Congress Is Economically Illiterate.

Congress: Economic Illiterates

Posted by John Stossel | August 23, 2011

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Politicians mess with the economy. They create tens of thousands of pages of burdensome regulations every year. They pass "stimulus" bills that they promise will reduce unemployment. They pass a health care law that's more than a thousand pages, and give "waivers" to politically connected unions and corporations.
As Hayek taught us, it is a fatal conceit to try to micromanage our 14 trillion dollar economy even if you are an economic genius. Are politicians too ignorant to know that? May be. Politics is a popularity contest. The person who shakes the most hands, kisses the most babies, and looks good making the most extravagant promises, wins. They don't have to know anything about economics.
That's reflected in who wins. A new report by the Employment Policies Institute finds that out of all senators and congressmen, just 22% have any type of degree in business or economics. More than half have degrees in humanities or law. Nancy Pelosi majored in political science. Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid both majored in political science and then got law degrees.
Maybe that helps explain the out-of-control spending:

Government spending from 1950 to 2011

Micro mangement to increase government is Obama's only jobs plan.

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Wednesdays with Audrey Hudson

08.24.11

The Obama administration has created new workplace rules for foreign workers taking jobs in the U.S. as goat herders, including employee-paid cell phones and comfy beds. The regulations set strict rules for sleeping quarters, lighting, food storage, bathing, laundry, cooking and new rules for the counters where food is prepared.

"A separate sleeping unit shall be provided for each person, except in a family arrangement," says the rules signed by Jane Oates, assistant secretary for employment and training administration at the Labor Department.

"Such a unit shall include a comfortable bed, cot or bunk, with a clean mattress," the rules state.

Diane Katz, a research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation, unearthed the policy in the "Federal Register," the massive daily journal of proposed regulations that Washington bureaucrats publish every day.

Under the Obama Administration, the nanny state has imposed 75 new major regulations with annual costs of $38 billion.

"This captures what is wrong with government," Katz said. "I could not have made this up."

With unemployment holding steady at 9% and government regulations adding more burden to small businesses, such as those run by ranching families, Katz said, bureaucrats aren't helping.

"Instead of remedying the problem, the regulations make it that much harder," Katz insisted. "We may need a whole set of regulations just to define what a comfortable bed is. I imagine it's not straw."

"It makes you wonder how they ever did this before the government got involved?" "Who knew we needed all of this federal help for herding goats?" Katz said.

Obama's spend taxpayer money for personal gain.

It appears that the Obama's have been spending over a million dollars per month on vacations and entertainment. I know where we can cut 48 million from the budget. The worst president in history and his wife that has never been proud of the US don't deserve it.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23988

Obama administration goes after our second amendment rights... again.

Barack Obama's gun control is 'under the radar'

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The U.S. has the world’s preeminent system for regulation of military arms sales, the author writes. | Reuters Close

By CHUCK NORRIS | 8/24/11 4:34 AM EDT

Not long ago, the gun control advocates Jim and Sarah Brady visited the White House. President Barack Obama reportedly told them that he was working on new gun control schemes “under the radar.”
It’s been said that guns have two enemies — rust and politicians. Rust never sleeps, and neither do those who would seek to restrict our constitutional rights. So let me tell you about a meeting you weren’t invited to, where those people were planning an attack on our rights that’s very much “under the radar.”
  It happened in July at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at a meeting to draft of what they call the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. An Arms Trade Treaty doesn’t sound bad in concept — isn’t that what the U.N. is for? The problem, however, is what U.N. diplomats consider to be “arms.” To you and me, the word means tanks, fighter jets, missiles, that kind of thing. But look no further than the U.N. plaza to see what the silk-stocking set considers “arms.” There you will find a bronze statue of a simple .38 revolver — with its barrel tied into a knot.
Remember no other country in the world enjoys America’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is why the vast majority of U.N. diplomats believe that an arms trade treaty must reach into your gun safe and mine. There is little question that this treaty would require additional restrictions on our Second Amendment rights.
Consider the comments of a spokesman from “Project Ploughshares,” a Canadian arms control group. “From a humanitarian perspective,” the spokesman told the Canadian Postmedia News “all firearms need to be controlled, and that’s the bottom line.”
This attitude has spooked even Canada’s government, which typically embraces a disarmament agenda. During the meeting, Canada put forth a panicky petition for a hunting rifle exemption in the treaty. Mexico immediately objected.
For an administration with a secretive itch for gun control, the situation is ideal. They can let the United Nations do the dirty work of drafting onerous new restrictions on civilian firearms, then package them inside a treaty with legitimate measures to control true military armaments.
The U.N. has scheduled the treaty to be finished in July of next year — just in time to go to the Obama White House for ratification.
That’s “under the radar” for you.
But one risk of operating under the radar is that you can’t see the moves of your opponents. This is not the first U.N. gun-control rodeo for my friends at the National Rifle Association. They know treaty ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Thirty-four senators would have to vote no to block the treaty.
While the rest of Washington was fixated on the debt ceiling debate, the NRA quietly marshaled opposition to the treaty among pro-gun senators.
Fifty-eight senators have now called out the president on his plan. Led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), 45 Republicans and 13 Democrats have written two strong letters —one from members of each party — to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. All the senators have vowed to oppose any treaty that restricts civilian firearm ownership.
What’s ironic is that the United States already has the world’s pre-eminent system for regulation of true military arms sales. If the rest of the world merely adopted the U.S. regulatory regime, there would be no need for an Arms Trade Treaty.
But rather than harmonize other nations’ patchy regulations on arms transfers, the diplomatic crowd would rather force Washington to hew to its utopian vision of global disarmament.
If this were only a partisan exercise in bashing Obama and the U.N., one could be forgiven for concluding it has no substance. But 13 Democratic senators clearly think otherwise — a sign that this debate is far from over.
Chuck Norris, an actor, martial artist and author, is the honorary chairman of the National Rifle Association’s voter registration program, Trigger the Vote.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61942.html#ixzz1VzRbXeP8

