Now that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination for health secretary because of his failure to pay taxes, and Nancy Killefer, who was appointed chief performance officer and deputy OMB director, has also withdrawn because of non-payment of taxes, it is time for Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to do exactly the same.
READ MORE
For the last three months, Americans have been treated to a debate over what the government can do to ease the effects of the current recession and bring about a speedy recovery. Lawmakers of both parties are now considering a very large stimulus package.
But there is a catch. Every penny of such a package must be borrowed, because the government is already running a $1.2 trillion deficit this year and faces a $703 billion deficit for next year, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The question, then, is whether the government can help the economy by spending money if it can only do so by first sucking that money out of the economy. It is a question that surprisingly few public voices are expressing.
I spoke Monday with the Heritage Foundation’s leading budget analyst, Brian Riedl, about deficit spending as a silver bullet for ending recessions, and about whether the stimulus package now proposed is necessary or even helpful. [snip]
"That is a great question. The grand Keynesian myth is that you can spend money and thereby increase demand. And it’s a myth because Congress does not have a vault of money to distribute in the economy. Every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. You’re not creating new demand, you’re just transferring it from one group of people to another.
If Washington borrows the money from domestic lenders, then investment spending falls, dollar for dollar. If they borrow the money from foreigners, say from China, then net exports drop dollar for dollar, because the balance of payments must adjust. Therefore, again, there is no net increase in aggregate demand. It just means that one group of people has $800 billion less to spend, and the government has $800 billion more to spend."
" I’m not sure why economists haven’t been pointing this out *. . . For politicians, though, it’s much more understandable. Keynesian economics offers the promise of a free lunch. It offers the idea that government can wave a magic wand, spend money, and make the recession end in a pain-free way.
It’s just not that easy."
The House Democrats’ political arm is launching a radio, email, and telephone campaign against 28 House Republicans in 20 states who voted against the $819 billion economic-stimulus package last week. Targeted members in leadership include Minority Whip Eric Cantor [VA], Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter [MI], and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions [TX].
[Is this our new definition of 'honest debate' - targeting dissenters?]
READ MORE
The US confirmed Tuesday that Iran has launched its first home-built satellite into orbit, raising fresh concerns in an international community already at odds with Tehran over its nuclear drive.
"It appears that the Iranians conducted a launch of a low orbit satellite," said a US official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
A jubilant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier announced the lift-off, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, on state television
"Dear Iranians, your children have put the first indigenous satellite into orbit," said Ahmadinejad.
"With this launch the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially achieved a presence in space." [snip]
Iran has pursued a space program for several years, and in October 2005 a Russian-made Iranian satellite named Sina-1 was put into orbit by a Russian rocket.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gofNdXgzp5YhXPSB1xIII1DRSqXQ
WASHINGTON -- The White House says Iran is not acting responsibly with its satellite launch.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Iran's launch of its first domestically made satellite"does not convince us that Iran is acting responsibly to advance stability or security in the region."
[And what more, exactly, will it take to 'convince' them that Iran is intentionally destabilizing the region? {or does everything they say and do somehow not count?}]
READ MORE
BRUSSELS - Iran's announcement that it has launched its first satellite would, if true, confirm that the Islamic republic has missiles capable of striking Israel and southeast Europe, a NATO officer said Tuesday. However the officer said, on condition of anonymity, that it could take up to a week to verify whether Tehran's claim that it had sent an Omid (Hope) satellite into space on a home-built Safir-2 space rocket was true.
READ MORE
Iran's apparently successful launch of its own satellite by its own rocket shows how it is slowly but surely mastering the missile technology that the West and Israel fear one day might be available as a delivery system for a nuclear weapon. It also shows, as Iran itself has triumphantly proclaimed, that the UN sanctions against Iran, which include sanctions against its missile programme as well as its nuclear activities, have not stopped this event.
