Category Archives: Economy

2008 Election, 2012 Election, Economy, Energy, Immigration, Media, Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics, Race Relations

So You Think Republicans Are Racist?

That anyone who opposed anything Barack Obama would do would be labeled a racist came as no surprise. This was obvious long before his 2008 election. Playing the race card is what democrats do. It’s their way to dismiss the issues because of skin color, rather than debate them. That republicans don’t stand up against the hateful attacks is another subject. Basically, and to their detriment, their moral standards prevent them from going there. But this is what needs to be said.

Here’s what people would have to believe of republicans if they fall for the classless playing of the race card.

  • We would be more than willing to welcome cap-and-trade with open arms, even if we paid a thousand dollars or more extra every year for our energy use, if Barack Obama were only white.
  • We would be dancing in the streets celebrating the dawning of government control of our health care if only Barack Obama were white.
  • It would be just dandy if government bureaucrats rationed health care for our parents, as long as the president is white.
  • We would jump at the chance of the government owning ALL of the auto manufacturing companies .. not just General Motors … if the president just didn’t have dark skin.
  • We would applaud those ACORN workers giving tax avoidance advice to a pimp and his prostitute if the workers hadn’t been black.
  • Most Americans – even ones that don’t pay income taxes now – would be more than willing to give 70% of everything they earn to the federal government when asked … so long as they are asked by a white president.
  • We would have been thrilled, I tell you … THRILLED to have all of those Islamic goons being held at Guantanamo be not only released, but sent to be school resource officers at our local government schools, if only a white president put that plan in motion.
  • It would be OK if a white president stood back and allowed Iran to build its coveted nukes … we’re only unhappy about that because a black president is doing it.
  • Deficits? We don’t care about deficits! Make our children and grand children and great grand children pay through the nose for our president’s spending habits … just so long as the president isn’t black.
  • Government pork? Like we actually care? Look … you folks in Washington can spend all the money you want – how about more studies of the mating habits of Polish Zlotnika pigs? – just make sure it’s not a black president who signs the spending bill into law.
  • We wouldn’t care if all illegal aliens were counted twice in the next Census … just so long as the president isn’t black.
  • Those Black Panther thugs who threatened voters in Philly? The ONLY reason we’re upset that they were given a pass is because Barack Obama is black.
  • Every single member of the president’s cabinet could be a tax cheat as far as we’re concerned … just so long as the president is white.
  • Forced unionization? Bring it on! We love card check! We love the idea of union goons threatening and intimidating workers to sign a card saying they want to belong to a union! What we don’t like is that a black president is pushing this idea.
  • Single-party talks with that Gargoyle that runs North Korea? It’s about time we legitimized that little pipsqueak. We’re only mildly upset here because the person who is doing that happens to be black.
  • More regulation of the finance sector? We could care less! For all we care you can nationalize the banks and decree that only the government can make home loans .. .and you can even apportion those home loans on the basis of race if you want to … just so long as the president is white!
  • Minimum wage? Like we care about that? Raise it to $15 an hour if you want! Just give us our white president back.

So the next time you hear the racist accusations pour from the lips of the likes of Chris Matthews, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, Bill Maher, Joe Scarborough, Whoopie Goldberg, Colin Powell, Janine Garofolo, Mike Papantonio, Larry Flint, Chuck Todd, Joy Behar, Ed Schultz, Bill Cosby, Patrick L. Cooney, Karen Finney, Cher, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Julian Bond, Lawrence O’Donnell, Candy Crowley, David Shuster, Rev. William Barber, Jesse Jackson, Charles Rangel, Morgan Freeman, and Mike Malloy, just realize what an imbecile they are.

Economy, Immigration, Organized Labor, Politics, War On Terror

Immigration Reform, The Scam

No offense to the CBO, but their numbers are not based in reality. It’s not their fault, it’s because of the way they must compute the numbers with the assumptions they are given. Flashback to the selling of Obamacare, we were told, by the President and the CBO, how premiums would go down. Not to belabor the point, but every other prediction of Obamacare turned out to be the exact opposite. The Gang of Eight’s S.744 is no exception. It’s deja-vu all over again. Skipping the cost issue for a moment, the bill does not stop the flow of illegals. According to the CBO assessment, the bill . . .The Gang of Nine