Obama is out of touch with reality.

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08.16.11

How do you have a conversation with someone so detached from reality?

Nah, we're not talking about those teeny boppers who insisted 'N Sync’s Lance Bass was straight as an arrow.

We’re talking about Obama and the hapless members of his Cabinet.

Rather than offer up real policies that thwart gargantuan government spending and incentivize business leaders to start hiring again, Dear Leader Barack is bulldozing through the Midwest on his gas-guzzling, $2.2 million armored vehicle bus tour (paid for by you!) to tell zombie crowds that he needs even more gargantuan government spending to set the economy on the right track.

Watch Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture tell the MSNBC audience that what the country needs is… more food stamps! Kid you not. — Jason Mattera

taxation without representation

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Thursdays with John Hayward

08.18.11

Everyone knows that “taxation without representation” is bad.  It prompted a shower of pamphlets, tea bags, and cannonballs across Colonial America.  But why is it bad?

The colonists insisted that America should hold seats in the British Parliament, in return for paying taxes to the Crown.  They felt that taxes can only be morally and ethically justified if the people who pay them have representation in the government, giving them effective votes over how the government collects and spends money.  The British had a different idea.  They thought the colonists should be satisfied by virtual representation, which means every Member of Parliament represents the entire population. 
We won that argument against the British crown, but we’re losing it against Washington, D.C.  Americans have become quite comfortable with “virtual representation.”  They accept minute control over their lives, wielded by ancient subcommittee sultans they will never be able to vote against, as they come from “safe seats” in distant states.  The people are told reforms they favor by huge majorities, from balanced budgets to eliminating failed programs that waste billions, are simply unthinkable.  Their lives are controlled by judges who have become de facto legislators.  And still the ruling class thinks there is too much direct representation, so they import a more pliable electorate from across the border.

There is only one answer to all of this, and it is the same answer the Founding Fathers gave the British.  There is no such thing as “representation” in a huge, distant government.  Only when power devolves to local governments, with the tax and regulatory authority of the central government sharply limited, can meaningful direct representation exist at all. — John Hayward

Another example of disfunctional government, no one is responsible.

Call Uncle Sam

Obama's unhelpful advice

By MJ LEE | 08/18/11 2:09 PM Updated: 08/18/11 4:14 PM

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Obama's advice to the farmer was simple: 'Contact USDA.' AP Photo Close

At Wednesday’s town hall in Atkinson, Ill., a local farmer who said he grows corn and soybeans expressed his concerns to President Barack Obama about “more rules and regulations” — including those concerning dust, noise and water runoff — that he heard would negatively affect his business.

The president, on day three of his Midwest bus tour, replied: “If you hear something is happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.”

When the room broke into soft laughter, the president added, “No — and I’m serious about that.”

Saying that “folks in Washington” like to get “all ginned up” about things that aren’t necessarily happening (“Look what’s comin’ down the pipe!”), Obama’s advice was simple: “Contact USDA.”

“Talk to them directly. Find out what it is that you’re concerned about,” Obama told the man. “My suspicion is, a lot of times, they’re going to be able to answer your questions and it will turn out that some of your fears are unfounded.”

