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Europe Is Obama's First 'Global Test'

Global Economic Power Grab

Europeans say it's time to usher in a new global economic order. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a series of economic summits, the first of which is now set to take place in Washington DC on November 15.

He says he wants the gathering to build from scratch a new financial and monetary framework, one that would replace the current system that is dominated by the United States with a new model far more to Europe's liking.

"Europe wants the summit before the end of the year. Europe wants it, Europe asks for it and Europe will get it," says Sarkozy. "Laissez-faire, it's finished. The all-powerful market that is always right, it's finished.... It is necessary then for the state to intervene."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi proposes "rewriting the rules of international finance." The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, says: "We need a new global financial order." German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck says

"Anglo-Saxon" capitalist system has run its course and that "the United States will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system." [snip]

European Power Games


What's behind Europe's latest round of "let's play superpower make-believe?" European leaders are testing Obama's mettle, plain and simple; they want to see if he will bend more easily to the European will than did his predecessor. European leaders never wracked up the courage to ask President Bush directly for a partnership of equals because they knew he would have laughed them out of town.

Bush understood that Europeans were unable and unwilling to match their words with deeds... [examples - snip] If their past conduct is anything to go by, today's European leaders are about as interested in solving global problems as was Otto von Bismarck, who devoted his life to empire-building and the practice of Realpolitik.

Today's European leaders are trying not only to revive the Roman Empire in the form of a unified Europe, but they are also seeking to rebalance global power in such a way that places Europe at the top of the international pecking order. The main obstacle to European superpower ambitions is, of course, the United States, in whose likeness the present global system is made... [snip]

Will President Obama concede where President Bush did not? Will he pass his first global test? It's impossible to know until Obama moves into the White House. But the stakes are far higher than many Americans may realize...

Berliners flocked to the Brandenburg gate to hear Barack Obama's European speech.

[Highly Recommended > READ MORE ]

then... 'Protect America's free markets from European regulation'

President Bush > president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition > http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact
Your Senator > http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

and as always, pass it on - silence is consent...
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RE: GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION

Does the United States favor the rich in comparison to other countries?

If a country's tax code is highly progressive, then this ratio will be quite high, as the rich will have tax rates that are much higher than those faced by the poor. In a flat-tax economy, the ratio would be 1.0, since everyone would face the same tax rate.

How does the United States do?

• We have a top statutory income-tax rate of 35 percent; the Social Security tax does not raise this rate, plus the Medicare tax of 1.45 percent on employers and employees = a top rate in the US of about 38 percent.
• In 2007, a person who earned half of the average income (as measured in gross domestic product per capita) earned about $23,000 and faced a federal income-tax rate of 15 percent plus Social Security and Medicare taxes.
• Accounting for these, the income received by the lower-wage worker faced a combined tax rate of about 30 percent, and the ratio of the top rate to this one was about 1.3.

When one performs such a calculation for a typical European country, one finds a lot more flatness in the tax code.

This occurs for a simple reason: While income taxes tend to be quite progressive, payroll and sales (or value-added) taxes are paid by just about everyone, and large governments around the world have to rely on all of these tools to raise the revenue they need to spend more than 40 percent of GDP.

What does it all mean? We redistribute far more than does the typical developed country, explains Hassett. Ever since the early 1990s, we have been one of the more redistributive countries in the OECD. The notion that U.S. tax policy is out of whack with the practices of our main trading partners is absolutely correct:

We redistribute more than they do, even with rates where they are.

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Critics of US gloat over 'crumbling capitalism'

As the US sought to find a way out of the financial crisis, its critics at the United Nations were gloating over what they described as the crumbling of US capitalism.

Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the former Sandinista revolutionary in Nicaragua who is now serving as president of the UN 192-nation General Assembly, broke with protocol in his opening speech to denounce the “unbridled greed and irresponsibility of the powerful"... [snip]

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, told the visiting leaders: “We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets"...

[that's it: the UN is lecturing us on 'ethics and governance' - spare me. better yet...

U.S. Must Give U.N. The Boot

I've demanded it before, to no avail. Now, the U.S. should again consider getting out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S. What better timing than in a transitional election year? Nothing of lasting importance ever happens at the U.N. Why throw good money after bad?