  • WILL NOT stop illegal immigration – Despite promises of a secure border, the bill would slow future illegal immigration by only 25 percent. In the next couple of decades, that means 7.5 million new illegal immigrants.
  • WILL drive down wages – For legal American workers, the bill would drive down their average wages. And the outfit that says they’re looking out for working people, driving down their average wages is not a concern of the SEIU. Their priority lies in increasing dues-paying membership from the illegals. Which explains why they are heavily ($2 Million in grants) involved in the Obamacare Health Care Exchange enrollment process. LA County AFL-CIO, $1 Million grant. Their annual budget, with 15 employees is $3 Million. Quid pro quo and community organizing in one sweet package.

Cool, ya with me so far? The cost issue is just as bad. The bill will burden taxpayers with trillions of dollars in welfare and entitlement costs for the newly legalized immigrants under amnesty.  Heritage’s Robert Rector explains:

S.744 provides only a temporary delay in eligibility to welfare and entitlements. Over time, S.744 makes all 18.5 million eligible for nearly every government program, including: Obamacare, 80 different welfare programs, Social Security and Medicare. When this occurs, spending will explode, but nearly all the real costs do not appear in the CBO score.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, explained how the Gang of Eight purposefully hid the true costs of the bill:

The bill’s drafters relied on the same scoring gimmicks used by the Obamacare drafters to conceal its true cost from taxpayers and to manipulate the CBO score. There is a reason why eligibility for the most expensive federal benefits was largely delayed outside the 10-year scoring window: to mislead the public. As Ranking Member of the Budget Committee, I asked CBO to provide a long-term estimate. Sadly, CBO did not provide the long-term estimate as requested. As a result, the score effectively conceals some of the biggest long-term costs to taxpayers contained in this legislation, including providing illegal immigrants with Medicaid, food stamps, and cash welfare. Some members of Congress are already pushing efforts to expedite this eligibility.

The assumptions that these illegals will boost the economy are flawed when you consider their education level and that of the chain migration that follows. Their education level is a far cry from those under STEM (sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics), which the Democrat controlled Senate rejected.

According to Sen. Sessions . . .

CBO did not provide enough information to assess the assumptions it made about the educational background of illegal immigrants and thus their methodology may be substantially flawed. An accurate analysis would acknowledge that half of that population does not have high school degrees, and is therefore more likely to receive far more in government support than they will pay in the form of taxes. For every dollar a low-income illegal immigrant might pay in either taxes or payroll contributions, he or she could easily receive two dollars back from the government in the form of public assistance for their household. It defies logic and common sense for anyone to suggest there is not an enormous cost in choosing to provide welfare to those who are currently not eligible for these benefits.

As in Obamacare, when you rush into a major piece of legislation, you don’t get what you expect. The very fact that a “Gang of Eight” is ostensibly running the show should be the red flag right there. I’m for a gang of a hundred. ALL our Senators, working in the open on the floor of the Senate chamber, debating and hammering out every step of whatever ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform means. Doing what can be done, one step at a time. Starting with securing the borders, and turning back illegals.

As it is now, Sen. Sessions says “this bill guarantees three things: amnesty, increased welfare costs, and lower wages for the U.S. workforce. It would be the biggest setback for poor and middle-class Americans of any legislation Congress has considered in decades.”

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Obama Wants A ‘Living Wage’, Wink To Big Labor

From The White House Monday, President Obama made another stab at spreading the wealth around. Using the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, the wealth envy warrior is pushing what he calls the Paycheck Fairness Act. President Obama said . . .

Now is the time for Congress to step up and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. … Now is the time to make sure that we are putting in place a minimum wage that you can live on.

There’s a couple of problems with that. First of which is, one has to have a job. You could have a $20/hr minimum obama_houdiniwage, but what good is it doing you if you don’t have a job?

Creating jobs used to be his priority. At least that’s what he’s been telling us for about 5 years now. His rhetoric alone seems to insulate him from any responsibility of his actions which, have given us nothing but trillions of so-called stimulus spending, over $16 Trillion in new and record debt, high unemployment and the lowest labor participation rate since Jimmy Carter. What jobs are being created are low paying, and not enough in number to break even with retirements and population growth.

Second, and more importantly, it is not the role of the federal government to mandate that employers pay “a living wage” to anybody. Playing on your emotions with the notion of something fair does not give him the Constitutional authority to compensate for his inability to set the framework for a vibrant and growing economy.