Call Uncle Sam. Sensible advice, but perhaps the president has forgotten just how difficult it can be for ordinary citizens to get answers from the government.

When this POLITICO reporter decided to take the president's advice and call the USDA for an answer to the Atkinson town hall attendee's question, I found myself in a bureaucratic equivalent of hot potato — getting bounced from the feds to Illinois state agriculture officials to the state farm bureau.

Here's a rundown of what happened when I started by calling the USDA's general hotline to inquire about information related to the effects of noise and dust pollution rules on Illinois farmers:

Wednesday, 2:40 p.m. ET: After calling the USDA’s main line, I am told to call the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Here, I am patched through to a man who is identified as being in charge of "support services." I leave a message.

3:53 p.m.: The man calls me back and recommends in a voicemail message that I call the Illinois Farm Bureau — a non-governmental organization.

4:02 p.m.: A woman at the Illinois Farm Bureau connects me to someone in the organization’s government affairs department. That person tells me they "don't quite know who to refer you to."

4:06 p.m.: I call the Illinois Department of Agriculture again, letting the person I spoke with earlier know that calling the Illinois Farm Bureau had not been fruitful. He says "those are the kinds of groups that are kind of on top of this or kind of follow things like this. We deal with pesticide here in our bureau."

"You only deal with pesticides?" I ask.

"We deal with other things … but we mainly deal with pesticides here," he says, and gives me the phone number for the office of the department’s director, where he says there are "policy people" as well as the director's staff.

4:10 p.m.: Someone at the director's office transfers me to the agriculture products inspection department, where a woman says their branch deals with things like animal feed, seed and fertilizer.

"I'm going to transfer you to one of the guys at environmental programs."

4:15 p.m.: I reach the answering machine at the environmental programs department, and leave a message.

4:57 p.m.: A man from the environmental programs department gets back to me: "I hate to be the regular state worker that's always accused of passing the buck, but noise and dust regulation would be under our environmental protection agency, rather than the Agriculture Department," he says, adding that he has forwarded my name and number to the agriculture adviser at IEPA.

On Thursday morning, POLITICO started the hunt for an answer again, this time calling the USDA's local office in Henry County, Ill., where the town hall took place.

9:42 a.m.: Asked if someone at the office might be able to provide me with the information I requested, the woman on the phone responds, “Not right now. We may have to actually look that up — did you Google this or anything?”

When I say that I’m a reporter and would like to discuss my experience with someone who handles media relations there, I am referred to the USDA’s state office in Champaign. I leave a message there.

10:40 a.m.: A spokeswoman for the Illinois Natural Resources Conservation Service calls me, to whom I explain my multiple attempts on Wednesday and Thursday to retrieve the information I was looking for.

“What I can tell you is our particular agency does not deal with regulations,” she tells me. “We deal with volunteers who voluntarily want to do things. I think the reason you got that response from the Cambridge office is because in regard to noise and dust regulation, we don’t have anything to do with that.”

She adds that the EPA would be more capable of answering questions regarding regulations.

Finally, I call the USDA’s main media relations department, based here in Washington, where I explain to a spokesperson about my failed attempts to obtain an answer to the Illinois farmer’s question. This was their response, via email:

“Secretary Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.”

So, still no answer to the farmer’s question.

The cost of cars due to new EPA mileage rules jumps again.

Obama's New Fuel Economy Standards Will Increase Cost of a Car More Than $11,000

Thursday, August 18, 2011
By Nicholas Ballasy

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama Administration’s new fuel economy standards will cause the retail price of average motor vehicles to increase over $11,000, according to a study conducted by the Center for Automotive Research.

“A fuel economy standard of 37.6 mpg is associated with a price increase of $5,244, 18.1 percent higher than the 2009 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) average price of $28,966. A fuel economy standard of 40.8 mpg is associated with a price increase of $6,770, 23.4 percent higher than the 2009 NADA price,” says their report called, “The U.S. Automotive Market and Industry in 2025.”

“A fuel economy standard of 44.8 mpg is associated with a price increase of $8,214, 28.4 percent higher than the 2009 NADA price. The fourth fuel economy standard of 49.6 mpg is associated with an $11,290 increase in retail price. It is assumed that manufacturers and dealers will pass on the cost increase in fuel economy and safety technology to the consumer, at a retail price equivalent.”

The Obama administration’s new fuel economy standards would require automakers to produce cars and light trucks with an average fuel economy of 54.5 mpg by 2025. The Center for Automotive Research says their study is “the result of 11 months of effort and investigation by researchers at CAR in 2010-2011.”