The U.N. prefers to stand aside in internal conflicts and just look at the bloody rampages in Zimbabwe. Or, wring its hands when Burma suffered through a devastating hurricane. Humanitarian aid? Obviously not the U.N.'s table.
Instead, the U.N. elected Zimbabwe to head its commission on finance and the environment. Can anyone name a more horrible financial role model than Zimbabwe?"

Like the U.N.'s move to elect both Syria and Iran to its disarmament commission last year. Syria keeps Muslim terrorists well-armed and Iran promises to wipe out Israel and western civilization in general. And the U.N. has poured tens of millions of dollars into North Korea, another country illicitly developing and testing nukes.

Why do we allow embarrassments like these to happen on U.S. territory?

Now, the U.N. has the gall to examine the human rights record of the U.S. By a leftist lawyer from Senegal. It evidently never occurred to the U.N. to review countries that really do violate human rights. The U.N. frequently states it shouldn't be involved in the "internal affairs" of member states. What business, then, has the U.N. examining America's limited application of the death penalty and her jailing of juveniles?

There's something terribly wrong with this picture. We shouldn't be part of it and our hard-earned tax money shouldn't go to its financing, either. We can accomplish more by acting on our own or through regional pacts like NATO. Plus, giving the U.N. the boot would free up a valuable slice of real estate on New York's East Side.

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UNsalvageable. Time to scrap it and start over >

Enter UDN Site
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EU slices up 'ugly fruit' rules

The European Commission has scrapped controversial rules that prevent oddly-sized or misshapen fruit and vegetables being sold in Europe. The EU's agriculture commissioner called it

"a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot".

['global-government' mindset in action - they're actually proud of themselves for only spending some time on the topic]

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CRONIES AGAINST CAPITALISM

In a recent study, economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote found that pre-existing social attitudes toward luck may be the crucial determinant of the political path of a society. The authors uncovered a striking difference between American and European attitudes towards the poor:

• If you ask Americans whether they believe the poor are lazy, 60 percent agree.
• However, if you ask Europeans, only 26 percent say yes.

Historically, large welfare states have emerged in countries where citizens generally believe that luck determines income. It takes more than luck to maintain a free society.

If America is to avoid acquiring a welfare state the size of Europe's, the rule of law must be vigorously defended and the corrupt must be adequately punished.

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TAXES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

A tax system with low rates and little or no progressivity provides the greatest incentives to encourage entrepreneurship, says the Fraser Institute.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly being recognized as a critical determinant of job creation, innovation, and productivity gains. An often-used indicator of entrepreneurship is business creation and growth. A number of studies have shown the impact of taxes on creation and growth of businesses:

• A decrease in the marginal tax rate levied on a sole proprietor from 50 percent to 33 percent would lead to an increase in revenues of about 28 percent.
• A 5 percent rise in marginal tax rates would reduce the proportion of entrepreneurs who make new capital investments 10.4 percent, as well as lowering mean capital outlays by 9.9 percent.

Overall, the evidence suggests that a simple tax system, characterized by little or no progressivity and low rates for numerous types of taxes, would provide the least amount of distortion in the economy and provide the greatest incentives to encourage entrepreneurship.

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So Now Time Tells Us: Obama The New FDR

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Remember back during the campaign, when the Obama folks and their MSM cohorts adamantly denied that their man was a liberal? That National Journal study that ranked him the most liberal senator? Nonsense! Very misleading. After all, this is the man with a history of reaching across partisan lines (even if no good examples were handy at the moment).

So . . . remember all that? Well, forget it.

Now that Obama is safely ensconced in his Office of the President-Elect, the MSM can let the [ill-concealed to many of us] cat out of the bag: yes, he's a liberal. Big time! In fact, Obama is nothing less than the second coming of the biggest American liberal icon of all time: FDR! Rick Stengel announced the news on today's Morning Joe:

RICK STENGEL: It's the New New Deal, and it's Barack Obama as FDR, obviously. And it's about how he could forge a Democratic majority, a liberal majority, not unlike what FDR did.

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Obama to Create White House Office of Urban Policy

On National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" yesterday, longtime Obama family friend and Obama-Biden Transition Team co-chair Valerie Jarrett said that the President-elect would, as pledged during the campaign, create an Office of Urban Policy.

Jarrett said the office would "have a comprehensive approach to our urban development," who will be an "advocate for cities" within the White House, taking "all the variety of different federal programs and help target them..

