Monthly Archives: December 2011

Archive of posts published in the specified Month

And Now for the Rest of the Story…

The outcome of the 2008 election centered around the financial collapse that hit just months before the vote.  Even the most committed capitalists were taken by surprise at what seemed like a significant failure of capitalism.  Outrage was magnified as

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Rebel Yid Highlights from 2011

A Part of the Truth Can Be More Misleading than All of a Lie Philosophers have long debated the intersections of religion and science.  While religion and science may not mix well, they both mix poorly with politics. Prinicples can

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Million Dollar Congressmen

In Thomas Sowell’s collection, The Thomas Sowell Reader he offers an interesting idea in the chapter , ‘Reflections on Term Limits’. Pay Congressmen $1,000,000 a year.  No benefits, no retirement pension. The biggest problems with the current system,  in Sowell’s

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A Part of the Truth Can Be More Misleading than All of a Lie

From The Atlantic by Derek Thomson, The Most Important Graphs from 2011, 12/21/11 This graph shows how the richest 1% have take a larger share of the economy in the last 35 years: … or does it? This graph does

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There is No Free Lunch in Obamacare

Andrew Puzder writes Job Creation Is Price for New U.S. Health Law in Bloomberg, 12/26/11: Excerpt: Our company, CKE Restaurants Inc., employs about 21,000 people (our franchisees employ 49,000 more) in Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants. For months, we have been

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Hollywood Eats Its Young

William McGurn writes in the Wall Street Journal Taxing Kim Kardashian (12/27/11). His article is about a class warfare activists group pressuring  Kim Kardashian to pay more taxes than is leaglly required and to support a higher tax on the wealthy. Excerpt:

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The Standard of Human Perfection

In her blog Caroline Glick writes An Ally No More, 12/6/11: Excerpts: The same Secretary of State that has heralded negotiations with the violent, fanatical misogynists of the Taliban; who has extolled Saudi Arabia where women are given ten lashes

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Good and Bad Measurements of the Economy

One potentially fruitful exercise has been to develop a new national income statistic that measures total spending in the economy, what (Murray) Rothbard called the Aggregate Production Structure. The purpose of this new national statistic, which I have dubbed Gross

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One Way Out

The greatest periods of American economic growth came when taxes were very low—such as in the 19th century—or being lowered and simplified, as in the 1920s, 60s, and 80s. Inescapably, to tax wealth creation is to discourage it. But there

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Deadlines Limit Tax Effectiveness

John Taylor writes in today’s Wall Street Journal (12/21/11)-Want Growth? Try Stable Tax Policy:The payroll tax cut is one of 84 tax provisions expiring this year, 10 times as many as expired in 1999. (may require paid subscription) excerpt: Like

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Primary Volatility

For a smart businessman Donald Trump is a horrible politician. His campaign flamed out quickly because it was foolishly focused on the citizenship issue and was easily dispensed.  He has never held political office. He is all show and ego

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RINOs and RIMOs

Occasionally I read where some self-appointed arbiter on the right has attacked someone alse as a “RINO,” or “Republican in Name Only.” …I have come to identify another species in our political ecosystem, the RIMO.  It stands for “Republican in

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The Failure of State Intervention

Daniel Hannan writes in the UK The Telegraph with Memo to the Occupy Protesters: here are ten things we evil capitalists really think. Point 6: Nor, by the way, does state intervention seem to be an effective way to promote

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The Superwealthy and Income Statistics

I have posted several excerpts from Alan Reynold’s book Income and Wealth in this blog.  You can find them by putting his name in the ‘search the archives’ window in the upper right.  Income and Wealth was written years ago

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The Mad Pursuit of Zero

We pay a frightful price in lost jobs and economic opportunity for what I think of as the mad pursuit of zero.  When, at great expense, we have reduced the amount of a given pollutant to a few parts in

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Praying for Hard Times

Those who think that inequality is the most important problem  should be cheering this news. from Powerline POSTED ON DECEMBER 13, 2011 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ECONOMY HARD TIMES FOR THE ONE PERCENT The share of income received by the

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Political Amateur Hour

On the road today I listened to Donald Trump on Cavuto.  He said that HE would decide if the Republicans chose the right candidate, and if they did not that he may enter the race as a third party candidate. 

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The Catch 22 of Anti-Semitism

Ruth Wisse writes The Suicidal Passion – Who is damaged more by anti-Semitism- Jews, or those who organize politics against them,  in The Weekly Standard 11/21/11 Excerpt: Anti-Semitism, or the organization of politics against the Jews, is at once the

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Starting Right

It was a great stroke of luck for the future United States that the 13 colonies were founded by the English rather than those from another European nation. England, being an island power and thus much safer from invasion, had

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Beyond a Tipping Point

Politicos like to focus on a single factor and discuss the effectiveness and the justice.  But an economy is the sum total of all the policies.  It is popular from the left to decry the Bush tax cuts as if

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