Zoe Lipman, the National Wildlife Federation’s Senior Manager for Transportation and Global Warming Solutions argued on a conference call held Thursday that the estimated fuel savings due to these standards will outweigh the “modest” motor vehicle price increases for consumers.

In a June 28, 2011 photo, a pair of Toyota Prius hybrid autos bearing yellow California DMV decals on their left front of their bumpers (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

CNSNews.com asked the participants on the call, “The Center for Automotive Research says the new passenger vehicle standards could eventually cost consumers an additional $5,000-$6,000 for each new vehicle. Will these standards result in higher automobile costs for consumers and are these standards a good idea especially in a fragile economy?” Lipman responded, “I would push back. I think we’re seeing with this final rule some really clear, not speculative, but really clear numbers on what the up front costs look like and if anything they’re lower than initial projections. I think the punch line here is that the fuel savings hugely exceeds any up front costs. Yes, there are modest costs that result from the fuel economy improvements – that’s technology generally being built here going into these vehicles but the savings far outweigh that.”

Their new report called, “Standards Deliver ‘Trucks That Work’ For Wildlife, Economy” says, “under the final standard, heavy duty pickup and van owners save over $6,000 over the life of the vehicle.”

Erika Nielsen, director of marketing and public relations at BorgWarner Inc. and David Perkins, president of UAW Local 171 at Volvo Powertrain also appeared on the conference call but did not respond to the question.

Thomas Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research disagrees with Lipman.

“The Obama administration’s latest fuel economy mandates are an aggressive step away from consumer choice and towards government control,” he said in a USA Today op-ed.

“Every day, Americans are seeing the negative consequences of the administration’s increasingly aggressive meddling in the economy—more government control and less consumer choice.”

Garofa-loser speaks.

Smacking Down Progressives of Pallor

by  Michelle Malkin

08/19/2011

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Is there anything more condescending than a porcelain-skinned Hollywood liberal who attempts to show her presumed solidarity with minorities by referring to them as "people of color"?
       
Yes, there is: Two porcelain-skinned liberals attempting to show their allegiance to "diversity" by attacking "people of color" who happen to disagree with their radical politics.
       
Such an exchange took place on a little-watched television show on Al Gore's obscure cable network Wednesday night. I am spotlighting the diatribe for you not because the speakers involved hold any sway with the American electorate, but because paternalistic racism is so prevalent among the media-entertainment elite.
       
And it's about time someone knocked these self-appointed Saviors of the Oppressed off their high horses.
       
Actress Janeane Garofalo -- a former comedian turned Republican-bashing sourpuss -- appeared on the Current TV talk show of disgraced former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. Because she has no actual career achievements or noteworthy projects to discuss, the pair turned to one of their favorite topics: bashing the tea party movement, with an ample dish of vast-right-wing-conspiracy-mongering on the side.
       
Garofalo singled out GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, a black businessman and grassroots favorite, because he is a "person of color." According to the starlet, Cain launched his 2012 bid "because he deflects the racism that is inherent in the Republican Party, the conservative movement, the tea party certainly. (In) the last 30 years, the Republican Party has been moving more and more to the right, but also race-baiting more."
       
She certainly knows about baiting. For the past six years, with gritted teeth and throbbing veins, she has indiscriminately attacked Republicans as "racist," "rednecks" and "partisan hacks who are always on the verge of punching somebody or always behave as if they've just been cut off in traffic." Projection for breakfast, anyone?
      
From the safety of her Tinseltown cocoon, she has lashed out bitterly at tea party activists as "teabagging rednecks" and assailed their fiscal conservative activism as "f***ing redneck douchebaggery. Unmitigated douchebaggery" -- all while complaining about the lack of civility in politics. In 2009, Garofalo ignored a personal invitation from Texas tea party activist Katrina Pearson and other black conservatives to attend one of their rallies and meet reality.
       
The last thing progressives of pallor want to deal with, you see, are "people of color" who think for themselves, refuse to be hyphenated Americans and reject left-wing orthodoxy on everything from entitlements to bailouts to Big Labor, immigration, social issues and racial preferences.
       
All of Garofalo's and Olbermann's non-white friends and colleagues (however few that may be) think the same slavishly homogenous thoughts they do about preserving the welfare state, coddling union thugs, opening up the borders and whitewashing the eugenics-grounded abortion racket. There couldn't possibly be minority conservatives who think otherwise. And if they do, the progressives of pallor comfort themselves, such aberrant creatures must only be able to embrace free-market principles because they were brainwashed, paid off or born stupid.
       