[translation: to establish the system of subsidies from producing parts of the country to support the failure many of our 'inner cities' have become. I.e., wealth redistribution at the city level]

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"If you believe the left is tolerant, open-minded and democratic, you're in for a rude awakening"

READ THIS

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Another Assault on Freedom of the Airwaves

As free speech advocates gear up to oppose revival of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” another Orwellian-named government effort to dictate the content of radio and TV news and opinion has been hatched by the Bush administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). So far, there’s been much less focus on the “localism rule” – even though it would have a similar chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

Under the FCC’s proposed regulations, owners of radio and TV stations would become subject to permanent advisory boards whose members – aka “community organizers” - would be chosen according to politically correct multi-cultural nostrums requiring representation of all “stakeholders.” These boards would be empowered by the FCC to decide if stations were airing a “sufficient amount of community-responsive programming”- with neither “sufficient” nor “responsive” defined. A negative advisory board finding could mean loss of a station owner’s broadcasting license.

If this proposed regulation is adopted, political activists with ideological agendas on advisory boards will be able to dictate that Christian radio stations air programs advocating abortion and gay marriage, which they oppose as a matter of religious conviction. This proposal is clearly antithetical to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and religion.

It will undermine an uncensored, independent press in a free society as a tool for holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable, and make government the arbiter of acceptable religious doctrine.

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Broadcast Blackout of Left’s 'Fairness' Doctrine Push

Barack Obama’s transition team has tapped former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, a longtime proponent of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," to head the team looking for the man or woman who will soon give Democrats a 3-to-2 advantage on the Federal Communications Commission.

It’s another troubling sign that Democrats are serious about trying to reinstate the long-defunct FCC regulation, which can more aptly be described as the "Censorship Doctrine" because of its chilling effect on free speech. In effect from 1949 to 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was an obstacle to open discussion of public policy issues on the radio; its removal in the Reagan years spawned the robust talk radio marketplace of ideas now enjoyed by millions.

While talk radio hosts often warned during the campaign that free speech could be trampled by an all-Democratic majority, the broadcast networks have failed to react to this dangerous threat to the First Amendment. A review shows the broadcast networks — whose affiliates could also be regulated — have failed to run even a single story mentioning the push for a new Fairness Doctrine.

[ I believe it's considerably worse than that: I've noticed an drastic increase in {seemingly unrelated} MSM stories which feature and lambast Rush Limbaugh {of whom I'm no fan} - to such a degree that I now suspect he's being positioned as the bad-poster-boy they'll use for this effort. Yeah conspiraltorial - but what if there is one?

Regardless, the push to re-apply the Prohibitive-Costs Doctring {as I call it} is literally intended to make recent Democratic gains permanant by removing the primary cultural counter-balance to the left's otherwise pervasive media influence. This will prove devestating in years to come if it passes - please join me in working against it by joining MRC's Free Speech Alliance - and as always, pass it on...]


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Tolerance fails T-shirt test

Catherine Vogt, 14, conducted an experiment in political tolerance at her Oak Park middle school and learned some valuable lessons. (Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo / November 12, 2008)

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.

"I couldn't show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing," she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, "I really like your shirt."

That's when you know America is truly supportive of diversity of opinion, when children must whisper for fear of being ostracized, heckled and crucifixed.

The next day, in part 2 of The Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment, she wore another T-shirt, this one with "Obama Girl" written in blue. And an amazing thing happened.

Catherine wasn't very stupid anymore. She grew brains.

"People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today," Catherine said.


Some students accused her of playing both sides.

"A lot of people liked it. But some people told me I was a flip-flopper," she said. "They said, 'You can't make up your mind. You can't wear a McCain shirt one day and an Obama shirt the next day.' "

But she sure did, and she turned her journal into a report for her history teacher, earning Catherine extra credit. We asked the teacher, Norma Cassin-Pountney, whether it was ironic that Catherine would be subject to such intolerance from pro-Obama supporters in a community that prides itself on its liberal outlook.

"That's what we discussed," Cassin-Pountney said about the debate in the classroom when the experiment was revealed. "I said, here you are, promoting this person [Obama] that believes we are all equal and included, and look what you've done? The students were kind of like, 'Oh, yeah.' I think they got it."

Catherine never told us which candidate she would have voted for if she weren't an 8th grader. But she said she learned what it was like to be in the minority.

"Just being on the outside, how it felt, it was not fun at all," she said.

Don't ever feel as if you must conform, Catherine. Being on the outside isn't so bad. Trust me.

[where to our kids learn this behavior? in our schools]

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