Obama's "shared sacrifice" costs jobs
William Tate points out that Obama's haste to close auto dealerships didn't save any money and cost tens of thousands of jobs. Obama's principle of "shared sacrifice" inevitably means somebody else pays the price.
As many as 100,000 Americans who lost their jobs, or will soon, because of GM and Chrysler dealership closings can thank Barack Obama and his "mandate for shared sacrifice," according to a top Obama official.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/obamas_mandate_for_sacrifice_c.html
Paul Ryan has realistic and workable plan
The key to Ryan's do-over is acknowledging that America will never eradicate the welfare state entirely for the simple reason that Americans don't want to eradicate the welfare state entirely. The Roadmap explicitly declares that the social safety net — in the form of health and retirement benefits — for those "suffering hard times" is something Americans want to keep. On this and other fronts, the document is a monumental concession to political reality.
However, the Roadmap goes on to insist that we cannot help the neediest if we continue treating all but the very rich as if they are needy too — and sometimes even the very rich! Vast numbers of middle-class people are increasingly dependent on government. Sixty percent of Americans get more from government than they pay in taxes, and President Obama's policies will move that closer to 70%. It is unsustainable.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-roadmap-20100720,0,4806100.column
The forgotten employer
What’s lost in these arguments about jobs, especially by those on the left, are the voices of the jobs’ creators themselves. Those would be the employers. Let me repeat: In a national debate about jobs and job creation, hardly anyone is talking to job creators about jobs!
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/2010/07/the-forgotten-employer/?boxes=Homepagecolumnsblogs
Climate bill struggling, but still there
The Senate climate bill has been at death’s door several times over the past year. But with the days before the August recess quickly slipping away, the case may truly be terminal now.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39969.html
Mandate Mendacity: the ObamaCare tax
This is an excellent op-ed on the changing constitutional justifications for ObamaCare... or, as the author puts it, bait-and-switch.
http://unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Mandate+mendacity%3a+The+Obamacare+tax&articleId=d9829523-ed8f-49b4-976c-824d6396a117
Even the press isn't buying the Obama explanations
While I was drafting yesterday’s skeptical post on the President’s partisan attack on unemployment insurance, I should have been watching White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in the daily press briefing. From their questions it appears the White House press corps drew conclusions quite similar to mine.
http://keithhennessey.com/2010/07/20/no-sale/
Obama's "jobs created" figures ignore the jobs killed
This article makes the point that PresBo's underlying economic theories are wrong and counterproductive.
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aXSF3U5yPeM0
The housing market is stumbling again
The housing market, whose collapse pulled the economy into recession in late 2007, is stalling again. In major markets across the country, home sales are deteriorating, inventories of unsold homes are piling up and builders are scaling back construction plans.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723604575379463676740680.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Don't underestimate nature's power to cleanup oil spills
Ronald Bailey makes the point that nature is actually quite efficient at cleaning up and breaking down spilled oil. All too often, our attempts to "clean it up" hinder the natural processes that do a better job than WE do!
http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/21/rational-optimist-matt-ridley
Well, that's the list. I hope you found them informative and entertaining.
You have to analyze into this dealership episode to really grasp what happened. At the local level...throughout the US...dealerships are the bread and butter of political figures. So this made great sense for GM and Chrysler to fail miserably and then dump X number of dealers.
ReplyDeleteThen some government appointed guy pulls out a list for GM and Chrysler to cooperate on. If you had forty-five dealers in Bama for GM who were openly supporting Republican candidates...you'd suggest to toss at least half of them out as dealers. You naturally totaled up the least favorable guys in terms of profit or sales...so it looked obvious...then you called them up and said "sorry".
Even if you only tossed out half the dealers in Bama's GM belt...that helped to consolidate 'power' via the dealers at the local level. There were three things missed out of this idea...first that Ford dealers were left untouched. Second...the Honda, Toyota and 'other' dealers came up big-time in sales after GM and Chrysler's stumble. And third...the economy forced folks to shy away from purchases...so the supportive dealers for the Democrats probably didn't make big cash to help in 2010 elections anyway.
In a way, it's a comical strategy session for a bunch of guys sitting in DC to think of GM and Chrysler as part of their political empire.