[because the UN has evolved into an organization that seats countries like China and Russia on the security council with veto authority]
READ MORE
MOSCOW — In a setback to the escalating U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan , the president of Kyrgyzstan said Tuesday that his government will shut down the American air base in his country.
U.S. officials say that the Manas Air Base is vital to plans to send an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan , a linchpin of President Barack Obama's efforts to pacify the country.
The announcement by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev came in Moscow , not in his own capital, and shortly after the Russian government reportedly agreed to lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion , write off $180 million in debt and add another $150 million in aid.
Although the Russian government didn't release a statement about the decision, the timing and place of the announcement indicated that the Kremlin had been involved...
READ MORE
A rift between the EU and US over how to deal with global trafficking in illicit drugs is undermining international efforts to agree a new UN strategy. The confrontation has been heightened because of suggestions that the US negotiating team is pushing a hardline, Bush administration "war on drugs", in contrast to the EU position which supports "harm reduction" measures such as needle exchanges.
Talks are said to be at breaking point in Vienna where representatives have gathered to hammer out a new UN declaration in time for a signing ceremony at a drugs summit in mid-March. Negotiations, which have been going on for three months, are due to resume tomorrow with no indication of a breakthrough. At the heart of the dispute is whether a commitment to "harm reduction" should be included in the UN declaration of intent.
The US position, as maintained throughout the Bush years, is that such inclusion sends the wrong message and must be resisted. President Obama has already lifted the ban on federal funding for needle exchanges and is known to have a more liberal approach to the issue, but the US negotiating team is opposed to varying the "drug-free" strategies of the past.
READ MORE
Folks often hear the exhortation to “get the lead out” when moving too slowly. But Congress’s over-hasty insistence on getting the lead out is about to cause massive economic problems in an already weak economy.
The Manhattan Institute’s Walter Olson wrote Jan. 16 in Forbes that a new law, limiting lead content in consumer products, probably will be “a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers.”
As usual, only the plaintiffs’ attorneys are rubbing their hands in glee.
Last August, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which mandates that all products for children ages 12 and under be tested for lead and phthalates (a chemical in many plastics), and that no such products be sold with lead contents higher than 600 parts per million.
The sales ban applies retroactively, too: Even if the items in question were made 100 years ago, The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has advised that a second-hand store could be subject to lawsuits or even “criminal penalties” for selling them... [snip]
If Congress and President Obama have any decency, they will pass an emergency bill this very week to delay all implementation of the act for a full year, until they themselves can re-do the original legislation to make it more clear, and more sensible.
READ MORE
HOSPITAL staff are facing a blanket ban on smoking at any time while they are in uniform – or even wearing an NHS badge – under a crackdown proposed by officials at one of Scotland's largest health boards
Patients and hospital visitors could also be prevented from taking packets of cigarettes on to hospital grounds under the move, which aims to completely outlaw smoking on every site operated by the North-east health authority. [snip]
Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for the pro-smoking organization [?] Forest, said:"To suggest that a member of staff cannot smoke during what is effectively their own time, during breaks, is tantamount to health fascism. They shouldn't be bullying workers into trying to change their lifestyle."
[the inevitable evolution of government social engineering: fascism]
READ MORE
There are very few economists who really buy into Keynesian theory anymore. Instead, the idea of “rational expectations” has taken its place. The difference between the two approaches is essential to understanding why Obama’s stimulus package won’t work. Keynes felt that people would react automatically to a few dollars in their hands. Consumers would run out and buy new products, and businessmen, seeing the uptick in sales, would rush to open new plants and hire new workers who would, in turn, generate more demand.
But that’s not the real world. In reality, consumers, knowing there are hard times ahead, save any money they get either by salting it away or by paying down their debts and bills. That’s why the personal saving rate in the last quarter of 2008 was the highest in six years and spending on residential construction was down 22 percent over the past year. And the savings rate rose from 2.8 percent in November 2008 to 3.6 percent in December as the storm clouds grew grayer. And, in the real world, banks hang onto their money for fear of making bad loans, no matter how many bailouts or stimulus packages Washington passes.