Now to the real reason the President is harping on raising the minimum wage. It is just another attempt at quid pro quo to BIG LABOR. Like any sleight of hand magician, when he is shows you one hand with the fairness appeal, look for what the other hand is doing.

Raising the minimum wage does nothing to create jobs. The result is that raising the minimum wage not only puts the poorest, and lowest skilled workers in the unemployment line, it ends up artificially pushing up ALL labor costs, causing inflation in every area of the economy. But it does mean pay increases for BIG LABOR. You see, the big contracts are tied to the minimum wage. When it goes up, their wages also go up. And in the case of the public sector unions, the taxpayers’ overhead also goes up. So the union “working people” with $22/hr jobs will get a raise. Isn’t that special?

Link: Obama calls on Congress to hike minimum wage, close gender pay gap  |  Labor Union Self Interest: Facts Behind Organized Labor’s Push to Raise the Federal Minimum Wage

 

Economy, Europe, Politics

Economic Imbecile Has Company

It doesn’t do any good to know that the U.S. isn’t the only country blessed to have an economic imbecile as its president. France has one too!

French President François Hollande said this during a state visit to Japan . . .

You must understand that the crisis in the eurozone is over.

If only to serve notice that the global economic problem just got more complicated.

via François Hollande: the eurozone crisis is over | World news | The Guardian.

Economy, Fair Tax

Leo Linbeck, Jr. Dies, Philanthropist, FairTax Co-Founder

More than just a co-founder of the FairTax. Leo Linbeck, Jr. was a visionary and philanthropist. It was his efforts along with two other wealthy friends, Robert McNair and Jack Trotter, that shared the vision of a tax system that was fair, simple, transparent, and conducive to economic growth. Never before has anyone thought that a tax system, by definition, could be conducive to economic growth. It was their joint efforts, and their $22 million that paid for the years of research that ultimately ended up as the FairTax. The most thoroughly researched tax system that treats taxpayers with respect, and none of it done with taxpayer dollars.

Statement from Americans For Fair Taxation® on the passing of chairman and co-founder

Leo E. Linbeck, Jr.

Linbeck-SMFairTax® giant devoted the past 20 years to championing fair and transparent federal taxation

HOUSTON, TX – June 8, 2013 – Americans For Fair Taxation® (AFFT) announced today the passing of its Chairman and Co-founder Leo Edward Linbeck, Jr.

“The American people have lost a giant who championed simple and fair taxation for everyone,” said Cynthia T. Canevaro, AFFT national campaign manager. “Leo Linbeck, Jr., has devoted 20+ years passionately advocating for fair and transparent federal taxation for all citizens regardless of income or social standing.  He was committed to replacing the income tax, a system that favors special interests while punishing taxpayers at every level, with a national consumption tax that taxes citizens not on what they earn, but on what they spend on new goods and services.”  The Plan includes the repeal of the 16thAmendment and the elimination of the IRS.

Linbeck was a nationally known Houston businessman and philanthropist.  He was a longtime Chairman of Linbeck Construction Corp., a firm founded by his father in 1938 and ranked in 2012 by ENR as the sixth largest building contractor in the U.S. specializing in general building construction for the private sector.  At the time of his death, he also served as Chairman of Aquinas Corporation, a holding company for the Linbeck Group.

In 1995, Linbeck joined forces with Robert C. McNair, founder, chairman and CEO of the Houston Texans NFL team, and Jack Trotter (now deceased), to found Americans For Fair Taxation®.  The grassroots organization works relentlessly to build national support for the FairTax®, a national consumption tax plan that treats every person equally and allows American businesses to thrive while generating the same tax revenue as the current four-million-plus word income tax code.

“Leo Linbeck recognized 20 years ago the destructive nature of the income tax and how unfair, overly complex, and impossible it is to administer.” said Canevaro. “He poured his time, resources, energy and unwavering passion into advancing the FairTax; a system that allows Americans to keep their whole paycheck while only paying taxes on what they spend, not what they earn.”  She added,  “We have truly lost an American hero and Patriot, one whose vision will live on among FairTax supporters nationwide. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Bette, the entire Linbeck family and the legion of friends who now mourn his passing.”

