologically impossible, except when one makes one’s own rules.  The doctrines of Christianity and Islam are incompatible.  Christianity believes that Jesus Christ is one with the Creator, through the doctrine of the Trinity, and that Jesus died on the cross in order to redeem humanity from its sins.  Islam calls the Trinity ‘idolatry’ because it sees the Trinity’s three parts as separate entities – three distinct gods – instead of one divine being.  Islam also denies Christianity’s claim that Jesus Christ died on the cross, or that he is the unique savior of humanity.

Baptism is central to Christian practices, both as a way to mark the convert’s entrance into a new life and as a washing away of sinful practices from the person’s past.  The core of the new life as a Christian is a renunciation of other religious beliefs.  The World Council of Churches is an umbrella organization for Protestant churches that represents about 550 million Christians throughout more than 120 countries.  It has declared the centrality of baptism for a Christian, and notes that no matter how much churches may differ in other ways, the vast majority of churches agree on the importance of baptism.
 
Why would a Muslim want to join a church that proclaimed these Christian beliefs?  It would be a betrayal of his own convictions.  Besides, the word “Trinity” is in the name of the Trinity United Church of Christ, which should discourage a Muslim who thinks the Christian trinity is blasphemous. What’s going on here?

The Trinity United Church of Christ is affiliated with the mainline United Church of Christ which branched out of Congregationalism, and going back even further, that denomination had its roots in Puritanism.  All these connections are very traditional.  The affirmation of faith of the parent organization, as found in their constitution begins with, “The United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole Head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior.”  However, when the black pride movement burgeoned in Chicago during the 1960s at the time when Malcolm X made that city the headquarters for the Nation of Islam, the Trinity United Church of Christ appears to have made doctrinal adjustments to accommodate its constituents.  They were African Americans who wanted a veneer of Christianity, which many of them had been raised with, to cover their newly acquired black nationalism and Nation of Islam inspired faith.  At the same time, the church needed new members because church attendance was falling off. 

So a new syncretic religion was born, Muslim Christianity.  Never mind that it makes a mish mash of theology – in order to suit the emotional and cultural needs of the parishioners.  Obama may have been telling the truth when he called himself a Christian, even though he has not apparently spent much time in any church since leaving the tutelage of Rev. Wright.  But for the rest of us, there is confusion, a confusion that is sure to grow as not only the President but possibly many others influenced by him, take the side of Islamic political entities while still calling themselves ‘Christian.’

Poster Tells it Like It Is

Shailagh Murray published a story about Rand Paul's proposal for a tea party caucus in the Washington Post today. Murray reports that the extremist wing of the Republican Party fears the caucus because:

"Voters who don't want to privatize Social Security or withdraw from the United Nations could begin to see the tea party and the Republican Party as one and the same."

Hopefully the tea party caucus will begin to educate Americans as to the Lockean foundation on which the nation's success rests and why Social Security and the United Nations are impediments to further success. In the meantime, the extremists of both parties, the socialists, have grabbed ever more power with support of media, which they control.

When advocates of failed socialist ideas, such as the Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans, use the word "extremist", they utilize a propaganda tactic. The extremists are in the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, not in the Tea Party. The extremists in power, the Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans, advocate the use of state violence to transfer wealth to Wall Street, government employees and commercial banks, and to steal private homes on behalf of corrupt developers.

RNC Opposes Tea Party

The article points out, then, that the extremists in the GOP, who control the Republican National Committee, fear the ascendency of the Tea Party moderates:

"Former Senate majority leaderTrent Lott (R-Miss.), now a D.C. lobbyist, warned that a robust bloc of rabble-rousers spells further Senate dysfunction. 'We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,' Lott said in an interview. 'As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."

It thus has become imperative to view the RNC as in league with the Democrats. It is also important to understand that the motives of the extremists in the GOP are not just to win elections but also to serve the special interests to which both parties have cater: Wall Street, commercial banking, large industrial concerns and government employees.

The most interesting part of the article concerns the above billboard.  I had posted a similar series of photos on April 18.  DNC Executive Director Jennifer O'Malley Dillon said "Republicans keep saying that they aren't extremists -- but they keep doing things like this." But it is Dillon who is the extremist.

The Democrats advocate an irresponsible and failed view, socialism.  Socialism was the philosophy of both Stalin and Hitler. There is nothing extreme about comparing people like Obama and Dillon to Hitler and Stalin. They advocate comparable policies.

