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Rambling thoughts on who knows what... Because not everything is as the conventional wisdom would have it... BLOGS I SORT OF LIKE... Volokh Conspiracy ProfessorBainbridge MarginalRevolution Patterico Powerline Ace Wizbang JustOneMinute XRLQ Betsy's Page HE WHO USED TO LINK ME EVERY NOW AND THEN InstaPundit Email Steve
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Not unexpectedly, a Clinton-appointed judge mischaracterizes the issue in ruling that Obama passes Constitutional muster.
She writes "the individuals subject to (the) mandate provision are either present or future participants in the national health care market" and "Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes...". Both are true... and both are beside the point. As I've said before, health insurance is not the same thing as health care. Someone can be a consumer of the former without necessarily being a consumer of the latter. While everybody will presumably require some degree of health care over the course of their life, Obamacare mandates that everybody purchase health insurance. Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I'm less than swayed by Madoff's (new) claim that banks had to have known of his ponzi scheme.
First, he's a proven liar, I'm not sure I'd believe him if he told me the sun rose in the east. Second, crooks such as Madoff don't get away with their crimes for as long as they do by making it easy for others to pick up on what they're doing. Tuesday, February 15, 2011
How to reform Social Security... in four easy steps (rationale in italics):
1 - Scale back cost of living increases to no higher than 75% of current formula. The days of workers automatically getting cost of living raises are long gone, and there is no reason to exempt former workers from this new (sad) fact of life. 2 - Add three years to age at which people become eligible to start collecting payments. Seems pretty straightforward. People can work longer than they used to be able to, so if they want to retire earlier in life (compared to how much life they have left) they can do so, but they'll have to do so without getting paid by the rest of society. 3 - Make a dollar for dollar reduction in benefits for anyone with non-social security taxable income of more than $100,000. I know the 'rich' have paid social security taxes, and more than most people, but social security is basically a welfare benefit and the country can't afford to write checks to everyone who otherwise would be eligible. 4 - No payments to any illegal immigrants. Save me the tears about how these people paid into the system. We'll treat the money they paid in social security not as contributions towards a payment of their own, but as a cost of their staying in the country and working illegally.
While I am happy the GOP is looking to cut government spending, they're going about it the wrong way...
I'm not referring to the amounts or programs they're looking to cut, but rather the rationale they're using to justify the cuts. They're painting a doomsday scenario of having too much government spending, deficits and debt... all of which are true, but the negative consequences they're citing are all off in the future. At some point, people will stop buying government debt.. but that isn't happening today. At some point, the economy could end up grinding to a halt... but that isn't happening today. And, given that we know the American people don't like dealing with problems until we absolutely positively have to, any approach that highlights problems that aren't happening today is an approach that is going to get ignored by a good chunk of the American people. And that will let Obama paint himself as the moderate one, compared to the gloom and doom Republicans who are running around screaming 'the sky is going to fall, the sky is going to fall'. While the sky is going to fall if things don't change, the GOP needs to redo its talking points, they need to start screaming 'the sky IS falling, the sky IS falling'. They need to connect the dots between the incredibly high levels of government spending and debt to the economic problems we're having today. They need to argue that Obama's spending and other economic policies are the principle driver of the high unemployment... of the continued doldrums in the housing market... of the higher prices for food and gas... and so on. The GOP needs to argue that it isn't just that Obama is going to cost us sometime in the future, Obama is hurting American today, that the economy would be in far better shape if he wasn't running a trillion dollar deficit... if he wasn't continuing to underwrite losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... if he wasn't continuing to restrict oil and gas production... if he wasn't continuing to defend Obamacare. There's a reason American workers aren't getting raises... and are paying more at the gas pump... and paying more for health insurance... and aren't seeing a rise in the value of their home... and it isn't evil corporations that are responsible, but rather Obama himself. Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Way back, what was then just plain AOL orchestrated quite the coup by merging with what was then Time Warner. AOL shareholders gave up a piece of a company with make-believe value (as was the case with all dot.com companies) for a piece of a company with real assets and real profits. Time Warner shareholders, on the other hand, came out terrible, giving up 100% of a real company in return for a piece of a company whose then-astronomical value was made up of smoke and mirrors.
