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Peter Ferrara makes the case that growth helps all levels of our society, and redistribution attempts damage the most vulnerable.
President Obama is proving a fundamental economic principle proven as well by President Reagan, though in the opposite way. That principle is that economic growth provides vastly greater benefits for working people and the poor than redistribution. It is economic growth that is the key to prosperity and the good life for the middle class, working people, and the poor.
President Obama’s policies have been all about redistribution, spreading the wealth as he puts it, a polite phrase for plunder. That redistribution is in evidence from ObamaCare, to runaway government spending, to raising tax rates on “the rich.”
The results of those policies are in the latest Census report on September 14. Median real family income has fallen all the way back to 1996 levels. As the Wall Street Journal explained the next day, “Earnings of the typical man who works full time year round fell, and are lower — adjusted for inflation — than in 1978.”
The Census also reported that the poverty rate has climbed to 15.1%, higher than in the late 1960s when the War on Poverty was getting underway, $16 trillion ago. The child poverty rate climbed to 22%, nearly a quarter of all American children. The total number of Americans in poverty is higher than at any time in the over 50 years that the Census Bureau has been tallying poverty.
Moreover, historically, for the American economy, the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. Based on that historical record, we should be nearing the end of the second year of a booming recovery by now. But almost four years after the last recession started, there still has been no real recovery. Unemployment is stuck over 9%, with unemployment among African-Americans, Hispanics, and teenagers at depression double digit levels for at least two years now. …
More of the same from Mort Zuckerman.
Take a deep breath. The industrialised world, America included, seems stuck in one of those horror movies, where the monster, thought to be slain, morphs into something even more scary. The fear is that a double-dip, or worse, is now upon us. Those who might help us escape are now being held back by the anti-business policies of President Barack Obama.
Mr Obama’s administration predicted a V-shaped recovery, based on the historical experience of the 1970s and 1980s. Not this time. The $4,000bn of fiscal and monetary stimulus produced less than $1,000bn in growth. Gross domestic product is now running at about 1.8 per cent this year but two-thirds of this will come from growth in business inventories, not final sales.
Consumers are clearly not willing to generate these new sales. The University of Michigan’s confidence numbers have fallen to levels 20 per cent or more below earlier recessions. The numbers now match the drops seen after the Iran hostage crisis, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. No wonder that in the 14 quarters since the beginning of 2008, growth in consumption adjusted for inflation averaged just 0.5 per cent, the longest period of weakness since the end of the second world war.
This weak record on growth is proving disastrous for ordinary Americans. Per capita income remains below its 2006 level, while wage-based incomes are declining. It is little surprise, then, that adjusting for inflation, retail sales last month contracted at nearly a 5 per cent annual pace, while the proportion of Americans living in poverty soared. This is a modern day depression, only this time soup lines have been replaced by unemployment cheques. …
Sherman Frederick doesn’t like the way people who disagree with Obama are called racists.
We’ll probably never purge society of racial stupidity. Holding it to a minimum, however, remains a fine American goal.
It’s hard to marginalize the race-card mentality, however, when the country’s first black president and his supporters wield it like a splitting ax.
That track record on this is crystal clear. In 2008, when campaigning in Missouri, Sen. Barack Obama set the stage for his national run by saying his opponent, Sen. John McCain, would seek to “scare” voters because Obama didn’t look like past presidents and had a “funny name.”
You don’t need the imagination of Dr. Seuss to see that race card.
Those with no imagination (or those who won’t see) may wish to contemplate comments by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Racebait, TX. In the recent debt ceiling debate, Rep. Jackson said: “I’m particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president, only this president, only this one, has received the kind of attacks and disagreements and inability to work. Only this one.”
And just in case you didn’t get it, she added: “Read between the lines.”
We get it, Sheila. If you won’t give President Obama more money to spend, you’re a racist. …
WSJ gives us a tour of Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.
… Unlike most hotels, MGM Grand does all its own laundry. A separate 65,000-square-foot facility employs 165 people to wash, dry and fold linens. Each of the three dryers can handle 300 pounds. Employees feed dried towels and washcloths into folding machines that enable a single worker to fold 1,000 hand towels or 600 bath towels in one hour.
A six-month-old $1.2 million machine, nicknamed “the tunnel,” is making the washing process quicker. It continuously cleans, moving laundry through the 11 compartments of a 40-foot-long tube. A hydraulic press squeezes moisture out. The end result looks like an oversized hockey puck.
The driveway leading to MGM Grand has 14 lanes. “It is almost like working on a major freeway,” says Paolo Domingo, director, front services. One of the biggest headaches for valets—who parked about one million cars last year—is lost valet tickets. Once, that meant “running around” looking for cars in the 9,487-space guest parking lot, Mr. Domingo says. (On busy weekends, a minivan ferries valet workers around.) But in 2005, MGM linked a computer system to cameras that photograph all sides of each car. The system notes the space number and the time the car entered the lot. If a guest knows roughly when the car was parked, an employee can track it down. …
Telegraph, UK with the background of our success killing Awlaki.
As he sat by a roadside eating what would be his last ever breakfast, Anwar al-Awlaki could have been forgiven for being in upbeat mood. Some 18 months after Washington had given him arguably the ultimate terrorist accolade by putting him on a list of people authorised for assassination, he was still hiding in the lawless Yemeni mountains where neither his own government nor US drone strikes could seem to reach him.
Then, as he and his comrades chewed dates and drank traditional Yemeni tea, a high-pitched buzz above them signalled yet another drone strike – this time one that found its mark.
Details of how the US finally managed to track down al-Qaeda’s chief mouthpiece to the West can be revealed today by The Sunday Telegraph, which has learned that the key breakthrough came when CIA officials caught a junior courier in Awlaki’s inner circle. The man, who is understood to have been arrested three weeks ago by Yemeni agents acting for the agency, volunteered key details about Awlaki’s whereabouts which led to Friday’s drone strike as his convoy drove through the remote province of Jawf, 100 miles east of the capital, Sana’a. Told he faced either a harsh prison term or the chance of a new life outside terrorism, the prisoner gave the vital clues that led to the most significant blow against al Qaeda since Osama bin Laden’s death. …
Stunning time lapse picture of 15 minutes of lightning in Missouri from Earth Science Picture of the Day.