What the Banker Owned Media Will Not Show You

Federal Government Debt.  Obama increased the rate at which it increased under Bush. It is hard to believe that the Democrats found a bigger clown than Bush.  Graph courtesy of the St. Louis Fed.

Will Obama Be the Least Popular President in History?

In October 2008 George W. Bush's approval rating according to the Gallup Poll sank to 25%.  Yesterday, according to the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll only 27% of Americans "strongly approve" of Obama's performance but 46% say that they at least somewhat approve.  Thus, the majority is now against Obama.

Obama can break Bush's low.  I can taste it.

Obama's War on Israel

My father just sent me this video, which Youtube attempted to censor. It shows that the passengers on the ship that Israel attacked had repeatedly assaulted Israeli soldiers, and threw one overboard.



The incident follows the Obama administration's support for the UN's recent attack on Israel's nuclear capability. Mark Meed of Frontpagemag notes that  "what is remarkable is the United States supported this resolution."  In other words, under Obama the US now votes with the Third World tyrannies that hate Israel.

Has the Obama Administration Turned Government Statistics into Soviet-Style Propaganda?

Right Wing News (h/t Larwyn's Links) discusses a New York Post article that claims that the Census Bureau has engaged in considerable fudging of its employment roll.  The Bureau hires people and then fires them after only a few hours work, then hires a replacement, then fires the replacement after a few hours, etc.  The churning of employment has, according to the article, potentially bloated the US Department of Labor's employment data. Thus, the Obama administration may have significantly distorted the non-seasonally adjusted 9.9% unemployment reported last month. John Crudele of the Post writes:

"Each month Census gives Labor a figure on the number of workers it has hired. That figure goes into the closely followed monthly employment report Labor provides. For the past two months the hiring by Census has made up a good portion of the new jobs...Labor doesn't check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month...One hour! A month! So, if a worker is terminated after only one hour and another is hired in her place, then a second new job can apparently be reported to Labor . (I've been unable to get Census to explain this to me.)

I used to think that government statistics are accurate, even sacrosanct.  There have been increasing numbers of questions about inflation data.  For instance, the exclusion of house costs reduced the stated inflation rate from the early 1980s until the housing price collapse, when some pundits started to suggest that house prices should be included in the inflation rate.  It is not clear how quality adjustments are integrated into the inflation rate.  Nor is it clear how the size of a given product influences it.  For example, for the past 10 years or so I haven't bothered with a big charcoal grill, just purchasing a small hibachi from Wal-Mart.  Until recently they were about $20, but this year it was $25.  But the quality had been significantly reduced. It is much less steady and the materials used are cheaper.  Were those changes included in the inflation rate?

Increasingly government data seems like propaganda.  The Census Bureau's manipulation of the unemployment rate suggests that the Obama administration does not shy from the use of official information for propagandistic purposes.

Now There Are Two Rats in the White House

The Brutally Honest Blog (h/t Rick) has posted this photo.  Look at the rat on the lower right hand corner.  How condign.  Now there are two rats, the big one behind the podium and the small one scurrying on the floor.

How the New Health Care Law Affects Your Accounting Firm

I just submitted my monthly column to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' Career Insider newsletter.

How the New Health Care Law Affects Your Accounting Firm

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

The debate concerning health reform and national health insurance began after World War I.  There have been half a dozen presidential attempts to reform or nationalize health care since the days of Woodrow Wilson, and Barack H. Obama has succeeded where Franklin D. Roosevelt feared to tread.  But the new law reflects the health field’s political complexities and has ramifications that are difficult to predict.  Rest assured that your firm and you personally will be affected.

One way to consider what the effects of the two sister laws, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (“the health care act”), will be is to recall a great book on the art of economics, Henry Hazlitt’s 1946 Economics in One Lesson.  Hazlitt’s one lesson is spelled out in 25 chapters, but he states it in one sentence in the first chapter:  “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

Key Provisions

The law’s most important social welfare improvement is to extend care to 35 million uncovered Americans.  This fall, people who lack coverage now can purchase insurance through a high risk pool.  Premiums will be limited to approximately $500 per month for single insureds, $1,000 per month for families.  State exchanges will be set up by 2014 to facilitate small firms’ purchase of health insurance and purchases by people earning up to four times the poverty line. Starting in 2014, most Americans would be required to purchase health insurance unless there is hardship. Those whose income is more than four times the poverty line must purchase insurance or pay a $695 tax.  Tax credits will subsidize middle-class taxpayers and small businesses.  Medicaid will be extended.  

