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There’s a good picture here of Pickerhead on the job. It’s at the start of the humor section in back.
Max Boot says don’t sell America short.
… What the pessimists ignore is that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. Indeed, the World Economic Forum has ranked the United States as the world’s most competitive economy for the last two years. (The new survey comes out next month.) Its statistics show that per-capita gross domestic product in the U.S. consistently has grown faster than in other developed economies since 1980.
Looking deeper at the causes of American competitiveness shows that we score especially strongly not only in domestic market size (No. 1 in the world) but also in such areas as time required to start a business (No. 3), venture capital availability (No. 1), the cost of firing an employee (No. 1), ownership of personal computers (No. 2), university/industry research collaboration (No. 1) and quality of scientific research institutions (No. 2). The availability of venture capital might be affected temporarily by the market turmoil, and we should worry if Democrats gain control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in November because they might exacerbate what the survey found to be the two most “problematic” issues for doing business in the U.S. — high tax rates and cumbersome tax regulations.
But whatever happens in the next few months, most of the other advantages that have been powering the U.S. economy forward for decades will remain unchanged.
So too will another vital statistic: population growth. According to federal statistics, the fertility rate in the U.S., where each woman has on average 2.1 children, is now the highest among major industrialized economies. We are above replacement level while Europe, Japan and other industrialized economies have long been beneath it. That means that, even as our major competitors have to cope with graying populations, declining productivity and increasing pension costs, our population will remain relatively youthful and vibrant, notwithstanding the retirement of the baby boomers. This advantage is enhanced by our ability to attract and integrate hardworking immigrants from around the world. …
Tony Blankley writes on the media’s Obama cheering sections.
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight-out propagandists for the Obama campaign.
While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08, for the first time, the major media consciously are covering for one candidate for president and consciously are knifing the other. This is no longer journalism; it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.)
And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly or even halfway honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press. The image of Obama that the press has presented to the public is not a fair approximation of the real man. They consciously have ignored whole years of his life and have shown a lack of curiosity about such gaps, which bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct. …
Power Line posts on the latest poll showing 9 points up for Obama. Here’s some old wisdom from Pickerhead; figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
In 2005 there was an opportunity to attack the problems at Fannie/Freddie. Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg News has the story.
The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.
Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.
But really, it isn’t. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.
Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. …
Christopher Hitchens wants to know if Obama’s another Dukakis.
… The Dukakis comparison is, of course, a cruel one, but it raises a couple more questions that must be faced. We are told by outraged Democrats that many voters still believe, thanks to some smear job, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Yet who is the most famous source of this supposedly appalling libel (as if an American candidate cannot be of any religion or none)? Absent any anonymous whispering campaign, the person who did most to insinuate the idea in public—”There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know“—was Obama’s fellow Democrat and the junior senator from New York. It was much the same in 1988, when Al Gore brought up the Dukakis furlough program, later to be made infamous by the name Willie Horton, against the hapless governor of Massachusetts who was then his rival for the nomination.
By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose—or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.
Look at the record, and at Obama’s replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I’ll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton’s economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups? …
Steve Malanga in City Journal with report on the new crop of urban pan-handlers.
Barbara Bradley, an editor with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, moved into the River City’s reviving downtown about a year and a half ago, loving its “energy and enthusiasm.” But a horde of invading panhandlers has cooled her enjoyment of city life. Earlier this year, she recalled in a recent column, as she showed some visitors around the neighborhood, “a big panhandler blocked the entrance to our parking area and demanded his toll.” Now a nervous Bradley avoids certain downtown areas, locks her car when fueling up at local gas stations, and parks strategically, so that she can see beggars coming before getting out of her car. “When I hear someone call out ‘ma’am, ma’am’ anywhere in downtown or midtown, I run.”
She’s not alone. Cities have overcome myriad obstacles in revitalizing their downtowns, from lousy transportation systems to tough competition from suburban shopping malls. But nearly 15 years after New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his police chief, William Bratton, vanquished Gotham’s notorious squeegee men and brought aggressive panhandling under control, other cities are facing a new wave of “spangers” (that is, spare-change artists) who threaten their newfound prosperity by harassing residents, tourists, and businesses. Unlike their predecessors in the seventies and eighties, many of these new beggars aren’t helpless victims or even homeless. Rather, they belong to a diverse and swelling community of street people who have made panhandling their calling. …