According to the Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis, the Fed is now holding upwards of $1.7 trillion for American banks, more than twice what it had in its vaults at the start of 2008. How did the Fed get the money? Congress voted the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) package of bailout funds. The Fed purchased bank assets to get liquidity onto their balance sheets. What did the banks do with the money? They gave it right back to the Fed to hold in its vaults. They didn’t lend it out. They didn’t use it to stimulate the economy. They are using it for a nest egg to tap when times improve.
Just like the theory of rational expectations says they would.
[Recommended > ]
READ MORE
Arctic blizzards are set to cause a national shutdown tomorrow as forecasters warn of the most widespread snowfall for almost 20 years. The Met Office is warning of an "extreme weather event" across large swathes of England, Scotland and Wales with up to 10in of snow expected even in the usually warmer south and as much as 1ft on higher ground.
READ MORE
So the deepest green of them all turns out to be not so much a friend of the earth as an enemy of the human race. Jonathon Porritt, the [UK's] Government's 'green' adviser, has said that couples who have more than two children are being 'irresponsible' by creating an unbearable burden on the environment.'Curbing' population growth through contraception and abortion must therefore be at the heart of policies to fight man-made global warming...
[when I say a mechanism for governments to control everything, I mean everything.]
READ MORE
Employees of the Sharp Electronics Corporation were at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in Mahwah, N.J., recently to teach a lesson on climate change and renewable energy. The cartoon image of an ailing Earth — a thermometer sticking out of its mouth — was the opening slide in their presentation.
Climate change and energy are complex issues, so I was interested to observe how they would be distilled by the Japanese electronics giant — and one of the world’s largest makers of solar panels — to an audience of 10- and 11-year-olds. I recently sat in the back of a fifth-grade class and listened in.
“It turns out that the temperature of the Earth is actually rising,” she said. Ms. Harvey then asked if anyone knew what C02 is. “Carbon dioxide,” a student answered. Ms. Harvey explained that carbon dioxide is actually a good thing, because it helps keep the Earth’s atmosphere warm, but the problem is that there’s now too much of it... [snip]
Bill Howe, a fifth-grade science teacher, told the Sharp instructors afterward that they should make the curriculum available to teachers everywhere and that he would be happy to help in any way possible. “I think my students are excited by the idea that there’s a huge change going on,” Mr. Howe said.
[Do you know what your kids are being taught?]
READ MORE
Cuban officials say that exploratory drilling to assess the potential for oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico is likely to resume in the second quarter of this year, a sign that lower world oil prices have not derailed efforts by the Cuban government and its foreign corporate partners to keep moving toward offshore oil production.
[Marvelous; I need look to Cuba for an example of intelligent foresight.]
READ MORE
On Jan. 6, according to a report in the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat, two Congressional Democrats from Northern California — Reps. Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma and Mike Thompson of St. Helena — introduced legislation to permanently ban oil drilling off the coast.
Had either of these environmental pinheads read my Sept. 30 post, Reasons to Oppose Offshore Drilling Obsolete, they would have learned that their arguments are based on out-of-date thinking: [snip]
If you’re as disgusted as I am with Democrats in Congress doing everything they can to prevent this country from realizing energy independence, CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS in Washington, D.C., and demand they do the right thing. Threaten them with your vote. Say whatever it takes to convince them that reinstating the ban on offshore drilling is the wrong thing to do.
READ MORE
Mexican drug trafficking organizations are now the greatest organized crime threat to the United States, according to a recent report released by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The National Drug Threat Assessment for 2009, released last month by the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center, says Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) operate in more than 230 cities across the United States.“The violence, intimidation, theft and financial crimes carried out by DTOs, criminal groups, gangs and drug users in the United States pose a significant threat to our nation,”
the threat assessment concluded.
[but a fence would be rude]
READ MORE
When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?
... When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.
[VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED > ]
READ MORE