So it is somewhat poetic justice that AOL shareholders are today giving up real value (in the form of $300 million of cash) in return for a business whose valuation is built on a fairy tale foundation. AOL buying the Huffington Post is built on the idea that advertising supported news sites are a viable long term business proposition. AOL figures that that their ad sales team is going to sell millions upon millions of dollars of advertising on the Huffington Post content pages.... not only now, but for the foreseeable future. Way back, the business plans for dot.com companies seemed to consist of nothing more than what I refer to as "build it and they will come", with 'they' being defined first as visitors and then as money. And today, AOL's strategy in buying the Huffington Post is the same... buy the content and 'they' will come, with 'they' being advertisers paying lots of money for the privilege of advertising on all the pages the wonderful content team of the merged operation can manage to put out every day. There's only one wrinkle... a fly in the ointment... (I believe) most web advertising is NOT cost effective, the advertisers do not realize a positive return on their advertising dollar. Unlike TV and print advertising, the web provides advertisers with an immediate ability to track the revenue they receive from their advertising. They know when an ad works, they know when an ad doesn't work. And since, with very few exceptions, online advertising doesn't lead people to click, and people who don't click don't buy. It isn't because there's anything inherently wrong with the advertising... it is that people going to (content) web sites don't go for the ads, the ads are a distraction from what they're looking to see. People filter out the ads. And advertisers will soon have to face the fact that they're not getting a positive return on the ad expenditures. The fad of 'having to have an Internet marketing strategy' will fade as company after company realize that was just something the marketing agencies made up in order to persuade advertisers to spend money. And when the advertisers realize this, they're going to stop paying the asking rate and, if they advertise at all, will demand much lower prices... which will destroy the businesses whose models are based on having a steady stream of advertisers wanting ad space on their web sites. Granted, AOL didn't have a lot of options. Sooner or later, even the grandpas and grandmas still on dial up would realize they didn't need to keep sending to AOL every month. AOL's revenue curve was pointing in the wrong direction. To their credit, they didn't freeze, they did act. But unfortunately for AOL shareholders, AOL management wasted $300 million of cash that could have gone for something worthwhile.
Clue to the Daily Beast or Newsweek or whatever you're calling yourselves these days... The term 'Big Spender' is defined by the amount of money one spends, and Obama's spending binge is not excused by his (forced) agreement to keep the Bush-era tax cuts.
In fact, isn't it odd that liberals are arguing that tax cuts somehow mitigate increases in government spending, given that they're the ones who basically view tax cuts as government spending? In their view, tax cuts only add to the amount of spending, they don't reduce it. But even if you ignore that little inconsistency, their complaint just doesn't register. It's almost as if they're claiming that it's okay to gamble away or spend on drugs half of what you make so long as you spend an equal amount of money on something else. Monday, February 07, 2011
As he really doesn't have a clue to what is involved in running a business, Obama continues to misfire...
It isn't the complexity of the tax code that drives us crazy, it is the amount of money the government takes in taxes. If that weren't the case, why would we spend so much effort and money looking for ways to pay less in taxes? Demand for a company's products is but one factor that we consider in deciding whether to add to the payroll. And if we feel the demand isn't going to last, or we think the costs of adding an employee are too high relative to the demand, then we're not going to add staff, at least not in the United States. We'll boost productivity, we'll add outside contractors, we'll add employees in less-expensive countries. Another point: Obama made reference to the massive boost in economic production during WWII. True, but most of that was in goods sold to the government... and that isn't what we're looking for today. Now... if I were Obama... well, first of all, if I were, we wouldn't be in the mess we are, I would never have done 90% of what he did. But, starting with the status quo, here's what I would do to boost economic growth... Immediately stop the anti-business rhetoric. Stop with the arguments that businesses have an obligation to hire people, or to share their profits with employees (it may be a good idea for businesses to do so, but it isn't the role of government to demand that they do). Get rid of both Sarbanes-Oxley and the recently passed financial reform law. Neither one provides benefits anywhere near their costs. Repeal Obamacare. No need to elaborate. Boost domestic drilling for oil and gas. Allow businesses to mandate binding arbitration to resolve employment disputes. Institute loser-pays in civil suits. Cut tax rates, not just for corporations but for any Schedule C net income. Stop bailing out companies and people who fail. No more mortgage support for people behind on their mortgages. End government ownership of AIG, GM, Chrysler and all the other companies that the government took shares in... and do so now even if doing so now results in a 'loss' to the government. Get rid of Fannie and Freddie. Roll back environmental regulations to where they were in 2000. Stop meddling in business disputes. The battle over net neutrality is not a matter for the government, let the respective players sort it out. Stop worrying about whether Google is monopolizing search, or whether Apple is playing fair with giving access to their App Store. Stop government funding of 'pet' business endeavors such as 'green energy' and so on. There is no shortage of private funds to support businesses that have potential. And if no one is willing to risk their own money, that is proof that the government shouldn't be spending tax money propping up companies that survive only from government handout to government handout. Thursday, February 03, 2011
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
A variation of the old adage "it is better to stay quiet and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt" should be something along the lines of "it is better to not demand Mubarak surrender power immediately and be thought of as impotent than to do so, have him refuse to go along and thus reveal to the entire world that you are indeed impotent".
Seriously, does Obama (as voiced through Gibbs) think Mubarak is going to head off into the sunset because Obama called on him to do so? Or does Obama think that someone else, having heard Obama's statement, and who otherwise wouldn't have done so, is going to forcibly remove Mubarak from power? Does Obama think that if Mubarak does, for whatever reason, decides to take off now, that the opposition is going to give Obama brownie points for having taken such a reportedly strong position? Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Some of the crew on Two and a Half Men are reportedly upset, claiming that they're getting "screwed" by not getting paychecks while star Charlie Sheen is off in rehab.
Is it wrong to point out that they voluntarily went to work for a show headlined by a guy whose less-than-model behavior was no big secret? Or that the reason they're not unemployed like an awful lot of others in Hollywood is because of the big ratings Sheen is largely responsible for?
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