Insurance companies will not be allowed to rescind coverage of people who become ill.  Several insurance companies have done so.  Pre-existing conditions can no longer be used to exclude children from coverage, and pre-existing conditions cannot exclude adults by 2014.   The law eliminates caps on coverage, both annual and lifetime.  Children will be allowed to remain on their parents’ policies until age 26.  

The law adds some new burdens on highly paid employees to help pay for the plan.  It limits pre-tax flexible spending accounts to $2,500.  It extends the Medicare Payroll tax to unearned income for families that earn more than $250,000 and for individuals who earn more than $200,000.  Also, beginning in 2018 insurance companies must pay a 40 percent tax on health insurance plans valued at a $27,500 threshold for families and $10,200 for individuals (not including vision and dental benefits).  A “health care cost adjustment percentage” multiplies the threshold and it is adjusted for age and gender.  As well, there will be $500 billion in Medicare cuts.  The minimum for itemized deductions for medical expenses increases to 10% in 2012.  The hospitalization tax in FICA will increase from 1.45% to 2.35% for a married couple earning over $250,000.  Fees will be charged to health plans.  

 As well, Section 3403 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establishes an Independent Medicare Payment Advisory Board.  The Board’s purpose is to reduce Medicare costs by making recommendations as to management improvements such as reducing payments for pharmaceuticals, reducing administrative expenses and reducing high bids for services.  The law states that the Board’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”  But any serious claim that such a Board will effectuate cost reductions hinges on one or another form of rationing.  A government board will not function competently as a quality circle.  

Unforeseen Implications

The law’s proponents claim that the best-run providers such as the Mayo clinic will provide models for change for smaller, more expensive and worse-managed providers.  But that is akin to claiming that a government board can tell General Motors to adopt the quality practices of Toyota, and then count on GM to run with the ball.  High quality certainly is associated with low cost in many industries.  The reason is what Edward I. Deming calls the “profound knowledge” of the high quality producer.  But a government board lacks such knowledge, and government edict cannot transfer it.  To insist that Margaretville Hospital in Arkville, NY adopt the quality of practice in the Mayo Clinic or the UCLA Medical Center sets hope before reason.  

There is widespread agreement that a large number of additional physicians will be necessary to provide care in response to the extension of coverage.  Anna Fifield of the Financial Times writes that physicians’ organizations predict that 50,000 additional physicians will be needed.

On April 22, National Public Radio reported that the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of the Medicare Actuary found that the law will increase spending by one percent over the next decade.   As well, the report predicted that as much as 15 percent of providers could be thrown into the red because of the Medicare cuts.  But these estimates cannot be considered reliable.  No one, for example, predicted that the baby bust of the 1960s and 1970s would lead to shortfalls and reductions in Social Security benefits.  But it did.

One of the subjects that Henry Hazlitt treats in his book is how the unforeseen effects of government-induced demand include shortages.  Publicly administered health plans from Sweden to Canada are characterized by long waits for care and limitations on care.  Given the predictions of physician shortages, we may count on less flexibility in the system.

Last month, Dr. Marc Siegel wrote in USA Today that Medicare is already insufficient to cover his and other physicians’ costs and that he has been seeing a significant number of his patients pro bono.  Siegel quotes the Association of American Medical Colleges as predicting a shortage of 160,000 doctors by 2025.  He notes that New York has eliminated pre-existing conditions exclusions since 1992 and premium costs have skyrocketed, the reverse of what the health care law’s proponents claimed they would do.  Hence, there may be unforeseeable cost effects.  Siegel writes that he is planning to refuse to see Medicare recipients. 

Separately, I traced the trajectory of federal government spending since 1948.  There was a statistically significant upsurge in 2009.   In effect, all federal spending cuts from 1980 to 2008 (which had already been eroded by the Bush administration) were completely wiped out in a single year, 2009.  The health care act will add to federal spending, pushing the current spending outlier further off the charts.   Excessive demand will increase waiting times and lead to rationing through one route or another.  Americans may find that they can obtain superior quality care in foreign countries.  Medical tourism is already on the upsurge, and I predict it will increase dramatically over the coming 35 years.  Who would have thought that a trip to an Indian hospital would be a key effect of health reform?