 

We at Fair Tax Nation are saddend by the passing of Mr. Linbeck, Jr. We will continue our work to make his dream come true — to pass the Fair Tax.

Marilyn Rickert

Economy, Florida, Media, Obamacare, Pensacola, Politics

In Support Of Private Sector Health Insurance

The hubris of supporters, media included, of the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, never ceases to amaze me. It begins to look foolish when deception is combined with ignorance. Case in point is writers like these who demagogue the private health insurance industry, portraying them as greedy corporatist one-percenters. Their buzz words. Making money hand over fist.

The health insurance industry isn’t the one to demonize for having excessive profits. On its face, that anyone has the right to decide whether a profit is excessive is preposterous. That’s what fascist economic models are all about. In a free-market economy, consumers, not politicians,  decide who survives and who fails in the marketplace. And the profits, if any, are for the owners and investors, the ones who took the risk to offer a product, or service, to sell. Their profits do not belong to the government. Works that way in every industry not government-controlled. Former lefty talk show host Sen. Al Franken and current lefty talk show host Mike Papantonio can tell you about the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Air America Radio.

Lefty Huffington Post declares “Insurer Profits Are Up In The Wake Of Health Care Law They Oppose.” That, referring to a Bloomberg article entitled “Insurers Profit From Health Law They Fought Against.” Which morphs into this on far left Ring of Fire Radio1, “Health Insurance Make Threats to Spike Rate, Despite Record Profits.”

Faced with the reality that Obamacare is going to force insurance carriers to raise their premiums or go out of business, the meme is all about those mean rich insurance companies, already raking it in, and wanting to gouge consumers even more. One problem, and here’s where the ignorance and demagoguery comes in. The articles wrap their argument around net income and operating profit margins. Neither of which are net profit.

They don’t know what they’re talking about, and they’re spreading a false narrative to demonize insurers and idolize Obamacare.

What is a profit margin? It is the percentage of the income that is left over after all expenses. The numbers in the HuffPost/Bloomberg source are of operating margins and do not include expenses like interest payments, tax, depreciation, and amortization. After paying those expenses, you are left with the net, as in last, profit margin.

The profit margin for the Health Care Insurance industry is 3.5%. Ask yourself how they are to stay in business when the federal government under Obamacare expects them to hold or lower premiums, accept all pre-existing conditions, and add 20 or 30 million more policyholders on a 3.5% margin? It can’t happen. And that is Obama’s intent. It will cause the health insurance providers to drop that part of their business and insure something else or just fold. At that point, Obama reaches nirvana. A total single-payer government-run health care system that will be less efficient and more expensive than ever.

To add a little perspective that the Left doesn’t want you to know, here are the profit margins of other industries.

  • Beverages 25.9%. Included in that percentage are Breweries 37.3%, Soft Drinks 13%
  • Biotechnologies 16.1%
  • Banks 13.7%
  • Oil & Gas Drilling and Exploration 10.3%
  • Gas Utilities 7.7%
  • Food 7.2%
  • Electric Utilities4.9%
  • Oil & Gas Pipeline 4.1%
  • Health Care Plan Providers 3.5%

Law firms go from 5% to 60%, and average out at 30%. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how greedy, by their own standards, the Levin-Papantonio Law Firm is? Makes one wonder what their profit margin is?

endofstory

1Ring of Fire is hosted by Mike Papantonio, senior partner in the Levin-Papantonio Law Firm in Pensacola, FL. Specializing in mass torts, suing drug companies, car manufacturers, tobacco companies, personal injury, product liability, medical malpractice, slip and falls, and more.

Economy, Media, Politics

Obama’s Economy, Another Million Four Unemployed

The Dept of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was “adjusted” upwards by 4,500.

In the last four weeks, 1,410,000 “workers” are out of work and have filed for unemployment.

In the week ending June 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 346,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 357,000. The 4-week moving average was 352,500, an increase of 4,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 348,000.

That’s a recovery only Obama (and the MSM) can believe in.

Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

FairTax, The Right Alternative

Under the FairTax, all the controversy in the news today, from IRS abuse, to tax favors, to tax punishments, will disappear. Gone! The immense size of the IRS? Gone! The immense cost of compliance to taxpayers? Gone!

fairtax_pyramid

The term “take home pay” becomes obsolete. No more federal deductions. You take home everything you make. Can you handle that? Oh, and April 15th becomes just another day in paradise.

