economics – Tacky Raccoons

For all you young people who read this blog, the only thing you need to know about ObamaCare is that the US Congress exempted itself from having to participate. They are going to make you pay, big time.

“The Large Print giveth, and the Small Print taketh away.”
Tom Waits

As my own father is stuck in the red tape of the Veterans Administration bureaucracy, President Obama chose to shut down processing of veterans’ claims for purely political reasons. Anyone who’s ever dealt with the VA knows that it’s slow drudgery, but for the current Administration to stall it further is obscene.

This is not the fault of the GOP because Boehner & Co. have no control over the shut down of Federal facilities. This IS a political maneuver by President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid to make it as painful to the American public as possible in order to pass the greatest tax increase in U.S. history, aka ObamaCare. To use US Veterans as a political wedge is abhorrent and a misuse of power.

Polls after polls show that the US public opposes force-fed progressive – collectivist programs like ObamaCare by a huge margin. Is the Obama Administration claiming that over 2/3 of the US Populace are idiots? Yes.

So we have an impasse. A fork in the road. Do we, as the Greatest Free Nation in the history of the world, cave in to socialism and let the rest of the civilized world fall to ruin, or do we hold our ground, backed by the US Constitution?

I suggest we choose the latter, and fight for it, just as our more enlightened ancestors did. There is no acceptable alternative.

Click to access CDOC-110hdoc50.pdf

The Crux

[via]

If you’ve never heard of or read Dr. Thomas Sowell, you’re missing out on one of the most brilliant minds since Milton Friedman. REALLY.

P.S. Don’t know why I didn’t do it before, but I’m adding Mr. Ka-Ching to the TR Blogroll. He’s got a lotta good stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Art Laffer, Bladecam, Polar Bearings, Mancini Mangling, Hubert Sumlin

Economist Art Laffer in a video from June 2009. Amazing how few people have seen this private chat. It’s well worth viewing. (Although Jeff Berkowitz’ intro is good, it’s long. The fun starts at 05:20 with WSJ’s Steve Moore’s intro. Laffer begins at 07:40.)

Yep. Already viral, but so what. [Found here.]

Very cool polar bears destroy some very cool spy cams.

Doesn’t make any sense to me to have high-tech spy cams when the ecologists obviously have the capability of filming the bears destroying the custom expensive equipment in the first place. Cut the research budget in half or more by giving the bears boxes to tear up. Better yet, just quit pestering them. A polar bear’s job is to hunt, kill and eat fish, seals, sea lions, etc., and not to waste precious energy messing with electronics. [via]

Funny, creepy and disturbing.

Ever hear of Hubert Sumlin? No? Then check this out.

From the Utoobage comments:

Before there was Jimmy Page, before there was Angus Young, before there was Jimi Hendrix, before there was Stevie Ray Vaughn…

…there was Hubert Sumlin.

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow.

Milton Friedman’s Brilliance

Folks–

Pip2 Occasionally I’ve commented on a few of your websites, in response to conjecture and political opinion pieces on government economics, welfare, and socialism. I’m not going to name names; most of ya’ll are blogging friends, and you already know who you are. Most of you already know where I stand, as I don’t hide it very well…

I don’t pretend to hide it either.

To our other silent but loyal readers: It doesn’t matter what I say on someone else’s blog, whether agreeing or disagreeing, venting, castigating, or just having fun. It’s my opinion, and it’s very very true.

I stand by my worms.

Although I’ve posted Utoobage links to Milton Friedman before, I hadn’t seen this one until tonight. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that eventually the videos of Friedman’s astute simple logic may soon be banned as “hate speech.”

Note that he rarely referred to his notes, and didn’t need a teleprompter to convey his ideas. He didn’t need them because he described simple basic truths backed up with historical fact.

Drop your preconceived notions at the door, and listen to what Friedman said, especially as it pertains to our present circumstances. He spoke volumes of logic in this interview with Richard Heffner of Rutgers University on “Open Mind,” a program that aired in 1975:

Friedman was a prescient genius. Full transcript below the break.

Continue reading “Milton Friedman’s Brilliance”

Either the U.S. Congress doesn’t know what they’re doing, or they know exactly what they’re doing, and I don’t know which is scarier.

peckers_halbot-mail-090207

[Image from here.]

Saturday Matinee: Pure Logic = Brilliance.

Folks, for those of you not familiar with Milton Friedman, you’re in for a treat, as I was when I found these videos. He’s not talking about politics here, but common sense economics.

What amazed me as I watched these videos is how easily Mr. Friedman understood the basic principles beneath apparently contradictory economic philosophies, and simplified/pared down the questions until the answers were obvious.

His extraordinary logic left both Phil Donahue and the liberal student in the dust; I doubt that either one of them completely understood what Friedman said.

This is stuff that even Oprah fans can understand, but many in the US Congress either do not, or choose not to. Our president is not stupid. He knows about the probable economic damage and is willing to forfeit his veto power (just as he is willing to tell our enemies his war strategy, as he did today). God help us.

BUT ON A LIGHTER NOTE: