05 Feb 2009
Libertarian plan to boost jobs

The cure, you dolt, is getting rid of all state intervention in the economy. Starting with the Federal Reserve and working down from there. It is not giving tax breaks to government chartered quasi-monopolies (aka "corporations"). It is not increasing the amount of theft (aka "taxes") government extorts on the sales of energy (or any other) products. It is not interfering with the ability of workers to organize and attempt to collectively bargain. It is not breaking the promises government made and effectively stealing from those who've paid Social Security taxes.

I get the distinct impression that what is meant by "free trade" here consists of us opening up to everybody's imports, irregardless of how they treat our exports. And that's not free trade at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but given the overall tone of the piece, I doubt it.

Abandoning Afghanistan before we have bin Laden? Well, in a perfect world, perhaps. In a perfect world, Osama wouldn't have bothered to attack us. But if government has any excuse for it's own existence, laying the whomp on those who attack us is it. Perhaps this so-called "libertarian" is implying that there's no excuse at all for government. No, wait, he's all for taxes on gas and using law to bust unions. That can't be it.

I'm all in favor of stopping the bailouts of businesses that took too much risk. But which ones are those? How about we just stop bailing out businesses period?

About the only thing he got right was Iraq and immigration. And those are the two items that have the least to do with the current economic crisis.

If this bozo's a libertarian, I'd better start calling myself a communist. He's "Republican Lite" - maybe a little less filling, but ends up tasting just as bad as the real deal.

When libertarians question the merit of President Obama's stimulus package, a frequent rejoinder is, "Well, we have to do something." This is hardly a persuasive response. If the cure is worse than the disease, it is better to live with the disease.

(link) [CNN.com]

21:44 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

One-tonne 40ft snake prowled superhot prehistoric jungles

Jormungander.

Scientists say they have discovered fossil remains of a colossal prehistoric snake that once roamed the superheated Paleocene jungles of South America. The one-tonne Titanoboa cerrejonensis would have been more than 40 feet long and ten feet around at its thickest.

(link) [The Register]

21:16 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Buy American plan could cost U.S. jobs

What I want to know is exactly how this could be considered "protectionism"? Number 1, we have very, very few manufacturing jobs left to protect. Number 2, is it really protectionism when an economic entity (company, government or even individual) decides to spend it's own funds in it's home country? If I decide to buy an American car because I have relatives who work for GM, is that "protectionism"? If not, how is it different when I direct my government to spend my tax dollars locally because I have relatives who work for GM?

Is it "protectionism" when the government sources it's military hardware purchases locally (or even within an alliance)? By the whining from some foreign leaders in this article it would appear to be... perhaps we should order our next main battle tank from the Russians, I hear they build pretty good ones, and they gotta be cheaper.

If it's not a tariff, and it's not a duty, and it's not an importation tax of any sort, then it's not protectionism. Period

I wonder if the hard core free trade lobby really understands what they've cost this country over the long haul? Have any of them ever stopped to ask how the government was funded before we amended our Constitution to allow income taxation? Here's a hint: tariff's, duties and importation taxes. Somehow, we managed to grow from a motley collection of 13 colonies to a world economic and military power without an income tax, and without "free trade". Trade was a source of huge political contentions in American history - but I'm not so sure that the farmers who pushed so hard for free trade early in the last century would be happy with a 30% income tax. Reliance on tariffs kept government small - reliance on the income tax has allowed it's extraordinary growth. It's my personal belief that this was a core reason the Founder's inserted that line about "no capitation taxes" in the original Constitution - they knew what would happen once it was gone.

Reuters - "Buy American" provisions under consideration in Congress as part of a huge economic stimulus bill could create only 1,000 new steel industry jobs and might cost as many as 65,000 across a number of sectors, a new study said on Tuesday.


(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

12:56 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link