Under the FairTax, other terms like “tax exempt status” and “mortgage deduction” also become obsolete. Under the FairTax, no contributions you make or receive are taxable. And since your mortgage payment will now be made in ‘pre-tax’ dollars, you have nothing to deduct your mortgage interest payments from.

All the taxes you and businesses are paying now? Gone! What’s left is a simple, transparent, and fair consumption tax. Period. Fair to individuals and business. The FUD factor disappears. Business and individual investment decisions no longer include factoring in the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about tax consequences because those decisions become tax neutral.

The motivation to shelter trillions of dollars offshore disappears. That money can stay right here and be put to work without any tax penalty. All by itself, the FairTax is an economic stimulus that doesn’t involve spending, borrowing, or increasing the national debt.

The FairTax is the means to fund the government whose time has come.

 

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics, Supreme Court

SEC, Obama’s Back Door IRS

Having been caught violating the civil rights of thousands of Americans trying to assemble, contribute, and advocate a cause, the IRS

Mary Jo White, SEC Chair
SEC Chair, Mary Jo White

scandal has been shut down. That, after all, was just symptomatic of the way liberals play politics. They don’t compete in the arena of ideas, they use the government to intimidate the political opposition. And in this case, to help Obama get re-elected by harassing conservative contributors and PACs that would contribute to the Romney campaign. This is what the IRS inquiries into conservative non-profit applications was all about. And it worked. But don’t hold your breath for any lawsuits about their civil rights or First Amendment rights being denied.

But the political intimidation is not over. Liberals also use regulators like the SEC or EPA to do the job that the IRS can not. All of which was triggered by the Citizens United Supreme Court case that guaranteed corporations the same rights to exercise political speech as a person has.

The back door to what the IRS was doing, which was finding out the names and businesses that contributed to conservative organizations for conservative causes, and preventing as much as possible contributions to organizations that would advocate against a liberal agenda, a clear violation of civil rights, is now called the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reacting to, ostensibly, a coalition of Democratic elected officials, activists and labor unions, the SEC is considering making up a new disclosure rule for publicly traded companies. The SEC is considering a regulation mandating that publicly traded corporations disclose all their political donations to their shareholders. Still a violation of civil rights of the shareholders and the corporation. It is Big Brother using the power of intimidation to shut down any and all political opposition. It is instructive too that the assumption is that corporations would not also give to liberals.

A petition to the S.E.C. asking it to issue the rule has already garnered close to half a million comments, far more than any petition or rule in the agency’s history, with the vast majority in favor of it. While relatively few petitions result in action by the S.E.C., the commission staff filed a notice late last year indicating that it was considering recommending a rule.

In response to the growing pressure, House Republicans introduced legislation last Thursday that would make it illegal for the commission to issue any political disclosure regulations applying to companies under its jurisdiction. Earlier this month, the leaders of three of Washington’s most powerful trade associations — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable — issued a rare joint letter to the chief executives of Fortune 200 companies, encouraging them to stand against proxy resolutions and other proposals from shareholder activists demanding more disclosure of political spending.

What we continue to see is the political warfare conducted by liberals. It is liberalism on display. It is what they do. They restrict rights, restrict liberties, ignore the constitution, depress economies, increase debt, spread misery all in the name of social justice. Social justice isn’t justice. It’s harassment.

Link: SEC nears decision on requiring businesses to disclose donations

Economy, Politics

Axelrod, Government Is Too Big

In defense of President Obama’s ignorance of what is going on in the Internal Revenue Service (and the State and Justice Departments), David Axelrod finds himself agreeing with what the Tea Party folks have said since the beginning of this administration. The only difference is Axlerod is attempting to excuse abuse by the embedded liberal government employees because, the government is too big. Whereas the Tea Party continues to say that because the government is too big and getting bigger, it is limiting freedom and liberty, by-passing the Constitution, and with Obamacare, is usurping one sixth of the private sector economy.

Axelrod said, “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast.” And that is exactly the way the community-organizer-turned-president wants it. He can accept, or reject, responsibility for whatever he chooses.

There is a dichotomy there that Axelrod is missing. Welcome to the Tea Party Mr. Axelrod.

http://youtu.be/mhd6XLbbtIY