Thus did Garofalo float her nefarious theory that Cain "is being paid by somebody to be involved and to run for president so that you go, like, 'I love that, that can't be racist. He's a black guy, a black guy asking for Obama being impeached.' Or 'it's a black guy who's anti-Muslim. It's a black guy who is a tea party guy.'" What puppet-master could have engineered Cain's candidacy, according to Garofalo? "The Koch brothers or Grover Norquist​ or any anything. It could even be Karl Rove."
      
Er, never mind that Beltway establishment King Rove has trashed self-made outsider Cain and belittled him as a mere "talk radio guy."
       
Garofalo forged ahead with her identity-politics smears: "There may be a touch of Stockholm syndrome in there, because anytime I see a person of color or a female in the Republican Party or the conservative movement or the tea party, I wonder how they could be trying to curry favor with the oppressors."
       
I've heard more than 20 years of this oppressive windbaggery from do-gooder liberals who treat my unhyphenated American brothers and sisters and me as treacherous puppets for The Man. Their smug refusal to acknowledge free will, individual choice and true diversity of thought confirms that race-obsessed liberals remain the most unrepentant and odious racists of all.

Chevy Volt - Full steam ahead to epic failure!

Hard Times For the Chevy Volt

Full steam ahead to epic failure!

by  John Hayward

08/19/2011

169
Comments

The Chevy Volt has only sold about 3,200 units thus far, which is not only pathetic, but not even good enough to outsell the Nissan Leaf’s 4500 units.  Nevertheless, Government Motors is ramping up for more Volt production.  According to Yahoo Auto news, GM is forecasting “sales of around 16,000 for the year as a whole, with 40,000 sold by 2012.

Wait a second.  16,000 units for which year?  Calendar year 2011?  That means they think sales are going to increase 500% in the next four months?  Even if they’re referring to a later fiscal ending date, or even next year, a 500% sales increase is downright delusional.

In fact, Yahoo News thinks a massive sales decline is on the horizon:

A new study by CNW marketing raises a red flag, finding that the potential buyers GM is most counting on are rapidly losing interest in the Volt.  In March, 21% of so-called Early Adapters said they were “very likely” to consider buying a Volt, while 38.1% said they were “likely” to do the same.  That slipped to 14.6% saying “very likely” in July, and 31.1% “likely.”  Among EV Enthusiasts, reports the CNW study, the number of those likely or very likely to consider Volt fell from a combined 71% to 51% during the same four-month period.

“It’s way too early to tell, but the signs aren’t encouraging,” said CNW’s chief analyst Art Spinella. When it comes to mainstream consumers Volt has all but slipped off the radar screen, with only about 3% of new car buyers likely to consider the Chevrolet Volt, the analyst added.

The problem is said to be the price of the Volt, which is a massive understatement, because everyone buying a Volt is understating the price.  No one purchasing a Volt has the faintest clue what it really costs, because of all the taxpayer subsidies plowed into production, and hefty rebates offered at the point of sale.  $400 million in federal subsidies were extracted from the taxpayer to fund Volt production, and buyers have enjoyed a $7500 federal tax credit. 

That means each of the 3200 Volts sold thus far has rolled out of the lot with $132,500 in taxpayer subsidies stuffed in the glove compartment.  They sticker at $41,000, so that means each Volt sold thus far actually costs $173,500, with only $33,500 paid by the actual purchaser.

What if GM’s rosy sales predictions come true?  Assuming the $7500 tax credit says in place, that would bring the total subsidies paid for Volt production and sales up to $700 million.  Divided by 40,000 automobiles, that works out to $17,500 in subsidies apiece.  The Volt is about to have a price drop to $39,995, so by 2012 the true price of each car would be a mere $47,495.

On the other hand, if sales hold steady or decline as the CNW study predicts, we’d see about 7000 Volts sold through 2012 at best.  That would work out to total taxpayer subsidies of $64,642 per vehicle, for a total per-unit price of roughly $104,000.

So, here are some lessons for those foolish enough to continue believing in the “green economy,” and wondering why billions of dollars have been seized from future taxpayers without visible benefit to employment or GDP:

1. Very few people want to buy a crummy little electric car for $40,000.

2. Nobody can make a crummy little electric car that sells for $40,000.

3. Absolutely no one wants to buy a crummy little electric car for the true price of over $100,000 apiece.

4. It is an outrage to compel taxpayers to subsidize the fantasy of a tiny group of politicians and their followers that crummy little electric cars can be sold for $40,000.

5. There is nowhere taxpayers can go to get their money back after this miserable failure, so it is vital to ensure that people who support nonsense like the Volt, and the rest of the Obama “green jobs” agenda, are never elected to any office, anywhere, ever.